Month: June 2017

Four Tricks to Save for the Car That’s Right for you.

Posted on by benjamincar940

Getting lost in the shuffle of savings can be the need or pursuit of a car. A luxury or professional car can say a lot about someone before they even step foot outside of it. It makes the initial impression and can lead to profitable trades and relationships in the future.

Although it may be a long process, the car of your dreams is never out of reach. Use these four tips among others to finally put those dreams to fruition. Every goal has a beginning, whether it a financial goal or a personal one, they all begin somewhere. Start saving towards yours today using this mixture of personal and investment tips.

Tip One: Avoid Arbitrary Purchases

Although the goal of owning your dream car is an achievable one, it’s not something that will come easy. Depending on what kind of vehicle you’re in the market for, prices can fluctuate from $20,0000-$60,000+. These kind of prices require dedication and discipline to achieve whether through saving, investing or a mixture of both. To ensure that you meet your end goal it’s important to cut out any unnecessary purchases that can make a dent in your savings before you even start really making headway towards your purchase. These kind of purchases can range from new electronics that may not be needed, extravagant trips that can cost almost as much as the cars themselves and the ones that take a tole day-by-day like coffees, lunches or alcohol. Limiting these is step one in building up your account enough to comfortably purchase the car of your dreams.

Tip Two: Use an Online Search Tool

Before committing to anything on the financial side of things, it’s important to know where you want to end up. An end goal as ironic as it may seem is the perfect place to start.Whether it’s that new Mercedes Benz or that Range Rover that has a few years on it, having something specific in mind with an ideal price-range is key. To get an idea of what’s right for you, visit Cars.com to take a look at the widest selection of new and used cars on the web. Cars.com is trusted by millions of users every day to both browse and purchase both new and used vehicles. The ‘Cars’ database can feel endless at times with the myriad of options available. This serves two very useful purposes that aid the process. The first as mentioned earlier gives a starting point to the journey; the other is that seeing your ideal vehicle in front of you makes what was once a dream or apparition not that long ago a reality, in-turn motivating and driving you to accomplish not only have it in front of you through a virtual screen, but through your screen door or window.

Tip Three: Treat Yourself (In Moderation)

Although being frugal and smart with the choices you make is the priority, it’s important to have fun and spendon occasion. Being too rigid can make the journey seem never ending, opening the door for foolish impulse purchases. Although these may be satisfyng at the time, they can create a large roadblock on the journey, sometimes creating one so large that the destination is forgotten. Overcome this by going out to nice dinners, the movies, or out with friends on occasion to gain that same mental and physical break while not breaking the bank.

Tip Four: Invest Small

The road to your perfect car will have some bumps in it and things may not always be linear. Rainy days and unexpected events occur, making a dent in both your pocket and savings toward your new car. One way to counteract this is to smartly invest with part or all of your car savings. Putting this money towards conservative or moderately aggressive stocks can serve a dual purpose. One is the obvious increase in money you can make. While usually only garnering a modest yield, that can potentially be the rainy day fund. The second is that when the money is in stocks, it’s harder to withdraw for impulse purchases, making it safer in the long-run.

Use these four tips with your prior saving-savvy skills to get yourself in the car of your dreams, and take the first steps toward fruitful connections and networks.

The post Four Tricks to Save for the Car That’s Right for you. appeared first on 20s Money.

A Breakdown of Our Expenses in 2016

Posted on by benjamincar940

mdj 2016 annual expenses

Back in 2008, I wrote my initialpost about our monthly expenses. It’s always interesting going back in time to see what the circumstances were. Back then, the update was compiled just before we had our first child, and we had a mortgage on our principal residence (a new build). Our annual recurring outlay was around $50k (not including RRSP, savings, captial expenses etc).

Five years later in 2013, I wrote an updated post with quite a different life story. By that point, we had two young children and we managed to pay off our mortgage a few years prior. Even though the mortgage payments were eliminated, the kids tied up theextra cash flow and more! At that time, child care/pre-school costs were high at around $12,000 per year (spouse working part-time). Our total annual recurring expenses back then were around $52k (not including RRSP, RESP, TFSA contributions etc).

