Cut your food bills in half - Save Extra Cash.

Rising food bills are squeezing many families' budgets but your number 1 Personal Finance site will have proved that it is not difficult to cut the cost of shopping in half.
Necessity is the mother of invention and the credit crisis facing the economy what with the Stock Exchange losing over 30% of its value from March 2008 till Date.

Read the full story below of Kelly Parry, a hairstylist who reduced her family's food bills and they took a vacation wtih the savings (Source : www.telegraph.co.uk )


The Welsh family whose savings paid for a holiday in Spain

Kelly Parry, 27, a hairstylist from Brecon, decided to ditch her weekly food trip in favour of a fortnightly shop.

This proved an effective way to avoid impulse buys and forced her to plan ahead. She started "stretching" her food shopping six months ago when her weekly grocery bill became too high. She is married and has a baby girl, aged one, and a teenage daughter.

She said: "We buy food in Asda, as we both work full time, we live off frozen food and use up what's in the freezer. I know we are supposed to eat healthily, but frozen food lasts longer."
Talking about the rising cost of food, she added: "It's so expensive we can't afford to chuck it away. It takes us 25 minutes to drive to the supermarket to go food shopping and the price of petrol is going up."

She wanted to see if she could stretch her family's food shopping to last three weeks.
"I made fresh food such as a shepherd's pie, which we ate with chips, and I froze the other half for another time. I also froze two loaves of bread a week as this lasts longer. I also looked out for bargains such as three for two offers or buying two items for £5 on meat products and made my own curry.

"I'm not bothered about cake and chocolate but my 14- year-old, Danielle, can be a fussy eater. If we didn't have kids, we could budget without chocolate and crisps. I'm not fussed about breakfast, but because of the kids, I have got to have food there. You've got to have a certain amount of food in the freezer when you have kids.

"It was tricky trying to stretch it to three weeks. By Wednesday in the last week, we were already on leftovers and we were not left with a great deal. We spent £30 buying milk, tea, sugar, the odd can of beans and potatoes and extra ingredients to go with main meals. We had to go out and buy more as there was nothing left for making meals before the next big shop."

Setting out to buy sufficient food for three weeks, she brought the cost of her average weekly shop down from £107 to £46, saving an average of £61 a week. She said: "We still go to Asda but only once a month if we need to. If we have to top up on bread or milk, we go to Morrisons. Because of the price of food, it's hard to make it last and with petrol on top, that's why we only go once a month. We have to stretch, the only thing not going up is the wages.

"When we first tried to stretch, we used to buy all the offers, but we still had to top up to make a meal. Now we're more organised with meals and add more variety, like taking a stir fry for lunch, or making a sausage casserole."

The family do admit they are making fewer savings now as they have to top up more often but what they do save goes into a holiday fund. The effort to cut costs has really paid off, enabling her family to enjoy a week-long holiday in Ibiza.

She added: "Until we started stretching the pounds, we didn't think about how we shopped. We used to go around the supermarket and grabbed whatever we fancied off the shelf. I didn't think about it. Everyone likes the nice things – but when you have a family of four, it's worth doing to make a saving."

Get the full story from http://tinyurl.com/66h87h

Read on and resuce expenses for your food.

How to get out of debt.

Getting out of debt might be strenuous for a lot of people but if you are in it you must get your self out of it.

There are three basic steps involved:

• Stop acquiring new Debt: If you are thingking of getting out of debt, never aquire a new one. Being in Debt is already a big challenge so why get sunk in the more. Note that once you make up your mind to free yourself of debt you must take that desicion not to acquire a new one.


• Establish an emergency fund: Save every extra cah you get. Destroy all credit cards and if you pay subscribsions for cable tv, cancel or reduce it (you are at work most times, so why pay full package). Are you subscribed to a nearby gym, cancel it. Do not tell yourself you need all these extras to make your LIFE comfortable. Reduce these extra expenses or stop them totally. You must then save regularly. Why save before paying off debt? Because you will need the experience and you would be able to cope with unexpected expenses. Keep this money in liquid but not easily accesible. It is not for beer, shoes, food etc. It can only be used when your car dies or you break an arm in a game of football.


• Implement a debt snowball: After you’ve stopped using credit, and after you’ve saved an emergency fund, then attack your existing debt. Attack it with vigor. Throw whatever you can at it. Many people say to pay your high interest debts first. There’s no question that this makes the most sense mathematically. But if money were all about math, you wouldn’t have debt in the first place. Money is as much about emotion and psychology as it is about math.Order your debts from lowest balance to highest balance. Designate a certain amount of money to pay toward debts each month. Pay the minimum payment on all debts except for the one with the lowest balance. Throw every other penny at the debt with the lowest balance. When that debt is gone, do not alter the monthly amount used to pay debts, but throw all you can at the debt with the next-lowest balance.

Do these three steps and you would find yourself debt free in no time

Defend your Budget and Attack your Expenses

1. 
   

Your budget is like your guide. After you have set it up, taking in all necessary parameters you must as a matter of fact defend it with all the strenght you have by attacking your expenses.

A set budget, not well defended will soon be a losing budget. It will accommodate more than it was planned for and begin to cause problems for the individual that set it up. Remember that your Expenses will always try to outweigh your budget.

You must be in charge from the onset to put it (Expenses) at bay. Unforseen circumstanses might force the budget to expand but it will be understandable.

Remember to setup your budget, Defend it vigourously by attack your expenses.

