Month: January 2021

Do you ever worry about financial problems that you could run into in the not too distant future? You should because if you don’t plan for these problems, they can hit your bank balance hard. This will leave you without the money that you need to gain your financial independence. Luckily, there are a few ways that you can avoid situations like this. 

Build Up Your Savings And Diversify

First, you should make sure that you are building up your savings as much as you can. Financial experts agree that you should try to save half of what’s left over at the end of the month.

If this is difficult for you, then you need to explore ways that you can be more frugal with your money. There are always ways that you can cut back whether that’s on the cost of your car, your home, or your family. 

Of course, building up your savings isn’t enough. You also need to explore ways that you can invest and diversify your financial portfolio. You should never just invest in one area.

Instead, you need to make sure that you are investing in a few different places. You can speak to a financial planner about the options available and the ones that would suit you the most. 

Get A Second Or Third Income

You might also want to think about exploring the option of a second or third income. The benefit of this should be obvious. You’ll have an extra cushion of cash that you can fall back on if you do run into any issues.

With the right second income, you can guarantee that you are always going to be in a strong place financially. You might even be able to improve your quality of life and save at the same time.

Be aware that a second income will cut into your personal time. So, it either needs to be passive or tied to something you enjoy and that you have a passion for. That way, you’ll be willing to spend more time on it. 

Think About Insurance

Next, you should definitely think about the insurance coverage that you need to protect yourself financially. A lot of people opt not to take out insurance because they think that they will only need it for a rainy day that might never come.

But that’s exactly why you should take it out. If it rains, then you can guarantee it will pour and there are lots of different types of insurance that could protect you from a flood.

For instance, you should have medical insurance and you might even want to combine private insurance with Medicare. This provides you with an extra safety net in case you do have health issues in the future. 

We hope this helps you understand some of the key ways that you can avoid suffering a crippling blow to your finances in the future. In doing so, you can make sure that you are one step closer to becoming financially independent and free from the stress that money trouble causes you. 

Owning a car is essential for many people. Having a car of your own provides you with the freedom to travel anywhere at any time.

Owning a vehicle can make life so much easier and is often a far more convenient option than taking public transport and needing to walk or cycle everywhere. It is easy to become so dependent on having a car that you don’t realize how much you value it until you are without it.

When your vehicle breaks down or needs repairing, you may feel a little lost and find the whole situation an inconvenience.

Whether you use your car to commute to work, drive the kids around, or head off on exciting road trips on weekends, you would probably struggle to imagine life without a car of your own to drive.

While owning a car has lots of benefits, it has its downsides too. The cost of buying a vehicle and the continued running costs can be expensive.

If your car breaks down or is involved in an accident, you could find that the repairs are costly. You may find that running your vehicle accounts for a big chunk of your monthly outgoings.

These continued costs make owning a car expensive, and they may even be a barrier to you continuing to own a vehicle.

However, enjoying the benefits of car ownership while keeping your costs low is possible. Here are some tips to help make owning a car much more affordable:

Choose Your Vehicle Carefully

Your first step towards reducing the cost of owning a vehicle is choosing the right car. Buying an inexpensive car may seem like the best solution when trying to save money.

But, you will only feel the benefits of your saving if your vehicle is not just cheap to buy but inexpensive to run too. The choice of vehicle that you purchase is an essential consideration for keeping your costs low. When shopping for a new set of wheels, it pays to do your research. 

Everyone wants a car that looks great, but selecting a vehicle based solely on looks will not help with your efforts to cut down your expenses. Choosing the best car for your needs, rather than on its appearance, will help you find the most economical option.

To select the right car, it is helpful to think about how often you will use it, and the kind of journeys you will make. For example, if you do not often drive and want to keep your fuel costs low, then choosing a small car with a small engine to match could be the best choice.

Buying a vehicle larger than you need or more powerful than required could lead to you spending far more each month in running costs for features that you will not need to use. 

Carefully weighing up the most economical vehicles available will help you to make an informed choice. This will ensure that you find a car that best suits your needs and your budget.

