Proper Money Management, Planning & Fiscal Organization
How do you feel about your personal financial situation? If we’d asked you that question before 2007, you would have probably said “pretty good”. These days, a lot of us are no longer as comfortable with our finances, no thanks to the recent financial trials that our country and the world are undergoing.
But even the big picture hinges upon what goes on in each individual household. That’s something we particularly care about here — we try to answer the question: how can we best manage our personal and family finances? How are we handling our everyday money management needs? In our Money Management category, we discuss the tricks we use to plan for our daily expenses, how we track our saving and spending better and how we can best be financially accountable to ourselves. We cover the basics, such as how to balance your checkbook, and also chime in on where to find the best budgeting software. We talk about financial planning and working with advisers, planners and professionals in this field. We try to talk about the practical concerns that most households have when it comes to dealing with money at the ground level.
Let’s use this forum as a way to share our successes, challenges and even frustrations with our bank accounts and our purses. Do feel free to take a look around. We’re sure that you’ll find answers to many of your questions as well as a few you may not have thought of yet. If you have some suggestions or experiences we haven’t touched on yet, we certainly welcome your comments!
Money matters are easier to deal with when things are organized. We talk about financial planning and everyday money management practices here.
It’s not just how much you make that matters, but also how much you actually keep. There are but few words in the financial vocabulary that strike fear in me, and TAX is one of them. The annual chore of preparing and organizing my financial documents that comes around February or March never fails to [...]
It’s one of those things I fiddle with — those little financial tools from CNN Money or Bankrate.com that tell you how financially adequate you are. Aren’t you curious about how you stack up against the general populace? These money tools are meant to dish out test results to help us keep track of our [...]
Thanks to popular e-readers like the Kindle and Nook, financial ebooks are more available than they were a few years ago. I’ve searched for engaging and informational titles, then compiled a list that includes a number of free financial ebooks. Over the years, I’ve managed to collect financial ebooks from big name authors like Suze [...]
Sometimes, it may seem that you’ve barely blinked and it’s suddenly the end of the year already. I like to treat our household like a mini-company that needs a financial once-over by year’s end to make sure we’re still on track towards our goals. Consider it an annual financial checkup. Actually, you could lose out [...]
Besides my secret life as a rhyming poet, Dr. Seuss has taught me a few things about personal finance and business. These friendly books appeal to children of all ages and most have an important message behind the humorous rhymes. They can be a great way to learn about counting, finance and achieving success in [...]
I can see how debt can grow into something uncontrollable and unmanageable to the point of crushing someone financially. This is what I could foresee happening to me if I took up all the loan offers that used to come my way. I would wonder: how did mail marketers find out where I live? After [...]
Do you have great sayings that you ponder over and reflect upon every so often? I actually have a few pieces of advice that I hold near. I actually try to live by a few of these “adages”. The first is a very common cliche which I’ve adopted and taken to heart as I cruise [...]
Are you a manager at the office, a project team lead or a business owner? If you are, then you are no stranger to organizational tasks and maybe even to project management. What I find interesting is that many of us who are good at running a team or organization may not be all that [...]
Lots of people have been hitting the books lately. Not in the way you’d expect though. I meant that many people I know both online and off have been participating in some exciting projects, and have decided to become published authors. Everyone’s A Writer: A Family of Authors? Here’s what I mean. In my family [...]