Toyota sales declined nearly 9% as the company continues to suffer fall-out from their gas-pedal fiasco. However, some analysts were surprised that the impact for Toyota wasn’t significantly worse.

So with Toyota’s sales down, which models are car buyers now choosing in its place?

The Honda Accord which has been Toyota Camry’s primary competitor over the years, did see some marginal improvement. 20,024 Honda Accord’s were sold in February compared to 19,022 in January.

However, the big winner seems to be the Ford Fusion. The Ford Fusion sold 16,459 vehicles in February which was a phenomenal increase over January’s 12,179 vehicles.

The Fusion jumped to the 7th spot in this month’s vehicle rankings (up from Number 10 in last month’s rankings). The Fusion leaped over the Chevrolet Cobalt, Nissan Altima and Chevrolet Malibu.

Ford has certainly been aggressively targeting Toyota buyers. Both Ford Fusion and Toyota Camry are offering buyers a $1,000 rebate this month. However, with negative headlines continuing for Toyota, we would expect the Ford Fusion to take additional market share from the Toyota Camry this month. In fact, it is very real possibility that the Ford Fusion will outsell the Toyota Camry for the first time ever this month.

The best method for raising financially responsible children is for the parents to be financially responsible themselves. You cannot teach your children what they should do if you yourself don’t do it. You first have to get your own financial house in order. Children don’t do as you say – they do as you do. They study your every move, and unfortunately, plenty of parents pass on some very damaging financial practices.

Children who watch their parents ring up huge credit card bills buying luxury items and taking vacations they can’t afford tend to dig the same financial holes themselves as adults. A child who sees bills pile up unpaid is getting a damaging lesson in managing money – one they may struggle all their lives to overcome.

Another way you can ruin your child’s financial future is by spoiling them. Many people seem to have convinced themselves that showering their kids with everything they want is good parenting. They lose the ability to say no to anything their child asks for. Then when that child gets out in the real world on a low starting salary, they have no sense at all of financial restraint. They still expect to be able to have everything right now. Of course, credit card companies are happy to assist them in getting what they want right away. It doesn’t take long for a child who has been spoiled their whole life to find themselves buried in $5,000-$10,000 of credit card debt.

Along those same lines, you shouldn’t buy your children something every time you take them with you to the store. It’s not a matter of being able to afford to buy them something, but rather an opportunity to teach financial restraint. Buying toys and gifts for your children should be reserved for special occasions (e.g. Birthday, Christmas, etc.). If you simply buy everything your children wants, you are not only taking away the “specialness” of gifts, you are setting up your kid to be a financial wreck. The children who get everything they want when they’re young end up struggling with debt the rest of their lives — simply because they were never taught moderation and living within one’s means.

Of course, parents can also teach their children bad financial habits by spoiling themselves as well. Very few families seem to know how to live within their means. They seem oblivious to the risks of spending more than they earn. In fact, they seem more concerned about the perceived shame that might come if they tried living within their means. Keeping up with the Joneses has never before been so pervasive in our culture. It’s impossible for you to teach your children how to handle peer pressure if you can’t resist it yourself. Spending money just to impress someone sends the wrong message to your children.

Of course learning how to manage money is something children have to learn by experience. Giving children a lecture about how to handle money is not enough. Children need to learn and experience it.

One great way to teach your children about earning and managing money is by giving them a regular allowance. This gives children first-hand experience in learning how to manage money and appreciate the value of their hard-earned dollars.

In addition, having an allowance will help children set financial goals and learn how to live on a fixed-income/budget. It will require them to make choices about what they will spend their money on. They will have to learn to balance what they have with what they want. They also learn that everything has a cost associated with it. Just because it’s advertised on television doesn’t mean that you can afford it.

Of course a child shouldn’t be paid for every little thing they do around the house. Each child should have regular household chores that they are required to do because they are a contributing part of the family. Then there should also be additional tasks and responsibilities for which they are paid an allowance. These tasks provide children with an introduction to the notions of work and receiving payment for the level and quality of the work they do. An important part of giving an allowance is that your children learn that if they don’t do the work and just as importantly, if they don’t do quality work – they don’t get paid.

