The Key to Managing Personal Finance

Personal finance is something many people do not take very seriously. That is why so many people are fighting with debt problems. Personal finance is about keeping a balanced debt to income ratio and ensuring that expenses never exceed income. Personal finance is crucial to keeping a good credit record and maintaining credit worthiness.Personal finance starts with a budget. Every person should have a budget to track and mange their income and expenses. A simple budget lists all income and all expenses for a month. The bottom line of a budget is that the income should never be less then the expenses. Should the expenses exceed the income the person is going to have to cut back on expenses. They should start by cutting out non-essential expenses. This can be difficult, but for someone wanting to be serious about their personal loans, it is important. Budgeting takes a lot of self control and little sacrifice.The next step in finance is managing debt. Most people have some debt. Debt is essential for building credit. However debt should never become overwhelming. A person should make a list of all debt. The list should include the name of the creditor, the amount of credit, the amount of debt and the interest rate. If there is any debt problems they should be handled immediately.Next is credit. If a person is easily handling their budget and their debt then they can consider getting more lines of credit. However, if a person is not handling their debt and budget then getting more credit is out of the question. A person should also make sure they understand all of their credit obligations. This includes all terms and conditions.After a person has all of their personal loans in order they need to look them over. They should check to see if they are struggling with anything. If they are then they need to manage their finances to get them back in order. This may involve some credit counseling or debt consolidation. A person should be committed to whatever it takes to get their personal finances back in order, so they do not suffer damaged credit or financial difficulties.Now that a person has organized their personal loans, they need to manage them. Managing personal finance is about sticking to a monthly budget, keeping debt under control and not getting overwhelmed by credit. Management of personal finances is on going. A person has to review every month to ensure they are not over extending themselves or breaking their budget.Personal finance is an important topic. It is something everyone needs to think about and something everyone needs to control. Too often people let their personal loans get out of control. It is this that leads to debt problems and eventually financial difficulties.A person that controls their personal finance will be using their monthly budget, keeping up on debt and not over extending themselves credit wise. A good, well managed personal finance is going to produce someone who can afford their lifestyle and who benefits in the form of a good credit record.

5 Easy Steps to Advance in Site Promotion

When you want to promote your site, you can do it in different ways. To advance in site promotion, you have to take up the advanced ways and techniques and follow them to the result. Certain steps will help in promoting your site in an easy way.Submit to search engines – You are ready with your site, everything you have done to make it a completely structured site, and then go for the first step. Submit your site to the search engines. Search engine submission is an effective way for site promotion. It will perform better site promotion for your site than most other ways.Advertise – Advertise about your site. Advertising is another necessary step for website promotion. Advertising has been used for promotion as it can easily get the attention and the interest needed from the prospective customers. You can advertise online for people who uses internet and can advertise offline for the people who do not use internet much.Publish press releases – Press releases are meant for promotion and publicity. Write good press releases about your site and send them to different agencies and publications for publishing. Press releases can contact a huge traffic at one time and it is good for making people aware of your site.Send sales letters -Sales letters can also perform the needed promotion for you. Make a good sales letter, and send it to people who may be your prospective customers. Site promotion is easy with sales letters.Blogging- Blogging is an advanced method and step for site promotion. Blogging can get you extra traffic and promotion. It can make your site popular to its users.

What Are The Greatest Changes In Shopping In Your Lifetime

What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.

As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.

That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.

Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.

Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.

Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.

Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.

That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.

Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.

Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.

My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.

Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.

And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.

All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:

• Farm eggs

• Fresh vegetables

• Cow’s milk

• Freshly baked bread

• Coal for our open fires

Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.

Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.

Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.

Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.

My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.

The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.

Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.

Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.

People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.

In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.

Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.

• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.

• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.

• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.

On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.

Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.

We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.

Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.

My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.