Make Money

7 Ways to Boost Your Retirement Income

April 20th, 2008 by monies

Retirement contributes almost 1/3 of a person’s life. It is for this reason that retirement should be given preparation and planning. Many Americans forget to save or just ignore their retirement. It’s very easy when you are young to think you have time to consider retirement later. However, the years roll by quickly and you can find yourself approaching middle age with no plan in place.

You need to start now and think of better ways to prepare for that time. It doesn’t mean that money will also retire once a person has retired. Here are some ways on how you can boost your retirement income:

1. Start saving now. It is never too late to start saving even for a little amount of money. When you save money, make it as untouchable as possible. Allocate your cash on your savings starting today and you will be surprised by the amount of money you will have by the time you retire if you start now.

2. Make a review of your finances and revise your budget. Reviewing your expenses will help you analyze where you spend your money the most. This will help you to cut your expenses and eliminate the things that you do not really need. This also teaches you on how to choose your priorities and weigh the things that really matter in your lifestyle. If golf is something that you can live without, why not allocate the money you spend on golf in your savings?

3. Review your insurance terms. Increasing your deductibles will help you cut your premiums to 20%. Do not count on Social Security or your pension plan.

4. You may want to make a quarterly payment on your taxes instead of being automatically deducted from your retirement distributions. You can also seek the help of a tax advisor regarding this issue.

5. Consider where you take your distributions. You may want withdraw funds from your Social Security first, then your taxable investments like the IRA. The main purpose here is that you should be able to cover your monthly expenses, lessen your tax fees and save as much money as possible.

6. Research investments that are intended for retirement. There are establishments that offer an investment while in retirement. You may want to get involved with with-profit bonds, stock market bonds, individual savings account, distribution bonds, and venture capital trusts.

7. Make use of your company plans. If your current company offers retirement services and then consider contributing the maximum amount. This will help you take advantage of pre-tax contributions.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Top 7 Money Making Ideas To Make Easy Money Online

April 19th, 2008 by monies

If you are looking for ways to make easy money online, here are the top 7 money making ideas you may consider.

1. Create Website or Make Blog

By sharing your knowledge, expertise, hobbies, experience and interests, you can build a successful web site or blog with little amount of investment, as low as having an internet connection only. You don’t even need to be a webmaster, a geek or techie to build your own. You just need to understand and be familiar with the basics of creating web site or blog, which include domain name, web host, page template or layout, content and basic HTML codes.

Having your own web site or blog, you can easily make money by selling your own or others’ stuff and ad space. There are so many online opportunities that you can make money with. In addition to that, there’s no limit on the amount of income you can make with your own web site or blog.

2. PPC Advertising or Marketing

PPC advertising is another easy money making idea that you may use to make money online. PPC advertising is a keyword bidding for as low as $0.01. If you’re the highest bidder of the keyword enter by the user into the search engine query box, your ad will the no. 1 on the list of the sponsors on the search engine results page (SERP).

With PPC advertising, you can make money online without the need to create your own web site or product. You just need to have a credit card and budget of as low as $5 to pay for the clicks on your ad at the bid price. If you have these requirements, join affiliate programs that allow PPC advertising and find a saleable product with a convincing landing page.

Then, open an account with PPC advertising site, create a compelling ad and bid on low-priced keywords relevant to the stuff you’re promoting. Just don’t forget to compare the cost of the total clicks against the commission you’ve earned. Based on your analysis, tweak your ad and keywords or change the product you’re promoting.

3. Online Games

If you know how to play popular games like chess, scrabble, backgammon and many more, you will surely have fun making money with online games. This kind of program allows you to choose your game and your opponent on the net.

The money you make is based on the pot money agreed by you and your opponent. There are also tournaments that being held and offers huge prizes to the winners but these could be tough as you will be competing with a large number of players around the world.

4. Internet Auction

This is also a great money making idea that does not need to create your own web site. You just need to have your own product and a free internet auction account. You may have your own product by buying resale rights stuff and through joining a dropshipping program.

With resale rights, you may resell the product you purchased. In dropshipping, you promote the product and when someone has placed an order, you receive the payment. Then you order from your contact dropship merchant who will deliver the item directly to your customers.

When you’ve got or sourced your product, open an account with eBay or other auction site and make a compelling sales and bidding page.

