Thoughts On Finance

The expression is opposites attract, and this is very much the case when it comes to spending plans in a marriage.  If you are a careful spender than being married to someone who is a spender can be trying and challenging especially in difficult economic times.  Whether your spouse is a person who spends to get a good feeling from it, or they overspend due to carelessness, the results are still the same, leaving you with too much debt and little savings to pay it down with.

If you attempt to solve this problem using the lecture method, then you may just drive your spouse to spend more, thus resulting in more problems.

A more effective strategy to combat this problem is to keep track of household expenses.  Accountability for household expenses may be just enough to show your spouse the areas that need work, without really saying anything.

If this doesn’t work? Then the time has come to get separate bank accounts.  And if your spouse’s spending is causing extreme stress on your household finances, then you may have to consider stronger measures.

Finally, you might consider lightening up a little. Marriage is one of life’s great blessings. If you think the occasional iToy is expensive, wait until you see how much a divorce costs.

Many people will be hitting hard times, and be left without enough money to pay even their most essential bills.  With this many people, who are without good credit, will be left wondering about their options, one of which may be to take out a payday loan.  Payday loans, as they advertise, are meant for short term financial need, and if you go in to take out a payday loan, they make you sign an agreement to that effect.  Yet, once you get into the payday loan cycle some people have trouble getting back out.  Paying off only the interest each time and hanging onto the loan.  For people who are living paycheck to paycheck, this can be a very difficult debt to repay.  Some succeed, however, even they usually return to re borrow at some point in the future.  So when should you consider taking a payday loan? If you are about to have a check bounce on the bank, then you should.  Although the banking industry will have you believe that they are above charging 300% interest on a loan, they will charge you $35.00 and up for a bounced check of even just a few dollars.  So really how is that any different, especially since, if you have ever bounced a check then you would know that once one bounces usually several bounce, and if you have a few checks bounce and your paycheck directly deposited, then that will just eat up your paycheck. Also, taking a payday loan is a better alternative to buying items from a rent to own place.  You can more inexpensively borrow the money from a payday loan and then buy the item out right.  So this is a time to consider a payday loan.

If you can avoid taking a payday loan, then by all means do it, because it is very easy to get caught up in the cycle, but if you have to do it, then don’t feel badly about it, just do it.  It may actually save you some money in the long run.

Most American’s are thinking that with a National Debt of over 10 Trillion dollars why is this guy already spending this much money when he hasn’t even taken office yet.  Well, on some level, we all are aware that spending is actually what keeps the economy going, but let’s face it, we also know that we need our money right now, and most people are not running around spending all that they have.  So why does Obama think that his stimulus package will work when Bush’s didn’t.

The answer to that is both complex and simple.  When Bush set out to stimulate the economy, he did so by sending checks to individuals and families.  Great in theory, however most American’s who were already struggling used those checks to pay bills or stashed it away for a rainy day.  Therefore, we did not all run out and shop for new items and that in turn did not do for the economy what Bush had hoped.

In Obama’s plan, which does include checks to the American public, it however does not rely on them to be the stimulus.  It is offering a much more comprehensive and multi faceted approach to stimulating the economy which includes sizable tax deductions for businesses for each new employee they hire on.  This will help create jobs, which in the long term seems like it will have a bigger impact on people’s spending.  After all, you can’t be out spending if you don’t have a job at which you can earn some money.

If you look over the plan you will in fact see that Obama’s plan will help stimulate the economy which will not only help the individuals but also the businesses and the unemployment rate.  Overall, this plan is cheap compared to how much Bush has spent on bail outs in the last three months.  At least the Obama plan stands a chance.