Want to be a ‘freelancer’? You have to face these 7 constraints!

One of the advantages of being a freelancer is able to set the schedule and type of work as you wish. But on the contrary, certainly there are always pros and cons. One of the major issues facing the freelancers is financial problems. Before deciding to be a freelance worker, there are some financial problems that might be encountered. Prepare yourself to overcome these problems wisely.

1. Manage your personal finance.
Not only the office workers are often confused with their financial plan. As a freelancer, you often forget to separate invoicing accounts (bills used for operational costs) with household costs. The money for household expenses can be ran out for the job instead, or vice versa.

2. Uncertain incomes.
Surveys said that 56 percents of financial problems caused by erratic pay and time. Even if you have uncertain income, however, your monthly routine expense is a certain thing. You have to be good in your money management.

3. Not having an emergency fund.
Due to the amount of salary and also payday time is not fixed, freelance worker also tend to ignore the existence of an emergency fund. In fact, whatever your job, you should have savings fund to deal with emergencies. For example, when you are sick or repair your broken laptop.

4. Have no health insurance.
Many workers, include freelancers, are still ignoring the importance of health insurance. If you are listed as an employee of the company, maybe you will get the health benefits from your office. But as a freelancer, you certainly do not get it. In fact, health insurance is needed by all workers, regardless of job or status.

5. Ignore saving.
Due to the amount of money and frequency in uncertain, a lot of freelancers rule out the importance of saving and investing. Most of the money actually runs out to cover household expenses and also work expenses.

6. Not prepare for retirement.
Just like office workers, a freelancer does not mean working forever. At certain time you have to quit working and enjoy your retirement. To dream and enjoy a memorable and beautiful retirement time, you should arrange financial planning since you still young and working.

7. Do not make tariff adjustment.
Salaries earned from freelance work is indeed not the same from year to year. The salary should be adjusted to the length of employment, type of work and the company you work on freelance basis.

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Financial Tips before Buying Your Dream Car

Nowadays, the need of four-wheeled vehicles for family is increasing. However, keep in mind that a car or other vehicle types is in the category of consumer goods, and generally cannot be used as an investment asset. A car is an object having price depreciation from year to year. Therefore, generally, car cannot be used as an investment asset.

Buying a vehicle that functioned for productive activities (business) is different from buying a car for consumptive needs. If for business activities, it would be okay to buy a car with installment scheme. Moreover, if the car is used for your daily consumptive activities, it would be best for you to buy it in cash.

Before buying a car, you have to audit your personal financial or household finances. The goal is to measure your expenses when you have a car. You just calculate your family income per month. After that, count how much you or your family spends per month before buying a car.

After having the amount, now you have to calculate the component costs to be incurred when having a car. If according to your calculations, your family income is inadequate to buy the car you want, do not force yourself to buy, even if it's a used car.

Choosing the type of car

The main thing in buying a car is the engine condition. Remember, engine conditions determine the operating costs (fuel and oil), as well as maintenance costs such as servicing the car, and the purchase of spare parts.

In addition, if you are intending to buy a car, you should choose the type of car having high re-sale price value.





[image taken from: www.centroone.com]

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What is Inflation? How it affects our financial?

Government or other state financial authority often heard announcing the inflation rate of a certain period. For example, in the USA the inflation rate from Jan-Jul 2013 is average 1.6% (www.usinflationcalculator.com)..

Well, now the basic question is.. What is inflation? How it affects our personal finances? Is important to know the inflation rate? What should we do to deal with? What is inflation rate?

Based on common understanding of economic, inflation is a process of rising prices in general and continuously, caused by various factors. For example: increased consumption, excessive market liquidity, un-smooth distribution of goods. Also, it could be said that inflation is the decreasing process of currency value continuously. Simply put a can of coke. Ten years ago maybe only needs 10 or 15 cents for a can. Now maybe it needs around 70cents or even $1. The price continues to rise while the purchase value of money ($1) becomes lower and lower.

The rising price of goods, while our salary still fixed, the amount of money needed to buy the same product will be bigger. Thus, probably the amount of money that can be set aside for saving or investment for each month will be reduced.

Is important to know the inflation rate? YES, it is very important!

Knowing the inflation rate makes us become more aware of what is going on and what to do. For example, our country inflation rate is average 5% this year. Is the money we save or invest growing? I am afraid not! What should we do to deal with inflation?

After knowing the meaning of inflation, inflation rate, and its relationship with to our financial life, some important things to do are:

1.  Check our fund placement allocation.

2.  Diversity is important. Do not keep all money in just one financial product. (See Asset Allocation).

3.  Saving our money in saving product will only grow 1-2% per year. While in deposit probably could grow around 3-4% annually. In the meantime, inflation rate is average 5%.

4.  Find another financial product that can grow your money compete with inflation rate.

5. Change our dreams become goals. Clearly state your expected amount to reach, what is your financial goal, when to achieve it. This is because the price of our ‘dream’ will continue to change each year in line with inflation.

