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Answer Upon - How To Be Debt Free In Five Steps
I often think about my shopping experience at an online retailer in US - Landsend. I purchased a shirt from this retailer using their web site. I typically do not purchase apparel online, because of concerns related to fit and quality. However, I liked the shirt and decided to purchase it. Although the purchase experience was great, the story doesn’t end here. One year later, I called them to purchase some additional clothes. At this point, I casually mentioned to the CSR that I wasn't too happy with the quality of one of the shirts I purchased from them in the past. The CSR first apologized and then offered to send me a replacement for no additional charge. Since this incident, I have probably shopped with LandsEnd at least 8-10 times.This incident got me thinking - how do you measure ROI on offering good customer experience? and more importantly, what are the acceptable boundaries around customer experience? A company can chose to offer a completely transactional experience with no regard for the customer. These are the companies, who I would argue, have a myopic view of how to make money. I would further argue that a bad, purely transactional experience is actually costing the companies more in terms of “opportunity cost” of losing the possibility of a repeat purchase.In the Indian context, a lot of retailers think of customer experience as something that starts once the customer enters the store and ends immediately after the customer makes a purchase decision or leaves. The customers certainly need to be treated well during their
Making a list
The first step in drawing up a budget is to make a list of everything on which you spend money. Writing this down helps to focus your mind and provides you with a permanent record you won't forget. Rather than drawing up one long list, it can be helpful to break it down into different elements, such as:
- household costs
- living expenses
- travel/car
- personal spending
- leisure
- Christmas and birthdays
- savings
- children
- financial costs (including credit card repayments)
- cash spending
Establishing priorities
You should also divide your spending into two categories:
- essential, which covers the unavoidable and the necessary, such as your rent or mortgage, your bills, season ticket for getting to work, food, life insurance and so on
- desirable, which covers spending that is not strictly necessary (and at a push, you could do without) but which you regard as contributing to your wellbeing, such as non work clothes, CDs and meals out.
Collecting data
The next stage is to collect financial data for your lis
Running an online business is an amazing feat. Most of your customers will never meet you face to face or step into your office. The only aspects of your company the general public will encounter are your web site, and your product. Everything else happens behind the scenes.Successful online business owners know that the bigger and more professional you come across to clients, the more impressed and likely to recommend you to others they will be. Word of mouth is the most powerful method of advertising in existence, and maintaining the illusion is the key to generating powerful buzz that will elevate your corporation to success.Why you must look bigger than you areThe power of professionalism cannot be overstated. When consumers visit your web site, it is as vital to impress them with appearances as it would be for a brick-and-mortar establishment to maintain a clean, professional atmosphere. Because of the ease and accessibility associated with setting up web sites, anyone can put one up—and as a result, there are millions of sites that appear sloppy and amateurish, and therefore do not succeed.With many low-quality web sites, it’s easy to tell at a glance that the business or company behind it is a small operation with limited capabilities. There are also quite a few prosperous companies run by only one or two people whose web sites convey a grand-scale impression. These businesses are successful in large part because of that image. Consumers will be far more comfortable dealing with a slick, well-organized web
- Are you always overdrawn?
- Do you repay only the minimum amount on your credit card each month?
- Does the amount you owe on your credit card go up every month?
- Do you put off paying bills until the final reminder arrives?
- Have you ever missed a repayment on your mortgage or other loan?
- Can you afford to buy things only by borrowing?
Step 1: Gather information
Collect together every record of everything that you owe, such as unpaid bills, unopened mail, credit card statements, unpaid utility bills, letters from debt collectors, council tax bills, fines, red reminders, final reminders, final final reminders ... the lot.
Step 2: Make a list
Take a fresh notepad and a pen. Write down the name of the creditor or the collection agency on the left hand side of the page, and the total amount that you owe each creditor on the right. Do this until you have gone through all your paperwork and you have a long list of all the money that you owe on the sheet in front of you. You should also make a note of each creditor's contact details (address and telephone number) because you need to get in touch and explain that you are in difficulties.
