Search Results for “three-alternatives-to-a-budget/budget-lesson-part-5/debt-burnout/budget-lesson-part-3/budget-lesson-part-1/travel-expenses-why-i-splurge/subscribe-by-email/how-to-complain-the-squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease/medical-costs-and-choices/slow-carb-diet-how-to-avoid-going-bat-crazy/garage-sale-manual” — Page 72

Selling Your Car

: English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Park in Hidden Valley Campground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it’s time to replace your car, most people focus on the new car, instead of the old, but that is ignoring real money. Your old car–unless it has disintegrated–still has value. Sometimes, it’s just time to ask yourself, “When should I sell my car?”

When you’re looking to sell your car (like with We Will Buy Your Car), you generally have several options:

Tow & crush. If your car has been wrecked, doesn’t run, or is just old and beat up, you may be stuck with calling a junkyard and accepting $50 for them to pick up your car and crush it for scrap.
Trade it in. This is probably the least hassle, but–other than #1–doesn’t pay well. Dealerships are willing to pay something under what they will get at a wholesale auction, which is quite a bit less than the blue book value.
Sell it yourself. Now you’re thinking, “He’s going to buy my car! Oh, bother.” It can be a pain, but it’s also the best way to get a decent price for your wheels.

When you sell your car, there are a few things to keep in mind, much like when you sell something on Craigslist.

Don’t be alone. There are bad people in the world, but they don’t like witnesses. Bad things are much less likely to happen if you have company.
Know your price. Specifically, know three price: your dream price, the price that would make you happy, and the absolute lowest price you are willing to accept. Make sure you figure these numbers out ahead of time. Know what you are comfortable with before it comes time to close the deal.
Check IDs. The buyer is going to want to test-drive your car. That’s fine, but you want to make sure you know who is driving off in your car. “Officer, Sumdood took my car. He was wearing jeans.” That won’t get your car back.
Clean it up. Get the car detailed before you show it to a potential buyer. A sparkling-clean car will almost always bring in a few hundred extra dollars. It’s well worth the expense.

Following this plan should make the sale go as smoothly as possible and bring you the most possible money.

Readers, what have you done to dispose of an old car?

This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of used car retail.

Should Pupils Focus on Personal Finance?

Finance, Parenting

When I was younger, my dad was always trying to teach me the value of money but he never really succeeded and it took a series of monetary mishaps before I even started to learn any of the lessons that he had been trying to teach me!

Kids and Money — image by GoodNCrazy via Flickr

Once I realized that I had been horribly mismanaging my finances, a painful lesson to learn, especially on the back of a redundancy, I began to do some research to find out exactly where I had gone wrong and what I could do to put things right.

It was at this point that it occurred to me that I knew absolutely nothing about personal finance and I couldn’t tell an ISA from a current account.

I also began to wonder if I had been taught these lessons at an early age then would I have made better financial decisions once I started earning?

For example, my outlook on personal finance was all about borrowing and not saving and I had no idea what my credit score was or how it was calculated.

Had I known that it could be affected by simply being close to the limits on my current lending streams or by applying for more credit then I may not have been so quick to spend on credit cards.

Although this was not a problem during the credit boom, when offers of guaranteed credit seemed to drop through my door on a daily basis, it has become something of an issue since the credit crunch.

Of course, just knowing the pitfalls of financial mismanagement is no guarantee that I would have done things any differently but it certainly would have made me think about the decisions I was making and the impact they would have in the long run.

All of which led me wonder whether should schools give students (or pupils if you’re in the UK) lessons in personal finance.

I think it would be a great idea as this would be something that everyone, no matter what their level of academic ability, could take with them into the real world.

And it could be the case that a school in the US is one step ahead of the rest as they already have money management lessons as part of the curriculum.

Burbank High School in Sacramento is offering students lessons in personal finance as part of National Financial Literacy Month in an effort to raise awareness of the importance of good practice in personal finance.

