Presignify

Our personality and lifestyles affects our ability to save. Most every action we take (including those not immediately related to buying something) is based on whether we are likely to spend money or save money. We need to change our way of thinking.

Our ability to save money and master our personal finance is strongly controlled by our lifestyle and personality. Are you are having difficulty control your personal finances, where you have tried several different budget programs, taken financial courses, tried to follow the advice in the personal finance books you bought, but you never truly get ahead financially? It’s possibly because when you try to save long-term, you are going against your inherit desire to spend. It’s a personality trait. Are you a saver or a spender? Are you a John Frugal or a William Spendall?

Ask yourself this question: Do you believe you have saved money when you bought the new pair of jeans at 20% off?

No you didn’t! The problems lies with the fact money was spent in order “to save money.” After the transaction, you may have a nice pair of jeans, but you also have less money to your name. The concept of “Saving Your Way to Success” is based on not spending to save or saving to spend but saving to save moneyto save, accumulate and become financially successful. You will never reach financial success if your concept of saving is the “Christmas savings plan” where you save money in order to save money for Christmas shopping. That is not a plan for savingthat is a plan for spending.

This does not mean it’s bad to save money when you buy a new pair of jeans, if you really needed the new pair of jeans. You are being financially savvy if you can buy something at a cheaper price than most people pay. But realize, you are financial worse off, no matter what you paid, because you now have less money. This is especially important if you trying to get out of debt or are in your “infant years” of saving money.

Saving your way to success is about 80% personality and lifestyle and 20% knowledge. You do not need to be a financial guru or study dozens of investment books to become financially successful. It matters little how much we know, if our daily habits and lifestyle work counter to our goals of saving money and accumulating wealth. By saving your way to success, you let your money work for you. But you need to change your habits and lifestyle. Start incorporating saving money into your daily life. You need to start living like a John Frugal and less like a William Spendall.

Start Saving More and Spending Less!

Did you know that 61% of Americans don’t stick to a household budget, yet a record number of personal bankruptcies were filed in the latest fiscal year? (Source: Bottom Line, November 11, 2005, P.11) Why? Because they have the personalities of spendersnot savers!

Start saving money with the goal of accumulating wealth and achieving financial success. Don’t fall into the misconceptions of debt is good, stores sales that entice you to buy, buy, buy, or “save money, buy now” gimmicks, or the traps of “get rich quick” plans. Become financially savvy. Learn how to start thinking like a saver. You should never have to spend money in order to save money, especially if it is money you are saving and accumulating with the idea of achieving financial success.

Start taking action NOW to become a saver, or change yourself into a saver from a spender. If you are more of a William Spendall than a John Frugal, it will take time to change course and form the habit of saving, but you can do it! You can learn more about changing your lifestyle at http://www.savingyourwaytosuccess.com.

Justin P. Ertelt is the author of Saving Your Way to Success, and owner of http://www.savingyourwaytosuccess.com, helping others acheive financial success. Justin can be reached at justin@savingyourwaytosuccess.com. To learn more visit http://www.savingyourwaytosuccess.com.

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A taxpayer can avoid the tax on long-term capital gains by donating the property to a recognized charity. If the sale of the property would result in a long-term capital gain, but the taxpayer donates the property to charity, the taxpayer avoids the tax on the long-term capital gain and also receives a charitable contribution deduction equal to the fair market value of the property at the time of the donation.

A long-term capital gain occurs when the taxpayer sells or exchanges a capital asset that the taxpayer has held for more than one year for an amount that exceeds the asset’s adjusted basis (usually cost). Most long-term capital gains are taxed at a maximum rate of 15 percent. This rate is much lower than the maximum 35-percent rate that applies to ordinary income.

However, a taxpayer can avoid even the 15-percent tax rate on a long-term capital gain by contributing the property to a recognized charity. In such a case, the taxpayer does not have to recognize the gain. In addition, the taxpayer may deduct the fair market value of the property as a charitable contribution.

