Business travel tips often focus on how to make the actual traveler’s trip easier. But what about the family that is left behind? Often times depending on the age of the kids, it can be just as stressful for them and your spouse. While you are planning out your next trip, take some time to plan out how you are going to spend quality time with your family both before and after the trip.One thing to plan is something to do when you return so everyone can look forward to that activity and not on the absence. Plan for a trip to the zoo or some other age appropriate activity for your children.Help your spouse do any chores before you leave, like grocery shopping or laundry. Being a single parent for a couple of days can be challenging, especially when you are not used to going it alone.Play with your kids before you leave as well. Before trips we are usually just focused on preparing for the trip itself and not on preparing the family.Call often while you are gone. When on the road don’t forget to check in even more often then when you are in town. This helps maintain a constant reassurance that things are okay.Families are often the forgotten factor when talking about business travel tips. There is a whole industry focused on the traveler but not on the family. If you are a frequent flyer, take some time to focus on your family.
Tax Saving Strategies For Capital Gains on Rental Property
Have you recently sold any of your rental property? Are the taxes on your capital gains are a burden for you? Are you looking for some way out to reduce these taxes and keep most of the profits you made from this transaction?Then you need to know some intricacies of capital gains tax rules.If you had purchased rental property at a lower price and now sold it with a respectable margin on it, this difference you could get is the capital gain and the same is taxable.Remember, IRS gives preference to home owners. An average home owner will be charged leniently as compared to a property investor. So the capital gains tax varies as per different types on property owners.One good thing about the capital gains tax is that it is lower than the income tax. It is convenient if you buy the property and wait for one year before you sell it. This way you will have to pay taxes at an average rate of 10 to 25 %. But if you plan to sell your rental property before one year, then your earning is considered as short term capital gains and you have to pay heavy taxes on it which may be same as the ordinary income tax.If you have your rental property overseas, you need to check the capital gains taxes rules over there. As in some countries like United Kingdom to encourage foreign investors, they do not charge any tax from them for their capital gains.Some useful tips for saving on this tax:You can avail the benefits on tax savings by becoming a home owner than a property investor.To qualify to the criteria of home owner, you have to stay in your rental property for a minimum of 2 years. You may have rented it in past but then you have to stay in it for two years out of five years block before you sell off. Then it will be considered as your own home for tax purposes.If you are a married couple selling your own home, the profit of first $500,000 is not taxable as against a sole owner who is eligible for tax exemption on the first $ 250,000.If your sale is just a rollover, you may be charged absolutely nothing towards your capital gains. So you are selling your rental property only to purchase a new property of that type, it will be a rollover.This rollover refers to section 1031 of the internal revenue code. To satisfy the clauses of this section you have to finalize on a new property within 45 days of the sale and the deal has to be completed within 6 months.Remember, selling your rental property in cash emergencies is not a good idea. Then it is difficult to reduce the liability on capital gains. And this is the reason why I advise property owners to put aside some of your funds for emergencies such as major repairs.
BonAmour Lifestyle – What The Mind Body System Does For BonAmour Entrepreneurs and Consumers
The BonAmour lifestyle is a living concept within BonAmour International that has its head quarters in Austin, Texas. The BonAmour lifestyle dedicates itself to innovative approaches to business and life. What makes the BonAmour lifestyle stand apart from others is that it focuses not only on the product it sells but also on the effects it has on its customers. This is why BonAmour dedicates itself in selling products that guarantees positive effects on its users. In a nutshell, it is about living a better life today for a better life tomorrow.
With this in mind, BonAmour International’s products focus on providing a healthy lifestyle. Bonmour’s Mind Body system product line is increasingly successful and has been said to have changed thousands of lives already. The reason why the Mind Body system has worked is because it tries to bring about a natural way of change into our health and lifestyle.
The Mind Body system comes with a refreshing Mind Body drink that will help kick start your day with generous doses of antioxidants, natural herbs, multiple vitamins that varies with the kind of juice you drink, amino acids, and collagen. If that wasn’t enough, it also comes with an additional activating trigger to bring the change more effectively. The Mind Body system makes sure that all its consumers (especially the old and sick) will be benefited.
