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5 Fashion Challenges to Mix Up Your Wardrobe & Save Money

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:30:30 +0000

Have you ever heard of a fashion challenge? They’re tasks that bloggers, fashionistas, or anyone sick and tired of their wardrobe can use to stretch new limits, try new trends, and make old items look new again. When I first heard about fashion challenges, I loved the idea. It’s an amazing way to restyle the 5 Fashion Challenges to Mix Up Your Wardrobe & Save Money is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog .

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5 Fashion Challenges to Mix Up Your Wardrobe & Save Money

Why Sitting Is Bad for You – 6 Tips to Move More & Improve Health

Fri, 18 May 2012 12:15:14 +0000

Think about how much time you spend each day sitting down. You may sit down throughout the entire working day at a desk in front of a computer. You sit during your commute to and from work. And you sit when you’re watching TV in the evening, or surfing the web. ABC News reports that Why Sitting Is Bad for You – 6 Tips to Move More & Improve Health is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog .

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Why Sitting Is Bad for You – 6 Tips to Move More & Improve Health

Carnivals for the Week of May 14

Fri, 18 May 2012 08:19:00 +0000

Here are some of the carnivals Free Money Finance was in this week: EDITOR’S CHOICE! Festival of Frugality Carnival of Personal Finance Totally Money Blog Carnival Financial Simplicity Carnival Enjoy! P.S. Carnival Hosts — If my post is in your carnival in a given week, please send me the URL to the carnival and I will include it in my weekly roundup.

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Carnivals for the Week of May 14

How to Save Money on Gas for Your Car – 20 Easy Ways

Thu, 17 May 2012 19:40:42 +0000

It’s no secret that the price of gas is continually rising. According to data from the Energy Information Administration, the national average for a gallon of regular gas in mid-January 2009 was $1.83. Three weeks later, the price was $3.44, and in 2012, the average price exceeds $4.00 in some areas. With no estimated date in How to Save Money on Gas for Your Car – 20 Easy Ways is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog .

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How to Save Money on Gas for Your Car – 20 Easy Ways

30 Steps to Great Finances: Steps 5 and 6

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:45:00 +0000

I have only shared the first few steps to great finances, but hopefully you are already feeling more in control of your money. So far, we have covered the following: Step #1: Know your net worth step Step #2: Record your spending for a month Step #3: Develop a cash flow plan Step #4: Grow your career by over-delivering If you haven’t completed any of those steps, do so before continuing on with this post’s steps. Today we are going to continue to focus on your career and ways to make more money with it because, repeat after me, the more money you make, the more you can increase the all-important gap between what you spend and what you earn. The greater the (positive) gap, the more potential you have to build wealth. While over-delivering is a key part of growing your career, it is only one piece of the puzzle. Steps 5 and 6 include two more important pieces: Step 5: Grow Your Career – Develop and Expand Your Network Many people think about growing their network when they need something (like a job lead), but this approach isn’t productive. Instead, you must grow your network before you need it — so it’s ready when you do need help. This is what I did, and it landed me the best job of my career . Here are some ways to grow your network: Take business contacts out to lunch once or twice a week and make time to connect. Get involved in activities that you already enjoy and socialize while you are there ( examples : charity committees, church activities, recreational leagues, etc.) Talk to people you meet every day while waiting in line for coffee or dropping your kid off at school. The more people you can connect with, the bigger your network. Don’t forget online resources such as LinkedIn , Facebook, Twitter, and maybe even your own blog. Approach your network with the intention of being a giver — a resource that will help others out. Then when you’re in need, your network will be there for you. Step 6: Grow Your Career – Become Likeable Here is the hard truth—you may be doing a great job at work, but if you aren’t likeable, you may not be getting the raises and recognition you deserve . The good news is that you can become more likeable . Yes, experts have developed a list of what makes a person likeable . So simply follow it and you’ll be set. Ok, it isn’t that easy. But let’s face it, being likeable is pretty much common sense. We all know how we like to be treated, right? So simply act that way towards others and you should get most of the way home in the likeability category. That’s it for this time around. I’ll be back with the next steps in a few days, so stay tuned…

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30 Steps to Great Finances: Steps 5 and 6

How to Stop Fighting About Money With Your Spouse

Thu, 17 May 2012 12:15:38 +0000

Money is among the top reasons for martial strain and divorce, and those of us who are married understand why. Think about your single years: You had complete control over your finances and your bank account. Fast-forward to combining your finances with your spouse, and it’s easy to see why arguing about finances can put How to Stop Fighting About Money With Your Spouse is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog .

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How to Stop Fighting About Money With Your Spouse

My Repeatable Approach for Success

Thu, 17 May 2012 08:29:00 +0000

The following excerpt is reprinted with permission from Rise: 3 Practical Steps for Advancing Your Career, Standing Out as a Leader, and Liking Your Life by Patty Azzarello, copyright © 2012. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group. Based on my 80-20 list for careers , these tips look pretty spot on. It’s not that the unspoken rules of success are any big secret; it’s just that most executives never bother to talk about them or share them in a way that is useful to and doable by others. That’s where this book and the model I have developed come in. I want to give you big insights that will shape how you think about your work for the rest of your life, and practical ideas for things you can start doing right now that will make a big difference in your success. In this book I have gathered all the ideas, insights, and necessary actions and provided the context for how it all works together. Success doesn’t come from being good at just one thing. It comes from doing a combination of things on purpose, over time, that all build on each other to create remarkable outcomes. But you have to understand the whole picture to know why each part of it matters. My approach for success has three parts. I am a pretty plainspoken person, so I call them DO Better LOOK Better CONNECT Better Big success requires all three—not in isolation or in sequence, but in combination. Missing any one of them is what causes most career stalls or washouts. Without taking some care to make progress on all three, you fall behind—you get stuck. Here is where you can begin to see why hard work alone doesn’t cut it. The work is only in the DO Better category. If you burn up all your time and energy doing excellent work, you may fail to get recognized (LOOK Better) and fail to build a network of support (CONNECT Better). So your career stalls. You are doing an excellent job of everything that is asked of you but you still get stuck. Remember, it’s not just about the work. To add real value to the business, you need to understand what is truly valuable to the business and you need to build a broad network of support so you can deliver significant results in a big and far-reaching enough way. DO Better DO Better is about producing exceptional results. DO Better is about working on the right things in the right ways. It’s about rising above the work. DO Better is about freeing yourself from your overwhelming tactical workload and identifying and delivering on the few most critical outcomes—the ones that really count. DO Better is about tuning your job, knowing yourself really well, and putting yourself in situations where you can thrive in your work and accomplish exceptional things. It’s also about how you lead, build trust, delegate, make more time, and build up your energy. Successful people are not burned out and used up. And they are not the ones who were less busy along the way. They deliver remarkable results and leave room to DO even better after that. LOOK Better LOOK Better is about standing out. Successful people do their work and produce their results in a way that is meaningful and visible to people that count. They understand which audiences matter most and they communicate with the right people at the right times, in a compelling way. LOOK Better is about building personal and professional credibility and becoming more relevant with your key stakeholders. People with high credibility get more done because they face fewer obstacles. Successful people are widely known not just for doing their jobs really well, but for the extra value they contribute to the business. They have risen above the work and proven their greater, wider-reaching value to their companies. CONNECT Better The most successful people get a lot of help. CONNECT Better is about building a broad base of support for yourself, your team, and your work. As you advance, your focus needs to broaden, not deepen. Successful people are not isolated in their own world. They build the right networks of mentors, partners, and supporters. They know how to get on “the List” of people who get access to the best opportunities. It’s not about politics; it’s about effectiveness. Successful people build an “extra team” around them and accomplish big things by working with and through others. The higher you go, the more your value is associated with your network. It’s Never Too Early to Begin or Too Late to Start There are no prerequisites, hurdles, or qualifications to using the model. Set your sights on adding more value to the business and start from where you are today. You Have More Control Than You Think You need to recognize that it is up to you to make things happen in your career, without counting on standard company and management processes. These days, if anything, the standard company and management processes are set against you! My approach is all about the things you can control—how to see them and how to act on them. You need to do specific things on purpose in all three areas of DO Better, LOOK Better, and CONNECT Better over time. For example, working really hard won’t get you anywhere if no one sees what you are doing or if they think it’s irrelevant. Creating a publicity campaign without the results to back it up will backfire. (We all know those people who are managing their publicity instead of doing their jobs, and it’s hard not to wish bad things for them.) You can’t build a strong network if you are not credible, and you won’t know how to use contributions from your network if you are not focused on doing the most critical few things to move the business forward. It all works together to add value and grow success in your business and career. The real payoff comes over time—once you feel like you have mastered all three, you set the bar higher—and do them all again. That’s where the “better” comes in.