For example, assume that a taxpayer bought land for investment two years ago at a cost of $6,000. The land is now worth $16,000. The taxpayer donates the land to a recognized charity. The taxpayer does not have to recognize the $10,000 ($16,000 - $6,000) long-term capital gain. In addition, the taxpayer may deduct $16,000 as a charitable contribution.

The deduction for charitable contributions of an individual is generally limited to 50 percent of the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income (AGI). However, for contributions of long-term capital gain property, the limit is 30 percent of the taxpayer’s AGI unless the taxpayer elects to deduct only the adjusted basis of the property rather than its fair market value.

The taxpayer may carry over any charitable contributions that exceed the annual limit to the next five tax years. The current year’s contributions are deducted before any contributions carried over from a prior year.

If the property is tangible personal property, such as a work of art the taxpayer had purchased, the charitable contribution deduction is limited to the taxpayer’s adjusted basis in the property. The taxpayer may not deduct the fair market value of such property if it exceeds the property’s adjusted basis. In addition, the deduction for contributions of property to private nonoperating foundations is limited to the adjusted basis of the property.

If the property is ordinary income property or property the sale of which would result in a short-term capital gain, the deduction is also limited to the adjusted basis in the property. However, the taxpayer would not have to recognize the appreciation as a gain.

Taxpayers should not donate property to charity on which they would realize a loss if they sold the property. The deduction for the charitable contribution would be limited to the fair market value of the property, and the taxpayer would not recognize the loss. The taxpayer would achieve a more favorable tax result by selling the property to realize the loss and contributing the cash proceeds to the charity. Of course, losses on the sale of personal use assets such as clothing are not recognized.

While the deduction of net capital losses of an individual or married couple is limited to $3,000 a year, the taxpayer may carry over any unused net capital losses to future tax years indefinitely.

The ability to contribute long-term capital gain property to a charity to avoid the tax on the long-term capital gain while deducting the fair market value of the property as a charitable contribution is a great tax planning strategy. Taxpayers who want to contribute to charity should seriously consider using this strategy.

However, the tax law has numerous exceptions and limitations. Therefore, a taxpayer should consult a competent tax professional before donating any significant amounts of property to a charity.

Alan D. Campbell is a CPA in Arkansas and Florida and is self-employed primarily as an author of tax publications. He earned a Ph.D. in accounting with an emphasis in taxation from the University of North Texas. He is also admitted to practice before the United States Tax Court. He has published numerous articles on tax topics in professional journals. He is the co-author of the book Tax Strategies for the Self-Employed and the revision editor of CCH Financial and Estate Planning Guide, 15th edition. For more tax savings strategies, please see his blog: http://taxsavingsstrategies.blogspot.com

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Staying in contact with your payments each month can help you
avoid bad credit. If you research the marketplace before coming
to a purchasing decision, you are well on your way to avoiding
bad credit and repair credit hassles.

You want to consider all applications, including credit cards,
student loans, mortgages, and car loans carefully to avoid being
overcharged. Making the wise decision ahead of the game is the
ultimate solution to maintaining good credit.

Most people when taking out a home mortgage loan are not aware
of the options available to them. Many will walk in the bank
door, fill out the application, and accept the terms &
conditions when offered to them.

If you ever heard the many reports that swept the pages of
newspapers, television and other advertising sources…families
and individuals are filing bankruptcy because they cannot afford
their homes anymore.

This is because these people did not take the time to check the
marketplace first and searching the options available to them.
As you can see, the millions reported are in debt and searching
for a way to repair their credit. The solution then to avoiding
bad credit and repair is to research, invest wisely, make good
decisions, and budget.

Being informed and educated is two of the best tools offered to
us. There are mortgage loans that offer overpayments and
underpayments and these loans include vacation packages and lump
sum payments to the borrowers.

There are also other loans available that offer low mortgage
monthly installments and low interest rates with insurance
policies attached that will pay your mortgage if you are sick,
unemployed, in an accident and so on. On the other hand, there
are mortgage loans that have high interest rates, high
mortgages, and balloon payments attached.

