5 Top New Years Resolutions - Choose Yours

Wikipedia has one the finest description of a New Year Resolution. "A New Year's Resolution is a commitment that an individual makes to a project or the reforming of a habit, often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as advantageous." The New Year Resolution could also be to improve one of the neglected areas of your life that you now wish to bring to order. Such Changes or resolutions normally go into effect on New Year's Day and remain until fulfilled or abandoned.

So how does one prepare these New Year Resolutions, commitments or lifestyle change decisions? What are the areas that one can make a new year resolve? Here are the top New Years resolutions on most peoples New Year List on the planet. It does feel good to know that you are not alone in the areas you want to change. These tips may seem to be simple but think of what a profound impact they can have on your life at almost zero cost.

Lose Weight

Is your New Year's resolution to lose weight? If so, you are not alone. Millions worldwide join you every New Year in the quest for a lean, fit body. Weight loss is top of the charts every new year but unfortunately few succeed. This is due to lot of misinformation and an active daily plan. Read up some good articles on weight loss and set your goal firmly. Do not expect miracles. Results will be visible only after a month or two of regular disciplined action. If you are serious about losing weight, you will lose weight.

Quit a Bad Habit

New Year is the time to reflect on your life and what sets you back from achieving success. Most people know and take responsibility for their failures. Bad habits such as smoking and drinking are one such area which is the focus for most during the New Year. It is very easy to quit altogether or to moderate it to an extent that such bad habits no longer affect your life. There are a good number of literature and support groups available to make you leave the bad habits behind during this New Year.

More Quality Time with Family

People are spending more time at work and less time with family friends and children. Many realize that their children have grown up too fast without them realizing or sharing in the joy of growth. Many a spouse realize romance and love has disappeared out of their lives due heavy work schedules. Spending quality time with family is perhaps one of the best New Year Resolution you can make for 2009. It is time we got back our life.

De-stress and Enjoy Life More

This New Year decide to work for a living and not live to work. Too much work and work related stress kills the joy and takes the fun out of life. Take a course on meditation, relax and take that long overdue holiday. Enjoy every moment of your life this new year.

Make Yourself Debt Free

The global financial crisis, millions of lost jobs, dwindling retirement benefits and runaway inflation are all adding to debts. Before one realizes debt hits you in a slowing economic conditions and reduction in jobs. But things are not very bleak if you take a grip on things with a good plan. This new year if you are in debt, you may resolve to re-organize your entire financial life. You may have to make many sacrifices but sooner you get your debts in control the better your future. Let the year 2009 be the year of becoming debt free or at the least getting them in control.

These top 5 New Year Resolution do not have any monetary involvement and are the least inexpensive to put in practice. In fact many of these new year tips could save a huge bundle. To achieve these new year goals are not only possible it's do-able. Obstacles can be exciting and thrilling, or they can be turn-offs and excuses for failure. It is up to your own attitude.

Srinivasan Gopal is full time management professional and part time author, syndicated writer and an internet entrepreneur. Get a glimpse of his wide ranging interests at http://www.srinivasangopal.com/

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Reduce Your Monthly Budget By 20% Using Simple Budgeting Strategies

Welcome to the world of "Budgeting"; a very important, yet widely neglected and misunderstood topic, in most households.

I am involved in several home-based businesses, but the most important of these by far, is managing my Monthly Household Budget. Notice that I used the word "business" to describe managing my budget. Unlike most people, I treat my monthly expenditures as a business-always looking to improve the services that I pay for by finding better deals, and reducing resultant costs. I always aim to get the best bang for my buck through increased services at cheaper costs. When I find a particular budget item that can save me $100 per month, I do not only look at this as a savings, but I treat it as if I just received a $100 per month raise, which translates into a $1,200 per year salary increase (assuming that it is recurring monthly). 

