If you’re still trying to use the budget you made four years ago, you have a problem. Your budget is supposed to change as your life changes. So, if you’re still in the same place you were four years ago your very first budget might work for you. Hopefully, things have changed for you and if that’s true it’s time to adjust your budget.

Whenever you experience a life change – a raise, marriage, divorce, new child, child going off to college – you should adjust your budget. That way, it reflects where you are in life. You should adjust your budget when…

You get a raise

If you don’t adjust your budget after getting a raise, chances are you’ll end up squandering the extra money instead of making good use of the money. If you just got a raise, you’ll need to increase your total monthly income. Then, decide how you’re going to spend the extra money. If you were making ends meet at your previous income, it’s a good idea to use the extra money to pay off debt or save for retirement.

You get married

Soon after you tie the knot (and possibly even before), you and your new spouse should sit down together and create a household budget. Decide how the two of you are going to use your incomes to cover the expenses. Even if you don’t completely combine your money, it’s important that the two of you decide who’s going to pay for what household expenses. Each person should continue to have a budget for their separate incomes.

You get divorced

Divorce isn’t always an easy situation, especially if you’ve been depending on two incomes to make ends meet. If you’ve been awarded child support or alimony, add that amount into your monthly income. Similarly, if you have to pay child support or alimony, include the amount in your monthly expenses.

You’re expecting a new child

A new child comes with new expenses. Your grocery bill will increase. You’ll spend more money on clothes and shoes. The baby will need diapers, wipes, etc. Perhaps you want to begin saving for college. As you start thinking about spending money on your new addition, include those expenses in the budget. Otherwise, you could end up spending more money than you can actually afford to.

You get fired, laid off, or you quit your job

Adjusting your budget is crucial when you experience significant decrease in income. Hopefully, you have an emergency fund you can depend on to help bridge the income gap until you find new employment. It’s a good idea to cut back on your spending until you have steady income coming in again. That way, you make the most of your emergency savings, unemployment income, or other income you use in your time without a job.

You buy a new house

This is another type of addition that should be budgeted for. Not only does a new house come with a mortgage and homeowner’s insurance, you also have property taxes and maintenance to think of. Your electric bill could increase if you’re moving to a bigger home than you lived in before. It’s a good idea to set aside some money for emergency home repairs like a leaky roof or plumbing error. When you rented your landlord paid for those things, but now they’re your responsibility

You retire

As you prepare for retirement, review your accounts to find out what your monthly retirement income will be. It may be less than your current income and, if so, you’ll need to adjust your expenses to make sure your retirement income will cover everything.

Let Your Budget Change With You

Anytime you experience an increase or decrease in your income or your expenses, you need to adjust your budget to make sure you continue using your money wisely. If you notice that you don’t have enough money to pay your expenses, there’s a sure sign it’s time to go back to your budget. You could have forgotten to adjust your budget with a major life change or you may have increased your spending in certain areas over a period of time. The key is to recognize the problem as soon as possible and use your budget to get your money back on track.

It’s true, the internet makes it easier than ever to work from the comfort of your home. Scammers know it’s a topic that’s in high demand and they take full advantage of it. A lot of people are under the impression that anything on the internet is legitimate, but that’s just not true.

Don’t Believe the Hype

Anything that sounds to good to be true probably is. If there’s a job promising to help you make thousands of dollars with little to no effort, it’s most likely a scam. Legitimate work at home jobs require just as much work as jobs outside the home.

Being the victim of a work at home scam could cost you thousands of dollars, on top of the time and energy you waste pursuing a nonexistent job.

Common Work at Home Scams

Some of the most common work at home scams include:

Check Processing

A play on the old Nigerian scam, some work at home scams require you to cash checks and wire part of the money back to the “employer.” A legitimate boss would be able to cash his own checks and you’d keep all the money for yourself.

Reshipping

In this scam, you’re “paid” to receive packages and reship them to another address, sometimes overseas. Usually, you’re repacking stolen goods or goods bought with a stolen credit card. The thief doesn’t want to be attached to the theft, so he uses you as the bait.