Comparing models and their fuel efficiency along with the cost of replacement parts and repairs will help you make an informed decision on your next vehicle purchase.

Choosing the most efficient vehicle will help you to make a positive start to your money-saving journey.

Maintain Your Car

Keeping up with vehicle maintenance goes a long way to ensuring that your costs remain low. A well-maintained car can be far less expensive to run and is also less likely to break down.

Ensuring the engine is well-tuned and taken care of can improve your vehicle’s fuel efficiency, which can cut down the amount you spend on gas significantly.

Carrying out regular maintenance will also help to reduce the likelihood of your car developing faults. This will ensure any issues are detected before they become expensive issues.

Another benefit of maintaining your vehicle frequently is that it should help to prolong its life. This helps to reduce the costs involved in buying a new car should yours stop working. 

Keep Your Insurance Costs Low

Understanding the fuel economy of your new car is essential, but you must not overlook insurance costs. Your insurance premiums can be an expensive part of owning a vehicle.

Therefore, keeping your insurance costs low without compromising on your level of insurance cover is essential. Choosing an insurance policy for new car buyers can seem like a complicated process.

Weighing up the different levels of coverage available and understanding the differences between them can become confusing.

Finding a helpful and reliable insurance agency will help you take the hassle out of choosing the right cover. 

Your insurance agency should help you to understand which insurance cover is best for you and how much coverage you need from your policy.

Most importantly, you will need your insurance agency to reduce the stress of finding a competitively priced insurance policy.

Drive Economically

One of the simplest ways to cut down on your fuel costs is to avoid driving your car on short journeys. Being stuck in traffic on short trips around town can consume a lot of gas, especially if you are continually stopping and starting.

If it is safe to do so, it could be beneficial for you to walk shorter distances to avoid your fuel costs rising, and you may even get to your destination faster as you will not be stuck in tailbacks.

Final Thoughts

Owning a car is crucial to people for many reasons, whether they love to drive for pleasure or make everyday life easier to navigate. Spending money is an inevitable part of car ownership.

However, with some careful planning, you can help to reduce these costs and enjoy the benefits of owning a car without spending a fortune.

Choosing a car that suits your needs and taking care of it with maintenance is vital to avoid overspending. As auto insurance can be a significant expense, it is also essential to shop around for this to get the best deal.

Retirement planning is a crucial concern for people nearing the end of their working years. After all, you will want to be stress-free and financially independent once you reach this stage of life.

Thankfully, some tools and measures keep you secure after retirement, and a reverse mortgage is one of these. It enables you to fulfill your cash needs by pulling the equity in your home.

Even if you do not need cash, you can still use it strategically in retirement planning. Here are some ways it can help you as a smart financial planning tool.

Increase your cash flow

A mortgage payment is a massive expense that takes a considerable part of your monthly income. However, your existing debt is paid off with a reverse mortgage. You end up cutting down your monthly expenses and have extra cash in your pocket every month, which would have otherwise gone to clearing the monthly expense. A higher cash flow helps you live off comfortably even with your limited retirement income.

Be mortgage-free

While you will have more cash in hand every month with this option, it also leaves you stress-free because you do not have the mortgage burden any longer. A jumbo reverse mortgage allows you to receive a lump sum for paying off the balance. While you will have to keep paying your homeowner’s insurance and property taxes, you are technically free of the monthly mortgage payments.

Delay Social Security and pension payouts

Retirees often look forward to Social Security and pension payouts to support them post-retirement. But you may be tempted to use them as soon as you get your hands on them. But a reverse mortgage gives you the financial support you need, which means that you can wait on getting these payouts. The longer you delay them, the more is the amount you receive.

Access a low-cost line of credit

You also get access to a low-cost line of credit to draw on your loan. You have to pay interest only on the amount you draw, rather than the entire credit line. It lets the line of credit grow over time if you choose to draw it at a later date. You end up with a larger line of credit over the years, and it gives you the financial cushion you need after retirement.

Downsize to a smaller home

When you retire and your children are ready to be on their own, you may want to move into a smaller home or a retirement community. Downsizing is a good idea at this stage, as moving to a smaller place frees you from the stress of ongoing home maintenance and high mortgage payments. A reverse mortgage can help you with it because you can use the loan to clear the existing loan on your current property and sell it off easily.

