photo by Troy Holden*

If you are an Old Navy Flip Flop lover, then here’s your chance of saving money on their 2010 sale. It’s great stuff and you know that quality is really great for this brand. So start looking for participating outlets near you. As this could definitely help you in your budget to save some cash. Available stocks for adults and kids. So hurry and join in the fun.

*photo by Troy Holden

photo by nixArt*

Thinking about buying a new car? Great, so do I, and perhaps a lot of other people. But are you sure that you can afford it? Well yeah, if you’re rich and able. But what if you’re just a simple employee starting out and living on a daily basis from paycheck to paycheck. Do you think that you could afford to buy a brand new car? Or would you settle for a second hand instead?

With all these questions in mind and having a lot more of reasons coming in, it is quite confusing to come to a definite solution or answer to our main question, “am I able to buy a new car?” Well, don’t be worried or confused anymore, in just a few weeks, or days, a new tool called “Car Saver” will be available here in our site to premium members who would like to register.

Readers are welcome to see screen shots of the tool and how it works, but if you plan to use it, you must register for a premium member. Giving you all the benefits to try it out and even help you find out if you are able to buy a new car. The tool provides a details on how much interest you would be paying each month, initial down payments, your monthly budget needed, and even a daily savings budget to let you see your progress when you start saving until you reach your goal.

I’m even thinking about providing an affiliate membership for people who would even like to earn some cash from this tool. But more details will be provided soon when this project is ready to be launched.

So for now, if you dream of having a new car, it’s good to know if you could afford it, without getting into too much debt and headaches. And as you use the tool, you could really see if you would want to spend that much on interests that would really eat up on your financial savings and earnings. It sort of makes you conscious and even helps you stay out of debt. And even better, if you do get into debt, you could take control of it and manage it wisely.

*photo by nixArt

photo by jtyerse

After doing a review on GDI (Global Domains International), I did more digging on the company and how their system works. It turns out that most of their affiliates or people who have joined this company are earning a pretty good amount of income just by having their own website, domain and referring other people. It’s a pretty stable system and they are established for 11 years now, since they started out since 1999.

Just by referring 1 person through their affiliate system, you get an equivalent of $1. Not much if you tell me, but this $1 is given to you on a monthly basis for as long as that person remains as a member. Now that is definitely cool, you get your own products from them for a $10 value each month and whenever you get to refer someone, you even get paid for it.

Now what are the products included in your subscription? A Domain Name, you get it for free with the package, and as long as it has a .ws extension, which stands for WebSite. They also provide you with a Web Hosting on their servers so you don’t need to host your site on another server. A Site Builder is also included with lots of templates that you could choose from. So if you would want to start out a simple website and you need it quick and you need it to have a good design, then it is provided to you with a drag and drop interface, really easy that even kids could do it. An Email Address is also provided to you, now that is really cool, you get to have your personal, business or family address that you could share with people and friends that you know. Making it highly attractive and really worth a lot of value.

These are just some of the features contained in the $10 package that you will get once you sign-up for this company and you instantly have an online business as well. The best part that I have seen in their system is called their “Weekly Board Leaders”. It contains the names of their current members who are actively referring at least 5 people in a week’s time, which starts from Monday to Sunday. Here’s a list that I have taken as of 30 April 2010:

As what you could see, this is only 1 of the weeks since they have started giving this much money away to their loyal members. I think that this is really a great investment that should not be taken for granted. With the number of people joining every day, I think that this is one of the gems that are quite hard to find on the internet today that has a record of years to be seen as proof that their system really works. Unlike other systems that lasts for only a year or two then disappears.

So now, what do you think, would you consider joining one of the most reliable companies in providing income on the internet today? If yes, they offer a 7-days trial where you could sign-up here now, if no, could you provide us with a reason on why you would pass this opportunity? Your comments and suggestions are mostly welcome.

photo by Jake Wasdin

But there is a catch! Remember to still put a limit on how much you would want to spend as an “extra” for each month. Enjoying life is a really good thing, and one more thing we should not forget is that time flies by so fast that it doesn’t wait for anybody at all. Unless you have a time machine that is, then you could go jumping to any specific time that you would want.

