Save Your Money, Don’t Give to Charity Scammers

**If it’s Spam, it’s a Scam!- If it sounds too good, if it shows up in your bulk folder or your spam folder - don’t touch it, just delete it

**Check out the charity- You can find some charity info at the BBB site www.give.org

** There is no deadline to give- Take you time. Charities don’t have deadlines, but scammers do to stay under the radar. Tell them you will think about it. If they use high pressure tactics, they aren’t worth it and more than likely aren’t legit.

**Ask Questions- Found out the location of the charity, how much of the money is for Administration use and how will the money be used for the needs. If 50% or more of your donation goes to executives’ salaries, administrative cost and fundraising, skip them.

**Get information in Writing- Have them send you a brochure, a graph of their previous divisions of money, and their 990 tax form information that they file with the government.

Charities are required to provide Form 990 information on request (This excludes churches, synagogues and other places of worship. Don’t be fooled by their ‘tax-ID number’ these are only needed to for employer verification.

**Check out all charities for Police and Fire Departments- Check them out first, get the name, address and phone number to contact them back and do follow up.

**Get a Receipt- Preferably one with the charity name on it. A paper trail is always a good thing.

** Don’t donate with cash- Again the paper trail idea, check or credit card is best.

**Be protective with information- Don’t give information out over the phone like credit cards or personal information, unless you have checked them out or dealt with them before.

**Get the exact name of the organization- Many have names similar to legit organizations. They may change the wording slightly to throw you off.

**Contact the authorities- Police and or FBI can be contacted, have as much information as you can with you to give them. Even recording a call can be helpful if you get regular calls, make sure it is allowed in your state or if you have to let them know you are recording them.

The BEST way to give to charities is to contact them after you have done your own research. Don’t let the scammers scare you off, Please do give of yourself, time or money. Print out or email these tips to others who may not be aware.

Dawn writes for the site FrugalforLifecom and is a resource for those looking to live frugally, save money and live below their means in a materialistic society.

Creating Budgeting Worksheets that Work

Setting up a budgeting worksheet isn’t a hard chore. In fact, if you like using spreadsheets it can actually become quite enjoyable.

The beauty of a budgeting worksheet is that you can see all your numbers at a quick glance in an easy to read format. It’s instantly editable so changes can be made on the run and will save considerably on white-out. And perhaps the best feature, is that you can always keep a history of your transactions (depending on your hard-drive space).

I’m a fan of MS Excel - my apologies for those who have issues with Microsoft - because I find its powerful calculations are easy to manipulate to help me better understand my finances. It doesn’t really matter though which spreadsheeting package you use so long as you are able to calculate your amounts effectively.

There are commercial budgeting worksheets available but if you want to create your own its a simple process.

I’ve found that when creating a budgeting worksheet the best way to start is with a set up like this;

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1. Firstly, place your pay dates along the top (shown from A1 to G1). These can be weekly, fortnightly or monthly or any period that you normally work from.
2. Then list out each income source and the amounts you receive from them. For irregular payments such as Christmas bonuses etc set up a row specifically for this and maybe name it “Other Income”.

Your next task is to identify all your expense areas whether they’re irregular or not. Set up two columns for each pay period (as shown below);

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The first column called “Bdgt” is the portion of your income that each expense area will be assigned. The total of this column should never exceed the income you receive for that period.

The second column “Used” shows a negative amount and is a record of what has been spent from that period. The beauty of this system is that it will always give you a running balance.

3. This column is where this system stands out. It is just a simple SUM(B13:G13) formula which picks up the totals of every expended amount and subtracts it from the total of each budgeted amount. It then shows how much you should have available in each expense area.

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   For example, you will notice that each income period $25 has been going into the electricity account. Your electricity bill is charged every 60 days so you need to accumulate these funds for when the bill arrives. This account is now showing a total of $75 held.

4. Finally, you need to total that last column so that you can reconcile it with your bank account.

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   This amount should always equal your bank account precisely. If it is then you’re doing well.If it doesn’t then you know you’ve missed some source of income or some expenses haven’t been included in the “Used” column yet.

Age: 33
Married with 4 children.

My Qualifications.

Bachelor in Business - (Double Major in Accounting & Marketing from Edith Cowan University)
Working as a College Bursar with over $2m in annual revenue.

