So you’ve seen your umpteenth infomercial with the guy in his neatly pressed button-upped white T-Shirt grinning ear to ear waving his rock-solid no-money-down rags-to-riches real estate investment course for 3 easy payments of a gazillion dollars (but only if you call now) and now you are thinking, "wow this looks like a great deal, I better get it fast before the special offer expires." You notice how there’s always a special offer? Anyway, I am not saying this guy isn’t telling the truth, however regardless of which course or school of thought you buy into there are several key areas that one must avoid when engaging in any real estate related transaction.
Pitfall Number 1: Don’t Overpay!
The whole point in investing is to find properties that are undervalued. How does one find out what is undervalued versus overvalued? Without getting into technical details, the bottom line is you need experience. Yes much like shopping for anything else, real estate is essentially one of the highest ticket items in the shopping center of life. It’s advisable to stick with one market, perhaps the one closest to you in proximity as a starting off point. Through your experience and asking the right questions, you will eventually have a feel for the pulse of the market you are looking after, and of course identify what is considered a good buy.
Pitfall Number 2: Know the Market
Yes, you are actually going to have to do more work! This part is really common sense though, but executing it where the beauty and the payoff comes in. How do you make money in real estate? The most basic way is to buy low and sell high. So from the first step, you have identified general trends in the value of homes, and are pretty good at spotting undervalued homes. Assuming you acquire that home, you may want to profit from it by selling it off to someone else for a higher price. How can you do this? Well there are many ways. For one, most markets appreciate in value over time so if you want a longer term approach that will work. Making upgrades to the property will automatically raise the price of the home as well. Think in terms of what the market wants, not what you personally want. You aren’t the one buying it; you are trying to sell it to someone else for a higher price than you bought it.
Pitfall Number 3: Know Your Budget
It may be a fine philosophy to go through life on a whim, but real estate is serious business, and thus diligent financial planning and budgeting is critical to your success. Don’t worry you don’t need to be a finance geek, however you need to be disciplined and know your budget from the onset, or you may be finding you are learning that you need to make certain renovations or upgrades, and didn’t anticipate it going over to a certain cost. Think ahead as to what is needed before actually going forth with investing in real estate.
Posts tonen met het label finance. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label finance. Alle posts tonen
vrijdag 11 september 2009
woensdag 29 juli 2009
Online Accounting
Accounting in USA has seen lots of change. There was a time when the accounting was more of book keeping done in huge ledgers and was the purview of select few. It’s not so anymore. Accounting is much more widely accepted as a business function and general people also look for the accounting details of the firms they are associated with. Also lot more transparency is required now. Keeping in line with the development of IT and other technologies, the accounting is also now based on internet and has taken wide strides. Online accounting services, viewed as merely experimental only a few years ago are now becoming the run away business.
As such accounting industry as been little slow to adopt the newer technology and has not left fully its love for the pen and pencil work.
The SU accounting industry has seen new trend of outsourcing its work now. All these have forced the industry to adopt the Online Accounting. The internets as well as other technologies are used now to build more efficient book keeping systems. Also it’s becoming more cost efficient for larger firms to outsource the work. Outsourcing is very much easier with work being delivered online. It’s much more cost effective as well as fast also.
The shift from the practice where clients paid the accounting firms as per the billable hours to a fixed fee based system is forcing the accounting firms to deliver efficient work in cost effective manner. This means that they can not any longer cover their inefficient work by merely putting in more time into the projects. This has favored the Online accounting practices much. Value billing has forced accounting professionals to become more efficient.
Online accounting very effectively cuts short the time taken to transfer the time taken by information exchange between the clients and accounting firm. The seamless transfer is far more efficient and much faster. The accounting firm has dynamic access to the sourcing documents of the clients firms and can access anytime any information it requires from its clients side. The online accounting system also allows the accounting firm access to client data from far away locations at the a few clicks on the internet. The time sensitive financial data is readily available to the accounting firm.
Other then the speed and cost of services, online accounting enables better customer service and more reliability and trust. Accounting firms recently have been exposed as in cahoots with some very big clients, committing serious financial crimes. In this scenario the new practice builds more transparency also.
The online accounting practice also provide for more timely communication between the firm and clients. Since the client has more immediate access to information and to time sensitive documents with Online Accounting practices, questions and problems can be more easily identified and resolved. This translates into increased profits as well as happier clients!!
