The view from underneath a crushing debt burden can be pretty grim. If you’re struggling with a mountain of debt that seems poised to grow indefinitely, you may feel as if you’re no longer in control of your own future. In fact, you may feel like giving up completely. When you’re barely able to keep up with your bills and your interest rates seem to increase with no end in sight, it’s normal to want to throw in the towel.
Then again, things may not be as bad as they seem. Plenty of regular folks just like you have successfully fought their way out of a spiraling personal debt crisis with hard work, discipline and some well-placed financial knowledge. Use these articles to improve your financial IQ and avoid making the same mistakes twice.
Managing your household finances can be trickier than it appears to be. Whether you’re young and single or share a full house with your overworked spouse and multiple kids, you’ll need discipline and moxie to avoid taking on too much debt. This article contains everything that you need to know about creating a realistic household budget, sharing common expenses with your spouse, and teaching your kids how to manage their own streams of income.
While just about everyone uses credit, few regular folks know much about effective credit management. This is too bad: Being able to properly manage your credit cards, personal lines of credit, business loans and other unsecured types of debt is crucial to your financial health. Fortunately, this article can help. It contains helpful tips about finding inexpensive credit cards, effectively using the grace period on your cards and lines of credit, and keeping your outstanding balances from growing too big.
Unless you’ve chosen to live like a hermit, you’ll probably need to borrow money at some point in the future. From plastic cards to home loans, credit is an unavoidable aspect of modern life. The good news: If you employ it judiciously, it can be a major boon for your buying power and social status. The bad news: If you’re like many otherwise-prudent Americans, you may not employ it judiciously. This piece offers some valuable advice about borrowing money wisely.
If borrowing money permits you to buy items that might be out of your price range at the moment, saving money lays the groundwork for the purchases that you’ll need to make in the future. Unfortunately, many Americans do too much of the former and too little of the latter. Read on to learn just how easy it is to put away a small portion of your monthly pay and build a financial bulwark against the unknown.
There have probably been times in your life when you knew that you should have heeded a particular piece of money advice. Depending upon the depth of your debt problems, this might be one of those times. It’s not too late to listen: Thousands of everyday Americans have gotten their debts under control by making a few painless lifestyle changes and infusing their budgets with a stiff dose of discipline. Learn what they already know and prepare to follow in their footsteps.
You may wish that you had a financial professional on call to whisper sage money management tips in your ear, but you’ll have to make do with guidance from your peers. This shouldn’t be a disappointment: The best money management advice often comes from folks who have firsthand experience with financial distress. Even better, much of this advice is straightforward and easy to implement. This article features everything from clutch tips on stretching your household budget to advice for dealing with a particularly aggressive creditor.
If you’re like most people, you know how to manage money. At the very least, you understand the concept of living within your means, limiting your use of expensive credit products, and creating a realistic spending plan for your household. In practice, achieving effective control over your finances can be difficult. Balancing your family’s needs and wants against the imperative to remain solvent is a superhuman task in any economy, and it’s become even harder in these lean times. Read this article to learn how to make the best of a bad financial situation.
You can’t properly manage your own money without some measure of financial literacy. Money matters can be complicated and often seem trivial, but there’s a lot at stake when your financial future hangs in the balance. While a single article can’t possibly cover the full range of things that you need to know in order to be financially literate, this piece is a start. It’ll teach you how to improve your money IQ at home and on the web. If you’re lucky, you might just be able to tell a five-year ARM from a no-penalty CD when you’re done.
Thanks to the recent economic crisis, frugal living is back in vogue today. Living within your means is admirable but often easier in theory than in practice. If you’re going through a financial rough patch and need to bring your expenses in line with your income, you should begin by resisting the urge to make impulse buys and focus on managing your debt burden instead. You’ll also need to cut the fat out of your household budget, switching to generic products where appropriate. Whether you’re a natural penny-pincher or prone to big spending, this article will get you to think about saving money.
If you’re unable to keep track of your personal finances, living within your means may not do you much good. Your personal finances encompass your entire financial life, from the debts that you owe to the money that you’re saving for retirement. To manage them, you’ll need to keep close track of your household’s income and expenses. This should encourage you to stop racking up debts and start paying off your existing obligations: If you’re not giving your creditors hundreds or thousands of dollars each month, you’ll have more money left over to pay for household necessities and save for your family’s future.
Laying out and sticking to a personal budget will make it easier to get your personal finances under control. In fact, a personal budget can be a quick ticket out of debt: If you can adhere to its strict terms over a period of years and continue to pay your creditors on time, you’ll soon find yourself in better financial shape. While your household spending plan will be unique, you’ll find plenty of general advice in this piece about budgeting for debt payments, avoiding costly shopping mistakes, and saving for retirement or college.
While you may not need an MBA to manage your personal finances, chances are good that your financial IQ has plenty of room to grow. Armed with a basic understanding of money-management concepts, you’ll make smarter choices with your money and avoid the mistakes that have set back your peers in the past.
Whether you’re struggling under a crushing load of debt or want to fix your nascent credit problem before it gets worse, you could probably use some well-placed money advice. If so, take some time out of your busy day to peruse these easy-to-read articles about everyday personal finance concepts.
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