Budgeting

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Research has shown that the current generation of banking apps has enhanced customer’s experiences.  However, there is still a wide margin between financial apps and others like Uber, WhatsApp, etc. These simple and intuitive applications have raised consumer expectations.

With the global pandemic progressing, digital banking has become a necessity in the wake of social distancing. Creating a low-friction user experience is an effective approach to serve customers in the best way. Like other sectors, the banking community has been revolutionized by advances in mobile tech. Internet consumers’ adoption of digital banking solutions has doubled up over the previous two years. 64% of digital-loving customers engage with fintech applications, EY’s Global FinTech Adoption Index 2019 reported. Here are four ways banks can improve their mobile apps.

Feature parity with banking websites

Although many customers now do their banking on their mobile devices, some users express their frustrations at the lack of flexible features in their banking apps. On banking websites, consumers often complain about limited features. It is thought that adding flexible functions that allow customers to see their pending payments, add new payees, and manage their direct debits/standing orders is a big plus for consumers’ mobile banking experiences.

Balance security features with convenience

For the majority of users, checking their balance is the number one reason to install mobile banking apps. However, end-users also have a better understanding of the need for security and convenience to go hand-in-hand. Some banks are unable to strike a fair balance between these, which makes their banking apps not that great. It can be stressful for customers to have to type in several complex passwords and usernames each time they simply want to check their balance.

Banks can improve their mobile services by matching their security protocols to the risk level of the task required. While high-risk transactions like adding new payees and changing sensitive personal info could require stricter security measures, checking balances could be allowed without customers having to always type in passwords.

Personalize customers’ mobile banking experience

To stand out and be a successful financial institution, banks need to offer personalized mobile banking experiences to their customers. This will create an amazing experience and satisfy the needs of digitally active and branch-dependent customers. For mobile banking apps, data analytics could be used to track how customers interact with their applications. Insights from their behavior could be leveraged to tailor services to individual users. With the rising acceleration of artificial intelligence, there is more room for banking institutions to cater their services to their unique consumers.

Create a continuous delivery model

One serious challenge to digital banking transformation is innovating a culture that is conventionally bureaucratic or hierarchical. It can be hard to drive innovation in a big banking organization, partly due to changes in management initiatives. However, it helps to rethink the waterfall methodology and implement an agile culture. This is instrumental in keeping pace with technology and creating a continuous delivery model.

A growing family can be an expensive thing; whether you’re bringing a new life into the fold, or your children are rapidly growing and seemingly eating everything in sight, you’re going to be spending a lot more than your budget might be comfortable with! 

And that’s something we should focus on tackling, for the sake of your household turnover and your peace of mind. So, without further ado, here are three top things to do to help cut down the costs of raising children – better yet, they can be done right now! 

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Negotiate for Cheaper Child Care

Child care can be hard to pay for if you don’t have any family members to step in. But we can try to change this. After all, one of the best ways to cut down on child care costs is via working from home, or remote working. If your workplace does not already offer this as an option, there are some great ways to suggest it out there – a bit of confidence can go a long way to saving you money! 

Invest in Insurance

Insurance is a great thing for a family to have, simply because so many things can get broken when there are young children in the house! However, some insurance policies are better than others, so you’ve got to be smart about what type you take out here. 

Life insurance, for example, is going to be a worthy type to invest in. If you can rest easy at night, knowing that if anything happened to you your family would have the money to guide them through, you’ll be dealing with far less financial stress. 

So make sure you do your research; take a look at the most popular providers and compare them – you can start with these Primerica reviews, but make sure you look a little deeper into the contract and what’s on offer. You may also want to look into health insurance, or refining your current policy, and it never hurts to look into long-term disability insurance as well. 

Tackling the Food Shop

The food shop is probably the number one thing you dread; shopping for two or more people is difficult, and kids are notoriously fussy eaters! However, if you always buy when something is on offer, and buy in bulk, you’re going to be able to save a lot of money in the long run. 

Try to practice this principle with non-perishables, as they’ll keep it in the cupboard for a long time. Similarly, make sure you know how to properly store fresh food, and always mix those small leftovers into other, more substantial meals. Try to buy frozen wherever you can. The cost of a growing family can be huge – at last count, it stood at over $200,000 to raise just one child! So when you have a bigger family, it can feel impossible to manage a budget; make sure you keep the above ideas in mind to tackle the most troubling areas.

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In business, your aim is to do what you can to build an empire. We’re all in it to see lots of success, after all. In order to make your money grow in this world, you need to ensure that you have vast amounts of knowledge and that you work hard. You also need to make sure that you’re diligently going through pretty much every aspect of your business so that faults do not occur. If you do these three things, then longevity is likely to happen. 

