Free Debt Snowball Plan To Payoff Debt

The debt snowball plan is one of the quickest ways to become debt free. It is simple, effective and creates a plan to help anyone become debt free. This plan has become very popular and is promoted by a number of top financial advisors and personal finance experts because of its simplicity and effectiveness.

A debt snowball plan is a debt reduction strategy that focuses on paying off individual debts one at a time starting with the smallest balance first. In addition, minimum payments are made on all other debts to focus on paying as much money as possible on the smallest debt. When the smallest debt is paid in full, the payment savings from that debt is applied to the next smallest debt with any additional money until it is paid off. As a result, more money is continually freed up to accelerate the prepayment of consumer debt until every debt is paid in full.

Dr. Jon Wittwer of Vertex22 created and offers a free debt snowball calculator. It is a simple but very effective spreadsheet that anyone can use. It provides an easy to use calculator to enter all of your debts. Once you have entered in all of your debts, you can review several different debt reduction strategies. The most popular strategy is the Debt Snowball Plan. However, you can also review the Debt Avalanche Plan. The Debt Avalanche plan uses the same methodology but focuses on paying off debt with the highest interest rate first You can also create payment schedules to track your progress. The templates and payment schedules can easily be printed.

The free Vertex22 Debt Snowball Calculator is an incredible resource that can help anyone become debt free if they are committed to achieving the goal of debt free living. Debt free living can be a reality for anyone at any age.

Here are some additional free resources and personal finance articles

3 Steps to Debt Free Living

Personal Budgets

How to Create an Emergency Fund

30 Day Financial Makeover

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Career Earnings vs. Career Savings

What is more important over your career, your total income earned or the total assets that you have accumulated over your working career? Obviously the answer is your total assets accumulated over your lifetime. However, many people only focus on their income. They become obsessed with their income and their careers to the point that they are willing to sacrifice their health, their marriage and their family for their career.

Unfortunately, many hard working people end up broke and disappointed at the end of their career. Why? The answer is because all of their efforts were focused solely on increasing their income and careers versus building financial security. This lack of focus on saving and investing dramatically impacts their ability to retire or the quality of life during retirement.

In addition, when an individual’s attention is focused solely on their income, they can end up increasing their lifestyle as a result of their increased compensation. They want the instant gratification for working hard. “Keeping up the Jones” is alive and well in this country and companies spend billions to have us buy into this mindset. As a result, the increase in income is spent to support this new lifestyle. I saw a saying recently that said “Affluenza: Materialism in which one overworks to acquire stuff that adds to debt so one has to work harder.” If this is the case, our country is facing an epidemic!

Conversely, individuals that are focused on saving and investing understand the value of their hard earned money. They see money as tool or a means to an end to accomplish their goal of building their net worth and achieve financial independence. In addition, they are unwilling to increase their lifestyle knowing it will impact their ability to fund their savings and reach their financial goals. In the end it is their unrelenting commitment to spending less and saving more that allows them to achieve their financial goals and objectives.

Ultimately, the choice is ours. We are responsible for the outcome of our lives. We need to understand and accept that our choices have consequences. Therefore, if we want to secure our financial future, we need to start making better financial decisions with our money. We need to set solid financial goals, control our spending, limit our use of credit and set limits on our lifestyle choices. We cannot afford to waste years or decades of our lives consuming our future.

Therefore, the most important question we can ask ourselves is “when will step up and take control of our lives and our finances? The answer can no longer be someday. “Someday” is a day that never comes until it is too late to do anything to change the course of our lives. “Someday” robs us of today. “Someday” is a convenient way for us to settle for less in our lives and hold onto our dreams rather than act on them. We tell ourselves that “someday” we will make it happen. “Someday” we will take action to achieve our hopes, goals and dreams for our lives. We use this convenient excuse because it allows us to rationalize settling for less today. It allows us to believe that the timing is not right in our lives, and that “someday” the timing will be better. We believe the day will come when we will have more money, more time and more resources. The truth is there will never be a perfect time.

Therefore, the only answer is ”Today.” Today is the day you must be willing to step up and start taking control of your life and your finances. Today is the day you take control of your financial future. You can do it!

