Category: Personal Finance

The Risks Of Living Without Insurance

insurance to liveWhen you’re looking for ways to save money, it can be easy to make chops and changes to the things you need in life. There are a lot of expensive areas in life, and the ones at the forefront will usually take precedence over the less important. Of course, though, things like insurance are only less important until you need them. Living without cover for certain areas of your life can be very risky, and to help you understand, this post will be going through some of them. Along with this, it will also be helping you to save some money without cutting them out.

Health And Life

If you’ve ever been to a hospital before, you probably already understand the great costs which can come with it. Even an ambulance ride could set you back several thousand, and this is before you’ve been treated. You can’t avoid these costs, but, with health insurance, you can have someone else pay for it. Along with high hospital bills, a lot of people fail to consider the costs of their funeral and other arrangements when they pass on. To cover this, companies like lifeinsurancequote.co can be used to provide life insurance to those with dependents. It’s always best to start something like life insurance nice and early, as you usually have to save a certain amount before the company will pay anything to your loved ones.

Car

Next, you can start to consider the other important areas in your life. Most people can’t live without a tool like their car. You use it to get to work, and you probably use it for other important parts of life, too. But, if you were to have a crash or had your car stolen, you would be left without until buying a new one. Car insurance can protect you from these sorts of issues. In most places, this sort of cover will be a legal requirement, and you will get in trouble without it. You can use comparison sites to find the best value car insurance, but it’s also worth shopping around yourself, too.

Home And Possessions

With your car sorted out, you can start to think about the other possessions you own. To start with this, it’s best to think about the biggest item you own; your home. In the case of a catastrophic event, like a fire or a storm, you might not be able to afford to repair your home. Along with this, in cases of theft and burglaries, it can be almost impossible to get your hands on the items you’ve lost. Home and contents insurance can cover this sort of area for you, and websites like www.usa.gov can help you to find the best options. It’s important to do plenty of research when you’re choosing cover like this, as a lot of the options you have could be very confusing.

Hopefully, this post will give you a good idea of what can be done when you’re trying to assess the risks of living without insurance. In most cases, it’s best to make sure that you have as much as your life covered as you can. Of course, though, not everyone can afford this sort of expense. So, it could be worth thinking about the most important areas surrounding your life before you choose which options to go for.

The Essential Pre-Christmas Financial Check

pre xmas savings“Isn’t it a little bit early to think about Christmas? It’s not even been Halloween yet…”

Okay, so we’ll acknowledge the fact that that’s a legitimate complaint. Christmas seems to come earlier every year and this article isn’t helping that. However, there’s no denying the fact that for people who focus on the health of their personal finances, Christmas can be a testing time. That’s why it deserves focus this early on, even if it does feel strange to be contemplating buying gifts and decorating your home when the leaves have only just begun to change.

If you begin now, you have an early start on your Christmas preparations, meaning that you can survive the festive season with your financial state intact. There are four key questions you need to be able to answer, and then you can forget about Christmas until December.

Who Do You Have To Buy For?

Try and keep the list small, if you’re going to be financially responsible. Family members usually go to the top of the list. If you have a big family, then time.com have some great tips on how to keep it affordable.

Friends are more difficult, so it’s often best to just ask if they want to swap gifts, or would everyone prefer a get-together around Christmas in lieu of actual gifts. You’re unlikely to be the only one of your friendship group worrying about money, so it’s always worth venturing the idea.

How Much Are You Going To Spend On Each Person?

This decision is largely personal, depending on your financial circumstances. However, there are a few universal things you need to keep in mind:

Set yourself a budget per person and don’t exceed it; there will be something you can find within budget, if you’re willing to look hard enough to find it. Christmas gift guides will explode online in the next few months, so scan through them and see what might work. There’s no point setting a budget if you’re going to break it — plan to be very stringent with yourself, keep the numbers amenable to your financial circumstances, and be willing to hunt for good deals.

What Can Make Christmas More Affordable?

Obviously, saving for Christmas is the best way to make it affordable. However, if you haven’t saved anything yet, then it’s unlikely you’re going to be able to put away as much money as you need in time for December.

If that means you’re going to have to borrow to fund some of your Christmas frivolity, you need to make it as affordable as possible. Look through creditrepair.co to see how you can reduce the cost of borrowing, and move any existing debts onto low-interest repayment plans. Combine this with a little extra saving for the next few months, and your personal finances should come through the holiday period unscathed.

With the above answered, you — and your bank account — can look forward to Christmas, rather than dreading the financial toll it may take!

Business Stuck In Financial Turmoil? Simple Ways To Save The Day!

money crisis in businessThe number one reason why businesses fail is due to finances, or a lack of them, we should say. You’ve probably heard this statistic before, but it’s worth repeating as it’s such a significant statistic – within the first year of launching, half of all businesses fail, and all because of a lack of funds. While that statistic may be terrifying if your business is facing financial turmoil, however, the good news is that it is possible to turn things around. Just because your business is struggling financially that doesn’t have to mean that it is the end of the line for your venture, it’s just a case of thinking outside of the box and being creative.

The fact is that getting your business out of financial turmoil isn’t always easy, but if you take note of the advice below, it is possible to get things back on track.

Determine ways to cut costs

The first step that you take should be to determine how you can cut costs. The fact is that it isn’t easy to reduce your business’s spending, but it is doable, it’s just a case of looking at your budget and determining ways that you can cut costs, such as by making your business premises eco-friendly or by utilizing the cloud to help reduce your spending. Look at your current spending, set a price that you would like to reduce your spending too, and then research ways that you can reduce your spending down to that price. It is doable, believe it or not – you may find working with a business mentor or a financial advisor helpful.

