4 Ways to Keep More of Your Money

Image from Flickr by aluedt

Like most people, you probably work simply to pay bills. Even if you’re financial responsible, your mortgage payment, health insurance and other necessary expenses may take a large portion of your income. This leaves very little for savings, which can make it difficult to survive an emergency. 

Fortunately, there are several simple tricks to keep more of your cash. You can’t avoid everyday living expenses, but you can control how much you spend on these expenses. 

Ways to Subsidise Your Gym Membership

Image from Flickr by lu_lu

Gym memberships can be a tricky thing to get wrapped up in. They are pretty good at locking you into a contract that legally binds you in unfavourable ways unless you’re very careful when it comes to reading the terms and conditions.

Going to a good gym isn’t exactly affordable anymore, either. It takes a good deal of saving up to be able to afford to go and work out, unfortunately, unless you plan on assembling your own mini-gym at home, which takes time and dedication.

This article offers you some ideas on how to subsidise your gym membership, if you’re set on getting one.

3 Ways To Avoid Student Loans

College tuition prices are through the roof these days with the average student loan debt increasing to over $26k in 2012 (source). These rising costs cause most students who want to earn a degree to fall further and further into debt just to be able to get a job that pays better than minimum wage. However there are ways that you can get yourself a useful but cheap degree if you plan ahead. Here are a couple of smart ideas we have to help you obtain that college degree cheaper.

The Top 8 Reasons People File Bankruptcy

There are  many different reasons why people file for bankruptcy. The most common  reason is because the person doesn't have enough income coming in the  home to cover the outgoing expenses. Unexpected events can come up, lack  of financial planning or out of control spending are just a few  situations that can throw a person into the bankruptcy hole. Credit  cards that are used for living expense can cause a financial disaster,  as well.

1. Medical Expenses Sometimes the unexpected medical emergency comes up. If the person  doesn't have health insurance that will cover the expense, this can lead  into a lot of debt, fast. Hospital bills and other medical bills are  very expensive and sometimes they seem like they are never ending. Once  the bills get to high and the person can't afford to pay them, they will  turn to filing for bankruptcy.
2. Job Loss Another reason why people turn to bankruptcy for a way out of a  financial disaster, is when they all of sudden experience a job loss.  When a job loss occurs and the savings isn't big enough to cover the  monthly bills and unexpected bills, then creditors will start stalking  their phone and mailbox. Sometimes the person will feel like bankruptcy  is their only way out of the mess.

How To Calculate Your Student Loan Consolidation Rate

Federal student loan consolidation rates do not differ all that much from what borrower is already paying, as the rate is a weighted-average of the borrower's current loan rates that has been rounded up to the nearest one-eighth of a percent. For example, if a borrower has two current loans, one that makes up three quarters of the total borrowed at 7 percent, and one that makes up one quarter of the total borrowed at 5 percent, the new rate calculates as follows:

Yakezie Carnival by One Dumb Guy

Welcome to this weeks Yakezie Carnival! Many of the bloggers listed below probably don't know who I am and have never heard of this blog. My name is Matthew Allen and I signed up to host a Yakezie carnival early this year (2012), then kind of abandoned this blog around May. I completely forgot that I had signed up to host a carnival until I got the e-mail last week telling me that I was the next host. Dumb me!

I e-mailed the Carnival Admin and explained the situation and told them it wouldn't be a problem to post the carnival if they couldn't find a replacement. I think they forgot to look for a replacement. So here it is!

By the way - if you didn't know of me when I was active in Yakezie and regularly blogging on this blog - you can find out more about why I quit and what I am doing now on my new blog. My new main hub is Dumb Passive Income and I also started another new blog recently called The Pay Off Credit Card Network. If you dig deep into the archives of Dumb Passive Income, the explanation for why I quit this blog to start a new one is there.