Balancing Your Budget and Developing Long-Term Savings

There are many things to buy and in today’s consumer culture it is more difficult than ever to say “NO”. Learning to live within your means and save for the future is a discipline you can learn over time to create financial security. Putting effort into changing habits makes a big difference in how successful you will be in creating a savings plan.

Balancing your budget is as much about habit as it is about planning. Learning where to find deals on products, understanding value, and making better choices takes time to ingrain as a way of thinking. Start small and slowly move toward higher levels of spending discipline.  You can still get what you want but should learn the best use of your money.

You will have to give up the idea of spending as a type of wealth. If you are truly wealthy you can spend on lots of things you enjoy; but they do it with cash. Wealthy people don’t normally just waste money and have a keen sense of value. Spending all your disposable income and maxing out your credit cards has nothing to do with wealth.

Make a differentiation between what you need and what you want. There are differences as paying for your needs food, shelter, clothing, car, etc. are your baseline. This is where you can live a reasonable life without extras. What you want is everything else you spend on top of your baseline.

Spending choices are an extension of how you see yourself. If your self-perception is trendy you will buy the latest and greatest products that are popular on t.v. or you may gravitate toward sports and sport products. Getting your ego under control can go a long way in helping you save money. Ask yourself if this is really something you need?

There are two hurdles to saving money that include your habits and your self-perception. Changing both can lead to better fiscal choices and higher levels of financial security. Start small and make little changes until you start creating a cushion in monthly income.  Make a habit of putting that money away for long-term savings so that market rates can help you to your goals. Over time these choices will add up to serious cash in your bank account.

Call for Papers: 28th International Business Research Conference

Submission Deadline: July 21, 2014
Date: September, 8^th & 9^th 2014
Venue: Novotel Barcelona City Hotel, Barcelona, Spain

Website: www.info-researchmeeting.com 

We seek either abstract and/or full paper from the academics, scholars or researchers in the broad fields of Accounting, Banking, Economics, Finance, Investment, Management, Marketing and all other business subjects for the above international conference organised by London Academic Research and Publication, UK, Australian Centre for Accounting, Finance and Economics, Australia and American Research and Publication, USA and sponsored by eight international peer reviewed journals, which are indexed by Cabell Publication, Ulrich and EBSCO of USA, ABDC and ERA of Australia. Criteria used to select papers for the conference include originality of the paper which must not be submitted in any journal

Paper Submission: Please send your paper to Ms. Nuha Jahan via spainconfo@gmail.com

 Website:  www.info-researchmeeting.com

Call for Papers: 2014 International Congress on Economy, Finance and Business

Location: Nagoya, Japan

Date:  September 8-10, 2014

The 2014 International Congress on Economy, Finance and Business (ICEFB 2014) will be held at Nagoya, Japan, on September 8-10, 2014. We would like to take this opportunity to extend a cordial invitation to you and your colleagues to submit your manuscripts. Detailed information about the conference can be found on the conference website.

Please note that all submissions will be reviewed by at least two independent peers. All manuscripts must be submitted on-line. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us. We look forward to your participation.

Website: http://soci-science.org/CEFB2014/
Submission: http://175.99.76.113/CEFB/

Is the Higher Education Recession Over Or Just Starting?

A survey by Inside Higher Education shows a fundamental difference in economic assumptions of governors and college presidents with those who run the academic affairs such as provosts. Some are hailing the end of the economic downswing in 2008 while those who run the academics do not feel that this downturn is over. The perspectives are interesting and offer some insight to the debates going on in higher education. 

According to the survey only 5% feel strongly that the economic downturn is over at their institutions. Another 18% feel that for the most part it is over. A total of 21% strongly disagree and another 37% somewhat disagree. Only 26% of private nonprofit institutions agree that the recession for their schools is over. Public institutions were even more likely to believe the downturn will continue. 

The provosts feel that concepts such as MOOCs are unlikely to produce meaningful change. There will also be greater accountability on higher education to match effectiveness with finance. They are unenthusiastic about proposed changes for measuring school effectiveness at a national level but are excited about competency based programs.

