10 Stupid Mistakes Made by the Newly Self-employed

The Newly self-employed tend to make many mistakes.

Here are 10 stupid mistakes that are often made be newly self-employed people.

Don't make the same mistakes.

10. Laziness

Being self-employed will usually allow you to make your own schedule. If you have a Dentist appointment then you can be sure that you will be able to make it and not have to worry about your work schedule. The problem with many newly self-employed people is that they may decide to lounge on the couch watching Television instead of actually working. You need to get into the habit of actually working hard. If you struggle with this then it may help to pretend that you have a boss and imagine what he would tell you to do.

9. Distractions

When you work for yourself it is easy to get distracted. Instead of actually working you spend your day on Facebook, checking your email, playing Angry Birds, and reading Wikipedia articles. You need to force yourself to work and eliminate as many distractions as you can. It is vital that you prioritize the work you need to do in order to make a profit.

8. No Business Plan or Mission Statement

You need a business plan, or at least a mission statement. Regardless of how small your business is a business plan and a mission statement will help you to keep you business on track. We can often get distracted and focus on aspects of the daily grind that in reality have no bearing on our business. Expand you customer base, but keep a watchful eye on your business plan to ensure you do not shy away from your core business. Business Plans can however need to be re-written and changed around in some cases. Only you know what is best for you self-employment, however you do need to have at least a mission statement you can refer to and also get inspired from.

7. No Work Area Away From the Family

If you work from home it is easy to get distracted by your spouse and children. It is imperative that you set up a work area or office that is dedicated solely for your work. When you are working your friends and family need to understand that they should not ever disturb you unless it is an emergency. It is hard to work when every 5 minutes you kids come in and need something from you. If you worked cooking burgers at McDonald’s your family wouldn’t be coming back into the kitchen area every few minutes, so they should not do it if you work for yourself, regardless of whether you work from home or in a location somewhere else.

6. Hating Your Business

If you are self-employed then it is going to be important as to if you enjoy your niche or not. If you hate carpet, hate manual labor, and hate chemical smells then you will hate yourself if you open up a carpet cleaning business. If you love your job then you will be more apt to work hard and still be able to enjoy yourself while you work.

5. Selling to Friends and Family

If you start a business where you will be direct selling to customers, then you need to have a potential customer base that does not include your friends and family. If you start of by hounding your family to buy your products they will begin to avoid you and hate your business. If on the other hand you begin to sell your quality product to customers, your friends and family will also be more apt to buy products from you. If your friends and family ask you to buy your product without you trying to “hard sell” your products to them, then they are much more likely to use positive word of mouth to spread your products to even more customers. Positive word of mouth is one of the most valuable and effective ways of getting free advertising for your business.

4. Not Advertising

Many new business owners will not advertise in order to conserve their cash flow. Although saving money and not wasting it is vital, you still have to advertise. How can customers find you if you do hot advertise? Make sure you also advertise in a venue and method that will work for your business.  If you build webpage’s for local bars, then you obviously do not need to Advertise during the Super Bowl. Craigslist works for many businesses and it is free, however you may find that you get more results by paid advertising such as in your local newspaper.

3. High Rent Office

If you are a new tech company that consists of only a few employees, then there is no need to rent extremely high-priced office space in Downtown San Francisco. You can open up you office in an area where the rent is cheap. You are not a retail store so you do not have to have prime space. You simply need a working space and by saving money you will give yourself better odds of succeeding by not being undercapitalized.

2. Quit After Failing

Most successful business owners have had multiple failures in the business world before they became successful. Instead of looking at a business failure as a loss, you should instead be looking at failure as a learning experience and then move on to your next business and you will have much better odds of succeeding. If you fail working for yourself then you should not quit. You may have to go work for someone else for awhile, but never give up on working for yourself. You need to have not only a good idea for a business, but also the confidence to know that it truly can work.

1. Under-Funded

If you are under-funded then the odds of your business failing will skyrocket. If you cannot afford to buy advertising, then your business may not get any customers. If you cannot afford to upgrade your web server when you website becomes more popular than your business may fail because the website will crash and that will lead to no customers and no sales. It is extremely important that you have enough capital to keep your business running smoothly.

If you plan on quitting your job and simply working from home as a 1 man operation it is still important that you have some money in the bank saved up. If you are stressing about how to pay your monthly bills then your odds of having a successful career as a self-employed person will collapse.

source: infobarrel.com

What You Need To Know About Mortgage Assistance Relief Scams

        

As the number of foreclosures has increased in the last five years, the incidences of Mortgage Assistance Relief Scams have risen also.  Scam artists are stealing homes right out from under their owner's nose.  Sometimes the homeowner helps them get away with it! 

How is this possible?  How could someone just let some crook take their home without a fight?  Because the homeowner thought this person was a legitimate financial company trying to help them save their home from foreclosure. 

