Personal Finance

Unless you live at home with your parents, have paid off your mortgage, or get your housing costs covered by your employer, housing is probably your biggest expense each month. The second biggest expense, however, will vary greatly amongst us depending on what stage of life we are in. Word on the street has it car payments, daycare, and alcohol can be budget busters. Is that true for you? Let’s see what the poll says… Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. Extra credit if you comment with your response and why it is what it is. You can see all my polls here.

When You are broke, you have to make hard choices.  Here are 10 things to do to save money and leave a frugal life: 10. Don’t wait to get started. The biggest mistake you can make is putting off saving money until you get a new job or a bigger paycheck. It doesn’t matter if you start small—you can begin with things as simple as keeping your change. The key is breaking the cycle of mindless spending and becoming aware of where your money is going. 9. Save up spare change. As Benjamin Franklin famously once wrote, “a penny saved is a penny earned.” Spare change doesn’t look like much when you’ve only got a handful of it, and it can be a nuisance to carry around. Resist the urge to toss it in the tip jar—keep a coin bank in your living room and empty out your wallet whenever you get home. You’ll be surprised how quickly it’ll fill up! When you’re ready to redeem your jar for something more convenient, there’s probably a Coinstar at your local supermarket to convert the coins to bills. 8. Be good to the planet. Eco-friendly practices are also wallet-friendly. Even though it seems more expensive to buy a reusable water bottle or shopping bag at first, they’ll pay for themselves in a matter of weeks in terms of the money you didn’t have to spend getting a new one. Remembering to turn off lights and stopping the sink when you’re brushing your teeth cuts down the strain on the environment—and your utility bills. 7. Shop online and obtain coupons. You can get many items at a significantly discounted rate online, often in brand new condition. This is especially of clothes and jewelry, although sites like Ebay.com and Amazon.com can offer bargains that you’d never find at a department store. Even if you don’t end up purchasing online, checking prices at different stores before actually heading out can help you make comparisons and ensure that you’re getting the best bargain.  What’s more, you can print coupons from sites such as Coupon Code Raja. 6. Make a list before you shop—and take it with you! Have a clear idea of what you need before you head to the store so that you can get it all efficiently, without expensive distractions. We tend to splurge on unnecessary items when we’re just browsing. Having a list is a good way to distinguish between needs—and wants. It’ll also help you cut down on the amount of unnecessary outings if you can consolidate your trips, which will help save gas money and time. 5. Find a hobby. New clothes and jewelry can be fun, but shopping out of boredom a dangerous habit to have. Instead of hitting the mall, try some more inexpensive activities like going to the library, jogging around the block, or gardening. It’ll help you feel better about yourself and prevent your credit card bills from rising. You might even find ways to make some extra cash, like babysitting or dog walking. 4. Prepare things yourself. Don’t hit the store every day for something you can easily make for yourself. For example, don’t waste money on a cup of coffee every morning—you’ll spend well over ten dollars by the end of the week. Instead, buy some ground coffee from the supermarket and make it yourself—you’ll get much more bang for your buck. In the same way, make your own lunches instead of ordering or buying—those daily trips to Chipotle can really add up. 3. Brave the cold. If you turn down the heat a few degrees in the winter and wear a few extra layers around the house, you can cut your heating bill by a huge percentage. Likewise, in the summer, try opening the windows instead of amping up the air conditioner. 2. Set goals. Create targets and timelines for yourself so that you know what you’re working up towards. Having concrete goals can also make saving money a bit more bearable—you’ll know when you have to be careful with every penny and when you have a little wiggle room. 1. Write and record. The best way to save money is to put yourself on a budget and know how you are doing. Write down your income, figure out a spending pla

Insulting your customers seems like an obviously bad idea.So did the owner of an Arizona pizzeria lash out at critics on Facebook after the business was portrayed in a negative light on Fox reality TV show "Kitchen Nightmares"? Many of the postings have been deleted, but here's an obscenity-free sample of what was said, from BuzzFeed's screenshots:I AM NOT STUPID ALL OF YOU ARE. YOU JUST DO NOT KNOW GOOD FOOD.Read 7 remaining paragraphs on MoneyTalksNews.com.

