Monday, September 13, 2010

How To Budget Money - Accurately And Honestly

If you want to know how to get your finances in order and how to budget money, this article is for you.  In order for you to figure out a budget you have to know exactly what you have to work with.  For that reason you need to follow these steps to make a budget that is realistic and that you can stick with.

While it will be important for you to be committed to making your budget work, and that will probably mean making some simple sacrifices and lifestyle changes, it's unrealistic to assume that you will suddenly become this ultra frugal person.  Don't set  yourself up for failure by making your budget too tight.  It's just like a diet, no one will stick to a really strict diet and they will eventually fail, a budget is the same way; if you make it too restrictive you won't stick with it and you will fail.

The first thing you need to do is grab a piece of paper, a pencil, and a calculator.  Next you will make two columns on the paper.  At the top of the first column you will write "Expenses". At the top of the second column you will write "Income". 

Gather up all of your bills and any expenses that you pay on a monthly basis.  Make sure to include everything including spending money and a clothes allowance.  To make sure you've included everything take a look at the last several months of credit card bills and bank statements.

If you have bills that you pay quarterly or yearly just average them out to figure out how much you need to save each month in order to have enough money to pay them when they come due. 

Now that you've got a complete listing of all your ongoing monthly bills, total them up.  This number will be how much you spend every month (of course for most people the amount of money you spend from one month to the next will vary depending on the time of year and other factors, but if you've gathered all your statements this should be a fairly accurate listing of your monthly expenses.)

Next, take all forms of income, this includes your pay from work but also include any form of interest payment you may receive, income from a roommate, etc.  Just like with the expense column, you want your  income column to be as accurate and complete as possible.  Make sure to include your after tax pay.  Total this column.

Now that you've got your Expense and Income columns totaled all you need to do is subtract the expense column from the income column.  If the number you are left with is a positive number than you are doing ok.  That is the amount of money you have left over every month and you can use that money to pay down debt, open a savings account or start investing.

If, on the other hand, you are left with a negative number after you've subtracted your expense column from your income column, you need to make some serious changes to your spending habits.  It's simple math, you are spending more than you are making and unless you can increase your income you will have to decrease your spending.

There you go, three simple steps on how to budget money.  No matter where you are financially right now, you can be in a much better position in a few months if you follow these steps and take control of your money starting today.  Good luck.

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Thursday, September 9, 2010

How Does After Hours Trading Work

If you have asked the question: 'how does after hours trading work' it probably means that you want to start investing but for one reason or another the traditional hours the stock market is open, 9:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, just doesn't work well with your schedule.  The first thing you have to keep in mind before you dive in head first, is that there are a lot of pros and cons with this type of trading and if you don't take some time to learn what you're doing, you could get burned... badly.

Find out all you can about after hours trading and then you can make an informed decision as to whether or not this really is the right way for you to go.

The first thing you want to do, if you don't already know, is to educate your self about stock market investing in general.  There is quite a bit you'll need to learn such as what all the different terminologies mean and how to pick which stocks to invest in by researching the company and it's management to name a few.  This is a step that cannot be skipped otherwise you will lose a lot of money.  Lack of knowledge is the biggest reason people lose so much money when it comes to investing in the stock market. Don't be a patsy, educate yourself first.

When you are deciding on which stocks you want to trade remember that only the NYSE and NASDAQ are traded after hours.  You can make trades on these exchanges from 4:30 p.m. to 6 a.m.  You don't have this option with the American Stock Exchange.

When researching which stocks you want to invest in, try to identify those that have a lot of potential for growth.  Even though after hours trading is a little different than if you were trading during normal stock market hours, you want to still look for solid stocks to invest in.  The fundamentals of investing are the same with after hours as they are with normal hour trading.  One good way to start is to take a look at stocks for companies whose products you use and like, then check out how steady their growth has been and whether or not their debt is low.

You will need to find a broker who offers after hour trading, not all of them do.  Make sure before you choose a broker you know exactly what their fee schedule is and what you will have to pay fees on.  Some brokers have a tendency to 'nickel and dime' you to death.  Make sure you know going in what you'll have to pay fees on.

