5 Ways to Save Money on Back-to-School Shopping

Written by adminJuly 29, 2019
Saving

Whether you’re ready for it or not, we are quickly approaching the end of the summer season. As we get close to the start of August, were only weeks away from many schools across the country ringing the bell and ushering students back into their halls. That makes right now back-to-school season as we begin to see many ads start popping up on our TV and Internet.

Many families have a difficult time facing back-to-school expenditures. This time of year is second only to Christmas in terms of major family needs and buys. The National Retail Federal is estimated that parents will spend on average around $696 per child going back to school. If your child is enrolled in sports, that number can easily push past the $1,000 mark and even broach $2,000.

Just like the cost of college tuition, back-to-school costs are constantly inflating. School supplies and clothing continues to get more expensive. After a nice relaxing summer, the last thing parents want to do is be barrage with the number of ads telling them that summer is about over. They began sweating over the amount of money they know they have to fork out.

To make matters worse, a lot of teachers are beginning to ask students to take on larger needs. Their budgets are small and schools are running out of money, so they rely on parents to supply various items, making the cost of back-to-school shopping that much more expensive. Let’s take a look at five ways that you can save money on back-to-school shopping.

1) Look Around the House

You can save money by doing a simple supply sweep around your home. You might have a pack of folders or notebooks hidden in a desk drawer somewhere. Maybe you have a storage bin full of hidden treasures that will help you from spending money on things you already have. This is also a great time to go through your child’s clothing. See what close they have and what they’ve outgrown over the summer. As much as they want brand-new name brand stuff, there’s no point supplying them a brand-new wardrobe just because it’s the start of a new year.

2) Do a Supply Swap with Family and Friends

If you’ve taken the time to pull out all the extras that you have around the house, maybe get together with family and friends who also have kids going back to school. Even if they don’t have kids, they might have extra reams of paper or a box of pencils or stack of notebooks that they’re not using. You might have something extra that they need and it will be worth the swap to save you both money in the long run.

3) Thrift Stores and Garage Sales Will Save You

You never know what you’ll find that a thrift store or garage sale. These places can hold all kinds of treasures and back-to-school supplies. You might find new clothing, backpacks, or other supplies that you’ll need. Your child might not want gently used stuff, but that’s because they have no concept of a budget and they’ll have to live with what they get. No one has to know that what they’re wearing for the supplies they’re using was bought at a thrift store or garage sale.

4) Go to the Dollar Store

Dollar stores often have amazing deals on things you need. It is not just a place for party supplies and cheap stuff anymore. You can get notebooks, pencils, Kleenex, sanitizers, pens, and so much more at a dollar store for much cheaper than you’d find in a department store.

5) Tax Holidays Are a Thing

You may not know about this, but many states have what are called tax holidays. Tax holidays are allowed so that shoppers can buy things without having to pay an enormous sales tax on top of it. You should do your research and find out when your state holds the tax holiday. Many states have one of the first week of August or maybe the last week in July. These tax holidays help shoppers for the back-to-school season. This is when you should make your larger purchases, like if you need to buy a computer.

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5 Ways to Reduce Spending and Start Saving

Written by adminJuly 22, 2019
Saving

Believe it or not, there are a lot of things we do as Americans that are more expensive than we realize. We could all easily comb through our budget and see the things we are literally wasting money on. Yet, we live during a time when health insurance is unaffordable and hardly anyone is able to save for retirement.

The economy is doing really well, but it could be doing a lot better. Millions of Americans are burdened by trillions of dollars’ worth of debt. Rather than finding a way to slow down spending, they keep spending even more, taking on more debt and making the situation worse for themselves. The best thing to do is find expenses you can cut from your life.

Here are the 5 ways to reduce spending:

1) Cut the Cord

Unless you’re a massive TV fan, paying $100 per month for cable is utterly ridiculous. The prices only continue to climb. Is it worth the cost for only getting to watch it maybe an hour or two per day? In that case, you can buy a $20 HD antenna to watch the local programming and do well with a Netflix subscription and internet. Anything on TV will show up on Hulu anyway, including live TV. Save your money and cut the cord!

