Posts Tagged ‘guides’

Part 2: A Guide of how to actually spend less than you earn

Friday, June 26th, 2009

Before reading this part, please do visit my previous post that talked about the benefits of spending less than you earn :)

So now we are going to talk about how to actually spend less than you earn. And here are some tips/guides on how to do it:

  • Check your monthly required bill. Do you really need this stuff? Can you replace this service by doing something that will bring you more health? Ask yourself these kind of questions for things related to your cell phone, premium cable, or unlimited text message.
  • Diligently, keep tracking your spending. The simple process of writing this down every expense will make you think twice about the unnecessary ones. At the end of the month, take a careful look at them and ask the same question: do I really need these? Do these really contribute to the value of my life?
  • Carefully look at your routines. Are there things in your routines that cost money? Trimming $1 from your daily spending saves you $365 a year.
    Switch to a bank that respects you. No interest at all on their checking accounts. Tons of fees for ATM use. Draconian overdraft policies. A tiny interest rate on savings accounts. Monthly usage fees of all kinds. All of these things are a waste of money.
  • Go green! Going green can be a solution to cut your spending and increase your money!

So now we move on to the next level: how to increase your income :)

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Posted in Family finance, personal finance, saving | 1 Comment »

Guide and Tips: How not to Excessively Spend Money in Grocery Stores

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Shopping is our daily activity. We often to go to grocery store more than once a day; to buy this and that stuffs. So here’s what I used to do when I went to a store, whether it’s a grocery store or mall. I went to the store to buy something that I need, but I ended up buying things that I thought I need or things that comes with special offers such as discounts.

So the interesting thing here is that those things aren’t so expensive; if I see them individually. But when I got to the cashier, I’m often surprised by the amount of money that I had to pay.

So I noticed that there is something wrong here. And here’s how to say it: we made many decisions during our time in the grocery store; and it is often about whether we can save 1 dollar or spend 1 more dollar.

Here are the typical situation:

“There is a discount on the meat, should I stock it up?”

“Which one, the big tomatoes can or the smaller one?”

But in the end, I (and maybe some of you) is forced to admit that we are not a smart buyer….

Today I will propose a step-by-step solution to this problem, so that me and you won’t excessively spend money in stores:

  1. Make a shopping list before going to the grocery store. This is important to reduce the number of decisions you have to make.
  2. Make a specific list of things. If you are used to buy juice (such as V8 Fusion); write the size of it on your list, to prevent you from buying the larger one.
  3. Mark items that you’re not simply searching for the cheapest version of. So for other items, find the cheapest. Remember, even a dollar counts.
  4. The most important thing is this part. You have to stick to the plan. Stay firm and hold tight to the shopping list. Do not purchase things outside the list.

So there, Hopefully this post can help you saving some money at the grocery store. Every single penny counts :)

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Posted in personal finance, saving | No Comments »

Don’t Hurt Your Pocket: Save your money, even a penny

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Whether you consider yourself as a shopaholic or not, shopping is always one nice activity to do for every one especially for woman. Either they are teenager or housewives but shopping is always something heaven for them. They do need the product or not, is not really a matter. They could really afford it or not, that also another problem but one thing they want to know is that how to get that product to be theirs.

Sometimes when we shop we tried to be wise and tried to be as selective as we can. We would think that we are smart enough when we do that until we re-count it again what we have bought and brought to home then we will be forced to admit that we are not really that smart actually. You may be asking yourself should you buy this brand or that brand.

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Posted in personal finance, saving | No Comments »

Loans to Start, not to Spend: Credit Card Lesson

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

The ‘booming’ of the credit cards has shocked us recently. Many peoples thank it for the easy accesses it gives. Many others curse it for the traps it performances. Why did such things happen? Here, we’ll learn shortly about them.
First, many people thank for the easy accesses of the credit card. By having credit card, they don’t need to carry a lot of money whenever they want to go shopping. It makes them much saver to go shopping. Next, the credit cards usually cost very high rate of the interest. This is the traps that mentioned before. Many people just use their credit cards without notice that it will cost them more than the price of the goods they bought.
Now, the question is, what actually is the function of loans (include credit cards)? Does it just fulfill our uncontrolled desire to shopping? If that’s your answer, you’re really in a big trouble. It is true that the function of the loans is for starting our business or fulfilling our emergency needs like the bill of the hospital or tuition fees. It is the main principle: the loans are used to start (or save) or company, or to save your emergency needs; not to go shopping and enjoy or desire.

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Posted in credit card, loans in general | No Comments »

Guides : Loans for Dummies

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Loans are common things in our world today, but, not all people really know about them. Actually, what is (are) loan(s)? Well, simply, loan is a kind of debt you committed when you need to borrow amount of money from the other peoples or institutions like bank. Loan option appears whenever our financial condition is not capable to fulfill our particular need.

There are several of loans, commonly, they are depended on the purposes of having the loans; business, education, or households needs. Each of them has several consequences and ways to repay. The rate of the interests are various also, depend on the kind of the loans.

Nowadays, the most famous loan is the loan on the credit card. This loan works as replacement of money whenever a credit card user wants to buy something in the shops or department stores. The problem is, sometimes, the capability of a user to pay is lower than the capability to pay. It will lead to the financial problem. So, here we get an example on using the loans. Loans sometimes are useful, but they can be a trap also if we do not use them wisely. So, we need to be really careful whenever we decide to make some loans.