Staying within your budget is a good thing, and adding an extra spending money is also good. So how much money would you think is good to have as an extra? Deciding on this matter is not really that hard and to give you a good idea on things to consider, you could read this article entitled “Spending More Money For a Better Life”, on MoneyReasons.com. It is a two parts article and you could get some hints to help you decide.

It does not need to be too high or too low as an extra, but you also need to weigh in the factors. You could answer questions like,

“Is it going to affect my budget that much as a whole?”
“Where am I going to get that extra money to spend on myself?”
“How long before I could implement this change in my spending habits?”

This simple concept is really a good one; I mean you could already be missing out a lot on life. Things like going out with your friends, buying yourself new clothes and things that you need. After all, that’s why we have money, to spend it in the right way. Now don’t get me wrong, but we need to also reward ourselves once in a while without hurting our budget, savings and investment.

And yes, you need to think about it very well, plan it, do your homework and make a decision. Approaching it wisely is still the best way to do it. In the end, you’ll not face problems like overspending and needing to touch your savings or emergency funds.

So enjoy life, loosen up a bit, time passes by and once the opportunity to be with our friends and family on that specific time is missed – it would be impossible to come back to it.

What about you, are you thinking about the same thing? Do you feel me here, live now or regret it in the future that you should have done this and that. What are your insights and thoughts on this topic? Give us your comments and suggestions, they help us think of better ways and also look at this in a different kind of perspective.

One of the very cool things about using a tool like Microsoft Excel is the “What If” possibilities. You can set up your spreadsheet then work through various scenarios to see if you can get the outcome you want, or at the very least something approaching an ideal outcome.

What does that have to do with debt restructuring? Well, you might well ask. Read on!

You know the concept behind restructuring debts. Normally this takes the form of negotiating more favourable (or achievable) terms, or taking out a new loan that has a more manageable payment structure. This helps people get out from under the crushing weight of credit card debts and other short term loan arrangements, and putting the payments over a longer period, bringing the monthly payments down to a figure that fits within available cash flow.

If you know exactly what you have available to pay, and how much you need to pay off, then you can find a loan that suits your purposes, and hopefully get your cash flow back into a realm where you can sleep at night!

At the same time, you do not want to overpay, by either paying too high an interest rate, or by paying over to long a period. Just like the three bears, you don’t want too much or too little, but just right.

How do you know exactly what you are looking for?

The idea here is to use the Excel Goal-Seek function to calculate the terms of the loan you need to get in order to buy out your expensive debt, and still maintain a positive (or balanced) cash flow.

Desperately Goal Seeking Excel

The Goal Seek function is found under the ‘What if analysis’ menu in the data ribbon. When you select this feature it will rapidly go through various options in your spreadsheet, filling out the cells you select, until it gets to the result you ask for.

In our example, we have worked out that we have $500 left over each month that we are allocating to debt-repayments.

Using Goal-Seek we can play with the interest rate, payment duration, and so on, to achieve a repayment amount that satisfies our objective. We might also use it to discover that we can repay the debt in a shorter timeframe if we can get a better interest rate, or find more funds to pay a greater monthly amount.

Right now we have worked out that in order to pay off $500 a month, it would take 86 months at 5% interest, and our $30,000 would be $42,838.90 when all done.

What if we couldn’t afford $500? What if we needed to get that down to $400?

Using Goal-Seek we can see that if the interest rate stayed the same, the loan term would have to be … wait for it … 127.3692 months. And the total at the end of the term? That $30k debt is now a princely sum of $50,947.70!

OK, less of the negative. What if you found a generous bank (don’t laugh) that offers you a more manageable deal by shaving off some of that interest?

To keep your payment term to 86 months and the monthly payment down at $400 you would need to find an extremely generous bank offering you a loan of only 2%!