6.  Pursue your dream by raise money on the right product, so that dream can turn into reality.



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Why should we have an Emergency Fund?

 

Managing an emergency fund at an early age is very important. Having this fund makes us have no worry about losing our permanent job. Why?

An emergency fund is a fund that would be a bailout function for us when no longer has a job. These funds can be cashed and stored in the type of investment.

Thus, how much money saved in an Emergency Fund?

For single person, not married, the best amount to have in emergency fund is 4 times of his monthly expenses. While for a couple or family with no kids, the best amount is 6 times of family monthly expenses. What if you have children?

If you have one kid, you should have at least 9 times of monthly expenses in your emergency fund account. If a family has more than two children, 12 times of the monthly expenses should be stored as emergency fund.

Before making a financial plan, we have to decide where the emergency fund will be stored. Is it in bank deposit product, or gold investment, mutual fund, or even simply opens another savings account? The important thing is wherever you would like to store your emergency fund, make sure that the investment product is low risk product and good liquidity. So you can easily access your fund and make a withdrawal whenever you need the money in case of emergency.

To manage your own emergency funds, set aside from your earnings. For example, people who earn USD1000 in one month, he could set aside a minimum of USD200 for emergency funds.

The emergency fund is not what percentage of salary you have, but how much money we have to achieve the target of an emergency fund.




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Financial plan is important! Why?

Here is short article about financial planning.

Many financial planners suggest to every person or family to make a financial planning for life. But what is the reason? Well, here are three reasons why we should make a financial plan in our lives.

First reason is for yourself.
Everyone has a need to be met. For example, to shop, to live comfortably, take care of yourself, and others. Well, to fulfill all that needs, of course, we must have money. There have to be a financial planning.

Second, for the family.
We have relatives and family. Moreover, for those who are married and have children, of course, we have to provide funds for the education of children. When our children ask for toys, of course, we also have to have the money to buy the toys.

Third, for legacy.
In addition to yourself and family, we also need financial planning for our successors. Maybe later when we are not in a productive age, we need help from other people in our old age.

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7 Ways to Stop Worrying Lack of Money

Can we meet our needs in the long period in a proper way? Can we send our children in a high quality education? What if our company suddenly has to downsizing employees and we are one of those who get fired? Is there still any money to be saved so that we can retire and still enjoying our life?

Those things are the real things, and it's hard not to think about. Because, having money means the same as feeling able to survive. If our financial is receding, we feel our survival is threatened. In fact, what we need to survive and what we believe we need to survive are two different things. It is our feeling of being threatened. Because of having enough money makes us feel valuable as human beings.

Thus, what should we do?

1. Stop thinking about things that have not happened
Try to understand your current situation, whether you can still handle everything? At least, you can still work with a pretty good salary. Have you heard that many people have no savings at all? Most of them never worried about money! Moreover, constantly worry about going lack of money will not solve the problem anyway.

2. Use your spare time available to search for additional income
Either by looking for a second job, or open a small business. Maybe it is not that simple to make it happen, but at least you have tried.

3. Confidence
One of the reasons why we are worried about our finances is because we are not confidence in our ability to have an income. Self-confidence comes from success, and success is because we take real action. Try to do something, without thinking the result too complicated. Learn from your failures and effort, and do not give up.

4. Increase your competitiveness
When you realize that you are not considered by your boss to deal with important projects, or rarely received a raise, immediately identify the reason. Do you afraid to ask about a raise, or you do not have the ability to compete with others? Immediately increase your competence!

5. Change your lifestyle
Pay attention to how your current lifestyle. Are you preferred to eat in the restaurant? Are you easily tempted to buy clothes, shoes, magazine, CD, DVD, or buy the latest gadgets? Well, change all your bad habits. Try to saving money from little things. When saving becomes a habit, you have set aside part of your salary for savings without even realizing it.

6. Live healthy
With a healthy lifestyle early on, you are saving for old age. Sleep enough, drink lots of water, exercising regularly, and use your time off for a vacation completely.

7. Thankful for what you have
Be responsible with what you already have. That means you do not waste them all and use them in the best way.

[image taken from: wanderlust.co.uk]

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Managing Your Salary

There is a man receiving USD 10,000 per month as a general manager in his company, but almost 60 percent of his salary used to pay his debts. At the same time, there is an ordinary staff whose salary is not that big, but he has assets with a value continues to increase. How should we manage our salary?

Someone called the rich is not determined from the amount of money raised each month, but of how a person manages his salary.

There are people with high salary, but always run out their money every end of month due to their consumptive attitude. How can a man, as a manager, receive USD20, 000/month, run out of money to pay debts which are 60 percents of his salary? It is because of his 76 kinds of expenses. The manager spends his salary to participate in golf club, gym, spa and the other.

There are four things to consider in order to properly managing your salary. Consumption, debt, investment, and protection.

