Pop open the bubbly as 2013 is just around the corner.
Be careful… don’t sit on your laurels too long. The end of the year is prime time for preparing your goals for the following year. Don’t wake up in the middle of January without a direction. Invest the time now — yes, even during the holiday season when you are supposed to be relaxing — to set yourself up for a great year.
What are the best careers for the future?
Rather than doing the usual “Top 10 Careers for the Future”, I’ve decided instead to look at several broad career fields and highlight the better performing careers in each field.
Not everyone is cut out to be a doctor or an engineer, so we’ll take a look at a number of careers and hopefully you’ll find one that works for you.
Each career listed will include median pay level and projected job growth from 2010 through 2020. Source: the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Occupational Employment Statistics
Small business owner? Looking for a line of credit as well as helpful tools to manage your business?
Take a serious look at the Ink Cash® Business Card.
Here’s a card for your small business offering a nice introductory bonus right now. This one’s a credit card (as opposed to the Ink Bold® Business card which is a charge card and you must pay in full every month) and it has the added benefit of no annual fee.
This week, I’m reviewing all of the people who provide me with services, and figuring out how much to tip them. The following are my tips for holiday tipping.
At holiday time, it’s appropriate to tip service providers that you see on a regular basis. And avoiding services in December in order to weasel out of tipping someone who provides you with services throughout the year is frowned upon.
The general rule is that you tip anyone who provides you with regular services throughout the year.
This includes newspaper carriers, hair stylists, elevator operators in your apartment building, babysitters and nannies, the UPS guy that regularly picks up packages from your business, and maybe even your postal carrier.
Some of the people on my tipping list include: Continue Reading
We’re all wrapping up 2012 and want to wish you a happy holiday season.
This greeting is amidst troubling times in our nation especially considering the fiscal cliff has not been resolved. I’m guessing Congress pushes some sort of band aid patch in, but you never know.
Nonetheless we all have a lot to be thankful for. If you are reading this post it means you have internet access and are solidly in the “first world.”
Enjoy the holiday season, don’t spend too much, and refresh yourself to hit 2013 hard.
Are you looking for a free checking account that offers more than just basic checking services?
How about an alternative to using a credit card for your purchases (but don’t want to carry cash)?
PerkStreet(SM)’s online checking account is not only free, but offers up a generous cash back rewards when you use their debit card.
Read on for our PerkSreet review.
PerkStreet offers the debit card that helps you get debt free. By using a debit card for your purchases you can 
easily manage your money and budget for what you spend rather than risk the possibility of incurring credit card debt.
Their rewards checking helps further being debt free by giving you up to 25% cash back on purchases (depending on the purchase). They offer free online checking accounts and perks like bill pay, free ATM usage, excellent rewards, easy mailed-in deposits, and more.
The premise behind the bank is to offer superior service and you can talk to a live person 24 hours a day with any questions you might have. The company’s focus is to serve people who want to manage their money responsibly and not go into debt with offering generous rewards for debit card use.
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Paying a fee to a credit company for the privilege of using their credit card seems ludicrous, right?
Why would anyone intentionally pay an annual fee?
With so many free credit card options it just seems insane to pick one with an annual fee.
On the other hand, if you actually take some time to take a closer look at some of the perks you get by paying an annual fee for a specific credit card you might find the perks outweigh the costs.
For the longest time I personally thought this was crazy, but I’m starting to come around. Let’s dig a little deeper.
You have two big steps to take before you jump onboard with an annual fee.
If you’re considering adding an Individual Retirement Arrangement (IRA) as part of your overall retirement plan, you may be wondering whether a Roth or traditional account will work better.
Depending on your circumstances, it could be either, or it can even be both.
Traditional IRAs allow you to save up to $5,000 ($5,500 for 2013) in a self-directed, tax deferred account. You can also increase the amount of that contribution by $1,000 if you are age 50 or older.
Not only will this allow you to build your own retirement portfolio, but you can also contribute to an IRA even though you’re covered by another retirement plan. However there are limits on the tax deductibility if you are covered by another plan.
For single taxpayers, the IRA deductibility begins to phase out with an income of $58,000 per year. It completely phases out at $68,000.
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While Americans often complain about our jobs getting shipped overseas, the simple fact is that the global marketplace lets us receive goods for an incredibly low price.
We are paying less than our parents and grandparents did for goods, yet we have more debt and less money.
What happened?
I recently watched the movie King Corn, a documentary in part about the way our crops are grown and our animals are fed.
Regardless of how you feel about genetically modified crops and conventionally grown beef, the documentary was informative about the agricultural policy change in the 1970s. While the United States used to carefully rotate crops and limit the crops that came to market, all of that changed when Earl Butz became the Secretary of Agriculture in 1971. He urged all farmers to plant as much corn as they could, and as a result of his policy changes, food prices dropped radically. Butz said in the movie, “The basis of our affluence is that we spend less on food now. . .We feed ourselves with approximately 16 to 17% of our take home pay.”
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By now, many of us know what a serious thing it is to protect our identities.
Identity fraud is a very real threat, and victims of identity theft find themselves fighting an uphill battle when it comes to fixing their credit, and sorting out other related problems.
However, many of us don’t think that our kids have anything to worry about. After all, they aren’t 18.
Unfortunately, there is information out there about children, too, and a growing rash of child identity theft reports could indicate that your child could be in trouble.