Since the clients get better service, they get more value for the money they spend. It is generally quite cheaper for the business owner to outsource the bookkeeping and accounting than to hire and supervise it in-house. Savings for the business owner can be as much as 30% for some clients! Online Accounting is great for such services.
The accounting firms also charge now a fee (fixed on a monthly basis) almost five times the average monthly fee (based on billable hours) they charged earlier.
Generally the various online accounting processes available are customized for their users where they can choose the menu of features they like.
Online Accounting is an excellent tool for accounting and book keeping, one that is help full for both the accounting firms as well as the clients.
As such accounting industry as been little slow to adopt the newer technology and has not left fully its love for the pen and pencil work.
The SU accounting industry has seen new trend of outsourcing its work now. All these have forced the industry to adopt the Online Accounting. The internets as well as other technologies are used now to build more efficient book keeping systems. Also it’s becoming more cost efficient for larger firms to outsource the work. Outsourcing is very much easier with work being delivered online. It’s much more cost effective as well as fast also.
The shift from the practice where clients paid the accounting firms as per the billable hours to a fixed fee based system is forcing the accounting firms to deliver efficient work in cost effective manner. This means that they can not any longer cover their inefficient work by merely putting in more time into the projects. This has favored the Online accounting practices much. Value billing has forced accounting professionals to become more efficient.
Online accounting very effectively cuts short the time taken to transfer the time taken by information exchange between the clients and accounting firm. The seamless transfer is far more efficient and much faster. The accounting firm has dynamic access to the sourcing documents of the clients firms and can access anytime any information it requires from its clients side. The online accounting system also allows the accounting firm access to client data from far away locations at the a few clicks on the internet. The time sensitive financial data is readily available to the accounting firm.
Other then the speed and cost of services, online accounting enables better customer service and more reliability and trust. Accounting firms recently have been exposed as in cahoots with some very big clients, committing serious financial crimes. In this scenario the new practice builds more transparency also.
The online accounting practice also provide for more timely communication between the firm and clients. Since the client has more immediate access to information and to time sensitive documents with Online Accounting practices, questions and problems can be more easily identified and resolved. This translates into increased profits as well as happier clients!!
Since the clients get better service, they get more value for the money they spend. It is generally quite cheaper for the business owner to outsource the bookkeeping and accounting than to hire and supervise it in-house. Savings for the business owner can be as much as 30% for some clients! Online Accounting is great for such services.
The accounting firms also charge now a fee (fixed on a monthly basis) almost five times the average monthly fee (based on billable hours) they charged earlier.
Generally the various online accounting processes available are customized for their users where they can choose the menu of features they like.
Online Accounting is an excellent tool for accounting and book keeping, one that is help full for both the accounting firms as well as the clients.
maandag 27 juli 2009
Your Credit Card Payment Is Rising: Warning & Tips
Summary: Did you know your minimum credit card payment is rising? A new government program working to get Americans out of credit card debt is pushing credit card issuers to raise minimum monthly payments. Will you be able to make the higher monthly payment? Here are some tips for getting by.
If you're an American, your minimum monthly credit card payment may soon be doubling. If you're only paying the minimums now, you'll have to be careful to adjust your budgeting to pay more.
Who's Raising Your Monthly Minimum Credit Card Payment?
Whose idea was it to increase credit card minimum monthly payments? The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department that has become more and more involved with reigning in the abuses of credit card companies. Yes, this credit card minimum payment increase was thought up by people trying to help you.
Who will be raising their monthly minimums? So far, some of the largest credit card issuers have agreed to the new standards. Bank of America has already been asking for the higher monthly minimum payment. MBNA, Citigroup (a.k.a. Citbank), Discover, and Chase (on some of its cards) will be breaking the news to their cardholders as Fall 2005 progresses.
How Much Will Credit Card Minimums Increase?
For many credit cards, such as MBNA and Bank of America, the new rates mean that monthly minimum payments will double.
Right now, the monthly minimum payment is only 2% of the balance on most of these cards. The new rate will be around 4% (the actual number may vary from card issuer to card issuer). This means that if you have the average American credit card balance of about $10,000, your minimum monthly payment will go from $200/month to $400/month.
Of course, if you have any additional fees, whether a late fee or a cash advance fee or any of the other fees that the credit card guys cook up, you will have to pay that, too.
Why the Credit Card Minimum Payment Increase?
