Entries Tagged 'Savings' ↓

Worried About Single Parent Financial Planning Strategies?

Single Parents Need Help With Financial Planning

If you are a single parent, you know more than most the struggle of caring for a child, emotionally and physically, and that you have to always be the one to provide for your family. This is why when the tax filing season comes, you need to be sure you have the following tips to help you out. H&R Block can further help you if you go to them for a consultation on Financial Planning Strategies.

Financial Planning Strategies
Financial Planning Strategies

Your first priority should always be estate planning. This is because you have to be sure your children are cared for if you become incapacitated or suddenly die. To do this you need to be sure you have a will, power of attorney, and also the ability to have someone else be your power of attorney in terms of what to do if your health gets too bad.

You must furthermore have a plan in place for cash flow. If your partner dies and you have insurance coming through, this dries up after a while. Having an additional plan in place makes certain you will still be able to provide for your family.

A safety net should also be situated properly. This ensures that if something happens to you, that your family will be cared for during a time of six months or so. This ensures that they have the ability to recover and figure something out to provide for themselves once you are unable to. A savings account or risk-investment account is often the best choices.

Planning for health costs is another important factor. Ensuring that not only will your family be cared for, you can assure that anything involving your own bills won’t be passed down to them.

Life insurance is vital for anybody with a family. You need to be sure that burial costs and such will be taken care of, and also that your family won’t have to suffer additional sadness if you pass in the form of trying to scrounge up money for your last minute burial and estate issues.

The last two important things are disability coverage and retirement savings. These are vital because if you are disabled you will need to be sure that you have a way to pay for things, and also that your children can still go to college if you cannot pay.

Five Great Jobs for Quick Holiday Cash

Quick Holiday Cash

It’s the most-expensive time of the year. Whether it involves buying presents or paying for travel, the holidays can cost a lot of money. Here are five jobs that don’t require much training but still pay good money to help you cover those extra holiday expenses.

  1. Amusement and recreation attendants

Families typically get together during the holidays and they need things to do besides sit around and annoy each other. Take advantage of the increase in holiday entertainment options and find a part-time job as an amusement or recreation attendant. A job like this might pay $9.60 an hour- and possibly get your family in at a discounted rate.

  1. Ushers, lobby attendants, or ticket takers

I don’t know about you but one of my family’s Holiday traditions is to go see a movie while we are together. I don’t think my family is alone- Hollywood seems to save all the great movies for the month of December (I’m so excited to see the first installment of “The Hobbit”- aren’t you?). Getting a job at the movie theatre (or even the local stage theatre for their annual Christmas shows) can be a great way to earn around $9.69 an hour (and maybe get a free show in, too).

  1. Cashier

The reason we all need a little extra cash during the Holidays is because we are spending a lot of it ourselves. Getting on the other side of the counter can be a good way to earn some money- and possibly a little discount at the store as well. Cashiers could expect to make around $9.73 per hour.

  1. Garment or textile pressers

This might sound like an undesirable job- I know I picture someone in a sweatshop somewhere in Chinatown- but a good, blue collar job like this can be a great way to make a little extra cash for the Holidays. The nice thing about jobs like this is that they are stable and predictable and you don’t have to deal with the stress that comes with serving customers. Working as a presser could pay as much as $9.87 an hour.

  1. Personal and home care aides

So much of a focus of the Holidays is a drive to serve people in need. Why not combine your desire to be helpful with a job as a personal care aide? Although this might sound a little intimidating, basically this job is about helping someone with some chores around the house or offering a little company. This can be a very important job around the holidays when families might be traveling and simply needing someone to help “check-in” on a loved-one while they are away. Home or personal care aides might expect to make about $9.88 an hour.

There probably a few more jobs that could qualify- for example in a previous blog post I wrote that waiting tables, working in food prep and recreational protective service workers (think lifeguards) as the top 5 highest-paying, lowest training jobs. Each of the jobs could qualify as a “great jobs for quick Holiday cash” as well although my more recent data shows that those jobs don’t pay as well as they once have.

You have lots of options when looking for a good job for some extra Holiday money.No matter which option you choose, I hope you find enough to really deck the halls and have a happy Holidays.

David Zimmerman is the developer of https://jobland.us/ which is dedicated to help people consider their career options and make an informed decision about their current career (or find a completely new occupation.

