How to Become Financially Stable the Frugal Way!

You ever wonder how people become so financially stable. I sure have. I wondered until I became financially stable. Then I started wondering if others knew this supposed secret. I figured maybe they did but they didn’t want to see what was staring back at them so obviously. I grew up having nothing. I went into adulthood not having anything. You are probably wondering where this all came from huh? I came across this site; yes it was a long night again. I can never sleep sometimes. I came across this site www.frugalwiz.com & it got me thinking again. Rut Roh

Some tips to start becoming financially stable, it’s by no means a fast road. It has taken me at least 9-10 years to be where I am at now. Let’s run the list. If you are young, these are the new Golden Rules of life

o You don’t need that brand new car at 16; you’ll be ok with something that is a few years older. You are saving more in the end with this option. Bite your pride, you’ll thank me when you are 27 and you have something to show for it. The savings will be in the fact that you aren’t paying your car note and you are what 21 by the time you are finished. Insurance companies loves responsible & society conscious young adults.

o I see you eyeing that new video game console, wait 6 months, and let it get some reviews under its belt. I have no doubt in my mind that the price will be lower. Buy used more than likely someone’s disposed system was used just enough to get bored with it.

o I know that you want to go eat lunch with all your buddies, that 20.00 dollars dad gave you is burning a hole in your pocket. Resist the force! You’ll thank me later.

o I really recommend you starting to keep up with your daily news events. Keep up on the business world; investing is a beautiful thing when you are knowledgeable in daily events. I started investing when I was 16 under my papa’s trading account. Don’t get me wrong, made a few errors here & there but all in all I came out on top.

o Get a secured credit card with a small balance, something like 200-300 dollar limit, make 5-10 dollar purchases & pay it off. Do this for at least 6 months consistently, you will for as long as you maintain your credit have reaped the benefits forever!

When you instill discipline in your finances, you have a stronger confidence in yourself & the world around you. There are many rips out there that will talk about the various tips but these are my own personal ideas & tips. Good luck & great Prosperity!10

Will That Be Debit Or Credit?

Do you know the difference between the simple phrase “will that be debit or credit”? I didn’t know until I listened to the Clark Howard consumer radio show recently. It seems that when consumers answer the “debit or credit” question with the word “credit” this is a godsend to the banking industry. Banks that issue these hybrid debit cards are collecting huge fees from the cards that sport the Visa® or Master Card® logos on them. Retailers and services that accept these hybrid debit cards are paying a premium in fees to the banks as they would with regular credit cards. If you answer, “debit” and punch in your PIN code the banks profit drops nearly to nothing and the retailer pays less fees. Guess who will eventually pay the bill for goods and services if all the retailers pay more fees?

Most people don’t realize that the bank card issuers collect fees from the retailer for the privilege of accepting their cards; then the banks pay a little “something something” to Visa® and Master Card® for their help with the process. These fees have to be absorbed by the retailer somewhere, which eventually causes them to raise their price of goods and services to compensate for the bank fees. Do you remember when there were only ATM cards? Credit card privileges were reserved for those that were credit worthy and represented a lot smaller percentage of the retailer’s overhead. Now one only needs to fog a mirror to be able to flash plastic at his or her favorite convenient store.

A lot of consumers have been tricked into thinking their debit card is really their credit card, and the banks are laughing all the way to the…well, the bank. The major differences between the “hybrid” cards and traditional credit cards are the liability issues. Credit cards are backed by your good credit; debit cards are backed by your checking account. Most, and we mean all but a very few, banks will not reimburse cardholders for all fraud related charges as traditional credit card issuers normally will. Another large difference is when you buy a bad product or service and would like to dispute the payment. Most credit cards have a mediation or stop payment policy that favors the cardholder, debit cards nada. If you charge it, you bought it.

With the rising cost and higher risks associated with debit cards we at DirectBanc.com recommend that most consumers use a regular credit card for day-to-day purchases, especially over the Internet. The disclaimer here is responsibility, for this to work in your favor you must be disciplined enough to pay your balance monthly within the grace period. Nearly all credit cards have a grace period of around 25 days, which is more than adequate for most budgets.

In the coming days I believe that savvy retailers are going to begin to lean much more heavily toward the debit card side of this issue. Even recently I have noticed fewer stores asking me the question and just pushing a keypad toward me at the time of purchase. The debit or credit issue really didn’t matter to me either way before I realized how the system worked and “the man” got paid. Now every time that I am asked “credit or debit” I remember who’s making the profit and who is ultimately paying for it and then I dial for dollars!

