Monday, April 28, 2008

Start fresh

Create a game plan for finding love.
Life coaches suggest:

1. Adjust your attitude.
Make sure you’ve got a positive mental attitude before you leave the house or start looking at online profiles. “Start looking for evidence to support what you want to believe,” she says, rather than your negative self-talk. “Notice all the good single people around, listen for stories of fun dates others are having, pay attention to people who are the type you are seeking, and observe all the people who are in love with less-than-model types. Then choose a new attitude, and say positive things to yourself whenever you need to hear them.”

2. Don’t perpetuate patterns.
Do you keep dating someone even after the thrill is gone? This is the best way to make sure you don’t meet your match. If you feel like you’re dating someone who’s not right for you, stop dating that person immediately.

3. Pace yourself.
“An accelerated pace often leads to heartache,” counsels John Van Epp, author of How To Avoid Marrying A Jerk. “Taking time to get to know someone is crucial for building the groundwork for a long-term relationship, as is keeping your eyes wide open in the process. Accelerated relationships do just the opposite—they create imbalances that do not hold the promise for long-term stability and tend to mask problem areas that should either be dealt with or walked away from. There are significant or revealing patterns that don’t surface until around the third month of a new relationship.” So take your time and heed any warning signs that you should probably be dating someone else.

4. Live your life.
“Your focus should be on living a rich life in which you are responsive to what the world offers,” “This is the position from which you can be open and available to a positive relationship experience. Why? Because if you are living your life based on personal acceptance and resolution, judgments of others will never be an issue and there will simply not exist a chance that someone will be overlooked.” So pursue activities you enjoy to enrich yourself and your chances of meeting someone who shares them.

5. Trust your gut.
“We often get communication from our inner guidance system about what the right thing is to do,”“It’s just that so few of us can hear it over the noise all around us—and particularly inside our heads. That is the subtle voice that whispers, ‘This is not the right person for me.’ It’s letting you know through the tightness in your solar plexus or the nagging feeling you have that something is wrong. If you learn to listen to that voice and trust it, there is no doubt in my mind you will make better dating decisions.”

Subtitle

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What to do after a car accident

If you're in a car accident, you'll need to be familiar with the policy, the process and the payments.
Now here's what you need to do once the dust settles.
You should:
Keep your auto insurance information in the glove compartment, including a pre-printed form allowing you to provide the particulars of any accident, including a sketch of the scene. (Even better, use that disposable camera you keep in the car. You don't? You should.)
Stay at the scene of the accident until police have come and gone, making sure you have the name of the officer(s) and that they have your version of what happened. Do not assume a police report will "take you off the hook" or even that one will be generated in the event of a minor accident ("minor" may mean no one is injured even though your car suffers a direct hit).
Exchange names, addresses, driver's license and insurance information with the driver of the other car.
Review your policy to make sure of your coverage. Make a list of questions and related information you want to know.
Report the accident promptly to your insurance company. This may not seem wise or necessary to you. The accident may be minor, you may not want to risk seeing your rates rise or you may live in a no-fault state and think that the other driver's insurance company will pay for everything. But state laws generally protect you from higher rates unless an accident was your fault. And even though you may think no-fault lets you off the hook for the other driver's medical expenses, it does not. It simply says his insurance will pay for his expenses (up to the limits of his coverage), regardless of who is at fault. But rest assured his insurance company will come knocking on your insurer's door seeking repayment if it believes you were at fault in the accident. The point is, your insurer should be informed.
Look in the back for what are called the conditions of your policy - what you are supposed to do in the event of an accident. These requirements are pretty straightforward, although compliance may seem like a hassle when you're already upset by the accident itself. But you may forfeit some of your rights if you don't follow these instructions.
Next, look at the cover sheet of the policy, which is called the declarations page and which lists the types and dollar limits of your coverage, including short-hand references to any discounts or special provisions you have elected to purchase.
Last, there's the actual insuring agreement itself, which explains what your insurer is protecting you against, including definitions of terms used in the agreement and explanations of what's not covered (called the exclusions).
If you don't understand your policy, keep calling your agent and/or state insurance department until you get clear answers to your questions.
Most people have heard that ignorance is no defense under the law, but they don't think they'll ever have to find out. Auto accidents are one of the most common ways to discover the sobering cost of ignorance.
The payments
Hopefully, your accident involves only damages to things and not to people.
And, hopefully, it wasn't your fault.
Even if it's just your car that's banged up, repairs can be a major headache.
This is where the reality sets in that replacement cost is not the same thing as market value.
Your car can easily be declared a total loss even though the money you'd receive is nowhere near what it would cost you to replace the vehicle.
The best advice about getting your car fixed is to remember that the money may be coming from the insurance company but you should control the repair process.
This means refusing to settle for a repair job you don't like.
And it may also mean refusing to accept the use of generic replacement parts instead of the original manufacturer's parts (your policy may give your insurer the right to use generic parts, so it's important to check the fine print to know your rights).
Even if your favorite shop doesn't do the repairs, you can still have your mechanic look at the car (although this may be at your personal expense) and provide an assessment of what should be fixed. Ultimately, it's your car and your call about what's done to it.
Talk to your agent and/or insurer about your rights (better still, you should really ask these questions before you buy a policy).
And if you don't like the answers, call your state insurance department.

