The Dollars and Cents of Financial Stress
You’ve checked your bank account and found you have only $42 left in your savings account. You’ve received at least three phone calls this morning from creditors who are wondering why your payments are late. Your car payment is due in three days and you’re not sure how you’ll pay the bill. Last month, your landlord threatened to evict you when your rent check did not arrive on the first of the month.
If this scenario sounds familiar, you may be experiencing finance-induced stress. From time to time, all of us suffer from it to one degree or another. Financial stress is simply a fact of modern life. No matter how hard we work, no matter how diligent we are at trying to save our money, we may find that we have great difficulty paying all our bills. This can be particularly true if we’ve been hit with a major traumatic event, such as the death of a spouse, a divorce, or a serious illness.
Financial stress can be felt in several ways. For example, you might have difficulty sleeping at night because you are worrying about your finances. You might find yourself short-tempered and, thus, you might be experiencing conflict with your spouse. You may find yourself yelling at your children for minor infractions, or you may even be hit with panic attacks at work.
The fact is, financial stress can cause you tremendous physical and psychological discomfort. It can lead to anxiety, depression, high blood pressure—even stroke. Thus, financial stress is a serious, though often unrecognized, health concern. Your financial problems may be making you sick.
But how do you address what can seem to be an insurmountable problem? To begin with, it is important that you go to your doctor and have a complete physical. State your symptoms and note that you believe that financial stress may be the cause. Your doctor might then refer you to a psychiatrist for anti-anxiety medication, or to a therapist who can help you work through your problems.
Next, consider consulting a certified financial planner. He or she can help you to realize your short-term and long-term financial goals. Don’t be embarrassed to let the planner know the extent of your financial problems. Remember that the only way to really attack finance-induced stress is to meet the difficulty head-on. Trying to dodge the problem…pretending that things are not as bad as they are…will only exacerbate your troubles in the end.
Your financial planner will probably want you to come up with a workable budget. It is important to be realistic when crunching numbers. It does little good for you to come up with a budget that looks fine on paper, but that doesn’t work in the real world. Make sure that you budget for all the essentials—food, shelter, clothing, medical care. And try to budget for long-term priorities, such as college savings or retirement. Also, don’t forget to allot at least a small portion of your budget to recreation and entertainment. You’ll need a few diversions to be a less stressed individual.
In the beginning, you might want to track every single expenditure that you make. This can be difficult, especially if you’re not used to that kind of record-keeping. But it can be quite instructive. You might not realize, for instance, just how much money you’re spending each month on lattes, or how much you’re devoting to the daily lottery drawing. By doing the record-keeping, you might discover ways that you can trim your budget without really feeling the pinch.
It is also highly important that you save a portion of your money to pay for the unexpected. From time to time, all of us are hit with bills that seem to come unexpected. Your savings will act as a kind of insurance policy against disaster. With some money in the bank—even if it is a small amount in the beginning—you’ll be better able to weather the financial storms that come your way. And you might find those middle-of-the-night worries disappearing, knowing that you are doing all you can to get your finances under control.
Start Making EASY MONEY-Caution!
Work from The Comfort of Your Home as A Home-Based Data Entry Operator and Start Earning 350$ to 650$ Per Day. Get Paid Twice in A Month, Don’t Panic for Your Utility Bills. Work from The Comfort of Your Home as A Home-Based Data Entry Operator and Start Earning 350$ to 650$ Per Day. Get Paid Twice in A Month, Don’t Panic for Your Utility Bills.
Everybody would love to make lots of money quickly, working from home, and only doing a few hours of work per week. I’ve spent the past two years trying to find a great way of doing this. Only over the course of the past few months have I found any “get rich quick” programs worth buying. I’ve been trying to make money online for a long time. I had a few small websites, but they never made much more than a few hundred per month. It was easy money and didn’t require much work on my part, but I knew there were people out there doing better than I was and I knew I could do as well as them.
Now, I’ve seen a lot of “get rich quick” programs. Most of these people make claims about earning $2000/day with Google or something similarly insane. Almost these people are complete liars. Even if they were making $2000/day with Google Ad Sense, it’d be because they had high- traffic websites with a lot of quality content. I’d know, because in one whole month, I never even made half of what they promised I’d make daily with their programs. Maybe you’ve already been defrauded by one of these fraudsters.
Anyway, I finally got sick of what was being offered. I decided I’d look through the all the “get rich quick” programs I could find and see if there were any that were legitimate. I found that there were owners selling their programs for well over $100, but the information in them could be found almost anywhere online for free. Additionally, they all contained out-of-date information, had no e-mail support, no money back guarantees, and broken links in the downloads section. In conclusion, almost all the programs I found were completely useless. The owners knew it, but they couldn’t care less about their customers since they didn’t offer refund policies!
