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Week of April 26, 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!

Checking Account Basics

If you are having problems managing your Checking Account or would like to know more about how they should be managed and what fees normally apply you can check out the below link:

Checking Basics
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/green/chk/basics-toc.asp

New Uses for Old Stuff

This was a very long tip sent in by Nancy from Akron, NY so I have placed it on a web page to save room in the newsletter. Make sure to click on the below link and read this tip. It's a good one!

Click Here to view the list

Gas In Fredericktown MO - $2.57 a Gallon!!!
Gas In St Louis MO - $2.87 a Gallon!!!
Gas In Anderson SC - $2.57 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

Why Can't You Stick To Your Budget

I'm going to elaborate on my article "How To Stick To Your Budget" in this issue. From all of the email I have received since I started Budget Stretcher, sticking to your budget tops the list of problems.

It seems like setting up a budget isn't to big a problem for most people. Some, like me, have done it dozens of times. Most of us know a budget will help us but how do we make it work?

There are actually four key elements to preparing a budget that you can live with month after month. Straying from any of these will probably cause your budget to fail.

The first element is that you have to be REALISTIC when you prepare your budget. A good example of this is what one family did when they were determining their budget for groceries. They spent around $100 on Saturday of each week for food, health items, cleaning supplies, etc.

They decided that their budget for groceries should be $400 per month. That makes sense. After a couple of months I received an email stating that their budget wasn't working.

After digging a little I found out that they also spend $40 to $50 each week on milk and bread runs during the week. Their budget for groceries should have been about $600 a month.

The second element that will give you a better chance of sticking to your budget is to make it SIMPLE. There is nothing that will cause you to stick it in a drawer and forget it than trying to keep up with a complicated budget. How do you determine whether a budget is too complicated? If you have to work on it more than once a payday after it is setup then you need a simpler budget.

The third element is that you must have your bills, receipts and other documents ORGANIZED. If you are organized you should be able to lay your hands on a bill or receipt within 60 seconds. Believe it or not this can be done.

The last element is to work your budget into your ROUTINE. If working on your budget seems foreign to you probably won't stick to it.

So here are the 4 key elements:

1. Make it REALISTIC
2. Make it SIMPLE
3. Keep it ORGANIZED
4. Make it ROUTINE

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Grandpa Terry's Email

Hi Terry,

Finally got home. Just have to build up my strength.

With all that has been going on I had to default on most of my credit cards.

Would you please send me the info on stopping phone calls under Consumer Credit Law.

Ken

My Response

Hi Ken,

Sorry to hear your hospital stay put you behind.

All you have to do is send a letter to each of your creditors by certified mail (return receipt requested) using the sample letter at the below page:

http://www.budgetstretcherpremium.com/paiduser/ceasedesistltrs.htm

Here is the link to the FTC Fair Debt Collection Practices Act:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf

If you need anything else just let me know.

Get Well Soon,
Terry

<><><><><><><><><><>

Hi,
Please give me your advice on this. I lost my job after 17 years being a waitress. I just turned 47 this past week. I have to do something else other than wait tables. I want to go back to school. Should I be looking for a business degree, medical or accounting classes? Which do you think would be best? I'm concerned that I will be putting all of this money out for school and then I won't get hired by anyone because I am so old and starting over. Please give me any advice or an idea where to get some idea. Thank you for your help.

My Response

Hi,

I'm really sorry to hear about you losing your job.

It's funny you should ask this question. I found an article last week that lays out the fields that have continued to hire even during the recession. Here is the link to that article:

Companies That Hire During a Recession - Recession Proof Careers
By Patty Inglish, MS
http://hubpages.com/hub/Companies-That-Hire-During-a-Recession

Also, I would recommend visiting the college you would be attending and talk to one of their counselors. They could probably help steer you in the right direction.

One thing to remember when choosing a field is that you will be doing that type of work possibly for years. Make sure it's something that you would enjoy and open to advancement.

To avoid being caught unprepared for losing a long term job is to think of any job that you have as temporary and have a plan in place in the event you lose that job. In the past you could depend on some companies to provide a life-long career without too much worry about layoffs. That doesn't hold true anymore.

I hope this helps,
Terry

<><><><><><><><><><>

Hi Terry,

I just read your article on taxes. I was wondering if this information is still true, it is now 2010. That article was written in 2004 and I just need to know if this information would be right for now. I do appreciate all your hard work.

I also wanted to ask, do you know how to make a backup disc for your computer? If you do will you explain it in real easy terms, because I don't know how to do it.

Thank you,
Cheryl

My Response

Hi Cheryl,

Yes, the article is as relevant now as it was in 2004. You can still get your money in your paycheck instead of waiting for a refund.

To learn how to make a back up disk I recommend that you visit http://www.real-knowledge.com and put "computer back up disc" in the site search in the search box located in the upper right corner. The pages that show up from the search will list not only how to back up your hard drive depending on the operating system you have but also show you how to use the disk to restore your computer in the event you lose information.

I hope this helps,
Terry

Featured Article

I ran the below article in May of last year but I believe with tough times it's so easy to blame someone else.

Stop Playing the Blame Game
by Jill Cooper

It is as old as time and is one of the first "sins" Adam and Eve committed: The blame game. Do you remember in the Garden of Eden when God had first asked Adam what he had done and if he had eaten of the tree of life? He didn't say, "Yes I did. I'm sorry and will not do it again." No he basically said, "It's your fault because you gave me this woman and it's her fault because she made me do it." Oh Adam, my hero! NOT!

I wouldn't consider him a real man's man... or a real woman's man either. He doesn't accept any responsibility for the situation at all, and then to make matters worse, he places all the blame on the woman that God gave him. The same woman he was that he was supposed to love and protect.

