Becoming Credit Card Debt Free in 2012 - Legal Debt Relief Advice

In the aftermath of the global economic meltdown, many consumers find themselves on the verge of bankruptcy. It not only affected the consumers but also the financial institutions. They faced difficulties to carry on their businesses since the majority of the consumers were not in a position to pay off their debts. It caused the gradual decline of the financial institutions. As a remedy for this situation, many market based debt relief methods came forward. Out of all, the debt settlement is the leading program.

If you are buried in debts, remember you have options. If you are faced with overwhelming debts, it is wise for you to take necessary steps to ease your burden. Remember, time is not on your side. Therefore, in the long run it will create stress and tension. You will be mentally disabled.

Debt settlement programs are appropriate for those who have a large amount of unsecured debts or for those who are on the verge of bankruptcy. According to the new bankruptcy law, the consumers are forced to go through a debt settlement program (under chapter 13 bankruptcy law) before they file a bankruptcy case. They are allowed to file for a bankruptcy case only if they cannot meet the requirements mentioned in chapter 13 bankruptcy codes. This measure is to reduce the amount of bankrupts as well as a chance offered to the financial institutions to recover at least a portion of their money.

To get qualified for a debt settlement program, the consumers are expected to have a minimum amount of $10 000 or more than that in debt. If you pass this stage, one thing that needs to be stressed to your creditor is that you have a legitimate hardship and you have no funds available. At this point they will give you a discount depending on your original debt. Interests will not be charged. If you want to settle your debts all at once and want to clear them off from your financial reports, contact a reliable settlement company to help you with negotiation. You can handle the negotiation process on your own if you are confident!

Real World Advice For Retailers - Don't Forget to Clean Your Windows

Remember that proud feeling you had the first day you opened your store? Everything was brand new; your shelves were stocked full of merchandise; your staff all had new, pressed shirts; your cash register or POS terminal was sparkling and clean. When people came into your store, they were impressed and excited to buy your products. You had wow factor! Now look around your store. Do you still have wow factor? Are customers still impressed by how new and clean everything is? If you can't say yes to these questions with 100% confidence, perhaps it's time for a little window cleaning.

All too often, during the course of operating our businesses 6 or 7 days a week, we forget the little details that helped make us successful at the beginning. The same thought and effort we put into every last detail of our store before we opened should be put into the store every month, week and day. Drop whatever it is you are doing right now and look around your store. Notice if you have areas on your shelves that are empty or sparse, search the corners for dust build-up or spider webs, check out your front door and windows for smudges, fingerprints and grime. And what about your check-out counter where your customers generate their last, and often their most vivid, impression of your business? Is it neat and organized?

If your store doesn't look like it did when everything was brand new, you may be sending a message to each and every one of you customers; telling them that you don't care anymore. Even if you would be willing to stand on your head and spit wooden nickels for each and every one of your customers, they won't feel that way when they walk into your store. If people think your store looks neglected, they will assume that they will be neglected too.

Sure, if you've been in business for a long time, and you have provided excellent products and service, you probably have a fairly significant following of loyal customers. But what about first-time customers? What impression are you making with them? Not only that, but many of your long-time customers will move away and stop shopping with you because it is no longer convenient to drive across town. So you need those new, first-time customers to really want to come back. In addition, if you have expansion goals, you can't afford to turn off a new customer because you were out of a product that is usually on your shelves or because your checkout counter was messy and disorganized. Customers are very fickle so you can't afford to allow their impression of you to be marred because someone's child left a sticky mess on your door handle and another customer got gooey candy leftovers all over their hand when they entered your store.

To help you make sure your store maintains its wow factor, I have compiled a short list of things you can do right now to get back (or stay) on track. You may already be doing some of these things, so perhaps not everything will apply to you. If you are already doing all of them, then congratulations on your new store opening.

