What is a “Small Business” Work Retreat?

It’s difficult to find the balance between work and your personal life in the startup phase of your business. You fear that if you step away for even a minute, the entire enterprise will flounder and fail. The truth is that there is a lot of risk associated with starting a business. And it could not work out. But you will never know for sure unless you put your whole self into it. However, that could lead to burn out.

Entrepreneurs have drive, but this can be what forces them into a state in which they are unable to enjoy simple pleasures, they end up innocently ignoring friends and family, and can’t ever relax. Walking the line between work and play isn’t simple, especially when there is so much to sacrifice on both sides.

This is where the “work retreat” comes in. It’s a chance for the owner to switch gears for a bit, use a different part of their brain, while remaining productive and checking things of his or her list. It’s a small business owner’s version of a vacation without the feeling of guilt and fear that if you aren’t growing, you’re dying.

Here are some things to plan for your “work retreat”:

Accounting with Professionals

If you outsource accounting, most of the time you’ll be communicating with your “guy” online. Look for qualified accounting services in Montreal to grow your business, while also giving you a reason to visit once or twice a year. Set an appointment to discuss ideas, plans going forward, or talk about anything that would benefit from a face-to-face.

Boosting Your Marketing

Marketing ideas require inspiration. Being out and about during a work “retreat” gives you a chance to see your potential audience, observe them, brainstorm ideas and more. Carry around a note-taking device and review your comments at the end of the day, hopefully coming up with something tangible by the end of the week like a campaign or a solution to the marketing block you are currently in.

Getting a Photo Shoot

A photoshoot is always a great excuse to get out to an exotic destination. Plan with a local photographer or bring one along to create some visual content that you can use for the upcoming months. You’ll be “working”, but still experiencing a different scenario than the one you have been stuck in for the last few months.

Finding New Suppliers/Retailers/Partners

Meeting face-to-face and being somewhere in person can really give you a leg up on your business. Whether it’s attending a trade show and looking for suppliers, or visiting potential retail locations, being “on the ground” can give you benefits that an online interaction won’t be able to make up. From feeling materials and seeing them yourself, to shaking hands with an important contact, making a trip can be a great way to combine both business and pleasure.

The day-to-day reality of owning a business is not always sunshine and rainbows. There’s a lot of grinding and a lot of sweat. But by switching gears and going on a “retreat”, not only will your mind have a rest, your business will benefit from the inspiration and tasks that you complete while away.

4 Goals for A Great Retirement

When it comes to retirement planning, you need to do more than figure out how to increase your investments or scale down your expenses; you also need to set some meaningful goals.

Goal setting isn’t something you should do only when you’re trying to climb the corporate ladder or achieve your dream career. It’s something that will also serve you well if you want to enjoy a great retirement.

Without goals, retirement can be challenging. If you have to live frugally, then it’s rewarding to focus on something other than financial affairs. But goals are also important if you have a well-funded retirement, because they let you take full advantage of all the time you now have available.

Bearing in mind the value of goal setting when you retire, here are some worthy goals to consider when you’re planning your retirement:

Goal #1: Provide for your family after you have gone.

Besides creating a will, another way you can provide for you family after you pass away is to get burial insurance. This insurance not only covers the cost of your funeral, but it can also be used to pay other outstanding final expenses like credit card bills, legal costs, and medical expenses. Although the normal purchase range is between $5,000 to $25,000, you can buy coverage up to $50,000. If you review the guide by Policyzip entitled “How Burial Insurance Works,” which can be found under their section on Life Insurance, you’ll discover why this is an affordable way to take care of your last expenses.

Goal #2: Correct Financial Miscalculations

While you can correct financial miscalculations when you retire, it’s best, if you can, to correct them before you retire. Depending on the nature of the miscalculation, you may have more options because you’ll still have a salary. For instance, some financial miscalculations might be not investing enough, investing in a declining sector of the economy, or not diversifying your portfolio.