You need 500$ in the bank

Having a few hundred bucks at the right times in your life can make all the difference.
Here's how to tuck away money for emergencies, even if you don't have much.
Most of the talk about financial cushions centers on the importance of an emergency fund, that stash of cash that's supposed to equal three to six months' worth of expenses.
A $500 pad is something that just about everyone can scrape together with enough determination.
And it can make a real difference.
Start by keeping an extra $100 in your checking account. If you maintain this pad and resist the urge to spend it, you'll greatly reduce your chances of bouncing a check. If you keep track of your balance online or via an ATM, you'll have to mentally deduct the $100.
Then funnel $400 into your savings account. It may not seem like much, but $400 will cover a good chunk of the real emergencies that come your way, e.g. replacing an appliance that breaks down. Even if the unexpected expense is higher than $400, you'll at least reduce the amount you need to scrape up from other sources.
Then leave it alone unless you're facing a real emergency.
If the spending is absolutely necessary, you're better off paying cash than paying interest on money borrowed from credit cards or payday lenders.
Then you can concentrate on rebuilding your cushion as soon as possible.
The first $500 is the hardest
Eventually, you should try to build your pad of cash into a real emergency fund.
But that can come after you've taken care of more-pressing financial needs, such as paying off high-rate debt and saving for retirement.
Here are some ideas for scraping up the initial $500:
- Your tax refund - The typical refund check is more than $2,000
- Try a "buy nothing" month - many are surprised at the amounts of cash they're saving by buying only necessities for a single month, don't eat out, bring your lunch and snacks to work and avoid shopping for 30 days
- Sell stuff: try yard sales, consignment stores and online auction sites such as eBay, sell your books on Half.com or Amazon.com. Make sure the cash you raise gets put into savings immediately, or it will get spent.
- Save your change. save hundreds over the course of a year, even making a game of it with children.
- Review your bills - If you haven't already, go through your regular bills and see what you can trim. Once you've trimmed, channel the extra savings into your bank account. If you save $10 on your phone bill, for example, put that much into savings each month.
- Make it automatic. Setting up a regular electronic transfer from your checking to your savings account is much better than making the transfers manually. If you have to make the decision to save every month, you'll probably decide to do something else with the money. If the decision is made for you, it's more likely to stick.
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If you've been living paycheck to paycheck for a while, you may be unclear about what constitutes a true emergency.
Essentially, it's an event that puts your livelihood or your family's safety at risk. The television dying, for example, is not an emergency. The furnace dying is.
A car repair may or may not be an emergency, depending on whether you have alternate transportation.
Regular, predictable expenses are not emergencies. Neither are gift-giving occasions like weddings, holidays and birthdays.
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Raises are hard to come by at many jobs this year, so don't wait for the boss to be struck by the sudden realization that you're valuable.
Give yourself a raise by spending less of your hard-earned cash.
Following any one of these tips can save you as much as $500 per year.
If you do all 10, you'll save at least $5,000 a year.
That's a heck of a lot more than the measly 3% increase that your employer is likely to hand out. And the best part about it is that you don't have to smile and say "thank you."
10 suggestions for painless frugality
1. Drive less.
If you have a 25-mile commute, persuading the boss to allow telecommuting one day a week, or squeezing 40 hours of work into four days, will definitely put you ahead about $500 per year.
2. Bring your own stimulant.
Stop buying coffee at the chichi coffee joint down the street from work. Bringing coffee from home in a thermos or brewing it in the break room will actually improve the quality of your morning shot of energy, as well as cut its cost dramatically. You can get 40 cups of coffee from a pound of beans. Even the gourmet ones can be purchased for $4 per pound. If you're spending $2 per day on coffee -- easy to do in most workplaces -- you'll go from spending $500 a year to about $25 by making your own.
