- I tried to avoid it. I really did, but I’m still getting a much bigger refund than anticipated. #
- Did 100 pushups this morning–in 1 set. New goal: Perfect form by the end of the month. #
- RT @BudgetsAreSexy: Carnival of Personal Finance is live 🙂 DOLLAR DOODLE theme: http://tinyurl.com/ykldt7q (haha…) #
- Hosting my first carnival tomorrow. Up too late tonight. #
- Woot! My boy won his wreslting match! Proud daddy. #
- The Get Home Card is a prepaid emergency transportation card. http://su.pr/329U6L #
- Real hourly wage calculator. http://su.pr/1jV4W6 #
- Took my envelope budget out in cash, including a stack of $2s. That shouldn’t fluster the bank teller. #
My Credit Cards
This announcement is a bit premature, but not everything that’s premature has to end in an evening of disappointment.
At the beginning of the year, I transferred the balance of my last credit card onto two different cards, each with a 0% interest rate. One card got a $4,000 transfer and the other got $13,850. The approximately $415 in fees I paid for the transfer saved me nearly $1500 in interest this year.
The card that got the big balance is the card we use for a lot of our daily spending. On my statement dated 2/18/2012, the balance on the this card was $14,865.23. At the same time, the smaller card had a balance of $3,925.09, for a total of $18,790.32. When I started my debt-murder journey in April 2009, it had peaked at just under $30,000.
When my payments clear later today, that balance will be gone.
That is nearly $19,000 paid down in 8 months.
Now, the inheritance we picked up did accelerate our repayment a bit, but only by a few months.
Starting from $90,394.70 in April 2009, we have paid down $63,746.70, leaving $26,648.00 on our mortgage.
I’m more than a little excited, which–as usual–is the cause for the prematurity.
New goal: pay off the mortgage in 2013.
Selling Your Home: The Real Estate Agent
If you are not able or willing to sell your home yourself, you’ll need to find a real estate agent. A realtor is someone who deals with all of the hassles involved in selling your home in exchange for a fee of up to 7% of the selling price.
The hassles include marketing, an objective price analysis, advertising on the internet and in newspapers, providing a yard sign, negotiating the sale price, reviewing and filling out the contracts, and navigating the entire process for you. The aren’t meaningless duties, so make sure you are getting what you pay for. You need to find the right realtor for you.
The key to to ask questions, particularly the right questions. You can ask the wrong ones if you’d like, but they tend not to help much.
Helpful questions include:
- “Can I call your previous clients?” If the answer is no, run away! If the answer is yes, get the list and call them.
- “Have you sold any homes near here recently?” Get the names and numbers of the customers and call them. Find out how it went and what they wish would have happened differently. If the realtor hasn’t sold nearby homes recently, keep looking.
- “Will you put your sales strategy in writing?” If it’s not in writing, you may be left paying the full commission, without getting the full promised service.
- “What will you tell a potential buyer that wants to negotiate?” Make sure you and your realtor are on the same page.
Now for some secrets that realtors will not volunteer.
- The selling fee is negotiable. If you live in a popular development, or if nearby homes have sold quickly, you should be able to get your fee reduced a couple of points.
- You don’t have to sign an exclusive listing agreement. With an exclusive agreement, you will pay the realtor a fee if the house sells. Period. With a non-exclusive agreement, you can list with several agents and only pay the one who actually sells your house. If you find the buyer, you won’t pay a selling commission at all.
Selling your house can be intimidating and realtors are there to make the task easier for you. Have you had any problems with real estate agents?
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-13
- Getting ready to go build a rain gauge at home depot with the kids. #
- RT @hughdeburgh: "Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist." ~ Michael Levine #
- RT @wisebread: Wow! Major food recall that touches so many pantry items. Check your cupboards NOW! http://bit.ly/c5wJh6 #
- Baby just said "coffin" for the first time. #feelingaddams #
- @TheLeanTimes I have an awesome recipe for pizza dough…at home. We make it once per week. I'll share later. in reply to TheLeanTimes #
- RT @bargainr: 9 minute, well-reasoned video on why we should repeal marijuana prohibition by Judge Jim Gray http://bit.ly/cKNYkQ plz watch #
- RT @jdroth: Brilliant post from Trent at The Simple Dollar: http://bit.ly/c6BWMs — All about dreams and why we don't pursue them. #
- Pizza dough: add garlic powder and Ital. Seasoning http://tweetphoto.com/13861829 #
- @TheLeanTimes: Pizza dough: add lots of garlic powder and Ital. Seasoning to this: http://tweetphoto.com/13861829 #
- RT @flexo: "Genesis. Exorcist. Leviathan. Deu… The Right Thing…" #
- @TheLeanTimes Once, for at least 3 hours. Knead it hard and use more garlic powder tha you think you need. 🙂 in reply to TheLeanTimes #
- Google is now hosting Popular Science archives. http://su.pr/1bMs77 #
- RT @wisebread 6 Slick Tools to Save Money on Car Repairs http://bit.ly/cUbjZG #
- @BudgetsAreSexy I filed federal last week, haven't bothered filing state, yet. Guess which one is paying me and which one wants more money. in reply to BudgetsAreSexy #
- RT @ChristianPF is giving away a Lifetime Membership to Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University! RT to enter to win… http://su.pr/2lEXIT #
- RT @MoneyCrashers: 4 Reasons To Choose Community College Out Of High School. http://ow.ly/16MoNX #
- RT @hughdeburgh:"When it comes to a happy marriage,sex is cornerstone content.Its what separates spouses from friends." SimpleMarriage.net #
- RT @tferriss: So true. "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." – Abraham Lincoln #
- RT @hughdeburgh: "The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them." ~ Frank A. Clark #
Bonding Relationships
People can’t be happy in a vacuum. We are social creatures. Even the most anti-social among us needs some human contact. How can you make that contact happen in a meaningful way? How can you connect with other people beyond some superficial meaningless chatter?
