Most of us have debt, but it doesn’t have to be the norm if you rather pay it off.   You can get professional help with debt or tackle the problem yourself.  With some willpower, a plan, and some automation, you can be debt free.

Track Your Income and Expenses

The first step to any money issue is to figure out where your money is being used.  Track your income and expenses for a month or more to find out exactly where your money is going.  This means keeping up with each and every expenditure.  If you start blowing off the small stuff, you won’t have a perfectly clear picture, so write it all down.  By the end of the month, you will have all of the spending information you’ll need to make a plan.

Make a Plan

You can use what you know from tracking your income and expenses to make debt management plans.  The first step is to see if your income is covering all of your spending.  If it is, then you can use your monthly extra towards debt.  If it isn’t, you’ll need to cut your expenses or increase your income.  Can your housing costs be decreased?  Have you called your monthly services to ask for discounts?  Do you have unnecessary expenses that can be cut?

If you decide to increase your income instead, look into a better paying job or a side hustle.  Dog walking, pet sitting, baby sitting, or a part-time job at a local business can usually fit into any schedule.  Take a look at all of your skills and see what you can monetize.

Tackle the Debt

Once your income surpasses your expenses, you can throw the extra towards your debt principal.  If you make a budget to stick to, remember to include a category just for debt payoff.  You can have it automatically applied or at least automatically moved into a different account to keep yourself from breaking your own rules.  We are sometimes our own worst enemies.

If you follow your own plans and keep hitting your debt with any extra you can scrape together, you will soon be celebrating debt freedom!  Good luck

Before the advent of online platforms like Mint.com (now owned by the makers of Quicken), personal finance management software was limited to a handful of options: Excel, Money, or Quicken.  Even after more choices emerged, the capabilities of these new program were mediocre compared to those offered by Quicken.

Since I’d established a history with Quicken and was dubious of entrusting ALL of my financial information to any one online service, I stuck with what I knew.

Aggregation & Automation make money management easy and effective.  Using Quicken’s “One-Step Update”, a single click downloads your financial transactions from all your institutions.

Because Quicken did all of the grunt work, more time could be dedicated to: scrutinizing inflows and outflows, creating budgeting plans or savings goals, reviewing investment performance, and so on.

But… it seems once flaws are noticed, more begin to emerge.

Starting with a few accounts, those little red exclamation points began popping up in the update summary.  Before I knew it, more time was spent finding workarounds and “duct-tape” solutions to these issues than on reviewing the information itself!

Accounts which used to be Direct Connect switched to Web Connect.  What’s the difference?  Instead of clicking the magic “One-Step Update” button, here are the new steps to get the same information:

• Log in to institution’s website
• Go to transaction history, statements, or similar page
• Specify download range (if necessary)
• Find the download transactions icon
• Download transactions to Quicken
• Go back into Quicken under File -> Import
• Find downloaded file & import
• Review & Accept Transactions

Ugh…

Another example is the hassle of dealing with unsupported institutions.  Both my 401k and my wife’s TSP require manual input into Quicken.  About 30 minutes every other week is spent simply updating these accounts.  And it becomes more tedious every quarter with dividends, capital gains, and expenses.

Due to shear frustration, my Paypal account has sat stagnant for several months now.  It updated nicely for about 1 year, and then decided to make my life difficult.  Reading how it needs to be set up as a Cash Account, this switchover was (unsuccessfully) attempted once already.  Because of previous transactions and transfers between accounts, it affected more than just Paypal.

Ironically enough, each time I try to hold our “Family Finance Forum” with my wife, she always wiggles out of it claiming her accounts aren’t right and we can’t talk about it if it’s not true!  Rightfully so, I want us to work together on the future of our finances, not whether this transaction from 4 days ago is correct!

I will continue to remain with Quicken and can only hope that these “minor” issues don’t swell into larger ones in the future.

