Archive for July 2019

How To Reduce Hosting Costs Without Sacrificing Quality

server

Consumers today do the majority of their?shopping online. Therefore, businesses need to?optimize their online presences if they want to continue to profit. In order to even begin establishing themselves online, businesses need to invest in web hosting plans that do not exceed their budgets. As a business owner yourself, you might be struggling to find a provider who can offer you all of the hosting features you need for an affordable price. Read this post to learn how to reduce hosting costs without sacrificing quality.?

Establish A Clear Vision

server

Business owners reduce their hosting costs without sacrificing quality by establishing a clear vision. If you can envision your ideal website, you can choose the right hosting plan right off the bat. Then, you can avoid spending large sums on making changes later on. Take the time to establish goals for your website, keeping the most popular hosting features in mind. Consider the uptime, bandwidth and security measures you need to achieve your goals. Include any other features that your target online shoppers desire in your criteria. If you can figure out the minimum amount of features you need to achieve your dream site for your business, you can succeed in reducing hosting costs without sacrificing quality. 

Find Free Setups

Another way to reduce hosting costs and build a good online presence is to find free setups. This option does not affect the quality of your site whatsoever. Instead, it simply cuts your installment costs down to nothing. Many hosting providers offer their customers free setup and account activation. If you purchase a package from one of these providers, you can save over $100 in installation and setup costs. Therefore, you can acquire the amount of financing you need to purchase a quality hosting plan and kick-start your website sooner rather than later. 

Consolidate Websites

Businesses that already manage multiple websites can reduce their hosting costs by consolidating their websites. If you upgrade your hosting plan with Dreamhost, you can host multiple sites on the same package and decrease your costs drastically. Instead of receiving three bills every month for your three sites, you can simply pay one subscription. Moreover, you can save more valuable time. You will no longer be responsible for managing so many subscriptions, meaning that you can put your time and energy into more profitable tasks. Examine your different hosting providers and select the one that offers the best features. Then, you can save money on hosting and still manage high-quality websites.?

Use Cloud Hosting Services

More so, you can minimize your hosting costs by using cloud hosting services. One of the main ways that cloud hosting reduces costs is by getting rid of the costs associated with on-premise servers. You can eliminate power usage expenses, backup power setup costs and uplink connectivity payments that other hosting plan options require. At the same time, you can manage a highly functional online store. If you already have a website, transfer it to a cloud hosting platform. Business owners just starting out on their online presence journey should kick-start the process by purchasing a cloud hosting plan. If you follow this advice, you will keep your hosting costs low and still maintain a secure website. 

Practice Security Awareness

In addition to the above ways to reduce hosting costs without sacrificing quality, gain security awareness. When business owners can effectively identify threats on their websites by themselves, they can avoid contacting their hosting providers for assistance. In turn, they do not have to pay professionals to solve issues. At the same time, they can protect their?sensitive business data and any customer information as well. If you want to reduce hosting costs and also improve the quality of your site through security, gain awareness on the subject.

Business owners who want to build an online presence for their brand without breaking the bank need to learn how to get quality hosting for as little money as possible. Begin by establishing a clear vision for your website so that you can avoid making costly changes to your hosting plan later down the road. Then, narrow down your options to hosting providers who offer free setups and account activations. If you currently manage multiple websites, you can minimize your expenses by consolidating your sites in one plan. Consider using cloud hosting services because they eliminate costs associated with power usage, backup power setup and uplink connectivity. Finally, gain security awareness so that you can solve issues yourself and refrain from paying hosting professionals to fix them. Follow this advice to reduce hosting costs without sacrificing quality.

Finding Good Tenants for Your Rental Property

3 Ways to Pay Your Mortgage Off Faster
3 Ways to Pay Your Mortgage Off Faster

To avoid ending up living a nightmare, you must put in the time and effort to find your dream tenants. Otherwise, property damage, unpaid bills, and high turnover rates could end up costing you dearly in the long run. Thankfully, by completing thorough screening procedures, you can find quality tenants, ideally those who will care for their property like it is their own. To help you navigate this process, here?s what you need to know about finding good tenants for your rental property. First, let’s review the reasons we want good tenants to keep our asset cash-flowing positively.

