Cheap and Affordable Ways To Create A Virtual Office For Your Small Home Business

January 2, 2008

By MoneyBlueBook

If you run a small home business on the side like I do, it's not always easy to project a professional image without breaking the bank. If your business is new, it's unlikely you have the financial means or even the budget to afford a commercial office space, a secretary, a furnished meeting room, or any of the usual business amenities. However, depending on your budget and needs, there are affordable options out there.

Rent A Shared Office For Meeting Room Or Virtual Office Needs

More established small businesses might be able to look into renting a shared or serviced office space through a workplace solution company like Regus. These business office rental locations are usually fully furnished with desks, meeting rooms, functional kitchens, and business amenities like secretarial service and a professional front desk to handle clients, mail delivery, and customized call answering. They provide a professional working environment without the long term commitment. I would know - I'm currently working a contract project at such a location.

Rental offices are a good alternative for small but growing businesses looking to expand but don't want to deal with the hassle of property ownership or long term commercial leases. However, many small business owners run things from their own homes. For them, there are virtual office solutions available:

1) Telephone Service

Sharing business phone calls with your personal home line isn't a good idea, especially if you get a lot of incoming business calls. Dialing out is fine, but for incoming business calls how does one line

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Happy New Year - My 2008 Market Predictions and Financial Plans

January 1, 2008

By MoneyBlueBook

Happy New Year everybody! So long 2007 - it was an interesting year but I'm glad it's behind us. Let's pray the world can see more peace in 2008 and hope the financial markets will resume its bull run again. Markets are incredibly difficult if not impossible to time, but here are a few of my predictions and projections for 2008. They may or may not come to fruition, but I'd just like to put them out there to see if I am correct or not. I'm not advocating or pushing for them to necessarily happen, but I think they are likely to occur.

Here Is How I Think The Economy and Financial Markets Will Respond In 2008:

The U.S. economy will not enter into an actual recession of negative growth, but expansion will be very subdued. Consumers, the primary driving forces of the economy, will continue to spend as always, although many will cut back on expenditures compared to prior years.

The U.S. stock market will stagnate greatly along with most of the world stock markets, except the Asian emerging markets. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea will resume their bull market rise, outpacing U.S. markets, although the rise will not be as dramatic as that witnessed in 2006 and 2007.

Housing prices will steadily drop nationally overall with very limited local pockets of modest price increases. However, continued foreclosures will cause housing inventory to continue rising, and prices won't stabilize and trend upwards again until at least 2010. The credit crunch write-offs in the mortgage and

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