In order to make profits, you also need to lower the money that goes out. Saving money while building a business matters so much. There are plenty of tricks and trips to achieve this, of course. One of which is through knowing the right people or right groups. Why does this save so much money? Well, here are five reasons: 

Trial And Error Won’t Exist 

If you have the right people in your list of phone contacts, then you won’t have to spend time and effort looking for the right individuals or companies to work with. You won’t have to continually try new things, fail, and learn the hard way. While learning this way helps a little, it’s much better when you work smarter and get things done in half the time. Stress, money, time, and effort will all be gone after getting in touch with the perfect contact. 

They’ll Give You Discounts Based On Their Closeness To You

If you know somebody that works in a particular position of power, then they’ll likely give you something for a little less than what others would normally get. This works in the lowest of positions and in the highest. Your negotiations could be a lot simpler if you were friendly with a particular group that would likely benefit you in the future. 

You Can Be Pointed To The Right People All Of The Time

The world of business is like a huge spider web of contacts that typically all know one another in some way, shape, or form. The more people you know, the more mutual friends you’re going to have in the industry (and in other industries). You could get in touch with someone and they could help you to get significant savings on LTL freight shipping at a time where you thought the prices were at an extremely unforgiving high. Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself – it could benefit you more than you think. 

You Won’t Have To Go Through Rigorous Vetting Processes 

Finding the right individual or group can be quite a pain in the backside. If you know the right person, then you could just run straight to them and the job could be finished in a matter of hours. 

The Reputation Of Your Business Could Skyrocket

It really is who you know in this game. If you have the right contacts, then your business will likely rise through the ranks quicker than if you don’t have them. You need to ensure that your business is growing, and the right people can make that happen.

We all wish that money grew on trees. Let’s face it: it’s the one thing in the world that most of us just do not have enough of and if there was a way to make more than don’t compromise your sleep or your family, you’d do it! The thing is, making your money grow is really in your hands, even if it does mean a few sleepless nights in the meantime. You don’t have to be at the mercy of your boss all the time, and you don’t have to feel helpless that your current circumstances will never change – they absolutely can. 

Some people go out there and make a lot of money from other people making money, like Jorge Hank Rhon, who owns some of the biggest Mexican casinos. You may have to ask your boss for a raise from time to time, but it’s not the only option out there. You can be in control of financial growth, and we’ve got some of the simplest ways for you to make your money grow.

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1. Start tracking all of your finances. From the spending to the investments, savings, and more, you need to start getting a handle on what you’re spending. The best way to do that is to have a plan in place for tracking all of this and creating a budget plan so that you can better spend your money properly. If you know where your money is going, you can track the waste that’s happening and stop that in its tracks. This will also allow you some more disposable income as a result.
2. Always pay yourself first. If you want to grow the money you need to add money to your savings account before you put money into disposable incomes. You need to know that your savings are a part of your expenses, and you can ensure that you enjoy every second of that spare cash to spend elsewhere. Build your savings into your budget and you won’t skip out on it.
3. Start a side hustle. Whether you are going online to flutter some cash and multiply it on gambling sites, or you’re making clothes and selling them online, you need a side hustle to get you going. You can budget and track your spending properly and by paying yourself first, you can spend much less than you expected to.
4. Build a residual income. This can be done easily enough and when you have a passive income, you’re earning money without having to do much in the first place. Take the time to learn about all the different passive income streams and you can get started on a whole new way of earning.

Making your money grow is so important and if you want to ensure that you continue to grow it, then follow the tips above and make your money work for you. Take your time – your cash can be grown the way that you want it to be! Your money should work for you, so make it happen.

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We all need to manage our finances. Otherwise, we can find ourselves experiencing debt and other financial issues. A happy life tends to be a well financially managed life. So, what can you do to get everything in order and make things as simple for yourself as possible? Here are just a few steps that you should take into consideration to get the ball rolling in the right direction!

Creating a Budget

Everyone, no matter how much or how little money you may be earning, needs to stick to a budget. A budget is a tool that we use to determine how much money we’re bringing in, how much money we need to spend and how much money we have leftover to do as we please. Of course, a lot of people don’t have a budget. But this can often lead to overspending and other problems that result in debt. So, if you don’t have a budget yet, follow the steps below to get yourself off to the best start possible.

Work Out Your Total Income After Tax

The first step you need to take towards creating your budget is to work out your total income after tax. All too many people assume that the figure on their salary is the figure they get to take home. But this isn’t the case. If you are employed, your employer will deduct essentials such as tax and national insurance from each pay packet. If you are self employed, you need to deduct this yourself. The amount of tax you have to pay will depend on the tax bracket you fall into. Of course, there are plenty of easy to use and free to use online calculators that will figure out how much of your salary is dedicated to taxes and how much you actually take home.