The Mind Body system product line also comes with an evening drink to help you properly process what you have been consuming throughout the day. This will help you calm and sooth your body metabolism. If you have been a regular consumer of health drinks you will notice that not many health drink brands will come with the benefit of and evening energy drink.
How the Mind Body System applies to BonAmour Entrepreneurs
BonAmour recruits entrepreneurs from all walks of life to help distribute and promote their products. In return for their efforts, BonAmour entrepreneurs are compensated with retail & fast start commissions and other performance bonuses. The potential exists for enough profitability to replace and exceed the income from a typical 9-5 job. The Mind Body system plays a great role when BonAmour Entrepreneurs begin using the product themselves. They get to see results in their own life and can promote the product on a more personal level Therefore, BonAmour Entrepreneurs who take full advantage of what the BonAmour Lifestyle has to offer will likely come out on top.
With all that being said, if BonAmour Entrepreneurs want to really be successful in life, then they need to go above and beyond what BonAmour offers on its own. You see when it comes to product distribution, whether you’re online or offline; there are principles that must be applied. Entrepreneurs who are serious and dedicated to living the BonAmour lifestyle will look for ways to increase their own education and profitability within BonAmour and outside of BonAmour in order to take their life to the next level.
Video Marketing – Where to Begin
Video marketing is a tool as well as an art form. There are a lot of things to consider with video including aesthetic and technical considerations. You have to consider music, shape, motion, graphics, and voice, as well as other elements. In business videos, these elements all work as a tool to promote your business. Video marketing can be a very effective way to convey your message.
You need to think about where your finished video is going to be viewed, typically on a website either streamed or downloaded. Websites are interactive but with video the user has a little less control and a little less interaction. A video captures attention but the viewer doesn’t always stick around to the end of the video because they can easily click away from it if they are bored or distracted. Nearly half of a video’s viewers leave a video after the first 60 seconds. Thoughtful planning can help to keep a viewer’s attention longer.
Consider the following when planning your marketing video:
- Identify your audience and their demographics. Discover why your target audience reacts to certain things the way they do. Profile your audience by creating focus groups or simply asking your target audience questions so that you understand where they’re coming from and why. It will also give you an opportunity to test some of your initial video ideas on them.
- Identify the communication objectives of the video. Your video should deliver a single clear message so you don’t overwhelm the viewer with too many messages. Video is not the only communication tool so you don’t have to throw all of your information into it. Your video will be more powerful with just one message. What is the most important thing that you want to convey to your target audience? If you try to provide too much information your video will be less effective. Keep it simple. If you have a clear communication objective in mind then you will have a good blueprint for your video. As you are in the various production phases of your video keep referring back to your communication objectives to insure that you are still on target.
- Identify the call-to-action. Before beginning your video production consider what action you want the viewer to take. What do you want your targeted audience to know, do, see, feel, or understand after they have watched your video?
- What are your existing marketing efforts and how does the use of a video complement those efforts?
- Identify the tone. What is the tone of the video is it serious, funny, or dramatic? What emotion do you want your targeted audience to feel when watching your video, trust, excitement, concern?
- Determine the length. How long should your video be? Typically shorter videos are better. Make your video only as long as it needs to be to convey your message.
- Creativity should be a goal of your video if you want viewers to watch your entire video. Adding elements of surprise will help to keep suspense as well as the audience.
- Create a think tank. Brainstorm and generate ideas with a group of several people. Search for ideas online as well as in print media and on TV and in movies, this can help to inspire creativity.
- When you know your objective, understand your audience, and have several creative ideas then you are ready to create a storyboard and begin a script. When you move to the production step of the video creation there are 3 phases: pre-production, when you select the cast, scout locations, gather a crew and equipment, the production phase includes working with the cast and crew to shoot of the video, the post-production phase includes the editing of the video.
Throughout the whole process, your video will evolve more than likely your finished product will not be exactly the same as your initial ideas would suggest, but that’s okay. As long as you have kept your communication objective and targeted audience in mind then you will create a video that will encourage your audience to respond to your call-to-action.
