Browsing Tag

Budgeting

How To Save Money This Christmas

Christmas can be a particularly expensive time for all of us. The cost of presents, food and booze all add up – and before you know it, your wallet/purse is empty.

So how could you save money this Christmas? Here are just a few of the simple (yet effective) ideas you could put in place to save yourself money over the festive period this year.

1. Make your own gifts and decorations

You can, if you feel handy, make your own gifts and decorations. When I say make your own gifts, I don’t mean stick a few pieces of paper together to make a nice poster, I mean make your own jam, for example.

There are so many recipes available for you to try out online. Why not try to make your own Christmas pudding? Or what about your own wine? These will make great gifts for people who are looking to save money too – you never know, you may inspire them to make their own!

As for your own decorations – this is where you can get the paper out! Get creative and take yourself back to your school days. Make a big paper chain and stick it on the wall (or from one corner of the room to the other). Why not make your own tree decorations? You could get your kids to help you – they could make their own decorations and place them round the house.

2. Make your own Christmas cards

This is a thoughtful idea that many people will appreciate more than you think. If you just went out and bought 50 Christmas cards, filled them out and posted them, then that’s nice – but you didn’t really put much thought into it, did you?

However, if you were to take the time to make your own cards (either by hand or on the computer), then people will appreciate it and you will save yourself money!

3. Set yourself a budget

If you really want to save money this Christmas, then set yourself a budget. For example, you could set yourself a budget of £100 to buy everyone’s presents. This may sound impossible but it really isn’t.

There are all sorts of sales on at this time of year – you just need to sit down and search online. Failing that, trawl the high street stores for cheap items.

I found various cheap toys online, and I’m sure you can too. Try sites like eBay and Amazon, they are packed with cheap deals.

October 26, 2009

Budgeting

Take the Anxiety Out of Domestic Finances with Microsoft Excel

Looking after domestic finances can cause much anxiety. Often you are anxious because you find it difficult to keep track of your finances and so do not feel you are in control. Using Microsoft Excel to record, monitor and control your domestic finances can go a long way to removing this anxiety. Some effort is required at the beginning to set up the systems but this is soon rewarded by providing you with a great time and labour saving device, which can also help you save money and stay in control of your finances. If you require Excel training in denver, or any other location, you can find some excellent resources online to get you started.

Home Maintenance

It can be very difficult to keep track of the maintenance requirements in the home, who can remember exactly when the boiler was last serviced for example. Microsoft Excel has the facilities to allow you to produce a home maintenance schedule to make keeping track of maintenance issues much easier. Each item that requires inspection can be listed, together with a schedule of how often they require checking. Simple functions are available in Excel to allow items that are overdue to be flagged for attention, for example by changing the colour to red if the inspection date has been missed. It is also very simple to add notes recording what the issues where the last time the item was inspected. The cost of any work done can also be recorded, which will help to highlight when it would be more economic to replace items rather than continue to repair them.

Household Budget

Keeping track of the household finances can be a daunting task. As well as the basic calculation functions, Microsoft Excel contains simple formulas, which will automatically update the results of your calculations when values change. Revising a value once the total has been calculated is simple, just make the change and Excel updates the total for you. There are also simple functions to allow you to add values, calculate averages and find the smallest or largest values in a range of values. You can use these functions to develop spreadsheets to keep track of all your incoming and outgoing payments, putting in predicted values of bills for budgeting purposes that can then be easily updated when the actual bill arrives. This allows you to keep track of your balance and helps you identify when there is likely to be a shortfall, giving you time to put measures in place to prevent charges being incurred.

Tax Returns

Filling in your tax return can be a long and drawn out business. Even if you send your return off to be completed by someone else you can make things significantly easier by keeping track of expenses during the year. Having a household budget spreadsheet at your fingertips makes it much simpler to record expenses and document the corresponding receipts, which you need to have to hand at tax return time.

