• 04Jun

    With the United States economy in a recession and  jobless claims rising every month, it is important when you are searching for a job for you to differentiate yourself from the competition. You need to let your potential employer know why you deserve the job rather than that other guy sitting neatly in a suit next to to you, next in line to be interviewed. A great way to do this enhance your resume to show off who you really are. By following these tips you will be on your way to getting your dream job.

    When writing your resume you most likely remembered to discuss your workplace experience and responsibilities, but you should not forget to include your achievements. If you were awarded an employee of the month award, given a greeting card from a grateful client or customer or even just awarded pay increases and bonuses, let your potential employer know. These will show what you have accomplished and give them a feel for what you will bring to the company other than “customer service skills.” Be personal and show what makes you different.

    If you are looking for a financial, investment, real estate, marketing, or other business related job, golf is for sure the sport for you. It has become the business meeting sport of choice. Whether you are playing a round with your boss or a potential client, they will be impressed with your skills. If you are at least knowledgeable and some what able to hold your own on the green, let your hirer know. It is always good for the boss to have a go to guy to send to the green.

    Everyone turns in a traditional boring paper resume. Try branding yourself by purchasing a simple YOURNAME.com. Hire a professional to make the page show off your business resume, have easy to access contact information and even some blogging space for your personal thoughts. Instead of faxing long resumes or making your interviewer have to keep track of your resume, they will simply have to pull up a web address. It is also an easy way for them to keep track of any updates you may have to the resume without having to have you reformat one.

    These tips will get you on your way to getting your next job. By showing your accomplishments, having some golf skills and a stylish and live resume you will show your business experience in a personal way, differentiating yourself from the masses.

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  • 18Apr

    High school graduation is just a month away for seniors all around the country. Parents and seniors alike know that the costs of this monumental day can be more than just a head ache. You have invitations, senior pictures, caps and cowns, gifts, dinners, and all the little things you need to make it a day to remember.

    These things will all add up to quite an expense for your check book. So to save money you should look for a few small gestures to help out. Making hand made invitations or going to Walmart for senior pictures are great ideas. You can also rent a cap and gown instead of paying full price to own.

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  • 15Apr

    Today is Tax Day, April 15th, so by now all of you have hopefully filed your taxes. For many of us, that means we will be getting a refund back from the government. Whether it be just $50 or a couple hundred dollars, any additional dollar can help. There are some things you should do with the refund and some things you should not do.

    For starters, remember, this tax refund is the government giving you YOUR money back. It was not someone else’s money they are giving you, and it is not their money they are giving you. It is money they over took from you through taxes and are now returning it. Therefore do no think of it as free money and waste it. Do not go out and just think of it as a down payment on a new LCD television or some luxery that you do not need.

    Instead of thinking of it as money to waste on a luxery, you can use your tax refunds to get you started on the path to personal, financial responsibility. Take that extra hundred dollars and pay off extra on your monthly credit bill. It will get you ahead of your payments and save you money in the long run from what would have been additional interest payments.

    You could also invest the money into an IRA to start saving up for retirement. Retirement is a huge financial burden, so if you get extra dollars, you might as well just help yourself out in the long run and put it aside. Doing this every year will give you a lot of financial fluidity when you reach 65.

    As housing remains an issue, the extra refund money can be put aside to start paying off your mortgage. The money can either come from  your paycheck or your tax refund, so you might as well just keep the check in the bank and use your refund to keep your family living inside your home.

    You never know whan a tragedy may hit or a family member might get ill or lose their job. So another proposal is to simply save the money. Putting it aside in an account where it earns interest (free money) puts it in a safe environment where it can be easily accessible in case you are in need of money for an emergency.

    Tax refund checks should be arriving in your mailbox soon. Upon receiving it, use it to your financial advantage instead of blowing it, thinking it is free money.

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  • 12Apr

    Unemployment may be steadily rising, but even those of us with steady jobs may still find that paying off the monthly home mortgage can be difficult.  Mortgages can take quite a toll on your monthly budget. With the current recession things may seem tough for you economically, but with these tips you will be on the path to survive the recession and pay off your home mortgage.