1. Research and plan your needs for your home and your home loan.
2. Save for a home loan deposit, around 10-20 per cent of the property price.
3. Arrange finance including loan pre-approval.
4. Start looking for your new family home.
5. Narrow down the market to one ideal property, but don’t get too excited just yet.
6. Have the necessary building inspections done to inspect the condition of the property.
7. Complete the formal loan application and obtain full approval.
8. Complete all legal checks and requirements.
9. Exchange contracts with the seller and pay your deposit.
10. Once settlement is finalised you and your family can move in.

To help you with the five main stages of these steps, consider the following information and advice when buying a family home.

1 – What to buy for your family

If you are buying a new family home it is because your old home no longer suits your needs. Therefore, think about all the things you need and want from your new home. For example, do you need a yard for your children and dog to play in, and do you want an outdoor entertaining area so you can have BBQs at home with your family and friends? Also consider whether there are parks and footpaths around your new house if you like to take your family for walks around the neighbourhood, or if your children will want to ride their bikes.

Of course, your new family home doesn’t have to be a house at all, in many major cities families live in small properties such as apartments, townhouses or studios. This is not only more affordable, but can also mean you’re living in a newer home, closer to the city.

However, no matter what type of home you are looking at, make sure that the area and community suit your lifestyle and that you have access to the facilities you need such as schools, transport, shops, recreational facilities and your workplaces.

2 – Where to buy a family home

Whether you buy a new family home in the city, the country or the suburbs will depend on your family’s needs. For example, if it is important that you have a short commute to work you may look for a family home close to the city, but if you want your children to grow up with a country lifestyle and outlook you may look even further from the city, whereas the suburbs are a compromise for families who want to be away from the bustle of the city and enjoy some space, without being too isolated.

Also remember that where you live can affect where your children go to school, as many schools are zoned, and don’t accept students from outside of the zoned area.

It is also important to look at the value of the area and consider whether property prices are rising or falling in the area. Also look at factors which would influence your property’s value such as the proximity to jails, factories, sewerage plants or major construction. Remember that being on a busy road or intersection, or under a flight path can make normal family life even noisier.

3 – When to buy

The property market always has its ups and downs and if you are considering a move for your family, the best time can be:
When interest rates begin to fall after a peak period as house prices are going to rise soon after as more buyers enter the market so you want to get in before that happens.
When house prices are low in a depressed market.
When inflation is rising because house prices are likely to increase faster as inflation gathers speed.

At any time it is possible to find a bargain on a family home by looking for homes which have been passed in at auction. This means that the bidding didn’t meet the reserve price the vendor was asking for, and if there is little interest in the property, the vendor may be willing to accept a lower price.

4 – Your budget

As much as you and your family may want two extra bedrooms and a bigger backyard, you need to buy your family home based on what you can afford, balanced with what you want and need. It can be tempting to stretch yourself financially to be able to buy a family home you fall in love with, but this is actually putting your family at more risk as you may struggle to repay your home loan in the future and risk defaulting, or not being able to pay your other bills.

To work out what you can afford, remember that when you buy a new home you will need around 5% of the purchase price to cover the legal and government charges, the loan establishment fees and mortgage insurance. You may need even more than this as stamp duty is calculated as a percentage of the total purchase price. These are all costs you will need to save up to pay for, on top of saving for a deposit.

Most home loans will require a deposit which is 10% of the purchase price. While some lenders may let you put down just a 5% deposit, the more you can put down, the lower your mortgage repayments will be, the less you will pay in mortgage insurance premiums and you may be able to afford to buy a better family home. Mortgage insurance protects the lender if you default on your home loan, and is charged based on the level of risk you represent to the lender. Therefore, if you provide a higher deposit amount you represent a lower risk.

When you are buying a family home you want to make sure your family can feel safe and secure in their new home, so you should also budget for income protection insurance. If something happens to you and you are unable to make your mortgage repayments, income protection insurance can pay your bills to protect your financial security.

As you start looking for a new family home, allow enough time for your budget to catch up, remembering that it takes most people between two and five years to save the necessary deposit, and another three months to find the right lender.

5 – Borrowing to buy your family home

There are hundreds of different loans to choose from to help you finance the purchase of your new family home and since your home loan will be one of the biggest expenses in your monthly budget, you want to make sure you have the most affordable loan product. The most affordable loan product is the one which suits your needs and finances, as it will help you to repay your loan sooner, as well as save you money on any features you’re not going to use.

