As recent as ten years ago starting a business, any business, cost a lot of money. Cash outlay was thousands of dollars and there was no way to get around that. The barrier to entry into the world of small business was set high enough that not everyone could jump in. Times have changed. Now, with just a couple hundred dollars you can start your own business online.Besides business rent and equipment, usually a business owner’s biggest expense is marketing. Traditional marketing by mail or in person is expensive and has been largely replaced by online marketing tactics. Online you can reach hundreds or thousands of people quickly and without breaking the bank. Pay for finding visitors to your website using Pay Per Click (PPC) services, direct email marketing, banner ads, or through commissions to affiliates marketing your products for you. There are many ways to market online, nearly all of them better than traditional marketing practices.Ways to Save Cash as You Start Your Business1. Work at Home – Forget an office building for as long as you can. Online businesses, even the top bloggers in the world like Darren Rowse, still work out of their home offices. Think about the delicious tax deductions for working out of your home too.2. Rent Equipment – If you live in or near a major city you can likely rent out computer equipment you need for your business. Rented equipment is deductible on taxes and you are not responsible for it when it breaks on its own. You can have the latest made electronics at a great rate without spending the entire amount outright as you would buying it in a store.3. Learn the Basics about everything you have to do. Graphics, SEO, marketing, copyrighting, lead generation and growing your business are all things you should get up to speed on as fast as possible. If you are not already competent with the basics of these topics it would pay you over time to do so. Even if you are going to outsource work in these areas you still need to be able to talk intelligently about them. Start reading or watching video tutorials online.4. Work in the Cloud. Google Apps are a suite of applications that mimic Microsoft Office, and yet there is one major distinction. They are free. They are in the internet cloud and accessible from anywhere you can login. There is no need to take files with you on memory stick or send files via email – just login to your Google account and find them from where ever you are.5. Pay Per Click – Search engines, FaceBook, and other companies offer you a chance to pay for each click on an ad you run with the company. When someone clicks your ad they are taken to your website or landing page that talks about your product or service. Cost can be as little as 1 cent per click, or, if competition is high – a couple of dollars per click. Pay Per Click is an area of marketing every business should become educated about.6. Email Leads – Start collecting email addresses from visitors at your website from day one. Using Aweber.com or a similar service, start collecting visitors email addresses with an opt-in form so you can email them in the future with a permission-based email marketing program.7. Partnerships – find parallel businesses that offer something you do not and work with them in partnership to sell some of their products or services as they sell yours. Think about trading services business to business to help you save money. Online you can trade banners with another site so neither of you have to spend cash outright.Starting a business need not involve a lot of expenses that traditional business owners spend for granted. Spend time now to learn as many pieces of the puzzle as possible because it will save you a lot of money long-term. There are things you can do yourself, and things you have to outsource. Better if you do not have to outsource everything and can do some on your own. Educating yourself now will save you considerable cash as your business matures.
Instant Cash Payday Loans – Why They Make Sense
Most of us at one time or another will encounter a short-term financial situation that needs the injection of some cash to resolve. Maybe you need such a small amount of money that it does not make sense borrowing it over a long period, but the lenders will not allow you to borrow money for such a small amount of time. So what are you to do now, if your car is in need of repair and you have not got the money to repair it? This is where payday loans come in.A payday loan is designed to help people overcome short-term problems; as such they are only available for small amounts up to £750. However some lenders will actually restrict the amount that you can borrow the first time that you apply. Once the loan is repaid in its entirety on your next payday, they will then allow you to borrow more the next time you need any money. The lenders fees are simple and straight forward with a simple percentage added to the amount that you borrow. This means that you know exactly what the loan will cost you to repay, even before you apply, because there are no other hidden costs or admin fees.On successful completion of your loan the money is normally paid into your bank account on the same day that you apply, quite often without the need of any faxes or post. However in some cases where the lender is unable to confirm your details automatically they will request that you fax in some simple documentation to prove you are who you say you are.The lenders do what they can to make sure that they will only lend money to people who they think are able to repay them on their next payday. They do this because if you repay the loan on full at the end of the month then a payday loan is a viable option. However if you roll the loan over to another month or more, then