Goal #3: Find ways to avoid letting your money sit idle

If you’ve been successful in saving a substantial amount for your retirement, you may feel that you’ve taken care of your financial needs. This is a mistake because if you let your money sit in a low-yield account, the rate of inflation will erode its value over time, and this means that it may not be enough to cover future expenses. Explore ways to invest your money, including buying some blue-chip stocks.

Goal #4: Share your wealth of knowledge and experience.

There are probably many things that you could share with others that would enrich their lives. Think about some of the things you have acquired a considerable amount of knowledge about and that others would love to learn. Once you’ve identified what it is that you would like to share, then find some avenues to express your ideas. For instance, you could create instructional lessons on Udemy, give talks at your local library, or start a blog. Depending on what you’re sharing and the avenues you use to share your knowledge, you could monetize your knowledge. For instance, if you’ve worked in the financial sector all your life, you could start a personal finance blog that offers your readers ideas on how to manage their money better. You could then monetize this information by using affiliate links in your blog posts.

To conclude, don’t make the mistake of thinking of retirement as retreating from the world to live a quiet life. If you adopt this attitude, you’ll end up bored and frustrated with all the time you have on your hands. Instead, make some meaningful goals to enjoy your retirement.

How to Improve Your Personal Finance Starting Now

Sure you can pay attention on penny stocks to watch when it comes to investing, but before you go down that road, it’s a good idea to take a look at your overall personal finance to ensure you’re on the right track.  Although it may be decades before you retire, it’s never too early to start preparing, so the better money moves you can make now, will set you up for success in the present and future, the more you can free up extra money.

Check Your Credit Report

With the amount of fraud there is these days you never know who has your info, whether it was stolen at the gas pump, or while you left it out paying a bar tab, even stores and credit bureaus are having information compromised, so it’s a good idea to check to ensure all accounts are up to date and accurate.  The major credit bureaus offer a free copy of your credit report, although you will have to see your credit score on your monthly credit card statements to ensure you continue to trend in the right direction.

Take Advantage of Credit Card Rewards

There are so many credit cards out there these days that you probably get hounded with offers every day.  Instead of putting them directly in the trash or recycle bin, check out the rewards.  By selecting a card with cashback rewards in the form of points or dollars just by making the purchases you would be making anyways, so ignoring this benefit would be leaving free money on the table.  APR is important, but you should avoid carrying over a balance each month as that just leads to debt problems down the road, sometimes making it hard to get out, so it’s best not to even start now.

Reduce Unnecessary Expenses

To really free up extra money you need to reduce your hard-earned dollars that are going out, so that may involve making sacrifices.  A good place to start is avoiding going out to eat and opting for going grocery shopping instead, as preparing meals at home instead of going out or grabbing carrying will have instant savings.  Beyond that, if you are looking to save a hundred or two, you can get rid of cable, that you probably don’t watch many of the channels anyways to necessitate paying every month, where you can go for a streaming service instead, of which you’re probably paying for one now anyways.

Build Yourself a Cushion

You never know what life will throw at you so it’s best to be as prepared as you can be.  If you can put a few months’ worth of expenses in an account to have in case unexpected charges do come up such as car repair, vet bill, or even a job loss, you can avoid putting on a credit card and save yourself from probably going into debt for a while if you’re not able to cover now, and paying back monthly will interest will throw your budget off for sure.

5 Ways to Enjoy Your Spring Break

Spring Break is just around the corner, and for some restless college students, it can’t come fast enough.  Having lived through tough exams, late night cramming sessions and last-minute revisions on papers and thesis, students are eager for a break from studying and from the cold of winter.  For many, heading to the tropical climes or straight to the closest beach is all they can think about.  And while they may have fantasies about fruity cocktails with little umbrellas, string bikinis and partying into the wee hours, the reality is that you have to pay to play.   For too many students, this means using their student loans to fund their trips.  As eager as they may be to frolic on the beach, the sobering fact of more student debt should give them pause.  With a little planning, Spring Break can be a time to refresh your mind and relax your body, catch up with friends and visit family.  Here are five ways to make your Spring Break a social and financial success.

