Frugal living tips: Saving money and avoiding debt

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Guest post by Stewart Bradley

Following the recent economic downturn which began in 2008, more and more people have been realizing the importance of saving money. With prices rising on basic items such as gas, fuel, electricity,groceries and other essential items, people are finding it difficult to make ends meet. During times of financial trouble, it is essential for people to know the techniques of saving money.

In case you’re jobless or have accrued an insurmountable amount of debt, you need to find out the areas to trim down your expenses and redirect that cash saved towards fundamental requirements (food, clothing, housing) or debt repayments.With some assessment of your budget and some wise steps, it’s possible for you to restore your financial situation to good health and learn some important lessons in how to save cash for your future needs.

Debt Consolidation Care logoDuring trying economic times, it’s truly essential to lead a frugal lifestyle. This is not just something that you can do occasionally; rather, it’s a complete transformation in your way of life. While people look at different debt relief options, they often ignore the importance of living a frugal life.

Keep a coin purse       

If you want to live happy on a strict budget, start carrying a coin bag. Many people get irritated while searching their pockets for change; they simply pay with big notes and end up getting more loose change than they require. Keep this change in a coin purse. If you still have problems paying with exact change, simply put the coins in a coin purse and pour it into a container when you reach home. Once the jar is filled, carry it to a coin counter at your nearest store or bank branch and swap it for cash.

Opt for a healthier lifestyle                                                 

Your health plays an important role in determining the amount of money you spend. One of the best tips to follow is to get back in shape. People who smoke, drink, or have poor eating habits, tend to splurge more cash than an individual leading a healthy lifestyle. Ironincally, low-quality processed foods and TV dinners are often more expensive than buying fresh food. When you’re in shape, you tend to eat a smaller amount of food. Once you stop drinking and smoking, you’ll be able to save a lot of cash on cigarettes and alcohol. Go for a walk or jog on a daily basis; these activities will not only make you healthier, but also save a substantial amount of cash on doctors and medicines. Trading expensive car journeys for travel by bike is a great way to save money, get fit and reduce carbon emissions.

image: dno1967b

Prepare simple meals

One single step that will lead to substantial savings every month is to cook your own food. Instead of eating expensive restaurant or take-out dishes, cook for yourself. You can also save by buying fresh vegetables, rather than processed meals or pre-prepared foods (e.g. potatoes that have already been peeled). Go for the foods which are nutritious and tasty.. If you’re a novice chef, don’t be put off;, collect different recipes from your friends and relatives or see what you can find with a simple online search. If you follow the instructions you can’t go wrong. Like with many other things, the more you cook the better you’ll get at it and the confidence you’ll gain will encourage you to attempt more exotic dishes

As the saying goes, prevention is better than cure. Instead of leading a careless lifestyle and getting into debt problems, it’s better to follow these frugal living tips and avoid debt. Visit the debt consolidation program for more info about solving your debt problems.

 

Stewart Bradley is a contributory writer associated with the Debt Consolidation Care Community and has written several articles for various financial websites. Though he holds his expertise in the Debt industry and has made significant contribution through his various articles, he has interest in money management, short term loans, bankruptcy, credit advice and more.

Money Exchange Rate

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Money Exchange rate or currency exchange rate is a financial term; it refers to a rate at which one currency is exchanged for another. If, for example, you have traveled to Great Britain from United States, you had exchanged your dollars from U.S currency to British Pounds. One nation’s currency isn’t accepted into another nation, you must exchange your currency in the respective currency of the nation where you are thinking of spending it or using it. You can’t buy bread with U.S dollars in UK, because you need to have pounds for buying stuff from the country. And this is very logical for a currency to be in action when you travel out of country.

Who Determine Exchange Rates?

