The Budget Author Blog – Eliminating Debt, Budgeting, Investing, and Couponing

My two year old will often ask this phrase after putting on her own makeup, getting dressed in a new outfit, or wearing a new hair bow. “You like me?” she asks, and I always make sure she knows just how much I really do.

I can’t help but think about how innocent and real (and precious) her question is. Once you’re all grown up and adult-like, you don’t go around asking others “you like me?”

…Or do you?

“You like my new car?”

“You like my house?”

“You like my clothes?”

“You like my designer sunglasses?”

“How ’bout my boat?”

“You like me?”

I’m reminded of a quote that my favorite youth pastor used to reference often. It went something like: “We spend a lifetime buying things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like.”

You know your limits, and you know if you’re where you want/need to be with your personal finances. Your neighbors don’t know, your family doesn’t know, nor do your friends. And if they did know, “the ones that matter don’t mind and the ones that mind don’t matter.”

Isn’t that true?

I think so.

I’m always looking for creative ideas and new things I can do with my kids, especially during the summer when HOT is an understatement. If that new thing is also a low-cost thing, what could be better?

I recently came across this recipe for homemade aromatherapy play dough. If you know 2 year olds, you know that not much captures their attention for long. But my 2 year old is fascinated with the stuff. There’s also a gluten-free recipe here.

It was super easy to make, and I was impressed with how well it turned out. Weeks later it’s still soft and in great condition. My kids have completely mixed all colors together, which does nothing but make my ocd tendencies go wild. I’ll just work on that, I suppose. It’s a beautiful, low-cost rainbow of fun. Or something.

According to recent studies, employees are spending as much as 30% of their workweek dealing with personal financial issues. 43% of employees said it is difficult to meet their household expenses each month. Financial stress in the workplace is rampant, and it’s costing employers as much as $7,000 a year per employee as a result.

The Budget Author has the tools necessary to help bring clarity back to the workplace, easing the financial stresses of employees so that they can focus on their work. We partner with employers to offer customized benefit packages to to assist individuals in managing their personal finances.

If you know of a company or organization who would benefit from our services, please let us know! We book lunch and learns, schedule monthly hours for on-site coaching, and help employees with the overwhelming stress of personal finance management.

I’m reminded often that numbers don’t lie. It all adds up. The cars, the house, the school loans, the things that make us feel comfortable, happy, or even impressive to others. Some will spend their whole lives mismanaging money and ignoring debt – but it all adds up. Whether you want to take control of your finances (or not) is your choice. But regardless of that choice, regardless of whether you decide to calculate your debt, re-evaluate your spending, make a plan (or not) – it all adds up.

The fascinating thing is that people go into more and more debt each month because they’re afraid to add it up. Here’s the formula: {Income} minus {savings/expenses/necessities/wants/every dollar spent} equals {zero}. It’s as simple as a balance sheet. Designate every dollar to something, and have a plan before your month begins.

How does it add up in your world?

Today, we are thrilled to arrive at our one year mark! It’s hard to believe just how fast these 12 months flew by us. A huge (and very sincere) thank you goes out to all of our clients, our friends, our network, and our family members. We know for sure that the budget author wouldn’t be where it is today without your support.

As we move into our second year, we are excited to continue to grow.  We plan to build our team of coaches, continue with fun, money-saving workshops, and overall increase the number of families we are able to help with the daily challenges of money management.

Let us know how we can continue to help you. We always welcome your ideas, suggestions, and questions!  (And we’re really gonna work on blogging MORE.)

Happy one year!

Tonight we’re doing something a little different with our college budgeting workshop. Most young people coast through high school and college without an ounce of personal finance training, and that’s honestly a travesty. Even business students spend more time on corporate finance than they do about learning how to manage their own money, and it’s not their fault.

High schools and colleges totally overlook personal finance as an important subject. But it’s not the fault of the schools either. If schools aren’t going to teach out, then parents need to take the initiative to teach their children the important of managing their money properly, minimizing debt, and saving for the future. One great lesson you can teach your child before they go off to school is that they can make money without having a job at a fast-food restaurant. They can make money as entrepreneurs without spending a dime on start-up costs. Here are only five of many example of side businesses college students can start to help pay for college expenses and minimize student loan debt.

Tutoring. If you’re REALLY good in a certain subject, chances are that a lot of other people WON’T be good at it. Charge $20 an hour and do personal tutoring. All you need to do is put ads on Craigslist, your schools intranet wherever appropriate, and make some business cards for less than $10. if you’re web savvy, you could start a website with a blog and start writing articles that include free information about the subject you tutor. This’ll help build credibility with those who are thinking about getting help.

