Simple Money Guide to Every Investment There Is
It’s time to invest money and you’re confused by the millions of investment options out there. This money guide will make things simple for you. There are only 4 basic investment options in the world. Buckle your seat belt for this whirlwind tour; we’ve got a lot of ground to cover in a few hundred words.Investment option #1: SAFE INVESTMENTS that pay interest. There are two ways to invest money here. First, in savings vehicles like bank CDs, fixed annuities, fixed accounts in retirement plans and savings bonds. Your principle is fixed and safe, and your interest rate is also fixed, sometimes for a specified period of time.The second type of safe investment is cash equivalents, commonly just referred to as “cash”. This investment option includes high quality money market securities like T-bills (short-term), savings and money market accounts, and money market mutual funds. Your principle is fixed and safe, but the interest rate paid is not fixed for long and/or subject to change.Option #2: BONDS. This does not refer to U.S. Savings Bonds. Included here are treasury bonds, corporate bonds, municipal bonds, and so on. Here the interest rate paid is fixed and does not change. Your principle is not fixed, which means that the value of your bond investment will fluctuate. When you invest money in bonds, you can lose money. The advantage: higher income in the form of interest vs. option #1.Investment #3: STOCKS are variable investments and fluctuate in value significantly. People invest money in stocks to get growth and to a lesser extent income in the form of dividends. A stock’s price is not fixed, and dividends are subject to change and can be eliminated altogether. The advantage here: higher potential returns as stock prices rise.Investment option #4: ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS. This includes virtually all “other” investments, and here is where you need to think outside the box of traditional investing. Commonly, most folks do not have the time, expertise, or inclination to invest in real estate, natural resources like oil, gold & silver, foreign investments, commodities like soybeans and corn, and the list goes on.The fact that all “other” investments are lumped into a single category should tell you something. The first 3 are your major investment options, and have traditionally been the kingpins for diversification and investment strategy. More and more financial advisors now believe that alternative investments should get the attention that they deserve. Advantage: they add even more valuable diversification to your portfolio.This money guide believes that a good sound investment strategy will include investments from all 4 categories. Where can you invest money to offset losses in a bad stock market? The answer: alternative investments.Now, to wrap things up, is there an easy way to invest money in each of our 4 basic investment options? You bet there is … mutual funds. All within a major fund family you can find the following, from #1 to #4: money market funds, bond funds, stock funds, and specialty funds.
Our Nation’s Healthcare Costs are Spiraling Out of Control
Almost every day we read in the newspapers how healthcare costs continue to rise at a double digit pace. As employers each year we are chagrined to hear from our health insurance carriers that they’re passing on 12 to 15 to 17 percent increases in health care premiums. We respond by shifting costs over to our employees by increasing the deductibles and co-pays hoping to stem the tide of uncontrollable healthcare costs. Yet, they continue to rise.We want to do something about this. Clearly one of the things that we can be done is to make sure that in the healthcare system today, the resources are allocated only to those people who deserve and qualify for the treatment that they’re seeking on the basis of medical fact. AHIP commonly estimates that 30% of all healthcare treatments are unnecessary. We believe this to be the case because it mirrors our own statistical denials of healthcare benefits on the cases that we review for major health insurance carriers, Third Party Administrators and other clients.The point is allocating health care resources an important part of medical cost containment equation and something that we should all be concerned about? Certainly our company is not at the forefront of this. Our role is to simply provide independent medical review services that help payers allocate their resources more effectively. We believe there are many other ways o to solve this problem, and Independent Review Organizations are adding increasing value by helping to contain medical costs.As a member of the National Association of Independent Review Organizations (NAiro), we’ve banded together to press for changes in legislative and regulatory areas at the state level and to seek to unify the bureaucratic regulations that are tangling up our healthcare system at the state level and leading to increasing costs. We also are pushing for better ways to improve the overall healthcare system by advocating standards for credentialing Independent Review Organizations.All of the NAiro members are accredited by URAC which has helped us to improve our overall quality and to insure our clients that we meet high standards of performance when it comes to medical review quality, turn around time, objectivity and evidence based decision-making. NAiro is pursuing an aggressive agenda among its members to improve the overall responsiveness of the industry to changing healthcare trends, as it relates to emerging treatments. We’re also working actively as members of the URAC board to push forward an agenda that will make it easier for healthcare organizations to select credentialed organizations as their healthcare vendors.What other ideas do you have that could be implemented on this subject for our national advantage. We’d love to hear you at [email protected].