Home Improvements

You can also use Microsoft Excel to help in planning and monitoring any home improvements. The first, and ultimately most important point to consider when starting such a venture is how much it is going to cost you. An Excel spreadsheet is a great tool for tracking expenses. You can use the spreadsheet to help you plan the works, develop a preliminary budget, record your actual expenses and compare them to each other. In this way if things are starting to go over budget you should be able to spot it early and use the spreadsheet to review your options to get it back on track.

The above points illustrate just a few of the many ways in which Microsoft Excel can be used to simplify many domestic finance tasks. By applying some or all of these measures you should feel more in control of the situation. You should also be able to save both time and money in completing your household duties, leaving you more time and money for the more enjoyable things in life!

About the Author

Author is a trainer with a Microsoft Office Training company, the UK industry leader in its sector. For more information on Microsoft Office Training, please visit stl it courses.

October 14, 2009

Budgeting

Set Short-Term, Medium-Term, And Long-Term Goals

Every one should have goals. If you don’t have goals, it’s a good idea to make some because when you set goals, you have something to measure your achievements against. Although most of us do have goals, we don’t all set up goals for the short, medium, and long term. We may only set short-term goals or perhaps we might just think about our retirement.

A short-term goal might involve saving for a much-needed vacation within the next year or perhaps saving up to buy a vehicle. A medium-term goal could be to save money for a down payment on a home, and a long-term goal could be to save for retirement or for your child’s education. By setting goals for different timeframes, you are more likely to achieve your dreams by following a disciplined approach.

Short-term goals such as saving for a vacation could be as simple as putting money into a locked-in account such as a GIC or investing in something like a Money Market or T-Bill. This way your capital is secure and you can still see some growth in your investment.

A medium-term goal such as saving up to buy your first home could be achieved by setting up an RRSP and taking advantage of the Home Buyer’s Plan. You could set up preauthorized payments into the RRSP on the same day you get paid and over time your money will grow.

An example of a long-term goal would be a couple who just had their first child They decide that it is important to them to fund their child’s future post secondary education. They set up an RESP (Registered Education Savings Plan for Canadians) and begin to contribute to it monthly. By doing so, they have time on their side and their funds have the time to grow enough to adequately provide the funding for their child’s education. Had this couple not had the foresight to set up the RESP right away, they would have had to come up with a lot more cash to help out their child.

Planning ahead and disciplining yourself to put money aside each month to contribute to funding your short, medium, and long-term goals is well worth it. Although you might feel that you are on a tight budget, you can take comfort in knowing that you are paying yourself first, and that your scrimping and saving will pay off as you achieve more and more of your goals.

October 12, 2009

Budgeting

Personal Financial Management- Basics That Can Help You

Today more than ever, it is important to learn the basics of personal financial management. With the costs of nearly everything rising, it is crucial to learn how to set and stick to a budget, pay off debts, and save for the future. There are many small things you can do that will contribute greatly to helping you with your own personal financial management.

The easiest way to do this is by learning how to make the most out of the money you earn. Earning more money will not help you in the end, because you will only end up spending more if you do not learn an effective way to handle your personal financial management. You must learn the difference between what you want and what you need, and how to prioritize them both. It takes self control to live within your means, and to know when you can afford something, and to walk away from it if you cannot. But that is what it takes to make the most of your income.

Your budget should include money set aside for emergencies, expected purchases, living expenses, and bills. Setting a small amount out of each paycheck aside for unexpected emergencies, such as illness or car repairs, will save you from having to possibly pay interest on a loan to take care of your problem. Taking it out of your check allows you to prepare ahead of time, and keeps you from having to come up with a lump sum of money all at once, hopefully, preventing you from incurring more debt.

If you know you need to make a large purchase in the near future, such as a new washing machine, or a new computer, plan ahead, and set aside money for that item from each check as well. Once you have saved enough money, shop around for the best deal. Try to never make a large purchase unless you can do it with cash, to avoid paying high interest and fees.

September 24, 2009

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