Yes, by being diligent and resourceful, I just gave myself a $1,200 raise for the year, which, by the way, is cumulative in effect, year-over-year. Wow! Now imagine if I can replicate this feat for multiple items in my budget, again and again. That is going to be some kind of hefty raise that I am giving myself. You see, by treating my monthly budget as a business, I provide myself with a means of increasing my disposable income and savings. I do not need a boss to give me a raise; through diligence and resourcefulness, I can give myself a raise, again and again, over and over, year over year. 

The long-term, cumulative effects of doing this can be quite staggering, to say the least, and one's overall net worth will increase substantially over the years, by putting this "business practice" in place.

I am an extremely compulsive and diligent budget person. Regardless of how large or small a household expenditure is, I record it in a tracking spreadsheet. I think my wife thought that she had married some kind of compulsive lunatic, when I implemented this system in my household. But, as time moved on, she recognized and understood the value of the budgeting system that I put into place in our household. Moreover, I have taught my 3 children the value of money and budgeting, and have attempted to interject these principles into their lives as much as possible. No doubt, that as adults, they will be much better off because of this.

I know exactly how much money I am spending in each category of expenditure on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. I can honestly say that I have no friends, family, neighbors, or acquaintances that are as diligent and passionate about budgeting as I am. As a matter of fact, most people do not truly understand the art of budgeting. Sure they use the words "not in my budget" in conversation; but few, if any, actually understand what their budget looks like, how much it costs them to live each and every month, and how much money is going out-the-door in regard to their bills and expenditures for goods and services that they have procured. Many people I know constantly waste their money on frivolous spending, and neglect basic budgeting techniques and practices. 

Some of these areas of budgeting can individually save them hundreds of dollars per month, if implemented.

I have broken my budgeting techniques down into a series of categories listed here. Each category should have one or more specific Strategy items associated with it, that you will need to come up with. Some categories should have more budget strategies listed for it than others. Some budget strategy savings ideas will be relatively small in nature, but please do not discount these. After all, these little items do add up, and the net effect of the sum of all applied budget savings strategies, is what counts. That said, here are my budget categories that require addressing: 

• Food
• Shopping
• Clothing
• Utilities
• Lawn/Garden
• Entertainment
• Household
• Weddings and Gifts
• Banking/Finance/Bill Paying
• Automobile
• Vacation
• Medical/Dental
• Other Insurance
• Taxes
• Education
• Mortgage
• Cost of Living

Next, I want you to develop a personalized Budget Action Plan while addressing each of these categories. I want you to buy a notepad (or alternatively, feel free to use a word or text editor on your computer, smart phone, or e-reader to accomplish the same purpose), and create 2 columns: 

• Category: Strategy
• Budget Action

Traverse each category, one-by-one, and start listing individual Budget Strategies for each category above. Concentrate very hard on how a designated category and budget strategy item can seriously be applied to your household budget situation. Keep in mind that some Budget Strategies may seem overly simplistic or obvious. If relevant to you (and most will be), write down the budget category and budget strategy item, and one or more budget actions that you need to implement to put the category and strategy into place, keeping your personal situation in mind. Continue to do this for every Budget Strategy, in every Budget Category. Again, make every attempt to apply each category and strategy to your situation. Do not ever dismiss a particular category and strategy item because it only saves you $10 per month-these small items add up fast, and the overall aggregate monthly savings, when all is tallied up, will simply amaze you! When you have completed your Budget Action Plan, review it, and start implementing your Budget Actions, one-by-one, on a monthly, or need-be basis. By the way, it would not hurt if you went through your Budget Plan multiple times. This may easily facilitate new ideas and additional Budget Actions that can be implemented in your Budget Action Plan.

If you are honest with yourself, extremely diligent about implementing these budget actions, and have the necessary discipline to stick with it, there is no reason why you cannot reduce your monthly household budget by 20% (or more) in a given year. This should be an on going process, year-after-year, as you continuously review your expenses annually, to obtain that raise that you deserve!

