Best money reads |

Love and Money, the Big Affair

February 10, 2016 By SmartSaver No Comments

With Valentine’s day around the corner, you surely had a look at some gift recommendations or date ideas. If you are interested in both love and money then some articles or blog posts may harm your romantic spirit.

Money matters in the success of your love story

A survey carried by Credit Savvy, an Australian consumer advocate website, showed that 57% of respondents would break up with their partner if he/she was in a delicate financial situation. The majority of people surveyed also considered that their partner’s financial situation was important in their relationship. Another study by Citibank showed that 78% of American currently in a relationship give more importance to how diligent their partner is with his money rather than his look. It seems like that unconditional love does not survive to the budgeting and money management reality check.

Less sweet talks and more Money conversations

Unfortunately, money related issues are often a reason of fights between partners. Especially if they have not shared their core views about budgeting and money management before going further in the relationship. Marriage is a partnership that also includes how to deal with the household finances. Do you share the same money values? You may be comfortable treating yourself to luxury vacations whereas your partner would rather save the money for a home deposit. Will you share responsibilities in financial decisions making? Will your partner take care of all financial investment decisions and you look only after the household budget? Before moving in together, have you already decided how you are going to split the expenses and if you want to open a joint account?

The little hints to check your financial compatibility

You do not need to tackle the sensitive financial question straight after your first date. Actually you can learn a lot just by meeting and discussing about your life. Your potential future partner’s past and has shaped a lot of his/her vision of money. A person who grew up in a privileged environment may not feel comfortable splashing money on expensive clothes if he/she has always been taught that money requires efforts. If your date never pays the full bill, you can’t expect this to change in the future. Everyone has different priorities in life and in what they use their money for. Make sure you are always on the same page so it doesn’t come as a reason for breakup.

Do not forget budgeting and personal finance wisdom

Knowing the structure of your household’s finance and keeping records is important. Especially if, God forbid, your relationship goes wrong. A breakup is already painful in itself and is even more difficult to deal with when you fight about money. Make sure you know who paid for what and how things work, it will spare you a lot of headaches if you split up.

These are just things to bear in mind to preserve your relationship in the long-term. For those who prepared a special something for their significant other, we wish you a very happy Valentine’s day full of romanticism. Money talks can wait a bit.

Millennials and Money: What’s the Big Deal?

January 29, 2016 By SmartSaver No Comments

I don’t know about you but I have seen a lot of articles lately about Millennials or generation Y and their relationship with money and personal finance. Actually, you will read a lot of articles focusing on the people born between 1982 and 1993 because they are participating in reshaping society’s values. Let’s see what we can learn from their vision of money management.

Millennials Save…but for what?

Maybe because of the economic uncertainty, millennials save more money than previous generations. That may be a good thing but according to a Facebook survey, they don’t really have a financial plan or really know what they are saving for. It’s a good thing to save money but the key is to save efficiently by having goals and invest accordingly. At least, millennials are less likely to build debt when an unexpected expense arises.

Millennials Talk About Money but don’t feel understood

According to a new survey by Ally Bank, Millenials talk about their money more openly than previous generations. They even consider they learnt most of their personal finance knowledge from their parents. However, the Facebook survey showed that almost half of them don’t think their financial institution answers their needs adequately. It is likely that Millennials will change the face of banking. Many of them manage their money online showing the need for user friendly mobile applications and internet websites.

Millennials still lack knowledge in money management

If we consider the number of personal finance blogs, money management courses that flourished the past few years, we can clearly see the need of financial education. Marketing retailers put a lot of focus on getting millennials’money out of their wallet. Because of poor financial knowledge and money management, some millennial personal finance bloggers started a budgeting revolution. Others were just feeling lost about how they managed their money in the most efficient way. They decided to share their positive experience and some of them have an impressive number of readers.