  1. Make your travel plans early – You can save a lot of money and headache when you confirm your hotel reservations weeks before leaving. The earlier you book your rooms, the greater your discount is likely to be.

 

  1. Pool your resources -If you know you’re going to travel with friends, don’t forget to allow for extra luggage, sleeping accommodations and the like. Pool your resources and buy bulk shampoo, and other toiletry items you can divvy up among yourselves.

 

  1. Use a Groupon coupon – Rent a car and drive to your destination.  Driving will cost less than flying, and you can share the expenses with friends.  Not only will you have more control over your experiences along the way, but you can often find places where parking is free.  With a dollar car rental coupon you can save as much as $40 off a weekly rental, and even more when you apply a money saving Groupon to your rental fees.

 

  1. Set a spending limit and don’t exceed it. – Spring Break is a time to get away – but not go crazy.  Remember, what goes up must come down.  When you’re talking about your credit card balance, it can take a long time to pay off a few days’ worth of frivolous spending.

 

  1. Bring your student ID – Not only will you need it to verify your identity, you can get local discounts at many places along the way.

Why HR is Good for Your Business

HR is unfortunately one of the most overlooked and maligned departments in the business world. It’s not hard to see why, when looked at from the top down: the head of HR can never report to a CEO about the revenue they’ve brought into the business this year. They’re focussed on regulations and compliance, so they might find themselves in the position of having tell managers ‘no’ to ambitious plans and instead recommending longer and apparently less efficient courses of action.

Writing them off, however, is a path towards failure and low morale. A business that makes full use of its HR team, and goes to the best HR Executive recruiters for its hires will be at a huge advantage. Let’s look at why.

Employee Development

Run badly, an annual appraisal is simply an awkward conversation that employees have with their managers once a year. Getting it right, however is a vital way to identify problems with your business, find employees who could be tomorrows leaders and retain the talent that makes your business unique.

One of the things that drives employees to leave a business is a feeling of stagnation: if they’re not learning anything, and have nothing to aim for they’re likely to look around for greener pastures where they can develop more skills, more responsibilities and of course a bigger pay cheque.

A well run employee development programme uses regular appraisals to find areas where employees want to grow and allows them to develop those skills in the course of the year so they can achieve those aims. This keeps everyone engaged with your business and prevents attrition from dissatisfied employees.

It can also identify problem managers who may need some development and mentoring themselves. If a whole team is rating themselves poorly, and showing signs of unhappiness, that may in fact be a cue that something is wrong with management rather than the individual employees.

Communication

If you think of your C-Suite Executives as the brain of your business as your brain, and your different teams as limbs, HR is the nervous system that connects them all.

Good communication in your business is what allows everyone to work efficiently towards the same goal. Poor communication means wasted effort and resources, and resentment from employees who feel they aren’t being heard, and for whom the decisions coming down from above are opaque and incomprehensible.

Using your HR team to its full effect means your decisions are communicated clearly and people understood what they are doing and why, so they can work with you happily and productively!

Day Trading Basics: Limit Order and Other Terms

Day trading is an excellent way to figure out how to come back from a terrible cublice job and embrace the real work of capitalism. The essence of capitalism is to acquire capital that will do your work for you. The return on capital is greater than the return on labor, so you should choose capital. Day trading, if you learn the proper strategies and techniuqes is a great way to get capital and put it to work for you.

Limit order is a term which day traders must be familair with. It is essentially and order to buy or sell a stock at a specific price. So, if you want to buy a stock, you can set your limit order to a set price and the order will only happen if the stock hits that price in the exchange. For selling, it is much the same thing. You set your price and the sell limit order will only be filled if the stock reaches that price. These do not guarantee execution of a transaction, but they ensure that a trader does not pay more than a pre-set price for a stock.