The main loan types you can choose from when buying a family home include:

• Standard variable loan. This means your interest rate changes as the lender adjusts their rates in line with official interest rates. As a result your monthly repayments can fluctuate, but you will be able to take advantage of falling rates.
• Line of credit. This is a revolving loan account which allows you to use the equity you have in your home as security to draw down on that amount as you need it, only paying interest on the amount you have used.
• Interest only. None of your principal loan amount is repaid over an interest only term, and you make just lower interest repayments.
• Bridging loan. Can help you buy a new family home before you have sold your old home and you can often have your interest and repayments capitalised so you are only repaying one mortgage until your old house sells.
• Construction loan. Lets you draw down on your loan amount at strategic times during the building process to pay for the construction of your family home, and you make interest only repayments until your house is finished.

To help you decide which of these home loans is right for your family, consider:

1. Whether you want the flexibility to make additional repayments.
2. If you would prefer fixed monthly loan repayments.
3. If you need a redraw facility to access additional repayments.
4. If you want to be able to pause repayments while your family is young and you are working less.
5. Whether you will be making weekly, fortnightly or monthly repayments.
6. The size of your deposit and whether you will need to pay mortgage insurance.
7. Whether you can use your existing family home as security for a home equity loan.

Alban has contributed to several personal finance blogs. When he is not sharing his thoughts, Alban is a writer at Personal Loan Finder

We rant and rave about the envy surrounding material possessions, the vanity of keeping up with the Joneses, and the evils of debt – yet most, if not all, of us has written at least one article about some planned or actual trip without concerning ourselves over the cost (or at least trying to justify them).

Just like JD Roth, the thrill of traveling comes from the experience itself, the people you encounter, and how you grow from it. He chronicled his journey through Africa and what he learned while there. Notice the focus on the people he met.

With our 1-year anniversary coming up this weekend, I reflected upon our own excursions. Since we’ve been married, my wife and I have been to Belize (honeymoon), Iceland, Niagara Falls, and will be going to China this November.

We’re months away from our trip, yet are already discussing “what’s next”. Curacao or Hawaii are potential options right now, though we’ve mentioned at least a dozen other countries!

A review of incurred costs reveals traveling is quite the expenditure for us. Sure, we are saving aggressively. We never carry a credit card balance. We have zero debt. We have a robust net worth for our age, but does this qualify us to spend indiscriminately on travel?

There’s a saying I’ve heard which goes: “You can have anything in the world, but you can’t have everything”. I absolutely love the sentiment because it doesn’t limit you in what can be obtained, but rather forces you to recognize choices must be made.

Ramit Sethi championed this idea with the term “conscious spending”. He outlined the habits of friends who spend $5,000/year on shoes and $21,000/year on going out and how they are justified in their spending.

Instead of thoughtlessly spending money on whatever crosses our paths, people engage themselves into determining what it is they truly value. What you personally decide to spend money on doesn’t particularly matter, so long as it’s what you decide is important and not what you think others are expecting you to spend on.

Even with billions of dollars, you could have anything in the world, but not everything.

… starting to sound like a bad daytime show theme:  “Did your ex-boyfriend ditch you and his puppy-gift, leaving you with the costs? Coming up next!”

Unfortunately, that’s often how pet ownership begins – on a whim.  But after reading an article on Forbes titled, My Dog’s Life Cost $36,846.24, it got me thinking how the decision to become a pet owner is like any other investment and should not be taken lightly.

The ASPCA compiled a chart outlining the costs of pet care.  These costs represent the minimum for “humane care” and clearly note you should expect to pay more than what is detailed.

Using the basic information, a medium dog will cost you a minimum of $695/year not including the initial $565 start-up costs.  So at a bare minimum you will spend no less than $7,500 over the course of 10 years.   Upgrading to a large dog will increase that bottom line by $1,800.

