The Credit Crunch: a Wake Up Call for Consumers
Edward Jamison asked:
Over the last several months we’ve seen our economy take a severe beating. It started with the mortgage meltdown and is now seeping its way through Wall Street, the stock market and straight toward the credit card issuers. There are also signs that this trend is trickling down and now beginning to impact aspects of the consumer credit lending environment. These factors alone leave little doubt that we’re facing one of the most severe economic environments since the great depression.
While financial analysts and economists continue to debate over the impact that the $700 billion bailout will have on the average American consumer, none of us really knows for sure what will happen over the next 12 to 24 months. What we do know is that lenders have already begun to tighten up their lending requirements and this means continued changes in the consumer credit environment as this crisis evolves. It also means that many Americans are facing a stern wakeup call in regards to the way we currently view and manage our credit.
It doesn’t take a financial genius to figure out that the mortgage industry’s lending practices were in dire need of a complete facelift. Two years ago, you could pretty much qualify for a mortgage with a minimum FICO score of 580 — as long as you had a pulse. Not enough consideration was given to whether or not you could actually afford the loan or whether or not you had a high risk of defaulting on the loan itself.
These days ‘easy money’ is a thing of the past. To give you an idea of how things have changed, in order to get the best deal on a mortgage today you’re going to need a score in the 720+ range. And the score alone won’t guarantee an approval – you’ll also need to meet the new income and collateral requirements. And if you think this is only happening in the mortgage industry, think again.
We’re also beginning to see changes in the auto and credit card industries. Take GMAC for example, who recently announced that they would no longer approve loans for consumers that had FICO scores below 700. Other lenders like USAA, have not only increased their score cutoffs on their auto loans, but also on credit card and personal loan approvals. See the pattern? Make no mistake, lenders across the board are becoming more cautious and are beginning to safeguard themselves by looking for borrowers that pose less of a risk. Less risk means higher credit scores and more lenders are going to place even more emphasis on your credit scores and credit report data.
So how does this impact the rest of us? The current state of our economy has many of us worrying about what tomorrow may bring. This means that a lot of us will need to take a step back, re-evaluate the way we manage our finances and our credit obligations, and start living within our means instead of beyond them. There are two important lessons that we can learn from this debacle:
Credit isn’t a right – it’s a privilege. How we manage our credit reports and credit scores are a direct reflection of our credit risk. For high scorers (750-780+), the credit crunch probably won’t impact your ability to obtain credit when you need it. But for those that have not so great credit and credit scores, it’s going to be even more important than ever.
It’s time to start living within our means. That’s right, it’s time to take a step back and reevaluate our relationship with money and realize that if you can’t afford something, then you shouldn’t be buying it. This means reevaluating how and why we use credit cards. Is it to live an unrealistic lifestyle? If so, time to make the change.
The current financial crisis is a wakeup call for all of us. And while many blame the current crisis on the sub-prime mortgage industry giving loans to consumers that shouldn’t have been approved in the first place, (which may be true) — we can’t ignore the fact that consumers that got themselves into these loans should at least share a part of the responsibility. At some point, we all need to accept responsibility and be accountable for our own actions.
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You Have High Cholesterol – Now What?
You’ve just come back from a check-up with your doctor, and you found out that you have high cholesterol levels. You know that high cholesterol can lead to dangerous health problems, including heart disease and strokes. You want to do something about it and avoid those bad health problems. What do you do?
First, remember that your doctor is there for a reason. Articles like this are great guidelines and sources of general advice, but discuss any lifestyle changes with your doctor first. It is important that you make these changes properly, so as not to cause other health problems. Proper planning starts there.
But there are some general guidelines that you can expect to have to follow when you are dealing with high cholesterol levels in your body. Many, if not most, people with high cholesterol levels can deal with it without the need for medication. This is great news, as it not only saves you the cost of filling prescriptions regularly, but it also promotes a much healthier lifestyle.
The first way to fight high cholesterol is your diet. Fat and cholesterol comes from a variety of unhealthy foods, and you need to limit your intake of them – no matter how great they taste! Meats and dairy products are prime suspects. Start eating lean cuts of meat with fat trimmed off, or increase your intake of fish and chicken. Avoid fried foods and commercially prepared and processed foods, such as cakes and cookies. Your intake of fruits, vegetables, breads, and cereals should all be increased. Make sure that you drop down to skim milk, or at least 1%. Limit your intake of egg yolks. Make sure the cooking oils you use are high in unsaturated fat, such as corn, olive, and canola oils. Switch from butter to soft margarine, which has less saturated fat.
The next way is weight loss, but do so gradually. Sudden weight loss can cause a host of other health problems. A simple drop in 5-10 pounds can drastically reduce your LDL levels.