When you start out as a day trader, you need to understand terms and concepts like limit order if you want to be successful. Many traders out there start out without much experience in the market and they can get overwhelmed by how complex everything is. There is a stat out there that says 90% of traders lose money. That means that only 10% actually turn a profit.

That 10% has one advantage. They put in the time and effort to get good at day trading. They took classes before they risked their money and they learned strategies like looking for gappers in the early morning. Gappers are stocks whose share price is gapping up above its closing price the day before. These can represent a great opportunity for profit.

Also, when you take the time to learn strategies and attend day trading classes online, you can begin paper trading. That is where you trade virtual currency in a simulated market environment. It is a great way to pracitice day trading without risking any real money. Practicing in a paper trading environment can allow you to get a feel for day trading and the intracacies of risk management, without worrying about risking any real hard money. It is like a video game for day trading.

Once you spend time in a paper trading simulator, you need to work your way up to $200 a day in virtual profits. That is how you get to a level that is acceptable as a day job. Two hundres bucks a day is $52,000 per year. If you can do that in the real stock market, you have a solid place to start from.

But the key is screentime. You need to park yourself in front of monitors in order to learn about the trends and advanced charting that day traders need to understand. Once you get all that downloaded into your system, you can become profitable.

Trading with Tact

Different things attract people to trading. For some it’s the opportunity to minimize their debts with relatively little work, for others it’s a chance to supplement their retirement plan, while still others just enjoy the thrill of it and the shock of adrenaline. Everyone’s situation is also different, as some use their savings, some their extra income, and others consider borrowing money so that they have something to start with, something that we personally don’t recommend.

However, one cannot forget that financial trading comes with risks. There are no guarantees of success and massive or even modest financial gains. Many have been burned before, however those entering the market for the first time might not be fully aware of the implications which come with trading. There are definitely safeguards you should have in place when investing your money, and your trading should have some kind of strategy behind it.

So how do you integrate tact into your trading?

1) Know Your Limits. Play within It.

Who couldn’t benefit from some extra cash? Whether to use for paying down your debts or put towards your dream vacation, success on the market is something we all dream of. However, in order to win you have to take the risk, the questions is always “how much?”. The answer is simple: never play with more than you can afford to lose. If you lost everything you invested, would you be able to recover? If the answer is no, then you are biting off more than you can chew. If you would feel it, yet still be able to exist, then you are probably still within your limit. Also adjust your limits to your comfort level so that you are not driving yourself into a state of constant worry. Your limits are only as good as your nerves are, even if according to your bank account you could play with more.

2) Look for Professional Advice

More and more people are starting to take a hands on approach to trading. However, unless you have a wealth of information on the topic or are willing to invest a lot of time into monitoring, that’s something that you should ease into. For people starting out, it’s a good idea to subscribe to professional recommendations that will make trading much easier. These detailed reports give exclusive tips on how to best invest your money based on your priorities. Others still might benefit from some personal coaching in which a seasoned trading veteran guides you through the initial steps and provides personalized pointers as you encounter your first sets of decisions.

3) Look for Variety

The farmer who first said “don’t put all your eggs on one basket” was a wise man indeed. When investing in stocks, especially at first, it’s a good idea to create variety in your selection. Think about your long term and short term goals simultaneously, addressing them with the investments you have in place. By having a varied selection of stocks, bonds, commodities, and more, you’ll find that you will learn the pros and cons of each while experiencing how the risk levels affect you and your financial situation.

4) Start Small

Don’t be afraid to start small. When initially trading, you don’t need to have a lot of money to see results. Once you feel comfortable with the market and how to respond to different scenarios, you can begin to approach your risk limits and alter your choices to create a portfolio that you will feel confident about.