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401k Retirement Plans

Do you work for a company that offers employee retirement plans like a 401k? An employee retirement plan offered through your employer is the best place to start building wealth for your retirement goals. Even if you start with a small amount, it moves you one step closer to building wealth and securing your retirement

In addition, a 401k employer sponsored retirement plan has numerous benefits and tax advantages that make it one of the best retirement planning options available to employees. Here is an overview of several of the key benefits of employer sponsored 401k retirement plans.

Pre-Tax Contributions – One of greatest benefits of a 401k retirement plan offered through your employer is the ability to set aside money from every paycheck prior to your payroll tax deductions. This allows you to save a larger portion of your income since you a making a pre-tax contribution. It also lowers your income taxes since your taxable income is reduced by the amount you contribute into an employee retirement account.

Tax- Deferred Growth – You are not required to pay taxes on your retirement account until you pull out the money. Therefore, the money inside a 401k retirement plan will grow substantially faster than an after tax investment account. This tax-deferred growth over 20-30 years can dramatically impact your overall account balance and your ability to retire.

Automatic Payroll Deductions – This is absolutely essential for anyone that wants to achieve their financial goals. You must commit to paying yourself first. The easiest way to make that commitment is to set up a payroll deduction amount or percentage to be deducted from every paycheck. This will ensure you remain committed to your financial goals.

Employer Matching Funds – Employers may offer to match a percentage of the funds an employee contributes to their retirement plan. If so, this is essentially free money contributed to an employees retirement account every month for as long as they work for the company or the policy remains in effect. Over time these matching fund contributions can significantly impact your overall account balance.

In closing, an employer sponsored retirement plan like a 401k is the best place to start building wealth and securing your financial future. The sooner you get started the better. Every year you wait to start contributing money is a year you not only miss out on saving a portion of your income but also lose a year tax deferred growth. Don’t wait until it is too late. Tax deferred growth, combined with compound interest over 20-30 years, is the secret to building a substantial retirement account. Therefore, the sooner you get started, the sooner you can retire.

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Financial Decisions – The Power of Choice

We make financial choices each and every day that impact our personal finances in one-way or another. Many of these individual financial choices are small and seem inconsequential at the time. However, over time they may have a significant impact on our personal finances. In addition, we also make other financial choices that are larger and have a far greater impact on our personal finances.

Therefore, the question that each of us should be asking ourselves is “Are we making the best financial choices possible each and everyday?” Why, because the condition of our personal finances in many ways is a reflection of the financial choices we have made in our lives to date. If we want to take control of our personal finances, we need to work on making better financial choices.

The first step to making better financial choices is to understand that we have the power of choice in our lives. The power of choice comes into our lives at the moment we make a decision. It is in the blink of an eye when we make a decision that determines if our choice will empower us to make better choices or become disempowered by another bad choice. It is easier to make the bad choice because it takes less effort. It is also easier to justify in our minds. Unfortunately, these choices rob us of our power to take control of our lives.

Here is a great example to help illustrate this point. You set a goal in your life to get in shape. You commit to going to the gym 3 days a week to work out. You set your alarm to wake up early to get to the gym before work. The next morning the alarm sounds. You wake up. The power of choice comes when you either decide to honor your goal, get up, head to the gym and workout or you turn off the alarm and go back to sleep.

The power of choice is yours. The real question is what choice will you make in your financial life? You get to decide. One choice provides power, certainty, motivation and momentum to make better choices in your life every day. The other choice is to settle for a life of mediocrity, giving up on your goals and settling for less.

Mediocrity does not have to be our reality. We need to take control of our own personal finances, we are responsible for them. We need to understand and accept that our choices have consequences. Ultimately, we are responsible for the outcome of our lives.

Therefore, the most important question we must ask ourselves is “when will we step up and take control of our personal finances?” The answer cannot be someday. Someday is a day that never comes until it is too late to do anything to change the course of our lives. Someday robs us of today. Someday is a convenient way for us to settle for less in our lives and let go of our dreams. We tell others and ourselves that someday we will make it happen. Someday we will take action to achieve our hopes, goals and dreams for our lives. We use this convenient excuse because it allows us to rationalize settling for less today. It allows us to believe that the timing is not right in our lives and that “someday” the timing will be better. Someday we will have more money, more time and more resources. The truth is there will never be a perfect time in the future.