Covering the Necessities

Once you know how much you take home each month, you need to deduct costs associated with your essential spending. These are amounts of money that you have to pay or are tied into paying. They can include your rent or mortgage payments, council tax, bill payments for energy, bill payments for water, a set amount for food shopping and any payments you may need to put out on contracts, car payments, insurance, and credit card or loan payments.

Disposable Income

The sum you’re left with after all of these payments have been taken out of your monthly payment is what is known as your disposable income. This is the money that you can feel free to spend on whatever you wish. Whether that’s clearing debts faster, putting money into a savings account, booking a holiday, going out for a meal, ordering takeaways, buying clothes, or anything else. Just make sure that you never spend more than your disposable income, as this is when you will find yourself sinking into debt.

Clearing Debts

If you do have debts, it’s important that you work at clearing them. The sooner you clear your debt, the better, as they generally have interest attached, which means you’re wasting money on essentially nothing. Of course, there are various ways to go about clearing debts. But some good steps to take include:

• Taking on extra work to generate extra income
• Balance transferring credit cards to interest-free cards
• Consolidating debts with a low-interest loan
• Reducing nonessential spending and using the money towards debts instead

Planning for the Worst

Of course, we never really want to think about the inevitability of passing away, but for many people, passing away will leave their family and loved ones in difficult financial situations. Everyone should plan for their funeral to relieve others of the financial burden attached to it. You should also make preparations for what will happen with your finances and assets should you pass, as well as taking steps to provide for loved ones financially even when you are gone.

Taking Out Life Insurance

While we all hope to be around for our families until we reach a ripe old age, this is unfortunately not the case for everyone. Some of us can pass before we expected. This is why we should all prepare and take out life insurance if possible. A life insurance policy can help to ensure that anyone who is dependent on us will be completely financially covered until they are able to support themselves. A life insurance policy can also cover the cost of things like a funeral, headstones, and urns from Memorials.com. If you have children, in particular, this is important, as you’re going to want to make sure that they are protected and able to get by should we no longer be able to provide for them. A good life insurance policy will ensure that your dependents receive a payout should you pass away. Of course, there are countless policies out there, so it’s important that you take some time to browse through the different options available to you. It’s highly recommended that you use a price comparison site to make sure that you’re genuinely getting the best deal for your money. You should also make sure to input your details correctly, accurately, and honestly to avoid the policy becoming void. Then, make sure to read the terms and conditions thoroughly and make sure that you always make your payments on time.

Writing a Will

If you’ve spent your whole life working towards building assets, you need to ensure that you know who they will be left to should you pass. Make sure to write a will to ensure that any savings you have, your home and valuable assets like vehicles are left to the people who you want to receive them. This is a legal document, so make sure to receive professional help from qualified will writing services.

These are just a few areas of focus to consider when it comes to managing your finances as best possible. Hopefully, some of the information will come in useful to you and really help you along the line!

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If you’ve been following markets at all recently, you’ll know that crypto is big news. It’s now a multi-trillion dollar asset class – and growing all the time. 

For many people, though, it still seems like a bit of a mystery. And there are so many stories being written about it, it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. 

In this article, we run through some of the reasons why you should jump on the crypto train and fundamentally change how you organize your finances. 

Let’s take a look, shall we?

The High Returns

Opponents of the crypto movement like to say that crypto isn’t a productive asset and, therefore, doesn’t provide any stream of returns. But that’s not entirely true. Assets are worth what people are willing to pay for them. And the value of crypto is going up all the time. 

It’s a little bit like housing. Because governments deliberately restrict the supply, people who own them experience annual house price growth which makes them feel wealthier. The supply of crypto is also limited, producing a similar effect. 

The returns for early cryptocurrency investors has been nothing short of spectacular. Buying coins a few years ago might have cost a couple of hundred dollars. Now they’re selling for tens of thousands. 

It’s Easy To Understand

Practically all aspects of the crypto market are surprisingly easy to understand.

If you’re on the consumer side, all you need to understand are the factors that determine the price of digital currencies – things like supply and demand. You don’t have to research any companies or try to figure out future cash flows. You just buy the currencies you want and then wait and see what happens.

On the mining side of the equation, things are also relatively simple. According to My Blockchain Life, the crypto world is worth around $200 billion. That’s essentially how much money miners have made by discovering new coins and selling them to the market. The returns have been tremendous. 