Make a priority
In the consumption items, we have to make priorities, ranging from social expense, debt repayment, investment, and the life needs. The life needs, such as daily needs, are unlimited. Therefore, the expense for life needs must be spent wisely.

Spending has no limits, but you have limited income. Therefore, we have to allocate appropriately.

Can I owe?
Debt is always a problem. Someone who has a credit card should pay the bill in full before the due date because if you only pay the minimum amount, your debt will increases more and more.

We may take a debt if in emergency situation or to buy a productive asset. The productive assets such as property or gold bar are having good value and continue to grow.

The key of investment
The importance of investing is to ensure your financial in the future. If you invest your money, the amount and value will increase higher than inflation rate.
Then what is the key of investment? First, you should have an investment goal. Second, adjust your goal with the risk profile. Third, choose the right investment product; this is often not considered properly.

Protection
To protect yourself and your family, have you take an insurance? Life insurance should be able to replace at least 100 months of monthly expenses.

But for health insurance, if your company could cover your health costs, does it still need to take health insurance? Buy what you need, not what offered to you.


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Saving money can buy expensive products

Everyone would want to own a home or car. However, the price is probably unattainable. Anyone can own a car, dream house, and other expensive products. The important thing is you know how to get it, by planning it in earnest. The following tips are trying to give you solution of how you can buy expensive products by saving money.

Determine priorities and prices.

Each person realize on its own merits. Besides a careful planning, not every wants or needs can be met immediately. For high-priced goods, it is suggested that needs are grouped by priority and price.

* Priority
Determine priorities based on what is needed at a time is very important. Every family has to prioritize something based on its importance.

* Price
Sometimes we are confused which one to buy first, vehicle or home. If both are equally important, we can classify them based on price, starting the most expensive, moderate, and inexpensive. For example, expensive items such as home and cars, fairly moderate item such as electronic goods. While the inexpensive items are household appliances, or clothing, and other simple needs.

Determination based on the price is very necessary because usually the treatment would be different. Goods with cheap or mediocre price are generally not required a careful planning. It could even be bought directly as needed. While the needs of hundred-thousand dollars goods must take a careful planning, disciplined saving and time.

Financial Planning

When planning to purchase of expensive items, there are several ways you can do.

1. Saving regularly per month.
For example a fixed salary of $2,000 per month, set aside about 10-20 percent that is $200-$400. The advantage, the funds collected can be calculated, $2,400 - $4,800 a year. The problem is few people have a high commitment to save regularly by the same amount or even exceed.

2. Not routinely saving money each month, but only if getting a bonus from workplace. The advantage is the amount can be directly obtained large, but the funds collected requires a relatively long time.

3. Saving routinely per month plus bonuses, until the target could be achieved more quickly realized. This way is highly recommend especially when funds are needed quickly.

Demands a high commitment

The problem is, no matter how big your salary, it is not impossible that every month you would always run out, until there is no money left to save. To that end, there are two conditions to apply:

* Motivation and commitment
The success of someone getting his dream product is determined by how strong the motivation. But keep in mind, strong motivation may not work when not accompanied with high commitment. "If you decide to collect money $100 each month, then in the following months you remained committed to raise the money required for at least the same amount."

* Choose the right system
A good/bad saving system also contributed to the success of someone getting the dream goods earlier. For example, not all individuals feel comfortable to save every month by coming to the bank.

Well, you should choose other saving systems, such as by asking your company to cut your salary every month at a specific amount and then transferred directly into your bank deposit account. You can also save money in gold, mutual funds, as well as other types of investment. The bottom line is the good and suitable the savings system chosen is usually the greater the level of success.

Let's buy a new home!

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Money saving tips for age-20s ; 4 Tips

Age-20s is a period of a person transformed become an adult. Began to get through easily in college and switched to working life. At this age also, surely you have received your first paycheck as a result of your hard work.

However, you should not be too engrossed accepted all such income. You have to keep aside your earnings for saving. Here are four money saving tips for those in the age of 20s:

1. Buying habits

In the present time, it seems very common that purchases' system made by debit and credit cards. This may not mean much to you in terms of the use of debit cards, but the company can use the data to determine the interest rate for your credit card. It's worth remembering especially if you tend to make less responsible purchases as buying expensive goods with quite spontaneously and almost spend the salary.

2. Limit the number of transfers

Maybe you've got a lot of money in savings from the results of work during college, but it can all be quickly depleted when it enters the real world. Banks obviously want you to keep your money in their place. Thus, make the budget for yourself before you transfer the money from the account. This way, you are not forced to pay more than necessary.

3. Saving, saving, and saving

Age 20s is a period of where we had to struggle financially. Although it is still difficult to think about the future or to prepare for natural disasters, accidents, or injuries, remember that all of it could happen! So, set aside some money from your paycheck approximately 10-15 percent.

4. Check the account records

Routinely printing or checking your account. Save your receipts and check the fees on your online banking. Do not neglect even to the bank. Anyone can make mistakes so it is good keep watch.

