Got Cluster Mailboxes? Who’s Responsible? Here’s What You Need to Know

Receive your mail at a cluster mailbox, you soon could be.

Door-to-door mail delivery is likely coming to an end in the United States. If you don’t already receive your mail at a cluster mailbox, you soon could be. But, who is responsible for cluster mailboxes? These centralized, communal mailboxes that serve entire subdivisions, streets, or neighborhoods are already familiar to many apartment dwellers, who have long been accustomed to picking up their mail from a box in their building’s lobby. If you live in a subdivision built since the 1980s, you may also be familiar with cluster boxes, since the USPS stopped allowing to-the-door delivery for new homes in that decade. Earth Class Mail is the best way to manage your postal mail. Sign up today! Door-to-door delivery is the … Read more

What is the Beal Conjecture / Who is Andy Beal?

Tokyo Stock ExchangeJust 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.

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All You Need To Know About Financial Spread Betting

All you wanted to know about spread bettingFinancial 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.

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Tax Challenges for Small Business Owners

Small Business Income Taxes

You’ve worked your accounting and payroll department to the bone working on tax challenges for your small business.  Finally, everybody’s W-2s have been sent out, and you are totally positive that they are 100% correct. Now it’s time to relax, right? Nope. You’re a small business owner, and there are tax challenges for small business. Now you get to focus on your company’s taxes for the coming year and making sure you get those correct. This is a little harder because every year the tax codes change and this year there are some whoppers out there that could really bite you if you don’t take care of them properly. There are tax challenges that small businesses must understand. Grow Your … Read more

How to Spend Smart for Your Business

business-moneyEvery good business owner should have a plan for how to spend smart their hard-earned cash for the year. Whether it’s putting more of your cash into hard-line advertising or giving more discounts and promotional offers to your customers, there’s no doubt that you will have to spend on expanding your business and increasing its sales.

But before you take the necessary steps to spending for your business, you need to make sure that you have a well-thought-out plan on how much you are really going to spend smart, and for what. In addition, you should also keep a clear record of your expenses whilst still making sure you have money remaining in your savings for any contingencies.

How to Make Smart Business Spending Decisions

Below are some additional tips to spending smart this year and the coming years:

Create a plan to spend smart

As mentioned, you need to create a set plan for whatever expenses you have in mind for growing your business. Not only do you have to determine the amount of expenses you will have for your day-to-day expenses and other operational costs (such as taxes and salaries), you also have to determine your budget to spend smart when it comes to business opportunities, the purchasing of assets, and the like. This way, you are more likely to stick to your budget and will know when you are exceeding your projected budget as well.

Develop a plan for your savings

On the other hand, it would also be a wise idea to create a plan for your savings. How much do you need to save in order to continue growing? How much do you need to save for whatever unexpected expenses you may have? Allot a certain portion of your earnings for your business’ savings, as you never know when you will need it.

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When To Hire A Collection Agency For Nonpayment

Hiring a collection agencyThe ideal business world would have perfect mathematical precision especially when it comes to small business invoicing. In all likelihood, invoices will be paid on time. But, the day may come that one goes unpaid.

What do you do? How to do you approach the person or entity that owes you money?

The best thing to do is initiate formal communication, in writing, with a demand letter. This can be best drafted by your attorney, but you can likely handle it yourself if you haven’t one. A simple search will show you good examples of this kind of letter.

While this letter doesn’t have any legal “weight” in the sense that the other party is any more obligated to pay their outstanding debt than before, it may be enough to get a certain kind of debtor to pay up. One or several letters does succeed in letting you set the tone for what is to come. The other party will know where you stand and will be much likelier to take you seriously.

If you set up the right kind of contract with the other party in the first place, there will be a clause in place about litigation. If they default, basically, they will have to pay your court and legal fees, in addition to their own, in the event that you sue. That’s a lot of money to avoid paying back money, so many lendees will back down at this point, settling with you out of court. This is the sensible thing to do anyway, and you never know how a party will react.

If you don’t have this kind of legal recourse, you’ll do well to hire a lawyer who specializes in small business cases, or hire a collection agency. There are different kinds of collection agencies, ones that buy your debt from you and others that coerce the other party into servicing their debt, and then taking their fee from that amount. Know all of the details before you bring one of these on board.

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