Search Results for: budget

Investing in Your Personal Finances

July 9, 2013 By Shane Ede 6 Comments

In business, we talk all the time about investing in your business. We’re not talking about actually buying stock in your own company, although there are those that do that as well. What we’re really talking about is investing the things that will make your business better. For a cab company, that might mean investing in an extra cab or two. Or replacing some of the older cabs in the fleet with newer ones. It might be something as simple as sending an employee (or yourself) to training. But, as much as we talk about investing in our businesses, how many of us actually invest in our own personal finances?

How to Invest in your Personal Finances

Investing in your personal finances can be something as complex as buying new investments. But, it can also be something as simple as providing yourself with the training you need to improve your personal finances. What part of personal finance scares you? Is it the budgeting? Is it the balancing? Selling? Buying? Investing? Maybe you just don’t understand how savings accounts work? Investing doesn’t mean you need to spend money either. All those things I just listed can be learned online for free. It might take a bit longer because it isn’t all consolidated like it would be in a course. You might need time sorting through sites like this one learning what the authors have to teach. But, it can be learned. And, when you’re done, and you understand something a bit better, you’ll have invested in your personal finance.

Earning Dividends on your Personal Finances

In the investing world, dividend paying stocks are the ones that many investors (for sure income investors) will look at first. Why? Because, even if the stock doesn’t gain any value, it’s still going to pay that dividend out in most cases. The people who run the company have invested in the business to improve it enough that it can pay some of it’s revenues back to the shareholders. You can do the same. As you invest in your personal finances, and implement the things that you’ve learned, your finances will get better. You’ll be working on them all the time to improve them. As they get better, you’ll start earning dividends on your investment. Maybe it will be in a higher rate of income. Maybe a higher rate of savings. Or, maybe it will just be a higher rate of understanding that leads to a calmer sense of where your finances are headed.

The quicker you start investing in your personal finances, the quicker you’ll start earning those dividends. Click on a few of those links in that list up there. Learn about something that you don’t feel in control of. Invest in your personal finances today.

Earning > Saving

May 20, 2013 By Shane Ede 25 Comments

Saving is a finite solution. You can only save so much, can only be so frugal. Your power for earning is unlimited with the right resource (you), the right tools (knowledge), and the right force (hard work). That isn’t to discount saving. Saving is an important part of the equation too. But, because of it’s limited ability, it can only be so much a part of your overall wealth and financial independence equation. Do you know what limits savings’ ability? Your earnings. You can only save so much as you earn. If you only earn $8 an hour, you can only save $8 an hour. Far less, really, because who can live on $0 an hour? Not many. So, the more you make, the more you can save.

There’s another side to that, even. The more you make, the more ability you have to make more. That’s the root of the old saying, “It takes money to make money”. While you can actually make money without having much money, the more money you have, the more opportunity you will find to earning more money.

Increasing your earnings isn’t always an easy equation to solve, though. Many people feel like they’re trapped in the job they have, the payscale they’re in, and the life path they’ve chosen. Not at all true! Your earning potential is unlimited if you combine the resources at hand and improve the ones that aren’t. You’ve already got you. Increasing you knowledge of the work you want to do is pretty easy as well. It just takes a bit of time, and some crafty searching online. Pretty much anything you want to learn about is available online. Heck, there are even entire sites dedicated to free college courses. All you need is to dedicate some time to learning whatever it is you want to learn. You can find that time by taking it from some of your TV watching time.

Follow all that learning up with some good old fashioned hard work. That’s it. Just hustle a little. Unfortunately, there isn’t any magic formula for that one. I don’t know how to motivate you to work. I don’t know the right things to say to you to make you want it. You’ve got to provide that part. If you can’t find the motivation to pull yourself away from American Idol for an hour to learn something, or work on making yourself a better earner, there’s just nothing that I can do for you. You’ve got to find that part for yourself.

But, listen. If you’re capable, like me, of getting your finances under control; of learning how to keep a budget, pay your bills on time, and learn from mistakes, there’s no reason you can’t learn how to earn more. You CAN learn how to do something you want to do. You CAN learn how to make yourself more marketable. And you CAN earn more. And, if you do, you WILL tip the scale in your direction. You’ll start to earn more. You’ll be able to save more. And you’ll find that opportunities will present themselves to you.

How are you going to improve yourself today?

In a Car Accident? Should You Pay Out of Pocket for Repairs?

March 13, 2013 By MelissaB 11 Comments

Our Chicago winter this year has been a lot less like a Midwest winter–the snow storms have been few and far between. A few weeks ago we finally got hammered by a storm that dumped 10 inches over the city. At the height of the snow storm I had to pick up my son from school. As I waited at a stop sign, the driver behind me bumped into my bumper.

Luckily, the damage wasn’t bad. When I took it to a repair shop for an estimate, they thought it would cost between $580 and $1,200 to fix depending on if there was any damage inside the bumper when they take it off to repair it.

Surprisingly, the woman who hit me decided she wanted to pay out of pocket rather than go through insurance. When I told her that the repair would take 2 to 3 days and we’d need a rental car during that time, she agreed to cover that cost, too.

This is the second time I’ve been rear-ended in 5 years, and both times the repairs were less than $2,000. Both times the drivers opted to pay out of pocket.

If you’re in a minor fender bender, should you pay out of pocket rather than going through insurance?

Reasons You May Want to Pay Out Of Pocket

1. If you have a high deductible. If you have a deductible of $1,000, for example, paying out of pocket if the repair is just a few hundred dollars over that amount may make sense. You’ll save yourself from an increasing premium.

2. If your insurance premium will increase substantially. Each insurance company is different, but rest assured that if you cause an accident and file a claim, your insurance will increase. Some insurers increase your premium by 10% and others by 20%. You may be able to call your insurer and ask how much the premium will go up before you decide to pay a claim or not.

3. If this is your second accident. While you’ll pay an increased premium for one accident, if you file two claims within a few years of one another, the increase is substantial. For instance, State Farm generally charges a 10% increase in premium for the first claim, but that amount increases to 45% for the second claim. While it may hurt your budget to come up with a thousand or two to pay out of pocket for the repairs, that may be the better option if you’re facing a substantial increase that could last several years.

4. If your insurance doesn’t have an accident forgiveness clause. Some insurers offer an accident forgiveness clause, meaning, if you’ve been with the company for a certain number of years (usually 5 to 9) with no accidents, the insurance company won’t increase your premium on the first accident you file. Again, though, you may want to save this benefit for a more substantial accident that you can’t afford to pay out of pocket rather than when the repair is relatively minor.

If you cause an accident, don’t automatically file a claim. There are benefits to paying out of pocket. You just need to understand your insurance policy as well as know exactly how much the repairs will cost before making a decision.

If you’ve caused an accident, did you pay out of pocket rather than filing a claim?

Original img credit: Oops, by fortes on Flickr