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April 15, 2019

Why the Capital One Venture Card is the Best Credit Card Available Today

The Capital One Venture Card is one of the credit cards greatly advertised on the market right now. However, its widespread popularity is not only about hype. This credit card is known for offering a significant sum of sign-up bonus, very flexible options on redemption, and a high constant rewards rate. It only means that this is one of the best credit cards you can get today.

Benefits and Basics of Capital One Venture Card

The Capital One Venture Card is a type of travel card. This is designed for people who need a credit card that will let them earn travel rewards but don’t want getting tied to a particular hotel or airline. This card works in a simple way:

You get to earn 2 miles for each dollar spent.
You can redeem miles for statement credit against every travel purchase. These miles are worth one penny per piece once redeemed for travel.

One more advantage is that since you book the flight as if you pay in cash, there is no need for you to worry about seat restrictions, blackout dates, or any other common limitations associated with rewards programs plans of airlines.

Big Bonus Upon Sign-Up

The Capital One Venture Card will give you a head start for your next travel with their sign-up bonus. You can get a one-time bonus worth 50,000 miles if you spend $3,000 on your purchases within 3 months after you open an account, which is equivalent in travel to $500.

High Rate for Rewards

Majority of airline-branded credit cards provide you one mile for every dollar spent on majority of purchases as well as double miles on purchases with the airline. Capital One Venture Card provides you double miles on everything. Its miles are worth the same one cent apiece as it’s the standard within the industry of airline.

No Fees for Foreign Transaction

Oftentimes, credit cards add a surcharge of around three percent to every purchase made in a foreign country. Great travel cards must not charge this fee and Capital One Venture Card doesn’t.

Flexible Redemption

The rewards program of Capital One Venture Card offers you 2 ways of redeeming miles for travel. These include the use of the travel center of the issuer to find deals on hotels, flights, all-inclusive vacation packages or rental cars, pay for them upfront with the accumulated miles.

Is Capital One Venture Card Right for Your Needs?

If you are serious about traveling, Capital One Venture Card must be on your radar. With the best ongoing travel rewards rates and high signup bonus in the market, it may go toe to toe with any travel cards. It is a great option if you like flexibility or you want to travel internationally. However, depending on your requirements, some travel credit cards might be a better choice. If you want to make a wise decision, you should explore some options first before you apply.

April 15, 2019

When to Quit Your Day Job

From graphic designers to life coaches to tech stars, affliction seems deep-rooted and unprejudiced. Inspired and ambitious entrepreneurs end up stuck in their working hours since they don’t know when to cut cords. Sidelined business venture becomes relationship-ruiners, energy-suckers, and money-wasters. Budding visionaries might get burnt out and begin agonizing over their unfulfilled potential.

Below are some of the ways on how to know when to quit your job:

You are Prepared to Scale, Yet You Do Not Have Time

If you are working full time and you are spending your free time on your venture, then that is great. However, it can be impossible to do the job needed to keep that as a money-making venture and make long term growth and sustainability with just your weekends and evenings. It is also difficult to train, hire, and be responsive leader when you are working something all day.

While money could be made, time is the only finite resource you have. You will be missing an opportunity to scale up at some point in time since you do not have the time to devote to that. Once you hit the point of not having time to do the things you like to for your business, there is a great chance you are partially prepared for the next step.

You Have Money Saved to Support Yourself

While your business would be wildly profitable, you have to ensure that you have money to keep living it until that takes off. This is the reason why it is essential to understand how much you want to live and how long you think it’ll take until you are turning enough of profits to pay yourself a good salary.

Decide If It’s Time

Being your own boss can be challenging. Having a business is like having your own kid and it will never feel like the best time to do it. There would be things you like to figure out before it happens. The idea of having things falling into place is a rare occurrence. You need to make the conditions that would make you feel comfortable to take the next step. Therefore, it’s important to think of what should be in place for you to bust the move. For others, it’s a particular number of clients as well as peace of mind when leaving your old job behind.

Have your own timeline to get everything in place and make accountability for yourself. Try putting notes on your calendar to remind yourself that it will be time to leap whether you feel it’s ready or not.

It is a tough decision to consider something that’s unknown, particular when it is headfirst. Not all people, in spite of dreaming about the thrills of forging paths, are excited on the possibility of unstable cash flow and paying for your health insurance. However, if you know that you get the business off the ground, it is time for you to push through the challenges and make that happen.

April 15, 2019

Top Fives Ways to Have a Scalable Business

Business scalability is basically the flexibility of every aspect of your operation, which grows with the business. It includes things including marketing and accounting provisions and production or even your telephone system.

