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Save For Self-Fulfillment

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Budget For Enjoyable Vacations
Budget For Enjoyable Vacations
There are people, believe it or not, who save with enjoyment in mind, rather than serious objectives such as major purchases or retirement. They consider personal growth and fulfillment worthy objectives for their savings. Their goals could be as diverse as donating to a charity pursuing a hobby, traveling or doing things that make life more enjoyable.

Ohio State University did a study to see if there was a correlation between Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and people’s saving habits. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? That’s an old established psychological tool that looks at human needs and ranks them from absolutely necessary (food and shelter) to more lofty objectives (fulfilling one’s potential, etc.) The vast majority of individuals have to cover the basics before moving on to more abstract requirements for a happy life. Most savings objectives follow that same pattern. Retirement, security, emergencies/safety and family needs are what inspire most people to save. Only a few reach that state of perceived well being that they will devote savings to those “lofty” goals. But, the researchers found, there is a higher likelihood that they will actually do the saving.

In fact, the researchers learned, the self-fulfillment goals may be more important to this particular segment of the population than the “necessity-based” objectives are to their compatriots. Desires for self-fulfillment are “incredibly powerful motivators for actual savings behavior,” they concluded.

By extrapolation, they suggest that thinking about one’s self-growth might be impetus for more effective savings. They say that those motivations can be built into an individual’s approach to saving for the future.

While the practical needs of a family are likely to take precedence in making decisions about savings, not all human needs are covered by that kind of thinking. There should be room in the analysis for such things as dreams of becoming an entrepreneur, taking classes in a favorite subject, traveling, donating to charities that are near and dear to one or any other objective that doesn’t fall into the “necessary” category.

Based on their analysis, the researchers suggested that someone with a desire to set aside money for self-fulfillment should start with an analysis of what they really want to save for. Then begin by putting spare change, if that’s the most you have available, in a designated jar. Or open a separate auto-debit savings account for any amount of money that is reasonable for your own budget. The amount is not as important as the commitment. Then avoid the temptation to dip into this special savings account. You’ll be joining an elite group that sees the fulfillment of life’s “wants” as being as important as providing for the “must-haves.”

Flying High – With The Best Air Fares

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Save Money On Airline Tickets
Save Money On Airline Tickets
The cost of air travel continues to go up, but with a little bit of Internet time, you can find the best possible fares.

Start with a search of discount travel sites, and don’t stop with just one. Compare. Popular sites include Expedia, Travelocity, Kayak, Google Flight Search and Hotwire. When you have made your comparison and think you have the best price you can find, act. Prices can change within minutes.

Skyscanner.com is a search engine that tracks prices for particular routes for a certain period of time – a month or a year. It’s easy to spot the best prices and the optimum times to fly as well as finding information on hotels and car rentals. You can receive email notices when the data changes.

Booking your flight online is cheaper than using the airline’s phone service, which adds a fee. Travel agencies also have started adding booking fees to replace revenue they used to get from the carriers.

Inform yourself as to the best times to fly. Be flexible if you are able. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the best days for private travel. Sunday is the most expensive. If you’re willing to make a brief stopover en route, it is less expensive than a direct flight. Early morning flights also are less costly.

As you would guess, holidays are not times to expect great travel deals. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Presidents’ Day, spring break and other high-travel times are when to avoid air travel if you can.

Booking ahead – six weeks, if possible, when the airlines are still hoping to fill up their flights, is usually the best time to get a deal. If you wait until a week or two prior to the date you want to fly, the airlines are clear on whether their flights are going to be full and they’re less anxious to offer deals. There are, however, last-minute deals to be had if you can be flexible.

Use your credit card to pay to take advantage of air mile offers. In addition, keep track of accumulated air miles through the airlines, particularly if you fly frequently.

The great majority of airports have shuttles or public ground transportation to get you to a post-flight destination. It’s less expensive than a cab. If possible, walk. If you rent a car, opt for the green alternative, a small, fuel-efficient car. Return the vehicle to the rental business fully gassed. They charge a premium to do that for you. And if you are really thinking ahead, consider driving to your destination instead of flying, then you’ll avoid a car rental.

Consider hotel alternatives such as condo or house rentals. Most units can be rented nightly or by the week. VRBO.com offers photos, details and prices and doesn’t charges a fee for the service. Make travel an occasion to visit family or friends, if possible. In exchange for their hospitality, help with groceries or take the hosts to dinner or some activity. And when it’s their time to travel, reciprocate.