Difference Between Film and Digital Photography
Everyone tries to adapt and go digital. There are those who purchase the newest and the most advanced gadgets each and every time. There are those who love to experiment with the old and the new depending on their requirements. And there are those who would still prefer the analog and are not yet satisfied what the digital age could bring. For Photography, there are a lot of people who are exactly the same as the three types of people mentioned above. Let us look at some of the factors why people have preferences between film and digital photography.Resolution. Image resolution is defined by how much detail an image has. So the more resolution the more detail an image has. Digital Cameras are usually measured on how much resolution they can produce. These days they can go up to 25 Megapixels, but they are the most expensive ones. The typical compact camera can reach up to 12 Megapixels already. And these pixel counts can only be compared with the 35mm size film. That is how powerful in terms of image detail a film has over digital cameras. What more if you will use higher size of film, especially for larger prints.Image Quality. For capturing black and white, film is hands down more detailed than in digital. This is because of the single monochrome silver halide layer compared to the digital camera’s feature which only desaturates the RGB created by the sensor. For colored, still film has the advantage as mentioned above dominating the resolution. But, we also have to consider the ISO. Meaning considering the conditions such as lighting, the digital camera can dominate the film because it is easier to set the camera on different ISO where the film should be replaced with another type of ISO film to adjust.Noise and Exposure. Noise is the interruption which you normally see on TV or videos, but in digital photography you call it noise, while grain in film. Film does not have much noise, while digital tends to have more of it as ISO increases. This is because of the CCD’s sensitivity to light. But digital cameras can capture images in low light better than film. On the other hand, if we will talk about harsh lights and long exposures, film can handle these better as it can deliver more natural captures. Digital however cannot handle these and will become over exposed.Preview. If you want to preview the possible outcome, film cannot do this. Film uses viewfinder when taking pictures, so if you commit a mistake or your subject did not like it, you cannot redo it, but waste another shot. On a digital camera however has integrated LCD for previews. You can easily delete the pictures that you do not like. For DSLR they have both viewfinder and LCD, but the LCD is basically for previewing as well.Appearance. If we will compare the physical appearance of the film and digital cameras, you will notice that film can be bulkier than a digital camera. It is heavier actually and the size of it needs to accommodate the film which usually is 35mm. So you can’t expect to get a film camera smaller than that. As for the digital camera, it has ranges in size, weight, and dimension. This is because digital cameras are made based on their features and functionality. It can be the smallest and slimmest that you want like most compact cameras, or the biggest and heaviest for the advanced DSLR. So it will depend on your needs.Storage. Regarding storage, film is harder to store. You have to think how you will preserve the negatives without diminishing its quality. It will be harder to replicate the printed pictures for duplicates when you lose your negatives, otherwise you will need a restorer for it. Whereas the digital camera’s output is automatically stored in SD cards. Then you can back it up in your computer, cd, or other hard disks without changing its properties and quality. In the long run, film can fade, while digital will never change.Editing. For post editing, digital is easy to do as there are a lot of photo editors out there made for editing photos. You can edit the pictures as many times as you want as long as you retain the raw file. Just in case you make mistakes, it will be easy to do it all over again. In film however is dependent on during taking pictures. You cannot tweak the picture during printing because most labs use default settings, unless you have your own darkroom and do the editing there.Output. In printing the pictures, most digital labs accommodate both film and digital pictures. It is very easy to and takes at least 30 minutes or less depending on the lab. You can also do film printing in a darkroom.Costs. Finally let us compare these two based on costs. They both are cheap and expensive, but it depends on how you look at it. For film, you will have to always spend because the film itself is costly if you need a lot of shots. And if you want to mass send it, you need to do it by post, which also require you paying. If you want to post it in the web, you need to purchase a good quality scanner. But the film camera is a good investment you can use for years, although the accessories might get obsolete. The digital pictures are not required to be printed, so you will not spend a dime. Because of so many social networks and photo sharing sites, it is easy for you to instantly upload your pictures without also spending. The digital camera has a price range depending on what model and type you want. But if we will again compare it with the quality a film can produce and the retention, the digital camera is more expensive.There you go. We were able to take a hard look on the difference between the film and digital photography. These are all the features which make a person to be a great fan of the digital world, a practical one who mixes it up depending on the requirement, or a person who is very conventional. I am like the person in the middle. So if you will purchase one though, I would recommend to make sure that you will be able to balance the feature vs. the cost.