You may be wondering why anyone would want to make you pay a higher minimum monthly payment. The basic reason for making you pay more is: for your own good.
According to Mike Peterson, co-founder of American Credit Foundation, by doubling the amount you pay per month toward credit card debt, you will cut down on what you pay toward interest by much more. Look:
Old monthly minimum payment of 2% of balance, $2,000 credit card debt at 18% percent interest:
* Time to pay off debt in full: about 30 years.
* Interest paid: about $5,000–two and a half times what you initially borrowed!
New monthly minimum payment of 4% of balance, same debt:
* Time to pay off debt in full: about 10 years. Time saved vs. old payment: 20 years.
* Interest paid: about $1,100–slightly more than half what you originally borrowed. Amount saved vs. old payment: $3,900.
Tips for Paying Double Easily
How do you pay off your new, higher credit card balance?
Stop Charging
Yes, you will have to make major sacrifices to stop using your credit card. But just look at all the money you'll have in ten or thirty years that you wouldn't have if you had to pay all that credit card interest. If you have trouble resisting the temptation to charge, here are some solutions that have actually worked:
* Give your credit cards to a friend or family member to hold in safe keeping.
* Freeze the cards in a block of ice.
* Never carry more than one credit card with you.
Economize on the Small Things
According to Michael Peterson of the American Credit Foundation, even tiny savings really add up when it comes to debt. His favorite example is the Diet Coke example:
* If you buy one Diet Coke a day at $1/day, that's $365/year.
* If you instead invested that one dollar a day at 10% interest (the average yearly return on major stocks over the last half century), you would be a millionaire within 56 years.
* Of course, with credit cards, this logic works in reverse: if you are lucky enough to be paying only 10% interest, fifty years of charging Diet Coke to your credit card will mean you've lost the same amount, not only in interest paid, but in the lost opportunity to save and invest.
* You don't have to put aside one dollar a day for fifty years to see a big difference. One dollar a day is $30/month, 15% of the average $200 increase in credit card minimum monthly payments.
* In order to get that entire $200 increase out of your daily budget, you would only have to save $200/30 or less than $7 a day. OK, maybe you aren't drinking seven Diet Cokes a day. But there are very few credit-card-holding Americans who can't cut $7 a day out of their spending.
* Saving weekly rather than daily, $200/month works out to about $45/week, or the cost of a restaurant meal for a small family--another luxury you might want to skip until you're debt-free.
Bigger Savings
* Taxes. Most Americans could pay hundreds of dollars less tax each year if they just took all the deductions they were eligible for upfront, rather than waiting to get a refund in April. By April, you will have spent a big chunk of money on interest on debt that you wouldn't have spent if you'd had the money at hand.
* Pleading. Call the credit card companies and ask if they can allow you to set up a payment plan, or at least provide a brief extension. Simply calling and letting them know you haven't forgotten about them can help keep you out of the worst trouble.
* Credit counseling. Credit counselors can talk with credit card issuers to help you get a repayment plan you can keep up with. They can also open your eyes to untapped sources of income you never knew you had, like kicking the $1,000,000 Diet Coke habit.
In short, don't panic. With only a little bit of planning, you can make the higher minimum monthly payment work to your advantage, just as the policy's authors intended.
If you're an American, your minimum monthly credit card payment may soon be doubling. If you're only paying the minimums now, you'll have to be careful to adjust your budgeting to pay more.
Who's Raising Your Monthly Minimum Credit Card Payment?
Whose idea was it to increase credit card minimum monthly payments? The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department that has become more and more involved with reigning in the abuses of credit card companies. Yes, this credit card minimum payment increase was thought up by people trying to help you.
Who will be raising their monthly minimums? So far, some of the largest credit card issuers have agreed to the new standards. Bank of America has already been asking for the higher monthly minimum payment. MBNA, Citigroup (a.k.a. Citbank), Discover, and Chase (on some of its cards) will be breaking the news to their cardholders as Fall 2005 progresses.
How Much Will Credit Card Minimums Increase?
For many credit cards, such as MBNA and Bank of America, the new rates mean that monthly minimum payments will double.
Right now, the monthly minimum payment is only 2% of the balance on most of these cards. The new rate will be around 4% (the actual number may vary from card issuer to card issuer). This means that if you have the average American credit card balance of about $10,000, your minimum monthly payment will go from $200/month to $400/month.
Of course, if you have any additional fees, whether a late fee or a cash advance fee or any of the other fees that the credit card guys cook up, you will have to pay that, too.
