2010-01-24

5 Tips to Save Money--And the Earth

You just can't get that memo right, can you? You print out the first draft and find a misspelling. You print out the second draft and discover you missed some commas. You print out the third draft and later decide on a new title. Now the final draft is ready for printing. Before you throw away those wasted sheets of paper, stop and realize that you could be costing your business as well as the environment.

You probably know that by recycling you can save landfill space. But did you know that recycling also can produce a profit for your company? Follow these recycling tips and your workplace will be ready to save the world.

* Create a recycling program. Almost all types of office papers are recyclable. So is most plastic, aluminum and cardboard. If your office doesn't already have a recycling program, contact your local recycling company to see how to start one.

* Use recycled products. If you recycle but don't buy recycled products, you're defeating the purpose, in a sense, by discouraging manufacturers of recycled products.

* Conserve paper. Find paperless ways to communicate, such as by e-mail. Also, save used paper for scrap, make double-sided copies and only print pages you actually need. By cutting back on paper consumption, your office will save money and natural resources.

* Recycle office equipment. Did you know that computers can be recycled, as well as cell phones, PDAs, pagers, chargers and rechargeable batteries? Many local recycling companies and retailers, including Staples, offer easy ways to recycle your equipment.

* Recycle empty inkjet and toner cartridges. The fewer drafts you print, the more money you'll save on cartridge replacements. But when that inkjet or toner cartridge is empty, recycle it through mail-back programs or local retailers like Staples.

In fact, Staples offers a Recycle for Education program that gives $1 to local education charities for every empty inkjet or toner cartridge you recycle in their stores.



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2010-01-12

Top 5 ways To Improve Your Credit

Your credit rating is extremely important to your financial future, and those with a low credit rating will often find it difficult to get any sort of finance until their credit improves. This could affect your abilities to get anything from a credit card or loan to a mortgage or car finance, and as a nation that relies heavily on credit this could spell disaster for many.

Your credit rating can be adversely affected in a number of ways. Most commonly is failure to make bill and finance repayments on time or defaulting on payments altogether. However, other factors such as association with those with bad credit or being the victim of identity theft can also affect your credit rating – as can a simple human or computer error by credit reporting agencies or agencies that register details with these companies.

There are a number of ways in which you can help to improve your credit or maintain good credit. This includes:

1. Always maintain timely repayments on bills and financial obligations, as this will help to maintain good credit. If you already have a tarnished credit history or rating make sure that you focus on making all of your repayments on time and for the amount s requested to try and start improving your credit.

2. Keep a check on your credit report. This can easily be ordered from the credit reporting agencies. Monitoring this will enable you to check that no errors have been made that could be affecting your credit rating, and will enable you to identify any cases of fraudulent activity that could also be affecting your credit.

3. If you already have poor credit consider taking out a credit card or loan that caters for those with bad credit. By taking out a bad credit loan or credit card, and making sure that you make the repayments on time and for the amounts requested, you can start to slowly bring your credit back up.

4. Focus on paying off your debts. If you have a high level of debt then you run the risk of falling behind with repayments and adversely affecting your credit. By clearing the debt as quickly as possible you can reduce this risk. If you already have bad credit and are in debt, you could see improvements in your credit rating by clearing the debts as quickly as possible and ensuring that you pay at least the requested amounts on loans and bills each month.

5. Look out for scams that offer fast solutions to repairing credit. These usually charge a fee and offer only a temporary reprieve by questioning any factors that may be affecting your credit. The best way to repair your credit is to be sensible and responsible about repaying your debts and paying your bills, and although it may take some time this is the most effective long term solution to credit repair.
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2010-01-11

money saving tips, save money

Everyone wants to save money, but no one wants to change his or her lifestyle to do so. Many people think that the only way to save is to go without; Give up eating out at restaurants, stop going to the movies, stop shopping, etc. This is not the case! It is very simple to still enjoy going out, as well as save money. You just have to find ways to spend less while going out. Here are some examples:

When going to a restaurant:

· Always use coupons! I can’t stress that enough. There are many ways to find them. The Sunday paper usually has coupons for a few restaurants. Many restaurants send out coupons in the mail hoping to get you to visit them. The Entertainment Book has coupons for many restaurants. The restaurant’s own website might have a coupon that you can print out and bring in. Sometimes you will find coupons in their take-out menu. You will be able to save a few dollars just for taking a few seconds to look for a coupon.

· Share a meal. If you’re going out to dinner, many times you can get away with ordering one main course and an appetizer or salad and sharing them with your partner since the portions are so large. By splitting them, you will save a lot more then if you had each gotten your own meal, plus you will get more of a selection since you’ll get to taste both an appetizer and an entrĂ©e.

