I wonder if I could find an ad like the one I wrote below on Its My Market classifieds? Probably not, but that's because the site is still young. Give it time! I have a feeling this site is going to be hugely popular just because it's so nicely laid out and designed. Great design really does go a long way in brand loyalty.
ItsMyMarket.com caters to the UK market and sorts classifieds into six primary categories: Property, Jobs, Local Services, Motoring, Free Classified Listings, and Wanted, all easily accessible without unnecessary clicking and navigating the site. There's even an RSS feed for advertisements to come directly into your Feed Reader.
Spread the word!
Disclosure
In your ultimate dream house, what does your favorite room look like?
Here's my favorite room in my ultimate dream house, classified ad style:
Wanted - One room with a bay window filled with lush green foliage, sliding glass doors leading out to the secluded backyard. A fireplace with exquisite mantle is required. Room should have 3-5 hardwood steps leading down into the plush, neutral colored carpet throughout. Prefer room to be furnished with premium reclining leather sofa and stools, cedar coffee and end tables, a large LCD wall panel TV with surround sound. Walls should be adorned with plenty of artwork from the likes of Marc Chagall and Gustav Flimt. Call me.
When do you file your taxes? Do you do it yourself or get outside help?
I try to file my taxes as soon as I get all of my tax information from my employers and banks. We almost always get a refund, so I want that money in my hot little hands ASAP! Which reminds me, I filed at least a week ago and I haven't seen a deposit in my bank account yet. Need to investigate that.
Since we bought a house this year, I thought we'd have to pay someone to do our taxes for the first time ever, but I was still able to do them myself using online tax software. I use TaxAct.com and have been very happy with them.
This week, I paid off a credit card or two and it felt so good! We have a few more that we're working on, mostly with small balances, so they'll be paid off in no time at all. However, we do have one line of credit that we opened up to pay for my new hearing aids when we couldn't pay for them in full. I misread the fine print and didn't realize how high the interest rate and finance charges are. I almost fell over when I opened the first bill!
That unpleasant surprise has led me to compare credit cards and investigate balance transfers, because I will be damned if we'll pay that high of a finance charge every month. It's ridiculous. I know we can get a better rate with a different bank. Heck, we might even be able to finagle a 0% credit card offer! Our credit is mostly repaired from when we messed it up years ago, so I have confidence that we'll be able to get out of this ludicrous arrangement.
Note to self: look into new banks before the end of the payment cycle!
How do you keep track of your bills and their due dates? For a while now, we have worked off of a spreadsheet that consists of two components. The bottom half of the spreadsheet lists all of our debtors, the monthly payment and the due date in addition to our monthly income. This way I have it in black and white what is coming in and what is going out. This gives me a general idea of how much we have to play with every month and when to fit each bill into the payment schedule.
The payment schedule is the top half of the spreadsheet. This schedule is basically a repeat of the information down below, except I only list what is actually being paid out. I do this for every pay day and keep a rotating 6 weeks worth of bills going at all times.
Keeping this spreadsheet is a great way for us to stay organized and on top of our bills. If there is an extra bill, I can more easily switch payments around by looking at a glance at the spreadsheet. When we get paid, I open this document, open up Quicken and then start entering payments into Quicken as I go down the list of everything that needs to be paid.
By using this method, we haven't missed a payment in a long time. This system also makes it less intimidating and scary to do the bills because there are usually no surprises. I know well in advance how much money we're going to have left over each pay day today and I can forecast out how long it will take us to save for the things we want to get.
Do you have a method to your monthly bill paying duties? Share!
Just documenting another migraine - this one was on Thursday night, last week. I'm reminded of it tonight because I'm fighting one again. Thursday was a doozy, though. I got my period the next day, and I'm not sure if that is related or not. Who knows, I might not find any pattern or reasons for why I get these, but I'll never know until I start keeping a good journal on when they occur.
Having a notary is one of those things that most people don't think about too often. Then when an important document needs notarizing, they're scrambling trying to find one. We usually have notaries here in the office, but the one lady who always did the notarizing decided to not renew her license for some reason. So now you hear people walking around asking, "Do you know who if anyone is a notary here?" We could probably make good use of a mobile notary - that is someone who travels to us to notarize our documents. This also seems like a good way to make a few bucks on the side reasonably easily. I wonder how much is the going rate for notarizing documents. Something to look into!
Sometimes I think I have good intentions... only to realize later my motives weren't so pure. And then I get to live with the consequences of my actions. Tonight I'm feeling the repercussions of some misguided actions of my own and it sucks.
I keep thinking of the line, "Be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet." He certainly isn't done with me yet - at least I hope not!