7 Tips for Creating a Family Budget

For many people creating a family budget is an exercise in frustration. Where to start, how to set it up, should I use budgeting software? Are all questions that nearly everyone asks? And then when they do get it set up and start tracking the money coming in and the money going out something happens. An emergency or an impulse buy that screws the whole thing up.

Unfortunately the majority of people give up on their family budget before they ever give it a chance to do what it is supposed to do. One thing everyone needs to understand is that a budget is not a rigid thing. It is flexible and needs to allow for those unintended purchases or emergencies that life is full of. And if you stick with it before long it will be a cash flow planning device you cannot live without.

That's all a budget really is, a cash flow plan for your money. That's right, your money, which should be working for you, not the other way around. A budget allows you to track your income and expenses, giving each dollar a task each and every month. This gives you a good picture for paying bills, setting aside savings, and planning for the future.

If you are having trouble creating a family budget here are 7 tips you can use to make the process easier. Get a piece of paper and list out income on one side and expenses on the other.

1. Calculate your monthly income by gathering three months worth of pay stubs and averaging the monthly earnings.

2. Figure out your monthly bills by averaging the last three months worth. Do this for expenses such as rent, mortgage, utilities, phone bills, car payments or other fixed monthly expenses. You can also do this for those monthly expenses that move up and down from month to month such as credit card bills and groceries.

3. Subtract your monthly expenses from you income and see if you have any money left over. You will start to see areas where you might be spending too much money and can cut back on. This can free up money for other purposes.

4. Now that you have everything listed out in front of you you can start assigning certain amounts of money to certain expenses. As you make those payment note them in your budget to see if you are staying on track.

5. As you find ways to cut expenses you can also start designating a certain amount of money that goes into savings or retirement accounts every month.

6. Your first budget may not work out quite right. It takes most people around three months to start getting their budget working. Be patient and keep working at it, before long it will become second nature and you will have control over your money.

7. Once you have a good grasp on your hand written budget look into getting personal budgeting software such as Quicken or Microsoft Money. This will make your budget much easier to work with and they offer additional feature that can help you plan your financial future.

These are the basic steps for creating a family budget that will get you started and on your way to taking back control of you financial life. If you stick with it before long you will start to realize how much money you used to waste and how much better it feels to know where your money is going and how it is working for you.

Immediate Annuity

Immediate annuity is a type of annuity in which the contract owner starts getting payments after a single premium is paid. Payments can be made on a monthly, quarterly, annual or semi-annual basis. The rate of payment in immediate annuity is of two types, fixed rate and variable rate. The fixed rate guarantees a set income that will not fluctuate, whereas in variable rate payments will fluctuate according to the performance of selected investment the annuity is based on.

Immediate annuity is a vehicle for distributing savings with a tax deferred growth factor. Insurance company assumes the risk of the payouts lasting annuitants whole life in case of immediate annuity. Generally one can never outlive these payments and various choices are available for payment set up as well. There are some plans available which allows change in payment structure at a later date.

Immediate Annuity provides security and stability to its buyer by providing stable lifetime income or a guaranteed income for a specified period of time. It is simple and easily manageable because the annuitant does not need to manage his/her investments, watch markets, report interest or dividends. Immediate annuities provide quality return because insurance companies generally give higher interest rates on annuities than CD or treasury rates and also the principal is returned with each payment. We suggest you to select annuity product carefully according to your need due to the fact that most conventional immediate annuities cannot be revised or cashed in.

An immediate annuity can be purchased with funds from a variety of possible sources, such as: a maturing certificate of deposit, monies which have accumulated in a deferred annuity account; or funds from a tax-qualified defined benefit, 401k or IRA account. Under current tax law, a portion of each payment received from a non-qualified immediate annuity is tax free until your total premium is recovered. The remainder of each payment will be taxed as ordinary income in the year you receive it.

Debt Management for Singles and Couples

Managing your debts by yourself is much different than doing so when you have a family. When you are single, you only have to keep track of what you are spending. When you have a family, you have to not only manage what bills you are compiling but also keep track of what your spouse and possibly children are spending, or what is being spent on your children. A good budgeting system can help you deal with these situations.

When you are only looking after your own expenses, there are not a lot of factors in the equation that make it too complicated. You track your income, your necessary bills such as rent/mortgage, electrical bills, groceries etc. Then you see at the end of the month what you have left. If you know you have overspent one week you can make up for it the next by not spending as much.

