Business Marketing & Finance Resources

You have heard how easy it is to make money online but are skeptical about it. Yes, there are a lot of scams out there. However there are also money making gems which you can capitalize without any investment risks on your part.

Yes, internet can give you many opportunities to make money from the comfort of your own home. You can be your own boss without reporting to anyone and without anyone reporting to you. Unlike any brick and mortar businesses, if you know how to make money from the internet, there is with almost no financial risk on your part because there is no investment required if you choose not to invest your money.

The bad news is that, most internet work from home internet businesses are doomed before they can take off. This is because an online business is just like any other businesses which need dedication, perseverance and some educated knowledge.

So, is it easy to make money over the internet? Yes, it is, if you know how to. Many people thought that once they have their websites or blogs set up, they are in business. This thinking is wrong. Having your online websites up is just the beginning of your online journey.

About 3 years ago, I responded to a newspaper advertisement about easy ways to make money online seminar. I booked my seat and was listening to speaker after speaker on how they made a fortune over the internet. At the end of the seminar, I was convinced to part with a few thousand dollars to buy a few websites, some books and CDs about internet marketing education and making money from home.

When my websites went life, I was elated. I started waiting for my first customer. Days and then weeks went by. Then I begin to realize that not only do I not have any customers, I hardly even have any visitors to my sites. My websites are virtual ghost towns.

Then I started to do more research on website marketing, join some online courses and bought some online marketing tools. To cut the chase, it took me another year and plenty of trial and errors to finally see my websites climbing up the search engines and getting thousands of visitors everyday. Now my internet businesses are making me plenty of money, however, it was a long and tedious process.

Since I now know how to get my websites found by thousands of people every day from the search engines, then I can create more successful websites and sell more things. Do you think I was happy? Well in a way, yes. But internet marketing also sapped up a lot of my strength and energy.

You see, I have to reply to customer’s enquires everyday, send out orders, keep inventory etc Just like any other businesses. Yes, these are happy problems because I am getting businesses while 90 percent of internet businesses don’t.

This was until I stumbled across upon a certain website. Upon reading this website, I was reminded that success coaches like Anthony Robbins and Robert Kiyosaki always teach about building multiple passive income streams to be wealthy. Yes, my internet businesses can be classified as multiple income stream and are earning me money which I have never earned before, but they are certainly not passive. There was a lot of work involved.

Now, I got my hand on the internet marketing education book from that website and learned how to make multiple passive income streams without spending a single dime, well, except for the price of the book. I was taught to build blogs. Yes, make money over the internet by blogging.

With the information, I started a few blogs, each bringing me its own income and money without me doing anything if I want to unless I want to improve on them. So what are these businesses without investment risks and products of your own? Some of you may already have known, but not doing anything about it. They are affiliate marketing and pay-per-click advertising.

Arm Yourself

Credit card fraud can happen to anyone and is becoming more common. You need to arm yourself with the knowledge of how to prevent it and what to do if it happens to you. Hold onto your credit card receipts and dispose of them properly. While most places are now hiding your credit card numbers and only showing the last four digits this is not always the case. Some receipts will still show your entire credit card number and if you have placed your signature on it as well then a thief has enough info to go on with just that alone. They can put in for a change of address to your credit card company and spend it all before you ever know what happens. You’ll wonder why your bill hasn’t come in yet, and if you put it off, the collectors will come calling. Don’t wait, if your bill is late then you need to call your credit card company and find out why, and also to check if there are any charges that you have not placed on the card.

Properly Dispose of Personal Info

So it turns out you have great credit and receive regular offers from credit card companies with great interest rates, but you have enough cards so you toss your junk mail in the trash, sometimes without even opening it. Bad idea. Many thieves will happily dumpster dive to get some good info. They can take those pre approved offers, and often times don’t even need to speak to an actual person. They will open the card in your name through an automated system to make things fast and efficient and start spending your money as quickly as possible. Shred those offers, dunk them in water, burn them, whatever it takes to get your information scattered, hidden, and difficult to contend with. Make it difficult for those thieves so they won’t want to mess with it. You can ‘opt out’ of these offers by sending a request or calling the company and asking them to remove you from the list.