Join our Tweetchat this Thursday at 12:00 p.m. Pacific/ 3p.m. Eastern for lively conversation and a chance to win a $200 gift card or one of two $50 gift cards! Use #WBChat to participate. This week's topic: Credit Usage: Men vs. Women! Learn who has better credit scores, higher levels of debt, and who is more likely to miss mortgage payments between men and women. Tell us how often you use your credit cards and what you think everyone can do to improve their financial standing! For an easy way to keep track of the conversation, try using our special Tweetchat Chatroom. Anyone can participate, but you must be following @WiseBread and RSVP below to win our prizes! First place: $200 Amazon GC Second place: $50 Amazon GC Third place: $50 Amazon GC Winner must be US resident 18 or older. Winners are randomly selected and announced within 1 day of the chat. To make it easier for us to keep track of attendees and pick our winners, please RSVP below with your twitter ID (put that in the "Link Title" field), email address, and your twitter URL (put that in the "URL" field, do not put your blog's url in there). Winners will be selected at random from RSVPs. If a winner is chosen who RSVPed but did not attend a 2nd winner will be chosen. This Week's Chat is Sponsored by Experian This week, Experian is sponsoring $300 in prizes for our chat! They will be joining our chat (tweeting from @Experian_US) and sharing statistics from their recent analysis on credit usage differences between men and women! Details on their analysis including an infographic can be found at LiveCreditSmart.com. More About Experian Here's a message from our sponsor: “At Experian, we’re working to promote greater financial health and opportunity among consumers by helping them understand, manage, and protect their personal information. The Great Credit Divide study highlights the financial differences between men and women and is an opportunity for consumers to better understand how credit works so they can make informed financial decisions. If you’re interested in learning more about the Great Credit Divide study and how you can build a great credit history – check out www.LiveCreditSmart.com. You can join our Wednesday credit chats at 3 p.m. EST on Facebook.com/ExperianUS and Twitter @Experian_US ( #creditchat) with our credit experts Maxine Sweet and Rod Griffin to get your specific questions answered too. “ New Parenting Chat Immediately Before #WBChat Our sister blog Parenting Squad (@ParentingSquad) will be hosting a parenting chat every Thursday at 11:00 am Pacific. Drop by for fun parenting conversations and a chance to win prizes! Use #PSChat to participate. ShareThisWritten by Ashley Jacobs and published on Wise Bread. Read more articles from Wise Bread.Join Our Tweetchat on Thursday 1/17, 12pm PST for a Chance to Win $300 in Prizes! Join Our Tweetchat on Thu 9/8, 12pm Pacific for a Chance to Win Prizes Join Our Tweetchat on Thu 11/3, 12pm Pacific for a Chance to Win Prizes Join Our Tweetchat on Thu 3/8, 12pm Pacific for a Chance to Win Prizes Join Our Tweetchat on Thu 12/20, 12pm Pacific for a Chance to Win Prizes

Ryan McBride / Flickr | http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomidea/316750485/ When traveling abroad, you have to worry about exchanging your money for foreign currency. If you thought that using your credit card would be an easy way to circumvent this chore, think again. Most credit cards charge a foreign transaction fee, typically equal to 3% of the purchase amount. If you’re shopping often during your international trip, which you’ll most likely be doing, you’ll rack up a bunch of foreign transaction fees when the credit card bill arrives. Fortunately, there are some credit cards that cater to travelers and make it a point to waive such foreign transactions fees to help reduce the final cost of your foreign spending. It also doesn’t hurt that most of these no-foreign-transaction-fee credit cards have lucrative rewards programs and offer enticing travel perks. Here are the 5 best credit cards for those who are looking to avoid foreign transaction fees: Related Stories: The 5 Most Inexpensive Ways to Travel Travel Prices Are Going Up This Summer Travel the World by Couch Surfing: 6 Things to Consider Top 5 Credit Cards With No Foreign Transaction Fees

