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If you commute to work every day, you know how much of a headache it can be. From traffic to the cost of gas, tolls and parking, just getting to the office every morning can be extremely stressful.

Fortunately, there are many ways you can reduce the cost of your daily commute, according to a report from the Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, version of the local news site Patch. One of the easiest ways to do this, for millions of people across the country, is to start relying on public transportation more often. These options are becoming very popular again because of the rising price of gas, but can also provide you even more savings because in some states, you are allowed to use a tax deduction for an annual discount of up to $500 on your federal filing. Your car insurance company might also give you a discount.

Taking public transportation will obviously not only help you save significantly on the gas you buy every month – even if you still have to drive a short distance to your nearest train station, bus stop or park and ride location – but will also give you more time to relax either before or after office hours, or even get some extra work done.

Of course, another great way to save money on your commute is to stick with an old standby: the carpool, the report said. Finding three people or more from your office who live in your area to share a ride to work sometimes or even every day can help to significantly reduce the amount you pay for fuel every month. Think of it this way: If you get four other people to drive to work with you every week, you’re only driving your car one day instead of five, saving not only on gasoline, but also on wear and tear on the vehicle. In addition, some states also have ride-sharing programs that allow consumers to find other people in their area who would want to participate in a carpool. Some states even incentivize participation by providing gas cards to consumers who enroll for the first time.

“From taking transit to carpooling, there are many ways commuters can save time and money getting to work,” Barry Seymour, executive director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, told the site, adding that these measures also have a positive impact on the environment.

But even if those measures won’t work for you, and you still have to head to the office by yourself every day, there are still a number of ways to save, the report said. The simplest is to change your driving habits so that you’re not using as much fuel. During a commute, it can be easy to fall into aggressive driving habits like speeding, braking hard and so forth in order to get to work faster, but doing so also burns significantly more fuel. In fact, aggressive driving tactics often cost consumers as much as 33 percent of their vehicle’s fuel efficiency. Further, having a lot of junk in your car can also slow the vehicle down, with every hundred pounds reducing its efficiency by as much as 2 percent.

If you want to make sure your car is running in tip-top shape, you should also stick to the routine maintenance schedule provided by its manufacturer, as well as making sure your tires are properly inflated and using the right kind of oil, the report said.

Are you looking for ways to make your dollar go further? Staying on a budget can be difficult if you’re not sure where to start. Try following these 5 easy ways to help you manage or lower your expenses.

1) Buy generic brands

Grocery stores usually offer a store brand or a generic brand that costs less than name brands. Pharmacies also offer generic versions of most medications that tend to be far less expensive. It’s also important to avoid shopping on an empty stomach. If you do, anything and everything will look delicious. You’ll throw out that budget you had in mind along with your will power to resist that chocolate cake in the bakery. So, eat before you go to the grocery store and stick to your list!

2) Carpool

With rising gas prices, who wants to pay so much to drive to and from work every day? Find someone you work with who lives close enough to you that you can carpool. Carpooling will save you money on gas, allow you to use the HOV lane, and give you time to catch up on water cooler gossip before you get to the office. If you have no options for carpool buddies, you can use public transportation or even consider moving closer to work to shorten your commute.

3) Pay off credit cards

Pay off your credit card with the highest interest rate first. It is imperative that you make your payments on time. Late payments can lead to a nightmare of late fees, increased interest rates, and seeing that dreaded decrease in credit score. It is a good idea to make a separate calendar just for bills and their due dates to avoid missing payments. You will never have to incur late fees because you simply forgot to pay the bill.

4) Pay yourself first

A wise man (my dad) once told me that the most important bill to pay is – you. All you have to do is budget a certain amount of money from every paycheck and essentially “pay” yourself. This money should go into your savings account. You’re continually adding a fixed amount to your savings and growing your emergency fund a little at a time.

5) Take advantage of free offers

There are free and discounted offers all over the Internet, you just have to find them. For instance, if you type in “pizza hut promo code,” you’re likely to find a coupon for a few bucks off your pizza. You can also sign up for newsletters from your favorite online stores. You’ll get emailed frequently with discounted offers. There are also tons of online coupon sites. If you’ve ever seen the television show “Extreme Couponing” you know just how much coupons can save you. There you have it! Try these 5 simple ways to stretch your dollar. Remember, creating and managing a budget plays a crucial role in your financial health. Don’t let the process overwhelm you. Simply pick a place to start and go from there.

If you’re striking out on your own for the first time or trying to recover from a bad financial spell, you should start with a good look at your credit report. Your credit rating can either be an imaginary financial halo deeming you a consummate consumer or it can be like a scarlet letter, branding you as a high-risk bet for creditors. To find out which one of these you are, keep reading.

Credit scores: Who needs them anyway?

Your credit score is more than just a number. It tells companies and financial institutions how much of a gamble they are taking by lending your money or credit. Because your credit score is a formula that includes factors such as how much debt you currently have, how well you have managed your debt obligations in the past, and what kinds of debt you have, every potential creditor from the phone company to the mortgage lending institution you’ll rely on to finance your home will base their decisions on your rating. Most of the things that you have or wish to have someday — a car, a home, and the financial opportunities you’ll need to enhance your quality of life — depend on those three digits.

The consequences of a bad credit score

You may think that a bad credit score will simply keep you from opening up that second credit card account, but in reality it can affect every area of your life. For example, when you go on a job interview, there’s a good chance that your potential employer will plan to run a credit check on you to determine how responsible you are. Add that to the long list of methods that employers use to weed out the thousands of applicants that they get for each job position.