Managing your debts when you are in a family situation can be a much more complicated task. Not only are you keeping track of your expenses, but there is also what your spouse is spending. What about that extra expense you used to pay for each month when you where single such as buying luxury coffee. You used to understand that you would pay $4 for your fancy designer drink per day equaling up $120 per month, well now you find out that your spouse does likewise making the bill double. Or your car expenses, you realized you have to pay insurance but now with two cars you are paying double. This becomes a much bigger strain on the wallet, especially if one spouse is not earning anything or much at all which is often the case do to job differences or child rising. It becomes more important to determine what expenses are necessary, what ones are a luxury and what ones are in between. When children enter the picture, it becomes even cloudier as the parents try to determine what their children need and what are just wants and where to settle in between.

The solution for dealing with this is to be proactive in dealing with your expenses. Determine on a scale, what are absolute necessities, basic staple foods, paying for your power (but still being smart in turning off excess lights) etc. Then figure out what lye in the middle somewhere, such as going out for dinners, having two cars, cable TV, etc. Determine on a scale, what ones are more important that others to you. Then if you need to, cut back on the far end of the scale, the items/services that are going a little beyond what you can afford. This way you can make better financial decisions and keep the debt away.

UK Personal Loans - At Your Side In Times Of Need

To meet the growing needs of the residents of the UK, special loans have been designed called as UK personal loans. Personal loans help people in fulfilling their needs which they cannot do with their regular income. We wish and we hope that our wishes come true. But for this, we also need to put in a step and take an initiative. The rest becomes easy with UK personal loans.

UK personal loans can be taken up to fulfill any needs like medical bills, education expenses, home improvement etc. Wishes and desires like a flashy car, a wardrobe change, a vacation etc can also be realized through UK personal loans.

By placing a collateral, secured form of UK personal loans can be obtained. This involves a lower rate of interest, a larger amount ranging from ₤5000-₤75000 can be borrowed and a longer repayment term of 5-25 years is allowed too.

Unsecured form of UK personal loans can also be obtained if the borrower does not have or is not willing to pledge his asset as collateral. Money in the range of ₤5000-₤25000 can be borrowed for 5-10 years. Absence of collateral gets the borrower a slightly higher rate of interest. A lower rate can be obtained through proper research for UK personal loans.

While borrowing UK personal loans, the credit history of a borrower is also given its due share of importance. A good creditor obviously gets the best of everything. But a borrower with a bad credit history is not ignored or refused UK personal loans. To make up for his bad credit score, the bad credit borrower just has to pay a higher rate of interest for the money

UK personal loans can be used to fulfill any personal needs of the borrower. He gets a considerable sum at affordable rates. An online search will help him access many lenders and companies.

I Had a Dream

May 25,'07 I awakened from a morning dream trying to figure out how I could possibly get a mentally challenged young man and a wheelchair occupant to go to the back of a line-up in a financial institution.

Sounds cruel and uncalled for and prejudiced eh? The dream seemed to be callous, hard hearted and totally lacking compassion.

In this night vision, we were in a bank I will not name but was familiar to me. The atmosphere was still and without any positive emotions.People were lined up to deal with their money.

In a particular rigid row I spotted my oldest grandaughter Ashley, a 15 year old. Playfully I entered the spot in front of her. I also ushered a wheelchair person in front of me and a mentally challenged young man behind him as is my custom with such folk.

I thought the bank was cold before I acted but I could feel everyone's blood pressure rising so high that my aura melted away. Not a word was spoken unless glares count. I spoke quietly to the content man in front of me that we and our wheelchair friend should abandon our stolen place and get to the back of the line. He would not budge. End of unreal story.

As usual my question went to the Lord of dreams and I asked for the interpretation. It turns out that no matter what your relationship, no matter what your position in life, no matter what your disability, or ability , you never, never, never get between a person and their money, family, friend or foe.

World goods,finances and views can be tightly woven together and cause us to be unkind, unthoughtful, uncaring and rude. Jesus warns us of this in His Bible.

He says to take no thought for tomorrow, the Lord knows what we need and give and it shall be given unto us. Love is the ultimate goal for every christian and time allows lovers to be at the back of the line, no problem.

