Do you envision a better future for yourself and your family? Have you put away money to start an investment portfolio only to find that the investments you were seeking were not offering good returns?

I was once plagued by these questions, as I wanted to secure a better life for me and my family and all the investment engines I tried offered little to no return on my investment. I didn’t have millions to invest and I believed that was limiting my earning potential, as it always seemed like I didn’t have enough to invest to capitalise on the big profit makers!

My beliefs changed when one of my directors introduced me to spread betting in financial markets. This spread betting that I was introduced to is the same type of betting/investing that major stockbrokers and investment firms use to make huge profits in the financial markets. However the version I was introduced to had one major difference, which is that you don’t need a large amount of money to get involved! In fact for less than the price of a cross-country train ticket you can get involved and start making profits today!

I chose to use an online platform to perform my investments as it gives me more control over my finances. Online I can do my research while simultaneously making my market predictions in the hope of making a profit. Using an online platform is even better because you can make several short-term predictions over a day trading period, which means that you can make a substantial return on your investment daily, once the markets are open!

I am quite experienced at this day trading now but when I was just getting started I made quite a few losses due in part to my own naivety, but also because I initially chose the wrong trading service. The service I chose at first offered me no real help, and all decisions where left down to me, they had no security measures in place for clients so I often lost more than I had planned on investing in a particular market. These losses almost made me give up spread betting although I knew there was a profit to be made, but luckily after some research I found the best trading service available online in my opinion.

This trading service is operated by Cantor Capital and they are the firm that I still use today. Cantor has these novice accounts that put caps/limits on the amount you will lose if the markets don’t go in your favour. They also have a team of dedicated financial advisors that will help you in making your investments, and I know from personal experience that they get great joy from helping their clients fulfil their dreams by achieving great profits!

Whilst operating a business there are many demands and difficulties that business owners face, and hitting a sales ceiling is probably the most difficult task given to an owner. This proverbial ‘ceiling’ has been the demise of many businesses as resources and capital are stretched to unsustainable levels. This affects many businesses regardless to size and we can see examples of this on high streets around the country as many shops and chains close down and their retail premises become and remain vacant!

Take Littlewoods for example, they used to operate retail stores on most major high streets around the country, but nowadays you will struggle to even find one of their stores still open for business. That’s not to say that Littlewoods have disappeared completely, in fact since their departure from the high street, they have been recording record profits and their future is looking brighter than ever!!

Littlewoods has managed to do this by adapting to the ever changing market, instead of losing their money by keeping high street chains, they put their focus and finances into setting up their retail store online to reach a wider audience, which they have successfully done. Now they have eclipsed their high-street ceiling and the profits are rolling in!!

This online phenomenon that has helped Littlewoods can now be accessed by businesses of any size. So if your business has hit a ceiling that you no longer want to be under, then now is the best time for you to look into setting up your own online store. You may think that this setup will cost you a sum that you can’t afford but you will be happy to know that this is not the case, and in fact there is an affordable service available that will guarantee you professional results, although it’s easy enough for an amateur computer user to setup.

This ingenious service is offered by Shopify and it’s quite simply an ecommerce website builder that allows you to go from start to finish in a few clicks of your mouse! By signing up for Shopify’s service you gain access to hundreds of professional eCommerce website templates  that allow you to design and customise your own online store, where you are allowed to sell an unlimited number of products online. Included with the template you choose will be a secure checkout facility which will allow you to take payments for your products via credit card and/or over 50 online payment gateways that customers can choose from.

I suggest that you sign up for this remarkable service today, if you fancy getting in on the action as Littlewoods have done so well!

Professional Indemnity Insurance is designed to protect any business that involves giving advice to clients.

If your business involves advising clients then of course it is obvious that such advice should be accurate and suited to the client’s needs.  If your client feels misled or that they have not received a good service then they might decide to sue for any losses that they have suffered as a consequence of your advice.

Mistakes happen and even the most careful and vigilant of professionals can make errors of judgement – even a small typo can lead to big problems and would be easy to miss.  Having Professional Indemnity Insurance would give you peace of mind, knowing that if the worst happened and a client sued, then at least there would be money available from the insurance policy to pay your legal costs (and those of your client, if that were ordered) and for any compensation awarded to your client.

Your duty of care to your client extends as far as requiring you to act with due diligence and offer reasonable skill and care.  If your client feels that you haven’t used these, and you are later found by a court to have been negligence and caused loss to your client, you may have a hefty bill to pay on top of your own legal fees.  If you’re not found to have been negligent, then you’d still have had to pay all your own legal fees, and whilst your client might be ordered to compensate you for that, your client might not be able to afford to do so.

The amount of cover and type of cover you need will depend on the industry in which your business operates.  A policy with cover of £2million – £5million is standard.