A reverse mortgage can serve as the foundation of a solid retirement plan, provided that you use it smartly. You have the money you need without giving up on the title and rights to your place. It’s a win-win situation.

When something goes wrong and you need to call on your insurance company to help you put it right, you want to be sure that they’re going to do that. Unfortunately, insurance companies don’t love paying out money to their customers, so they’ll make things difficult unless you get everything right and play by the book. That’s why it’s important to understand how to go about making an insurance claim in the right way. Read on to find out more about doing that.

Ensure You Have the Right Policy to Begin With

First of all, you need to make sure that the insurance policies that you have in place are the right ones. Of course, it’s too late for that if you’re already about to make a claim. But going forward, don’t simply sign up to the first insurance deal you find. Instead, read the details and be sure that you know what you’re getting into before you sign on the dotted line.

Find the Right Public Adjuster

When the time comes to make a claim on your insurance policy, your first step should be to get the right help and assistance. When you make use of public adjuster claims, you’re able to get assistance and guidance throughout the process from people who have intimate knowledge and understanding of how insurance claims work, making mistakes a lot less likely.

Act Fast and Follow the Expected Procedures

It’s important to act fast when making a claim. Of course, depending on what the situation is, you’ll first want to make sure that everything is safe and in order before moving on to the insurance claiming stage. Nevertheless, try to act fast and inform your insurance provider of exactly what’s happening so they can be kept in the loop. And when you do so, follow the procedures they outline and expect.

Use Photos as Evidence

You should definitely make use of photos as evidence when you’re putting together a claim. That’s true of car insurance and home insurance, or any kind of insurance that involves making a claim based on damage to property that would otherwise dent your finances. That extra evidence will speed up the process and give your insurance provider confidence that the claim is a genuine one.

Keep it Honest

Finally, and this should go without saying, you should always keep any claim you make and the details of that claim as honest as they can be. You’ll only put yourself in a worse and more risky situation if you exaggerate your claims or make claims that simply aren’t true. It’s a criminal offence and it won’t turn out well for you if you take that path.

If you follow the advice that’s been outlined here, you’ll be in a much better position to ensure that any insurance claim you make going forward is going to be a successful one. Don’t waste your time and energy on claims that are just going to be unfairly rejected by your insurance company.

It can be difficult to get a firm grip on your finances when you’re employed, but things can become much more difficult when you don’t have a job. A person would rightly be a little bit worried if they suddenly lost their employment.

Yet, while it won’t happen suddenly, it’s just a fact that you will be without a job at some point. It’s called retirement! Nobody wants to work longer than they need to; they want to enjoy their golden years.

However, it’s not as if you can just leave the workforce and automatically begin enjoying the good life. You need to have retirement savings that’ll ensure you can continue with a high quality of life.

People often underestimate the amount of money that one needs for retirement. As such, it’s important to first, figure out how much you need, and second, make sure that you’ll have enough when retirement rolls around. In this blog, we’re going to look at some useful tips that’ll ensure you have enough money.

Start Early

The earlier you start planning for your retirement, the easier it’ll be. The logic makes sense. The more time you give yourself to reach a goal, the easier it’ll be! There’s no age that is considered too young to begin planning for your retirement. People even begin when they’re in their twenties. Of course, if your twenties have come and gone, then don’t stress. While the best time may have twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. So get started — you’ll find that just getting the ball rolling will give you a massive confidence boost.

Increase the Savings

So what’s the right approach to take? There are many things that you can do to boost your retirement savings, many of which will be discussed in this article, but at the core, you should focus on simply directing money to a savings account.

This won’t only increase the money you have in retirement, but it’s also the most straightforward. All you need to do is set up a direct deposit so that a certain amount of money automatically gets directed to a savings account each month.

You can put in any amount that you feel comfortable with, but it’s sometimes worthwhile pushing things a little. Could you increase the amount you’re saving by 10-15%? It’ll make a big difference.