Whether you own a company or you’re taking first steps to your dream’s startup, you mostly likely imagine the bright future. People who are ambitious reach for the stars always and any small business ideas may grow to a huge enterprise.

Automate as Much Job as Possible

Automation is something you must focus on as early as you could since it isn’t something you have to hire to do and might even save you from making hires at the first place. Automation is always consistent and reliable as your business scales. It isn’t also expensive.

Make a Wiki for All of Your Employees

There are some information that nobody seems to remember and they are frequently scattered in the market. Rather than starring the message, why not get your information accessible, easily searchable, and centralized? It isn’t something that huge companies require. Even your content team with only a few members uses shared documents to store important code snippets and vital links.

Concentrate on Turning Early Hires to Leaders and Making Formal Management Structure

If the company is high energy and small, the employees are typically juggling a lot of functions at the same time. As you scale, you will be able to focus down and turn all hands on deck structure to something that is more formal. Adding management structure and defining specialized roles are the most important things, which lasting companies do whenever they’re scaling.

Once done properly, your early hires could go on to lead their departments and teams. When they are promoted, they must have the most competence and experience in job function. Experts recommend you to set up early hire for leadership through giving them more responsibility and mentoring them about the work in progress projects as well as general management skills. You can also bring in some senior hires who have scaled companies successfully in the past.

Hire Assistants as Early as Possible

The last thing you like to be spending time on is on the tasks like doing data entry, updating calendar, and managing databases. The faster you get such tasks out of the way, the better you could concentrate your energy to scale your business.

Switch to Cloud Collaboration and Instant Messaging Apps

These days, it is silly to let some important emails from co-workers share space with automated updated emails and newsletters. Teams using instant messaging cut down on internal emails regularly report that it helps them to centralize everything in a much better way and stay on top of the tasks. Instant messaging can also save more time. With cloud collaboration apps, they help you centralize and share information. The alternative is forwarding emails and adding to pile of messages for your colleagues to check.

Create a Scalable Business Today

The first thing to have a scalable business is to streamline your company through cutting paper and digitizing documents. Just make sure to choose a reliable service provider to do this.

April 15, 2019

Top Five Reasons to Invest in Yourself

If personal development is your goal, one of the very first things you should do is invest in yourself. Whatever you wish to improve or achieve, it definitely requires an investment. Self awareness is a crucial step for you to determine the things you should be doing to make yourself better.

Check out the following top five reasons to start investing in yourself today:

You are More Than Worth It

Yourself is always your greatest and biggest asset. How many times have you seen extremely talented and gifted people who don’t maximize their fullest potential? Instead of becoming the best, they just waste their precious time on less than stellar pursuits. Many are either unaware of their true potential, while some stopped at one level then settled there, possibly because of complacency, ignorance, or fear.

Know that the world sees you as someone valuable in one way or another. Invest resources and time to make your brilliance shine brighter and for other people to see your glow.

You Establish Yourself as an Expert

Positioning yourself as an expert takes a substantial investment of resources and time. But, the payoff will be more substantial compared to the generalist counterparts. By investing in becoming an expert on a subject matter, you will be recognized right away in your niche market even if you are just a part of the exclusive club. If you wish to enter a niche market, look into its challenges and invest to prepare in solving these hurdles.

You Improve Your Value in the Eyes of Prospect Clients and Employers

The reason why graduates of Ivy League schools manage to land job positions with 6-figure salary even with no work experience in the past is because they are perceived as among the best and brightest. However, it doesn’t mean that you should become an Ivy Leaguer for employers to see you as someone valuable.

People who commit to their professional and personal development set themselves apart from the norm. Investing in yourself more helps you become a value-added commodity. Enhance your knowledge level and enjoy an increase in personal capital either in your present endeavor or a new one.

You Attract People with the Same Commitment of Making Themselves Better

You will be surprised how great it feels to be around successful people who believe in excellence and nothing less. These people can bring out the best in you by inspiring you to stretch and grow. Aside from your family, are there people whose influence in your own life is the greatest? What make you feel drawn towards them? It is possibly because of their credentials, intelligence, character, and other admirable qualities.

You Can Better Influence Other People’s Lives

Self awareness means you can offer more to others. Realizing your purpose and value in this world will put you in a better position of improving the lives of other people aside from your own. This gives you a sense of responsibility that will urge you to continue to do better by the day.

April 15, 2019

Top Five Real Estate Tax Deductions of 2019

IRS enables you to take deductions for any legitimate expenses that are related to running rental properties. If you own some rentals, you may claim expenses in categories spanning everything from depreciation, repairs, insurance to interest. But, you should record them. To make sure that you are taking advantage of rental estate tax deductions, it is important to use accounting software.