The exchange rates are determined by the foreign exchange market, which operate 24 hours a day on business days. The market also has sellers and buyers engaged in the trading of foreign currency (Forex) around business days, and the rate may have slight fluctuation according to the trading trends besides change in economy, inflation, economical uncertainty and recession. There are several factors involved in the change of currency level and the major factor is a change in the worth of gold or silver globally. In 1930, a fixed dollar exchange rate was decided at an unchanging level when one ounce of gold was worth around 35 dollars. Today, the worth of one ounce gold has reached to 70 dollars because of inflation, instability, and bad economics around the world.

image: stock.xchng

To exchange your currency from one form to another, you have to visit local retail exchange market of the particular country. For instance, you have traveled to Japan from Bahrain, now you need to meet a money dealer who will have his own quotations with respect to exchange of the currency you are holding. The dealer also has his margin (profit) from the currency trades so you should have to agree with the rate at which he is selling or buying the currency. Money dealers either include their profit in the quotes or recover it as a commission directly from the customer. So you need to check it before you pay commission to your money changer.

Most of the people interested in traveling need to pass through the process of currency exchange where they have to check the exchange rate for specific currency they are going to buy in exchange of currency they are having at that moment. Business needs also make us exchange currencies and almost 5% of forex trading is done in this connection where people buy another currency in exchange of their local currency to allocate it for some business need. Rest of 95% business in forex is done on the basis of speculations and in an expectation to earn profit due to the fluctuating exchange rates which creates room for investments for small traders and also for mega investing companies. If you are also intending to exchange currency either for traveling or for business needs you must have an understanding of exchange rates first.

Top Money Making Careers

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As the New Year 2012 has approached, creative minds are hunting on unique money making ideas to establish a successful business online. The ideas are even working for those who have little or absolutely no experience in the field of home business; to put it bluntly, you can earn even if you aren’t familiar with “ABC” of online business, and strategies that can truly make you a rich online entrepreneur. Online marketing gurus perhaps attract you saying that you have potential to earn six figure income online but it is when you know what to do and how to do. The simple key to success is basically discovering the best money making method, and implementing it with efforts, hard work, and devotion. You can’t be riches in months if you wish to have everything done on autopilot; make efforts to get results, you will either swim in the sea or drawn as luck would have it.

 

 

 

 

image: stock.xchng

Here are some superb money making ideas for 2012 that help you get started with your career in online business empire:

 Start Your Own Blog or Website

The best way to build your online presence is to make a website or blog to offer your services or products. For instance, you are interested to sell products then you can turn your site into an online store with the items of your choice while if you want to earn money by employing your skills then you can offer your services to vast online audience. Thousands of people around the world are making money through their own site by turning it into a fully functional online business.

Selling Coupons on eBay:

You can sell anything on eBay, the famous auction website, built in 1998 with only few sellers and buyers’ account. Now, it has been globally famous for being a state-of-art auction website where people grabbled up for one thing- get good deals on the discount. You too can make fortune selling productive products on eBay, and for you should try picking discount coupons to start with. Coupons could be anything: shopping coupons, discount coupons, and coupons insert. You can collect them from your friends and relatives and sell them for profit on eBay. Don’t ever sell coupons that are expired or for recalled products. You don’t have to be very experienced in selling and promoting online products; just make an account, verify your account, and start selling.

image: stock.xchng

Getting Paid for Taking Online Surveys:

Online surveys pay a huge commission to their members giving them surveys to fill-up on from time to time. You can sign-up with the free survey websites, and be active on their portal to be able to receive latest surveys that need to be done as a part of a market research. Oftentimes, a product is delivered to your home door that has to be tried once or used before filling-up the survey. The company conducts these types of survey to know what their customers want and how they can improve their services. You, as a survey taker, provide that company all information and feedbacks they need to improve their products and services. You can earn real cash taking survey by spending only 20 minutes or less online everyday.

Buying and Selling Domains:

Buying and selling domains industry is active throughout the year, twenty four hours a day, and seven days a week. All you have to do is buy bulk domains from the open market place on discount, and sell them for profits. If you have money to invest, you can consider buying premium domains, and selling them for huge profits on websites like Flippa.com.