If you have Professional Indemnity Insurance in place, then you should advertise the fact.  Large businesses wishing to work with you will already know to ask for proof of your insurance cover, but smaller clients might not consider it.   Showing them from the outset that you are taking responsibility for things that might go wrong (because mistakes do happen from time to time) will offer peace of mind to them, knowing that you are reputable and responsible and that they will be covered should anything go wrong.

Public liability insurance will protect you from claims made by clients for loss or damage to property and personal injury or death.  Professional Indemnity Insurance protects them from losses stemming from bad or negligent advice, misrepresentation or where good faith has been violated.

Do you remember deposit slips? Do you recall those days when we had to physically enter a bank to make most transactions? Are you old enough to know a time when ATMs represented the most digital and sophisticated that banking technology ever got?

If yes, you can probably envision that era in the not-too-distant past when online banking had not yet gained prominence. Thanks to this ability to manage and monitor one’s bank account online, the need for many physical elements of personal finance – elements such as check books, deposit slips, and banks themselves – is becoming increasingly less necessary in the face of virtual capabilities. A person who uses a major commercial service like Discover can now check their statement, pay their bills, and transfer funds all without leaving their desk.

There are clear benefits inherent in this new technology, and there is no question that online banking offers numerous advantages that traditional approaches cannot even begin to match. But, as with any new advancement, the benefits here come with some potential drawbacks as far as an individual’s personal finances are concerned. If you are an online banking aficionado, here are a few main tips to keep in mind so as to avoid some of these drawbacks:

Keep a checkbook

With checking and savings accounts always at your fingerprints, it is easy to go online and see if a check has been posted. Perhaps it’s too easy, because more and more people are doing away with checkbooks and simply choosing to “eye” their account on a regular basis. This may work for some people, but it could also lead to overdrafts and let certain errors go unnoticed. Simply keeping a traditional checkbook can go a long way towards avoiding such issues.

Forgo online bill pay

For many people who use online banking, the major benefit it offers over traditional services is the ability to pay bills virtually online. Instead of finding your checkbook, grabbing a stamp, and having to walk to the nearest mailbox, you can simply click a couple buttons and make your utility or insurance payment through electronic means. There’s just one problem: without the tangibility of receiving a bill in the mail and writing out a check, people can start feeling less “connected” to their major expenses and freer to spend more. If this sounds like something that might happen to you, you may want to forgo the online bill pay and stick to the pen and pencil method.

Set money transfer rules

Inner-account money transfers represent another category where online banking may be too easy and convenient. With online banking, a user can easily move money from a check account to a savings account or vice versa. This means that money set aside (savings) can be easily converted into spending cash (checking). Setting limits on your transfers (or prohibiting yourself to transfer from savings to checking in the first place) is a good way to avoid this problem.

Following these tips can help you avoid some of the few drawbacks of online banking by making you more accountable for your money. In this manner, you can reap the convenience of the internet without suffering from its dissonance, in the process truly enjoying the best of both worlds.

Successful Forex trading starts with good market knowledge, a sound strategy and effective risk management. If you trade regularly on the Forex market, it is sensible to limit your losses and maximize your gains to ensure the survival of your trading account.

Whilst there is no set formula to achieving great success on the Forex market, there are some top tips and best practice guidelines for better FX trading:

1) Put in the Time – Any experienced Forex trader will tell you that if you want to become a successful trader, there is no quick-fix or crash course, you need to put in the time and effort to learn how it works. By learning to use trading platforms effectively, you can quickly develop a trading strategy that works for you.

2) Assess the Risk – For the most part, limiting your losses is as important as profiting from your trades when embarking on a successful Forex trading career. Once you have determined the trend and found a potentially profitable opportunity in which to trade, it is essential to begin assessing the risk level. Only trade assets which you can afford to lose.

3) Monitor & Analyze – In order to find profitable trading opportunities, Forex traders must become adept at knowing how to monitor and analyze the markets. Looking for the right entry signals is important in helping a trader to identify the direction of the trend. Momentum indicators, moving averages and other tools can be used in conjunction with one another to find the best times to enter and exit a trade.

4) Research the Market – Knowing your market, currency pairs, platforms and cyclical trends is essential to help you make profitable trading decisions and identify optimum times to enter and exit a trade. An education in Forex is beneficial but hands on experience in researching and recognising what the indicators are telling you is greatly important in order to get the most from your trading strategy.

5) Act Consistently -  Trading with consistency is important as it helps traders to avoid trading with their emotions. Panicking can lead to taking unnecessary risks which ultimately ends in losses. By trading objectively and dispassionately, traders will already know what they should do when a profitable opportunity arises and how much risk to take. Avoiding emotional decision making ensures your trading decisions are solely influenced by a clear and consistent trading strategy. This will help you to learn what works and what doesn’t as you record your trading history.

