All In A Days Work

Balancing your finances is tough enough, but balancing your finances as you collect benefits is even more difficult. Even though your income is gone (or significantly decreased), you still have expenses. You’ve got to buy food, pay rent, and make sure the bills are dealt with. It can be a complex balancing act, and it’s not surprising that so many people struggle to make it happen.

Fortunately, there is financial help available for people collecting benefits. Including loans for people on Centrelink and other financial service from non-profits. Here are a few things you should know:

The First Step is Understanding Your Resources

Today, there are dozens of programs designed to help people with little or no income to meet their specific needs, including food, housing, and utilities. For many people, though, finding these resources can be a hassle.

If you’d like to save time and effort, your first step should be contacting your local joblessness center. This one-stop-shop can connect you with many of the aid programs in your area and ensure that you’re getting access to the assistance programs you need. You may also find resources you weren’t expecting, like access to job seeking assistance or counseling services.

Government Benefits 101

If you’re collecting government benefits, you can learn a great deal about your account at Benefits.gov. This site will help you understand the ins and outs of your particular benefits program and access additional organizational or logistical assistance. It’s easy to search the site by state. You can also look up benefits programs according to the agency.

Even if many of the resources you find aren’t helpful for you, this is an excellent place to access the input and assistance you need to keep your finances organized while you collect government benefits.

Community Agencies

If you’re struggling to manage your finances while collecting benefits, don’t overlook local agencies. Local organizations like the Community Action Agency (CAA) and other nonprofit organizations offer a wide variety of resources for people collecting benefits. These agencies can help you with things like housing, utility bills, and affordable groceries. They’re also an excellent place to find financial education classes and more.

Balancing Your Finances

The financial management muscle gets stronger with consistent exercise, and excellent financial skills are learned, not born. If you’re struggling to manage your finances as you collect benefits, you’re not alone. Fortunately, you also don’t have to live like this forever. By understanding the financial resources available to you and knowing how each can help you manage your benefits and your budget, you can move yourself to higher financial ground. So, what are you waiting for? Go get your financial life in order today!

Just because your loan is paid off, or you hit the 100,000 mile mark doesn’t mean you have to start car shopping – if you treat your car right, nowadays cars can last to 200,000, 300,000 or sometimes even longer. Here’s some simple tips to help make your car last longer.

Don’t Cut Corners
Don’t cut corners to save a buck – to help extend the life of your engine when you have your oil changed use a high grade filter, and pay a bit more for the high quality synthetic oil. In cold weather, this will help maintain the oil’s fluidity and it will be less likely to break down when the engine gets hot. While it cost you more upfront, it saves you money in the long run helping your engine last longer; same thing with the good filter, it can help eliminate any unwanted particles from the oil.

Always Maintain Your Fluids
Your owners manual will tell you that you probably don’t need to check your power steering, brake fluid or coolant for the first few years, but honestly it’s a smart idea to check at least every 20k miles. Make sure its consistent, and if any feel gritty or smell funny, you’ll probably need a fluid change.
If your orange coolant is dark red, most definitely change it! Also if it’s cloudy – that means your engine may need service. It wouldn’t hurt to change the transmission fluid every 35k miles or so and of course, using high-quality transmission fluid as well, which will offer better protection if the transmission gets hot .

Baby Your Baby
If your car has been parked over night (or especially if it’s been parked longer) don’t just start up and drive off. During the period it has been sitting the oil settles in the oil pan leaving moving parts in the engine without lubrication. Wait at least a minute or so to allow your car to warm up without revving the engine, so that the oil pump can do its job.

Slow and Steady Win the Race
This is more than just road rage – you don’t need to accelerate quickly, or slam on the brakes, or throw your car into reverse before you are fully stopped – all of those things can really wear on your vehicle – and break it down before it should be.

If you take the time to keep up the maintenance and treat your car right, it will treat you right back. You should be able to keep watching that odometer rolling several thousand miles more than you ever thought possible!

When you are purchasing a vehicle, and you glance at the hatchback or SUV, it looks like you could easily accommodate all the luggage and bags you would need fro a trip – but once you start packing in bags, you will come to realize there probably isn’t as much room as you thought. There is an art to safely and efficiently packing up your car for a road trip.

Clean it Out
Before you even THINK about packing for a road trip – clean it out! If you are like me you probably have your reusable grocery bags, some soccer or baseball equipment, etc. Unless you are headed for a tournament, all this stuff can be taken out and give you room to get all your necessities in!

Pack Everything You can the Night Before
Pack what you can the night before, so you are wasting precious driving time trying to shove everything in the trunk or hatch. You can also take time to see what fits where the best, and make sure you have any bags you might need DURING the trip on the top and easily accessible.