The lessons covered personal finance topics such as budgeting, saving and needs vs. wants and placed them into real life scenarios that would resonate with the students, such as estimating how much the senior prom will cost and ways to save and pay for it.

Students were also encouraged to put a portion of any weekly earnings or allowance into a savings account to teach them the importance of saving for the future from an early age.

I think that these were the values that my dad was trying to instill in me from an early age but I failed to take any notice.

I now have two sons that I have to try and keep from making the same mistakes that I made, so any help I can get will be greatly appreciated…here’s to future school pupils focusing on personal finance!

Article written by Moneysupermarket.com

Lou Reed’s Influence – More Artistic than Financial

Celebrities

On October 27th, 2013, Lou Reed passed away in his Long Island home at the age of 71. A rock and roll pioneer who shaped the American pop culture landscape, Reed was known for his work with both The Velvet

Underground and his solo work. His biggest hit as a solo artist was 1972’s “Walk on the Wild Side,” hailed as a classic by critics and industry veterans.

Reed’s achievements as an artist had less to do with financial or commercial triumphs and far more to do with daring and trailblazing artistry. His most recent work was New Age ambient music, a grand departure from his earlier rock sound. His New Age meditation album, “Hudson River Wind Meditations,” was overlooked by critics but popular with fans of the genre. His final album was 2011’s “Lulu,” a progressive collaborative effort with Metallica. The album was comprised mostly of spoken word.

Reed could have continued to find commercial success and grow his brand and wallet had he continued to create the rock and roll sound that many of his fans desired. However, Reed was nothing if not a rebel, unwilling to bend to the requests of even his most die-hard fans. Ultimately, his passion was to create the sound that he wanted to create – not the sound that others wished he would create.

The lesson that we can all take from the life of Lou Reed is a simple one: While making decisions based on financial and professional factors is undoubtedly important, there is certainly something to be said for throwing caution to the wind and finding one’s bliss. While we all might not be able to eschew doing what we need to do in favor of what we want to do, we could all stand to take some time to do what makes us truly happy and find our bliss. Reed is nothing if not an inspiration for chasing your passion no matter what your critics say.

My New Windfall

Finance

Tax season is over.

This year, TurboTax and Amazon teamed up to offer me a 10% on up to $1200 of my refund if I took it as an Amazon gift card.

$120 free if I spend that money with a company I’m going to spend money with anyway?

Yes, please.

I spend lots of money with Amazon. I subscribe to many of my household items there, because I use them and I don’t want to have to think about buying them. I get my soap, shampoo, toilet paper, paper towels, and garbage bags automatically delivered. There’s a bunch of other stuff, too, but that’s what I remember off the top of my head. If I have 5 items in a monthly delivery, I get 20% off.

Free money, free shipping, and none of the hassles of shopping?

Yes, please.

So now I have a $1320 credit with the company I use for most of my non-grocery shopping.

I also have 962 items on my wishlist with Amazon.

To recap: $1320 burning a hole in my metaphorical pocket and 962 items that I have wanted at some time in the past, begging me to bring them home.

That’s a dilemma.

The smart answer is, of course, to let that money hide in Amazon’s system and slowly drain out to pay for the things I actually need.

The fun answer is to stock up on games and books and toys and gadgets and cameras and, and, and….

Some days, it’s hard being a responsible adult.

I think I’m going to compromise with myself. I’ll leave the vast majority of the money where it is, but I’ll spend a little bit of it on fun stuff, and a little bit more on stuff I don’t quite need, but would be useful, but not so useful that I’ve already bought it.

A new alarm clock to replace the one next to my bed that automatically adjusts for daylight savings time but was purchased before they changed the day daylight savings time hit so I have to adjust the time 4 times per year instead of never. That’s on the list of not-quite-needs.

The volume 2 book of paracord knots is on the list of wants that can’t possibly be considered a need, but it’s going to come home, anyway.

I figure, if I spend a couple of hundred dollars on things I really, really want, I’ll scratch that itch and leave most of the money alone.

