Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

What to Do If You Lose Your Job

By Leave a Comment

People may feel a little sad after losing a job. It feels like there’s nothing you can do, but there are some steps you need to take. The following are a few things to do if you lost your job.

Address Healthcare

Unlike most countries, America doesn’t guarantee healthcare to its citizens. Because of that, most people depend on their employer for health insurance. If you lose your job, you lose access to this coverage. Your first step should be to get healthcare quotes online. Even if you feel okay right now, healthcare emergencies come out of nowhere, so you need to prepare.

Unemployment Benefits

If you qualify for unemployment benefits, be sure to read every question on the application. Go over it as many times as you need to to ensure you don’t make a mistake. A mistake can cause delays, and you can’t afford that right now. Try to apply for this as soon as possible because it can take some time to get approved, even if you do everything right. Be sure to answer questions promptly if you’re asked to avoid delays.

Reduce Bills

Those bills are going to keep coming, and you need to do something about them. Some bills you can eliminate, like entertainment bills or subscription services. It’s easy to separate which expenses you need versus what you want. If an item doesn’t keep you alive, then you can eliminate it. The bills you can’t get rid of could be reduced. Call credit card companies and anyone else you need to call to see if you can get your bills reduced. You’ll have to be honest and tell them you lost your job.

Rework the Budget

The reality is you won’t have the same amount of money coming in, so you need to make some changes. After you reduce your bills, create a new budget. You need to include the new healthcare expense in this budget. If you can, leave enough to go into your savings since you may need it. Get stingy with your spending. One way to this would be to avoid eating out for a while and opt for home-cooked meals instead.

Start to Apply

You must start applying for jobs. If it’s been a while since you updated your resume, work on reflecting on your most recent accomplishments. Be sure to clean up your social media accounts because some jobs pay attention to that kind of stuff. Type in your name in a search engine to see what shows up. If there’s anything that doesn’t make you look good, then work on cleaning up your online presence as you begin to apply for a new job.

Gig Economy

The gig economy is here. Since you lost your job, you can join this new world. You don’t know how long it’ll take to find a job, but at least this way, you’ll be earning some cash here and there. There’s a lot you can do, from renting a room to visitors to picking up and delivering food to people in your community. The good thing about these gigs is you can stop the moment a company hires you.

Hopefully, you take these steps as soon as you can. Try to be patient as you look for a job because it can take a while sometimes, but don’t give up.

How to Help Your Elderly Parents Budget Their Finances

By Leave a Comment

As part of the so-called “sandwich generation,” trying to figure out how to help your aging parents manage their finances can be a unique challenge. Not only are you trying to help take care of your own children, but now you also have your mother and father to worry about.

Trying to take over your parents’ finances can be unquestionably stressful. There’s a good chance that they raised you and likely taught you about money management. And now, after all these years, they’re unexpectedly finding themselves turning to you for financial help — and even worse, they might even be resistant to it!

Fortunately, helping your senior parents manage their finances does not have to be an emotionally harrowing ordeal. In many ways, they already have the foundation of good financial planning down; they may just need a little extra assistance with some of the unexpected incidentals.

If you’re looking to help your older parents stay afloat without worrying about them going bankrupt on your watch, then look no further. Here are five handy tips to help you keep a vigilant eye on your parents’ finances without causing unnecessary tears, frustration, and anxiety in either of you.

Have Empathy

First and foremost, when taking over your parents’ finances, you need to approach it with a little bit of compassion. It’s important to remember that your parents are precisely that: mature adults who likely already know a thing or two about handling money. After all, they raised you, right?

Instead of coming in with a patronizing or infantilizing tone, instead try to imagine yourself in their shoes. They may be more than a little bit confused, especially if they’re starting to undergo mental changes that may make them more prone to forgetfulness. By approaching it with the right attitude, you can help avoid hurt feelings in the long run.

Know Where They Stand

Once you know how to talk to your parents about your goals of assisting them with their finances, your next step will be to take a closer look at their current budget and income. Before you can start earmarking money for expenses, you first need to know how much they’re making and where it’s all going.

Plan For the Day-to-Day

When you think about your own monthly budget, what comes to mind? You probably think of your mortgage, your car payment, and even your grocery bill. While your parents may not have those same expenses, it’s still important to make sure there’s enough money budgeted for the things they need in their daily and monthly life.

