Money Blue Book

These past few weeks have been tough on me. Not only did my trusty Honda Accord suddenly break down, but I’ve been experiencing major Internet service disruptions at home caused by the incompetence and admitted overselling activities of my current broadband service provider Comcast. For months now, I’ve been plagued by frequent Internet outages coupled with agonizingly slow download speeds reminiscent of my old 56k screech-and-hiss modem days. The breaks in service finally culminated into the complete stoppage and loss of my home Internet signal. Furthermore, the service disruption repair activities were hampered by a series of powerful thunderstorm waves that swept through my area this week, knocking out electricity, cable TV, and broadband Internet service for almost all seven days. While my car was washed and scrubbed sparkling clean by the rain and wind, lightening sparks managed to knock out the power in my neighborhood. Electricity was “quickly” reactivated in 1-2 days, but cable TV and my precious broadband Internet service wasn’t repaired and fully restored until nearly a week thereafter.

For the last few days I’ve been a pretty sad fellow. Not only did I feel isolated and cut off from the real world without convenient home access to the Internet, I haven’t been able to properly update my personal finance blog, nor have I been able to check my email messages, or tend to the operations of any of my online passive income businesses. On a normal weekday I usually receive close to 50 emails a day from a variety of personal and business related sources. By the time my Internet service was finally restored, I was greatly backlogged and had major catching up to do.

I Never Realized How Much I Relied and Depended On Having Home Based Internet Access, Until It Was Suddenly Taken Away From Me

I used to feel this way about TV, but I now have a new love – my computer (and the Internet service it provides me). When my precious Internet is gone, I feel crippled. This is not the first time I’ve experienced an Internet outage due to loss of power, but it’s the first time I realized how much I depended on my broadband Internet service at home. In the past, whenever my cable Internet service was knocked out, I’d simply access my backup laptop’s wireless signal manager and search for one of my random neighbor’s unsecured wireless signal to piggy back off of. Oftentimes I would get lucky and find one subscribed to a different broadband Internet provider that still had active service. While the majority of the stray wireless signals were properly password protected, a few were left publicly accessible. However, as the importance of securing one’s wireless router from unwanted intrusion has picked up steam, I find that most signals today are properly secured and inaccessible to strangers like myself. Particularly in a condo complex such as mine that’s populated by mostly tech savvy young adults and families, finding an unsecured wireless signal to temporarily piggy back off of is proving more difficult nowadays.

Since I’ve been working from home for the last few months, I’m not able to access the web through an alternate location such as an office workspace. So for the last few days during the outage, I visited my local library to get my Internet fix and to keep tabs on my email messages the best I could. Due to usage limits of an hour per day on the computers at my public county library, I wasn’t able to fully respond to all messages during each sitting and frequently had to do the bare minimum when it came to managing my online finances and keeping track of all my wheelings and dealings. Since I’ve adopted the practice of going all electronic and paperless and have converted all my paper bills into e-billing and automatic debit payments, not having immediate home based access to the Internet puts me in an incredibly inconvenient position. It’s a hopeless and powerless feeling when you’re unable to properly manage and access important aspects of one’s personal and financial life in real time. Especially since I am currently managing a major balance transfer credit card arbitrage, not having online account access makes it difficult for me to keep tabs on monthly due dates and stay on top of my minimum payments. If I’m not careful with online due dates, I could easily unintentionally commit a tragic balance transfer mistake and ultimately face terrible repercussions. It’s been so long since I’ve performed paper or phone banking that I’m not even sure how it’s done anymore exactly or where to locate my backup paperwork. I’m simply so used to doing everything online these days.

We’ve Become An Extremely Technology and Internet Dependent Generation

The no-Internet experience left me amazed and somewhat alarmed at how much my life has grown so reliant on the availability of the Internet. While it’s only a single form of technology, it’s a mode of communication and source of information that I’ve become extremely dependent upon. It’s interesting how only about a decade ago, no one had even heard of Google, Yahoo, Mapquest, or CNN.com. Back in the Internet-less caveman days of the early 90’s, we relied on non electronic forms of communication and information gathering. Before the Internet, people relied on daily newspaper deliveries for their written news, people purchased hard compact discs for their music, paper maps were used to plot directions, and people actually obtained background information on a variety of common topics by turning to hardcover encyclopedias.

