February 2017

Can Your Business Easily Save More Money?

When you run a business, at least half of your attention is always on the bottom line. You know how much everything costs, why you need it and how much profit it could help you make. Sometimes you just can’t avoid spending money to make money, but here are four simple ways for you and your business to save money.

4 Ways Your Business Can Easily Save More Money

1. Creative Marketing

No matter how big or small a business is, marketing is always going to be a huge budget consideration. There’s a simple way of getting your marketing out to more people without costing you any extra. When you send out an invoice or a product, put your latest flyers and leaflets in with them. When a customer buys something from your shop, slip a few coupons into the shopping bag at the counter. It has not cost you

When a customer buys something from your shop, slip a few coupons into the shopping bag at the counter. It has not cost you any more and you have increased the reach of your marketing campaign.

2. Streamline Your Online Shop

It used to be expensive to set up an online shop. Having systems to manage your stock, private information and payment security were never cheap, but now you have two options. You can either use one of the many free online shop websites to create your own shop or you can use Amazon and Ebay to be your shop. Neither of these has any up-front costs and would greatly reduce your need for an expensive website.

Increasing Home Value with Your Children – Projects and Funding Options

by Guest Contributor

DIY Ideas for Home Improvements - Building with Your Children

The following is a guest post by Hank McKinsey, a stay-at-home-dad and home blogger at homebyhank.com. If you’d like to find out more about guest posting on Money Q&A, please read our Guest Posting Guidelines. Your home is more than a just a place to live. It is a financial investment. It’s easy to forget that any home project, from changing the wall color to installing new cabinets, can alter your home’s value. Ideally, each upgrade should increase the value and make your home more marketable. Three fun and ‘kid friendly’ projects that can add to your home’s value and help you save money are: starting a garden, updating your doors and windows, and adding a reading or office nook to a … Read more

Good, Fast, or Cheap – How the Three Legged Stool Analogy Impacts Your Finances

by Hank Coleman

Is the three legged stool concept a myth?

Most of us have heard the old adage about the three legged stool analogy. It’s often referred to when buying products, both large and small.

You can only get two out of three attributes in almost all cases. Good, fast, and cheap – you can only have two.

So, you have to pick. You have to compromise sometimes.

For example, you can buy an item that is made with great quality parts, and the company can ship it to you fast. But, it won’t come cheap!

Look at the way the US government buys big pieces of military hardware. They often accept the lowest bidder to build the gear. They’ve got the cost part of the equation down, but you must choose between getting it fast or having a lower quality product with parts that may go bad very quickly. You almost always can’t have all three.

Wal-Mart vs. Firestone Tires and a Mother

The other day a friend of mine told me that she broke down in the middle of Wal-Mart. She’s a single mother of a toddler and was feeling stressed.

She said that she originally had a coupon to save $30 on new a set of new car tires at Firestone. She desperately needed new tires.

But, she knew that if she went to Firestone to make the purchase and put the tires on, her toddler wouldn’t have much to keep him occupied for the hour or two while they repaired the car. And, anyone with small children knows how quickly a toddler’s attention span can run out.

So, my friend made the conscious choice to get her tires replaced at Wal-Mart while she shopped even though it would be at a higher price – believe it or not Wal-Mart isn’t ALWAYS the lowest price in town.

She also needed groceries and other household items anyway, and she could knock out two birds with one stone while Wal-Mart repaired her car.

But, while she was there, she couldn’t get the thought out of her head that she was spending more by taking the path of least resistance. She chose the quality of her hour or two of her life keeping her son calm at Wal-Mart moving around and looking at toys and groceries over the instead of the lower cost at Firestone.

You may also like to check out my review of Jet.com. You should also check to see if wholesale clubs are right for you and your family.

You Are Missing Several Key Assets When Tracking Your Net Worth

by Hank Coleman

You’re missing a key part in your net worth calculations! You’re richer than you think you are. I’ve been critical of J Money’s monthly net worth updates for years now. Every month, he keeps us up-to-date on his net worth increases on his popular personal finance blog, Budgets Are Sexy. It makes me depressed about my own lack of large numbers when it comes to my net worth.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not mad, and I know that I shouldn’t be comparing myself to others. We’re all in separate places with different goals and situations in life. But, I can’t help but continue to dwell on J Money’s net worth updates when he posts them every month.

But, this time, I think I’m onto something. I think that he’s forgetting something, and subsequently so am I. We all might be forgetting something in our calculations. We all might be richer than we realize! Are you making this key mistake when you calculate your net worth? I bet you are, and you’re not alone.

Maybe there is more to these net worth numbers and the simple calculations of our assets and liabilities. I think J Money is unrepresenting his net worth and leaving money on the table. I think we all are. Our net worth numbers can be even larger, and maybe some of us are closer to J Money than we think.

You’re Leaving Out a Few Assets

Where do you draw the line on what is an asset? We all understand thanks to J and his posts that to calculate your net worth, you simply subtract all of your debts from a list of assets like your home, investments, and your cars.

But, we are leaving out key assets to our calculations. It struck me when I had an argument with my friend Blake a few months ago whether or not your cars deserve to be included in your net worth as an asset. It does! I agree with J in that respect. My friend was leaving out his cars as an asset, but he was surely including his car loans in the list of liabilities. This greatly underestimated his net worth.

So, that got me thinking about other assets that we typically do not include in our net worth calculations. I think that we are a little better off in our wealth than we all think.