My Story

I first got excited about business and money when I was about 18 when my father introduced me to a network marketing scheme called Omegatrend. It was an off-shoot from the US’ Amway. I worked every available moment trying to make this work for the next 3 years to no avail and finally decided to get a life when I met my wife to be.

My next scheme was producing a trading magazine for collectable cards which we began publishing from our own home and self-distributing to newsagents across the country. After our first 2 editions (they were produced monthly) we realised that the printing and distribution could be outsourced but it meant producing more than 5000 copies each edition. We borrowed some money from my dad and ran up a huge bill with the printers and finally called it quits after our eighth edition.

Foreign Currency Exchange From currencies.co.uk

currencies.co.uk is the UK’s award winning independent currency negotiators, FCD have been round from the year 2000 They are currently extremely proficient in the market and have a great team of employees who are set and waiting to help you yourself with almost anything you yourself can require.

Foreign Currency Direct offer one off overseas payment, so if folk need to shift a lump sum to an offshore bank account. They will supply you with a dedicated account manager to take care all of the stages of a transaction. Saving up to 0.04 when compared to usual prices offered by high street brokers might well make the transaction far better value as well as labour free. FCD furthermore offer spot contracts targeted at settlement within 2 working days and also fast channelling to the bank account you yourself define, or possibly forward contracts to guarantee a currency exchange rate targeted at the future, for an examples purpose, when a house completion is scheduled for quite a few months time, by owning a forward contract you will often know how much GBP folk can need for a future requirement from a foreign currency. Currencies.co.uk can help you with all your currency needs, they offer great currency exchange rates, and their team of specialist dealers work hard to save you money.

The company also have expertise in timed overseas transfers, if you own a Euro mortgage from France, Spain or feasibly Portugal there timely payment plan is a great tactic to trim back your monthly pounds cost. www.currencies.co.uk sell free payments for transfers and no bank costs for payments well over 300 GBP. Lastly but not least Foreign Currency Direct are experts on moving money home to the United Kingdom, should your selling said overseas home with require to exchange currency back to the Great British Isles in sterling, then maybe the company might well serve you. People will utilise a accomplished account managers that will share their practiced knowledge with you and also aid you conduct any your necessary arrangements.

What You Need To Know About Ordering Credit Reports.

If you are interested in your credit, you’ll eventually come
upon the idea of ordering your credit report. That’s a great
idea, but there’s some information you should know first. The
first thing you need to learn is that there are 3 major credit
reporting agencies (We’ll call them CRAs from here out) and they
are: Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, in no particular order
of importance. Each one of these companies is largely
responsible for your credit and whether your credit applications
are approved or not, depending on the type of credit you desire.
You want to have an excellent record with all three of the major
CRAs.

Your credit report is made up of all the information that has
been collected on you over the years concering how you open and
maintain credit accounts. A credit report will have basic
information such as your name and address, your social security
nuber, and any jobs you’ve reported to companies you applied for
credit with. They also have a detailed record of your payment
history, as reported by any companies hat you’ve dealt with over
the years. Your account history, your age, employement, and the
like are entered into an algorhythm, which determines a “credit
score”. This score is extremely important to you as a consumer,
because companies use this score to determine if you’re credit
worthy, and at what rate you’ll pay interest. More companies
than ever rely on credit scores, and don’t even have human loan
managers look at credit applications by individuals with low
credit scores.

Credit scoring has been widespread since the late 1970s.
Invented in 1956 by Bill Fair and Earl Isaac, credit scoring was
conceived as an impartial formula that could generally guess the
outcome of lending money to an individual. For better or for
worse, the credit world has embraced the concept of scoring with
both arms, and there is no end in sight. Your credit is scored
basically on these principles:

1) Your payment history 2) How long you have had a credit
history 3) Amount you owe 4) How recently you’ve applied for
credit 5) The types of credit you have

These are the most important scoring factors, but there are many
more. Credit scores take into account all data found in your
credit reports, and for that reason it’s abundantly important
that you check your credit score with all three of the CRAs and
make sure the report is entirely accurate. Any inaccuracies can
hurt your credit score, so you will need to follow the dispute
process with each of the individual companies, and follow it to
the letter. Each credit reporting agency will have its own
credit report and credit score. You need to examine and
understand the legend on each report to understand the
differences, if any, between the three. Different companies use
different CRAs to pull credit reports, so any agency that has a
low score for you can end with you being denied credit.