Programs like STEM, professional degrees, and online programs are likely to receive more investment. It appears that schools are trying to receive additional funds and allocating those funds to programs that are likely to draw and retain students. Faculty and administrators have a divide in the way they view higher education and the changes that are needed.

The study was based on 842 provosts and has a margin of error around 3%. You may want to read the report yourself as there is a greater amount of information it offers. You can find some dissonance of perspective based upon where one sits within the higher education economic chain. For example, college presidents view the situation much differently than provosts and faculty members.

The report is a mixed bag. Certainly there is an adjustment in the perceived value of some programs versus others. Who can argue with STEM? Online programs are becoming a more common way to augment costs and attract students. Even though MOOCs have limited value they should be seen as higher education experimentation and may lead to either new adaptations or beneficial for continual professional education where a defined degree is not needed. In any event, the cost is rising and this is going to eventually run into the brick wall of public financing. Perhaps this will be when changes occur at a quickening pace.

Read Report

Call for Papers: Global Conference on Business and Finance

The GCBF  provides an excellent opportunity for the academic and business communities to share cutting-edge research in all areas of Business, Finance, Accounting, Management, Marketing, Economics, Education, AgriBusiness and related fields. The conferences are truly global in nature with participants from around the world.  Our next academic business conferences will be held at:

2014 Honolulu, Hawaii, January 6-9, 2014

The 2014 Winter Conference  will be held at the Ala Moana Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, January 6-9, 2014.  For those unable to make the trip to the Conference, please consider submitting a paper to our Internet Session.  The detailed call for papers is available at 2014 Hawaii Global Conference on Business and Finance

Is Time and Choice the Fundamental Components of Economic Development?

Development of financial success rests in part in the psychological functioning of individuals engaged within the market. A paper by Raines and Leathers (2011) helps understand how and why markets have under defined psychological components and how these components influence the economic system. They base their analysis on post-Keynesian economics, group experimental psychology, and the works of John Galbraith. At the very core of economic development may be the concept of choice?

Economic markets are not perfectly predictable as history has shown that even some of the best analysis has failed at one time or another. Mathematical explanations alone are not yet sufficient for the overall understanding and prediction of markets. Keynes observed that even though mathematics is helpful many economic choices are made on the micro level based upon alternatives. Sometimes people may rely only on wishful thinking.

If we think of a large economic system we might be surprised that it is really made up of the people, individual dollars, businesses, governmental systems, culture as it influences choice, and many other small components. At its most basic level, people use their options to make hundreds and thousands of small choices every day that impact the market. For example, a person buying a toaster from China or one from the U.S. has made an evaluation and determination. The more people make a determination one way or another more the economic system is impacted and pushed down certain paths.

The psychological factors have been discussed by economists for some time. For example John Galbraith stated “it can be said with some assurance that in economic, social and political matters, if the controlling circumstances are the same or similar, then so will be at least some of the consequences” (1988, p.xi; see also 1987, p.62). The development of markets doesn’t rest in economic conditions alone but also within social and political spheres. Economic development must therefore be seen as something wider than finance and when circumstances are similar it can be repeated.

These systems are not stagnant and continue to develop as an entire entity. Galbraith further went on to state, “economic life is in a process of continuous transformation, and, in consequence is an uncertain guide to the present or the future” (1993, p. 105). These markets develop and continue to develop over time. Because they are always changing and developing it can be difficult to predict and measure them accurately.

Snap shots through economic measurements are only a particular time and place. Moving beyond the study we can see that multiple snap shots create trends and assuming that additional pressures in the wider market do not change their trajectories the market will continue to develop on a basic course. At its most basic level the market is not made up of finance but the fundamental choices that lead to financial selection. It is the neuro-economic choices of hundreds of thousands of participants that create the right atmosphere that leads to economic development. Without changing the fundamental thought processes you cannot change the system.

Galbraith, J (1988). The Great Crash. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Raines, J. & Leathers, C. (2011). Behavioral finance and Post Keynesian–institutionalist
theories of financial markets. Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 33 (4).