2) Refinance Your Debts

If you’ve been doing really well at maintaining your debt, there’s no doubt that your credit score has improved over time. Maybe you took a loan out ten years ago you’re still paying on. If you have an improved credit score, that can go a long way in helping reduce what you spend each month. You can refinance your auto loan and/or your mortgage and student loan debt. It means a bank will give you a loan to pay that off, but your new loan will have better rates and lower monthly payments, saving you a bundle!

3) Don’t Be Afraid to Renegotiate

A lot of companies will do anything to keep you on as a customer, especially if they have a lot of competition. Don’t be afraid to call up these companies and do a bit of haggling to get a better rate. You can lower your cable get, get a good deal, or even threaten to switch companies if they’re offering something more your size. In most cases, they’re willing to oblige!

4) Share Your Bills

One simple way to save money is to split your bills with someone. Of course, this assumes you’re single or living on your own. By getting a roommate, that has a lot of great economic impacts. Suddenly you pay half of what you were before, putting more money back into your pocket.

5) Coordinate your Activities Better

You can easily lump different errands together and make a single trip out of it. A lot of people don’t do this and it makes no sense whatsoever. You can really save a lot on gas by going out and doing all your things at once while coordinating how you do it. For example, getting groceries after you hit the gym because the store is on your way home.

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3 Money Lessons Monopoly Can Teach Your Kids

Written by adminJuly 18, 2019
Student Loan Consolidation

Most of us have fond memories growing up and playing Monopoly with our friends and family. Sitting at the table or on the floor for hours and accumulating as many properties as you can get, putting hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place while hoping your annoying sister lands right there and gets bankrupt right out of the game. Ahh, memories.

Monopoly is still one of the top best selling games of all time and has maintained its popularity since 1935. This game has been around for so long that they’ve had to release several ‘modern’ versions to keep up with inflation. Even as more kids have given up playing board games in exchange for digital technology, the game remains popular.

What’s really important about Monopoly is understanding that it can be used for more than just a game. You can use it to teach your children simple economic concepts they may not understand. We’ve all gotten frustrated playing Monopoly a time or two when we start losing and spiraling out of control. These can be important lessons for the little ones.

Here are three money lessons you can teach your kids by playing Monopoly:

Lesson #1: Don’t Accumulate Debt

One of the main points of the game involves properly managing your debt. It’s fun when you get involved in building assets and creating a real estate empire. But you’ll soon find yourself incurring debt. That happens when you land on another player’s property and have to pay rent. The amount of rent you owe may turn out to cost more than you have.

At that point, you start selling off your own assets to pay the debt and stay in the game. This is known as a tipping point as soon as your debts outweigh your assets and you have nothing left. Yes, kids will probably get frustrated by getting behind and owing money, but let them work through it. The lesson is the same in life. Don’t get yourself into a lot of debt!

Lesson #2: Entrepreneurial Decisions Are Often a Roll of the Dice

We definitely want to encourage our kids to be entrepreneurs and Monopoly shows us exactly how business ownership is like. We often have to make tough decisions around cash-flow issues. When starting a business, you will make decisions whose outcomes are often like a roll of the dice. You don’t know how it will turn out, either in your favor or not. How do you operate when this happens?

Lesson #3: Borrowing Money from Friends and Family Impacts Relationships

There may come a time in the game when you have to borrow some money from someone else playing with you. Your cash flow may dwindle down and to stay in the game, you’ll have to ask a friend or family member to lend you some cash. But that can become a complicated situation. What if they lend you money, but they need it back before you’re ready to pay it back? What a frustrating situation that can cause and hurt those relationships along the way.

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Thinking about Buying an Electric Car? Here are 8 Things to Consider

Written by adminJuly 2, 2019
Life Style , Student Loan Consolidation

People have been waiting around for the flying car ever since Back to the Future promised us this advancement back in the 1980s, but we’re not quite there yet.  Still, we’ve come a long way in transportation since our horse and buggy days. For many decades, your average combustion engine has been the way of the automobile.   

