Librezine.com - Free Library Ezine for Everyone

You know how most people, when they visit someone else's home, take a furtive look to see what kinds of stuff they have, fearful that may be they have better stuff? Well, those who have different kinds of interests – say, those who are really interested in finding ways to save money on electricity or anything else – these kinds of people, when they visit another person's house, are likely to find an excuse to look at their utility meters and then at their large screen TV or anything. They try to see how fast their electricity meter seems to be running. If they can, they like to take a look at their meter readings as well.

If they find that a friend is using less energy than them, they feel shown up. And they do everything in their power to become even stingier to save money on electricity like never before. If you're already quite careful, you might wonder how you could possibly save money on electricity any more than you do already. Well, just looking at average savings for every appliance in your house or every function that you need electricity for in your house should help.

For instance, if you want cool your house, using only fans instead of air-conditioning can save you $500 a year. Turning off your central heating and using space heaters instead can save you $1000 a year. Turn the hot water function off on your washing machine and that's off $200 a year. Line-dry your clothes instead of using a dryer, and that's another $200 a year saved. And most surprisingly, merely to turn your computer off or to put it to sleep when you're not using it will save you exactly the same – $200 a year.

If you're really serious about living within your means and living a planned life, you really need to begin tracking what you spend. You also need to use the budgeting information you gather this way to invest and spend in a more informed way – say, by creating and using an allocated spending plan. This is where you never spend a dollar on anything that you haven't planned for. It's a great way to optimize your cash flow.

In concept, an allocated spending plan is simple enough. When you get your paycheck, you're supposed to sit down and allocate every dollar that you wish to take out of it. You are to think about it carefully and work out how best to allocate your spending.

When you do this, one of the first things you notice is that some months, you get more paychecks than others. If you happen to get paychecks weekly or biweekly, you'll find that some months, you get an extra check. If you could plan your expenses by paycheck instead of by month, you could work your money issues out better.

There are two ways in which you could manage a personal budget. You could either scrimp and save and cut back on every little luxury imaginable; or you could look for an extra stream of income. These side business ideas should help.

Always fancied yourself really good and in one subject at school? You could easily turn that into a great stream of income by tutoring school children. You don't even need to be qualified the way you would if you needed to be a teacher. You just need to be really good at it and really be dedicated to helping a child learn. You could advertise on Craigslist or Tutor.com and so on. Not only will you earn a lot of money this way (successful math tutors can make $100 an hour) you'll find that it's very rewarding to be able to help a child.

You would be surprised how easy it can be to make money with simple artistic talents these days. You can sell T-shirts, hoodies, decorated bags and so on – there are all kinds of websites that help you find customers. Go to Etsy, Zazzle or CafePress, and you'll easily find that there are all kinds of great ways to find customers.

Wouldn't it be nice if we all just enjoyed doing the things that were good for us? We'd dream about buying a budgeting program for the computer, and sitting for hours at it fascinated at how it helped us keep tabs on all our expenses. We would cut everything wasteful to a minimum. We would tell our friends about all the great ways we cut our expenses, too. The software companies would even make fancy budgeting programs with 3-D effects the way videogame makers do it. Well, seeing that good sense is never going to appeal to people all that much, these budgeting tips will have to do instead.

So let's look at why we really do hate budgeting our expenses.

To begin with, most kinds of budgeting will suffer unless you're willing to keep meticulous records of every move you make. Most people feel that it's a waste of time to keep track of their expenses (or to keep track of the calories in the foods they eat too for that matter). Let the first one go, and you end up in the poorhouse. Let the other one go, and you land up fat.

Things work differently when you're single. You just go to the grocery store and pile your cart high with whatever catches your fancy in there, whether you now need it or not. Often, you don't even think about what kind of store it is – a high-priced convenience store or a Walmart. When you begin to have clear responsibilities for your own family though, you begin to become painfully aware of all the money that you are just throwing at the checkout cashier for no reason. There are potential savings there. Saving money on groceries can actually result in meaningful amounts of money put by for something useful.

