Dog Insurance is something that kept me worried for days. I wasn’t sure which one to choose for and how to judge the best cover for my dog. Insurance becomes a vital part of your financial planning. I was most worried about the costs and its value that I would get.  I wanted an insurance that would keep me within my budget and that would give my dog a proper insurance cover too. I started comparing insurance policies on the Internet and also interacted with some agents over phone and finally got an insurance cover for my dog. It was important to know my dog’s age and breed. I was not aware of its breed so I consulted a vet for that. I even consulted about its health and then decided on the insurance plan.

Dog Insurance quotes

There are many online dog insurances available and the lowest quotes begin at $10 a month. This sounds to be an interesting amount but when I went deep into it I found that there were added costs to such insurances and which landed up beyond the $10 mark. I didn’t mind spending a few more dollars for my dog and I am sure even you would not mind but it should give value for the money that you spend. You should check websites and compare insurances. Websites provide you assistance through chats and emails; some of them also have tol free numbers on which you can contact agents and get details over phone

Vet Bills

 While getting the insurance I had problems because I did not maintain the bills properly. I would suggest that you should maintain the bills and keep a record so that you are able to present the bills the moment you are asked to. You would require the bills mainly when you have to claim the insurance.

2 or more dogs

I just have one dog so I look for suitable cover. You may be an owner of 2 or more dogs, in that case you would require insurance for all of them. Insurance companies have plans for 2 or more dog too. All your dogs will have separate insurances but you may get a discount. Many insurance companies provide discount on covering 2 or more dogs

Hidden costs

One very important element of comparing insurance policies is that you should read the policy thoroughly so that you can determine what exactly you are signing up for.

Check and recheck the price and coverage of your dog’s insurance policy. There could be some hidden costs which you should clarify with the insurance company while going in for the cover. If you have and questions or doubts you should settle all these with the insurance agent.

Young dogs and pups are more prone to injuries. So if you have a younger dog, you should look for a policy with higher levels of accident coverage. Purebred dogs are prone to suffer from hereditary illnesses which make them more expensive to insure. Insurance plans that cover checkups and dental cleanings are more expensive than other covers. You should also check the benefits of each insurance policy and ask yourself what is best suited for your dog. You can even discuss the pros and cons with your vet and then discuss with the agent.

If there is one place we all wish we could save money, its at the grocery store. In recent years, the price on a gallon of milk has risen a full $1.50 in the past decade alone. Milk is in cheese and cheese products. Its used in breadmaking and don't forget rich sauces. This price increase effects young families and the elderly the most so, what way could you save money and still get quality milk and milk products? Home delivery is just one way with local farmers in your area.  It is the 21st Century, but the milkman is still a hot commodity, but how do you know if you are getting the freshest ingredients and isn't it more expensive to just go to the grocery store every week? Consider your time first, let's say the average trip to the grocery store, at the grocery store, driving home and at home unloading the groceries is about 45 minutes. The average minimum wage is $8.00. You have spent $6.00 on labor alone. Now, calculate the basic dinner meal of Salad, Bread, Meat, Vegetable and an 6oz  glass of milk for four people that is roughly one gallon of mile ($3.65), one chicken ($6.99), a bag of ready made lettuce ($2.87), one loaf of bread ($3.25) and a bag of frozen vegetables ($3.45)  that is about twenty dollars and some change. Now it takes you another 45 minutes to get dinner on the table another six dollars. I did not even calculate the average electricity and gas used to get the groceries and prepare because you have already spent nearly $35 for one meal! That is $735 a week! That doesn't include paper products, cleaning supplies, or pet food so the one trip to the grocery store could easily become enormous amount of funds going to just a few home meals.

One place is to look at the Internet for online groceries to be delivered to you. You can also look at some discount stores for the basics like paper products and cleaning supplies. There are optional ways to purchase your food from the cow to the fish, you can join a Co-op Grocery too. These can save money in the long run while you may want to go to the source of some items; each of these services arrive and work on a set schedule so you can utilize your time more wisely between soccer games and work over a period of time a trip to the grocery store will appear novelty and extravagant. In the end we save money to make more dough (bread).

It is hard to get away from the strip malls and megaplexes today. It is tempting to shoot for the stars on Virgin Galatic, The Virgin empire expanded from records to outerspace because, well..I think Sir Richard Bronson might want to get away from it all. The space is our frontier where you can get the chance to look back at our small blue planet for just $200,000 it is more affordable than buying a house to a point. The down payment of $20,000 could go to a great car but then again the Virgin Galatic travels on a hybrid rocket motor. Bronson always the environmentalist.