    Step one is simply deciding that you WILL make the payments. There are some groups out there trying to say that housing is a right and you should be able to live in a home even if you default on the payments. This is reality though. If you do not pay for the house and the land it is upon, you do not own it. When you take out a loan, you owe the lender money based upon the contract in which you sign.  Decide today that you will pay your home mortgage every month. You will have to make sacrifices, but remember, you are sacrificing to own a beautiful house you and your family can call home.

    Obviously the next step is to sit down and review your budget. Literally get out pen,  paper, and your previous billing statements and categorize each expense as “needs” and “wants.”  You will have to be honest with yourself here. Just because something makes life easier, that does not make it a “need.” A third party who can see things from the outside might be helpful in this process. Do not leave anything out of this, whether it be garbage disposal, gas bills, or even just the DVD’s you bought.

    After your budget is reviewed, analyze how much money you will be making on average per month. If you make salary, divide the total by 12, while also accounting for the amount that will be taken out for taxes. If you make hourly wages, calculate about what you will make per year by looking at your weekly paychecks. From this point, instantly deduct the cost of the mortgage. From this point you can start tinkering with your budget. Mortgage should always be deducted first though. While working out your new budget, you should understand that you should develop savings as well. It is financially stable to save 10-25% of your income per year.  As writing your new budget you will have to make cuts. Forget about eating out as often or going to Starbucks every morning. Shopping for groceries and medicines  is a great money saving tip and will help in the long run for paying off your home mortgage.

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  • 04Apr

    Everyday I drive to school there is a “Buy American” sign hanging up on some street pole. I am half tempted to just take it down one day. For years, decades really, there has been a segment of the population that believes in the falsehoods of “American” anything.

    They believe we should buy products made in the U.S.A. instead of just buying quality. When I go shopping I look for price and quality. I do not look for country name. Segments of the population though, has this sick idea that by buying American we help out the American economy. Well let’s use some common sense here. If a corporation pays an employee in a “3rd world country” $1.00 to make a product and it sell here for maybe $3.00, how much do you think it is going to sell for if it cost a company $10 to pay an American employee.

    Pricing for companies is simple, they mark it up to make a profit. Employees from other countries are hired if they are specialized in that field and can do it better , or if they can do the same quality for cheaper. So sure, buy American, but by doing that you are costing American consumers their hard earned dollars.

    These people often argue that Chinese products are lead tainted or something insane like that. I guess they forgot about the recent massive beef and peanut recalls from American based companies.

    Along with this outsourcing debate comes the idea of “American” jobs. Do not lie to yourself. A job is not American, Chinese, Canadian… Jobs do not belong to countries or people of certain countries. They do not belong to the employee really either. They are positions companies offer us. The CEO, managers, owners, or whoever is placed in charge assigns jobs. Jobs are not constant and are not owned. They are “rented out” per say.

    This American only mindset also comes to adoption. There is always outcry over celebrities adopting children from foreign countries. National boundaries are defined by man, children are born, with 0 say where at, so why would you refuse a child because of where they are born, or only adopt a child in America? Children are children. Countries are nothing when it comes to loving a child.

    The American Only mindset leads to making poor economic and social decisions. Jobs are not owned by countries and do not belong to the people of a country, keeping jobs in countries that are not efficient at making them hurt consumers, and children need love no matter where they are from.

