Plan Now To Save Money And Time This Christmas
It is still only September, but now is the perfect time to make some preparations for Christmas and save your time and money.
Firstly Ill give you some tips on how to save money in a variety of ways and generate some extra spending power for your Christmas treats.
Next Ill give you some time-saving tips to make all that extra spending as convenient as possible and by the end of October youll be ready and prepared and looking forward to a relaxing Christmas time with your family and friends.
So first to money and how you can boost your budget for Christmas preparations and presents. The best way to save money is to cut back on your spending and the easiest way to do that is to focus on the money you spend on things that you wish you didnt! Things like credit cards bills, insurance, loans, household bills, car expenses etc. All those things that are seen as essentials, but they drain your cash at an alarming rate. What if you were able to cut those expenses by just 10%? I dont doubt that just that small saving will provide a significant increase to your Christmas budget.
Lets look at interest payments a big drain on your resources if you have some debts. Mortgages and loans are a common feature of many household budgets. When was the last time you looked at your mortgage arrangements? If it was more than two years ago, then now could be an ideal time to review your mortgage deal and look around for a new one if appropriate. You could have a new arrangement in place by the end of October if you start now and you could be saving a few hundred pounds every month if you on a particularly poor deal at the moment just think, that could add almost a thousand pounds to your Christmas budget over the next 3 months.
Next, credit cards if you have any debt at all on your credit cards and are being charged interest, then look around now for an interest-free balance transfer deal. As long as you dont spend any new money on that card, you will cut those interest payments to zero for the next few months even more cash in your pocket. There is another important side effect of this strategy too if you need to use your credit card for some Christmas essential spending, then if you have found a deal that offers a zero or low rate on new spending too, you'll be saving even more money.
Insurance next. Ive noticed that household insurance has been creeping up in price over the last few years. It was always seen as a low cost item and renewed without much thought, but Im spending over 700 per year on this expense and Ive only ever claimed once in the last 20 years surely there must be a cheaper way? Youll be pleased to know that there is! The home insurance marketplace is extremely competitive, with all companies trying very hard to attract new customers. Get on the internet and fill out a few quote requests you may get a pleasant surprise and save yourself another couple of hundred pounds.
Next lets look at time. Weve often left our Christmas preparations too late and ended up rushing around the shops at the last minute, struggling through the crowds and finding that all the best items have sold out. Wouldnt it be nice if you had all your plans in place and could spend those final few days enjoying the Christmas atmosphere without the stresses of last-minute shopping spoiling the fun? Well with a little planning now, that could be you. Ive just come back from a shopping trip to London and throuroughly enjoyed my day out Christmas shopping in September! Ive just taken a half day off work during the week and visited all the big department stores in comfort and peace. Harrods, Hamleys, Harvey Nichols all in relaxed surroundings and no crowds. I had a reasonable list of people and ideas and went looking for items and more ideas, plis I was intent on enjoying myself. The stores were almost empty, the staff very helpful and the cafs had plenty of space for my frequent breaks. I came back with a bunch of great presents and a heap of further ideas for other presents. I now intend to purchase the remainder of my Christmas list using the internet from the comfort of my own home. Ill save some more money and if I do that now, I wont have to worry about Christmas delivery schedules.
Plan ahead, plan well and plan to have a peaceful and relaxing time this Christmas.
Sue Barnard authors consumer information for a variety of money saving and personal finance websites. More of her work can be seen on this
http://www.finance-team.co.uk website and this
http://www.cheap-rate-loans.co.uk website.
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Frugal Living: Money Making Ideas for Stay at Home Moms
Just because youve made the decision to stay at home as a full-time mom, does not mean that you cant earn a little spending money on the side. With todays proliferation of work at home, freelance and telecommuting job opportunities, stay at home moms have several options. Along with a wide variety of money-making opportunities, the Internet brings more than its fair share of scams and rip-offs. However, if you use a little practical common sense and are not afraid of a little research, no ones going to take advantage of you.
There is one very basic rule that you should keep in mind at all times. If you remember this, youll be immune from most of the scams and questionable offers, If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. No one is going to pay you $1,500 a week to stuff envelopes so forget it. You are not going to become rich off of 99.9% of what you read, and the other 0.1% takes money, effort and time. Now that weve got some basic ground rules, lets look at some options.
