Character Education Meets Cell Phone Use

Character education is the second most important subject a school can teach. It must not be taught in a vacuum, however. Character education must be taught in the milieu of day-to-day school, social, and home life. It must be presented with practical applications. In other words, character education must meet cell phone use!

What do you think will happen when it does?

In an August 19, 2009 article entitled “More and More Teens on Cell Phones,” Amanda Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist, Pew Internet & American Life Project, wrote:

Teenagers have previously lagged behind adults in their ownership of cell phones, but several years of survey data collected by the Pew Internet & American Life Project show that those ages 12-17 are closing the gap in cell phone ownership… mobile phone use has climbed steadily among teens ages 12 to 17 – to 63% in fall of 2006 and to 71% in early 2008.

Character education recognizes those statistics and approaches the use of mobiles wisely. It does not storm into a teenager’s life and announce that all cell phone users lack high moral values (they don’t). It does not lecture loudly that mobile use should be regulated tightly so that teenagers cannot possibly abuse it (it shouldn’t).

Character education faces the fact that, like MP3 players, clothing, cars, or any other material item, these phones have acceptable uses. It admits that, when those acceptable uses are brought under the influence of high moral values, there is not a problem.

The question is this. When character education meets cell phone use, how will it impinge upon it? Of course, it will bring to bear all of the 66 moral traits, but let’s be more precise. Let’s look at six specific traits that moral training will teach and apply to this potential teen problem.

6 Traits that Affect Cell Phone Use

1. Attentiveness. Teenagers must recognize that just as they want others to focus undividedly on them when they speak, they should exercise this trait toward others. That means turning off mobile units at the family dinner table; in school; and in other settings where they could be disruptive. Character education must teach students to exercise attentiveness, even at personal sacrifice.

2. Contentment. Character education will help teenaged boys and girls develop awareness of what they have and who they are. It will help them accept their circumstances and persons, maintaining balance in thoughts, words, and deeds so that they no longer identify so closely with their cellular phones. It will help them be at ease even when they forget their mobile phones – a real source of trauma for many.

3. Cooperation. It has been found that teenagers are less willing to collaborate with others when they have access to cellular phones. Rather than work as a team with family, classmates, or co-workers, they retreat to mobiles. Character education teaches them the value of laying aside cellular phones and working with others to reach a specified goal for mutual benefit.

4. Respect. This quality is difficult for teens to build, and cell phone use often encourages disrespect instead. According to a national poll by market research group Synovate, about 72% of people in the U.S. agree that users’ worst cell phone habit is having loud conversations in public. Teens are among the largest group of those disrespectful, loud offenders. Character education helps them learn to value other people – to esteem highly the rights of others to a quiet, peaceful environment.

5. Responsibility. Another vital quality for teens, responsibility is often negatively impacted by cellular units. Teens who have a task or duty to accomplish spend time talking or texting on phones instead. The task or duty remains undone, or is done hastily and irresponsibly. Character education must help teenagers learn to set aside cellular phones until responsibilities such as homework are completed in every way and to the utmost of their abilities.

6. Self-control. Finally, character education will train teenagers to recognize impulses to use their phones in wrong ways, wrong places, or wrong times. It will teach them to restrain their use, taking power over self, and reining in phone use without being reminded by an adult.

Conclusion

Character education can help teenagers learn to exercise high moral values in their use of cellular phones. If it does not do so, our teens will be the losers.

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Home Based Business Tips – Preparing for an Online Home Business

Are you new to running your own business, then this home based business tips is for you. In this article, we are going to talk about how to prepare for an online home business.

It begins with getting a computer of your own. It has never been ideal to use one at the public centre because there are informations and softwares that you require to have on your computer. Using the computer at the public centre should be a last resort. Having a personal computer will even make work easier for you, you can carry it to whichever location that suits you and easily access any information you have stored.

Secondly, you need a means of paying for services on the internet. Business is about giving and receiving, there are cases when you might want to pay for special services like hosting, subscription, advertising and so on. You wouldn’t want to be caught unawares. A means of payment is something you are certainly going to need when starting a business online. However, you can limit your spending till when the income starts flowing.

Thirdly, create a home office for convenience. This is very important to avoid distractions, you would want to place a note “don’t disturb” when you are working in your office. A lot of visitors often disregard home office simply because they will still find you available. This wouldn’t be good for your business at the long run. Moms with little babies can decide on the best time to work preferable when the kids are at school, taking a nap or in the middle of the night.

Fourthly, pick any of the several business model that you think fits you. There are the paid surveys, blogging, freelancing, affiliate marketing, site flipping, ad sense program and many other kinds of business online.

Before you venture into any of these home based businesses, take the time to find out what it requires to make the business works as well as profit from it. Some online home business are more profitable than others but take a lot of time to start seeing a few dollar while others are easy to make money from but do not generate huge amount of income.

I hope you find this home based business tips informative.

To Your Success,

John Benjamin

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2 Key Advantages of a Home Based Business

Home based businesses have come up with great popularity over the years. For the most part, people are looking for additional income streams. There are various reasons why the idea of a home business has flourished over the years. Lets look at some of the advantages, starting from small businesses that are more like hobbies for people, to the more serious money making businesses carried on by many people.

