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Week of April 12, 2010

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Grandpa Terry's Update

Grandpa Terry's Tip of the Week

Grandpa Terry's Email

Featured Author's Article

Grandpa Terry's Update

Welcome to The Budget Stretcher!

Be Prepared

I received the below email several years ago about where you can obtain a free living will form and exactly what you need to do. This is the best site I've seen for getting your affairs in order. Thank you Beck

Grandpa Terry,

I noticed your article about living wills. I am a nurse who lives in Florida, and I am encouraging everyone to get Advance Directives. However, you do not have to pay for these forms. If you go to http://www.projectgrace.org, you can find printable Advance Directive forms to print for free. Also, any Hospice site will direct you to printable Health Care Surrogate and Living Will. Just use the search engine and go to any Hospice site.

Thanks for bringing this to other people's attention. I wish more people would take this seriously. If anyone needs more information, let me know and I will be glad to supply any that I can, or direct them to another site.

Beck

Thrifty Fun.com

You have seen the ads for Thrifty Fun in our newsletter for some time. I can't think of a web site that has more information that can help on almost any topic. They do have literally 10,000 Tips and articles. As a favor to me I would like for you to visit them and see what I mean. It won't cost you a cent. Here's the link:

http://www.thriftyfun.com

Beginner's Guide To Budgeting

There seems to be a renewed interest in my free budgeting course "Beginner's Guide To Budgeting". At any one time there are between 90 and 100 people receiving this 8 part course and over 4000 people have completed the course. If you haven't taken the course yet you can visit your Subscriber Benefits Page using the below link to get started. The order form is in the left column:

http://www.homemoneyhelp.com/subbbo/bonusbook.html

Gas In Fredericktown MO - $2.59 a Gallon!!!

That's all for now. Remember, I really enjoy hearing from you folks. If you have any comments, complaints, suggestions or just want to say Hi, please send me an email to tre2000@midwest.net

If you know someone that may be interested in subscribing to our newsletter just copy and paste the below link into an email to them and have them subscribe:

http://www.homemoneyhelp.com/confirmsubs.html

Have a great week,
Grandpa Terry

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Grandpa Terry's Tip of the Week

The Most Costly Expense of All
By Terry Rigg

Do you think you have a lot of bills? If so, you are probably right. But have you considered the bill that costs you the most each month?

On average your housing costs probably run about 30% of your take home pay. Your other bills which include utilities, credit cards, etc. also run about 30% of your take home pay. It probably takes another 30% to run your household and if you are lucky you can stash the remaining 10% in a savings account.

What are your percentages? Do you know? That's the problem. Most people run their budget out of their wallet.

There is that hideous word "Budget". Many people compare operating their finances with a budget to having a ball and chain attached to their wallet. They won't be able to get anything they want for the rest of their lives.

Let's see if the following scenario fits you:

You get paid.
You write out your bills.
You give your spouse some money.
You wait for next payday to get some more money so you can do the same thing.

You may not realize it but if you are doing this you are spending a lot more money than you need to.

Most of the people I work with have no idea how much money they make or how much they owe. While money may be important to them it is way to much trouble to learn how to manage it. This is the very reason there were $1.5 million bankruptcies in this country last year.

I can almost guarantee that if you are trying to run your finances like the scenario above at some point you are going to run into problems. It simply can't work.

The main reason for this is that you never get a broad picture of where you are financially. You pay the bills and hope you have enough money to buy your groceries and put gas in the car until next payday.

Most people can add and subtract. That's all there is to a budget. If you aren't willing to take the time then living paycheck to paycheck will be with you the rest of your life.

I call this "Financial Complacency" which simply means that you know you need to manage your money better but aren't willing to do what's necessary. Here are a few excuses I hear to justify this:

I don't make enough money.
I owe too much to set up a budget.
I'm not good with numbers.
I just don't have the time to keep up with a budget.
I can't get my spouse to work with me.

Do any of these sound familiar?

Well, that's the problem but what about a solution. The solution is simple no matter what your financial situation is.

First, you must find out where you stand now. That could be as simple as writing down your income and bills and expenses on a piece of notebook paper. Then subtract your expenses from your income. Make sure to include your household expenses (groceries, car gas, etc.) in your expenses.

Now look at the numbers. Do you have anything left over? If so what are you going to do with it? That's the next step. If you don't then you need to consider cutting some of those expenses.

Now you need to decide what you really want your money to do for you. Set your goals! This could be saving for your retirement, buying a home, college for the kids, getting a new car or any number of things. That's why you have to decide for yourself. There are just too many variables for someone else to help you.

My first suggestion is that if you have credit card debt you look for a way to pay them off and stop using them. Realizing that goal could make your other goals more likely to succeed.

Now it's time to set up that dreaded budget. Where are you going to find the time and desire to write everything down that you spend and all the other stuff that goes along with keeping a budget? The answer is that you don't have to!

One of the biggest myths about budgeting is that you need to keep up with it everyday. That's the reason so many people refuse to try.

It does take a little time to get your budget setup. There are a lot of things that need to be considered. But once your finances are down on paper there is no reason to work on it except on payday. You will find a link to a free budget like this in the bio of this article.

If you believe that managing your money is to difficult or just too much trouble consider the alternative. Not managing your money is probably robbing you of thousands of dollars a year and could lead to financial disaster.

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Grandpa Terry's Email

No Email This Week

Featured Article

Fighting an Increasing Rate
by Scott Bilker

Scott Bilker is the author of the best-selling books, Talk Your Way Out of Credit Card Debt, Credit Card and Debt Management, and How to be more Credit Card and Debt Smart. He's also the founder of DebtSmart.com. More about Scott Bilker and DebtSmart can be found in the online media kit.

Scott,

I had a card that had a fixed rate of 5% on my balance. I closed the account years ago when I started taking control of my debt. Since this was the lowest rate of the cards I had, I was only paying the minimum and concentrating instead on paying off other high interest credit. I received a notice with one of my invoices that they would be increasing the rate to 20% and that I basically didn't have a choice in the matter (fine print). I transferred the balance over to other cards that would have a lower APR than the 20% they would be imposing; however, this severely limited my available credit for emergency purposes.

Just wanted to know if it is legal for them to increase the rate on a closed account and if there was any other option for me to consider. Obviously, this would be information for any future similar situations. Thanks!

Mike

Mike,

Do you have the original paperwork that gave you the fixed rate of 5%? I truly hope so because it's that documentation that could ultimately help you keep that rate. The only problem is that you did transfer the balance. But you did so because you thought they wouldn't keep the rate at what they promised.

I see this happen frequently. That's why I ALWAYS keep copies of the letter, terms, conditions, etc. in my files for just such a situation. I even photocopy applications!

If this happened to me, and I found evidence that they couldn't raise the rate, then I might even contact a lawyer and see what could be done. I would also contact the Federal Trade Commission and other consumer groups to see if they could help me make the bank honor their agreement.

For the future...get everything in writing and keep it in a file!

Good luck and please let me know what happens.

Scott