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My Repeatable Approach for Success

5 Cheap & Unique Baby Shower Decoration Ideas

Wed, 16 May 2012 20:25:23 +0000

Are you planning to throw a shower for one of your expecting friends? Baby showers are big business, so you could easily go over budget by snapping up the cutest shower decor at party stores and online. However, you shouldn’t have to break the bank to dress up your abode for the festive occasion. By 5 Cheap & Unique Baby Shower Decoration Ideas is a post from the Money Crashers personal finance blog .

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5 Cheap & Unique Baby Shower Decoration Ideas

How is Your Emergency Fund Doing?

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:45:00 +0000

The Wall Street Journal discussed emergency funds recently and noted the following: The oft-quoted rule of thumb is to save three to six months of living expenses in your emergency fund. But many people these days will need nine months to a year of expenses covered just to get by. Consider that the average duration of unemployment is nearly 40 weeks. That means even if you have six months of expenses saved, there’s a good chance you’ll use it up before landing a new job. They also quote these startling facts: According to a 2011 study by Bankrate.com, 46% of Americans haven’t saved enough to cover three months of expenses. And only 24% have saved enough to cover six months or more. Yikes! And just to show how bad things really are, the post features a chart where people are asked if their credit card debt is greater than the size of their emergency fund. The results: 54% said no, their credit card debt wasn’t greater than their emergency fund savings 25% said yes, their credit card debt was greater than their emergency fund savings 16% said they didn’t have credit card debt or emergency fund savings 5% didn’t know or didn’t answer Several comments from me: I don’t hold to a set level of emergency funds for everyone, but six months is a good general guideline for someone looking for basic guidance. If you want to get more specific, the post Six Levels of Emergency Funds . gives some additional details. Personally we have about six months of salary saved up which equates to 12 months or so (probably more) of living expenses. It may be a little overkill for us, so I might trim it back a bit. Looks like only 24% of the people have met the six-month guideline. Said in reverse, 76% of the people don’t have enough stocked away in their emergency funds (especially those 46% who have less than three months of expenses saved). Then there’s the 25% of people who have more credit card debt than emergency fund savings. These people are living on top of financial time bombs. At least the 16% who have neither are in better shape than this group because they aren’t paying outrageous interest charges on their credit card balances. I wonder how much of these poor results come from the bad economy. Or would we have seen similar numbers prior to 2008? It’s hard to tell, but my guess is that it’s a combination of both — there’s a group of people that won’t have emergency funds no matter what and there’s another group that has had to deplete (or at least lessen) their emergency funds because this economy has caused them to face an emergency (like a job loss.) How about you? What’s your current emergency fund status?

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How is Your Emergency Fund Doing?

