Here are some additional tips help you prepare and simplify your finances in case of a hurricane.

1. Review your homeowner’s insurance policy – Make sure you are properly covered and amount of coverage.
2. Review your flood policy – Understand what is covered
3. Review your wind policy – Understand your deductibles
4. Know who to contact if you incur damages.
5. Take inventory of your personal property
6. Have a plan in place if you need to evacuate.  Know where your going ahead of time.  Less stress if you have a plan in place.
7. Create file of all important documents to take with you.
8. Is your emergency fund properly funded to cover your insurance deductible

These 8 steps will help you simplify your hurricane preparedness. Remember take one step at a time to simplify your personal finances.

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Here are ways that a high credit score will help you win the game.

Better interest rates
Knowing your score enables you to know what interest rate you should receive when you apply for home loan, car loan, or credit card. The higher the score the better interest rate you will receive. So knowing your score provides you with some bargaining power when it comes to interest rates.

Better approval rate
Not only will you receive better interest rates if you have a high credit score but you are more likely to get approval for your loan request. Having high credit score is more important than the amount of income you earn. I say this because before your loan goes to the underwriting process your credit report is pulled. If your credit score is low, your loan request will not even make it the underwriting process.

Lower insurance rates
Yes your driving record and claims history is important factor that determines your insurance rate. But your credit score is just as important. If you have a high credit score you will receive a lower rate if everything else is in order. So your credit score can impact the insurance rate you receive.

Improve employment chances
Yes your credit score can determine if you receive that next job offer. If everything else is equal and your credit score is lower than the other candidates, you maybe facing an uphill battle to land the job. With a tight job market, your credit score can be the determining factor if you get the job or not. Potential employer will look at your credit score to see if you are fiscally responsible.

Take Action:

Pull your credit report to review your credit score. Look to see what your score is and look for ways to improve your score. You want to do this prior to applying for a loan, applying for a job or purchasing insurance. In the financial game the highest score always wins.

Remember take one step at a time to simplify your personal finances.

This post was featured in Money Hacks Carnival # 102

If you would like more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

If you would like more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

In a previous post Are your Personal Finances Ready for the Unexpected? I discuss the important of being prepared. With the recent earthquakes in Haiti, its a reminder that we all need to be prepared for those unexpected natural disasters. You never know when it will strike but you should be prepare in case it does strike. We all say it will never happen to us but trust me it can happen. Having lived through a natural disaster, I know what it is like.  Its not easy but having your personal finances and emergency plan in place helps relieve some stress.

Here are five things you will need to help you prepare financial for a natural disaster:

Emergency Fund – Make sure your emergency fund is properly funded in case of disaster.  Do you currently have sufficient funds in your emergency fund to cover the cost of your insurance deductibles or any other expense no cover by your insurance.

Home owner’s Insurance – Do you have proper homeowner’s insurance on your home?  Does your current homeowner’s policy cover natural disaster?  You want to make sure you are properly covered in case of disaster.

Disaster Insurance – Do you currently have flood, earthquake, fire, tornado, or hurricane in place in case of disaster?  If you have this insurance already in place is the coverage adequate?   Review your home owner’s and disaster insurance to make these two policies will coverage any damage to your home.

Financial Documents – Create a file to keep copies of all your important documents such as insurance policies, medical documents, and any other documents you may need in emergency.  You should keep these in file cabinet instead on your computer.  You will probably not have electricity or internet access.

Financial Contact List – Create a disaster contact file.  This should include numbers to your insurance company, mortgage company, and debt holders.  This list should also be keep with the financial documents so everything you will need is in one location.

Action Step

Here are three action steps:

1. Take some time this week to review your emergency fund to make sure its properly funded with enough funds to cover your insurance deductibles and other out of pocket expenses you can anticipate.
2. Review your home owner and disaster insurance coverage to make sure you are properly covered.  If not, call your insurance provider to increase your coverage.
3. Create your disaster plan file folder by gathering all the necessary documents and numbers that you will need in a disaster situation.

Remember take one step at a time to simplify your personal finances.

If you would like more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Is saving more money one of your New Year’s resolutions. Saving is key to helping you live a simple financial lifestyle. You want to have save for retirement, emergency fund or any other reason. But many times we find it difficult to save. We all have a difficult time finding ways to save money. You probably have thought maybe if I cut coupons I can save some money. Yes, you can save money by cutting coupons but do you want to spend time cutting and sorting to save money. I know I do not enjoy cutting coupons. Most of the time if I have a coupon I forget to use it or if I do remember its expired. So I really do not want to waste my time cutting coupon when I don’t even use them.

Here are 10 ways to save as well as simplify your personal financial lifestyle in 2010 without cutting coupons:

Set a yearly savings goals. In order to save you should have an annual savings goal.  This way you have something to shot for.  Instead of randomly saying I want to save without having a specific amount to save.  An easy way to do this is to set a monthly goal which will help you reach your annual goal.