1. Clean your windows, both outside and inside. Get a professional window cleaner to come in and wash your windows. As soon as they leave, get a bucket of hot water and some clean towels and wipe down the window sill and door jams and any of the fixtures they splashed when they were cleaning.

2. Ask everyone to stay 30 minutes after store closing once a week to look for areas that the cleaners missed; corners where dust has been allowed to settle, products that have not sold and are collecting dust. Look up and try to notice any cobwebs in the light fixtures or rafters and ceiling corners. Check out your change rooms and make sure that they are clean (you should do this after each time a change room is used.) Make sure you check out the back storage area and the office - suppliers and delivery people shop in your store too. Don't forget to all clean around your cash register or POS system. When you stand behind the front counter, you don't see what your customers see - come out from behind the counter and clean the customer's side too.

3. Nothing looks more like you are on the verge of bankruptcy than sparsely stocked shelves. Make sure your shelves are fully stocked; that means no empty spots. If you can't get stock in, rearrange your shelves or racks so that the empty space is distributed evenly throughout the store. Better still, find substitute products and fill your shelves with those items.

4. Get rid of loose papers at the check out counter and remove any post-it notes or scotch tape from the cash register or the POS computer screen. If you need to keep manual records for referencing during a customer transaction, use a recipe card box or thinly bound booklet that you can slide under the cash drawer, out of sight. If you don't need them for customer sales or orders, file them in the back office or back storage area. Don't leave supplier invoices and packing slips lying around, it gives your customers the impression that you are disorganized and distracted.

5. Replace the ink cartridge in your receipt printer. If your cash register or POS terminal is printing receipts that are hard to read because the ink is faded, your customers won't be impressed, especially if they can't make out the prices. A new ink cartridge for your receipt printer only costs a couple of dollars but it can make a huge impact on how your customers view you. And while you are at it, if you own a cash register, replace the ink in your "thank you" stamp. For those of you who have computerized POS systems with thermal receipt printers, if your receipts aren't printing out darkly enough, it's either because the printer is not adjusted properly or because your receipt paper is too old. Thermal paper has a shelf life, after which any receipt printer will not be able to produce dark print. Get rid of that paper and buy a new box. Beware of paper suppliers that offer the cheapest paper in the industry they often buy up old stock and resell it at discount prices, which means you save money today but spend more in the long run. Buy your receipt paper from the same company that provided your cash register or POS system. If you bought your equipment used or over the internet, then keep looking until you find a paper supplier that will provide you with good quality paper.

Of course you are the best judge of how clean you are keeping your windows but, hopefully, these tips will give you some ideas that you can use to elevate (or maintain) the impression your customers have about your store.

Michael Steg is Managing Director of Tri-City Retail Systems, a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner specializing in implementing management systems for retailers of all sizes. After working with hundreds of retail companies for over 23 years, Michael has learned a great deal about how to operate a successful retail business. At the same time, he has witnessed a great number of mistakes that retailers make that significantly impact their ability to succeed in such a competitive industry. Over the years Michael kept notes on what worked for his customers - and what didn't work. Now, Michael has translated these notes into short, information-packed articles and he is sharing them with you so that you can learn from the experience of others. Michael's articles give retailers real world advice on how to improve their businesses and include lists of action items that retailers can use immediately to positively impact their bottom lines.

Are You on the Verge of Bankruptcy?

For anyone who is in a terrible financial predicament as numerous individuals are nowadays, you could be thinking about filing bankruptcy and looking to figure out how to file bankruptcy and move on with your existence. There's a time and a place for individual bankruptcy, so firstly you need not to experience humiliation about the predicament. It might really be the most effective and most rational thing for you and as long as you have learned a very important wisdom, you'll be able to alter the financial condition of your family members down the road.

Now there undoubtedly used to be a preconception connected with those that file for bankruptcy. It appears to generally be considerably more popular today and particularly with the faltering economy, work loss and property mortgage foreclosures which have been increasing. Not necessarily that chapter 7 is ever the best thing or something that you would like to endure, but never let yourself get psychologically knotted with the choice for this.

