February 16th, 2010
In an interview a few months back on CNBC, Bill Gates (Founder of Microsoft) responded to a question on business with the following: “Well, it’s surprising that the fundamentals of business are pretty straight forward, you know. You try to take more in income than you spend in cost.”
The same could be said about personal finance, “The fundamentals of personal finance are pretty straight forward. You try to make more than you spend.” Personal finance at its most basic level is simply making sure that you are earning more than you are spending.
-
tim
Categories: Misc
January 25th, 2010
When making a purchase, people typically only consider the upfront cost but for many items there are additional costs to consider. Below are some examples of costs that will be incurued after ownership.
Car: Fuel (need to consider type of fuel and its fuel efficiency), insurance rates, and maintenance costs.
House: Taxes, maintenance costs, insureance, mortgage.
Phone: Phone plan (If you buy a smartphone, you’ll likely need to buy a data plan in addition to a voice plan to utilize all of the features).
TV: Electricity (Typically the bigger the TV, the more electricity it’s going to take to power).
When looking at a big purchase, be sure to look at the total cost to own. Sometimes spending a little more money up front for a quality or more efficient product that will result in a lower total cost.
-
tim
Categories: Frugal Living, Misc, Saving Money
December 21st, 2009
A recnet article on CNN Money shows that the return on investment on home renovations has been decreasing over the past few years.
A chart within this article shows that in 2003 the average remodeling job costs $38,285 and would increase the home value by $31,591 vs average 2009 costs of $50,908 and increase of home value by $32,497.
Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? An investment in renovating your home in a good year (2003) would net you a -21% return on your investment. In a bad year (2009), you would net a -35% return.
For most people, your home is not going to be a good financial investment, rather it is a lifestyle choice.
-
tim
Categories: Housing
November 24th, 2009
When most people hear of a recession, they tend to think of it as a negative. Not everything about it is negative though. In recessions, people tend to make the most of their money.
For people who see a drop in their income due to the recession, they are forced to find ways to spend more efficiently because they have to.
For people who’s income level were not affected, they tend to spend more sparingly since there is a fear that their job may be next to go.
Will you maintain the frugal habits that are picked up during the recessionary times and use them when the good times come? If you start putting 10% of your paycheck into savings because you are scared that you may lose your job, then there is no reason why you can’t save 10% when your job stability improves.
-
tim
Categories: Frugal Living, Saving Money
October 30th, 2009
Before I purchase an item online, I’ll check to see if I can get cashback (or a rebate) on it through Bing (Microsoft’s new search engine). Typically I’ll receive 2%-5% cashback with most stores I buy from, but there are a few places where there are 20%+ cashback offers.
To sign up and/or get more details visit: http://www.bing.com/cashback
www.bing.com/cashback/
-
tim
Categories: Saving Money