Monthly Archives: January 2017

Are You Saving Enough Money?

Incomes are rising, unemployment is going down, new businesses are popping up and things in general are looking quite a bit more hopeful than they did just a few years ago? For some of you, that means you had a great year, and perhaps you used some of that new found money to purchase things you have been putting off for several years. It also means that you were able to pay off some debt, and even save a little money.

This year it might be a good idea to save a little more of that money. Look at your budget, see where you got a little careless with your spending in 2016, and perhaps you can cut out some of those expenses, are at least bring them down, and start saving a little more.

CNN had a great post this week about how much we our saving these days, and how much more we should be:

“Roughly half of Americans are saving 5% or less of their incomes, including 18% that are not saving anything, according to a survey from Bankrate. Only about a quarter of people are saving more than 10% of their earnings.  So how much should you be saving? Bankrate recommends 15%.

“Between emergency savings and the ever-increasing burden of retirement savings that is on the individual, the goal should be 15% of your income,” said Greg McBride, the personal finance website’s chief financial analyst.

Currently, one in seven people are saving more than 15%, the report showed.

“For a lot of people, it won’t happen overnight. It’s going to take some time, but it’s doable, as the middle class is showing.”

Those in the middle class are proving to be the super savers with 35% of people with an annual income of $50,000-$74,999 saving more than 10% of their earnings.

Of those taking home more than $75,000 a year, 32% were saving more than 10% of their income, according to McBride.

Saving more is easier said than done, which is why McBride suggests making it automatic by having a portion of each paycheck be directly deposited into a savings account and a retirement plan. “Saving needs to happen before you pick up your paycheck.”

Bankrate’s Financial Security Index, which surveyed 1,000 adults in the U.S., also showed consumers are feeling better about their debt and financial situation compared to a year ago, which could actually be bad news for savings accounts.”

If you are a member of a Credit Union, it’s easy to sign up for automatic deductions from your Payroll Checks. Or, if you use online banking, just have an automatic transfer set up to take a small amount our of your regular checking account each month. You can always add more to that on months when your income is a little higher, or expenses are lower, but at least you will have something in savings. We can help you go through your statements and even give you some advice on the best type of investments.

Pete DiSalvo, CPA

Vero Beach Certified Public Accountant

CPA – DiSalvo Logo

 

Happy New Year From DiSalvo & Company

forensic accounting, tax preparation, business planning

It’s a New Year, and I don’t know about you, but I always feel like a new year provides us with a clean slate. Everything that was bothersome about the previous year is temporarily cast aside and I feel like anything is possible. that feeling isn’t often sustainable for a long period of time, but it can pop back up here and there.

Many of our local businesses here in Indian River County and Brevard County experienced rapid growth over the past couple of years and because you all have been so busy, it was hard to spend time looking to the future, or even implementing new processes which could have made things better. But it might be nice to take a few days to stop, breathe and think about what you could do to keep the momentum, while making things work more smoothly. Perhaps there are even ways to increase the profits you make from all of this new business.

With rapid growth there often comes the pitfalls of inefficiency. Perhaps you have simply limped along without a bookkeeper, and without a good software package for tracking leads and closing new customers. Maybe your HR manual is out of date, and your computer systems,, are they running as efficeintly as they could be? Is it time to perhaps invest in your business in order to streamline processes and become more efficient? Do your sales people find it easy to enter orders? Does your back-office personnel have to use different software to track things? Is there one software package that could integrate both, while also being end user friendly?

Sometimes when a company gown too fast, old procedures are patched up enough to keep things going, but they really aren’t appropriate for a larger company, and it could be time to take a moment to look at those things. Talk to your people, if they have come to you from another company, that company may have had some tools which your company could now use. Make certain you get suggestions from the people who will be using the new tools, or you might get push back, which could make any changes less effective.

There will always be people who don’t want to change anything, ever. Here’s hoping that you, as the head of your growing company, are not one of them. Here at Central Comm we are always striving to stay fresh and current, as painful as that can sometimes be. For many folks, even systems that now longer work properly can be more comfortable than learning a whole new way of doing things. But most of the time, once you get past the learning curve, you can find that a different way of doing things which takes advantage of new software or hardware, may make your work life easier.

Pete DiSalvo

Vero Beach Certified Public Accountant

CPA – DiSalvo Logo