  • 01Apr

    Global warming must be real! After all we have top scientists and even failed presidential candidates who says so.  With 86% of Europeans polled stating that they “[feel] that humans [are] a direct cause of climate change, and 45 percent believed it could be a threat to them and their families within their lifetimes. Sixty-eight percent said they would either strongly or somewhat support limitations on their purchasing and behavior in support of combating global warming”  it is only a matter of time for the skeptical Americans to fall victim to more government control. Those polled said it all, they would be “either strongly or somewhat support[ing] limitations on their…behavior” (Rohinsky) in order to curb a climate threat. This statistic is quite frightening, not because of the climate threat, but because of the vulnerability such beliefs have upon freedoms. By analyzing the nature of scientific studies, past theories, and the current evidence for global warming, it will become obvious that global warming is not a definitive theory, or even a legitimate one at that, and that the sole purpose of such a theory is to allow government to regulate and control every aspect of our lives.
    To clearly understand that the sole purpose of the idea of global warming is to control us, we should look at some of the basic history of the theory. On June 24th, 1972 Time Magazine ran an article titled, “Another Ice Age.” In this article is reports from the top scientists of the day including Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory stated that the next ice age was on its way. With reports of 12% increases in ice and snow in the northern hemisphere, temperature drops of 2.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1940, droughts, cold winters and a entire range of climate irregularities, the conclusion was that of a global cooling. When we jump forward a couple of decades, the s almost no one has even heard of global cooling, and global warming is the latest idea. All of a sudden, global temperatures had risen, the polar ice caps were melting, and the ozone is nothing short of destroyed. Once again the evidence is lacking, a lot of it is questionable and the only solution for this is for the fearful citizens of the planet to give up some freedoms in order to combat pollution, CO2 emissions,  destruction of resources that may combat the warming… The list does not end. Since the theory of global warming has seen some challenges from a growing number of scientists, the name has once again changed. Now, as even the EPA’s website lists it, it is called “Global Climate Change.” Global cooling was proven wrong when we all realized temperatures were not staying cool, global warming was proven wrong when the science did not add up (as will be explored further in this paper), so the only solution for the agencies and government to look to was to rename the same wrong theories of the past with a vague, cover all name that is “Global Climate Change.” While it has not been proven global climates are changing, it is vague enough to cover any climate pattern that may seem irregular or unexpected, when in fact chance or timing may be responsible rather than the tragedy of climate change.
    Since global cooling has now been dismissed it is not needed to completely debunk that form of climate change, but for global warming, an alarming number of citizens around the world believe in it. In 2007, 82% of Americans believed in global warming, rather stunning considering the fact that a growing number of scientists are voicing opposition to the theory. In 1998 Dr. Arthur Robinson, Director of the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine launched a petition for those who have degrees and science qualifications to sign if they are skeptics of the idea of global warming. 32,000 individuals with backgrounds in science signed the petition including over  9,000 with PhD’s, far more than the 2,500 scientific reviewers the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used in claiming there was a scientific consensus that global warming is real. With such a consensus, how come the opposition was 12 times larger?
    The consensus that all the loyal global warming activists and government officials always talk about just is not there. They want us to believe that the debate is over and now is the time for action, rather than continued research to actually prove it exists. With such a growing opposition, perhaps it is important to  actually look at the facts to understand how the theory has come to be attacked as non- plausible and to see what does not add up to cause such disbelief.
    To start off with, we should address the question on whether the planet is actually warming. Warming is pretty much defined as an increase in temperature, and global of course means all across the globe. For global warming to be real, then we of course need a warming globe.  Common sense really, but then again, common sense might also suggest that the planet is cooling, not warming.  For a decade now, 10 years, the planet has experienced cooling (Carter). 1998 was the last year in which warming occurred and since then, including last year the global temperatures have cooled and show no sign of warming this year either.
    ?
    http://woodpilereport.com/photos/chart-global-cooling-via-stayingalive.gif