5. Personalized Products

This money making idea is best suited to people who are creative. This type of money making program offers everyone to design various products in any way they want and pays commission on the products sold.

There are lots of products available that people may put their personalized design. You are also provided with online shop where you can promote, display and sell these personalized products at the price you set. The mark-up you’ve earned from sale will be paid to you on agreed date.

6. Domain Names

This is a simple money making idea of collecting domain names and make money without posting any content. There are programs that offers pay per click advertising revenue while your domain names are parked with the author of the program. Through the scheme, you may also get some offers from interested buyers.

The strategy here is to choose profitable domain names with .com as top-level-domain. Many internet users just type the domain name of non-existing website, which they think as live. There are other strategies to select a domain name that makes money.

7. Freelancing Jobs

If you possess skills in writing, web design, web building, programming and other freelancing or online skills, this money making idea may apply to you. There are websites that allow people and companies post their one-time job requirements or projects and let the freelancers make an offer or bid for the job.

Final Thoughts
I suggest that you primarily consider making your own web site and/or blog. With established web site, making money is easy. Consider other money making ideas as your secondary source of income.

by: Efren A.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

How to make a marketing campaign appealing?

April 14th, 2008 by monies

Marketing campaigns cannot survive if they boring. Everyday there are more than three thousand marketing messages reaching out to the customers and it is really a huge competition if one expects to be recognized among the crowd. This message should talk to the customer and influence his mind. Strong, creative, confident and exciting are the key factors that a message should have, as that will embed it into the customer’s thinking and he remembers it for a longer time. The customer should feel empowered and should think of taking some action right away. For instance Nike’s catch line is Just do it, it’s a line that has such a great impact on the minds of the people that they use that line even when talking about everything else, along with Nike products. It is obvious that by adding certain features, the marketing appeal can be multiplied.

Scientists agree to the fact that using visuals to make a person learn something is the best option than any other means and as one of the famous saying goes “a picture speaks a thousand words”. So the best bet is to add visuals to promote marketing. Visuals can be anything like pictures, animations, or graphics. See yourself what wonders it does by placing a picture of a representative and products on the company’s website. This not only brings the customers close but also strengthens the relationship.

Different colors depict different types of emotions. Messages can be delivered to people suing colors and meaning can be added to it. Red and blue are colors liked by aggressive shoppers where as yellow color can catch good attention of the on lookers. Green reflects health, money and nourishment, so it can be used in food advertisement. Black means strength and power that is why it has been used by Jaguar, on their website background and advertisement. Wealth and royalty means purple. Colors used on business cards can also be used to attract the customers. But the colors should be carefully played with, too much can be distracting. A professional help can be sought when selecting colors for business cards, website font, website background, logo, etc., to send the right message. On websites, fonts can be added which change colors and graphics that move.

There are lots of options available when thinking of what technology to use. The good news is that most of the options are cheap and easy to use. Audios and videos can be added to your website to attract attention. Like when one visits the Pepsi homepage, they are greeted with energetic music, which attracts teenagers instantly. To make a more realistic approach, welcome message, introduction video, interviews, or how the goods are produced, can be added to the website. Hearing a voice can be very touching and a rapport can be immediately developed with the visitor. Like Adidas’ website opens with a video which truly fits their punch line, Impossible is nothing.

Business cards should be outstanding and at its creative best. Professionally designed graphics can be added to a brochure type of card. Information about the company, contact information, quotations, and picture can be added on four sides of it. The fonts should be the same.

Just listing the benefits isn’t enough. Customers want more, they want their needs to be met. Like if some is thinking of buying an exercise equipment, don’t just say that the machine has display, automatic incline, cooling device, CD player, programs, but also add that there is a program with audio instructions which encourages the person to do exercise, which is meant for people who need real motivation to get out of their couch and to start sweating out. So convey exactly why the customer should use the product, be more precise.

Uniqueness is the biggest key factor. Not only should the products and services be unique, the marketing campaign should be unique too. Not only will the effort be appreciated but also the impression will be everlasting. Once faith of customers is gained, they will be like free walking advertisement and will spread the word to their friends and acquaintances like anything.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

No More Poverty for Writers – Making Money with a Blog

April 9th, 2008 by monies

Writing is one of those careers where you would either make it big or end up in poverty. The difficulties of finding a publisher to print and sell your novel or a magazine to take in your column cannot simply be described. Luckily, this image of a writer may already be a thing of the past, thanks to the recent technological advancements.