  • To know more about auto loan, go here.
  • To know more about personal loan, go here.
  • To know more about home loan, go here.
  • To know more about students loan, go here.

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Posted in Loan | No Comments »

[dummies guide] Keys to Get an Auto Loan

Monday, June 8th, 2009

You need a new car but you are currently had no enough cash to afford a new car? Don’t worry. All you have to do is just make some auto loan applications. You could get some cash to fund your car with the auto loans. But, before you make some auto loans applications, you need to really understand some trick and tips to get the auto loans.

There are several keys to get the auto loans. they are:

  • First, you have to make a good management of your credit. The banks might ask you about your credit review. Any errors could make some impacts of your credit rates that surely would impact to the banks approvals.
  • Second, you should know how much you can spend to pay the monthly payments.
  • Third, see the whole case. Beware of some low down payments offers. This might look cheap in the beginning, but this surely could ruin your financial after that.
  • The Forth key: Consider the Insurance.
  • After that, don’t just take a look only in one shop. You must shop around to see some chances for you.
  • The last key, Please avoid the prepayment penalties. IT means, perhaps you could pay all your loans before the time limit has come, you don’t have to pay some penalties to the lender.

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Posted in Loan, auto loan | 1 Comment »

Tips to choose Students Loans for Your Children

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Being a parent is not a matter of birth children and taking care of them until they can stand in their own life. The hardest section in having children is the way or raising them till they can be good people for their own life and other people. Giving them education also often becomes problems since we have to give the best education and it is not cheap. But it is a duty and has to do. So, tips below to get best student loans may give some helps:

  • Educate your children become ones that can stand alone and have a good spirit to be success. Such children will think the best for their selves and the spirit will bring them to be smarter. They certainly can write a good paperwork as the requirement of federal student loans.
  • Get plus loans. It is because loans gotten by your children are usually limited. Sometimes, the process of your children education need more fee for kinds of expense. The plus loans will give much help to make smooth the education process.
  • Get the private student loans when your children can’t be approved in the federal student loans.

So, that’s the hardness being parent and finding best way to expense education of children. The best way actually is saving money, but it is about when you have much extra income that enables you to both fund and raise them. And finding student loans is OK since you know the rules and the way to pay.

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Posted in Loan, students loan | No Comments »

Guides to Manage psychological risks in Stock Trading

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

It is time for another guide in trading :) So for all of you who are new or unfamiliar with trading world, the key of trading is actually the management of risks. In the trading world, you will be faced with many type of risks, which you have to manage.

Many folks always think trading only related to counting and numbers, however, there is one important risk that all of us must manage to achieve optimal result in trading. That risk is the psychological risk embedded in trading. In this post we will reveal four type of psychological risk in trading, and at the end of the post you can download and read the full explanation about psychological risk in trading :)

So let’s just start it, shall we? Here are the list of possible psychological risk you might find in stock trading (or many other kinds of trading):

  • The risk of boredom – Many traders are attracted to trading because of the possibility of large P/L moves in a relatively short period of time.  Our sound trading method offers little such excitement.  Indeed, there are long periods of relatively flat performance.  If the trader is trading for needs other than profitability (excitement, quick riches), he or she is apt to abandon the method after months of treading water.
  • The risk of drawdown – Many traders equate a trading edge with a smooth equity curve.  Not so!  As we mentioned in the earlier article, even a method with a 60/40 win/loss ratio will experience a series of four losing trades 2-3 times on average per 100 trades.  In the case of our random order of wins and losses, we wound up with months of drawdown, albeit modest.  The trader who equates drawdown with failure will abandon even a good method.
  • The risk of drawup – We made up that term, in case you wondered, but you get the point.  If drawdown is the amount your portfolio loses value in a period of time, drawup is the amount your portfolio rises.  In a relatively short period, we had a series of winners early in the year, putting the portfolio up 20%.  A method with 60% winners has about a 13% chance of giving you streaks of four consecutive wins.  Why is this a risk?  After a big drawup, many traders become overconfident and change their position sizing and trading frequency, negating their edge.  Their expectations raised, they find it harder to get through the inevitable periods of flat performance.
  • The risk of sequencing – Quite simply, even with a demonstrated edge and prudent loss limits, we cannot know in advance the sequencing of our winners and losers.  The account is up handsomely for the year, but spent just as much time treading water as rising.  Much of the method’s gains were obtained in a relatively short period of time–but we can’t know what that precise time is going to be. That means we have to endure down sequences and flat ones in order to get to the winning periods.

As promised, you can download the free managing psychological risk in trading e-book here

[via]

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Posted in stock trading | 1 Comment »

[Investing Guide] The Real Challenge isn’t the Actual Investing; it’s the Main Goal

Saturday, April 4th, 2009

You are a young lad studying to earn your degree. Lately you are starting to think about your future and you also aware that saving is a crucial part of successful financial life. With this awareness you started to get a Roth IRA, or perhaps to invest in the stock market in the long term most likely a index fund or a portfolio of low risk companies. It seems that everything are working well.

However there’s one important thing you might forget: What is the main purpose of your savings? Remember that without having clear goals in mind, it’s incredibly easy to make very poor choices when it comes to saving for the future.

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