    Temperatures since 2005 have dropped so drastically that all the warming that took place since the 1980’s was canceled out. When a devotee to the global warming cause hears these facts they usually say, “ ‘how silly to judge climate change over such a short period‘. Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming” (Carter). They also mention that of course some cooling would have to occur when you start tallying after 1998, since 1998 was a record high year. Well they are forgetting to mention that 1998 was such a record high year because it was a El Nino year, which is a natural cycle that leads to higher temperatures. As they forget to mention that, we also ignore the fact that they also use the cooling of 1965 as their base line. Something else to consider is that the warmest year in recent history in North America was in 1934.  Weather has never been constant, so of course temperatures are going to rise and lower over the years.  We should consider that “warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialization, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965.” Periods of warming and cooling occur naturally, it is not global climate change or global warming, it is called “weather.”
    As we are deceived and told that the planet is warming, we are also being misled on evidence to support it as well. The most common myth is that the ice caps are melting and our sea level will rise. The  National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported that there was an increase of 9.4%, or 390,000 square kilometers  of ice coverage in the year 2008 over 2007.  Despite these facts we always see photographs of ice caps being split down the middle, suggesting out ice caps are outright being broken up and vanishing.
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    http://www.greenland.com/media(1181,1033)/Greenland%27s_ice_cap_is_melting.jpg
    Images like this one mislead the public. It suggests the middle of the ice caps, the point that should be the thickest is being ripped apart due to global warming. However, the fact is that the ice caps are increasing in size.  If you notice, the photographs never plot the coordinates of where latitude and longitude of where it was taken. If this was done we would realize the truth. Most of the images we see are actually of ice caps breaking apart near the far edge of the shelf. Due to the thickening of the caps at the poles, ice is pushed north or south, closer to the equator, where the planet is warmer. As the ice approaches warmer seas it obviously warms up as well and the molecules start to speed up, melting the ice.  Ice is melting because of the fact that the poles are thickening.
    As “scientists” parade around with their false facts of warming and melting ice caps, they can not help but to also announce how we are destroying the coral reefs, polar bears are dying,  and according to a 2003 study “published in the journal Nature, colleagues analyzed numerous studies involving wild plant and animals for changes due to global warming. Out of the nearly 1,500 species examined, the researchers found that about 1,200 exhibited temperature-related changes consistent with what scientists would expect if they were being affected by global warming” (Than). Considering the fact that scientists went into the study with assumptions on what the effects were (almost as if they were going to get the results they wanted no matter what they saw),  they could not scientifically prove what caused the so-called effects.
    Everything we hear concerning global warming has to do with doom and gloom. Ice is melting, sea levels are rising, animals are dying, and life is changing, the only thing we can do to end the chaos, is to take action to end the warming.  Despite there being no consensus and no real evidence that this warming exists, what the effects would be if it did exist or whether it could even be reversed, governments and agencies all seem to have ideas to curb our freedoms in the name of saving the world. Why is it that every aspect of our life must be controlled? Not a single thing goes unregulated if global warming exists.
    The Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) that the Environmental Protection Agency (APA) released early in the year would give them the right to place a price tag on greenhouse gas emissions. Not excluded from this taxation of natural processes is our livestock. In New York, “The tax for dairy cows could be $175 per cow, and $87.50 per head of beef cattle. The tax on hogs would upwards of $20 per hog,” the release said. “Any operation with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs would have to obtain permits” (Poor). This massive tax upon farmers would cost New York farmers alone $110 million dollars a year, effectively harming the American farm industry, giving the global competitors an upper hand and leaving American consumers having to pay the cost (Gregg). Common sense economics will show that as price goes up, demand goes down, effectively regulating how many animals farmers own, and regulating what the consumer buys.
    Taxing livestock would not be the only new regulations we see. A popular idea proposed by those inside of the global warming hoax is the introduction of the carbon tax. “A carbon tax would be paid whenever a molecule of carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. Utilities would pay it based on their smokestack emissions and pass the cost to consumers in their monthly electric bill. Each of us would pay it when we fill up with gasoline, based on the content of fossil carbon in the fuel” (Schlesinger). Once again, in the name of fighting global warming we have a tax that would force companies to have to raise their prices to consumers if they choose to continue running business the way they were. As companies are essentially blackmailed into investing their money in “green technologies” to find ways to reduce emissions, the consumer is left to foot the bill. This tax is nothing but telling companies what to invest in or telling them they must raise the price upon the consumer.  It is a regulative policy that strips away freedoms from investors, consumers and companies to supposedly curb the carbon emissions that is causing a warming that has not even been proven to exist.