Mortgage Interest Payments

Interests on rental properties may take some forms and can be one of the rental property’s biggest tax benefits. Mortgage interests, loan origination fees, points, interests on credit lines, and interests from credit cards used for the property-related expenses can be deductible. If you make loan payments on rental properties, there are 2 components to the payment. There’s a portion going to an interest expense and principal. You may see it looking at your statements monthly. Unluckily, you cannot deduct your payment’s principal portion. But, you may deduct interest portion.

Depreciation

Depreciation is actually a rental estate tax deduction for hypothetical wear and tear on buildings as if it’s an expense. Even if you might not be encountering costs for covering actual maintenance expenses, the accounting principles let you take advantage of eventual costs through depreciation. Knowing what depreciation is and having records is important and you must turn to your tax professional or CPA for help. Generally, you could depreciate the value of the rental property minus the land’s cost evenly over 2 decades like straight-line depreciation.

Insurance

Any kind of insurance is known as an expense or tax deductible for real estate. It includes special perils insurance and basic hazard insurance like hurricane or flood coverage and liability insurance. Insurance for rental properties is usually 15%-20% more than the policy for owner-occupied policy.

Homeowner Association Fees

If rental properties are situated in a community, which charges any type of homeowner association fees, PUD fees, condo fees, and much more, such are deductible expenses. IRS considers it to be necessary to maintain the property. HOA fees differ depending on your place, unit’s size, and amenities included, yet the average fees for HOA for single-family home are around $200-$300 monthly. Aside from that, you might deduct the items needed by HOA. For instance, several HOAs need expensive for the rent signs, which meet particular specifications. Such sign expenses could be deductible.

Supplies

Supplies are somewhat a miscellaneous, which may include anything from office to hardware supplies. A lot of supplies would be used directly on a particular property and deductibles to properties itself. A good example could be the driveway sealant if the can’s used on the property. Some supplies could be applicable to some or all properties and deductibles to businesses as a whole. A good example could be computer printer paper that cannot be allocated to a property, yet it’s used for everything related to the business.

Those are just some of the many real estate tax deductions that you should know. If you want to know the other deductions, make sure to search online.

April 15, 2019

Top 3 American Express Platinum Benefits

American Express Platinum card has one of the biggest annual fees of any available consumer credit card, yet its benefits more than outweigh the fee. So, if you are a frequent traveler or have a successful business, it’s something that you should have.

The card features a good welcome bonus for the new applicants. If you spend a total of $5,000 for the first 3 months, you will get 60,000 points. While that is a high spend requirement, it might be worth opening American Express Platinum if you have huge expenses coming up. The card may also earn five times points for every dollar spent on airfare bought directly from airlines or through AmEx. You can get 1 point for every dollar spent on everything.

Aside from the welcome bonus, the other benefits of the card include the statement credits for different travel services, benefits at lots of various hotels, and access to thousands of airport lounges. Other benefits of the card should be activated before you could use them. To ensure that you do not miss out, below are some of benefits of American Express Platinum:

Yearly Airline Fee Credit

One of the best benefits of American Express Platinum is its yearly airline fee that costs $200. Every calendar year, you may designate an airline on which you could get $200 reimbursed fees. While fees do not include tickets, it covers some things including checked bags, in-flight drinks and foods, flight-change fees, lounge day passes, fees for traveling with pets, and sometimes, things including extra legroom upgrade and seat assignments.

While it isn’t allowed specifically, you might even buy airline gift cards with credit that you may use for ticket purchases. Once you search online, you may see if it applies to your selected airline. The best thing about airline credit is that you will get it every calendar year and you could get twice during the first year of having American Express Platinum.

Get Up to $200 for Uber Credits

American Express Platinum provides cardholders about $200 for Uber credits every card member year. This perk is added to the card last year. Credit is broken to monthly chunks. At the beginning of every month, you will get $15 of the credits added to your own account on Uber with $20 bonus every December. Other than that, your account will get Uber VIP status that comes with some perks like an option to request rides from the top-rated drivers.

Rental Car Elite Benefits

Other than the gold status at the hotels, you may also enjoy the elite status with some car rental agencies. Once you get your American Express Platinum card, consider logging in online and request status for rental car elite. For you to enjoy this, you have to make accounts with the providers first. The benefits include some things such as guaranteed availability, car upgrades, and waived fees for the additional drivers.

