Guest Contributor on Money Questions and Answers Blog

Tips for Assuring the Safety of Your Credit Card

The following is a guest post by Brett Chatz who is a contributor to CFD trading company – Intertrader. If you would like to write an article for Money Q&A, please visit our Guest Posting Guidelines page.

Protect Your Plastic from Criminals

Credit card safety is paramount The widespread usage of credit cards has given way to a thriving underworld of criminal syndicates. Fraud is more prevalent today than ever before, and the technological sophistication employed by fraudsters is becoming increasingly more advanced. Protecting your credit cards is important, since they offer you all the convenience of a cashless banking system.

For the most part, credit card management is really a no-brainer – yet millions of credit card frauds are reported every week. The priority is the protection of your credit card details, and the integrity of your financial information. Once either of these has been compromised, potential fraud can ensue.

How to make your credit card safer?

Nowadays, most folks have several credit cards in their wallets. These include American Express, Diners Club International, Visa, MasterCard, Discover cards and frequent-flier credit cards etc.

However there are also many in-store credit cards offered by major retailers such as Target, Macy’s, Staples, Gap, Nordstrom and others. As you might imagine, protecting all of these cards takes some doing.

Do You Process Invoices Efficiently?

by Guest Contributor

As your business grows, so do the number of tasks you need to perform. To maintain your profit level as you grow, you need to operate efficiently. If not, the additional revenue you generate will all be spent on administrative costs. Consider these tips to process invoices efficiently. An Operations Manual Many aspects of your business are complex. This article explains some critical tax reporting processes. Working with taxes and payroll can be difficult. Your entire accounting function may be easier if you create a procedures manual. As explained here, businesses should document procedures for tasks that are routine. Documenting what needs to be done creates predictability in your business. Both the manager and the employee will understand what needs … Read more

How to Cool Off Without Air Conditioning

by Guest Contributor

How to cool off without air conditioning Summer is fast approaching, and many regions of the country are already starting to feel the heat. As the dreary days of winter start to disappear, the climbing temperatures are encouraging more and more people to reach for their thermostats — only to find that their air conditioning units have fallen to pieces during the cold weather months.

Fortunately, air conditioning isn’t the only way to stay cool. Whether your unit is dead or you are looking for a low-cost way to beat the heat, here are a handful of ways you can survive spring and summer and cool off without air conditioning.

First, Call the Repair Company, Stat

More likely than not, you don’t know anything about what it takes to get an air conditioning unit up and running again. Instead of tinkering with the complex machinery, you should call your local AC repair company and make an appointment. The earlier in the year you request their assistance, the faster they will be able to respond; when the real dog days of summer begin, everyone will be clamoring for air conditioning help, so you shouldn’t procrastinate a known issue even while the weather is good.

Rethink Your Lighting

Traditional incandescent bulbs may produce that warm, comforting glow that you’re used to, but they also waste nearly 90 percent of their energy on heat rather than light. In the summer, when indoor temperatures can pass 90 degrees, you’ll be able to feel every watt of heat your lightbulbs produce. Instead of being unbearably warm and energy inefficient, you can switch to CFL or LED bulbs; they last longer, lower your energy bill, and are cool as cucumbers fresh from the fridge.

Sunlight during the day can also warm the house through windows. To prevent your own private greenhouse effect, you should keep your windows closed and shades drawn during daylight hours. This simple solution can cool your indoor temperature about 20 degrees.

What is the Beal Conjecture / Who is Andy Beal?

by Guest Contributor

Tokyo Stock Exchange Just how good at math is Andrew Beal? The answer to that question depends on which qualifier you’d like to use as proof of his skills. On the one hand, there’s the fact that he is worth several billion dollars. There’s the fact that a mathematical proposition called Beal’s Conjecture named after him.

And, there’s the fact that he’s won the largest single game of poker ever, taking in eleven million dollars with the right cards. If you’ve never heard of Andy Beal, you can be forgiven. He’s a much less visible billionaire than Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, but his example of success is an inspiration to get better for anyone who claims that they aren’t very good at numbers.

From Humble Origins

Andy Beal began to build up his fortune at just age 19 when he began to flip houses in his native Michigan. While his first home offered rent for just $120 per month, he developed a career in real estate that reached a climax by selling off the New Jersey based Brick Towers property for 3 million dollars after purchasing it earlier for only $20,000.

With the money made from flipping real estate, Andy Beal opened a series of banks and began to capitalize on market turmoil by buying up assets when they had reached a low point, holding onto them, and selling high in the aftermath. Examples include debt on airline companies following 9/11 and real estate during the 2008 housing crisis. There are now 37 branches of the Beal Bank across the United States, which enjoy a return on assets of 8.1, far exceeding that of most other major banking firms.

He further developed a space exploration company called Beal Aerospace, but had to shut it down after three years due to the difficulty in competing with NASA and the firms that provide NASA with equipment and parts for their space program. In part due to his head-butting with the national space program, Andy Beal announced his open dislike of “big government” that restricts the capabilities of private enterprise.

Do You Really Want to Retire Early?

by Guest Contributor

Do you want to retire early? The following is a guest post by Donny Gamble Jr. Donny is an online entrepreneur, author, and runs investing blog Personalincome.org. If you’d like to submit a guest post on Money Q&A, please check out the site’s guest posting guidelines. Early retirement has been a hot topic lately. It seems that many new goals are to retire early and live out their lives on a beach somewhere. While that dream sounds great, retiring early isn’t meant for everyone. For starters, you have to be able to fund this dream of yours to retire early. With more than one-third of Americans not even saving for retirement, early retirement isn’t even an option for many. For those that can … Read more

All You Need To Know About Financial Spread Betting

by Guest Contributor

All you wanted to know about spread betting Financial spread betting is exciting, it’s potentially profitable and whilst it may take a lifetime to master, and it takes only a few minutes to learn how to play. Those are the headline plus points. Inevitably, there is more to this relatively recent innovation than this description alone, and it is worth knowing precisely what is involved before deciding whether or not FSB is appropriate for you.

FSB was pioneered in the 1970s when it was originally set up as a vehicle enabling a small number of London brokers to bet on the price movements of gold. The advent of the internet and the digitalization of the world’s markets means that anyone with an internet connection is now able to enjoy that same derivative-based mode of investment on stocks and markets that extend well beyond the price of gold alone.

Specialist providers

Today, numerous specialist firms provide apps and highly sophisticated desktop trading screens that enable players to access thousands of different markets around the world. For example, London based providers Tradefair offer their clients three different suites of software depending on whether they want the sort of casual (or follow up) mobile access that a smartphone allows or more comprehensive desktop packages that provide fully up to date market and stock news-feeds, histories and graphs.