Posted by Thinker on Dec 4, 2008 in
Thinkable Introduction
Learning to budget your finances is one of those things where some people have no problem, yet others cannot do it for the life of them. Those of us who find budgeting easy and satisfying don’t really understand those people who can never manage their money properly.
1. Mr Macawber in David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, propounds the concept of budgeting. “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound nought and six, result misery.” Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1849 English novelist (1812 - 1870)
overspend and you will always be in debt, as I found to my cost when first setting up my web development company Advanta business, specialising in cms, But spend a penny less than you get and you will always feel rich which we have now achieved. This may seem very evident, but how often do we find we are spending more than we can afford? There are tempting offers within our grasp every day and it’s difficult to resist when they try to make us believe we might never get such an opportunity again.
• Hands up if you are someone who has difficulty managing your money?
• Hands up if you do not know how to budget your finances?
• Hands up if you find it difficult to resist bargains?
• Hands up if you are over your head in debt?
• Hands up if you don’t know how you are going to make ends meet for the future?
If you have all your hands in the air (and your feet!) it’s time to do something about it. (In other words take yourself in hand!!) Sorry about the pun.
2. The first thing you need to understand is that people who are selling are in business to make money and they want their businesses to grow. To do this they have to increase sales, so they have to make things irresistible to the customers like you and me.
So remember, the next time you are in the red and struggling to pay the bills, there is some big guy out there raking in the profits. They are taking your hard earned cash and leaving you poor.
Change of Mindset
People who do not budget and find it difficult to manage their money seem to have a particular mindset. For instance, there may be an idea from childhood that being careful with money indicates to the world that a person is miserly. Being reckless then equates with generosity and big heartedness. If you are loaded then spending money freely is not a problem, but if you are on a limited income or just never seem to have enough, then keeping accounts looks like a good idea.
3. One of the ways to change your thinking is to ask yourself, ‘who is the best person to benefit from your hard earned money’? Is it the big companies who are making loads of profit already(Fat cats) paying their executives million pound bonuses, or you!
Anxiety about your ability to manage your money and fear of figures may cause you to bury your head in the sand. I had a friend who admitted this to me and when I said I enjoyed the online banking system and being in charge of moving my money around and how easy I found it; she immediately changed her mind set and decided she could handle the online banking system and researched the best way to invest her money to make more of what she had.
Give yourself permission to think that being in control of your money is a practical way to remove the stress you experience around finance. That will give you more energy to enjoy life more and make even more money.
Guidelines to Liquidity
The most difficult thing to do is to face the veracity. When someone is on a spending spree they are out of control and out of touch with reality. The fantasy ignores the cost and the consequences of overspending (ie. How it’s going to get repaid).
So the first thing you need to do is keep a record of everything you spend your money on. At this stage do not try to change what you normally do. Have a cash note book and write down all the things you can think of that you buy. This includes household bills and food, mobile phone, TV. Put a figure in the corresponding column. If you have actual amounts put them in, if not make a stab at it. Leave space for the things you don’t remember or even consider expenses. Beer, cinema, clothes even the coins you toss to street entertainers. Categorise it as fun money or entertainment funds.
Every time you take money out of your pocket/wallet/credit card/bank, write down what you use it for. Do this over four weeks, and by then you will have a fairly comprehensive list of your expenses. Make a total at the bottom of the page and on the opposite page write down all your income. When I first did this I found that one of my largest expenses was shop bought sandwiches every day!
Compare the totals. Have you spent more or less than you receive? Is your life going towards happy or miserable? It is at this point you really need to make a shift in your mindset.
Start by being penny pinching to people who want to sell you things. Look around for the best deals and always ask for a discount. I went on a negotiating course some years ago and the following week I put into practise what we had learnt. I reduced my spending by $350, just by asking!
Carry only a minimum amount of money on you so that you are not tempted to fritter away $20 on some impulse purchase you don’t need. Those dollars add up fast and before you know a hundred dollars in your pocket is gone.
Cut up your credit card unless this is the most convenient way to pay regular items and you clear the balance at the end of each month. Use only one credit card, and find one that gives points for purchases. These mount up and you can claim vouchers to spend in your favourite stores. Also find a credit card that will take the full amount by direct debit every month so you don’t miss payments, accrue interest charges and generate a large fine.
Make a list when you go shopping and only buy what is on that list. OK, some things you may have forgotten to put down but make sure you avoid the impulse purchases. Keep a list in the kitchen and only put things on it when you have run out. Use up products in the refrigerator and freezer to reduce waste and keep spending to a minimum.
Become a prudent shopper and consumer. Try and use up coupons, saving a few saved cents per purchase can really add up. Searching through clearance sections in stores is another way to save money. You may be pleasantly surprised to see how much you can reduce your bill on your usual grocery haul.
Conclusion
Budgeting is not for the fainthearted. It means fighting the urge to buy what is not needed. I run a web site design company Advanta and if you are like me the temptation is strong to buy all the latest gadgets. But if you can think yourself into a new mind set you will find it much easier to change the habits of a lifetime. Be sure that all expenses are accounted for when you take stock of your situation. Once you have your finances under control, there will be enough surplus to save and allow to grow for the special events you may want to splash out on in life.
If you still have difficulty restricting your shopping habit, take a friend or relative with you on outings. Someone you can trust to steer you away from temptation. Once you conquer your shopping demons, you will be proud of yourself for doing so and feel a great sense of accomplishment. So don’t be overwhelmed, grab that pen and paper and get on track to prosperity.