Words of Advice on Selected Insurance and Risk Management Topics

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:29:00 +0000

The following is an excerpt from Securing Your Financial Future: Complete Personal Finance for Beginners courtesy of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. All Rights Reserved. A list of brief tips on some of the most common categories of insurance appears below, plus a few important items from the broader field of risk management. These are brief, so think of them as broad guidelines, not ironclad rules. You’ll need to do lots more research on your own. Above all, keep in mind that these comments are specifically intended for a typical person in the 1st third of their financial life. If you’re not in the 1st third—or if you’re not typical when it comes to that subject—then consider the advice with caution. 1. Health insurance. People early in their financial life are famous for letting their right brains have complete and utter control of their health insurance decisions. Why? The choices are complicated, the costs are high, and the prospect of future illness or injury is unpleasant. Right-brain reaction: “I am young and healthy; in fact I’m downright indestructible. I don’t need any health or medical insurance, or else just the bare minimum.” Bad idea! Tell your right brain to have a seat and engage your left brain in truly understanding what your choices are. You are taking a big and unnecessary risk if you don’t. If you want to save on premiums, go with very high deductibles, not with big gaps in coverage. And keep yourself healthy! 2. Homeowner’s and renter’s insurance. Whether you rent or own, you need it. And keep the list of valuables that you’re insuring current; if you don’t, you’re not getting the value for your premiums that you think you are. 3. Car insurance. Car insurance is broken down into several subcategories. Each state requires that you your car in that state. The specific requirements vary from state to state, but the basic idea is that if you cause an accident, you must have insurance to cover people that you injure or cars that you damage. But there is no requirement that forces you to cover injuries to yourself or damage to your own car in an accident that you cause. Here is the point: of course, you will carry whatever types of car insurance your state requires, but it is a big mistake if that’s the only car insurance that you carry. You’ll want yourself and your passengers, as well as your car, to be covered in the event of an accident. You’ll also want your car to be covered if it is damaged in any other way not related to an accident (vandalism, storm damage, hit while parked, etc.). Save money by having high deductibles but not by skipping entire categories of coverage. And of course, drive safely! 4. Life insurance. Life insurance comes in two types: term and permanent. Here’s the recommendation: you want term life insurance, not permanent. Permanent life insurance comes in many varieties; some of the more common types are whole, universal, and variable. But whatever names they go by, all forms of permanent life insurance have a long-term investment aspect. In part IV, we’re going to discuss a completely different—and much superior—long-term investment strategy, so you’re not interested in any of the permanent insurance– related investments. Even though your choice is term life insurance, you only need it during a very specific time during your financial life. That time begins as soon as you have any financial dependents, so don’t buy any life insurance at all before then. The time for term life insurance ends when your net worth becomes large enough that you can provide for these dependents through the provisions in your will, or as soon as your dependents are no longer dependent on you. As soon as you meet either condition, don’t renew your term life insurance policy when the current term expires. 5. Private mortgage insurance (PMI). If you buy a house, you’ll probably be required to pay for this type of insurance if you pay less than 20% down. This isn’t good news, because even though you pay the premiums, the insurance is for the benefit of your lender, not you. But as you’ll learn in part III, you will pay 20% or more down, so you won’t need PMI. 6. Long-term care (LTC) insurance. This type of insurance is increasingly advertised, so you may be curious about it. But LTC doesn’t make sense to consider in the 1st third of your financial life; you can ignore it at least until your late 40s. (If you are financially responsible for someone who is one or two generations older, though, you may need to investigate it.) 7. Wills. A will isn’t insurance, but you can think of one as part of your overall risk-management strategy. You don’t need a will if you have no dependents or if your net worth is less than $100,000. But as soon as you meet either of these conditions, you do need a will, no matter your age or health. Don’t put it off—it’s a must. Unless your situation is unusually complicated, you can do it yourself inexpensively. 8. Living trusts. These are often brought up along with wills. But it’s unlikely that you’ll need one in the 1st third of your financial life. Living trusts are important once your net worth becomes large (say, over $1 million), or if there is something unusually complex about your assets or about the way you want to distribute them after your death. 9. Living wills. Despite the similarity in names, a living will is completely different from a living trust, or a standard will, but a living will is very important in its own right. A living will allows you to express your wishes in advance, in the event that you become incapacitated and unable to communicate them for yourself. In particular, you can advise health-care professionals whether you do, or don’t, want your life extended through artificial means if your chances for recovery are very limited or none. Yes, it is a grim prospect to think about, and it can evoke very strong feelings all around. But in the absence of a living will, you may be putting your loved ones, and/or the medical professionals caring for you in a very difficult position. Most people haven’t spent much time thinking about this, but when they do, they come to the conclusion that filing a living will is a simple and inexpensive precaution that potentially can save a lot of heartache. The laws concerning living wills vary from state to state. I highly encourage you to at least investigate this in your own state and then decide for yourself.

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Words of Advice on Selected Insurance and Risk Management Topics