Flexibility Of Place And Time
With a home based business, you choose the time and place of work according to your convenience. Since it is based in your home, you have the freedom to setup your own office according to your needs and plans. There is no need to travel to an office either, saving you time, money and energy.Moreover, you can select your time as to when you want to work. Just as you can keep a huge amount of personal time aside for your family, you can also work on your business anytime and every time whenever required without having to make special arrangements for it. The key is really finding that balance between your work and your family time.

Be Your Own Boss And Plan For Yourself
With a home based business, you work on your own, for your own business. Hence, you are your own boss. You plan your business strategies accordingly and execute them. There is no one to order you but yourself. You can decide how much work you want to take on and how much time you want to commit to the business.It is you who decides how big your business is going to be. You can stick to a small business more to pass your time and take it as a hobby, or you can plan something big and have a number of people working for you. Being your own boss you can plan and execute different strategies according to your specific needs and ideas. And remember, whatever profit the business makes directly belongs to you as it is your business!Hence, these are some of the great advantages of a home based business and how you stand a chance to gain from it.

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Internet Home Based Business – The Key to Your Survival!

The 1990s were called the “Decade of the Entrepreneur.” More people started and are starting home-based and micro businesses than ever before. An increasing number of people are turning their skills, hobbies and ideas into profitable business ventures. You may be able to turn your hobby into a home based business.One huge reason many people are giving the idea of starting a home business a shot is they want more quality time. More time to spend at home with their family. Another reason is the struggling world economy and the loss or fear of losing their job and they want a safety net and some sense of security.Thousands of home-based businesses are started each year. Today, they do not have to be brick-and-mortar establishments to be viable. The fact is, it is a lot easier to start and grow a home based business on the Internet. One reason is you can start up online without the massive start up costs by working out of your home. Starting an online business is a lot cheaper than starting one offline. So don’t complain about having to pay for a $7 per month website. Think of the expenses you’d incur if you were opening up a store in your neighborhood.One thing you do not want to do is make the mistake of thinking that all you need is a website and you can just sit back and watch the money start to flow in. An internet business is no different than any other business in that it will take time and hard work to be successful. There are basic skills you you are going to have to learn and learning them can be a real stress. In order to sell online successfully, you may need a lot of merchant tools which can be difficult to install, implement and make work on auto pilot.One great advantage of an internet business is that the business is “located” on the Web, and is theoretically available to users worldwide where as a typical brick and mortar business for the most part caters to the local economy and market. This advantage is one reason why many are starting home based internet businesses online.On the positive side, starting an internet business now, can definitely bring you long term revenue in the future. My suggestion is to take a close look at what you enjoy doing, find a need and fill it.

The Home Based Business Explosion Is Upon Us!

INTRODUCTIONPerhaps I should start by asking the question “What is a Home Based Business? This is any business operated from the comfort of the residential home of the owner.The next question is who is a Home Based Business owner? This refers to an Entrepreneur who decides to run his business from the comfort of his home.I decided to clarify these terms because there is a huge difference between a Home Based Business owner and a Home worker who might be working with a government/private organization but decides to be working from home once or twice during the week.Evolution of Home based BusinessMany businesses operated from home usually start as a Micro or Small Enterprise. Some eventually metamorphose into Medium Scale Enterprise and others eventually grow into quite large companies.The desire by Entrepreneurs to start operating businesses from home actually started in the 1980s. During this period, a lot of things combined to precipitate this massive desire by people to own Home based businesses.In the main, the combination of many factors like socio- economic change, improved technology and new management thinking resulted in the loss of otherwise permanent paid employment and this encouraged people to attempt to revalidate their freedom by opting to set up a business at home.The advent of new management thinking and theories like downsizing to make an organization Lean and more agile and efficient created fears in the mind of the average workerSo mass lay- offs helped create the right environment for some workers to go it alone and set up a Home based business.The period of late 1990 to 2010 can be appropriately described as the period of massive explosion in the establishment of businesses at home. The use of Computer, Internet and Mobile Technology helped in the growth of this idea.I strongly believe the idea of setting up business at home will continue to be positive and will remain so for a long time.The continued upsurge in the desire of people to own businesses has attracted the attention of Universities and other higher institutions. They have responded by introducing different courses and programs on Entrepreneurial studies to cater for these needs.Unlike earlier belief that businesses run from home are not well managed and don’t make good money, the present situation is that many Entrepreneurs motivated to set up business at home now have college degrees including a lot of high level professionals with business exposure.The entrepreneurial spirit is innate in all of us and we only need to be adequately motivated to take the necessary action.It’s really an exciting world out there.THE HOME BASED BUSINESS EXPLOSIONAs stated earlier, though the crave for running businesses from home started way back in the 1980s, what can be termed the explosion of this way of doing business was between the late 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium.(2010+)This coincided with the time when the setting up of a Home based business became a Fad. According to Mr Lewis of the National Association of Home Based Businesses, Home based business in the United States grew from about 6 million in 1984 to 23 million by 2007.With the help of modern technology like computers, mobile phones, printers and the huge power of the internet, more work is being done virtually than ever before and more global businesses are routinely being run from home.According to the 2012 GEM report, 69 percent of American entrepreneurs start their business at home from either a spare room in the house, the dining table or from the garage. The report further revealed that more than 50 percent of entrepreneurs continue to operate from home even after the business has taken off successfully and stabilized.Again according to Mr. Lewis of the National Association of Home Based Businesses, his own companies do training in 20 countries, import eyeglass frames from China and also develop condominiums.Mr. Nuyten of the Home Based Business Statistics in America quoted the following statistics as at 2012:38 million Businesses were operating from residential homes in AmericaA new business is started from home every 12 seconds in the United StatesThe Home Based Business sector in the United States earned Four Hundred and Twenty Seven billion dollars.It revealed that 70 percent of Americans would like to be self- employed.Entrepreneurship has become entrenched in the psyche of the average person. The Baylor University study of 2005 revealed then that more than 5 million jobs had been lost in Fortune 500 companies since 1980 while 34 million were created in small businesses.The United States Census Bureau data of October 2012, also revealed that the number of businesses being operated from home have been on the rise since 1999.The United Kingdom ExperienceThe continued growth in the Home based business sector appears to be a global phenomenon as the report from the United Kingdom will show shortly.The United Kingdom department of Business, Innovation and Skills released a report titled ” Backing for Home Business” which revealed that 2.9 million home based businesses in the United Kingdom contributed 300 billion pounds sterling to the UK economy. The report also stated that 70 percent of all new businesses in the United Kingdom started from home.According to Home Business report compiled by Enterprise Nation, 1,400 new businesses are started from home each week.This report also confirmed that out of a total of 4.5 million small and medium enterprises, 2.1 million are Home based businesses.Factors contributing to the growth of Home Based BusinessesThere are many factors motivating people to set up Home based businesses such as:

