Ok, so maybe most people don’t aspire to be like Dicken’s miserly character Ebenezer Scrooge. He was kind of mean and unhappy. But he did get one thing right, he knows the value of looking after the small financial issues. It’s by doing this ourselves that we can see a difference in our money as a whole. So if you’d like a bit more cash in your life, and who wouldn’t? Read on for some advice on how to manage your smaller money issues.
Image here
Budgets
Before anything else gets sorted, you need to work out a budget for your day to day spending. Without this, you are going to have problems, and you can be sure that Ebenezer knew exactly what was coming in and going out at any given time.
Seriously, though, a budget is essential if you are concerned about your finances. Without a plan to show you what you should be doing with your cash, it’s all too easy to get carried away and buy things that you just don’t need.
Image credit
Your budget doesn’t need to be a work of art or your life’s written masterpiece. In fact in should just be simple and easy to follow. Record your incoming money, what you owe in bills, what you plan to spend that month and how much you can save.
Then you need to make sure that you stick to it as closely as possible. Yes, there will be unexpected costs some months, and you’re probably not human if you keep to the letter of your budget every time. But regular check-ups can stop you go too far off kilter, which just ends up eating into any extra money you would have saved.
Saving
Talking of saving, this is the one small thing that you can do to improve your financial situation. Most people feel a lot more at ease if they have a nest egg that they can rely on incase anything goes wrong.
Also, lots of people also like to save up for big ticket items that they want like cars and houses. Although we are not used to saving the money and then buying the items, as we are offered so much credit in our society.
Image credit
However, if you can save before you get the item, it’s much better. This is because you don’t have to pay off the interest on the credit. You can also end up paying for something when you have had it for ages, and the shine of it being new has long worn off.
If you do have to go for credit, then always try to get a 0% offer, where you pay no extra that the original cost of the product. Otherwise, you are just paying for the privilege of having it now.
Debts
Saving and debts go hand in hand. Most people think saving is a good idea. But not many people realize that if they are saving when they have debt, they are not being as shrewd with their money as they could be.
This is because most debts have an associated interest charge as mentioned above. So instead of just paying the price of the item, you are paying the cost of owing for the item every month. This can add up to a lot more than the original tag price. So It’s much better to get rid of any debts and so any interest before you start to save.
Food
Food can seem like a small thing, but it is one of the major things that most of us pay out for in our lives. Food is essential to our health and well being, and it can be a real pleasure too. Many of us try hard to feed our families in a healthy way while watching the cost of the weekly grocery bill.
But to see a difference in your food bills, you need to get clever. Firstly you need to plan out a selection of meal that you know your family will enjoy.
Then you need to shop once a month for the ingredients for them. Take an afternoon and batch cook these meals and freeze them. Batch cooking in this way not only save you time every day, but it also makes it also it cheaper.
Image credit
This is because you can buy items in bulk, but not be concerned that you won’t use they all before they perish. It also stops you popping into the store every day to just pick up that one item and then coming out with armfuls of other stuff that you don’t need.
Raising Capital
From time to time we all find ourselves in a situation when we need to raise a small bit of capital quickly. One of the easiest ways to do this is to sell some unwanted items. Now we have easy access to auction sites on the internet, you can pretty much sell anything. You’d be surprised what does actually sell. As they say one’s man’s trash is another’s treasure.
This is a good way of moving on unwanted gifts left over from birthdays or Christmas. However traditionally, there has been nothing you can do about those gift cards you have for a store that you don’t shop in. Luckily, even that can be dealt with now by trading them in for cash. If you have an unwanted gift card, you might be able to get some much needed capital for it, find out from Cards2Cash.com.
Bills
We all have bills to pay in this life, and they can take up a lot of our money. However, it is worth reviewing what you pay for each service that you are provided. It is entirely possible that by switching providers you could get a better deal.
There are websites devoted to comparing deals like this that you can look at. Or call your provider personally and explain that you want to lower your bill and see what they can do to help you.
Remember that they will always want to keep you as a customer if possible and so may be able to offer you some assistance with this.
This is a contributed post. We do accept contributed posts if they might be helpful to my readers. Views posted are that of the contributor and not necessarily this blog.
Lynne B says
Financial education is something that should start early in life. Thanks for the tips.
May Rodriguez says
Thanks for the tips
Lauryn R says
These are great tips, thanks for sharing! 🙂 I used to be very good at saving before I became a jobless, stay at home mom!!