    Global warming although never proven, is already gaining ground in the taxation side of regulation. The regulation will not end there though. In California all new car models as of 2009 must display a label that states its “global warming score.” While lawmakers claim it is suppose to be about public awareness, “a law endorsed by the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety would make governments put a monetary cost on the emissions of vehicles they plan to purchase, and add that to expense calculations” (Greenbiz). The car regulation is not ending with just labeling society and adding expenses, in 2002 California led the way with forcing companies to produce certain cars. Assembly Bill 1493 is currently facing legal challenges from auto makers who are quite frankly, not satisfied with having the freedom to manufacture cars of their choosing removed. Instead of making cars that consumers demand as the free market determines, they are now being legally forced to make cars that “reduce global warming emissions” (California Clean Car Campaign). The free market deciding how cars should be made makes sense, the people want it, they demand it. California, along with other states now considering such laws, have chosen to strip away the free out of market and is now even regulating what type of car we drive.
    To many paying a few extra dollars or driving a certain car is not a big deal as long as we combat global warming. Those ones usually do not realize how far the regulation can go though. If the planet is in danger, with ecosystems out of order, climate irregular, food supply being cut off and entire cities vanishing beneath the rising water, there is nothing that could be said to prevent the government and their agencies from regulating other parts of our life too in order to save us from ourselves.  Karen Coshof, producer of “The Great Warming,” said in a Cybercast News Service interview, “Population is the underlying problem - the catalyst for [global warming]” (Randall). Now, what is the way to combat the “underlying problem?” The answer would be population control. Most are offended when they hear of the Chinese laws setting limits on children for families, with heavy taxation and fines for having too many children, but yet segments of the global warming activists in America advocate population control, and we can only ask ourselves how soon it will be before legislation is put up to a vote as well.
    One of the most famous regulative policies concerning global warming is the Kyoto Protocol. “The protocol’s implementation will require such heavy-handed regulation that Andrei Illarionov, the senior economic adviser to President Vladimir Putin who opposed Russia’s ratification of Kyoto, sees it as a recrudescence of the command economy. Appealing last week to Mr Blair to listen more to informed sceptics, he asked: “Have there been any international agreements to limit economic growth and development before Kyoto? Yes, there were two: Communism and Nazism.” As a matter of fact, many economists have determined that Kyoto would cost America billions of dollars. Japan alone would be out $500 billion to cut emissions 12 times (only once) (Johnson). Through regulative policies that would determine what can and can not be produced, how it can and can not be produced, what jobs we can and can not have, what companies can and can not succeed, what investors lose or gain, it is comforting to know that Kyoto would have only reduced global temperatures by 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit. So much regulation to control global warming, and like the existence of global warming, the results of Kyoto will just not exist.
    We have been raised to believe in global warming. It is in out schools, media, movies, and our professors love to espouse it. They would have us believe that global warming is indeed a scientific consensus, all while constantly changing the name of the climate theory,  but yet a growing number of skeptics are speaking out and the evidence to support the so-called warming is just not there. When you combine that with the fact that everything about the theory of global warming just coincidently allows the government and other agencies to control and regulate all aspects of our life, you have the workings of a fraud. If global warming it to exist in our mind, they can raise our taxes, tell us what animals to own, raise prices on livestock, rise the prices of consumer goods, tell us what industries succeed or fail, determine what investments make money or not, regulate what we drive and take away companies freedom to manufacture based upon the free market, and even go as far as regulate our breeding. Not a single aspect of our life will be spared from regulation in some manner. We as a society have already stated that we would be willing to give up our freedoms to fight global warming if it threatened us. They already have us convinced that it exists, now the only thing left is for the threat to be highlighted. The science and history is against global warming, giving us citizens a hope that the world will open their eyes and see global warming as a regulative fraud.

