What a crazy time in our history!  Our economy is in turmoil.  We have soldiers at war.  For the first time since 1776 a non-white man has been elected as president.  Gas is affordable.  Tiger Woods and GM end their endorsement partnership to pinch pennies.

Many corporations are scrambling to find ways to keep the doors open.  One of the first reactions is to cut personnel.  Save on costs.  What is your gut reaction to weather this storm?

Mine is to cut costs and not get involved in new ventures.  I scrubbed my household budget to examine where I can save some extra change.  Just four years ago, I did the exact same thing as my wife and I were saving for our first home.  At that time we found over $700 a month.  There I said this wouldn’t happen again…

Never say never.  My latest scrubbing uncovered $200 each month.  Sure this was not as bad, but the point is that I was making a conscious effort and still got up to this point again.  Even those of you who think you have no room to grow…look again with an open mind and B.E. H.O.N.E.S.T.

Bills; Essentials-Housing, Outfits, Num-Nums; and Extras-Savings, Throwaway.  Quick translation.  Break down budget into needs and wants.  Needs are bills, housing, clothing and food.  Wants are savings accounts and luxuries like travel and entertainment.  I cover making a budget a little more in another post.

My goal here is to get you into penny-pinching mode.  Really dig to see where you can save a couple of bucks each day/week/month/year.  One blogger commented, “Buy the paper towels that come in smaller sheets (the 1-2-3 sheet).  Most often you only need a small one but take a whole sheet.”  What a simple cost-cutting idea!

Over the past five years I found a collective $900 each month by pinching pennies.  How much can you find?  Instead of getting into debt over your head, get free from it.  I used my extra money to buy a home and save for my future wants and needs.

Give me some money saving ideas.  What will you do with the extra $$$$?

What if everything we thought had value was really worthless?  This is a question that my pastor asked this week in church.  Don’t worry, I am not going to get religious on you.  I am going to explore this question and give you some practical applications to better your finances, though.

Pastor Greg Surratt gave the example of a flat-panel plasma TV costing only a few dollars while a pack of underwear was $1,000.  We would buy the television that we did not need and ignore what we really needed.  This made me question if I ever have done this in my finances…I did.

I recall in the not-so-distant past, putting a trip on my credit card because I knew about future cash in my pocket.  I chased my wife out to Los Angeles while she was on business and made it a vacation for us also.  The whole trip went onto our credit card because I counted my chickens before they hatched.  Thankfully, they hatched, and the trip was paid off as planned.

Have you ever done this?  Acted on a hope?  We like to charge things or take financial leaps of faith all the time and often on things that don’t matter.  We must first, not spend money we don’t have.  Then evaluate what the best use for our money will be.  To do this we must think about where we place our value.  Do we focus on being entertained?  Do we focus on our family’s financial futures?

What is the most important thing in the world to you?  Your family or seeing Hollywood?  As much as I hate to admit it, the trip was not needed.  We could have waited for the money to come in and use it responsibly.  I could have put that cash towards paying off my car.  Once paid off, I could reward myself with a vacation I could afford.

More often than not, we are going to use our money for things that are not needed and ignore the things that are.  The only way around this is by evaluating our values.  What is most valuable to you?

A few years ago I was talking to my friend Matt Carman. Matt is a financial brain and has educated me and given me great tips since I have known him. As I was talking to him, a guy that can be best described as a cro-magnon commented on how dumb budgets were. This Masters degree-toting, knuckle-dragger went on to say, “Don’t spend more than you make.” His advice is actually the foundation of this posting. I figured if he could grasp the concept, any of us can.

These are chaotic times of banks closing the doors and the government being looked upon to save the economy because we have fostered a mindset of buying things we cannot afford. Our economy is failing because we are relying on credit cards to buy things older generations would have saved for OR not even bought at all. Then there are banks and companies handing out credit like candy bars on Halloween. I was buying a soda at a department store one day and was asked if I wanted to save 10% by getting a store card…on a soda?

To stop our personal financial turmoil, we need to break the cycle of spending first. I did a small-scale experiment to accomplish this by tracking everything I spent. I saved every single receipt for an entire month. At the end of the month I separated the receipts into wants and needs. A need is something I can’t function without, i.e. food, soap, etc. The wants were luxury items like music downloads, clothing, and anything of the sort.

I also included all of my bills into the needs column. The total of the needs was my baseline. I then took on the cro-magnon’s advice and compared the amount coming in to the amount of needs being paid. Everything leftover went into the want pile. Once I got the money separated, I racked and stacked my wants. What did I want most? Do I have enough to buy it? If I did, I bought it. If not, I saved up to buy it.