Remember the ASPCA only captures the minimum for humane care.  The Forbes’ author spent almost 5x those projections so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to use a 2.5x multiplier as a truer average cost.  If you add this new premium, those baseline costs soar from $7,500 to $18,750.

Potential pet owner should be aware of these estimated costs next time they head to the local pet store or animal shelter, though the analysis doesn’t stop there.  The author noted 70% ($25,024.29) of his dog’s total cost went to medical bills alone and nearly 65% ($16,217.49) of that amount was realized in the last 3 years of the dog’s life.

Understanding your potential pet’s breed and associated medical issues can be another significant contributor to your overall costs.  Then there’s the question of if and when to terminate life.  The author states their own dog lived 3 years longer than the average basset.  These were also the most expensive years as far as costs are concerned.  Just like an investment, when you get out can be just as important as when you get in.

Of course, this article isn’t to diminish the value of pets or support early euthanasia.  Many will argue a pet’s love and companionship are priceless, while others are content with owning a fish at $35/year.  The point of highlighting the costs is to prevent people from jumping in head-first and assuming responsibility for something they may not have the financial wherewithal to stand.

Since it’s not at the forefront of people’s minds on any given day, it may come as a shock to learn you have a lower credit score than you may have previously estimated.

In a tough economy good credit is essential, so how can you bump up that score to stand a chance with lenders?

First of all, take account of your current situation. Are you paying your bills on time or have you found yourself living paycheck-to-paycheck? If you have struggled to make minimum payments each month, fixing your credit will be more difficult, but not impossible.

Obtain a copy of your credit report and dispute any inaccurate information. If unpaid accounts are present, pay them. You may find a quick call to the company can produce a better resolution.

Some people who have experience financial woes in the past, such as foreclosures or bankruptcy, may consider living a cash-only lifestyle. This will never boost your scores and it will only take longer to recover.

Apply for a low-balance credit card if you don’t already have one, make modest purchases and double up on those minimum payments. It’s even a good idea to use any savings you may have to completely pay off the card’s balance every month.

If you already have one or two credit cards, don’t apply for anymore. You may be tempted to improve your credit score by maintaining low balances on multiple cards, but there’s always the temptation to max out every card. Getting into that situation with several cards will only put more strain on your financial situation.

Create healthier habits. Online bill-pay may be more convenient, but some people lose sight of the amount of money they’re spending in auto-drafted bills. Switch back to mail-in bills and write those checks personally.

On that same note, keep better track of your savings by keeping debit card purchases to a minimum. Swiping plastic is a cinch, but it distracts us as to the amount of money we’re really spending. Write checks when vendors accept them or withdraw cash from the ATM for store purchases.

Never close unused credit card accounts. If you’re trying to improve your credit score, closing accounts always hurts and can even make your score drop.

A better alternative is to cut up unused credit cards or hide them so you won’t be tempted to use them.

It’s especially important to keep old accounts open. The older the account, the more you’ll come across as an established, responsible consumer.

Use savings to pay down high balances. Perhaps you’ve built up savings for a house but still need to apply for a mortgage. Using the savings to pay down credit card balances will make you look better to potential mortgage lenders because your debt-to-income ratio will be much better.

If you’re at a loss as to how to improve your credit, don’t turn to credit repair companies. Many people find they end up spending hundreds of dollars on credit repair services only to end up disheartened, with fewer savings.

When you do need extra help, seek out local non-profit counselling services or schedule a free legal consultation. You can clean up your credit by yourself; it just takes a little extra time and effort.

Amongst the main reasons why individuals might be refused credit is poor credit ratings due to bad credit in the past (ratings may be affected by previous failure to repay loans or bills). It may also be due to a lack of credit history as a result of self-employment, part time employment, unemployment, low income, no income, changes in address and even not being on the electoral register.

For anyone encountering credit issues, there are several bad credit credit cards available on offer that may be worth considering.

Designed for people with less than ideal credit scores or a lack of credit histories, these credit cards can prove to be a step in the right direction for those plagued by the lack of or poor credit ratings.

First and foremost, applying for bad credit credit cards can help an individual improve and better his or her credit rating. Every time an individual applies for credit, the credit provider makes checks of the financial history of the applicant, to determine the risk involved in the loan.