Have a plan for Christmas?

Wow, isn't it a bit early to start planning for Xmas? Well it isn't and if you do not start now December will be just a day away and you would have little cash on you that would be spent in a hurry to satisfy your loved ones.

Planning now makes the task easier because you have an edge in picking the est bargains in town before the Xmas buzz sets in fulltime.

Imagine all the gifts you would have to buy and trips you need to make. Get a pen and paper and break down the task to ease the building pressure on you, set out and achieve.

Remember year 2009 is just around the corner, dont overspend on non important items so you can have enough financial muscle to start the new year.

Be financially secure.

What do you do with your extra cash when you get a payrise?

Yes, you would spend it but it has t be wisely. You get a payrise and you begin to imagine all the things you have wanted to buy. Then you go ahead and spend on meaningless expenses. You do not need to spend all your extra cash when you get a raise.

It is advisable you invest more because your extra cash gives you an opportunity to invest more especially if you are under 40. It makes more sense to increase your portfolio of investments as you have been doing.

Doing this increases your net investments and provides you with better retirement savings. Securing your life after work is very vital and if today, you are spending your investments you might not have enough for the future.

Think over it and reinvest your extra income you will get from JANUARY 2009.

Best Regards

When you get your Salary(income), who do you pay first?

That question will definitely provoke a lot response and why not?. We all have a lot of factors jostling for our income before we even get it.

But who do you pay first? The best answer is YOURSELF. Why? The truth is this - you worked for the money you have earned and it is only proper you pay yourself first. The minimum that is advised to pay oneself is 10% before you deduct all your other expences.

This 10% serves as your cash at hand and overtime your investment pot. This is one of the best way to save and invest on autopilot without bothering if you are securing your future.

It is advisable to still do this type of payment plan even if your work place offers contributory pension. It helps you increase your options even when the returns from the schemes might not be as much as you can generate on your own.

Till next time, start paying yourself FIRST.

The Nigerian Life: Something for Nothing

What exactly have you done for Nigeria? Have you setup a business but it failed due to inconsistent power or policy? Have you been harrased by the Police for driving your car rightfully on the road? Have you invested in a company and now it liquidated?

The list is endless. We Nigerians seem to live in a world where most efforts we put out is wasted not due to our lack of individual effort but mostly on our collective effort in governance and personal endeavours.

We must stop this life of inadequacy and gradually substitute it with sufficiency. Even our economy is not in a good shape right now.

We will continue to give Something to Nigeria but it must no longer be for Nothing.

TAKEN from me - N1000 Movie

I would normally watch movies at home because they are cheaper{DSTV and DVDs} but I was at the cinemas yesterday and I paid a thousand naira to watch a movie titled TAKEN. This is excluding Pop corn - Seven Hundred Naira, Drinks - Five Hundred Naira. And to think I Paid for two in the spirit of Celebrations.

We all need to unwind from time to time but overspending your financial limit is definitely not advisable. When you know your limit your finances not be taken from you except you have planned well ahead for your next N1000 naira movie.

I would like to note that I really enjoyed myself though and I am sure you too had a nice time. I would recommend an outing for everyone as long as we all plan ahead for it to avoid your plans being taken to the slab.

Have a lovely day.

One Decision That Can Make Anyone a Multi Millionaire

For most of us, having a million naira or more liquid — that is, available for our use at any time, and easily convertible into cash — is the stuff of big dreams. But after talking to a few of my friends about decisions they were making, I was able to easily articulate one way we can all have N1 million minimum — liquid, available cash — in our lifetimes.

No, this isn’t some “get rich quick” scheme, and it doesn’t require anything illegal or immoral. It’s actually quite simple. The one catch is that it’s easier to do earlier in your life. But it’s something anyone can do, and is easily within the range of most Nigerians. You have to follow some rules to make this work. But once you do, you’ll be a MILLIONAIRE.

What is the decision?

Buy a cheaper car, and invest the difference.

Yep, that’s it. Let me break this down: how does buying a cheaper car make you into a millionaire?

For this exercise, I am going to assume you are 25 years old, and you want a million naira by the time you are 40. Let’s also assume for the sake of argument that you are interested in a car that costs N3, 200,000 and you have little or no down payment.

If you take a mortgage option from the company selling the car and you have to pay around N70,000 to N90,000 per month, you would se that this is quite a lot of money. Having this in mind, you might ask: Where does the million Naira com from? Spend N700,000 instead of N1, 200, 000 which you can easily do by getting a used car or a slightly cheaper car. Your car payment over the same term comes to about N30,000 to N40,000 which gives you a savings of N60,000 per month. Put this amount per month into a mutual fund earning 10% per year. Here’s the catch: You have to invest the extra N60, 000. You can’t blow it on food, TV, music, etc. I strongly recommend you find an investment service that will take the money directly out of your paycheck so you won’t be tempted to spend it.

Once you’ve done that, find a mutual fund that will give you high returns on your money. This shouldn’t be too hard because we have strong companies in Nigeria and Abroad, put N60,000 in it every month, and leave it alone!!! for the next 20 years. Let the compound interest magic work for you.

Invest N60, 000 a month at 10% for 20 years, and you will have a cool N17, 840,000 saved up for retirement. If you are still having trouble deciding what you want to do, I recommend you visualize a pile of the money in cash and a used car on one side, and a brand-new car on the other.

Which would you rather have?