It depends. The problem with these cards is that they generally come with hefty interest rates, which can nullify any savings you’ve received. If you’re saving fifteen percent one day, but paying twenty-nine percent or so in interest, it’s really not the best deal. However, like most credit cards the benefits are biggest for those who are able to pay off their balances each month, avoiding  paying interest entirely while  still enjoying all the benefits of the card. Unfortunately due to very large interest rates, if you’re not the type that’s in the habit of paying off your entire balance each and every month, no store credit card is likely for you. None I’ve found, at least.

If you are a full balance payer then you then you’ll want to look at  any yearly fees or other fees your prospective card comes with before adding it to your plastic shopping arsenal. According to Consumer Reports some cards worth considering are those offered by Gap, Banana Republic, Piperlime, Athleta and Old Navy as they offer a fifteen percent credit on your first purchase as well as five points for each dollar spent at any of the aforementioned retailers. Furthermore, the Barnes and Noble card is given high marks, as it includes not only a twenty five dollar gift card, but up to five percent off purchases as well.

An example of a site targeted for this problem is http://www.compare2save.com.au/. The site provides a list of trusted, regulated financial service providers, that can be easily compared. The financial services being compared are divided into such categories as: personal, car, home, savings, and bank accounts. Essentially, instead of going through the confusing maze of finding a reliable financial services provider that offers agreeable conditions, Compare2Save has picked the reputable companies that have a track record for working with consumers to get the loan they can afford.

Keep in mind that an online loan application is an accepted, economical and trustworthy approach, especially if you maintain your dealings with established companies and compare the various offers being presented to you. Additional benefit for consumers can also be gained from reading the site’s news and information sections, to make an informed decision before choosing the optimal loan or credit card.

The loan search process on the site is notably quick. For instance, a credit card seeker just has to pick the credit card type and then look at a chart of available cards before making a selection. This comparison chart will provide such information as: the lender, introductory and ongoing interest rates, balance transfer, interest free period, etc’. The most affordable loans will be at the top of the list and, from that point on, you can continue to the actual financial service provider site to complete your application. Overall, the information on the site is laid out in a simple and easy to understand manner, which is a welcome approach, considering that many loans today are known for being mired with small print.

Check out the Compare 2 Save website to get an idea of what to look for in a financial help resource and how you can fully benefit from utilizing it.

Short – Use A Cash Back Credit Card: I am a big supporter of these cards, because I put EVERYTHING on credit. No, I don’t need to, and no, I don’t ever carry a balance. I’m the exact wrong customer that the credit card companies want, but that’s fine. I pile all my purchases on the old cash back CC, pay it off in full at the end of the month, and then enjoy a percentage of my money back for things I was going to buy anyway. I spend a lot, so even a low percentage adds up. This way I get an interest free loan from using the credit card and paying the loan before its due, as well as free money as cash back, as an added bonus.

Short To Medium – Talk To The Big Boss Man or Woman: Realize that your superiors at work are not scary ogres, but instead are valuable assets which can be effectively used to increase your own monetary gain. And I hate to say it, but ass kissing works. If your boss likes you, then your boss will be more likely to increase your salary. Also, if your boss realizes that you are a needed asset, your stock again rises. The most important thing here is really communication. Ask for that raise, don’t just cross your fingers and hope it will happen — because. these days, it probably won’t. Push yourself forward, and provide the results that will make you an invaluable asset to those in charge. If that’s not possible, blackmail is your next step — just kidding.

Long, But Not That Long – Buy Real Estate Now: When the real estate market crashes it’s bad for everybody except those with money in the bank. There are ridiculously under priced homes out there right now, and some real steals going on in the foreclosure arena. If you have cash in the bank and some time before retirement you are missing out on a gold mine by not investing in the market during this low time. Notably, this kind of fertile ground for real estate investing isn’t likely to return anytime soon, if at all. Make the right moves now, and it could pay off ten fold.

With a global economic credit crisis in full swing, many folks have seen their credit limits lowered and their interest rates rise. Unfortunately for many, getting a new credit card has been made almost impossible especially for those bad credit scores. It’s important for those with bad credit to have a credit card as having a credit card and making regular payments on it can significantly help to restore one’s credit rating.

If you are among the millions of Americans who have a bad credit score you may want to check out a great website which provides information on credit cards for bad credit clients. The website is called Bad Credit Offers, and can be found at Badcreditoffers.com. It’s an excellent resource for those with bad credit, as it offers information on where to find bad credit credit cards, as well as bad credit loans. Badcreditoffers.com is an established and trusted site which has been a popular portal for those looking to improve their bad credit since 2005. One aspect of the website that I particularly like is that the interest rates on the cards listed are between 7.9 percent and 19.92 percent, which is a lot better than most of the rates generally offered to those with bad credit.