 

These fraudulent foreclosure "rescue" professionals use lies and half-truths to talk their way into the lives of homeowners all over the country.  Their promises of rescuing families' homes and saving money are ones that many can't turn away from, especially when they are teetering on the brink of losing everything. 

What are some of the types of Mortgage Assistance Relief Scams?

Phony Counseling / Phantom Help –

The scammers promise to negotiate with your bank to save your home.  They charge an exorbitant fee and may even ask you to pay your mortgage payment directing to them which they promise put in a trust until negotiations are finalized.  After a few months of stringing you along and collecting money, they disappear with your money, leaving you and your mortgage high and dry.

"Forensic" Audit

A company calls with a great offer: for a very steep fee, forensic auditors will comb through your mortgage documents to see if your lender followed each and every regulation. 

They claim that the resulting paperwork can be used to speed up the loan modification process or stop the bank from foreclosing on your property.  It's only when you try to submit the paperwork to your mortgage company that you discover that the audit was useless – it does nothing to help you.

Rent-To-Buy

Scammers ask you to surrender your home's title so they can use their better credit to refinance the mortgage.  Then they rent the house back to you, with the idea of putting the money towards the new loan.  So, in essence, you are allowed to stay in your house while paying it off over time.

This sounds great, especially to someone who is a stone's throw away from losing their home.  The problem comes when either the new owner raises the rent over and over until you can't afford it, they sell the house out from under you, or they never refinance, pocket the rent and let the bank foreclose on you.

Bait-and-Switch

The scammer offers you a new mortgage but to get it, you have to sign all new paperwork.  If you've ever bought a house, you know the amount of paperwork that you have to sign.  So it would be easy to slip in a form that surrenders your house to the scammers.  You return home that night, thinking that your house is safe…and then the Sheriff arrives with an eviction notice.

What are some of the signs of a scam?

Do not trust any company that:

  

• directly contacts you without you first initiating contact
• guarantees to stop your foreclosure no matter what
• suggests any of the above three scams
• pressures you to sign new paperwork, especially papers that you haven't had time to read yet
• collects a fee before they do anything
• only allows you to pay in non-traceable methods (money order / wire transfer / cashier's check)
• suggests that you pay your mortgage payment to them and not the lender
• tells you not to contact your lawyer or lender

What should you do if you suspect a scam?

If you suspect that a company is running a scam, don't just turn your back on them and put on your blinders.  Help protect others by reporting them to your local office of the United States Trustee.  This section of the Justice Department monitors the bankruptcy system and is very interested in curbing this sudden influx of mortgage scams.

source: infobarrel

Ten things to do to cut back on your expenses

Ten things to do to cut back on your expenses

You may be saving and saving and realize it is still not working as well as you expect.  Review the situation from another perspective.  Maybe it is about how your money is flowing out. 

Just like fixing a leak, once you plug the “hole” where you money is flowing out you will find excess funds after all.  Below are ten ways you can do this:

1.    Waste not.  “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” has been chanted over and over again but now you should really make it your personal mantra.  Whether it is food or furniture, make it a point to never waste it. 
This means shamelessly packing up leftovers from buffet meals or dinners with friends, and doggy bagging what you (and the family) cannot finish at that restaurant.  If you feel funny looks coming your way from other diners, take heart in the fact that you probably have saved more money than they spent! 

2.    Make and pack a lunch.  You will be amazed at how much we all spend on lunch on a regular workday.  Make it a point to pack a lunch from home – if this sounds a bit much, do it for just one or two days in a week.  This is far better than skipping lunch. 

3.    Make gifts instead of buying them.  Unless it is something you cannot make, avoid buying presents for birthdays, farewells and other occasions.  Make it a point that you only buy gifts for weddings and anniversaries. 
For example, at children’s parties, instead of buying items for gift packs, have a handicraft session where they make their own craftwork and get to bring it home in a pretty package.  All you will need to buy are ribbons (which are relatively cheap) and gift wrap paper (which you can also make with coloured paper, some patterned stamps and watercolour). 

4.    Turn old clothes into dishrags.  There is no need to buy dishrags when an old t-shirt does the job of cleaning just as well.  Old, faded towels can be used as bathmats or dishrags to wipe your plates while old cotton shorts are great for wiping up the mess at the dining table after a meal.  You will find that you have saved yourself quite a bit by not buying special cloth to wipe messes!

5.    Save on energy.  Not only will you be saving the environment, you would also be saving yourself many, many pennies.  Using energy-saving lightbulbs, for instance, can save you up to 40 percent on your electricity bills, which in a year, can be a pretty astounding sum.  The bulbs may cost a little bit more initially but they save you loads in the long term.  With each bulb lasting up to 5 years, it is definitely worth that expensive purchase at the beginning. 

