Archive for the ‘Money Saving Ideas’ Category

A lot of people do not know how truly important it is to check their credit report. Your credit report should be checked at least every two years no matter if you have been using your credit or not. According to research at least 52% of all credit reports have some kind of error on them. If you do not check your credit report you may be giving people the wrong impression when they go to look at it.

A good example of this is a story about my sister. When she separated ways with her previous employer she filed for unemployment. After filing she got a letter in the mail a few days later that told her the amount she was going to receive was based on her previous job that was listed on her credit report. Well, the job that the credit agencies had on her credit report was a student worker job she had in college. The job she was working at was a much higher paying job, and she would have been eligible to receive more money if she would have checked her credit report regularly and been able to see what was on it.

A lot of people are facing tough times and being threatened to be laid off from their current job at any minute. If you do not want to end up like her get a Free Credit Report and make sure that all of the things listed on it are true and current. This may make a world of difference if you are trying to get unemployment, buy a house, car, or any other major purchase that may require for someone to check your credit report beforehand.

In the next post we will be discussing some of the ugly things that are on your credit report and how you can get them taken off without having to pay someone to do it for you. That’s right. You can do the same things that these big companies are doing yourself. Come back and get some valuable information that will save you a lot of time and money.

So you want to drive free cars? We in America love our cars. Where else do you think you can pull up and see a couple that is flat broke with two new cars in the drive way. The problem is our mindset. We have been taught that if we get a car we will have a payment that is due every month. The auto industry has beaten us into submission. When our cars start to show a little bit of wear we just run off to the dealer and sign over another $30,000 for a new car. Car payments are just a way of life right? Wrong.

That’s the normal way that everyone thinks. When you want the truth, the normal way of thinking about how we pay for our cars is damaging our chances for financial success.

Statistics show that about one-third of all car buyers sign up for a car loan with an interest rate of about 9.6%. Among these buyers the average price of the vehicle is about $26,000. That means that out of all of the cars you see driving down the road about one-third of them have a $475 car payment they have to pay every month.

Car dealers’ are sneaky too. They won’t tell you that the $26,000 car you just bought lost 25% of its value as soon as you drove it off the lot. After about 4 years that $26000 car you bought loses 70% of its value, and you still have to make payments on it for two more years!

That means that after six years you have paid $33,000 for your $26,000 car which is no worth about $6,000 if you are lucky.

This is the point where normal thinking gets you in trouble. The normal consumer would just run right out and sign over another $26,000 for another car. Thus, setting off a cycle of more $475 payments.

What if we stopped right there, put our foot down and said enough? What if we decided to stop sending off all of those $475 payments and started paying ourselves instead. What if we went really crazy and came up with a plan to make our money start working for us instead of the car dealers, finance companies, and banks.

According to the statistics if the average car payment is $475 a month right? Let us think outside of the box for a second. You want a brand new car and most likely that is what your payment is going to be. The car you are driving now is worth around $1500.

If you take that $475 payment that you were going to pay the car dealer and pay yourself with it. In ten months you will have $4750.00. Add that money to the $1500 that your car is worth and you will be able to pay $6250.00 cash for a car. That is a major upgrade in a car in just ten months you went from driving a car that was $1500 to a car that is worth $6250.00! The best part you don’t owe the bank or the finance company a dime! It’s yours free and clear.

Are you having fun yet? Let’s keep going and see what other cars we can get! If you keep saving the $475 every month then in another ten months you would have another $4750.00 right? Chances are by that time you can still sell your $6250 car for about what you paid for it. That means you can take that $6250 add it to the $4750 that you have saved up and pay cash for an $11,000 car! That could be you in just twenty months from today!

Wow! You just went from driving a $1500 car twenty months ago and now look at you in an $11,000 car! Aren’t you proud! You were fixing to go sign over $26,000 of your money for the next six years. Instead you are sitting in an $11,000 car and you could still have four more years of payments left at this point. You want to go a step further?

Okay. You are sitting in an $11,000 car; you have been paying yourself a $475 car payment every month for twenty months now. You don’t owe the bank or car dealer a dime. You are doing good for yourself.

So, just for fun let’s go a step further with our plan. Your $11,000 car should last you for quite a while. Let’s take that $475 payment that you have been paying yourself and put it into a mutual fund for the next 52 months and see what happens.