Once you sign up, you get the checkcard with the horse picture and the slogan “where bankin’s funner” on it or a more standard looking card.  ATM fees are refunded if the following monthly requirements are met: minimum 10 VISA CheckCard purchases as well as statements are delivered solely in electronic format. If these are not met, the rate falls to 0.25%. There are no minimum balance requirements and no monthly service charges. If you require less services, the bank offers a ‘mega money market’ account for 3.10%  APY and there is also an account option for people with bad or no credit. Details of all the accounts are found in the deposit account agreement.

Although this was surely done to attract attention, I’m not certain that lots of consumers will be comfortable with opening an online account at the Redneck Bank. Otherwise, as the horse on the website says, you may consider to “buck yer old bank” and join this one.

* Glassdoor.com – employees share salaries and review employers.

* Salary.com – offers a wide range of employment information, and includes an analysis of salaries for various positions.

* Payscale.com – offers free or premium salary reports. It also offers a variety of tools (such as cost-of-living calculator) and other resources.

* SalaryScout.com, includes an interesting world map of salaries.

My favorite is Payscale since it offers a solid balance of information while being easy to navigate.

For a good general overview of jobs in the US, check out the occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The website provides information on the education and training required for many careers, job descriptions, their earnings, and future prospects.

Finding out what salaries are offered to our colleagues is useful if we’re underpaid, resulting in us being informed and empowered when asking for a raise. Hiding salary information does seem like an outdated concept, likely to be advocated by employers, not so much by employees.

Reevaluate Your Auto Needs – Can your family make due with one car? Extra Insurance and car payments are costly, and downsizing to one vehicle can add a lot of breathing room to a tight budget. Try carpooling or using public transit to get around when a personal vehicle is not readily available.

Quit A Bad Habit – I’ll be honest here – this one is much easier said than done. However, if you can stop or reduce the amount of time and money spent indulging in bad habits (smoking, drinking, eating unhealthy foods) you’ll save a bundle.

Buy Used – Get over the stigma of buying used merchandise and find a bargain on just about everything you purchase – clothes, electronics, tools, you name it – it’s cheaper used.

Walk, Walk, Walk - Fuel prices are high, and obesity is on the rise – why not help to kill two birds with one stone by making walking an integral part of your life? It can be tough to do without the convenience of a warm vehicle at first – but it’s something you get used to, and I promise you’ll fit more comfortably in your jeans too.

How Many Phones Do You Really Need? – Are you paying for each member of your household to have a wireless phone? If your wallet is hurting, go back to a singular land-line, and rake in the savings.

Replace That Steak With Celery - Okay, that title is maybe a wee bit on the extreme side, however cutting back on meat and consuming more vegetarian meals is a sure-fire way to reduce the size of your grocery bill.

I hope you enjoyed these tips, but remember that they’re just a starting point. If you have additional methods that you use to save money, feel free to share them in the comments below.

You can set all the right goals, have all the right intentions, and know all the right stuff, but if you don’t act, none of it means anything. I learned that when I was a teenager, and it’s the only resolution I’ve made ever since.

If you want to achieve your financial goals, I think you should make it your only resolution too. Most people spend their entire lives intending to get rich but never make it, and it’s almost always because they never actually do anything

So take action. Here’s how:

First, forget about planning for 2008. A year is too long of a timeline. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time remembering what I’m supposed to be doing for 15 minutes, much less an entire year.

Second, focus on today. Figure out just one thing you can do today to move yourself closer to the finances you’ve always wanted. Then do it.

Third, pick one thing the next day, and the next day, and the next day, until you wake up six months from now and realize you’ve already achieved all of your goals for 2008, and you have to set new ones.

If you’re having trouble coming up with one thing to do, I’ve put together a list of 50 ideas to get you started.

(Bookmark this so you can come back to it)

1. Fill out the paperwork to start a new LLC for the company you’ve always wanted

2. Sign up for a high yield savings account and transfer money that’s just sitting in your checking account

3. Increase the size of your 401(k) contribution from every paycheck

4. Instead of going out to dinner tonight, use the money to pay down your Christmas debt

5. Setup a Roth IRA and schedule monthly contributions to eventually reach your annual maximum

6. Call your mortgage broker to see if you could save any money by refinancing your house (be sure to include fees in your calculations)