While in the old days, individuals in the writing profession had to rely on other people to earn; today’s writers can now generate an income out of their craft by turning their passion into business. Hard as it may sound, this endeavor can indeed be an easy-to-achieve possibility with the use of blogs. Surprising, as it may seem, you can indeed be making money with a blog by just whipping up your hidden writing talent.

Whether you are new to the world of blogging, or you have been typing your entire life on the Internet for years, making money with a blog is a possibility that you can accomplish. Here are some few tips that could help you do so:

1. Earn using Google - What was once just a search engine is now among the most powerful enterprises throughout the world, not only in terms of its reach, but also in terms of its income generating possibilities. You can earn from Google by using their free service known as AdSense. All you need to do is have a blog and sell space within your page for ads to be posted by AdSense. The service would then allow you to display ad units – ad boxes – that would display advertisements related to the topics you write about in your blog.

For instance, you wrote about the sweater you just knit, and then the ad unit might display ads about sweaters or knitting. Every time your visitors click on any of these ads, you would get a certain amount. When your earnings reach at least a hundred dollars, Google would then send you a check.
2. Promote Other Profitable Sites- a lot of online businesses offer affiliate programs. These work by you having their ads posted on your blog. When a visitor clicks the ad and then purchases something from that company, you would then receive a commission or a referral fee. A lot of the bigwigs of Internet shopping run such programs including Amazon.com, LinkShare, and Lands’ End, among many others. The percentages you can earn from their sales vary depending on the company’s policies.

3. Be an Ad Salesman – The downside of Google ads and affiliate programs is you do not really have much control on your earnings and the ads that are displayed on your blog. If you want to play more seriously in the ad selling game, then you can use BlogAds’ free databases where you can set prices for advertisers to post your blog. Some companies look for blogs that match their products and services and rent ad space the way they do with those traditional billboards you find along the freeway. You ad space can then be leased for a certain period of time. You would just need to pay 20 percent of your earnings to BlogAd.

4. Pass the Hat – While begging may not be so attractive as a means of getting many, doing it in style – online, that is – could be quite appealing, and not to mention profitable. There is nothing wrong about asking for money, and you could indeed make money if you ask nicely or if people like you (and your blog).

Many blogs have donation buttons on them. And true enough, many avid fans and visitors may be willing to share some of their wealth to you as a sign of appreciation for your well-written, compelling, and riveting blog. Donation buttons may be availed from PayPal, the famous escrow service, who would get a little out of your earnings when people do decide to spare some change. Similar options are offered by Amazon (Honor System) and BitPass

5. Start a Gift Shop – if your blog becomes popular enough that hoards of people all over the world visit it everyday. Then you may then profit from selling souvenirs. And the good news is you would not have to press your logo on those T-shirts or coffee mugs, CafePress would do it for you. CafePress offers to sell for you anything from those cute buttons to daring thongs. The selling price is up to you; you just need to pay them the base price of the products.

Making money out of a blog is not as hard as it seems. But of course like in any other moneymaking venture, you have to do your job and do it well. Soon enough your days as a poverty-stricken bard would be over.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Money: Building societies can make mistakes too

January 31st, 2008 by monies

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is not a view shared by many thousands of their customers who find that “cuddly mutuals” can, at times, deliver service that is just as appallingly bad as the publicly-listed banks they try to distinguish themselves from.

So what happens if you want to complain about your building society? The Building Societies Ombudsman’s office is the place to go.

Established in 1986, the office has a staff of 35, many of them lawyers. The Ombudsman is Brian Murphy, a solicitor who worked in private practice for many years The service, provided free to complainants, is funded by the building societies. All societies are required by Parliament to belong to the scheme. Its annual operational budget is just over pounds 1.5m. How independent is the Ombudsman? Of the so-called “final decisions” made by the office, approximately two thirds favour societies and one third back consumers, a similar batting average to most other Ombudsmen.

