July 2016

How To Save A Ton of Money Shopping For Christmas In July

If you haven’t done so already, now is the time that you should start thinking about your Christmas gift-giving plan to your friends and family. Christmas in July has many benefits that you can take advantage of in order to save money on holiday gifts.

“If you tacked on unexpected expenses to your debit or credit card or veered from your shopping list, a little early planning could go a long way toward keeping you on track this year,” says Joe Buhrmann, manager of financial security at COUNTRY Financial®.

Take Advantage of Christmas In July

Boost Your Income Now

Most people look to budgeting to help them prepare for holiday gift giving. If you wait until December to start thinking about your Christmas and holiday gift giving, you will often blow your budget and spend more than you wanted to. There are two sides to every budgeting equation.

While you should look to create a budget and stick to it this holiday season, you should also consider increasing your income. Can you find a part time job? Can you start driving for a ride sharing service like Uber or Lyft? Using the Christmas in July mentality is a great way to stay on budget and buy the gifts that you want. But, you need to consider adding to your income in order to be successful.

There are many great ways to earn extra income now to help you pay for your spending with cash this December.

Stick To Cash For Buying Gifts

You should make it a goal this holiday season not to add to your credit card debt. Do you have a list of everyone that you want to give a gift to? Do you know the amount of money that you want to spend?

You’ve got six months to start setting aside cash. Pull out an envelope and start adding cash to it. Do you save your spare change in a jar? These can be a great resource to help you easily save money for holiday gifts.

Maybe you should start considering the 52 Week Challenge. While you only have about 26 weeks left in the year, as of right now, you can

Download the Money Q&A 52 Week Challenge Worksheet here! It’s an easy way to start saving money each week for your Christmas shopping this year. If you start right now, you’ll be able to save $1,027 with the Money Q&A 52 Week Challenge Worksheet.

If you budget $50 per gift, $1,027 will let you buy over 20 gifts for your friends and family!

Buy Your Gifts Now With Christmas In July

It may seem a little counter intuitive, but now can be a great time to buy a Christmas gift for your loved ones. I like to walk through malls or stores with my wife and listen to things that she points out that she likes. It makes gift buying easy instead of having to ask her at the last minute what she might like.

I’ve got a Wunderlist set up with gift ideas for my wife and children based on off hand comments that they make throughout the year. And, if the item is on sale at some point, like a Christmas in July sale, now is the perfect time to buy the gift and save a lot of money.

I also love to stalk my wife on Pinterest and Etsy. Look at what your wife pins and adds to her favorites in Etsy. These are easy, no-brainer gifts that you know she wants.

Taxes for Binary Options Traders: Know What You Owe

by Guest Contributor

Yes, taxes rank as one of the most hated things in life, but there’s really no getting out of paying. For US citizens, if you earn more than $600 in a fiscal year, then you owe the government a cut of your earnings. That applies to all sources of income, whether you’re sweating in a mechanic’s shop or making money through binary options trading. How are taxes for binary options traders assessed, though? What are you looking at in terms of tax liability when everything is said and done?

How to Report Your Earnings

Hopefully, you’ll be earning money with binary trading, rather than spending it without any return. That income must be reported each year on your taxes. You have two choices as to how you’ll report your earnings to the IRS – you can opt to call it general income, or you can classify it as capital gains. However, it’s better for compliance with the IRS to report any profit from the sale or trade of an asset as capital gains (short-term gains). Your earnings will need to be listed on Form 1040 D.

With that being said, if you’re a full-time trader, your income will need to be reported under general income rather than capital gains. That offers something of a tax break depending on how much you earn, of course. Make sure to clearly state where the income came from, and the total amount you earned from your trading.

Taxes for binary options traders working with a broker are actually a little easier. The broker is required by law to report your earnings to the IRS. In fact, your taxes are deducted from each trade as you go, so there’s little worry that you’ll be hit with a huge tax bill at the end of the year. It’s closer to the way taxes are taken out of a weekly paycheck than the way a small business owner files his or her taxes each year.