What about those old deposit slips at the back of your checkbook that you never used? You know the ones with your name, complete physical address, your account and routing number. Someone could very easily transfer money to a temporary account, or just write a bad check to deposit and sign for the money in the less cash received section. Black out all the info and shred them before you throw them away. The same goes for voided checks.

Don’t Give Out Your Info Unless Necessary

Your social security number is, unfortunately, your identity when it comes to many things, including your credit. Make sure it is absolutely necessary before giving out this information. If a company calls you, claiming they need to update your information, get their number and call them back before you give any of it out. Many identity thieves will call you, pretending to be some credit company associated or working with your credit card company and ask to ‘update your info’ and you will give them all the info they need to open up accounts and start spending.

Monitor your spending. If anything shows up that you did not buy, call immediately. If your bill is taking longer than expected to get to you, call. Automated systems make things easier not only for you, but for identity thieves as well. Go paperless if possible so you don’t have any physical papers a thief can get too easily. You can buy protection through many companies that will alert you if there any changes in your credit. In the end just be careful with any info that can lead to your bank or credit card account. Make sure you dispose of the information properly and you may be able to avoid the stress and hassle of identity theft.

I am known for being “cheap.” Some say that my motivations come from a love of money. Both are incorrect. I seek to curtail as much as possible, the money spent on things that do not last. We all want to make our marks in this life and most of have a finite amount of expendable income at our disposal. This article is not going to include specific money saving tips like how to get 50 miles per gallon on or how to clip coupons in order to get ninety-six free bags of noodles. Rather, the mindset of somebody who values money and the ways in which it is spent is what this article will be about.

Poor Richard, or rather Benjamin Franklin in his essay: The Way to Wealth, stated that a fat kitchen makes a lean will. This is not to say that we should live as paupers in order to die rich. That is an empty goal and it is one of vanity. However, as much as I love to eat, spending money on fine meals at fine restaurants, leaves nothing for the individual to show other than a few extra pounds around their mid section. Retaining the motivation that one must curtail the money that he or she spends on things that do not last, will help that individual to have more expendable income in the future.

As important as having a high paying job in order to live the life that you want, so too is the right mindset. It is not how much you make but how much you save which helps you to live the life that you want. Fiscal conservatism, something that our local, state or national government have never adhered to, is something that should be observed in each of our households. Paying only for those things which we have the money for and avoiding the accumulation of debt except under the most serious of familial situations is one of the tenants of a faith in money and the opportunities that it affords its converts.

Realizing that money is a tool to invest and to better the lives of the owner and those around him or her, is what will make one value money more than the majority of Americans who see money as something that one must work for instead of something that works for us. That belief is what separates the rich from the poor, the successful from those who live paycheck to paycheck.

So let’s go through this, step by step, and see what we can do to improve the situation. The first thing to do here, is to get a picture of exactly what your credit score profile looks like. Experian is a very good place to start, and it’s a free service. So sign up for an account, and make sure that you give them all the information that they require. Let’s try and remember here, that we are trying to get a proper picture, which will help and provide the first step to improve your credit score, so dishonesty, won’t help anyone, least of all you.

One you have signed up, you will see, exactly who you owe money to, and exactly what your status is:
- are you just in arrears?
- have you had a default issued against you?
- have you possibly even had a CCJ, or as it’s known in the UK, a county court judgment, issued against you?

Once you know the situation, you need to start looking at your debts, which normally are credit cards, unsecured loans, and store cards. Never feel scared about calling up these companies, and explaining to them exactly what the situation is. Dealing with your monthly outgoings and making sure that you can afford them – will all help to improve your credit score. Always remember that some form of a payment is always better than no payment, and a lot of the time you can ask the credit card companies to freeze your interest.

Another big way of improving your credit score – for those of us, who don’t have credit cards, is to get one!