Therefore, the only answer is ”Today.” Today is the day you must be willing to step up and start taking control of your personal finances. Today is the day you start making better financial choices. Today is the day you change your life and finances forever. The power of choice is yours. You get to decide. You can do it!

Here are some additional resources:

How To Create and Achieve Your Financial Goals

Free 30 Day Financial Makeover

10 Keys to Financial Freedom

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Personal Budget – Take Control of Your Personal Finances

A personal budget is absolutely critical for anyone that is committed to taking control of their personal finances. Why? Because a personal budget provides us the input we need to manage our income, track our expenses, improve our cash flow to payoff debt and start a savings plan. A personal budget provides us a tool to work on achieving our financial goals. It is the first step in taking control of our personal finances.

Therefore, I hope I hope you will commit to using a personal budget. This does not have to be an overwhelming task. There are countless free personal budget resources and free personal budget software resources online to help you get started. Don’t get caught up in selecting the perfect budget format. It is not that important. What is important is capturing all of your income and expenses. Pick something that is simple to use. We use a simple budget worksheet in Excel. Here is a link to a Microsoft personal budget template that has over 3.4 million downloads. http://bit.ly/gatAnx

It is also very important when creating a personal budget to capture all of your miscellaneous expenses that occur throughout the month. The only way to accurately capture all of these expenses is to save every receipt for every dollar you spent for a minimum of 30 days. This information is essential to preparing an accurate monthly budget. It will also provide you some great insights into where all of your money goes on a monthly basis.

Once you have completed an accurate monthly budget and have captured all of your expenses you can start looking for creative ways to reduce or eliminate unnecessary expenses and save money. The monthly savings you create can be used to start paying off consumer debt and funding your savings goals.

A personal budget is the first step in taking control of our personal finances, controlling our spending and achieving our financial goals for our lives. Start today and change your life and finances forever.

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Rebuilding Our Financial Future

The housing and economic crisis over the last 5 years has devastated the finances of millions of individuals and families. As a result, millions of people are being forced to start over in their careers, their retirement goals, repair their credit ratings, etc.

There has never been a more important time than now for each of us to work on educating and empowering ourselves to take control of our own financial future. If we want take control of our own personal finances, we need to start with the things that we can control in our lives. We cannot control the economy or the financial markets.

However, we can control our spending, limit our use of credit, set new financial goals, create a budget and look for creative ways to save money everyday to start rebuilding our finances. Here are some simple tips to provide you some ideas on how you can start working on rebuilding your personal finances.

Set New Financial Goals – Millions of families have experienced financial setbacks as a result of the housing and economic crisis. Therefore, it is essential that we spend some time evaluating our current finances and work on establishing some new financial goals. It is vitally important that we have specific written financial goals that inspire us to take action to achieve them each and every day. All of us have the ability to rebuild our finances and secure our financial future when we become inspired and committed to achieving our financial goals. This is an area of our finances where we should consider seeking out the input and guidance of a professional. An experienced professional can help us set specific financial goals and develop a plan based on our input.

Control Our Spending – We live in a consumer driven world that encourages spending in a million different ways. Many of our spending habits revolve around our lifestyle choices, choices that we make every day or week without ever considering the impact of these choices on our overall finances. However, over time our spending habits have a significant impact on our personal finances. The good news is that a large portion of our spending is discretionary. Therefore, we can have an immediate impact on our personal savings by controlling our spending. This is the first step to rebuilding our personal finances and our financial future. The single best way to get an accurate idea of your spending habits is to track every dollar you spend for 30 – 60 days. This is a simple exercise that can produce significant financial breakthroughs with our personal finances.

Limit Our Use of Credit – Our debt is a reflection of our spending habits. Therefore, if we start limiting or controlling our spending we will minimize our use of credit. Minimizing or eliminating the use of credit is critical if we want to rebuild our financial future. The most dramatic way to eliminate the use of credit and control your spending is a credit card fast. It is exactly what the name implies. You eliminate the use of credit and rely solely on cash for all of your purchases. This “cash only” exercise will make you stop and consider each purchase based on your available cash as opposed to simply swiping a credit card for any and all purchases.