Save even more by taking cans of soda or bottled water to work instead of buying them out of the vending machine. Bottled water sells for 14 cents a bottle at a big-box grocery store, and soda is 16 cents a can (less for off-brands). Compare that to the 75 cents or more that you'll spend at the machine, and it's a no-brainer. You can go even further by cleaning your small plastic water bottles and replenishing them with drinking water from a gallon jug. (It's an environmentally friendly move, too.)
3. Conserve energy.
Turn off the TV when you leave the room. Using less energy is a painless way to save. Heat and air conditioning are the largest home-energy hogs.
Switch to U.S. Energy Star-approved light bulbs and save $60 a year. You can also save more than $200 a year just by turning off the TV when nobody's watching it. Running a 32-inch TV four hours a day costs $3 per month, but many families use the TV for background noise, letting it play 24/7. Washing clothes in cold water is good for another $60 a year, and powering down your computer at night saves $70.
4. Dig gardening.
Not only does gardening burn lots of calories, but a nice yard adds value to the house. If you do it all yourself, it's pure profit.
5. Go small or pet-free.
Expect to pay these annual costs of pet ownership: cat, $640; small dog, $780; medium dog, $1,115; large dog, $1,500. Obviously, smaller is cheaper.
6. Don't flush money down the commode.
No-name-brand toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, paper cups, plastic wrap, plastic bags, etc., are all available at half the price of similar name-brand products when you buy them in bulk. You don't even have to wait for a sale. Such stores as Wal-Mart, Kmart, Costco and Sam's Club offer these items all the time at bulk rates.
For instance, you can buy 15,000 sheets of toilet paper for about $15, compared to the 4,224 sheets of the "squeezably soft" variety that routinely sells for $9 in a 12-pack. Big-name plastic wrap is 10 times more expensive than the big-box variety -- 0.04 cents per square foot versus 0.004 cents per square foot. Commercial laundry detergent is 34 cents per pound, versus a small box of familiar-name powder at $2.10 per pound.
Of course, bulk buying requires having some cash on hand, transportation to carry large quantities and enough storage space for these items. If you can manage those basic requirements, buying big can be a tremendous deal and easily cut costs by $500 per year.
7. Limit media.
Who watches 300 channels anyway? The easiest way to cut costs: Just take a deep breath and cancel everything but the basic plan. Most cable companies have a very limited plan for $10 or $15 per month that offers local channels and a few other networks.
If you have greater-than-average do-it-yourself skills, consider installing an antenna and capturing high-definition television signals over the air. . A page on the National Association of Broadcasters' Web site lists the stations you can expect to receive. In most cities, that's all the networks plus PBS.
Next, examine your phone service -- particularly your cell. What kind of user are you? If your phone's for short calls only -- "I'm on my way home now, dear" -- consider a pay-as-you-go plan like Virgin Mobile. It has cool phones, and, for a total of $80 per year, you can make those kinds of calls and have peace of mind. It's a big bargain.
Family plans are another possibility. Nobody checks your DNA, and Sprint Nextel doesn't even require sharers to be in the same area code. Four people on the same plan will cost about $25 each.
8. Sign up for tax-advantaged plans at work.
The possibilities include education, health, transportation and child-care savings accounts.
If you're in the 25% tax bracket, you'll be $500 ahead once you spend $2,000 in pretax dollars on these necessities. If your company doesn't offer these plans, ask for them to be added. It's a cost-free benefit that even the smallest and most cash-strapped employer can offer.
9. Eat in.
Replace one $20 trip per week to McDonald's with a large $7 carryout pizza from any of the billions of cheap pizza places in every city.
Better yet, buy pizza at the grocery store.
10. Don't bank on it.
Pay credit-card bills in full as soon as possible, and take advantage of free bill pay.
The real savings can be had by avoiding credit-card debt and paying off what you've accumulated as quickly as possible.
For instance, if you owe $4,000 on a card charging you 18% interest, and you pay three times the minimum payment every month, or $300, you'll pay off the card in 15 months and spend about $500 in interest. If you spread the cost out and pay $200 per month -- still twice the minimum payment -- you'll pay off the bill in 24 months and pay out $4,800 in total -- $800 in interest. If you can bite the bullet and pay as much as $400 each month, the debt will be gone in less than a year and you'll save between $100 and $700 in interest over the other options.
Saving money doesn't have to take an ugly bite out of your lifestyle. Once you put these strategies in place, you won't feel pinched, because you're not giving up much at all.