No matter the age of your child, as a parent, you will want to set up different financial resources for each stage of life. Your child looks to you as their teacher – from learning how to talk at a young age, to opening their first bank account as they grow older. In addition to putting financial safeguards and assets in place early on, it is also important to directly teach your child about money and how to manage it. Follow these simple tips and be on your way to planning a solid financial future for your child

1.  The First 5 Years of Life – Investing in your child’s financial future early on is the best investment a parent can make. Consider opening a bank account for your child at this crucial stage in life. Setting up a savings account or even a college savings plan at this point allows for many years of growth. And, don’t forget to let your family members know – grandparents, aunts and uncles may want to invest in your child’s bank account or college plan. Additionally, if you have not already done so, this is an opportune time to ensure your family’s financial stability by getting life insurance quotes and purchasing a policy.

Recent History of Virtualization

The Internet enabled industries to go virtual at the end of the last century. IT and graphic design led the way, with education quickly expanding into the arena. Even industries where a virtual model didn’t seem practical are now embracing the freedom. Healthcare, financial services and product innovation have all begun to realize the benefits.

Every year, we look for gifts that are “different,” that really show our loved ones how much we care. This is not always easy, especially since it seems that we are surrounded only by material gifts that will be forgotten or thrown away over time.

With these thoughts in mind  the GradSave team went in search of gifts that will not only hold their value, but that will actually help the ones you love save money. Here are our tops five picks:

There’s no escaping it: The holiday shopping season is officially upon us, which means it’s time to get serious about gift giving and holiday spending. The good news is that this year, with the wealth of mobile apps that make holiday shopping more convenient (and cheaper!) than ever, there’s no need to shell out a bunch of cash on presents you can’t afford.

Check out these four apps that will not only save you money during the holidays, but they’ll make holiday shopping more fun, too.

A dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to. With food and gas prices rising, instability in the job market, and national debt looming like a dark cloud, many Americans have been wracking their brains to make every dollar count.

Your own home is a great place to start. I’m not talking about making drastic changes or contemplating unusual alternatives for powering your home. Rather, just take a closer look at your home spending habits and it can go a long way toward cutting overall costs and bringing some peace of mind. If you dread opening your monthly bank statement, try implementing some of these easy steps to financial frugality.

Consumers are often looking for ways to repair and improve their credit scores, and many seek the assistance of a credit repair company to handle the process. As the number of consumers looking for help increases, so does the number of fraudulent companies looking to take advantage of vulnerable individuals. In order to make sure that you only deal with a trusted and reputable company please take the following into consideration:

Common Sense Due Diligence: Just because a company has a website does not automatically make them a legitimate business. Many of these companies offering credit repair help are not even real businesses. Do a simple “who is” check on their website domain. If they are a legitimate company it will notate that the company owns the domain, and provide full contact information for the business including a phone number, email address and business address. Make sure that the information presented matches the information on the website. If the domain search reveals that the domain is registered private and there is no information available it is a huge red flag that you are not dealing with a real company. If the company were operating legally then why would they hide their information? Do you think companies such as Best Buy or Target hide their website registration information? Of course not! Why wouldn’t a company want potential customers to be able to track them down, unless of course they were hiding something?

The average consumer receives multiple monthly bills to pay for services, utilities, credit accounts, and other purchases. Knowing which bills to pay first might be challenging, but it’s certainly good to learn how to prioritize them. Remember, some bills might be for services that you can do without while others could mean losing important things like healthcare coverage, a home, or your car.

In case of a financial emergency, paying the right bills can save you time and money. By learning how to prioritize, you’ll be better prepared for times when money is tight.

Recently a study conducted by students at Cornell University showed that people who are in a committed relationship or a marriage are comparatively happier than those who are single, and both of the partners have the highest sense of well being, even if they do not rate themselves as happy. The study, related to happiness and well being, reported that people who are in a live-in relationship are equal to married people in terms of happiness. They are followed by people who are in a steady relationship, and last come those who are in casual relationships. To be very precise, researchers say that it is good to be in a relationship as it keeps both men and women in a happier state of mind. As the relationship between a couple gets stronger day-by-day, they feel better and happier than ever.