Refinance Debt – Interest rates are at their lowest levels in decades due to the sustained housing and economic crisis. Therefore, there has never been a better opportunity than now to work on refinancing your mortgage debt, consumer debt, etc. If you are a homeowner, the record low rates provide an opportunity to dramatically lower your monthly payments. As a result, you could use the monthly savings to dramatically accelerate the prepayment of your mortgage loan and re-build your home equity that has been lost due to the housing and economic crisis. You could also use the monthly savings to payoff any consumer debt, fund savings and retirement plans, etc. If you have consumer debt, auto loans, student loans, etc., use this opportunity to shop around for lower rates to refinance your consumer debt. Every dollar you save in interest is a dollar you can use to pay yourself.

Rebuild and Protect Credit Rating – Credit Scores today are not only used for obtaining financing, but also for employment, insurance, renting a home, etc. Therefore, if we are truly committed to rebuilding our financial future, we will start with rebuilding, repairing and protecting our credit rating. The first step is to pull a copy of your credit report and review it for any errors or unresolved issues. If there are issues that need to be corrected, take immediate action by contacting the credit reporting agencies and/or the specific creditors to rectify the problems. If you are unable to resolve these issues on your own, seek out help from a reputable non-profit or agency. It is also very important to understand how and what impacts your credit score. There is an interview with a credit expert on FiscalLiteracy.com that provides some great information to help you understand what is in your report. You can find the interview under the Radio Show tab.

Fund an Emergency Fund – An emergency fund is a separate fund that is established and set aside solely to be used for the purpose of covering unforeseen expenses that come up in everyday life. An emergency fund will keep us from using a credit card to cover these expenses. As a result, we will limit our use of credit and minimize the risk of increasing our debt to cover these unplanned expenses. The typical guideline for an emergency fund is 3-6 months of your normal living expenses. Get started immediately by setting up a separate account, and be committed to funding it on a regular basis. In addition, consider having a garage sale or selling items online to generate some immediate cash to fund your emergency fund.

Resume Retirement Contributions – It is absolutely critical to fully fund your retirement plan each and every year. You cannot afford to postpone your retirement goals. The only way to reach your retirement and financial goals is by building your assets and savings over many years. If you have an employer sponsored retirement plan that provides matching funds ensure you are contributing an amount that matches their percentage of matching contributions. If you do not have an employer sponsored retirement plan, meet with a financial professional to establish an individual retirement account. The most important point is to make the commitment to contribute money to your retirement every month until you reach your retirement or specific financial goals for your retirement account.

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Time to Buy a Home

Is 2012 the time to buy a home? There have been a number of recent housing reports that suggest this may be a great time to buy a home for a variety of reasons.

The January existing-homes sales report released by the National Association of Realtors, NAR revealed that the median sales price declined to $154,700. According to the NAR this is the lowest level since 2001.

In addition, Freddie Mac, reported that the national average mortgage rate for 30 year fixed rate conventional mortgage dropped to 3.92% in January. This set a new record low for mortgage rates. Mortgage rates have been tracked since 1971.

The combination of record low mortgage rates and a substantial decline in home prices have dramatically improved home affordability for potential homebuyers.

In addition, rental rates for homes and apartments have increased substantially as demand for rental property has increased over the last few years. As a result, mortgage payments for a comparable home may be lower than monthly rental rates.

Therefore, it may be time to buy a home. If you are considering purchasing a home there are a number of factors that should be considered to ensure you are making an informed decision. Here is a list of considerations for anyone who is considering purchasing a home including first time homebuyers.

Personal Budget – It is absolutely critical to review your income and expenses to see if you are living within your net income or using credit to supplement your living expenses and lifestyle. You can easily create a budget by tracking all of your income and expenses for a minimum of 30 days. You can use this information to look for ways to save money for a down payment and closing costs or offset a portion of the mortgage payment. In addition, you may also want to consider establishing a separate home savings account to cover unforeseen expenses, normal maintenance and home repairs that are a part of homeownership. Here is a link an article on Personal Budgets.

Cash to Close – Down payment requirements for many loan programs have increased since the housing crisis. However, there are still a number of loan programs like FHA that only require a 3.5% down payment. In addition, there are closing costs that are part of a home purchase. Closing costs are negotiable. Therefore, you can ask the seller to pay your normal closing costs as part of any purchase offer subject to certain lending guidelines. Here is a link to an article on FiscalLiteracy.com entitled Money Saving Tips for Homebuyers. It provides information how to save thousands in closing costs on your home purchase.