It has dominated sales for three main reasons:  

1) Cheaper to make than electric cars,  

2) Better range than electric cars, and  

3) Cheap fuel. 

These days, the paradigm is shifting.  Concerns over global warming caused by pollution from cars and trucks are at an all-time high.  Global temperatures are rising and smog is only getting worse in heavily populated areas. The only way to combat these issues is through the advancement of technology and purchasing electric cars.   

If you find yourself concerned for the environment and desire to play your part in helping fix the problem, there are a few things you need to know before buying an electric car.  Here is a short list of things you might need to know: 

1) What is your normal route?  The one downside to electric cars is their lack of range.  If you live and work on completely opposite ends of a large city, or maybe you’re situated way out in the country, you might want to second guess the electric car and go for a hybrid.  Electric cars only have a maximum range of 100 miles. A lot of them are shorter than that. Do you do a lot of driving during an average day? Do you take a lot of trips? Get stuck in traffic a lot?  If so, then a hybrid vehicle might be the best for you, as it combines an electric engine with a combustion one, so when the battery juices run out, it switches over to gas.   

2) Consider where you live.  Anyone who has ever driven a vehicle with a battery in very cold weather knows that the battery doesn’t extreme temps.  If you live somewhere that gets super cold for a prolonged amount of time, then an electric car might not be for you. You must also consider your availability to a charger.  Some require a simple power outlet. A lot of places where the EV cars are most popular are integrating charging stations. So, always be sure to know your surroundings and if having any type of EV or HEV is right for the conditions.   

3) EVs have very little noise.  If it’s one thing all car owners know well, it’s the hum of the combustion engine.  The sound it makes when it starts up, when it’s being revved, and when you’re slowing down.  It will take some time to get used to the fact that electric engines are virtually silent. This might be great, except for the fact that no one will hear you coming.  This can be dangerous when going around corners. It will require you to change the way you drive. 

4) You’ll have to rethink fueling up.  We’ve all done it before.  We’ve all waited until the tank was nearly empty, driving on fumes to pull into the gas station.  We save fueling for when we’re out an about because it takes typically 5 minutes or less. With an electric car, you don’t have that luxury.  The average time to charge a battery is 90 minutes. So, if you’re rushing late to work and you forgot to charge your car overnight, you’re out of luck. You can’t just stop at the gas station.   

5) Costs of going green.  Yes, the biggest perk of going green is you no longer have to spend money on endless gallons of gasoline.  This doesn’t require the constant repairs, oil changes, and other maintenance issues that crop up with a combustion engine car.  But one of the biggest complaints about the EV is they are typically more expensive. Their expense is why gasoline powered cars became more popular than electric all those years ago.  You should be able to do your research and see how the cost vs. savings plays out for you.   

6) The government might want to help you get one.  Combined with point #5, you should be sure to check into whether the government is in the mood to help cover the costs of buying an electric car.  They often offer subsidies to encourage people to go clean instead of buying a cheaper, combustion engine vehicle. Both the federal and state level governments offer their own benefits, so be sure to check what you can obtain for your state. 

7) These things go fast!  Face it, we all love speed.  It’s a need, really. There’s a myth out there that electric cars are super slow compared to the muscle-power you get with a combustion engine.  The latest Model S EV from Tesla can hit zero-to-sixty in 2.8 seconds. That’s some serious speed! It’s comparable to the 918 Spyder from Porsche!  Whatever specification you have in a car, an EV offers all the torque you need. 

8) Not for towing.  While electric vehicles have great speed, the technology doesn’t exist quite yet for them to do any heavy-duty work.  Not only is range an issue, but EVs are generally weaker. 

9) You can go hybrid.  If you need more range or power, then you should consider a hybrid vehicle.  Hybrids combine the electric battery with the usual combustion engine. The purpose of these is sort of a bridge between full-electric and full-gasoline.  When the battery runs out, it would automatically jump to the gas engine.   

