aderfp633
Inscrit le: 27 Sep 2011
Messages: 7915
Localisation: England
|
 Posté le: Mar Sep 10, 2013 12:34 am Sujet du message: Where does all our money go |
 |
|
{Where does all our money go?}
Thirty per cent of Canadians say that they have no money left after paying their bills.And 57 per cent of those polled say they're having trouble setting aside any significant savings.More than a quarter of respondents feel they're saving less than before, while nearly one in five have simply given up, admitting they really haven't saved any money at all over the past two years.That's not very surprising given today's environment. Shaky jobs and expanding credit card balances make it tough to get a handle on spending and saving – particularly when there are dissenting views as to where the money actually should go.Sometimes it's not you, but an overspending partner. Or maybe it's older children who seem to have trouble managing their resources, but are good at draining yours.Either way, you have to become more conscious of how you're spending your money, says Fred Brock, author of Live Well on Less Than You Think.And that means avoiding wealth-destroying habits like revolving credit card debt, he says. More than a third of all cardholders don't pay their bill off each month and carry an average balance of around $2,000.Mr. Brock's solution? If you're going to use a card, try not to charge anything until those balances have been paid. Good advice – you can't save a dime if you're carrying debt at double-digit interest rates.But trimming interest costs still doesn't address the bigger problem: Figuring out why you're spending more than you make, and just where all that cash is going.One of the most helpful steps you can take to decrease your spending is to track it for at least a couple of months, suggests Jean Chatzky, author of Make Money, Not Excuses.“Watching where your money is going will actually give you the information you need to make changes in where you want it to go,” she advises.“You'll start realizing that you're spending in areas you hadn't even noticed and that should free up the budget a bit.”Consider, for instance, the way you actually pay your bills. While I'm a big fan of putting these on autopilot, either through a points-earning credit card or your no-fee bank account, there's a downside to having money scooped automatically – it's really easy to forget how much cash you're burning up.And that's why you should consider tracking cash flow electronically as well.There's no shortage of sites that allow you to monitor your spending and take some of the tedium out of budgeting. Most, however, are U.S.-based — not particularly useful for those of us who do all our business with a Canadian bank.That's what prompted Mint.com, the most popular of the online aggregation services in the States, to finally make the jump into the Canadian market.Although you can't enter the necessary data from all Canadian financial institutions just yet, Mint maintains it will soon be fully open for business.You can, however, open an account in anticipation of that expanded launch.When it's fully up and running here, the service will log into your bank and credit card accounts to get updated information on existing balances and transactions. Mint updates all your accounts at least once a day and automatically labels each expense with a category – groceries, utilities, gas and so on.It then organizes the data in a series of colourful pie charts so you can spot if you're over budget on those spa costs. It will even send you an alert if you hit your limit.If you not sure what numbers to enter as targets, here's Jean Chatzky's breakdown of what your spending might look like:Housing: 35 per cent. Housing includes your mortgage, rent, maintenance, taxes, utilities and insurance.Debt: 15 per cent. Debt is anything you have to pay back: credit cards, personal loans, student loans, etc.Transportation: 15 per cent. Transportation includes gas,[url=http://www.michael-good.ca]Michael Kors Purses[/url], car insurance, car payments and repairs, parking expenses, tolls and train or bus tickets.Savings: 10 per cent. This is the money you're setting aside for retirement, college, emergencies or other goals.Other living expenses: 25 per cent. This includes everything else – groceries, health care, nights out, vacations, clothing, entertainment, gifts, etc.A few caveats about using Mint: While the service is free, Mint does receive referral fees from financial-services companies for showcasing their ads.But,[url=http://www.michael-good.ca]michael kors canada[/url], unlike the sites maintained by those financial institutions, Mint is a “read-only” service that doesn't allow you to make any transactions. Nonetheless, the data is certainly floating around.Should you be concerned about privacy? Well, Mint starts with the same encryption banks use, but the difference here is that you're anonymous – no account numbers, just a user name and password.Still, even that might be too much access for some people. And, if that is a concern for you, just don't sign up.Security has been addressed, however. While previously a privately held company, the site is now owned by Intuit and has the firm's Quicken-built reputation behind it.
_________________
People watching the forthcoming beginning of the German half of the inhabitants of Berlin are no interested in co-optation |
|
