It is not always necessary to use the high technological applications to manage your finances efficiently. You can keep a track on your income and expenditures accurately without depending on the financial applications that are coming out in the market each and every day. There are lots of low-tech ways to manage your money smartly. Glance through the article to get acquainted with the 4 low-tech ways to handle your finances competently.

Money management – 4 Low-tech ways to do it

Here are the 4 low-tech ways to manage your finances in an effective way:

1. Take a pencil and notebook: Most financial experts recommend consumers to keep a track on their income and expenses every month. Several tech-savvy consumers prefer to use various financial applications or tools to track their finances. However, if you are not tech-savvy person, then you can do this in a frugal way. All you need to do is write down your income and expenses in a notebook. This can help you calculate the actual amount you are actually spending. You can know whether you are spending much more than what you should do. Once you have tracked your expenditures, you can use your paycheck intelligently. You can spend a part of your paycheck for payment of the necessary bills and the remaining part for saving purposes.

2. Keep the bills securely: Do you often forget about the purchases you have made last week or month? If yes, then a low-tech solution to this particular problem will be to retain all the bills in your wallet. After returning home, keep all the bills in a folder. However, only keeping them in a folder will not help you. You have to go through them on a regular basis. This will help you realize the number of dollars you are spending on various purchases.

3. Reduce your expenses: One of the low-tech ways to manage finances is envelop system. You can make envelops for different categories such as apparels, rations, transport, etc. Keep a certain amount of cash in each envelop as per your budget. When an envelop becomes empty, you can know that you can’t spend any more on that particular category.

4. Shop smartly: Another low-tech way to manage your financial life proficiently will be to list the costs of the items you purchase every week. It may be the case that you purchase all your groceries from your nearest shop. But as you do so, you don’t have the idea about the prices that the other shops in the market are charging on the same products. So, shop around and find out the prices charged by the other departmental stores in the market. If any store offer discounts or charge low price on the products, then you can very well make your purchases from that shop.

Last but not the least, you should check whether you tend to spend more money when you have cash in your wallet. If you have the habit of indulging into useless expenses when you have cash in your wallet, then carrying a debit card for emergency expenses will be a wise idea.

Do your friends, family members, relatives, give you financial tips day and night? Do you follow those tips rigorously? Are you sure that the tips will help you in leading a financially fit life? If no, then it is crucial for you to distinguish between the good financial tips from the bad ones. Otherwise, a day may come when you’ll find yourself in financial mess as a result of acting upon bad financial advices. Read through the article to get acquainted with 4 common financial tips you must not follow.

Financial tips you must not follow

Here are the 4 financial tips that you must not follow by all means:

Stay away from plastic cards: You may come across various people who will tell you to avoid credit cards like plague. They’ll advice you to not use credit cards by all means. However, acting upon this advice will not help you in the long run. The reason is, plastic cards help you build credit history. So, if you don’t use credit cards, you may find it extremely difficult to get loans or line of credit. Lenders prefer to lend money to those consumers who have good credit history, which is only possible when you use credit cards responsibly for a long time.

Avoid 401(k) loans: Most people will tell you that that using 401(k) loans to clear your unsecured debts will be a big financial mistake. However, financial experts are of the opinion that withdrawing money from 401(k) account to repay your debts is not a bad idea at all. Rather it may help you save money. This is because if a lot of individuals find that they can use 401(k) loans to meet their emergency expenses, then they can be tempted to deposit more money in their retirement accounts. So, if you know how to use 401(k) loans efficiently and a good plan to repay it, then this may be a wise move.

Repay debts through home equity loans: Apparently, this may not seem to be a bad financial tip. After all, the interest rates on the home equity loans are lower than that of the plastic cards. However, several financial experts are saying that it is a bad idea as it makes you vulnerable to short-sale, foreclosure, bankruptcy in the event of non-repayment of the loans.

Take out educational loans: One you start preparing for your higher education, your relatives and friends are most likely to advise you to take out student loan as it will help you secure your financial future. Some people will even encourage you to take out a huge student loan to opt for the best private college. Well, contrary to the popular notion, it is the worst financial tip you can ever get. In the present circumstances, most graduates are starting their career with big student loan debt on their shoulder. Rather than going for expensive private colleges, opt for the low cost colleges. You can even enroll in the community colleges as they are quite affordable. You won’t have to take out student loans for meeting the college expenses.

Finally, don’t listen to the people who encourage you to take out a huge mortgage loan to purchase a biggest mansion you have ever seen. The housing market has not yet recovered. The price of the houses is not appreciating much. Apart from that, if you can’t afford to pay the loan interest rates, very soon you may find yourself engulfed with debt.

The last date of filing tax returns is 18th April, 2011. So, most of the taxpayers are busy in filing their tax returns these days. If you are also busy in preparing your tax returns, then it is important to know about the ways to lower your tax burden. You can do this by itemizing tax deductions. You may think that you are well acquainted with all the tax deductions. But it may not be true. There are some unforeseen tax deductions which most filers are not aware of. Glance through the article to gather knowledge on 5 unforeseen and unexpected tax deductions you may get this year and save substantial amount of money.