Freelance web work. If you’re tech savvy, you can build websites, write programs, write mobile apps, do graphic design, or even set up a Facebook or Twitter page for a small business.  This is all stuff that just takes a little bit of word-of-mouth and guerilla marketing to get your name out there and start getting some clients.

eBay and Craigslist. When I was in college, it was still pretty easy to sell just about anything on eBay and still make a profit.  Now, it’s been so oversaturated with large corporations pumping out auction listings that it’s much tougher for the amateurs to make money doing it.  If you want to go the eBay and/or Craigslist route, you have to find a niche product that you can easily obtain large quantities of and has a decent demand on eBay.  Do that and you can easily make $500 to $1000 a month selling on eBay.

Baby/House Sitting – Watching other people’s kids doesn’t have to stop when you leave high school.  In fact, many people trust college students more, so they’ll love hiring you for babysitting or even pet and/or housesitting for the weekend.

Window Washing – You’d be surprised how many small businesses around town will pay decent money to have their windows washed.  Businesses with prominent road frontage can’t look dingy, it’s bad for business, and their windows get the dirtiest, the quickest.  I had a friend in college who made decent money doing this with just 4 or 5 business accounts.  One of them was Chipotle and they paid him in free burrito coupons, which isn’t a bad deal for a poor college student.

There are plenty of other ideas, can you think of any? If you’re going into college or in college right now, just know that you have PLENTY of opportunities to make money and you don’t have to buy groceries and rent with student loans.

One of the things I hate paying the most are bank and credit card fees.  They are so unnecessary, and they already make money off of customers in SO many other ways.  Bank and credit card fees are profit centers for banks, and that’s why they nickel and dime us to death, because those nickels and dimes equal billions of dollars in revenue for them each year.

Our goal at The Budget Author is to help you save money in all areas of your life, and some people literally spend hundreds of dollars on fees throughout the year, but that money could be invested into growth stock mutual funds and turned into thousands of dollars over the long term.  Here are some common fees and how you can avoid them.

• Overdraft Fees: The BEST way to avoid these is to put together a solid monthly budget and stick to that budget.  If you follow the budget and allocate money to certain expenses each month, you’re much less likely to overdraft your checking account.  Our workshop series helps you create a budget and STICK TO IT! Another good way to avoid these $25 fees is to link your savings account to your checking account, and the fee is usually $5 to $7 instead of $25 if you overdraft. If you do get an overdraft fee, many banks will waive the fee if it is the first time that you overdrafted.
• Annual Fees: Simply avoid any bank account or credit card that offers annual fees.  This is 2010, and there are PLENTY of financial bank accounts and credit cards that don’t have annual fees, just do your research.
• Balance Transfer Fees: 0% credit card offers are great, especially if you’re trying to get out of credit card debt.  Simply transfer over your existing balances to the 0% card and save a bundle in interest while paying off the debt.  Except, credit card companies will try to slap a 3 to 5% balance transfer fee on you which acts as pre-paid interest.  This takes a little negotiating skill, but if you call the company and sit on the phone with them for a while and let them know that you really want to become their customer but you won’t unless they waive the balance transfer fee, you might get the right person on the phone who will do it.
• Inactivity Fees: These fees are ridiculous.  If it’s a bank account that you never use, just close it out.  The same goes for credit cards. Some of you have heard that it’s better to keep the card open so it doesn’t ding your credit score.  Don’t worry about the 10 points you’ll lose on your credit score.  Worry about the fees they might rack up on you without your knowledge and the next thing you know, they’ve thrown it to collections without telling you and your credit is dinged even worse.  I say this coming from experience, it’s happened to me before!

The bottom line is to just be smart and use common sense with bank accounts and credit cards.  There’s no reason to pay all of these extra fees.  It adds up, so be aware of your various accounts and stay on top of them.  Do this, and you’ll find that you have a lot more money left over at the end of the month for savings and paying off debt.

photo credit: vipez

Hiring a financial professional can be a daunting task, because like a mechanic or an electrician, you just don’t know who to trust anymore. It’s natural to feel skeptical about financial advisors, because many of them are salespeople that call themselves financial planners or financial advisors. First, you should figure out if you need a financial advisor or a financial counselor. A trusted financial advisor may have the ability to sell you financial products as well as give you financial counseling, but again, you must be a little more cautious with these types of professionals, because their commission may get in the way of your best interest.

Financial counselors or financial coaches typically do not offer financial products, and we concentrate more on helping you make wise financial decisions and helping you map out a financial plan that will set you up to become wealthy. A financial coach will help equip you to make the right decisions about which financial products to purchase so that you are educated when you do go to visit a stock broker or insurance agent. There are many fee-based financial planners, counselors, and/or coaches out there, but they are obviously not all the same. Here are a few qualities to look for when looking for the right financial professional to help you:

1. Their personal convictions. Make sure you ask them why they got into this business. It will tell a lot about that person.
2. Their training.  They don’t need a complete, formal training, but they should be up on the latest financial information.  Ask them what they read on a daily basis and what conferences they attend.
3. Their personal financial situation. Obviously, you can’t get too personal, but if your big goal is to get out of debt and their still in debt, that’s probably a fair question to ask.
4. Their personal skills. Do you get a good vibe from that person?  Are they easy to talk to?  Personal skills are extremely important, because you’re going to be sharing your life with this person.  You need someone who’s a good conversationalist, not someone who just spouts off information to you.
5. Can they relate to you? Some of the best financial coaches and planners are able to relate to you because they used to be in the same situation.  Dave Ramsey is a great financial coach because he went bankrupt and lost everything before the age of 30.  He really knows how people feel when they are hurting financially because he was there, too.