You will find below a non exhaustive list of personal finance blogs targeted to Millennials:

Making Sense Of Cents

Frugal Rules

Millennials are also avid smartphone users when shopping and they are very tech savvy. We hope that some will have chosen a budgeting and personal finance mobile app like QMR 😉 to help them tracking their money and manage their budget.

Liked this blog post? Maybe you will also like this blog post about what you should pay attention to at some critical stages of your life.

Any money and budget resolution for 2016?

January 8, 2016 By SmartSaver No Comments

The team of Quick Money Recorder wishes you a very happy new year 2016 full of financial success! We are now well into January with most of us getting back into the usual work routine after sharing precious moments with friends and family. The new year can be the start of a change in the way we manage our money. We were very interested in a survey about Americans’New Year’s resolutions and thought we would share our modest opinion with you!

Money and budgeting resolutions are moderately popular

GoBankingRates conducted a survey over 5000 Americans to know what were the most popular resolutions in 2016. Respondents were given 6 choices among which 2 were related to personal finance. 2/3 of respondents chose resolutions presented in the list with “Spending less, save more” and “Pay Down debt” coming at the bottom (30.1% and 27.5% respectively). Millennials were the biggest segment to think about saving money while generation X was more like to choose debt reduction. Unsurprisingly, hedonist choices like “Living life to its fullest” came at the top.

Resolutions are good…if they lead to concrete results

Anyone has had the experience of taking a good resolution in January and not keeping it during the year. Change is difficult and success can only be based on a clear strategy. Most respondents chose only one resolution in the list which is wise, better focusing on one thing and succeed than fail at everything. However, it is difficult to guess what people mean when they want to “Live life to its fullest”. Are they planning to enjoy each moment of their life and go on holidays more often? Or just appreciating small everyday gifts? Whatever the resolution is you need a plan and goals if you want these resolutions to mean something.

Whether you like it or not, you will need to consider your budget at one point

Whatever your project or your lifestyle is, you will still have to consider money at one point as almost nothing comes for free. Of course, you can still take the risk of living paycheck to paycheck but a bit of financial planning will give you control and peace of mind. It is very unlikely that you can enjoy life to its fullest if you have money troubles at the back of your head. You need to adapt your budget to your lifestyle and long term objectives. This will seem like a daunting task at first but remember you can look for help from a financial adviser and use Quick Money Recorder to track your spending and create a budget.

Again, we wish you a lot of happy and smooth budgeting in 2016!

We gave you some tips about creating your first budget in this blog post, hope it helps!

To spend or not to spend, the Christmas dilemna

December 11, 2015 By SmartSaver No Comments

Like every morning, I made my cup of coffee and looked for articles and blog posts about money, spending and budgeting. There are days when I have to dig to find anything worth sharing on QMR’s Twitter account (@MoneyRecordapp) but not today. Believe it or not I found about 20 articles related to to Christmas and festive spending. I’ll try to sum up the interesting money management lessons I learned.

Christmas is expensive

I bet you already know this but I learnt interesting statistics that Britons will spend £800 on average this festive season and that American will use $480.28 to buy gifts for their family. This sounds like a lot of money to me but it’s nothing compared to people in the Silicon Valley who have the highest holiday shopping budget of $2886 while people in Denver spend $800. In Europe, Britons are the most generous spenders but Romanians spend the biggest portion of their income on gifts.

Christmas is stressful and leads to irrational shopping

Britons will spend a lot but one out of four says that they feel pressured to do so and may have to borrow money! Why is what is supposed to be a pleasant family moment becomes a source of stress? Britons say they feel pressure from their family or by the idealized Christmassy image conveyed in movies and on television. In the US, 4 out of 10 people spent more than they intended to during the Christmas season. And some people plan to finance their spending by opening new credit card accounts. Christmas makes us feel emotional and insensitive to the amount of money that leaves our wallet.

