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Simplifying the way you manage your finances can make sticking to a budget much easier. Limiting the amount of time it takes to actually manage your budget will make it more likely that you will do it.  With the right technique it should only take you 20-30 minutes a week to stay on track.

The most time-consuming part of the process is the actual setting up of the budget.  So don’t try to do this with a house full of kids and other relatives over the holidays.  Allocate the time and place, and stick to it. If necessary put a “Do not disturb” sign on your door, turn off your phone, and disconnect from the internet (eliminate distractions!).

While there is a plethora of software to ‘simplify’ the preparation of a budget, a simple spreadsheet is all you need.  Don’t complicate the process by having to learn a new program.

A good first step is to gather up all of your bills and receipts that you can find around the house. A credit card statement is perfect if you charge most of your purchases.  Begin your document by listing your monthly income and expenses. For this you will require a rough estimate of how much money you spend on different expenses each month. You don’t need to be precise, but err on the side of more rather than less with expenses.

Be sure to include:

* Mortgage/rent payments
* Utilities costs (electricity, gas, phone, water etc)
* Groceries
* Food
* Transport
* Car expenses
* Clothing
* Education expenses
* Entertainment
* Gifts

A Simple Budget

One of the simplest types of budget is called the “60 Percent Solution”.  In essence, this budget aims for you to fit your monthly expenses within 60% of your gross income.

Following the 60 percent solution will help cover all your bases: short and long term savings, recreational funds and retirement planning. These can be what often break a budget, because people fail to budget for them.

While the percentages will vary depending on your circumstances, consider these guidelines:

60%  – Monthly expenses
Housing, clothing, food, transportation, utilities, insurance, communication.

10% – Retirement
In some countries this forms part of a compulsory superannuation plan, but if it doesn’t for you, you should have this deducted automatically from your paycheck.

10% – Debt reduction or long term savings
This is your long term savings or “emergency fund”. You can speak to a financial advisor for recommendations on how to invest this money.

10% – Short term savings
This is your savings for annual events such as birthday and christmas presents, or your more “every now and then” type costs such as car and appliance maintainance, or unforseen medical costs.

10% – Pleasure
This will include recreation, eating out, movies— whatever you want, without the worry of breaking your budge.

Having a household budget with fewer categories will make it much more manageable and help you to realise your financial goals.

I read an article from a well respected newspaper a few days ago and was amazed to learn about the scale of the average persons debt from people who live in England. Now I am not just talking about your average mortgage here; this was more to do with loans, overdrafts and credit card debts. If you are one of these people then the time has come when you need to start thinking in a more positive manner. Why? Well this is what I will be explaining in the rest of this article, I hope you enjoy reading it and that it proves to be of benefit.

So why should you start to think in a positive manner with respect to your debt? Well to start with you are not alone, as stated above the majority of people in the UK are also in debt. Now the levels of how much people owe varies from person to person, of course, with the average debt reported to be in the region of £8,000.

Lets face it at least you are attempting to do something to clear your debts. Why do I have this opinion? Well you are reading this article for a start, that must be a good sign! Despite the horrendous debt mountain that the average person in the UK has accrued it is widely recognised that the majority of these people are not even trying to make arrangements to pay back the money.

So you want to reduce your debt? Maybe even to the extent of becoming completely free from debt? Well here is the next piece of positive advice; this can be achieved for people who are willing to be disciplined at sticking to a repayment plan and who are happy to stop spending so much cash; cash I might add that isn’t even theirs, it is after all only credit.

To start with I should make it clear that I am not a debt management expert. I am in fact a person who runs a web marketing agency in the UK and I also work with a company that advises about becoming a foster carer. I do however have a certain knowledge of debt consolidation management programs.

To break free from debt we have to make certain sacrifices and cutbacks. If we own our own business we could perhaps contact a company of business cost reduction experts to find about the ways in which we could save money, for example they may able to help us to obtain cheap mobile calls.

A debt management company could also advise on the best ways of approaching our creditors, plus they could organise the potential of having the interest frozen and an affordable repayment plan.