The Limits of What If

Play with the figures enough and you will see there are scenarios where you simply can not get to the desired monthly payment, interest rate or loan term. The longer the loan goes on for, the more you have to pay in interest, and from a certain point the monthly payment will increase and not decrease. Interest rates do not go below 0% no matter how nice your bank manager is, therefore a $300 a month payment over 86 months will never pay back a $30k loan.

Summary

Doing a quick what-if analysis can really help you see clearly what you need to do, and to try out different scenarios at the limit of your ability or comfort zone. Armed with that knowledge you can then make an informed decision.

Just like in real life, if you can not get a perfect loan then you will need to either accept an imperfect one, or improve your cash flow outlook by either increasing your income or decreasing your cost of living, or both. Looks like another month of ramen noodles, eh? Ha.

Can you think how this idea could be improved? Please let us know in the comments …

About the author

Yoav is the CEO a company called Cogniview that creates software to convert files from PDF to XLS.

Prior to that, Yoav Ezer was the CEO of Nocturnus, a technology-centered software solution company.

For more Excel tips from Yoav, join him on Facebook or Twitter

photo by Paulus Maximus!

There has been an old saying “doing two bad things doesn’t equal a good thing”, in other words, if you would want to get rid of your debt, then pay for it through a positive source. Opening up another debt just to pay for the previous one is NOT the answer. And once you have done that, it’s like digging your own grave. You go deeper and deeper into debt and it is harder for you to get out.

It’s also the same as paying for your credit card bills with another credit card, and this is much more dangerous as the interests escalates and compounds and you’ll be burning your pockets before you know it. This sort of practice is definitely WRONG but some people think that it’s just fine.

As what I have read in an article entitled “Your Brain is Your Own Worst Enemy” from Engineer Your Finances, it shows more examples of debts and marketing systems that are used in trapping us into this kind of thinking.

Now it is really important to know what we need and want, being able to classify the differences could definitely help in minimizing our purchases. Next is to start paying off for the debt, even though it is slowly. The important thing is you could eliminate it little by little and not add to it. Mind setting is very important here and having the discipline and patience to keep it constant is needed.

If the hole that you are in is really deep, the only way to get out is to ask a friend. You could ask a close friend to help you watch your spending and even help you overcome your debt. Being honest with yourself and admitting that debt is a burden would change the way you look at your financial state.

It’s not easy, but starting as soon as possible is a good first step. It’s up to you to constantly continue on dissolving your debt until it’s gone.

So if you’ve got something useful from this information, I do hope you could write your comments and suggestions down and post them here. It could really help others know how debt could be a burden if you use it the wrong way.

-Your Key To A Good Foundation For Your Online Business

photo by L S G

In order to become successful online or even offline, the basic foundation starts with ‘YOU’. Having the right Mindset and applying Personal Management to what you do could help you accomplish your goals and lets you stay focused.

So you want to be a part of the online business world. You see some people are already living the lifestyle that they have always wanted, and you want to take part of the action. The sudden boosts in successful people who have started their own sites have definitely increased, and it is really making a buzz in the hungry crowd of people wanting to have their personal share.

Based on statistics, which I have observed on my own, there are different groups of people searching the internet everyday and they could be divided into a broad group that I’ll be naming into four categories. It would be the searchers, surfers, internet marketers and site owners.

I know that there are more that we could come up with, but I’d like to summarize them into these four. Now if you are someone who is new to the internet and is looking for a way on how to make or earn money online, you haven’t even earned a dime or a dollar, then you belong to the searchers group.

The surfers on the other hand are people who have already acquired some knowledge on how to make some money. You could often find them on TEs (Traffic Exchanges) such as EasyHits4U.com, and having list builder sites like AffiliateFunnel.com and TrafficHoopla.com.

Internet Marketers are people who have already established their own footing on making a few or even a lot of money online through affiliate commissions, promoting other products and are aware of how marketing works for them.