Establish a budget to prevent you from overspending. If you have a budget it enables you to save because you are monitoring your spending.

Automate your savings to help you save. If you automate your saving you will not have to remember at the beginning or end of the month to set a side a specific amount.  It will already be done without you having to do anything but set the amount you want to save monthly.

Review your cell phone, cable and utility bills. Look to see if you can save by eliminating services that you do not use or look for less expensive plan that fits your needs.  Do you really use all of those minutes in your plan or do you even watch all of the channels with your cable service.

Review your monthly banking charges. Look to see if you are being charged monthly service fees on your banking or have unnecessary non-bank ATM charges.  Eliminating these simple charges will help you save.

Review your current mortgage payment. Look to see if you should possibly refinance your mortgage to lower your monthly payment to save money.  Here are seven things to consider before you consider refinancing.

Review your credit card interest rate. Look to see what interest rate your credit cards are charging you.  See if its possible to have your interest rate lowered to save.  Also check to see if you are charged an annual fee.  Lowering the interest rate and eliminating any fees will help you save.

Eliminate debt. Paying off your credit cards and any other debt you have will eliminate interest charges as well as free up your monthly cashflow.

Review your monthly memberships and subscriptions.  Are you paying for monthly memberships you are not even using or have monthly subscriptions you can eliminate to help you save.
Review your insurance premiums. Look at your auto and home insurance to see if you can reduce the annual cost not the coverage to save this year.

How do you plan to save more in 2010 without cutting coupons?

Action Step
Review this list of saving tips and look to see what tips you can apply to save.   If you have not set a saving goal or put a budget in place do this now.  These two simple tips will go a long way in helping you save in 2010.

Remember take one step at a time to begin to live a simple financial lifestyle.

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Here is this week’s simple financial tip to help you design your credit card disaster plan:

• Write down your credit card number. Write down the number of each credit card you hold and file them in a safe place that you will remember they are located.  What you don’t want to do is write them down and forget where you stored them.  This will defeat the purpose of putting the disaster plan in place.  This should not take long since you should have reduced the number of credit cards you are holding.  You can also just make a copy of the front and back of each card and save in a file.

• Write down the 800 number to credit card company. Alone with the credit card number you also want to keep the phone number of credit card company in case you need to call the company to replace or cancel your cards.  Keep this number with the credit card file as well.

• Write down the recurring bills you have tied to each card. Its not always easy remembering which recurring charges you have on each card so write them down.  This will make it easier on you if you have to cancel your existing card and reestablish those recurring payment.  What you don’t want to occur is establish autopayments to your credit card and forget to provide the new credit card number which results in your bill not be paid.

Action Step

Review the credit cards you currently hold and look to see if you have the credit card number, credit card company phone, and which recurring bills you have charged to each card in a file.  If not set up a credit card disaster file.  It will save you time when you do need to replace your existing credit cards.

What are some things you have implemented in case you lost or need to replace your credit cards to simplify things?

Remember take one step at a time to simplify your personal finances.

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

“Let go of the past and go for the future. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined. “      Henry David Thoreau

Looking for a fresh start. An opportunity to start over again.  An opportunity to set new financial goals and objectives.  An opportunity to design the financial lifestyle you want to live.  You probably already have some goals in mind that you want to accomplish.

How will you stay on track to make sure you reach the personal financial goals you want to accomplish?  Yes its easy to say I want to simplify my finances.  But how will you do it and how will you know if you are accomplishing your goals.

Have you considered writing a financial mission statement to help you simplify your personal finances.  A financial mission statement will help you change your financial direction so you can live the financial lifestyle you desire.

Here is this week’s simple financial tip to help you design your personal financial mission statement:

1. Mission statement must be written or typed. Its always easier to accomplish your goals is its written.
2. Read your mission statement regularly. This way your are constantly reminded of your goals and objectives.
3. Commit your mission statement to memory. By reading it regularly you will commit it to memory.
4. Mission statement must have specific and measurable goals and objectives. This will be your road map to help you accomplish your financial goals.
5. Must have specific deadlines. Having monthly deadlines will help you meet your year end deadline.

Action Step

Now follow those 5 simple steps to design your personal financial mission statement.  This simple statement can go a long way in helping you simplify your personal finances.  Remember take one step at time to simplify your personal financial lifestyle.  This is the first step.

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Here are this week’s simple finance tip to help you simplify your personal finance by using cash:

No monthly bills – if you pay with cash there will be no bills to pay at the end of the month. You pay for it and you are done.

Use it up no more to spend – Once you run out of cash there is no more to use. So you can not buy something if you do not have the money. It helps eliminate buying things that you really don’t need. Because you know your cash is limited.