You rather stay earthbound but, still away from the screaming kids, find yourself in the Arctic or the Outback just help you get out there somewhere over there? Now you might want to go alone, just the two of you , or bring the whole family there is a destination away from the strip malls and megaplexes. Planning is the most important step but, always try to be flexible like the Griswolds in your effort to get away. The best time to travel is any day of the week and whenever the mood strikes you, but for the rest of us mortals, try to work out a financial plan with times and dates. If you are going to travel across North America you won't be far from most services, but think about recreating an adventure. Be sure to take a few necessities with your Identity, clean clothes, and a compass so you can always find your way home.

If you are a regular user of credit cards then you must comprehend the basic fundamentals of interest calculations.   You may think that such mathematics is not your cup of tea but then you may find yourself in a soup someday. Credit cards work on the basis of interest that the user pays. As a user you must understand the amount ofinterest you would be required to pay and when. Financial terms are jargons to many people but if you tax your brain a little then it won’t remain a jargon. 

You pay a charge for the money that you owe. This charge is called interest which finally becomes a profit for the money lender. You would not find a lender who allows you interest free credit. You just have the option to understand the credit card’s interest calculations and then use your card accordingly.

Percentage of balance

You must first understand the concept of ‘balance’ and its use to calculate interest. Suppose you and your friend use a credit card to make a purchase of equal value. The same interest rate would be applied to the same bill but it would produce different financial charges for both of you. This is because of the difference in balance.

3 types of balances that determine the financial charge

Adjusted balance

Average daily balance

Previous balance

Adjusted Balance

You may calculate your adjusted balance by subtracting form the previous balance any payments (excluding purchases) made during the current billing cycle.

Average Daily balance

To calculate your average daily balance you would be required to subtract your daily payments from your daily balance on days of the billing cycle. With the results of all the days you would be able to calculate an average daily balance.

Previous Balance

Previous balance is the balance left with you after from the previous billing cycle, before you start a new billing cycle.

Credit Card companies have to let you know the method that they would use to calculate your financial charges. Generally they use the previous balance method and you may also find Credit Card companies using adjusted balance method.

Previous balance method based interest calculations cost the highest financial charges and adjusted balance method produces the lowest financial charges. Hence, you can guess why they use the previous balance method. 

Next time when you use your credit card, make the quick calculations and find out your financial burden. Let not your credit card company rule you, you rule over them, they are not lending you in charity, you are paying for their services.

Are you planning to shop for a home loan? Whether you should visit a bank or a mortgage broker? Which one is more flexible for you? What are the facts that you must be aware of? Is your mind boggling with many such questions? Any uncertainity within you may lead to a wrong decision. Of course you don’t want to take unprofitable decisions so here are the answers to all your questions.

1. Bank or mortgage broker or credit union

When you plan to finance a house then your first impulse pulls you to a bank. At times banks may seem inflexible if compared to mortgage broker or credit unions. Credit unions are known for their firmness and services and hence people rely on them for such deals. Mortgage loans from mortgage brokers offer high flexibility because they deal only in loans. They are unlike banks that also deal in customer deposits, insurance etc.

2. Clarify all your doubts

While dealing with a mortgage broker, don’t accept the rates at their face value. Clarify all doubts that you may have. Ask about all the charges that have been listed and try to negotiate for a lower fee for certain items. A Good Faith Estimate is fairly accurate but still you must leave no stone unturned to bargain and reduce the fees and charges to some extent. Don’t confuse mortgage rates with annual percentage rate (APR). APR includes all costs of a home loan. On comparing two identical mortgage loans you find that one of the APR is higher than the other then choose the one with the lower upfront cost. Citibank’s Home Saver deal is an index linked home loan which offers you a range of index tenures in the market, starting from 1 month to 3 years. You get the flexibility to switch from one index to the other at any point of time. Stanchart has launched a service which provides in principle approval for a mortgage loan within an hour if you are able to provide information about your annual income and property valuation.

3. Negotiate the home loan interest

It is highly important to note that the home loan interest rate is negotiable. What is interest rate to you is profit for the broker.  The interest to you is directly proportional to the profit of the broker. You must ask the broker about his origination fee or yield spread is. Mostly the yield spread is 1% of the total loan amount. If the broker is getting something more than 1% then you can request him to offer you some waiver.  You must look into features as the lock- in period, penalties for partial redemption and legal fee subsidies in a bank. If the loan is from a bank then the deposits can be used to offset their loan account so that they pay only the loan interest on the difference as in case of Stanchart’s Mortgage One Optimizer. This allows you to lower the loan term without additional installment payments.