Losing one’s job

Being laid off in a time of economic downturn could be very devastating. With difficulty in getting new job offers, the next best thing would be to start a Home based business.

Flexible lifestyle

You are your own Boss. Literally, you can come and go as you please. You maintain better work/family balance. There are no set opening and closing times. You go for lunch and vacation when you feel like

Reduction in Stress level

The daily commuting, especially with the present heavy fuel costs is avoided. Also those train/bus rides to and from work with all sorts of characters is avoided.

No corporate office politics

You are not thinking of how to always please the boss and climb the corporate ladder. You don’t have to engage with difficult colleagues. Best of all, there are no dress codes.

Cheaper start up and running costs

It’s cheaper to set up a Home based business. A serious entrepreneur can get started with just $5,000. The main requirements could just be a computer, mobile phone, printer and a good internet connection. No rent of physical store space.

Secondary Income

Some entrepreneurs set up business at home to bring in extra income to support a day job. Some people start the business as a part time hobby. Eventually the business may become very successful and the entrepreneur will now take the decision to resign from the day job.

Be your own boss

You are your own boss. You have the freedom to do things the way you want. There is nobody breathing down your neck reminding you of targets.

Job dissatisfaction

An otherwise loyal employee may become unhappy with the company for lack of promotion and motivation. The next thought is to set up a Home based business.

Opportunity to achieve Self actualization

Having your own business gives you the opportunity to make as much money as you desire. This of course depends on how much money you want to make and the amount of time and effort you decide to invest in the business.Advantages of running a business from homeThe desire to get out of the rat race, avoid the daily grind coupled with the power of modern technology make telecommuting more productive.Together with some of the factors already mentioned above, listed below are more advantages:

Tax advantages

You can deduct some of your expenses as business expenses. These could be utility bills, insurance, mortgage and property tax.

Opportunities for Professional improvement

It is safe to assume that with the day to day running of your business, you will develop more business management skills.

Multiple streams of Income

With more time to yourself and the freedom to follow your lead, you can decide to explore other areas of interest and create multiple streams of income.Disadvantages of running a business from home.In spite of the almost glamorous attraction of Entrepreneurship, there are some disadvantages which must be effectively managed in order to improve the chances of success.

Irregular Income

For some one that had been used to regular pay checks, having to go through some weeks without income could be a huge challenge.

Lack of adequate space

This could arise where work sometimes spills into the home space

Nearness of Family and Friends

The nearness of family and friends could become a distraction if not properly managed.

Lack of Fringe benefits

Fringe benefits like health and dental insurance and paid vacations which were hitherto being enjoyed in paid employment are no longer available.