Why People Turn to Term Life Insurance Policies
With the rising number of different insurance policies in the market, one finds it very difficult to make a wise decision as to what particular policy to avail. Factors usually involved in choosing the type of insurance policy are age, money, and benefits. In adherence to consumer needs of affordability and coverage, term life insurance has become the most ideal insurance policy in the market.Term life insurance can be considered as the simplest among the different kinds of life insurances. It is low cost and affordable to an average earner. It covers a person for a limited period, but he has the option of dropping the policy when the period lapses or he could continue the coverage by paying increasing premiums annually. In the instance of death of the insured within the policy term, the beneficiaries would receive the death benefit. Term life insurance provides coverage on financial obligations. Some of these responsibilities include funeral costs, dependent care, mortgages, and consumer debt.The shortest possible coverage period for this type of insurance is one year. If the insured person dies during the policy period, the insurance company pays the death benefit. If the insured dies after the period of coverage, no death benefit would be paid. However, due to the low probability of a person dying after a year of acquiring insurance protection, people opt for a longer period coverage than one year.The annual renewable term insurance (ART) is the commonly purchased form. This type offers more flexibility for the insured. The premium for one year coverage is paid but the policy could be renewed every year for a particular term or a maximum period of years. The periods usually vary from ten to thirty years, or up to the age of 95, depending on the insurance company. As the insured gets older, the premiums continually increase in every renewal.Renewing a policy is one of the challenges that policyholders face because they have to prove their insurability. This refers to the quality assigned to a person by the insurance company, determining the risk involved if the company would decide to insure the said individual. A person having a very low insurability would most likely be refused an insurance policy by the company. An example of a person with low insurability is one who has a terminal illness and has a life expectancy of less than a year. The probability for such person to die within the coverage period poses a great risk for insurers. However, insurance companies have added a feature in life insurances known as guaranteed reinsurability. This feature allows an insured person to renew his policy even without the proof of insurability.Insurance companies use different tools in issuing rates for different policies. A mortality table is used to calculate the cost of insurance as well as the death benefit which is free from income tax. This continues while the policy is valid and the premiums are current. Term life insurance provides maximum coverage with just a little cost. It is best suited for families or individuals who have debts and liabilities, young children of school age, businesses, or for those who want to leave a legacy to their loved ones.
How to Stay in Your Job, Study For a Bachelors Degree Online – And Save Money!
So, the dilemma is: How do I get the bachelors degree I need without having to give up the job I need? A difficult question! Fortunately there is an easy answer: Study online.What I didn’t realise about online education is that it really ties in with your professional development and present job. It’s just a matter of choosing the right course for your educational needs.With vocational courses, online education provides the perfect balance between your main job and studying. It’s integrated, and the online colleges are very much aware of both your personal and academic needs – usually because they’ve arrived in their positions, as online bachelors degree teaching staff, straight from the sector you are working in right now.My online bachelors degree is fantastic in the way I can access information, classes, and get more contact with tutors than I could ever have got in a conventional college environment. And the guidance from staff works. They know I’m working, they appreciate my time constraints, they appreciate that I am actually doing what I am learning, they appreciate I have responsibilities – both personal and professional.The course, or rather the way in which the course is delivered online, fits in very well with my job. Three months into my BA degree online and I’m getting more done at work, rather than less, which was what I would have imagined if someone told me I could study online for a degree and work at the same time.I’m saving money too. No travel expenses to worry about, and an hour each way getting to college would have equated to less hours work or less hours with the family so that’s got to be worth something!Still unsure about my choice of online education? Well let me tell you about the Virtual Learning Environment or VLE. This is essentially how technology puts all things you need to learn online in a web based setting.The VLE is both a tool and a philosophy. That everything you need to learn your online BA degree is readily available, nearly any time you need it. Classes, communication with fellow students and teaching staff, syllabuses, course content, lecture notes, research material, classes (broadcast both live and archived for future reference) and lots, lots more. In fact enough for you to study for your BA degree without having to actually step foot in a college.The whole point about the VLE is that it is easy to access, easy to use, and easy to make the most of to get the best from your online bachelors degree.I’m glad I chose to do my BA degree online at Kaplan Open Learning rather than enrolling at a college that would have been costly in both time and money. The only question now is whether I will develop my existing role, get an improved position where I presently work, or go to a different company to make better use of my degree – whatever I choose, it will be a step in the right direction.