Today, people rely on CNN.com, NYTimes.com, Yahoo news, and even online blogs to get their daily news. People order songs individually from online vendors like iTunes. People use online websites like Mapquest or Google maps, or utilize handheld GPS devices to easily and automatically get directions to where they want to go. Nowadays, the old volumes of encyclopedias have become extinct as all forms of text and multimedia data have been compiled and stored onto easy to carry around storage disks, or have been uploaded onto online information repositories like Wikipedia. As a testament to its breadth, the Internet is even changing the way we order pizzas now. Today, the trend of ordering freshly made pizzas online in real time through vendors such as Papa John’s is growing rapidly. The Internet has essentially phased out the clutter generated by paper documents, menus, and voluminous booklets.

The Internet Is Replacing The Cell Phone and Cable TV As The Technology We Can Least Afford To Do Without

But with this great reliance comes the dangers as evidenced by how out of place I became as soon as this important technology was taken away from me. Today, with the Internet having enveloped and dominated our day to day lives, and high speed cable and DSL broadband having greatly expanded the media content we can now receive, we can barely function now without this important service. I know I can’t.

Without full Internet access for the last week or so, I became handicapped and only partially functional. In fact, I dare to say that not having access to the Internet was astronomically worse than not having my mobile phone or even not having a fully functional cable TV service. Both cellular phone and television service can be easily replaced and compensated by the power of the web. There are easy ways to make local, national, and even international phone calls for free using a computer and the Internet, and I can easily communicate with my friends and family through instant messaging or via social networks such as Facebook or Myspace. There are also plenty of free online shared videos on YouTube and daily updated news videos on the major news network websites that can replace the lack of TV service. But there is simply no duplicate or substitute for a non working Internet.

The Internet is so pervasive, it’s hard to know what life would be like if it ever disappeared. It’s a wonderful and powerful tool that has changed the way we interact, communicate, and live our lives, but at the same time it makes us very technologically dependent and vulnerable. We are more susceptible to critical financial and societal collapses from computer viral outbreaks or electrical infrastructure disruptions than ever before. Some say it has made us as a society more distant and anonymous to each other, but I disagree. I think it’s greatly improved our lives and has allowed us to reach out and touch others in a way not possible before. We can only hope that technology can continue to defy the elements of mother nature (thunderstorms) and adequately keep up with this never ending appetite for electronic convenience and digital information. Such electrical and service outages as I experienced this week mustn’t happen again. I just can’t bear to be without Internet access for too long. Things just don’t seem to run right or smoothly when I am offline for extended periods of time.

Updated List Of The Best Business Credit Cards Below!

Like most small business owners, I have my eyes on the prize with expectations based on the potential of future expansion. While my current small home business is still in the early growth stages and has not developed to the size where I needed to incorporate, I decided early on that now was a good time as any to start keeping my personal and business expenses separate by taking advantage of the expense tracking and management benefits afforded by business credit cards.

Whether you are a small business owner who works from your own home, or have your own dedicated virtual office setup, there may eventually come a time when you will need additional cash and credit infusion to pay for business expenses such as inventory, office supplies, or utility fees including wireless services. More than half of all small businesses currently use credit cards to pay for expenses, but less than half of the users utilize business credit cards. While most seem content on relying on their existing consumer cards, there are a number of key reasons why it’s better to use business credit cards under your company’s banner.

For those running a business as a sole proprietorship like myself, you may have already applied for an Employer Identification Number (EIN), sometimes referred to the Federal Tax ID. If so, you will need to enter it when applying for a business credit card. If you are a regular non-business consumer who wants to take advantage of the rewards and benefits that business cards have to offer, you can still apply by entering your personal name as the name of the business, thereby leaving the Federal Tax ID part on the card application blank. That’s generally permissible because individuals can always declare themselves to be a sole proprietorship business unto themselves.