Think positive, you can become debt free.

When making personal finance choices and financial decisions affecting retirement assets, individuals should understand the fact that, historically, investments which are on the conservative side have resulted in significantly reduced investment portfolio returns than more risky asset portfolios have produced.

With investment returns adjusted for risk, a family just cannot get high returns with low risk. When a person takes on increased investment risk, an individual could be able to invest more and save less, due to the fact that the investment return on assets you hold is more often higher than a lower risk financial portfolio. On the contrary, you must realize that the expected results of this strategy are of lower probability.

Taking the opposite investment strategy, if individuals choose to take not as much portfolio risk, individuals must anticipate the need to save more and to invest more. Yet, the expected results are more likely to have a more sure outcome. How to strike the right tradeoffs for yourself between investment portfolio risk and returns is partially art and partially science. There are no easy answers, because the future is fundamentally not known, until it comes.

A person should wisely decide on a personal investment strategy in line with their personal tolerance for investment risk.

You can test these different investment strategies by experimenting with various settings with a sophisticated financial planning software tool. With historical asset return data, a sophisticated financial planning software tool with asset value projection functionality will soon become clear that a selection of investment assets that emphasizes bond and cash assets will more likely tend to increase at a slower rate than a portfolio favoring stocks.

Success in the long run with a conservatively invested portfolio depends far more on continued high rates of saving instead of higher hoped for investment returns. This prompts much more personal financial planning discipline to sustain over the years and decade-after-decade. From the other perspective, stock heavy asset portfolios require greater investment portfolio capital gains. Although, these equity heavy investment strategies will still require significant savings — just at lower rates than a more conservative asset allocation strategy.

Sophisticated financial planning software with a personal financial planning tool is required to produce a highly durable plan for your financial freedom

To establish a highly durable long-term money management strategy depends upon you using the leading financial planning worksheet with the best investment planner and the top financial planning tools. Look here to choose the top do-it-yourself financial planning tools home PC program with the leading retirement savings calculators, superior personal budget planner, and superior investment software for your do-it-yourself lifelong financial planning activities.

In the current financial climate of weak currencies, inflation and general insecurity, many investors and ordinary families are turning to a reliable and time-tested form of wealth preservation – gold bullion coins. They feel better if some of their savings are in the form of gold, rather than cash, bonds or other paper promises. They also want to actually have their wealth in their hand – really in their possession.

So, what exactly are gold bullion coins, where do you get them, and how much do they cost?

A century ago, gold coins were used as standard currency in many countries, and were in general circulation. In the USA, these were the famous and very beautiful quarter eagles, half eagles, eagles and double eagles, which were last issued in the 1930s, and are now sought after by collectors. After a gap of thirty or forty years, countries began to issue gold coins again, but not for circulation, since gold had simply become too valuable.

When people talk about gold bullion coins, they mean the modern gold coins issued by governments in one ounce, or fractions of one ounce weights, which are not for general circulation, but for collecting or investment. They are intended to be an easy and relatively inexpensive way for citizens to own gold (inexpensive compared with larger and heavier gold bullion bars).

In the USA, gold bullion coins are called American Gold Eagles. In Canada, they are called Canadian Gold Maple Leafs. In South Africa, the coins are called Krugerrands. In China, they issue Gold Pandas. The names are derived from the designs they carry.

All these different gold bullion coins are issued in the same actual gold weights – one ounce, half an ounce, a quarter of an ounce, a tenth of an ounce. Sometimes the bullion coins are pure gold, sometimes they have a small percentage of silver or copper to make them harder wearing, but they always have an ‘actual gold weight’ of one ounce or a fraction of an ounce as stated on the coin.

The coins usually have the year of issue and the ‘value’ on them; for example, the one-ounce American Gold Eagle has a face value of . Of course, the gold in the coins is worth far more than the face value. The actual value of a particular coin is dependent on the current value of gold on the general market, plus a ‘premium’, which is determined by the dealer or store that you buy it from.

