Let’s face it: almost everyone goes through a financial crisis at some point or another, and finding ways to deal with such situations is essential if you want to come out unscathed. If you have ever wanted to know what to do in the event of a financial emergency – whether it is due to a sudden illness or car trouble requiring immediate and costly attention–you have come to the right place! Here are some ideas on how you can weather the worst of the financial storm and come out none the worse for wear in the end.

1. Evaluate Your Financial Situation

The first thing that you should to when faced with an impending financial crisis is to sit down and think about your situation. Failure to identify the problem and pinpoint areas that need to be worked on will likely result in a more stressful situation, and that is the last thing that you need when short on cash. Going head on into fixing your financial troubles without making a plan first can result in even more confusion and the eventual failure of your attempts to get yourself out of a financial mess.

2. Determine The Nature Of The Financial Emergency

Is your emergency caused by a sudden illness of a family member? Have you been rendered broke by a natural calamity? Or have you lost your job like so many other people in the country? All of these different scenarios require different approaches, and identifying them will better enable you to formulate a clear plan of action.

Whatever problems you have – there is probably someone in the world who has already gone through the same thing. Use the internet to find these people and ask them what they did to survive.

3. Prioritize Your Spending

While you will ideally want to make sure that all of your outstanding debts and monthly bills are paid up, you do have a bit of leeway in terms of prioritizing your payments.

Make a list of your monthly expenses and group them according to importance or urgency.

Top on your list of priorities should of course be food and shelter, with utilities coming in a close second. You will also ideally want to set aside some money for medical emergencies. Such expenses are the first things you have to take care of when budgeting for your expenses, and you may have to sacrifice less essential expenditures such as cable TV and broadband Internet in order to be able to pay the more essential bills.

4. Negotiate a better deal with your creditors

This piece of advice may go against every grain of your being, but the first person you should get in touch with in the event of a financial emergency is your lender. Lending companies only stand to gain from you paying your debts, so they will be surprisingly willing to help you find a solution, whether it entails lowering your interest rates or extending your terms of payment. Waiting too long before you get in touch with your lender is definitely not a good idea, since the company may be far less likely to help you out than if you had approached them early on.

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I launched a new website – Money & Shit

Money and Shit logo

by Roman on January 20, 2010

Today I am launching a new website – Money & Shit (www.moneyandshit.com).

It is a website featuring funny pictures that make me laugh – I hope they have the same effect on you!

Over the time I have collected a bunch of funny pictures on my hard drive and I have always wondered what to do with them – I am now going to share them with you!

How it Works

I first started playing around with the idea of creating a funny pictures website about a year ago but I never got it finished.
Now that it is ready to launch it takes up very little of my time and automatically posts 3 pictures every day – at 8 in the morning, at 12 noon and at 4 PM.

The website currently only has the essential functionality and I am not trying to monetize it but I am quite pleased with the design, especially since I am usually not very good with graphics.

The Future

In the future the website will probably have some additional functionality but it will eventually stay the same.

In the near future I am going to launch a number of additional websites intended to make me some money. :evil:   I will let you know when I launch!

Visit Money and Shit at www.moneyandshit.com and sign up to get notified of funny stuff.

Money and Shit

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Gypsy king - all the cold you can handle

Getting Rich In 5 (Not Quite) Easy Steps

by Roman on January 19, 2010

Almost everyone has dreamt of getting rich at some point or another, and why not? Wealth after all comes with a few privileges, not the least of which are financial freedom and the chance to do what we want.

That being said, wanting to become rich and actually becoming rich are two entirely different things, and the gap between those two can be quite difficult to bridge.

Nevertheless, there are a few things you can do to help you achieve your goals, and while doing these may not guarantee a surefire path to wealth, they may at least get you part of the way there.

1. Get a well paying job

This is the first thing you should do in your quest for wealth – it is the single most important thing you can do to make more money. Depending on your particular goals, you will ideally want to land a job that can get you $100,000 or more every year. Finding a job that pays that good is not an easy task but a large monthly income is essential for getting rich quick.

2. Sort out your taxes

No matter how much money you make and how you make it, a large portion of your income will likely go toward paying your taxes. However, there are ways by which you can cut your tax expenses considerably and in a legal manner. The best bet is to find a qualified tax accountant for consulting. Such a professional will show you effective ways by which you could cut your tax costs legally.

Keep in mind that the rich pay considerably less taxes than the poor – that is because the rich like money, they don’t want to give it away. :evil:

3. Save as much as you can

This is another important aspect of getting rich, and most financial experts recommend setting aside 20% of everything you earn for savings. It may seem difficult to do but once you have gotten used to setting aside this amount every month, it will soon become second nature. In some cases, you can set your bank to deduct the desired amount automatically and place it into a separate account.

Save money - money can't save you

Setting aside 20% of everything you make can seem difficult but keep in mind that in China it is common that you put aside at least 50% of everything you get. This is the main reason why they have such huge cash reserves at the time when America is getting more and more into debt!

4, Invest money conservatively

What you will want to look for are investment opportunities that allow you access to a broad range of assets and charge you comparatively low fees in the process. It is also a good idea to invest equally in a few different assets so that you have reduced financial risk in case things go bad.

You should also take your money matters into your own hands – don’t just trust your money to sit in a fund recommended by a CPA or a salesman but do some research and decide for yourself where your money should go. Stick with the things you know best – if you go shopping a lot buy the stocks of your favorite store. If you are a construction worker – buy the stocks of the best construction company you know.

Remember – when you do something a lot then you automatically become a specialist in that field. Why should you listen for someone working in a cubicle to say what the best construction company is when you yourself are dealing with such companies daily.

5. Forget that your savings exist

Now that you have gotten into the habit of saving money, your best option is to forget about it…yes, all of it. The biggest mistake a lot of beginner investors do is that they spend too much time watching their stocks rise and fall. It is common knowledge among professional money makers that watching your investments too keenly will usually result in emotional decisions losing you money.

You should also resist the temptation to dip into your savings or your investments, and you will be rewarded with a healthy nest egg for your retirement or for future investments.

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There are dozens of different airlines and it seems that each of them has their own credit card. Although they all claim to be an excellent way to earn frequent flyer miles they rarely live up to that promise.

Truth About The Reward Miles

Virtually every airline card out there gives you the same reward – for every dollar you get one mile. When you calculate it out, you start to realize just how unrewarding this really is. Usually to get a domestic round-trip ticket in the continental United States, you need 25,000 to 37,500 or more miles. That means you will need to spend at least $25,000 to $37,500 to get one round-trip (and that’s only for “off-peak” itineraries).

Meanwhile, a simple 1% cash back credit card would give you $250 to $375 for that same amount of spending… money you could use to simply buy a plane ticket yourself and you’d even have a hundred or more dollars left.

Why Annual Fees Don’t Make Sense

According to an American Airlines credit card review, the annual fee is $85.00. So right off the bat you are $85 in the hole after you apply for the card. Then on top of that, they have additional fees. For example, if you redeem your miles for an American Airlines flight that departs in six days or less, they charge a hundred dollar fee.

Unfortunately, pretty much every airline card carries an annual fee of some sort. It just doesn’t make sense to pay for these cards that have such inferior rewards.

What’s Your Best Bet?

Most cash back credit cards give at least 1% to 1.5% and have no annual fee. You’re probably better off using that rebate to buy plane tickets yourself.

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