Those are just some of the countless benefits of having an American Express Platinum card. If you want to enjoy all of those benefits, make sure to get one now.

April 15, 2019

The Top Five Best Cities to Buy Your First Property In

For a first time home buyer, the mere thought of having to choose from tons of real estate options might already feel overwhelming. Since this is one of the most significant investments you will ever make in your life, making the right decision is crucial.

To serve as your guide, here are the top five best cities to purchase your very first property in.

Memphis, Tennessee

Even though Nashville overtook Memphis as the largest city in Tennessee, rock’ n’ roll’s birthplace managed to beat its Eastern neighbor as far as budget-friendly houses are concerned. Taking pride in its own sports and music culture, Memphis was dubbed as the best place where millenials can move to due to its reasonably priced housing market.

However, the good prices In Memphis don’t just stop with its real estate market. The city is also known for its low costs of living as compared to other metro areas of the same size. When it comes to employment, Memphis serves as the home to three Fortune 500 companies so you can expect for lucrative jobs in the corporate world. You can make ends meet even if you are just making an average salary every year.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Oklahoma City is the hot spot where young people are moving and more and more millenials are searching for a home in this city. This can partly be because of the excellent employment opportunities. Once there, new residents of the city can indulge in the affordable housing stock and notably low costs of living. When it comes to income, a first time homebuyer has more than enough reasons to be happy and contented.

Orlando, Florida

More than Disney itself, millenials have come to realize that the sprawling city of Orlando has so much more to offer. Millenials looking for homes have been flocking the area in the past few years. This is partly because aside from Mickey Mouse being the city’s biggest employer, Orlando is also the home to Electronic arts and JetBlue.

There is another bonus for young families aside from the affordable housing prices, and this is none other than the strong local schools. The students of Orland have been rated to be more prepared for success in college compared to students in other similarly sized cities.

Tampa, Florida

The home prices in Tampa are more affordable than those in its nearby neighbor Orlando, not to mention that the city also has the biggest percentage when it comes to home price reductions. As one of the top destinations for millenials, the city provides diverse neighborhoods in the sprawling borders.

Aside from having some of the biggest employers, Tampa is also the best spot for aspiring business owners, with the city being one of the perfect locations for young entrepreneurs.

Jacksonville, Florida

There are a lot of things to love in Jacksonville. As the United States’ biggest geographical city, the population of Jacksonville has been getting bigger recently. Combine the job market and its steady growth with low home prices and you can see why it is a famous destination for property buyers.

April 15, 2019

Real Estate or Stocks: Which is Better?

When wondering which is better between real estate and stocks, there is really no universal answer for this since lots of this comes down to your preferences, personality, and style. Moreover, it comes down to the individual investment’s specifics.

Before you choose any from stocks or real estate, make sure to know their primary differences.

What is Real Estate?

If you invest in real estate, you’re actually purchasing physical property or land. Several real estate costs you money each money you hold it. Think of the vacant parcel of the land that you want to sell to the developer someday, yet need to come up with the money for maintenance and taxes. Other real estate is cash generating. Think of the strip mall, rental houses or apartment building where tenants send you checks monthly, you pay for the expenses and keep the differences as profits.

Reasons Why Real Estate is Better

You’re more in control. Each physical investment on real estate you make will put you in charge as the CEO. With this position, you can cut costs, make improvements, market accordingly, find better tenants, and raise rents. If you invest in a private or public company, you’re a minority investor who puts faith in management. There are times that managers commit fraud through unwise acquisitions. No one cares more about your investments than you.
Real estate is a tangible asset. It’s something that you can use, feel, and see. Life is all about living and real estate may give you high quality of life. Stocks are not event pieces of papers anymore, yet ticker numbers and symbols. If the world comes to an end, you may seek shelter in your properties.

What is Stocks?

Once you purchase shares of stocks, you’re purchasing a piece of the company. Whether that organization sells furniture, makes ice cream cones, creates video games, manufactures motorcycles or offers tax services, you’re entitled to cut the profit for each share you own.

Reasons Why Stocks is Better

Stocks can offer you a much higher rate of return. Stocks have returned about 7 to 9 percent yearly in comparison to 2-4 percent for real estate for the past 6 decades. You may go on margin to increase your returns, yet it isn’t recommended given your account on brokerage would force you in liquidating holdings to come up with money if things might go the other way. The bank cannot force you to have cash or move out as long as you’re paying mortgage.
Real estate might take constant managing because of maintenance, tenant rotation, and conflicts with neighbors. Stocks may be left alone as well as pay out the dividends to the investors. With no maintenance, you can concentrate your attention on elsewhere like spending time with your business, family or traveling across the globe. You may also pay mutual fund manager 0.5 percent yearly to pick the stocks for you or hire financial expert at one percent yearly.

