Archive for October, 2012

The Art of the Emergency Fund

Personal finance

Do you have an emergency fund? Are you ready to deal with emergencies?

Don’t lie! Most of us don’t. After paying bills and dealing with investments, who has any extra money to save? Who wants to save money for something that hasn’t happened yet?

Many personal finance bloggers preach the idea of an emergency fund. Today I wanted to get into more detail on this topic and how it works.

 What are the benefits of an emergency fund?

  • Deal with the unexpected.
  • Not have to use your credit card.
  • Bail yourself out.
  • Sleep at night know that you’ll be covered.
  • Plan for a rainy day.
  • Cover expenses if you ever get fired.

Now you know why you should have one. This usually isn’t enough to start a new savings account. Just to be transparent I wanted to share my emergency fund situation with you guys.

How do I run my emergency fund?

I leave money in my checking account. I also have a beefed up savings account.

I don’t have an elaborate “emergency fund.”

I just have extra money sitting around to deal with emergencies and whatever life may bring me. Things always happen. It’s not a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of “when.”

Have I ever used my emergency savings?

YES. Many times.

One specific story comes to mind…

I was driving home from school. It was late at night and it was pretty damn cold. I just wanted to get to the library to cram for my final exam the next morning. I was over-worked, under-motivated, and just feeling crappy. As I’m getting off the highway, my car slides and hits the curb at a fast speed.

I panicked. I was nervous. I drove to my buddies house. I knew that something was wrong. He’s a mechanic and he helped me check out the car. He told me it definitely needed work and that it couldn’t be avoided.

The next morning I went to the shop before my exam. I studied in the waiting area while they fixed my car. It sucked. I didn’t want to hand the money over, but I had to. Luckily I had money saved up to deal with this.

Now it’s your turn…

How can you set your emergency fund up?

Start saving. Save a dollar. Save two dollars. Save anything that you can. Put this money away. Hide it. Just keep on going.

I also suggest that you create a new account to keep this money in. I would label it”emergency” just so that you mentally separate this from your other accounts.

You don’t have to do anything special. Just keep some extra money on the side.

This isn’t the sexiest topic, but we all need to protect ourselves.

Are you ready to get your emergency savings off the ground?

Two Experiglot Offerings – eBook And My Help For Your Spreadsheets

Excel function tutorials, Excel macros, Excel Optimization, Excel spreadsheets (.xls), Excel Test

Over the past few months, I’ve been interacting with many of you who have been visiting Experiglot, commenting on posts, sending me emails with questions and comments, etc. I’ve came to the conclusion that there were two big needs and today’s post is to announce that I am finally able to help out on both.

#1-Improve Your Excel Skills

Many of you have projects related to work or hobbies that require using excel either to improve, automate or even just to track and organize data. Searching this wensite and the web in general is great but we sometimes lack structure or don’t know what to look for. I’ve created an ebook that includes tens of functions along with a few spreadsheets wwith examples of vlookup, sumif, macros, etc. It’s a fairly large package that can enhance your excel skills and knowledge significantly, all for a very reasonable $9.95!!!

Find out more about the ebook here

#2-Get Instant Help For Your Spreadsheet

I know the feeling. You’ve been trying to get this thing done in excel for hours and maybe even days and it’s just not working. At this point, you need to get it done. I would be more than happy to help. You can send me your spreadsheet along with a description of what you’re trying to do. For a modest fee, I’ll take a look and get back to you within 24 hours. In over 90% of cases, you’ll have it fixed while more complex spreadsheets might require additional work or be beyond the scope of what I can reasonable expect to do.

This is guaranteed. If the spreadsheet does not do what you were looking for, I’ll be more than happy to pay you back.

Find out more about getting my help for your spreadsheets here

Is Being Self-Employed Right For You?

Business & entrepreneurship

Have you been thinking about venturing off on your own?

If you want to be self-employed one day, this is the article for you. There are many myths and false pretences out there about the notion of working on your own. I wanted to give you some food for though today.

What should you think about before you travel down the self-employed route?

Your responsible for the money in every way.

The money is all on you. You have to have the money coming in. You have to pay suppliers. You have to take care of the accounting and taxes.

As you can see, you have to deal with all of the finances. Is that cool with you?

If you don’t like to deal with the financial side, you can outsource everything. Then of course, you have to pay for this. Money is now your issue.

The buck stops with you.

Not only is the money your problem, you’re also responsible for everything. You have to hire, outsource, design, delegate tasks, and take care of everything on your own. Everything is on you.

Some of us enjoy this type of responsibility. It gives us a sense of entitlement. For some it’s a pain. Which side do you fall under?

There are no set work hours.

You no longer have a 9-5. Your set hours are gone. This is good and bad.

The good news is that you can sleep in and work whenever you want. Feeling tired? No problem, just take the day off. Feeling motivated? Stay up all night.

The negative here is that there are no boundaries. You can be up all night and then sleep in, totally throwing your schedule off. You might be stuck working weekends and holidays. You might even offend your partner or friends when you bust out your laptop at the worst possible time.

You can easily overcome this. You can create a schedule. You just have to be disciplined enough to follow through with this schedule and stick with it no matter what. Can you do that?

You can get bored really fast.

You’re on your own. With all of your friends at work, you’ll be in your apartment all day hanging out by yourself.

The annoying workers won’t seem so bad on a boring and lonely Tuesday afternoon. You have nobody to bother or catch up with. You’re just on your own.

Do you like being alone? Would you prefer to be surrounded by others?

Being self-employed isn’t for everyone. It could be for you. If it’s not, that’s cool. The best solution is often to start a side business on the side while you still remain at your full-time gig. This will allow you to save up money and make the transition easier when you’re finally ready.