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Are you ready to retire?

Retirement may be the longest time in your life without having a job and a fixed income. Retirement planning is a little more complicated because the success of your plan depends not only on how the balance of pension funds accumulated, but also how much you use the money each year during your retirement.

The first step is decided when you want to retire. For those who are working as an employee, aged 45-55 years could be an option. Whereas if you are an entrepreneur or professional workers, you may stop working directly in the age of 60-65 years. For example, Alex is 35 years old and wants to retire at the age of 50 years. Then, Alex has 15 years to collect the pension fund.

After that, decide how long you plan to fund the lifestyle in retirement. That is, until what age do you plan to be financially independent with a desirable lifestyle? Targets are usually determined between the ages of 75-80 years, depending on one's life expectancy.

Next is to determine how much the desired range of the cost of living when you retire. Most easily is using the 100% of the cost of today living.

In general, the costs that will decline at retirement are the cost of transportation, household expenses if the children are married. Meanwhile, the costs that may increase are the cost of health, vacation, and gifts.

Financially free.

The best advice that can be given is to look for passive income to cover living expenses in retirement. Source of funds for your retirement today generally from Social Security, or Pension Fund from your company, and of course your personal assets.

Statistically, those who can live comfortably in his retirement are those who have passive income from investment assets. If all the cost of living in retirement can be covered by a passive income, then you are already financially free, or achieving financial freedom.

Liquidity asset that can provide passive income is a living from the profit-sharing of your bank deposit account, and take advantage of the returns of mutual funds or stocks. Thus, your initial investment fund will never withdrawn.

In contrast, if you choose to have illiquid assets, such as property. Try to keep these assets remain productive, such as rented it. Alternatively, having a business, so you could earn a profit every month.

By reading this article, at least you start to think to plan a wonderful retirement. The next step is to make retirement plan, and implemented appropriate, in your personal financial planning. Remember, most of the income generated at this time is for living prosperity in the future. So, are you ready for retirement?

Live a beautiful life!

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5 tips to manage family finances

Management of household finances is something important to do. With a good management, our future financial goals can be achieved. In general, everyone wants to own a home, get rich, and can enjoy a comfortable retirement. All of these costs money. Money is not everything, but everything needs money. If you can manage the household finances properly, then surely your purpose will be achieved. In this article, I will give tips on managing the family finances.

1. Determine the goals you want to accomplish. With a common goal to be achieved, you will be easier to get there. Without clear goals you will sometimes be tempted to use your money. Write down your long term goals and stick on the wall of your room so that you will keep seeing the purpose.

2. After determining the goals that you want, it's time you define a strategy. You can invest in fixed-income funds that have a lower risk. With the assumption of returns 12% a year then by saving 500 hundred dollars a month you can buy such a big asset or property, or fulfill any of your financial goal.

3. In planning your family finances, you need to know your financial situation, and fix it if things go wrong. Calculate your expenses and income in advance. Here are the rules you should follow:
- Income must be greater than the expenditure

- Total mortgage debt should not exceed 30% of your income. If your salary is 1000 dollar per month, your debts must be below 300 dollar per month.

- Reserving at least 20% of income for investment. If you cannot save money currently, there are two things to do. First to raise revenue, for example by trying a side business as an insurance agent, selling MLM products, or doing business via the internet (internet marketing). The second is to lower your expenses. You can use your credit card when shopping. When the credit card statement came out, you can see where the money came out and tried to reduce these expenses. In this way, your expenses can be reduced. Avoid buying goods that are not important.

- Set aside 5% to buy life insurance for breadwinners. Insurance on children is unnecessary. If a breadwinner dies, then the family will be left in financial difficulty because there is no income from a breadwinner. But if the child dies, the family will have no trouble financially.

- Prepare an emergency fund of six months the amount of spending per month. If you are spending 800 dollars a month, then spend 4800 dollars as an emergency fund. Benchmark of six months can be adjusted with your condition, such as your occupation risk, job prospects and health of family members.

4. The use of credit cards should be properly supervised because there are many people who have problems with credit card debt. Tips in using a credit card:
- Immediately pay off your credit card and do not be late to pay credit card bills.

- Avoid withdrawal, because it has a big interest of about 4% per month.

- If you have credit card debt in several banks, pay a minimum payment in advance of all credit cards. If there is still money left, use it to pay off bills with the biggest interest. Do this until your debts discharged.

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Objectively calculate the cash flow

Set up or calculate cash flow for some people are a dizzying job. They felt that they already set up their finances as detailed and as tightly as possible, but always end up outside the estimates and expectations. In fact, even though some are having eight digits earning, but they are complaining of its value that they never felt since it is always slowly end up with expenses.

Indeed, managing cash flow is not as easy as imagined. Not as simple as just a few thousandths of money in and money out so, then the rest can be used for saving or investment.

