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The most critical component of custom building is obtaining the right budgets - Yes Plural - "for you." I can not emphasize this point enough. Every family has different needs and objectives. You are allocating resources (monetary, emotional, time, etc.) to your custom home and you expect to maximize your return on investment.
However, a custom home's return on investment is not the same as a stock holder's return on investment. Your return on your home's investment is personal. Yes, it should have financial implications, but it "MUST" reflect your family's lifestyle, values and personal sense of style. Your home should be an oasis. A place for entertaining, retreat, and solitude.
Therefore, you should require two budgets. One budget that outlines what you expect to pay for your home. No More, No Less. This is the financial budget. The second budget is a personal budget. This budget defines how your home will reflect your lifestyle, values and personal sense of style.
The personal budget outlines your requirements for items such as views; The style of architecture you want; How you entertain; What type of privacy your require; Do you work from home; Is there a need for a play area; How many Bedrooms do you need; What floor would you like the Master bedroom on; Etc.
It is "critical" that you are honest with the architect and your home builder regarding what you expect to pay and your requirements for your new home. No More, No Less. Without open, honest communication, the architect and your builder can not do the job they are hired to do - Design & Build Your "Custom" Home.
You should have both your financial and personal budgets prior to meeting with an architect. Your builder and the architect will work with your budgets to maximize your homes return on investment.
Brian Putnam is the Vice President of Operations and Owner of Stone Aspen Custom Homes in Colorado. http://www.stoneaspen.com
New Yorkers see the first high-speed Acela train from Washington to Boston in this file photo from Penn Station on Dec. 11, 2000. Amtrak hoped to compete with the airlines for passengers traveling the Northeast corridor, but slow tracks have prevented the trains from reaching competitive speeds for the length of its run.ZUMA Press / Newscom / FileEnlarge By Matthew E. Kahn, Guest blogger / October 7, 2010 High Speed rail is an interesting network problem. Any state along the route can make the entire network less attractive by not making the investments required to "keep the trains moving". Certain Republican governors are threatening not to invest in Fast Trains. Their ideology and commitment to smaller deficits means that their threats are credible. So what happens next? Will train boosters mail checks to these leaders to encourage them to avoid Amtrak speeds? Is bad behavior always rewarded in our political system? Now, this network isn't literally an O-ring. In that case, you are only as strong as your weakest link but in a high value of time economy --- how will trains compete if they go 200 MPG for part of the ride and 70 MPG for the other part? Average speed over the journey will determine the one way time and how the train will really compete with the incumbent planes.
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Matthew Kahn Mathew is an economics professor at UCLA and has written three books: Green Cities (Brookings Institution Press); Heroes and Cowards (Princeton University Press, jointly with Dora L. Costa); and in fall 2010, Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter World (Basic Books).
Perhaps geographers can create a new "straight line" across country through only Blue States showing how the fast train will proceed. If only liberals want to ride the fast train, then this ideological placement of the train may be efficient?
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The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday honored Victor Perez, the man behind the improbable car chase that resulted in the recovery of an 8-year-old girl abducted in Fresno, Calif. 'This guy is a true action hero,' said the governor. Here is his story and the stories of three other everyday heroes who responded to trying circumstances with extraordinary grace or courage.
Global News Blog The Vote
Leanne Sarco is a ranger at Grand Isle State Park, located on a barrier island off the coast of Louisiana. When the oil spill closed beaches and canceled her job running a summer program for children, she asked her boss if she could rescue hermit crabs instead. Her effort attracted volunteers from far and wide.
She recruited Facebook friends to save Gulf Coast's hermit crabs.
When park ranger Leanne Sarco saw oil-covered hermit crabs on the Louisiana beaches, she started her own project to clean and save them.
If your money situation feels out of control and you are living paycheck to paycheck it may be time to set up a personal budget. In its simplest form a home budget is based on expenses and income. It is the best way to regain control of out of control finances because it gives a quick and easy way to see exactly where your money is going.
The best way to do this is the old fashioned way, with a notebook and pencil. There is no need for fancy spreadsheets or financial software at this point; you just need to get a handle on what your money is doing. So with notebook and pencil in hand it's time to start setting up your personal budget.
When starting out sometimes it is a good idea to write down your financial goals. Are you getting out of debt? Saving for a future big purchase? Want to retire early? This will help you use your new budget for the right reasons and will help keep you motivated during the process.
Once your goals are written down it's time to get into the nitty gritty of budget building. Get out your check book register and all your monthly bills for the last three months. Leave nothing out; groceries, gas, gym memberships, credit card expenditures, utilities, insurance payments, mortgage's, that vacuum you financed, and anything else that you can think of.
Put each expense in the proper column or row in your notebook and then add each of them up and divide by three. This will give the average expense for each item on a monthly basis. This is the point where you will begin to see just where your money is going allowing you to identify areas where you are probably spending a little too much that could be put to better use.
The next step is to add up all your monthly income from your job or any other source of income you may have. Compare your monthly expenses to your monthly income; if you have less income then expenses you need to seriously work your way through your budget and cut as much as possible to get back to a positive cash flow.