6) Stay Informed -  Keep yourself updated with the latest Forex news. Although it is not advisable to trade the news, a good understanding of market drivers, debt problems, policy decisions and economic strength are essential to identifying long term trends.

You open the mailbox to find a yet another credit card offer with “0% BALANCE TRANSFER!” printed across the front in a rather startling font. It happens as often as once a week, but this time, you’re not so skeptical because you’ve got a big debt to pay off, and your current card is charging you an excessive amount of interest. Should you go for it?

This is the dilemma of many consumers who are searching for a way to pay off debt before the interest alone crushes them. Zero percent interest on a credit card can seem like a good deal, but is it really worth it?  That answer depends on your financial situation. If you are thinking of making a major purchase in the future, aren’t satisfied with the amount of interest that your rewards card is costing you, or if you are deep in debt and can no longer afford the interest payments on your current card, the zero percent balance transfer is a great financial tool that can help you get ahead of the ball. But usually, there are some “gotcha” details to look out for.

A zero percent balance transfer may sound like a good idea, but it’s important to remember that a company wouldn’t offer this kind of deal unless there was something in it for them. And usually that “something” equates to big cash. Here’s how they make money off of your balance transfer:

The primary goal of offering a zero percent balance transfer is to sign up new credit card customers. However, it doesn’t end there. Companies know that most of these new customers will not be able to pay off their balance in full before the promotional period, which is usually a year or less, ends. Once they’ve got you locked in, there’s a good chance that they will raise the interest you have to pay on that balance to a less enticing rate.

These companies may also start charging you interest right away, just not on the balance that you are transferring. The biggest advantage of credit cards is convenience, meaning that once you have that card in your purse, you’re more likely to use it for new purchases. Credit card companies often don’t extend the no-interest offer to anything that you charge on the card after your balance transfer. Additionally, the company is likely to use your payments to cover the transferred balance before the new payments. This means that while you’re toiling away to pay off the debt you’ve accumulated, your new purchases are steadily accruing more and more interest.

Finally, just because there is no interest fee on your transfer doesn’t mean that there aren’t any fees, period. With these kinds of cards, you’ll usually acquire a transfer fee, which is around three percent. However, some cards may charge much more than that, so make sure to read your offer details before applying.

This is not to say that balance transfers to new credit cards are all bad. In fact, they help many card customers save hundreds of dollars in interest payments as they work to pay off their debt. The trick is to know how to use these offers to your advantage, not the credit card company’s. If you make sure to read the fine print and strategize how you will pay off the balance before the grace period ends, you’ll have pulled one over on your credit card company, which is the best kind of consumer success story. You can learn more about credit cards with Ratesupermarket.ca.

Buying a home can be a hugely exciting experience, especially if it’s your first home with a partner, but it can also be quite a stressful time. The whole process of searching for the right place, getting a mortgage, getting surveyors to look at the potential home and signing endless paper work can sometimes seem never ending, and if things don’t go according to plan, you may be tempted to just settle for the first place you can afford.

However, it’s important to keep calm and no matter how long it takes you, before you shell out hundreds of thousands of pounds on buying a home, make sure you are 100% happy that you’ve found the right home for you. Here are just some things to consider:

Style and design

If you’ve always seen yourself living in a quaint country cottage on the outskirts of a village, then hold out a little longer until you come across one, rather than settling for something that is a long way from this. If you’ve rented this long, you can hang on in for another few months until you find your dream cottage. Do bear in mind that buying a home like this might take a little longer as they don’t tend to come on the market as frequently.

Location

How important is it to you to have an easy commute to work? Would you prefer to have a longer journey and enjoy a bigger home with a garden at the weekend? Or can you not bear the thought of long train journeys ten times a week? Bear in mind that your work location could change but if you are looking for a new home to have a family, you could spend the next 10 years in it or more, before moving on.

Price

It might seem like an obvious one, but if you have set yourselves a budget, try and stick to it. Going an extra ten thousand might not seem like a huge amount when you’re dealing in hundreds of thousands, but think how nicely you could decorate a house with a budget of ten thousand! If you’re buying a home with a view to redecorating it entirely to your style then you will need some money in the pot for all the things that make a house a home.

Neighborhood

If you have kids then there are lots of other things to consider when you’re buying a new home. Is there a park nearby where you can take them to play? What are the schools like? Is your new home near a main road that would be dangerous for them to cross by themselves? What kind of vibe do you get from the area?

Take some time to consider all these things, and remember; with a little patience you will find the right house eventually.

There ‘s nothing like settling into a new home after looking for the right property, negotiating, doing walk-throughs, and all of the other processes that come with home buying. But there’s little doubt that one of the key decisions to be made is whether you purchase a new or pre-owned home.

