There are good aspects and bad when it comes your finances as a bachelor. One of the best financial aspects of being a bachelor is that there is no one there to tell you what to do with your money. You are the number one decision maker and you can decide how cheaply or how extravagantly you want your living situation to be. This means that you can choose to dress fashionably and drive a fancy car while living in a $300 a month, cracker box apartment, or live well below your means when it comes to food and entertainment, but put your feet up at the end of the day in a palatial palace. It's up to you!

The down side of being on your own is that there may not be anyone at your side to help you out with expenses when things go bad. There's no dutiful wife to help share costs or discuss investment options when it comes to what to do with your money. And if you aren't one that is particularly savvy when it comes to your paychecks, you might find it difficult to discipline your bachelor mentality when attempting to reign in your spending. You don't want to end up playing big man only to live like a miser in your golden years.

To help you avoid such an existence, here is a guide to investing for bachelors that might help you when it comes to your personal financial situation.

1. Understand your finances

Since you'll likely have no one else to do it for you, it is critical that as a bachelor you fully understand your investments. Doing so means that you may have to be a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to your money. To fully focus on your investments though, you will likely have to perform other functions such as balancing the checkbook, paying bills, keeping up with your retirement account, making investment decisions, and avoiding overdraft and credit card fees. To make sure that you are up to the task, it is important to understand the tools and resources that are available to help you with organizing and having a working knowledge of your money and investments.

2. Resources

Being a bachelor doesn't mean you are completely on your own when it comes to investing. Friends, family, and co-workers can be helpful resources when it comes to discovering investment options as well listen to a few good investment horror stories. Then you have the analysts and consultants out there ‘managing' your 401k, 403b, or IRA, but you never know what ulterior motives they might have when it comes to where you put your money. So what other resources are out there when it comes to investing?

Amazingly, that thing called the newspaper still offers business and investing information. And if you can't stand getting some ink on your pretty little fingers, the internet offers up a slew of research tools and options. Blogs and online investing communities can be great places to read about and discuss investment ideas and strategies, and there are a variety of tools and tracking devices available with which you can measure your investment progress.

3. Invest in what you know

Putting money into investment vehicles you don't understand can lead to exasperation and frustration, especially if you start losing money. While your bachelor lifestyle might be conducive to a little risk taking and wild streaks, when it comes to your money, you may want to tone down your strategy. Just because you don't have a family to provide for yet, doesn't mean you have to go crazy when it comes to risky investments. A bachelor with a guaranteed four or five percent return on his money might not sound exciting, but it's better than being a broke bachelor. Choosing sound investments that you understand and that have a reasonable expectation of return can provide peace of mind and steady income streams.

4. Diversify

Even a bachelor with few responsibilities should be responsible when it comes to his investments. Remember, you may not be a bachelor forever, and it can be nice to go into a relationship with a little nest egg stashed away for the future. A diversified portfolio that spreads your money over a variety of investments with various risk levels can help keep big swings in your returns to a minimum. Spreading money over stocks, bonds, mutual funds, savings accounts, CDs, real estate, commodities, tangible assets, and other investment options can help you ensure your investment eggs aren't all put in one basket.

5. Realise your goals

When making investments as a bachelor, it's important that you understand your goals as well as your money. Having not only an idea of where you're going, but how you're going to get there will make it easier to evaluate your successes and failures along the way. Writing some short and long term goals, even if it's just jotting your ideas down on a sheet of paper, is a great reminder of the direction in which you want your investments, and in turn, your life to proceed.

This is a guest post from Mark Brown who writes for www.moneycompare.com.au, an Australian website offering people an easy way of doing comparisons of online savings accounts offering a good return on investment.

No matter how prepared you think you are for life's emergencies, unfortunately things happen that are beyond your control. Sometimes the emergencies are minor inconveniences and sometimes, they are big headaches that cost major dollars. Usually, emergencies that require a nice chunk of change are rare, but when they happen (and they do happen), they can wreak havoc on your finances. 

Image Courtesy: ckroberts61

Before these major emergencies happen, it's best to sit down and make a roadmap for your plan of action to handle the emergency. Having a plan ahead of time can keep you from making an irrational decision in a panic. Everyone's plan of action will not be the same due to different financial circumstances.