To simplify the setting of cash flow, try to divide the various expenditure items into several specific groups: Primary Expenditure, Obligations Expenditure, Secondary Expenditure, and Investment / Savings. Classify each of your expenses heading into the groups.

Primary expenditures are specific group for various expenditure items relating to support productivity and daily life. Expenditure items are classified into this group is usually vital. When you have to cut the budget of this group, then the continuity of your daily life will be disrupted.

For example, the monthly expenses for food needs. Imagine if you had to cut the budget so that you or your family change the feeding schedule of three times a day to just two or one time a day.

Obligations expenditure is specific to group expenditure items relating to your obligations to third parties. This is a sensitive group of expenditures because of its sensitivity to relationships with others.

For example: the salary for housemaid and driver. This expenditure should be made to meet your obligations to them. If not met, perhaps they would revolt and then quit his job. Automatically, you will have difficulty because of you need to do all those homework by yourself. Such expenditure is included in the group of obligations expenditure.

Secondary Expenditure group is a specific group for various expenditure items that are not associated with the two previous groups. Expenditure items that go into this group are private and have no significant effect for your daily activities.

For example: the need for entertainment or hobby. If you have a routine spending for a movie at the cinema every weekend with your partner or family, then it is inserted into a group of Secondary Expenditures.

Expenditure group for savings and investment is specific to the needs of savings and investment. If you have a personal financial planning and routinely doing investment, then those expenses are inserted into this group. For example, if you have a regular investment spending for pension funds, then this expenditure items included in the group of Savings and Investment Expenditures.

If you feel you have never had a residual income, then the Secondary Group can be re-examined. Make an objective assessment of that various expenditures. If you feel you cannot objectively, you can ask your spouse or best friend. If they say the budget on certain items are too big, then you need to make reasonable adjustments.

No harm in asking their opinion on a reasonable budget, so you will have a comparison in adjusting the amount of expenditure.

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5 Obligations in Money Management

Whatever your job, regardless of your income, everything can be better managed to avoid a deficit. A proper money management and personal financial planning can provide the solution of financial problems even build self-reliance. Most people often claimed never to set aside money for savings include less investment. The reason is always because lack of money.

They feel that their monthly earning is still too small to set aside some money for saving, moreover for investment. In fact, the reduction in consumption of goods that are not important with limited financial condition, such as jewelry or clothing that varies model and color, you must have ability to set aside money each month.

Stages that could start in managing your personal financial are as follows:

1. Pay off debt

Although your financial management is already a mess, it's never too late to fix it. Start by setting aside money from earnings and pay existing debt. Debt is your obligation. Unpaid debt will damage your credibility, especially your financial records in bank. You are risking your reputation if the debt is not repaid immediately. Set aside a maximum of 30% of your earnings to pay off debt.

2. Save

Rest assured that regardless of income, must be set aside as savings. Arrange your money of about 10-20 percent of income for savings. In order for this plan can be running, limit the cost of consumption. People are often tempted to buy goods which are not too important to be purchased ,but only because of the influence of a friend or a trend. Strict with yourself and prioritize your mostly and primary needs!

3. Emergency Fund

Provide a reserve fund as an emergency fund. Unforeseen needs will always exist, for example, a disease that must be treated in hospital. Certainly require quite big of cost, isn't it? Set aside a fund of five percent of income. Prepare an emergency fund of up to a period of six months. As anticipated, create a special passive account for the fund. Separate this account from your active accounts that are used for daily needs.

4. Insurance

After you are reducing the monthly needs, paying off debt, saving, and preparation for an emergency fund, use the rest for insurance. Ensure to buy life insurance, especially for householder in your family. Anyone who has the main income to meet the needs of your family, you or your wife, should have life insurance. So if anything happens to him, other family members can still run and financed from the insurance for a specified period.

5. Investment

Investment should be done after all the above obligations have been fulfilled. The simple form, invest your money in gold. However, pay attention and understand the value and quality when it comes to investing in gold. Money for investment funds can be allocated from other revenue sources such as bonus, inheritance, outside the main income. There are many type of investment, risk, and its value at a later date. For that, carefully identify the investment products before selecting it.

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Effective Ways to Manage Financial In Early Career

Here are a few tips on How to Effectively Manage Finance in the Early Career. For college graduates or fresh graduates, get a job after trying dozens of times to send a job application letter must be a pride and great satisfaction. Fiery spirit was shown in early work. And when it comes the time to receive a salary at the end of the month or the beginning of the month, getting the first salary is to be something that is highly awaited.

But quite a lot of novice workers consider the first paycheck is a "golden ticket" to have fun. Without precise calculations and financial planning, by the middle of the month, there was no cash left to continue the day. Supposedly, it can be anticipated from the beginning so that in the middle of the month you still have enough money in your pockets.