Most complaints are from personal members of a society, but the Ombudsman will deal with companies, firms, clubs or associations with a turnover not exceeding pounds 1m. However, the aggrieved customer is first urged to approach the society to attempt to resolve the issue through its internal complaints procedure. This normally takes six weeks.

Complainants can write to the Ombudsman first, but his office will just pass the letter on to the society. Should a stalemate ensue, a letter confirming that the internal complaints procedure has been exhausted should be obtained and sent to the Ombudsman. His office will then forward a complaints form for completion and return. The Ombudsman will not deal with a complaint if:

t It is about general creditworthiness;

t It relates to a society’s general policy;

t A court or another ombudsman is involved;

t Or it is without substance or clearly has no reasonable prospect of success.

Additionally, he may refuse to help if over six months has elapsed since the complainant became aware of the matter. Furthermore, his powers to deal with membership rights are extremely limited with regards to conversion to a bank, mergers or takeovers.

The Ombudsman’s terms of reference only permit him to consider a complaint if it is about “a service of a kind which is provided by building societies for individuals in the ordinary course of business”. Conversion in itself does not fall within this category.

Even so, for the year ended March 1998, nearly 47 per cent of the incoming workload related to conversions. Although his office cannot challenge the fairness of the terms for issuing shares, he can investigate actions by the society which resulted in the member not receiving the windfall. These may be the failure to update address records, resulting in a member not receiving the details, or failing to explain that the account opened would not qualify for any windfall.

With five large conversions in 1997, six lawyers worked almost exclusively on this subject. Of the 7,204 complaints conversion complaints received, 2,391 became cases. This placed a considerable strain on the office and, by the end of March, 1,551 cases, nearly half of which related to conversion, were outstanding.

The office initially attempts to resolve any complaint by conciliation. If this fails, the Ombudsman examines the papers and issues a “preliminary conclusion”, on which both parties are asked to comment. If the matter is still not resolved, the Ombudsman issues his “final decision”.

The complainant has to reject or accept this. If it is accepted, both parties are normally bound by it, but if rejected there is no right of appeal. However, the complainant’s legal rights remain unaffected. Societies are bound by the Ombudsman’s decision unless they take the “publicity option”. This route has only been taken twice. The society then has to publish its reasons for not conforming to the Ombudsman requests.

The Ombudsman can make awards up to pounds 100,000. The average time for resolving cases is 4.8 months. Of the 15,473 initial complaints received to the year ended March 1998, 7,204 related to conversions; 4,306 to mortgages and 2,183 to investment and banking. Of the total, 4,519 were outside the terms of reference, and a staggering 10,187 did not proceed, primarily because complainants did not respond to requests for further information. Only 934 cases were resolved by the society’s internal complaints procedures, while the Ombudsman resolved 1,548.

For `A Guide for Applicants’ contact: The Office of the Building Societies Ombudsman, Millbank Tower, Millbank, London SW1P 4XS (0171 9310044)

Author: John Andrew

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Why money makes the world go round

January 30th, 2008 by monies

Playing swapsies Money has not always been about coins and notes.

In the old days, thousands of years ago, the way you paid for something was by “bartering”, or swapping.

Just like today, people had different skills. Some were very good at making clothes or tools. Others were good at gardening: they could grow lots of tasty fruit and vegetables.

A few people might be excellent hunters: they had the sharpest spears. Or they could hit a target with an arrow better than anyone else.

Then there were those who might not have a special skill. But they could work hard. So they would offer to work for someone in return for food, or clothing, or a roof over their head.

If you wanted something, like potatoes or a chicken, you had to swap it with something you had, maybe a woollen shirt, or an animal skin to keep warm in winter.

Bartering worked well as long as everything you needed was easy toget hold of when you wanted it. And you didn’t need that many thingsto live on.

But things could get complicated. If you all lived far from each other, you would have to carry your things to one friend’s house, then the other, swapping every time. They would all have to do the same.

What would happen if you woke up one morning and you fancied a pizza and an ice cream for supper instead of potatoes? That’s a load of extra bartering!

And what happens if you don’t have anything the ice cream seller wants? Maybe one of your friends does. But then you have to make more and more journeys, carrying out clever swaps. Then you would be too tired to enjoy what you have.

Money is a way round that. If everyone uses money, life becomes easier.