Benefits And Advantages Of Using A Business Credit Card

Business credit cards provide a focused selection of business oriented tools to help business cardholders better manage their expense transactions and day to day employee operations. Many of their advantages are not available in ordinary consumer credit cards. Here are some of the important small business benefits that they offer:

1. Special Business Rewards – Business credit cards offer unique discounts and rewards for an array of business expenditures that range from office furniture and equipment, to airline travel, gas fill-ups, car rentals, and utilities such as wireless services. Many businesses also choose to carry multiple business cards – using low to 0 interest APR offers to carry 0 interest balances, while using reward oriented cards to earn airline miles or cash back of up to 5% on business related purchases.
2. High Credit Limit – Compared to their consumer card counterparts, most business credit cards tend to offer higher initial credit lines, an attractive benefit for growing businesses in need of access to lots of credit. The higher business credit limit is particularly attractive when coupled with 0% APR introductory purchases and 0% balance transfer offers. High credit limits and 0% APR credit card offers help businesses build start up venture capital to better grow and expand their enterprises.
3. Avoidance Of Asset and Expense Commingling – For solo proprietorships, commingling your personal and business expenses is not as big of an issue. But as your business expands, due to liability and taxation concerns, you may ultimately want to convert your business into a limited liability company (LLC) or corporation – operations that mandate the separation of your personal expenses from your business transactions. By using dedicated small business credit cards now sooner than later, you make it easier to complete the transition in the future.
4. Multiple Cards For Employees – One useful benefit of business credit cards is the ability to request multiple linked credit cards for your business employees. By adding employees as cardholders to your account, you enable the consolidation and tracking of your business transactions from one location. Most business credit cards also offer free expense accounting, with transactions broken down by each authorized employee’s card access account.
5. Itemization and Expense Tracking - The usage of business credit cards also offers the flexible and scalable ability to fix preset credit limits for each employee. Not only can you place credit usage limits for each employee cardholder working off your account, many card programs allow you to set limits on how much particular employees can spend in specific purchase categories. Business credit cards make it easier for small business owners by providing monthly and year end credit card statement summaries, with all transactions conveniently itemized and categorized. Rather than having to fumble around with a bulky envelope full of receipts, business credit cards make it easier for you to manage your cash flow and daily business transactions.
6. Opportunity To Build Business Credit - A small business credit card also offers your new business the opportunity to link your business tax ID to the account, enabling your business to build its own credit history. Maybe not now, but having a developed credit report and ready access to credit are key ingredients to growing your future business. One day, your business may very well require a capital infusion through credit loans to take it to the next level.

List Of The Best Business Credit Card Offers:

1) Citi Premier Pass-Elite Level – This card is the ultimate rewards card for earning free airline miles. If you are a frequent flyer you will greatly appreciate the miles earning potential it has. With the Citi PremierPass Elite, you earn 1 reward point for every 1 mile you fly, 2 points for every dollar spent at gas stations, supermarkets, drug stores, and transportation related businesses including parking, and 1 point for everything else. You can redeem the points for free plane tickets with no airline restrictions, no blackout dates, and no seating limitations. A $75 annual fee does apply but if you are a frequent business traveler, you will easily make it up in the form of free airline tickets. It is currently offering a $200 bonus gift card for new sign ups.

2) Citi AT&T Business Reward Card – This popular business credit card offer from Citi Card offers 5% reward back for eligible AT&T products and services purchased directly from AT&T. It also offers 3% back on purchases at gas stations, office supply stores, and on professional services. All other card purchases earn 1% back. ThankYou points earned can be redeemed for air travel, statement credit, gift cards, business merchandise, and more. The CitiBusiness network also provides numerous pretty sought after features and services – perks such as business-enhanced online account management privileges and special prescription drug discount benefits for cardmembers and their dependents. Currently, the Citi ATT business card is also touting an attractive 6 month promotional 0% interest rate for all purchases.

3) Discover Business Card – With this card, businesses can earn 5% cash back reward bonuses on office supplies, 2% on gas, and up to 1% on everything else. The card also offers a 12 month 0 APR balance transfer deal with a 3% balance transfer fee, capped at $75. Perks for small business owners include free employee cards with customizable spending limits and monthly reports, categorized online quarterly and annual statements, and free travel benefits. One of the best benefits of the Discover Business credit card is the ability to write and issue fee-free purchase checks. The unique purchase check function allows you to write checks to business suppliers who do not accept credit cards. Your purchase check interest rate will be the normal purchase APR on the card. Best of all, there is no transaction fee for this service, and there is no annual fee.

