As young professionals enter the workforce, many might be financially clueless when it comes to saving money and preparing for the future.  A new job offers endless opportunities from selecting RRSP options to tax withholding.

To help young professionals get started, here are a few tips to help begin the savings process.

Savings Account

While most individuals open a saving or checking account prior to graduating high school, many do not. Aside from a RRSP and other saving accounts, open a separate account to begin stashing away for the future. Perhaps this money will serve a purpose like help buy a car or use for a down payment for a first home. Have a goal in mind so that you’re able to turn a “want” into reality. Perhaps this savings account will help pay off any student loans. Whatever the desired savings account is used for, make sure to save realistically. For example, setting aside less than $100 a week will quickly add up. If you think this amount is too much, consider how much lunch and coffee runs cost you as you might find both add up quickly to more or less the same amount.

Budgets

It is impossible to prepare a good budget and stay within spending limits if a budget is not implemented. Working a full time job has highs and lows with receiving a paycheck ranking pretty high up. Using programs like Excel or creating a free bank account online on Mint.com, young professionals can begin creating a realistic budget dividing “must have” items like rent, bills and food verses “wants” like new clothes, dinners out and entertainment. Creating a budget is helpful to track any and all spending to view how much is absolutely spent in order to avoid dipping into the negative. Your budget may also include future savings such as retirement and emergency funds.

Credit Card Caution

Once a budget is in place, now it the time to figure out how to pay for items. If a credit card is in question, make sure to consider APR rates and research awards and benefits to you. Prior to selecting a credit card, consider a free credit report to determine what percent tile you land to help determine which card is best suitable for you. If you’re in the early stages of building credit, credit cards help create and increase a fantastic credit report. However, make sure to watch spending limits as the amount spent is due monthly. Carrying over hefty credit card bills might cause problems later down the road.

In The Know

Family and friends are great influences but maybe not necessarily all the time. If deciding upon what financial budget is right for you and want an industry professional opinion or additional insight to how to go about saving money properly, consider reading financial publications covering important financial topics such as: Forbes, Fortune, MoneySense Magazine, Fast Company, The Economist and Wire.  Taking time to speak with a financial planner or adviser is highly beneficial to discuss and smooth out any uncertainties one may face while determining a financial plan.

Planning for your future as a young adult might seem overwhelming and a bit intimidating so take some time to focus and think what it is you want tomorrow, today. Being able to track expenses and budget wisely keeps you in financial shape for months and hopefully years to come.

When you run a small business in Calgary or anywhere in Canada, it really is essential that you maintain a good set of books which are regularly and contemporaneously up-to-date. The tax man will not be pleased with records that were tossed together at the year’s ending.

Tax preparation is really a crucial reason to keep an in depth set of books; however there are other aspects at play. It is vital that you understand how much money your company is generating as well as how and where the cash is being invested. Make a comparison of your results to industry standards to figure out where you have to improve your business. You must also compare this year’s product sales and costs to the prior years to make a note of your improvement in the business world. Critiquing the balance sheet accounts of this year (liabilities, cash, receivables, and so on ) to earlier years will even help establish revenue and product sales objectives.

Why Outsource?

Outsourcing your business’s bookkeeping to a certified bookkeeping provider can help you save operating costs, staffing overhead, administration time, clearing up important capital and boosting your abilities so you can operate your business more proficiently.

Your full-time bookkeeper will perform the tasks that you do not have the time, skills or wish to do. Those irritating bookkeeping jobs that keep you from the core of your business can become the burden of your bookkeeper instead.  These jobs include:

• Documenting and reconciling banking activity
• Documenting and reconciling charge card activity
• Preparing product sales return
• Documenting payroll
• Printing financial statements

A typical misconception is that a company proprietor will lose control when they delegate their bookkeeping. With the correct techniques in place, the business owner keeps all administration decisions and the bookkeeper just tracks and correctly records the accounting activities.Having a certified bookkeeper on your side, your company could be much more profitable, more effective and more competitive. You will get precise reports highlighting your company activities so that you can make choices which will keep your company moving forward. Not to mention, all those deadlines you have will be fulfilled without you having to give them a second thought.