Step 3: Order your debts
When you come to add up your debts, you should sort them into two groups: priority debts and non priority debts. Priority debts are those which carry particularly serious consequences if they are not dealt with, such as court action or losing your home and essential services. They include:
- mortgages and other secured loans
- rent arrears
- council tax arrears
- gas arrears
- electricity arrears
- other fuel arrears
- telephone arrears (if essential e.g. if you work from home)
- magistrates' court fine arrears
- maintenance payment arrears
- income tax arrears
- National Insurance arrears
- VAT arrears
- hire purchase arrears (for essential items e.g. a car for work).
Non priority debts are those where failure to pay will not result in the loss of your liberty, home or essential goods and services (although creditors may still back their demands for payment with financial and legal sanctions). They include the following:
- bank overdrafts and unsecured loans
- credit card arrears
- store card arrears
- catalogue arrears (including mail order)
- hire purchase arrears (non essential goods)
- benefits overpayments.
Priority debts come first
The reason for sorting your debts into these two groups is because, as their name suggests, priority debts have a more urgent claim on available income than non priority debts. This means that you should deal with these first, and then see how much income, if any, is left over to pay non priority creditors. This is sometimes difficult to remember if creditors are particularly persistent or demanding but it is important to maintain the distinction between priority and other debts.
Step 4: Calculate your income and expenditure
The next stage in tackling your debts is to work out how much money is available to you each month. List all your sources of income and draw up a detailed breakdown of all your monthly spending. You can do this by following the detailed steps on the next few pages. To find out how much money is left over for paying your debts, subtract your monthly spending from your monthly income. If you are left with a minus figure (that is, your spending exceeds your income) you need to find ways of either increasing your income or cutting back on your spending. It can be difficult deciding what to give up in order to save money. If you can't do it yourself, get help in the form of a debt adviser who will be able to take a dispassionate view of what is essential and what is not.
Debt advisers
This article cannot give more than general solutions. For personal advice tailored to your circumstances, and assistance in drawing up a financial statement and initiating negotiations with your creditors, you may want to consider enlisting the help of a debt adviser by contacting the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), a Money Advice Centre, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service or the National Debtline. Getting outside help not only shows your creditors that you are serious about solving your problems, but will ensure that you get advice about any state benefits and tax allowances to which you may be entitled. They will also be able to give you information on how to recognise approved consolidation debt loan uk companies.
Your budget
Working out a budget is essential if you are to take control of your money. It will help you identify any changes you need to make to your spending patterns and enable you to draw up a realistic financial statement to show to your creditors.
Making a list
The first step in drawing up a budget is to make a list of everything on which you spend money. Writing this down helps to focus your mind and provides you with a permanent record you won't forget. Rather than drawing up one long list, it can be helpful to break it down into different elements, such as:
- household costs
- living expenses
- travel/car
- personal spending
- leisure
- Christmas and birthdays
- savings
- children
- financial costs (including credit card repayments)
- cash spending
Establishing priorities
You should also divide your spending into two categories:
- essential, which covers the unavoidable and the necessary, such as your rent or mortgage, your bills, season ticket for getting to work, food, life insurance and so on
- desirable, which covers spending that is not strictly necessary (and at a push, you could do without) but which you regard as contributing to your wellbeing, such as non work clothes, CDs and meals out.
Collecting data
The next stage is to collect financial data for your lis
The Federal Trade Commission is going over board and trying to ride the wave of success of MySpace.com. They always attack anything that is fast moving in the market place, but why? Well it is simple the FTC in my opinion is a Government Lap Doggy and anytime the government is afraid of losing control the FTC steps in to control them.Anything new, any new innovation or any disruptive technology they sick the little worthless puppy out to bark up a storm. The Federal Trade Commission says they want to protect children from MySpace.com, but they are full of beans indeed.If the Federal Trade Commission really wanted to protect the children of the American People and Parents then they would stop the over use of Prozac and Ridlin polluting the minds of kids? Trying to control or take away social online networking from kids is mean and rotten.Only the government would think of destroying kids fun. Party Poopers and full of beans I say. Who are they going after now to use their extortion tactics to manipulate and control our kids and free markets? Well probable networking sites like FaceBook, MySpace.FTC hates kids face it and they are full of beans and they are taking this COPPA; Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act too far. That is my pure opinion, but realize I have no use for the FTC because they lie to the American People.