Allowances can also be useful tools for teaching your children about other values. For example, teaching them that the first 10% of what they receive belongs to the Lord. Requiring them to deposit a certain amount each month in a savings account teaches them about frugality and long-term planning. Helping them to decide whether to wait to buy something later rather than right away shows them about the value of patience and delayed gratification. An essential part of becoming a responsible person is learning to delay gratification. Yet popular culture encourages – and profits from – people seeking immediate gratification. Teaching children to delay gratification, through the use of allowances, will make them more resistant to the messages of “Gotta have it now!” with which popular culture bombards them, and will help them grow up to be financially responsible adults.

How much you decide to give as an allowance will depend upon your individual financial situation and the age of the child. It shouldn’t be such a large amount that they are never required to make any tough financial decisions and it shouldn’t be so little that it doesn’t allow them to practice financial responsibility. As the child gets older, the amount you give should increase.

It’s important that children learn that money does not “grow on trees”. Just because you have checks in your checkbook or credit cards in your wallet does not mean you have money to spend. An essential part of fiscal responsibility is learning to live within one’s budget. Your children have to learn how to respect money and use it properly. Money is not just a means of buying popularity or happiness. The most important lesson you can teach your children about money has nothing to do with how much you can get, but rather how to use what you do have.

Just a few years ago would have spent money without even thinking or maybe I should say they would buy things on credit without thinking. Now those same individuals are rediscovering how to save money and reduce their monthly expenses. Unfortunately, while many of your monthly budget items are fixed expenses, one of the biggest expenses that you can control is your grocery budget.

Students of Christian finance will know that the Bible has always taught good stewardship. Even Jesus in one of his most famous parables said:

Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. Matthew 25:21.

We at eChristianFinance.com believe that the financial principles of the Bible are timeless and have put together the following 10 tips for consumers to save money on their monthly grocery bills.

1. Don’t shop at just one store. You actually save money by shopping the best prices at multiple stores.

2. Always shop with a list. It’s a known fact that consumers spend as much as 30% less.

3. Bring a calculator with you when you shop for multiple reasons. You can calculate the price difference between large quantity items versus smaller sizes. You don’t always save money buying in bulk.   You will also get to the cashier and know exactly how much you are spending.

4. Shop store brands over name brand items. You can save as much as 60% or more.

5. Clip coupons. Check your local newspaper or use sites such as www.smartsource.com, www.coupons.com and www.retailmenot.com .  Use both the store coupon and the manufactures’ coupons whenever possible for maximum savings.

6. Check your local grocery store ads for sales and plan your meals accordingly.

7. Shop stores lost leaders. Stores will routinely drastically discount certain items in order to draw more consumers.

8. If something is a great buy stock up. 

9. In order to save money your kitchen pantry must be organized you will loose money by overstocking.

10. Be sure to plan your meals ahead. By planning ahead you will be less likely to eat out.

A lot of users will go to priceline.com and do searches for plane fares/hotel bookings and when the web browser spits back some prices and options they’re content with that. Well, yes, you can find a decent deal that way but if you want the really good deals you need to be willing to dig a little deeper. The absolute best feature of priceline.com is the “Name Your Own Price” option. This is where you can put in your own bid on what you think is a good price for your hotel, flight, rental car etc. This is very appealing to the savvy negotiator. This isn’t like haggling with a greasy salesman over a badly used car, this is price negotiation at its finest. You sip your coffee and calmly type in a price; priceline.com does some magic and if you’re lucky (and shrewd), you’ll get yourself a steep discount on the perfect vacation.

Here’s how it works: airlines don’t like flights with empty seats and even if they only get a small amount of the normal fare its still better than flying with no one in that chair. It works the same way with hotels. So priceline.com will submit your bid to most of the major airlines/hotels and if someone out there is needing your money badly enough they’ll match you up. A perfect union. Move over matchmaking.com and say hello to Priceline! Advantages? Absolutely! Disadvantages? Yeah, there’s some. Let’s take a closer look.

