5 Ways to Stay on Top of Your Finances in 2013

Finance (Photo credit: Tax Credits)

When you’ve got a family, house, car and everything else to pay for, your finances can often feel stretched. Sometimes it can be hard to pay the bills and still have enough money left for buying food, clothes and all the other things you need around the home. Everyone deals with their finances in their own way, but there are a number of methods that you can implement yourself if you are feeling bogged down by all of the bills. Here are my own tips for staying on top of your finances in 2013... 

Speak to your suppliers

One of the first things you could do would be to speak to your current suppliers of water, electricity, gas, etc. This is so you can discuss other payment schedules and tariffs that might be more suited to your current situation. If you’ve just had a large bill come through the door, the best thing you can do is speak to your supplier as quickly as possible to come up with an arrangement instead of hiding the letter and pretending it doesn’t exist. You don’t want your essential services to get cut off when you need them each and every day. 

Cut out unessential services

If you are currently paying for services you just don’t need, it might be time to call them up and cancel, or where applicable, cancel direct debits that are set up to take payment from you automatically each month. Types of services this might include could be bolt on packages to your satellite or fibre optic television subscription, music streaming or even various insurance policies than you no longer require. Have a good look at your bank statement to see where you can make quick changes. 

Change your supermarket

Another change you can make is to start shopping at a different supermarket each week. You can use online price comparison sites to compare the costs of a basket of groceries from one store to the next - in many of these, Asda comes out as the cheapest of the main supermarkets but you can find deals at economy shops such as Lidl and Aldi too.

Make more money

If these changes aren’t making much difference to your personal economic outlook, you might need to make more money instead. There are so many new things to try, such as simply looking for a higher wage job, asking for a pay rise, or starting up your own business on the side of your current job. 

Seek further advice

You should be able to seek further debt advice from free services online and in your local area. This could help you from getting into debt, stopping you from getting into more debt, or even to how to get out of it. Sharing your worries can take some of the stress off your shoulders, and they should be able to give you additional tips to help day-to-day.

About the author

Lewis McKinross is a financial blogger based in the UK. He often writes about debt advice and other money saving tips.

Bankruptcy Is Not the Only Way to Fix Your Credit Problems

Wipe our Debt (Photo credit: Images_of_Money)

Many people mistakenly believe that bankruptcy is their only option once they get into deep financial trouble. There is an entire industry of bankruptcy lawyers, auctioneers, real estate vultures and bankers who would have you believe this; however, the truth is that you have many other credit repair options. 

Bankruptcy should be a last resort - a little research will prove that you can find a better solution without all of the negative long term financial ramifications. The first step is to determine the best professional help that you can get in your area. 

For instance, funnewjersey.com has a listing of the top ten credit repair companies in its area. Borrowers who are in trouble can go directly to those listings for a choice of reputable companies with years of experience helping people out of debt. 

After choosing a company, a borrower will be able to pick between the different sorts of plans that company has available. Most companies have a variety of plans including debt management, debt consolidation and professional budget accounting services. 

Determining the best course of action is a shared effort between you and the debt relief company. New Jersey is no place to live if you are in debt. 

Find and contact a professional debt company today and give yourself the leverage that you need to get back on your financial feet.

Tips to Find the Right Insurance for your Car

There are many factors that go into finding the best insurance plan for your vehicle. It’s not always the best idea to simply go for the cheapest insurance plan because in the long run, you may actually end up paying more money. As any truck crash lawyer will explain, if you don’t choose wisely, you may have to cover for more expenses than you bargained for in case of an accident. 

Therefore, make sure you go through the various factors involved and have full knowledge of the details before finalising on an insurance policy. 

Check the value of your car: Depending upon the value of your vehicle, your insurance would vary. If you have an expensive car, you would want to get a more complete or comprehensive plan that would cover incidents such as theft, vandalism, fire etc. However, if you don’t have a very expensive car, you may not need a very comprehensive plan which can run more than the actual value of the vehicle.

Keep your record clean: While you can’t possibly go back in time and change your driving history, it’s always a good idea to keep in mind that you insurance premium will depend upon your driving history. This is because if you don’t have a history of accidents, there is less possibility of your being involved in an accident due to negligence, and therefore you are less likely to file a claim. So not only do you steer clear of any truck crash lawyer by driving carefully, you are likely to get a discount on your insurance premium as well!