Douglas R. Hayman, known as the "Budget Surgeon" by friends, family, and colleagues alike, is a self-professed Household Budgeting expert. His Book, "Reducing Your Monthly Budget by 20% Using Simple Budgeting Strategies", is a unique, written-for-the-times eBook that takes a novel approach to Household Budgeting. It focuses on 90 well-defined, distinct strategies that can easily be implemented by anyone to drastically reduce one's household monthly budget by 20% or more.

Douglas thoroughly addresses all avenues of spending in this book, and most importantly, emphasizes that a monthly budget should be treated as a business, and not as a hobby.

Equally important, Douglas, known as the "Budget Surgeon" in familiar circles, highlights that the sum of the budget savings technique parts can have a profound effect on one's overall financial health, and can have a compounding wealth effect, year over year.

Douglas has a Master's Degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from Stony Brook University, in Long Island, NY. Douglas has been self-employed for the last 9 years as an author, affiliate marketer, real estate salesman, B2B technical lead generation salesman, stock and futures investor and trader, and Information Technology consultant. Additionally, Douglas has over 19 years of corporate Information Technology (IT) experience, most of which focused upon technical management working for an international Fortune 100 company. At this company he managed multi-million dollar departmental budgets.

Let the "Budget Surgeon" provide you with Budgeting Strategies to help you Reduce Your Monthly Budget By 20%. Visit BudgetSurgeon.com for further details.

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Getting Over the Christmas Giving Blues? Take the Christmas Budget Challenge

With Christmas just around the corner, our focus is slowly starting to shift from our work commitments to Christmas and with it comes the annual Christmas spending spree.

Unfortunately many families don't set a Christmas budget and they rely on their credit cards to get them through the festive season.
Shortly after Christmas these same families will also develop symptoms of the "Christmas Giving Blues" which can include an upset stomach, lack of sleep and anxiety.

You know that feeling. You spend up big, charge it on the card, and then spend the next couple of months worrying about how you are going to pay off your Christmas debts while vowing never to let this happen to you again.

Unfortunately, this is a reality for a lot of families every Christmas and they just don't seem to be able to break out of the cycle.
This year, give yourself and your family a Christmas gift and take the "Christmas Budget Challenge" and enjoy your Christmas without the suffering the Christmas Blues.

There are two parts to the Christmas Budget Challenge:

1. Put in place a strategy that will help you survive Christmas with as little pain as possible.

 2. Put in place a strategy that will give you a plan to enjoy your next Christmas. This plan will also run itself without you even thinking about it.

Let's start by putting in place a plan that will hopefully make this Christmas a little easier on your hip pocket:

1. Have a look at your finances and set an upper limit that you can afford for your Christmas spending. Allocate a certain amount to Gifts and a certain amount to other Christmas expenses. This is the start of your Christmas budget.

2. Leave the credit card at home and pay for Christmas with money wherever possible.

3. Keep track of all your Christmas spending. A good way of doing this is by carrying a small notebook and pencil and writing your purchases in it.

Gift Buying

4. Call your relatives and agree that Gifts will only be purchased for the children

5. Take your Christmas Gift budget that was allocated in step 1 and divide it by the number of gifts you need to buy. This number will be the maximum you can spend on each gift.

Christmas Food Shopping

6. Take your Christmas Dinner budget and make a shopping list.

7. When you are doing your shopping use a calculator to make sure you stay within your Christmas budget.

8. Save money by looking for the cheaper priced goods on the top and bottom shelves. Try not to buy items that are on shelves at eye level, these are usually the higher priced items.

9. Try not to buy items that are located in the displays at the end of the shopping aisles, these items are usually more expensive than the items located in the aisles.

10. Compare prices of similar items and buy the cheaper item.

11. Remember that Christmas is only one day a year. You don't have to spend a weeks worth of grocery money on one day.

12. Ask each relative to provide a food dish, drinks or dessert.

As soon as Christmas is over and the pain is fresh in your mind. You need to take action and put in place the second part of the "Christmas Budget Challenge". This next step will ensure that you have enough money for next Christmas

1. Add up all your Christmas expenses including gifts, food and any other costs.
2. Take the total of your Christmas expenses and divide it by the total amount of pays until next Christmas.