Now wives, before you get too puffed up what did Eve do? She begged, pleaded, whined, nagged and pouted until she convinced Adam to do something that he as the head of the house didn't feel comfortable with. When God asked her what she had done she then proceeded to blame the serpent. She didn't say, "I was wrong. I should have listen to what my husband had to say and let him lead me," but blamed the whole mess on a silly snake.

I'm laughing as I write this because the perfect example of what I am talking about right now is probably happening in each reader's mind. Any wife who is reading this can hardly wait for her husband to read this so he can get his act together and any husband who is reading this is thinking, "I can hardly wait for my wife to read this." Why? Because after all these years, the blame game is still going on and they can't wait for the other person to get his or her act together because it is all the other person's fault.

Let me start with the husbands because they are supposed to be the leaders in the family and guide their family in the right way by their actions and attitude. (Don't worry: I'll get to the wives next.) A man is not only supposed to protect his wife physically but also emotionally, spiritually and with regard to her good name. When he criticizes and blames her even for little things that happen in his life, he is not protecting her good name. Even if it means that he looks bad in a situation standing up for his wife he should still be willing to do it.

Husbands, one of the worst things a "man" can do is to criticize and to blame his wife for things that upset him and aren't going right in his life. I put the word man in quotes because there is nothing manly about a husband who does this. Let me show you what I am talking about.

My newlywed son had run over to meet our new neighbor one day. When he got back he was in shock. He said the man had spent the whole time saying awful things about his wife; she didn't keep the house clean, she was the reason they were in financial trouble (he was saying all this with his new truck sitting in the driveway), she didn't deal with the kids the way she should and his whole life was miserable because of her. He said, "My wife is 'high maintenance'". That was the first time I had ever heard that phrase and to this day I still cringe when I hear it.

That man may have thought by putting his wife in bad light it would make him look better and we would think more highly of him, but it didn't. It only made him seem like a weak fool.

Husbands you are your wife's protector. That not only means her physical protection but her emotional, too. It is your job to protect her from all negative things that could harm her, including yourself. When you play the blame game, you are not only not protecting her but you are often her attacker, making things even worse. If you saw someone verbally or physically attacking your wife on the street, how would you react? You would probably be all over them. But you are doing the same thing daily by blaming her for every little thing that goes wrong.

You are responsible for your wife's good name, too, and every time you criticize or blame her, you are tarnishing it. I'm not just talking about the big things, but also a general attitude of negativity.

For example, you are late meeting some friends because you wife didn't put the car keys away. In order to make yourself look good (you probably don't realize that is why you are doing it) you tell them you are late because your wife didn't put the car keys up. Instead, you should have said, "Sorry we are late but I didn't round up the car keys ahead of time and had to take time to find them." Do you see the difference?

All the same things I just said about the husbands also apply to wives. You should always strive to protect your husband's name. In Proverbs 31 it says that a wise woman's husband is well respected in the town and part of that is because his wife has not gone around bad mouthing him. It also says that she does good to him and not evil. Are all of your words and actions done for your husband's good and to make him look good or do you blame him?

How many things that are wrong in your life do you blame on your husband? Is the reason your house isn't clean because your husband doesn't help or is it really because you spent most of the day running around shopping, on the internet, on the phone or even at too many school or church activities? Are all of your money problems his fault? Remember, when one of you is having problems, the other needs to lovingly help.

Instead of spending all of your time and energy pointing out each others faults and placing blame, put your heads together and find a solution to the problem. Talk, plan and work together. That's why it's called team work. If two horses are pulling a wagon, how far do you think they will get if each horse is fighting the other and trying to go its own way?

Another type of blame that is rampant is blaming others. Not only do we blame each other, but we blame everyone and everything for our miserable lot in life. We blame the government for everything from the pot holes made by the last ice storm to our not being able to pay our mortgages. We blame our out of control anger and negative emotions on our parents. We blame the fact we can't get jobs on the "fact" that we are too old, too young, the wrong skin color, the wrong sex, don't have enough education or have too much education -- We overlook the fact that other people with those same attributes somehow seem to manage to get jobs just fine.

It is so much easier to make excuses and blame everyone for our circumstances. We come up with every excuse under the sun to explain why we can't fix something. Why do we think we are a special generation? People have always had difficult circumstances. The successful ones just took responsibility and dealt with them, whether it was fair or unfair, whether it was their fault or someone else's. Placing blame is just a lazy, irresponsible way to live your life.

Here's one last thing to consider: We often blame others when we are caught doing something wrong. Let me give you some examples. Say you can't pay your mortgage. Do you blame the bank because they lent you more money than you could afford. Isn't the real reason for the problem that you shouldn't have borrowed more than you could afford, but you wanted that nice house. You did something wrong and you are caught in a mess so you blame the bank.

What about losing your job and blaming your company for your financial mess? But you say, "I couldn't help getting fired so I did nothing wrong." Think it through. While you had a job, did you just spend and charge, not giving one thought to what would happen if you lost your job? Who really is wrong-- your company for firing you, or you for not spending and taking care of your money wisely when you had it and a job?

Does it really matter who is to blame? What difference does it really make? Will it solve anything by blaming anyone? Aren't you just wasting time and energy by doing so? Think how much more you could accomplish in your life if, instead of using your mind like a broken record, going over and over why someone or something else is to blame, you used your mind to start thinking of the solution to the problem.

-Jill

Jill Cooper and Tawra Kellam are frugal living experts and the editors of http://www.LivingOnADime.com/ . As a single mother of two, Jill Cooper started her own home business without any capital and paid off $35,000 debt in 5 years on $1,000 a month income. Tawra and her husband paid off $20,000 debt in 5 years on $22,000 a year income. They have helped thousands of people all over the world to save money and get out of debt.