Avoid adding other people on your plan: The more drivers you add to your policy, the more expensive your premium is likely to get. In order to avoid this, try and keep this number to a minimal low. Include only those people in your family who absolutely must drive the vehicle separately. This is because the more the number of people drives the car, the more chances there are of an accident and therefore the more likely you are of filing for a claim. 

Keep the embellishments to a minimum: Believe it or not, the more customizations you do to your car, whether it’s fancy alloy wheels or expensive stereo systems, the higher your premium amount is likely to go up. As any good truck crash lawyer can vouch for, these are probably some of the lesser known facts about car insurance premium prices. However, if you do have expensive customizations in place and you have an expensive car, it’ probably a better idea to go for a full cover plan.

These and various other factors are involved in deciding the best insurance plan for your car. If you ask any truck crash lawyer, they’ll tell you to look for a plan that will give you sufficient coverage and not just the cheapest premium, because if you compare the amount of money you’ll have to pay in case of accident, you’ll probably end up saving money if you had invested wisely in your insurance policy.

Kristen is a freelance writer who writes on different topics such as finance, insurance and business. She holds bachelor’s degree in electronics. Her famous articles includes article on truck crash lawyer. She loves to travel and make new friends.

5 Online Marketing Tools for your Business

Marketing in the business field is the most important thing and especially in the current technological era, online marketing is getting famous as the internet users are increasing day by day. There are a number of tools available to promote your business online on different platforms. The list of 5 most popular marketing online tools is given below. 

Website:

This is the most essential tool among other online tools for marketing. For all the online viewers your website represents your company. While making the website you should make sure that it should be able to transform the visitors of the website to the customers of the company. You should also make sure that your site is attractive and easy to understand, so there wouldn’t be any problem for customers to sign up for the site or to order something or to purchase something. 

SEO:

Its full form is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and it needs continuous and good efforts along with the good knowledge to achieve the estimated results. The SEO also provides the guide for beginners to SEO which helps you to develop a sense about the basics and also guide you to determine if want to tackle the thing yourself or you want to outsource your SEO. 

PPC:

Popularly known as Pat Per Click (PPC) is a type of advertising. It is the best platform to promote your company on different websites. Showing ads ta right time so that the right people can see it can help you to increase your customers. To famous platform for this kind of online tools is Google Adwords. With help of this you only have to pay for every click on your advertisement. 

Social Media:

In current time social networking sites are popular than ever before. Promoting your company on Facebook or Twitter can be very useful for the company. These both are different social platform which has their own kind of audiences. With this you can do marketing in a very different way as its feeds reaches to particular audience which you choose. But there are some things you have to keep in mind doing this like to connect only with related people, you must provide good content, maintain a good and healthy relationship with the customers and the feedbacks. With Facebook for Business and Twitter for Business you can promote your company. In recent times social media has become an important marketing tool in comparison with other online tools. 

Analytics:

Analytics is the main part which affects the feedbacks. Without it your efforts in online marketing is just an estimating game. The most popular platform for this is Google Analytics. It will let you know about all the sources on the internet which are bringing you the web traffic to your website. It also reviews about the most popular pages on your site among viewers and what are their comments about your products or offers or how your campaigns are acting on the world and many more facilities. This data can help you greatly to the things on which you would want to focus and invest. That’s how you get the best to use of different online tools.

Author’s Bio Austin Richard is an IT professional from Pass Certification. It provides you 100% 70-291 exams. Let’s take benefit of 70-647 Exams material efficiently and get guaranteed success. Check out free demo of all certifications Exam.

Kill the Boredom: 2 Small Investments for a Relaxed Retirement

The retirement process is not an easy one, most people can agree on that. It is hard to prepare and accept the fact that starting tomorrow or next month or next year, you won’t have to do some of the things you remember doing since forever. And more, you won’t have to be as professionally active as before.

It is time to relax, to enjoy the results of your smart investments: a small business that generates steadily income, a nice family with the kids turned into grownups with families and responsibilities of their own, a small home, yet a paradise on earth. But here is the challenge: not having to do everything you did up until recently can receive sort of a boring etiquette. And because you’re entire life you were an active person, you can’t possibly accept the peace and quiet in your life. So here are a couple of small investment ideas to kill the boredom while enjoying a relaxed retirement.
 