Question: Here is a list of three things:

A chocolate biscuit, A large plastic bottle of your favourite drink, A CD of your favourite pop band or singer.

Which costs more? Why might that be?

The first money What kinds of things were used for money in the old days?

Just like today, people needed to have something that they could carry easily with them. It couldn’t be bulky or heavy. At first, it had to be rare or valuable enough so that other people might accept it in exchange for what you wanted.

In many parts of the world, silver or gold was used. Often they were stamped, sometimes with the head of the local ruler.

This was to show that they were “official” coins. Therefore, the amount of gold or silver in each one was exactly the same as in all the other ones you might have in your purse.

Not everyone used coins. In the islands of Fiji, in the Pacific Ocean, whales’ teeth were used as money.

In parts of Africa, salt was used because it was very rare. It could also be used to make some food, like meat, last longer.

In ancient Britain, sword blades were used. Metal was very hard to come by and turning it into a sharp blade was even more difficult.

In ancient Greece, iron nails were used for a similar reason: they were both rare and sought-after to build strong houses.

Question: Think of three things you might use as money if coins were not around.

Would anyone want what you have to offer?

The bank note Bank notes only came along much later. Do you know why?

If you ask your mum or dad, or a teacher, to have a look at a (pounds) 5 or (pounds) 10 note (don’t forget to give it back!), you will see that it promises “to pay the bearer of this note ” If you were travelling very long distances, a “promise to pay” meant that you could carry just a few pieces of paper from one end of the world to the other.

That piece of paper could then be exchanged for coins when you got to the other end. Or maybe used to buy something else altogether.

For such a promise to be believed, it had to come from someone you could trust. You - and whoever you gave the note to - had to be certain that the note could be exchanged for coins at any time. That is how many banks started, by issuing notes that people could redeem in coins, or pass on to someone else. They had to have lots of coins in a safe to do that.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

MONEY: Make life nicer with a cash ISA

January 29th, 2008 by monies

An Individual Savings Account allows you not to pay tax on the interest you earn - and you can invest up to pounds 3,000 in a cash ISA this tax year.

With ordinary savings accounts you have to pay tax of 20 per cent on any interest if you are a basic rate taxpayer, or 40 per cent if you’re on the higher rate.

Yet a massive 83 per cent of us don’t use our annual tax-free allowance. The financial advisors’ trade body IFA Promotion says pounds 127million in tax could be avoided each year by sheltering savings in ISAs. The Chancellor’s Budget decision to extend the pounds 3,000 limit of cash ISAs until 2010 is great news - so make the most of the opportunity to save tax-free.”

Anyone over the age of 16 can invest in a cash ISA - you can put in as little as pounds 1 in most accounts. The maximum you can pay in during a tax year is pounds 3,000. The average return this year is pounds 3,137.61 - up on last year’s figure of pounds 3,111.73, according to Moneyfacts magazine. This is based on an investment of pounds 3,000 made on April 6, 2004, with no withdrawals over the year.

The top performer was a fixed rate ISA from West Bromwich Building Society, which returned pounds 3,160.50. However, this was only available to the society’s existing customers and is closed to new investors.

The best variable rate ISA with a return of pounds 3,155.27 was from Abbey. And bottom of the table for the second year running was Northern Rock’s cash ISA, with a return of pounds 3,107.09.

Our table on the left shows the current best buy cash ISAs. Top of the table is First Direct’s mini cash e-Isa, which pays 6.25 per cent interest. But this rate only lasts until October 6, then reverts to a variable rate, currently 4.35 per cent.

Alliance & Leicester’s Direct ISA currently pays 5.4 per cent and can be operated over the internet or by phone, while Abbey’s postal ISA pays 5.35 per cent.

Stuart Glendinning, of the financial website www.money supermarket.com, said: “With so many different cash ISAs available, it is very important that consumers search out the best deal.”

ENGINEER Caroline Lang has invested the maximum pounds 3,000 permitted this tax year in an Abbey postal ISA.

The 30-year-old, from Putney, South-West London, said: “I bought my two-bedroom flat a couple of years ago and so haven’t been able to save much until recently.

“But I moved the money I held in other savings accounts into the ISA, so I can earn as much interest as possible tax-free.”

