Guest Contributor on Money Questions and Answers Blog

What is the One Most Important Financial Step Everyone Should Take?

My first book, Mindful Money: Simple Practice for Reaching Your Financial Goals and Increasing Your Happiness Dividend, just came out, so the last few weeks have been a flurry of radio interviews and satellite television appearances. I’ve talked to folks from Berkeley, CA, Buffalo, NY, and several points in between, and no two interviews have been the same. Some people are really curious about my Buddhist background, others want to know my “secret” for investment success, and still others are looking for my take on the stock market now that we have a new president. But there is one question I have been asked in pretty much every single interview: What is the one thing I should do if I … Read more

Life Is Expensive! So, Is Now the Time for a Pay Rise?

by Guest Contributor

When did you last have a pay rise? For a fair few people, the answer to that question might be hard to answer. Wages have been incredibly slow to recover from the financial crisis of 2007-08. Indeed, the last decade has been characterized by fairly stagnant salaries, with ‘real wages’ – accounting for inflation – falling by 10.4 per cent between 2007 and 2015.

That’s all left us with some pretty tough choices to make. With pressure on packets, many of us has had to pinpoint items of spending to trim down so that the essentials could be purchased.

Yet, there might be light at the end of the tunnel. The Bank of England predicts that wages should rise by about 3.5% in 2017. That should mean good news for your bank balance – or at least give you the chance to broach an awkward subject with your boss.

Getting the pay you deserve is important. By maximizing your earnings, you can be in a better place to be able to afford everything life throws at you. As this infographic shows, there are plenty of challenges that crop up throughout our ‘financial lifecycle’ and preparing for what’s to come is key to managing your money…

Should You Wait for a Stock Market Correction Before Investing?

by Guest Contributor

The following is a guest post by R.J. Weiss, Certified Financial Planner™, who blogs about building wealth and living the good at The Ways to Wealth. If you’d like to guest post on Money Q&A, check out our guest posting guidelines. The Dow Jones Index recently reached 20,000 for the first time. Never before has the stock market reached a higher valuation. Yet, it’s easy to remain quite pessimistic about the future. And, when there is fear about the future, it’s harder to make good decisions today. One of those decisions is committing to invest in stocks. With the stock market at all-time highs, it’s common to think: “I’ll just wait to invest until the market corrects itself” The issue is many … Read more

Focusing on Large Expenses to Save a Ton of Money

by Guest Contributor

12 Things You Should Know Before Buying A House

The following is a guest post by Jon who blogs at Money Smart Guides, a personal finance blog whose goal is to help you get out of debt and start investing for your future. If you’d like to guest post on Money Q&A, be sure to check out the site’s Guest Posting Guidelines.

We all know that small expenses add up over time. This concept has been popularized and tagged as “the latte factor” by various experts and authors. The idea goes, if you cut the spending on smaller items, not only will it be easy, but you can reap a large amount of savings over time.

While the potential for saving money is not in doubt, many people solely focus on the small expenses and forget about the big ones, when in fact, the big ones can help you learn how to save a ton of money. Here is why you should focus first on the big expenses first, and then concentrate on the small ones.

How to Save a Ton Of Money on Large Purchases

Bigger Potential Savings Mean Bigger Impact

While cutting out a $3 coffee two days a week will add up to a nice $312 extra over the course of a year, if you focus on the big expenses in your life, you can easily save much more than this.

For example, I shop my insurance needs every year or two. At first, I was skeptical that I could save money doing this. After all, I thought the company I was with for over 10 years valued me and offered me their best rates.

Boy was I mistaken. It turns out many insurance companies use the practice of price optimization. What this means is that those who don’t shop around for insurance coverage pay for those that do. How does this work?

At its most basic, let’s say you are with ABC Insurance Company. I shop around and get a quote from ABC Insurance. They offer me an incredible deal to come on board. This deal might even cost them a few dollars. How do they overcome this? They raise the rates on their long-term (loyal) customers, who happen to be you.

If you don’t shop around for insurance coverage, most likely you are costing yourself money. When I switched companies the other year, I ended up saving $200 a year

6 Reasons Why Your Business Need Enterprise Content Services

by Guest Contributor

Do not forget to follow up from a business conference.

This ‘structuring’ of processes has driven incredible productivity benefits for companies throughout the world, but as it turns out, not all businesses make use of content management system (CMS) to avoid data processing/storage issues and maximize productivity.

Why Your Business Need Enterprise Content Services

So, why should you have one set up for your business? Here are the reasons.

1. Less risk and more control over company information.

This is the main reasons why enterprise content services are being used by both small and big companies. With the right CMS technology, companies control the access to their data, maintain audit trails, histories, and automate the distribution of content based on a set of policies. All of these help businesses decrease risk and increase control around the natural life cycle of their data.

2. Direct and efficient access to content for efficiency.

There are countless amounts of time wasted on researching for information. Traditional techniques for finding and supplying information result in significant efficiency and even profitability losses, hindering the company’s ability to remain effective and ahead of their competition.

Companies should always have quick access to the data they need at the right time and the right context. CMS solves this issue instantly through better information management.

Is There a Best Way to Tackle Your Debts?

by Guest Contributor

Moves to Make With Your Finances When Consolidating Debts

The best way to tackle debts might initially seem obvious – pay off as much as you can, as early as you can – but it’s often not as easy as it seems. If every person in debt did that then no-one would ever have any problems, but our financial, occupational and family situations often make it a struggle.

Is there a ‘best’ way to tackle your debts?

However, there are various strategies to tackle your debts. Some of which are better than others. Here is a run down of tactics that you might consider, alone or together, in order:

Know your debt

If you don’t understand the problem, then how can you tackle it? The first stage of taking back control is to find out more about your debts. Ask your creditor for the latest statement showing how much you owe and your current agreement. Then look at your bank statements and work out what you are paying and when. It’s sometimes easier when in debt to shy away from statements but to address the problem, you need to know the extent of it.

Prioritize payments

If you’re struggling with debts and you can’t make your money stretch as far as it needs to, you need to order your debts and look at priorities. For example, not paying your rent could leave you homeless but paying your phone bill late may leave to your service being cut off.

It is not recommended you miss any payments but some payments have more drastic consequences if not kept up to date. You should look through your statements and work out what’s the most important and how you can make sure those bills are paid. A debt snowball can help you prioritize your debt repayments.