It is often said that married people or those who are in a relationship live longer than others. Statistical surveys, conducted in a number of countries throughout the world, prove that people who are married suffer less from disease and illness, and, even if they become ill, they recover sooner than those who are single. Married couples who live under one roof suffer from lower risk rates, for example, from driving, smoking, etc. The rate of suicide and alcoholism is also less. It has been observed that health changes toward the positive frequently take place after marriage. A husband or wife who was vulnerable to frequent health issues earlier suffers less after marriage.

Buying a home is not an easy process, especially with the current economic climate. For people with good credit scores, it is however, easier to seal home loan deals compared to those with bad credit. Getting a home loan if you have a bad credit can be almost impossible depending on your credit situation. Fortunately, you can get loans with bad credit provided you are able to convince lenders that you will adhere to the repayment schedule.

Below are some tips on getting home loans for people with bad credit.

It seems that it’s always the little things that create uncertainty in the tax world. Here are some of the questions that commonly plague taxpayers, and the answers they seek.

If you have a mortgage, loan, line of credit, or a credit card, it may be in your best interest to accept the creditor life and disability insurance that goes along with it. Although it will cost you extra money out of pocket, it may just be worth your while.

1. It can give you peace of mind. If something were to happen that drastically changed your ability to earn income, you want to know that you and your family would be protected. Without insurance, you would still be expected to make payments to your credit products. But, with insurance, you would know that it would be paid of in full in the event of your death and that your disability insurance would kick in if you were unable to work due to an accident or injury.

Saving money in your household finances needs to be a top priority, especially when you consider the difficult economy in which we are living. Every dollar and every cent counts and so does every one that you can save. There are many ways that you can stretch the hard earned cash in your household to make it last longer and work harder. Here we zero in on the top six money saving tips for your household that you can start doing not tomorrow, next week, or next month,  but today!

1. Pay your credit cards off in full every month. The interest you will pay if you carry a balance from month to month is astronomical and not something you even want to think about! Okay, maybe thinking about it for a minute is essential to driving the point home. Consider the fact that a $1,000 balance that is being charged at 18 % will cost you approximately $200 a year in interest charges. Wouldn’t you rather keep that $200 in your bank account? When you use them pay them off- completely!

When most entrepreneurs need to go to banks or investors to raise funding, they realize they need to develop a business plan. But, unfortunately, most entrepreneurs complete their business plans incorrectly, and thus fail to raise money.

Interestingly, most entrepreneurs do include much of the key information they need in their business plans, such as the executive summary, industry analysis and marketing plan sections. But, since most entrepreneurs have the wrong mindset when creating these plans, they fail to achieve their goals.

Not everyone is getting an email from his or her employer to enroll in health and dental insurance this year.

Unfortunately, in the last two years, we’ve witnessed 9 million adults losing their health coverage as nearly a quarter of working-age adults either lost their job, or dealt with a spouse losing their job, according to a 2011 Commonwealth Fund survey.

Impulse purchases, we all make them and almost always end up regretting them later. Decisions involving money should always be well thought out. For me at least, impulse buys almost always end up being bad decisions. They are bad choices because you haven’t taken the time to decide if you really need the item or you just want it. Since you also did not spend any time doing any comparison shopping, purchases made on a whim will cost you more.

So how do you stop yourself from making these bad choices time and time again? Here are five ways you can stop your impulse purchasing habits.

Retirement is ultimately a function of your bank balance, not your age. Not long ago, I came across some statistics which showed that the majority of the US population will either retire broke or still have to work to have a decent retirement.

I don’t know about you, but this isn’t even close to good enough for me, and definitely is not in alignment with my vision of a happy retirement lifestyle.

I will bet that if you have had to apply for at least two mortgages in your life the process was not the same for both. This is because the mortgage industry is constantly changing and lenders are always updating their guidelines for mortgage qualification.

Before the housing bubble burst you could get a mortgage on a ‘Stated Income’. This simply meant you told the lender what your income was and they gave you a loan based on that income (these were one of the types of loans that contributed highly to the housing bubble). After the bubble burst and the recession hit, lenders and banks tightened the reigns. They required more documentation proving income, assets and other factors to be sure you would not default on your loan.

Until recently it had been far too easy to fall in the trap of relying on a not-so-keen sense of frugality to keep your expenditures in order–especially while out and about. Was it just last week that you bought that new TV you had to have because it was on sale? Did your buddy Ted already pay you back for that one time you covered his dinner because he forgot his wallet at home? Maybe you’ve got a few hundred dollars to go before you hit your spending limit, right?