As environmentalism grows in fervor, more people will start to search for cleaner ways to get around.  Electric cars are the future of transportation. Armed with these nine things to know, you’ll be well on your way to living as carbon-free as possible.  There are other things to know and remember, which we will provide in future articles.   

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Tesla Develops Proprietary Batteries in Secret Lab

Written by adminJune 27, 2019
Business , Technology

Tesla aiming to manufacture their own battery cells to reduce dependence on Panasonic.

According to five current and recent employees, Tesla is designing the means to manufacture their own battery cells en masse. This is in spite of an extensive partnership deal signed with Panasonic, who have been making battery cells for Tesla since 2014.

It’s no big secret that the battery pack and battery cells are by far the biggest cost component of Tesla’s electric vehicles. This development will definitely help to lower the cost of production on Tesla’s electric vehicles while cutting out data and resource sharing with any outside vendors and partners.


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Earlier this month at Tesla’s annual shareholders meeting, CEO Elon Musk admitted that the company had been “battery-constrained”. What this means is that Tesla’s shortage of batteries limited their production and sales of their electric vehicle and storage systems such as their Powerwalls and Powerpacks.

If Tesla can pull this off, that would complete their vertical integration as they would be developing, manufacturing and selling their own product. They would be hard-pressed to scale their manufacturing process for these battery cells as they continue to struggle to do the same for their vehicle production.

The “secret lab” in question

Tesla currently makes most of its batteries at the Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, which it jointly owns with Panasonic. In light of Tesla researching their own battery option, it makes sense that they would divert resources to a separate facility.

The battery research and development division is located at the Tesla’s Kato Road facility a few minutes drive from the company’s car plant in Fremont, California. There, Tesla aims to design prototype advanced lithium ion battery cells, as well as develop processes that will allow mass production once it’s ready to go to market.

Even if Tesla is successful in developing this new battery, this does not mean that they will cut ties entirely with Panasonic. Tesla employees that are kept apprised of supplier negotiations say that the company will be working with Panasonic and LG in producing the batteries that will go into the first vehicles manufactured at the new Shanghai factory. The new factory is slated to be operational by the end of the year, and initiate mass production in 2020.

Tension between partners

This initiative to bring battery manufacturing in-house has been public knowledge for a while now. At Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in June, Musk encouraged investors to place their focus on two company priorities, namely complete self-driving vehicles and scaling battery production.

On the latter point, he dropped no details however on how he intended to do so, including the reason for the $218 million acquisition of energy tech company Maxwell Technologies back in May this year.

Tesla CTO JB Straubel said that,” We’re taking all the moves required to be masters of our own destiny here. I think through all the experience we’ve developed with partners and otherwise, we will have solutions for this.”

His comments follow reports of tension between the two companies. In January this year, Panasonic made a deal with Toyota to build car batteries together in a joint venture. A few months later in April, Panasonic said it would temporarily freeze their investments in Tesla Gigafactories.

Musk hit back a few days later, blaming Panasonic for delaying Model 3 production by lowering capacity, threatening to pull financing until cell line capacity was brought up to speed.

Panasonic seems to have come out on top though, as in recent years many Tesla employees have been moving over to Panasonic, lured by better compensation, clear policies on schedules and time off. As for Tesla’s aspirations on battery production, only time will tell.


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How to Work Out While Traveling Without Spending a Fortune

Written by adminJune 21, 2019
Travel

If you’re one of the thousands of people who live life out on the road, you may find it’s quite difficult to keep up with your workout.  You can’t necessarily take your equipment with you. Not to mention, traveling takes a lot out of a person, so it can be incredibly difficult to remain motivated on any workout regime.   

There are several steps you can take to stay ahead of the game, even when stuck in your hotel room.  All it takes is a little ingenuity and a will to succeed and you’ll be working out in no time! Jet Lag or no jetlag.   

Step #1: Take Advantage of Hotel Amenities

Believe it or not, a lot of hotels, especially the larger chains, are prepared to take care of ALL their customer’s needs.  They have pools, restaurants, bars, and even a fitness room! Many come with stationary bikes, treadmills, and everything else you need to stay in shape while away from home.  It will pay to do your research ahead of time to find the hotels that can meet your needs.

