Personal Finance Archives

Why You Should Ditch Your Cable for Hulu or Netflix

Tax Tips For Teachers Have you every thought about how or why you should ditch your cable? More and more people are becoming disenfranchised with their cable company and are looking for alternatives like Hulu Plus and Netflix.

With more streaming content available on the Internet for free or cheap, it’s becoming relatively easy to drop your cable and just watch your favorite shows online. Here are some tips on how you can drop your cable for Internet based programming.

Understand The Content You Want

The first thing you want to do is understand what content you want – movies, nightly news, weekly sitcoms, etc. If you have certain shows you know you want to watch each week, you need to make sure that you can still get them online.

Look up what shows Hulu Plus and Netflix offer, and make sure they have new content and not just old seasons. Also, don’t forget to check out the actual channels themselves. Channels like ABC offer all of their programming online one day after it airs.

Find Good Deals When You Ditch Your Cable

The next thing to do is find a good deal on switching. Start by searching for coupons or discounts offered by companies like Hulu Plus or Netflix. These companies usually offer discounts to new subscribers that you may be able to take advantage of. Also, see if you can get a discount on your Internet as well. Many cable companies also offer Internet service, and to not lose you forever, they may offer incentives for you to at least keep your Internet with them.

What to Do Right Now Before You Lose Your Wallet

by Hank Coleman

Have you ever lost your wallet? Of course, it can be a traumatic event in anyone’s life. But, there are steps you can take right now to help you before you lose your wallet. I can remember when my wife lost her’s at Walt Disney World of all places. She was lucky and someone had turned it into guest services. I’m probably going to jinx myself when I say this, but I have never lost my wallet…not once. But, as most people can attest to, it may just be a matter of time. According to a report from CNN, less than 20% of all wallets that are lost are returned to the owner. So forewarned is forearmed. Here are tips … Read more

How To Use The Pareto Principle To Save A Ton Of Money

by Hank Coleman

Have you ever noticed that a large portion of our lives are dominated by a small portion of things? It’s called the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule. 80% of our lives are ruled by just 20% of the most important things. My mother was a high school math teacher, and she would spend 80% of her time dealing with 20% of her problem students. This is just one simple example of how the Pareto Principle is at work in our lives.

There are so many more examples of where the Pareto Principle dominates factors of our lives. And, the Pareto Principle extends to our finances as well. Whether you are a consumer or as an investor the Pareto Principle makes its way into our lives whether we like to admit it or not or we even realize it.

How Much Clothes Do You Wear From Your Closet?

Pareto Principle in your closet Have you ever look at how many pieces of clothes that you have in your closet? I hate to admit it, but I have almost just as large a closet as my wife. I have just as many shirts, jeans, slacks, and suits as she has dresses, shoes, and purses. Looking at my closet though I can see the Pareto Principle alive and well.

When I try to decide what shirt to wear in the morning I find myself gravitating towards a certain select few. When in fact, 80% of the time I select only 20% of the shirts that I own to wear day to day. It is the same 20% of the shirts in my closet that I wear day in and day out. While this may not tied directly to personal finance, it does show that we do spend an enormous amount of our money on many things that we don’t even use.

How Many Television Channels Do You Watch?

How many television channels do you have that come with your cable package? Or, how many television channels do you get from your satellite TV? Inevitably Americans watch a lot of TV and have access to a lot of television channels.

But, how many do we really watch? The Pareto Principle is alive and well in our television watching patterns. I am willing to bet that most of us have several favorite television channels that we watch consistently.

Even most televisions today have buttons right on the remotes to help us identify, remember, and easily return to our favorite television channels. I am willing to guess that most of us have about 10 or maybe even 20 favorite television channels. But, if we have almost 200 channels to choose from, we are not even spending 80% of our time watching 20% of the channels that are available to us.

Instead we are only watching 10% the channels out of the 200 that are available to us. We are not even getting to 20%. Can you get by with the smaller cable package and still continue to watch the same amount of channels that you normally typically do during the week? I’m willing to bet that you can if you just simply admit that we are a victim of the Pareto Principle.

12 Personal Finance Books I Am Reading This Year

by Hank Coleman

I am a book junkie. My goal is to have a wall of books or my own personal library like a college professor. That’s one reason that I wrote the 10 best personal finance books I have on your bookshelf last year which included The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk, The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, and several other great personal finance books that everyone should read. So, I thought it would be interesting to talk about what I am going to read this year throughout the year. This year I’m going to read 12 personal finance books or at least one per month. Later I will be sure to include my reviews for each of these … Read more

Separating Finances When You Are Separating

by Guest Contributor

The following is a guest post by Angie Picardo, a staff writer for NerdWallet, a personal finance website dedicated to helping consumers. If you would like to write an article for Money Q&A, please visit our Guest Posting Guidelines page. Today, it is almost rare to know people who’ve never been divorced. However, just because we are more familiar with divorce does not mean we are well equipped to handle divorce finances. How can those separating separate finances in a healthy, respectful, and responsible way? Here are some key steps to consider. First of all, keeping emotions from influencing financial decisions is an important first step. Of course, while this may sound like a “duh,” many people know what can happen in the heat of … Read more

Manage Your Money Better

by Guest Contributor

The US Dollar You read a lot about managing debt these days as if somehow it’s a complicated business but that there are various strategies you can adopt to manage your money better.

For most people whose debts aren’t beyond the point of no return, it all boils down to managing your money better. You can manage your money better with a few simple tips. But how do you actually do this – and where’s the best place to start?

Manage Your Money By Taking Control

The first step to take in taking control of your finances is to look at where your money goes and why and to then learn to limit your spending and/or increase your income.

This may sound obvious, but have you ever really sat down and looked at how, where and why every penny goes? Very few people have but it’s a vital first step if you’re spending more than you earn.