CHECK THE BEST BUYS

First Direct

Mini Cash e-ISANonepounds 1 pounds 15.4 pounds 15.35 6.25*Alliance & Leicester

Direct ISANoneAbbey

Postal ISANoneLambeth BS

Postal ISA45 dayspounds 1,0005.65*Portman BS

45 day notice ISA45 dayspounds 3,0005.5* 5.7 Halifax

Fixed Rate ISA Saver5yr bondpounds 3,000*Introductory rate for limited period

Author: MELANIE WRIGHT on your finances

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Making money and/or creating wealth

January 28th, 2008 by monies

“I made all the mistakes,” said Williams, 45, from her 2,500- square-foot office suite on N. Robinson in Oklahoma City, where she heads the Williams Financial Services Group, which serves about 225 investors.

“Like a lot of African-Americans, when I first started making money, I went after a lot of possessions,” she said. “I learned, like everybody else, that possessions do not lead to financial security.” Often, it’s just the opposite.”

She said that about 15 years ago, when she was becoming a star salesperson for Equitable Life Insurance Co. of New York and big commissions were starting to roll in, she did what most of us would have done: bought nice things for herself.

“One should [save] at least three to six months’ take home income before getting that beautiful living-room furniture,” Williams reflected. “Of course it’s hard to do that when you want things n-o- w.”

The oldest of eight children, Williams grew up in Philadelphia in a neighborhood so impoverished that once, dumbstruck, the family found their refrigerator robbed of all its food. To the usual problems of providing for a large household, her father, a postal worker, was also burdened by heart disease. He died when Williams was 19 and had only $15,000 in life insurance.

“I saw all the problems a family can have,” said Williams, who, while still a child, resolved to raise herself from poverty and help others do the same.

She won an academic scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh, graduated with a degree in psychology and was recruited, while still in college, to join the sales staff of Equitable. She built a sales record on cold calls and hard work. “I was too naive to know what I couldn’t do,” she said.

Did she have a mentor? She laughed and said: “I sure could have used one. I did have good training materials and I read every book I could on sales and on the insurance industry. I knew my products very well.” Within a year she was the top salesperson in her group.

Over the previous years she had married, become a mother and moved to Oklahoma City for a fresh start. Although they divorced, she remained in Oklahoma City. Her oldest son is 24 and lives in Atlanta. She and her second husband, a home designer, also with offices on N. Robinson, have three children, 16, 11 and 7. In addition to her membership in the Women Presidents’ Organization, she is president of the local chapter of Jack and Jill, one of the oldest and most exclusive social clubs for African-Americans, founded in 1938 in her hometown of Philadelphia.

“I was happy to become a member of Jack and Jill,” said Williams, “but my mother, who now lives here in Oklahoma City, was very proud.”

The only one among her siblings to have finished college, Williams says she enjoys the reputation in her family of having made it, financially, but her own assessment is more cautious.

“You can think you’re rich and not have that much wealth,” she said, adding that her ambitions for her own business are to grow her sales staff from one to four and to move away from commissions and become a totally fee-based company. A financial planner’s fee is typically 1.5 percent of a portfolio’s value per year, for holdings of less than $100,000. Williams stresses that wealth consists simply in having most of your assets in forms that are likely to increase in value over the years.

When she left Equitable eight years ago to go it alone, she found a niche among schoolteachers who poorly understood their retirement plans. She brought in pizzas for teachers during their lunch hour, during which she would point out gaps in their plans and open the door to selling them supplemental products like annuities and life- insurance policies. Today, in light of the tech meltdown, she advises clients to balance their stock holdings among six categories: government securities, bonds, value stocks, growth stocks, small capitalization stocks and cash. You want to shift money, she said, toward the conservative end of the spectrum — cash, government securities, bonds and value stocks — until winners re-emerge from the ruins of dot-com companies.

She feels a particular need to help African-Americans create wealth.

“I begin every sale with education, telling clients about my own experience, and finding out about their experiences, and learning how much we have in common,” she said. “Education almost always leads to sales, but, and I am telling the truth, between educating and selling, I would much rather educate. That’s the future.”

She is trying to find time to write a book she has never seen in the marketplace. The working title: The Journey to Financial Planning for African Americans.

Marsha Firestone is the president and founder of the Women Presidents’ Organization. For information on WPO, call (212) 688- 4114 or visit www.womenpresidentsorg.com.