The Cost of Having Bad Tenants

The cost of having bad tenants can quickly grow if tenants fail to care for the property and pay their bills on time – or at all. Here are a few ways that bad tenants can cost you.

Property Damage

Tenants should never cause more than normal wear and tear on the property, such as worn out paint and flooring. Unfortunately, careless tenants can leave behind pure havoc in their wake, including large holes in the walls, missing appliances, and plumbing leaks. Whether these problems occur due to direct action by the tenants, or an overall lack of care, the costs quickly add up and are up to you to resolve in the end.

Unpaid Bills

Bad tenants can leave behind thousands of dollars in unpaid bills ? and that?s not even counting your missing rent payments. Depending on your local rules, you could get stuck paying the bills to avoid getting a lien put on your property. Oftentimes, this happens when the city owns and operates the utilities, as is found with electricity, gas, and water.

High Turnover Rates

When tenants do not pay their bills or take care of the property, you will likely need to complete an eviction process, and then find new tenants. Eviction alone can cost you over $5,000 to simply get bad tenants out of the property for good. Finding new tenants can then run you around $2,500, putting you well in the hole for the year and that is before you even factor in the cost of repairs and unpaid bills.

How to Tell Good from Bad Tenants

Now that you know what you want to avoid, it is time to explore how to tell the good tenants from the bad. Unfortunately, this is virtually impossible at a glance, as there are no telltale signs you can spot on your own. In fact, take it from a veteran New York private investigator, Darrin Giglio, who has run countless background investigations in his career: “You can’t tell about people. The most plausible seeming, and the ones you feel really good about, can turn out to be the complete opposite. The only way to be sure of someone is with a background check, as deep as fits the situation.”?

So there it is: bad tenants can present themselves in a positive light, giving you all the right documents to pass your checks. And, despite your diligence, it is far too easy to break state and federal laws when running these checks yourself. Fortunately, with assistance from a tenant screening service, it’s easier to gauge the likelihood that prospective tenants will pay their bills on time and take care of your property. Even better, a service will handle every phase of the screening process for you, providing accurate information and eliminating the risk of breaking laws along the way.

Steps to Choosing Excellent Tenants 

Although it does take time and effort to select excellent tenants, it does not have to feel overly complicated or hard to approach. As your marketing efforts draw interest in your available properties, here are a few easy steps you can follow in verifying that applicants qualify in full.

Ask the Right Questions

Before you can ask prospective tenants any questions, or even advertise your rental, you must know what state and federal laws allow. To abide by Federal fair housing laws, for example, you cannot discriminate against applicants because of their protected classes, such as race and religious background. What you can do, however, is ask all applicants to complete your pre-screening questionnaire to verify they are a good match for the available rental.

Perform a Thorough Screening

Handing over the official screening process to a dedicated company can free you from the stress while ensuring you thoroughly vet your prospective tenants. Tenant screening companies tend to offer several different levels of screening, ranging from credit only to criminal background checks, past eviction, and more. Services can begin as low as around $25 – a modest cost compared to the costs we discussed earlier.

Screening services may even offer all of the credit, criminal, and eviction screening plus verification of all employment, references, and other important documents. You just have to select the level of screening that will give you the data needed to see if applicants meet your qualifying standards.

Identify Your Ideal Qualifying Standards 

In order to make proper use of your tenant screening results, you must have something to compare it to ? and that?s where your qualifying standards come in. While working within state and federal laws, you can identify the metrics applicants need to satisfy you they qualify to rent your properties, including income and credit scores.Make sure that the standards you select accord with all laws and apply equally to all applicants. Otherwise, you could be open to discrimination claims and legal action. When you have standards in place and follow strict professional tenant screening procedures, you can decrease your risk of signing on bad tenants. Your efforts can help maximize your return on investment and keep your stress levels low.