Trading with Tact doesn’t require a great deal of intelligence or your full-time attention. It does, however, require patience and a willingness to learn from professionals and from experience. When you start small and in an informed manner, you will naturally gravitate towards a varied portfolio that fits your budget. The most important thing is to play within your means to avoid a disaster.

Credit Card Mistakes You Want to Avoid Making

Having a credit card account comes with plenty of responsibility, which is crazy to think that creditors try and lure you in right away at the age of eighteen with free goodies, and once you start using, increase your credit limit until you have virtually an endless amount of spending you can do.  When it comes to credit cards, you do want to make sure you are financially responsible.

Not Using Cards Enough

That may actually sound strange hearing that you could be making a mistake by not using your credit cards, but in fact, the less you use them, the less it is helping your credit score.  As it turns out, the more you use for purchases and pay off your full balance, the more credit will be available, and if you leave your card put away, the creditor could close your account, which could actually hurt your score, reducing your available credit.

Missing Due Dates

Now this should be common sense, and if it’s not, then you should never pay another bill late again.  Not only will your score be virtually ruined if you are thirty days late and show up on your report, but even a day late can cost you a late payment fee, let alone even worse, boosting up your APR so that if you owe a balance going forward, you will have huge interest payments to make before you can chip away at the balance.

Only Paying the Minimum

Making only the minimum payment could hurt your credit score if you are near the ceiling of your credit availability, but more importantly unless you have a 0% APR promotion, paying only the minimum will hardly even cover the interest payment.  That means that depending on the balance of your account, it could take decades to pay off the balance, so that just means that paying even a little over the minimum could reduce the payment plan by ten years!

Maxing out Available Credit

Hitting your available credit wall just puts you in financial turmoil.  If you are charging up your account, that probably means you will not be able to pay off the full balance by the statement due date, at which you will carry over a balance and be charged interest, and depending how much you can pay at once, the balance will remain out there for years until you finally make a dent.  On top of all of this, your credit score will significantly be reduced as it shows you may not be financially responsible.

Closing Accounts with Zero Balance

Sort of along the lines of sounding funny that it may hurt you by not using your cards, the same goes for closing an account.  I certainly understand that you have worked hard to pay down your balance, probably taking years to finally pay it off, only to think you are doing yourself a favor by closing the account so you never get in that mess again.  As it turns out, if you were to keep it open and just cut up the card and never use, you would be doing your credit score more of a service.

Growing Your Wealth in Tough Geopolitical Conditions

“Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the savings of frugality.” – John Tyler

There is no doubt that the global geopolitical and socio-economic uncertainties are beginning to bite into our monthly salaries. This problem is particularly true of the people living in countries that are not as wealthy as first-world countries such as the United States of America and Great Britain, etc. However, rising costs and stagnating salaries are starting to catch all but the wealthiest people in the aforementioned first-world countries.

Geopolitical events: The threat of War looms closer

Unfortunately, I don’t think that this problem is going to resolve itself shortly. Every morning we wake up to the fact that yet another global event such as the fact that Trump has sent naval ships to North Korea. North Korea retaliated by holding a large-scale military parade on Saturday 15 April 2017, showing off a bevy of new missiles and weaponry.  Just a day later, the USA and South Korea have reported that North Korea’s attempted missile launch failed.

Furthermore, we cannot solve these international crises. We can play our part by letting our country’s leaders know that we are not happy about the current global events that are taking place, but that is all we can do. Therefore, the question that begs is how do we survive the current global economic conditions that are brought about by the volatile and unstable geographical regions. Actually, in my opinion, the aim is not only to make ends meet financially, I believe that our aim should be to increase our wealth portfolios.

Growing our wealth portfolios

Before we look at ways to increase our investments and savings, let’s look at what the definition of a wealth is. According to Investopedia.com, “wealth measures the value of all the assets of worth owned by a person, community, company or country… Essentially, wealth is the accumulation of resources. Specific people, organizations and nations are said to be wealthy when they are able to accumulate many valuable resources or goods.”

