Archive for 'Budgeting' Category

“You get rich by saving and investing”

9 September 2009 by Christopher Suleske

WRITES the sane (what passes for sage these days) Bill Bonner:
Two generations of American economists thought the way to bring prosperity was to encourage consumption. On the face of it, the idea is absurd. Classical economists…and Daily Reckoning commentators…laugh at the idea. You don’t really get rich by consuming; you get rich by saving and [...]

Consumer spending habits “forever” changed?

14 August 2009 by Christopher Suleske

Kristin BENTZ (by way of Peter GORENSTEIN) argues that the recent contraction of consumer spending is a permanent phenomenon:
Someone who wasn’t surprised by the weak data is former Wall Street retail analyst Kristin Bentz. “It’s going to take this consumer a long time to recover,” she says. The author of the retail focused investing blog, [...]

An example budget

11 October 2007 by Christopher Suleske

Here’s a pretty decent example budget I found in the ether:

CATEGORY
MONTHLY BUDGET AMOUNT
MONTHLY ACTUAL AMOUNT
DIFFERENCE

INCOME:
 
 
 

Wages and Bonuses
 
 
 

Interest Income
 
 
 

Investment Income
 
 
 

Miscellaneous Income
 
 
 

Income Subtotal
 
 
 

INCOME TAXES WITHHELD:
 
 
 

Federal Income Tax
 
 
 

State and Local Income Tax
 
 
 

Social Security/Medicare Tax
 
 
 

Income Taxes Subtotal
 
 
 

Spendable Income
 
 
 

EXPENSES:
 
 
 

HOME:
 
 
 

Mortgage or Rent
 
 
 

Homeowners/Renters Insurance
 
 
 

Property Taxes
 
 
 

Home Repairs/Maintenance/HOA Dues
 
 
 

Home Improvements
 
 
 

UTILITIES:
 
 
 

Electricity
 
 
 

Water and Sewer
 
 
 

Natural Gas or Oil
 
 
 

Telephone (Land Line, Cell)
 
 
 

FOOD:
 
 
 

Groceries
 
 
 

Eating Out, Lunches, [...]

Serious tax reform

2 March 2007 by Christopher Suleske

ARNOLD Kling, who writes for the libertarian e-rag, Tech Central Station, is always coming up with interesting reanalyses of subjects which on the surface appear to have been analyzed sufficiently. That said, Kling does a great job at examining angles somehow missed in earlier swags. His piece, Toward a Single-Digit Tax Rate is [...]

Links for youths

2 March 2007 by Christopher Suleske

THE Motley Fool, a great site no doubt, has a great piece from yore (earliest date I can find is Sept 27, 2001) which has been republished a number of times: Ten Things to Teach Your Kids About Money. Read the article for certain, but here are the 10 items:

Debt sucks.
Pay yourself first.
It’s the [...]

What concerns me most

16 October 2006 by Christopher Suleske

My father-in-law and I recently had a conversation in which he asked me about what I was most concerned, as I considered the future for my newborn daughter. Somewhat surprisingly, terrorism was not he answer. It was rather, “the national debt”. Were it Americans who owed other Americans this debt, I would be concerned [...]

Mvelopes Personal Budgeting

2 August 2006 by Christopher Suleske

I’d written before about the need for a shared vision between my wife and myself regarding our household budget. In that vein, I’ve been using for about a week a personal budgeting software package online called Mvelopes. I’ll probably allow my 30 day free trial to slide into a 12 month paid trial [...]

Reasons to be debt-free

21 July 2006 by Christopher Suleske

Crown Financial has a good article entitled “Reasons for becoming debt free”. Caveat: It is written from a distinctly Christian point of view, as are most things on the Crown site. But the important thing is that nothing communicated is exclusive to a Christian. That said…
The authors list several points why they [...]

Budgeting through a shared vision

18 July 2006 by Christopher Suleske

I am strongly considering a budgeting service I discovered through Crown Financial Ministries, an organization whose vision I generally support. It is called Mvelopes.
Doing a little research, I determined Mvelopes is not a Crown product, rather, Crown is remarketing a product of the In2M corporation. I’m always wary of these kinds of arrangements. [...]