Envelope Stuffing, Craft Making, and other Pay Upfront Scams

There are a slew of work at home scams that request you to send money upfront for some kind of kit to get started. A real company wouldn’t make you send money to get started.

How to Avoid a Work at Home Scam

When you’re in a desperate situation, you can be easily fooled by promises to help you make money. But, remember that riches don’t come easily.

Do your due diligence on a company before deciding to work for them. Use Google or another search engine to find websites on the company. Add “scam” to the search to see if the company has been involved with other work at home scams. Check with the Better Business Bureau for reports against the company.

Watch out for jobs that claim you can make full-time money by only working part-time. This is one of those “too good to be true” offers that really isn’t true.

A real company won’t ask you to pay money upfront. If a job requires you to send money for some type of startup costs, don’t. Realize that you face the risk of never seeing your money again.

Don’t cash anyone else’s checks. If you think you have a legitimate check ask a bank teller to verify that the account and bank actually exists. Even though the funds from the check might be available within a few days, wait until the check has cleared before you spend any of it. Visit FakeChecks.org for information about check cashing scams and recognizing fake checks.

Where to Complain About Work at Home Scams

If you’ve been the victim of fraud, the FTC’s website LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.comrecommends you request to get your money back from the company. Keep a record of the emails you send and phone calls you make. Then, report the fraud to your local law enforcement agency.

You should also report work at home scams to the National Fraud Information Center and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

You can’t make a plan for your finances without knowing where you stand. You won’t know how much you can save, borrow, contribute to retirement, save for your kids’ education, or use to pay off your debt, if you have no clue how much you have. There are three key things that let you know where you stand financially.

1. Your Budget

If you don’t have a budget, now’s a good time to create one. A budget lets you easily compare your expenses to your income. At the end of your budget is your net income which tells you how much money you have left over after expenses or how much you’re overspending. A negative net income means you need to cut your expenses or increase your income. A positive net income means you can improve your financial standing by paying off debt or increasing your savings.

2. Your Credit Reports

Your credit reports contain information about many of your financial relationships. Creditors and lenders report your account details to credit bureaus who then put that information together in your credit report. While credit reports are mainly intended for businesses who want to approve your applications, you can check your credit report also, to get a feel for your level of debt.

3. Your Credit Score

Your credit score is a numeric value that summarizes the information in your credit report. If you have a low credit score, that means you have negative information in your credit report. A high credit score indicates positive information in your credit report. (Higher credit scores are better). Your credit score can help you determine where your credit stands – whether you’re doing things right or if you need to change your spending (and paying habits).

Using all three pieces of information, you can put together a pretty good picture of your financial standing. You can use all this informaiton to put together a plan for your money.

Budgets are already tight this holiday seasons. Retail sales records indicate that people aren’t shopping as much as they’ve been shopping as they have in previous years. That’s a good thing for your wallets. As you try to make it through the holiday season with your wallet unscathed, watch out for those sneaky expenses, like high electricity bills.

You can save money on your electric bill this holiday season by paying close attention to your energy consumption.

• Purchase LED lights which require less energy than regular Christmas lights.
• Don’t run your Christmas lights all night. In fact, you might wait until the week of Christmas to even turn your lights on.
• Only leave your lights on for a few nights each week. You can use a timer to have your lights automatically turn out.
• Turn off the lights in the room with your Christmas tree. Let the lights from the tree light the room.
• Buy Christmas gifts that can use batteries instead of electricity.

You can control your energy-consumption by paying attention to the amount of electricity you use. There’s a tendency to use extra electricity during the holidays, so following these tips will help keep your electric bill lower.

You could end up replacing your car sooner than you expected. It’s quite possible that you’re wearing your car down with everyday “normal” activities that you don’t think twice about. For example, not using your parking brake cuts the life of your transmission. In case you didn’t know replacing a transmission costs thousands of dollars. Leaving the radio and air conditioner on when you cut the car off is damaging to your engine. Find out how + 8 other things that decrease your car’s life by reading Top 10 Everyday Things People Do to Ruin Their Cars.