6.    Save water.  If it rains a little bit too often where you live, you may as well put all that wet weather to good use.  Leave a bucket outside and save all that rainwater.  You can then use it for washing the car, dishrags, bathmats or to mop the floor.  This is especially useful because you will never have to wait for the bucket to fill. 

7.    Save on petrol.  With petrol prices sky rocketing with the sky as its limit, you can save tons by walking or cycling short distances.  That quick trip to the neighbourhood supermarket for eggs can be done just as efficiently by brisk walking or going on a bicycle.  You will get the exercise (and eggs) you need without paying for gas or risking the environment with additional carbon emissions. 

8.    Expanding on the above point, the extra exercise you get by going more manual will save you on gym memberships.  Brisk walking and cycling gives you all the cardiovascular exercise you need and you will soon start seeing those pounds fall off naturally.  You can get more exercise by using as much public transport as possible, too as they normally stop off a little distance away from your destinations. 

9.    Make use of your friends.  If you like gardening, get seeds or shoots from your green-thumb friends.  Buying them from a nursery can be expensive. 
The same for your clothes – if you have a friend in a similar size who loves to shop, ask her for her old work clothes.  If they are not good enough for your workplace, you would have new home clothes so you never have to buy clothes for grocery shopping. 

10.    Pool your meals.  If you are single or have no children, pool your dinners with your family members.  Everyone can then save on having to buy or make dinner.  If this is too difficult, then just do it on weekends so at least you save for two days out of the week.

Developing a Budget You Can Live With

You’ve tried.  You have sat through the budget procedure before, tallying up your receipts and bills.  But within days your meticulous budget falls to pieces.  And then you fade back into complacency.
Perhaps the years of renting or newly developed house envy have you angry with yourself for not saving.  It could be that credit card debt has you swallowed whole and it is easier to imagine undergoing major surgery than opening the bills.   Maybe one friend too many has lost his job and you wouldn’t make it for a week without yours, however much you day-dream about leaving it.  Whatever reason it is that has you crawling through websites promising that some program is going to get you on track, you need to start living on your budget.
If you have been there before, you already know that setting up the budget is the easy part.  After opening all your bills and checking all your online accounts, you spend an evening or two going through it all; dutifully add it to your spreadsheet. Or perhaps even the program you just downloaded, giving you ten days to decide that you do have room for it in your budget.  You wake up the next morning and skip past the coffee you normally buy, because now you are “going to be good”.


But when lunch time arrives, you realize you forgot your leftovers and grab the closest fast food.  Somehow, it is always justifiable.  After all, last night you were up working on your budget.  By the time you got to June two years from now and the figures were starting to look good, it was already the middle of the night.  So now, you need to dig into that stash that you promised you wouldn’t touch and the cycle begins again.
Don’t worry, you are not alone.  Getting to a budget you can live with isn’t easy.  If it isn’t a natural skill you have, you need to take the time to develop it.  There are no quick fixes for financial problems.  If you have tried before and failed, here are some tips and strategies that may help in getting you to a budget you can live with.

