Money and Bills Blog

Make Money, Save Money, Credit Score, Pay Your Bills

Debt Settlement Can Be A Tax Nightmare!

When hard economic times happen, debt settlement can seem like a very appealing option. Maybe you lost your job, your income was reduced or you had your income affected by a large medical expense.

For these reasons, you may have fallen behind on your bills and the creditors are now on your back!

You failed to pay your debts and now one of your creditors has lost hope getting you to pay up. For reasons known to them, they’ve decided to stop trying to collect their debt and may have decided to write off your debt.

While you may be feeling relieved, what seems to be a good fortune to you may turn out to be a tax nightmare!

Below, are some things you need to be aware of regarding settling or having large amounts of debt forgiven. If you’re not 100% sure on how this affects your financial situation you to need to seek out a finance professional for help!

Believe it or not, I was in a similar situation during the last great recession of 2008. If it was not for my CPA, I would have had some big tax problems and possibly owed over 100,000 dollars to … READ MORE

Wave Apps Cloud Based Accounting, an Honest Review!

We’ve all experienced the pain of having to track receipts or reconcile our bank accounts with our monthly bank statements, then send if all off to the CPA for our yearly tax filings.

Because this pain exists we need to pick our accounting software wisely, and there is a saying over at Wave Apps, it reads: “Let’s not complicate this!”. The price is not complex either; it’s FREE!

I started using it several years ago, and in the next section, I will share with you some amazing things it has done to make managing my finances a dream come true.

Before we begin you need to know a few things about this software:

It’s cloud-based which means it will work on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computers.

It’s best utilized by small businesses with up to 10 employees.
To use the built-in credit card processing and payroll services you will have to pay money. Here’s a link to the Waveapps Pricing Page: Wave Accounting Pricing

Why did I switch from Quickbooks to Wave Apps?

Back in 2007, I found myself for the first time in need of using accounting software. I had no idea where to start, but since Microsoft … READ MORE

How Volunteering Can Boost Your Earning Potential

Volunteering your time has a variety of benefits: you get to help others who are in need, you get to meet new people, and you may even open the door to new career opportunities. In addition, you’ll have the opportunity to meet like-minded people and can also put the experience on your LinkedIn profile to attract employers and recruiters.

Did you know that 20% of managers acknowledge that they’ve hired candidates because of volunteering experience?

ALL OF THESE BENEFITS CAN DIRECTLY WORK IN YOUR FAVOR TO BOOST YOUR CAREER AND BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES; THUS BOOSTING YOUR INCOME POTENTIAL!

How Do You Find Volunteer Opportunities?

1) Search Engines

If you know the exact organization in your area that you’d like to volunteer for, you can usually find volunteering opportunities and information on the non-profit’s website. Just use a search engine like Google and search for the “city name” and keywords such as “volunteer” or the “organization’s name” if you know it.

Most non-profits are largely dependent on volunteers, so they typically make it easy to find volunteering information on their websites. Look for words like “Get Involved,” “Volunteer,” or even “Donate,” to find … READ MORE

5 Lessons For Building & Keeping A High Credit Score

What’s the best way to build credit? The secret to building and keeping a high credit score is done by forming good habits when it comes to managing your credit and overall finances.

A lot of people think that just using credit cards (or loans) and paying them off every month is all that is required for having and building good credit. The truth is this! It’s a good start, but there is much more you need to know about in order to keep a good credit rating once you get it!

We’ll discuss what you need to know in the below lessons.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to increase your credit score by doing the following:

  • Limiting your credit applications
  • Building a strong credit age and payment history
  • Keeping a low credit utilization
  • Using auto-payments to help make on-time payments
  • Filing disputes when errors appear on your credit report. The dispute process keeps the credit bureaus in check.

Maintaining a strong a strong payment history is mandatory no matter what!

Lesson #1: Limit Your Applications, Choose Wisely

Every time you apply for new credit you get a small ding on your credit score, whether or not you get approved. … READ MORE

My Favorite WordPress Plugins

Once you set up your WordPress blogging site you’ll need to add additional functionality at some point. This is where plug-in’s come into play. WordPress Plug-ins will allow you to customize WordPress without having to code anything.

You’ll be able to add in features for contact forms, spam control, social media buttons, meta tags, and much more. Below I’ll list my favorite WP Plugins, many of them I use on this blog.

Here’s A List Of My Favorite WordPress Plugins

Advanced Excerpt – With over 100,000 active installations, the Advanced Excerpt plugin is handy for providing an excerpt on each one of your posts when someone is browsing them by category. I have mine set to do the excerpt for the first  200 words of each post. Then the reader has to click “read more” to view the rest of the article by clicking into the actual post. Without that option all the articles would just run together as a long page when viewing by category, that does not look nice.

Akismet-AntiSpam – With over 5 million active installations, the Askimet-Anti-Spam plugin is a must for controlling spam on your WordPress contact forms and comments. It’s continuously updated from … READ MORE

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