I’ve used Priceline for several years now and over time I’ve saved thousands of dollars combined on my travels. Last year my wife and I took a two week trip to Europe. I used Priceline for all my hotels, the end result? I was staying at 4 and 5 star hotels most of the time for under $100 a night. While we were in Europe we met some tourists that were spending more than that to stay at dubiously titled hostels. The main advantages of using the Name Your Own Price option on Priceline.com is the money that you will save. I’ve found that most times you are able to save at least 40-50% on hotels over Priceline’s already reasonable rates and usually 70-80% off of the hotel’s normal asking rate. (In Venice, Italy we stayed at a 5 star Hilton for $115 a night while the normal room rate was $495).

Using Priceline.com’s bidding feature is very simple. You just select “hotels”, type in the city that you want to stay in and enter the dates that you would like to stay there. Once you select “Search Hotels” and Priceline will return several hotels back to you. This listing of available hotels will have room rates and star ratings that you can purchase directly if you wish to stay at a particular hotel. If you’re willing to be a little more adventurous however, you can step up to the bidding process. On the top right hand side will be a little box that says, “Name Your Own Price.” This is where the fun begins. Clicking that box will take you to a new screen with a few necessary options. You’ll get to select the general area that you’d like to be located in; this way you can ensure you’re in the right area of town and not miles away from the places you’d like to visit. Once you select the area, you can then select the star rating of the hotel that you would like to stay in. I almost always select 4 star or greater since these hotels are the ones that will offer the greatest discounts off their normal rates. Finally, you have to enter your bid. Priceline will indicated the median retail price for hotel in the areas and star rating that you’ve selected. General rule of thumb that I’ve used is that you can typically get your stay at least 50% off of that median price. You can bid lower, of course, than that and sometimes still get a match but it just depends on how willing the hotels are to negotiate. The longer your stay though the more you’re going to save by getting a lower room rate. The main advantage of course is that you’re saving a lot of money and you’ll probably end up staying at a much nicer hotel than you would otherwise stay at. The disadvantages are that you don’t get to choose precisely which hotel you are staying at, you can’t just say “I want to stay at a Hilton on 3rd and main.” Generally speaking though, the cost savings are greater than any hotel loyalty rewards points and the locations are close enough that they represent no problems. When I recently stayed in St. Louis, MO I wound up at a Hyatt Regency directly across from the Arch which was where I wanted to be in anyway.

The airlines work in a very similar way although there are some significant differences that can make the “Name Your Own Price” less attractive than it is for the hotels. All you need to do is simply enter where you are flying from and where you want to go and then follow the same procedure for naming your own price. The drawback is that you can’t specify the times that you’d like to fly out at or the time you’d like to fly back, you can only choose days. This means if you have a tight schedule you need to keep, you might not get what you want. You could fly out anytime on the day you select (morning, midday or evening). Priceline does guarantee some things however. They guarantee you will get to spend at least 24 hours at your destination (i.e. they won’t fly you in at midnight on Friday night and ship you out at 11am on Saturday morning), but beyond that its somewhat up to the mercy of the airline schedules and availability. Again, just like the hotels you won’t get to select a specific airline that you’d like to fly either. Also, this isn’t available if you need to fly through multiple cities. Beyond that though, if you’ve got some freedom in your schedule then the name your own price for airlines is a wonderful idea that can save you a nice wad of cash.

The one area I wish Priceline would expand is to include the name your own price feature is their Vacation Packages. You can use this to put together an all inclusive vacation package to a certain city (Airline, Hotel and car). Unfortunately, they don’t have a name your own price option for these packages. However this might be something that they introduce in the future. So there, now you’ve learned a great way to save at least 50% (usually) on all your hotels and flights, maybe you can afford that little getaway after all. Time to check out Florida!

While chasing high growth stocks over the last 15 years was exciting (at least while their stock prices were going higher), the market crash that seems to always ensue is finally taking its toll.

Many individual investors continue to keep their money on the sidelines following the bear market of 2008 when the S&P 500 plunged nearly 41%. In past years, these investors would have kicked themselves for missing the subsequent 44% rally that followed in 2009. However, these investors have few regrets after being burned so frequently by chasing these rallies in the past.

