Money Making Schemes

Nagesh answers:

First, if you aren’t saving enough for retirement, get that maxed first. You can borrow for school but not for retirement.
Second, after #1 is set, don’t put it in her name. It’ll kill your need based aid. 35% of the total is counted against you each year you apply for aid. In your account, it’s 5.6%.
Third, if you only have one child, I would wait on 529 plans until the end date of the tax savings is extended. You could put the money into a ROTH IRA and later withdraw the principle without being taxed. In addition, it’s hidden from the fin aid calculations…
Fourth, scholarships are worked for and now is the time to start. Take the hardest classes she can handle. Harder classes with B’s is better than easy with A’s. Get involved in extra curriculars. Service is a great area because private colleges love to give scholarships/fellowships for service.

Nagesh answers:

High school kids usually run charity date auctions for prom through a website called Prom Date Depot… People will pay approx. $100 for a prom date…

Nagesh answers:

1. Work on your strength. The stronger you are, the faster you’ll progress. But the conditioning you do in tumbling class isn’t enough to make much difference. You need to work out at home every day. So make yourself a schedule and stick with it. Do pushups and handstands to build up your arm and shoulder strength; situps, crunches and v-ups to strengthen your core; lunges, squats, and any type of jumping exercises to increase your leg strength.

2) Increase your practice time. If time and money allow it, take more than one tumbling class a week. If that’s not possible (or even if is), take advantage of any open gym times, so you can get in some extra practice. A private lesson now and then can be a big help, too, especially if there’s a certain skill you’re having trouble with, or one that you’re really close to getting.

3) Be sure you’re getting good instruction. A good coach will give you lots of turns and lots of feedback, and will keep the class busy and moving the whole time. You’re only there for a short time, so you don’t want to waste it standing around. A good coach should also be able to give you instruction and corrections in a way you can understand. If you’ve been at the same level for a long time, and feel like you haven’t made much progress, it might be time to switch to a different class or coach.

Hope this helps some! Good luck!

Nagesh answers:

Well i have 47 webkinz. Walgreens has webkinz cares webkinz for 6.99 and they include a special tag you can enter in the code shop for tons of fun stuff, and you can play a free webkinz cares game daily in the code shop in the bottom right hand corner. So really your getting more fun for less money.
Hope I helped!!!

Nagesh answers:

A “creative” budget will not solve your problems. A budget is a tool and tells you things plainly in black and white. It is like Mathematics. There is no room for error or opinion. It is what it is. From your statements above, it seems like you have already done a budget. What did it tell you? That you have too much outgoing cash and too little income. The solutions are obvious. You have to either lower the outgo or raise the income. Sorry to be so straightforward but these are the facts. Just like Math, Numbers don’t lie.
There is great reference and debt elimination methods in a book called the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. My wife and I read it and are on his plan and it works wonderfully. This book will show you in easy steps how to do a budget, build an emergency fund, organize and eliminate debt, invest, save for kids college, and many more things. There are starter budgeting forms in the back of the book to help you. We took the forms and changed them around a little to suit our particular needs but they are a great starting point.
From your statement above, You have and income/outgo problem. You may need to sell the house and buy/rent something cheaper. Do you have car payments? You may need to sell the car and buy a beater. You can not pay down debt if you have too much outgoing cash every month. You will need to stop spending money on useless things. Restaurants, bars, movies, vacations, etc. Are all out for a while. Stop using credit cards and use cash or debit. This is money you already have. You can not get out of the debt hole if you keep digging it deeper every month. There is a whole slew of things that can help you. If you want to save money on groceries, go to www.couponmom.com. I use this and it has helped save us about 65% on our household needs bill every month. The money saved goes to debt elimination. We had a garage sale and got rid of a ton of crap we should not have bought in the first place. All the proceeds went directly to debt elimination.
You will have to have a basic change in attitude towards debt and spending. It has happened to us and it is really great. We have paid off in the low 5 figures in the last 6 months just by our change in attitude towards debt. We started just after thanksgiving last year. We had a cash only christmas. It was very nice not having those huge january credit card bills hitting us this year. We have eliminated a few debts altogether and have a few more to go. Once you get mad and frustrated enough at your situation, you will be amazed at how fast and how far you can turn your attitude and practices around.
It is not easy at first. Once you start to see that you are making some headway on your debts is when you will really get pumped up. Our debts have fallen dramatically just by getting on and staying on a budget. Watch your spending, Sell stuff, Utilize coupons, and get on a plan. Nothing great was ever built without a solid plan. With some self discipline, you can turn this around. If you are married, your spouse needs to read the book and get on board as well. If one of you saves every penny and the other spends every dollar, it won’t work You are a team working toward a common goal. Everyone has to be pulling in the same direction. Think of it this way, If you are in the kitchen baking a dish and it comes out terrible, what do you do? You change the recipe next time for a better result. It seems like your current financial planning recipe has been tried with not so favorable results. You need to change the recipe to something that works.
I wish you all the success in this endeavor that my wife and I have had.
Good luck and stick to it. It gets much, much easier as time goes by.