Do You Plan to Help Finance Your Childrens' Weddings?

Wedding Dress For Happy Couple in Love (Photo credit: epSos.de)

With the average wedding now costing $27,000, tying the knot has never been more expensive. Although over a third of couples are choosing to finance their big day completely themselves, many parents still wish to contribute to the cost. Even if there is no hint of a wedding in sight, if you have daughters in their teens or twenties – or sons for that matter - you may want to consider how you will save money to put towards their future wedding.

When to start saving

One thing that’s for sure is it’s never too soon to start saving; before you know it they’ll be grown up and engaged and it’s easier to put a little money away each month than to have to find extra money within the space of a year. It’s popular for parents to start a wedding fund after they've put their kids through college, as once this financial obstacle has been cleared you obviously have more available cash. However, this is not necessarily practical if you have a large family of widely varying ages, in which case you may have to juggle the two. Either way, the best course of action might be to participate in a dedicated regular saving scheme, looking at your current earnings and outgoings to determine a realistic amount that can be saved each month. If you do have a lump sum of money available to invest for the purpose you might wish to invest in a portfolio of bonds and stocks, which can potentially provide much greater returns; though there is inevitably an element of risk with these.

Don’t jeopardize your retirement

A couple of 14-carat gold wedding rings. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While you want your daughter’s wedding day to be the best of her life, it’s important to be realistic about how much you can afford to contribute. It would be foolish to save for her wedding at the expense of your retirement; if you can’t give as much money as you would have liked, it doesn't mean you are letting them down and they’ll more than understand. Your children will be well aware of the current financial crisis and the negative impact this will have had on your savings accounts and pension plans. If your daughter is recently engaged, sit down with her and her fiancé and explain how much money you are able to provide; this means they can plan a wedding within the budget they have available to them, rather than basing it around additional money that you can no longer afford to give. Remember after all that for the majority of weddings the costs are now split three ways between the bride’s family, the groom’s family and the couple themselves, so you should not feel under any undue pressure to foot the whole bill.

Avoid getting into debt

On a similar note to that above, don’t be tempted to get into debt to help finance a wedding. While this might seem like your only option if the prospect of a wedding is suddenly thrust upon you  and you have not had the chance to prepare specific savings, it’s important to keep in perspective that it’s only one day and not even your child’s wedding  is worth getting into debt over. It might seem easy enough to make a payment on a credit card or to take out a loan, but when you consider the interest rates you will be charged for the privilege of doing so, the money you owe will quickly mount up. You wouldn't want your children to get into debt in this way, so follow your own advice. Use the rule of thumb that you will only pay for what you can afford to do so in cash; by paying with cash you can also usually receive discounts on your purchases, with everyone from florists to photographers ready to do a deal with you.

Be aware of the true costs

Before generously offering to pay for a number of items relating to the wedding, be aware of exactly how much they will cost. It might be hard to believe, but the average wedding dress would set you back $1,355, photography now stands at $2,186 and wedding cakes cost almost $500, so that’s over $4,000 before you have even considered the cost of the venue, catering and hiring a car for the day. These figures are based on the findings of the 2012 American Wedding Survey; more details of which are available online and makes useful reading if you feel out of touch with how much it now costs to get married. 

However, don’t let your knowledge of the true cost sway you into upping the amount of money you decide to give your daughter and your son-in-law to be. Rather than offering to pay for specific items it is probably wiser to offer a set amount of money which they can spend as they see fit.

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How Much Does a Bachelor Degree Cost Around the World? - Infographic

Here is a great infographic depicting the cost of a bachelor degrees around the world. It’s interesting to see the costs in some countries. Also what you chose as your major will impact for the rest of your career what your income will be. Many parents do not realize the education their children are getting, for an insane cost, will lead to a poor paying job.

Cost of Bachelor’s Degree around the World

Planning To Buy a Car? Know Your Type First

English: Toyota Camry (left) and Ford Excursion (right). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today, buying a car has become a necessity as opposed to earlier times, when it was a luxury. You need a car to go to work, to meet friends, to drop your children to school and for a lot of other things too. Once you've worked long and hard enough and saved up enough money to buy your very own car, you wonder which one to buy. With the constant stream of new cars pouring into the market on a regular basis, it turns out that you can take your pick depending on your requirements. There are various types of cars in the market and each type has its own set of advantages to offer. Here are a few types and their characteristics, which can help make your decision on the type of car you want to buy. 