Gold bullion coins have traditionally been bought from a dealer or a local coin store, but in recent years the Internet has opened up two new ways of purchasing them. One of the new ways is through online auction sites, and the other is through specialist online coin stores. These specialist online coin stores are the best way for most people to buy because you can view all types and weights of coins in one place, and can purchase them at prices which are generally lower than elsewhere.

To find out more about bullion gold coins, read about the types of coins available, and to check current prices, go to bullion-gold-coins.com and get the information you need to know before you buy.

In the ideal world, we’d never have to worry about our credit rating, as everything we would purchase would be purchased in cold, hard cash. In today’s condition, however, it is not possible to live and buy things in the world sans a little bit of credit.

The first thing to do is to actually find what your credit score happens to be. If you delay it until you are going to purchase something, you’ll be too late. It’s always advisable to fix a bad credit score before you are trying to buy something rather than after.

There are a lot of places where you can go online that promise to give you a free credit balance. Don’t believe the hype. There are not many real places that will surely give you a free credit score. Many of them will trick you into paying for something before they offer you the information that you’re trying to get. For superior results test fast credit repair to aid your financial planning.

If you wish to get your credit ranking, you may have to pay a small fee, but it is worth it when you’re trying to know how bad your credit truly is.

Paying off credit cards is a wonderful way to achieve fast credit repair. Credit cards can drag your credit rating down quickly due to their high interest values. If you can get your credit rate below 30% of the credit limit that you have on the card, you will repair your credit score remarkably. Become well-read, unique fundraising ideas to score more favourable results when handling money issues.

Instead of getting any new credit cards, take some of the older ones you’ve got out of your purse and use them. Having a extensive credit history gives you a better credit rating, and the only procedure to get that older history is to occasionally use the older cards that you’ve got.

Once you’ve kept your credit history in front of you, review it with a vigilant eye. Chances are high that you’ll discover something that’s wrong. Most of the credit companies will give you a adverse credit rating when you have a problem with them and will not remember to take the negative marks off when you have finished correcting the problem.

If this is the case with you, make sure you contact the company and let them know that there is a problem with your credit history, and you may also have to contact the credit bureau. Show proof that the problem is settled and your credit rating will jump very quickly.

If you’re worried about getting your credit rating up and are trying for fast credit repair, look no further than yourself. There are lots of things that you can do in order to get a credit rating that is not only fine, but fabulous, especially when you take the time to review your credit rating a few times a year. In the credit world, getting the hint of a complexity before it occurs can make all the difference. For improved outcomes attempt free credit report to facilitate your financial planning.

Brought to you by forex trend trading.

Penny shares are low-priced shares – usually with a value of less than $5 – of small companies. These shares are traded on the Over-The-Counter-Bulletin-Board (OTCBB) and the Pink Sheets. Both these trading venues do not have the same kind of minimum requirements of exchanges such as Nasdaq or the NYSE set by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Companies which issue penny stocks may be new businesses or close to bankruptcy. A new issue of stocks could be a way to inject quick capital to try to save the business.

All of these factors – low price, lack of standards, and lack of stability – make penny stocks one of the riskiest investments around. It is true that if a company succeeds the payoff will be great, but the vast majority of penny stocks end in bankruptcy. Other reasons why penny shares are risky include…

– Lack of information about the company. Companies listed in the Pink Sheets or the OTCBB do not have to issue financial statements. Most companies also have little reportable history.

– Low liquidity. Penny shares are infrequently traded, so finding a buyer may be difficult. The price may have to     lowered substantially to interest someone in buying the share.

– Potential fraud. Due to their unregulated nature, penny stocks are often used by con artists who sell them through     spam email or off-shore brokers.

So penny stocks are risky but are there any benefits to them?

Not all penny shares are frauds or companies facing bankruptcy. Some represent hard-working businesses that are struggling to meet the requirements to get listed on Nasdaq or the NYSE. Investing in these companies offers real growth potential – you have the opportunity to get in at the ground floor and ride all the way to the top.