Friction with neighbors

The type of business you are involved in could create friction with neighbors due to noise pollution and lack of packing space

Health Issues

Staying glued to the computer screen and in a small space may affect health and fitness. So try and create time for exercise and recreation.CONCLUSIONSo as the French would say Voila! There you are! The idea of starting a business at home has become engraved in the mind of people. Every day, people are starting thousands of businesses in their residences all over the world.Though there are disadvantages in running a business from home, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.Some industry watchers believe that crave for setting up businesses at home is waning and the general trend could be heading downwards.However, I personally believe that the trend can only continue northwards. Why? Because I see all the indices still pointing positive. The factors that motivate people to set up Home based business are still very much around. There are still massive lay- offs going on in many companies and workers are still feeling short changed by employers.To crown it all, the technological tools like Computers, Mobile Phones, Printers and the Internet which assist Home Based Business owners to work smarter and achieve more with lesser effort are still evolving.Therefore I’m of the view that the trend of setting up businesses at home is still on the upward swing.So, how about you? What do you think? Is the trend moving up or going down.Let’s have your thoughts.

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6 REASONS for Investing in Florida Real Estate Investment Property NOW

I invite you to take the next few minutes to learn the truth about the real estate market, how it compares to other methods of building assets and why it is such a lucrative form of investing. Many potential investors will say, ‘I need to get into the Florida Investment Property market’, especially taking into account current stock market fluctuations and the HOT market for investment properties, but simply don’t know the facts about Orlando property investing and how to use sale and leaseback method of property management.When is the last time your financial advisor or stockbroker tried to convince you that moving a portion of your assets into the Florida Investment Property market might be a good idea? Never Right? The ‘why’ is simple. They don’t earn commissions when you buy Florida Investment Property. It is also likely that you have probably never had an ‘apples to apples’ comparison of stocks versus Florida Investment Property quite like the one you will see here.Reason 1:Leverage: Banks will not typically loan money to buy stocks. Banks will however, compete fiercely to loan money to buy Florida Investment Property. Your first question should be, ‘why is that’? It has to do with risk management, which we will discuss later. The fact that banks want to loan you money to buy Florida Investment Property creates a situation which we will call LEVERAGE.Let’s assume that you have $10,000 to put into some type of investment. If you choose to buy $10,000 worth of stocks, you will own exactly $10,000 worth of stocks. Pretty straight-forward. However, suppose you choose to invest that $10,000 into Florida Investment Property using a 90% mortgage (which in many cases can go up to 95-100% mortgages in today’s market), you will own $100,000 worth of Florida Investment Property. If both of your investments were to appreciate by 10%, your actual gain with your stocks would be $1000 where your actual gain with Florida Investment Property would be $10,000. That equates to an actual 10% return on investment vs. a 100% return on investment. That’s what we call leverage.Leverage: Florida Real Estate vs. StocksThe traditional argument against Florida Investment Property Investing (mainly from Stock Brokers) has always been ‘I can get an average of 10% from stocks with little effort so why would I invest in Orlando Investment Property that only appreciates 6-7% per year’? This point-of-view is not taking leverage into account.If you take the above statement to be true and compare the REAL numbers, the stock investment gained 10% of the initial $10,000 value (or $1000) and the Orlando Investment Property investment gained 6% of the initial $100,000 value (or $6000). That is still an actual return of 10% versus 60%. It is not hard to see which investment provides a greater immediate return on investment. Additionally. these numbers do not take into account any income from your property during the course of the year, or the substantial tax advantages to owning property, which we will discuss later.Reason 2:Value: As we mentioned previously, if you invest $10,000 into purchasing stocks, you own $10,000 worth of stocks (a fairly obvious point). If you invest $10,000 into purchasing Orlando Investment Property using the leverage of a 90% mortgage, you own $100,000 worth of Orlando Investment Property right? Well, only if you paid retail for your property. Any savvy investor will tell you that there are excellent deals to be had in Orlando Investment Property, you just have to find them.What if you purchased a $100,000 property that happened to be worth $110,000 the day you bought it? Does it happen? The answer is yes, all the time. If you have your eyes open and are willing to ‘go through the numbers’ to find good deals, they are all around you. You may be asking yourself, why would anybody sell a $110,000 property for $100,000?Value: Making money when you buy.The reasons are endless as to why a quick sale is desired, but just to name a few: job relocation, divorce, an estate is being settled or maybe a current appraisal on the property simply wasn’t done prior to selling. By ‘finding this deal’ you have accomplished two things.You have added $10,000 to your asset column in the form of equity.You have created additional LEVERAGE for yourself as the value of your property increases (a 6-10% gain on $110,000 is better than a 6-10% gain on $100,000!) Remember, you make money in Orlando Investment Property when you buy, not when you sell.Reason 3:Control: Let’s take our assumption one step further. When you buy your $10,000 worth of stocks, what can you do to increase its value? If we follow the previous assumption, you have invested $10,000 using a 90% mortgage to purchase a $100,000 property that has an actual value of $110,000 because you ‘found a good deal’. So what can you do to further increase the value of your new $110,000 property?It is amazing what a cleanup, a little landscaping and a paint job can do to increase the value of a property. Only a few hundred dollars well spent can result in huge value gains in Orlando Investment Property. Your $110,000 property with a little effort could easily be worth $115,000, $120,000 or more virtually overnight! Do you have to do any of this work yourself? Absolutely not! If you like to do that sort of thing then have at it, but if not, simply hire it done and accept a little lower net gain.Reason 4:Superior Tax Position: The tax code in the United States is geared to reward Investors who make housing and other property available to the population. When you invest in stocks, you are taxed at some of the highest rates in the tax code. When you invest in Orlando Investment Property, you put yourself in one of the best tax positions in the business world. Remember the wealthy that hold substantial portions of their assets in Orlando Investment Property? Tax advantages are one of the main reasons this is true.Continuing with the above example, let’s say that you have completed your ‘deal’ with the $10,000 invested with a 90% mortgage to purchase the $100,000 property that appraised for $110,000 (because you ‘found a good deal’), which you improved to say, $115,000 by spending another $1000 on cleanup etc. Assume that one year passes and the Orlando Investment Property market grew by 6%, your property would now be worth $122,000. So far, so good right? If you are like most people, you may want to spend some of your hard earned money.Let’s do the numbers. You have a mortgage at current rates that started at $90,000 and after a year worth of payments (the majority of which are tax deductible) you still owe approximately $89,000. However, your property is now worth approximately $122,000. If you were to refinance at 90% once again, you would take out a new mortgage of approximately $110,000. This will leave you with approximately $21,000 in cash in your pocket. Now, the BIG question; do you have to pay tax on that money? Absolutely Not! You have not sold the property or realized a ‘capital gain’. You have simply borrowed money from yourself. You are able to do what you wish with that money, free from any tax whatsoever. Obviously, a good strategy might be to purchase two more properties just like your first deal!Also, we have not taken into account the fact that ALL of your interest payments on this property are tax deductible. In addition, you are also able to depreciate the property itself and all of its contents for additional tax advantages if you choose to do so.Let’s be fair and compare the Orlando Investment Property tax position with the stock scenario. Assume that the $10,000 initial stock investment grew by 10% in the first year, creating a gain of $1000 and you wish to access it. If you draw it out, you will pay from 20-28% (or higher) in capital gains tax in order to have access to this money. This reduces your net gain to $800 (actual 8%) or less, depending on your tax situation. Compare that to Orlando Investment Property and you are beginning to get the picture.Reason 5:Limit Your Exposure To RiskRisk Management: Do you remember at the top when we said that banks would compete fiercely to loan you money on Orlando Investment Property? The answer to the ‘why’ is very simple. Low Risk. Banks incur little if any risk when loaning money on Orlando Investment Property due to the steady, solid growth rate of the property market, as well as the fact that if you default on your payments they will simply sell the property to somebody else. This is in direct contrast to the volatile stock market, which can vary daily with sharp increases and decreases in value. Furthermore, banks realize that a property isn’t going anywhere, whereas many investors know all too well about .com and other types of companies that were there yesterday and gone today.This is all not to say that Orlando Investment Property markets don’t go down from time to time, however the dips are much less dramatic than that which can take place in the stock market, proven out by the banks’ willingness to loan money on property.Reason 6:Protecting your peace of mind.Finally, Now that we understand the value of leverage and risk management we realize that a 6% Orlando Investment Property gain ‘beats the pants off’ a 10% stock gain in actual return on investment by a wide margin (approximately 50%, not taking into account several factors that can increase this number such as tax advantages, income on property etc.) Owning good, solid Orlando Investment Property allows you to sleep at night, or go on an extended vacation without worrying about your asset column. This is directly opposed to holding a substantial percentage of your assets in stocks.