7. Give your boss a list of the ways you made or saved your company money last year and then ask for a raise

8. Figure out new ways to make or save your company money this year and start doing them

9. Audit your credit cards, figuring out which ones to pay off first and examining any other ways to save money

10. Cancel monthly subscriptions that you forgot you were paying

11. Cancel domain name renewals for URLs you no longer care about

12. Send a query letter to a trade magazine about writing an article for them that positions you as an expert

13. Start a blog that demonstrates your expertise and builds preeminence in your niche

14. If you can’t find time to manage your finances, setup interviews with several financial planners that can

15. If you have a second home on the market and it’s not selling, consider canceling the listing and putting a “For Rent” sign in the yard

16. Pull your credit report and examine it for ways to improve your score (helping you get better rates)

17. Remind friends and family of money they “borrowed” from you last year and propose a repayment plan

18. Call your 5 best clients and ask them for ways to improve your service or product this year

19. If they can’t think of any, ask them for referrals to their friends (after all, your company is perfect)

20. While you’re at it, ask those same clients to write a short testimonial or letter of recommendation

21. Then fire your 3 worst clients, dedicating your time to finding new and better ones

22. Fire the employee that’s doing nothing for your company but bleeding you for a monthly paycheck

23. Register for an industry conference, where you can build relationships with powerful people

24. Offer to speak at the conference about a topic all of your peers would like to know more about

25. Hire a professional to rewrite your résumé and then go jobhunting

26. If your product or service clearly provides more value than it costs, raise your rates or prices and see what happens

27. Send out an e-mail to your friends, asking if they know of any killer job openings coming up that you might qualify for

28. Apply for an evening program to get your graduate degree

29. Write a proposal for ways your company can improve and send it to a higher up that cares

30. Talk to your spouse about going back to work, if there’s no longer a good reason for them to stay at home

31. If your spouse isn’t excited about personal finance, talk about going to a seminar together, and if they agree, register for one

32. Start a personal web site at yourname.com and upload your résumé, portfolio, press clippings, articles, contact information, and anything else that you’d like others to see

33. Buy some business cards and put your personal web site on them, so you can hand them out to people that might want to hire you

34. Call a company that offers a complementary product or service to yours and ask if they’d like to promote your product or service for a commission

35. While you’re at it, ask if you can promote their product or service for a commission

36. Instead of watching television tonight, read a few chapters of a personal-finance book

37. In fact, cancel your cable or satellite service. You don’t need it, and you’ll get a lot more done without it

38. Write a press release about something genuinely remarkable your company is doing and send it to the local media

39. If you’ve always wanted to write a book, buy a book about writing your proposal and set aside the time to read it

40. Join the Chamber of Commerce and network with other business leaders in your community

41. Schedule an appointment with a nutritionist to create a diet that will give you more energy to tackle your finances

42. Consider hiring a part-time housekeeper and dedicating those hours to starting your own company or bettering your career

43. Ask someone that’s more financially successful than you are to lunch and get their advice on how to improve

44. Find an Accountability Partner and talk with them for 15 minutes every morning about what you’re going to that day

45. Read (or reread) a few chapters of Getting Things Done and take an hour to put the principles in practice

46. If you’re not already using a personal-finance software package, tinker with a program like Quicken or Mint and decide if it’s something you can commit to

47. If you’re unsatisfied with your accountant, send an e-mail to your friends and ask for recommendations

48. Put little reminders about your financial objectives beside your computer and on the back of your door, so you don’t forget them

49. Take an hour to decide if those objectives are really important to you, and if not, revise them

50. Somehow, some way, take action today, moving yourself toward your financial objectives, instead of just thinking about them

Call me stupid, but it took me forever to start understanding how equations, graphs, and numbers all fit together. I spent 40 hours a week studying for that one class and nearly fell apart after every test.

Ultimately, I got through it, but I started to wonder, “Am I really cut out for business? Doesn’t it involve crunching a lot of numbers?” I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life going through that kind of misery.

Have you ever felt the same way?

Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is business does involve some math. The good news is it ain’t calculus.

You can actually reduce moneymaking to one simple formula. It governs everything from your profit per product to how much of your salary you’re able to save and invest. And it’s very, very easy to understand.

What is this formula?

Put More Money in Your Pocket Than You Take out

Huh? That’s it?

At first blush, it doesn’t seem like a formula. Where are all of the variables, operators, and graphs?

There aren’t any. Like I told you, this is a formula for math flunkies. We’re going to make it as simple as possible.

Here’s what it means: only do things that make you more money than they cost you. If you do that, you’ll always make money. If you don’t, you’ll always lose money. There are no exceptions.

Let me give you a few examples.

Popsicle Sticks and Ninja Stars

When I was a kid, I used to take wooden popsicle sticks, glue them together in the shape of a cross, and call them ninja stars. It was great fun, throwing them at people. They were remarkably accurate.