Gone are the days when these investors would accept Wall Street’s creative wisdom in order to justify inflated stock prices. Buying a hot growth stock at the right time could make you a millionaire regardless of how expensive the stock may appear. While a few made it rich, many more saw their stock portfolio’s crushed by chasing these elusive returns.

As investors survey the financial markets in 2010, a new investment style is beginning to look more attractive – dividend investing. Of course, it’s not a new investment strategy, but rather a tried-and-true investing strategy followed by financial icons from Benjamin Graham to Warren Buffet.

Investing in solid companies that distribute a portion of their earnings back to their shareholders used to be considered old fashion. Receiving a cash dividend each quarter was considered a nice-to-have, but certainly not a requirement for our investment strategy. After all, the real money would be made as management reinvested that money back into the business and the stock price soared as a result.

Now as investors view the financial landscape in 2010, a cash dividend is becoming almost a requirement. Investors want to invest their money in a company that will not only grow, but will also return a portion of their profits back to their shareholders. As the firm’s revenue grows, so will the stock price and just as importantly so will their dividend payments.

Gone are the days when investors are simply looking throw money at the latest growth story and hope the stock price doubles. Investors are now looking for more realistic returns and they are now accepting the fact that dividends will account for a significant portion of their total returns.

As companies recognize the increasing trend towards dividend investing, we are likely to see more companies initiate dividend payments. And those that currently offer dividends will seek to increase their dividends. It will become increasingly unpopular to continue to reinvest your earnings back into the company without providing a dividend payment that returns a portion of those earnings back to your investors.

Currently, 29 out of the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones industrial index offer a dividend payment of some type. However, it’s only a matter of time before the one holdout, Cisco Systems (CSCO: 23.07 -0.60%), begins offering a dividend. They can certainly afford to with $35 billion in cash sitting on their balance sheet.

Strong companies that offer solid dividend yields like Pfizer (PFE: 15.00 -0.60%), McDonald’s (MCD: 69.73 +0.50%), and Coca Cola (KO: 55.11 +0.22%) will become the investments of choice. These blue-chip stocks may not double overnight, but they offer solid earnings growth and a commitment to pay dividends back to their shareholders.

King Solomon said, “through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.” Proverbs 24:3-4.

One of the most effective ways that you can prepare for retirement is by contributing to your company’s 401k plan. Unfortunately, nearly 30% of individuals who have access to 401k plans decline to participate at all. For younger workers under the age of 30, less than 50% contribute to 401k plans.

Providing for a secure financial future is one of the marks of a prudent individual. Making regular contributions to a 401k plan while you’re young results in two major advantages.

1. Since you have an early start, you won’t need to contribute as much of your salary as you would if you started saving for retirement later in life.
2. Due to the power of compound interest, your nest egg will end up much larger than if you delayed saving for retirement.

The primary advantage in contributing to a 401k plan is that most companies will match your individual contributions up to a certain level. While these matching programs vary widely, the most common formula used by companies is a match of 50 cents on the dollar up to the first 6% of pay, according to the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America.

An individual making $50,000 per year that contributes 6% of their income to their 401k plan receives an additional $1,500 on their $3,000 contribution. The matching contribution from your employer results in an immediate 50% return on your investment. Failing to contribute at least enough to receive these matching funds is the same as declining free money.

Most companies consider their 401k matching program to be part of the overall benefits package that they offer employees. When employees fail to take advantage of this program, they are in effect declining part of their compensation package.

While it’s always recommended to contribute at least enough to receive matching funds from your company, you shouldn’t just stop there. The end result of years of savings will be affected by two factors:

1. How your investments perform?
2. How much you contribute to savings?

You may be surprised to learn that how much you contribute generally plays the biggest role in how much money you will have when you retire. So while you should start out by contributing enough to receive the maximum matching levels, you should also strive to increase your savings levels by 1-2% each year. An easy way to do this is to just increase your 401k contribution level each time you receive a salary increase. This allows you to increase your retirement savings without reducing your take-home pay.