Since you will get a better price when selling a stock that has a lot of people interested in buying that stock, you will likely make more on your stocks if you trade during normal exchange hours.  One way to protect yourself from the volatility of after hour trading is to place a limit order.

This is a basic overview of  how does after hours trading work.  To make sure your investing doesn't become a nightmare never be afraid to ask questions, and keep asking until you get an answer that makes sense, and educate yourself.  Doing these things will help you achieve more of your investment goals.

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Thursday, September 2, 2010

Home Budget Calculator - Know Your Personal Budget

It's amazing how many of us really don't have a solid picture of what our monthly budget is.  We fall behind on bills and only pay them when the calls start and we never seem to have enough money.  If this describes you there is a simple tool that can help you get your finances in order very quickly, a home budget calculator.  This calculator will enable you to clearly see and identify patterns in your spending habits. Once you've found your habits you can identify weak spots and make the necessary changes.

For the most part, a calculator will allow you to input all your household expenses and your household income and it will show you, in the form of a graph, just where your money is being spent every month and how much, if any, money you have left over every month for investing or saving.

In order to make this work for you it's very important that you not only enter the information accurately, but that you don't forget an expense.  Monthly payments like mortgage payments, car loans, and utilities are pretty easy to remember, but what about dry cleaning bills, school lunches, or gym memberships?  This is where the process can start to fall apart.  Your budget will only be as good as the information you put into your calculator so make sure you take a little time to gather all your expense information together.

You also want to make sure you have an accurate income amount.  For some people who are on salary, this is easy to do.  For many others, though, their pay may change quite a bit from one month to the next which can make it hard to plan ahead (it will still be easy to see where you spent your money in the past month which in itself can be helpful, but it's not much good for planning into the future). 

One thing you can do to overcome that problem is to take several months worth of your income and average it out.  Obviously this won't be completely accurate but it should give a fairly reliable representation of what your monthly income is.

Once you've gotten all your information in the calculator you can run the program to see where exactly you are financially.  Unfortunately for many people, this isn't going to be a fun exercise.  Many people  live off of credit and not really realize just how deep in the hole they actually are.  This can be a real painful wakeup call.

If this describes you, don't give up. Identifying the problem is the first step to fixing it.  Once you see that you are spending more money then you are making it's time to look at your budget to determine where you can save money. 

Most people will immediately think they can't save money since they are only spending their money on the necessities, but in most cases that's not a very accurate assessment.  In order to make your home budget calculator work you will have to be brutally honest with yourself and face the results head on.

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Free Personal Budget Software - Personal Budget Made Easy

Setting up a comprehensive budget is the best way for most people to really see where their money is going and what financial holes they need to plug.  If you're intimidated by the process and think that you'd like to use some free personal budget software there are some things you need to consider first.  Believe it or not, there are several options when it comes to free software, to narrow down your search you need to decide just what features you want in the software.

Are you looking for a software product for a small business or just for your own household use?  For most people, a simple program is all they need to help out with getting their household budget under control. If, on the other hand, you are running a small business there are many more aspects you need to keep track of so you will probably want a little more involved software program.

There can be many elements to finances and what you need will be determined by what financial products you have. For example, if you just have a checking and savings account and some monthly household bills you don't need an elaborate program that will track all your expenses and tie into your investment accounts and stocks.

Once you've decided on the features you are interested in visit some online forums to try and get product information and reviews.  You can also do a search to find free software products and then once you've got the name of a few different programs ask around with friends, family, and online for anyone else who may have used that product and what they thought of it.

Keep in mind, though, that no product is going to have all positive reviews so you may not want to discard a certain product if it has a few bad reviews, instead pay attention to the specific problems that were listed.  The problems others encountered may not affect you at all.

Also, we are talking about a free product so even if you don't like it you don't really have anything to lose.  Checking the feedback on a certain product is just a way to help you streamline the process, but in the end, you can always just move on to another product if they one you chose doesn't work out.

It's easy to think of this type of software as your financial savior, but remember, if after using the software you realize that you spend more money every month than you make, it will be up to you to make the necessary changes.  The software can streamline the process of laying out all your financial information in black and white, but you have to do something with that information.

Use these guidelines to find the best free personal budget software for you and your financial needs.  Using these tools can make the road to financial freedom a little easier to see, you might as well take advantage of all the resources you can get.

