Personal Finance Money Management Guide For 2010

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Saving more than a couple of thousand dollars is not as difficult as it sounds. I am not going to harangue you on "you can do it", or "importance of saving", or "why not saving can kill you before the world ends in 2012." No. Nothing like this. Here are few suggestions on how you can actually save few dollars, if not couple of thousands, next year.

1. Calculate the amount of money you spend buying kitchen paper. It may not be quite substantial, but why waste money on these papers when you can replace them with cloth napkins. Spending even a dollar on disposable papers seems to be a waste. Buy a cloth that can be washed and reused. You can save approximately $85 a year.

2. If your family comprises of you and your spouse, both working, why spend so much on cable. Unplug it and save anywhere round $600 per year.

3. Digital camera is perhaps the only device where we use batteries. If you use it a lot, switch to rechargeable batteries. Doing this will save not much, maybe $24. But every penny saved in this kind of economy is 3 pennies earned.

4. Why do we need a landline when all the family members own a mobile phone? I have disconnected it and I sometimes use Skype instead of landline, and mobile most of the times.

5. If you are still left with any gold after, after the "sell gold" advertisements, sell it off. Even if it is small gold scraps, sell it. But do not mail it across. It is better to sell it at the neighboring jewelry shop. You can earn some amount here.

6. Chopped and shredded vegetables, cheese, and fruits cost much more than the un-chopped, fresh ones. Instead of spending more, you can get the fresh ones and slice it at home. Doing this for a year can help you to save $250. Isn't it worth a try?

7. Stop going to the gym and find a way to exercise free of cost. If the only reason you go to gym is losing weight, there are numerous ways to do it without a gym. By doing this you can save as much as $420 in a year. Till now, this is the biggest contributor to your saving.

8. Get rid of your printer. Okay, may be that's not possible, you can at least promise yourself not to print unless necessary. Ink cartridges, color or black & white, can burn a hole in your pocket. I have to replace the cartridge once a year. However, it still costs me around $80 to $100.

Remember these points while preparing a budget for 2010. These are just 8 examples of saving money. We, together, can come up with probably hundreds of them, and imagine the amount we could save. If you have any such suggestion, please comment and suggest, for me, for all the readers. Let's derive the most comprehensive and precise personal finance money management guide for 2010.

Carl M Thomson is an author of this article on personal finance money management.

Find more information about personal finance information here.

Personal Finance - Easy Budgeting Tips

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With this fresh new decade, two things are true. It is cold this time of year and people will make new years resolutions. The problem is that most will not see their resolutions through. One of the biggest ones people make is to get their finances in order. With the economy the way it is and people struggling to keep or find jobs, financial stability is more important now than it has been in most of our lives.

A key step towards financial stability is having a workable budget. I would argue that having one is the key foundation towards righting your monetary sanity. Many times people will get ahead of themselves and try to hit a home run investing. I know I have tried that. it is a part of our modern culture to get what we want when we want it. And we want it now. The problem with that, when it comes to personal finance, is that if we have spent years being irresponsible it will take some time to fix those past mistakes. It won't happen over night. But it can happen. And starting a budget will get that ball rolling.

When starting a budget, you can get overwhelmed. There are tons of tricks out there. There are tons of formulas. The truth is, it is quite simple. So here I will lay out some general tips. If you follow these tips, you can build a budget that works.

First, you need to identify your bills. Just sit down and go over your bills. Every recurring cost. While doing this, you may be able to identify areas where you can make a cut or two. But don't get too caught up in that. Just worry about finding what you have.

Next, and this can be a little harder, figure out your weekly living expenses. This is your groceries, lunches, gas, and those types of things. Don't worry about being exact when starting out. Just get an idea. Then identify your extra expenses. This will be entertainment type stuff. Think of it more as wants instead of needs.

Once you have all of these laid out you can start a simple budget. Start with your monthly take home pay. Then go down in level of importance. Start with savings. I know I didn't mention it earlier because I am assuming you don't have one and haven't made it a priority. Most haven't. But you should. Just start small, like ten dollars a month. Then take out your bills. Then your living expenses. And finally your entertainment.

Once you have these laid out, you have a budget. Try sticking with it as best you can. Don't worry about knocking out all your debt right away. You want to get comfortable with working with a budget before your start tweaking it too much. When you do, always do so in small amounts. Setting small stepping goals will help keep you motivated to keep progressing.

The new decade brings the promise of new possibilities. You may have dreams of the future, but most of those dream will require you to take the first steps toward financial stability. If you follow these easy budgeting tips, you will be well on your way.