Now, we are six years into the future. You would have just now finished paying for that $26,000 car that you needed six years earlier. Now it doesn’t look as good and you want to upgrade to another car. You end up looking around until you find that perfect car and start the payment cycle all over again right? Wait we have a new plan now don’t we. We have our $11,000 car that is paid for, but it has just about worn out its welcome and it is time to get something new.

It’s no problem you have your mutual fund that you have been paying those $475 car payments to for the past 52 months. Do you know how much you have saved up by now? At the stock market average of about 12% you would have about $32,000.00 in there.

Here’s the part where I don’t want to lose you. If you go buy a car for $12,000 out of that $32,000 in your mutual fund you would still have $20,000 left in it earning you 12% interest. Do you know what that means? Even if you never add another dollar to your mutual fund you would still be able to buy $14,000-$18,000 cars every 5 years from now on. The interest you will be earning on your mutual fund will pay for your cars for the rest of your life. That’s Free Cars! You will never have to worry about another car payment for the rest of your life.

Do you know what that can do? Do you know what your car payments are costing you? If you take that $475 and invest it in a mutual fund every month then at the end of ten years you will have $100,000! In twenty years you will have about $470,000! At thirty years it would be $1.6 million dollars! At forty years that car payment that you were going to pay for the rest of your life could be worth $5,588,385! Do you think you can retire on that I know I could.

I love cars, but I have never seen one worth $5,588,385! This one decision about a car can dramatically change your life forever. You can drive free cars and retire a millionaire! What’s stopping you? Try something different with your life and your decisions.

There are thousands of people every day who go out and get a payday loan. They think the people making the loan are doing them a favor and that they are their friend. This is simply not true. Yes, the people at the payday loan place are nice to their customers, but that is only because they want the customer’s money.

How big of a favor are you really doing yourself by getting a payday loan? Sure, times are tough and the need to borrow money may be high right now, but you can make it through these tough times without being ripped off. You are writing these people a check for two hundred and twenty five or two hundred and fifty dollars just to borrow two hundred dollars for one week. Many people do no know this, but that is six hundred and fifty percent interest! Is that something you really want to be paying?

Fortunately there is a better way than getting a payday loan. Setting up a budget and sticking to it will help you to not only get out of debt, but it will also help you to have money when those unexpected expenses arrise. If you will take the time and stay focused on your financial goals you can be debt free and never have to worry about getting a loan again. You will be able to pay for everything in cash, and have the money to retire when it comes time. Budgeting is very important to having financial success.

Every year there are thousands of companies that spend millions of dollars on marketing to try to sell to us (the consumers). They spend a lot of energy and money to get us to buy their products. They come up with good commercials, magazine advertisements, and websites to sell us their products. We as consumers get too caught up in buying mode. They sell, sell, sell and we buy, buy, buy. Unfortunately some people buy themselves into debt. If we are ever going to get out of debt we must learn to just say no to these companies.It’s that simple.

One of the biggest ways that we spend or waste our money is by letting sales people talk us into buying things we do not need. These companies spend millions of dollars teaching and training people on how to deal with customers and how to talk us into buying their product. These people have a way to suck you right in to buying a product that you do not need or cannot afford. Although it may seem like one this is not a game to them. It is the way they make their living and they know that if they let us walk away without doing all they can to sell us something they are taking money out of their mouth and the mouths of their family.

We need to wake up and stop buying all of this stuff! When we sit down and think things through before purchasing something we will make much better decisions. We must also have the discipline it takes in order to tell a salesperson no. We must realize that this person only wants to sell you something because it is their job. They do not care how we are going to use a product or service they still want to sell it to us so they can make money.

If we learn to just say no when we are pressured to buy things, to sit down and think out our purchases more, and to stay disciplined and focused we can get out of debt and stay out of debt. If we do not get caught up in buying every thing that is pitched to us our finances and money situation will look a lot better. Give it a try and see how much extra money you have just by knowing what you want to buy and saying no to the rest.

We should all beware when a company tells us we can pay zero down and get interest free financing for 90 days. First off, we should stop right there and ask how a company would be able to make it in this tough economy if they did not charge any interest. That should be our first clue that there is something going on. This is happening everywhere and sad to say that a lot of people are falling for it and not even realizing what a horrible deal they are making.

How this zero down scam works is a company gets you in the door by offering you no down payment and interest free financing for 90 days. As soon as you (the customer) signs the contract the company sells it to a finance company at a discounted rate. They can afford to sell it at a discounted rate because they have already marked the product up enough to still make a normal profit. What ends up happening next is the part that most consumers never seen coming.