Pre-Qualification – It is essential for anyone considering purchasing a home to meet with a mortgage professional to get pre-qualified for the mortgage prior to actually shopping for a home. Homeownership is typically the largest purchase and a mortgage is also the largest expense most people make in their lives. Therefore, it is absolutely essential to understand the impact that homeownership and a mortgage has on every area of your personal finances. In addition, you want to ensure you select a sales price, loan amount, mortgage loan program, monthly payment, etc. that meets your personal financial goals, objectives and your budget. A pre-qualification will also show a home seller that you are qualified to present an offer on their home. More importantly, a prequalification letter from a mortgage lender will provide you the peace of mind that you are selecting a home you can afford and have been prequalified prior to shopping for a home.

Credit Score – All mortgage lenders use credit scores as part of the underwriting and loan approval process. In addition, the lender will use your credit score to determine your interest rate for your mortgage loan. Therefore, it is absolutely essential you have the highest credit score possible to ensure you get the lowest rate possible and the best loan terms available. A review of your credit report is typically part of a mortgage pre-qualification. Use this opportunity to review your credit scores and ask for input on how your credit score may impact your loan approval, loan program choices, interest rate and monthly payment.

Estimated Length of Homeownership – This is an important consideration that is often overlooked by homebuyers. However, it can have a significant impact on your finances. You should determine or estimate how many years you may own a home. Use this information to evaluate mortgage lending costs like origination fees. It typically takes approximately 5 years to recoup the costs of paying a 1.00% origination with lower monthly payments. More importantly, if you are making a small down payment and are planning on moving in less than five years you may not have enough equity to cover the expenses involved in selling your home. You can ask a Realtor to provide you an estimate of the total costs to sell the home you are considering purchasing if you plan on selling in a few years.

Tax Benefits & Considerations – You should speak with a CPA or income tax professional to understand the possible tax benefits and considerations of homeownership. Depending on your specific circumstances you may be able to lower your income taxes. If so, speak with the CPA or income tax professional about the changing your W-4 withholding deductions with your employer. If you can decrease your income taxes from the mortgage interest expense, property taxes, etc. you may want to consider adjusting your W-4 withholding amounts to have less withheld from your monthly paychecks. This would increase your net take home pay without changing your estimated year-end income taxes.

In closing, 2012 may provide the best opportunity in years to purchase a home due to the record low mortgage rates and substantial reduction in home prices. However, the ultimate decision to purchase a home should be made based on your individual financial goals and objectives. Take the time to become educated and empowered to make an informed decision. Seek out trusted professionals to help you make an informed decision.

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Create an Emergency Fund from your Tax Refund

Tax season provides us the perfect opportunity to set up and establish an emergency fund with our income tax refund. Because this is money that has been set aside throughout the year due to our income tax deductions exceeding our withholdings. It is also money that has been accumulated outside of our monthly budget, expenses and savings goals.

Therefore, our income tax refund provides us the perfect opportunity to use this lump sump payment to establish and fund our emergency fund. Unfortunately, there are a million businesses all advertising and competing for our income tax refund. As a result, it is very easy for us to be enticed into spending our income tax refund without ever considering the possibility of saving it for a rainy day or when an unforeseen or unplanned expenses occur in our life.

Without an emergency we must resort to using our credit cards or securing a consumer loan to cover the costs of these unforeseen expenses. Unfortunately, It is our lack of personal savings that forces us to use our credit cards or obtain a personal loan to pay for these unplanned expenses that we incur in our lives. When we charge these expenses it dramatically impacts our overall debt, increase the costs of these expenses due to the interest we pay over time, and also reduces or eliminates our ability to save money. An emergency fund is a simple but effective financial solution.

Therefore, maybe this year we want to consider saving our hard earned money from our income tax refund and using it to set up and establish our own emergency fund. An emergency fund will provide us the peace of mind that we have some money set aside, a fall back plan in case of an emergency. Why is this so important? Because by eliminating the need to utilize credit cards for unforeseen expenses we can focus on limiting our use of credit. By limiting our use of credit we can focus our efforts on becoming debt free and also fund our savings and retirement goals.