Home exchanges can be arranged through homeExchange.com, SeniorsHome Exchange.com or Craigslist. That way, your home is not empty while you are away and you have housing at your travel destination. A win-win situation for both parties.

How To Save More Of Your Income

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AARP Offers Many Good Suggestions For Saving Money
AARP Offers Many Good Suggestions For Saving Money

The annual AARP list of 99 ways to save money is out and it offers these nine suggestions to reduce your expenditures on financial matters:

Auto Insurance

Shop around for auto insurance. Insurers use a tactic called “price optimization.” That means they raise premiums based not on risk factors, but on how much of an increase they think you will accept. When it comes time to renew your insurance, bargain with your insurer for a better rate.

Pay Raises

Before you are called into human resources to discuss your next raise, ask for a salary range that informs you of the low-to-high range the company pays for a particular job. Knowing where you are in the range can become the basis for negotiation. Perhaps understanding the range will be impetus for more training so you can move up.

Credit Scores

Don’t pay for a credit score. It can be obtained free from Creditkarma.com or Credit.com or from Sharpen Your Financial Focus through its website, Sharpen Today.org.

Delay Social Security

Plan ahead on your Social Security. If you have reason to think you will live beyond age 80, wait until you are 70 to begin collecting so you will get the maximum benefit. If you are a couple and feel it likely you will live past 80, let the partner who had greatest earnings delay collection.

Home Renovations

If you are considering house renovations, these changes are considered the most likely to enhance the value of your property: Replace the front or garage door, add a deck, turn an attic space into a bed/bath or update the kitchen. That‘s from Remodeling Magazine’s 2014 cost/value report.

Divide Payments On Credit Cards

When you have heavy credit card expenditures, consider paying the bill in two increments instead of one monthly payment. Paying on time is the most important factor in calculating your credit score. Next is the percentage of credit you have available. People with the highest scores keep utilization under 10 percent. Paying your bill in two payments in a month keeps a lid on this number.

Tax Diversification

Consider tax diversification in your 401k. Like Roth IRAs, many Roth 401k’s allow you to put in money on which you already have paid tax. Then you may withdraw it at retirement tax-free. If there is a possibility your tax bracket will go up in the future, these tax-free dollars stashed in a 401k now be even more valuable.

Look at your banking institution. Some smaller banks and credit unions offer more than the going interest rate (about 2 percent) on checking accounts, even with balances of $10,000 or more. You’ll have to make direct deposits, in all likelihood to reap this benefit.

Talk to the vet who cares for your pets and see if he offers drug discounts or will provide samples of medications free. Ask if you can fill the vet’s prescriptions at a pharmacy for humans. Walmart and some other pharmacy outlets provide a $4 prescription price for many medications, which could save you money.

Budgeting Made Easy

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Turn The Impossible Into Reality
Turn The Impossible Into Reality
There are those who know how to budget. The rest of us tend to depend on them to fill in the details where finances are concerned. But with a little bit of learning you could take your place in the ranks of those who are serious budgeters.

If it’s something you have been vowing for a long time to launch into in a serious way, now is the time. Tomorrow is never a good day to begin budgeting.

Start off with one simple rule: Spend less than you make. Then begin to investigate the shortcuts that have proven to be effective in making a budget work for your financial well-being.

The people who developed The Fool’s Lazy Budget have learned where to cut corners and simplify the steps. They offer these tips:

Analyze Your Current Spending Habits

Begin with an analysis of your current spending habits. Honestly examine your outgo on every single day for three months. If you don’t lay this foundation up front your budgeting efforts are likely to fail. There are tools to help you track spending, including a 218-category spreadsheet. Put in the data then study it carefully. But that may be the hard way. A simplified one-step approach starts with a debit card review. Look at the raw data your bank provides and create your own general spending categories. Pay particular attention to the categories in which the figures make you weep. Some banks provide a year-end spending summary, with weak spots graphed in different colors on bar charts. Pay particular attention to your spending if you use cash and project the results over four weeks. Whatever your method, identify the categories where overspending is obvious.

Peek Into the Future

Take a mental trip to “the mall of your future,” as advised by Dayana Yochim of the Fool’s Lazy Budget staff. This virtual shopping spree, sans side trips to the food court, will give you a concrete view of what you want to spend. List your needs for the next three to six months. Start with the things that are not optional, of course, such as housing, food, utilities, etc. Then realistically list such things as new car tires, family vacation costs, etc. If you have plans to pay off a credit card, max out your IRA or add to your emergency fund, list these items. Than add expected expenses for long-term items you anticipate over the next year or thin the next five years. Use the lists to plot spending to match identified needs.