You Get To Keep Your Money

With regular currencies and gold, there’s always a risk that somebody will come along and take it. What’s worse, it’s hard to verify that a specific piece of currency is actually yours. One dollar bill looks pretty much identical to another. 

But that’s not how things work in the world of crypto. The coins in your wallet relate to your identity. So all the computers in the network agree that they’re yours and yours alone until you come to sell.

It’s Independent

Bitcoin is a great way to diversify your investment portfolio. The value of the currency doesn’t seem to correlate with other asset classes, like stocks or bonds. So, in that way, it protects the overall value of your investments over time. 

Furthermore, governments can’t interfere with cryptocurrency networks, no matter what they do. Because they are private and cross international barriers, preventing people from doing business on them is almost impossible. And, furthermore, they can’t print money and devalue the coins already in circulation. The blockchain technology behind them doesn’t allow it.

While I love a good joke about lawyers as much as the next person, often these jokes are without merit. Contrary to popular belief, no matter if they are bankruptcy attorneys or are a criminal defense attorney, most legal professions are honest and knowledgeable professionals that look out for the best interest of their clients. No different than doctors or accountants they are professionals with important services to provide.

While most of us don’t think twice about having a family doctor or keeping a handyman on speed dial, many people feel that having a lawyer is a sign that someone is either looking for trouble or doing something risky that might make them more likely to have legal problems.

Generally, most ex[pect to never have need of such services. But oftentimes having an established relationship with an experienced family attorney prevents problems from forming entirely. Such as buying a home, when getting married, adoption services, establishing an LLC, venturing into business, protecting your savings, or personal injury claims. Especially if you are a parent who is responsible for the care, estate, and general welfare of others.

For these reasons and more, there are several reasons for you to consider why it is a great idea to get a family lawyer today:

They’re Affordable

One of the big reasons that people avoid talking with an attorney is cost. While lawyers do charge different rates and some can be very draining on the wallet, most are actually very reasonable. In fact, you can probably find a very capable attorney for a lower hourly rate than your doctor or even a licensed plumber.

With many attorneys likely providing free consultations prior to collecting retainers for services. In those consultations, they will talk with you about your situation and provide some idea of how they can help and how much it will cost. Eliminating the risk of talking with an attorney and trying to build a relationship with one.

Lawyers Provide Prevention

Most people think of attorneys as people who fix problems but most of the work that they do is preventative. Whether it’s reviewing contracts, writing up agreements, filing paperwork or making sure that their client is compliant with the law. Attorneys represent the interest of their clients and those interests are best served by keeping them out of legal trouble. Not just merely defending them when they are in the middle of it.

Having a lawyer that can read your contracts, keep up your business filings, and guide you through any paperwork you may have can go a long way to preventing legal problems saves you a great deal of money and headache down the road.

Your Competitors Have Attorneys

If you’re signing a contract to work with another company, chances are that they had an attorney write it for them and prepare it with their interests in mind. If someone you’re negotiating or competing with has an attorney working with them and you don’t, that puts you at a disadvantage.

Having a knowledgeable attorney in your corner makes this process all the more seamless in nature. And in terms of business negotiations can also act as a powerful contact. A good lawyer is a great place to get contact information for other professionals, informally and formally. For all your business needs.

While you might not need to visit a lawyer every six months or even yearly, you should establish a relationship with one as soon as you can and see about stopping by every time your situation changes. Routine stuff such as minor car accidents, contracts, and wills and estate planning. It would also behoove families that run small businesses to also maintain retainers for personal injury

So take the opportunity to seek one out. Most likely, you’ve been putting off some legally oriented task for a while to make it a late New Year’s resolution to get it done and, along the way, establish a relationship with a legal professional that can help you a great deal down the road.

Tips for finding the right law firm

Nobody knows what is around the corner and there are many reasons why people may need legal advice and assistance. If you find yourself in a situation where you need help or information, or you’re looking for a firm to represent you, it’s important to take the time to research practices and find the best firm for you.

Search for firms that specialize in the relevant practice area, ask for recommendations from people you trust, and arrange consultations. You can learn more about law firms through their websites but it’s beneficial to talk to or meet with representatives so that you can get a better idea of what the practice can offer and build a rapport. Going through legal processes can be challenging, and it’s essential to ensure that you have a positive relationship with the attorney or the legal team that is advising or representing you.

Times may even call for the services of a criminal defense attorney to aid clients and families of clients with pending criminal defense needs from a criminal lawyer. All services can help families maintain their peace of mind at home this season. Because when you need your lawyer, you’ll be glad that you met them when you did. Now friends, do you have a family attorney to handle your personal affairs or personal injury claims at home? Share your experiences below!