photo by Jake Wasdin

But there is a catch! Remember to still put a limit on how much you would want to spend as an “extra” for each month. Enjoying life is a really good thing, and one more thing we should not forget is that time flies by so fast that it doesn’t wait for anybody at all. Unless you have a time machine that is, then you could go jumping to any specific time that you would want.

Staying within your budget is a good thing, and adding an extra spending money is also good. So how much money would you think is good to have as an extra? Deciding on this matter is not really that hard and to give you a good idea on things to consider, you could read this article entitled “Spending More Money For a Better Life”, on MoneyReasons.com. It is a two parts article and you could get some hints to help you decide.

It does not need to be too high or too low as an extra, but you also need to weigh in the factors. You could answer questions like,

“Is it going to affect my budget that much as a whole?”
“Where am I going to get that extra money to spend on myself?”
“How long before I could implement this change in my spending habits?”

This simple concept is really a good one; I mean you could already be missing out a lot on life. Things like going out with your friends, buying yourself new clothes and things that you need. After all, that’s why we have money, to spend it in the right way. Now don’t get me wrong, but we need to also reward ourselves once in a while without hurting our budget, savings and investment.

And yes, you need to think about it very well, plan it, do your homework and make a decision. Approaching it wisely is still the best way to do it. In the end, you’ll not face problems like overspending and needing to touch your savings or emergency funds.

So enjoy life, loosen up a bit, time passes by and once the opportunity to be with our friends and family on that specific time is missed – it would be impossible to come back to it.

What about you, are you thinking about the same thing? Do you feel me here, live now or regret it in the future that you should have done this and that. What are your insights and thoughts on this topic? Give us your comments and suggestions, they help us think of better ways and also look at this in a different kind of perspective.

photo by Marco Bellucci

It’s been more than 3 weeks now since I couldn’t use my iPhone app for my financial budget. The software developers proposed a 2 weeks testing and debugging on their software as the problem came from a low version upgrade to their most recent release. Well, I couldn’t really put the blame on them as I didn’t regularly update my apps as I was quite happy using the current versions. So this could be one of those problems with the software as there seems to be a missing link or you just need to directly update your software.

Now I’ve come across this article that I could use as a solution or even a replacement for my paid software. The author’s quite an expert in excel and he shared his technique on his blog post entitled “Easy Way to Add Up Expenses in Your Spreadsheets” from couplemoney.com. He shows you how you could add colors to your list of expenses, each color representing a category or even a mixed budget for you and your partner. Then easily add up the expenses based on each color.

I would say that it’s really a great idea and you could visually see and pinpoint which ones are good and need-to-cut expenses. He also provided the code and macros on how to set it up yourself, a detailed instruction and some images so I think that it’s not that difficult to accomplish. Try it out yourself and you’ll see that it really does make wonders.

This is another way on how we could maximize on the features that excel is able to provide us. So what do you think? Has it changed the way you look on how to use Excel? I do hope that you enjoy it as I did. Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

After reading through Nicole’s post “Prepare Your Finances For Vacation” at Rainy Day Saver, it gave me a good idea on being prepared with our finances. Most of the time we are compelled to travel and just get away from it all, but the moment that we return, we face headaches and forgotten bills that had already accumulated unwanted interest.

Though it is true that we do need to refresh ourselves and have a free-our-mind reboot from reality, planning our pre-trip finances should be on top of our list. If you know that you would not be back on time to pay for your bills, you could pay for them in advance if possible, or arrange for them to be paid by check. You could also check the resort or travel destination to see if they provide an internet connection, if they do you could also pay your bills online provided that the company has an online entity.

When you have checked your list of bills of which ones needs to be paid first and you are most certainly sure that you would not face any problems when you come back, then it’s time to move on to your traveling budget. Having an allotted amount of cash for spending is good and makes sure that your monthly budget is not affected. And if you also have a traveling fund saved, then you are ready and setup to go for a great time.

Once you have completed your preparations, all you need now to do is go ahead and enjoy yourself. Remember that all work without play, makes a person dull. So have a break and happy spending.