Easy Ways to Protect Your Personal Finances From Further Economic Contraction

While the economy has already certainly softened, there may be further economic contraction for American consumers to face. Increasing job losses, higher inflation rates, and the growing food and energy costs are making personal finance budgeting difficult for most American families to achieve. The variable interest rate of recent mortgages makes critical, and the prospects for personal finance do not look bright for the next several years.

However, an ounce of personal finance planning is certainly worth more than a pound of monetary cure. It is not too late to start preparing your personal finance budgeting efforts to brace yourself for further economic contraction – ensuring that when America does recover from its economic weakness, your personal finance will be intact and still healthy.

Debt management strategy: watch your interest rates

When economic uncertainty is on the horizon, interest rates are the first to react – making debt management critical. Powered by both the Federal Reserve rate and each banking institution’s tolerance, interest rates can either soar or plummet, depending upon several factors.

Whereas our interest rates were at historical lows, the Fed Chairman Bernanke made adjustments to the rate in order to curb inflation, while attempting to simultaneously stimulate economic investment. What does this mean for your debt management? In essence, banks will now offer you great interest rates if you have good credit, making your debt management easy. If you have bad credit, then banks will increase your interest rates, as the risk of a default grows greater during an economic contraction.

Therefore, for debt management that will prepare for further economic contraction, you want to lock in low interest rates, which will be easy for those who already have good credit. You can refinance your credit cards by consolidating your debts, or you can even renegotiate your interest rates with your existing credit card company.

For those who have less than stellar credit, you want to carefully watch your mortgages, loans, and credit cards to ensure that they are not raising your interest rates. You may be particular susceptible to interest rate hikes in further economic contraction.