Step 3: Order your debts
When you come to add up your debts, you should sort them into two groups: priority debts and non priority debts. Priority debts are those which carry particularly serious consequences if they are not dealt with, such as court action or losing your home and essential services. They include:
- mortgages and other secured loans
- rent arrears
- council tax arrears
- gas arrears
- electricity arrears
- other fuel arrears
- telephone arrears (if essential e.g. if you work from home)
- magistrates' court fine arrears
- maintenance payment arrears
- income tax arrears
- National Insurance arrears
- VAT arrears
- hire purchase arrears (for essential items e.g. a car for work).
Non priority debts are those where failure to pay will not result in the loss of your liberty, home or essential goods and services (although creditors may still back their demands for payment with financial and legal sanctions). They include the following:
- bank overdrafts and unsecured loans
- credit card arrears
- store card arrears
- catalogue arrears (including mail order)
- hire purchase arrears (non essential goods)
- benefits overpayments.
Priority debts come first
The reason for sorting your debts into these two groups is because, as their name suggests, priority debts have a more urgent claim on available income than non priority debts. This means that you should deal with these first, and then see how much income, if any, is left over to pay non priority creditors. This is sometimes difficult to remember if creditors are particularly persistent or demanding but it is important to maintain the distinction between priority and other debts.
Step 4: Calculate your income and expenditure
The next stage in tackling your debts is to work out how much money is available to you each month. List all your sources of income and draw up a detailed breakdown of all your monthly spending. You can do this by following the detailed steps on the next few pages. To find out how much money is left over for paying your debts, subtract your monthly spending from your monthly income. If you are left with a minus figure (that is, your spending exceeds your income) you need to find ways of either increasing your income or cutting back on your spending. It can be difficult deciding what to give up in order to save money. If you can't do it yourself, get help in the form of a debt adviser who will be able to take a dispassionate view of what is essential and what is not.
Debt advisers
This article cannot give more than general solutions. For personal advice tailored to your circumstances, and assistance in drawing up a financial statement and initiating negotiations with your creditors, you may want to consider enlisting the help of a debt adviser by contacting the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), a Money Advice Centre, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service or the National Debtline. Getting outside help not only shows your creditors that you are serious about solving your problems, but will ensure that you get advice about any state benefits and tax allowances to which you may be entitled. They will also be able to give you information on how to recognise approved consolidation debt loan uk companies.
Your budget
Working out a budget is essential if you are to take control of your money. It will help you identify any changes you need to make to your spending patterns and enable you to draw up a realistic financial statement to show to your creditors.
Making a list
The first step in drawing up a budget is to make a list of everything on which you spend money. Writing this down helps to focus your mind and provides you with a permanent record you won't forget. Rather than drawing up one long list, it can be helpful to break it down into different elements, such as:
- household costs
- living expenses
- travel/car
- personal spending
- leisure
- Christmas and birthdays
- savings
- children
- financial costs (including credit card repayments)
- cash spending
Establishing priorities
You should also divide your spending into two categories:
- essential, which covers the unavoidable and the necessary, such as your rent or mortgage, your bills, season ticket for getting to work, food, life insurance and so on
- desirable, which covers spending that is not strictly necessary (and at a push, you could do without) but which you regard as contributing to your wellbeing, such as non work clothes, CDs and meals out.