Now that you have a snapshot of where your money has been going it is time to tell your money where to go so it works for you. This time you are looking a month into the future. Go back through your expenses and list out the important ones that must be paid and their payment due dates. Mortgage, utilities, transportation costs, food, and such are some examples of these expenses. Subtract these from your monthly income and what's left over can be used for other expenses.
The important thing to remember when making a budget is that every dollar should be accounted for in the budget. No more just spending money on a whim. If it's not in the budget you don't spend money on it unless you move money from another budgeted item to cover it. This keeps you from spending more then you make. And ultimately that is the reason to set up a personal budget.
If you seriously want to take back control of your money you need to build a Personal Budget. To learn more about creating a budget please visit the website Household Budgets by clicking here.
How much do you spend on food on a day-to-day basis? For most people, the simple answer is too much. It's not just the extra bag of chips or the impulse trip to the diner. There's also the cost of gas, electricity, and production time involved in getting food to your table. But saving money on food doesn't mean going hungry or giving up nutrition. Often, it only takes a few simple tricks. Here are five you can try today.
Make a weekly menu: Knowing what's ahead for the week will keep you from buying things that aren't on your shopping list. Or if you do buy stuff on impulse, you'll be able to keep it under control. It also saves those quick trips to the store for last-minute ingredients, which cost you time, gas, and money.
Take advantage of sales: If something's on sale, go ahead and stock up-but not more than you can consume before it goes bad. Get vegetables in bigger packs, bigger cans of broth, an extra pack of meat. You can always use the extras to liven up other dishes or even make a new dish altogether.
Use that crock pot: Slow cookers are great for budget cooking because they let you choose cheaper meats, use up less energy, and offer more creative meal options. They're not just for pot roast; there are lots of crock pot recipes for breakfast, soups, and even desserts!
Do some DIY: Whenever possible, make a batch of your own commonly use ingredients. Use meat drippings to make gravy or sauces, pre-cook your meats and save the broth for soups, or make a large batch of your kid's favorite dip. In the long run, you'll save a fair deal since you won't have to buy pre-mixed stuff anymore.
Switch off as you go: Don't leave appliances running longer than they should. Set your cooker to turn off automatically when done, and wait to the dishwasher to get full before turning it on. When you're done cooking, make sure everything is turned off-even that little blinking light in the microwave.
Simon Burke loves to cook delicious and nutritious meals for his family. And luckily for us he also enjoys sharing his cooking experiences and recipes with the rest of us. He has just found another article about budget cooking on this site all about frugal living that might interest you.
When you first realize that you may be heading for financial troubles you will most likely start thinking about setting up a home budget. When times get hard and you start getting those calls from the dreaded bill collectors you will normally start thinking real hard about a home budget.
When everyone wants a piece of your paycheck and you do not have enough money to pay everyone it is vital to spend your money wisely and in the right places. You want to make sure food is at the top of the list. If you are hungry it is hard to keep up the motivation to keep on chipping away at your pile of debt. Your rent or house payment also needs to be near the top of your priorities. Next you need to think about keeping the lights on. Your transportation you use to get to work is also very important. This article will look at a few of the things you need to think about when deciding who to pay first when setting up your home budget.
Keeping food on the table has to be about the most important thing you can put at the top of your budget. You do not need the best food to keep going but you do need to think about good nutrition and staying healthy. Getting sick will only cause to miss some days at work, which will put you further behind. This does not mean you should not pay your bills and go out to eat every night in a nice restaurant. By being careful you can eat pretty good for little cash.
Keeping a roof over your head is just as important as eating. Paying your rent or house payment needs to be over almost any thing else in your home budget. Lose your home and you will lose much more than just your house. There is a safety in your own place that seems to disappear when you no longer have a home you can call yours.
Next on the list would be your utilities. Although I would not consider gas and lights as important as food and shelter it is pretty important nonetheless. You can live in a house with no electricity if you have to but it is not a pleasant task.
Transportation needs to be thought about next. Your car is often your only way to work. If you do not work you probably will not have enough money to pay your bills. You may be able to take advantage of public transportation but this is not available for everyone.
Use common sense when setting up a home budget and pay the necessities first. Pay everyone you owe as fast as you possibly can and do the best you can by getting out of debt and staying there..
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Keeping control of your personal finances is, in theory, a fairly simple process. It is only human nature that makes home budgeting and financial control so difficult for many people. However, for the sake of this article, we will consider the simple side of the household budget equation, which is making a budget in the first place.
A good starting point in your quest to make a home budget, is to take stock of your current and recent situation, and list out all your monthly outgoings.
If you only do this from memory, there is a chance you will miss one or more important items. You probably have several sources of information on what those regular outgoings are, and whether they are easy to find depends on how well organised you are with your paperwork. It is worth checking back over at least three months bank and credit card statements, and jot down what your regular payments are out of those. At the same time, you can also make a note of items of expenditure that may recur later on.
Another source of information will be the bills and receipts that you have received over the past quarter. If you have not kept such documents and records before, then now is a good time to start. The good organisation of your important financial documents, and orderly filing of bills and receipts, will stand you in good stead for controlling the family budget when it is set.