Step #2: Gym Membership

If you have access to transportation, such as a rental car or are able to hail a cab, there are several gym memberships that allow you to visit ANY gym in their network.  For example, Planet Fitness has a Black Card membership which lets you not only bring in friends to work out with you for free, but gets you in the door at every Planet Fitness in the world.  So if you enjoy having a gym membership and find yourself traveling to the same areas, it wouldn’t hurt to look for a gym where you could work out at both places.

Step #3: Swimming Laps

Swimming is perhaps the greatest workout there is.  You can work every muscle in your body and burn a tremendous amount of calories without stressing out your joints.  Lucky for you, just about every hotel has a pool for your convenience. Even the less-than-desirable motels have pools.  If you’re headed to a cold winter climate, be sure to check ahead of time for indoor pools that let you get your swim on.

Step #4: Going for a Walk

There’s no better workout substitution than going for a nice walk.  You may not know the city or town you’re stuck in, but odds are, you’re in a hotel with long hallways and stairways.  It’s safe and more than capable of pumping up your heart rate. If you don’t feel comfortable going for a walk in the hotel, perhaps there’s a mall or shopping center near where you’re staying.  Those are great locations to burn off a big meal.

Step #5: Workout in Your Room

If you bring a computer with you on the road, do you have enough space in your bag to add a few workout DVDs?  Space in your room may be limited, but that shouldn’t prevent you from being able to do some light workout or even strike a few Yoga poses.  If the room doesn’t have a DVD player, you can buy a small portable one or just stick it in your computer to watch. Also, if you have internet access, you can watch free workout videos on YouTube.

Step #6: Lightweight Equipment  

Unless you have ZERO room in your bag, there are a few small pieces of workout equipment you can take with you.  But some take up virtually no space at all. For example, resistance bands. They are nothing more than a large rubber band that provide resistance equal to lifting weights and building muscle.  If you do have the room, you can get arm and ankle weights. Every little bit helps.

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Even the Middle Class is Struggling to Survive in Modern Day America

Written by adminAugust 7, 2018
Life Style

There’s a phenomenon happening in the United States, and it’s killing the middle class. The cost of living is rising significantly and its vastly outperforming salary increases. That means you could’ve once lived a comfortable life, the pinnacle of the American dream, but now you’re struggling to make it with virtually no change in your salary.

How can such a thing happen?

Matt and Nicole Barry are school teachers at Live Oak High School in California. Together, they make nearly $70,000. This, at one time, could afford the family life most of us wish we had. They live in a beautiful home in a nice neighborhood, but as of late, they’ve been getting squeezed.

Real estate costs in their city have skyrocketed. Not just that, but the price of literally everything has gone up too, from gas for the car to the food they eat. Taxes have risen, too. What was once a comfortable salary quickly turned into panic, as the Barry family found themselves not being able to cover their bills and their salary remains stagnant.

To make up for it, Matt has turned to Uber to make a bit of extra cash, which is a second job he really shouldn’t be forced to do. If you know anything about the teaching profession, it’s not a normal 9-to-5 job. It requires early mornings and late nights grading papers and planning a curriculum for students.

“Teachers are killing themselves,” says Matt Barry. “I shouldn’t be having to drive Uber at eight o’clock at night on a weekday. I just shut down from the mental toll: grading papers between rides, thinking of what I could be doing instead of driving — like creating a curriculum.”

Costs for the Middle Class Only Going Up

Currently, the cost of living in the middle class is up as much as 30% higher than it was two decades ago. Everything is more expensive, from housing, to healthcare, getting a college degree, and raising a child. For a lot of families, who were once enjoying the good life, that daily cost of life has more than doubled.

Only one-forth of U.S. citizens considered themselves as part of the lower class before the 2008 crash, according to a Pew study. Now, that number has risen to over 40%. If less than half of all Americans believe themselves to be financially in the lower class, it shows how much the gap is widening between the wealthy and what used to be a healthy middle class.