Essential Steps to Getting the Best Buy

Shopping for products and services has been one of the daily activities most carried out. If shoppers do not plan their shopping budget carefully, many will find themselves overspending on products that are not necessarily important and needed. Besides failing to plan for shopping budget, many shoppers have fallen victim to the alluring advertisements displayed along the shopping aisles. Here are some practical and essential steps to getting the best buy when shopping. These steps can be practiced immediately and could help you save hundreds and thousands of dollars.

Compare cost with other things that could be bought. Shoppers should evaluate the cost of buying something and compare it with others things which could be bought with the same amount of money. In the process, shoppers could be able to find something better at the same cost or at a cheaper price.

Put all earning directly into the bank. In order to get the best buy, you should carefully guard and account for every dollar earned. When paychecks are not deposited immediately into the bank account, but is cashed out for shopping purposes, you will find it difficult to control your spending, thus leading to unwise purchases.

Carry as little cash as necessary. You will tend to spend more when you carry large amount of cash. Shoppers tend not to think further, especially in times of sales period, whether they should be spending most if not all their cash to buy discounted items that are not even on their shopping list. Thus, in such scenario, the convenience of carrying large sum of cash is not seen as a good practice after all.

Know what you want to buy before shopping. In order to be a wise shopper, list down all the items you want to buy before you shop. This will save you from becoming the victim of impulse purchases and save you a lot of money too. Such shopping list could be reused again if the items listed are bought on a regular basis. If fact, you could even list down the prices of each item, and compare it with other available brand to see if the selected item is considered a best buy.

Look at the price before you look at the product. You should always find out the full price before deciding to buy a product. Many shoppers tend to be emotionally attached to a product before they determine whether they can afford it. By looking at the price prior to any purchase, you will avoid purchases that are emotionally driven which you will regret later.

Total your purchases before checking out. It is always wise to carry a small calculator when shopping. Such small and handy device could help you avoid being overcharged. In addition, by calculating the total amount to pay for the selected items, you can quickly assess whether the amount of money needed to pay is within your shopping budget. You can still return some items to the shelves should the items exceed the budget.

Check products in a consumer guide. In recent years, consumer guides and publications have been made available to all consumers. Such materials are a great source of help when finding out the features and limitations of a product you intend to buy. By having a thorough understanding on what you are paying for, you will less likely make a poor purchase on overrated products.

Once you start practicing the above steps on a regular basis, you will most likely set a positive and long term shopping habits that will guide you to getting the best buy. The steps above may sound simple, but it is the simple and small things which we do daily that affect us the most. Hence, learn to be a wiser and smarter shopper today.

Read Your Bank Statements and Save Money

Are you one of those kitchen drawer offenders - a person who does not read their mail, but instead dumps it into a kitchen drawer where it stays until the end of creation?

Well, before you throw your bank statements into the infamous kitchen drawer, read them – because you may be loosing money.

I know you are scarred to look at them, because you are afraid of what you will see. However, I promise you, that if you man up, open your statements and read them you can save yourself money that you did not know you were spending.

Often when we don’t properly manage our accounts we subject ourselves to miscellaneous charges that we are not aware of. So just by discovering those charges, and correcting the problem, you have just saved your self some money now and in the future.

Spending Patterns

Bank statements list every transaction that you have made within the month. The statement will show where your money is going. Since it is a detailed list of transactions it is a good source to identify spending patterns. So, if you are coming up short in the pockets every month and can’t remember where you spent your money, your statement will show you. Try it, pull out 3 consecutive months of statements and read each item debited from your account, you will begin to see a pattern and for most of us, a pattern of waste. This will show where you can make some cuts and save some money.

Unnecessary Fees

A dollar here, a dollar there can add up to a lot of dollars missing out of your account. Bank statements not only list every transaction that you made with in the month, but list activities that you were not aware of like miscellaneous bank fees. Most bank fees can be avoided, but if your statement is sitting in the kitchen drawer, you probably don’t know that you are being charged.

Some common bank charges are:

Monthly Service Charges - some bank accounts require you maintain a certain minimum balance every month. If you fall below that minimum, they will charge you a nice hefty fee until you get above that minimum balance. If you are not reviewing your statement you will one day find out that your little stash has gone bye- bye.

Overdraft Fees – your bank will charge your account when it has to transfer money from one of your accounts to cover drafts in another account. My bank charges $27.00 for every overdraft – ouch!

NSF Fees – are hefty, running upwards of $25 - $35 dollars. You can save tons of money by simply opening your statement and balancing your account. Not to mention if you bounce to many checks your bank can elect to suspend your account.