Finally, regular exercise is crucial in fighting high cholesterol. Take a brisk 30-minute walk 3-4 times per week. This can drastically impact cholesterol levels and boost your health. Make sure, however, that you discuss any exercise programs with your doctor first. Get a physician’s approval before beginning.
Sometimes, however, medication can be prescribed to help maintain healthy cholesterol levels. HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, or statins, can reduce LDL cholesterol levels by 20%-40%, or more. Statins are taken once or twice a day, and usually can be well tolerated with few side effects. The body normally produces cholesterol at night, so statins are usually taken after dinner or during the evening hours. If taking a higher dose, you may take one in the morning and one in the evening.
There are other medications that can be combined with statins for very high cholesterol levels. Discuss these with your physician and determine your prescription needs, as any prescription may come with some side effects that you need to be aware of.
If you haven’t been diagnosed with high cholesterol, it is still important to follow the non-medication lifestyle changes as a preventative measure. A healthy lifestyle can fight off high cholesterol in nearly everyone.
Why Working From Home is Good For Your Soul
Over the last several years there has been a huge explosion in work from home programs and opportunities on the internet. It’s quite remarkable, and begs the question: What is it about working from home that has such wide and enduring appeal?
Obviously there is that side of human nature that dreams of getting something for nothing, or close to it! Sadly, many of the business opportunities on offer exploit this fantasy and offer easy rewards for those who sign up for them. Needless to say they rarely deliver what they promise. And some are outright scams.
But there’s another reason for the popularity of the work at home lifestyle. It’s a spiritual thing. It’s all about self actualization.
When you work for someone else you can easily feel trapped. You may be earning good money, but your life is not really your own. You have to get up at a certain time every day no matter how you’re feeling. And you don’t get to choose what you work on. You simply have to keep at it until knock off time, then you do it all over again the following day! The fact that someone else – namely the boss – is benefiting far more from your efforts than you are yourself is doubly depressing.
Fear has a lot to do with this. People often end up in jobs they don’t like because of parental pressure. There are many overbearing fathers, for instance, who expect their sons to follow in their footsteps. The constant haranguing may have long ended, but the voices can remain in the minds of these now grown men, and they find it very difficult to ignore them. Also, there are other more general social forces telling us that working 9 to 5 in an office is the only way to be a respectable member of society.
Of course, for many, such a work life is perfectly fine, since it fits in with their personality. But for millions of others, it can be a depressing grind; an endless battle against their true nature and dreams. No wonder so many people are so unhappy and unhealthy!
This is the main reason for the work at home explosion: it promises freedom from these constraints. It allows you to live life more on your own terms. It makes you feel more empowered; more in control of your time, life and destiny. Obviously, this has many benefits, not least for your physical well being. Subsequently this lifestyle will continue to grow in popularity no matter what the world economy is like.
Working from home takes courage, commitment and introspection. But the benefits will always be great. What else are we here to do if not pursue our dreams?
Understanding Credit-scoring
Andre Plessis asked:
Closing Credit Card Accounts will NOT Increase Your Credit Score
Closing credit card accounts actually can hurt your credit score. It is often thought that if someone has many open lines of credit, it is better to close some of those accounts. But there are two main reasons why closing accounts can hurt your credit score.
First, closing accounts will reduce your amount of available credit. Therefore, because a credit score measures the difference between available and used credit, balances appear larger when available credit is reduced. Second, credit scores take into consideration the length of time that someone has had credit. Closing accounts can make your credit history appear shorter than it actually is, thereby reducing your credit score.
Checking Your Credit May NOT Affect Your Credit Scoring
Two types of inquiries can be made into a credit file: hard inquiries and soft inquiries. Hard inquiries occur when you apply for a new line of credit. These appear in the credit file. Having multiple hard inquiries in a short time can hurt your score. Consumers who open many lines of credit in a short time appear risky, as they could be expanding their debt obligations.
Soft inquiries, on the other hand, do not affect your credit score. These occur when you request to view your score or when a credit-card company views consumers’ profiles to make a promotional offer. Although a credit company is viewing the consumers’ files, the inquiry does not impact their credit score unless they apply for a line of credit.
Mortgage inquiries within a 45-day period are treated as only one inquiry in the credit file.
Disputing Information Removes it From Credit Reports
Although disputing incorrect information can have benefits, the limitations of error disputes often are misinterpreted. If there is an error on your credit report, a dispute should be filed with the credit-issuer, which then has 30 days to investigate the dispute. After 30 days, the dispute is resolved or removed from the credit report. Many people incorrectly assume that if a dispute is made, the information will be removed from their credit reports immediately.
Filing a dispute against incorrect information, but not against unfavorable information, is recommended. You cannot dispute information that is hurting a credit score and expect it to be removed. Credit companies investigate thoroughly and can easily recognize when a false dispute has been filed.