1. SUVs: SUV stands for Sports Utility Vehicle, and buying one can give you some great benefits. This kind usually comes with a 4x4 wheel drive option for good off-road experience. Apart from this, SUVs are known for their spacious interiors, extra head room and leg room, high ground clearance and ample boot space. All these features are very useful in case of long drives and family trips. So if you’re a family guy looking to travel medium and long haul drives on weekends, an SUV is the perfect buy for you. 
2. Sedans: Sedans are regular sized cars with two rows of spacious seats. Sedans are the most economical cars around and are also ideal city cars. They have low ground clearance, which means that there is less risk of toppling over. Sedans come in various types depending on their structure and design. Hatchback sedans, notchback sedans, fastback sedans and hardtop sedans are a few among them. 
3. Coupes: Coupes are smaller versions of the sedan. They were traditionally described as “two door cars”, but these days they come with four doors too. One major advantage of buying a coupe is that it is inexpensive to maintain and can be parked easily anywhere since it does not take up too much space. Other than this, it is easily maneuverable, thus making for the perfect city car. 

Apart from these three major categories, there are a lot of other categories of cars available in the market. Furthermore, these categories are subdivided into full size, mid-size and compact cars, depending on their size. Now that you have a fair idea of the options available in the market, you can make your decision on what to buy. Remember to check online for a good car insurance quote before you actually go ahead with the purchase. Select the most suitable car insurance quote, draw up the papers, get your driving license and you’re all set to drive your very own car.

Author Bio:

Crowley is a car salesman with a leading company and has over two decades of experience under his belt. He also writes articles for his company – RSA Direct, which are published on the website. His recent write ups include “How to buy the best car for yourself” and “Getting the best car insurance quote online”.

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Handy Tips on Effective Tax Returns

taxes (Photo credit: 401(K) 2012)

After the back to back financial slumps in and after the year 2008, the structure of the world economy has greatly changed. There are millions all over the globe, who do not have a proper credit history. Hence it becomes a difficult task for them to get a loan. Besides getting the loan, one also needs to make sure that they manage their taxes in a proper way. In this article we will provide the correct tax planning tips that will help one to manage their taxes correctly.

Possessing the correct information on Taxes

Having the correct knowledge of the tax that you need to pay is the most important thing. There are various kinds of tax that one needs to pay such as local tax, federal tax, income tax and others. Often it is found that one finds it difficult to understand the nature of the tax and how much exactly they should pay. In such cases it is a beer idea to hire a professional who has a fair idea in tax returns. Such professional will also be able to help you to find ways to save on your taxes. There are numerous ways in which one can save on their taxes using legal methods.

Maintaining a Record of the transactions

Keeping a record of the tax payable is an effective way of managing your tax payments. That way you will not lose track of the amount of tax that you need to pay and the time at which you need to pay it. Many a times it is found that individuals inadvertently skip their tax and eventually end up paying more. Maintaining a folder or a file will help one to keep abreast of the tax returns that they need to make.

Hiring a Professional Tax Consultant

Hiring a professional tax consultant is of utmost importance. The entire scope of tax returns is huge and it is virtually impossible for an individual to get a proper idea of it. There are numerous ways in which one can benefit by hiring a tax consultant. The most important benefit of hiring professionals is that, they will be able to help you in saving money on your tax. Moreover they will also be able help you to easy ways of tax return.  Hence resorting to the help of a professional is certainly a great way to manage your finances.

On a Concluding note

On a concluding note it can be said that in order to manage your finances in the best possible way, you need to keep in mind all the above mentioned points. A recent study has shown that many individuals lose thousands in penalties for not paying their tax on time. Hence you should consider hiring a consultant to manage all the aspects of tax return. There are many tax consultants out in the market. Make sure that you choose an experienced one to address your needs.