If you enjoyed these easy budgeting tips you can check out Kevin's other thoughts by clicking on the link.

Finance - Responsible Finance - Managing Your Money

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As children, people rarely think about money and how much of it they do or do not have. This is because children depend on their parent and guardians to provide the food, shelter and clothing that they need to survive. However, as we get older, we begin to take on more and more of those responsibilities for ourselves, until eventually we are the only ones responsible for our own welfare. In order to take care of ourselves, we usually have to get an education and a job that will allow us to cover our expenses. Finance can be complicated, but it is not impossible to manage your money in such a way that you will always have resources for what you need.

One of the first principles of responsible finance is learning how to prepare and implement a budget for all of your personal and professional expenditures. The best budgets are the ones that help you track and record all of the money that you make and all of the money that you spend. If you find yourself coming up short for bills month after month, you can turn to your budget to find out where the extra money is going, and what you might have to give up to return balance in your finances.

Another important thing to remember about responsible finance is that you should only get involved with credit cards and loans if you are sure that you will be able to pay them off completely in a timely manner. If you can't afford a purchase, it is never a good idea to put it on a credit card and simply hope that you find the money to pay it off eventually. Make sure that you have a plan for paying your entire balance off every month.

One of the most important principles of responsible finance is that you have a plan for savings. No matter whether you put your lump sum of cash savings in a high yield savings account, or invest it in the stock market, you need to have a plan for the money that you've already set aside. If you don't have any savings, you must take a look at your budget and find out how you can start putting money away on a regular basis. Even if it is only twenty or thirty dollars at a time, it's important to provide for unseen expenses.

Ready to get started? Learn more about investing and dividend yield at http://www.DividendYieldLive.com today!

Foreign Exchange Trading Strategies and Advice

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I'm here to share with you some of my foreign exchange trading strategies and advice that I use to help me make more profitable trades. These tips have helped me develop into a trader that has been consistently making profits over the longterm and it should help you too.

The first piece of advice I'll give you is to try your best to act confident. There is no way you can just tell yourself to be confident, so that is why I ask you to act confident. Confidence isn't a choice, but something that is earned through positive experience. The act of being a confident trader is being sure of the decisions you make. You need to apply them and follow through without having to triple check every little thing. You also need to be confident enough to allow you trades to have time to perform. It is easy to get upset with every little change that doesn't go your way and leave. You need to allow things to perform to make sure your analysis has a chance to play out.

The next thing I want to give you is some advice about the failures you will meet. They're not really failures, but temporary failures that we experience. In this business it is bad trades. You'll have them. You'll have runs of bad trades. Most people end up quiting when this happens. I'm telling you to keep going because these little failures help you grow as a trader. Every bad trade allows you to learn a little more about trading. Eventually the bad will turn to good and you'll start to see more profits over the longterm.

The automated software of Forex Killer will give you an immediate edge in the market. Make trades that work for your profit line. For more information on the Forex Killer software, check out Forex Charting Software.

Accommodating a Foreign Exchange Student

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Bringing a foreign exchange student into your home can be one of the most rewarding experiences for a parent or young person, and can build a friendship that can last a lifetime. For a parent, seeing the exchange student integrate into your home and interact with your children can be absolutely fascinating. For the child, getting a glimpse into another culture from someone near their own age can be hard to put a price on. Of course, the parent may have to enter in a rent to own contract or two to make sure the exchange student has a nice place to stay, but that's a small price to pay for being able to do something so good for someone else.

Many homes have an extra bedroom or a guest room that can easily be turned into the foreign exchange student's room in an instant. Other homes, however, might have a large unused rec room or even an unfinished room in a basement that could act as a bedroom if properly done up. Part of that might entail rent to own agreements to get the proper furnishings for the space. Of course you'll need a bed, but you'll need a dresser or wardrobe, a nightstand or two, and maybe a chair or two. After all, you'll have one more mouth to feed at the kitchen table! It's important to consider local building codes that have rules about what constitutes a bedroom, and the foreign exchange program might have some rules and regulations you must follow. As long as you're keeping those in mind, turning some excess space into a bedroom is a great idea.

In addition to the furniture, getting some rent to own appliances to round out the place can really make a space feel like home. A small refrigerator, a stereo, and a television make a room somewhere your foreign exchange student can escape to and feel safe. Sure, you're going to do everything you can to make them feel welcome in the rest of your home, but sometimes they may feel a little overwhelmed and need some alone time. Imagine what it must be like taking in a new culture. It can be a little exhausting! That's why any touches of home you can bring to them may help, too. Learning a bit of their language, preparing a dish they like, or performing one of their customs might be just the thing to turn your home into their home.