If you have some cash in hand then you must make a down payment and bring down the rate of interest by a few points. Suppose your loan amounts to $100,000 then you pay some of the money in cash and reduce the rate of interest there and then. You may also pay the loan interest and not any of the principal for a period of 3 years and in the 4^th year the loan would revert to a normal interest rate plus principal loan and follow the 4^th year rate of the package.

4. Other details  

A HUD-1 settlement statement should be provided by the broker, to you within 24 hours of the closing. The statement would be a lay out of all the various charges and fees to you including specific line items and dollar amounts. You need to keep a check that no extra amount is added to the list. To approve loans, banks generally use debt servicing ratio, which is a percentage of your monthly income used to service long term liabilities. The acceptable debt servicing ratio is 35% but different banks have different ratios.

 So, what are you waiting for? Start doing your research to acquire a home loan for your dream house.

After the recession, property and real estate taxes are escalating rapidly . There are stringent norms for property assessment and assessors follow those norms. You can’t play with the figures but you can intelligently construct your property so that it values less in the eyes of the assessor.

dilapidated property

As a property owner you would not want the city assessor to come into the interior of your property if your have some extensive work done there but if your interiors have not been repaired for long and things are in a worn out condition then you may want allow the assessor inside. Walk with the assessor and show him the scaling walls or the unleveled floor. The deteriorated condition of your property may lessen your property tax liability but don’t forget show the assessor some good points about the property too.

Correct assessment

The assessor might count a room as a bed room but in reality it may not be big enough to adjust a bed even. Look at your tax card and see what the assessor has mentioned on it. It is necessary for you to know the measure of improvement and damage that the assessor has noted. It is also vital to check your tax card to see if all particulars mentioned by the assessor are correct . You may even speak to the assessor to get the inaccuracies rectified so that you save yourself from paying tax for something for which it is not meant.

Permanent structures

All the permanent structures that you construct on your property add to your tax liability. Larger the structure, higher is the tax liability. If you wish to utilize some space without making it heavy on your pocket then you may think of an above ground pool rather than a large garage. This keeps your assessment value low .

Decorating your property

You may have great decorative ideas for your property but if you wish to incorporate all your thoughts to your property then your property becomes expensive in the eyes of the assessor. Your assessor would follow a set of rules but if something looks absolutely great then it would play some role in. This does not mean that you won’t decorate. You may decorate but keep the decoration to bare minimum and save extra burden of tax.   

Survey

Have a look at some other properties too. Try and discover a few properties that are similar to yours. Look at the permanent structures built on it. There is a probability that the property similar to yours has more constructed area but has a lower value of tax. This could be because the assessor made a wrong entry or made some observational mistakes while assessing your property.

Utilize your property to the best of your requirement and keep in mind that you would be taxed for it so construct judiciously.

Tensions creep in the moment you start planning to file your tax returns. Filing returns may be quite a task but you cannot overlook them. If you choose to file the returns electronically then you may decrease your stress level to some extent. This is not an intricate process but requires some tax software or a web site that files returns. There are some good internet tax sites that are managed by tax professionals who make the process of preparing a return easy and error free. All you need to have an internet connection. You file your tax return and receive a receipt which you may save in your email. It would be better if you keep a hard copy with you for further reference.  

Easy filing

You just need to input your information into the software and wait for it to do the rest for you. The software would check your calculations and rectify the basic errors that crop up in manual calculations. Calculation seems to be a small issue but a minor difference could get you audited. I feel anybody would want to stay away from audits.

Tax rules

With e-filing facility you don’t have to comprehend the intricacies of tax code. The codes and rules change every year adding to your complexity . If you wish to file returns without complexity difficulty then you may try e-filing

Simple process

Sign up to an internet site; create your user account to login as a member. Once you log in as a user you would be asked some questions like your name, date of birth, family size, annual income etc. When you provide all your details that is similar to the W2 form then the program calculates the best possible tax situation for you. After this, all important information is placed into relevant forms and the returns are filed with IRS. IRS would accept the returns if there are no errors and you would receive an acknowledgment within a few days.

Error correction

Once all your information is input, the program does an error check before sending the return to IRS. If errors are found, you come to know about them immediately and correct the errors right there. If you take the non-electronic route to filing returns then the process becomes long and time consuming. You have to wait for IRS to get back to you.

