Bad Debt Personal Loan Advice From Tame Your Debt

Win Some Cool Free Stuff Courtesy Of John Chow And Market Leverage

If you’re interested in personal finance then you may also be interested to hear about a competition for free stuff currently going on at one of my favourite blogs.

Early in May John Chow posted a great post and this video of him opening up a package of gear from affiliate marketing network Market Leverage:

Not only did we get to see how much gear they sent John, but also how intelligently targetted it was for him. Let’s be fair here too - we managed to get a glimpse of the uber-cute Sally.

Well great news - John Chow and Market Leverage are now running a competition where you can win a pack of goodies when you get involved. It’s not the ususal rubbish either of a plastic promotional pen, keyring and so on. No, Market Leverage are a bit more classy than that.

The list includes:

- Flip video camera
- $200 Market Leverage Amex Rewards card
- USB drive that is also a pen
- Ipod Nano

That’s some prize, eh? Just visit John’s blog today to find out how to get involved - and good luck!

Popularity: 24% [?]

Posted in Freebies |

How To Build Your Own Website And Make Money With It

Whilst it is possible to make money on the Internet without a website, it’s far easier when you actually have your own site.

Why is this?

1) Branding - when you have a website you have a “central hub” of your business and customers soon get to know your domain name and hence exactly where they can find you. When I want to buy a book I don’t search for it in Google, I go straight to Amazon. Without their website they’d lose my business.

You can also list your website address on letterheads, on business cards, in articles, in directories and so on so others can quickly learn where to find you.

2) Free Traffic - without your own website it’s far harder to generate free traffic from the search engines and missing out on hundreds or even thousands of potential leads each day is like throwing money down the drain. It’s how I make 90%+ of my monthly income and I wouldn’t be without it for the world.

3) Leverage - when you have your own website you see both repeat visitors and can leverage it by setting up your own affiliate program to draw even more visitors to it. Both of these are difficult to impossible without your own website.

4) Lead Generation - by setting up your own mailing list you can repeatedly market to the same leads and so increase the lifetime value of your leads - and make your marketing more cost-effective.

The easiest way to go about this is to set up a form on your website so people can sign up for newsletters, special offers, product updates etc. from you and this can rapidly build a list of thousands of interested people.

The other way is that the shopping cart you use on your ecommerce website can record the details of everyone who buys from you so you can market to them again in the future.

Having your own mailing list is like being able to make cash on demand. Any time you need extra money you just fire out a message to your list and wait for the sales to come in.

It’s the closest thing to having a perfect business that there is.

5) Contextual Advertising - many webmasters with their own sites earn even more money each month by adding contextual advertising - such as Adsense - to their sites. However this advertising can only be placed on websites you own. None of the “website-free” businesses discussed below will allow you to indulge in this easy, cost-effective business model.

Infact, the truth of the matter is that with developments taking place at such a rate now, having your own website is neither expensive, time-consuming or difficult and many services and pieces of software exist to make having your own website so easy you won’t believe it.

I’ve just found a small set of videos that promises to teach you the simplest way possible to get your own website online - in just 5 steps and at a cost of less than $5 a month.

Below is an outline of the process…

To learn more, simply visit the full how do I build a website tutorial site at www.5DollarsAnd5Steps.com

Popularity: 15% [?]

Posted in Earn More |

5 Money Saving Tips To Help You Survive The Credit Crunch

We all know the feeling of there being too much month left at the end of the money so in this article I thought I’d try and flip it around to find examples of ways in which you can conserve your cash each month so the month doesn’t feel quite as long. After all, with the credit crunch coming and fuel and grocery costs spiralling every day even the essentials are starting to stretch people’s wallets.

1) Make A Budget

It sounds obvious enough but work out a bdget of monthly bills. Even if you only pay some once a quarter or every 6 months, go over the last few bills you’ve had to work out your monthly costs of water, electricity, property tax and so on. For safety add 10-20% on to that figure to account for the rise in costs recently and budget that each month.

In that way, when your $400 electricity bill drops onto the doormat, you’ll be fully prepared because you’ll have predicted that cost, put a little aside each month and will have no troubles meeting your obligations.