What would you do with a $1300 gift card at a store you shop at every week that sells every conceivable thing? Spend it right away, or stretch it out, or something else?

Insurance

Finance

On Tuesday, a potential customer took my business partner and I out for sushi.

The sushi bar was fun. There was a little canal going around the bar. The canal had little boats. The boats had little plates. The plates had sushi. Lots and lots of sushi. When you wanted something, you just reached out and took it.

Yum.

My only complaint with the place is the width of the chairs. If you’re going to use narrow chairs, you really shouldn’t choose chairs with armrests.

Between the narrow chairs, the armrests, and my fat butt, my cell phone got knocked off of my belt.

Crap.

I normally check my money clip, car keys, pocket knife, and cell phone every time I stand up, but didn’t this time.

I noticed it was missing 15 miles later.

Of course, when I called, no one answered my phone.

The restaurant hadn’t seen my phone.

When we went back to retrace our steps, my phone was nowhere to be found. Some busboy got a nice tip that night.

Now, I don’t carry insurance on my cell phone. I still have every cell phone I’ve ever owned, in working condition. Well, minus one, now. At $5/month, that has saved me more than $1000 over the years.

Of course, it’s a bit painful this week.

Thankfully, I sock a bit of money away every month to cover things that break. It’s my warranty fund. That, combined with a good(hopefully) find on eBay, means that losing my phone, while irritating, isn’t going to break my budget. It won’t actually touch my budget in any way.

On a side note, a parking ramp with a flat, “all night” charge and a lost ticket fee makes me angry.

Cheap Vacations

Finance

: Image via Wikipedia

Last month, we went on vacation for a week. It was our first debt-free vacation, ever! We had a busy week, full of fun activities and it didn’t break the bank. We saved money on everything we could.

Hotel

We save a lot of money by staying at a casino/hotel that was a 20 minute trip away from our vacation city. This won’t save money if you have a problem with gambling. The only time we went to the casino was to get to the connected restaurant.

We made the hotel even cheaper by arriving on a Sunday and leaving on a Friday, avoiding the weekend rates. That gave us a full 6 day vacation with no rush to pack and 2 days to recover and relax when we were done. We just didn’t see the point of checking out on Saturday, just to head home, when we could check out on Friday, spend the day seeing the sights, then leave late.

Meals

I like good food, but feeding a family of five for a week costs far too much. So we compromised.

We brought milk and cereal to the hotel. Instead of rushing to get out of the hotel for breakfast, we had a leisurely breakfast in our jammies and took our time getting moving. No stress. For our daytrips, we packed sandwiches, juice, and snacks; avoiding the need for lunchtime restaurants. Dinner was our extravagance. Every night, we ate someplace nice. Not fancy, but nice. Our food budget was about $30 for the week, not counting dinner.

Attractions

I had a plan to keep every day fun, without resorting to using an agenda. We were far to flexible to call it an agenda. They just don’t make vacations fun for me. We had one thing planned each morning, one each afternoon, and one each evening. Every day, one of those things was spending a couple of hours in the hotel pool. No stress.

The first thing I did was hit the city’s tourism website for coupons. Yay us!

We tried to group our activities geographically to save on parking. For example, one day we went on a sight-seeing boat tour, then walked over the a retired-ore-freighter-turned-museum and only paid one parking fee, which was actually reimbursed by the tour company.

We also hit a lot of state parks, which was mostly free, except for the daily parking permits.

Some of the museums had gotten together to offer a “3 attractions for the price of 2” deal. This was available to us, but I didn’t find out about it until the end of the week. Luckily, it only cost us a few dollars more to use the other coupons.

When we had some spare time, we did other things, like bowling or catching a matinee. They were just some cheap time-fillers, but still good times.

All in all, we had a great time. Nobody was bored and we didn’t end up broke. A good time was had by all, and I got to teach my son how to play poker.

How do you save money on vacation?

Related articles

Hotel

Meals

Attractions