Smart personal finance budgeting

Keep in mind that regardless of how much income you earn, the key to maintaining financial stability is through intelligent debt management and personal finance budgeting. Even if you earn millions, your spending habits and debt are what determine your financial stability. In preparing for a further economic contraction, it is important that you take several personal finance budgeting steps:

o Tally all of your required expenses including your mortgage or rent payment, car payment, health insurance, and utilities. There are the bills you must pay each month, and therefore, are part of your mandatory personal finance budgeting process.

o Allocate a set amount each month for groceries. Keep in mind that you should try to purchase everything “on sale” for smart personal finance budgeting. Research shows that simply by purchasing the brand that is on sale, you can save approximately 20% each time you go to the supermarket.

o Minimize your entertainment expenses. Smart personal finance budgeting means limiting how frequently you eat out, or spend money on entertainment. For example, if you have a four-person family and you typically watch a movie at the theater each week, cutting this expense out could save up nearly $200 each month. Or, brown bag your lunch instead of eating at the local sandwich shop. This small change in your personal finance budgeting can save you conservatively $150 per month. Just these two small changes alone in your entertainment expenses can give you an extra $350 per month for your personal finance budgeting.

o Set money aside for your savings. In a further economic contraction, the greatest, yet most probably fear, is losing your job. Therefore, by taking conservative approaches with your personal finance budgeting now, you can still set aside emergency funds that will help your family if times are difficult. Saving 10% of your income each month is a healthy, yet reasonable, amount to save in your personal finance budgeting.

The key to protecting your personal finance against any additional economic contraction is through smart debt management and intelligent personal finance budgeting. By taking several preventative measures now, you can ensure that your financial situation will remain healthy – regardless of what happens to the economy.

Samples Of Small Business Subcontracting Plans

Small business subcontracting plans necessarily mean a large business enterprise sub letting or taking help from small businesses. In large business outfits, the amount of office supplies is great hence a small business firm is contacted and a contract is signed with them to provide office materials regularly.

o A subcontract is broadly defined as an understanding agreed upon by a prime contract and subcontractor to provide goods or services needed for complementing the performance of the prime contract.

o The service a small business provides, however, is not necessarily under the prime contract; it should satisfy the prime contractor’s ordinary overhead requirements attributable to the prime contract.

This entire process of contracting out a part of the project to a small business firm is known as small business subcontracting. The contract is made formal only if the costs involved in providing materials exceed $500.000 for the entire period of performance.

o a small business subcontracting plan must state an expected amount of business that the prime contractor expects to award to small business contractors

However, it is untrue that all business concerns need subcontracted businesses to reach the stage of completion.

o In order to ensure completion, each subcontracting plan must name a manager or contract person, called a plan administrator, in charge of promoting compliance under the plan.

Only when the magnitude of the business project demands calculated subcontracts sub recipients are brought into discussions.

The subcontractor’s SBSP mentions the materials to be purchased, the total amount of money that will be spent on each small business outfit and the percentage of money that has been stipulated for supplies and/or services that these purchases represent.

Small business concerns usually used as sub recipients of such huge business projects are:

o Small Disadvantaged Business concern
o Minority Institutes
o Veteran Owned Small Business concern
o Women Owned Small Business concern
o Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Rather than waiting for communication, a small business can contact prime contractors directly to inform them of its small business.

A small business can approach agencies themselves to show inclination of its availability for subcontracting.

A SBSP is prepared by the principal investigator of the project. The principal investigator takes up the responsibility of meeting the goals set in the plan. If the SBSP fails for any reason, the contractor may be made responsible for the damage and the business concern handling the project may be denied new contracts.

Once the SBSP is prepared, it is presented as a part of the business proposal. It is open to negotiation.

o In soliciting subcontracts, prime contractors often seek several small business sources to insure they are obtaining a fair price

o If a small business is dissatisfied with the treatment it receives from the prime contractor, it cannot protest to the agency or General Accounting Office.

The principal investigator informs the Procurement Resource Services (PRS) administrator of the need of subcontractors. The PRS then aids investigators in identifying suppliers as per the requirement of the project.

o Prime contractors are increasingly aware of the need to subcontract with small businesses for delegating work.
o Certain small business contracts stress the possibility of dollar penalties on those failing to meet their subcontracting plans.

Typical samples small business subcontracting plans require the following information:

o Identification Data – name of the company, address, date of preparation of SBSP, Solicitation Number and Item or Service required
o Type of Plan – individual, master or commercial
o Goals – estimated dollar value of all planned subcontracting, estimated dollar value and percentage of total planned subcontracting to large business concerns, estimated dollar value and percentage of total planned subcontracting to small business concerns etc
o Details of Program Administrator
o Equitable Opportunity
o Reporting and Co-operation time line
o Record Keeping
o Timely payments to Subcontractors
o Description of Good Faith Report

The Finer Points of Internet Auctions

WHAT IS A PENNY AUCTION?

Penny auctions have exploded in popularity with the massive growth of the internet. However, few people know the true origins of penny auctions.Beginnings actually stretch back to the Great Depression. Those were hard times for everyone, but even harder for farmers. Farmers struggled to bring in steady income because of droughts and crops not selling as well as they had previously. As a result, the banks would foreclose on the farmers who couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.