#1. Interior Redesign

How much time has it been? Three years, five years or maybe ten since the last redesign initiative. While we are growing old, we also tend to grow tired of the same old theme. Every inch of the house is filled with memories of the kids, of the adult life, of the family’s ups and downs. But sometimes it is better to leave the past in the past. So why not try to add a fresh new touch and feel to the house?

Start by redesigning the interior. Here is an idea: brick design. Bricks give off a vintage, industrial feel. If you want to have fun, try redesigning on your own. It isn’t hard at all to order a couple of faux bricks and to cover old walls with new brick designs. Plus, it kind of looks cool and it is cost effective. Talking about ways to kill the boredom with small investments.

#2. Garden Redesign

Gardens are the business cards of the house. After retiring, you don’t know what might happen: maybe you need a change and want to move out or your children’s families need you closer. Who knows, maybe you want to sell the property to others so they can make memories of their own. And even in the event of keeping the house, a change is for the better. So why not investing in your garden? And we aren’t talking here about financial investments only, but also about investing your own energy into creating and maintaining your little paradise. But before you can enjoy your little paradise, here are three must have’s:

1. A  green yard can keep you busy during warm seasons. Green is always a good choice, not only from an eco, environmental point of view, but also from a psychological point. Recent studies provide proof that green spaces are beneficial for the elderly.

2. Flowers and plants always do the trick. First, you have to do a bit of gardening to maintain them fresh and alive. Secondly, they vary in colors and perfume, so sitting in the garden can easily turn into a natural aroma therapy session. Last, but not least, they will become the envy of neighbors. Planting flowers and taking care of them is an art itself.

3. A garden wouldn’t be the same without a relaxation spot. While kids enjoy tree houses and swings, adults prefer garden chairs and cushions. And if you want to add some personality to your garden, custom outdoor cushions do the trick.

Hopefully, these two small investments will kill the boredom in your life and ensure a peaceful retirement, where you can sit, relax and enjoy the beauty of the moment.

Planning For Retirement On The Installment Plan

Retirement (Photo credit: Tax Credits)

When people are planning for their retirement future the first idea for saving is through a 401K plan. Many times these plans are not available to all people. This brings up the question of how do I start to save for retirement. 

Because planning for retirement takes a lot of financial planning and management of money and resources it might be a good idea to hire someone who can help guide you. For those who do not will often fail and will not have any money to live on once retirement has approached. It is important to plan for retirement while you are still working and have an income that is guaranteed. Of course the earlier you start planning the better.

When looking into retirement plans for the future many people often inquire about a payment plan or an installment plan where money can be placed and saved for future use. This is where an annuity can come into play.

Fixed Annuity

There are two different types of annuities that can be used. The first of these and the most common is the fixed annuity. When investing in a fixed annuity there is a one-time payment that is involved. This investment for a specified time period and will involve a fixed interest rate through out the time period. For this reason financial planners will often recommend this type of investment plan. It is a source of income that is not interrupted when you go to retire.

Another large advantage of a fixed annuity when compared to other investments is when it comes to be tax time. Tax deductions are not applicable on the money that is used to invest in the annuity. The reason why this makes a fixed annuity so attractive is because when the person who has invested has reached the maturity come retirement age they are out of the income bracket to be taxable. Therefore any returns that are obtained by the annuity are tax-exempt.

Deferred Annuity

A deferred annuity can also be used as an installment plan for retirement. This is a plan that comes with a periodic investment. There is not a fixed amount needed when it comes to this type of investment. However there is a certain fixed amount that is needs to be made for a certain amount of time. The person who is investing is who decides how much should be invested. The investor will start to receive the returns of their investment once the annuity reaches the maturity date. As with the fixed annuity the investment is not taxable but the return will be taxable at the end of the year.


When a person wants to invest in their retirement so that they are able to enjoy a worry free life one of the most popular ways to do this is through installments. By working with a financial planner and figuring out what is best for you it is possible to achieve and enjoy retirement without having to worry about how to live comfortably.

Author Bio This guest post is a contribution by Janice. She has been linked up with some good financial communities. She used to share her thoughts there. She is specially experience on topics like debt, credit card, bad credit personal loan, insurance, mortgage etc.