When wanting to see a movie:

· If you want to go to the movies, consider going during the day, or in the early evening. These are all considered matinee showings, and you will usually pay about half of the price you would pay at night! It doesn’t sound like that big of a savings, but if you go to the movies just once a month, you can save $54 a year per person. You’ll save even more if you go more often!

· If you want to save even more money, you can rent the movie once it goes to DVD. Many websites will allow you to buy packs of 10 DVD rentals, and you will end up saving anywhere from $0.50-$1.50 per rental! This can really add up. If you rent one movie per week, you can save up to $78 a year! Also keep an eye out for coupons that allow you to rent one and get the second free.

There are many other simple things you can do to save money when going out to enjoy different forms of entertainment.
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2010-01-09

10 Tips To Save Money

Money, according to a classical definition, is what money does. And truth, as they say, is like a rubber band. Stretch it and it can do wonders. So if we can really make money in order to do whatever we want, there is nothing like that.

To provide 10 quick tips to save money is almost like a first-aid approach to a very intricate problem perhaps faced by almost each of us. It is important to know how to manage money efficiently to ensure bulky savings. Whether to save some part of what we have to spend or whether to spend at all on a service or commodity should be the first question to be answered.

Firstly in case of large investments, the first step for a prospective buyer is to identify and correlate the valuable item or service with need or desire. It is better to test its utility first, for example, by borrowing it for a fixed time period. If you are satisfied and convinced about its necessity and think that you really need that, you may buy it. But to save money, you as a wise consumer must find the best seller in terms of comparative pricing, quality & market reputation.

For lower priced items, one has to shop for the lowest prices, also keeping an eye on the quality aspect. For example, if you take the instance of buying clothes, the best purchase is off-season discount sale, wherein you can get good clothes at cheap rates.

For financial investments, like the stock market, follow the golden rule of buying volatile stocks when the price of an item is down & sell it when it is at a high. The profit thus earned can be invested in the equity market for steady items.

Today's Internet has provided the best opportunities to shop vigorously for the best price before you actually drop the money. Especially for insurance, loan facilities and financial management, one is spoilt for choices. Proper analysis of rates and amortization goes a long way in saving even hundreds of dollars in a year.

Change of plan in case of services like telephone, insurance, etc. can save you costly dollars provided you simply have the knowledge about the best existing plan.

Making a monthly budget for buying the essential items and regulating the number of luxury items can yield considerable savings.

Expensive weekends and extravagant outings should be replaced by reasonable excursion for wholesale entertainment.

Proper food planning and food habits result in better living, both financially and mentally. Stay healthy and you can save on medical bills. Having a proper food plan also prevents food from being wasted.

Paying the bills within due dates provides invaluable savings, because, in this case, as you have to pay, it is better to pay in time to avoid penalty.

If you are an employer, you should encourage flexible job responsibilities for your task force, making each one compatible with the work within a department. This will help in cutting down employees cost and help complete a task within time, even if someone is absent.

There are obviously several other ways to save money and lead a frugal life without tension. It is always told that money saved is money earned. Just keep it in mind and stay happy.
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2010-01-07

Where Can You Buy The Dinar Safely?

There are a lot of places where you can buy the Iraqi dinar. It will be a half year dayjob to test them all!

So where can I buy the dinar safely?

Look for the companies that are involved in more than only selling the new Iraqi dinar. They do not want to destroy their good names by selling counterfit notes or just do not send you anything at all.

These companies are better to get in touch with and you can check them out more easily on the search engines. Do not buy at sites where there is no contact information! Always try to email the company first so the least you know is that their customer support is fine.

Also try to find out more about the company by doing an IP check. You can fine a lot of sites offering this for free. If it is a hidden id and no info can be given about the domain just leave. When they are hiding means they do not really believe in this opportunity and are just resellers for the quick buck. Why would they otherwise hide?

What I can say is that when something is 'hot' you always get fraudland people attracted. There are already scam reports regarding this. People who do not receive anything at all or just copied paper! As soon as you receive your dinars find out what the security marks are (do a search on google!) and check it out.

Also look at the prices. It should be somewhere around $100 for 100,000 dinars. When the price is a lot less alarm bells should ring. When it is a lot more look for a better place. I have seen prices on the net ranging from $50 to $200 for the same pack of dinars. Just do not jump onto this, get educated!

For the rest I recommend that you use the documentation on my site. The links, ads and articles are there for you, to assist you in your due diligence.

The best to you and keep away from the scammers!

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2010-01-06

How Rich Is Rich?

To the question "How Rich is Rich", there is no specific answer.

It is likely that there will be a difference in opinion between two persons who may have the same financial status in life. We can expect an even obvious difference in answers between two persons who are not in the same financial status.

Some answers may sound like the following:

* A person is wealthy if he/she has a net worth of at least one million dollars.
* A person is wealthy if he/she is totally debt-free.
* A person is wealthy if he/she can live the lifestyle he/she chooses to have.
* A person is wealthy if he/she has a house, a flourishing business, can afford to take trips every year, and buy most of the luxuries in life.
* A person is wealthy if he/she can afford to give to charities.