So, when the first paycheck in hand, you should immediately determine financial priorities. Monthly expenses like housing costs or apartment rents would get first allocation. Next is a routine expense like the cost of daily meals and transportation costs. If necessary, make essential items for expenditure, for example, groceries, transportation money, and other household purposes.

Saving is also need to do at the beginning of a payday. Suppose that saving is a deposit that must be done routinely. If you have not been able to save in large amounts, you could allocate 10 percent of total salary.

It is nothing wrong also if you set up a private pension fund, although the company or institution where you work also has already accommodate your pension fund. You also need to set aside an unexpected fund or emergency fund. For example, the medical expenses to the hospital and charity for victims of natural disasters.

To prevent the waste of money, it is good to keep your credit card in order not to make you tempted to shop. Use your credit cards only in times of emergency.

If the amount of your savings has reached a certain number, you can try to start investing in stocks, mutual funds, unit links, or other investments. The rest of it, you can utilize the remaining salary to personal needs and please yourself.

In order to effectively perform financial management and personal financial planning, you need to do it with discipline. No need to make savings too tight and 'tighten your belts'. As long as you consider the financial from the beginning, surely there would be no financial problem that facing ahead in the future.

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Money Management Guide ; Financial Planning

When commodity prices are booming and expenditure is increasing in every way, it becomes essential to planning for some of our income.

The best way to care for your money is to plan a budget. A budget should keep a record of all your expenses. Necessary expenses such as education of the kids to pay, bills, fuel, taxes, etc. should be estimated and subtracted from the monthly wage.

Then, the monitoring of other expenses like gifts on birthdays of a friend in that month, your anniversary, weekend trips and so forth. The amount remaining after reducing the essentials should be planned in such a way that will end soon, sometimes even negligible savings.

"A penny saved is a penny earned". Savings are very crucial in the life of today. But many people do not understand the importance of saving. A person who develops the habit of saving money is never far away from money, especially in emergency situations.

If expenses exceed income, a situation called negative cash flow. In this case you should be extra vigilant while spending money. Try to reduce weekend trips, partying at home or abroad, buying unnecessary items etc. If possible make a new budget that costs are optimized. It then becomes your duty to comply with this budget, to avoid pitfalls. While if the reverse case i.e. the cash inflow is higher than its output, your time of joy and of course make some savings for the future.

Next good thing you can do to manage your money is to make investments. Investments can be of different types. You can invest in a property or land, banks, etc. of stocks, investments that do not only keep your money secure but also give good returns. As the money is held in a deposit in a bank full amount with interest, the money invested in buying shares in a successful company and leading, always gives a great performance.

But before making any investment, you must learn about the pros and cons of it. For example, it is high risk in investing in stock market as the fluctuation of the economy is unbelievable. Here, you must acquire complete information that when you buy the stocks and for which company never let you down etc. In any case, first familiarize yourself with all the facts and grounds and then only invest. Remember that your purpose is to make money not lose money you have.

Money Management is simple, if we become a bit cautious.

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5 Tips Preparing Early Retirement

Retirement is one of the strategies that should be more carefully prepared and audited in life, because on it depend the future of who stop working permanently.

The retirement can therefore be understood as a financial reward after so many years of active service, which takes the form of a monthly income that is received based on the number of years worked and amount of taxation that were paid (tax).

Pensions are of two types, contributory and non-contributory:
• Contributory pensions are those based on the amount of money managed to accumulate the regular payment of contributions or system specifically use certain workers
• Non-contributory pensions are those who are granted a monthly amount for life, which is less common than occupational pension, but has the characteristic of being granted in cases where the amount of money accumulated was not enough and have few resources

1. Retirement depends on oneself

There is no chance to blame someone else for a lower retirement, because it depends essentially on the basis of the worker's effort could do to save money each month while in active employment status.

The money saved is invested to achieve capital growth, so that is another factor that must be evaluated to care for the future of retirement. Oversee what is done with the money that is contributed monthly while working is part of the force responsible for anyone who wants to secure their old age.

2. Choose how to save

Retirement will be the salary that you will live when you do not have tickets for formal work product, hence the need to calculate how much you want to have in the future with time, thus preventing any accidental problem for lack of diligence. When ready to invest pension savings, it is noted how the portfolio is to invest in the stock, bonds and other types of alternative financial profitability.

Accumulating money for retirement is not a mechanical act, we must make a saving strategy to associate with a type of investment or investment product as determined by the time goes by and the changing investor profile.

3. Saving Time

Saving for retirement is not just a couple of years, is part of a strategy of life should be started as soon as possible, hopefully as soon as entering working life. To focus on this subject well, think that the expectation of obtaining a fixed rate at retirement will always be maintained, therefore more time that passes in not less, should be saving more then to help reach that expectation or risk they will have to incur to make investment worthwhile effort.

4. The savings does not end with retirement

Many people mistakenly believe that when they retire, stop saving automatically, but it is not. With the increased longevity of seniors, the accumulated amounts usually do not give sufficient to fund the extended life of people reaching 75 years (if they retire at 65), it is desirable to maintain retirement of the amount provided by investing, though under a program for lower risk.