Fast forward to 2015 and my oldest child is in grade school and my youngest in pre-school about to start kindergarten in the fall. Although one child is out of daycare/pre-school, there are still summer camps and activities that really add up. We managed to keep costs fairly low spending about $53k for the year.

Now onto 2016! Pre-school costs only consume half of the school year, the other half year is covered through kindergarten. However, children activities in 2016 really kicked it up a couple notches which resulted in a few more swipes of the credit card (starting to see burn marks!). The increased activities offset any savings we received from reduced pre-school fees. I’m all for the kids going out and enjoying activities, but what I didn’t anticipate was that it would result in lifestyle inflation.

With a high number of activities and neighbors/friends going to the same location, we discovered that we were limited in carpooling opportunities (car seats take up a lot of space!). After much discussion and debate, this frugal blogger reluctantly upgraded to a seven-seater SUV. The details of the purchase are for another post, but we managed to buy a high-quality three-year-old SUV for about half retail price (with cash so no financing charges). While we got a good deal on the purchase and a very fair trade-in value, it was no surprise that the large SUV increased our annual recurring expenses. Specifically, gas and insurance. I’m hoping though that as the kids grow out of car seats, that going back to a mid-size car/SUV (or maybe an electric vehicle) would suit any carpooling situation.

As we funnel our spending through a credit card (where possible), I use mint.com to organize transactions into categories where I pulled most of the numbers below.

Here are the numbers:

Housing Expenses: $9,867 (vs. $9,180 )

  • Mortgage: $0
  • Property tax: $3,700 (vs $3,500)
  • Maintenance: $2,500 (vs. $2,000)
  • Utilities: $2,600 (vs. $3,000)
  • Home Supplies: $1,067 (vs. $680)

Car Expenses (2 vehicles): $4,041 (vs. $3,475)

  • Car payments: $0
  • Gasoline: $2,371 (vs. $2,250)
  • Maintenance: $1,345 (vs. $900)
  • Registration: $325

Home Essentials: $1,509 (vs $1,609)

  • TV/Internet/Landline phone: $1,509
  • Cell phones: $0 (work provided cell phone)

Food and Booze: $13,000 (vs. $12,360)

  • Groceries: $11,500 (vs. $11,000)
  • Entertainment/Eating Out: $1,500 (vs. $1,360)

Insurance: $5,780 (vs. $5,130)

Children: $11,500 (vs. $11,700)

  • Preschool: $3,500
  • Activities/summer camp: $8,000

Spending: $5,100 (vs. $4,500)

  • Shopping/clothing/hair/gym/misc: $5,100

Other Expenses: $6,200 (vs. $5,160)

  • Charity: $2,400 (vs. $2,360)
  • Gifts: $2,300 (vs. $2,000)
  • Health care (prescriptions, eyecare, dentist): $1,500 (vs $800)

Total Annual Expense: $56,997 (vs. $53,114)

As you can see from the numbers, it’s a bit of a jump in expenses since the 2015 update. The culprits seem to be spread evenly throughout the list, but big jumps for insurance, car expenses, and other expenses. I’m hoping this lifestyle inflation doesn’t last too long where I’d actually like to see some lifestyle deflation in the coming years. Especially since I’m planning on reaching financial freedom in 3.5 years!

While the ideal situation would have all of our costs included in the $57k annual number, unfortunately, that is not true. It does not include afamily vacation, large capital expenses, or savings via TFSA, RRSP, RESP. So realistically, our annual expense number is much higher.

So what does your budget look like compared to mine?

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Female founders not heard by male investors

Posted on by benjamincar940

Today AllBright, the first funding and support platform of its kind for female entrepreneurs, announces the results of its FoundHER Female Founders survey, an original piece of research commissioned to better-understand the challenges and opportunities faced by female founders (and aspiring female founders) in the UK at all levels of business and across all sectors.

The post Female founders not heard by male investors appeared first on Small Business.