More than one in five people have held or attended a birthday celebration for a pet.That's among the fascinating results of a new survey about spending by CouponCabin.One result is not surprising: Dog owners spend more on their pet per month than owners of cats. That's discussed by Money Talks News' Stacy Johnson in the video below. But the CouponCabin survey delved into other aspects of our financial commitments to our pets.Read 6 remaining paragraphs on MoneyTalksNews.com.

Who says women aren't good at math and money? People who can't read, that's who.A new study from one of the major credit reporting bureaus, Experian, says, "Overall, women are better at managing their money and debt" — even though women working full time earn about 23 percent less than men.Experian used 750,000 credit reports from its database in December for the analysis. Here's some of what it found:Read 3 remaining paragraphs on MoneyTalksNews.com.

Once a month, our banks and credit card issuers send us a statement in the mail (or online) outlining every single item that we spent our money on over the last month. We can see a big list of the checks we wrote, the stores we swiped our card at, the online shops we conducted business with – all in one place. There was a time when I dreaded seeing these statements. They were evidence of how poorly I was managing my finances. I’d glance at them, try not to think about them, and toss the envelopes into a storage box “to look at later” – meaning “to forget about… or at least try to.” As I began my financial turnaround, these statements turned into a source of pride. I loved seeing my ending balance on my checking account, comparing it to my starting balance, and feeling good about that increase. I loved looking at my credit card statements and seeing the opposite – a lower ending balance than a starting one. Today, I see those statements as a tool – one that I’ve turned into a game of sorts. Those statements are among the best helpers I have in keeping my spending in shape and helping me to avoid repeating spending mistakes. The process is simple. Whenever I get a statement in the mail – a bank statement or a credit card statement – I walk through it line by line. I try to identify every single item that exists on that statement. What did I buy with this $28.92? What is this $9.96 on here for? What I’m trying to do is identify all of the purchases I made that gave me little or no lasting value. If I spent money on something that wasn’t a life essential and didn’t give me lasting value, I probably spent that money for a pretty dumb reason. I didn’t need to spend that $6.42 at the gas station to buy beverages. Why did I do that? Why didn’t I just fill up some water bottles or juice bottles before we left? What on earth did I even buy when I spent $18.92 at Books-A-Million? It was probably a book… but I am not even sure which book I bought. That’s a pretty dumb purchase. I could have just checked out a random book at the library and received the same value. I spent $49.95 to renew that magazine for another two years? I have seven back issues of it sitting on the end table unread! I need to cancel that subscription… and if I can’t, I need to set up a reminder to poke me in about twenty months to cancel it then. The goal of this isn’t to beat yourself up. It’s to identify the purchasing mistakes you made and think about them so that you don’t repeat them. No one is perfect. We all sometimes buy things that we really didn’t need to buy. I’m a sucker for books, for example, as well as board games. The thing is, I know I’m a big sucker for those things because I constantly bear witness to my spending mistakes. I know to be wary in any situation where I might be buying a book or a board game. I also know lots of things that I simply shouldn’t ever spend my money on. It’s a waste of my money to buy gas station beverages when I could just spend two minutes before we leave to fill up some bottles for everyone. It’s a waste of my money to ever purchase a Bluray disc, because I’ll probably only watch it once and, if that’s the case, I can just rent it via Redbox for $1.50. Seeing those mistakes on that statement provides a simple way to reinforce the good decisions and knock down the bad ones. That way, each statement is a little better than the last one. Over time, they contain more and more decisions I don’t regret and fewer and fewer decisions that I lament. That’s progress, one little step at a time. The post The Statement Game appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