Here at The Budget Author, we’re big advocates of educating yourself about personal finance, and that’s why we write this blog and have our seminars.  We want to give you every opportunity to learn how to make good financial decisions, but sometimes your situation may require more attention, and that’s why we offer different personal coaching options at a very low cost. Contact us if you’d like to set up a start-up session.

We often focus on eliminating one-time expenses like a shopping spree, the occasional Starbucks latte, or that new LCD TV, but we tend to neglect the monthly bills that we’re paying every single month. Companies love collecting monthly fees from you, and one of their key strategies is to make that amount small enough so that you don’t notice it too much. $29.95 doesn’t sound like much at all, but $360 over the year sounds like a lot. You wouldn’t pay $360 up front for a lot of the services that you pay $30 for on a monthly basis. Here’s a list of five bills that you can eliminate today without noticing too much and save a TON of money.

Your Land Line Phone

I know there are still many of you who are old school and like having a land line, but with the improved technology of cell phone reception and plans with virtually unlimited long distance calling on nights and weekends, the land line has lost a lot of luster. Now voice-over IP phones that work over an internet connection are becoming big and they offer unlimited features and long distance calling for under $25 a month. Many traditional land lines with all of the features and a long distance plan can run $30 to $50 a month. Let’s face it, the only people that call you on your land line now are telemarketers and your parents.

Total Possible Savings: Up to $600

Your Gym Membership

I know, you have good intentions of going to the gym, but I’ve realized that when I look around the gym, the majority of the people are young, single people and older, semi-retired people. Very few 30-something and 40-something mothers and fathers with jobs are in the gym very often. It’s because we don’t have time, and that’s okay. There are plenty of other great ways to get exercise like jogging, long walks, riding your bike, and buying two sets of dumbbells. There are so many great workouts you can do at home with a couple of sets of dumbbells and doing some push-ups and sit-ups. The average full-service gym membership runs about $40 per month.

Total Estimated Savings = Up to $480 or $960 for a couple with two memberships

Your Extended Cable

You’ll hear a lot of financial planners tell people to get rid of their cable. That’s fine, but I’ll be real with you, there’s something very relaxing about sitting on the couch and watching your favorite mindless TV show. It’s a release we all need sometimes, and cable is nice to have for sports fans, as well. However, I do think it’s a little ridiculous to see just HOW much people pay for their cable. Many families pay for the premium cable packages with movie channels and/or premium sports packages and they end up paying $75 to $80, rather than $45 to $50 per month. Get rid of those premium cable plans.

Total Estimated Savings = Up to $360

Your Home Warranty

Home warranties seems nice, but you probably pay $400 to $500 a year for them, and most of them still carry a $100 deductible for any claim that you make. Plus, they very rarely replace anything, and do mostly just repairs. They can be a lifesaver in rare instances, but getting rid of the home warranty can be a good way to save some money. To combat not having a home warranty, have a fully-funded emergency fund to help you with unexpected house expenses.

Total Estimated Savings = $500

Supplemental Insurance Policies

A supplemental insurance policy would be something like an accidental policy or short-term disability. Again, you can eliminate up to $300 to $500 per year by eliminating these policies from your benefits package and save up a large emergency fund to help fund unexpected deductibles or other out-of-pocket expenses.

Total Estimated Savings = $400

Get rid of these bills, and you could save roughly $2300 per year! That’s over $20,000 over a 10 year period! I’ve even listed bills that you wouldn’t even notice that much not to have anymore. So, what do you think, are you ready to save some money?

I cannot tell y’all how much I love Rachel Keller’s handcrafted, fine chocolates.  If you’ve been to one of our summer series coupon workshops, you’ve been able to taste these amazing, low-calorie (ha!) treats.  It’s all I can do not to eat (way) more than one per workshop.  They taste better than any other chocolate I’ve tasted, and I’m really hooked for life.

You can check them out at the Lawrenceville Farmer’s Market every Saturday through September 27th from 8 am to 1 pm.  Or – you can sign up for our August 25th workshop & we’ll reserve a couple just for you.

Here’s a great coupon for a free 4 piece box when you order a 24 piece box at regular price. Perfect for baby & bridal showers, birthdays, & more!

You can also check out their site & order HERE.

Enjoy!