Foreclosure is a sad and frustrating occurrence that many homeowners in today’s society are being forced to stare down.  For time immemorial, that one word has had the power to make hard-working homeowners tremble with fear, but in the last few years, it has become a horrifying reality for thousands of previously secure Americans.  But at least once you’re out of the house you can finally breathe a sigh of relief, leave it all behind you, and find a way to start again.  Or not, as it happens.  Leaving your home due to foreclosure by your lender may not lead to happy trails for you.  In fact, many states allow lenders that have taken a loss of the sale of a foreclosed home (as most do) to continue to pursue the previous owner in order to recoup the shortfall.  In other words, even if you turn the property over to the bank, you may still have to settle your debt.  And some lenders can be extremely aggressive.

Kathleen Macky owns a real estate website where you can browse Wesley Chapel homes for sale.

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Things are, shall we say, less than easy these days. It’s a whole lot harder to make ends meet even on a good month. People are living paycheck to paycheck and a savings account is something no one has.

Obvious things can cause you to be broke. The first one is a job loss or cut back at work that either cuts your hours or your pay. This one has two options, you can find a second job to stay solvent or you can admit you are on hard times and cut back on what you spend.

Let’s face it, if you are making less and you keep spending you are going to go farther in debt. This goes hand in hand with reason number one, the job loss or cutbacks.

A third reason is the cost of utilities like gas and electric and such. You really can’t control what they cost but you can control how much you use and when you use them.

If you were one of the lucky ones to make college then you can rank your college loan there at number four. Hopefully that diploma will help with reason number one.

Rent or mortgage payments are another one of those things that you have to pay. You really need a roof so you can try getting the landlord to lower the rate.

The sixth item on the list is things like a car payment and having a cell and a home phone, you know luxuries. This might not be an option that you like but if you are broke, learn to pedal and deal with just one phone or cut back on the extras on the cell. I mean who needs Internet on the road?

Coming in at number seven is another one of those things that broke individuals really need to stop doing and that is partying. The other term for this is a social life to some people. Did you realize that a 12 pack of beer for home costs about a buck a beer and at the club it can be around $5 a bottle or $60 for 12. Which is the smarter choice?

Looking over the next item on our list is very simple. Stop drinking the name brands and stop eating out all the time. You are broke it’s time for store brand coffee and home made sandwiches.

Let’s face it, admitting you are broke is the first step in making the transition to the next part of your life and moving on.

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The Internet has opened a tremendous source for personal finance advice. For instance there are numerous articles put out by highly reliable sites such as Smart Money, for one. Looking at the various topics that they write about will give you an idea of what most sites offer: taxes, retirement, real estate, marriage and divorce, insurance, health care, estate planning, employment, elder care, debt and college planning.

When you need personal finance advice, you have but to click on one of those topics and research it to your heart’s desire. Of course you could go ahead and pay tremendous amounts of money for your own personal finance advice by hiring a financial planner, but for that you will need to spend an inordinate amount of cash, which is probably why you are seeking personal finance advice to begin with.

Going back to Smart Money as our example of online personal finance advice, you will also find that if reading and research still leaves you with questions, sites like this one usually also offer a forum in which to ask questions. Depending on the online presence you have chosen, experts from well-established and respected companies will answer your question. Their theory for this is of course that if you and the other millions of readers feel that they gave good advice that you will call upon their companies for additional personal finance advice.

CNN Money, Kiplinger, Forbes, CBS Moneywatch, Consumer Reports and many others all offer substantially the same types of organized thinking that I’ve outlined for you as well as offering a location for your questions, and providing answers to those questions from highly reliable sectors.

Be sure and choose your sites carefully, adhering to recognizable names only because there are unfortunately many sites that are not only not reliable, but try to steer you toward spending money on the products they are trying to sell. Stay far away from those, and do perform careful research on any subject you are interested in.

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If you are considering making a budget for instance, your personal finance needs fall into various categories of course. As always suggested you must carefully separate your needs vs. your wants. A number of things fall into the needs category, such as clothing, shelter and food, but even so that leaves off things like utility bills.

Wants of course are not survival-based as needs are. You do not need a fancy car, though you may want one, and things like cable TV and eating out are not survival based either. However, your savings and retirement accounts are probably considered a need once you’ve itemized your personal finance to include other survival items, such as health insurance.

Personal finance should also include debt reduction if you are into debt. After all your finances are not going to be in order if your debts outweigh the money you have coming in.