Maxing Out Credit Cards Will NOT Improve Your Credit
This can have a negative impact on a credit score. In fact, it is one of the worst things that YOU can do to YOUR credit file.
Maxing out credit cards only reduces your amount of available credit while increasing your amount of debt obligation. Borrowers with maxed-out credit cards look very risky to lenders because they appear to be incurring debt at a much quicker rate than they are paying it off. The more creditors that are owed, the more wary a lender will be about receiving payment.
The best advice about credit cards is:
1. Keep the number of credit cards you have to a minimum;
2. Always pay your bills on time; and
3. Keep credit-card balances at 30 percent of their available credit.
Correcting these common misconceptions can help YOU become more knowledgeable about credit-scoring and help YOU improve your credit score. This is essential to qualifying for the lowest interest rates!
To Your Success!
Andre Plessis
I Teach people How To Create a Passive Income & Live a Debt Free Lifestyle!
The Mortgage Guru
Website: http://apply-free.com
Email: andre @ apply-free.com
Survival Kit for Oncoming Climate of Economic Turbulence
brian schwartz asked:
It is not the end…yet. Dark clouds of recession are certainly hovering around the financial horizon. The economic indicators point towards a downtrend in business, which means problems for real estate investors, job seekers and what have you. Gas prices have hit an all time high. It is certainly time to prepare for a rainy day.
Banks are reeling under subprime losses. Real estate seems so unreal. The U.S. Government is finally seeing red in their economic predictions. What options do individuals, investors and regular employees have in this economy? What should small businesses do to prepare for the recession? Certainly none of us can afford to take things lightly.
Survival tips for employees
Recession means the axe will fall on the employees first. What we are going to witness is an exodus of sorts. Keeping our job intact will itself be a full time job. The best advice during recession is to find ways to make yourself indispensable. You should take on some more work load which ultimately would mean savings for the company. Your job would pay for itself and would make sound financial sense. It is another matter that someone else’s job would become redundant. But that’s least of your problems. Your company’s financial situation would dictate whether you keep your job or not. It is possible to keep your job safe from recession.
Every employee should start behaving like owner of the company. Your job depends on it. Where can you cut costs? What innovations can be implemented? How to sell? All these questions need to be addressed by you. This will not only mean survival of your company but yours as well.
There are hundreds of job aspirants out there. Among these many have spent a small fortune educating them to be MBA’s, engineers and what not. A bleak economy is something they have to prepare for. Forget about huge pay packets. Look at the ground reality and grab whichever job you can get. Financial security should be your first aim. Climb the job bandwagon first, secure a job. During recession, you can’t wait for manna to fall from heaven.
Survival tips for investors in the stock market and real estate
Investors in the stock market have to be extra careful during times of recession. The economic indicators will bring down the market and the investors along with it. That’s for sure. An investor should therefore have a serious look at his portfolio. Get rid of the junk stocks quickly, if you have already not done so. These penny stocks appreciate smartly during the good times. They also fall flat like a fat puppy during an economic downturn. Many millionaires have become paupers overnight due to holding on to these stocks. Stop loss if you have already lost. The economy is in bad shape; don’t let it drag you along. Go for the blue chips. Even in recession they are likely to hold on to their price. Over a period they would give reasonable returns. You may not become a millionaire but then you never know.
Another piece of advice for investors is not to purchase stocks with borrowed money. We are all optimists at heart and a ******** investor is the biggest optimist of all. This sometimes forces them to borrow, in the hope that they will make a killing. A hot tip here, a slight upward movement in a certain stock or a credible rumor. All are sure signs of big bucks for a compulsive investor. This is a recipe for disaster. Reign in your financial horses and wait for better days. Economy will rebound sooner than later.
Subprime losses are the engine which drove the economy into recession. Gross avarice and greed on the part of Bankers and a knowing wink from policy makers has lead to this situation. It is therefore unlikely that real estate investments would pick up in the near future- if ever. It is best to cut losses and move away from the real estate market. Sale of property at prevailing rates is the only option even if it means loss.
Many of us have purchased real estate as an investment. Some use them as weekend gateways. Letting out your second home is a good option you must consider. This will bring you a steady monthly income while you wait for the real estate to appreciate. Idle real estate is no longer viable. If you have a farm house you should explore the possibility of growing fruits and vegetables. This can fetch you a tidy income.
Survival tips for the common man
Many highly popular books have started giving the impression that one can become rich only by investing passively. This mindset has taken root in many US citizens. Work is only passé. Taking financial risks means rewards. It is only now that millions have realized the fallacy of it all. For some it is too late. We have to get out of this apathy and disregard for hard work. In good economic times even the craziest ideas seem to work. But during recession one has to tighten ones belt.