If you haven’t ordered your credit report in a while, don’t be
surprised to find erroneous information on it. With a bit of
patience you can get the info removed or corrected. If you plan
a major purchase, especially a car or home, you should look at
all 3 of your credit reports as soon as possible, and before you
apply. This way you can dispute and correct information, before
you finalize your deal. This could save you some unhappy moments
in the end. Good luck with ordering your reports.

Free Loan Advice Information

Debt Management Preparation

Pull together your most recent six months worth of receipts (if
you don’t keep receipts, start doing so now). Don’t bother
gathering tax information (you’ll be paying that no matter what)
and household utilities (ditto). Be mindful of your credit card
bills, and make use of their categorization (auto, grocery,
food, etc). If your bills aren’t categorized, categorize them
yourself. Next, you’ll need to think of some ways to save money
on EACH category, at a goal of 10% savings per category. This
savings will become your “nest egg?of sorts under the debt
management plan.

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Debt Management Execution

In a spreadsheet or a piece of paper, list each bill, category,
payoff amount, minimum payment, and APR.

Next, determine which bills are taking the most money away from
you, and eliminate those bills first. For example, Visa bill at
18.99% interest takes precedence over the 9% auto loan. This is
not to say that the auto loan should be ignored. Rather, the
minimum payment should be made on the auto loan (and all other
bills) while the remainder of one’s “nest egg?should be applied
to paying off the Visa bill. Percentages will forever rule your
life if you are in debt; turn the table and rule them.

http://www.freeloanadvice.info

Credit Cards for Less

Is it possible to get credit cards for less? In most instances,
credit cards under the standard guidelines have the same APR or
slightly lower in some instances. Credit cards come in secure
and unsecured forms, and each has their own plan. The high-risk
credit cards are often higher, since the cards are designed to
help debtors find financial freedom. The cards claim to help
them setup a financial scheme that will build their credit;
however, more than a million people in the US alone are in debt,
because of credit cards.

Credit cards are a responsibility. If you have a credit card and
use it for every purchase for wants and needs, then you are
building up a debt that you may not want. Credit cards are
intended to pay bills, repair cards, use on emergencies, and
purchase groceries when cash is low. When the cards are used for
each and every item bought, and then this is when the cards
become a debt, since many people cannot afford to repay the full
amount when the grace period has ended. The grace period is when
the bill is set, rolling into the following month. The grace
period is important to understand, since if you roll over that
grace period you will pay high interest rates.

Interest rates are what eat people alive in most instances,
since most cards come with high rates. Few cards for less online
offer credit cards with APR rates as low as 12.99% or even
11.99%, but you can bet the card provider will compensate
someone in the agreement. For example, the APR on most cards for
cash advances are 31.99% on an average. This means that you will
repay more than $100 back for borrowing five hundred dollars.
Therefore, the insurer or provider is making the compensation
for giving you lower rates.

Many people around the world are stressing, since they have paid
a little above the minimum balances for some time on their
credit card. Recently the minimums on credit cards has
increased, thus people are finding it difficult to repay double
than they were paying in the first place. Many cardholders
discuss their issues with the card providers, but rarely is
anyone in the companies compassionate enough to help the
cardholder out. Therefore, more people are going into
bankruptcy, all for the reason of one piece of plastic.

You cannot imagine the people that land in debt after applying
for major credit cards and being accepted. The numbers are
soaring, and each year the number of people, that land below
poverty level is on the rise. Therefore, I recommend staying
away from credit cards entirely, since they are merely a deploy
to lowering people into debt most times. However, if you really
have to have a credit card then make sure you have
responsibility and an ability to repay your debts.

TIPS Responsibility is the state of being resplendent. In true
definition, this means dazzling, since anyone that stays on top
often shines like a light. Credit cards and responsibility go
hand in hand, since you can’t have one without the other. If you
have credit cards without responsibility then you are in more
trouble than you realize. Some people land in debt because they
cannot pay the balance in full when its due, and since the new
federal laws is making it impossible for anyone with credit
cards to continue rolling the debt over to the following month,
more and more people are suffering from debt. Again, credit
cards are a hazard. Unfortunately, some places, if you don’t
have a major credit card, will not sell you a product. AT&T
offers computers for a low price to customers, but if you do not
have a major credit card, you won’t get this deal. Debit cards
are no substitutes in this case, and this is just one source
that refuses to equal opportunity.

Unfortunately, we live in an extremely selfish world, where most
people are out for them self, and everyone else is merely a push
to the back.