Credit card…What is it? Is it a great opportunity not to bother with cash, buy whatever you want and whenever you want, make purchases online and manage your budget and expenditures closer to the payday or is it just the best road to debt life? Apparently the majority of credit card holders are much prone to accumulating debts than those who use cash and buy only the stuff they can afford or use debit cards. But does this risk to wake up one day and find yourself deep in debt is a great reason to apply for debit card instead of credit card? Obviously, this is a disputable question and both debit and credit card have their pros and cons.

For those individuals who already used credit/debit cards for a while, it won’t be that difficult to make their final choice in favor of credit or debit card, however those who just plan to apply for their first credit/debit card usually have many doubts. Here is a brief lift of things anyone should consider before choosing credit or debit card.

Interest payments

When you use your debit card, all payments you make are deducted from your saving or checking account immediately, so there is no interest. If you use your credit card, you actually borrowing money from your credit account, so banks charge certain interest for the service they provide.

Card loss or theft

If your debit card is lost or stolen, you can lose all money you have on your account in minutes. Payments made with credit card take some time to clear and you can negotiate any transactions made from your card before you receive your credit card bill. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I felt like it was time for me to add a new category to my blog. My choice is Personal Finance. I’d say that all information about personal finance can be broadly divided into five categories: making money, saving money, spending money, borrowing money and staying clear of debts (so this is how I see it). Each category has lots of disputable and unanswered questions and this is why personal finance topics are always worth our while.

My first post in this category is about one of the main money problems of our society - DEBTS. Let’s be honest, the overwhelming majority of us is prone to accumulating debts. Some say that it’s not entirely our fault because there are lots of debt traps around us and it’s not that easy to stay away from them. In fact, personal loans tend to became more and more popular type of loans, the most people are in strong need for, and there are two reasons for that: using numerous credit cards and borrowing money from lenders. I don’t mean to say that using credit card or having car loan is a direct road to debt life, however numerous credit cards and loans can result in personal loans, debt consolidation, debt settlement or debt counseling.

Read the rest of this entry »

The right choice of online payment gateway is crucial for successful online deal both for sellers and customers. But does this choice is that easy to make? Obviously, it’s not. Everyone knows that Google Checkout and PayPal are one of top popular and trusted payment gateways processing online payments. PayPal has been around for years and its leading position was never questioned before Google Checkout was launched. Let’s take a closer look at both payment gateways and their pros and cons for merchants and customers.

If you need to choose between PayPal and Google Checkout to start accepting payments, consider the following features:

1) Percent charged per sale price and per transaction:

• Google Checkout: 2 % of the sale price + 20 cents per transaction
• PayPal: 1.9-2.9 % based on sales volume + 30 cents per transaction

2) Rates for global transactions. PayPal’s rates for cross-border transactions are rather high, whereas Google Checkout still provides this service for free. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, when I came across the statement “money blogs are usually boring” again, I felt like it was a thousand time this phrase catches my eye and something should be done about this situation Here are three things that made me laugh this morning: two money stories and one funny poem which proves that work for work, and not for money, does exist. Enjoy your reading!

Two Stock Brokers

Two stock brokers, Jon and James, head out for their usual 18 holes of golf. Jon offers James a $50 bet. James agrees and they’re off. They shoot a great game. After the 8th hole, James is ahead by one stroke, but cuts his ball into the rough on the 9th. “Help me find my ball. Look over there,” he says to Jon. After a few minutes, neither has any luck. Since a lost ball carries a four point penalty, James secretly pulls a ball from his pocket and tosses it to the ground. “I’ve found my ball!” he announces. “After all of the years we’ve been partners and playing together,” Jon says, “you’d cheat me out of a lousy 50 bucks?” “What do you mean, cheat? I found my ball sitting right there!” “And you’re a liar, too!” Jon says. “I’ll have you know I’ve been STANDING on your ball for the last five minutes!”

10 Dollars Story

John and Linda went to the annual state fair. There was a booth in which a pilot gave you a ride in a real plane and did flips for you. A REAL plane. So John told Linda he wanted to go on the ride. But Linda said, “John, it costs 10 dollars for 2 people. 10 dollars is 10 dollars.”
The next year they came back and the ride was still there. John asked Linda hopefully but Linda replied, “10 dollars is still 10 dollars.” Read the rest of this entry »

The post you are reading now is actually the second part of, I’d say, online shoppers wish list and online sellers manual. It’s not like the original list was SO huge that it could not go into one post, I just decided to divide the list in two parts organically. So here is the second part:

1) When designing your website make sure that your customers will have to make maximum 3 clicks to make purchase.