According to Keith Ferrazzi in his book, Who’s got your back, there are four mindsets necessary to build lifelong relationships.
1. Generosity. This is your promise to help others succeed. If have a skill that can help someone you know, why not give them a hand? when you help others, you are building social capital, which is a currency that cannot be bought. Since our lives are not ledger books, you can’t do favors with repayment in mind, but it is reasonable to assume that the people ou help will want to help you some day.
An often overlooked generosity strategy is to give away 90% of everything. I’m not suggesting you give away 90% of your wealth or possessions. I’m suggesting you give away 90% of your personal product. Plan to give away 9 times more than your receive. This will not only keep your from being disappointed, but it will also leave you feeling very fulfilled.
2. Vulnerability. It is important to let down your guard and let the world see your humanity. It’s almost impossible to truly connect with someone who’s shields are always up: the guy who seems to be invulnerable and unapproachable. The people you spend time with know your flaw anyway. If you pretend they don’t exist, you are only fooling yourself. I have a lot of problem with this one. Letting down my guard is incredibly difficult, in almost every circumstance. It is far easier to be strong than to let myself be vulnerable.
3. Candor. Total honesty is vital to establishing–and maintaining– lifelong relationships. Even the white lies can destroy your connections. If you can lie about the little things, you are planting doubts on everything else you do and say. Who can trust you then? Lying is inappropriate in almost all conceivable cases. I was raised that a man’s word is his bond. Almost everything you have can be taken away from you, but not your honor. That can only be destroyed by you. Without it, what do you really have?
4. Accountability. You need to follow through on your promises. Be Mr. Reliable(or Mrs!). If you say you will do something, do it! Nothing builds resentment faster than disappointing the people who are counting on you. If you can’t meet a commitment, let the soon-to-be-let-down know as early as possible, so other plans can be made. If you have a hard time keeping promises, then make fewer of them.
If you embrace these principles, you will be well on your way to building–and keeping–strong, satisfying relationships that benefit everyone.
How do you build your relationships?
Small Business Solutions to Aid Expansion
For most small businesses much of their strategy will be tailored towards expansion. The transition between being a small and medium sized enterprise can, however, be as tough as it is important. What makes a successful businessman or entrepreneur is the ability to spot the areas in which their business can effect simple changes which have far reaching implications for the success of their company.
Stability online
One of the first places any entrepreneur should look at is cost-effective and comprehensive insurance cover. Firms like Hiscox – Business Insurance Specialist can aid small businesses by looking at what areas of their current business are vulnerable and need cover.
A common problem for smaller businesses which operate largely online can be the type of server they use. Basic servers do not offer the stability a business needs to thrive. For a small business, time offline can be a disaster. Unfortunately, dedicated servers are often costly and, however useful they are in a number of ways, they tend to provide a service which reaches beyond the requirements of most small businesses.
Shared servers often do not provide the flexibility that small businesses need to make the transition to the next stage. As we’ve mentioned, dedicated servers are rarely a viable option for most small companies; instead, many opt to use a virtual private server which simulates many dedicated server features while remaining integrated into a larger, shared server.
Using a virtual private server is a cost-effective way for small businesses to take full control over their server and to apply upgrades as they see fit. The increased levels of performance and independence that virtual private servers can offer a small business can be vital to the realisation of their expansion dreams.
Be critical when considering opportunities
When your company begins to grow and succeed, things are likely to snowball. It is not uncommon for small businesses to face merger propositions and takeover offers. To many young entrepreneurs, this can seem an attractive prospect. Often such deals will involve impressive, short-term financial benefits that make them look appealing to the newly successful business owner.
While mergers and acquisitions can benefit all parties involved, it is important to remain level-headed when considering offers from other companies. For example, in Bain & Company’s 2004 study, they found that shareholder value did not increase in 70% of mergers. A further study conducted at Paris’s Sorbonne found that in excess of 90% of European mergers failed to meet their financial targets.*
Independence and success
The business world has changed rapidly in recent years with the inclusion of social media sites into many businesses’ marketing strategies. With this shift in marketing procedure, the playing field from which businesses are able to reach out to customers has been levelled. This has positive implications worth considering for the small business owner.
It is now possible for any small business to reach millions of people without spending a penny on advertising. Thus, the need for smaller companies to accept stubborn deals from larger companies is lessening. This is not to say that mergers are no longer a viable option for small businesses. Often the resources available to larger companies are indispensable to the smaller company. Instead, this shift in the market could well see small businesses being made more attractive deals by larger companies with a vested interest in the takeover of young and growing companies: just look at the recent Facebook purchase of Instagram.
If your business is facing a similar request or even considering the takeover of a smaller business, speaking with specialists is an invaluable option. Experts can offer advice on the way that such methods of expansion will affect your business and the premiums that you pay.
Utilize Social Media
The establishment of a successful business in today’s climate requires a shrewd and thorough reading of the options available to you online. With a huge proportion of business, small and large, creating a presence on social media and networking websites, this is an area that no small business can afford to ignore.
While business accounts with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are already seen as somewhat necessary tools to the success of a business, use of social media need not stop there. Entrepreneurs who want to get their business on top will be looking to new services such as Google Plus, ensuring that they are the first amongst their competitors to join. Whichever social media platform your business deals with, it is essential to keep your account active, positive and efficient.
*http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/05/21/merger.marriage/index.html
This is a guest post.
