Finance Tips

When you look around your neighborhoods, it’s hard to find any good news. Friends and neighbors may have lost their jobs or be on short-time. There are foreclosed properties on every street. Shops and businesses have been closing down with increasing frequency. These are the signs of a real recession where unemployment and poverty stalk the land. The cause of all this pain is not hard to find. We have all been living beyond our means. When the banks and credit card companies offered us more money to borrow, we just took it. Why bother to save when the value of our homes only goes up? Let’s plan for our retirement by borrowing cheap money and buying stocks and other more risky investments. No-one ever loses if they follow the advice of the credit rating agencies. Well, we know better now. What goes up can also come down. What is given a triple A rating can be junk tomorrow.

In the midst of all this chaos, the credit card operators have been cutting back on the borrowing limits. This has forced pain on us for two reasons. Firstly, finding the money to pay down our debts more quickly means redesigning the family budget. Sacrifices have to be made. Secondly, the way the credit score is calculated depends in part on the extent to which we use the credit cards we have. If the limits are reduced, we look like bad risks because the amount borrowed is closer to the limit. We have less money available to borrow and cut down on card usage so we can repay faster. Put the two together and the score falls. This is a direct criticism of the methods used to calculate the scores. It produces a fundamentally unfair result during a recession.

This would not be a problem if the credit score was only used by banks and credit card operators. But it’s also used by companies to help decide whether to employ you, by landlords deciding whether to rent to you and by insurance companies deciding whether you are a responsible person. National figures show more than half all insurance companies use credit scores as a key factor in deciding your premium rate. This is extraordinary. There is only one possible effect of being in debt when it comes to the way in which you drive. If you cannot afford to repair your vehicle, you drive defensively to reduce the risk of an accident.

Some states like California and Massachusetts have banned the use of credit score for this purpose, but they are a minority. They cite discrimination as a reason for the ban. The majority of the population without access to banking services and credit cards fall into minority racial groups. When they do not have a credit score, they are forced to pay a higher premium simply because of who they are, not how they drive. So, when you are looking for affordable cover, get the maximum possible number of car insurance quotes to find the best policies. If you live in a state which refuses the regulation of the car insurance market, contact your local government representatives and tell them how much pain you are suffering because of this unfair use of credit scores.

Article by Bette Dowdell

We’ve all heard the old saying that goes, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” Now there’s a thought. We surely have to do something with the lemons as they come along.

Sucking on lemons takes the enamel right off your teeth, so we don’t want to do that. Letting them stack up is even worse because they rot, and there’s probably nothing worse than a life of oozy, rotten lemons we haven’t properly dealt with. And it’s not like we can hand life’s lemons off to anybody else. No, these are suck-it-up and deal-with-it lemons.

As much as we wish it weren’t so, the fact that life can hand out lemons with abandon intensifies the problem of dealing with them. That’s not really news. That’s just a fact. What we need to discuss is how in the world we handle the regular arrival of all those lemons.

Well, as the saying suggests, we can make lemonade. To make lemonade, we need sugar. Likewise, in the midst of a trial, we need to recognize that the stack of lemons taunting us isn’t the whole story. There’s always sugar around somewhere, those graces of life that pull us through. We’ll miss the sugar, though, if we focus too tightly on the lemons.

Okay, so we pulled in some sugar. Now we can make lemonade. Then what?

There appears to be an age limit on lemonade stand entrepreneurs. We might sell the local paper on running an article on the world’s oldest living lemonade vendor. On hearing of our dump-truck load of lemons, people might show up to encourage us and tell their lemon stories-hopefully only the ones with happy endings. Our picture in the paper might be nice, and we could become a one-day wonder, but from start to finish, we’re stuck focusing on the lemons. Lemonade has its limits. It doesn’t have the power to overcome.

What else can we do with these lemons-which, by the way, are starting to get a little soft by now? We can break out the cookbooks and create a dessert worthy of royalty-or at least a blue ribbon at the county fair. Make it gorgeous. Make it fluffy. Smother it with whipped cream. Dash a handful of chocolate sprinkles across the top. Top it off with the world’s largest maraschino cherry. Don’t hold back. Make it fabulous.

Then take it to a friend or neighbor who’s going through a bad stretch. We use up our lemons. We get to be button-popping proud of our stupendous confection. But most of all, we get to cheer up somebody we care about. Our effort says “You matter.”

If our creation is gorgeous, we’ll impress the tar out of our friend. If it’s lopsided, we’ll laugh our heads off. Laughter is the elixir of anti-lemon antidotes. Which fact, come to think of it, means lopsided is probably better.

We turn our lemons into love. We get to learn we don’t have to be perfect to be kind. And we get our minds off ourselves. Good, eh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds more pollyanna than real. Well, sounds can be deceiving. This is real, my friend. Turning lemons into love works. In the long run, it’s really the only thing that does.

Ventrillo Hosting,which is often called Ventrilo is a Voice Over Internet Protocol (or VOIP for short) program which allows people to communicate by voice over the web. This software is often used for gaming, since it allows instant communication between team members; perfect for planning and carrying out raids and other group operations.

Ventrillo Hosting is a fee-based service. The fee depends on the hosting company that you choose, with the cost being split between guild members. There is a free version of the Ventrilo software, but this does not have the capacity to deal with most guilds due to the number of members involved. The pro version if Ventrillo, on the other hand has the capacity for 400 slots, which is more than adequate for all but the very largest guilds.

Ventrillo hosting can fill in the gaps – you are able to just rent as many slots as you need from any hosting copany which offers Ventrilo pro. If you have not yet used Ventrillo hosting, just think about the way you plan your raids now and how it could be improved. If you couple this with the ability to really get top notch voice quality for your gaming experience, then it really becomes a nobrainer.

Either you have probably been on the phone planning everything out, sending emails or typing everything in IM or you may even have been dealing with other less reliable and more bandwidth hungry VOIP programs. Ventrilo is designed to be as bandwidth friendly as possible which means it uses as little as possible.

While in the midst of a raid, it is next to impossible to communicate with other guild members by typing everything, as this takes you away from actual game play. It is much more efficient to use VOIP communications so you can stay in the game while staying touch with your fellow guild members. Best of all, it’s inexpensive and can literally be obtained for pennies a day. We personally believe that this one step will radically change your gaming experience.

You can use Ventrillo for a small fee or even free if you find yourself needing more slots than are available using the freeware version. Ventrilo can be used on both Windows and MacOS platforms. Ventrilo hosting is key to creating a more enjoyable MMoRPG experience. Game play no longer has to suffer because of your guild’s need for communication.

Ventrillo hosting is the obvious choice for the communication needs of your guild during raid. Cheap and flexible, with bandwidth demands that won’t slow you down this is the best choice for gamers. The expense is low and the benefits great – you can plan and communicate in real time, making your entire guild’s gaming run more smoothly.

You won’t have to pause game play to keep your team mates apprised of changes in plans – this VOIP system can offer a lot of flexibility to your team. Thanks to Ventrilo, you’ll have more fun with your gaming and be able to get rid of that bandwidth wasting VOIP you use now.