Amazingly, while looking through all the programs, I did find a few legitimate programs. They were run by ordinary people like you and me, and they had found some great methods of making money from their home by doing very little work. I spent some time working with those programs, and my income is now ten times what it used to be. These programs provided a large amount of great information on how to make extra money on your computer doing very little work. Numerous customers had provided great feedback and reviews for their products. Many of them have started to make money just days after buying! Their programs have excellent prices, and the authors have a group of paid staff who are dedicating to helping you or aiding if you need any.
7 Low-Cost High Profit Businesses You Can Start from Home While Working in Your Pajamas
Think starting a business is too expensive? Think again. Not only can you start a work at home business for next to nothing the profit margins can be higher than traditional business. If you want to work from home, lounge in your pj’s and go to the bank check out these 5 hot businesses.
There are two types of people in the world. Those who see the glass half empty and those who see it half full. This experience was heightened for me when I had lunch with an old colleague from work and he began to complain about how only rich people could start a business. I thought he was joking.
As I sat and listened, he ranted for almost ten minutes giving all the reasons he could not start his own business and get out of the rat race. He talked about the high cost of startups, franchising and real estate development. When he finally came up for air, I decided to ask simply to ask him one question. Mark, “Have you ever asked yourself what kind of low-cost businesses with high profit margins are out there?”
He looked like he had been run over by a truck. I went on to say, “You are just asking the wrong question.” He sat for a minute and said, “Ok, if you’re so smart give me some ideas.” I said, “Great. Oh, and by the way let’s make it fun and focus on the ones you can work from home in your pajamas.”
Here are the 7-low-cost high profit businesses.
- Internet Marketing: Do you have a computer in your home? If so, you could be sitting on a gold mine. People use the internet to do all types of things. From a multimillion-dollar wire jewelry making enterprise to a young kid from Long Beach California who created his empire teaching people how to play music by ear. Everyday people are getting on the internet and pursuing their own dot com fortune.
- Tele-seminars: If you are not a very technical person one of the best strategies is tele-seminars. With simply a telephone and a conference call line for your guest to call in on you can offer a class or seminar. You can either use it as a lead generator or you can sell your product or service from the seminar itself. An additional product can come from recording the class. Once you record the class it can become an instant product you can create passive income from.
- Joint Ventures: If you like the idea of not needing a product or money of your own than the idea of joint venturing could be for you. This business is simply the art of the deal. You are paid in direct proportion to your ability to bring together two parties who would not otherwise know each other outside of your introduction. For example, if you combine company A’s products, knowledge, resources, and partner, it with company B’s client list you get to share in the profits. And it would not cost you one cent.
- Affiliate Marketing: What if someone else did most of the work but you got to share in the profit pie? Well, that is what affiliate marketing is all about. There are thousands of products ranging from digital downloads, books, seminars not to mention hard products like computers, cell phones and another techie stuff. Your job is to find the products that your market is interested in and when you sell something you get a percentage of the sale. You can do this without having any inventory or the overhead of a traditional business.
- Information Products: This is one of the most highly lucrative low-cost businesses you can get into. If you have specialized knowledge or can do you can research and report on it you can create products that are highly profitable. For example, one of the fastest ways to success is to interview experts in a high demand niche market. Once you have interviewed these experts you can take the information and create several different products from the one interview. Some of the things you can do is sell the recording itself, sell the transcript of the call, use some of the content create an e-book or report or take several of the interviews and put them together for an expert tape series.
- Network Marketing/MLM: I have always been a fan of network marketing because the business model is as much about self-development as it is building a business. The premise is you find a company that you are passionate about the product, has a proven system and strong team leadership. Most of these companies are low cost of entry. And you build your empire leveraging the efforts of many. Some people incorrectly believe you are going to get rich off the back of someone else. Not true. The very core of network marketing is built on the fact that you get paid in direct proportion of your ability to recruit, train, inspire, support, and lead a voluntary group of people. For those who can do this the rewards are great.
- eBay: I was recently introduced to the eBay craze by someone who in the beginning had no money, so he decided to sell a tape set a friend had created. This product was a compilation of interviews with successful entrepreneurs. Their first sale was $37.00, and they went on to build multi-million-dollar empire. eBay is one of the quickest ways to get to a profit. You can take things that you have in your garage today and sell them on eBay tomorrow. Remember one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. At the end of the lunch something interesting happened. My friend Mark was starting to see the glass half full. How about you? Are you looking for a business you can start without breaking the bank? The above five businesses are just a few ideas to jump start your thought process. However, make no mistake you can start a low-cost high profit business and enjoy it while lounging in your pajamas.