My plan of action to handle a financial emergency would be as follows:

• Emergency Fund. Having a fully funded emergency fund can save you from a lot of headaches and worry. It's easy and quick to access your money and usually without any fees. And the best part, you won't pay any interest since you are using your own money. I currently keep my emergency fund in a money market account at my local credit union. 
• Irregular/Sinking Fund/Random Fund. The second line of defense against emergencies would be to hit this fund. This is the savings account I set aside to cover those irregular expenses such as auto insurance, auto repairs, home repairs and to cover those small emergencies that may pop up. Just like my emergency fund, this fund is kept at my local credit union but in a regular savings account. 
• 401k. This certainly would not be my first place to go for money. Borrowing money from your retirement account affects the future growth of the account.  Taking money out of the account now can result in a smaller retirement fund when you are ready to draw from the account. The other downside is that you are paying back the loan with after-tax dollars. If you were to leave the company, the money would be due in full or you will be subject to penalties and fees. The upside is that it is pretty easy to get a loan from your 401k and there is no credit check. You will also be paying interest to yourself and not to the bank. 
• Family/Friends. I would hope I would be able to cover the emergency with the above 3 choices since borrowing from family and friends can cause a strain on your relationship. If you want to lose a friend or family member, borrow money from them or loan them money. I personally would probably skip to the next step before I would think about borrowing from family and friends. 
• Bank/Credit Union Loan. Usually not an easy way to get money in a pinch. You'll have to have good to excellent credit for an unsecured loan. In addition, interest rates on these loans are usually in the double digits. 
• Credit Card Cash Advance. This would be one of my last places to get cash in an emergency. The interest rates are astronomical and there are usually no grace periods. 
• Title Pawn/Payday Loan. No comment other than to say that I would have to be a life or death situation before I would consider borrowing money from these guys. 

So do you have a plan of action to get cash in an emergency?

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It looks like today will be a beautiful day here in the Atlanta area. The temperature is supposed to get up into the 60's with clear blue skies. This is certainly a welcome change after the snow we got last week and the bitter cold temps that followed that.  I'm trying to figure out something nice (and frugal) to do outside and enjoy the sunshine. Although, I may take the opportunity to clean out my garage and get some things listed on Craigslist.

Here are some of the posts I enjoyed reading from my fellow personal finance bloggers this week:

Clever Dude is tired of buying and spending. 

Budgets Are Sexy turns 2!! Go by and wish J a happy blog anniversary.

Couple Money asks what you plan to do with your tax refund - payoff debt or savings?

Money Crashers explains how to build an Emergency Fund with Irregular Income.

My Two Dollars says that everything in your house has value to someone else.

PT Money gives a great explanation of how to make money blogging.

The Wisdom Journal reminds you to make sure you remember any forgotten income when you file your taxes.

I participated in 2 Carnivals this week:

Festival of Frugality #217 - hosted by Simply Forties.

Carnival of Personal Finance CCXLIV - hosted by Len Penzo dot Com

I took advantage of being snowed in this past weekend to get some things done around the house and tackle the dreaded task of completing my taxes. I'd spent the last few weeks gathering all of my W-2's, 1099's and receipts and putting them in a nice pile. Every time I attempt to attack the pile and get my taxes started, something more interesting would get my attention and I would put it off longer and longer. I finally bit the bullet and got it done. 

Image Courtesy: Zevotron

Although it was on the "to do" list, I wasn't in any hurry to get my taxes done since I had a pretty good idea of what the result would be. For the last 3 or 4 years, I have been intentionally underwitholding my federal taxes so that I would get a very small refund or owe a small amount. Unlike most people, I don't look forward to getting a huge tax refund each year. A big refund to me just means I've been letting the government use MY money for free throughout the year. I prefer to get the money throughout the year in my paycheck and earn a few pennies in interest instead of a lump sum once a year. 


The result was that I only owe the federal government $12! Last year, I owed $1533 and the year before that, I owed over $2000. Now that I have the right amount of taxes withheld for the federal government, I need to adjust my state tax withholding. I got a refund of a couple thousand dollars last year from the State of Georgia so I adjusted my W-4 withholding. It didn't do much good because this year, I will be getting a refund of over $2000 again.


One of the things that helped reduce my taxes were some repairs I had to have done to my rental property. I also get to write off the expenses of maintaining the rental property such as lawn maintenance, pest control and depreciation. The other thing that helped was the amount of money I paid in mortgage interest. I didn't pay as much as J over at Budgets Are Sexy but I did pay a tidy sum of over $20,000. I was also able to deduct the interest I paid on my student loan.


Since I put mine out there, now I want to get all up in your tax business.

• Did you get a refund or do you have to pay? How much?
• If you are getting a refund, what do you plan to do with it?
• Do you like getting refunds or do you prefer to get your money throughout the year?
• Do you do your own taxes or do you pay someone to do them? I do my own using H&R Block at Home.

