Everyone is considering the United States and maybe even the world in a recession. Are we in a recession? Well I honestly cannot answer that. One thing I do know is it is harder to get by financially today that it was a year or two ago.
One way to ease the burden on your family is to make a little more money. This article will discuss ways you can make some additional money you can put towards paying down debt or bolstering your emergency fund.
1) Sell some of that useless stuff, you know what I am talking about the items that a clogging up your attic, basement and closets. One man’s clutter is another peron’s treasure. You could sell items on Ebay, Craigslist and even have the old fassion yard/garage sale.
2) Get a second part time job, find a job that you can work part time and has flexible hours for you to work.
3) If you have a hobby see how you can turn that into money. If you have elderly neighbors and you like cooking see if a few days a week you could bring them dinner for a small fee. Make extra of whatever you are making for your family and take that over. Often the elderly person will love the food(if you are a decent cook) and will be happy to pay for the convienence factor.
Since you are just making a little more of what you are already making it doesn’t cost much more and you can make a few extra bucks.
Remember it isn’t how much you make but what you do with what you do make.
A common question right now is should I keep putting money in mutual funds or should I just hoard cash in the bank in either a savings account or CDs? People are looking to protect wealth, much more so than just increase wealth in these crazy times.
As always you have to do what makes you feel comfortable. If having money stashed away in an FDIC insured accounts sounds ideal to you then do it.
If you are nearing retirement or needing any of these funds within the next 5 years you may also want to stick with the savings account/CD route.
Personally I am viewing mutual funds as on sale right now, so I am still putting money in the mutual funds. I am rather young and do not need this money anytime soon so I am ok with the possible loss of some of this money.
There is no wrong way to approach this situation for how to allocate new funds for investing.
Gas prices are finally falling but everything else seems to be against the American people. Your 401k and IRAs are less today that they were a month or year ago, depending upon where you live your house may be worth as much as half of what it was a year or two ago. These are serious factors that influence an economy.
When people are scared they pull money out of the stock market, stop or slow down on buying new items, often just trying to buy the necessary items. In addition new car sales often slump as people put more money into their old cars to avoid expenses. Everything I just covered will make the economy hurt even more. Funny how everything is intertwined.
So what should you do?
1) Start buying store brand items. Store brands can often save you as much as 30% off of your grocery bills.
2) Cut down to just getting the Sunday paper. Sunday’s paper often includes the coupons, sale adds and everything else you need to save money. By reducing your subscription down to one day it will save you money.
3) Open your freezer and look at whats inside. Things tend to build up. Start planning meals around things you already have. This will save you money as you are eating things you already paid for and help you avoid wasting money so things do not get freezer burned.
For more tips about saving money read the rest of our personal finance articles.
Part of personal finance is learning how to save money, one way I have decided to save more money is cutting back on the grocery bills. One of the most expensive items on my bill on a per unit basis is deli lunch meat.
Recently I have been BBQing beef roasts which allows me to get an initial meal, plus about 2 or 3 days lunches. Now I hate eating the same thing so one day I will make a sandwich, the next day I will mix up a little gravy and eat it over gravy and the third day(if any is left) I will make a melt with cheddar cheese and toasted bread.
One other interesting creation is a bbq beef pizza, this is taking two of my favorite foods(bbq beef and pizza) and putting them into one, truly the best of both worlds!
Some of my favorite BBQ items is bbq beef brisket or bbq roast beef. Both are really good and are defined by the spice rubs that are applied to them. Depending on the spice rub recipe you follow the results can be some of the best bbq beef.
Instead of a rub you could use a bbq beef marinade which is a sauce or dressing that the beef will sit in for roughly 4 hours or overnight. One thing to be careful of is to not marinade the beef in a vinegar based marinade for too long else you risk making the beef really tough and hard to eat. After the marinade time you can smoke the beef making smoked bbq beef or you can grill it on your gas or charcoal grill.
The secret to great tasting beef is cooking a beef roast on the BBQ grill.
A great recipe is located at the link above.
As always for the best personal finance articles, visit AutomaticPersonalFinance.com’s homepage.
Warren Buffett’s company is buying roughly $3 billion of GE preferred stock, GE is also selling $12 billion more of its common stock to the general public. Preferred stockholders have a greater claim to a companies assets and earnings.
To put it in “average joe” terms preferred stock owners get a better deal.
Does this mean I don’t think you should invest in GE? Well yes and no. GE is a good company, it is also a well diversified company. My point is before you invest understand you are not getting as good of a deal as Buffett is, so your criteria of determining whether it is a good deal or not is different.
Stock investing can be hard, but only for those who have not researched or prepared via reading stock trading tutorials. Not doing the research on a stock and buying it is called gambling.
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