ATM Fees – the bank will charge you anywhere from $2.00-$2.50 per transaction for using the ATM machines. For example, if you use the ATM 4 times a week it will cost you an average of $10 a week or $520 a year. These fees can be avoided by reviewing your statements and then by making certain changes like walking into the branch once a week and withdrawing enough money to last you for the week, instead of running to the ATM daily racking up unnecessary charges.

Human Error

The last thing you need is to bounce checks because someone made a mistake. A few years back, I deposited my paycheck into my checking account. When I completed my transaction, I did not look at the receipt that the teller gave me. A few weeks later, I was getting ready to write out some bills and as custom reviewed my statement. I then noticed that my account balance was too low and discovered that there was no record of the deposit that I had made a few weeks prior. Luckily, I keep my transaction records – so I pulled out my deposit receipt only to discover that the teller had placed my check into someone else’s account. Needless to say, I flew down to the branch like a bat that escaped from Hates to get this big problem corrected. To make a long story short, they put the money back into my account, despite the other person having a little shopping spree. This could have potentially caused a lot of problems. If I never looked at my statements, I would have not discovered the problem before I started to write out checks.

The simple task of reviewing your bank account on a monthly basis is a habit worth developing. Though to some, it may seem a little scary at first, the benefits of incorporating this practice will soon outweigh any apprehension that one may have. After the initial shock and adjustments, you will soon find that by simply reviewing your account transactions you can uncover many opportunities to save money.

Learning How to Budget Money

As we grow from children through the teenage years and into young adults we are taught many things, both from our parents and through school, but the one thing the vast majority of people are never taught is how to budget money. Unfortunately this is the one skill that everyone needs to know. Keeping a proper budget and tracking what your money is doing is the best way to stay out of debt and build wealth.

Money is a powerful tool in life, if we learn to make it work for us. Most people work for their money but once they have it, in their paycheck, more often then not they do not keep track of it once it hits their checking account. Writing down expenditures in the check book register is not keeping track of your money because once it is written in there it is never looked at again.

Learning to budget your money is an important step in your financial health. Once you have written down your income and expenses you will start to see where you money is going and some of it may surprise you. It will be the small expenses that add up the quickest. Spending five dollars on lunch everyday, or that morning coffee you get on the way to work can add up to several hundred dollars a month. That is money that could be doing more good if used more wisely.

Let's put some math to that. If you spend 5 dollars for lunch a day during the work week that's $25 a week or $100 a month, give or take $5. Over the course of a year that's $1200 spent on lunches. If you start adding all the other small expenses that occur every month before long you may find you have enough to pay off any debt you may have but also start saving towards a healthy financial future.

The first step to learning to budget money is writing everything down. Start with you monthly income and write that down at the top of a piece of paper. Now you know how much money you have to spend through the month. Start figuring up all your monthly expenses. This includes everything from your mortgage and utility payments, car payments, credit cards on down to the smallest expenditures. Write these down keeping them in specific categories. Subtract your expenses from you income and see what's left.

This is your first budget because it shows you what your money has been doing every month. Now that you do indeed have a budget you can look at it becomes much easier to not only see where the money is going but also take back control of where the money is going. And when that happens you can start to set goals, both short term and long term, for your money.

It will take some time to get your money budget dialed in. Most people say that if they stick with it they start to get a firm grasp on their budget and money situation in about 3 months. If you never learned to properly budget money the best way to get started is to just get started.

Are Lotto Winners Equipped to Deal With Sudden Wealth Syndrome?

Lotto winners commonly suffer from sudden wealth syndrome, as it is called, though I prefer the term the Beverley Hillbillies Syndrome which applies equally to Lotto winners as it does to newly created pop and sports stars who suddenly find themselves with more money than they know what to do with.

People generally have the hope of winning a lot of money. If they did not, they would not fork out so much cash world wide on this Lotto and that lottery, all wishing that they could just win. They believe that the money would be easy to handle – pay of the mortgage, buy a new car and have a nice holiday. Perhaps a bit of professional redecoration and a second house for that winter break. Yes, no problem, then I can bank the rest and live comfortably for the rest of my life. No sudden wealth syndrome for me. Oh no - Not me!

However, for far too many people it doesn’t go that way. Unlike those born into money, and raised with it, they don’t know how to handle it or who to take advice from. The first problem they are faced with is the advice of their friends and family: your Lotto winnings are best shared with us. We will help you spend it, and we will do the same for you when we win. "A win for you is a win for the family", even if ‘the family’ hasn’t bought a collective Lotto ticket between them.