Surveys
There are probably hundreds of sites promoting making good money with paid surveys. The question is, can you really make money with paid online surveys. The answer is yes, you can make money on surveys, and you can get free goods and merchandise. However, I dont know anyone that makes a living out of surveys (although I am sure someone is). Many survey companies offer entries into prize drawings for merchandise or cash. Some of the offers are pretty appealing. However, like any lottery, there are lots and lots of losers for each winner. If you want to take a shot, who knows, you might get lucky. However, for the most part you will be working for free, hoping to hit a jackpot.
There are reputable companies that do pay cash for surveys. Its doubtful that you will make a full time wage, however, its a nice way to get a little extra spending money. Before you pay money and invest in a list of survey companies, test the water with any number of free survey companies. One tip: Create a separate email account and use it only for survey offers. You may find after applying to a number of companies that you will get a lot of email offers. If you are not careful what company you sign up with, you may find a lot of spamish email and offers that you are not expecting. Its nice to have an email account that you can dispose of, if necessary, or at least use to separate your personal and professional email.
Mystery Shopping
Mystery shopping can be a lot of fun. Ive enjoyed everything from free meals to free days at Disney as a mystery shopper and gotten paid too! There are a number of mystery shopping services that you can apply to and get a constant list of jobs that need to be filled in your area. The only real skill this takes is to be able to follow directions, and to accurately remember or document (on the sly) specific points of interest and then be able to complete an online form. Attention to detail and timely completion of work are skills that will do you well in this fun job. You can take your spouse out to a free lunch or dinner and get paid for your time to complete the paperwork. Once again, you wont get rich, but its a fun way to earn a little money while getting free stuff.
Freelance Work
Freelancing is the ideal job for the stay at home mom because it offers flexibility, the ability to work from home (or where ever you choose) and still earn a decent living to help support your family. In addition stay at home moms can get additional tax benefits for their families through their freelance employment and so help further reduce the financial strain on their families.
As a stay at home mom, you may have some very marketable skills that companies would like to pay you for on a freelance basis. There are any number of positions for writing, editing, proofreading, web design, graphics art work, research, programming and hundreds of other jobs for which people are willing to contract. You dont necessarily have to be a Pulitzer Prize winning writer to proofread and correct text, or to retype material from an imaged file into a word processor.
Freelance work is an opportunity for work at home moms to use their time and talents when and where they want: to bid on work that theyd like to do when its convenient for them to work. With a variety of jobs ranging from the data entry to programming, freelance work can consist of either short-term assignments or longer-term engagements. Best of all, you get to pick by bidding on the work youd like to pursue.
The stay at home mom has so many options available to help add to the family income. If you are not trying to find the EZ path to riches, there are many legitimate, and free, or nearly free, work from home ideas. Here are just a few.
Be a fundraising agent, helping groups and non-profits with proven fundraising solutions.
Get a piece of the $2.5 Billion pet market. Start a pet sitting business, a doggy day care or gourmet doggy bakery.
Make and sell wire jewelry.
Sell products on eBay or your own website without having to stock inventory!
For more information on the job ideas in this article or for a list of work from ideas from A to Z, visit
http://www.FrugalMom.net.
Candace Anderson is a work from home mom who also homeschools her 5 boys while contributing significantly to the family income through multiple works from home channels of income. Mrs. Anderson has several websites including FrugalMom.net, which is dedicated to frugal living tips and resources for the stay at home and work at home mom. For more information on frugal living or legitimate work from home opportunities, visit
http://www.FrugalMom.net.
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More Funny Ways To Save Money
I was doing research for my web site, on ways to save money. Checking other web sites and discussion forums, I found that the cheapskates are hitting new - and funnier - lows. Choosing a spouse according to how frugal he or she is, and reusing the plastic from bacon packages were just a couple of the serious suggestions. One man even said, "Instead of buying toilet paper, I use yesterday's newspaper."
Probably the suggestion that was the most ridiculous was to stop drinking beer. What are we trying to save all this money for? In any case, here are some more funny ways to save money. I suspect, or at least hope, that many of these really are not meant to be serious suggestions. Don't try these at home.
Ways To Save Money?
- Unplug your clocks at night to save on electricity.
- Carry powdered drink mix and add it to water when eating out, to save on buying drinks.
- Install a cat door and train your cat to go outside and to the neighbors yard to go to the bathroom. This saves you on cat litter and time cleaning the yard.
- Eat dog food. (According to this contributor, the dry dog food is better than the canned.)
- Tell everyone you'll be out of town for Christmas, so you can shop the after-Christmas sales for presents.
- Ask your friends to save the labels for you off any new products they buy, so you can put them on your thrift-store purchases when you are buying gifts.