One of those positive outcomes has been that Americans are spending less and saving more. In fact, many economists are concerned that we may never return to the levels of consumer spending that we saw just a few years ago. However, I am not nearly as optimistic. America is a nation of consumers and it’s not likely that even the worst recession since the Great Depression will change our spending habits for long. However, it seems that at least in the short term we have shifted our focus from spending to saving.

The average personal savings rate has climbed from 1% at the beginning of 2008 to its current level of slightly more than 3%. That’s certainly an improvement on the negative savings rate that we saw in 2005, when the average American was spending more than they earned. However, that’s still a far cry from the recommended 10-20% savings rates.

Unfortunately, the lack of strong savings habits has further compounded the negative effects of the current recession. Over the past two years, many of the individuals who have lost their jobs or have seen their incomes reduced had minimal savings to fall back on. The failure to save a sufficient portion of their income during the years of prosperity has come back to haunt them as they try to survive this recession.

I believe that the words of Solomon, while uttered 3,000 years ago, are still relevant today, “there is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up.” Proverbs 21:20.

So how much of your income should you be saving?

The traditional rule of thumb is to save at least 10% of your income. Obviously this will vary based on many factors, but it’s important to establish a pattern of savings while you are young and then as your income increases you can save even more.

Simply saving whatever is left over at the end of each month is never a good idea, because typically nothing is. A better way to save is to have a certain amount or percentage of your paycheck automatically deposited into a savings account on a regular basis. This way you won’t have to make a decision whether or not to save money each month, because it’s already being done for you.

In order to benefit from a regular savings program, it’s good to have a savings strategy.

Emergency Fund
The first step should be to create an emergency fund for the unplanned, true emergencies that you may encounter. This would typically be $1,000 – $2,000 set aside in a savings account that you can easily get to.

Cash Stash
No matter how much you plan and prepare, there are always expenses that arrive that you didn’t account for. These may not be true emergency items that you would tap your emergency fund for, but they are still expenses that you can’t ignore. Having cash in a savings account that you can draw on will allow you to handle these expenses without incurring the ridiculous interest rates that come from using credit cards.

Safety Net
The third step will be to build out a savings nest that would allow you to survive for 6-9 months in case of a job loss or other major catastrophe. Just a couple of years ago, it seemed like unemployment was a non-issue with the official unemployment rate at 4.4%. Now the unemployment rate has spiked to 10.2% and it’s taking an average of 6 ½ months for unemployed workers to find a new job. If this recession has taught us anything it’s that the prudent man should be prepared.

Retirement Fund
The fourth step in your saving plan should be to invest for your future. Almost everyone has dreams of retirement, but simply relying on Social Security probably won’t allow you to live the lifestyle that you envisioned. While very few companies offer pensions any more, many do offer 401k plans that you can take advantage of. Many of these plans offer company matches on the amount that you contribute. A typical plan includes a 50% company match up to a certain contribution level. This allows you to instantly earn a 50% return on your investment while increasing the total percentage of your income being saved.

In addition to taking advantage of your company’s 401k plan, you should also consider further savings options. Setting up an individual retirement account (IRA) allows you to have greater control over your investment options and further increases your savings rate.

These are simply some of the basics to help you develop an effective savings plan. From here, you could set up further savings options for a vacation fund, college fund, Christmas fund, etc. While many people will soon return to their free spending ways and neglect their savings, the wise individuals will learn from the experiences of this recession and will be better prepared for the next one.

King Solomon was likely the richest man of his day. He lived in a massive palace (1 Kings 7: 2) that few could even imagine. He received annual incomes of gold, silver and other precious items. Yet none of Solomon’s wealth came because he prayed that God would bless him financially. In fact, Solomon prayed that God would give him neither riches nor poverty.

“Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:” Proverbs 30:8.

However, when Solomon prayed for wisdom, God also blessed him with wealth & riches.

“Wisdom and knowledge is granted unto thee; and I will give thee riches, and wealth, and honour, such as none of the kings have had that have been before thee, neither shall there any after thee have the like.” 2 Chronicles 1:12.

God blessed Solomon with great wealth, but also gave him wisdom to know how to use that wealth. However, in today’s world many of us lack the wisdom we need to handle the finances that God has given us.