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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Family Budget Planner - Get Control Of Your Family Budget

If you're fed up with never being able to get ahead financially and you're ready to take control of your money, making a  family budget planner is the first step.  It's easy to want to avoid this step since it seems like it will be a convoluted pain in the neck.  But the reality is that you can make your budget with three basic steps. 

If you want to invest in some software to help you with this process you certainly can, but for most households they can do it themselves with some paper and a pencil. 

Here are the basic steps you will need to follow to come up with your household family budget:

1. The first step, and the most important, is to gather up all of you debt, your loan payments and your monthly expenses.  Don't forget about the more obscure things either like money for the parking meter, or money for your kids school play costumes.  Try to include every possible expense that you are likely to incur in a month.

Take into consideration bills, such as insurance, that may only be paid quarterly or annually.  For these bills you can average them out over 3 or 12 months to figure out how much you should be putting away every month so you can pay them when they come due. 

Also don't forget to include money for groceries, gas, haircuts, clothes, etc.  If you really want to make sure you don't forget anything go back over  several months of bank and credit card statements,  that should give you an accurate idea of everything you spend your money on.

2.  Make a list of all income sources.  This includes, of course your, income but you also want to include all income from a spouse or a roommate, and if you're getting rent from some source as well as all  other income make sure to include it here.  Also, make sure you include your after tax income.  For this purpose there is no point in including money that you don't actually get.

3. Total everything on your expense list and everything on your income list separately. You want a total number of how much you spend every month and a total number of how much you make every month.  Once you've got those two numbers you will subtract your expenditures from your income.

Hopefully you'll end up with a positive number after you do this step.  If you end up with a negative number it means you are spending more in a month than you earn and it's time to make some changes.

The first thing you will need to do is to look over your expenses carefully to find areas where you can cut back.  While most people don't like to admit it, many of us waste quite a bit of money every month.  Find the areas where you spend more money than you should  and cut it out, or at least cut down.

There you have it, an easy three step process to make your own  family budget planner.  You have to have a clear picture of where you are right now before you can plan on moving ahead.  This should make it much easier.

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Dummies Guide To Investing - Short And Long Of It

A general definition of investing is just buying a product such as stocks or bonds with the purpose of making money on that product.  Obviously the more money you make on any given financial product the better.  The problem is that it's not that simple, there are a lot of things you will need to know if you want to learn to invest successfully.  This article will guide you through some of the basics, think of it as your dummies guide to investing.

The more education you get about investing the better your results will be. Don't try to just dive in but rather take some time to learn what investing is all about. 

You may have heard the expression "don't put all your eggs in one basket".  This refers to the fact that if something happens to your basket all your eggs will be destroyed.  Many people take a similar approach when it comes to their investments.  If you diversify your investments and spread them around with stocks and bonds as well as buying stocks from several different sectors,  you will minimize your risk.

For example, lets say all of the stocks you have in your portfolio are from GM.  What happens if the 'impossible' occurs and GM goes under?  You lose all your investments.  If, on the other hand, you had say only 1/3 of your portfolio in GM and another 1/3 in Microsoft ( a totally different type of company) and 1/3 in General Mills.  Do you see how you have divided up your portfolio not only among different companies but different sectors? None of these three companies makes the same type of product so it's unlikely that they would all have their stock prices fall at the same time.  The is the basic principle of diversification.

Another thing you will need to learn to do is to take the emotion out of investing.  The two biggest reasons people lose money when investing are greed and ignorance.  They see a stock is going up and they think, beyond all logic, that somehow that stock will continue to go up in value.  If they had sold the stock when it was at it's highest, or at least when it was doing very well, they could have made a lot more money instead of staying with it for too long and losing money.

You have to know how to adequately research a company and it's management before you invest in their stock.  This is the number one thing you can do to protect your investment.

This is a basic overview of some of the things you'll need to learn before you can invest successfully in stocks and bonds.  This dummies guide to investing, of course, is only the beginning of all the ins and outs of investing. The best thing you can do for yourself, and your money, is to take time to be actively involved with your investments. Don't just turn it all over to a paid adviser and hope for the best. 

Talk to your advisor on a regular basis, continue to educate yourself and ask your broker questions.  Remember, it's your money and no one is going to be as concerned with it as you are.