Prepare Taxes Online And Save
You may want to prepare taxes online if you are like most Americans who rank tax preparation and filing taxes as one of the top things they hate to do. We all know there is no way of getting around filing taxes though, it’s a necessary evil in our lives. More frequently taxpayers are choosing to get the task done painlessly and save time and money online.With advances in technology and widespread access to the internet, filing taxes has become a less painful task. Why? With about ninety-nine percent of all tax forms available digitally you no longer are forced to journey to the local post office, library or tax office to get the most recent forms and tax schedules. Every thing needed to prepare your taxes can be found online.In growing numbers Americans are electronically filing (e-filing) federal and state tax returns through online online tax services or software, receiving the full benefits of advancing technology. The numbers bear this out, in 2003 53 million or almost half of all tax returns were filed electronically of these approximately 12 million were done online, these numbers have been rapidly climbing since.In terms of efficiency when you prepare taxes online via e-filing is a great option not only for you the taxpayer but also the Internal Revenue Service and local governments as well. The Internal Revenue Service reports a rejection rate of about 20 percent of all paper tax returns filed. In contrast less than 1 percent of tax returns e-filed were reported rejected due to errors. Partially citing the efficiency of e-filing Congress has mandated that in 2007 the IRS facilitate e-filing of 80 percent of all filed tax returns.Tax payers have been buying tax preparation software in record numbers and using it to prepare their taxes online. Statistics compiled by the NPD Group in a survey during the 2002 tax season reveal that over 204 million dollars was spent on retail tax preparation programs compared to 180 million dollars spent the year before. However, to keep your tax preparation software up to date with changes in tax codes, laws, schedule and forms , upgrades are necessary from year to year. Their may also be an extra cost to file state tax returns electronically.Filing online will eliminate these added expenses. You can find that the right tax preparation service will help you file your taxes online not only at an affordable price, but very securely and will protect your financial and personal information with the latest technology and the strictest privacy terms.The added benefit of being able to consult with a real person concerning your taxes can not be minimized, it is something you should look for. Quick refunds are usually available also, sometimes the same day. You can save money and time when you find the right tax service and prepare taxes online.
Enjoying Weight Loss With Fun Ways and Outlook
Effective weight loss is not a joke, a lot of people take a lot seriously than it seems just to get the ideal weight and figure that they want. Stressing out over weight loss methods is not entirely necessary. Enjoying while losing weight is pretty much healthier than getting into it quite seriously. There’s always a fun side for everything, a silver lining in every cloud. Make it an easy plan to loss weight for a more pleasurable execution.Always remember that stress and tension will always lead to aging much faster so an ideal body weight with unhealthy outcome may come pointless. Sticking to diet plans and exercise routines is honestly not an easy weight loss task, but considering it as a responsibility rather than an enjoyable habit will not satisfy your emotional well-being which eventually project into your physical state. Here are some few things that can spice up your effective weight loss habit.Exercise with friends. Blending your social life with your daily exercise routine will be a fun and easy plan to loss weight than doing things on your own. People talk for several hours with friends without getting bored. This can be applied while you are at the gym working out or going for a run with friends and close people. Running and working out with your crowd will allow fun and enjoyable conversations while you promote effective habits to loss weight.Enjoying weight loss also means looking forward to things that will encourage healthy routine. You can always make these habits as a frequent get together with people close to you with the same objective so you can basically have quality time while burning off fats. You can also enjoy physical activities such as sports with your friends. This way, you can promote bonding while enjoying the process of losing weight.Do not deprive yourself from your favorite food. Effective weight loss means that you are actually doing it for yourself and making it fun at the same time. Withdrawing from anything that makes you happy will certainly affect your emotional well being and making a plan to loss weight as a huge burden. If you are on a diet, stick to it strictly but do not forget to include your favorite food but always remember to down its portion to a healthier size. You can also treat yourself once a week or whenever you prefer as long as it’s not daily and frequent. Binge on your favorite ice cream every Sunday and treat yourself for a job well-done of dieting for the whole entire week. Make sure to back it up with good exercise though.Spice up your diet plan by changing your course of meal into a more exciting and delicious preparation. Dieting can be a quiet pleasurable and easy idea to loss weight if you try different cuisines and recipes while enjoying effective weight loss plan. If you are on a strict diet plan, search for new ways to make your food a little it more appetizing, this way, you do not feel like you are being deprived from the luxury of eating delicious food. There are several ways to make a healthy and satisfying meal with a bit of research and reading. Effective weight loss will always be great if you know how to be a little bit more creative.