Low Interest Credit Cards

I’m a city girl, born and raised in Houston. I have spent the past seven years in Austin, a smaller, but lively city where there is always some major event, festival or concert happening. Whenever I drive back home to Houston, I pass by dozens of tiny rural towns, and many homes along the highway clearly not part of any city. Some of the houses are many miles from a gas station or grocery store. To me, this is an absolutely foreign concept.

So I was stunned when I saw an article on CNN this week about an Alaskan couple living 150 miles above the Arctic Circle in an area I would consider inhospitable. In addition to enduring far-below-zero temperatures, the Korth family is utterly isolated — they live 60 miles from their nearest neighbor.

Read more…

I just wanted to preface this review by saying right off the bat that Charlie’s book is inspiring, well worth the read and the best part is that it’s absolutely free. In fact, at the end of this article, I will post a download link where you can download Charlie’s book immediately. Charlie also runs a blog called Charlie Hoehn’s Musings that you should check out as well.

These past few years have been tough for most people. The economy has been in the dumps and many of you have lost your jobs. Judging

Read more…

When Jennifer Brady-Brown and Sara Sprague approached The Washington Trust Co. in March with an idea to start a women’s boutique on Block Island, bankers told them securing a loan would be difficult. The business would be a startup during a downtrodden economy and located on an island where the retail season lasts just 10 weeks.

The two friends stayed up until the wee hours of the morning creating a business plan and then, in a critical turning point, the U.S. Small Business Administration agreed to guarantee a portion of the loan in case of default. Washington Trust approved the $40,000 loan and Wild Flowers Boutique opened May 22.

“We did the research, and we knew what we needed to do,” Brady-Brown said.

The SBA has stepped up promoting itself on the island in recent years, seeking people like Brady-Brown and Sprague who need help persuading a bank to approve a loan. In 20

Read more…

The television commercials promising college degrees or professional certificates fast are hard to miss. The smiling TV actors offer assurances of future economic security and success. But might these programs be compared to subprime mortgages disguised in academic regalia?  

Schools like University of Phoenix, ITT Technical Institute and a host of others are part of the growing for-profit education sector that may the next industry to crash, burn and drag us all down with it, according to Steven Eisman, the investor famous for predicting the subprime mortgage crisis that set off the recession.

The glaring similarity between the subprime mortgage business and for-profit education is the issuance of loans to people who cannot repay them. Read more…

There are millions of sources of business advice. Some are good. Some are less good. It is often relatively straight forward to keep asking people for advice until you find someone who advises you to do what you wanted to do in the first place. This can be good. But it is unlikely to lead you to decide to do what you should do.

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

10 Step Decision Making Process

If you are unsure, it pays to talk to experts at several points in this process. However, experts can only advise in the stages up to the point where you make a decision. Use experts to add possibilities and criteria. It

Read more…