Essential Features of a Mobile Website for an Automotive Business
A website is highly beneficial for any automotive business, as automobiles are one of the most popular products searched for on the Internet. Although a website can be a good promotional tool for these businesses, the quick rise in mobile device sales and increase in mobile Internet use has generated a new need and opportunity to reach customers. In fact, mobile websites are proving to be quite valuable for every business interested in maintaining and then expanding its customer base.When developing a mobile website business operators have to be a bit more creative considering the limitations of mobile devices. Unlike PCs, phones have limited screen space, no key board, no mouse, and less bandwidth. With that being said, creating a mobile specific site that provides value and functionality within to the above said constraints is crucial in order to continue reaching current and potential customers.Below highlights the specific features that should be included in an automotive business’s mobile website.Mobile friendly design – minimum content and graphics: The design of a mobile website specific to an auto business should maintain focused content. Include only specific information related to the vehicles which is useful to the customers such as unique features, price, deals, and follow-up services. Owing to the less screen space of the mobiles, images of the vehicles should be made small and of low resolution. Avoid or limit the flash animations, videos, columns and navigation so as to give a cleaner look to the website. This also facilitates quick and easy loading.Additionally, you can even add a click-to-call button to your mobile website. This directly initiates a call to the business, creating a great opportunity for lead generation.SEO – for mobile search applications and engines: It isn’t enough just to be accessible through mobile search engines. Your automotive business should be visible when potential customers search for your products and services. Remember, search engines operate differently for traditional websites and mobile websites. Bots and algorithms used for mobile search engines are different from those used for traditional search engines. Hence it is necessary to optimize the website for mobile access.You need to concentrate more on automotive-specific meta tags, title tags, and keywords in your description of the vehicle. This improves your brand visibility and also gets potential customers through mobile search.You can even optimize your website for local search which will enable your business to appear when the customer is looking for auto dealers or services within a specific area or through their GPS units.Incorporate links in social media and blogs: Almost all Smartphone or mobile device users are active on social media websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Taking that into consideration, it’s a good strategy to incorporate sharing capabilities and access to all of these social platforms from your mobile website. Additionally, take the time to create fan pages so that your auto business is reinforced through multiple marketing channels. Since social media and blogs are strong marketing tools, your online mobile presence will be effectively felt by the customers. However, make sure that these features are small so that they don’t inhibit the loading of your mobile website’s pages.You can even give access to your existing automotive blogs by installing specific plug-ins that will automatically customize the normal blog for mobile users.High browser compatibility: Generally, an automotive business’s mobile website is very complex due to the number of vehicle models, specific features pertaining to each one, and the variety of auto services offered. Any number of these features can make the site difficult to load. In addition, not all mobile phones support the same format for downloading the content. Lastly, make sure that your auto dealership’s mobile website is compatible with browsers used by different phones like Android, iPhone, etc.Mobile users are becoming more and more dependent on mobile sites and applications as these provide instant access to information, deals and product research. Hence, it is necessary for any company, but particularly one in the automotive business, to develop an improved, simple, and yet functional design for their mobile website so as to enhance the user experience and engagement.
