Financial Strategies

All too often people make the mistake of thinking that they are capable of handling their own finances without any worries at all. However, in most cases people learn rather quickly they cannot handle their own finances without help or assistance from anyone else. However, with some simple tips and advice people can now be assured that they can handle their personal finances quite easily.

College students are usually the worst people at managing their money and they need the most assistance. Some college students are away from home for the first time and they are eager to start spending their money on the various things that they want. Here are some tips that can help these people handle their money better and make it last longer. When you are in college it is very important to make your money stretch as far as it can.

There are some simple rules to personal finance that are intended to help and if used correctly they will lead you on your way to financial comfort and freedom.

1. You should always put money away for an emergency. The recommended amount of time that you should save money is anywhere between six months to a year. This should be put into an account in which you cannot withdraw money for a specified amount of time or for a specific reason. By having the money in such an account you know it will be there any time you need it.

2. You should always pay off credit cards that have the highest interest rates first. While doing this you can continue to make the minimum payment on the card that has lower interest rate while paying a little more each month on the higher card.

3. If you are not sure where you are spending all of your money then it might be a good idea to start keeping a diary of some sort where you record your spending each day. You should record everything that you spend than at the end of the week or month you can sit and determine where you spend the most money and if there are any areas that you can cut out.

4. While you are trying to save money people sometimes make the mistake of thinking that charging things to a credit card will help them save. This is completely wrong. If you want to save money then you need to stop charging and pay cash whenever you can. The cash may be gone but you don’t have to worry about making continuous monthly payments.

5. Avoid pressure to spend money. IF you do not want to spend the money then don’t. That is the simplest of all rules. Do not let others pressure you into spending money unnecessarily.

Debt levels are at an all time high in the UK. The younger generation tend to be feeling the pinch the most, but parents are increasingly being required to bail them out, often at great expense to their own limited mortgage or retirement savings.

It has become almost accepted as a fact of life that graduates will begin their careers with a considerable level of personal debt. The Association of Investment Trust Companies found that on average students expected to graduate with £7,208 of debt, while parents believed it would be nearer to £9,741, however the real average was found to be currently running at £13,501. Graduates then need to service credit cards, take out a mortgage, then cover the payments, repay university loans, not to mention the pressure to start saving earlier, and save more, for their retirement, whilst the basic state pension increasingly becomes inadequate. The government revealed in June that student debt for 2003-04 was seven times higher than they were in 1994-95 and the Student Loans Company has shown that debts owed to them has risen to more than £13bn.

It is not only students who face financial difficulties early in life. Consumer Credit Counselling Services – Scotland, has indicated that young adults in general, under the age of 25, now account for more than 10 per cent of the estimated 32,000 people who have fallen into severe arrears on non-mortgage debts of more than £1 billion.

Malcolm Hurlston, Chairman of the Consumer Credit Counselling Services (CCCS) said, “It is noticeable that young people are accounting for an increasing proportion and the number of them seeking assistance has risen by about 25 per cent over the past two years or so.”

Analysts have been bracing themselves for news of a sharp increase in adverse debt levels from the major high street banks following report figures of a 21 per cent increase in bad debts levels at Lloyds TSB. City analysts expect HBOS and Royal Bank of Scotland to declare that bad debt charges have risen by around 20% in their personal banking businesses, and Barclays, HSBC and Alliance & Leicester are all expected to tell a similar tale of rising loan defaults. Citigroup analysts are expecting bad debt charges from its retail banking division to rise about 24% in the first half of this year to £230m, while last year HBOS’s provisions for bad debt rose from £1bn to £1.2bn.

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