One day at recess, when I was preparing to launch my next attack with a fresh batch of a half a dozen stars or so, a kid came up and asked, “Hey… how much do you want for one of those?”

I thought about it for a minute. “A quarter each,” I told him. He handed it over, and that was the beginning of my ninja star business.

It was a great business model. Technically, the profit margin was 100%, since I used discarded popsicle sticks and the school’s Elmer’s glue. Every sale put $0.25 into my pocket and took nothing out. It follows the formula perfectly.

The problem was supplies.

Within a week, I had kids lining up to buy their own ninja stars. I used to go through the trash cans every day after lunch to pick out all of the old popsicle sticks, so I would have the inventory to supply them. It was nasty work, but I had a business to run.

In time though, I couldn’t find enough popsicle sticks to satisfy the demand. I thought about buying a whole bunch of popsicles, eating them, and hoarding the sticks, but they cost almost $0.20 apiece. Add in the cost of the glue, and I would be taking more money out of my pocket than I was putting in. That violates the formula.

But then one day good old mom came to the rescue. “You can buy those at the craft store, you know,” she said. “It’s only about $5 for a thousand.”

I’ve never been good at math, but it immediately occurred to me that she had just solved my margin problem. In the end, I think making each ninja star cost me about $0.12. I could sell them in bulk for $0.20 each. Once again, I was putting more money in my pocket than I was taking out.

Within the next year, I’d guess I sold well over 2,000 of those stars, making several hundred dollars in the process. At the height of the operation, I actually had kids going door-to-door in their neighborhood, working on commission. Neighbors still talk about it.

Eventually, I figured out that I wasn’t really making that much money per hour, but it still taught me a valuable lesson about how to make money. Since then, I’ve started multiple companies in several industries, and they’ve all followed the same model.

The truth is, it works with anything you’re selling. Just make sure you’ve added up all of the costs, including materials, labor, and your own time. If it costs you less to make it than you can sell it for, then you may have a workable business.

Mom Goes Back to Work and Loses Money

Don’t have a business or product to sell? Here’s an example that may hit closer to home.

A couple of years ago, my neighbor decided she was tired of spending all day at home with the kids. She wanted to get a job and start earning her own spending money, even if it was a low-paying position.

She eventually got a job as a secretary, working about 20 hours per week and making $12 per hour. Of course, she also had to drive to work, which took about 30 minutes each way. Then she had to put all three of her kids in day care. With less time at home, she also started buying more takeout for the family.

Can you see what’s coming?

After a few months, my neighbor realized she wasn’t really making any money. After taxes, she was only bringing home about $180 per week. Day care for three kids was something like $140 per week. The extra gas was another $40 per week, and the food was running another $20 per week.

The end result? The job was costing her about $20 per week. Ultimately, she decided it was worth it because it got her out of the house and used to working again, but I thought it was an interesting example.

Have you stopped to consider the cost of your job?

When you add together your gas, car payment, mortgage payment, food, business clothes, and everything else, you might be surprised by how little you’re actually making. I’ve heard of attorneys in top New York City firms earning $180,000 per year complaining about being broke, not because of a low salary, but because of the cost of the lifestyle they are expected to maintain.

When considering your career options, you might be tempted to consider just your salary. Don’t. No matter how much money a job is putting in your pocket, it’s not worth it if it’s taking more money out. The formula for moneymaking is just as valid here as with selling products.

How to Decide Who to Hire

Who makes the best employees?

Companies have been arguing about it for centuries. Some say it’s talent. Others claim it’s intelligence. Still others believe its work ethic.

All of them could be right, but from the perspective of building a profitable company, it’s much simpler. You just follow the formula. Hire employees that put more money into your pocket than they take out.

If you’re going to hire Sally and pay her $50,000 per year, then she had better either make or save you more than $50,000 per year. Long-term, it’s the only way you’re going to build a profitable company. Start hiring people that cost you more money than they make you and you’ll go bankrupt fast.

The Underlying Requirement: Measurement

This stuff is pretty easy to understand, right? So why don’t more people do it?

Like most things, there are lots of reasons, but I think the biggest one is people fail to measure the costs of what they’re doing. They just guess that they’re turning a profit at the end of the day, neglecting to ever stop and add it up.

Then they’re surprised when they go bankrupt.

Believe me, the alternative is less painful. Take the time to figure out exactly how much your job, business, or product is costing you. Total every cost, no matter how trivial. Then subtract it from the total amount that you’re putting in your pocket.

Do you think you could do that, if your finances depended on it?

I’d bet so.

Addition. Subtraction. It’s really not that hard… even for a math flunky.