- Run around the house and close the heater vents in all the rooms except your bedroom before going to sleep.
- Encourage mice in the house by leaving crumbs around - so your cat will have a free food supply.
- Learn speed-reading and read books for free while in the aisle at the book store.
- Leave everything in the same place in your house, so you can easily get around at night without turning the lights on.
- Bring back rolls of coins from Canada, to use at the laundromat and in pop machines, saving you 20% or more, depending on the exchange rate.
Okay, these may be funny ways to save money, but did any of them tempt you? Do you pick up pennies on the street? Wouldn't it be more efficient to just stay on the clock at work for an extra minute? Hey, and while you are there, take a big drink of water - to save on your home water bill.
Steve Gillman studies money. To get free e-courses and e-books on money topics, and for more Funny Ways To Save Money, visit:
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E-Commerce - Easy Money Or Commitment And Sacrifice
When my wife and I got into the WWW. E-commerce world, we had visions of easy money and an auto pilot type of business. You know the kind that runs itself and the money just rolls in. Oh yeah, low start-up cost, little time, and low commitment. Just read the commercials and Internet ads.
The Internet can be your friend or it can bite you like a scared dog. Try researching, starting an Internet business. You will find every easy money method in the world. Here is a list of things to consider and these things are just the surface. This is not meant to scare you but to inform you of the reality, before you fall into the money pit. Just remember you have to give before you receive and sometimes we learn from the pain.
Websites necessities or basics:
Host/Server to store all your files and images. E-mail and other perks. $8 to $12 month
Purchase your domain www.mysite.com $8 to $???
Merchant/Credit Card service Credit Card processing. This is a low price. $25Month, $15 service charge, and 30 cents per transaction and 2.5% of sales. (OUCH!)
Paypal You can use Paypal for your payment option. Its free. I dont use it. Nothing is free.
Rent a ready-made store - Now you can go with a company who will host your site and provide a storefront for you. They will even give you products to sell. These are usually database type and provide no SEO. In other words, the only people who purchase from your site are your friends and family. No one can find your site in the Internet desert. You're on page 200 (if lucky). They run from $40 to $200 month.
Find a wholesaler? No problem, everyone is a wholesaler. What do you want to sell? Leather, Home Dcor, Knives and Swords, Collectibles or maybe Kitchen cookware?
Where are the real wholesalers? The ones they buy from. There are many scams and scam tools for sale out there. Now try ordering from them. Late? Back Ordered? Packing? Drop ship costs? Shipping & Handling Costs? Drop ship or Inventory? Taxes???
Build your site - There are many templates out there that look good but if you dont know how to program HTML forget it. You will probably buy a book or software that shows us dummies that we can create HTML websites without having to know HTML. On the outside it looks good, but on the inside they stink. How are you going to find the time and keep up with the latest in this "part time business"? Search Engine robots don't like bad programming among other things.
Gather Information - Now that you have a wholesaler, download all the prices and images. Create your spreadsheets to upload all the product information (change them to CSV or some delimited format. Or you may have to do this one at a time Ahhh!
Fix the images - Adjust the resolution, size, etc. to fit your WebPages. Get the right software to do thisIt will save you days of work and cost. I hope you get this done before the prices change or the item is discontinued. Remember that if you have more than one wholesaler, you have more than one tax and drop ship charge. You also have different information and images. They could be in other formats.
My wife and I thought an Internet Shopping Mall would be so cool. We could have different stores, oh boyThats where the name MallAboutTown.com came from. Oh yeah. Now you have to have a logo and a theme and all the right colors and, and, and.
It's kinda like building a house.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - You should have been thinking about this from the start. Buy links, buy PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising, buy search engine submissions, buy content, submit articles and link to directories and other Websites, read, read, read and determine who is telling the truth.
After all the smoke clears, you will be in the hole a few bucks. When that first sale comes in you will feel like that golfer getting a hole in one. Then you're back at it, harder than ever. Its an addiction. I guess it could be described as the spouse that wont leave an abused relationship. Like any business, Internet business is not for the short-term commitment. There is so much I had to leave out because many things depend on what direction you take on this journey. Good Luck, remember if its too good to be true..
Our advice is to personally talk to someone that is successfully operating E-commerce site, (not on E-bay) and get the facts. This is what made E-bay so popular. But even E-bay can be tough.
Good Luck,
Marc and Kemella Allyn
http://www.mallabouttown.comMarc and Kem own
http://www.mallabouttown.com and
http://www.allaboutthecross.com bring their personal experience for your use.
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