Consider how you can boost your budget

If reducing your spending alone isn’t enough to save your business, the next step is to find ways to boost your budget. Your business is your baby, and you don’t want to see it fail, so it’s important to take into account every avenue that you could attempt to go down. How about taking out a small loan to give your business the boost it needs? If you think a loan might help, you can use resources like the Banking.Loans website to look into what you could borrow. Don’t want to take out a loan? How about finding an investor for your business or a silent partner perhaps? If you want to ensure that your business succeeds, it is vital that you are smart about the steps that you take.

Ensure your finances stay on track

It is vital that you put a plan in place to ensure that once you have got your business’s finances back on track that they stay on track. You don’t want the same problem to occur again, so it pays to make sure that you know how to keep your finances on track this time. Whether that means implementing a strict budget and sticking to it or working with a specialist account who can ensure that your business is creating a good profit, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you monitor your business finances and ensure that everything stays on track.

The fact is that getting things back on track after your business suffers from financial problems isn’t easy, but if you take note of the tips and advice above, it is possible to do so and to make a go of things, building a future for your business.

Fighting The Financial Struggle Later In Life: Saving Money In Your 20s

early money savingsWhen you’re in your 20s, you feel like your whole life is ahead of you, you may have just got out of college, so you feel like you owe it to yourself to relax for a while and take everything in your stride. However, the issue for a lot of people in their 20s is that they don’t put money aside. A GO Banking Rates survey found that 44% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 have no money in their savings accounts or don’t even have a savings account! And while it’s important to make the most of life when you’re young and exuberant, but there are some things to begin thinking about now.

Start An Emergency Fund

The fact of the matter is that there will be financial issues that crop up from time to time that you are ill-equipped to deal with. You may end up having an accident and are faced with a medical bill you are unable to pay straight away. And there could be many potential issues that arise that could affect your ability to work, and while making an injury claim is all well and good, it’s not something you can bank on to get you a huge pile of cash. So make sure you start to find ways to stockpile money from your existing earnings. The best way to do it is to set up a transfer, so the funds out of your bank accounts on the same day every month to go into a savings account. That way you don’t need to think about it. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be a huge amount of money either, whatever little amount you can put away will be of some benefit.

Prepare For Retirement Now

If you started saving for your retirement in your 20s, as opposed to later in life, you would end up saving more in the long term, but you can also put away less money during your 30s, 40s, and 50s because you tend to have less financial obligations. Let’s do the math, someone who is 25 and saves at $700 every year will have saved $28,000 by the time they are 65. Compare this to someone who is 35 and just started saving, they will have only saved $21,000 and will need to save that bit more to catch up.

Go For The High-Interest Bank Accounts

Common sense prevails in this, the more interest in a bank account, the more money you will be able to save. And not just this, but there are savings accounts you can take advantage of, such as Certificates of Deposit (CD) accounts, money market accounts, as well as traditional savings accounts.

Get Investing

The final point to make when saving money in your 20s is that it can be very difficult, especially if you work a low paid job and are barely making ends meet. You may want to think about a type of investment that can pay out on a regular basis. While savings bonds, peer to peer investments, as well as real estate are common methods, you may want to start thinking about other approaches to investments, such as gold bullion, or even Bitcoin. Having a decent amount of knowledge in terms of investments will give you that extra bit of money you will need to set yourself up for a life without financial struggle.

4 Different Strategies For Managing Debt

manage your money burdenDebt management is more personal than you might think.

Put simply: there is no “tried and true” method of fixing a debt problem you might have. Everyone is different; different ways of coping work for different people. What helps one person to clear their debts in a short amount of time can leave another flailing and confused. Understanding that you have to find your way to debt management is key to understanding how to unpick the tangle of your personal finances.

Below, we’ll discuss four different ways you can tackle your debt problems. Read through them and see which might work well for you.

1. Redirecting Your Income

If you feel you are able to cut back on luxuries — such as entertainment costs — in your monthly budget and redirect your income to debt repayment, then you should be able to make a significant dent into your debt. When you have paid all essential bills and allowed yourself a small amount to live on, all your other finances should be directed toward debt repayment. It’s tough, but if you can embrace the necessary frugality, then it will work. You can find some tips about living more frugally on morningchores.com to help you along the way.

2. Debt Consolidation

Debt consolidation as discussed on consolidatingdebt.co is a rather simple process, which may be worth undertaking if you are struggling with managing various different credit accounts. The process tends to involve taking out a loan, with which you then pay off all your existing debts — leaving you with one, manageable monthly payment instead. This can also save you money spent on interest repayments, too. If you struggle to keep a handle on all the different payments you have to make, this might be the best choice for you.

3. Negotiating With Creditors

If you want to stave off bankruptcy, then negotiating with creditors is an absolute must. This means making phone calls or writing letters, explaining your situation and asking for their assistance in putting together a management plan that can help you pay off your debts quicker. There’s no doubt that talking to creditors is nerve-wracking, but you will likely find they are more understanding than you might otherwise expect.

4. Making Minimum Payments

Making minimum payments to your debts and nothing more might not sound like a debt management strategy, but it can be if you do it right. If you just make minimum payments and spend the rest of your income on whatever you please, then no, that’s not the best idea in the world. However, if you use the money you save to build an emergency fund — and thus reduce your reliance on credit in the future — then this could be a sound financial move. Just ensure that when you have got a decent emergency fund built up, you then begin paying back more than minimum payments on your debts.

When you find the strategy that works for you, then your way to a clearer financial future should become much more obvious.