Personal Finance

There isn’t a single person in the world that would oppose cutting a few dollars from their monthly expenses. These are the best money saving tips for your home.

Monthly Expenses – Money Saving Tips for Essential Bills

Electricity

Those of you that live in an ever-changing climate know the struggle of expensive electric bills during the summer and winter months when you are blasting the A/C and cranking up the heat. During these months, your bill will increase significantly as these comforts require electricity to operate.

One of the best ways to cut these expenses is to use electric mattress pads in the winter and cooling mattress pads in the summer. These will keep your bed at a comfortable temperature and the costs will be negligible on your electric bill.   

Monthly Groceries

When it’s time to reduce your monthly expenses one of the first things to go is eating at restaurants. These days even a cocktail will run you $10+ at a dive bar in populous areas. Eliminating this lavish spending will save you hundreds of dollars during the year. You will need to cook more at home, but you will find that no matter how much you cook there is always something that goes old.

Many people avoid buying fruit because it always goes old before you eat it. Investing in a food dehydrator will cut your food bill because you will be able to utilize all the food. There are dehydrated recipes for nearly all foods to get the most out of your groceries.

Read more

Almost everyone experiences jealousy at some point in their lives, and for some of us, feelings of envy are regular aspects of our lives. We might not consciously realize it, but comparing ourselves, our families, our stuff, and our experiences to others’ is a strong sign of envy because it suggests we want something we can’t have and/or we resent other people for having bigger/better stuff than we do.

How to Deal with Financial Envy

Financial envy is particularly commonplace, and if you find yourself on the verge of making impulse purchases because someone else bought it first or your current social relationships are faltering because of the income inequality gap between you and your family/friends, then here are some strategies for dealing with financial envy:

Stop Making Unfair Comparisons

The problem with comparing your financial situation to others’ is that there are so many other factors involved beyond the money itself. While your friend’s annual salary might be enviable, their grueling work schedule, unpredictable work demands, and high-strung clients might be less enjoyable to deal with. Alternatively, your relatives with that luxury vacation home or boat might only use it once or twice per year because they’re so busy working to pay for their pricey lifestyle.

In short, no matter what your job entails, there are downsides to every job (even if people don’t openly discuss them), and the trade-offs might not be worth the financial rewards, so don’t be too quick to compare yourself to others because doing so will only lead to more resentment, self-loathing (or pity), and conflict in your interpersonal relationships.

Read more

Learning how to save money and plan your financial future shouldn’t require an expensive financial advisor to help get you started. This mentality is what convinced LearnVest founder Alexa von Tobel to drop out of Harvard Business School and start a financial services company dedicated to offering affordable advice and budget management strategies to everyday consumers.

LearnVest’s approach is simple: teach people how to budget and save money without charging them hundreds of dollars for that advice. LearnVest works with budgets for any income, and since the company was founded in 2009, hundreds of thousands of free and premium subscribers have benefited from LearnVest. LearnVest™ Official SiteGet a Personalized Financial Plan.Create Your Free Account Today!

Since you can start using their services for free (no risk involved), here are a few things to consider before signing up for LearnVest:

LearnVest’s Free App

As a free LearnVest member, you’ll get access to an online dashboard that you can also view from the free LearnVest app on your smartphone. The dashboard includes information such as linked bank and credit card accounts, loans, other debts, and a handy chart that tracks your spending levels.

These basic tools can work wonders in getting your financial records organized into one place and set up a personalized financial plan that could help you pay off debts more quickly and build your savings/investments by eliminating wasteful spending and finding new areas for you to reduce your ongoing expenses.

Read more

Do you know what to do when you get arrested?  What should you do? How should you act? There is a brief window of time when you get arrested that will impact your case going forward. You don’t want to say or do anything that will hinder your case or your lawyer’s options going forward. Here are a few things to think about so you what to do when you get arrested.

What to Do When You Get Arrested

The right to remain silent!

The first thing to do once an officer has placed you under arrest is be quiet.  This is when your Miranda rights attach and you should not offer up more information than is necessary. 

A lot of times officers are trained to try and open a dialogue with you while you are being transported to jail, do not be fooled.   A lot of times the cruisers are wired for sound and video, this means the things you say or the way your present yourself (i.e if you’re intoxicated) can be used against you in court. 

Be Polite and Comply

This is something of a hot topic right now. If you feel that you are being unlawfully detained and/or excessive force has been used against you, the arrest is not the time to try and fight back.  Answering force with force, or resisting an officer in the streets will usually only result in an escalation of force that can severely injure you and may result in additional criminal charges being filed.

Read more