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I transformed into my prior self a few weeks ago. The prior self that caused me to get into major credit card debt. The prior me that I don't like anymore and try to keep hidden deep in the closet.

I'd been wanting to purchase a MacBook Pro every since my buddy got one and told me how cool it was and all the awesome things it did (I swear he should be a salesman). I haven't had the best luck with PC's lately so I decided I would give the Mac a try.

I told myself I was going to wait until I had the purchase price of the laptop (approximately $1500 with taxes, accessories and protection plan) saved in a separate account. I have multiple savings accounts at my credit union so I picked one that didn't have any money in it and promptly changed the name of it to my "MacBook" fund. I'd planned to purchase the laptop in about 6 months which means I would need to deposit $250 a month into the account. 

I made my first transfer of $250 and setup an automatic transfer of $250 each month from my checking account to my "MacBook" savings account.  In five months, I would be able to purchase my MacBook...I didn't make it five days. 

I made the mistake of going to my favorite store in the whole wide world (Best Buy) just to look around and play with the computers. I remember my buddy telling me that they had a special financing promotion on any purchase. If you apply for a Best Buy credit card, you get eighteen months no interest financing. Needless to say, I left the store with a MacBook Pro and $1600 in debt (laptop, taxes, protection plan and case).

I'll be sure I pay this off well before the eighteen months are up. I don't want to take any chances on missing a payment and having to pay interest on this purchase.  

I'm not upset about making the purchase but I am upset with myself for not following my plan and delaying instant gratification. I should have known better than to just go look. Me going to Best Buy is like taking an alcoholic to the bar. I can't control myself. I know electronics are my weakness. 

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Thanks to the snow, it looks like I'll be stuck in the house for most of the day on Saturday. Atlanta received anywhere from 2-5" of snow in the metro area and higher amounts of snow to the south. The roads were starting to get bad last night as the temperatures dropped so I figured today would be a good day to stay home and get my taxes done. Before I start that tedious task, here are some articles I've enjoyed from some of the personal finance blogs I like:

J. Money presents 10 Ways to Woo on Budget.

NCN has been debt free for awhile but now, he is buying a house.

Five Cent Nickel wants to decide what better - use interest free financing or cash?

Your Money 101 talks about The Lotto, Your Finances and You. 

Punch Debt In The Face wants you to Share Your Secret.

Money Crashers gives you 5 Ways To Make Some Extra Cash. 

Fellas, don't forget that tomorrow is Valentines Day. Be sure you get an extra special gift for your lady. 

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I saw this over at How I Save Money who saw it at Budgets Are Sexy who saw it at over at Automatic Finances. I thought it was a pretty cool idea so I figured I'd steal it and do my own post on it.

(1) How do you spend: cash, debit or credit? The majority of my transactions are made by debit card or credit card. I hardly ever use cash because whenever I have it, it always seem to disappear and I have no clue where it went. For larger purchases, I use 1 of my 2 credit cards that gives me cash back or rewards for using my credit card. I use a couple of checks each month to pay for the mortgage on my rental property (they charge to pay online) and to pay my trash bills.

(2) Do you bank online? How about use a financial aggregator (Mint, Wesabe, Yodlee, etc.)? I love online banking and I don't know what I would do without it. I usually check my accounts at least once a day to make sure everything is going okay.  I use Mint to get an overall view of my finances and also to check on those accounts that are rarely used.

(3)What recurring bills do you have set on autopay? None. I have a problem with billers being able to go in and debit my account automatically each month. I have no problem paying the bill online as long as I initiate the transaction. I just have a huge fear of them making a mistake and withdrawing $3000 instead of $30.00. I know it would be a huge headache for me to correct the error and I'd rather avoid going through the hassle. 

(4)How are your finances automated? My 401k contributions are made automatically and my paycheck is direct deposited. I setup automatic deposits to my savings account. 

(5)Do you write checks? If so, how often? I'm still a geek when it comes to checks. I actually like writing checks. I don't write that many but I'm sure I write more than most people these days. No, I'm not one of those people that holds up the line in the grocery store. I'm all about the debit card for that.

(6)Where do you stash your short-term savings? Short term savings are safely tucked away in a money market account at my local credit union. The rate is not the highest but it is among one of the best rates I can get right now.

How about you? Let's hear 6 things about your finances.

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If you are among the lucky few that recently received a pay raise or will be getting a pay raise this year, you are probably wondering the best way to put this extra money to good use. 


