Why save? In a world that is constantly in motion and where the term of life expectancy is growing longer, many people find it a waste of time, or simply don’t think about managing their personal finance.

Many find keeping money aside pointless choosing to live for the day. Saving, however, is very important if you wish to have an effective, and secure personal finance plan.

Some people think that saving money goes against the attitude of living for today, or living each day to the fullest. But if you give it more thought, it is better to live your entire life to the fullest than just a single day.

If you save, you will have the means to get what you truly want, or reach your personal finance goal, rather than what you just want now. Saving will also ensure that you will not have to scramble for credit when emergencies arise.

The difficulty, however, lies in implementing the principle of saving. Planning your personal finance can give you an idea of what expenses to do away with. Consider these following simple saving tips.

Having credit cards is a way for money to be spent quickly and sometimes needlessly, but if you must have one, make your payments on time. Again, do not spend more than what you are certain you can pay back.

Gas is another large expense for many, especially with the increasing price of oil, so if you do not want the inconvenience of public transport, make sure you keep your car engine tuned. It will save you more in gas consumption in the long run.

Regarding phone usage, try to remove the extra options in plans and packages if you will not use them anyway. However, if you are on the phone a lot, bundling will save you more money.

When buying food, shun the convenience stores in favor of the supermarkets and make sure you have a shopping list and that you stick to it.

When it comes to clothes, stock up on them when they are on sale, or buy a from the previous season for lower, better and more affordabale prices.

Setting a health and safety program in place will reduce costs. Having a program will reduce accidents and will lead to lower company worker’s comp premiums; further business insurance companies prefer their customers to have health and safety programs. These insurance companies might even discount the premium if a program can be proved to exist. The average cost of an accident is $68,000. Direct costs in accidents such as worker’s comp and fines levied can close a business. Indirect costs such as low morale of employees, legal fees, and retraining can be as costly if not more.

A working program will:
1) Improve employee morale – Shows care in their well being
2) Reduce revenue loses – Fewer accidents keeps all employees at work
3) Give a boost to the customer – Makes sure business is operating     optimally

Small businesses that have a voluntary health and safety program in place have fifty percent less accidents and reported insurance claims than that of their counterparts according to OHSA stats. Most small businesses fall below the legal requirements for having a formal health and safety program in place due to number of employees on staff. Sixty eight percent of reported accidents are in the service industry which shows even businesses such as retail establishments are not free of accidents.

A health and safety program can be started by writing a health and safety policy; this is simply values that a company wishes to convey in its work processes. Secondly, is how communication between all employees and owners will function. And lastly, put procedures in place to ensure safe practices.

To find unseen hazards and unsafe practices, an audit needs to take place. Take a hard look at the workplace and record all factors that may lead to injury. These hazards might be dangerous chemicals or as simple as a letter opener. Identifying these hazards will lead to procedures to controlling them. Controls such as “Don’t run with scissors in your hands” are effective. Write all procedures in a manual.

Implementing these health and safety procedures will be done with behavioral change. Some programs become weak and non effective because of:
1)    No definition of safety practices – No written processes
2)    No teamwork – Safety is communication from the top to bottom and vice versa. A well written plan will describe what roles everyone plays in safety policies.
3)    No effective goals – The “accident free days” poster will come as a result of sound safety processes.
4)    Wrong incentives – Money as a reward does not work well. Health and safety should be fun and worth employees effort. The right incentive plan can be cost effective and have obtainable goals. Incentive plans can include movie passes or simply “free coffee on the boss.” The insurance industry reports for a dollar spent on health and safety yields four to six dollars in savings.

Once all of the hard work of developing and implementing the health and safety program is done, set aside some time each month to review the workplace. Record what is found; this is a good practice to see dangerous trends that might occur such as a fire exit constantly being blocked. On the quarters of the year post a meeting with employees. These meetings are a great way to get vital feed-back from employees and keep them involved. At least once a year, do an audit to make sure your health and safety program is current with present business operations.