5 Surprising tax deductions you can get

Here are the 5 unforeseen tax deductions you may get this year:

1. Consulting Christian Science Practitioner: You can claim tax deductions on your expenses incurred due to your medical treatment. If you don’t believe in conventional medical treatment and consult a Christian Science Practitioner, then you get tax deduction on the treatment cost. It is well known to everybody that the Christian Practitioners believe in curing patients through prayer. So, a lot of people don’t feel that this expense should come under the category of medical treatment. Nonetheless, IRS regards this as medical expense and you claim deduction on it.

2. Purchase food for dog: If you purchase food for a service dog, then you can claim tax deduction for it. However, you won’t get any deduction simply for buying a dog. You’ll be eligible for deduction for feeding and training a guard dog.

3. Losing your weight: Are you obese and have enrolled in a weight-loss program as per your doctor’s instruction? If you are going through a physical training program to lose your weight following your physician’s prescription, then you can include the expenses into the category of the medical expenditure and get tax deductions on it. In case you have gone through a surgery for losing weight, then also you can be eligible for tax deductions. However, one important thing to note is that you can’t claim deductions on the cost of the diet you take to stay healthy.

4. Building your own pool: Have you suffered physical injuries recently? Have your physician suggested you to swim regularly to become fit again? If yes and you have built a swimming pool in your house to swim every day, then it can help you lower your tax burden. You can get tax deduction for the expenses you have incurred due to building swimming pool. However, IRS may call your doctor to check whether or not he/she has really prescribed you to take laps every day. The doctor may also be required to justify his/her decision. So, getting this tax deduction will not be an easy task.

5. Purchasing your uniform: If you have purchased an uniform for your office, then you can get tax deduction on that. If you the cost of the office uniform is more than 2.5% of your gross income, then you will qualify for a tax deduction. But this does not mean that you can get a tax deduction for purchasing an expensive suit. This is because it is not an uniform.

Apart from the above mentioned points, you can also get tax deduction if you donate money to charitable organizations in the neighboring countries such as Mexico, Israel, Canada, etc. However, you can take advantage of this deduction only when you have some income sources in these countries.

Readers may be aware that our Community had introduced “Ask Experts” section in the month of February for the benefit of the experts and the members. In this section, the members and the experts can reach each other directly. Check out the details here…

Now, the Community has improvised the “Ask Experts” section with add-on features. These features have been introduced to find out the most active experts of the Community in the current month depending on the number of monthly replies. Read along to know about the new changes done in the section

2 New features added in the Ask Experts section

The Community has added 2 new features in the “Ask Experts” section. These are – “This Month Answered” and the “Total Answered“. The first feature shows the total number of questions answered by the experts in a given month. The second one highlights the total number of questions answered by the experts from the date of their registration in the Community.

For example, Shazzers has answered 383 questions in a given month. But, she has answered 17426 questions till date.

The new features added in the section will enable the members to get an idea about the most active members in the Community. Based upon the number of monthly replies, they can know who is the best expert for them. The community members can compare the number of monthly replies with the total questions answered by the experts to select the best expert in a given month. The members can directly ask their questions to the most active expert of the community and get prompt answers.

So far, the experts have been listed in the section as per their monthly replies. So, if an expert has answered 300 questions in a given month and another expert has answered 215 questions, then the former will get higher ranking than that of the latter. In short, the more questions they answer in a given month, the better is their ranking. This in turn will motivate them to participate in the community more actively and increase their ranking.

Till date, the Community has showcased few experts based on the number of questions answered by them in the given month and in total from the date of registration. The Community is working now to include more experts depending on the number of monthly replies. Hopefully, this new endeavor will be fruitful for everyone.

Credit unions have been in the financial industry for a long period of time. With their limited client base and products, credit unions could only offer certain financial services to their members. However, after the nation went through the economic downturn in the last few years, credit unions are eager to expand their services and client base for competing with the banks. They have started offering services which you would normally expect only from the banks – online accounts, business loans, educational loans, etc. Read through the article to acquire knowledge on the other new services and products offered by the credit unions at present.

Credit union – New services offered by them

Here are the 4 new services that are being offered by the credit unions nowadays:

1. Business loans: As per the report released by the Credit Union National Association, nearly 29.5% of the credit unions offered business loans to their members. This figure is 23.2% higher than that of 2006. However, members can only take out loans up to 12.25% of their assets.

2. Reward programs: The credit unions are offering reward programs to increase their membership base. They are offering special perks like lower auto and home loan rates, free traveler’s check, etc. Moreover, the members won’t have to pay any fee for withdrawing cash from the ATMs of other financial institutions.

The reward programs are available to the consumers using the various services and products of the credit unions. The members will earn points for purchasing more products or using several services. They will get perks based on the points earned by the members.

3. Broad network: The credit unions are expanding their branches for the convenience of the members. The members can operate their accounts at other credit unions also. Members have to provide the name of the credit union, account details and a photo identity card to the branch of the participating credit union.

4. Mobile banking: Some credit unions have started to offer mobile banking services to the members. According to a recent survey, nearly 7.5% members of the National Association of Federal Credit Unions are providing mobile banking options. However, few credit unions are apprehensive to introduce this service due to security issues.

In addition, Credit Union Student Choice organization is giving education loans since its inception in May 2008. It is said that in the academic year of 2010-2011, approximately $200 million loans have been originated as compared to $158 million in the year 2009-2010. This is certainly welcome news for the students since several banks have stopped lending educational loans.