When balloon payments are attached to home mortgages it is
almost guaranteed in a few years you will be searching for a
solution to repair your credit. There are very few home lenders
willing to tell you the truth about the variety of home loans
available.

Most of the lenders are making money and you are a source of
income. It is important to scope the terms & agreements
carefully as well as reading all fine prints on any loan
contract before you sign. If you want to avoid bad credit and
repair, you want to stay on the right path.

Loans are agreements that are made between two parties and
attached are interest rates and other fees. If you are applying
for a home loan and want to avoid bad credit, it makes sense to
learn what the fees include and how much those fees are. Anytime
you take out a mortgage loan there are upfront fees attached.

In some cases, you can get a home for little or no cost.
Searching the marketplace can save you time and money.

Some home loans offer an ‘acceleration clause’, which covers you
if you miss mortgage payments. The lender will apply the clause
by allowing you leniency providing you make payments the
following month on time. This type of loan is great for avoiding
bad credit, foreclosures, and repossessions.

The marketplace is swarming with realtors and other sources that
will help you get a mortgage loan affordable to you with
benefits included.

Car Loans If you are applying for a car loan, it is also
important to research the marketplace carefully before agreeing
to any terms & conditions. Make sure that your find the best
deals affordable to you.

College Loans College I learned a golden rule that applies to
everyone. This rule is that most car dealers up the fees on cars
15%. This means if you negotiate with the dealer you can get a
reduction on the vehicle up to 15%.

Credit Cards Another word of advice is when applying for credit
cards you want to sway away from cards that have fees attached
and high interest rates. Avoid credit card offers that have
upfront fees offer a high line of credit.

Student Loans You also need to consider student loans. You may
be qualified for a student grant from the government. This is
the first place you want to start before committing your self to
a loan agreement.

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Checks are negotiable instruments asking a bank to pay a specific amount of money from a specific account to a bearer or payee. The account is ideally in the depositor’s name with the bank. The depositor or check maker and the payee can be either natural persons or legal entities. A check must contain all the features to be considered valid. Check number, account number, MICR, date of issue, payee, amount of currency, and signature of drawer are the basic pre-requisites of a check. A check is usually valid for six months after the issue date unless indicated otherwise. However, the validity may vary in different countries.

Checks come in several types. In the U.S., checks are regulated by the Uniform Commercial Code, Article 3. Two very common types of checks are order checks and bearer checks. An order check is payable only to the named payee or his endorsee. It begins with “Pay to the order of”. A bearer check is payable to anyone who is in possession of the document. Such a check usually does not specify a payee and is payable to bearer or “To the order of cash”. This type of check is payable to someone who is not a person or legal entity. When checks are drawn from savings and loan association, they are called “negotiable order of withdrawal”. If checks are cashed from a credit union, they become share drafts.

Checks are used to pay wages also. Such instruments are referred to as payroll checks. A check sold by a post office or merchant such as a grocery for payment by a third party for a customer is called postal order or money order. If a check allows the person signing it to make an unconditional payment to someone as a result of paying the account holder for that privilege, it is referred to as a traveler’s check. Such a check can be replaced in case of theft or loss and are very popular with travelers.

Checks provides detailed information on Bad Checks, Bank Checks, Business Checks, Check Cashing and more. Checks is affiliated with Check Cashing Business.

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Aril 28, 2006
As you are well aware, we live in financially challenging times. If you do not agree with this statement, don’t bother to keep reading this article.

Times are changing, the financial market is up, it’s down - a roller coaster. Gas Prices just hit $3 per gallon in the US. Your salary stayed the same.

Have you heard the expression: Money is the root of all evil?

No, it is not money that is evil. Money is neutral, it is a barter item so that we can buy the things we think we cannot live without. Money is also a symbol: a symbol of appreciation, a gesture.

So why do we say that “money’s the root of all evil”? because it is the negative emotions around money that are evil: greed, avarice, an obsession of power etc. Wouldn’t it be better if we said “The love of money is the root of all evil”?

So what really is money?