I must say I was amazed! If you do decide to purchase any of the programs listed below, I recommend you join quickly. Most of the owners tell me they are getting an overwhelming number of sales and plan to raise prices soon, so order while prices are still low! To Your Online Success.
Free Work at Home Jobs
There is numerous free works at home jobs available through the internet. Data entry jobs, survey jobs, customer service, creative design, human resources and many more opportunities are there that allow you work at home conveniently and earn a smart income.
Free work at home jobs cost absolutely no money to start. All you need is a modern computer with internet connection and a phone. You can apply online and enjoy the fun of working at home at your convenient timings and can earn great pay. These jobs are ideal for stay-at-home mothers, disabled people, and senior citizens and for those who need to take care of elderly or sick people at home.
Free work at home jobs allow you to spend as much time as you wish. You can also select part time or full-time jobs according to your convenience. Since there are numerous job opportunities available here, you can choose the job according to your ability and qualification. You can apply for the job and get training and scheduling for the job in online itself. Therefore, you need not step out of home to get a job. Free work at home jobs database provides you a list of potential jobs which are totally defraud free.
Here are some free works at home job descriptions.
Online tutor is one among the best work at home jobs that does not require any initial amount to be spent. If you are an expert in advanced math or science or in some language, then you can apply for this job and start working at your convenient timings and enjoy great pay. If you are willing to spend more time, then you can earn more money in this job.
Clerical and data entry work at home jobs require some experience and computer skill. Organization and communication skills may also be required. These types of jobs may require initial face to face training. These jobs provide options like part time and full time. You can also select day shift or night shift work according to your convenience.
Transcription work from home includes many types like legal transcription, medical transcription and so on. Experience and accurate knowledge about the work would be required. However, this job helps you earn neat income.
Translation work at home jobs requires sound knowledge in some language and you may need to translate emails and documents from one language to another. If you have good command over any language, then you can apply for these types of jobs. Experience may not be required for these jobs.
Graphic design work at home jobs requires sound knowledge in the field and you may be required to do layout work, icon design and so on. Experience may be either optional or compulsory. You can select part time or full-time option in this job.
Management work at home jobs allow you to earn large amount of income. However, the job requires some qualifications and experience. You may be required to work for certain hours daily.
There is much freer work at home job opportunities available and you can select anyone that can allow you work independently and conveniently and at the same time provides you decent money.
Making Taxes Less Taxing
For many Americans, April 15th is the most stressful day of the year. The date when federal taxes are due can strike fear into the hearts of the most stoic taxpayers. Writing that yearly check to Uncle Sam can be quite distressing, especially if you find you owe more than you thought you would. What can be especially troubling is that the stress can stay with you, year in and year out.
But for many people, the stress begins long before the filing deadline. It may occur as early as December when the tax forms first arrive in the mail. Or it may happen when your W-2 form comes across your desk at work. It may happen when you hear about tax season on television. Even getting your yearly interest statement from your bank might be enough to put you over the edge.
You need to realize that you can handle the stress of tax season without going ballistic. However, this means that you must be pro-active when it comes to handling your taxes. A little bit of planning can go a long way to reducing your taxes—and your stress level.
To begin with, it could help you immeasurably if you seek the services of a financial planner. He or she can help you to take control of your finances, which can reduce your stress level considerably. Also, the financial planner can help you to employ certain strategies which will enable you to reduce your tax bill.
Next, you have to seriously consider whether it will do you any good to do your taxes yourself. While figuring out your own tax bill can give you a feeling of control, it can also increase your stress level tremendously. Therefore, you might seriously consider hiring a tax accountant to handle the stress of your taxes. While such a move will not eliminate your stress entirely, it can seriously reduce it.
Keeping folders of all the documents you need for filing your taxes can also lessen your stress. If you keep the folders current throughout the year, you will not be in a mad rush at tax time to find the papers you need to file your return. You might consider color-coding the folders for easy reference.
Also, keep the folders in a central location. While a filing cabinet might be the best solution, you might also consider a hope chest, an end table, or a desk drawer. And be sure to keep all your records for at least three years in case a question arises about your return later on.
Another strategy for reducing your stress is putting an end to procrastination. While it might be tempting to wait until the last minute to file your taxes, it only increases your stress level. If you file your taxes long before the due date, you can rest easy when April 15th rolls around. You might be amazed at how much easier it is to deal with tax season when you’ve done some advanced planning.
If you find yourself facing a large tax bill, chances are you will feel stress, no matter what time you file. Therefore, you might consider opening a savings account specifically earmarked for taxes. This way, you can save for Tax Day throughout the year. Another option is to increase your withholding on your weekly paycheck so that you don’t have such a huge bill to pay at the end of the tax year.