So if you can setup and manage your own site as your money making career then go for the first method and do it but if you are interested to promote your site and want to avoid the hassles of hosting and SEO then you can choose one of three methods discussed afterwards. Whatever way you will choose will be your first step towards your money making career but keep in mind that the key for success is hard work, patience and dedication to make it a real success.

Best Ways to Make Money Online

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The Internet is serving each and every person very smartly putting a horde of money making ideas at our disposal and offering us a chance to select one that can help us get started. Upon writing a single term “Make Money Online” in the search engines, billions of search results are generated proving that it is really easy to make easy cash online and support your family and in some cases even close relatives. Although the online websites are presenting tremendous home based business ideas, somehow few ideas are always comfortable to start your work on. Below are discussed the best ways to make money online out of which you can choose one that fits your skills.

Affiliate Marketing:

Have you ever seen live screenshots of affiliates? If not yet, you should have a look at their online income statistics showing the potential lies within the field of affiliate marketing. You could earn easy money by simply promoting third party’s product to the worldwide market or a specific niche market. Most famous affiliate networks of 2012 are Clickbank, Amazon, Commission Junction, and Ebay. It takes less than three minutes to sign-up with an affiliate network; just after you enter in your details, a confirmation email is sent to your inbox which you need to verify yourself as an authentic seller. Once you are done with the verification process, you can select the products from the list and start marketing them either on a website or blog. Even some people are making sales without having any online blog just using social networks. Before you begin your career as an affiliate marketer, keep in mind that this field requires unique, accurate, and practical marketing strategies to procure positive or targeted results. You can earn big deal of commission if you choose a hot product to sell online. Make a plan wisely and work on it to earn smart cash online.

Content Writing:

If you can write well, you can write articles, blogs, reviews, essays or even e-books on the topic of your choice. Content acts as a fuel to rum online world so people having ability to produce unique and quality content can never have any problem in money making online. You can either join such websites that pay for writing articles like Helium, Bukisa, Squidoo, Hub Pages etc. or you can join freelancing platforms where you can get great writing projects according to your interest and abilities.

Virtual Assistance:

Do you really love multitasking and wish to earn money with less amount of struggle? You can offer your services as a virtual assistant, and must be able to deal with administrative and secretarial tasks online. You have to have a professional indulgence to be able to work as a virtual assistant, and for you should know how to write business letters, plans, and proposals since your work demands you to be good at communication and writing.

Telemarketing:

It is one of the most lucrative ways to make money online. For you should be well-acknowledged with the aspect of telephone marketing. Make several mock-up calls to improve on your accent and communication skills, and use a friendly tone when talking to your buyer real-time. You are provided with an online VOIP facility with a virtual phone device which you can use to make calls to either landline or mobile phone number for the promotion of particular product; it could be teeth whitening gel, cellular upgrades, or household items depending on the project. For a better lead generation, you must be capable of persuading your customers over an actual conversation. The more punchy words you use the greater sale-leads of the day will.

 

So think over the best ways to make money online discussed above and analyze your skills and learning potential in order to choose the way you can follow in long run for turning your dream of success into reality.

Money Saving Tips

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Saving money is not an art or science. It is a procedure that makes you understand that how to manage your money. It demands dedication and long term effort investment. Money saving can take time to be developed however if it is practiced with regularity, it can bring benefits too that will sustain for the rest of your life. To save money is under your control and it can carry you enormous benefits.

image: SeniorLiving.Org

Whether you are intending to save few dollars or pounds on shopping, traveling or on anything else you must start it right now with proper planning. There are many tips and ideas to help you save money easily and frequently. Spending less is essential if you really want to save money.