Then come all the letters from the financial advisers. Even if you want your identity kept secret it never happens. They all want to tell you how best to invest your money and get their own slice of the pie. That’s what it is all about – the pie. Sudden wealth syndrome arises due to the pie being bigger than any individual winning it has ever had to eat before, and they don’t know how to preserve it for future times when they might be hungry again.

They are not equipped to handle this Lotto curse of sudden wealth syndrome. Naturally wealthy people understand the need to have their finances controlled by those who know how to do it, and pay well to have it done professionally. Those that have gained sudden wealth through their own business acumen may initially suffer from sudden wealth syndrome, but they generally continue to work, since that is what brought them their wealth. Entrepreneurs tend to flourish and increase their business activities, though some take inordinate risks in doing so, with the perhaps mistaken security of the vast amount of money behind them. This can frequently lead to disaster, but not normally.

Lotto winners, on the other hand, come from all walks of like, and sudden wealth syndrome is more common. They are not used to such riches, and tend to give up the daily drudge of everyday work. This can eventually result in feelings either of guilt or of worthlessness, with no direction or purpose in life other than to spend all that money. So it gets spent and the individual falls into penury, having spent all the capital without earning anything to help replace it. Once the money has gone, the new-found friends disappear, and the old friends disappeared years ago. The result to many can be totally disastrous.

You don’t want to be like that, do you? You think you can handle it, don’t you? But are you prepared? Would you know what to do if you did win all these millions? One day to have relatively nothing, the next to have several millions? Would you go the same way? Of course you would. So let’s have a look at what you should be doing.

Have a blow-out! That’s how you should start. Do all the things you dreamed you would do. Get a new house, replace that old banger with a new fabulous sports car, go on a fantastic holiday and pamper yourself with luxury – for a while. Then, seek out a professional and invest the rest. Make sure that you are getting a good return on it and don’t trust to winning the Lotto again. Many people make this error, but the odds are as much against you winning a second time as they were the first time.

This is how Lotto winners can be equipped to deal with sudden wealth syndrome. Have a big splash then settle down, employ a financial advisor with experience in dealing with suddenly wealthy people like you, and live from the interest. You are unlikely to win again. Plan and enjoy your life, fail to plan and ruin it!

Priorities Bring Focus to the Family Budget

For many families the household budget can be an intense source of familial conflict. Not everyone always agrees with how the money should be spent or how it should be managed. More often then not the rest of the family reluctantly defers to whoever brings home the most pay when it comes to financial decision making, but many times this can cause resentment towards that person.

Money is an important part of any family's life and many times family peace and cohesiveness are threatened by the lack of a sound financial plan that has little or no direction. By including everyone in the decision making process and setting a list of priorities and goals that everyone agrees on you can bring peace and harmony to the family money situation.

Here are four steps to bringing peace to your family budget:

1. Set Priorities – Priorities and goals are not necessarily the same thing. These are things in your family's life that you want to focus on in the long term. This could be anything from purchasing a new home, college savings, or any other long term financial plan. The goals you set in step 2 are specific targets you need to hit in order to bring your priorities to fruition.

Do not set to many priorities. No more than 2 or 3 at the time. Remember these are long term plans that will have a positive impact on your family's life. As you and your family set your priorities write them down and keep them conspicuous. This will give your entire family the focus they need to meet these plans.

2. List Your Goals- Once your priorities are set you can start listing the goals that will support the priorities. Goals are specific and measurable conditions that are met in such a way that they bring you closer to fulfilling your priorities.

When you set a goal it should be a target that is achievable with a sound financial plan that starts with the family budget. A goal can be paying off a certain debt in a certain amount of time or saving a set sum of money in a year's time. If you set one to two goals per priority you will find yourself staying focused on the task at hand.

3. Meet Your Goals – Once you have set your priorities and goals it is time to start working towards them. The first step is the implementation of the family budget. This will allow you to track the family money, both income and expenses. It can be as simple as writing it down in a notebook or you can buy personal accounting software that helps you manage your family finances. Which ever method you use it is imperative that you track your family's money with a budget.

4. Periodic Evaluations – From time to time check to see how you are progressing towards your goals and priorities. This is something the whole family can do together. As you check off goals met it will give you and your family member a certain feeling of satisfaction. As you meet your goals and then your priorities re-evaluate your current situation and set new ones that can be met.