Part of regulating your personal finance too is getting your priorities straight. Taking a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada should never be at the top of your priorities, no matter how good you are at slot machines.

Ascertaining your exact financial position can be pretty scary sometimes, yet in order to make a budget, and arranging your personal finance, the first step is going to be taking a hard look at your existing financial position. You may do this yourself, but many people go to a financial planner for this step.

Total honesty in ascertaining your financial position is essential. You cannot leave out anything and say that it’s not important, if you spend money for it.

Keep in mind that what you need to do is take over complete control over your personal finance. Having this indispensable control is the first step to actually making money instead of only spending it.

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Financial advice comes in many forms, on TV, on the radio, from your mother in law and even on the Internet. These are just some of the places you may turn to for financial advice.  This is true, but basically financial advice fits into some pretty neat little cubicles, they are often just worded differently.

For instance, one of the best financial advice given anywhere is to have realistic expectations. This is important if you are designing the next “Slinky” or merely planning for your retirement. Having a “pie in the sky” mentality will do nothing but bring you disappointment, as we can’t all be famous rock stars.

Of course following that advice is that you should live within your means. Those who have not done so are suffering beyond imagination as they are surrounded by unwieldy debts that they have no idea how to get out of. Often their credit is ruined by not following this advice.

The next piece of advice is that you should remain out of unnecessary debt. This means that you should not run up your credit cards for instance, or purchase fancy furniture on the credit system if you can pay cash for a more modest living room set.

Excellent advice is for you to watch your credit.  This means making sure that your credit report is precise, and it also means that you should keep an eye on your credit score as well. Thus, if you do run into a financial problem in the future, you’ll have good credit to rely on to pull you out.  

Finally, don’t spend it, if you don’t need it! Those of us who are impulse spenders need to ascertain that we truly need a certain item prior to purchasing it. Take your time about buying anything, and if you need it, shop it around.

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Whether you are one of the Rockerfellers or just a typical human being who is struggling to make ends meet, at some point or another you will need financial tips. There are many whose business it is pertains to giving out financial tips, such as regarding investments, senior planning/retirement, wills, etc.

Most financial advisers work on a fee-only basis, though there are also fee based advisors too. The fee-based advisers not only charge a fee, but also collect commissions on investments, and such.

However, the majority of people prefer to get their financial tips by performing their own research and drawing their own conclusions about the financial tips that they track down. The Internet has opened many doors to facilitate this kind of research, and many have found tips that have enabled them to amass quite a bit of savings from tips they found on the Internet.

Some tips such as “spend less than you make,” and “make a budget” are really good tips, however they are trite and hackneyed, as is “do not incur credit card debt.” Everyone knows that those are logical ways of using various financial tips, but most are seeking something a bit more concrete.

“Contribute to your retirement plan” and “take advantage of the tax benefits involved,” is somewhat a better financial tip. So is “diversify your investments,” which means don’t put all your eggs in the same basket, as your grandma often told you.

In essence what you’ve now been presented with is why you should spend the money to receive professional advice as well as financial tips. Some of the best financial tips can come from professional financial planners, thus it is quite wise to utilize them.

Worldwide you should seek a financial planner who has received the coveted Certified Financial Planner certification, or a Chartered Wealth Manager certification.

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There are of course an untold amount of finance tips available from literally millions of sources. Some of the tips that are available though are passed on from generation to generation and they all make sense.

For instance, have you ever heard that you should pay yourself first? All that this truly entails is setting up your savings for immediate expenditures that will occur such as taxes. However, it also entails savings for medical emergencies, and emergencies caused by Mother Nature, for instance.

Another tip that makes tremendous sense but many have problems with is to avoid debt. Americans are notorious for spending more than they earn, and now with a financial crisis all around us, they now understand the wisdom behind those words, some unfortunately too late to do anything about.

Mom and Dad probably also gave you a personal finance tip that was great: get educated. Granted, at this particular moment in time, even highly educated people are feeling the pinch of the recession, however many are still making high salaries and the money is still pouring in. As an example of this thought, you have to only look at what a cardiologist specialist is currently making. In each field, of course, there are exceptions, but in general those with a higher education are holding their own even in a recession.

Choose your major carefully when pursuing your higher education. For instance there are many majors that do not create high personal finances. On the other hand, look at what an engineering degree will bring forth as far as salary?