Budget Detox
Try this if…your problem is a continuous stream of clothing, media and consumables spending which disables your month-long budget.
How a budget detox works:
Cut yourself off from all spending for a short time period, such as a few days or a week.  During this period, the only spending allowed is debt repayment.  More than likely there is enough food in the fridge and enough Tupperware to take it to work in.  You will probably be surprised at how liberating it is to get through a day or two spending nothing.  Whatever you do, don’t break the goal you have set for yourself.
How a budget detox helps:
This method should show how quickly these small purchases add up to total budget destruction and how possible it is to do without many of them.  When you sit down to budget, you should include spending days and non-spending days to keep yourself on track.
Luxury Basket
Try this if… your problem is that you continue to keep budget-stifling monthly contracts or you have always found ways to prove your entertainment spend.
How a luxury basket works:
List all the luxury items from your budget.  This includes satellite television with all the fixings, Friday night drinks after work, internet games that you casually pay for, gourmet food to cook with, new music you need to feed your soul with, expensive gym memberships, annual vacations, new name-brand clothes, DVD rentals, and anything else that isn’t essential for living.  Once you have listed everything, assign a value to each item on a scale of one to ten. This value should show the item’s importance to your life and lifestyle, not how much it is costing you.
Once you have valued each area of spend, add up all the values and divide by half.  So if your list adds up to 50, then your permissable luxury spend is 25.  Decide which items stay in your luxury basket (and therefore budget) and which have to wait.  Then set financial goals to match point values.  For example, if I save $2500, I will be able to clear 5 points worth into my luxury basket.   The item must be budgeted for, but you will have hopefully managed to clear a certain level of debt to better accommodate your reclaimed luxury basket items.
How a luxury basket helps:
One of the hardest parts of developing a realistic debt relief budget is doing without all the comforts we have grown used to.  Having all the channels in the world will not ease the pain not going out with friends if that is what you really want to do.  Going without a few luxuries for a few months is easier than trying to cut everything that makes your life worth living.
Divide by 52
Try this if… you find that you have lost speed on budget reconciliation after a few days and you discover at the end of the month, you have blown it completely.
How dividing by 52 works:
Add up your projected income for the next year and divide each total by 52, regardless of the frequency of your paycheck.  This is how much you are able to spend weekly, whether it is on bills, monthly accounts or on eating at your favorite restaurant.  On a calendar, mark each payment due date.  Develop a weekly budget based on each week’s particular needs.  For large payments, such as mortgages or rent, the amount set aside may need to be shared between various weeks.  You may want to consider a separate bank account for these expenses so you can set that money aside each week in an account you don’t have card access to.
How diving by 52 helps:
Most budgets and budgeting software programs follow a monthly financial breakdown.  By looking at a smaller time period, not only are budget review and revision periods more frequent, but so are the milestones!
Not Waiting… To Save
Try this if… you have a major purchase or event in the next year that you need to save for, but you still have a lot of debt hanging over your head.
How not waiting works:
Add the budget line for savings and make it as big as you need to.  The general rule of thumb is to get out of debt first and then start aggressively saving.  However, part of financial wellness is not accruing new non-secured debt.
Even if you aren’t saving for anything specific, but words like compound interest make you long for financial freedom, then you need to add savings to your budget.  Set yourself up with a small savings that covers you for income loss or emergencies, then return to aggressive debt repayment.
How not waiting helps:
Perhaps you are paying 20% interest on credit card debt and only earning 3% in your savings account, but if you know of large expenses coming up in the near future, ensuring you can cover those without adding addition debt to your burden is just as important as getting out of debt.  Realizing the value of  savings goals and halting new debt is part of a healthy financial lifestyle.  Saving is not something to feel guilty about.
Whatever method you use to get to a budget you can actually keep up, you are on a path to living without debt.  And if you fall off your budget horse again, brush yourself off and get right back up there.  Your future depends on it!

1 Hour Payday Loans

Lately there have been a number of advertisements that have been claiming that their particular company can offer 1 hour payday loans to individuals who may be in need of some fast cash in the form of a small personal loan. These 1 hour payday loans that each of these lenders are promising their borrowers are essentially just your typical payday loan product with the added benefit that they can be disbursed to you as long as you can have your entire application in order and ready to be submitted for approval. The approval and disbursement process is pretty much the same as other sorts of cash advance loans, and in order to get approved by these 1 hour payday loan lenders then you are going to have to have a minimal and consistent monthly income, a checking account that is good standing, and possibly certain kinds of credit qualifications. Once you have these things in check then you should have no problem getting approved almost immediately at these types of payday loan lenders who offer these 1 hour cash advance loans, and normally these lenders will be able to provide you with your money almost as quick as you are approved.

The key to getting the proceeds of your payday loan in 1 hour is to make sure that you have all of the lenders requirements in order before you apply. This will avoid any kind of delays, and it will ensure that you don't have to keep going back and forth while communicating and applying to a particular lender. You don't need to have too many things in check to get approved for one of these 1 hour payday loans, and like was previously said you only need to have a minimal monthly income, a checking account, and perhaps a clean credit report, although the majority of payday loan lenders don't place too much emphasis on the your credit nowadays. When it comes to income, you should make at least around eight hundred dollars per month on average for most payday loan lenders. This can of course vary a bit depending on the lender you apply to, but for the majority of lenders this level of income should be sufficient as long as you can demonstrate that you make that much on a consistent basis.

When it comes to your credit you need to take into account what your credit score is and what is exactly on your credit report. Most 1 hour payday loan lenders do not care too much about your credit score while determining to approve you or not, and they will rather use it as a part of a formula to determine your interest rate and the amount of fees they are going to charge you. Payday loan lenders will often look at your credit report in detail to see if there are any kinds of specific negative marks that they typically frown upon. These include accounts with late-payments, bankruptcies, and delinquent accounts, as they pay special attention to any other similar kinds of loans that you may have taken out over the past five years or so. You may get denied if you have defaulted on any payday loan accounts in the past, and it is therefore imperative that you either put the effort in to resolve such accounts or go out of your way to provide the lender with an explanation as to why you may have defaulted. Once you think that your credit and income are all set then it just a matter of applying to such lenders, and as long as you have submitted a complete application then you should have no problem receiving your money in hopefully less than an hour. Payday loans in 1 hour are a feasible option if you can get things in line on your end and send in a complete application all at once, as well as if you apply to the right sort of 1 hour payday loan lender. Do this and you should expect to hear a response almost immediately and you should then be able to get your money almost as fast as long as you have been approved.