Also: http://financialhelpers.com/5-tips-to-get-lower-auto-insurance-rates/

It has really been the stability of our system that held up the middle class for so long. Jobs were secure, salaries rose to meet the cost of living, it was cheap to go to college and better your life, and benefits were plenty. Now, going to college is no longer a ‘need-to’ proposition. Students are graduating with useless degrees and with $40,000-$100,000 in debt.

It’s Tougher for Women

And these are just the jobs that are usually know for security. If you want to be a lawyer or a doctor, it’s becoming almost impossible to find meaningful work. But what about the rest of Americans who have been struggling at $20,000/year and women who can’t seem to catch a break?

The Center for WorkLife Law has found that discrimination cases have risen 269% in the last decade as women seem to make less and less. Their salaries appear to job 7% for each child they have. At a time when woman are trying to do everything they can to prepare for life as a parent, they face tremendous standard-of-living obstacles most of us don’t.

Technology also plays a major part. If factories and manufacturers can replace a working body with a robot, they can. They don’t have to pay a salary or benefits to robots who can work 24/7 without needing a day off. These types of jobs are being eliminated at a furious rate. It’s expected that 30% of the tasks currently requiring human hands will be replaced in the near future.

Some Jobs Are Economy Proof

There are a few economy-proof jobs that still exist, such as nursing, truckers, journalists, etc, but even these can see their share of drop-offs. Driverless trucks are making their debut and more doctors are seeing their patients via online Skype or FaceTime calls.

Most of these challenges appear to be holdovers from The Great Recession that hit our country in 2008. Jobs were hard to find and employers had a rush of new people coming in looking for work. Because the economy was down considerably, they didn’t feel it was safe to hire. That appears to be changing.

Currently, there are more open jobs than workers to fill them. Industries like the trucking industry have a rash of vacant seats they need filled immediately. The problem is, a lot of these jobs require training and/or being well-verses in a trade. Proponents for trade jobs like Mike Rowe keep pushing the need for skilled workers to fill these positions.

The country is changing, and everyone must figure out quickly where they belong in the new hierarchy. Those who figure it out are doing quite well and gaining most of the wealth. The others fall behind trying to work jobs that used to have security and a high wage.

President Trump has recently come out with a new tax idea aimed at helping the middle class. He wants to cut their taxes and create programs to incentivize saving money. Hopefully this move will help people like the Barry family get back to normal. They deserve every chance to continue to focus on changing the lives.

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How I Saved A Lot of Money Taking a Family Vacation

Written by adminAugust 6, 2018
Saving

As we enter the dog days of summer, back-to-school commercials are already blasting on every TV channel. Preseason football is making us think about fall. So, you might be wondering if I’m a bit late with this article. If you had a family vacation this year, it was probably in the summer months before now.

But, as a rule, we at Financial Helpers understand that the best way to save a lot of money! And vacations don’t have to be summer mainstays either. If you’re a family with a tight budget, then this article is for you!

Some trips can cost thousands of dollars, depending on the size of your family vacation. Admission to theme parks, hotel, car rental if you choose to fly, airfare, and food can all vary depending on the time of year.

One of the first things I did to have a great vacation for cheap is by doing a season swap. Various destinations have busy seasons where the price to stay there is extremely expensive. You can be forced to $300 per night at a hotel that only charges $70 in the offseason. Mark ups can be incredible!

Attractions More Expensive for a Family Vacation

My sister lives in a tiny town in Northern Michigan that’s very touristy in the summer months due to all the amazing outdoor activities near Lake Michigan and its proximity to Traverse City, one of the state’s top attractions. I know when it’s summer, I won’t even dare to book a room unless I want to spend over $150-$200.

When I visited the family over the Christmas holiday, it only cost $30, which was a good deal. This tells me that I can save a lot of money visiting destinations during the times of the year when these places are practically begging for business.