Employer Match

Hopefully, your employer will offer a 401k, which streamlines the retirement savings process. Some employers offer an employer match system, by which they contribute to your savings pot. There are companies that’ll offer to contribute 50% of whatever the employee contributes.

And this is exactly as good as it sounds — it’s free money, so you’d be crazy not to take it. There are usually some conditions. For example, you might have to contribute 5% of your annual income to the fund. If you do that, then your employer will throw in 2.5%, which can add up to a significant amount of money when multiplied by many years. 

Where You Put Your Money

It’s not just about the amount of money that you’re saving, but about where you’re putting that money. You could keep all of your retirement savings in a bag under your mattress, but that won’t be the best place. Instead, it’s best to look at putting it in a place that offers compound interest, which essentially means that your money will breed even more money.

To see how much of a difference this can make, you can use this simple interest calculator. If you have a large sum of money and put it in an account that offers a good annual interest rate, then your money could grow significantly — without you having to do anything at all. 

Making Investments

It’s also a good idea to look at making investments. The word ‘investing’ can sound scary to some people, but it shouldn’t be. It only becomes scary when you’re throwing all of your money behind a risky investment, which, of course, you should never do. Investing isn’t a way to get rich quick, it’s a way to slowly grow your money over many decades.

If you don’t know where to start, then you can speak to a financial advisor, who might just manage all of your money for you for a fee. There are also plenty of good robo advisor programs out there that can grow your money slowly and steadily.

Set a Goal

While many people start off with the best of intentions when it comes to their retirement savings, it’s just a fact that motivation can dwindle. It’s all too easy to direct some of the money reserved for your retirement towards something else, such as a new car or vacation. One way to stay on track is to set a target.

You’ll find that it’s much easier to stay focused if there’s something to aim for, rather than just having a vague goal to “have money for retirement.” This is something that can grow and develop over many years, too — you might decide to increase your target if you’re easily on course to meet your current goal.

Your Current Housing 

It can be a little dispiriting to start a retirement savings account from zero. You’ll know that you have an uphill battle. If you can start it with a large lump sum, then you’ll feel a lot better, plus the pressure will be off.

One way to do this is to look at your current housing situation and see if you can change things. Could you downsize? Could you move to a cheaper part of the country?

If these are options, then it’s worthwhile exploring. Just by making a lifestyle change (which won’t negatively affect your lifestyle), you could find that you can start your retirement fund with $50,000 or more. 

Build an Emergency Fund

While you might be able to add a decent amount of money to your retirement when everything is going well, things might be more problematic when you hit difficulties. And as anyone who has lived long enough can tell you, there will always be emergencies in life that require money.

One way to avoid dipping into your savings is to build an emergency fund. This is money that’s set aside for dealing with unexpected expenses. If you never need it, then you never need it, but you’ll be thankful that you took the effort to build the fund if you do. 

Build a Side Income

You don’t have to rely solely on your primary income for your retirement fund. You can also build a side income. This sounds complicated, but in 2021, it couldn’t be easier — there are literally hundreds of ways to build a side income, some of which only require a minimal amount of effort and start up cash.

All the money that you earn from this side hustle can go directly into your savings account — this is an excellent way to build up your savings account quickly. 

Get Rid Of Your Debt

Finally, take a look at getting rid of any debt that you may be carrying. This is something that can seriously diminish the amount of money that you’re able to save. Instead of adding money to your retirement fund, you’re just paying off the people that hold your debt, in the form of interest, and that’s not good. The sooner that you pay this off, the sooner you’ll be able to start taking the reclaimed money to your retirement fund. 

When you go about your day to day life at work, you might not often think about what would happen if you became injured. Whether you work in an everyday office building with minimal risks, or in a high risk work environment such as a construction site, it is always possible to become injured at work. While there’s no point in stressing about this potential injury in your day to day life, it is crucial that you remain aware of your rights as an employee in the event of an injury.

If you have been injured at work, or you simply want to learn more about the financial consequences of workplace injuries, you have come to the right place. In this article you will find helpful advice on how to deal with workplace injuries, and the next steps you can take.