In other words, our personal wealth is our investments, savings, and assets less our liabilities. Hopefully, over time, our liabilities decrease and our investments, etc. increase. The good news is that there are several ways we can actively pursue our goal of increasing our wealth:

Cut down on monthly expenses

The quickest way to save and invest more money every month is to cut down on you monthly expenses. Ergo, we need to trim all of the fat from our budget to save as much as possible. The practical application of this concept is not as easy as it sounds because it’s easy to get used to a certain standard of living. For example, you might be in the habit of purchasing a new Playstation game every month. Is this purchase necessary? If not, then it’s advisable to cut it out of your monthly budget.

Pay off any outstanding debt as quickly as possible

Apart from cutting down on your monthly savings, it’s advisable to pay more than the minimum amount back on your credit card bills and any other debt that you might have. You can even reduce the number of years that you have to pay for your house by increasing the your monthly mortgage repayments.

Consider investing on the global financial markets

Investing in the global financial markets via one of the conventional trading instruments such as options, CFDs, as well as trading in stocks and bonds are all viable options when considering growing your wealth.

It is, however, vital to note that trading on the world’s financial markets can be a high-risk venture; therefore, it is important to mitigate your risk by educating yourself on the ins and outs of financial market trading as well as researching the price movement trends of the underlying assets that you wish to trade on.

Furthermore, it’s advisable to maintain a cautious outlook especially when the stock markets are volatile and unstable, and it is wise to invest small amounts when you are placing trades. Therefore, should you make the wrong decision, you will not lose your entire investment.

Final words

In conclusion, I believe that it is possible to thrive during tough economic times. It might not be easy; however, if you increase your savings as well as your earning potential, you will not only decrease your debt, but you will grow your wealth portfolio substantially.

Paying with a check or with the credit card?

In credit history, there is an indicator called credit score for rating the solvency. It is calculated in points, which range from 300 to 850. The higher the score is, the higher the rating of the borrower will be. It increases or decreases when credit cards and other products are used.

Money transactions today

It is important to know that when making many transactions (buying on credit, renting real estate and others), the credit history and the credit score are checked, and when verified, the credit score is slightly lowered. The more often it is checked, the lower it falls. This is due to the fact that the client becomes potentially less solvent for possible creditors since payments for a future transaction will fall on his shoulders. But this fact practically does not affect the real possibility to conclude these deals (get a loan, a mortgage, rent a house).

Credit Score takes time to accumulate. And for this, it is not necessary to take loans! You just need to live, managing your finances correctly, like paying rent, utility bills, parking fines, and medical bills on time. Best Credit Cards service to help you chose the card you need. In short, just live and do not spend more than you have to give back. It has nothing to do with loans! It’s just “points of trust”.

In the past, it was like this: people carried cash around with them and paid for everything using it. Then the banks came up with checks. A person could sign a check for any other person, and that person could cash out this check in his or her bank. Even at this stage, the situations began to emerge when the check was issued, but there was no corresponding money on the account! The person simply told the recipient of the check, “cash a check at the end of the month, when I have a salary.”

Depositing money into an account in the USA

You can replenish a bank account in the US in several ways, most of which are known for working with banks in other countries. In addition to the usual depositing of cash in the cashier’s bank or ATM, as well as transferring money from one account to another, in America, a deposit of paper checks is still common. When depositing a check, money is withdrawn from the account of the person who issued the check and is credited to your account.

You can make a deposit of a check in the cashier’s office of your bank, at an ATM, or by photographing it with a smartphone.

When depositing money from a check using the ATM, you need to follow the instructions on screen and place the check in a special receiver – the ATM will take a photo and identify it. If you make a check deposit through a mobile program, it’s also easy, but you need to make sure that the check photograph is clear.

If you came to the branch of your bank with a check, then you will need to fill out a special form. Of course, you can ask the bank officer to do it for you, but it’s better to fill it out yourself.