4) Advanta Business World Master Card – This card allows you to earn 1% back on all purchases with an additional 50% worth of extra bonus point rewards every year. In regards to the credit card rewards earned, there are no earnings cap, no travel redemption restrictions, or any sneaky blackout dates. There is also no preset spending limit or annual fee.

5) Advanta Net 90 Platinum Business Card – Advanta presents consumers and small business owners with the opportunity to enjoy continuous and recurring 90 days worth of 0% interest free purchases. This is not an introductory offer, but a permanent grace period feature that allows you to pay no interest for 3 months after any card purchase. This reward credit card also earns 1% back with a generous credit limit and no annual fee.

6) Advanta Platinum Business Card Unlimited Rewards – Advanta Bank has emerged as a leader of the small business credit card market. This particular Advanta card offers both an introductory 15 month, 0% APR offer for balance transfers, as well as the ability to earn 1% rebate rewards, redeemable for cash, travel, and merchandise, with no annual fee. The plastic credit cards provided can also be uniquely personalized with your company’s name on the top of the card.

7) Advanta Customizable Platinum Business Card With Unlimited Rewards – This custom credit card offer provides the same 15 month, 0% balance transfer offer as the regular Advanta Business Unlimited Card, along with the ability to earn unlimited 1% purchase rebates. However, not only can you customize the card with your company’s name, you can also customize the card design to display your small business or company’s logo or trademark colors.

8) Advanta Kiva Business Card – With this joint public interest Advanta-Kiva offer for small business owners and entrepreneurs, as you earn purchase rewards for yourself, the card issuer matches your redeemed rewards in the form of loan grants for people in developing countries. Cardholders get a 5% statement credit on the first $1,200 each year for Kiva grants, charitable donations, and other eligible purchases. The card also provides an unbeatable 15 month, 0% balance transfer offer, with no annual fee.

Due to my desire to go completely paperless and to streamline my finances, I eliminated paper billing from my life at the start of last year. Of course there are still a few pesky old fashioned companies that insist on sending me paper bills through snail mail, but the vast majority have complied and converted my monthly statements into E-billing. I’ve also taken it one step further by setting up and activating automatic online debit payments for all of my bank, credit card, and home utility accounts. Since I switched to online billing and automatic debit payments, it’s been much easier for me to manage my finances. My primary Citibank checking account is now linked up with all of the paid services that I use, allowing me to easily pay home utility bills and credit cards at the touch of a mouse click. I view my account balances from one convenient page using an online account consolidator program like Fidelity Full View, which is powered by Yodlee. Most services provide the automatic debit option for free, as they should, since it allows companies to save money on payment handling expenses.

Your Payments May Be On Autopilot, But Don’t Lose Track Of Recurring Charges

The convenience of automatic paperless bill pay is not without its hazards and pitfalls as I soon learned. Automatic bill pay is extremely easy to set up but it can be tricky to maintain. I’ll tell you why. Yes, you no longer have to deal with tracking credit card due dates and bothering with the hassle of licking stamps and remembering to mail off payment checks, but you have to contend with the danger of being lured into a false sense of security and lax oversight. Despite its automated nature, mistakes do happen. If you don’t keep an eye on your account activity periodically, you may still find yourself being penalized with non sufficient fund fees or interest charges due to overdrafts in your linked checking account or overdue bill statements.

Once automatic payments have been activated, keep in mind that they will continue nonstop like clockwork until you stop them. In the event you need to temporarily halt an automatic bill payment from going through, the first thing you need to do is call the company to put an end to the order prior to the execution date. The next step is to ensure that you still have sufficient funds in your linked checking account to satisfy the bill amount in the event the payment still goes through. The unintended payment can ultimately be reversed, but usually there is a slight lag time before prior authorized automation can be halted.