To be able to declare bankruptcy often means a significant amount of stress and panic elevated away from your shoulders. Marriages and family members have been torn apart because of the force involving obligations and expenditures that can't be paid for. If you're married, do yourself a favor and generate this specific determination collectively, vowing that you can continue to be sturdy and act as a team to overcome the monetary strain and move towards a richer future. This is often one of the better things that you do for the household.

Proclaiming bankruptcy may be an extremely psychological and tense course of action. Attempt to make your choice quickly once you've met with a bankruptcy lawyer and have the initial material in regards to the odds of getting qualification regarding chapter 7. The sooner you are able to make your mind up, the earlier you get the process rolling and in time the monetary load might be raised as you check out a happier foreseeable future.

If you can foresee your income increasing in the near future, most likely your best plan will be to attack the debt. If, however, what you have coming in each month is far below your basic expenditures, bankruptcy may actually be the best option for you.

Debt Settlement Programs - A Legitimate Option For Those on the Verge of Bankruptcy

You probably hear a lot about debt settlement, but do you know how much good it can do to you and your family? Choosing this debt relief might be the best thing you will ever do for your family. Why? Because it can get a lot of your debt cleared. When I say a lot, I mean about 70% of your debt. If you think that is enough to keep you on the right track with your finances, you shouldn't waste any time and just hire that debt settlement company right away.

The company will discuss your situation with the creditor and they will negotiate upon a reduction from your debt. It's not a very complicated process, all you have to do is hire the company and the rest of the things will be done by the person who represents you. For those of you who don't trust the legitimacy of this method, you should know that it is a part of Obama's financial plan and the money that are reduced from your debt are paid by the government.

Debt reduction doesn't require a big amount of time and you shouldn't expect wasting a lot of time with the meetings. Actually, there are only a few meetings which involve negotiating with the creditor. The company will take care of any documents your creditor need and you won't have to go and get those documents since the company represents you in this matter. You will only have to agree or not with the outcome of their negotiation; if you don't agree, the negotiator will try to renegotiate and use different tactics to make the reduction bigger. If you agree, you will either make a payment plan that will include installments or choose to pay the debt as a whole sum. No matter what you choose, you will get advice from your negotiator on how to proceed better with this step. After that, if you pay your debt on time, the credit score won't go lower and you will be able to get loans. If you have problems paying again, your credit score will be affected and you will have to try a different debt relief method.

Attracting Women - The Ways to Get Hundreds of Women Interested With You

I do not mean this in any derogatory or demeaning manner but it is true. Have you seen the guy that has numerous women all around him. He doesn't really look any better than you, he really isn't more successful, richer or anything else of "substance." He just knows things that you do not. Primarily he knows some important rules for attracting women. Mainly he understands the "rules of attraction" and knows the ways that these can get and keep women interested. To learn a little part of the secrets these guys know please read on...

Learn to attract women and to get them interested in you

Attracting women is like fishing. I do not mean this in any derogatory or demeaning manner but it is true. Likely they way you have been going about your fishing/dating is like this: you see a fish and cast your line, if she doesn't bite you try again and again. Here is the truth, if this is your method you will surely get some, but it will take forever and will take effort. You might get it on the first cast or it may take 1000, or the fish may never ever bite. This is a really inefficient method.

Our successful guys understand the rule of attractions.

You may have noticed this when you receive glances from other women when out on a date. One of these important rules is that women become more interested when they perceive you to be more interesting to other women. You may have noticed this when you receive glances from other women when out on a date. It just naturally happens. To be really successful with women one of the best things to do is go after volume. Go and get a lot of numbers. Do not just hit on one girl when you meet her. Hit on twenty. Some will not be interested, but some will. As you have more and more women become attracted, more will become interested because they see the previous ones attracted to you. To return to the fishing analogy, this is like fishing with a big net. If you cast it into waters with a lot of fish, you almost cannot help to pull back a ton.