3. Open high interest bank account with the following attributes:
- No minimum starting balance
- Interest is accrued daily and billed monthly
- Interest rate on this bank account must be higher than the inflation rate.
- No bank charges
ING Direct and Citibank have an online banking account that may be suitable for your Christmas Budget account.

4. Organize an automatic bank transfer from your bank account to your Christmas Budget account. This transfer will be on each payday for the amount you worked out in step 2. It is important that this is automated because most people will not stick to this plan if it is a manual process.

5. When next Christmas comes around withdraw your money and repeat the process again.

This plan is very simple and surprisingly effective and you will be able to enjoy your next Christmas without the suffering the Christmas Giving Blues.

Bernie Wiemers has been studying personal finance and wealth creation strategies for the past 3 years. He is dedicated to helping others achieve their financial goals and runs the website My Wealth Plan - [http://www.my-wealth-plan.com] that publishes articles on personal finance and wealth creation strategies.

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How to Become Financially Free in 5 Years

Ultimately it is everyone's goal to be financially free. Everyone has the goal of one day retiring and being able to live and afford things without being required to work for the money. A lot of people work hard all their lives only to get to retirement and discover that they don't have enough money to live well and in their final years they find themselves sick and broke. But why wait until you are 65 before you are financially free when you can become financially free in just 5 years.

Becoming financially free is a lot easier than a lot of people believe it is. The only reason it is difficult is because most people are uneducated into how to become financially free. They spend their lives working for money and then when they get their wage (after being heavily taxed by the government) they don't know how to spend it so they will become rich. So instead they buy things that make them poorer and force them to work harder and harder.

In this article I am going to share with you some basic fundamentals that you will need to know if you want to be able to live without working. I am not going to teach you everything (you could write 100 books and still not cover everything) but this will be a great platform for you to continue your learning and to work towards becoming financially free in 5 years.

Understand What Being Financially Free Means

A lot of people struggle to become financially free because they don't know what it means, so they never set it as a goal. Instead they play the lotto with the desire to become instantly rich, and they continue to work hard at their jobs and buy things that make themselves poorer.
Being financially free means that your passive income (income that you don't have to work for) is greater than all of your expenses. So you can live indefinitely without ever having to work in order to pay your expenses. If you can understand this, and set this as your goal then you are one step closer to being free for life and never having to work again.

Think Cashflow, Cashflow, Cashflow

A lot of people have the goal of becoming rich. They see being rich as a dollar amount, maybe it is $1,000,000 in their bank account. But they don't think in terms of having your passive income greater than you expenses and having your money work for you. If you want to be able to retire you need to invest for cashflow. If you desire to be financially free in 5 years then you need to invest in assets that generate an income.

For example, when it comes to real estate some who wants to be 'rich' without really knowing what being rich means will often buy real estate for capital gains. The real estate will cost them money every month and they hope that they will get that money back when they sell the house. When they sell the house they use the extra money to buy a bigger 'investment' that costs them even more money every month, tying them to their jobs even more. But if you want to be financially independent then your goal is to having money coming into your pocket each and every month that you can use to live off. So instead of buying just for capital gains you want to buy for positive cashflow. This means the income from your investment is greater than the expenses and thus you receive cashflow each and every month.

Cashflow is what pays you bills and buys you food, and if you want to be financially independent then you need to be investing for cashflow. Let me ask you a simple question:
Based on your wage how many investments could you afford to own if each investment cost you $1,000 per month to own? The answer would certainly be limited. But how many investments could you afford to own if each investment earned you $1,000 per month. The answer is only limited by the amount you can get your hands on. So by purchasing investment for cashflow purposes you are generating an income that will fund you when you stop working. If you want to be financially free in 5 years then you need to invest for cashflow.