Here are some tips to help you set up and fund an Emergency Fund

How to Fund Your Emergency Fund Every Month – The key to funding your emergency fund is controlling your spending. All of us can free up the cash we need to fund our emergency fund if we take the time to track all of our expenses for 30 days. We can also look for creative ways to reduce our discretionary lifestyle expenses for lattes, dining out, shopping sprees, etc. We can also look for ways to live more frugally. If we are willing to make the effort,we can find enough cash to start funding our emergency fund every month.

How Much Cash? Many experts recommend keeping three to six months living expenses in an emergency fund. This is the ultimate goal. However, this may seem like an overwhelming goal to someone just getting started establishing an emergency fund. The key is to start small with your income tax refund and then commit to a specific amount every month. The most important point is to commit to establishing a cash cushion and funding it every month. This discipline and commitment will pay significant dividends when an unforeseen or unexpected expense arises.

Where to Keep Your Cash – It is vitally important to set aside this cash in a separate account where you will not be tempted to spend it. Remember, an emergency fund is only for unforeseen and unexpected expenses. Therefore, this money must always be available for you to cover these expenses at anytime without using your credit cards. Therefore, I suggest that you set up a separate account at a different financial institution from your normal bank accounts. This will prevent you from easily transferring the money to another account. Select an account type like a savings account or a money market account that does not put your money at risk.

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30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge

Are you ready to transform your personal finances? It can be done by anyone that is willing to commit to following these simple steps outlined in the 30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge. The intent of the 30 day Financial Makeover Challenge is to help you take control of your personal finances, build a budget, control your spending, free up cash to payoff your debt, and start funding your savings and retirement goals.

In addition, the challenge will help you create some new financial goals for your life. Clearly written financial goals are absolutely essential for anyone that is committed to achieving financial freedom in their lifetime. Without clearly stated financial goals, we will abandon our financial commitments for the future and only think of our immediate wants and needs. We cannot afford to waste our precious time, money and resources consuming our future by our lifestyle choices today.

Therefore, if you are ready to change your life and your finances here is an outline of the 30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge. These simple steps are designed to be completed together with your family during the same 30 day period. Everyone should participate so you can all see the big picture of your finances.

Track Every Dollar You Spend – Where does all of the money go on a monthly basis? Who really knows? This is an absolutely critical step for anyone that is committed to a 30 day Financial Makeover Challenge. The intent of this exercise is the help you determine where every dollar was spent and see how much money is spent on non-essentials.

Commitment: Save every receipt from every dollar spent for 30 days, (even the receipts for purchases under $5) this also includes anything that is deducted directly from your bank statements, etc.

Action Plan: Create a spreadsheet on your computer or go to an office supply store and purchase a legal sized accounting ledger notebook with lines and columns. Create categories for each type of expense. Use your receipts to input your expenses into each category at the end of each day. The more specific your categories are the better.

Build a Budget – A budget is another critical step in the 30 day Financial Makeover Challenge. A budget provides us the input we need to manage our income, track our expenses, improve our cash flow to payoff debt and start a savings plan. A personal budget provides us a tool and also accountability for managing our income and expenses. This does not have to be an overwhelming task. Keep it simple. This step is critical to see how we want to spend our hard earned money before we spend it.

Commitment: To live within your established budget for 30 days, and this includes all discretionary purchases and miscellaneous expenses that occur throughout the month.

Action Plan: Create a budget based on your current income and expenses by reviewing your fixed monthly expenses, bank statements, and credit card statements for the last 30 days. Here is a link to a simple Mircosoft budget template that has over 3.4 million downloads. This will help you identify certain areas in which you can make cuts if necessary. For example if your monthly dry cleaning expenses are $125 but you really only have $75 to allocate to this you can see if you need to find a new dry cleaner or take more expensive items to the cleaners less often.

Credit Card Fast – This is a great exercise for anyone that is committed to the 30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge. A 30 day credit card fast forces us to pay cash for all of our purchases outside of our fixed monthly expenses. Therefore, it forces us to stop and consider each purchase based on our available cash. It provides a far greater awareness of our spending habits than using a credit card. It is very difficult to control our spending when we merely swipe a credit card or debit card for our purchases.

Commitment: No credit cards will be used during the 30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge. This will require some planning and regular trips to the ATM. However, the payoff will far exceed the inconvenience.

Action Plan: Cash Only for all purchases including gas, dry cleaning, dining out, etc. Remember, to save all of your receipts from every dollar spent during the 30 day Financial Makeover Challenge and input them each day into your expense tracking ledger.