Unless you’re someone that frequently has car accidents, car insurance is a necessary evil. You can end up paying thousands of dollars over the years and never get the benefit of having insurance.  But, most state’s require you to have it. Plus, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

One of the ways to decrease your car insurance premium is to increase your deductible.

Your car insurance deductible is the part you pay when you make a claim. For example, if you have a $500 deductible and your claim costs $1,000. The insurance company will pay $500 and you’ll be responsible for the other $500.

Deductibles are usually something like $100, $250, $500, or $1,000. The lower your deductible, the higher your premium and vise versa.

If you’re a safe driver and rarely make claims, you could raise your deductible to the highest possible and save money on your car insurance premium. No matter what level your deductible, it’s a good idea to have it stashed away in a savings account or emergency fund so you have access to it when you need it. Otherwise, you could be forced to borrow the deductible at a high interest rate, which could negate any savings.

Now, if you’re someone who frequently makes claims, it’s better to keep a lower deductible. If you don’t, you’ll pay a hefty price each time you make a claim. You should still keep the deductible in an easily accessible savings account.

When I was in college learning about project management, we talked a lot about scope creep. That’s when your project slowly grows bigger because the manager is allowed new things to be added. It’s not a good thing because it makes the project take longer, cost more, and can impact quality.

Spending creep happens when you slowly start spending money outside your budget. You might spend a little extra when you learn you get a raise. Or when you get a tax refund. Or maybe there’s some special occasion this month and you’re only going to do it this once. Spending outside your budget one time will lead you to justify it another and another. Before you know it, you’re not sticking to your budget at all. Most people end up blaming the budget rather than their spending habits.

You can avoid spending creep all together by not starting it at all. Only spend what’s included in your budget. If you get a windfall or your income increases, adjust your budget for that month. You’re less likely let spending creep become a habit that way.

If you’re already caught in a trap of spending creep, pull your budget back out. Make sure it accurately reflects your income and spend only based on your budget.

I know too many people who excuse extra-budget purchases by saying, “It was on sale.” There are few acceptable excuses for breaking your budget and a sale isn’t one of them, especially if it keeps you from meeting some other obligation.

Sales are marketing tools that businesses use to get people to spend money. Everyone likes to think they have power over the money they spend and what better way to exercise that power than by getting something for cheap. Only, you end up spending more money than you originally planned, so the store is the real winner.

Think about this, if you weren’t planning on buying the sale item anyway, have you really saved any money? I’ll answer that for you. No. It doesn’t matter how much the item was marked down, you actually spent more money than you saved.

Everytime you see a sale, remember this: a sale only saves money when you would have bought the item anyway.

Spending money has never been more convenient than when debit cards were invented. Debit cards may have made it a little too easy to spend.

When you use your debit card, it’s hard to keep an idea of your account balance. You can swipe to your heart’s content and won’t know whether you’ve overspent until you take the time to check your account balance.

Cash physically disappears when you spend it, so it’s impossible to overspend. With a debit card, you can continue spending until you drain your account and the bank won’t stop you.

Instead of using your debit card to make purchases, withdraw cash from an ATM. That way you’ll always know how much money you’re able to spend. Seeing how much cash you have – or don’t have – will help you resist impulse buys.

I don’t believe in diets. I know people who are chronic dieters that never lose weight. There’s something about depriving yourself that makes you splurge later on. I advocate changes in eating habits.

I have the same view about budgets. Budgeting doesn’t mean you can’t spend any money leisurely. If you try to budget that way, you’ll end up feeling deprived and splurging on impulse. Then, you’ll think budgets don’t work and you’ll give up trying all together.

When you make your budget, allocate some money, even if it’s just $5-$10 to spend recreationally. Don’t go overboard though. Make sure all your obligations are met, then budget your “fun” money.