Always know your credit score. You’ve heard this one frequently if you are an Internet user, but it will indeed allow you to monitor computer errors, and such, from marring your credit. When errors are found, do not dally, and arrange to have them fixed as soon as possible.

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It has stymied many why getting a college education from a prestigious college does not bring you personal finance education, unless you are getting some sort of investment degree or banking degree. College teaches you so many things, some of which you will use in your daily life, yet this particular subject is passed on.

Assuming that you have not received a personal finance education from the school of hard knocks, you may feel as if you need further education in the subject. Chances are that you could take such a course from your local community college, or you may follow up on the Internet to gain such an education.

Performing research on the Internet merely entails looking up and reading on such subjects as “why save?” or “good investments” for example. Allow yourself to be taken from one site to another, in other words use those blue underlined highlights to lead you to deeper or associated subjects. That’s part of good research.

Bookmark the sites that you find are of tremendous help, or that you may feel will be of tremendous help in the near future. Arrange your bookmarks so that they make sense to you and make looking something up easier for you.

When you find a site that allows you to ask questions and have them answered by a respected specialist in that particular field, mark those sites as well. Delving into research now, does not mean that you will not have questions later as you attain knowledge and then want to expand that knowledge.

Look to your successful friends and acquaintances to round out that education as well. Ask questions about their investment philosophies, for instance, and most importantly, listen carefully.

Above all though, the most important task you have ahead of you that should continue throughout your life is to get that personal finance education by reading. Never underestimate how much knowledge you can gain from the Internet if you are selective about what you read.

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Having good credit is a lifesaver at times, thus it behooves us to have the best credit we can have, and more importantly to maintain it. Easier said than done, is a common answer to that comment, however it need not be so.

Make sure that your credit report is timely and has the correct information on it yearly. You can do this by going to www.annualcreditreport.com. This is a site that the Federal Reserve Board suggests you used to check on your credit report!

One of the most disregarded credit tips is unfortunately the old adage that you need to pay your bills on time. So many disregard this tip that they hurt their credit without even being aware of it until it’s too late!

Understand how credit scoring works and what your credit score means. The Federal Reserve Board also has a site set up to explain credit scoring to you, found at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre24.shtm.

If you are searching on how to improve your credit report, you will be very pleased to read the following Federal Reserve Board’s site also.  You’ll see how to improve it by going to http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre03.shtm. This site is also indispensable for locating various scams that come along with improving your credit report too.

It is unfortunate that so many credit scams exist, and worse yet they are growing daily as we experience credit problems and require more credit tips than ever. The Federal Reserve Board has expanded their credit tips regarding credit repair scams. This can be found at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre13.shtm.

The U.S. government understands how some people can get in over their heads with spending also.  Thus they have developed a free booklet advising what can be done to get out of the red ink you find yourself in. It discusses facts such as debt consolidation as opposed to the wisdom of filing bankruptcy, receiving credit counseling, and realistic budgeting. You may access this booklet at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre19.shtm and the site is made available to you from the Federal Trade Commission.

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Your worksheets need to be well thought out and planned. You should have a section that lists the starting and ending values of any and all of the financial assets that you are tracking and you also need to have the goals listed for that particular portion. This is important because over the lifetime of the use of your worksheet you will want to review what is working well and what is not working at all.

You should further break down the portions of your specific financial portfolio so that the short-term and the long-term re tracked separately. That is because your financial options that are made to be on the long run generally will change often in value but if you look at them over the longer period of time you will notice that they steadily increase in worth.

On the other hand the ones that are not so permanent tend to run good or bad. That means that if they are performing poorly there is a very good chance that they will continue to perform poorly and will not recover from the slump. This is why a good and strong financial portfolio will be diverse in these areas and will range between low risk, moderate risk and higher risk options for the short-term.

Obviously the higher the risk category the better and bigger the payback you will receive as a benefit. The beauty of tracking these on the worksheet is that you can tell almost immediately what works and what does not and if you don’t like the way something is performing but you want to stay within that risk factor, you can choose something else and track it the same way until you find the right mix for your situation.

Now as you look over your worksheet you might notice that your choice in the higher risk mode is doing phenomenal. Perhaps that is due to some strange world phenomenon and it is only going to be short lived. What you can do is shift the money around and pump more funds into that portion of the equation and keep an eye on the worksheet. When that starts to turn around and not make as much money you can once again swap that out to something else. 

By tracking things on your worksheet you have the total control to do what you need to run your assets.

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