No additional work to do – using cash you do not have to remember to pay the bill at the end of the month because there is no bill to pay. You do not have to set up auto pay. You do not have to mail a bill. No spreadsheet to track of your payment schedule.

No additional cost when you use cash – You will not have any interest to pay if you use cash. You do not have to pay for stamps or envelopes. Depending on what you purchase you may receive a discount by using cash.

Action Step
Look to see how often you use cash instead of credit. If you see yourself using credit instead of cash consider not using credit for several weeks. This will probably help you manage you finances since you know you can only spend what you have available.

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Here are this week’s simple financial tips to help you in case you lost your wallet or purse:

Make copy of all important contents such as credit cards, driver’s license, insurance cards, debit cards and any other card or identification.  I know I do not know my driver’s license number like I know my social security number.  This way if missed place you will have a copy of the information.

Make a list of all phone numbers needed to replace the information that was lost.  This way you will not have to go looking for old account statements.  The numbers should be keep with the copies of the contents so all information can quickly be obtained.

Contact your bank and credit card company to inform them that your cards have been misplaced.  They should be able to send out new cards with new accounts numbers.  If stolen you want to do this as soon as possible so that your cards and accounts can be closed.

Pull your credit bureau several weeks after you misplace your wallet or purse.  You need to do this to make sure no one has tried to use your information to open new accounts.   Reviewing your credit bureau will enable you to see if any additional accounts were opened without your knowledge.

Minimize the information you carry in your purse or wallet.  Limiting the cards and information you carry will eliminate the need to contact every credit card company, bank, or other company you have accounts with.

TAKE ACTION

Review the current contents you have in your wallet or purse.  Decide what you should carry everyday and what should not carry.  Then make copies of the information you believe should be held in your wallet or purse and put it in a file.  This way you can quick know what was in your wallet if you happen to misplace it.

Til next week take one step at a time to simplify your personal financial life.

This post was featured in Carnival of Personal Finance – Parts of Speech Abuse Edition hosted by Mighty Bargin Hunter

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

If you liked these tips and want to learn more, make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Every year you receive your annual homeowner’s insurance premium notice usually 30 days prior to renewal date.  Do you just renew your policy without considering the cost and coverage?  Many of us just assume that your existing insurance company is providing you with the best rate and coverage for your situation since you are an existing customer.

So before you just renew your annual homeowner’s policy you may want to check to see if your existing insurance provider is offering you the best price on your existing policy.  But don’t let cost be the only determining factor when considering changing your homeowner’s insurance provider.

Here are some other factors to consider before you decide if you should change insurance providers with your next premium renewal:

1. What amount of coverage does your policy cover?  Its it enough or is it too much?
2. Does the new company provide excellent customer service?
3. How is the new company rated?  Will they be there when you need them.
4. What will your new deductible be?  Is it higher or lower than your existing deductible?
5. Will you receive any discounts by consolidating your auto and homeowner’s policy?
6. Will your insurance coverage change with the new policy?  Will you still have the same type of coverage or will you have additional coverage?

Always make sure you are comparing apples to apples when considering a change.

ACTION STEP

Take action when you receive your next policy premium notice by reviewing your homeowner’s insurance premium instead of just renewing it.  It may take some time but it will benefit you with cost saving or better policy coverage.

Til next week take one step at a time to simplify your personal financial life.

Here are this week’s tips to help you simplify your personal finances by helping you avoid these personal financial budget busters:

Splurge or unplanned purchase – we all do it but we must limit it or at least budget for it.  If you know you have a tendency to buy things at the spur of the moment instead of planning just put it in your budget.  Hopefully you are not buying high ticket items every month.  If you are you may need to look at your spending.

Medical cost – Unplanned medical expenses are usually something you really can not plan for.  But you can have medical insurance in place.  Having adequate medical insurance and a reasonable deductible or co-payment will lessen the impact of those unplanned medical expenses.

Unplanned repair bills – just like medical expenses you can not always predict when they will occur.  To lessen the impact on you budget have preventive maintenance done on you car, home and any other thing that could break.  You can schedule these out and prepare for them in your budget.  Many  times even if you do preventive maintenance things will still need repairing.  This is why you should have an emergency fund in place so your monthly budget is not impacted.

Eating out – this is where I could use some work.  Its so easy to just go out to eat instead of planning ahead and have dinner at home.  Try limiting the times you go to dinner each week.

Increase insurance expenses - we can not control how much our insurance premiums will increase each year.  But what you can do so your premium does not bust your budget is review your insurance policies each year to make sure your coverage is appropriate.  You may want to even shop for another insurance providers if the increase is significant.

By avoiding these budget busters you can hopefully create a budget and stick to it.  What are your budget busters and how do you avoid them?

ACTION STEP

Take action by reviewing your spending and think about what is causing you not to stick to your monthly budget.

If you liked these tips and want to learn more, make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Til next week take one step at a time to simplify your personal financial life.