Remember getting that first credit card? It would be used strictly for emergencies. None of those ever really popped up, and you got a letter in the mail last month saying that you credit limit just doubled. All of a sudden temptations start to resemble emergencies.

Getting a pair of shoes, going out to dinner, going to a concert or buying a CD all of a sudden become easier and easier. This is free money! I can buy anything I want, without waiting and only have a small monthly payment. Perfect.

It is perfect until you run some numbers. That dinner you ate last year and charged has been paid for many times over. A balance of $1,000 at 18% would take 153 months to pay off, if you made the minimum payments, and you would have paid $1,115.41 in interest alone. That is enough money to buy everything that you charged twice. (Money for Tomorrow)

Credit cards sound pretty dumb now, don’t they? The solution is a savings account. If you open a savings account and start saving, you will no longer need a credit card. Simply put $20-$50 a pay period into your savings account the day you get paid. You probably will not even notice it gone. This will give you anywhere between $480 and $1,200 after a year.

An amount this small is not going to rocket you to early retirement, but it will replace your credit cards (aka the devil). Each year this amount is going to rise, just like your credit limit. You can put in more money if you choose to increase your balance at a faster pace.

How does a savings account replace my credit cards? Good question. Many people have what they call an “emergency” savings account. An account to be used for emergencies, just like that credit card you got in the mail. The difference is the interest actually works in your favor as opposed to being against you. Many of these accounts even have debit cards for convenience.

Create your own emergency account and cut up your credit cards!

Three decades ago, a credit card was used only to put off paying your debts for a short while. You could not use your card at department stores, grocery stores, and the doctor’s office. And you didn’t get a lot of rewards (from points) for using your credit card.

But nowadays, the trend has changed because the average American has four or five credit cards at his disposal. Hundreds of reward schemes compete for your money, and you can use the card to buy anything from fruits to appliances. So, what is the future of credit card usage? Industry experts foresee the following trends in the foreseeable future:

Interest Rates will Increase

A significant number of credit cards have variable rates, and these rates are on the rise. In the next few years, credit card issuers will pass the rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. Regulators also have forced card issuers to make higher minimum payment structures. In the last several years, the minimum payment was so low that it might take years before the debt is fully paid if the borrower only pays the required amount.

Low Rates Might Continue But with a Catch

Higher interest rates might make low-rate offers unattractive for banks because of lower revenue, but you can expect that banks will keep this up because of competition. Credit card issuers will definitely become more creative in generating profit. For example, the limit on balance transfer fees for the lower-rate product lines was removed. So, even if the $2.50 balance transfer doesn’t seem like much, it can add up when you transfer $10,000 or more.

Good Deals will be Created and Stopped

Credit card issuers strive to create spectacular offers that will grab the attention of consumers. However, they will be appalled when the consumers exploit these offers in ways they never thought possible. Case to point, think of MBNA’s gas rebate offer; it offers 5% cash rebate for gas purchases. The gas rebate card was actually a general purpose card, but the consumers didn’t use the card for anything other than gas. As you can expect, the offer has since been trimmed.

We are obsessed with having ‘things.’ Everyone wants to be rich. We want lots of money today. What we fail to realize is it is not easy and therefore settle for just appearing to have money.

We see the celebrities on TV or in magazines wearing certain clothes and driving exotic cars. Naturally, we associate having those things with having money. Having money means we are somebody important, at least in our minds. Then we set out to make lots of cash.

Once we realize that acquiring wealth does not happen overnight, we become impatient. Thank God for credit cards! “Who needs to work when we have this free money?” At least it is free until the bills roll in each month. Now we accept the fact that in order to ‘live’ we always will be in debt.

To summarize this: we want to be rich. We try and see that it is difficult. We buy the same things rich people do but on credit. We bury ourselves in debt trying to look rich.

The ‘fake it till you make it,’ strategy does not work well when it comes to building bank accounts. In fact, just the opposite occurs, you ‘fake it till you bankrupt it.’ This explains why more people under the age of twenty-five are filing bankruptcy each year.

There is a solution. In my book, Money for Tomorrow, I talk about building a budget and planning for the future. The truth is that we cannot live our lives for today. We have to grow our finances into a cash machine. Once we do, we actually can look like we have money AND really have it.

Sometimes, the best way to stop a snowballing debt problem is to go back to its cause. If you have an uncontrollable credit card debt, then take a step back, and look into your previous mistakes. Knowing what your weaknesses are can help you prevent debt disasters in the future. Most of the time, people who are mired in debt commit the same financial mistakes that can be prevented by behavioral changes and self-discipline. Learn from your mistakes and start getting rid of your debts.

Mistake #1: Mishandling Balance Transfers

Transferring your balance from high-interest credit cards to those with lower interest rates is effective in theory. But it’s a good idea that can go wrong. Transferring the balance to a new card that has an introductory rate and waived annual fees can help you save money, but you need to focus on paying off your debts before the introductory offering expires. If not, you can wind up with an even bigger debt than before.