Late or missed payments show up on the history and may result in poorer credit rating. Those without established credit history may also be categorized by lenders as being more risky to lend to because of the lack of credit information of financial credibility.

However, establishing a history of diligent, responsible and prompt payments can result positively for an individual’s credit rating. Credit cards can thus help those with bad or no credit histories to get back on track, or to get on the track in the first place.

Following from the above, for those with bad or no credit, credit cards can be a fresh start to establish sound credit history, or to improve bad credit rating.

By using credit cards wisely and responsibly, making prompt payments and keeping within the given credit limit, poor credit ratings can be repaired in a relatively short span of time.

Even with poor or no credit ratings, credit cards can help individuals to make a head start in getting in control of their finances, managing their monies and planning for the future.

With the establishing or the rebuilding and improving of credit ratings through the responsible use of credit cards, individuals previously overwhelmed with bad credit issues can look forward to a better and brighter financial future.

This includes increased possibilities of better interest rates on credit and loans taken in the future, higher limits on credit cards over time and better terms and conditions for refinancing.

A good credit rating will open potential credit applicants up to easier and quicker approval for a wider variety of financial products. Not only does this put an individual in a stronger position to negotiate better terms with the credit provider, it also increases loan options for the individual.

As lender confidence increases with better credit ratings, more options for credit and loans will also be available to the individual. This will come with a higher chance of approval for credit or for taking out loans.

Bettering credit ratings or establishing credit histories notwithstanding, credit cards can be highly useful even for those with poor credit standing. These financial tools can prove to be lifesavers in the events of emergency, where there are expenses incurred that might go beyond what can be afforded just by using savings.

For these unfortunate events, such as repairing damaged property or financing medical procedures, credit cards can prove to be very helpful, as long as the credit is repaid as promptly as possible.

Even if you were always able to get credit easily in the past, you may now find yourself being rejected for no apparent reason.

Unfortunately, it is a vicious circle of rejection and further rejection, for even one rejection weakens your credit score and can lead to more.

Credit scoring can be a mysterious thing and not all lenders adopt the same approach, so it can be difficult to know how to improve it.

If you receive a lot of rejections, then your credit score must be low, or you have a poor credit history. If you have only been rejected once, then you may not just fit those particular lenders’ parameters.

There are a number of things you can do to improve your credit score and get back on track.

One option is to look at applying for bad credit credit cards. These cards are designed for those with a poor credit rating.

If you are someone with a bad credit rating, you will not be considered for the most competitive deals on the market but a bad credit credit card is ideal if you have poor rating or you have little or no credit history to assess.

One of these cards can go a long way to improving your credit rating and in return giving a better chance at securing a more competitive credit card deal in the future.

Bad credit credit cards are essentially a trial run, a chance for you to demonstrate that you can manage credit and debt responsibly.

After all, a credit card can be a very useful thing to have in certain scenarios, for example it is a good idea to make any purchases over $100 on a credit card as this offers you a certain level of protection should anything go wrong.

If the goods you buy are faulty, or the company you purchase from goes bankrupt, your payment is protected, unlike if you had paid cash, or by debit.

They are also very useful for purchasing products on the internet, an increasingly popular way to shop.

These cards do, of course, come with certain drawbacks, as part of their remit is to encourage responsible lending. So naturally the annual percentage rates (APRs) are much higher than on other credit cards on the market.

You will not be able to access any interest free deals on these cards either. By operating strictly within the rules of these cards, that is paying them off every month in full so you do not incur interest, you can work towards improving your credit rating.

It is also a good way to build up a good credit history from scratch. Another point to remember is that payment protection insurance is costly and if you feel you might need it, then check out some stand alone providers first as they often offer better value.

However, with many of the apparently easier ways to make money now gone, banks are resorting to ever more clever ways of earning fees.

Savings rates (linked to Reserve Rates) are at record lows. Real savings rates are negative, as inflation runs at much higher rates. Careful savers are being penalised by seeing the purchasing power of their money reduced over time.

