Building Strong Money Management Skills

Having excellent money management skills can make or break a person's future in both the long and the short run. Developing money management skills at any point in your life, whether young or old, can help you not only avoid bankruptcy, but live a healthy, thriving financial life.

Money management covers a variety of areas. Budgeting, saving, spending, and investing are just a few of the different areas where good practices can make a world of difference in your life as you see your neighbors or co-workers face the possibility of bankruptcy.

Budgeting

In a sense, budgeting skills are the crux of money management skills. A good budget allocates every portion of your finances, helping you achieve your financial goals with clearly established methods. With a fixed income and fixed expenditures, there's no reason for your saving and spending habits to ever differentiate from your budget. Of course, it's not a perfect world and so this will not be the case every month. As income fluctuates and emergency expenses occur, no one can expect you to hold to a budget with the utmost religiosity. However, creating a budget now can help you avoid bankruptcy in the future.

After you have created a reasonable budget, set aside enough money to cover three to six months of your budgeting needs in case you are unable to work or lose your job. Having this money set aside can give you a secure safety net, not to mention peace of mind.

Saving

Determine how much money you want to save, whether it's in an employer-sponsored 401(k), Roth IRA, government bond, or low interest savings account with your bank. Diversifying your savings between a mixture of these might be advantageous for you. Consider your goals and the opportunities available to you, make a savings plan, and stick with it. Having savings can be a wonderful stronghold against bankruptcy.

Spending

When it comes to spending, anyone with developed money management skills will tell you: stick to your budget or go for under budget figures. All sides agree, our country is in a spending crisis on both personal and governmental levels. Take responsibility for your spending, keep your credit to a minimum, and stick to the budget!

Investing

After you have budgeted, saved, and spent (within reason), you can start thinking about investing your money wisely. The number one rule in money management when it comes to investing is to never invest money you can't afford to lose. Diversifying your investments is also paramount. With a diversified portfolio of conservative to moderate risk investments you can make your money work for you.

Money management skills take time and practice. If at first you don't succeed, don't be discouraged. Stay on track and try again! Proper money management will help you avoid bankruptcy and enjoy your financial future.

Operating Income Margin

Only those companies that are making good quality products can apply high mark-up for its products, because usually their products are more expensive to make and they require more time to prepare it for the market. These products can be done using more hand work or better materials and so on. Products of a high quality and high operating income company are usually more expensive and the amounts of such product bought will not be so vast. Higher operating income margin helps for the company to earn more profit even if the costs of the product are high. High quality of a product helps to gain the reliance of customers that are more sensitive to the quality rather than price.

If low quality company applies high markup, it doesn't mean that the price of a product will be high. If costs of goods sold are very low the company can earn high mark-up and the price of a product can still be lower than other the same type products in the market. Usually the quality of such products is very low. But if the mark-up is not so high for these products, the company can offer products at a lowest price in the market and sell more of them. Economy of scale helps for such companies to earn good profits and stay in the market with low quality products.

Companies that have higher operating income margins and apply higher mark-ups can offer higher discounts for their products and make it more liquid and attractive for the customers. Higher operating income margin gives a space to vary for the mark-up of a product. If a company applies low mark-up, it cannot offer big discounts, so sometimes if managers want to liquidate the oddment of its products, they have to sell them for the lower price than they really costs and in such way they may suffer loss.

Other aspects of higher than usual mark-up, is brand name. Well-known companies use their brand name to apply higher mark-ups for the products. Usually these companies have high operating income margins. These companies are reliable and respectable in the market, so they have fewer problems with oddments of their goods. Such companies may offer discounts only for special occasions, holiday days, etc., because they don't have problems with demand of their products.

As you can see - operating income margin shows the ability of the company to earn profit from its operations. The mark-up that is used in the company shows if the product is high or low quality and if the company can offer higher discounts without suffering loss. Usually if the company has well-known brand name it has high operating income margin and is more attractive for investors.

What You Can Do To Manage Your Money

If you don't properly manage your finances, you can suffer physical and emotional consequences. Read on for some tips on managing your finances.

Make sure you stay on top of your credit score. If you want to have low interest on a loan or credit card, you will need to have a good credit score. Low credit ratings also can prevent you from purchasing your dream home or getting credit when you need it. Use your credit proficiently to protect your credit score.

Use your tax return to help reduce the amount of your debts. Rather than repaying their debts, most people go shopping with their tax refunds. By doing this, the debt is still there, even when the money isn't.

When you're having trouble getting rid of credit card debt, avoid adding new charges. Cut your spending and do everything you can to avoid maxing out any of your credit cards. Be sure to pay your monthly balance prior to starting to use your card again.

If you are going to make little purchases, carry cash, bank checks and a debit card. Merchants are allowed to establish a minimum account for credit cards or bank checks.

The balances on your credit cards affect your FICO score. Your score may be lower if your credit cards have a high balance. On the other hand, when you pay off your credit card balance, your FICO score will improve. Do your best to keep your balance below the maximum credit limit by 20% or less.

If you are thinking about buying a new house, you should build your credit score to begin with. You can either pay back your small loan or get two cards with the balance. You need to pay your card as a whole on all of your bills.

Many products out there have some kind of a warranty on them, and if something should go wrong with the product, it would tend to happen during the period of the warranty. Extended warranties only serve to profit the company you bought them from.

Consider adding international investments to your portfolio. No-load mutual funds are the safest way to make foreign investments and are not as volatile as individual stocks.

When you are married, the spouse that has the better credit should apply in their name. If your credit is poor, take time to start building it up with a card that is regularly paid off. After achieving good credit scores, spread the debt between both of you.

Try negotiating with collections agencies. These agencies bought your debt for pennies on the dollar. They will make a profit even if you pay a percentage of your debt. Use this to your advantage when paying off old debts.Find out how much you can spend and create a budget on your findings Find and target areas where you are spending too much money. Not tracking your money and where you spend it is one of the main reasons people end up in debt and with no savings. In order to make this less stressful and perhaps more interesting, you can use personal finance software. If there is money left, you can use these funds to pay off debt or put it into a bank account.

Avoid using credit cards instead pay with your business checks. Also find ways to reduce interest payments on other loans such as car loans and your mortgage. It is a waste to have to pay interest. If you are wanting to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, then you should always avoid interest payments whenever it is possible.

Always review your bank and credit card statements for accuracy. This way you can make sure the fees and rates have not quietly increased on you. Many folks don't review bank statements and end up paying more in fees than necessary. Read your statement carefully each month for the reason.