Print Your Business Cards Online
Some of us have a lot of spare time at hand even if they are running a business. Let’s say they need business cards; they have money to have someone in India design the cards for them, they have the time to talk to the designer, get the thing perfectly done; then they have the ample time to drive or walk down to the Kinko’s, design in hand, and get a thousand copies printed while they wait and smoke a cigarette.
Haven’t these people ever heard of online printing?
There are fabulous websites out there that will let you do all of the above mentioned work from your desk. You will not have to go anywhere, talk to anybody; everything is at your mouse tips. Mainly, just to save a few bucks, you will not have to outsource your work to “Vijay” in India, where half of what he says you cannot make any sense of; you can save all that money right here, right at home, if you do your business cards online.
There are websites that will do your business cards for you in an easy way. You go online, get to these websites, and you will find a host of cool designs for you to choose from. These are the templates; if you want to get more sophisticated, you can sit down and customize your template design using the handy design tools they have on the websites. Not only can you switch around the placement of your name, qualification, business name and address etc, but you can also determine if you want to change the design of the template itself. That is, if you have used any image editing software like Photoshop, you can use that expertise to totally customize your business card. You can change the color, add a nice logo, your imagination is the limit here if you know how to use the software.
Now comes the fun part, online printing. You can get a card from anywhere, but when it comes to printing it, that’s the real hassle part. But these websites make all that hassle go away. You just order the site to send the cards to you, printed, and they send them to you in a couple days. While ordering prints, you can select the kind of paper you chose, glossy, matt, textured etc, and you can also choose the card size. These days, the sizes of business cards are getting smaller and different too. You can find the latest size printing options right on the website, and when you order, you choose that.
These websites are unbelievably cheap and efficient too. They print your cards in expensive, high quality printers, using good paper, and they are delivered in a timely manner. But the whole service may cost you only a few bucks, and you don’t even have to go anywhere and waste time.”
Two Post-Recession Personalities
Times are tough and most of us are working overtime, or taking second jobs to keep up. Perhaps it is in the most difficult financial situations that we are allowed to glimpse both the best and the worst of human nature, at least with regards to spending habits. Let’s examine two polar opposites: the rainy day saving grandmother, and the college-educated soccer mom who still owes on her student loans, lives in a five thousand square-foot house and spoils her kids rotten.
Our grandmother was a child during the great depression. Her family never had a great deal of money, but they had a roof over their heads and food on the table. While she got married just out of high school, she did not reach adulthood ignorant of her fiscal responsibilities. She and her husband raised five kids in house with three bedrooms and a single bath. The kids were never upper crust, but they also never went to bed hungry. The same solid, basic fundamental principals of never exceeding your income, of saving for things that cost more than you can afford and the shame of “borrowing” were passed along to each generation. So, when the recession hit, the grandmother was living on Social Security, but she also had money in various nest eggs, and her husband’s retirement, as well. When her oldest son got laid off from a job he’d held for twenty years, he and his family moved in with mom. Granny might never have had lots of money, but she was never caught empty handed by someone in genuine need.
The soccer mom was the product of a less frugal family. She had always had the best of everything, and had attended college mostly for the socializing. She settled, in the end, for what we like to call the M.R.S. degree (she married well). Her husband was an investment banker and put most of his money into high-yield stocks. When the market went bust, their daughter was already scheduled for braces and their son had been accepted into a very prestigious Prep School. Since neither the soccer mom, nor the banker dad had any concept of saving, all of their money had been tied up in investments that went belly-up. Still, they figured their kids had to have perfect teeth and not just any child was accepted at “that school”, so they began to seek ways to borrow the money to keep up their standards until things “turned around”.
Two more divergent personalities could not have emerged from this recession. The grandmother’s frugality and generosity probably put most to shame. I daresay the average consumer can more readily identify with the soccer mom. Still, the majority of us, I believe are somewhere in between. We may have hit a hard spot, but we have sound principals. For those of you who are facing a short-term situation where you have legitimate needs and no wise grandmother to help out, emergency cash loans are available from many reputable lenders ready to help you bridge the gap. Still, let the loan be a lesson, and when you pay it off, start putting a little aside. Then, if this economy that is crawling upward slips and falls again, you’ll be more liable to help and less likely to borrow.
Print It Yourself and Save!
If you’re operating a home-based business, you are already a very busy person. Start-up costs can be a bit steep and business won’t pick up without your getting the word out. If you’re shopping for ideas on how to spread the good news about your product or service, you’ll want to think about promotional printed materials such as business cards, brochures and flyers. If you visit a local printer and get an estimate, you might also get something unexpected… sticker shock. Fortunately for today’s home-based business entrepreneurs, the world-wide-web is rife with ways to get the printed materials you need for a fraction of the cost.
There are many types of on-line print vendors to choose from. Most of the larger ones will offer almost any service you can find at your local print shop. Some of them actually provide you with all of that and a few extras, to boot. Need a logo for that business? They can create a custom logo per your specifications. Looking to start your own website? They can provide you with anything from a basic website to a full-fledged on-lines biz site, plus many will host it, as well. Best of all, you can get discount printing on any of those basics that every business needs to get up and running. Full color brochures, business cards and flyers are all available on-line at more than reasonable prices. Want them customized? You can upload your logo and designs. Save more by using their templates that the site will supply as part of the package. The only downside to using many on-line print shops is the shipping costs (especially for those heavy, bulky orders) and then, the wait.