Why the Credit Card Minimum Payment Increase?
You may be wondering why anyone would want to make you pay a higher minimum monthly payment. The basic reason for making you pay more is: for your own good.
According to Mike Peterson, co-founder of American Credit Foundation, by doubling the amount you pay per month toward credit card debt, you will cut down on what you pay toward interest by much more. Look:
Old monthly minimum payment of 2% of balance, $2,000 credit card debt at 18% percent interest:
* Time to pay off debt in full: about 30 years.
* Interest paid: about $5,000–two and a half times what you initially borrowed!
New monthly minimum payment of 4% of balance, same debt:
* Time to pay off debt in full: about 10 years. Time saved vs. old payment: 20 years.
* Interest paid: about $1,100–slightly more than half what you originally borrowed. Amount saved vs. old payment: $3,900.
Tips for Paying Double Easily
How do you pay off your new, higher credit card balance?
Stop Charging
Yes, you will have to make major sacrifices to stop using your credit card. But just look at all the money you'll have in ten or thirty years that you wouldn't have if you had to pay all that credit card interest. If you have trouble resisting the temptation to charge, here are some solutions that have actually worked:
* Give your credit cards to a friend or family member to hold in safe keeping.
* Freeze the cards in a block of ice.
* Never carry more than one credit card with you.
Economize on the Small Things
According to Michael Peterson of the American Credit Foundation, even tiny savings really add up when it comes to debt. His favorite example is the Diet Coke example:
* If you buy one Diet Coke a day at $1/day, that's $365/year.
* If you instead invested that one dollar a day at 10% interest (the average yearly return on major stocks over the last half century), you would be a millionaire within 56 years.
* Of course, with credit cards, this logic works in reverse: if you are lucky enough to be paying only 10% interest, fifty years of charging Diet Coke to your credit card will mean you've lost the same amount, not only in interest paid, but in the lost opportunity to save and invest.
* You don't have to put aside one dollar a day for fifty years to see a big difference. One dollar a day is $30/month, 15% of the average $200 increase in credit card minimum monthly payments.
* In order to get that entire $200 increase out of your daily budget, you would only have to save $200/30 or less than $7 a day. OK, maybe you aren't drinking seven Diet Cokes a day. But there are very few credit-card-holding Americans who can't cut $7 a day out of their spending.
* Saving weekly rather than daily, $200/month works out to about $45/week, or the cost of a restaurant meal for a small family--another luxury you might want to skip until you're debt-free.
Bigger Savings
* Taxes. Most Americans could pay hundreds of dollars less tax each year if they just took all the deductions they were eligible for upfront, rather than waiting to get a refund in April. By April, you will have spent a big chunk of money on interest on debt that you wouldn't have spent if you'd had the money at hand.
* Pleading. Call the credit card companies and ask if they can allow you to set up a payment plan, or at least provide a brief extension. Simply calling and letting them know you haven't forgotten about them can help keep you out of the worst trouble.
* Credit counseling. Credit counselors can talk with credit card issuers to help you get a repayment plan you can keep up with. They can also open your eyes to untapped sources of income you never knew you had, like kicking the $1,000,000 Diet Coke habit.
In short, don't panic. With only a little bit of planning, you can make the higher minimum monthly payment work to your advantage, just as the policy's authors intended.
zaterdag 25 juli 2009
3 Ways To Get Your Free Annual Credit Report
Yes, you can now get your credit report without paying a dime. And unlike before, now it is truly free. No longer do you have to sign up for a "free" credit report by signing up for "credit monitoring protection service" for a low annual fee of $79 a year! The days of dodging the annoying charges and service fees for a free credit report are over.
Under the 2003 Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, you have the right to a free copy of your credit report within a 12 month period from the big three credit report bureaus (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion).
The goal of this new government act is to ensure that Americans have the right to stay informed about what these three credit reporting bureaus say about you without having to pay for it. Since identity theft, fraud and errors are quite common today, why should you have to pay for a copy of a report to fight back against these problems?
Here are the 3 ways to get your free annual credit report:
The three credit reporting agencies have created a website to request your annual credit report.
1) Go to www.annualcreditreport.com
2) Call (877) 322-8228 to request your free credit report.
3) Complete a form from the Federal Trade Comission, http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/include/requestformfinal.pdf and mail it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281.