  • Try not to waste money and make purchases only if they are necessary.
  • Establish a personalized budget. You will straightaway see your income and expenses once you make your budget. If you don’t have an idea about the total income coming in and the amount going out to cater daily requirements you might not be able to save few dollars for you. Once you have created the budget of your income and expenses you will identify the key areas where there is a possibility to save some money easily.
  • Make a record of your expenditures. Whatever you save depends upon the amount you earn and the amount you spend. It is suggested that you should have a control on the amount that you spend in order to save money. You should critically analyze your expenses and list them down in order to keep a record of your expenses and the savings you have made.

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  • Get rid of the credit card, make all purchases on cash and exclude the use of credit card out of your life.
  • Savings should be your main concern. Deposit your saving amount into your bank account as soon as you get paid. The easiest and simplest way to save some amount out of your salary is to deposit a fixed percentage of your salary into your savings account every month. This works quite well and calls for a diminutive thought.
  • If you can afford to share the things you have, from food items to living utilizations, attempt to do so as well. What goes around comes around when it is flanked by close friends, before long, you will see your friends doing the same way, and everyone gets benefited.

Image: RambergMediaImages on Flickr
  • If you get some unexpected money, try to place all or maximum of it into your savings, then again, continue to set your regularly scheduled amount on the side as well. You will attain your saving’s goal very soon. Do not get discouraged or depressed because good things often take long time and the more you save the more benefits you can get. Just keep on investing time and effort in right direction and eventually you will get you actually desire for.

Ways to Make Money from Home

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You can find a lot of different ways to make money at home but there is no short cut available to reach your desired income level. It demands long term effort and time investment. It is true that there are a number of online jobs which seem easier as compared to others and can help you in online money-making more rapidly.

However, if you are interested to enjoy long term healthy income every month then you need to put extra effort into it. If you desire to job from home, you require having a true attitude. And if you are ready to put some effort into it, there are numerous ways that you can work from home.

image: jholster on flickr

Make Money Online Surveys

One of the best ways to make money from home is to do online surveys. Online surveys are considered the best way to make money from home today. Manufacturing companies and small scale business take interest in getting feedback of public about their product and services and that is why they pay everyone who completes a survey conducted about their performance and quality.

Online Writing

Review writing is a great way to make money at home nowadays. For this purpose you can either set up your own review site or can find out such sites which allow review writing for free. Bloggers and online business owners take interest in publishing reviews about their products and services and pay for published reviews. It helps them to attract more audience to their site to convert them into permanent customers and also makes you able to make money with the ease of your home. Suppose you are not getting bloggers ready to pay you for review writing you can opt for affiliate products where every one gets paid for bringing customers to these sites. You just need to get registered with affiliate sites and put their affiliate link in the review you will post on your site about the product. If someone really buys that product through your referral link you will surely get the commission fixed for that product.

image: otubo on flickr

Make Money on eBay

Another way to make money from home is to sell things on eBay. It could be hard to believe but it’s true that lots of people today are unaware of the method they have to follow to sell their products on eBay. So here you get an opportunity to make money online by offering your services in this regard. Initially you can start with couple of products but in long rum you can develop this small money making opportunity into a stable online business where you can buy things at wholesale rate and sell them on eBay at retail price. It’s just like a sale-purchase business where you can make big cash without investing into the actual setup usually required in these types of businesses.

Blogging for a Living

Blogging has now become a popular way to make money at home. You can create your own functional blog within few minutes. There are a lot of free blogging platforms including blogger and wordpress from where you can take a start. After learning the rules for blogging you can go for paid domain and hosting as well but initially it is better to practice with free ones. You can start a blog about everything you think you are good at. It does not matter how strange it looks like. You can attract audience easily if you are having quality and unique content on any niche of your choice. You can convert your blog into a money making resource by displaying google ads, by selling products, by writing reviews and even by promoting other skills and services.

But here you need to remember one thing in mind that making money with blogs demands dedicated effort and patience to reach at a point where you can really start earning healthy monthly income from it. In order to rank high and attract more people to earn money, bloggers require value links or URLs ending back to their blog by other’s blogs, in excess of everything else. You can perform that for them by remarking on other’s blog and accusing a little amount for every connection back.