Going over what you have spent over the last quarter will cover most if not all of your regular payments. However, it is important to think about whether you have any quarterly, annual, or new commitments that may not have shown up in your previous search. This part of the process in making your budget should give you a list that includes utilities (eg water, electricity, gas and telephone), insurance payments, mortgage and loan repayments, and credit card payments.
The regular payments you have so far found will form the core of your household budget. You can now turn those into a formal list, either on paper or on a spreadsheet, and put the amounts into the next column, with a heading notifying the month. Before moving on to the next phase, add a further 11 columns on the paper or spreadsheet, with the headings changed to appropriate months until you have a column for each calendar month for a year. I have prepared an example budget spreadsheet to help you.
For each of the items listed, decide whether they are monthly, quarterly, or yearly, payments, then repeat the monthly amounts in all the columns that apply. For example, monthly payments will go in all 12 columns but quarterly in only in the four columns when payment is due.
The next stage is for you to consider what other necessary expenditure will come out of your income every month. These other expenditure items probably do not show up as regular payments in the first stage, though individual payments may. These items may include food, household goods such as detergents, car maintenance, petrol (gasoline), and fares, which are essential to you, and you need to budget for each month.
Again, list these items in the budget list, and then enter amounts in each monthly column. What you will have then will be the "essential expenditure" part of the budget. This, if you like, is the unavoidable part of your budget. At least, it is unavoidable in the short term.
On top of that essential expenditure, though, we all have discretionary, unnecessary or indulgent expenditure, on things we like to spend on but do not actually have to.
However, before considering your non essential outgoings, there are two things it is advisable to do:
1. Total your monthly essential expenditure for each of the next 12 months, and
2. Write (or type) in your monthly net income at the top of your budget form.
Hopefully, "2" is much higher than "1", and you still have some income left to spend on non-essential things that make life more pleasant, plus some regular savings too.
Now that you know that you have money spare to spend on non-essentials, such as holidays and eating out, then you can also list those. You will then have a complete picture of your spending and income patterns, and have a basic budget from which you can plan ahead and keep your finances under control. If all goes well, you can also budget to save a reasonable amount each month, putting you well on the way to financial stability.
This how to make a budget article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner author of the Eliminate Credit Card Debt Now web site.
Budgeting money is something of a neglected necessity in the modern world, with so many people lured into spending regardless of their financial situation. It has become almost the norm to spend each month more than is earned, often without even knowing it. This has led to severe debt problems for millions of people in the US and UK in particular, and an encouragement and acceptance of ignorance in personal money management.
Despite all the bad debt write offs, the banks and other lenders are happy with the situation. They build the risk factor of bad debts into their interest rates to ensure overall profitability, so borrowers are paying for the collective lack of ability to budget properly. Yet, budgeting is easy, so it is baffling in some ways that many people are unsure how to budget money.
Being able to budget your own money is a bit more than listing your incomings and outgoings each month, quarter, year, or whatever period you need to budget for. Yes, you must go through the listing process, and then keep an eye on both sides of the equation constantly. But there are other factors in home budgeting, and that is what this article is about.
The Greatest Incentive
To encourage yourself to budget money is important, as without the motivation, you will probably not budget that well. What incentive can there be to having a home budget and sticking to it? The answer is actually quite simple. Nobody becomes rich by spending more, or even the same, each month than they receive. Wealth grows from surplus; that is, the surplus left over at the end of the month after you have completed your spending.
Recognizing this can provide you with a kick start in wanting to learn how to budget money, and then put that learning into practice. Once you start to see those surpluses build, your confidence in wealth building, and incentive in budgeting, will grow.
Keeping Detached
It is important when budgeting to maintain a detached view of the figures. Think of yourself as a finance professional helping a consumer set and manage a home budget, and set yourself aside from any emotions that may seep out during a review of your budget. Some parts of the budget can arouse emotions, and thus distort sensible decisions. Things like cutting out a family holiday or weekend trips, that new bike for your son or designer outfit for your daughter, can be emotional sparks. It is important not to allow those sparks to set light to your well drafted budget.
Be Open
If you have a family, the household budget affects those closest to you. The budget is a family affair, and it does help to talk openly about it with your spouse and children who are old enough to understand. Children may not like sacrifices, but they will understand eventually. It can be an important part of their education if you involve them. If you can give them some incentive, too, such as building their own savings scheme into the budget, then they may even start to enjoy it and truly see the benefits.
Ignore Peer Pressures
Your personal budget is simply that, personal. It is therefore something you should see in the context of your own circumstances, not somebody else's.
To budget your money effectively you really need to be able to ignore peer pressures that may force you into unnecessary or unwise spending. Just because your neighbour or best friend is having two foreign holidays this year does not mean you need to also. Just because your brother or other relative has a new home cinema system does not mean it is essential for you too.
If you can let peer pressure run off you, like water off a duck's back, then you have made a big breakthrough in learning how to budget money.
Those are just a few of the other factors that come into play in learning how to budget at home, but they are all worth considering as you focus on your incomings and outgoings while home budgeting.
This how to budget money article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner author of the Eliminate Credit Card Debt Now web site.