Also: http://financialhelpers.com/4-strategic-steps-to-help-you-get-out-of-debt-forever/

Here’s the thing: booking early has the same effect. If you wait until the last minute to buy a plane ticket or book a hotel, you will pay A LOT more than booking your family vacation a year to six months in advance.

Food is also another major expense that needs to be planned ahead of time. You can easily save a few hundred bucks by choosing a hotel that offers free breakfast. Some of the pricier hotels might offer breakfast service, but you can expect anything you purchase, like room service or anything from the mini-fridge, has been marked up considerably.

Free Is Always a Good Deal

If you get free breakfast from the hotel, the selection might be limited, but it will save you a lot of money over the life of your trip.

It’s also important to remain realistic about when you fly. It doesn’t matter when you book your tickets if you try to fly out around a holiday. The fares will always be expensive during peak times of the year. But if you’re not flying on a holiday, there are days of the week that tend to be less pricey than others.

For example, weekends are a peak time for flying, so fares on a Friday might be higher than flying out on a Wednesday when there’s less traffic.

Cheapair.com did a survey and found that travelers saved $200 on Thanksgiving travel. They left on Monday and returned on Friday rather than the typical timeframe. So, if you hope to save money on travel, choosing infrequent days can save a lot of money.

Just because you’re on a tight budget doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a nice family vacation. Get away from the grind! Just make sure you plan early. Sign up for alerts, book tickets to fly out during the week, and choose destinations during non-peak times. You’ll save a lot of cash in the long run.

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Personal Finance Advice for Women Who Struggle with Money

Written by adminAugust 3, 2018
Saving

Women are often the backbone of most American families. They are the caregivers and the glue that keeps everyone together. They’re also typically the financial stewards and keeper of the checkbook. But, studies show they are a vulnerable demographic when it comes to having personal finance knowledge.

Usually, it’s the men who make the money, do the investments, prepare for retirement, and because of this, more women leave it to their husbands to figure all of that out. Women who have a credit score below 700 are particularly inept at being financially prepared.

A survey by Elevate’s Center for the New Middle Class revealed that only 39% of women believe they have the right skills to manage their money. Because women live longer than men, it’s imperative that they prepare for life outside of retirement with their spouses. They need to go above and beyond knowing how to balance a checkbook.

Also: http://financialhelpers.com/4-things-every-parent-should-know-about-student-loans/

Of course, these statements do not imply women are just dumb with money, but rather they fall behind their male counterparts in taking the initiative to understand and prepare for their financial futures, leaving it to their husbands to figure it all out. This can leave them in an incredibly difficult personal finance situation.

Women are more likely to have their hours cut at work, three times as likely to have lost their job than men, and rarely have a safety net around them, like emergency savings.

Here are 3 ways women can educate themselves further and bridge the knowledge gap:

1) Unleash the Power of Apps

For women who aren’t knowledgeable in finances and struggle to keep up, there are a lot of apps out there that can help you figure it out. Apps can be helpful by showing you how to budget properly and stash away cash for an emergency. Doing this not only offers you better control of your finances, but peace of mind as well.

2) Get Aggressive About Personal Finance Education

Surveys show that non-prime women with lower credit scores have basic knowledge, usually learned from their parents, on how to manage their money. Beyond that, they’re clueless. Times have changed and women must be more aggressive in learning what they don’t know about saving, investing, and preparing for retirement.

You can study blogs, read books written by experts, take classes, and even counsel with professionals to catch up on tips and strategies you can use every day.

3) Follow Up on All Your Options

It’s sort of like having a contingency plan. Look ahead at all the issues and problems that could happen. What if you suddenly needed $2,000? How would you get the money? What if your car fell apart and insurance failed to pick up the bill? What if the economy took a downturn and you lost your job?

Be prepared for any and all personal finance situations that could happen any given day. By being prepared for these things, you won’t be caught in a stressful situation without a plan.

Personal finances aren’t too difficult to master if you give it time and energy to learn. If you find you’re struggling to save money or work isn’t that stable, a lot of women turn to online entrepreneurship to fill in the gap. It allows to make extra money while still being flexible around their family’s needs.

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