Happy Budgeting
Posted by Thinker on Dec 4, 2008 in
Thinkable Home repossession is one of the worst predicaments fate can throw anyone’s way. Yet home repossession is a reality many people are having to live through, what with the current hard financial times which have caused many people to fall behind in their mortgage repayments. Nonetheless, faced with the gloomy prospect of home repossession, one need not throw their hands in the air in despair. There are some steps which one can take, to stop repossession, and save oneself the stresses that come with the forceful eviction which is likely to result from the home repossession, or at least ensure that they get a reasonable (market) price for their house.
Faced with the prospect of home repossession, many people panic, not knowing that there are companies that are established for the specific purpose of helping people in their predicament. These are companies which, approached with a client who is faced with repossession, can buy the house in question on short notice and at the going market prices or near offers. The money you get from selling the house to these sellers can then be used to repay the mortgage balance, and the balance might possibly be enough to pay the deposit on another home, thus saving the home from the sad prospect of destitution. If you can, selling your house to these companies is almost always better than letting it get repossessed. If your house is repossessed, it means that you have essentially sold your home for the balance on your mortgage - or whatever debt might be in question, and this is more likely than not to be a pittance compared to the market value of the house.
You might also consider refinancing your mortgage in a bid to forestall home repossession. If all that has happened is that you have fallen behind in your mortgage repayments, and your credit history is otherwise good, you might be surprised with the ease with which you can get a financier to refinance your mortgage. Of course refinancing the mortgage is just a short-term measure, but it can help you avoid the horrors of home repossession, especially if you (objectively speaking) see your finances improving somewhere in the future. Additionally, refinancing you mortgage is also likely to save you from the ruin to your credit history that letting your mortgaged house get repossessed is likely to cause you.
Then there is the albeit dim possibility of talking with the creditor who is threatening to repossess your home into delaying the repossession. Generally speaking, creditors don’t like the messy idea of home repossession and they only do it when the probability of your repaying what you owe them seems very small indeed - which they largely deduce from your attitude. Renegotiating the repayment period with the creditor might just buy you the time you need to put your finances in order, giving you the chance to service your mortgage or whatever debt it might be in time. Even when the prospects seem dark; you can still talk to your creditor and see what they have to say about the possibility of a renegotiated payment. By doing so, you have nothing to lose, and you have a home to possibly spare.
Of course in order to be able to stop repossession through any of these ways, you will have to avoid falling into a panic and get acting instead. Remember, the faster you act, the more options you have, as these things take time. And conversely, the more you delay, the more you cut your options.
American Idol Results
Posted by Thinker on Dec 4, 2008 in
Thinkable Discover how many meals you have to eat daily to stay slim. Conventional thinking recommends we eat three meals per day, and says you shouldn’t eat between meals? This information should be considered to not be true at all. What you want to do, is make the reduced calories of your stay slim diet, remain with you longer? Distribute them out into five or even six meals a day. The conventional wisdom of eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner is not necessary. As long as you do not surpass your total calories, you can change the order of the day’s food intake, and the recurrence of eating, within broad limits.
Let’s assume you save a slice of toast and a portion of fruit for a morning snack, orange juice and a few soda crackers for 3 p.m., and a glass of milk before bedtime, deduct these items from the other main meals of the day. What happens, is that you are more fulfilled with your stay slim diet, full of energy and feeling super charged. The influence between food intake and muscular efficiency has been studied by the yale university, and others. They kept records of these results of numerous feedings by factory workers. Numerous accidents and errors in the factory were happening shortly before noon and before the last working hour of a shift. By granting the workers a mid-morning and a mid-afternoon snack hour, their productivity, was increased and there was a considerable drop in mistakes.
On such a timetable, the workers were satisfied with smaller lunches and dinners. Immediately after a meal, your muscular productiveness is increased about 30% that is, you are able to attain more work out of the same number of calories, or you are able to complete the comparable amount of work with less exhaustion. Starches and sugars are promptly transformed into consumable energy, consequently, conserving sweetened fruit juices, toast, milk, or fresh fruit for your “extra” meals.
Some people may ask if five meals a day is over working a persons stomach. Stomachs thrive on a steady stream of work. When they’re empty, their energy in hunger contractions as a signal for you to renew the supply of raw materials. Numerous light meals keep your stomach happy, while a large, excessive meal wins only a gastric grumble. So it is important to keep an hollow stomach from frightening itself by its own extreme appetite to eat. So why not eat 5 to 6 meals per day, stay skinny with small meals weight loss.
Site Traffic
Posted by Thinker on Dec 4, 2008 in
Thinkable How many times have you looked at your best keyword search result page only to find that one of your competitors has outranked you? Just how are they doing this? Is there something you can do to leap frog them?
I scratched my head on this issue more than once before I finding someone with the answers. I am talking about Brad Callen. Brad has some good material on how to determine what your competitors are doing to get those high rankings in the search engines. He has even written a tool to reduce the amount of manual labor it takes to figure it out.
His tool is called SEO Elite. This tool does many things that will help you rank better than your competition. I have purchased this tool and use it to get my page rankings up. With his tool, you can determine where your competition is getting their in-bound links. You can find potential link partners and send out email invitations to link with/to you. One of my favorite options is to see where my pages are ranking in the various search engines with a history of past performance. This allows me to see how my latest change to my page has affected my search engine results rankings.
You likely already know how to find many of the things this software will do for you. However, how much is your time worth? You can set this software to start the research and walk away. While you are away doing other valuable tasks for your business, SEO Elite will be plugging away doing the grudge work of getting you the answers.
There is one thing I wish Brad had done differently with his tool. That is SEO Elite is a Microsoft Windows only application. I run Linux so I would love to see a Linux version of the tool but I do not think that will happen anytime soon. Besides, it does save me a lot of manual labor.
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