5. Good financial advice

Where the advice is appropriate and complete, you can make decisions that optimize the level of earnings of those investments to preparing for retirement early. Try to get advice for your personal bankers, or financial experts.

Happy investing :)

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5 Tips of Saving Money

Saving, or investing regularly, often done for various purposes. By setting your money aside on a regular basis, then the collected money can be very useful. Saving money activity in the personal financial planning is the act of reserving or saving some of our money for future use, either for use in an emergency. It also to give us some pleasure, to invest, for use in times of crisis, to use in our retirement, etc.

Below are 5 Tips of Saving Money compiled from various sources:

1. Spend less

This advice seems obvious, and this is the first tip to consider if you really want to save money.

One method that can help us to implement this advice, is to develop a personal budget or family budget. Knowing of which parts that we spend more, and discuss whether we can spend less on them, or in any case put them out of our budget. Things that could spend our money quite lot are such as subscriptions to newspapers or magazines that do not always read, always buy in cafes, etc.

Finding ways to spend less may also involve: purchase some used instead of new, eating at home instead of eating out, always look for offers or discounts (always ensuring that the offer or discount to be real), take our time and look always for places where you can buy the products at the lowest price (for example, compare prices online), buy wholesale or in quantity (and thus take advantage of quantity discounts, etc.).

Once we are aware of where or what we are spending our money, and we are constantly looking for ways to spend less, we will become experts, and actually begin to save money.

2. Consume or use less

This idea is a variation of the first. It is to eat less or use the products or services that we use, for example, we try to use less shampoo, use less toothpaste, use less detergent, use less electricity or energy (eg. turn off when we do not need lights, buying energy saving light bulbs, turning off the television or computer when you're not using), consume less water (for example, arranging the droppers, showering instead of bathing, etc.).

Consume or use anything less might not mean much as savings. But if we add all the little savings that we can do, we could actually get to save money.

3. Making a budget

The budget will allow us to identify areas or items where we are spending too much, or those in which we could reduce costs or, in any case, removed from our budget. Also, we will know the difference between revenues and expenditures, and thereby to determine an amount that we can set aside as savings.

4. Book an amount as savings

It is to acquire the habit of putting aside each month of a certain amount in a savings account. We can begin to allocate a small amount, and gradually increase the quantity as our revenues increase. It is recommended that represents at least 10% of our total monthly income.

It is advisable to deposit that amount in a deposit account at the bank, so we have it in a safe place, we do not feel tempted to take money out of it and, incidentally, we can gain some interest.

5. Avoid debt

Some debts could be helpful as a mortgage debt. Or debt needed to build a business. But to save money, we always strive to have as little debt as possible.

The first debt to be avoided is generated by the use of credit cards, usually higher-cost debt that has (the one with higher interest rates). We should note that credit cards are to be used in an emergency or to any opportunity that presents itself, and not to be used constantly in everyday purchases.

The use of credit cards may give momentary satisfaction, but then can bring big problems. It is advisable to cut off all credit cards, or at least keep only one, which present the lowest cost and most convenient payment terms. So we could saving money on our personal financial planning.

Happy investing :)

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7 Steps of Preparing Family Budget

A family budget is actually important thing. Some financial planner suggest families to create family budget. This budget can create on monthly basis, three month base, or even yearly base. It depend on each family and the purpose it self.

It is about time to overhaul the way people look at budgeting. It can actually be a great way to keep track of your family's expenditures and help you evaluate the things that you spend the lion's share of the family's earnings on.

But for some, the idea of a budget is often a blur. It is frustrating to see how hard it is to do a budget and realizing that with one wrong purchase, you can actually ruin the entire thing. And this has been a perennial headache for most homemakers.

What is a budget? A budget is a tool for handling your finances by controlling the family's expenditures in a way that money is enough for paying up bills, and still ensuring that savings are set aside for future expenses - vacations, or children's education, or even for retirement.

For those who want to try to budgeting their family both income and expenditure, probably these steps below could helping enough. Try these simple steps in preparing a no fret family budget, and see the benefits of intelligent spending.

1. Gather three months of your pay stubs and get your average monthly earnings.

2. Get out three months of your monthly bills. Do this for the fixed expenses like the rent, phone bill, car payments and other loans that come monthly. Add them up and get the average. Do the same for other expenses like groceries, and credit card bills.

3. Evaluate the results of your computations. Looking at your average monthly earnings against your monthly fixed expenses and other monthly expenses, think of some ways to economize. Cut back on some items that are somehow unnecessary.

4. Knowing the facts of your income and expenses, develop a family budget and try to stick to this monthly budget.

5. Now that you have a monthly budget, set up a savings account. Save up by making regular deposits to this account.

6. Keep track of this monthly family budget just to see if it is working for you. Try to fine-tune the "rough edges" of this budget as you go along.