You now have a written plan that, if followed faithfully, will save you from impluse spending that is a budget-buster. Share the plans with family members. If practical, provide a wallet-sized outline for each person involved in family spending. Don’t ignore the potential spending that adds to the quality of life for your family. Add some agreed-upon items that will make life better over the short term and the long term. It’s sort of the old all-work-and-no-play-makes-Jack-a-dull-boy theory. Spending is more satisfying if there is room for some outlay for what you really WANT.

Set Goals

When you have your goals firmly in mind, pencil in what you estimate the costs of achieving these goals will be, on a monthly basis. For instance, if those new tires for the car are non-negotiable, start setting aside a portion of the cost over several months so the final outlay is not so overwhelming.

Save Regularly

Start saving something each pay period. Hide some money from yourself by diverting a portion of each paycheck to an account separate from your checking account. Don’t let it be available for impulse buying or those sudden moments when you see something you “just can’t do without.” Think carefully about what you think is essential. Often it isn’t. Arrange with y our bank to transfer the excess in your checking account to savings on a regular basis.

Quit Overspending

Stop overspending. You know where your own temptations lie. Set some limits and stick with them. Start an envelope system where you put an amount sufficient to cover a necessary expenditure for a month into an envelope. Typically, the four most essential expenditures for a family are housing (34 percent); transportation (18 percent); food (13 percent); and entertainment (4 percent). If it is at all possible to cut any of these categories, do so and you’ll have money to shift to other categories. Have an envelope for each category and slip in the money to cover that expense. When it’s gone, that’s it. Economize where it’s feasible.

A budget is a personal thing and you will make your own adjustments. That’s fine as long as the basics stay in place. Don’t spend more than you make. Give yourselves a savings cushion. Look ahead to avoid, as much as possible in this uncertain world, the unexpected expenses that knock you for a financial loop. You’ll save yourself a lot of stress if you keep a handle on your money. That’s called budgeting.

Cut Your Expenses And Increase Your Income

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Savings Can Grow When You Decrease Expenses and Increase Your Income
Savings Can Grow When You Decrease Expenses and Increase Your Income
The annual AARP list of 99 ways to save money is out and it offers these nine suggestions to reduce your expenditures on financial matters:

Auto Insurance

Shop around for auto insurance. Insurers use a tactic called “price optimization.” That means they raise premiums based not on risk factors, but on how much of an increase they think you will accept. When it comes time to renew your insurance, bargain with your insurer for a better rate.

Pay Raises

Before you are called into human resources to discuss your next raise, ask for a salary range that informs you of the low-to-high range the company pays for a particular job. Knowing where you are in the range can become the basis for negotiation. Perhaps understanding the range will be impetus for more training so you can move up.

Free Credit Reports

Don’t pay for a credit score. It can be obtained free from Creditkarma.com or Credit.com or from Sharpen Your Financial Focus through its website, Sharpen Today.org.

Social Security

Plan ahead on your Social Security. If you have reason to think you will live beyond age 80, wait until you are 70 to begin collecting so you will get the maximum benefit. If you are a couple and feel it likely you will live past 80, let the partner who had greatest earnings delay collection.

Home Improvement

If you are considering house renovations, these changes are considered the most likely to enhance the value of your property: Replace the front or garage door, add a deck, turn an attic space into a bed/bath or update the kitchen. That‘s from Remodeling Magazine’s 2014 cost/value report.

Credit Card Payments

When you have heavy credit card expenditures, consider paying the bill in two increments instead of one monthly payment. Paying on time is the most important factor in calculating your credit score. Next is the percentage of credit you have available. People with the highest scores keep utilization under 10 percent. Paying your bill in two payments in a month keeps a lid on this number.

401Ks

Consider tax diversification in your 401k. Like Roth IRAs, many Roth 401k’s allow you to put in money on which you already have paid tax. Then you may withdraw it at retirement tax-free. If there is a possibility your tax bracket will go up in the future, these tax-free dollars stashed in a 401k now be even more valuable.

Interest Rates On Bank Accounts

Look at your banking institution. Some smaller banks and credit unions offer more than the going interest rate (about 2 percent) on checking accounts, even with balances of $10,000 or more. You’ll have to make direct deposits, in all likelihood to reap this benefit.

Pet Prescriptions

Talk to the vet who cares for your pets and see if he offers drug discounts or will provide samples of medications free. Ask if you can fill the vet’s prescriptions at a pharmacy for humans. Walmart and some other pharmacy outlets provide a $4 prescription price for many medications, which could save you money.