Don’t let the cost of shipping deter you from purchasing your printed materials on-line. You can eliminate shipping bills and nullify wait time. You just need to check out one of the websites that will allow you to pay for creating your business cards or brochures on line but then elect to print them on your own printer, right there in your home office. Of course, that will mean that you’ll need a full-color printer and the right sorts of paper for the job. Still, for some home businesses, the combination of on-line preparation of the printed products added to the convenience of on-site printing means: savings in time, money and, best of all, no compromise in quality.
Your business card says a lot about you, as do your other printed materials. You’ll find lots of discount printing websites on the Web. Most of them provide some sort of incentives for you to choose them. These incentives can range from extra low prices that offset shipping costs to the print-at-home plan. Whichever of these solutions works best for you, they are bound to help lower your costs and bolster your bottom line. So, home-based businessmen and women, rejoice! You can get the word out about your business and still keep some money in the bank, thanks yet again to the wonder of the Internet.
Keep Your Car And Still Get Money From It
Keeping your old car instead of opting for a new one often makes much sense these days. Just think of the numbers: an average car costs 28k if bought new, which, after a 20 percent down payment, still needs a lot of money every year. You can spend much less on repairing an older car, perhaps $56 on a Basic AAA membership, and use the old car for trips to Home depot once or twice every month. For that long road-trip to Colorado once a year, it is always best to rent a car anyways. You get a brand new car, no worries about insurance, damages and the like, and still pay only about a few hundred bucks for the car.
If you compare the numbers, you will readily agree that there’s not much sense investing in a brand new car. You can just keep your car and save money.
You may be wondering about insurance costs on the old car. A little research will show you that if you have a clean VIN report, a spotless and well maintained car, and a clear driving record for yourself, you can often get very good insurance deals that compare well with deals you get for new cars. The difference is not really much if you compare that against money you save from making those monthly EMIs.
Even a total engine re-haul will often cost you less than buying a new car. For an average old car, an engine re-haul may cost you around $1500-$2000. Add minor repair works, the insurance difference and occasional car rental costs, and you still do not pay more than $3000 per year. Remember, also, that you are not really gonna have to do an engine rebuild every year, so the cost becomes even less. Compared to the $6000 dollars per year that you gotta pay for a new car’s EMI, this is really a lot cheaper.
The best thing is…a new car also becomes old by the time you get done with the loan. But if you save that money and spend it on car rentals for your long road trips, (which, anyways, you probably don’t go more than once or twice a year), you get a nice new car to drive from the car rental companies. This works somewhat like a bill consolidation, where you pay less if you consolidate all your “problems”. This would not be possible if you bought a brand new car, would it? After five years of paying for its EMI, it will just become another clunker, and then you wouldn’t want to pay up for a car rental, because you are still paying monthly EMIs for your new car.
A new car is a “financial baggage” in more ways than an old car is. Old cars will have their issues, and only the flintiest of drivers will want to drive a car that’s too old to survive the road. But old cars, with all their issues, still offer you more value than a brand new car that costs a lot of money and starts losing value in geometric progression as soon as you drive it out of the showroom.
Coupon Clippers Rejoice!
I remember, not so long ago, hiding my coupon file in my purse as I pushed my shopping cart through my grocery store or the neighborhood mass merchandiser (i.e. Wal-Mart®, Target®, K-Mart®, etc.). I was worried that I would look “cheap” if people saw I was using the coupons that I had clipped in order to save some money. Well, guess what? Today’s downwardly spiraling economy has actually brought about at least one positive change. It has brought coupon clipping out of the closet (or in my case, the purse) and shone a bright light on this great way to save on products you buy every time you shop, or maybe to save on a new product you’ve wanted to try.
I used to get almost all of my coupons out of the local newspapers “shoppers guide” that magically appeared on my driveway on Thursday mornings. I would sort through the coupon flyers and clip the ones for things I always buy and a few for things that I might want to try. Then, I would organize them in my tiny coupon-sorter and head off for the store. Now, thanks to the world-wide-web, I am no longer limited to coupons from the local flyer. I can type in a website and find coupons online any day of the week!
These coupon websites offer me lots of different kinds of coupons, many for my favorite products. Web sites like coolsavings.com, couponmom.com and couponsurfer.com offer me free access to coupons with discounts on everything from food to toiletries to diapers. I can type in the product I want or browse through their offerings by category. Then I can print the ones I want.
Another great way to save with coupons is by signing up for your local grocery chain’s “frequent shopper” program. Not all of them provide this service yet, but mine does. My membership entitles me to the store’s weekly sales brochure being sent to my email address. The brochure does more than tell me what items are on sale this week. It also has coupons that I can get by clicking on the item and printing the coupon that pops up. Getting the coupon from their e-flyer enables me to be sure that the product will be available at my store. Plus, when I redeem the coupon, I will earn points for my membership by using it. My store’s membership rewards points can be redeemed for discounts on gasoline. With my gas-guzzler, it’s a big incentive to shop there.
You’ll find coupons at your grocery store, too. They’ll be there along the aisles near the products they promote. You’ve seen those little machines that spit them out. I always take two, one for that day and one for the next visit. Checkout receipts often come with coupons on the reverse side, and many stores have machines that generate manufacturer coupons when you check out.
I love to shop, but I love to shop and save money even more. Whether it is clipping coupons off-line from you local paper or other printed source, or you’re surfing the web for them, coupons are a great way to keep expenses down and still let you buy the brands you want. Hey. I admit it. I have new favorite foods, designer clothes, panty hose and shampoos that I might never have tried except that their price, when I used my coupon, made these name-brand items cheaper than the store brands I would usually buy! So, come on. What are you waiting for? Sharpen your scissors and fire up your PC. You have money to save.