3 Options for People Dealing with Debt

Dealing with debt

Being in debt is not unusual in today?s economy. A number of people suffer from hefty student loans, owe money on their homes, or are struggling with credit card debt. Often, it?s not even a matter of overspending, but rather just the fault of circumstance and harsh economic times. For many, it?s a living nightmare that constantly plagues their every thought to the point that they are afraid to answer their phone because it might be a call from a collection agency.

Dealing with debt

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though: people like the Counsellors at Credit Canada Debt Solutions can help you make the right decisions when it comes to paying off your debt. They?ll walk you through a few options like the ones below.

Debt Consolidation Loans

A debt consolidation loan is when you ask a lender to take on all of your unsecured debt (credit cards, personal loans, bills, etc.) as a single, combined loan, allowing you to pay less interest over time. If you apply with major banks or a credit union you will receive a number of benefits, including:

  • Single monthly payments
  • Often a lower, set interest rate
  • Generally no fees

While consolidating your debt with a bank or credit union can help you pay it off faster, there are also disadvantages. For example:

  • You need a good credit score to be approved
  • Collateral like property or other assets may be required
  • Interest rates may be high, especially if you are a high-risk borrower
  • Access to credit allows you to continue to accumulate debt

Unfortunately, even if the debt gets paid off using a debt consolidation loan, poor spending habits will put some people right back where they started, or worse. That?s where a Credit Counsellor can help.

Debt Consolidation Programs

Unlike getting a loan from a bank or credit union, a Debt Consolidation Program or DCP involves working with a Credit Counsellor who will consolidate all of your unsecured debt into a single monthly payment. They will also negotiate with your creditors to eliminate or reduce interest and work with you to put together a payment plan, guiding you every step of the way. You can also expect:

  • Interest relief in many cases
  • Lower single monthly payments
  • Easy transfers by telephone banking, debit card, or money order
  • Automatic and tracked payments to creditors
  • Qualified counselling and coaching

Imagine having someone on your side providing judgement-free advice and there to stop creditors from constantly calling you. Credit counsellors are ready to fight for your best interests.

Consumer Proposals

A consumer proposal is when you make a legally binding agreement through a Consumer Proposal Administrator (or Licensed Insolvency Trustee) to pay off a portion of your debt to your creditors. You?ll receive immediate protection from collection companies, interest accumulation will cease, and the payments will remain the same even if your income increases.

The problem with consumer proposals is that they, like bankruptcy, are considered a form of insolvency and will show up on your permanent record. It can also be difficult to qualify for because you need a good paying job with a steady income.

Which Works for You?

You definitely have options when it comes to paying off your debt, but a Debt Consolidation Program is generally your safest route. With a certified Credit Counsellor you?ll have the support you need to achieve your goals and pull yourself out of financial misery.

Stock Market Investing: How to Conduct a Chart Analysis

stock market

Before I get into the how-tos of conducting a chart analysis, I want to clear a few misconceptions about stock market investing.

A lot of wannabe stock traders still maintain the belief that investing in stocks is a major risk and you have no control over the process. But this is furthest from the truth. You can get started right now with just a $100. You don’t need to put your life’s savings at risk; as you have to in real estate investment.

How to read a basic line chart?

line chart

This is a sample line chart of the Dow Jones industrial average. The Y-axis(vertical line) represents the price of the stocks and the X-axis(horizontal line) is the timeline from 1900 to 2020. Over the course of 100 years, the stocks have advanced steadily from $0 to $26,000. It’s basically a J-curve; nothing much is going on until 1980 and there is a sudden rise in demand for products manufactured by the top 30 publicly owned companies based in the United States.

Due to a swift rise in the demand for the products, the price escalates dramatically between the year 1980 and 2020. As you can see there is a dip in the stock prices around the year 2008. This is due to inflation during that period. During this period, prices of products increased but the purchasing power was weak. Hence, the stock prices crumbled from $14,000 to $7000. This was a calamitous situation for the stock owners at that time.