You’ll also have to shell out more for necessities like insurance and rent. It is common knowledge that your credit score can affect your chances of buying the home that you really want someday, but it can also affect your chances of renting, as well. Many landlords deny leases to would-be tenants based on their low credit scores, and even if you do win that lease with a bad credit score, you’re likely to pay more of a security deposit. A low credit score can make changing addresses more financially draining in other ways, as well. For example, you may find yourself paying higher deposits for basic services like electricity and telephone service.

How to build or improve your credit score

The best way to build or improve your credit score is to pay all of your bills on time. This may seem like a simple enough task, but it is often the mishaps that we don’t plan for that keep us from doing so. To make sure that you can stay financially current, don’t wait until the due date to pay your bills, and remember to save for unexpected emergencies like home and car repairs so that you don’t sacrifice a monthly payment to cover it. You can also improve your credit score by practicing restraint. Don’t open too many lines of credit at once (or at all), and try to keep your debt load low. If you keep these tips in mind, you’ll make financial viability easier to attain.

If you are the super sensible type of college grad who spent all of your time at school working hard to stay afloat, you might well have come out with your diploma as well as a nice pot of savings – or at least not too much debt.

If on the other hand you didn’t (like 99% of your peers, myself included) then congrats, you have just arrived at that point in life where you need to repair and rebuild and start your journey to financial stability.

Step 1: What Are Your Key Goals?

When you have lots of debt and little income you have 2 overriding goals; so these are what we will focus on:

1 – To pay off your debts, so that you can begin saving.
2 – To repair your credit rating, ready for when you need it.

So before we get started, your first task is to write down all your debts – this won’t be fun, but you need to know your starting point. So make a list of who you owe, how much and what it’s costing you (ie, interest rate).

Step 2: Paying It Off

You need to prioritise which debts are paid off first. In general store cards, then credit cards and overdrafts, loans etc come last.

Paying off the high cost debt will save you the most money, money which can then be used to pay off more debt. As soon as a card is paid off you can destroy it and cancel the account.

High Risk Strategy:

If you can take a relatively low interest loan to pay off all of your cards this might be a good idea, it will save you money and give you a much more manageable repayment. Be careful though, if you end up taking out new cards you will just get further into debt. Only take this option if you are sure you can trust yourself and if the numbers add up.

Use Your Credit Cards

Long term credit card debt is bad for your credit rating, so pay these off first. Once you have paid them off though, using your cards occasionally will help to improve your credit rating. Again, this is risky and should only be done if you trust yourself to pay off your balance in full every month.

If you can’t use a card responsibly just get rid of it, slip ups will cost you, and you can’t afford that right now.

Be Vigilant

For the time being you are going to be constantly close to your limit, because all of your income will be working hard to pay off debt. It is important to watch your finances closely and be careful to avoid dipping into your overdraft (or at least going past the limit). Set aside 10 minutes every other day to review your progress so that you always know where you are.

Step 3: Getting Them Paid Off

If you have multiple debts, keep an eye on the balances. Sometimes it is worth paying off a smaller debt as soon as you can, even if it is not a high interest one. This isn’t optimal financially, but being able to cross off a debt is great for your motivation.

In the long term you just need discipline; it can be very hard, but as long as you can see progress being made you should be able to stay motivated and keep at it.

A career in finance offers a wide range of potential paths. From payroll and bookkeeping to major corporate investment strategies, the world of capital, expenditure and fiscal procedure is a varied one. However, there are some essential skills that anyone looking to forge a working life in finance would do well to master, and which will give an excellent skill base whichever route in the field they choose.

It may sound a little disingenuous, but the first skill anyone must master is a sound understanding of financial terminology and processes. Building on mathematical skills learnt at school, college courses in finance and business will introduce the financial tools utilized in areas such as taxes, estate planning, investments, international finance, and the legal ramifications in each area. Given that areas of the finance industry often intersect, a thorough grounding in a wide range of financial disciplines is a great start to your career.

Because finance relies on a clear understanding of figures and analysis how numerical values are related, a good eye for detail and the ability to focus on small elements are necessary skills. A single slip in a set of data may have severe ramifications. You must also be organized in your work so that you have information to hand and your workflow can be understood when exported to clients or colleagues.

Finance is often a specialized sort of field, one in which particular knowledge is accrued to make the employee a valuable asset. As such, communication skills are required so that you can easily assimilate information and present it to those who may not have the same level of technical understanding. This is particularly essential for those who choose to work in consumer finance, advising members of the public on pensions or investments, for example. Even those working within financial institutions will often need to communicate relevant information to other departments and individuals within the firm or to provide comprehensive details of their analytical framework and processes, so the ability to present clearly, comprehensively and concisely really helps. Individuals working in finance who wish to set up their own business or go freelance will need good communication skills to help network and forge industry links.

Project management is another vital skill to develop for a career in finance. You are likely to need to integrate with other departments, to work to deadlines and to collaborate with colleagues.

These days, the vast majority of financial work is done on computers. From simple accounting practices to international futures trading, computers and their software are the tools of the industry. Mastery of Excel will allow you to present data sheets and reports, while accounting programs vary between businesses, but may include programmes such as AME, GAAP, Intact and Quicken. With more and more of the financial industries processes migrating to external servers, a knowledge of Cloud computing and SaaS may also be useful.

Once you are in the finance industry, you may enhance your career prospects by specializing in a particular area, developing your skills so that you offer a unique service. Among the areas that are seen as today’s growth sectors are business valuations, mergers and acquisitions, benefits administration and tax planning.