Collecting data
The next stage is to collect financial data for your lis
In search of the coveted search engine traffic? Yes? Then don't ignore your meta tags. If anyone tells you that meta tags are not important, they are seriously misinformed. Follow these simple rules and the clicks will come. Skip them and the high search engine rankings that you work so hard for will never deliver on the true traffic potential.Imagine that you check your incoming email and there are two messages waiting for you. You look at the summary information for each and they appear as follows: MESSAGE #1:From: unknownperson@obscuredomain.comSubject: iaviq qiegaie aeiapihMESSAGE #2:From: your-favorite-guru@gurusite.comSubject: An "insider" shortcut guide to creating sensational ads If you're interested in how to write killer ads, which message gets opened and which goes in the trash? It's obvious I know, but it's relevant.Test the search engine results for one of your website pages and here's what you'll find...The search engine results pages (SERPs) for the big 4 search engines (Google, Yahoo, Altavista and MSN) display information to their users by spidering your web pages and grabbing the text from various areas. When someone conducts a search and sees your web page in the results, here's what you can expect them to see: GOOGLE: Your title tag Your description meta tag***********YAHOO!: Your title tag Your description meta tag Text from the upper area of your web page***********ALTAVISTA: Your title tag
- bank overdrafts and unsecured loans
- credit card arrears
- store card arrears
- catalogue arrears (including mail order)
- hire purchase arrears (non essential goods)
- benefits overpayments.
Priority debts come first
The reason for sorting your debts into these two groups is because, as their name suggests, priority debts have a more urgent claim on available income than non priority debts. This means that you should deal with these first, and then see how much income, if any, is left over to pay non priority creditors. This is sometimes difficult to remember if creditors are particularly persistent or demanding but it is important to maintain the distinction between priority and other debts.
Step 4: Calculate your income and expenditure
The next stage in tackling your debts is to work out how much money is available to you each month. List all your sources of income and draw up a detailed breakdown of all your monthly spending. You can do this by following the detailed steps on the next few pages. To find out how much money is left over for paying your debts, subtract your monthly spending from your monthly income. If you are left with a minus figure (that is, your spending exceeds your income) you need to find ways of either increasing your income or cutting back on your spending. It can be difficult deciding what to give up in order to save money. If you can't do it yourself, get help in the form of a debt adviser who will be able to take a dispassionate view of what is essential and what is not.
Debt advisers
This article cannot give more than general solutions. For personal advice tailored to your circumstances, and assistance in drawing up a financial statement and initiating negotiations with your creditors, you may want to consider enlisting the help of a debt adviser by contacting the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), a Money Advice Centre, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service or the National Debtline. Getting outside help not only shows your creditors that you are serious about solving your problems, but will ensure that you get advice about any state benefits and tax allowances to which you may be entitled. They will also be able to give you information on how to recognise approved consolidation debt loan uk companies.
Your budget
Working out a budget is essential if you are to take control of your money. It will help you identify any changes you need to make to your spending patterns and enable you to draw up a realistic financial statement to show to your creditors.
Making a list
The first step in drawing up a budget is to make a list of everything on which you spend money. Writing this down helps to focus your mind and provides you with a permanent record you won't forget. Rather than drawing up one long list, it can be helpful to break it down into different elements, such as:
- household costs
- living expenses
- travel/car
- personal spending
- leisure
- Christmas and birthdays
- savings
- children
- financial costs (including credit card repayments)
- cash spending
Establishing priorities
You should also divide your spending into two categories:
- essential, which covers the unavoidable and the necessary, such as your rent or mortgage, your bills, season ticket for getting to work, food, life insurance and so on
- desirable, which covers spending that is not strictly necessary (and at a push, you could do without) but which you regard as contributing to your wellbeing, such as non work clothes, CDs and meals out.