6 Things to Immediately Do When Your Wallet Is Stolen

by Hank Coleman

What to do Do When Your Wallet Is Stolen

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ most recent figures, 17.6 million Americans were victims of identity theft in 2014. The bulk of these incidents arose from unauthorized activity on existing credit cards or bank accounts, which can be a great cause for alarm if you happen to lose your wallet to a thief. Have you ever lost a wallet or gotten a wallet stolen? Do you know what to do when your wallet is stolen? What to do Do When Your Wallet Is Stolen If you can’t find your wallet, credit and ATM cards, driver’s license, and other personal information and you suspect they were stolen rather than misplaced, there are a few steps you should take (immediately) to protect yourself: … Read more

How to Make an Extra Buck with Online Entertainment?

by Guest Contributor

Playing online games and making money in the process? If only it was that simple, you might think. You should know, though, that it is indeed possible to make an extra buck while playing online games. It’s called online gambling – and please, read on before you tell me off. Gambling? Where? The All Slots Casino is a popular online gambling destination open for players in most countries of the world. It has a large collection of high-quality casino games, most of them destined to entertain, but with a handful among them with a real potential to round up your budget a bit – all this while you are having fun. The All Slots Casino is a secure, trustworthy partner, … Read more

For The Love Of Money: A Memoir by Sam Polk – Book Review

by Hank Coleman

“For The Love of Money: A Memoir” by Sam Polk is a brand new book telling the behind the scenes story of a Wall Street trader, focusing on credit default swaps, distressed assets, and all of the shenanigans that captured America’s attention during the 2008 financial crisis.

How much money is too much? How large of a salary are you willing to walk away from because of your core beliefs? Sam Polk was put to the test on Wall Street, and his book paints an incredible picture of what it takes to be a stock and bond trader.

“For The Love Of Money” by Sam Polk

In 2014, a former hedge fund trader’s New York Times Sunday Review front page article about wealth addiction instantly went viral. This is his unflinching memoir a coming of age story about Sam Polk’s life on Wall Street. The memoir is telling and focuses on his fight to overcome his addictions (drugs, alcohol, women, etc.) and find a new way to define success based on his deep core values and beliefs.

At just thirty years old, Sam Polk was a senior trader for one of the biggest hedge funds on Wall Street. He was on the verge of making it to the very top of the Wall Street ladder and earning hundreds of millions of dollars.

When he was offered an annual bonus of $3.75 million, he grew angry because it was not enough. In that moment he knew he had lost himself in his obsessive pursuit of money. He came to despise the Wall Street culture that he had grown up in with its shallowness, sexism, crude machismo, and the use of wealth as the sole measure of a person’s worth.

For the Love of Money: A Memoir Price: Full Disclosure: We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase, at no additional cost to you. Last Updated: 10/24/2018

Despite making millions each year as a young man and the very real possibility of earning much more, Sam Polk decided to walk away from Wall Street and his life.

For Sam Polk, becoming a Wall Street trader was the fulfillment of his life-long dream. But, in reality, it was just the culmination of a life of addictive and self-destructive behaviors, overeating, bulimia, and alcohol and drug abuse.

Like “Liar’s Poker” by Michael Lewis and “Barbarians at the Gate” by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar (both books are also Honorable Mentions in my Top 10 Personal Finance Books list that you should read), Sam Polk brings readers into the rarefied world of Wall Street trading floors in “For The Love of Money: A Memoir“.

Sam Polk captures the frustrations of young college graduates who are drawn to Wall Street in the lure of fast riches. The book explores the creation of a young hedge fund trader, his disillusionment with life on Wall Street, and the radical new way he has come to define success.

How much money is too much? How large of a salary are you willing to walk away from because of your core beliefs?Click To Tweet

4 Steps to Take When Faced with an Unexpected Bill

by Hank Coleman

Immediate Steps To Take When You Need Help Paying Bills

What would you do if a $1,000 expense that you weren’t anticipating suddenly arose? For instance, your dog tears their ACL playing fetch and needs surgery right away, or your kid’s permanent tooth gets knocked out in dodgeball and they need cosmetic treatment, or your formerly reliable car now needs a thousand dollar repair – how would you manage the unexpected bill? Many people need help paying bills especially when they are unexpected. According to a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in May 2016, 66% of Americans would struggle to pay for a surprise $1,000 bill. Even more shocking was that 38% of families making $100,000 or more per year (the wealthiest 20% in … Read more