Site Owners are the ones who create the products, systems and services that Internet Marketers utilize to earn money. They are the business owners and most of the time, earn the most income.

What is the common goal of these people? It is to be able to earn a descent income online, and to experience the freedom of time and money. Let’s face the fact, we all need a good source of income that enables us to enjoy the benefits of life and spend our time with the people we love. And that, in itself is a driving force of motivation that keeps people online in search of the treasure.

This article serves as an introduction to people who are starting out on their journey to financial freedom. I would be posting additional articles to supplement this one.

For a reference, you could also visit David Risley’s blog entitled “Bloggers, I Hear You” and you could also read through the comments. It has some controversy in it and you could pick up some good ideas as well.

If you liked this article or you have any questions, comments, suggestions or might want to add your opinions, you could write them down. They are very much appreciated.

photo by Cliph

If you are someone who has a credit card and had a bad record about it for the past years, then here’s a chance for you to lighten or completely erase your records for good. Well, you could even try to make things better. By making slow payments or having it completely forgotten, by filing a report to the credit card bureau stating your status.

Here’s a voice interview by Mr. Credit Card on Little House entitled “My Interview with Mr. Credit Card”. The interview is almost an hour long voice recording and you could learn how Little House (that’s what she’s called) was able to rebound from her 7 years long bad credit, into a really great good credit record by filing a report to the bureau. And then she even got high scores with her credit, which boosted her limit and is now enjoying a good financial statement.

The story includes how she started out with credit card and it was heavily charged. Unable to pay for the monthly dues and being chased by the agents by phone, and having a low profile for about a year to get them off. Starting their own business together, adjusting her finances together with her husband, and finally going from a negative to a positive credit card score.

And now, they are already planning on starting their retirement plan. I think that their experience is worth a lesson for us all. And I do believe that good management of finances is really a key element is getting out of credit card debt. Also having the right information helps a lot, so if you don’t know much it’s good to ask around for help.

After listening to the review, what do you think about it? Was it able to provide any benefit to you? Would you be interested in asking them some questions as well? Are you having any problems with your credit card or are you planning to get one? Write your comments and suggestions below, they are mostly appreciated.

photo by e-diot

I was always interested in seeing people go to a currency exchange booth and notice that they trade their money freely into the currency that they needed at that moment. They freely accepted the current trade amount without thinking that they lost or won a few more bucks during that time. Since then, the Forex has become one of my dream investments.

If you are like me and would want to know the different ways on how to start an investment, you could pick a choice or try to read a book guide on investing. One of the books I’ve read so far is from Robert Kiyosaki entitled “Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing”. And also, you could find a good review on this book from Roger at The Amateur Financier. He has a detailed outline on what you’ll expect to learn and would also help you decide if this book’s worth your buy.

I’m glad to say that I have finally started out my venture into the forex market. Now I know that it would usually take a lot of money to invest in getting started, but I have finally found a great tool or I think that you would call it as a trading platform. You get to create your own account and it automatically comes with a demo or virtual account. What’s good about this is you get to have a feel on how it is to start trading in real time without risking real money.

For a beginner like me, this provides a great way to test out the waters by getting my feet wet and not drowning. An additional plus to this is I get a $5 real money bonus just for signing up and I could already use it as well to trade.

I know that it’s not a lot of money to get started with but hey, I’m just a beginner and starting out. So if you are interested in getting this tool, you register at Marketiva.com and download the software. Once you have signed up successfully, you’ll receive your free virtual account and your $5 bonus as well. I do hope that you register with the link that I have provided as they would give me credit for sharing you this information.

Now, having that tool is not enough. You also need to have a good knowledge of the forex market, and that’s why I also recommend going to babypips.com. In my opinion, this is a good site for starting to learn the basics until the advanced skills that you will need to become a successful trader.

So what do you think? Is Forex an interesting investment option for you? Have you ever tried going into this kind of investment? Was my article a good step in introducing you this type market?

I appreciate your comments and suggestions, feel free to write them here.