Author’s Bio: Alisa Martin is a freelance writer, professional blogger, and social media enthusiast. Her blog Money Exchange Rates focuses on Finance bloggers. You can follow her on Google+

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Pros and Cons of Using the Internet to Sell or Rent Your Property

Anybody who is looking to sell or rent a real estate property, wants to sell it quickly, and that too at good price, but a layman might not even be aware of exactly what’s the good price for his/her property, let alone managing to get that price. This is why majority of people goes for real estate agents for buying, selling, or renting their properties.

A real estate agent or broker can assess your property and give you an idea of the right price according to neighboring communities and the overall situation of the real estate market. They can also help you with marketing, home staging, and closing a deal, except that they will charge a hefty fee or commission for their services, precisely the reason why many people prefer to avail one of those online property portals or classified websites for finding a buyer or tenant for their homes or offices.

But just like any other option, selling or renting a property via internet, without getting any help from a real estate agent might save you some bucks, but it has its fair share of disadvantages as well. So, while I am all for making the most of Internet, you must have an idea of the downsides, so that you can do something to deal with these shortcomings. 

Let’s have a look at some pros and cons …

Advantages:                                                         

        I.            

          1. Save on the Commission Fee:

As earlier suggested, real estate agents will be charging hefty amounts for their services. If all you are looking for a buyer or tenant for your property, which is located in a big city, you can easily catch the attention of many interested parties by simply putting an ad on property portals or classified ads, and that too for free. You can also upload some pictures and floor plan, and you will be getting calls from interested buyers or people looking for rental property, in next to no time.

      II.      2. More Control:

Using Internet to sell or rent your property means that you will be free to make your own decisions. Not that dealing with a real estate agent will bound you to listen to their advice, still some of them might talk you into a deal that you will regret later on. Remember that they will be looking to get the deal done ASAP because that is when they will be getting the commission, and sometimes your might miss a good prospect in hurriedness.

    III.       3.Clash of Interest:

If your real estate agent has many properties on hand, and they are expecting bigger commissions from other properties, they will be keener to sell or rent those properties sooner than yours, while making you wait. Turning towards the Internet and doing it yourself means that you can make a wholehearted effort and attract the potential buyers without wasting any time.

    IV.     4. Learning:

Property portals are not just used for selling or renting properties, they can help you in more than one ways. For example, you can compare property prices in your neighborhood and decide the right price, you can also get some handy tips from their knowledgebase, or you can initiate discussion or post queries at their communities.

Disadvantages:

        I.           

         1. Time Consuming:

Remember that not only you will have to take all calls from interested parties (including some at odd timings), asking all sorts of questions and making weird offers. That is quite time consuming, as well as annoying, not to forget that even if you have uploaded pictures of your property, many people will be interested in visiting the home, so you will have to take out time and arrange a visit for many interested buyers or tenants.

      II.     2. Negotiation:

Real estate agents are usually quite good at persuading and price negotiations. That’s part of their job and something that they are doing day in and day out. You might not be as good as a professional agent or broker at communicating or convincing when it comes to persuading buyers or renters to go for the property.

    III.      3. Documentation

All real estate transactions, doesn't matter if it is renting out a property or selling it; need to have some well documented agreements. A real estate agent will be able to help you with the legalities and nitty-gritty of a transaction; you’ll have to be extra careful and vigilant while handling it yourself.

Farah is a contributing writer for a London loft conversion company, that specialize in planning and carrying out high quality loft conversions in London, Hertfordshire, and Essex.

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3 Benefits of a College Degree

 (Photo credit: pennstatelive)

In this age of globalization and competition, a college degree has become a must for all those who wish to work in knowledge based organizations. Here is what a college degree can mean to you:

Strong Knowledge Base

A college degree increases your ability to understand the subject in depth. It gives you the time to absorb the subject through a practical and focused approach. It teaches you the application of theoretical aspects of the subject, it gives you the education requirements for you career choices, enhances your writing and speaking skills and gives a broader exposure to the subject and everything related to it.

Higher pay package

A college degree could make a difference of at least $30,000 in the annual pay package that you can command than without it. Even a 2-year associate degree is better off than just a high school certificate.

Greater potential

College education can open up more job opportunities than you imagine. The general perception of bachelor’s degree holder is that this person is more equipped to deal with the challenges of work as compared to one without it. So if you have a college degree in your hands then you are better to attract more jobs your way.

So go ahead and get yourself a college degree, you will be glad you made the decision

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