  • 14Oct

    Low-risk investments still offer good opportunities

    With the financial scenario prevailing in today’s world, investors who have invested the money in market funds, fixed rate annuities or even in deposit certificates are just looking to play a safe game. All they want is that the principal amount should be safe and they earn some interest on it.
    Due to this negative feeling which came after the fall of reputed institutions at Wall Street’s, many investors are moving away from the stock market. Now the question is that should we move out of the market or do we still have any other alternatives. Here are the few alternatives

    • Money-market mutual funds
    Due to the fall of Lehman Brothers, the share price of the Reserve Primary Fund which is a money-market mutual fund fell even below $1. Due to this the investors lost some part of the principal which they had invested. Despite suffering some looses in mutual funds, they are still considered as safe as insured deposits. These mutual funds have a diversified portfolio and thus they are considered risk free. They invest in IOU’s from big companies and in short term Treasury securities.
    Also they are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. But due to the sudden panic, the Treasury Department started a program in which all the funds as on September 19 will be insured.
    Now if we talk about future investments in money funds, the response of Karen Dolan who is director fund analysis for Morningstar is very encouraging. He said “The odds of running into trouble are extremely low.”

    • Annuities
    The ninth largest seller of annuities through banks and the largest fixed rate annuities issuer in U.S is AIG. People who have retirement savings with them are in a state of confusion after the $85 billion bailout plan.
    The main problem of surrendering an annuity is that we have to incur heavy surrender charges. Marvin Feldman who is the president of the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education believes that the problem of AIG’s is due to the risky investments made by its holding company.
    AIG’s insurance subsidiaries are “highly regulated and well-capitalized,” he says.
    He added that in case any insurance company fails, all the losses would be covered by state’s guaranty association. But this depends on the top limit as ensured by your state. In some states it can be $100,000 in cash value for fixed annuities and withdrawal. But other consideration is that it does not cover any variable annuities.
    So in case of variable annuities, a different protection for investors is available. As said by Feldman, most of these variable annuities offer sub accounts which is a choice of mutual funds. These are segregated accounts and it should be kept in mind that if any insurance company declares himself as bankrupt, creditors don’t have any right to file any claim against that company.

    • Insured deposits
    As per the FDIC, $100,000 insurance in individual accounts is provided. In case of joint accounts, up to $200,000 is provided and in this case each account holder has same withdrawal rights. If the senate approved financial bill becomes a law then this can increase to $250,000.
    According to bankrate.com, some banks are even willing to offer 4.5 percent on one year CD so that they can attract some customer deposits and end the credit drying.

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  • 02Oct

    As the housing market is in what some consider as the worse times for the market in decades, it takes real effort to actually complete a sale when selling your house. Thousands of houses nationwide are sitting with “For Sale” signs that have long been overlooked. With this fact in mind you have to wonder what it takes to make your real estate noticeable, how to get it to actually sell and how to  get the money you deserve when it does sell. With a few easy steps you can increase the value of your home, whether you are planning on continuing to live in it, or whether you have it up for sale.

    When you or a potential buyer pulls up to your home, the first thing they will see is the driveway and the surrounding landscape. Newly poured driveways can be done by professional contractors at prices that can be as low as $1500 or so. Smooth, uncracked and flawless driveways make for an attractive entrance. As the walk up the driveway and to the door continues, the landscape will be noticeable. Simple things such as having bushes surrounded by some deep black or brown mulch or some stone walled flowering areas can create a dramatic and beautiful addition to your property. All this can be done by yourself at the price of goods, or by professionals for only a couple of hundred dollars. By improving upon your landscaping, your home’s value can be worth10% more than the similar houses in your community.

    As energy prices soar and its costs becomes a high priority to the average American, making your home energy efficient will raise the value of your home as well. For example Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs can be  75% more efficient than standard incandescent bulbs. They will also last about 10 times longer as well. Over each one of those bulb’s lifetimes, you can save about $30 on your energy bill. By making your home more energy efficient, it will make it attractive to the growing number of energy cost conscious individuals.

    One of the simplest ways to increase the value of your home is to simply keep up to date on your maintenance and upkeep. When cracks occur, have them filled or fill them yourself. If paint gets marked up on the walls, repaint a room with a semi-gloss neutral paint. Semi-gloss often times appeals to potential buyers for its attractive, but not overbearing style. Of course, updating your accessories such as heating and cooling units, finishing your basement or retiling a kitchen will always add more value to your home.

    These simple steps will increase the value of your home whether you are selling or wish to continue living upon it. With today’s tough housing market, it takes an attractive, well valued home to complete the sale. These steps are affordable and will often yield about 85-90% of the costs it took to make the home more valuable.

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  • 27Sep

    Not many of us can even see the day that we will be retired. At the moment we are in college, raising a family or simply floating by doing our own thing. After all, the official retirement age according to the United States government is 62. What do you have to worry about? You still have years, or even decades to go. The fact is however, by the time many of us reach the age of retirement, we are not financially ready. As a matter of fact, according to  a recent study conducted by bank rate.com, only 28% of those surveyed said they believe they will be able to retire comfortably, while 70% of them have negative outlooks on their prospects. With these stats in mind,  these easy 5 steps can help you on your way to financial security when you reach the time of your retirement.

