Planning Ahead

Written by Terry J. Rigg


What do you think of that title? Just another article about repparttar impossible task of trying to predictrepparttar 110342 future. Not this time. This is an article that may give you some ideas on, not how to predictrepparttar 110343 future, but to be ready when it gets here.

Naturally, I'm talking about your finances. When it comes to your regular bills and expenses many of us have a hard time making plans to payrepparttar 110344 bills that we know are coming. What can we do to plan forrepparttar 110345 unexpected?

All to often when we have an expense that wasn't neatly placed in our budget we grabrepparttar 110346 credit cards. Needless to say this is just whatrepparttar 110347 credit card companies are hoping for. If this persistsrepparttar 110348 result is serious financial problems. It all boils down to spending more than you make each month.

To avoid this you need to have money put back to cover your unexpected or unplanned expenses. As always this is easier said than done if you are already struggling. But, like we used to say inrepparttar 110349 Navy, "The difficult tasks are a piece of cake. It'srepparttar 110350 impossible that takes a little longer".

First, what do you do if you don't have enough money? You either cut your expenses or you get more money. It's just that simple. Your best bet is to cut your expense as much as possible and still be able to have enough money forrepparttar 110351 essentials. Checkrepparttar 110352 web. There are thousands of ideas online to help you save on your expenses. Use search words like "saving money, cutting expenses, etc.". You can start by visitingrepparttar 110353 following sites:

TheFrugalShopper.com http://www.thefrugalshopper.com GreedyFools.com http://www.savingadvice.com BetterBudgeting.com http://betterbudgeting.com Debt Smart http://www.DebtSmart.com The Stay-At-Home Parents Page http://www.thestayathomeparentspage.com Brighter Futures http://www.brighterfutures.com Freebie Haven http://www.121fun.com Tidbits fromrepparttar 110354 Pantry http://www.humansrv.net Usave2day.com http://www.usave2day.com MoneyMakingMommy.com http://www.moneymakingmommy.com Dollar Stretcher http://www.stretcher.com

How Did I Get In This Mess?

Written by Terry J. Rigg


When I was younger and having all kinds of money problems, I ask myself a thousand time how I got myself in this mess. It seemed like one day we were doing fine financially andrepparttar next we owed everybody. How can it happen so quick?

This is a problem that a lot of people are experiencing today. It can be one ofrepparttar 110341 most helpless and frustrating situations most of us can find ourselves in. To make matters worse, it seemsrepparttar 110342 harder we try to get a handle on our financesrepparttar 110343 deeper in debt we become.

There isn't an answer that covers everybody, naturally, but I believe that in most cases we simply weren't paying close enough attention torepparttar 110344 details of our finances. We figure that an extra payment here or there won't make a difference, until it's too late.

I know for myself and most ofrepparttar 110345 people I have counseled over repparttar 110346 years, that it wasn't until we took a good hard look at how we got ourselves in debt, that we were able to start working on a way out. This isn't forrepparttar 110347 purpose of placing blame, but is necessary to determine what changes needed to be made and to prevent it from happening again.

I have found that very few people, including myself, have ever been taught evenrepparttar 110348 basics of proper money management, either at home or at school. This hit home when I had to teach all three of my kids how to fill out and maintain a check book, after they graduated from high school. I assumed that they would learn this in school. I realize now that I should have been more aware of what they were not learning and acceptedrepparttar 110349 responsibility of teaching themrepparttar 110350 fundamentals of handling their money myself. That was my job.

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