To many people in this world, money is energy, just as life is.

Money is also a feeling: feeling of wealth, feeling of security, feeling of success. Money can also be a feeling of importance and a feeling of power.

In other words, money is important. We need money to eat and cloth ourselves. We need money to communte to work; pay our employees; invest in the stock market to make more money (or loose it if we buy unwise)

Money = abudance. Abundance is natural. There is a difference between being aware of our natural abundance and owning a good portion of it. Many well-know speakers explain it as the art of controlling your energy and manifesting your thoughts and ideas. Most of us are not well aquainted with this idea of having to manifest in order to achieve.

Manifesting is really a innermost wish. And most people on earth wish formost for ……

Abundance, Wealth, Financial Freedom

So how do we achieve this? We need to be close to money. Often our relationship to money follows a push-pull or love-hate pattern, similar to our human relationship (s).

Naturally, the closer you are to a person, the more likely you are to be able to receive what they have to give. It is very similar to your financial situation: the closer you are to money, the more likely you are to receive plenty of it. You must be intellectually, emotionally and physically ready in order to receive abundantly.

Many people resent money because they feel life hasn’t been fair to them, that they worked hard and haven’t received as much as they should have - or they are paid less than other people with inferior qualities to them. Is that you?

Change your thought pattern. Rather than blaming others or displaying your unease, lack, anger about money, begin to own your feelings. Understand where you want to go, what you are trying to achieve. Ask yourself: “Do I have enough information about the marketplace, the deal, the j.o.b, the particular area of creativity, the person I want to be involved in(with)?”

In order to answer this question, you may have to go beyond your own resistance, shyness or inhibition and start looking at your goal.

In other words
-know what you doing
-be aware of of what’s or who is up or down
-know what’s happening and what isn’t

Money is important because it is a symbol of your mastery and comprehension of life’s great journey.
# # #

Lorilyn’s life has been up and down, just like the stock market. She finally realized that money isn’t all, it is a good portion. She always says: You can’t feed the poor without money to buy the food. After many struggles she has become money wise and shares her thoughts and experience. Come back soon to other articles at www.drkbfinance.com

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The price of domestic gas and electricity has been a regular topic in the UK press over the last couple of weeks and for good reason. The current round of price increases that have just come into effect from many of the big utility companies have hit many people hard, not least the elderly and the lower wage earners. It is estimated that those who remained with their original supplier are now paying 20 - 30 percent more for their domestic fuel than those who have switched. With the current 14.2% extra added to the bill, and with the figures banded around that British Gas has lost nearly half a million customers this year alone, it is no surprise that the British public are saying enough is enough. Privatisation and deregulation was supposed to put an end to the exorbitant prices these monopolies once could charge, but from where I stand, loyalty only seems to be rewarded by fleecing. New customers of these giant utility companies are treated preferentially to get them on board but only for a very short period before they too are moved to the ’standard rate’ higher charges.

So the answer for the savvy consumer is to shop around - but therein lies another problem. Phoning around for quotes or visiting showrooms (those that are left) is time consuming. Very time consuming… and also challenging in so far as making the comparisons between all the different tariffs and options available. Hence, many are using the internet to do their searching. Typing “gas and electricity comparison” into a search field such as you’ll find on the Yahoo! homepage brings up plenty of sites claiming to make an ‘independent’ comparison. Probably the best known of these is Uswitch.com. I’ve read several articles recently in leading national papers extolling the virtues of these ‘independent and unbiased websites’ and how they “give you a completely impartial and objective assessment that leads to recommending the absolute best deal for you”.

But please, before you go off and start entering all your personal details into one of these online services, I implore you to stop and think just for one minute. How do you suppose these huge sites - that take a lot of man-hours to continually update and maintain - make their money? As a general rule, they don’t have lots of advertising banners plastered all over each page so they must get their revenue from elsewhere. And, yes, just like most other advisers or consultants, they get it from commissions. These are paid by the big corporate utilities to these ‘independent’ websites for each consumer that switches to them through the website.