Quick refunds

Refunds are processed faster and you have cash in hand much faster than it would take in non-electronic filing. If you have a bank account, then your bank details can be input into the program for IRS to deposit the refund into your account.

You may have hesitations about putting in personal details on tax websites as your personal details may be distorted but if you are able to find a legal website for filing taxes then it neither would reveal your information to any third party nor would it misuse your information. You must discuss with co-workers and friends and look for websites that they have used for filing their returns.

I always had it in my mind, why should I share a part of earnings with the government? Why do I need to pay taxes for everything? Is it any kind of punishment ? I have understood that paying taxes in no punishment. Tax is our donation towards the general welfare of the public and also our own benefit.

Improve infrastructure

All public places, parks, roads, transport, electricity, gas, water, hospitals, museums etc. that are under government are run by the funds collected through taxes from the general public . The public money is utilized to provide amenities to the citizens.  Hence, any income that we spend in the form of taxes comes back to us in the form of public utility services .

Government schemes

Government keeps launching schemes for the wellbeing of citizens; it could be like education scholarships or self employment schemes etc. These schemes are beneficial for the citizens and they are funded by the income generated by us through tax

Government Functions

Country’s security is also one of our important concern. The taxes which we pay are also utilized to pay for the country’s defense. Without security guards your country would become too vulnerable to rebels. Can you survive in a country that has improper defense mechanism? Your answer is obviously ‘NO’, so it is best to pay taxes and stay secured.

Research and development

Government uses the funds collected by the public for many kinds of research and development. These researches could be in the filed of education, science, medicine or anything else. Who in turn benefits out of the research? It is the public only that benefits so we must pay taxes.

Generate employment

Governments improve economies and increase employment opportunities for people. It is with the investments made by the funds generated by the money collected by way of taxes.

We pay taxes not for the wellbeing of the government but for our own earning is our duty but pay less or more than the stipulated amount is wrong. If you feel you are well versed in tax matters then you can file your own taxes. I would suggest that if you are not good at financial calculations then you should hire a professional tax consultant who can calculate your tax on the basis of your earning and file the accurate amount before the due date. Use the tax filing week to pay your taxes and make your contribution to your nation.

At a point of time you realize that you might take a wrong investment decision or you get too confused to decide upon a particular plan. Often people seek professional advice at the time of their retirement when they realize that the money needs long-term and profitable investment.

Evaluate your knowledge

If you plan not to hire a professional planner then evaluate your knowledge and capability. It’s your money and you need to decide how and where to invest it. Ask yourself and few questions and answer truthfully. Do you have proper knowledge of investments and if you feel you have then do you have the time to monitor and evaluate them and make changes? If you have expertise in the field then you may not require the assistance of a financial adviser. You may even feel that you lack in a few areas and that the Internet would help you out. Internet provides information regarding almost everything but there are foreign concepts, legal issues or confusing methods that may lead you to the wrong direction. A person who has expertise in the field can help you and you neither have to waste time now you have to tax your brain.

Evaluate the finances

Anything important and big that happens in your life evolves money and where money comes into counting it needs management. Suppose you plan to buy a house then you need to take care of the enormous down payment and the monthly mortgage payments. You life is not limited to a few things. You have to plan about the various insurance covers. Medical insurance, vehicle insurance, accident covers and so on. You even need to plan the future of your children, their education and marriage. There are many professionals who can provide you tax advice or advice on stocks but you need a qualified planner who would evaluate your present earning graph and provide you advise to realize short term and long term goals. They would prepare a structure that would give you an idea to meet your goals while staying within your means. If you get a proper financial advice then you have more money for you and your family, you are able to prepare yourself for changes in life and also have protection against the unforeseen situations of life.

A financial adviser takes care of you and your money

With an unbiased approach financial advisers manage risks, save time and improve your investment benefits.

They allocate resources in a way that your dollars are used fro every important landmark of your life. They plan for your education, marriage, house, your children’s education and your retirement too.

They chalk out an insurance plan for your family and assets.

Your investment may carry short term and long term tax implications. They plan investments in a way to reduce your tax burden. They even file your returns.

Financial planners can’t promise you an increment in your income but they can recommend essential and profitable investments, they can provide long term strategic planning, risk management schemes and many more options. Ultimately taking away a huge burden from your head and allowing you to stay away from money management.

This information is for informational purposes only and is not a tax or legal advice. Please consult a qualified tax advisor, CPA, financial planner or investment manager.