Have A Plan

Investing, to put it simply, is the act of following a financial plan to reach a financial goal. A lot of people make investing sound complicated and difficult. If you want to be financially free in just 5 short years then you need create a plan. In order to create a plan you need to know where you are now financially and you need to know what passive income you will require to be financially free.
Then you need to choose your investment vehicle of choice. It might be real estate, it might be stocks or bonds, it might be businesses. Everyone is different so your investment strategy will be different to everyone else's, but one thing needs to remain clear, you should ultimately be investing for cashflow.
Then you need to work out exactly how many investments you need. For example, if I chose real estate as my investment strategy and I know I can earn $100 per month on each property I buy, and I need $1,000 per month to live then I will need 10 properties in 5 years. Or an average of 2 properties per year. By doing these basic sums you can get a better understanding of what you need in order to stop working.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to cover a lot about becoming financially free in just 5 years. That is why I have created a free email newsletter that will give you helpful training and advice every week. By signing up today you will receive a free audio teaching on "How To Become Rich Without Earning More Money". Sign up now at http://www.richacademy.com but hurry while it is still free.
Becoming financially free in just 5 years is possible for anyone. It doesn't matter what your current financial situation is, you can become rich and never have to work again in just 5 short years. You don't need a high paying job or a get rich quick scheme, you just need real training on creating real strategies for getting rich.

Go to http://www.richacademy.com and sign up now to start you free training on "How To Get Rich Without Making More Money". Don't waste any time, start training yourself to be financially free today by signing up for your free teaching.

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Starting to Write: start at the beginning & use your imagination

How to Write Travel

Good travel writing has the power to motivate others to invest time and money exploring a town, city, state, or country that someone else has described with mesmerizing effectiveness. The art and aim of travel writing is to paint the best picture possible of a destination in order to educate, enlighten, or entice readers. To accomplish successful travel writing, a writer must identify their audiences and learn how to effectively present different types of writing for the travel genre.

Different Types of Travel Writing
A writer may choose between an array of approaches regarding travel writing, which spans guidebooks, newspaper articles, magazine spreads, advertising and corporate work, and website content. Within each sub-genre of travel writing, a variety of techniques and tactics help writers to efficiently introduce well known- and lesser-known locations around the world. It is important to recognize that the flow and depth of information for each sub-genre will differ. For example, writing a guidebook on Florida travel for families is much different than creating a guidebook for the college student.

Guidebooks
Today, guidebooks serve as a peek into the history, art, sightseeing, activities, cheap accommodations, theater, museums, and culture of a particular destination. Some of the best guidebooks blend sightseeing information with helpful advice and facts. Depending on the target audience, a writer will vary their approach and use specified styles of writing. An easy-to-follow writing style that touches upon theme parks, casual restaurants, and kid-friendly points of interest suit family-oriented guidebooks.
Student travel guides tend to focus on affordable eateries, clubs, concerts, drinking and drug rules, and youth hostels. The style of writing is often bolder, "hip," and laidback, including interesting facts with brief sections of text. Some guidebooks target a specific subject regarding a destination, such as "Top 20 Museums in Italy" or "Restaurant Guide for Mexico." The style of writing is typically straightforward and aimed to interest a wide-ranging audience.

Travel Narratives
A travel narrative is quite similar to writing a novel, where a fiction-writing background comes in quite handy. The writing is very descriptive with a goal of keeping the attention of readers through detail. A travel narrative may include fictitious characters written in the third person, utilize dramatic narrative (stories with a beginning, middle, and end), and include a hint of conflict and character development. Characters may also speak to one another through detailed dialogue taken from the author's memory.
An example of a travel narrative may include a publication titled, "A Year in South Africa," which traces the exploits of a business executive who abandons his career to explore the nooks and crannies of South Africa, embarking on a soul-searching journey that explains the connection he makes with the inhabitants, culture, and natural wonder of various locations.

Magazines, Newspapers & Brochures
Every magazine and newspaper approaches the subject of travel quite differently. Usually, a writer can draw upon a wealth of experiences pertaining to just one trip that are later written down to accommodate specific target audiences and publications. The writer who visits Italy may review a restaurant in Rome for a food-related magazine, show how to cook Sicilian Lasagna for a local newspaper, rate popular museums in Florence for a travel and leisure magazine, or list new clubs in Verona for a passage in a student travel brochure. Description, anecdotes, and travel tips are quite helpful in this type of writing.