Have a Strategy
Pack items in the order you will need them – packing items you’ll need first, last – so you can get to them easily. If you are splitting up your trip and you’ll be staying in a hotel for one night , you don’t need your entire suitcase. Have a ‘go bag’ ready with pjs, 1 outfit, your toothbrush, etc, so that you don’t have to unpack everything until you get to your final destination.

Don’t Cram and Clutter
Packing your car for a trip not only needs to be efficient, but SAFE. You don’t want to cram so much in that the driver’s view is blocked. So don’t OVER PACK!

Pack for Safety
Make sure that you have the proper ‘safety’ equipment readily available. If you are traveling in the winter you’ll need to make sure you have a shovel, emergency blanket, flashlight, etc. If you are traveling in summer you want to make sure you have water, sunscreen, etc. Make sure your cell phone and car charger is nearby if you need to call for help or have an emergency.

Most of us would think that battery issues happen mostly in the winter due to cold weather, but did you know that summer months are actually HARDER on your battery than the cold?? Batteries in cold climates usually last approx 51 months, where warmer clients battery lives are near 30 months.

When you drive your car in the heat, your battery begins discharging on its own in just 24 hours – something that takes several days in cold weather. This means you could wake up to a dead battery easily in extreme heat if you don’t take the proper steps to keep your battery healthy.

Keep it Cool
With heat = drained battery, be sure to park in the shade whenever possible. Not only will it help extend your battery life, but your interior will be a lot cooler too when you get in.

Make Fewer ‘Short’ Trips
When you drive short distances, it definitely will reek havoc on your battery – your alternator needs time to recharge the battery after it’s been started; short trips with starting and stopping frequently, doesn’t allow your battery time to recover. Take a few trips around the block or leave your vehicle running for a few minutes to avoid draining the battery life.

Go Back to the 90’s
Nowadays we seem to ask a LOT from our cars with all the devices we have running in our cars all the time. From navigation systems, to DVD payers, smart phones and computers, they can seriously drain your battery. Everything you plug in does take its toll, so just be careful about what you need and how often you do use it.

Make sure its CLEAN
Dirt and grease build up on the battery or around it, serves as an insulator. Be sure to wipe it down with a paper towel or rag on regular basis, to keep it from draining the power from all the grime.

Get a Battery Charger
A good way to keep that battery lasting longer – is to invest in a car battery charger. If you park your car for a long period of time (like when you were on vacation, etc) a car battery charger will keep it from going dead.

This post is sponsored by Reedman Toll Auto Group.

Most of us have a bag for trash, maybe even something to organize our paperwork in glove box. But there’s quite a few products – and hacks – to help keep your car clean and organized – no matter how messy it’s been in the past.

This is one of my favorite products to use for your car – and honestly this would make a great Father’s Day gift. This car seat gap organizer not only keeps your stuff from falling in the cracks – but also will hold your stuff. My favorite thing to put in these are my shades, my phone, and a pen and sticky note pad.
It also catches the loose change you drop, that fry that always falls from your bag and just grows into your cars carpet, and they are easily removed and wiped out.

If you are a woman, you’ve experienced the dreaded purse flop into the backseat. It’s the worst especially if you are traveling and are stopping at the drive-thru for another cup of coffee. This mesh front seat cargo holder not only keeps your purse from falling into the floor, but can hold your water bottle, box of tissues, or anything else you don’t want falling all over the place.

The trunk is always hard to keep organized; I keep my emergency kit along with a blanket, and some other “we might need” items , and sometimes it gets in the way with grocery pick up, or the kids throwing their stuff in the back. I picked up one of these car trunk organizers and it fits everything! It also folds down for when you need the whole truck area to move something.

One of my biggest pet peeves regarding having a clean car, is the cup holders. They always seem to be dirty, no matter what. A good hack for keeping them clean, is silicone cupcake liners. Put them in each cup holder in your car, and that way as soon as they are dirty you switch them out and put them in the dishwasher – and TADA! Clean cup holders all the time!

Seat hooks are another great investment for being organized in your vehicle – it can hold groceries, purses, coats, whatever you don’t want smashed to the ground and dirty shoes all over it.

A holder for the headrest for a tablet/iPad, not only keeps things organized, but keeps the kids busy on road trips! You don’t necessarily want to hand an expensive iPad to a 3 year old, so having it on the headrest like a built-in T.V.

Another favorite is the stash away car trash can. Its better than a grocery bag for garbage, and it holds other items as well (think sunscreen, tissues, ibuprofen) .

Another favorite – portable car vacuum. Talk about getting things cleaned up in a jiffy. I love it because we have a tendency to let messes go and we will ‘get to them later’, but with a vacuum just under your seat, or in the trunk, you can sweep out your vehicle at any time (even your lunch break!)

Have an old empty gum container laying around? Use it for all that loose change! You can put it in a cup holder, in the pocket of your mesh cargo holder, or in pocket of your stash away trash can. Either way you can easily reach for change for those tolls, or when you need that extra dime for your lunch.