…But Also Plan Ahead

Nobody likes to think that something bad will happen to their beloved parents, but the sad truth is, they’re not going to live forever. Even if they’re healthy now, there could come a time that you may have to have a hard conversation about both long-term care for your parents and even funeral expenses.

Yes, this could be a very uncomfortable conversation to have, but it’s still very important to plan ahead for these things. You also need to make sure you budget enough for professional care for your parents, especially if you (or your siblings) do not feel qualified to take care of them in their advanced years.

Fortunately, there are a number of options you can turn to if you’re looking to bring a senior care provider into your parents’ home. Whether you’re looking for home care agencies in NYC, Tampa, Sacramento — or anywhere across the country — you have your option of warm, kind, and highly trained professionals to help take care of your loved ones.

Remain a Constant Presence

Finally, helping your parents with their budgets is not some one-off thing that you do just once then dust off your hands. Instead, you need to realize that your parents’ finances can change in the future. They may also grow more dependent upon you, as well. Sadly, there are also some people out there who prey upon seniors, so you always need to take the initiative to go over their finances with them.

Ideally, you should plan one day a month to go through their bills and their other expenses with them. Look for anything that may seem wrong or suspicious. You also want to make sure you don’t outright accuse your parents of frivolous spending, either. Remember, it’s their money, and you’re simply there to help them.

Taking care of your parents’ finances can be a wonderful and rewarding experience. Furthermore, there’s a high likelihood that they’ll be grateful for your help, and you can help strengthen your bond with them while doing so. By following these five tips, you can help ensure that the entire process goes smoothly for both yourself and your parents!

How to Quit Staying Broke

By Leave a Comment

When you’ve been trapped in a cycle of poverty for a long time, it’s natural to believe that there’s little that you can do about being broke all the time. But this is an illusion.

Regardless of the reason that you’re broke—insufficient education, a series of low-paying jobs, or a devastating financial setback—you can break out of it.

Here are some ways to put poverty behind you.

Get Out of Debt

Simply trying to pay off your debt one bill at a time doesn’t work well if you’re not earning enough to pay down the balance every month. Most of the money you pay on a debt doesn’t go toward reducing the principal but mainly goes to pay off the higher interest. What’s more, the longer you take to pay off the debt, the more interest compounds, which essentially means that you’re paying interest on your interest.

One way to escape this frustrating cycle of not making much of a dent in your debt is to consolidate your debts. A debt consolidation loan is a loan that is large enough to pay off all your other debts immediately. Because this loan will carry a fixed interest rate rather than the variable interest rate you were paying before, you will reduce your overall interest and debt. You will now owe less. In addition, lenders calculate consolidated loan repayment plans on what you can afford to pay every month, a reckoning based on your estimated monthly income and expenses.

Invest in Possibilities

When we think of investments, we usually think of investing in assets to give us a high return. Following this line of reasoning, it’s possible to think of investing in yourself as a worthwhile asset. You could invest in yourself, for example, by setting goals to achieve something you desire—goals such as increasing your income, finding or enhancing a relationship, or improving your health and well-being. Moving towards these goals with a plan of action will enhance your quality of life, including your ability to make and manage money.

Create Extra Income

If you can’t find a job that pays much or have one that barely covers your monthly expenses, then you can increase your income through a side hustle.

If you can’t find a good side hustle, you can create your own.

If, for instance, you’re a highly creative person, say someone who loves to write, then build a blog or write a book. Instead of waiting for your big break, you could channel your creative energies into making something that would serve as a source of passive income.

If you choose to write a book, it will help you earn royalties. Or, if you’re an expert in something that others would love to learn, then you could create an online course that you can sell over and over again.

Once you’ve created your content, you don’t have to promote or sell it yourself. If you wrote a book, you could hire someone to do the book marketing for you. Or, if you created an online course, you could use an online educational platform that takes care of all the marketing to attract students and all the technical details of delivering your online course through videos.

Believe It’s Possible to Change

A change in attitude will make it possible for you to quit being broke all the time. Believe in yourself and your power to change anything in your life that isn’t working well for you.

Being broke is a condition, not a definition of who you are as a person. Everyone has more potential to change than they realize. By getting rid of debt, investing in your potential to change, and finding novel ways to increase your income, you can prosper.