Actually, there is no line that divides a person’s financial status to be considered rich or not.

Wealth is in the eye of the beholder. To some (not necessarily financial wealth), health is wealth even if their pockets aren’t.

Still, others may consider spiritual wealth as their foremost priority.

Even for the wealthy, there is never enough wealth. That is why, we see very wealthy people still continually making their assets grow.

Financially speaking, if you have income that is higher than your expenses (including reasonable luxuries) and your asset value stays ahead of inflation rate, you can consider yourself to be financially self-reliant.

Financial income does not retire with age.

That is why, there is a need to make money work for you, which brings us back to the importance of financial knowledge and why financial knowledge is better than money itself.

For as long as your financial mind keeps working, there will never be a hole in your pocket.

True wealth is all in the mind.

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2010-01-04

Money Is In The Mind

Some of us make huge money. Some makes a real big amount. It is as if they have a magic formula. Look at the rich list. Most of them find their name repeated year after year. At the same time there are some who are born with great intelligence and manage to only earn their living. They never manage to make big money. Why? What is the secret that makes some people attract money?

What is Money attraction: Is their something like money attraction? We find some people with great charisma. They attract people towards them. Is their something similar with money? Do some people have magnetic pull over money? Yes. It is there. The people who attract money believe that - they deserve to earn big money. They also believe that there is enough money in the world. They are of the opinion that everybody should become rich. They know how to save money and spend it judiciously. They know that they have the intelligence to make huge money. They know how to make business plans that work and they have faith in their plans. You cannot easily change their mind.

On the other hand we a much larger population who believes that big money is for others. These people have some how come to a conclusion that big money is not in their fate. These people do not believe that they have the intelligence that is superior and they may lose money if they venture. Somehow this large majority believes in all the factors that drive money away.

Money is in thinking. Money is in confidence. Money is in self-belief and money is in mind. Believe it and you will earn it.
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2010-01-03

Financial Planning

The fight for financial freedom isn’t fair. No matter what kind of spin you try to put on it, the path to comfortable living seems either impossible or too long to attempt. Many people these days are spending copious amounts of money going to see professional financial planners for advice on how to get their money situation under control. But let’s be honest, while a financial planner can show you how to prioritize your spending and how to go about consolidating your debt, surely there must be a way to plan your finances that doesn’t cost you visits to a professional? This article has been written to open some people’s eyes to the fact that it is possible to properly plan your finances from the comfort of your own home.

The main aim when planning your finances is to make everything as simple as possible. There is nothing worse than sinking so far into depression that you can’t see a way out. Whether you are in debt and looking to get out of it of if you are simply looking for a way to keep a little more spending money aside each month, the simpler you make your planning the better the result you will get. From the beginning, you need to be realistic. I’ll start with the example of a single income situation, firstly you need to calculate what your net pay is per month. If you’re self employed or not on a regular pay, always calculate the worst-case-scenario, what is the lowest you might get paid. Then go through your monthly bills and write down the ones that are a fixed amount. Do the same for all other bills but use the worst-case-scenario again, what is your estimation of the most that those bills might be. Add everything up and subtract it from your net income total.

Next onto the incidental expenses you might run into on a monthly basis. These might include petrol, car upkeep, public transport fares, food etc. make a list of all the little expenses you might need money for in a month. Even things that you’re not sure you might need to buy. Don’t add general spending money to the list, be specific. Always add more to the totals if you’re not sure as you can fine tune it later. Again, subtract your total from the money left over from your bills. Don’t worry if you’ve gone into the negative figures here, we can fix it.

Once you’ve got your expenses total in front of you, obviously any money that is left over is your profit for the month. In the event that you have nothing left or have gone into the minus figures, the next step is to minimize your expenses. Pretty straight forward, huh? Any incidental expenses that you might not need, remove them. And any expenses you know you will have, like food and petrol for example, really get down to the lowest spend on them. How much do you really need to spend on them? Your aim should be to save at least $50 per month after spending money. All that extra builds up and gives you a nice petty cash at the end of a few months!

If you are in a multiple-income situation, the same process applies. You need to start building up that petty cash tin. There will always be unexpected expenses, everyone knows that. In truth, the basis of comfortable living is really the knowledge that you can afford to pay for something unexpected.

To finish, all of this can be done on a piece of paper if you want to invest a little time, or you can lay it all out on an Excel spreadsheet. The way that saves the most time is to use a Financial Planning software program, you enter the numbers and the program gives you an automatic monthly planner. Whatever way you choose to go, always remember to keep it as simple as possible. When you’re following a plan, the pressure on you will decrease. What more could there be to comfortable living?


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