Monthly Archives: August 2014

Budgeting 101: Tips for Beginners and Experienced Spenders

Budgeting-101-blog
It’s time for our first post in our Skills Academy series! As we talked about in our last post, the Raccoon Valley Bank Skills Academy is focused on providing you with the financial skills you need to live comfortably and reach your goals. Since budgeting is the foundation for financial success, we figured it is a good place to start. Even if you are an experienced pro, you may find your finances have gotten complicated and are in need of some simplification.
 
What is budgeting?
Budgeting is the practice of setting forth your expenses for a specific period of time. It also takes into account the income you will receive and works to account for every dollar you take in and spend. The goal of a budget is not only to track your money, but to get your spending and income to balance.
 
Why is budgeting important?
Have you ever tried driving to a new location without knowing their address or using directions? Imagine if you got on a plane and the pilot comes over the intercom just after takeoff and says, “We know the general direction we’re headed, but we’re just going to wing it and see when we get there.” That’s what you’re doing with your money without budgeting.
 
How to set up an initial budget
First, think of a time period that would make sense to budget for. For example, if you get paid every two weeks, that may be your time frame. Once you have a time frame for your budget selected, do the following:

  • Keep or ask for a receipt for every purchase. Yes, even the $1.50 you spent on candy at the gas station.
  • Make note of all expenses you have during that period that are automatically taken out of your account, i.e., student loan payments, mortgage payments or other auto-debits.
  • Also make note of any income you get during that period.

 
Once your time period is over, total up your expenses and income. Then do some simple math:
 
Total income – total expenses = your net spending
 
If you get a negative number, you spent more than you brought in. You then need to evaluate your spending. Try dividing your spending into categories, such as food, rent, clothing, etc. This allows you to see where you are overspending or if you are spending money on things you don’t really need.  From there, you will need to adjust your spending until it matches with your income.
 
Then comes the hard part: Actually following through on your budget. Try it out a couple of times through your established timeframe, making adjustments along the way. As long as you are at least breaking even, you are succeeding.
 
This is a very basic breakdown of budgeting. As we continue with our Skills Academy, we will get more in depth with budgeting and its various intricacies. Be sure to watch for more blog posts in the Raccoon Valley Bank Skills Academy next month!

Raccoon Valley Bank Skills Academy: The Financial Skills You Need

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When we first introduced our blog, we stated one of its main goals is to help you improve your financial life through providing helpful tips. More specifically, we’re hoping to help you develop the financial skills you will need through your life, whether you are younger and just starting out, middle-aged with a family to look after or getting closer to retirement.
 
Now, there are many financial skills you can learn, far too many for one blog post alone. We will be introducing these vital financial skills and how you can develop them for your own life starting this month and continuing over the coming weeks. Here is a high level view of what you can look forward to and how Raccoon Valley Bank will help you develop each skill over time:
 
Budgeting- One of the biggest problems Americans have is spending more than we take in. Learning how to create and stick to a budget allows you to balance out your spending and intake.
 
Spending- The best budget in the world won’t help if you can’t control your spending and develop better habits toward how your money is used. We’ll offer up strategies to help you outsmart your own brain when it comes to spending.
 
Saving- Every little bit counts, whether you’re saving for a new car, house or your retirement. We’ll cover saving plans that are easy to use and help you get closer to your saving goal.
 
Managing Credit & Debt Wisely- The truth is you will most likely owe people money for a good chunk of your life. In fact, being able to manage your debt and pay it down is an essential component for a good credit score. We’ll discuss ways to make sure you don’t get in over your head.
 
Skills for Certain Times in Life- While there are many financial skills you will need throughout your entire life, there are some skills that only pertain to certain ages or life events.
 
The Mental Side of Finance- Our attraction to money and spending can be powerful emotionally and mentally. Learning how to re-wire your brain and how to approach money is critical in developing good financial habits that allow you to reach your financial goals.
 
By providing tips, strategies and ways to learn these skills, Raccoon Valley Bank is working to help you make the smartest financial decisions possible. We look forward to the coming weeks and months and providing helpful tips for you.
 
If you have any questions about the various products and services we offer and how they can help, call or come by your nearest Raccoon Valley Bank location today!

The New RaccoonValleyBank.com: A Website Walkthrough

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As you have probably noticed at this point, there is a new face and layout to RaccoonValleyBank.com. Our new website was developed to be more user-friendly and give you quicker and easier access to the information or services you need. While this change is definitely a good one in our eyes, we know change can be scary, especially since you most likely had become familiar with where everything was on our old website. We want to give you a walkthrough of where all the important items are on the new website so you can acclimate quickly.
 
 
 
Application Center and Online Banking
These two items were prevalent in the design of our old website, and we wanted to keep access to them quick and easy for users. You can find them at the top of every page on the new website.
 
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Marketing Message and Social Feed
We wanted to keep important information in a prominent location. On the home page, the center section of the page – referred to as the marketing message – is somewhere you can find information for new services, alerts or other news. The “What’s New at Raccoon Valley Bank” area will feature the latest post from our Facebook page, as well as our blog. Clicking either of those will take you to either our Facebook page or the blog post.
 
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Service Pages and Site Search
As with our old website, the main navigation of the new website gives you the ability to access any of the service pages from any page of the site. You can also search quickly for a specific service using the search bar on the right side of the main navigation.
 
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Quick Links
At the bottom of the home page are colored boxes with links to important pages within the site. There are also colored boxes on many of the subpages throughout the site to help you navigate quickly to related content, forms or PDFs.
 
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We hope you find our new website to be easy to use and beneficial for whatever you need, whether you’re searching for information or simply logging in to your back account. If you encounter any issues with the new website, please let us know.
You can post your feedback of our new website over on our Facebook page as well. We hope to hear from you soon!

The Raccoon Valley Bank Blog: Financial Tips, Tricks, News and More

logo-no-backgroundWelcome to the new blog for Raccoon Valley Bank! As a part of our new website launch, we have created this blog in an effort to cover more of the “lifestyle” type of financial issues and questions that are important to you.
 
So, what kind of information will you be able to find on our blog? Since our blog and website are focused on providing you with the information you need to make smart financial decisions, you can expect content that is geared to helping you do just that.
 
For example, you will be able to read posts about vital money skills like budgeting, saving money or controlling your spending; we will be creating posts focused on those kinds of topics. We will also be posting financial tips for various events and parts of life, such as the benefits of starting your retirement saving early or costs to keep in mind for when you go on vacation.
 
We will also feature posts about services we provide and how and when they can be beneficial to you. You will also be able to find the latest news about security risks, how they affect you, and how you can prevent them from harming your financial assets.
 
Arming you with the knowledge that helps you make the right financial decisions or precautions is what the Raccoon Valley Bank blog is all about. In the end, we’re here to help you reach your financial and life goals any way we can.
 
We will be posting new content every month, so be sure to visit regularly. You can also watch our Facebook page for news about new blog posts. Our next blog post will be all about our brand new website, so you won’t want to miss it.
 
Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you soon at your Raccoon Valley Bank branch!

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