The banks weren’t satisfied with just repossessing the house, they wanted to raise as much capital as possible, so they resorted to selling off the possessions of the owners of the repossessed houses. There was not much the farmers could do about it so they began bidding ridiculously low prices, pennies, on the items while threatening others who dared to bid higher than a few pennies.

The auctions of today hardly resemble their tremulous beginnings. Being part of a penny auction today is exhilarating, fun, and addictive. It combines the selling format of auctioning with a little bit of chance factored in.Auctions are a game of strategy but also a game of luck.

The premise behind penny auctions is giving people the chance to win an item at a drastically reduced price.Auctions make that possible by spreading out the cost of the product among multiple bidders. In order for a person to take part in an auction, they must pay a set price for each bid. For example, if a person wanted to bid on a fifty dollar Amazon gift card then he would spend a dollar for each time a bid placed. If he ended up winning the gift card, then he would only have spent a few dollars for a fifty dollar gift card. Usually penny auctions sell bids in packages.

HOW PENNY AUCTIONS WORK!

The main foundation of penny auctions is the pay-per-bid format. It is the key that allows bidders to win items at the fraction of their retail value and allows the auction owners to keep their site profitable. Most y auction sites run on the same premise: people pay a set amount for each bid, whenever a person places a bid within the closing seconds of the auction time will be added, the last person left with a unique bid after the clocks runs out will win the item. There are a large variety of items that can be won, but they tend to be popular electronics or gift cards to popular stores.

There are two types of auctions: lowest unique bid auction and highest unique bid auction. Lowest unique auction sounds confusing but it is actually quite simple. A unique bid is when only one person has a bid at a certain price. Bids usually start at one penny, a bidder can then place a bid at two pennies. Until another bidder places a higher bid, the most recent bidder will be the lowest unique bid because that was the only bid at two cents and nobody bid higher. However, penny auctions generally don’t stop at one penny. It is not uncommon to find auctions that end up at a couple hundred dollars based on the popularity of the item being auctioned. However, the same principles apply for those auctions. Highest unique bid auctions follow the more traditional auction format such as eBay. The person with the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.

Auction site owners turn a profit by selling bids. Say twenty people are bidding on a ten dollar gift card at one dollar per bid, at the end of the auction if there were twenty bids placed in total then the site owner would have made twenty dollars with a ten dollar profit.Auctions do seem like a win-win situation:The site owner makes money while the bidder gets an item for dirt cheap. However, not everyone wins in penny auctions. The people who paid one dollar each bid but left with nothing to show for their investments will not be so happy.

HOW TO WIN!

Penny auction has a lot of chance mixed into it, but one can incorporate strategy that will help raise the chances of winning. Playing smart can make all the difference between gambling and auctioning.

The first crucial tip to winning penny auctions is to know how to manage your bids. Your goal should be to win as much as possible without spending a ton of money buying bids. Managing your bids means that you should already know how much you are willing to risk in order to win an item. The amount of capital you are willing to risk will determine how many bids you can use. Once you know how many bids you have to spend on an item, then you will be better able to manage how and when you place a bid. That will keep you from blowing away all of your bids in the first few seconds of the auction.

The next tip is to practice time management. When fighting in the trenches of penny auctions, you have two enemies: other bidders and time. Knowing when to bid is a must if you want to have success. Placing a bid when there is a lot of time left on the clock is never a good idea. You have to remember that the key to winning a penny auction is being the last one standing when the clock runs out and that each bid increases the amount of time left. It would be a good practice to wait until the last few minutes of the auction before you begin to bid.

The final tip for successful auctioning is to keep your emotions under control.Auctions have a lot of similarities to gambling, and just like gambling, your spending can get out of control. If you keep your emotions level, it will keep you from making rash decisions and blowing loads of cash. Keep your mind clear so that you can gage the behavior of the other bidders and outsmart them.

HOW TO AVOID SCAM SITES!

Penny auctions are a great addition to the web whether you want to win an item that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford or if you simply enjoy the thrill that comes with bidding in auctions. Unfortunately, scam sites have tarnished the reputation of the legitimate penny auction sites. However, there are ways that you can protect yourself from scamers and enjoy your auctioning without having to worry about losing your money due to dishonesty.

Checking the reputation of the auction site before you start spending your hard earned money is always a good idea. Chances are other people have tried the site before you and some of them have left reviews. The reviews are your way to gage whether a auction site is trustworthy or not. If a site is getting overwhelmingly negative reviews, then that is a clear indication that you should steer your business elsewhere.

Another tool you can use to protect yourself is checking the Alexia ranks of the auction sites. Alexia rank will give a solid view of how much traffic the auction is getting. If you see a huge difference in the amount of traffic Alexia is projecting and the amount of active bidders on the site, then warning signals should be ringing in your head. Some auction sites have been known to set up robots that automatically bid on projects in order to keep the auction going and inflate the price. That is known as shill bidding. You can sniff out those sites by comparing the traffic the site should be getting to the amount of users using this site.

