With the beginning of each New Year, it’s a great time to work on ways to amend and strengthen your savings plan. This is especially true if you gave your credit card a workout in the shopping season leading up to Christmas.

So here are 5 savings steps that can help you streamline your finances and boost your savings goals for the coming year.

Revisit Your Budget

In order for any budget to be relevant and effective, you’ll need to revisit it on a regular basis. Your income may have changed from last year. Your bills may have risen or changed. You may have spent a little more than you meant to on other expenses.

When you revisit your budget and update the figures you have there, it can be much easier to see where your money is going. You should also begin to see whether there should be any money left over at the end of the month or not.

Work On Your Bills

Do you check your bills often enough to know when you’re spending more than you should? Compare your mobile phone bill to the one you received last month. If you see your usage is rising, work on keeping your calls shorter or shop around for a cheaper provider. You might even consider switching to a call cap if you really can’t keep those costs down.

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The Wrong Currency
The Dollar Stretcher Blog
by Gary Foreman
gary @stretcher.com

I don’t get to travel much. Or, more correctly, I’m not that fond of travel. In either case only a couple of times in my life have I been outside of the U.S. So I’m not an expert at currency exchanges. But I do know that having the correct currency is essential if you’re going to complete a transaction successfully.

For instance, years ago my wife and I visited Mexico. Some places would allow you to make purchases in dollars. But, many required pesos. In those places you couldn’t use your dollars to make a purchase.

I remembered that the other day. It occurred to me that there are times in our financial lives that we try to use the wrong currency and we can’t complete our transaction. Read the rest of this entry

The Foreclosure Rental Trap - Tips on Budgeting

Jon Quinton is a freelance writer, currently working for ‘Us For Homes’, the UK’s premier For Sale By Owner website
Moving house can be quite a stressful experience, not only are there lots of things you need to plan, there are also lots of costs involved. To help remove some of this stress it really helps to plan your budget in advance, and to try and think of every possible cost. This might not be the most pleasant of experiences but it will definitely help your move go a lot smoother. This post goes through a few of the forgotten about expenses that can catch you out when moving home.

Packaging
It’s well worth getting some quotes from packaging companies, as the cost of buying in boxes can add up quite quickly. Packing everything into boxes makes moving home ten times easier, so it’s definitely an expense worth planning for. If you can’t afford boxes, start collecting old used boxes from family and friends. Read the rest of this entry