Posts Tagged ‘extra money’

Teens Saving Money

Monday, March 1st, 2010
Help your teen build strong money management skills.

Help your teen build strong money management skills.

One of the best ways to build a strong financial foundation in teens is by starting a savings plan early on. Over the past few years, there have been more teens saving money and the results are clear. When you take the time to teach good financial practices to your children, these skills will carry them through life, helping them to build up a nest egg that they can rely on in the future. If you want to start your kids down this financial path, here are a few tips on how to get your teens saving money now.

1. Set up a reward system.

At first, before the benefits start to kick in, your child may need some extra incentive to start saving money. Try setting up either a reward once they reach a certain dollar amount, or you may even want to offer to match their savings, dollar by dollar. This is a great way to get your teens saving money and offers them some real incentive, as well as hard evidence, that saving is very beneficial. Even if you only add a few dollars to their account at a time, this extra money will help them get motivated and stay focused.

2. Start discussing sound financial principles with your child.

Once you’ve got your teens saving money, it’s a great time to start talking about setting financial goals, and working on the follow through. For example, you can ask your child to set a goal as to what they would like to be able to buy, that they cannot afford right now. This helps them see the value of the hard work they are putting in towards saving for that item and once again, will keep them motivated. However, it is important that they understand that spending all that they have saved up isn’t the best solution and that they should have long term goals, as well as short term goals.

3. Take them to the next level.

Once you have your teens saving money and they are learning more about goal setting, you can take their lessons to the next level by incorporating information about setting up more than one stream of income. Help them to set up a portfolio, use a p2p lending service like Loanio to lend money, or open a high yield savings account for them so that they can start to watch their money grow. This is also a good time to start talking about investments with your teen, even if they can’t quite make their own just yet.

4. Get them interested in continuing education.

One of the best ways to get your teens saving money is by teaching them how the stock market works and how they can add to their savings account easily. There are numerous online sites that will provide users with free example “money” that can be used to invest in theoretical stocks. This is a great training method that has no risk, but can be incredibly useful in teaching lessons about stocks. You may even want to take part in these yourself and set up a competition to see who can make the best theoretical picks.

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Originally posted 2008-10-31 04:55:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Posted in Managing Money Wisely, Money, Personal Finance, Smart Money Ideas, Stock Market, Teens Saving Money, Teens and Money | No Comments »

5 Tips for College Students on Budgets

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

When you are in college, it can become easy to get caught up in your busy, stressful lifestyle. With all of the studying and working that you have to do, coupled with hanging out with your friends, working part time jobs and participating in extra activities, it can actually become extremely easy for you to forget about your finances. Unfortunately, your finances are a vital part of your life. Here are some proven tips for a college student’s budget.

Living on Ramen?

Living on Ramen?

1 – Plan ahead.

You need to figure out where your cash flows are coming from by listing incomes from parents, student loans, jobs and other sources. Then you need to figure out what your monthly expenses are, including food, books, health and other activities and fees that you need to contend with. Make sure that you are making enough income to handle your expected expenses, and then allow for extra money to deal with emergencies. Once you have established a basic working budget you just need the discipline to keep to it.

2 – Save on your food.

When you were living with your parents, obviously eating was an expense you did not have to think much about. However, now that you are in college it is one area that you need to pay attention to. If you have a food allowance, use it to its fullest potential and avoid eating out because this will destroy your budget in no time. Whenever possible you should plan meals and pack your lunch.

3 – Take advantage of student discounts whenever possible.

Use your student ID and organization memberships to get discounts whenever you can. They may seem silly but they can really add up over time.

4 – Use cash whenever possible.

If you already have money on your student ID, use this first. Avoid using your credit cards or debit cards any time that you have cash. You should use plastic only in emergencies, because cash is easier to track and gives you a better idea of how much money you have. Most college students end up leaving school with higher credit card debt than before, and this can add up to years of paying off debt because of a couple of years of poor spending habits.

5 – Keep yourself as busy as possible.

Join clubs, groups and organizations in whatever field you are interested in, in order to keep yourself busy. Keeping yourself busy will help you to stay away from things that you would normally spend money on when board. You may find yourself surprised at how much money you can save over time simply by spending less on things that you do not need, and following your student budget instead. Sticking to your budget is easy when you keep your mind busy and yourself entertained.