Most individuals will be faced with several major buying decisions in their lives – such as when they buy a house or a car. These are the types of major financial decisions that you should not only pray about, but it would also be a good idea to counsel with someone like your pastor as well.

In recent years, too many people have been quick to spend money without even pausing to consider the potential consequences. Unfortunately, Christians have been just as hasty to spend money without regard to their role as stewards of God’s money. As a consequence of hasty spending decisions, millions of individuals have found their world crashing in on them over the last year.

Of course praying over the major decisions in your life seems obvious and I’m sure many of you reading this article have already done that. But after praying about which house to buy or which car to purchase, do you pray about how you should spend the rest of your money? It’s not just the big-ticket items that you should pray about, but also the little ones.

While I’m not necessarily advocating praying over whether or not you should buy a hamburger at McDonald’s or not, it is important to remember that God requires you to be a good steward over all the finances He has given you.

Are you spending money on things that you know God wouldn’t approve of?

If Jesus were paying your bills or setting your budget, would He make the same choices that you are?

As Christians, we are striving to live as Jesus would live. This is easy to translate into our church attendance, our relationships with other saints of God, our relationship with the world, but it is just as valid with our financial lives as well. We should even be striving to spend our money as Jesus would.

I have to believe that if we as Christians would pray more about how to spend our money, we would make much better spending decisions. We would likely have less debt and more peace as impulsive buying is replaced by prayerful consideration.

Financial incompatibility often is the result of radically different approaches that people have towards money. Although psychologists have many different groups that they like to categorize people into, for financial purposes most people fall within one of two categories: savers and spenders. You probably already know which type of person you are and usually you perceive your spouse as being in the opposite category. This is because opposites attract and is not always a bad thing!

Savers are often attracted to spenders because they see them as generous, fun-loving, adventurous folks. Spenders are attracted to savers because they think of them as grounded, fiscally responsible individuals. Having both a saver and a spender in a marital partnership can help achieve a good balance. Savers can end up living a miserable existence because they can’t bear to part with any of their money. Spenders can get so deep in debt that they can’t enjoy the things they spent the money on in the first place. There has to be a balance achieved between the two. Savers have to realize that financial security doesn’t demand stashing money in the bank to the exclusion of everything else. Spenders have to realize they can’t just buy anything and everything that they take a fancy to. So don’t despair if your partner has a different financial outlook on life than you. God put you together for a reason!

So what makes one person a free spending spirit and another a frugal saver? In most cases, people simply follow the example of their parents. Financially irresponsible individuals have probably grown up watching their parents make the wrong decisions as well. They simply never learned how to do things the right way. However, regardless of the type of person you are there are some actions you can take to help you get your financial house in order:

Develop a budget
A budget is a good first step in defining financial limits and long-term goals. A detailed budget forces you to balance income with expenses, while allowing you to make adjustments as needed. Constructing a budget should accommodate the needs of both partners, even if one is a spender and the other a saver.

Set long-term goals
Couples often spend more time planning their family vacation than they do discussing their long-term financial goals. So you first need to sit down and agree on your big-picture goals – things like saving up for a down payment on a house, funding a retirement account, or paying off the mortgage ahead of schedule, etc. Then set up a schedule to achieve those goals.

Share decision making
Develop guidelines for making major purchases, starting with how you decide what to buy and when. Going out and buying a big-ticket item without your partner’s knowledge or consent is definitely a recipe for disaster: Decisions on major items should be arrived at jointly – where to go for vacation, what type of new car to buy, etc.

Live on one paycheck
In 2005, 51% of families had both the husband and wife employed outside of the home. However, even with two-incomes many of these couples live paycheck to paycheck with total disregard for the future. Taking this approach can be the beginning of future money problems that can strain your marriage. Saving one of your paychecks can help build-up a nice down payment for a house or the expense of having children or just an emergency fund. You may not always have that second paycheck coming in. So even if you have two incomes, try to get by on only one paycheck and save the other.