There are ways to avoid the festive season spending disaster

I don’t really like articles that makes me feel guilty. I want positive reinforcement to control my budget! It is difficult to be disciplined and to follow a budget with so many temptations. Actually this may be easier if I leave my credit card home and pay by cash on a day when I have time or feel relaxed or if I shop online. This year can also become the time when you change your habit. Do you really have to buy one gift for each family member? Would you prefer to spend more on the children? You could offer one common gift per adult and more for the kids. Try also handmade gifts such as a personalized photo album which will be more appreciated than a pair of socks. Christmas shouldn’t involve pressure and I believe that if some people only focus on material gifts, they are missing a lot.

I wrote another blog post about a Christmas Budget if you’d like to have a look.

Merry Christmas everyone!

How much should I know about money?

December 4, 2015 By SmartSaver No Comments

You surely have come across the word financial literacy or more simply said knowledge about personal finance. In the US, the month of April has been chosen by the Senate as the financial literacy month. People can get free personal finance classes about how to maintain healthy finances. The same initiative exists in Canada and some voices in the UK complain that kids do not learn anything about money at school. But how bad is the situation?

Americans ranks 14th, Canadians 5th and British 6th

The Wall Street Journal gives the result of a global survey about financial literacy in an article. Financial literacy is considered as important in developed countries where people have access to more and more complex financial products. Canada and the UK seem to do well but the US is lagging behind. The questions required some basic calculation about interests, inflation or risk. How can we explain these results? Are Americans have a bigger math and financial phobia compared to other countries? If you look at the map presented in this article, you will also notice the differences between US states. It also seems that young people have less financial knowledge than the rest of the population.

Start with the basics and build up

Finance sounds a bit scary and unless you are passionate about figures, you may be procrastinating and leave it for later. You’re wrong! The younger you are, the easier it is to learn. Your head is fresh and the probability is that you do not (already) have a great amount of money to manage. This makes it even more essential to manage your money well and to make the right financial decisions. Check our post about how to make a budget and compare offers if you have no choice but to take a student loan. Read blogs teaching financial basics such as how interest rates work or what is inflation. If you think it is boring, just bear in mind that this is important knowledge to get richer, save money or at least not lose some!

Don’t hesitate to ask a professional

Nobody is asking you to become a finance guru. You should know the basics such as saving accounts, basic investing, work related finance perks… Unless you become very rich, try to keep it simple but efficient. If you are unsure about a financial product or which direction you should take, there is no shame in asking for guidance from family, friends, dedicated websites or financial advisers. The best thing we can tell you is that if it sounds too good then there is a good chance that the deal hides something fishy. Remember that knowledge is the key!

The best money saving articles and posts of the week 9/11

November 13, 2015 By SmartSaver No Comments

We love sharing money saving blog posts and articles we found interesting on our Twitter account (@MoneyRecordApp). We thought you may enjoy a selection and a quick summary on our personal finance blog too!

US students lack financial literacy

An article from USA today points to the alarming fact that most students have no confidence in their knowledge of personal finance. This is the result of a survey where 65% of respondents said they didn’t believe in their ability to manage their money. The article recommends to teach budget management and investing in the classroom. Good idea to teach the basics but from our personal experience family money management teaching is equally important.

Why you should know about personal finance

We read that November is financial literacy month in Canada, and felt inspired by this sentence: “Effectively managing money is not only part of everyday life, it’s essential for achieving all kinds of goals.” A couple of popular publications will give you tons of useful advice to share on twitter #FLM2015.

Set a goal for your finances and have a fun fund

The magazine Moneysense is a very good read for all types of budgeters. They regularly write articles giving tips about managing personal finances including how to kick off saving money. We totally agree with the first advice set a goal and “You can’t escape having to run the numbers and tracking your expenses to determine how much you’re truly able to save.” But the best piece of advice would be to have a fun fund because life is too short not to treat yourself from time to time!

Remember that Quick Money Recorder can help you with your budget and expense tracking!