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Originally posted 2008-12-31 05:43:35. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Posted in College Student Finances, Loanio, Money, Personal Budget Planning, Personal Finance | 2 Comments »

Tips for College Student Budgets

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
College students going for financial success.

College students going for financial success.

Trying to make ends meet when you are in college is not an easy task. Your income is usually pretty limited and expenses can be high, even if you have a scholarship. If you’re trying to save money or just get by, there are some great tips for college student budgets that you can put into use right away. These tips will help make it easier to get through the month and will help you get on the right track for building a strong foundation for your financial future.

Easiest Tips for College Student Budgets –

The best tip is to reduce the amount of money that you spend on non-essentials and fast food. Cafeteria food may not be the best, but if it’s free, then it’s worth it. You may also want to consider purchasing your own food to prepare at your dorm or apartment. This can easily save you more than $50 a month, depending on how often you eat out. Part of the college experience is figuring out how to budget, and preparing your own food is the best answer. You can still eat healthily and you’ll be learning great skills for the future.

Smartest Tips for College Student Budgets –

Getting a part time job may be a little time consuming, but it can free up quite a lot of money every week. Try to find a job on campus, like at the library, where you can combine your study time with work time. This will allow you to make a little extra money without having your school work suffer. Working a lousy job is yet another important part of the college experience and will provide you with the skills and experience you need for the future. You may also want to try to find a paid intern position where you can work on contacts for after graduation.

Entertaining Tips for College Student Budgets –

Entertainment can take a huge chunk of your money, whether it’s movies, the bar, or just spending money wildly. Learn to find free things to do with your friends and try staying in at least one extra night a week. Your school work will benefit from that extra day and you’ll be saving money at the same time. If you don’t want to cut back on entertainment, find other areas where you can scrimp, or work a little extra so that you have the money to spend.

Wealthy Tips for College Student Budgets –

Every year, college students take their ideas and put them into action. Facebook.com is a great example of a simple idea that turned into a billion dollar company.  Use Loanio to obtain a loan for seed money. If you have a great idea, don’t be afraid to try to implement it. You never know if you don’t start– you may just be the next big success story.

Money is usually tight for college students, but if you utilize these tips for college student budgets, you should be able to notice a big difference in how much money you have left at the end of the month.

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Originally posted 2008-12-11 05:03:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Great Budgeting Examples

Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Need some budgeting examples?

Need some budgeting examples?

When you are looking at ways to implement a family or individual budget into your household, one of the most proactive steps that you can take is to look at great budgeting examples from other sources. Because everyone has unique financial and budgetary needs, there is no real one size fits all, cookie cutter solution to budgeting. However, by exploring what great budgeting examples are out there, you can source information, techniques, tactics and resources from what other people are doing, and bring them together to create a fully customized, completely unique solution to your own budget planning system.

There are numerous different great budgeting examples out there for different purposes. Who you are and what you hope to achieve in budgeting are both vital considerations to make when creating your own budget based on great budgeting examples that you find elsewhere. The Excel method of budgeting comes highly recommended by a variety of different people, including college students that have a primary staple food of Ramen noodles filling up their cupboards and busy moms that have to track a lot of different variables as seamlessly as possible.

The first consideration that you need to make when looking at great budgeting examples and drawing from them to create your own fluid, seamless budget, is what your main intention is. Are you trying to save up some extra money for a new car, or are you just trying to have enough money to get all of the bills paid at the end of every month? If your intention is simply to “save money” with no real goal in sight, then obviously your budget is going to be a lot more lax than someone who needs to pinch every penny for a new apartment, a better car or a big cross country move. College students, new moms and other certain individuals get hit harder, because every penny really matters and this requires for them to create much stricter budgets, which you can draw resources from if you are looking for something tight.

When exploring great budget examples, keep in mind a basic idea of how strict or how lax you want your budget to be. Some budgets account for every dollar you take in and every dollar that you spend, while others only place basic requirements on you to develop spending habits for better spending. Both of these great budget examples have merit, so it is really up to you to decide which is going to best meet your individual needs, whatever they may be. If you are serious about implementing your own budget system into your life in order to save money, looking at great budgeting examples and drawing from them to create your own custom plan is a really smart idea. This way, you will have a budget that is going to work for you based on your needs, rather than forcing you to struggle with a budgeting plan that doesn’t suit your lifestyle or your individual goals.

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Originally posted 2008-12-08 05:03:40. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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