Tag Archives: outsource

Weekly Round Up: Tax Season *Expanded*

Many know the fundamentals to building a solid financial foundation are “spend less than you earn” and “save! save! save!” (I am sure there are a few more you could add :)).

It is with these fundamentals mixed with some killer content written by personal finance bloggers that can help to build a solid win-win financial future. Content anywhere from how to invest in the stock market to cutting our daily expenses.

Today we will look into some of the blog posts written by some keen personal finance writers discussing all sorts of great subjects; taxes, investing, negotiating, outsourcing… The list goes on.

Big Tax Refund or No Tax Refund. What’s your thought? Do you know someone actually put down a sizable down payment on their house (like 30%)? Can you duke it out reduce your bill? What about investing in CDs? What about quickly paying down the mortgage? Lots of great stuff to read. Please, do enjoy! 😀

Great Posts to Read

Since Financial Samurai has me thinking about using Certificates of Deposits as a route for investing, Personal Finance Student has a great article listing the The Advantages and Disadvantages of CDs. Nicely done.

Rainy Day Saver’s post, Do You Have to Give Up Convenience in Order to Save Money?, looks at making cut backs with convenient services or goods for a better financial future.

Stay at Home Mom CFO looks at how Getting a BIG Tax Refund was Keeping us in Debt. Interesting article. I have to say that I am starting to think I don’t want a refund check going forward. I think that money might sit better in my 401K.

Young and Thrifty is out to serve the rights for Canadians. See her pull out the big guns against Rogers in, Step-by-step Guide on How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Contract.

My Money Minute wants to know, Tax Refunds: Does Size Matter? In a not so ideal world, big tax refunds are not such a horrible thing after all.

151 Days Off looks at, How to Pay Your Mortgage off in Record Time. I enjoyed the closing statement, “Every time you go out and think about buying an item, multiply the item price to that number. If you are tempted to buy a $100 dress, think that you can either waste $100 or put that money into your mortgage and save $395 in interest! If this doesn’t put you off from spending, I don’t know what else could.”

Chasing Prosperity has a lyrical fun post looking at, Thriftygal’s Top Ten Money Tunes (Feb. 8th post). Gotta say, I love Donna Summer’s “I work hard for the money”.

How to Peacefully Split Bills in Your Relationship by Foreigner’s Finance spoke my tune as my husband and I decided separate the bank accounts.

Little House in the Valley, great post with, Should everyone buy a house?! I like your stance, “No one should buy a home unless they are financially prepared to do so, no matter how low interest rates are or how inexpensive homes may seem.” I agree with having a sizable down payment when buying a home (that will be sometime before I can do that, too!)

The Amateur Financier wants to know your thoughts about Taxing Financial Transactions: Good Idea or Not? As a passive investor he likes this plan. Do you agree?

Which Way are You Outsourcing? by Engineer Your Finances, is a great article! Since I want to outsource areas in my life, this will serve as an effective tool to determine if I am UPsourcing or DOWNsourcing. WHICH WAY you are outsourcing?

Couple Money has family financial meetings. I think that is a great idea! In Elle’s post called, Cash Flow: Managing and Improving Ours, she writes about Increasing your Income, Optimizing Your Expenses and Which Software Can Help. Great job!

Free From Broke helps you decide to get your credit cards under control in, Pay Off Highest Interest Or Highest Balance Credit Card – Analysis Paralysis

Frugal Zeitgeist did a great piece called, Save Money on Printing. I never new about Eco Font and that it uses about half the ink of conventional fonts. Very cool!

Deliver Away Debt learned that he should be claiming 8 in How to Adjust Tax Withholdings. What’s he going to do with that money Sam was holding interest free for him? Dump it into his snowball!

Monevator wants you to Get out of debt to unleash your inner money maker. I agree, I want my “month’s salary is going wherever I want it to go” and “not on paying for things bought and forgotten about years ago”.

Evolution of Wealth discusses the changes that have come about in the life insurance industry in, Whole Life Insurance is Stackable.

Easy Ways to Improve Your Memory is well written by MBA Briefs. I like that a better memory could greatly improve your income potential. Read on!

Eliminate the Muda offers some advice in Dealing with Debt Collection. As a former debt collector… yup, we like to bug you and try tactics, but as a consumer you still have rights not to be harrassed. Learn them here.

The “Secrets” to Landing Guest Posts is a great piece by Experiments in Passive Income. Especially for all you challengers looking to forge new connections in the blog-o-sphere!


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Rise of the Women Breadwinners

Gone are the days of the woman having dinner on the table, the evening drink ready for their man, the house cleaned and children raised in the home.

Women are becoming equal breadwinners with their male counterparts. The figures show that close to 40% of women are the breadwinners in supporting the family.

To think, women were only 7 percent of primary breadwinners in 1970!

Excerpt from Heather Boushey’s article called, The New Breadwinners:

Clearly, the days of Ozzie and Harriet are long gone. Within married-couple families, the typical working wife now brings home 42.2 percent of her family’s earnings.14 And women increasingly are the primary breadwinners. In 2008, nearly 4 in 10 mothers (39.3 percent) were the primary breadwinner in their family—either because they were a single, working parent or because they earned as much as or more than their spouse. An additional quarter (24.0 percent) of mothers are co-breadwinners—that is, a working wife bringing home at least 25 percent of her family’s total earnings (see Figure 2 and Table 1). 15

 

Gender Roles

But one thing hasn’t moved forward as quickly, the traditional gender roles. Household chores and childrearing activities still primarily are held with the woman. The balance of labor just isn’t divided equally, and a woman comes home from a long day of work and still has to do the chores. In fact, about 2/3rds of the household work remains with the woman in the role.

Do you think there can be a happy medium to be met with one’s partner in taking on some of the household responsibilities?

I see three options:

Communicate with your partner. Ask for help in taking on the household work. Could your partner help you cook some of the meals, take on some of the laundry, drive the kids to sport practice or vacuum? My husband comes home before me to start dinner. During the weekends we alternate who does the laundry. At times, he even helps me to make the kid’s lunches.

Outsource household work. You did read this guest post by Erica Douglass on Outsourcing, right? I am seriously considering hiring someone to deep clean the house twice a month just so I have time to spend with my family. Maybe even hire someone to make my children’s school lunches for me (don’t like to give them money for school lunches – bleck!). Hire a tutor to help the kids with their school work. Pay for services that will allow me to focus on the more time with individual family members and/or free up a bit of personal time.

Become a Stay-at-home parent. My husband and I once calculated the money saved if one of us stayed home. You reduce the childcare costs ($400 month), commuting charges, auto maintenance fees, etc… It is rather tempting to say, “I QUIT”, to my boss. But what is holding one of us to continue working, the two-income household still brings in more money to pay down our debts. Once our debt ratio is far down, we are going to revisit this last option for one of us to stay home. But one needs to consider if you can handle placing the financial responsibility to your partner.

My question to you: How would you resolve the stress issue? Are you a woman living as the breadwinner? Or a man supporting his breadwinner wife? What works for your family? What doesn’t work?


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