Doing a little research by typing in exactly the same details, I found that different comparison websites produce different results even when they list the same companies! Clearly some of these websites are getting bigger commissions by recommending me certain deals over others. As well as having a tendency to recommend the deal that best suits them, they also only list ones that they can get a commission for, which mean not all of them list every option available for the individual consumer. Hardly independent and impartial! For instance, none of them list the Utility Warehouse and only a relatively few list Equipower/Equigas as neither of these providers will pay commissions to comparison website owners.

Yet for the vast majority of the British population, the Utility Warehouse are by far the best option provided you are happy with paying by Direct Debit. They guarantee to be the cheapest gas and electricity supplier in the UK for normal usage customers. Those on very low usage who can pay quarterly by cheque may find Equipower a better option. My advice is dig a bit deeper and you’ll discover more deals than these comparison websites have to offer. But that comes back to time and effort… two valuable ‘commodities’ most of the general public aren’t willing to use just to get lower bills.

So let me help you by leaving you with my research conclusions:
If you are like the vast majority of households in the UK on standard average or high usage, check out the Utility Warehouse guaranteed cheapest gas and electricity tariff! You’ll need to apply through one of their representatives - a good one can be found at www.cheapest-gas-supplier.co.uk or www.cheapest-electricity-supplier.co.uk .
If you are on a very low usage, then you may want to check out the Equipower/Equigas scheme by going to their website at www.ebico.co.uk .

Getting the cheapest gas and electricity shouldn’t be such a trial… but then again maybe that is what the big utility companies are relying on! Too bad you and I now know differently…

Article written by Rudi Ashdown and first posted at
my internet marketing articles website.
For a direct link to the cheapest gas and electricity in the UK:
go to the http://www.gas-electricity-comparison.co.uk webpage.

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Nobody likes paying taxes, so the procrastination factor when
preparing them tends to be high. But the good news is that there
are some things you can do now that will help you prepare for
next years taxes. Here are seven great tax saving tips so that
you can keep more of your hard earned dough!

1. Pay your January 1st mortgage payment a day early. If you
mail out your mortgage check on December 31st, the interest
deduction for that month will be good for the current year. This
is true even if the check doesn’t get cashed until after the new
year.

2. Make a last minute donation. Under that same philosophy,
consider putting any last-minute charitable donations on your
credit card (for those that will allow it) on or before December
31st.

3. Defer that income one more day. This works with investments
as well as earned income. If you get a year end bonus, request
that it come in January rather than in December. If you are self
employed, you can do all your billing at the end of the month so
that the payments will come in after the first of the year. In
regards to investments, some will allow you to postpone paying
taxes until a later year even if the income is earned this year.

4. Look for every available credit and deduction. This tax
saving tip seems obvious, but people miss deductions and credits
that apply to them all the time. A credit is a dollar-for-dollar
reduction in any amount you might owe, so the effects of having
one or two of them on your return can be dramatic.

5. Donate your old clothes and furniture to your favorite
charity. Cleaning out the attic, the closets, that spare room,
and the garage is not only purifying but will help to decrease
your taxes. Put everything together and then take the load to
your favorite charity or charities. Make sure to get a receipt
for your records. The wholesale fair market value of the items
you donated is allowed as a charitable deduction.

6. Give your kids a job, in other words, put them on the
payroll. If you have kids, and they are over fourteen, you can
have them do some work for you around the house and pay them on
a part time basis. That will allow you to shift some of your
income that would be taxed at a higher tax bracket to their
lower tax bracket. However there is one warning; watch their
earnings because they will be considered when they get ready to
go to college and their financial aide could be affected.

7. Invest in your children’s names. Your kids can each earn up
to $700 in investment income without paying any taxes if they
are over fourteen.

As painful as taxes and any related thoughts of them can be, by
following these great tax saving tips, you will save money this
year–and the next. One final tip; don’t procrastinate until the
last minute! Preparing for your taxes year round will force you
to keep your eyes open for saving possibilities, and will likely
reduce your tax bill even more!

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