2) Make your contact page easily found.

3) Write understandable and real shipping and returns policy. So that none of your customers decide to leave your site without a purchase simply because it takes lots of time to understand customer’s and seller’s rights.

Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever thought about launching and managing successful ecommerce site (-s) and selling for a profit? Even if you haven’t, you will think about it some day and while you are thinking thousands of people all over the world designing and launching their websites for selling products and services. Any owner of successful online business knows that main idea of any online business is to convert as many one time visitors into customers as possible taking into account the fact that it takes months to find customers and seconds to lose them. All you need to do to succeed in online business is to read the manual, know your visitors and customers and give them exactly what they want. Here is the list of top appealing factors which make any online shopper place an order and process with payment.

1) User-friendly web design and easy navigation. Surfers hate flashy colors, glittering images and broken links.

2) High Loading Speed. Online shoppers never waste their time on slow sites, so it’s a must for successful website to load fast in any web browser without any requests to download this or that additional software. Remember we all shop online to save our time!

Read the rest of this entry »

We never doubt the fact that money cannot buy happiness…But why not doubt? Is there any relevance between the amount of money we earn and our happiness? I guess this very question the research team at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School kept in mind when they were carrying out their experiments which proved that money CAN buy happiness ONLY if you spend them on someone else. Over 630 Americans took part in these experiments and they showed that, despite the fact that participants always considered that spending money on themselves will make them happier, it turned out that they were much happier when they spent money on others.

First, researchers asked 600 volunteers to rate their general state happiness, report their annual income and detail their monthly spending including bills, gifts they made for themselves, gifts they made for others and their donations to charity. Surprisingly, those people who spend more on others reported greater happiness, than those who usually spend more on themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week really shocking announcement was made by Hannaford Brothers Company, an Eastern supermarket chain. Credit and debit card numbers of 4.2 Million Hannaford customers had been stolen between December 7, 2007 and March 10. The Hannaford breach turned out to be a new line of attacks since credit and debt card numbers were stolen each time they were transmitted to the bank for authorization. Although at this time customer names and addresses were not stolen, this hackers attack exposed a great hole in the payment industry’s security standards which should be seriously revised as far as this is the first credit card fraud which occurred while the information was in transit.

The hack was detected last month when it was still going on, though an external audit performed by PCI (Payment Card Industry) the same month proved that Hannaford met all set PCI security standards. Read the rest of this entry »

In my previous post about money facts there were at least 3 facts which proved that money is of top importance for us, no matter whether we are in strong need for them or have even more than enough of them. Obviously, money can really hold the key of our lives; endless thoughts and worries about making, spending and saving money can simply drive us crazy and even result in heart diseases and heart attacks. Here is another weird and shocking fact about money: One out of every four Americans believes their best chance of getting rich is by playing the lottery. The funniest thing about lottery is that odds of winning a jackpot are about 10 million to 1 and despite this fact 74% of us are influenced by how much we can win in a lottery as opposed to the odds of us winning.

It’s well known fact that Sunday newspaper coupon inserts are the second-most read section of the paper, after the front page. Why? People easily become addicted to lottery and obsessed with fixed idea to win jackpot and become lucky rich winner. Read the rest of this entry »

Today it’s really hard to find someone who hasn’t heard anything about ebay and ebay auctions. I guess, one day it will be even harder to find a lazy bones who never bade or sold something on ebay. I myself heard and read a lot about ebay and selling products on it, however I never felt like I can go ahead and start my own business. Yesterday, I met my friend Jim who sells products on ebay for about two years already and asked him about the most important thing any ebay seller should bear in mind when selling on ebay auctions. To my surprise, he said that it’s crucially important not to pay ebay more money than you actually make.

Obviously, I went online to educate myself on this matter. Here is a quick list of top ‘how to cut corners and not to pay ebay more that you earn’ tips.
1) Check your ebay return every month to be 100% sure that you make more than you pay, especially when ebay increases auction fees.
2) Lower the starting prices on your products and raise the shipping price, so that you can persuade your customers that they are getting best deal. Remember that ebay charges its fees only by the price of your auction.

Read the rest of this entry »