The Workplace Injury

Workplace injuries take all sorts of forms. Although we might all imagine a typically dramatic scenario including a tragic accident involving life-changing injuries, this is often not the case. Common workplace injuries include:

• Tripping and falling. Tripping and falling can happen in any kind of workplace, and is therefore one of the most common forms of workplace injury.
• Repetitive injuries such as RSI or muscle problems from overworking. RSI is very common in individuals who spend all day every day on a computer; likewise, muscle issues can occur from sitting down for too long without breaks. 
• Inhaling poisonous gases and fumes. 
• Accidents such as heavy objects falling from high shelves, or collisions of workplace vehicles.
• Hearing problems from loud noise exposure. This is a common injury in manual labor such as construction or factory work.
• Burns or scarring from exposure to dangerous chemicals. 
• Being injured by another person, for example in an altercation or misjudgement of distance.

All these, and many more, are viable workplace injuries which should be taken very seriously.

And if you are unaware about how to do that then the click URL and know in details the things you should keep in mind when you face any such incident.

Even if the injury will not have long term health effects, it is still worth considering your next steps if you are injured in the workplace.

Workers’ Compensation

If you are injured at work, there are multiple options ahead of you when it comes to financial compensation. First of all, there is workers’ compensation, better known as ‘Workers’ Comp.’ This form of compensation allows you to receive wages and other financial benefits, in lieu of you taking legal action against your company for creating an unsafe work environment. 

Workers’ compensation is a form of insurance that covers most injuries in the workplace. If you are injured and can no longer work, you must complete the necessary paperwork and file an official claim in order to keep being paid while you recover from the injury.

Workers’ compensation comes with all sorts of questions and complications. These are best answered by your human resources representative at work, but here are a couple of key points to know!

1. Workers’ compensation claims are actually filed by your employer, not the individual. As an employee, you must immediately inform your employer of the situation as soon as you are injured at work. They will then pass the paperwork for you to fill in, and file the claim to their insurer as soon as possible.
2. Workers’ compensation claims can take a long time to be paid if they are disputed by the insurer. This means if the insurer has any issues with your claim, they can refuse to pay out the fees you are asking for. These disputes can take months, even years, to resolve. In the meantime, many employers pay the fees out of pocket – while others leave employees in the cold. 
3. The amount of workers’ compensation you will receive is calculated using your median salary and the level of injury you have sustained. 

Other issues, such as are workers’ comp claims taxable or the specifics of the insurance policy, should be discussed with your employer.

Suing For Damages

If you are unhappy with simply claiming workers’ compensation and wish to sue your company for damages after an injury, you may do so. Workers who are injured due to negligence of the company for which they work can sue using a corporate attorney. This is typically in order to gain a larger financial payout than that of a workers’ comp check.

Suing your company for damages requires time, energy, and crucially, money. Unfortunately, many employees who want to sue for damages refrain from doing so because the expense of hiring lawyers for this kind of case is just too great. Some attorneys work pro bono to represent workers who are suing large companies, but this kind of help is difficult to come by.

If you do go ahead with suing for damages, it is important that you are represented by a strong corporate attorney who can present your case in an impeccable way. Not only this, but you must keep all evidence that your company has engaged in negligent behavior. Without this evidence, your case will not stand.

Some examples of evidence are:

• Photographs of the workplace. If the company that employs you regularly leaves safety measures unchecked, you can take photographs of this in real time. This will prove that your injury was sustained not from a one-off, but from repetitive negligent behavior.
• Documents. This could be incomplete health and safety training certificates or other documents that prove the company has not done their part in keeping you safe.
• Pictures of your injuries. If you sustain visible injuries, photograph these. This will help strengthen your case.

This kind of evidence will all be invaluable when making a case against a large company with many tough corporate lawyers. It is unlikely that you will win a corporate injury case, but it is always worth fighting the fight if you believe you are in the right.

Conclusion

If you have been injured at work or want to know more about this issue, find out just how much workers’ compensation you could be paid today. 