Saving money on groceries starts at home. You need to make a list of whatever you need for the following week so that you know what route through the store you need to take. Loitering aimlessly around the supermarket can usually bring you up against all kinds of temptation in the form of attractively packaged goods that are quite useless. But there's a lot more that you can do than to merely keep yourself away from temptation.

If you think about it, there is a lot that our financial goals in life and our personal goals in life, have in common. To keep working towards either one of them, we need to restrict ourselves, live our lives and accept never getting to do the things we love. In general, we need to live without joy. And it's easy to put responsible action for our financial goals off indefinitely. Of course, we know that if we keep to those goals, we will be far, far happier. But what we have to go through to get to that happiness is unpalatable.

I actually had a goal or two on my New Year's resolution list from last January. I planned to create a great retirement plan and I planned to put on one single sheet of paper, every single detail about my financial life that there was, so that everything would be easily accessible (that's really important should something happen to both parents and the children are left clueless as to what they have).

Of course, the reason we don't do anything about our financial goals or any other personal goals is that, well, we seem to be doing fine without them right now. It's hard to imagine things could ever not be as good as they are today. And then, there's that old standby – that we don't have the time. Basically, the reason we don't take our financial goals seriously is that there is no penalty right now. If you don't plan for your retirement, the penalty comes decades later. If you don't pay the phone bill now, the penalty comes next Tuesday.

You constantly hear about how people keep cutting back on everything these days because the economy’s bad, jobs are shaky, and so on. In the past, this kind of economic uncertainty has always lead to a drop in the birth rate. It's happened this time too. The newspapers these days are full of reports of how maternity wards in hospitals around the country are running at half capacity. It's a surprise actually, that as much as you keep running across articles that show you how to buy clothes for less, shop for groceries for less and even buy designer shoes for less, you don't see that much about having a baby for less. Well, that's what we’ll talk about right now – what you have to be prepared for if you’re having a baby on a budget – a very modest budget.

Let's start with healthcare. Since lots of mothers have C-sections these days, you can expect your delivery visit should cost quite a bit. And then there are those doctor visits before and after. You should probably be prepared for $15,000 in healthcare expenses alone. And that's for a baby on a budget. If you aren't really, really careful, you could go way over that.

And then, you may have to upgrade your health insurance because it isn't just husband and wife anymore. It's "and baby makes three".

Americans have turned themselves into a hand-to-mouth, paycheck to paycheck people these days. Surveys on the state of the economy have found time and time again that three out of four American workers have to wait anxiously past the third week of every month for the next paycheck to arrive, so that they can spend on some kind of essential. When something essential to spend on turns up in the middle of a month, they have no savings at all to fall back on. This doesn't show that they are irresponsible or anything though – it just shows that our paychecks today are inadequate in the face of a poor economy and rising prices. Retailers are beginning to catch on to how things are now. They know when Americans get their paychecks every month. These days, they're making sure that they time all their monthly sales and promotions to exactly that time of the month.

Which may be a little unfortunate. Americans, by the time a new paycheck arrives, are so fed up of a month of frugality that they rush out and try to get that ol’ feeling back, by spending a lot. With all these monthly sales that retailers dangle in front of them, they happen to be in serious risk of overspending and then sitting broke for the rest of the month.

There are plenty of different strategies you can take start saving some money; but some of the best ways to save money exist online. At one time, before group buying websites and price comparison websites came around, we bought things the only way possible – we would go to store after store, ask friends and relatives, and head for Walmart if there was one close by if we didn't take a principled stand against their business practices. These days getting a good deal shopping for anything works slightly differently. We scour the Internet for the best prices, we look to see if there are any coupons anywhere, and if it's a travel deal that we are looking for, we take a quick look at Priceline to see if there's a mystery hotel available. And oh, to buy gas on the cheap, we check the gas app on our phone.

Certainly, we save some major money this way. Some experts estimate that the average family saves $8000 a year on everyday purchases going online. If there is one problem with all of this, not enough people take advantage of the best ways to save money that the Internet gives them. Here are a few tips.