As a business, you have to be really careful of the money and income flow. Likewise, the costs too should be documented and regulated. In this circumstance, you will find the job of a bookkeeper to be very useful. If you are not in a position to maintain a record of your transactions in your financial ledgers, you will most likely end up with false earnings statements as well as an unmatched balance sheet. This should be prevented no matter what.

In addition, the professionals you will be employing from the bookkeeping services are usually well qualified. What this means is the overall efficiency of the worker will be a lot more than any other conventional full time bookkeeper. For that reason you have to consider getting bookkeeping services from the specialists as quickly as possible.

It is one thing to have a precise and updated snapshot of your business’s financial records. It is another to comprehend just what it means when it comes to your company’s development. With regards to analyzing cash flow statements, determining burn rate and knowing other essential monetary information, a financial bookkeeper will help a start-up company stay in front of competitors.

With personal debt levels for the average Canadian consumers reaching some of their highest levels in the last 10 years, recent trends have shown an increase in long-term car loans, given the allure of lower monthly payments. New mortgage rules in Canada have increase debt concerns for families and households, and this is helping to influence the decisions made by Canadian consumers looking for cheaper financing when making automobile purchases.

Canadian Car Buyers Look to Lower Monthly Payments

When looking for the reasons to explain why these recent trends have emerged, many of these changes are seen stemming from recent moves by the Bank of Canada to reign-in excessive borrowing practices. Most of the Bank’s focus has been directed at mortgage debt but there have been indications that suggest this could extend to into the auto-lending sector as well.

The increased popularity in long-term loans when purchasing new vehicles in Canada has shown dramatic increases in recent years, as potential buyers look for ways to cut back on a central component of the family budget – the monthly car payment. At this stage, reports from J.D. Power and Associates are showing that a majority of the Canadian car buyers who borrow money in order to finance their automobile purchases are taking out loans with contract periods that are longer than six years. This is a massive difference from what was seen just 5 years ago, when less than 15% of Canadian car buyers had loan periods of this length

Recent Trends Get the Bank of Canada’s Attention

In fact, these trends in consumer debt have been so volatile that Bank of Canada Governor Carney has issued public warnings suggesting that personal debt in Canada has reached unacceptable levels, and these warnings have picked up in terms of urgency this past year.
In the first quarter of 2012, personal debt in Canada rose to 152% of disposable income, which is an all time record for the country. Carney’s warnings were echoed by recent statements from the IMF and the Canadian Finance Minister (Jim Flaherty), who moved several times to enact tighter mortgage rules as a means for slowing down a potential bubble in the housing market. But these moves ultimately increases the total costs of buying a home, and when taken into consideration with stalling income growth, many Canadians have found themselves looking for ways to reduce monthly payments in other areas.

Rise in Interest Free Loans

With all of these factors coming together at once, automakers and financial institutions looking to increase sales have begun to offer more interest-free loans with contract periods lasting up to eight years. This essentially means that consumers are being offered free money for the first seven years at neighbourhood car dealerships – a key indication that automakers are using any and all means available for luring potential buyers into their showrooms.

The recent surge long-term car loans shows that households are experiencing added financial pressures in other areas and consumers are looking for ways to either extend their payments or to simply lower their monthly burdens in order to free additional disposable income.

When seeing “easy money” loans of this type, it will not be a major surprise to see large growth in non-mortgage related debt in the coming year. In 2007, 17%of car buyers traded in a vehicle that was attached to a loan which was not fully paid. This year, the number has risen to 26%, so trends in rolling debt have picked up speed.

It appears, at this stage, that Canadian car buyers do not think about car costs in terms of their total values, but rather in terms of monthly payments. Canadian car owners are finding themselves in a position where the main objective is maintaining lower payment obligations in the near term. Additionally, we have seen declines in the use of lease agreements as a means for purchase. Monthly payments for vehicles that are based on leases tend to be much lower than the monthly payments that are associated with loans. Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, over 40% of Canadian consumers leased their vehicles instead of financing these cars or purchasing the cars outright. Since the recession, leasing has seen dramatic decreases, representing a mere 17% of total car transactions over the last year. Looking forward, these trends could prove critical in determining the level of personal debt accumulated by Canadian consumers.