If you go directly to the three agencies or use any other type of service you may end up having to pay or sign up for the subscription services I mentioned above! Make sure you use one of the 3 methods I have listed to get your annual free credit report.
You can get the reports from all 3 agencies at once or stagger the reports from each one during the course of 1 year. The advantage of staggering the reports that you receive is to keep track of how any major changes in your financial picture affect what is on your credit report. For example, if you plan on getting a second mortgage over the coming year, or applying for student loans, ect. it might be wise to get a report before and after these major events!
This new Act does not supplant the other methods you can take advantage of to receive a free credit report. If you are applying for unemployment or been denied a loan, or need a credit report in order to get a job, you still have the right to obtain a free credit report.
Take advantage of this new government regulation and make sure all of the information listed by all three credit reporting agencies are correct. Any errors or omissions can reduce your credit score and end up costing you a lot of money when you apply for any type of credit.
Under the 2003 Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, you have the right to a free copy of your credit report within a 12 month period from the big three credit report bureaus (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion).
The goal of this new government act is to ensure that Americans have the right to stay informed about what these three credit reporting bureaus say about you without having to pay for it. Since identity theft, fraud and errors are quite common today, why should you have to pay for a copy of a report to fight back against these problems?
Here are the 3 ways to get your free annual credit report:
The three credit reporting agencies have created a website to request your annual credit report.
1) Go to www.annualcreditreport.com
2) Call (877) 322-8228 to request your free credit report.
3) Complete a form from the Federal Trade Comission, http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/include/requestformfinal.pdf and mail it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281.
If you go directly to the three agencies or use any other type of service you may end up having to pay or sign up for the subscription services I mentioned above! Make sure you use one of the 3 methods I have listed to get your annual free credit report.
You can get the reports from all 3 agencies at once or stagger the reports from each one during the course of 1 year. The advantage of staggering the reports that you receive is to keep track of how any major changes in your financial picture affect what is on your credit report. For example, if you plan on getting a second mortgage over the coming year, or applying for student loans, ect. it might be wise to get a report before and after these major events!
This new Act does not supplant the other methods you can take advantage of to receive a free credit report. If you are applying for unemployment or been denied a loan, or need a credit report in order to get a job, you still have the right to obtain a free credit report.
Take advantage of this new government regulation and make sure all of the information listed by all three credit reporting agencies are correct. Any errors or omissions can reduce your credit score and end up costing you a lot of money when you apply for any type of credit.
woensdag 15 juli 2009
Financial Success Isn't Difficult
Financial success isn't a hard task to master. It simply takes dedication, hard work and a little old fashioned commitment.
But it also takes a little knowledge. Too many consumers are ignoring what are financial truths. They run up large amounts of debt just to appear successful to those around them. They surround themselves with things that only make them feel better for a minute.
They ignore the fact that a debt-free and well managed financial life is a wonderful way to eliminate stress, which is all too common in today's world.
What do you need to do to become financially successful?
First, you need to spend less than you earn. Sounds easy, but it really isn't. It is easier to spend less than it is to earn more. You simply have to cut your costs. You have to stop charging on your credit cards and you have to stop shopping. Look closely at where your money is going. Look at what you already have around you. Get all those projects completed before you buy things for a new project.
You have to have a budget and stick with it. Budgets don't tell you how to spend your money, they tell you how to save your money. You can easily see where your money is going. You can identify areas that you can cut back on. Then, you can set spending goals. A budget is a great way to challenge yourself. There is nothing better than saving more money than you thought you could. Surprise yourself with a budget that works.
From your budget, you should be able to find the money to start paying off that credit card debt. If you are severely in debt, you may need to get a second job and sell some things to get a head start. Stop using those cards and start paying them off. They are draining the life out of your finances on a daily basis.
You should be contributing to a retirement plan. Research your options and take advantage of them. Don't wait until tomorrow, it will be too late. Start now. When you pay off your debt, put that money to your retirement as well. Who knows -- you may be able to retire early.
Once you have your debt paid off you should have a savings plan. There are goals that you can set for your savings. You may want new furniture or to go on a vacation. You should also save at least three to six months of money to cover your monthly expenses in the case of an emergency. This will cushion your budget from any repairs, emergencies, illnesses or job losses that may happen.
Financial success isn't difficult. It is simply a habit that you have to nurture and maintain. Take the time to sit down and get started. Work on it until it becomes second nature. The more you work on it, the better you will become at it.
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