There is no reason to become overly stressed over taxes. They are a natural part of American life, the means by which the government is able to function. If you take a few pro-active steps, you can significantly reduce tax-related stress. It may be hard at first to break old habits. However, once you do, you might be amazed at how relaxed you feel when April 15th rolls around.
The Budget – The Ultimate Financial Management Tool
A carpenter uses a set of house plans to build a house. If he didn’t the bathroom might get overlooked altogether.
Rocket Scientists would never begin construction on a new booster rocket without a detailed set of design specifications. Yet most of us go blindly out into the world without an inkling of an idea about finances and without any plan at all.
Not very smart of us, is it?
A money plan is called a budget, and it is crucial to get us to our desired financial goals.
Without a plan we will drift without direction and end up marooned on a distant financial reef.
If you have a spouse or a significant other, you should make this budget together. Sit down and figure out what your joint financial goals are…long term and short term.
Avoiding Impulsive Spending
Answer these questions truthfully:
Does your spouse or partner complain that you spend too much money?
Are you surprised each month when your credit card bill arrives at how much more you charged than you thought you had?
Do you have more shoes and clothes in your closet than you could ever possibly wear?
Do you own every new gadget before it has time to collect dust on a retailer’s shelf?
Do you buy things you didn’t know you wanted until you saw them on display in a store?
If you answered “yes” to any two of the above questions, you are an impulse spender and indulge yourself in retail therapy.
This is not a good thing. It will prevent you from saving for the important things like a house, a new car, a vacation or retirement. You must set some financial goals and resist spending money on items that really don’t matter in the long run.
Impulse spending will not only put a strain on your finances but your relationships, as well. To overcome the problem, the first thing to do is learn to separate your needs from your wants.
Advertisers blitz us hawking their products at us 24/7. The trick is to give yourself a cooling-off period before you buy anything that you have not planned for.
When you go shopping, make a list and take only enough cash to pay for what you have planned to buy. Leave your credit cards at home.
If you see something you think you really need, give yourself two weeks to decide if it is really something you need or something you can easily do without. By following this simple solution, you will mend your financial fences and your relationships.
Then plan your route to get to those goals. Every journey begins with one step and the first step to attaining your goals is to make a realistic budget that both of you can live with.
A budget should never be a financial starvation diet. That won’t work for the long haul. Make reasonable allocations for food, clothing, shelter, utilities and insurance and set aside a reasonable amount for entertainment and the occasional luxury item. Savings should always come first before any spending.
Even a small amount saved will help you reach your long term and short-term financial goals. You can find many budget forms on the internet. Just use any search engine you choose and type in “free budget forms”.
You’ll get lots of hits. Print one out and work on it with your spouse or significant other. Both of you will need to be happy with the final result and feel like it’s something you can stick to.
3 Things You Can Do to Help Yourself Be Successful in Life
Do you define success as having a lot of money? Or do you define success as being able to live your life the way you want too? Either way, they are both good things to strive for. We all know not everyone can be successful as there are checks and balances for winners and losers.
I truly feel most people want to be in on the winning side. However, we always run into people that remain in the same place in life. Do you feel you are you one of those people? Obviously if you’re a person looking and trying to better your life you want to be on the winning side.
Being successful can mean many things. My definition of being successful is accomplishing what you intend to do. For example, I always intended to have a family, and I now have a great family. I consider myself very successful.
Success does not mean to look better than the people around you. I believe it comes from within and how you perceive yourself and your life. Success is something that you do not have to show daily. Success is how you live your life.
Here are three tips on being successful:
Create a Vision of Yourself
Having a vision is the first and most critical step of any successful plan. Create a vision of what you intend to do. Write down how you want to see yourself 1 year from now. Think about how your life will look. Having a vision will help you focus on what you want to achieve.
Take up Good Habits and Break Unproductive Habits
Always read and learn about the world around you. Think an opportunity through and do not be impulsive when an opportunity presents itself. Eat well and exercise. After all everything you do starts from within. Be in good health and don’t take your good health for granted. Add fitness to your life. Learn to handle distractions as there will plenty of distractions to address. Don’t use distractions as an excuse to fail.
Enjoy the Chase
Enjoy your road to success. The path will be filled with adversity. Keep your sense of humor because you may experience very tough challenges along the way. Be responsible, try and control your time by being as effective as possible.
Remember success is not free and it does take sacrifice. The price you pay is time and effort. Success is hard but rewarding (even during the chase for success). To be successful you must work hard, educate yourself and maybe have a little luck on your side.