The difficulty is finding which companies have this growth potential. Getting this information requires a lot of research and unless you are willing to take the time to personally investigate a company, you may again be the victim of fraud.  Some companies specialize in offering ‘inside information’ about companies selling penny stock, but they may simply be fronts for pushing a particular share on unsuspecting investors.

There are two ways to play the penny shares – do research or play craps. The low cost of these stocks means that you will not lose a lot money if the company goes under, and as long as you are prepared to lose this money penny stocks can be an interesting and fun addition to any portfolio. It must be stressed, however, that penny stocks should only make up a small portion of any portfolio. The odds are that most penny stocks will end up in a total loss.

If you would like to buy penny stocks you need to find a broker that will place an order for you. Many brokers will not cover them because of the difficulties in tracking them, but some online brokers specialize in penny shares. Regulations require brokers to receive written confirmation from the client concerning the transaction. The broker is also required to give the client a document outlining the risks of speculating with penny stocks.

Finally, the broker must disclose the current market price of the stock and the amount of compensation the firm receives for the trade. Monthly statements must be sent to the client detailing market value of each penny stock in the account.

For more please see ETF trend trading and Get a Free Instant Life Insurance Quote Online.

A number of things likely come to mind when you think of real estate investing. You likely leap to real estate investing as real estate portfolios and real estate retirement plans, and then you may expand to thinking of short sales, bulk reo investing or virtual real estate investing. You probably also wonder how these things play out in real estate investors’ life in the current economy.

There is a lot to learn about real estate investing. To get the most out of real estate investing education, be familiar with basic information ahead of time. No matter whether you are interested in short sales, bulk reo sales, virtual real estate or just enhancing your knowledge as a real estate investor, knowing some real estate investing basics will help you succeed. Here are three main real estate investing concepts that many experts do not even know:

1. Real estate investing education always yields positive. You can create thousands of dollars in potential wealth with each real estate deal. Knowing about getting that wealth is the key in the end to your success. When you know about real estate your odds of success increase with each real estate deal. A small investment in education has the ability to yield big results when it is implemented.

2. Real estate investing success is possible in any economy. Often people think that you can only be a success in real estate when the economy is good. You should remember that a bad economic situation is not usually bad for real estate investors. Likely you will be able to find properties at deep discounts. In addition, you can find deals that simply would not exist in a booming economy. Poor economies can turn based on active real estate investing. When an economy is less than thriving, short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate can prosper. You will be able to save yourself and others from serious financial difficulties if you know how to do these deals.

3. You will not need lots of money to be a successful real estate investor. You can make real estate investing a success regardless of how much money you have. There are lots of types of deals that you can perform with the money of other people. If you appear to be a solid investment you may be able to use a private lender’s money. An investor who is a good investment knows as much as they can when it comes to real estate investing. This will help you represent yourself as a good investment to private lenders who do not know how to make money in real estate investing.

A good deal of wealth can be generated with real estate investing. You can create an income in any economy. You can create your own success using your knowledge of short sales, real estate investing, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate. You will be helped to succeed as a real estate investor by knowing real estate investing basics.

Brought to you by trend trading.

Whereas shares give investors part ownership of a company, bonds are loans made by investors to corporations or governments. Rather than benefiting from company profits the way that stock holders do, bond holders receive a fixed rate of return – a percentage of the bond’s original offering price. The return is called the ‘coupon rate’. Bonds have a maturity date at which time the principal amount is returned. Bonds can be issued for any period of time – some take up to 30 years to mature.

Bonds always carry the risk that the principal amount may not be paid back. Companies with higher credit worthiness are more likely to be safe investments but their coupon rate will be lower than companies with lower credit ratings. Credit ratings are provided by firms such as Standard and Poor and Moody’s Investor Service. Credit ratings range from a high AAA to a low D.

US government bonds are considered to be the safest type of bonds. Blue chip corporations (those with established performance records that span over many decades) are also very safe bond investments. Smaller corporations have a greater risk of defaulting on their bonds, but bond-holders are preferential creditors and will get compensated before stock holders in the event that the business goes bankrupt.