Candlestick chart

candlestick chart

To conduct a chart analysis, understanding a candlestick chart is equally important. So, the X and Y-axis of the candlestick chart represents the same things as that of a line chart. The only difference is, instead of a plain curve there are red and green candles. Each candle represents a single day in the timeframe. This chart is a zoomed-in version of the previous chart and provides in-depth information about how the stock prices are changing day after day.

You must be wondering why some candles are green and others are red. Well, the green candle indicates that the stock prices closed higher from the day before. In the chart, if you look at July 16, there is a steep increase in the stock price(from 19 to 22). A day before(that is on 15th of July), the stock prices were lower than 20 and hence it is represented by a red candle. I am hoping you are understanding how candlestick representation works. It’s not that complicated actually.

When do people buy and sell stocks?

As you would already know, stock prices of a company increase with the increased demand for its products. And they fall when the demand is low. The lowest point at which the stock price fall is known as “support“. Usually, stock prices reach this level and stay there until the demand for the products increase. In some cases, they do fall beyond the support level and reach the next support level.

Likewise, “resistance” is the point at which the value of stock reaches its peak and bounces off after a while. You should look to sell your stocks when the price is near the resistance level and buy them when the price is near the support level.

Best Peer to Peer Travel Platforms to Save Money

travel platform

Do you want to travel the world at one-fourth of the price that regular travelers pay?

Peer to peer travel is a new way to travel without having to pay full price on hotels, food, travel, and experiences. Peer to peer travel has literally opened the door for millions of backpackers to new countries that they could never afford to visit. It’s time you checked out some of these apps and websites that will let you travel for cheap as well.

Following are the best peer to peer travel platforms to save money.

1. EatWith

EatWith lets you dine out without having to pay hundreds of dollars for overpriced restaurant food. With EatWith, people can invite foodies in their home and share a home-cooked meal for a nominal price. EatWith is a peer to peer travel platform that takes 15 percent of every transaction but lets you have a fun and exciting meal for one-fourth of its actual price.

2. MeetnGreetMe

This is the best peer to peer travel platform that allows you to find a personal concierge anywhere in the world. Now you can find a travel partner or a personal guide who will take care of your basic needs when you travel. The personal concierge can be anyone from a local guide to a personal bodyguard. There are countries in South America where this service is extensively used as it is dangerous to roam around solo.

3. BlaBlaCar

Blablacar

BlaBlaCar is a peer to peer travel app that connects you with drivers who have empty seats in their car. All you have to do is type in the destination and the app recommends several cars heading that way. You get to share your ride with other locals and also get to have interesting conversations with them. Before booking a BlaBlaCar you can read reviews written by previous passengers and choose the car that suits your needs. BlaBlaCar is great when you have to travel from one city to another. For instance, Madrid to Barcelona or Paris to Sceaux.

4. Airbnb

Airbnb is also known as the Uber of the accommodation industry.  Like Uber, you can book houses or rooms from local owners for nominal prices. You can find everything from expensive castles to cheap dorm rooms on their app. To book a room, you have to contact the owner a few days prior to your trip and your room will be ready when you arrive. The fact that you can save truckloads of money in accommodation is the reason why Airbnb is on my best peer to peer travel platforms list.

5. Couchsurfing

Couchsurfing

Couchsurfing is the best accommodation option for frugal travelers who want to stay for free of cost. This is probably the only app that lets you spend days or even weeks at a locals house for totally free. It connects you to the locals wherever you go. You can stay at a locals house and invite them to yours the next time they are in your city. This is how you can get good reviews and continue to travel for free, indefinitely.

Conclusion

The apps and websites mentioned above will allow you to travel around the globe even if you are broke or have very less money. Keep in mind that there are some downsides to using these apps and you should always keep safety and security your number one priority.