Want more tips on writing go to
[http://www.novelmaster.com]

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Three Ways to Work From Home on PC Computers

Is it true that you can work from home on PC computers and earn money? You sure can. There are three main ways to make money online. You can either write articles, be a virtual assistant or provide customer service through a company that provides call center services.

What is the easiest way to work from home on a PC?

If you can write articles, there are several websites that will hire you to write web content. One of the best is Textbroker.com, but if you look around you'll find that there are several others as well. You don't have to be a professional writer to work for these sites. You just need to be able to put together a coherent article that has an introduction, a few paragraphs to make your points and a conclusion.

The amount you can make depends on how quickly you can write, but some writers are able to make as much as $20 per hour writing online.

What are other ways to work at home from a PC? You could find a company that hires virtual assistants or call center workers. A virtual assistant may be asked to do research, data entry or any other task that would typically be completed by an administrative assistant that can be done without being physically present in a given location.

Obviously, you can't fetch coffee for the boss this way but there are plenty of things that can be done remotely and many companies are now taking advantage of this by hiring virtual assistants.

How do you get a call center job? There are several companies online that offer this type of employment. Most of them require that you have high-speed Internet and a Skype account. The call center forwards calls to your Skype account when you are logged on and available to take calls. You may be paid by the hour while you are on-call or by the minute when you are actually talking to someone. Either way, you can earn a respectable income doing this type of job.

James Dempsey is a top internet marketer who works with industry leaders from around the world. He has a passion for helping others achieve their goals, dreams and aspirations. To learn more about James Dempsey and his team of Marketing Mentors meet him at: [http://www.unlimited-cash4u.com/]

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3 Ways To Sell Physical Products Using Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA)

Did you know that Amazon is not the seller of everything on Amazon? Did you know that ordinary people like you and me can sell physical products on Amazon? This opportunity has been around for a while, but it is becoming very popular right now due to educational courses that are popping up everywhere.

There are three ways you can sell physical products on Amazon: sell other people's products on Amazon and ship the orders yourself; sell other people's products on Amazon and let Amazon ship and sell your own products on Amazon and let Amazon ship them.
The first way is called merchant fulfilled. You list your merchandise on Amazon's website, but you actually fulfill or ship the orders yourself. The last two ways are called FBA.

Merchant fulfilled may be the easiest way and least costly to get started, but it is a lot more work. You list your products on Amazon's site. When the products are bought you are responsible for actually shipping the products to the buyer. You can even sell things that you have around the house using this method.

You can also use FBA to sell other people's products. In this case, you go to the store and find things that are already selling on Amazon, purchase them, put your own unique UPC label on the product, pack it, create the listing, ship it to an Amazon warehouse and wait for the buyer.

There are smart phone apps that you can use to scan products before you buy them to help you determine if you can make a profit. If you like to shop, are good at finding bargains and can ship a box, then this may be the business for you. The other great thing about using FBA is that your products are eligible for the Amazon Prime program. People who participate in this can get free 2 day shipping. Many people are willing to pay a little more for a product for this convenience.

The second way to use the FBA program is to actually sell your own products. You find a product that you can sell, find a private label manufacturer, create your own brand and sell you product. This is the most lucrative of the ways to sell on Amazon; however, it requires more capital up front. Also, it is more risky because you have to order inventory.

As you can see selling on Amazon is definitely something that you can do to earn extra income or become your full-time business. If you are looking to start an online business or you want to add an additional income stream to your existing online business than you should definitely consider FBA.

To learn more about selling on Amazon check out FBA Genie. Visit The Online Newbie if you are interested in learning more about Adrienne Dupree or starting an online marketing business TODAY to get out of the rat race, take control of our own destiny and stop trading time for dollars.

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