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Disadvantages Of Trading Blocs - You Could Lose Money

For anyone who may be new to stock market investing, one of the most difficult things to overcome is all the new terms you'll have to learn. One of the things that you may have heard, and that may have sounded confusing and intimidating, is 'bloc trade'.  You don't have to be intimidated by the term or the concept just make sure that you understand what it means and what the disadvantages of trading blocs are.

These trades are commonly executed by various fund managers and large investment groups  and you don't need to panic and sell every stock you own since these trades are not necessarily indicative of the overall trends in the stock market.

When you think of bloc trades it's a common misconception to think that it either involves a lot of investors or millions of shares, but in reality it only needs to be 10,000 or more shares that are being traded to be considered a bloc.

Even though bloc trades can be done by all kinds of investors, it's usually done by fund manager or an investment group.  Since these types of investors are buying and selling for thousands of clients at one time they do bloc trades often.  While there is on limits on the number of bloc trades that can be done, due to the sheer volume of shares being traded they can be blocked if it seems like the volume of the trade could have a detrimental affect on the market as a whole.

To illustrate what this means here is an example:  lets say that a fund manager wants to sell a million shares but there are only enough buyers for 250,000 shares.  At that point a a market specialist will step in and buy these large blocs to hold for a little while until there are enough buyers for all the shares.  If they didn't do this the price of the stock would plummet since there would be way more supply than demand for the stock.

Since such a big influx of shares from one company can actually have an impact on the market, or 'move the market' it is closely watched by other investors.  If the bloc is bought up by multiple small investors than this is considered to be bad news since the small investors aren't as strong of an influence as the 'big boys'.  If, on the other hand, another big institution buys up the whole bloc it is just considered to be a redistribution of the companies shares and not a big deal.

The major disadvantages of trading blocs is that it can move the whole market if the bloc is big enough and if you are a smaller investor and a big fund manager trades large blocs of the same stocks you own, it will drive down the price of your stock since it will be seen as a potential problem with the company or the future price of the stocks when they are unloaded by the big investment houses.

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5 How To Save Money Tips

In this world of tight budgets and economic uncertainty, the need to find ways to help save money has people scrounging for how to save money tips. It is tempting to find one or two things that will save a household a lot of money, but the best way to do it is by altering several small things. In those areas you might only save a few pennies here and there, but you will find that it is the little things that can add up to a lot. Many of these ways might not be very obvious to you and some might be ideas that will have you scratching your head and asking why you hadn't thought of this earlier. Here are five ideas that fit into that mold.

1- Stop shopping at convenience stores.

Convenience stores are notorious for marking up the price on items significantly compared to grocery stores. If it isn't worth the hassle to go to a grocery store, you probably don't need it anyway.

2- Avoid late fees when paying bills.

Pay your bills on time so that you aren't charged that extra unnecessary amount. If the problem is a lack of organization and forgetting the dates, use a reminder service like Google's calendar feature that can send you a text or email to let you know when due dates are approaching. If you are worried about not having enough funds, call ahead and see about changing the due date or getting an extension.

3- Save your change.

Make it a habit to keep all that pocket change in a jar. Use cash to pay for most things and instead of trying to give the right change, only use the bills. When you get home, drop that coinage in a jar and let it accumulate. You will be surprised at how quickly it adds up.

4- Carpool as much as possible.


You can be doing yourself and others a lot of good when you decide to travel together. It might not be as convenient, but it can help in the long run. Carpooling to work or taking the kids to school are obvious ones to do. You can also get to know your neighbor and coordinate shopping trips.

6- Buy Used or Discounted

You can find a decent collection of clothes and other needs if you will buy used or at discount stores. Shopping at consignment shops or Goodwill will provide you with some good options. Discount stores like TJ Maxx or Marshalls are good places to find good designer clothes for a cheap price. Yard sales are good places to look for things that you need for the home. Discount food stores will give you the most value on food products. The names of the brands may not be familiar, but you won't notice much of a difference in taste or quality.

You can find many more ways to save money, but the keys are to get organized, be disciplined, and learn to sacrifice. There won't be many how to save money tips that will save you much money on their own, but using several together will net you the results that you want.

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