Evaluate Your Lifestyle Choices – Our Lifestyle choices typically consume a large portion of our monthly net income. Usually we never consider the impact on our personal finances. Why? Because our lifestyle choices are part of our daily or weekly routine for things like our morning latte, eating out at restaurants or fast food businesses, shopping sprees, weekend activities, etc. As a result, we don’t even stop to think about the cost or impact of these choices over a year or over our lifetime.

Commitment: Look back through your last credit card statement and determine how many of these expenses were discretionary expenses based on convenience or lifestyle choices before starting the 30 day challenge. Use your budget to set a limit on these lifestyle choices during your 30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge.

Action Plan: Stop and consider the impact of each choice before we making it. Set a limit for these expenses in your budget and live within the limits. Look for creative ways to save and enjoy this part of the challenge.

Dare to Dream – The last step before beginning the 30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge is to sit down and dare to dream about achieving your hopes, goals and dreams for your life. What does “Someday” look like for you? How would you live your life if you achieved your financial goals? How would you spend your time? What are you passionate about in your life? What gives your life meaning and purpose? How could you make a difference in others lives? Etc.

Commitment: Read your goals everyday during the 30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge to inspire you to take action everyday to stay committed to the challenge and change your life and finances forever.

Action Plan: Commit to writing out your dreams for your life. Write out your vision for your life with certainty and confidence that you will accomplish your goals for your life. Look for inspiration in others. There are countless examples of people who have overcome great challenges in their lives and have made their dreams a reality in their lives. Dare to Dream.

If you are looking to transform your life and your finances the 30 day Financial Makeover Challenge may be a great way to get started. It will give you a new perspective and awareness of your finances. It will help you develop new financial habits. It will provide new insights, ideas and financial breakthroughs that will impact every area of your life.

If you are ready to change you life and your finances then the 30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge is the first step on your journey to financial freedom. I hope you will accept this challenge and get started immediately. If so, I hope you will share your experiences and successes with us. Your story and journey make encourage others to take the 30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge as well at FiscalLiteracy.com

We hope you have enjoyed reading the 30 Day Financial Makeover Challenge. If you know someone who would enjoy this article, please forward it to them.

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10 Tips to Save Money on Monthly Bills

Here are some money saving ideas to help you lower your monthly bills. Our monthly bills for mortgage payments, auto loans, utilities, insurance premiums, cable TV, Internet, cell phone plans, etc. consume a large portion of our income every month. As a result, these fixed expenses should be evaluated on a regular basis to look for ways to cut our monthly bills.

Unfortunately, these areas of our personal finances are often overlooked because we become accustom to paying them on a recurring basis. However, over time these expenses can cost us thousands of dollars in unnecessary fees, charges and additional premiums.

We hope this article inspires you to sit down review your monthly bills and spend some time researching how to cut, minimize or eliminate some of your monthly bills.

10 tips to help you lower your monthly bills and start saving money today.

Auto Insurance Premiums – These premiums can vary based on the amount of the deductible you have selected. Therefore, the higher your deductibles the lower the annual or monthly insurance premium. In addition, the amount or types of coverage can also impact the overall premium. You may also receive a lower auto insurance premium if you are a homeowner and use the same company for homeowners insurance and auto insurance. In addition, it is also very important to minimize traffic citations and also work on maintaining an excellent credit score to help minimize your overall auto insurance premiums.

Homeowners Insurance Premiums – Homeowner insurance premiums are typically escrowed or part of your monthly mortgage payment. Therefore, the homeowner may never review their insurance premiums. However, it is important to review your coverage’s and premiums at least annually. For example, in many areas of the country home values have declined due to the housing and economic crisis. Therefore, you may be able to reduce your homeowners premium by comparing your current estimated home value with the value established by your insurance company when you purchased or refinanced your home. If your home value has declined substantially this may impact the replacement cost estimates and ultimately your annual premiums. In addition, the amount of your deductibles for your homeowner policy may also impact your annual homeowners insurance premiums. You may also receive a lower annual premium if your home has an alarm system. Lastly, insurance companies are spending millions on advertising competing for your business. Take some time and shop around and compare costs and coverage’s with different companies. Many companies also have an additional guaranteed replacement coverage on your policy, so ask your agent about this and if it will allow you carry a little less coverage.

