CREDIT CARDS ARE MORE THAN JUST A BACK-UP PLAN! There’s no doubt you need to be careful with credit cards. There are people of all ages throughout Canada struggling with credit card debt in the thousands or tens of thousands. And if you start missing payments, your credit score will be in danger, which will affect your ability to acquire assets and may even limit your employment options. Related: How to avoid turning $1 into a $29 Credit Card fee However, credit cards are not inherently bad. Money mismanagement is, and the two don’t necessarily go hand in hand. If you are conscientious about how you use your money, you can actually save money by taking advantage of credit cards. Instead of battling to pay installments, you can live the lifestyle you choose without letting the debt ever get out of hand. There are multiple ways to save money using a credit card. These are 5 of the most effective. 1. Transfer your balance to a 0% APR credit card If you are already carrying credit card debt, there is a simple way to get out of paying crippling interest. Many credit card companies offer a 0% […]
Are My Bank Savings Safe and Protected?
Easy Ways to Protect Your Hard-Earned Dollars We are all focused on building a better life for ourselves and our families through stronger financial planning and sound budgeting. For most of us, that means a lot of work put into stretching every dollar as far as it goes and getting the best return possible on our investments. Today I’m going to focus on an aspect of financial planning that doesn’t get enough attention: deposit insurance. After all, there’s no point in building up a nest egg if it’s not there when you need it. After your plan has been put in place and you’ve made a decision about how much of your net worth to put aside in savings, what exactly should you do with it? From high interest savings accounts, to GICs, to RRSPs, there are plenty of options available for your savings. Deposit insurance is provided for only certain kinds of savings, so it is important that you keep it in mind when making sound financial decisions. Related: RRSP’s The Need To Know Basics Canadian banks are safe and protected, but failures aren’t impossible Many countries have a government agency or other body responsible for protecting savers […]
Top 5 Reasons A Food Budget Is Financially Smart : The Grocery Game Challenge #3 June 15-21, 2015
KNOW WHERE YOUR MONEY IS GOING A food budget is a huge part of the overall budget in any household whether you decide to use one or not. If you don’t believe me think about how much you pay each time you go to the grocery store and use that to work out your average yearly food expenses. Even though that’s probably the worst way to do it because you probably spend more than you think you are it’s somewhat of a ballpark figure of your yearly expenses. Then again for those of you who do the math this way your final number likely isn’t that important to you but it should be. If you are someone with more money than you know what to do with you might not have a care in the world to know the amount it’s costing you to fuel your body. For those of us who have to worry about balancing our monthly budget a food budget in my opinion is an imperative step to overcoming debt, saving money and balancing the budget. The fact is that whether you document your expenses or choose to just spend your money freely the money will […]
Is your savings account an indicator of your wealth?
SAVING MONEY TAKES TIME Building wealth is not as easy as some people make it seem. At the same time there are paths to achieve financial goals but you must be willing to walk them. Your finances fall under an umbrella system where there’s more than one number that has to be accounted for when looking at your overall financial picture. If you ask someone how much money they are saving every month I’m betting they will either laugh at you or straight up tell you, “Not as much as I’d like”. The truth is that many Canadians struggle to put extra money aside every month because of debt load and monthly bills. There always seems to be a struggle to make ends meet because prices just keep going up and up. I’m not just talking about people making minimum wage either. There are plenty of people who earn more than minimum wage that just can’t seem to get on the right financial path. More money doesn’t equate financial freedom. Plenty of people are more than happy with no debt and a savings account without earning 6 figures. Although many people may feel the cash crunch to overcome this […]
Man uses hourly wage to spend less and save $5000
SAVE $ THE WAY THAT WORKS FOR YOU Should you use your hourly wage as the deal breaker for potential purchases? Every so often I meet people who have something to say about finance and it just so happens that I find these people like magnets. First thing to remember is that what you earn is not what you net. In other words if you make minimum wage you aren’t taking home $11/hr after various taxes. Same goes to those who earn a salary, you’re in the same boat. This is common knowledge though right? If so why are so many people in debt? Whatever you net is the money you get to play with in your budget. It’s amazing how many people forget about using the concept “Spend less than you earn” even though it’s fairly straight-forward. Mr.CD meets Mr.CBB While we were doing some shopping in Burlington last week I was feathering through the CD’s which were on sale for 50% off. It was an amazing deal for new release CD’s and other CD’s that I normally wouldn’t pay full-price for. It was pretty busy so space was limited and we were all elbow to […]
Savings competitions helped couple save $20k to buy a house
MONEY COMPETITIONS CAN BE FUN I’ll admit that I was always the competitive type growing up because I wanted to be successful at whatever I did. When I did participate in something I did it to the best of my ability and tried to surpass any goals that I set for myself. I could easily say money is a big part of my life in the sense that we need it to survive so I compete to keep earning it while building my career. I don’t challenge myself to earn a certain amount of money although we do set financial goals for ourselves. If it happens, it happens but we do live a frugal lifestyle and use a budget to help the process along. If I didn’t push myself to live each day to the max my life would be boring. My wife would never be surprised with the special things I do for her to make her day easier. Our son would not have the dad that goes above and beyond for him if I didn’t have some form of competitive nature in me. I want the best for my family so I work hard for them every […]
What would you do with $100,000 in savings? : January 2015 Net Worth Update (+2.53%)
SPEND MONEY TO MAKE MONEY If you are new to Canadian Budget Binder welcome to our monthly Net Worth Update post. I’ve posted our losses and gains for the past 3 years and this is the start of year 4 for us. This year however will be much different for us as we have some decisions that we should make with the $100,000 in bank savings which we have accumulated. At first you might think that’s a large amount of extra cash to be kicking about but as you will see by the end of this post that number will dwindle down in size with our projected expenses. There’s not going to be as much as you think by the time I’m done chopping down the pile. It was never out intention to keep long-term savings in the bank of this amount but in talking with a banking representative it’s certainly not uncommon. What I mean is keeping more than $100k in one bank account which is not necessarily the smartest thing to do. If you think about it money has to sit somewhere until it is invested. Some people have no intentions of doing anything with their money […]
Product reviews for coupons saving you money : The Grocery Game Challenge #4 Dec 22-28, 2014
YOUR OPINION FOR SAVINGS! Product reviews are a great way for bloggers to share their opinions but there is not always a kick-back such as a free product. Companies are always looking for ways to reach the customer so coming up with innovative ways to get our attention is something they strive to improve on every day. Even with a giant social media splash it’s hard to motivate customers to buy unless there is something in it for them. Most times for someone to try a new product a good starting point is putting it on sale aside from offering it free or tastings. You might see sample booths set up around your grocery store for this reason. I’ve received a free book to review on Canadian Budget Binder and the offer of other products here and there (nothing I was interested in) but one thing is for sure there has to be incentive for me to go out of my way to talk about. The pleasure is not always monetary either as I am a blogger but for the most part if there is money to be saved and I’m interested then I’m in. Just last week I […]