7. If you can get hold of a personal budgeting software or spreadsheet application to keep record of your budget, the better. This will make organizing your expenses very easy.

These are the basic steps in developing and implementing a no fret, easy to stick to monthly family budget. Of course each family has diverse needs and wants. You have the freedom to develop your own monthly family budget, depending on your family’s financial background and needs. No matter how you do it, just focus on the end result, which is building a savings that leads to a bright and financially stable future for your family.

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Make Money On A Home Based Business

In the midst of financial difficulties you may face, have you ever thought about starting a home-based business to make money? A business that you can do on the sidelines of your main job. A business that can give your family extra income, although probably not so great, but definitely worth it. Important thing is try to adding revenue. Many people have tried to do it, you want to come to try?

Questions about home-based business and how they make money for you always continue to appear without stopping. You need to be careful to take the first step when you are thinking of doing this. Most people do not really notice it and so they end up losing all their money on businesses that are not clear.

Making Money By Writing A Home Based Business Plan

Well, a business plan for a home-based business may not sound like making money but it worked. Far from what you believe, not hard to write a business plan. This is not one that you need to show off to anyone. You may not need to demonstrate to the bank for funding.

This business plan describes what will be your ideal home-based business and how it will provide additional income for your money. You can not achieve if you do not first priority.

Write down your ideas about what your future. In the end, what you want to do? You want to work with your pajamas in the morning and the kids watch TV and you sit at the computer typing? Do you want to create products for every customer? Do you want to concentrate on the product wholesale and then sell them at retail?

The Next Step To Making Money With a Home Based Business

The next step is to take the next step. Which might sound excessive, but look at your business plan. You need to plan the steps to get to where you want. Write down these steps, and then do the first step on the list of these steps, which you have previously set up.

Once you have the steps written, easier to get to where you want to go. Simply follow the steps. Need help? Ask! Join the business forum and ask someone you trust to answer it. Read everything you can get your hands on about home businesses and how they work.

Taking That Dramatic First Step Toward Making Money with a Home Based Business

Once you have a plan, the steps and know what to do, what makes you refuse? Maybe you're afraid of failure or maybe you are even afraid to really work? Forget for a moment all about failure or anything. See your first step. Concentrate on it.

What is truth? Think about how you will do it. Describe in your mind about these first steps and how exactly to do it. No matter you spend a full day separately thinking about the first step and where you will do it and how it will be done.

Then, when you're ready, do the first step and never stop until it is done. Whatever it is, once committed; look at your achievements. Reward yourself with a treat for getting it accomplished. It was the first step to your goal; making money with your own home based business. You've Earned it!

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4 Tips Facing Financial Crisis

The impact of the global financial crisis has a influential domino effect to a variety of segments of society. All strata, starting from the bottom to the upper class receive the effects felt. For the upper class, perceived crisis impact on the business or reduced income due to investment losses of less value. Crisis lowered the purchasing power of middle-class society. While the lower classes who feel the greatest impact. Spiraling cost of basic needs among these forces to add new debt in order to close the growing expenditure. Where are you including that?

There are several things that could be an indication that the crisis is going very influential. One is the decline in revenue, while operating expenses increased. Or it can also feel as if it had been a decline in income for someone. Whereas received income is still the same, just because the prices of needs are increasing make such income is not deemed enough anymore to meet all those needs.

For the middle class, there are several strategies that can be done in the face of this crisis and treatment impact. Among them are:

1. Primary needs first than the secondary needs
Start with simple things. Like choosing to use public transport relatively cheaper to travel, rather than using private vehicles are wasteful. For those who feel their incomes are still too small, should have to think about how to obtain additional income. The additional income is useful to offset increased expenses.

2. Take advantage of existing opportunities and want to commit
This relates to additional income. We do not have to shy and reluctant to become self-employed for example, brokers or agents as a second profession. Investigate your skills and your hobbies. And began to think about how do all it can to make extra money for you and your family. You can still run your primary profession. Try to not take a lot of your time of this additional profession. Moreover, you can do in your own home.

3. Clean up your debt
For those of you who have debt, it is recommended to clean your debt as quickly as possible in the current crisis. Sort and control unnecessary debt or later that lead to new obligations. Create your priority debts scale

4. Apply the right strategy of saving
First, set a saving goal. This is intended to add a strong motivation in realizing your financial planning goals. Savings fund in front priority, the rest of the money can be spent. Discipline yourself to save money. If you have difficulties, you should follow the planned savings program offered by some banks. In this plan savings, the bank will automatically debit the amount of funds from your account separately into a planned-savings account. Surely it could be done after obtaining your consent first. Or you could also follow the pension funds, unit-linked insurance with monthly premiums, or a mutual fund that is paid monthly. After saving enough, then the funds invested.

Managing your finances at a time of crisis is determined from the beginning. Determine your wealth’s goals. Decide what will grow, how long, and how much is expected to return in the future.

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