Author: Marsha Firestone

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Money: Make big savings on travel insurance

January 28th, 2008 by monies

Sixty per cent of holidaymakers still buy travel insurance from their travel agent, losing out on big savings for similar - and even better - cover elsewhere, according to research by Woolwich.

And now that many families holiday abroad more than once a year, a large percentage of them are losing out by taking out single-trip cover when annual insurance could save them a fortune.

Take, for example, a family of four buying single-trip insurance from a major high street travel agent, like Thomas Cook, at around pounds 125 a time for two trips to Spain in the same year. That will cost them pounds 250.

But annual cover with Primary Direct costs just pounds 55.56 for a family of four, and will cover them for as many trips in Europe as they like in one year.

As more and more people - one in five - take two or more trips a year, the savings can be enormous with annual cover.

Currently fewer than one in five of us shop around for the cheapest cover or buys direct from a specialist agent.

To find the best insurance deals, try the Internet - check out www.costout.co.uk or www.preferential.co.uk - or call Primary Direct on 0870 4443434 or Churchill Insurance on 0800 0264050.

Skiing is still a favourite winter get-away, but one in 10 people will come home with broken limbs or other injuries. With the price of treatment abroad having risen by about 10 per cent in the last three years, it is vital to be properly insured. A broken leg, for example, can cost pounds 10,000 for treatment.

Many annual insurance policies will not automatically cover you for winter sports, so be sure to check before you go. And make sure they cover you for skiing off piste as well, in case you get adventurous.

If they don’t offer cover, you will be able to buy extra insurance for a small fee. This is usually cheaper than buying separate insurance, especially if you are planning a second holiday later in the year.

And if you do need to make a claim, make sure you keep any receipts, credit card statements, police reports or photographs for evidence.

Author: FIONA JAMES

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Group to help Maryland doctors make more money

January 27th, 2008 by monies

MedChi began the program last year to help physicians who have little or no expertise in business management, and to offer guidance and support to smaller, rural practices that can’t afford practice managers.

Physicians can receive a pamphlet, It’s Your Nickel, Business 101 for Doctors, call the MedChi practice support team, and attend seminars.

By adding consultants, MedChi is following in the steps of Virginia. The fee-for-service resource will be tailored to each physician’s specific needs.

There’s a higher level of issues to be aware of, said T. Michael Preston, executive director of MedChi. No matter how good a doctor is, if he can’t pay the bills, patients can’t avail themselves of his services.

MedChi has more than 7,000 members out of the 10,000 practicing physicians in Maryland. All of the profitability resources, with the exception of the consultant services, are included in the $395 annual dues. The estimated savings for physicians, however, may far exceed the annual dues.

For example, MedChi calculates that a four-doctor pediatric group grossing $1.4 million per year, with an annual growth rate of 5 percent, can save up to $45,400 per physicians by using MedChi’s services.

The approach, titled UKAN, consists of understanding changes in revenue or costs, knowing the profit per patient visit for each payer, analyzing the costs to find savings and saying no to unreasonable payer contracts.

Physicians can’t afford to do unprofitable business, Preston said. We want to make sure physicians understand there’s a contractual relationship with a health plan, and we encourage doctors to say no to health plans when they’re uneconomical.

In addition to turning down uneconomical health plans, MedChi’s UKAN plan includes hiring nurse practitioners, improving collections, ensuring proper coding, dropping short-term disability and using flexible spending programs.

Through the initiative, members can also purchase employee benefits and insurance, discount vaccine products, and have an analysis of their telecommunications systems.

We can’t really focus on the clinical needs they have, Preston said. We try to focus on services and guidance on things that are common to all physicians - compliance and regulatory issues - and business issues.

Author: Debra Siedt

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Categories

Archives

Meta:

Blogroll

Recent Posts

Search

7 Ways to Boost Your Retirement Income

Top 7 Money Making Ideas To Make Easy Money Online

How to make a marketing campaign appealing?

No More Poverty for Writers – Making Money with a Blog

Money: Building societies can make mistakes too

Why money makes the world go round

MONEY: Make life nicer with a cash ISA

Making money and/or creating wealth

Money: Make big savings on travel insurance

Group to help Maryland doctors make more money