2) Switch Household Utilities To Direct Debit

Loan repayments, insurance, gas, water and so on are often cheaper if you pay by Direct Debit so the money comes straight out of your account rather than the supplier needing to wait for a check. Suppliers will often offer you a considerable discount for making their lives easier and guaranteeing your payments. What’s more, paying on a monthly basis rather than every 3 to 6 months makes it easier to budget each month because you only need to put by enough money for that month, rather than consider the future too much.

3) Compare Utility Suppliers

As part of this program, compare your suppliers - from your electricity company to your bank account - and see if there are competing offers that will offer you even better value for money - then make a switch.

4) Consider Non Essentials

We’ve all enjoyed the bouyancy of the markets over the last few years and perhaps got a little “slack”. Expensive dinners out, bigger Christmas gifts than usual, a car that eats fuel etc. Now is the time to reassess your financial outlook much like a business. Consider your incomings and outgoings to see where changes can be made. Be realistic and honest with yourself.

Do you need that expensive car or would a cheaper one do? Could you get your groceries cheaper at another store? Could you cycle more to save fuel? Make this a fun game - to try and save as much money each month as possible *without* it negatively impacting the quality of your life. If you’re like most people, you’ll be able to do quite a bit of cutting before you “feel the pinch”.

5) Sell Unwanted Items On Ebay

Have you got a loft or garange full old stuff you don’t need or want any more? Old books, video games, furniture, toys and the like? Most people have a few hundred to a few thousand dollars worth of “junk” sitting around. Clear out your house *and* riase some additional cash by selling it at a yard sale or on Ebay.

Then put this money aside in a separate account as an “emergency fund”. Having $2000+ sitting in your account doing nothing is a nice feeling of security for you and your family.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Posted in Financial Emergencies |

Debt Settlement Advice

There’s no worse feeling than where you feel you’re slowly drowning in debt. At first it seemed OK. You spent a bit on a credit card and started to pay it off again almost immediately. You took a small loan to help you finance buying that new car you needed to get to work and the payments were well within your means.

Then something happened. You lost your job. Missed a payment. Forgot about a bill. And the next thing you know you’re being chased left, right and centre for money you don’t have.

It’s a dreadful experience but it can happen to all of us at some point in time. I’ve certainly been there myself.

The important thing to remember is to focus your attention on the end game. Don’t fret and stress about your debt - after all that isn’t going to help anyone. Instead, find a solution via one of the various debt settlement companies and allow them to get on with providing you with help with credit card debt so you can get on with your life without worry.

Remember - these are professionals and deal with cases like your every day so you’re in safe hands. NetDebt is just one example of such a company and provides a useful online service where you can quickly see how much you could actually save on your repayments each month.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Posted in Credit Cards |

How To Save Money On Ink Cartridges

Ink cartridges can cost the earth. It’s not unusual for just a small home printer to take cartridges that cost upwards of $40 and some quite a bit more. And you won’t get much ink for all that money either. A few hundred pages later and you’re needing to buy another ink cartridge.

As someone who works on their computer for extended periods of time and prints out a lot of stuff (ebooks, things I’ve written, newsletters etc.) I decided to try looking for a more cost-effective way of running my printing.

The first tip, of course, is to read something on your computer screen if you can to save printing it out at all, but I prefer personally to print things out, kick back and relax in my easy chair while reading something meaty so you’re going to need to drop the cost of cartridges and, if possible, paper too.

Paper is pretty cheap to begin with in all honesty so the only tips here really are:

a) print on both sides of paper so it goes twice as far
b) order it in bulk from office supply companies where you should get a small discount

However the real magic comes in the cartridges. Over time, cartridge refilling companies have cropped up that will save you an arm and a leg. I now get 2 cartridges for just over the cost of 1 original so I’m saving almost 50% on my ink cartridge bill each month. Add in the small paper saving and over a year it turns into quite a monster figure!

Check your yellow pages or do a Google search for “cheap ink cartridges” or “cartridge refilling” to track down a whole load of options.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Posted in Money Saving |