Saving Archives

7 Stupid Things You Are Spending Money On

by Jeremy

If you consistently find your money a little shorter than your month, there may be a few sneaky budget-eaters hiding in your spending habits that you’re spending money on. Nipping a few of these things in the bud can help keep your budget on track and make saving money a little easier. Low Income Loans Australia has found a few commonly overlooked expenses that pop up more often than not when helping people budget and manage their finances. Are any of the below killing your budget that you’re spending money on? 7 Stupid Things You Are Spending Money On Late fees: Pay your bills on time. Memberships, utilities, personal loans, car loans, credit cards etc. While some of these fees … Read more

How to Save to Buy a Home While Barely Make Ends Meet

by Guest Contributor

Buying a home is a smart investment in your own future, and it’s an aim everyone should start with as early as possible. Nevertheless, in some cases, it does make sense to put off such an investment — such as when you are unsure of the future of your job, or your marriage, or when home values appear volatile. Saving to buy a home even when you live paycheck to paycheck is possible. Most people who put off the decision to buy a home, though, have none of these reasons in mind. They simply choose to delay the day they buy, because they cannot figure out how they might ever put together enough each month for mortgage payments, leave alone a … Read more

New Survey Shows Millennials Have Little Savings for Retirement

by Guest Contributor

Maybe it’s because this generation makes less money than previous generations did, or maybe it’s because Gen Y burns through cash without saving much of it. But either way, millennials are not prepared long-term. This generation is pushing back the big financial decisions in life like buying a home and establishing a viable retirement plan. A new survey[1] from the Indexed Annuity Leadership Council (IALC) reveals that 15 percent of millennials have less than $25,000 saved. One-in-three millennials say they set aside no money for retirement and 24 percent say they owe more than they have saved. Across all generations, Gen Y is the least prepared, but the most optimistic about the idea of saving for retirement. Most millennials think … Read more

Upromise Is The Fast And Easy Way Way To Save For College

by Hank Coleman

Save For College - Upromise Is The Fast And Easy Way

When it comes to saving money for college, many students and parents are turning to extra jobs, grants, student loans, and scholarships. But, there’s another way that you can earn money for college. At Upromise, they’ve gone the extra mile and made it easy to save for college.

What Is Upromise?

You can join Upromise for free. That’s right, absolutely free of charge.

Once you’ve become a member you can begin shopping on the Upromise website through featured shopping partners. These are merchants that you are already shopping with, but by buying things through the Upromise website, you can earn money for your children’s college education.

You earn cash back by shopping online, going out to eat, registering your store (both drug store and grocery store) loyalty cards, booking travel arrangements, and other shopping tasks and experiences.

You can also apply for the Upromise Master Card to help you earn money for college even faster. For each purchase, you’ll be earning cash back on your card. When you have earned cash back, you have three ways that you can use this money.

Save For College Using Upromise

The first way that you can use your savings from Upromise for college expenses is to put it into a college fund for your child or children.

The second way is to pay down a student loan with the money that has accumulated in your Upromise account. And, the third way is to get your cash back returned to you via a check.

If you choose to open a college savings plan, you can set it up to directly deposit your cash back into this fund. This fund is ran through a Sallie Mae High Yield savings account.

How To Save Money With Lutron Dimmers

by Guest Contributor

The following is a guest post. If you would like to write an article for Money Q&A, please visit our Guest Posting Guidelines page. More people start thinking about the new ways to save money for their household. It is not always an easy thing to manage your costs cutting and reduce your electricity and gas bills each month. We have invented so many possible ways of economy that it is high time to write and publish the entire book dedicated to this problem. Just like an example we can look at water heater insulation, use of different times and controllers, etc. I want to talk today about dimmers. This is one more clever method of costs saving. There is no need to tread … Read more

Easy Ways To Save Money Right Now Without Even Thinking

by Hank Coleman

Stopping yourself from spending money and wasting money is often not as hard as you think. We often psych ourselves out of saving money because we think that it has to be harder or more elaborate than it really needs to be.

But, the truth of the matter is that there are tons of easy ways to save money right now without even having to think about doing it. Here are some of my favorite easy ways to save money without having to think about actually saving money.

Write Your Savings Goals On Credit Card Sleeves

But, I am a huge fan of using credit card sleeves to control your spending. Sounds kind of counter intuitive, right? I write directly onto these card sleeves that come with your ATM cards, the plastic key card from hotels, and other cards that you collect. There are even a few in Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace kit.

Plastek Cards even makes custom sleeves too. These card sleeves are easy ways to save money without even realizing that that is what you are doing. It is sort of like tricking yourself into saving money and not spending it on frivolous things.

It is very hard for me to reach for a credit card or my ATM card if I see one of my family’s financial goals, like a summer beach vacation, written down right there on the card sleeve and staring right back at me every time I reach into my wallet.

Carrying Your Loyalty Cards With You

I am also very bad at carrying the grocery store loyalty cards and other store loyalty cards. Instead of asking someone around me to borrow their card or making sure that I’m carrying the loyalty card before hand, I typically continue with the purchase anyway, missing out on the deal or coupon associated with using the loyalty card.

Like coupons, this one bad habit alone costs me probably $100 or more every year. There are so many loyalty cards that stores give to their customers now. There is no excuse not to carry your favorite store’s card and save.

It is one of the easiest ways to save money without having to think about it. You just hand over your card. There are even applications on your smartphone that you can download to help you keep track of all the loyalty cards as well if you forget to carry the physical ones.