When it comes to managing your money, one of the most important things to consider is what the future might hold. None of us want to consider our lives being struck by costly events, but those financial emergencies do occur, and it’s always best to be prepared for them if at all possible.

So how can you plan your finances for an emergency and start ensuring you’ll be able to weather any storms that might lie ahead of you? That’s the question we’re going to seek to answer today, so read on now to learn more about how to get this right.

Start Building a Rainy Day Fund

First of all, you should think about putting some money aside for a time when you’re less able to cover costs. All kinds of things can go wrong, from medical situations to job losses that can impact your ability to make ends meet.

In those situations, you need to have confidence in your ability to push on through and to keep covering your basic costs. It’ll be a lot easier for you to do that if you’ve already built up a rainy day fund that you can turn to.

Plan for Routine Costs with a Little Extra on Top

When you’re putting money aside for the future, try to ensure too safe an amount that will cover your basic costs in a time of crisis, with a little extra money on top of that.

When you do that, you can ensure that you’ll be able to keep things ticking over and your costs will be covered for at least a certain period of time. That’s the way it should be and how you’ll survive the toughest of times. And it all comes from good forward planning and preparation, so try not to ignore that.

Continually Work at Paying Down Debt

It should consistently be your aim to pay down debt and get your debt levels as low as they possibly can be. When you do that, you put yourself in a much healthier financial situation, and you’ll be able to deal with whatever life throws at you in the future.

It’s much harder to be financially flexible when you don’t have the luxury of being debt-free. Emergency situations need you to be able to think fast and move quickly, turning to credit options if necessary. If you’re already lumbered with a lot of debt that you can’t pay off, it’ll be much more difficult to do that.

Improve Your Credit Score

Another thing that might make you a little less financially flexible is having a poor credit score. Your credit score has a huge impact on your ability to make changes to your financial or to borrow money when you really need to.

That’s not the situation you want to find yourself in. So one thing you can do that might ultimately help you in a financial emergency is taking steps to improve your credit score today. When you do that, you’ll have much greater peace of mind too.

Know Which Unexpected Events You Should Expect

There are so many different events that can strike you in life and force you to pay large sums of money that you weren’t expecting to have to pay. That’s the simple truth.

So think about which unexpected events might strike you. Depending on your situation, some unexpected events will be more expected than others.

If you have a family member with a record of legal troubles, you might need to pay for bail bonds one day. If you have a car that’s let you down a few times, you might be forced to repair or replace it again soon. There are financial challenges that some people are more likely to face than others.

Invest for Future Wealth Growth

If you want to give yourself the best possible chance of financial success and an ability to deal with whatever life throws at you in a financial sense, it makes sense to make your money work for you.

That means investing your cash and ensuring it’s moving in the right direction. That doesn’t necessarily have to mean becoming a master investor. You can make use of an investment fund if you want a more hands-off experience that you can still benefit from as your money grows.

Check and Consider Your Insurance Coverage

Checking to ensure you have the right insurance coverage in place is something else that’s very important. If you want to make sure you’re never caught out and that you’re fully protected at all times, it’s essential to ensure you have the right levels of cover in place that you can fall back on if ever you need to. Insurance isn’t the sexiest thing in the world, but it’s there when you need it and it has your back, making sure you’re able to cover your costs when the worst happens.

Cut Unnecessary Costs and Redirect Those Funds

If you find that you’re spending far more than you should on certain things, and you want to make a change, some cuts might be necessary. But this can certainly be turned into a much more positive scenario. By cutting costs and redirecting those funds to your savings or wherever else, you’ll be able to prepare for tomorrow and be ready for whatever hand life deals you much better. And that’s what matters most of all.

Make a Will and Plan Your Financial Future

Finally, you should ensure your documents are fully in order and that your will is ready. That way, you can be sure that your financial legacy will be in order and everything will be as it should be, even if you’re not around to deal with things directly. This is something that’s too often overlooked but that shouldn’t be the case.

Planning for your future means taking into account your finances and ensuring you’re always in a position to take care of any financial challenges that might arise in the future. The sooner you start thinking about the matters discussed above, the sooner you’ll be able to secure your finances against future risks and emergencies.