    1. One of the most obvious steps is to draft a personal financial plan for yourself. The first step for doing this is to determine where you may be getting money from. This can include social security payouts, pensions, savings and your investments. Once this is completed, it may be beneficial to put your money in tax deferred vehicles for as long as you can hold off. Your money will sit and earn you interest without losing anything to taxes.  When a percentage of your money is in these, have some of your money in liquid investments such as CD’s. For saving up for a moderate amount of time, bonds may be appropriate, but if you will be investing long term, stocks are a safe bet. It is important however to not simply forget about your money because it is invested, you should review your finance at least annually.

    When retirement is reached, many may want to go out and enjoy the high life. Many financial experts believe that annually you should limit yourself to spending about 4% of your total savings.  By spending 4%, you will be in a safe position to end up still having money when you pass away. As you spend 4%, your investments should yield about the same, keeping you in position to have money for a rainy day or for special events.

    2. A great way to save extra money and eliminate wasteful losses is to simply look at your finances and find areas to reduce fees or other charges. Examples of this would be to look at whether your bank has a high service charge, and if they do, use another bank. You can also adjust what credit card you use and other services that takes out a percentage. Move your money around to avoid high charges and fees. When retirement comes around you will have saved yourself extra money.

    3.  Although retirement is suppose to be about relaxing, it can be beneficial to find yourself a part-time job for only a few hours a week.  Starting on January 29th, 2009, the United States minimum wage will increase to $7.25. If you work only 10 hours a week, you are bringing in an additional $72.50 cents of income. That money  can go a long way in saving your retirement funds and keeping your relaxation days going.

    4. Obviously, we all have to eat. A great way to get ready for retirement or to continue to save money for your continued retirement is to take advantage of your senior discount. Many restaurants offer discounted prices for patrons over 50 or 55. Take advantage of the system and save yourself several dollars a meal.

    5. Investing in long term health care is one of the most important aspects. You should shop around for the companies that offer high quality insurance. With the advances in medicine in this modern era, we are living longer and staying healthier for a longer time. To make sure that you are covered in case something happens, you should find insurance companies that offer affordable rates for the long run. Companies will compete for your business, make them give you the rate you deserve.

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  • 25Sep

    West Asset Management Group mainly provides receivable management services and portfolio purchasing services. In fact, the company offers these services through two separate operating divisions. So, if you want to gather information about the West Management Group, it is better to go by the segments.

    The Portfolio Purchasing Division of West Management Group

    The portfolio purchasing division actually purchases, manages and collects debt. At present, this division manages billions of dollars of non-performing assets not only from credit issuers but also from small and large financial institutions and other corporations. The division offers pre-purchase and post-purchase portfolio management solutions to financial sector, telecommunications sector, healthcare sector, automotive sector and six other sectors.
    The services provided by the division
    • The committed professionals of this division help different companies to maximize returns on their assets.
    • The division helps its customers to meet cash flow objectives.
    • The industry experts from West Asset Management help the clients in maximizing the value of their portfolio.
    • Companies, who are served by this division, become able to reduce their bad debt expenses.
    • Services provided by this division also help the corporations in significantly reducing the debt recovery time.
    • The different types of solutions that the portfolio purchasing division offers include
    o Forward Flow Arrangement
    o Information Sharing Arrangement
    o One Off Purchase Arrangement
    o Upside Share Arrangement
    o Evolutionary Pricing Model

    The Receivable Management Division of West Management Group

    This division of West Management actually deals with business markets. It effectively helps the premier business houses in recovering outstanding account receivables. One group of this division takes care of the clients who come from consumer sector and another deals with the commercial sector clients.
    The services provided by the division
    • The receivable management division helps the clients in accelerating cash flows and in reducing roll rates.
    • The professionals of this division develop strategies with the aim of minimizing the write-offs.
    • Services offered by this division help the companies in lowering their operating costs.
    • This division operates several call centers, which provide asset recovery services to the clients all over the world.
    • The division deals with complex business entities and high balances in order to manage substantial commercial collections.
    • The division helps the credit grantors in quick recovery of their receivables. Such services are provided to the clients from:
    o Retail Sector
    o Automobile Sector
    o Telecommunication Sector
    o Financial Sector

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