When the consumer fails to pay off the product in ninety days the finance company starts charging the consumer the maximum amount of interest on their payment each month. Plus they go back in and add the interest from the ninety days because the loan is only interest free if it is paid off within the ninety days. Then what they do is put all of the interest in the front of the payment schedule, put the conumer on a longer payment schedule than they originally were on, and charge a big fee if the loan is paid off early.

People get scammed like this by companies all the time. The biggest piece of advice one can get in this situation is to do what you have always heard. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” We as consumers need to start looking at the deals we think we are getting from the companies where we buy things. There is always something that goes along with every deal that sounds too good to pass up. Zero down sounds like a great deal but before you go out and make that deal take a look at what may happen if you fail to meet the terms of the contract.

In today’s economy we are all looking for new ideas to save money. For some reason when people are thinking of ways to be thrifty they look over some of these things, so we thought we would post them on this page so that you can take advantage of them and have more money left over at the end of the month to pay down your personal debt.

You will need to try to use all of these ideas and others that you think of in order to save a whole lot of money. However, just one of these ideas can add up to some significant savings for you and your family. The ideas to save money are listed below:

• Eliminate premium channels on cable or eliminate cable altogether. Every cable and satellite company has these premium channels that they add to your subscription on sign up usually. You may have even opted to sign up for these premium channels when you thought you could afford it, but now that you are on a budget drop the premium channels or drop your service altogether. You will save a lot of money by doing this.
• If you have a cellphone eliminate your land line. There is no use in having a cell phone and a land line both if you are trying to save money. Chances are if you have a cell phone nobody really ever calls you on your land line anyway.
• Do not buy bottled water. Instead, buy a filter that you can put on your sink and make your own bottled water. A bottle of water cost a little over a dollar almost everywhere. If you install your own water filter then you will be able to save a ton of money.
• If you have cable,phone, and internet service that you are paying for separately you should get them all bundled together. By doing this you will save yourself a lot of money. There is most likely a service such in your area that offers these packages.
• If you live in an area that offers trash pick-up that you have to pay for. Don’t use the service! Take your own trash to the dump. Trash hauling services can be very expensive, and it is a service that you are able to do for yourself. If for some reason you are unable to take your own trash to the dump and you have to use one of these services try to find a competitor in the area. Find out if the competitor offers a lower rate or will do it for a lower rate. If they give you a lower price and you like the company that you are with currently ask them if they will match the price. If they say no then go to the competitor, but if they say yes then you win too. It’s a win either way you look at it, and you will save money.
• Do not buy books or movies. Instead, go to your local library and check out the books that you want to read. They will also have some movies that you may be interested in viewing. This saves plenty of money if you usually buy books and movies.
• Wait until the end of the season and buy your clothes for next year. You can get steals on clothes if you wait until the end of the season. That is when the department store is trying to sell the clothes for the current season and they are in a hurry to move the clothes out for the season that just ended. You can usually get clothes for 25%-40% of the original price. You can also check the clothing exchange stores in your area. They usually have some great clothes that are sometimes new or slightly worn. You can get a huge discount and save money by doing this.
• Eat out less. Start going to the grocery store and buying meals to prepare. It is getting way too expensive to eat out these days, and you can wind up spending more money on food than you have in your budget. If you prepare your meals at home you can save the left over food and make other meals using what you did not eat. You can save a ton of money by grocery shopping instead of eat out.
• Have a garage sale. Go through your house and get together all of the stuff that you do not use in your house. Check the weather for a weekend that is going to be sunny,post signs, and sell all of your stuff. Then you can use the money that you make to pay down personal debt. Do not go celebrate by buying even more useless stuff to clutter up your house. Pay off a bill or something on your personal debt sheet.

There you have it. There are plenty of ideas to save money that you can start using right now. You will notice that you have a lot of extra money left over at the end of the month if you do these things. Use that money to begin paying down your personal debt on your personal debt sheet.

We will be posting information on how to create a personal debt sheet and its uses on another page. Be sure to check it out as this information will come in very handy for you, and you will use your personal debt sheet to get yourself out of debt in a short period of time.

If you have any ideas to save money that you would like to share with us, please feel free to contact us. If we like them we will post them on our site, so that everyone can take advantage of them and save money the way you are.

For more information on saving money check out this wonderful ebook it is jam packed with all of the information you need to be sucessful at your budget and you can save money by using the information inside of it. Click Here to download your copy today!