Banks respond by using term savings products that encourage savers to fix savings into one, two or up to five year terms, meaning that they lose ready access to their money and have to take a risk on where future money cost rates will go.

Banks have increased both the frequency and amount of fees being charged. Now it is common place to have administration fees for services that were once free. Application fees, for example, are also being charged for loans or mortgages.

Obtaining a credit card has also become much harder. Even the number of balance transfers deals that were once common have reduced. But for the customer with a good credit history, this can be an excellent way of reducing the very high charges levied by banks on debt balances.

But even balance transfers are not truly free. Most companies levy a flat fee for effecting a transfer in exchange for an interest free period.

In addition, interest charges on new purchases using the card can be high so extreme care needs to be exercised when looking at the various balance transfers offers.

Getting all the relevant information in one place means using one of the comparison websites. These do most of the leg work, by analysing the offers and clearly stating what fees and charges are made.

The same is also true for virtually every financial product on the market today. Even insurance products may contain hidden fees for previously free services, so reading the small print and choosing carefully is essential to avoid being charged unnecessarily.

Assume nothing and check everything has to be the motto for the future. Sure, a strong financial sector is vital for the success of a modern open trading society, but that does not mean that consumers should pay excessive fees or charges.

Shopping around for the best deals is more important now than ever before. Even with reduced competition, there are still options for savvy savers and borrowers.

Banks thrive on lethargy, so invest time and effort into analyzing options and savings can be made. Banks love new customers and milk existing loyal ones.

A good credit record opens the doors to many options but use it wisely and carefully to seek out loan, saving and balance transfer options.

Remember that a credit history also contains a record of applications, so if they spot that you are a regular shopper or hopper there is a risk of being declined.

Beat the banks at their own game. Make them want your business buy being appealing. That means making the absolute most of your credit record, so work hard to keep it in top shape.

Sometimes the choices are bewildering and sorting out the essential from the desirable and the best value from the expensive can be devilishly hard.

Furthermore, many of the offers that look attractive on the surface can turn out to be expensive in the long run once the introductory offers have expired, so making sure that the product chosen suits the need you have is important.

Comparison websites that cover all the financial services products can play an extremely valuable role in saving time and comparing products on a like for like basis.

Banking services, for many, mean a mortgage, insurance, current account, loans and credit cards. Added to that may be the need for a savings account where a rainy day fund can be managed.

As you can see, that is already a bewilderingly large number of services, so any expert help and advice to sift through the many offers has to be advantageous.

Financial service providers depend on consumer inertia to make money and, generally speaking, people do not move bank accounts or apply for new credit cards once they already have them.

That means that banks and other providers are able to charge high prices for borrowing and low rates for saving for those accounts that have been open for some time.

To get hard earned money working best, the consumer has to be prepared to shop around and take advantage of the many offers as they arise.

There is a balance, however, as constantly applying for new accounts, cards or savings accounts can adversely affect the credit record and the providers will determine that you are a savvy shopper and may decline your business.

So the art is to be clever. It is not possible to take advantage of all the offers, so make sure to optimize what works best.

Take credit cards, for example. There are many interest free transfer deals available on comparison sites such as Moneysupermarket, but ensure you are getting the best free period linked to the lowest fee charged and, if you plan to use the card for forward purchases, the lowest interest rate.

No balance transfer card comes truly free, so carefully calculating the cost of the fee versus the length of the free period is important. Ideally, a balance transfer card can give an interest free period in which to pay off the balance without incurring new spend at their high rates of interest.

As a rule of thumb most online accounts offer better deals, so online banking is usually the way to go.

Savings and insurance are other complex areas where care is needed to make sure that the best combination of either rates or cover are achieved. With inflation exceeding most savings rates, getting every last penny of interest can make a big difference over time.

As with all shopping, it pays to browse the market before choosing which products to buy but, unfortunately, that takes time, even though much of the hard graft has been done by experts to make the task easier.

Timing can also be important as offers come to the market and can expire quickly, so keeping an eye to the market by regularly checking the options can improve the chances of getting the best deals.