We all know how those stories end. You end up missing payments, dealing with overdraft fees or penalties, and falling into debt. Okay maybe that’s an overstatement–but it can happen often enough that it remains a very real worry.

There are millions of people across the United States who have to deal with the constant problem of not having enough money to pay their bills. They may have debt from student loans, credit cards, mortgage, cars and many other types of debt. However, when it comes down to it, the debt needs to be paid or the company that holds the debt will continue to hound you for a long time to come and your credit score could be severely damaged. That much you know, but what can you do about it?

For some, debt consolidation may be the answer. A first step in debt consolidation is to figure out exactly how much debt you have. Take a look at all of your debt. This means car loans, home loans, boat loans, RV loans, credit cards, gas cards, store cards, home equity loans and student debt. You may even have additional types of debt that do not apply to these categories. Check it out ASAP! You want to be sure that you are covered in case you end up having to pay the debt back.

Buying a house is a big (and exciting) step. But regardless of whether you’re a first-time home buyer or have bought before, there are some mistakes to avoid when purchasing a house. Here are a few to watch out for.

Getting in over your head

If there’s one mistake you want to avoid for sure when purchasing a house, it’s getting in over your head. You don’t want to buy more house than you can comfortably afford based on your current situation — not on some improved situation that you think you’ll probably be in down the road.

As my three young kids gear up for the upcoming school year, it has me thinking of all the ways my wife and I save money on back-to-school shopping every year. Purchases like pencils, pens, notebooks, backpacks, clothing, shoes, electronics, books, you get the point! According to the National Retail Federation, the average American family is expected to spend on average $606.40 on clothes, shoes, supplies and electronics this year. This number is mind boggling to me. My wife and I spend way under half of that number. Hopefully these tips can keep you way below that number as well.

Shop at Discount Stores – We are talking about cheap stuff. Things like 4 glue sticks for a $1, .25 cent folders, and $3 notebooks. The brands are typically high quality and include Elmer’s, Mead, and Bic. The stores I am referring to include stores like Big Lots, Walmart, and The Dollar Store. They are must stops for school supplies like pens, pencils, notebooks, backpacks, and file folders. They have major bargains on back-to-school stuff starting in mid July running through September. They typically have better deals on school supplies than Target, and a lot better than stores like Office Depot and Office Max.

Do you remember the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act? Probably not, so here’s a quick refresher. Signed into law by President Obama in 2010, the Dodd-Frank Act brought sweeping change to how financial markets are regulated in the United States.

Included in the act was a well-known provision called the “Risk-Based Pricing Rule”, which entitled many consumers to obtain free credit scores if they were either declined credit or offered less than favorable terms. If the lender didn’t provide a free score, they were required to at least send a notice that allowed applicants to obtain free credit reports instead.

It’s the #1 question consumers have about their personal finances: How much do I need to retire? If you ask 10 different financial advisors this question, you’ll receive 10 different answers, only because the answer depends on many different variables. Putting the variables aside however, we’ve outlined a simple, but effective strategy to help ensure you’ll have enough to retire.

How Much Do You Need Save to Retire?

You’re not going to believe how easy it is to cut your life insurance costs by as much as 25%.  You can easily save a bundle just by eliminating unnecessary or duplicate insurance you don’t need!

For starters, never – we repeat, never – think of insurance as an investment. Any insurance policy you use as an investment is costing you much more than you need to be paying. You can buy all sorts of investments that will treat you better than an “insurance” investment. We’ll talk more about these later.

Personal finance software takes ideas from big business to help you save time and money. Chart s of accounts, tables, and graphs can help households better understand their cash’s inflows and outflows, but does that understanding lead to better decisions and ultimately savings? Often, knowing where your money goes can help you curb extra spending and save on expenses. If you’re not dealing with business-scale revenue and expenses though, how necessary are all of these software packages’ extra features? Do you really need three charts and a graph to tell you that you shouldn’t have spent $300 on ice cream last month? In the worst case scenario, you may find yourself spending more time and money than you save.

So, how can you guarantee that your personal finance software is paying dividends for you? Ultimately, you need to judge any software package by two criteria: price, and ease of use. Any software that comes recommended by anybody and that you are likely to come across is going to have the features you need, which are essentially expense tracking and categorizing, so what you need is to guarantee that you won’t lose more than you save in the process of using it.