The most important thing to remember is not to increase your standard of living (expenses) to match your new income. It's amazing as I look back over the years and see how my standard of living increased to match (or sometimes, exceed) my income. If I was living comfortably on $30,000 a year, why couldn't  I continue to live on $30,000 as my salary increased. Just because my salary increased should not have meant that my expenses increased along with it?


Two years ago, I made a conscious effort to be sure that my as my salary increased, my expenses stayed the same or decreased.  If my expenses did increase, it was because I was sending more money to my savings accounts and not because I was taking on another bill to pay each month. 


If you will be getting a pay raise or recently received a pay raise, here are a couple of good things to do with the increase:

• Debt Payments. If you have high interest debt you can direct the additional income towards knocking out your debt. Once you get rid of the debt, your raise will have have a double positive effect. You're income will increase from the raise and you'll have the additional money you aren't sending to your debtors. If you have a mortgage, how about sending that additional money in to knock down your principal and own your home a few years sooner?

• Savings. Are your savings accounts looking a little skimpy? Direct the additional income into those accounts to fatten them up.

Don't use a pay increase as a reason to increase your expenses. Do you really need a larger house or a new car? Those things usually mean larger monthly payments. 


Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should not have a little fun with your money; but don't go overboard. Make it a one time expense instead of one that occurs monthly. 

Did you get a raise recently? What did you do with the increase?

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The first full month of my new zero-based budget was a success. My new budget plan is to set aside the amount of money I plan to spend at the beginning of the month in my checking account and any deposits are sent to my money market account. Once the money in my checking account is gone, I can’t spend any more money for the month.

Income: 

My income was a little bit higher this month due to getting my company bonus. The majority of the bonus was deposited into my rental property savings account to cover some upcoming maintenance items that need to be completed.

Expenses:

Nothing really out of the ordinary this month. I budgeted $4100 to spend for the month and I spent a little over $3800. The difference of $296.38 was transferred over to my money market account to zero out my checking account. On February 1, I’ll transfer another $4100.00 to my checking account and start all over again. (Note: The mortgage amount includes the mortgage for my primary home and my rental property).

I really like this new method and I think I’ll stick with it. Instead of trying to allocate money to several categories, you allocate money for the month. To me, it makes budgeting easier.

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I’m sure you guys have probably heard this by now but if not, there are several Toyota models being recalled due to two different safety issues.

The first recall, "Floor Mat Entrapment," regards the potential for an unsecured or incompatible driver's floor mat to interfere with the accelerator pedal and cause it to get stuck in the wide-open position.

The second recall, "Pedal," is being conducted because there is a possibility that certain accelerator pedal mechanisms may mechanically stick in a partially depressed position or return slowly to the idle position.

Here is the list of Toyota vehicles involved in the recall:

* 2005-2010 Avalon
* 2009-2010 RAV4
* 2007-2010 Camry
* 2008-2010 Sequoia
* 2009-2010 Corolla
* 2005-2010 Tacoma
* 2008-2010 Highlander
* 2007-2010 Tundra
* 2009-2010 Matrix
* 2009-2010 VENZA
* 2004-2009 Prius

If you aren’t sure if your vehicle is involved in the recall, head to your nearest Toyota dealer to get it checked. This is a huge recall that can affect the safety your vehicle.

You can also check your Vin number (17 digit number on the left front dash or checked the drivers door). Vin numbers that begin with “J” are not subject to the recall.

Are you a Toyota owner? Is your vehicle affected by the recall? Have you had it repaired?

According to the Wall Street Journal, personal bankruptcy filings are up 32% from 2008. Sometimes, your personal financial situation is so bad, bankruptcy is the only option. While bankruptcy may wipe your financial slate clean, unfortunately, it will also kill your credit score and stay on your credit report for at least 10 years.

While filing bankruptcy may hurt your credit for the first few years, you can take steps to rebuild your credit.

The first and most important thing to remember is to not to get back in a situation where you end up over your head in debt. I’m not saying that all bankruptcy filings are a result of irresponsibility. Bad things happen to good people. People lose jobs unexpectedly, people have health problems, people get divorced, etc. I will say it again, sometimes bad things happen to good people.

The second thing is to pay all bills on time. Even though your utility companies or cell phone companies don’t show up on your credit report, they will likely show up on your credit report if they go into default.

You will need to demonstrate to future creditors that have learned your lesson and you can be responsible. One way to build or rebuild your credit is to apply for a secured credit card. Secured credit cards work like regular credit cards except that your credit line is usually secured by a savings account that you maintain with the bank. Many of these cards don’t have a monthly and/or annual fee. You can find a list of prepaid cards here.

Building your credit score up will not happen overnight but with patience, time and responsible behavior, your credit score will improve.

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