How To Keep Your Friends And Finances Separate

Keep Money and Friends Separate

(photo courtesy of twodolla on Flickr)

Everybody counts on their friends for advice. Our friends keep us stable, help us when we are frustrated or scared, and celebrate with us when we have reached goals and achieved milestones. There are casual friends, whom we like to spend time with and have a good laugh. Then there are those few close friends, with whom we share our life secrets, our deepest thoughts and our problems.

The closest of friends knows when something is bothering you. If you do not volunteer information, they will ask. It is a comfortable feeling, knowing that you can confide in your best friend, and he or she will make you feel better, offer solutions, and even help you resolve your problems.

Gifting or loaning money is another issue altogether. While moral support is important to all of us, and means so much as we wade through life, monetary support is not something we should become involved with when it comes to our best friends. Borrowing a couple bucks to get lunch or putting a few items on a credit card is something friends do for each other all the time. However, when it comes to large money issues, the lines should be drawn.

You need a quick fix to a temporary cash flow problem, or it is time to pay the rent or the mortgage and you are short. In these times, late payments, even a few days late, affect your credit rating negatively. If you have a friend who has the means, and you ask to borrow money, they may say “yes.”  They may feel obligated to say that, in order to keep your friendship. But it may not be the best idea.

There are other solutions, ones that will keep your close friendships intact. Canada payday loans online may be the solution for you. A payday loan is, as the name applies, a short-term cash loan. While banks and loan companies have very strict policies, which makes qualifying for a loan difficult at best, a payday loan can be more within your reach.

A payday loan is a short-term solution to a short-term cash problem. You can apply online and if approved, the money will be transferred directly into your account in a shorter time than it would take to wait for a loan approval from the bank or loan company. You can use the cash to make that payment and keep your credit rating intact. As we all know, a good credit score is very important these days.

Make sure you understand all the terms of the loan, as it is a loan and does need to be paid back according to the contract. Securing a payday loan will help keep your finances and your friendships intact, but make sure to adhere with the agreed-upon policies to avoid falling deeper into bigger financial troubles.

 

How To Save Money On Your Electric Bill

When you look at your electric bill, you may find it is higher than what you expected to see. You may start to wonder how exactly you can save money on your electric bill. The problem is, much of the advice you find is not going to be useful and this can lead to you thinking it is impossible to save money on this bill. Here are five tips to help you save money on this bill, but unlike other advice, this is practical advice that can be used quickly and right away!

1. Turn Items Off

You may have heard this a thousand times growing up, but this makes a huge difference in your monthly bill. For example, if you leave just one bedroom light most days, it can easily increase your bill by a couple of dollars. A couple of dollars may not seem like much, but factor this in with the other lights and televisions on a regular basis. Once you take this step, you will notice that those couple of dollars can easily add up to close to one hundred dollars. So turning them off will drastically lower your bill, even if by a couple of dollars, at a time.

2. Unplug It

You probably leave your microwave and other appliances plugged in all the time. The problem is, the only reason they are plugged in most of the time is for ease of use. If you are able to get to the plug, you should unplug the item and so you don’t have to worry about it increasing your bill (because it will – anything you leave plug in drains energy). The downside of doing this is you may have to plug the item back in and possibly reset a clock to use the item, so figure out what’s more important to you.

3. Change Light Bulbs

Older-style bulbs are going to draw more electric and not last as long. If you change these to newer CFL bulbs, you can say goodbye to recurring expenses. Simply buy a few new bulbs at once, and you most likely won’t have to buy another one for a couple of years. This will be required for everyone soon, so get used to it now!

4. Hand Dry

Most people do not realize this, but a huge-energy sucker is the dryer. If you live in an area with a lot of wind or even sunny days, you need to take advantage of this. Hanging the clothes outside on a line or inside in the sunlight. Not only will they your clothes dry naturally, but the suns rays will also kill off any of the bacteria which could land on the clothes.

5. It’s Done!

For convenience, a great item to have plugged in all the time is a cell phone. The problem is, these will constantly draw power, even when they are fully charged. If you want to save money, you need to unplug these as soon as they are done charging.

Carol Hartman likes to write about home remedies, green livingBoatinsurance.org.