Mistake #2: Not Looking into Your Credit Report

Consumers assume that there is no need to look into their credit reports since they can’t do anything to change them anyway. This is a huge mistake because the report can contain errors and inaccuracies that can improve your credit rating. When these inaccuracies are detected, you will be able to enjoy better interest rates and even bag the job you want.

Mistake #3: Not Alerting Creditors of Your Financial Difficulties

People who are in debt don’t want to face their creditors. But don’t wait until the problem spirals out of control before doing something about it. Realize that the best time to negotiate with them is before the debt situations start to spiral downhill. The creditors might be willing to extend your deadline or temporarily lower the interest rate.

Soon there might be good news for credit card owners. The Federal Reserve is doing its best to approve new rules that would crack down on the way credit card companies determine their fees. This news, while welcome to those who have credit card debt, is not so welcomed by the credit card companies.

Currently, credit card companies are allowed to determine exactly how much time you are given to pay your monthly bills. The individual companies can increase a person’s interest rate “retroactively” and apply that interest to pre-existing balances. For many people, these interest rate increases are just what will send them over their credit limits and subject them to all sorts of additional finance charges and fees. Some credit card companies practice something called “double billing.” Double billing is where a finance charge is determined by earlier billing cycles.

The new regulations proposed by the Federal Reserve would prevent each of those actions, as well as allow consumers more time to pay their monthly bills. Obviously this plan is welcome by credit card holders, but the credit card companies are less than thrilled. Some financial lobbyists are saying that the Federal Reserve’s proposal represents an intrusion into the credit industry. Of course, the financial lobby was unable to keep the Office of Thrift Supervision from approving rules that are very similar to those proposed by the Federal Reserve.

There is no doubt that, in our present economy, many people rely on credit cards to get them through each month. While there are some who advocate the credit industry becoming more “consumer friendly”, there are others who say that further regulations in the credit industry could result in more people being denied credit and offer them fewer choices of credit card companies.

Which side of this fence do you sit on?

International calls can be expensive. Even calls to other states incorporate long distance fees. Well, pay those fees no longer! Use a calling card!

Using a calling card is easy, quick, and cheap. All you have to do is buy the card for a certain amount; prices vary from $5 to $20 or more. Then, you dial the digits and talk until you run out of money on your card. Each minute may only cost a few pennies. Calling cards offer low rates on your domestic and international calls, without the hidden costs, charges, or connection fees. You can buy phone cards online or at stores, the choice is up to you!

Unfortunately, many people do not call their family who live in other countries or require long distance phone calls because of the charges that apply. Well, this will solve everyone’s troubles. You can get cheap phone cards and then you’ll be able to make cheap phone calls to your family. In addition, many calling cards are rechargeable, so you can keep using the same one over and over again.

All types of cards exist to suit your needs. Calling within the USA? There are USA call cards just for you. Call to any country! call Ukraine! The possibilities are endless. There are Iraq calling cards or calling cards to Afghanistan cellular. There are even cards that you can buy to go from the country you are visiting to the USA. You could even use your pc to phone Pakistan.

If you do not feel like paying those roaming charges on your cell phone or those long distance fees on any other phone, here is your simple solution. Calling cards make it easy for you to call from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world. You can use them with pay phones, house phones, hotel phones, you name it!

Buy your card from a local store or online so that you can start talking to people in different parts of your state for extremely low prices!  You can even do card personalisation.

Creditcards-GB wants to help you find the perfect credit card. Creditcards-GB calls them self a “one-stop-shop for credit card information,” and they’re right. They will help you find the best buys, latest news, and advice. You’ll find yourself with a card that is ideal for your lifestyle, no hidden small print.

If your current credit card balance has been rising, it’s like that your interest charges have as well. Creditcards-GB can help you balance out your credit cards. A 0% APR balance transfer rate is offered at several credit card companies. Creditcards-GB will tell you exactly which ones. Using the table featured on the same page, you can quickly locate the cards that provide the best rewards and lowest APR.

Discover which credit card supplier has the best 0% credit cards. Is it CapitalOne, Egg, or Virgin? Creditcards-GB leads you to all of the necessary details. What’s the typical APR or balance transfer offer for each credit card supplier? Find out who’s the best buy over the rest.

Creditcards-GB knows that each person is unique in their quest for the perfect credit card, no matter what your credit score. It’s easy to discover that card that fits you. Compare their nominees for the best balance transfers, cash back, 0% on purchases, cards with rewards, travel reward cards, and low APR cards.

Creditcards-GB truly is your one-stop-shop for credit cards.