April 15, 2019

How to Minimize Your Expenses

It requires sacrifice and effort to spend less and avoid debt. This is the reason why not a lot of people really manage to minimize their expenses and enjoy financial freedom. But, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do it, though. Here are a few tips to help you lower your expenses:

Create a Budget

Knowing where your money goes can help you gain better control of your money. Budgeting helps you identify areas where reducing expenses is possible and which areas you should change your spending habits. It is not easy to maintain a budget, much less maintain it. However, with some practice, you will surely master it in no time.

Shop Smart

Say no to impulse buying! Conduct a research first to ensure that you get the lowest price for every purchase you make. This entails visiting several websites or stores before you actually go shopping. Finding the best deals and avoiding impulse buying can help you save some cash in the process. This takes effort and time but any money you save is always worth that extra work. You can then use the cash you saved to pay off debts, make investments, or for any needs you might have.

Lower Your Bills

To lower your bills, you have to cut back on your utilities such as lights, cooling, heating, water, and such. For instance, every time you are away from home, ensure that you turn off all the lights. You can also regulate the thermostat cooler or warmer so that you don’t waste money in making your home comfortable when you are not even there in the first place. Some may find this easy to do but others may not. Always look for a routine that will work for you then stick to that.

One more thing you can do is to research into different phone plans to see if there are new ones that offer the same benefits but at a cheaper rate. You can try to do this with your satellite or cable TV providers, too. Don’t worry if it is just a few dollars saved every month. After all, every dollar you save means more money goes to your pocket.

Refrain from Dining Out

Let’s face it, dining out can get quite expensive. When you eat at home, you will not just save money but at the same time, you can eat healthier and enjoy quality time with your family and loved ones.

Also, when you shop at grocery stores, list down the things you need in advance. Shopping with no list prepared will only make you purchase goods that you don’t need or don’t eat.

Transfer Credit Cards with High Interest to One Account

The high interest rates charged by credit card companies are how they make money. If you are using several cards, one thing you can do is apply for a credit card that has a 0% introductory rate for balance transfers. This will not just let you pay off credit cards at faster rate as you can also save cash along the way.

Spend less and avoid debt through these simple tips.

April 15, 2019

How to Live on a Dollar a Day

What is the lowest budget you can go for a day? Do you think you can make it through with just 10 dollars? How about 5? How about 1 dollar a day? Wait, is this even possible?

If you are just like most people, chances are your mind instantly thought of negative things after asking these questions. More often than not, many people start to shut down then convince themselves that living on a dollar a day is a challenge not worth the try.

Just ask Kerri Leonard and Christopher Greenslate of Encinitas, California. They chronicled their experiment for a whole month in healthy and cheap eating. During this, they learned that it is impossible to eat fresh produce on one dollar unless you have a garden of your own. However, it is very possible to survive on rice, beans, oatmeal, and wheat gluten.

To reduce your budget for food, there is no need for you to try restricting yourself just as how Leonard and Greenslate did. You cannot stay energetic and healthy when you are already becoming malnourished. Since one of your biggest investments is your own health, since you cannot have an income if you cannot work, you have to spend enough cash for you to remain healthy without spending too much money on processed convenience and fast food foods.

Below are several frugal ways to help you save on your food expenses without compromising your health and be able to live on a dollar a day.

Purchase in Bulk

This is the number one secret of Leonard and Greenslate. They bought bulk quantities of rice, beans, and oatmeal. Beans and oatmeal in particular have high fiber and make you feel fuller even for a small amount of money. Purchase as much as you will need for a whole month to enjoy more savings.

Grow Your Own Food

This is not as challenging as it sounds. Every time food prices increase during summer, most people plant their own gardens. You can buy sees for very cheap prices and most vegetables can grow even in small spaces like patio planters or backyards.

Support Local Farmers

Find the closest farmer’s market in your area and take a trip there to pick up the freshest vegetables and fruits of the season. Natural foods always taste great and most of the time, their prices are much better than if you will buy from national supermarkets.

Shop with Coupons

Every dollar a day that you can save is money that you can set aside for future investments. Sign up for your local store’s discount card and use coupons at the same time to increase your savings.

Buy from Bargain Stores

The giant grocery names can charge 50% more compared to low cost discounters. You can find canned goods in bargain shops. There are also dollar stores selling bread, fresh produce, as well as other items that are traditionally expensive. You can even save money if you shop from stores that let you bag your groceries on your own.