Collecting data
The next stage is to collect financial data for your lis
While the online garage sale approach can be profitable, you are likely to have more success on eBay if you specialize in a particular type of product. Your customers will learn to associate your specialty with your User ID, and will remember you when they are shopping for those types of products again.You should start by exploring your areas of personal interest. What are you an expert at, and what do you enjoy doing in your spare time? Simply answering those two questions is often enough to identify a niche that could be a goldmine for you. After answering those questions, conduct a search of both active and completed auctions to see what related products are in demand and bringing a price that will adequately pay for your time.It is important to note that if a lot of products in your chosen specialty are going unsold, or are selling at well below their value, then you need to find a different specialty. Spend as much time on this as necessary. Diving into a market blind could result in a big investment with little return and a lot of unsold items collecting dust in your garage.If you’re having trouble identifying a niche, just take a look around your house. Do you have lots of old books or record albums? Look them up on eBay and see what they’re selling for. Go ahead and auction some to test the waters. Do you have old collectibles, Christmas ornaments, or china boxed up and in storage? Dig it out and research it on eBay. You may have thousands of dollars in your attic and not even know it. And exploring what yo
Debt advisers
This article cannot give more than general solutions. For personal advice tailored to your circumstances, and assistance in drawing up a financial statement and initiating negotiations with your creditors, you may want to consider enlisting the help of a debt adviser by contacting the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), a Money Advice Centre, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service or the National Debtline. Getting outside help not only shows your creditors that you are serious about solving your problems, but will ensure that you get advice about any state benefits and tax allowances to which you may be entitled. They will also be able to give you information on how to recognise approved consolidation debt loan uk companies.
Your budget
Working out a budget is essential if you are to take control of your money. It will help you identify any changes you need to make to your spending patterns and enable you to draw up a realistic financial statement to show to your creditors.
Making a list
The first step in drawing up a budget is to make a list of everything on which you spend money. Writing this down helps to focus your mind and provides you with a permanent record you won't forget. Rather than drawing up one long list, it can be helpful to break it down into different elements, such as:
- household costs
- living expenses
- travel/car
- personal spending
- leisure
- Christmas and birthdays
- savings
- children
- financial costs (including credit card repayments)
- cash spending
Establishing priorities
You should also divide your spending into two categories:
- essential, which covers the unavoidable and the necessary, such as your rent or mortgage, your bills, season ticket for getting to work, food, life insurance and so on
- desirable, which covers spending that is not strictly necessary (and at a push, you could do without) but which you regard as contributing to your wellbeing, such as non work clothes, CDs and meals out.
Collecting data
The next stage is to collect financial data for your lis
“Outsourcing in India has reached a near term peak and meaningful expansion from this point forward will result in higher costs and lower quality delivery.” Business Leaders in Asia have been saying this to each other for months now. Today, we are seeing deliberate action to move capacity from India to next step destinations like Philippines, China and Vietnam.Even major business publications have picked up on the evolving situation. Both Forbes (India: Good Help is Hard to Find) and BusinessWeek (India’s IT Challenge) recently published feature articles that directly address the growing problems in India and the viability of the next step destination countries.Looking at current events in Philippines, we can get a better idea what is going on. Sykes, a large US-based contact center and IT support organization, has operations in both India and Philippines. The company said it would shift much of its Indian capacity to Philippines where it already has 7000 employees. "We moved calls to other facilities in Asia to get a higher rate of return," was the official statement from Dan Hernandez, Sykes's vice-president for global strategies. But knowledgeable observers in the region say that the rate of return differential must be large for a company of Sykes’ size and prominence to forgo India after already putting capacity in place.Ambergris Solutions is another large contact center organization with operations in Philippines. The company just received a $43.5M investment through Telus International, a Canadian-based global IT
Making a list
The first step in drawing up a budget is to make a list of everything on which you spend money. Writing this down helps to focus your mind and provides you with a permanent record you won't forget. Rather than drawing up one long list, it can be helpful to break it down into different elements, such as:
- household costs
- living expenses
- travel/car
- personal spending
- leisure
- Christmas and birthdays
- savings
- children
- financial costs (including credit card repayments)
- cash spending
Establishing priorities
You should also divide your spending into two categories:
- essential, which covers the unavoidable and the necessary, such as your rent or mortgage, your bills, season ticket for getting to work, food, life insurance and so on
- desirable, which covers spending that is not strictly necessary (and at a push, you could do without) but which you regard as contributing to your wellbeing, such as non work clothes, CDs and meals out.