Now when you set up automatic debit payments for the first time, and especially for credit cards in particular, it may take up to 1-2 months for the automatic payments to kick in. Remember to continue making regular payments until you receive confirmation that automation has begun (usually a notation on your online account or a paper confirmation sent to you). I made that mistake the first time I started and ended up missing my payment due date. Luckily Citibank was kind enough to drop the finance charges due to my good past payment history.

Be Selective Of Which Charges and Bill Payments You Decide To Automate

The best bills and charges to automate are those that occur monthly at around the same time and involve a fixed amount. Such fixed amounts present less opportunity for contention, and are thus less error prone. Examples of fixed expense bills include monthly health and auto insurance premiums, monthly gym fees, cable TV, satellite TV, and internet service. Mistakes such as double billing do occasionally occur with fixed charges, although they are usually rare.

The bills that I don’t particularly advise automating are those that fluctuate drastically or may contain charges that you ought to verify first before paying, such as credit cards and cell phone charges. My own credit card statement balances fluctuate wildly. Sometimes a statement may be $200 and the next month it’ll spike up to $900 depending on usage. I recommend holding off on automatic debit payments for your credit cards until you get the hang of monitoring your account regularly online and get accustomed to regulating your available bank account balance to satisfy incoming charges.

Personally, I automate everything, including payments for variable monthly expenses such as credit card bills and cell phone charges. In my case, I always make sure I keep an abundant amount in my checking account to pay for all monthly recurring charges with extra room for the unexpected. I also make a concerted effort to keep tabs on fluctuating bills by reviewing them immediately when the statements become available online. Usually my credit card accounts in particular will send me an email reminder when the statements are ready for viewing. Thus, although you can conveniently set your account payables to autopilot, you still shouldn’t fall asleep completely at the wheel.

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 handle voicemail greetings for both personal and business calls? You can always get another landline or cellphone number, but that can get awfully expensive, especially if it is underused.

Since I don’t have a separate landline at home, I currently use my cell phone plan in conjunction with eBay’s GrandCentral free phone service to re-route business phone calls to my personal cell phone number. The service provides customers a free separate number that can be given out as a business line, and have calls automatically forwarded to your personal line.

Since exceeding monthly cell phone plan minutes may be a problem, another solution is to sign up for an established Voice Over IP (VoIP) phone service like Skype. For $3 a month, along with an extra charge for a personal SkypeIn phone number to handle business calls, you can receive unlimited incoming calls from a cell or a landline. SkypeIn calls are handled through the online Skype interface and calls can be picked up anywhere you have internet access.

2) Fax Service

Although it’s ancient technology, it is still widely used, surprisingly. If you fax frequently, I’d recommend just going ahead and buying a cheap fax machine. But if you only need to receive faxes on occasion and rarely send them, you can try going with eFax Free, which will give you a free non-local fax number to accept incoming faxes through e-mail.

If you want to send faxes for free and don’t mind having cover page ads automatically attached to your outgoing fax messages, then you can always go with FaxZero. However, you will only be allowed to fax 2 document sets per day, with a maximum of 3 pages each.

3) Mailboxes That Offer A Professional Mailing Address

Personally I use my home as my business address, but if you want some privacy or if you expect to receive a lot of packages, you may want to get a larger standalone postal box. The U.S. Postal Service and most major private postal carriers like UPS and Fedex offer free pickup and the option to conveniently pay and print your postal stamp labels at home.

You can get a separate standalone P.O. Box through the U.S. Postal Service, but your mailing address will contain the “PO BOX” tag followed by your personal box number. If you want to get a more professional sounding mailing address that contains an actual street address, you may want to go with a private mailbox at a place like the UPS Store. Prices vary but private UPS box prices are usually about $200 a year (compared to less than $100 for a standard PO Box). However, unlike a standard PO Box, a private mailbox through UPS is 24 hour accessible.

4) Business E-Mail Addresses

Free e-mail addresses are simple to find – just check out Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail. However, if you want to sound professional and want to be taken seriously, you probably will need to get an e-mail address that contains your business name. There are plenty of email hosting options out there depending on your needs. For example, with DreamHost, you can get unlimited e-mail addresses and email forwarding for a pretty good $5.95 a month.