Create a wish list
Both you and your spouse should sit down and create a wish list of things they would like to do or have. These items could be regularly occurring (going out to eat once a week) or they could just be one-time events (vacation to Europe). The challenge for the spender is to realize that they can’t immediately have everything on the list. On the other hand, a saver shouldn’t try to force a bare-bones existence on a spender. There should be items on your list that you can compromise on and there should be others that are joint goals that you both want. This is a long-term list and some things you may not be able to achieve for several years, but it will at least give you something to work towards. An additional benefit is that it helps you understand what is important to your partner and what they value the most. You may be surprised that some things that don’t cost that much are actually valued very highly by your spouse.

Have the spender pay the bills
If one person tends to be the spender in the family – have them pay the bills each month. This way they get a better understanding of how much money is going out each month compared to the income you have coming in to pay those expenses. It’s easier to spend money when you never have to worry with how those expenses are paid. If you are the one having paying the bills and you know there isn’t any money in the bank account, hopefully that will be a deterrent for you not to spend the money in the first place.

Set priorities
Spending time with your family should always take priority over trying to earn more money. Nothing can strain a marriage more than having one party always working late into the evening or working weekends just because they want to have more money. Having a higher standard of living isn’t just measured in by the size of your bank account.

Spending allowances
It might be wise to set aside some money each month to feed the spender’s need to burn cash. The amount should be budgeted, but there would be no need to keep track of where the money goes. This satisfies the saver by keeping the spending within limits and gives the spender some “free” money that they can use on anything they want.

Grow Up
There’s a message in your quickly evaporating checking account balance – you’re not a kid anymore! You’ve got to begin thinking about things like a mortgage, insurance, saving for college, retirement, etc. No longer can you afford to buy anything that you take a fancy to. Your responsibilities have to take priority over your wants.

Start Saving
It seems that few people these days actually save any of the money they earn. In fact, beginning in 2005 and continuing into 2006 the U.S. personal savings rate has actually been a negative amount. So collectively, we are spending more money than we earn. This is a very disturbing trend, because just 20 years ago people were saving more than 10% of their income. It’s never a good idea to spend every dollar that you make. Set a reasonable savings goal each month and stick to it, even if it’s only $100 per month. You can even set up automatic deposits from your paycheck.

In conclusion, you and your spouse have many decisions to make, which means plenty of opportunity to disagree with each other. How you’re going to handle your finances is one of those key decisions that you can’t afford to just avoid. The simple truth is that money issues are with us every day. If you aren’t in financial sync, your marriage could be in deep trouble. Harmony in financial matters can help lead to harmony in other aspects of the marriage.

Auto manufacturers certainly welcomed the apparent return of consumer demand for their vehicles. Ford Motors reported a 17% y/y increase in vehicle sales. Most of the foreign car makers also posted impressive jumps in vehicle sales. Unfortunately, General Motors and Chrysler still saw declines in their vehicle sales, although the declines weren’t nearly as bad as some of the previous months have been.

While it’s great that American consumers have been able to take advantage of the government’s cash-for-clunkers program, the heralded program may actually end up doing more harm to the economy than help.

Most economists and financial experts already agree that August vehicle sales were an anomaly. Looking at the chart below it’s quite obvious that those numbers have been artificially inflated since these deviate so significantly from the real trend.
 

So one of the main concerns is that consumers that would have purchased vehicles in the coming months, instead purchased during August to take advantage of the clunkers rebate program. This would mean that not only will the next few months return to their pre-clunker level, but it may actually drop below those low levels. This is because many consumers who would have bought in September or October have already bought a new vehicle. Therefore, we think it’s likely that vehicle sales will return to below 10 million for the remainder of 2009.

“Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.” Psalms 39:6.

Another potentially negative outcome of the cash-for-clunkers program is that it likely raised the household debt levels of hundreds of thousands of consumers. Edmunds.com has already reported that auto dealers raised prices on vehicles during the month of August as buyer demand escalated. Some consumers may have even paid more during August than they would have in earlier months for the same vehicle.

Even consumers that received great deals on their new vehicles are likely now deeper in debt than they were a few weeks ago. Few people have the means to pay cash for a brand new vehicle even with a $4,500 rebate from the government. No doubt some may have even taken on more debt than they can handle. Others will be forced to cut back on future purchases because of their new car payment.

“The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.” Proverbs 13:4