Simple Home Improvements For Your Kitchen to Make it Like New Again
In many households the kitchen is a very busy place. That’s one of the reasons when looking at a home improvement job your kitchen is usually the first to come into mind. If your household is anything like mine the kitchen is more of a living room. Everyone just seems to start in the kitchen and when they get there they don’t leave. If you want to improve your kitchen there are a few simple things you can do to make it look like new again. And forget about any major kitchen construction here. Although there is a time and place for that, but most of the time all your kitchen needs is a little loving.The first place to look when starting a home improvement on your kitchen is the walls. Many times a fresh coat of paint will really liven up the place. Maybe even a completely change of color if you want to get bold. The nice thing about a fresh paint job on your kitchen is that it is very inexpensive and a lot of times a kitchen is very easy to paint. One of the reason is because there just isn’t a lot of surface area because of cabinets and what not. Usually a fresh paint job can be done in just under a few hours and leave you feeling like you just did a complete renovation of your kitchen.The next area I would look at in your kitchen improvement is the flooring. If your house is older and does not have hardwood floors in the kitchen this is the way to go. I know a lot of homes have the very cheap tile like floor lining. It’s very functional but sometimes an eye sore when you look at it too long. What I would suggest is a nice larger tile for your new kitchen. This usually does not involve major construction to your kitchen as long as you pick a reliable contractor in your area. And if you’re a go getter you can even do it yourself. This process is not as hard as you may think. All you need to do is get some instructions online and don’t cut any corners.My favorite home improvement for your kitchen is your cabinets. If you have the budget to get new ones then by all means have at it, but for the do it yourselfers out there you can fix up your old ones with a very little budget. I would recommend a new stain or paint on your cabinets to make them look like new. If you’re not experienced with cabinets I would get a family member or a contractor to take them down, but this will be very inexpensive.When you look at these quick kitchen improvements one by one you might think they are small and irrelevant, but I promise once you start going with these your kitchen will feel like new again. And the best part of these home improvements for your kitchen is that they can be done on a shoe string budget.
Structured Settlements: How You Sell Samuel Towers
Selling A Structured SettlementAs we have seen in other articles in this series, a structured settlement could turn out to be inadequate to meet your financial needs. The question of selling the settlement comes up in this context.You have heard that people do cash out settlements. However, the wording in your settlement agreement might give a different impression. The restrictive wording would seem to prohibit any transfer of the settlement.All this could lead to confusion, at a time when you are in urgent need of lump sum cash. In this article, we seek to remove the confusion and explain the process of cashing out your structured settlement.You Are Not Selling the SettlementThe settlement was an agreement between you and insurance company (or other party). It is typically executed to settle a claim you made. If the insurance company settled the claim by purchasing an annuity in your favor, the annuity itself belongs to the company. You cannot sell it.
On the other hand, the settlement confers a right on you, the right to receive a future stream of payments. This right to receive payments is your asset. Like any other asset, you do have a right to sell this asset.How Do You Sell A Structured SettlementWhile you are entitled to sell your right to receive future payments, the law makes selling structured settlements somewhat difficult. Such settlements and annuities are considered better for the financial security of most persons. Hence the law encourages such settlements and discourages their sale for lump sum cash.In such a situation, you proceed as follows:Consider what you want to use the lump sum cash for. You would have to explain how a lump sum of cash serves your interests better than a stream of payments extending over years.Locate a buyer that specializes in buying structured settlements. Business firms known as structured settlement factors do this. We look at the qualifications of a good buyer at the end of this article.Get a quote from the buyer for buying out your settlement payments. Buyers typically discount the future payments to a “present value” and give their quote based on this value.If you accept the quote, ask the buyer for a pro-forma contract, showing the terms under which they would buy your payments. Review it with your attorney.Return the accepted pro-forma to the buyer. Reputed factoring firms would then check that the whole transaction is likely to be approved by the court and that all legal requirements have been met.The firm would then file an application in a court to get an appointment to review the transaction.On the date fixed by the court, you will appear before the judge and answer questions on why you want to sell the settlement. Other interested parties might also put questions to you. Explain to them how your interests are better served with a lump sum of cash.If you deal with an experienced and competent factoring firm, the settlement sale would most likely be approved.The factoring firm pays you the agreed sum within a few days of receiving the court order.
Selecting A Structured Settlement Factoring CompanyEnsure that the buyer of your payments is:Financially sound and able to meet their payment obligationsExperienced in the field and could attend to all legal formalities.Deals up front with you and do not seem likely to cheat you with too small a lump sum or in other ways.