chicagogeek / Flickr | http://www.flickr.com/photos/chicagogeek/8280404628/ The excess withdrawal fee is associated with savings accounts, and the fee is in place to prevent customers from withdrawing money too frequently from their accounts. Since savings accounts collect interest, they’re not meant to be accounts with frequent withdrawal activity, and the federal government has laws in place to prevent that from happening. Under Federal Regulation D, you’re only allowed to withdraw from your savings accounts a maximum of six times a month, beyond which banks are allowed to either levy a fee, or if you violate the rules too many times, they can close your account altogether. Federal Regulation D limits all outgoing transfers from savings and money market accounts to six per month, but does not have restrictions on the number of incoming transfers. Outgoing transfers include any transfers made through online banking, telephone banking, as well as ATM withdrawals. Each bank varies on their excessive withdrawal policies, ranging from charging a small fee after a certain number of withdrawals, to charging a bigger sum, to not charging anything at all but retaining the right to close down an account due to excessive transfers. See what the largest American banks charge for excessive withdrawals in the table below. Comparing Excessive Withdrawal Fees Bank Fee Bank of America $3 after 3 withdrawals Chase $5 Wells Fargo $15 Citibank $0, but account is subject to close after 3x's over the withdrawal limit in 12 months U.S. Bank $15 Capital One $10 SunTrust $15 per withdrawal after 6 TD Bank $15 PNC $3 for each withdrawal over 3 withdrawals BB&T $15 Savings Accounts: 6 Things You May Not Know Related Stories: Simon Says: How to Calculate the Average Daily Balance How to Identify Hidden Treasures in Your Home The Cash Registers of the Future What Are Excessive Withdrawal Fees and Federal Regulation D?

Continued training is a major part of many professions.Doctors, attorneys, accountants, pharmacists, financial professionals, engineers, and many other careers have professional organizations or legally mandated oversight bodies to ensure that folks are hip on new development and skills.You’d hope your doctor knows the most advanced procedures or at least outmoded procedures that shouldn’t be performed.So why doesn’t this logic crossover into driving? Just as, industry standards can change necessitating updates for industry people, standards on the road can change necessitating drivers to learn the new do’s and don’ts. Below are the top 3 reasons that even if you’re over 55 and “know how to drive,” it’s worthwhile to take a defensive driving course. InsuranceSome states allow insurance companies to lower premiums for customers as an incentive to take defensive driving courses, as much as 15 percent in some cases. Insurance companies do this for two reasons: 1) It reduces the chance that drivers will be in an accident, and 2) It, therefore, saves lives and money.Defensive Driving for YouDon’t worry, taking a defensive driving class doesn’t mean being the oldest goat in a room full of young, dumb college bros who all drive used Chevy trucks. Not wasting time on rudimentary material, these courses offer a refresher and introduction to new rules and techniques that’ll enhance your skill as a driver. For instance, did you know that due to the ubiquity of airbags and modern understanding of ergonomics the proper hand position on the steering wheel has moved from “10 and 2” to “9 and 3” or “8 and 4”?Don’t Be ComplacentWhen was the last time you had to take evasive action to avoid impending doom behind the wheel? How confident are you in your ability quickly to maneuver. Regardless, of how you answered those questions it never hurts to practice driving defensively. There are driving courses that focus on real-world training, getting drivers comfortable with being aggressive when they need to be to avoid possible danger. Also, keep in mind, it’s an excuse to relive some old hot rod days and drive like a crazy person (safely, of course) through the course. Times they are and already have been changing.Think of all the changes in the world, like, when you first got your license and today. Is it that unreasonable to think that you’d benefit from a defensive driving class for experienced drivers? After all, you wouldn’t trust a doctor whose advancement in medical knowledge stopped after graduation 40 years ago. To keep your skills up at anything, driving included, you have to put the time into it. It’s widely accepted that defensive driving classes reduce accident rates, can lower your insurance, and hone your driving skills, so in the case of defensive driving courses it’s a no-brainer.