Category: Budgeting (Page 4 of 5)

Don’t Allow A Vacation Scam To Drain Your Bank Account

June 15, 2012 / Staff

On a day to day basis, you have to worry about keeping tabs on your bank account, juggling bills and budgeting all of your expenses. If you have a family, you can go ahead and increase this responsibility and scrutiny tenfold. Since a vacation isn’t a necessity, and is meant only to benefit you as a leisure expense, the last thing you want to do is drain your bank account with these trips unnecessarily.

Unfortunately, vacations also typically aren’t cheap. For this reason, you’ll want to do your homework and make sure you aren’t getting scammed when you book your trip. Your bank account depends on it.

Photo Courtesy of Geograph

Above All, Shop Around

There’s no excuse these days to not look for travel deals before paying full price, especially if money is tight. Check with the reputable travel clubs and discount sites to see what kinds of prices they’re offereing before booking that hotel or resort. If you’ve never shopped with a particulare site before, be sure to check out their travel club BBB ratings to make sure they’re legitimate and to see what complaints, if any, have been filed against them.

Join a Travel Club

A travel club is a promotional organization that requires a membership fee to join and gives its members access to discounts and vacation deals. If you’re a frequent traveler, this option definitely makes sense because it will save you some money in the long run. Since you’re giving them your hard earned money, you’ll want to make sure they’re reputable. Once again, look up their travel club BBB ratings before making a decision.

See What Others Are Saying

Whether you’re researching a travel club, discount site or the vacation itself, you’ll want to cover your bases because travel scams are prevalent. Go to travel review sites and see what travelers are saying about the hotel or resort. If they’re saying that it wasn’t worth the money or that the travel brochures are falsely advertising features, there’s a good chance the hotel may not be reputable. These are the same types of businesses that will overcharge you for things or worse, attach mysterious charges to your card. While such charges can always be disputed, it can be a time consuming, slow process if the scam occured in another country. Doing your research ahead of time will cut down on this potential heart break and save you some trouble.

Budgeting

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Research will help you with mortgages

January 30, 2012 / Staff

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the financial crisis, you have to do your own research. You can’t rely on anyone else these days. It’s a shame, but that the fact. Ratings agencies, mortgage brokers and bankers have all shown that they only care about themselves.

Fortunately, we have the new Financial Consumer Protection Bureau, but it will take a while before all their regulations kick in. So get informed by going online. Learn about the interest rates and other factors that will help you with mortgages, refinancings, foreclosure and other issues. Compare Natwest Mortgages quotes online on Know Your Money. You are such a better position if you’ve done your own research ahead of time. People in this industry throw around jargon and numbers to confuse you, so make sure you also take your time.

You don’t have to make decisions on the spot! Keep that in mind. It’s always acceptable to say that you want to go back and do more research. If anyone pressures you, it’s probably because it’s not a great deal. If is sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

Lastly, figure out your real budget before you start shopping. Many people don’t do this and then they get into trouble.

Banking, Budgeting, Deals, Frugality, Personal Finance

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Savings rate down

November 29, 2011 / Staff

Here’s some interesting news on the national savings front.

The nation’s savings rate has dwindled as consumers try to juggle rising prices and stagnant wages.
According to government data released Wednesday, the national savings rate was 3.5 percent in October, a slight improvement from the previous month but significantly below the 5 percent rate seen for most of the past two years. During the throes of the recession, the savings rate had skyrocketed above 8 percent.
“They spent it. That’s the short answer,” said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist for Capital Economics. “It might be a lot of households don’t have a choice.”
Economists blamed higher gas and commodities prices for sending the savings rate to its lowest point since 2007. After remaining virtually flat in 2010, the consumer price index inched up this year as prices rose for essential products such as cotton and corn. Although consumers received bigger paychecks this year thanks to a payroll tax holiday, many found that the extra money was eaten up by increased fuel costs.

Another item to consider is that frugality is becoming less popular. Of course people are still looking for deals, but overall spending is up. We just had a record Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so people are flocking to the stores. Unemployment is still high, but more people perhaps are secure in their jobs after years of downsizing slows down.

Budgeting, Frugality, Personal Finance, Retirement, Saving

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Where are we spending our money?

October 28, 2011 / Staff

With the Great Recession, the spending habits of Americans is changing. We’re spending more on things like fruits and vegetables, and less on vices like smoking. Here’s an interesting chart from The Economist on consumer spending.

Budgeting, Frugality

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Bad investments plague many athletes

October 9, 2011 / Staff

We’ve been hearing these stories for years. Professional athletes make millions of dollars, and then they end up broke and/or bankrupt. These are cautionary tales even for the average investor.

Here’s an interesting article that details bad investments by athletes. One of the recurring themes involves investing in businesses. Investing in the business of another person is usually not the way to invest your money. Many businesses fail, and if that happens you lose all of your investment.

Also, if you’ve made a lot of money, you should be more interested in preserving what you’ve earned. Don’t get greedy on risky get rich ideas – you’re already rich!

Few people think about what they can lose when they make these kinds of investments. Read the article and you’ll get an idea of what types of investments you should avoid.

Budgeting, Investing, Personal Finance

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