you may as well have taken out a more long-term loan in the first place as that would then become a more cost effective alternative.So why do payday loans get so much bad publicity?The main reason that payday loans get as much bad publicity is because most people only look as far as the advertised APR (Annual Percentage Rate). What they should be doing is looking at what the loan is going to cost them in real terms, by looking at the total interest that is charged.So what is APR?The APR is the interest rate and any other charges expressed as an annual interest rate charge. The use of an APR is a useful way of comparing loans that are alike i.e. paid back over a longer period of time. But when you are comparing products which are miles apart such like payday loans with only one repayment or any other loan type that is repaid over numerous monthly repayments.See the details below which should make it easier for you to understand this;With a personal loan for £500 which has an APR of 19.9% taken out for 36 months will cost a total of £653 to repay; this equates to 31% being added to the cost of the loan in interest charges.If you were to take out the exact same loan but this time for 60 months it would cost a total £766 to repay the loan; this equates to an interest charge or 53% of the loan amount.Yet if you were to take out a payday loan for the same amount it would only cost you £625 to repay at an APR of 1737%; this equates to 25% being added in the way of interest.As you can see from the examples detailed above the APR for the two multiple repayment loans are exactly the same, yet the amount repaid and the actual interest charged expressed as a percentage of the amount borrowed is significantly different. They both also cost much more than a payday loan yet the APR indicates a totally different story.So if you need a small amount of cash to overcome a short-term financial issue ignore the APR and look at what the loan will actually cost you. You will then see that a payday loan is in fact a very competitive option indeed.
Designer Baby Clothes Can Be Affordable
One of the biggest trends in fashion today is designer clothes for babies. Babies no longer have to dress in just pastel pajamas, or be limited by what is available to the masses at the local mart. Now babies can also wear one-of-a-kind (or nearly so) couture and boutique fashions, just like adults.Some popular adult wear designers have also introduced a line for babies, such as Ralph Lauren, Lily Pulitzer, Tommy Hilfiger and Guess. These designer baby fashions can usually be found in the better departments stores, such as Lord and Taylor, Nordstrom’s and Macy’s. Department stores also feature other top brands of designer baby clothes like Little Me, Flapdoodles, Greendog, Icky Baby, First Impression, Little Bitty and Baby Nay to name just a few.Some designers offer their clothes through their own catalog’s and websites. A leader in this type of designer baby clothes is Hanna Anderson, who comes out with several new lines each season. Each line is available for infant through adult, with the adult and children clothes coordinating in each line. This designer has a certain number of clothing design styles that she is well known for, especially the Play Dresses with tights and leggings, and the organic cotton Jeeper Creepers and Wiggle Pants, with new colors and prints becoming available each season. At the end of each season, many items can be purchased at a great clearance price.Another type of designer baby wear is the brand name clothing found in their own stores in shopping malls, especially Gymboree and The Children’s Place. Prices may range from very inexpensive to quite pricey, depending on the store. Gymboree also comes out with several new lines each season, featuring several pieces and accessories available in each line. Gymboree has inspired a whole community of collectors and resellers who offer websites to keep track of all of the different lines, and people trade in order to get pieces in particular sets. Making purchases at Gymboree earns “Gymbucks” that offer 50% discounts on purchases over $50. The great thing about Gymbucks is that they can even be used on discounted sale merchandise. Some people will give away their Gymbucks if they are close to expiring – so check your local classified ads. There are also several outlets located throughout the U.S.Finally there are the “boutique fashions”. These are the designers who often design nothing but baby clothes, and their fashions may only be found at special baby boutiques. Baby boutique fashions run the gamut from widely available mass-produced fashions to hand-made unique specialty items. Some of the popular boutique brands include MishMish, CachCach, City Threads, Jack and Lily, Devi Baby, Dogwood, and Flowers by Zoe.The great thing about designer baby clothes is their resale value. Baby clothes are sometimes worn just once or twice, but the lower cost brands are so readily available that they don’t have the same resalable quality. You may be able to recoup a couple dollars or fifty cents at a garage sale, but when you purchase certain designer fashions, you are making an investment that you may be able to get your money back on. First, purchase your baby’s designer wear, preferably on sale. After your little one has worn it a few times, you may very well be able to turn around and resell it for a good price, getting some of your money back. That makes the final cost of the item comparable to that of the mainstream brands. This is also a good way for parents who think they can’t afford designer clothes for their babies to get very fashionable items, by buying gently used clothes at designer baby clothing consignment shops, and online at places such as e-Bay.