Bonds can be bought and sold on the open market. Their value fluctuates according to the level of interest rates in the general economy. For example, if you hold a $1000 bond that pays 5% per year in interest you can sell the bond at higher than face value as long as interest rates are below 5%. If they rise above 5%, your bond can still be sold but usually at less than face value. This is because investors are able to get a higher interest rate than what your bond pays so in order to offset the difference your bond has to be sold at a lower cost.

Most bonds are traded in the Over-The-Counter (OTC) market which is made up of banks and security firms. Some corporate bonds are also listed on share exchanges and may be bought through share brokers. New issues of bonds are usually sold in $5000 increments while bonds bought and sold after the initial issues are quoted in increments of $100. A bond that is listed at 96 is selling for $96 per $100 face value.

Stocks or Bonds

When deciding whether to invest in shares or bonds, the risks versus the potentials have to be weighed. shares have much greater potential to increase in value but they are also more subject to market fluctuations. Investment grade bonds (those with a rating of BBB or better) carry less risk but offer a relatively low yield.

Most investors agree that for the short term, bonds offer greater security and return. The situation changes, however, when time spans of longer than 10 years are considered. The share market has consistently outperformed bond investments by a large factor. This is because companies continue to increase in value and any short term fluctuations in the share market are smoothed out over time.

Bonds still have their place in most portfolios, however. They provide a stable investment which helps to cushion against stock market fluctuation. A mixture of investments including stocks from various industries, bonds and other fixed-income investments is the way to provide maximum growth while securing your investment funds for the future.

For more financial help please see What Are ETF Trends? and ETF kinds.

Finally we have realised just what a problem debt can be when you take on too many debts. To some it seemed obvious that we could not go on expecting the cost of houses to continue rising at several percentage points each month. So many debts were secured on the value of property that it was bound to lead to a financial crash when borrowers just couldn’t borrow any more.

Now, we have so many people who have debts they can’t deal with and they need debt problem help. Every month as they struggle to find the money for their repayments they must wonder if they will ever see an end to their debt problems. Nobody would want to find themselves in this tricky situation but the truth of the matter is that this is not usually through careless or thoughtless financial behaviour. Life throws things at you and ill health, redundancy and divorce are very common reasons why people start to struggle with what are now overwhelming debt repayments.

Any of us could wake up one day and face these problems and if that day arrives we will be looking for some help from somewhere. Your credit report will look bad for up to ten years if you choose bankruptcy as a way of dealing with your debt problems. This could give you problems in the future if you want to raise a loan later. So rather than filing for bankruptcy you might want to consider some other options to assist with a credit fix and personal debt relief.

Debt consolidation loans are usually the first thing people think of when they need to deal with their debts. Getting a loan usually requires you to have a significant amount of your own money invested in the property used for security. Figuring out how much you need to borrow is simply done by adding up all your outstanding debts. You may have accumulated several debts such as vehicle loans, credit cards and other types of debt. Now we have to figure out what your current expenditure is on repayments each month. The money you have to find for your consolidated loan repayments every month should work out to be around the same or even less than you were paying before. A consolidation loans biggest benefit is usually that the interest rates are lower and over time you should end up paying much less in interest charges on your debt. You should benefit from not only reducing the repayments you make each month but you will have just the one debt so repayments are much simpler each month.

If you would rather go a different route debt relief agencies offer another way to overcome your debt problems. Your creditors will be contacted by the agency and they will make an arrangement to pay lower monthly repayments. Each month you will have a predetermined amount you have to pay them. A proportion of your monthly payment will be sent to each one of your creditors on a regular basis. This is something you could do yourself but most people prefer to use an agency.

You only have to make the one repayment if you decide to go with a debt relief agency. So it becomes a lot simpler because each month you now only have to send one repayment instead of individual ones for each of your creditors.