Collecting data
The next stage is to collect financial data for your list. In most cases, this will be a combination of actual past spending and educated guesses at future spending.
If you can lay your hands on a year's worth of bank statements, cheque book stubs, credit card and store card statements and other household bills, you already have a lot of the data you need to provide a detailed breakdown of your finances. If your records are less comprehensive, you may still be able to get a reasonable idea of where your money goes from your bank statements and credit card bills.
If you do not have any records or if you are drawing up a budget to see if you can afford something in particular, you will have to estimate the figures, to give their monthly cost.
Entering the figures
Once you have collected all your data together, you can start to enter figures against the items on your list. These should be in the form of monthly totals. For some items, such as your rent or monthly mortgage, this will be straightforward. Irregular spending on items such as clothes, holidays, quarterly bills and so on, requires you to estimate how much you spend each year and then divide this figure by 12. In this way you can arrive at a monthly sum for every item.
Using software If you have a computer and spreadsheet software, you will save a lot of time if you enter your figures on a spreadsheet.
This will also help if you need to adjust the figures or if you want to do 'what if?' calculations to see the effect of making various changes to your budget.
Once you have entered all the figures, add up your total essential spending and your total desirable spending. This has the effect of smoothing your spending over the year to give you an average monthly spending figure for each of the two categories.
Working out your average monthly income
Once you have worked out your average monthly spending, you need to work out your average monthly income. To do this:
- add up all sources of regular monthly income
- If you are paid weekly or you get other weekly income (such as child benefit or state pension), multiply the weekly amount by four.
- calculate a monthly average for any irregular income you receive, together with lump sums you withdraw from savings, by adding up an annual total and dividing this by 12.
The total of all these figures is your average monthly income.
If your total is zero or negative (and you can't cut down on spending) you need to negotiate with your creditors in order to reduce your monthly repayments to a level you can afford to meet.
The ultimate aim of budgeting is to balance your income and expenditure. Failure to do this will lead to increasing indebtedness as you have to borrow more and more to make up for the fact that your spending exceeds your income. There are several ways to accomplish equilibrium mainly by decreasing your expenditure or increasing your income. The following actions can help you improve your position:
- cutting back spending on inessentials
- working out a monthly budget for your essential bills
- checking that your overdraft is authorised and that you are not paying over the odds for it
- transferring all your credit card debts to a lower charging card
- diverting any savings you may have towards paying off your debts finding a cheaper way to borrow for your other loans but be wary of transferring loans which carry a penalty for early repayment ensuring that you keep up repayments on your mortgage and other existing loans paying off the most expensive of the debts that you can clear first.
Re-mortgaging
One way to reduce your outgoings is to cut the cost of your borrowing. If you are a home owner, and have some equity in your property, you might be able to do this by re-mortgaging. By simply switching to a different mortgage provider, you may be able to obtain a lower rate of interest. You might also be able to replace expensive borrowing with a loan secured on your property at a much lower rate of interest. This may bring your monthly repayments down to a manageable level. Although re-mortgaging can be an attractive option, there are several points you need to bear in mind:
- Failing to keep up repayments on your mortgage means that your house could be repossessed. Unsecured borrowing doesn't carry this risk.
- Always check whether you will be charged an early repayment charge (or redemption penalty) if you change to another mortgage, and find out what fees (such as solicitor's and valuation fees) you will be charged, These costs may wipe out any benefit to getting a lower rate.
- You will only make a significant reduction in your outgoings if you change substantial high interest borrowings to a lower rate.
- Only re mortgage with a licensed mortgage provider.
Step 5: Prepare a financial statement
Drawing up a financial statement not only helps you to plan but it will also show your creditors what your financial position is and how much money is available for repaying your debts. If your creditors can see that you do not have money available to repay them in full, they may realise that it is not worth taking you
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