CONCLUSION!

New legislation may come out later down the road that will officially make penny auctions gambling, but until then, it is a fun, exciting auction that allows one to win the item they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford.Auctions are also quite lucrative for the site owners because of the pay-per-bid strategy they’ve incorporated. Penny auctions had humble beginnings with farmers who just wanted to get back at the banks who kicked them out of their house. More recently, auctions have enjoyed an explosion in popularity with the rise of the internet.

There are two main formats fora auctions, lowest and highest unique auction, however they both run on the same premise where the last unique bid wins the item. Winning a penny auction will require a certain amount of mental tactic and a bit of luck. However, you can increase your odds of winning by practicing certain techniques such as managing your bids wisely, learning how to work with the time, and keeping a level head and your emotions under control. When you combine those three strategies to your bidding plan, you will find that you win a lot more often.

It is important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself when participating in auctions. Not every auction is run by honest and trustworthy people. There are people out there who just want to take your money. You can protect yourself by ensuring that you only bid on sites that already have a very positive reputation from real users.

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How to Find Great Live Auctions for Resale Items

Hi, my name is Walt. I’m an auctioneer with 25 years of experience in the auction business and licensed in the state of MA. I own Quick Auction Service, a company that specializes in building and running custom auctions, I’m also the webmaster of my own site and have been on eBay for 8 years. Besides eBay, the types of auctions I run most frequently are antiques and on-site estate auctions, although I’ve run everything from business overstock auctions to charity & special event auctions.

I enjoy sharing my knowledge and stories of the auction business. My goal for article is to help folks get the absolute most out of their auction experience.

Whether your fresh out of the package or a seasoned dealer I think I can offer something in this article to help you with your auciton adventures.

There may be as many reasons to attend auctions as there are types of auctions to attend. Maybe you want to attend an auction to buy items for re-sale on eBay, or some other market. Maybe you want to furnish your home with wonderful antiques, or you want to furnish your home as inexpensively without sacrificing quality.Some folks are just looking for a fun night out. With a little perseverance all these things are possible.

There are antiques and estate auctions, auto auctions, overstock auctions, absolute and no reserve auctions, real estate auctions, specialty auctions where only one genre of items are sold, tailgate auctions, live auctions, online auctions, sealed bid auctions, silent auctions, charity and fund raising auctions and many more.

Can you really buy for pennies on the dollar at an auction? You bet! Many times I’ve seen folks buy and re-sell at the same auction on the same night for a good profit, although be advised, this should only be done after the auction is over.

There are a lot of ways to find an auction, but here are some tips on how to find and attend the best ones.

Visit the genre of shops in the area that apply to the type of auction you want to attend. IE: If your looking for a good antique auction to attend, stop in the local antiques shops and ask for what there are for good auctions in the area. Sounds obvious right? But listen to what they don’t say as well as what they do say. Oftentimes when a dealer speaks poorly about an auction he or she attends, it may be likely that they are trying to keep a good thing secret. Think for a moment, why would a dealer keep attending a lousy auction?

Newspaper ads: I personally like to find ads in the classified ad section rather than flashy display ads. Flashy ads are usually indicative of an auction that will be high priced, may have reserves, (a set price on an item), and usually an enormous crowd. While any auction can be profitable to attend, it is usually best to steer clear of the glitzy ones, at least for the beginner.

Here’s the minimum you want to find out before you go. If there is a phone number in the ad, call and ask for the terms of the sale. What forms of payment do they accept? Is it an absolute auction? An absolute auction is one that has no minimum or reserve bids on items. These are the best auctions to attend! Is there a buyers premium? A buyers premium is like a tax that everyone who makes purchases at that auction must pay above the winning bid price. Most auctions these days do charge a buyers premium, 10% is not unreasonable but I feel much more than that is greedy, and the auctioneer that charges over 10% is counting on most bidders not doing the extra math as the bids quicken in pace.

A fair auction will have ample time to inspect the merchandise, usually at least 2 or 3 hours. Find out when inspection starts and make sure to attend! Never attend an auction if you can’t make the inspection, not unless your prepared to gamble. Most auctioneers sell at a rate of about 100 items per hour, which is why they sell “as is”. They simply don’t have the time to give a detailed description of all the items. Since almost all items at auction are sold AS IS, there are sure to be some damaged, refinished, fake and incomplete items at any given auction. Beware of any auctions that offer very little or no inspection time.

Good auctions will usually have 150 to 400 lots. A lot may be one item or a group of items. The exception to this are specialty auctions, auto auctions, real estate auctions etc.

When you attend your first sale, take note of the 1/2 dozen or so dealers that buy the most often. See if you can find out about other area auctions they attend.

When you do find an excellent auction, attend it as often as possible. By frequenting good sales, you help increase the bottom line of that business. It’s difficult for many auctioneers to keep the quality of merchandise consistent, so good attendance certainly helps. And when an auctioneer gets to know you as a buyer, he/she will go out of the way to accommodate you, to keep you coming back.

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