Strange as it may seem, if you are looking to improve your credit score, after let’s say, years of bad credit, obtaining a credit card, and keeping to your monthly payments, will go a long way to improving your score.

The last of my tips on the above subject is all about tidying up bad accounts. Carefully examine your Experian credit report, and make sure that all the history on your file is legitimate. If there are small and insignificant amounts of debt that you can easily pay off, than do so! Watch out for silly little mistakes, which do occur – for example you might have an old telephone bill, which has gone into default, for pennies. Why – well possibly you moved address or changed contract, and there was an old and very small balance, left on the account.

You forget to pay it, and well you can have a default issued against you – not the thing you want to see when you are looking at ways to improve your credit score.

Credit is something which is very important to your personal profile, and lifestyle, and spending some time, examining and improving it will always be beneficial to you and to your family.

Unless you are a Saint, you are bound to make a mistake or two in your lifetime. The mistakes that you have made can be insignificant or it can be a life changing event. You can make a huge mistake by accumulating so much debt that you only choice out of this jam is to file for bankruptcy protection, or you can make a tiny mistake such as forgetting about your son’s first birthday. Filing for bankruptcy shelter is absolutely a life changing event and most people would not want relive this ordeal in their lifetime. If you had to file for bankruptcy protection, what led you to this financial crossroad, and what do you plan to do to fix this in the future?

Poor budgeting and not watching out what you are spending and how much you are spending can be a major contributor to those who had to file for bankruptcy shelter. Poor financial planning can take the form of many scenarios. During the real estate bubble of the 2000s, many people got into deep financial debt because they bought homes they cannot afford. Even if you are making a lot of money, for example, $10,000 of net income per month. But if you ended up spending more than $7,000 on your home related expenses, can you live off the remaining $3,000? A good rule of thumb is not to spend more than 30% of your income on housing expenses.

By not living within their means, some people find themselves in a financial hole that they had to file for bankruptcy protection. In simpler terms, this means that you are spending more than you are making. During the mid 2000s and even the time leading up to the recession of 2008, using credit cards seems so easy to everybody. People who find themselves with a mountain of credit card debt forgot that charging purchases on credit card does not mean that the debt do not need to be repaid over time. Buying things or services using credit card does not mean that you do not have to pay for it, it just lets you pay for it at a later date. It is a useful tool to help you purchase that new TV that you have always wanted. In order not to abuse the credit card use, you have to know that you can pay for this new purchase in reasonable amount of time. You will know if you cannot afford to pay for this new purchase, because you are hoping to pay for this purchase using the minimum payment on the credit card bill.

The majority of the people who had to file for bankruptcy tend to abuse their credit cards. And to make matters worst, some of these people even use the credit cards for daily living needs. Can you imagine someone who is already heavily in debt, and yet he or she has to use the credit card to buy that food or shelter for the day? Cash advance from the credit card is one way that people tend to abuse the credit card usage. Cash advance is one of the worst financial transaction one can incur in his or her lifetime. The drawback to using the cash advance from the credit card include extraordinary high interest rate which means you will have even a harder time paying back this debt. Some people will justify this action by promising that this is just a one time occurrence. Those cannot manage their finances properly tend to find this cash advance way as an “easy” way to get by from month to month.

For those who are thinking of filing bankruptcy, or have filed for bankruptcy recently, here some advice that you should adhere to (coming from a person who had gone through this ordeal):

You should only spend on what you have earned and not more
Create a budget and use it wisely so that you can follow rule #1
Saving money is the best thing you can do, just in case you will need it one day

The objective to filing bankruptcy is to give yourself financial relief from the wrath of the creditors. Filing bankruptcy is not a get out of jail free card, like the one from monopoly. You should not use it as a way to wipe out your debt so that you can accumulate debt again. Take this chance given to you and rebuild your life without the massive debt hanging over your shoulders each and every day. Look at this from the positive side at all times, instead of focusing on the negative aspects of filing for bankruptcy. If you are uncertain of what is involve in the bankruptcy filing, seek the advice of a local bankruptcy lawyer near you.