Personalfinance tips

Stay Out of Bad Debt

Debt means you owe someone money, and if I've learned anything from gangster movies, you NEVER want to owe someone money. However, not all debt is necessarily bad debt.

Create a visualisation of your numbers to help you see the bigger picture.

Long time lurker here and I finally want to post/share something that really helped me and my wife to understand our budget and be responsible for our financial actions. My wife especially really struggled to understand the importance of a budget and never really was into finances as a topic to begin with. So creating a nice visual out of your boring excel file made her help understand our budget. https://imgur.com/a/cm5dH6nWe used http://sankeymatic.com/build/ to create that one but you can use pretty much anything. Even drawing something to look at by hand can work wonders.

You can use Wolfram Alpha to compare the cost of living and comparable wages between cities

Buy your own cable modem. They usually pay for themselves in 9 months and save you money after that.

Frustrated with my rising cable internet bill I called my ISP today (Time Warner Cable) to see why my rates had risen so much. They said my previous rate was a special and had expired, but suggested I buy my own cable modem as a way to cut down my bill. Looking into it a compatible (and fairly highly rated) cable modem was $70. Since I pay $8 a month in modem rental fees (which vary from ISP to ISP in the usual range of $6 to $10) this modem will pay for itself in 9 months and will save me $8 a month after that. It comes with a two year warranty, so even if it craps out at 2 years and a day I'm still guaranteed to save at least $120.

Any guys thinks they're paying way too much for a haircut consider going to a beauty school.

I was paying $15+tip for a basic trim. My buddy recommended beauty school haircuts. The local school charges $5 for men's haricuts. Pretty damn good too. Show em a picture and the students are pretty spot on. I also heard some schools do it free for training purposes.

Read the instructions in the 1040 instruction booklet for EACH LINE on your 1040. Many people I talked to are confused on line 10.

Line 10, where you enter the previous years state tax refund. I know of many people that are upset about this, but don't understand it.If you did not itemize, or otherwise claim as a deduction state taxes on the previous year's 1040, you do not need to enter your state refund on this line.If you did itemize last year, you typically put the amount of state taxes withheld as reported on your W2. But since this number is bigger than your actual owed state taxes (assuming you get a state tax refund), that is the reason you have to claim your refund on the next year's taxes.Too many people enter their state tax refund on line 10 even if they did not itemize the previous year. This is a mistake.

Use the online chat when buying/negotiating with telecom companies to maintain a paper trail.

Last year, I got a new AT&T fiber connection and the rep on the online chat said that I would get a lifetime price on my connection. I told them, it wasn't listed anywhere on the website or on my receipt so how would I prove it to you guys later? They replied, request a chat transcript after we're done and use that as proof of coverage for this offer. And so I did. Fast forward to 12 mo's later and predictably, my monthly charge went up, so I called them. After being kicked around on the phone, waiting for 50+ mins on hold, I got on the chat again and gave them the Id number for the chat transcript from last year. Ten minutes later, boom, got my lifetime pricing back, and this time again, they said, if this happens next year, provide the transcript for this chat and it should be resolved quickly.So, keep a paper trail, y'all!

You can add PayPal to mint.com!.

Sorry if this is already pretty well known, but I just find this awesome! No clue why I didn't think to check earlier, I guess because I didn't consider this a actual bank account.

Tweak your budget for the new year

Whether you practice a traditional budget, the anti-budget, or a spending plan, it’s important that you plan for the year ahead. “Refresh your yearly budget to account for changes to your income and expenses, and maintain a realistic view of your financial plan,” says Shahar Ziv, founder of Acing Your Finances, a financial education firm. “Oftentimes, expenses rise in the new year — landlords raise rent, monthly premiums on health insurance go up — and, hopefully, income rises too.  Refreshing your budget will give you a more accurate view for the new year and allow you to reallocate ahead of time,” he says. Changing your financial life can be tough, but don’t let the big picture get you down. Using these 31 personal finance tips, you can take steps every day to better your financial situation.

Sell unwanted goods

Before the year gets much older, it’s time to purge! Get rid of all the things you no longer want or need and sell it on apps like OfferUp. You can use your smartphone to easily snap a pic, post a description, and sell your items. Use that extra money to pay down debt or increase your savings.