Here are four factors to consider when you are deciding between buying pre-owned vs a new house:

New ‘feel’

One of the main benefits of a new home over pre-owned can be the ‘newness’ in itself. Old houses can have a certain character, that character is inherent rather than yours. The only one to create the character of your new house will be you. From the decorating, furniture and layout, every choice to make is your own, and that can make potential homeowners favour new houses over old ones.

Does the home meet your specific practical needs?

Another issue with buying a pre-owned home is that the home in question has obviously not been configured to meet your precise needs – it has been configured to meet someone else’s. That means that in addition to the cost of the initial home purchase you may also have to pay for loft conversions, garage conversions or house extensions, to name just a few of the more substantial changes that may need to be made over time.

A new home has been built for 21^st century living and is therefore more likely to match your needs…or provide you with a blank canvas to decorate and design to suit your tastes.

New houses aren’t necessarily more expensive

A commonly held preconception is the potential expense of new builds compared to pre-owned, but this is not always the case. The ever evolving efficiency of new home builders means the process of can be cost-effective if you choose your location and your builders carefully.

Energy efficient

The consideration of energy efficiency is central to the design and build process, meaning houses can be considerably more energy efficient than pre-owned and older homes. Improved insulation measures can lead to reduced heating bills during the colder months and  if you are designing a new home from scratch, you can look at ultra-contemporary energy-saving measures such as solar panels, which could be costly and potentially troublesome to add to an existing, older property.

Seeing red lights in your rear view mirror is never a pretty sight. When you see these lights, chances are pretty good you are going to get a ticket. However, getting a ticket doesn’t mean you have been deemed guilty of anything. You are allowed to fight the citation in court. What are some good ways to get your ticket dismissed?

Collect As Many Details As Possible

The police officer has to be a credible witness in court. He won’t be so credible if he cannot recall the events of the day in question. Take notes about everything that happened while you were being given the ticket. Note the weather, what you were wearing and any applicable road conditions. An officer who cannot remember the circumstances of your traffic stop is not the best witness. This gives you a huge advantage in court. Avoid doing or saying anything disrespectful to the officer at the time of the traffic stop. He will be sure to remember you during questioning.

Question The Accuracy Of The Radar Gun

One of the easiest ways to challenge the ticket is to challenge the radar gun. Any doubt as to the accuracy of the radar reading helps you avoid the ticket. Just because the gun says you were going 100 miles per hour doesn’t mean you were. Additionally, improper use of the gun can cause inaccurate readings. Establish the officer as someone who hasn’t been properly trained.

Postpone The Hearing

It is hard to have a ruling issued against you if the hearing never takes place. Your main goal in this case is to get the issuing officer to skip the hearing. Your ticket is automatically dismissed if the officer does not show up. Delaying the hearing increases your chances of this happening. Delaying your hearing is as easy as saying you are too sick to show up. Work obligations can be another valid excuse. Hopefully the officer has been transferred by the time your hearing date comes up.

Be A Good Salesman

You want the judge to be sympathetic to your case. A sympathetic judge is more likely to dismiss your ticket. Say that you were speeding because you had somewhere really important to be at the time. No one is going to know if you had a big business meeting or not. However, providing evidence of a birth certificate will prove you really were on the way to the hospital because your wife was giving birth. In fact, the officer may give you an escort to the hospital in some cases.

Fearing For Your Safety May Be A Legitimate Defense

You are allowed to take actions to preserve your own life. Speeding up to avoid someone who is going to hit you is one of those actions. Most judges will understand if you are taking an action that avoids something far worse from happening on the road. You never know when someone hitting your car causes a chain reaction of accidents. Even the officer would prefer you speed for a few seconds as opposed to being hurt in a crash. The reckless driving of others should not cost you a fine plus an increased insurance premium. If you do incur an increased premium, you should go online to compare car insurance quotes from top insurance providers. By comparing quotes, you can find out which provider is most suitable for you.

Your First Offense May Be Easy To Wipe Off Your Record

Appearing in court for your first offense may lead to a plea bargain. You may be able to simply pay the fine and move on. The court may even offer you the chance to take driving school to wipe the ticket off of your record. This means you don’t have to pull any tricks to negate the impact your first moving violation. However, be sure to avoid a second violation. Multiple violations can lead to your premium being raised by hundreds of dollars a year.

Being pulled over may be unavoidable at times. Knowing how to fight the ticket in court can save you a lot of money. Understanding how the court system works will give you an advantage when trying to get the ticket erased from your record. Taking just a little bit of time to prepare before the case can get you the desired outcome.

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This guest post was written by a contributing writer at Kanetix Ltd.. Kanetix is partnered with over 40 insurance providers and has helped millions of Canadians save time and money on their insurance.

Via: YourLocalSecurity.com