Global Urban Symposium

Archive for the ‘Finance and Money’ Category

We’ve all heard so many tips on saving but one thing most people do not know is that just having savings is not enough. You have to make your savings grow and multiply. This is where investing comes in. You invest so that your savings do not sit idly. Instead, they can be used so that you can have a more secure future because your next egg is continuously growing.

Getting into investments means that you have to identify your goals and your time frame. Beginning investors such as yourself must create a financial plan that identifies your goals and the length of time by which you want to achieve them. For instance, a beginning employee may want to pay off her student loan in five years, take annual vacations, and have enough saved in 20 years to retire. These outlined goals will help guide you. For instance, which goals would require short-term or long-term planning?

Then you have to determine how much risk on your money you can tolerate. A good formula for this is 100 minus your age. The number you come up with is the percentage of your investments that should be in moderate to aggressive growth investments. This could be a benchmark for the beginning investor.

After you have made these decisions, you have to commit to funding the investments you plan to male.  Limit your expenses and eliminate nonessentials to better save for your goals.

Lastly, it is time to jump right in and invest. Browse through financial publications and websites to educate yourself about different types of investments then go for it.

The wedding is done. Gifts unwrapped and packed away. Now it’s time to look for a permanent place for those gifts. It is the moment to choose your own home. This is a dream come true for most couples as purchasing a home is a really big thing. It is one of the biggest financial investments that a couple will ever make. The home then has to be chosen with care as this is probably the one that you will spend all the rest of your days in.

There are then a lot of things that you have to consider when choosing your first home. You can ask yourself questions as guides. First, what type of home do you want? You can opt for multifamily homes, a single-family unit, or you can even choose a condominium if you live in highly urbanized areas.

Next, what are your needs? How many bedrooms do you want? Maybe you can get a house that has a good view for the breakfast nook you’ve been dreaming of.

Most importantly, what is your budget? Choose a home with an amortization and mortgage rate that you can work with and with a term that you can pay for.

After these considerations, you can take it easy on yourself and first start your search in the internet. With just a few clicks, you can go through hundreds and hundreds of online listings. You are now off to a running start to choosing your first home.

They come like clockwork every month. Pages and pages of paper that tell you how hard you have to work.  These are reminders of why you still have not resigned even though you hate your boss. Bills never stop coming and there are bills, like credit card bills, that get bigger even if you have not used your plastic in a while.

But have faith. There is a way to rid yourself of credit card bills. You just need patience and the ability to tighten the belt. First, have a realistic assessment of how big your credit card bill is. Yes, you did pay that much for that pair of jeans. You may not even remember purchasing some of the items in your bill but yes, it’s there.

After reeling from that big number, sit and create a budget that will help you pay the debt and stay out of that debt. Keep in mind that you are making a budget that totally stops your reliance on credit cards. It is cash only. Repeat this to yourself several times a day.

The next step is to cut your spending. Look for ways to lower your expenses. Maybe there are times you can walk instead of drive. Take a look at your fridge too and see which foods just go stale then you can buy less of those. Lowering your expenses will free up money that you can then use to pay your bills. Now you’re on your way to getting less of those pages every month.

Budgeting is synonymous to planning. This means that the budget is made up of different steps that have to be followed. If not, the plan will not work for you. Following a budget requires patience, conscientiousness, and consistency. Once you decide to stick to it, you will definitely reap the financial benefits and even have peace of mind because you know that you are managing your money well.

There are three simple steps to establishing a budget. The first step is to track your income and your expenses. This is the foremost information that you will base your plan on. Collect all your bank statements, credit card statements, receipts, and all your cash. The reason behind this is that you need to know how much money you are making and where it’s being spent. To make this easier, carry around a small notepad where you can list down the expenses as you make them.

Secondly, you have to group your income and expenses into categories. There are downloadable spreadsheets in the internet to help you with this. To give you an idea, the categories could be: groceries, personal supplies, clothing, entertainment, utilities, etc. Beside these, list your expenses per category in a given month. You can then compute for your average monthly income and your average monthly expense.

The third step is to make a budget which is within your income. Because of what you did in step 2, you can actually see if your expenses can be carried by your income. If it is not, then it means you have to cut some corners and make it fit.