You need to learn the lessons on how to stay out of debt in future so you don’t get yourself back into a financial pickle again. If your financial problems were caused by credit cards the wisest thing would be to cut them all up. For anyone who is really serious about managing their finances and their debts dramatic moves like this can be a big help.

A lot of people would feel they need at least one credit card to keep in case of an emergency. If you store your card somewhere safely out of the way you will not be so easily tempted to use it. Freezing your credit card into a block of ice can really work well. The trick is that if you did want to make use of your card you would have to wait for the ice to melt before you could get your hands on it. This way you will get the time you need to decide if you really do want to use your credit card. For anyone who has experienced the problem of compulsive shopping and overwhelming debt problems this can be a way to help control that problem.

Brought to you by etf trends.

Stock options are contracts to buy (or sell) a stock at a certain price before a certain time in the future. Buyers of options have the right to buy the share at the specified price, but they are not obligated to exercise their option.  Sellers of options have the obligation to sell the underlying stock if the buyer of the option wishes to exercise it.

A contract to buy is called a ‘call option’. The buyer of a call option hopes the price of the underlying stock will rise, allowing him to buy it at less than market value. The seller of the call option expects that the price of the share will not rise, or at least is willing to accept a partial loss of profits made from selling the call option.

For example: An investor buys a call option on IBM with a ’strike price’ (the price the stock can be bought) of $50. The current price of IBM stocks is $40 and the cost of the call is $5. If the price rises above $55 (strike price + cost of call) the buyer could exercise his right to buy and make a profit by reselling on the open market. The seller would still gain from the increase in price from $40 to $55 plus the $5 he made by selling the call. If the price remains below $55 the call would not be exercised and the seller would profit by $5 per share and the buyer would lose his $5 per share.

Options are traded on specific stocks. They detail the name of the stock, the strike price (the price the stock can be bought or sold at), the expiration date and the premium (the price of the option itself). After the expiration the option cannot be exercised and is worthless. Options have a value and are actively traded. An option to buy Microsoft, for example, is listed like this:

MSFT Jan10 22.50 Call at $2.00

This tells us that an option to buy 1 share of Microsoft at $22.50 before the third Friday in January 2010 can be bought for $2.00. Options usually expire on the third Friday of the specified month, and they are usually traded in lots of 100. To buy this particular option you would have to pay $200 (plus brokerage fees).

An option to sell a stock is called a ‘put option’. This gives the holder the right (but not the obligation) to sell a particular stock within a certain time period at a certain price. In this situation the buyer is expecting the price of the share to fall but does not want to sell outright in case the price rebounds. The seller feels that the price is stable or is willing to acquire the share at the low price. 

For example: An investor buys a put option on Microsoft with a ’strike price’ (the price the stock can be sold) of $35.  The current price of Microsoft is $40 and the cost of the put is $5. If the price falls below $30 (strike price + cost of put) the buyer could exercise his right to sell at a higher price than market. The seller would have to buy the stock at the higher-than-market price but any losses are offset by the $5 he made by selling the put. If the price remains above $30 the put would not be exercised and the seller would profit by $5 per share and the buyer would lose his $5 per share.

As can be seen, stock options can be used to protect against loss or as an investment opportunity in their own right.  They are generally used as part of a trading strategy which combines the purchase of share with the purchase of options.

For example, in a bull (rising) market you could buy shares and call options and sell put options. This allows you to take full advantage of rising share prices – the stocks you buy will rise in value, the call options will allow you to buy share at less than market prices, and if the market dips and the buyer of your put option exercises it, you can pick up additional stocks at low prices. If the buyer does not exercise the option, you make money from the sale of the option.

Conversely, in a bear market, you can sell stocks, sell calls, and buy puts to limit losses and generate profits.  Unstable markets can use a mixture of puts and calls to maximize profit potential.

Options are traded on Futures and Options Exchanges. There are 6 such exchanges in the United States including the American stock Exchange (AMEX) and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). In Europe the main options exchanges are Euronext.liffe and Eurex.

For more financial help please see etf trends and trend following for a living.