Refinancing Debt – Interest rates are at or near record low levels. Therefore, you may be able to refinance your home mortgage, auto loan or consumer loans to lower interest rates. The lower interest rate will provide you lower monthly payments. You can use this monthly savings from the reduced interest expense to accelerate the prepayment of your debt without increasing your monthly payments. This refinancing and debt acceleration strategy can save you thousands of dollars in unnecessary interest expense and dramatically impact your personal finances

Income Tax Withholding – This is an area we may not consider a monthly bill. However, it is the first bill, expense or deduction from our monthly income. Therefore, it is an area that you should review and evaluate annually. The best tool for evaluating your withholding amounts is to review your annual income tax return. If you typically receive a large tax refund each year you may want to consider adjusting your income tax withholding with your employer. This is accomplished with an IRS W-4 form provided by your employer. The IRS provides a W-4 Withholding calculator to help estimate your withholding on their website. Here is a link to IRS Withholding Calculator. You can also meet with a tax preparer or CPA to help you determine if you need to adjust your income tax withholding to increase your monthly net take home and minimize your annual income tax refund.

Cable TV / Satellite TV – For many families this represents a large fixed monthly expense. There are a variety of packages and monthly subscription prices available. If you are committed to lowering your monthly bills you may want to select a more affordable package and compare your current plan with other providers.

Internet Provider – This is another monthly fee that millions of people are paying on a monthly basis. This monthly fee may be bundled with your home phone, cable TV provider, etc. However, it is another significant monthly expense that should be reviewed and evaluated on a regular basis. There is a lot of competition from a variety of service providers all competing for these lucrative monthly expenses. As a result of this competition you may be able to lower your monthly bill for this service.

Home Phone / Land Line – Millions of people have eliminated this expense as a result of cellular phones. However, there are also millions of people that maintain home phones and cell phones. The elimination of a land line for a home phone can eliminate a significant monthly expense. If you have a home alarm system that is tied into the land line for your home phone you will need to contact your alarm provider and discuss wireless monitoring options versus the expense of maintaining a land line solely for the home alarm. As part of this cost evaluation you may also want to consider which option provides a more secure and protected connection for alarm monitoring purposes. In addition, you may also want to look at VOIP options for your home phone as well. There are a variety of VOIP options that offer lower costs than traditional land line based home phones. If you select an Internet based phone service you can submit a request to have your home phone number transferred to the VOIP phone service.

Cell Phone Bill – It seems that every man, woman and child has a cell phone. This is another fixed expense that is dramatically impacting individuals and families. In addition, the popularity of smart phones has also increased the monthly cell phone bill for every user that now incurs a monthly data expense in addition to their regular cell phone bill. Therefore, it is absolutely critical that cell plans are thoroughly researched based for your individual or family needs before signing a two year contract. In addition, these services should be evaluated every time you are considering a phone upgrade or adding additional phones to your monthly bill. Again competition is driving prices down and benefitting the consumer who takes the time to shop and compare prices and services. Many providers offer substantial discounts when you do a family plan.

Utilities – This is an area where we can reduce our monthly bill by simply taking the time to turn off lights, reduce the temperature for heating / cooling, adding weather stripping to our doors and windows, using a programmable controller for our heating and air conditioning, limiting our water use, etc. These simple steps can create substantial savings with very little effort or costs. Therefore, work on developing new habits and making conscious decisions each day to minimize your overall utility costs.

Health Club – This is another fixed expense that we can get in the habit of paying on a monthly basis without ever stopping to evaluate our usage vs. the monthly expense. Competition is driving down the monthly membership fees. In addition, you may want to inquire about seasonal memberships based on usage for children that only use the health club during the summer months. There are a number of municipalities that are funding and running health clubs / recreation centers. These facilities may offer similar amenities for lower costs. Also many health plans offer reduced cost memberships at certain gyms.

We hope this article has provided you some ideas or insights that might help you lower your monthly bills. The impact of small or incremental savings in 10 different areas of your personal finances can save you thousands of dollars annually and free up cash to start working on achieving your financial goals for your life.

We would love to hear your ideas and how you are lowering your monthly bills take a moment and share you suggestions below. Thank You…

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