Bringing a foreign exchange student into your home is a temporary proposition, but your rent to own contract might not be. In fact, that's the beauty of rent to own agreements. They can be short term, or you can buy the product and make them long term. To learn more about what rent to own appliances and other products can do for you, visit APRO. You find the information you need to understand how rent to own can work for you!

Trading of Mutual Funds and Its Basic Principles

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Trading of mutual funds is done in much the same way as the stocks are traded in the stock market. Just like stocks, now you would be able to trade the mutual funds on the stock market also.

Recently the National Stock Exchange (NSE) launched the new system for trading the mutual funds known as 'Mutual Fund Service System' (MFSS), on November 30th. The Bombay Stock Exchange has also introduced its version of trading in the mutual funds known as BSE Star MF that was introduced on December 4. This was after getting the requisite SEBI approvals for trading of the mutual funds through the existing channels of the stock exchange.

These new platforms have been launched with the initiative of increasing the retail participation of the investors. This will also lead to an increase in the volumes of MF's that are traded. Since the stock exchanges have a number of trading terminals that are present all across the country, it helps retail investors get a better access than the asset management companies (AMC) existing network. Now retail investors need not locate a retail AMC distributor for trading in the MF's.

Now the investors are able to invest through the members of the stock exchange and who is also listed as a member of the Association of Mutual Funds of India (AMFI). Quite conveniently whenever the members wish to subscribe or redeem their MF units, then they can do so through the registered members of the AMFI.

Both physical and the depository mode can be availed by the retail investors. Those that wish to do so through the depository method would only need to open a demat account.

Orders for redemption as well as subscription can be given between the trading hours. The trading hours in which the retail investors can operate are between 9 AM in the morning till 3 PM in the evening. Doing within this time, the subscribers will be able to take benefit of the same days NAV for the particular mutual fund.

These changes will help the investors to know their stock positions as well as MF positions from the same report. Settlements for the MF's are also expected to be made within T+1 days. At this time, experts are also pointing out that the new system merely represent the routing system and is not effectively allowing the investors to trade with each other over this platform.

Trading in the MF will also attract tax. For those that are investing and trading in equity linked schemes, they will have to pay a securities transaction tax (STT), while those trading in debt and liquid funds will have to give a capital gains tax liability.

Many distributors don't see it as an improvement over the previous system, since they feel that volumes of MF trade won't increase substantially. Further the distributors have also been hurt since the time SEBI has abolished the entry loads for the mutual funds.

Learn Currency Trading the Smart Way

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There are many different ways to learn currency trading. You will find that there are many websites and classes available that teach people how to trade on Forex. When you are looking for the best classes, you will want to take some time to make sure that you are getting the kind of training that you need to become an active trader on Forex.

Checking to make sure that the website offering the information is reputable will be important. A reputable training program will be designed and created by a person who is familiar with the market. There will not be promises made that are not realistic. Learning Forex takes time and patience. The course that offers to teach you how to become an expert quickly or guarantees that you will see a fast or substantial return on your initial trades is not written by a person who has actually done any trading on Forex.

The learning curve for Forex is about two years. You will need to learn how to use different analytical tools and indicators to make the best decisions about trades. The course will provide information about these tools and the different ways that they can be used. In some cases, the course will also provide resources for getting more information about different types of platforms.

Many of the reputable courses are broken into several sections. An individual will learn the basics of trading in the first set of courses; the different types of trades in a second course, and more detailed dealing in following courses. Some of the programs offered include advanced techniques and methods that will help you to create strategies for increasing your gains more rapidly.

A very affordable way to learn trading is to join forums and visit the websites of successful traders. These forums give newcomers a chance to learn the different strategies and techniques used by traders and also to learn some of the ways to avoid costly mistakes when dealing.

Almost every online brokerage offers a simulated desktop and tutorial for newcomers to trading. The desktop is based on historical data and you are able to try different strategies to see how the currency pairs are affected by different types of trades.

Many of the same terms are used in Forex as in other types of stock-trading however they may have a different meaning in the foreign exchange. Learning the language of the exchange will be very helpful in making wise decisions about the trades that you make. Trading is very fast and many people find that getting an automated managed account is helpful when they first start. Many of these programs also offer training and simulated desktops to help you get familiar with the various platforms.

Learning currency trading is an investment for success. The more you learn, the better decisions you will be able to make when you get started. Finding classes and forums that are sponsored or run by successful traders will be advantageous when you begin and will give you a more positive trading experience.

There are many different ways to learn currency trading. You will find that there are many sites and classes available that teach people what they need to know about currency trading.