It is an age old saying that money saved is money earned. Save a part of your income. Even ten percent is enough. You must not touch any of it for a whimsical expenditure like a holiday or on a luxury. Your credit card is your biggest enemy. You must bring your credit card liability to zero and then keep it away altogether. You must live within your means even if it hurts and pinches your lifestyle. Look at the recession on its face. Bad economy does not mean becoming poor. It is simply a warning to get your act together.
It is a great idea to start planning for early retirement. This will force you to think about your economic future. Investment in pension and retirement funds will secure your future. If you get laid off, at least you can retire to your little financial nest. Retirement is not a bad word any longer. It may even turn out to be the best part of your life.
Survival tips for businesses
The small businesses would be the hardest hit due to the worsening economy. It may sound depressing, but the truth is that many would be closed down. But one need not take it lying down. The smart guys have already started preparing for the days ahead by doing secretarial work on their own.
Modern technology is a boon for small businesses. Rather than renting out an expensive office, one can innovate and work from home. Finance and investment consultants, CPA’s, real estate agents and a host of other business can operate from home.
It is time to look at your accounts receivable. Businessmen should closely monitor their outstanding and reduce it as much as possible. If you hold stock, inventory should be minimized. Shift the cost of carrying inventory to your principal by using ‘Just in Time’ policy, which will save you from investing in dead inventory.
Have another look at your fees. Can you become more competitive? Instead of charging $100 can you get by with $75? Customers are looking for a bargain and reducing your professional fees will make them happy. Consider this to be one of your effective marketing tools during times of recession.
Recession is a big economic bully. It can make you do things which you would not otherwise consider. At the same time it is not necessary to surrender and succumb to it. Taking measured, well thought out steps to counter the threat is the only prudent way out. It is all a question of managing your finances.
© 2008 BoostTheEconomy.com – All Rights Reserved
Boost The Economy is a social networking community focused on economic issues; designed for businesses of all sizes, real estate professionals, investors, job seekers and the common man.
Menopause Anxiety: Tips
Lorraine Roach asked:
Menopause is a natural transition all women experience, as natural as adolescence. However, as I have experienced menopause anxiety, I know that there are many factors that can aid or hinder this transitional time in life. For your grandmother and great-grandmother, life expectancy was shorter. Reaching menopause often meant that their life was nearing an end. But this is no longer true. Today women are living longer—on average, until age 78. How you experience menopause is determined by many factors: attitude, diet, overall health, genetics, and your cultural group. Medical science views menopause as the state of your body after you had completed one full year without having a period. It is most definitely not a disease! By making wise decisions about your menopause and healthy lifestyle, you can make the most of the 20, 30, or more years afterwards!
Attitude
This one factor is the most important part of any change or motivational aspect to a change that we can do for ourselves. If menopause anxiety has appeared in your life, do not fear it but face it head on. You can learn about anxiety and ways to eliminate it by using a method I have had success with. The Regain Your Freedom Technique has been my choice to use with other types of anxiety. Many forms of anxiety stem from the same root cause and can set up a home inside us when we worry, get stressed out for a period of time and develop fear and frustration about our feelings.
Learning to recognize the worries, fears, stress and emotional triggers is one of the stepping stones of The Regain Your Freedom Technique.
http://www.anxietyended.com
Many women report that they are glad to no longer have their monthly periods and all of the hormonal or just physical issues that accompanied their periods. They feel a freedom from having to be concerned about pregnancy and birth control. There is a sense of more energy, and a sense of freedom that comes without the biological drive to be mother, helper, and nurturer. Many women turn their attention to those things in life they have put aside. Some start new careers or businesses. Others take up creative pursuits like photography or painting, while others travel to places they have wanted to see. These women have a positive attitude.
Those women who dread menopause, see it as unnatural, or a sign of old age (and we all get old don’t we!), have more problems enjoying the transition during perimenopause. They report more symptom issues. Negative attitudes result in negative experiences.
Wake-up Call
Everything is magnified, starting in your perimenopause, then continuing on as you make the transition into menopause. Issues you have not reconciled as a woman will surface for you to deal with. Perhaps long overdue lifestyle changes need to be made. Your body is very smart and it will start to purge any “stuffed” emotions. This means the body does not want to carry these negative thought patterns or habits inside anymore. If you have experienced trauma or hurtful experiences—the ones unresolved–they will come up. You will remember incidents you ignored or just could not deal with at the time.These could be reasons for some women to experience menopause anxiety. Maybe you did not have a safe space to work on them. This is the opportunity to let them go. If you understand this purge and welcome it, you will experience an easier transition.
Health issues that have been neglected will also wake-up. Be sure you get thorough check-ups and tests during this time, including dental, vision, heart health, as well as hormones. Health issues are serious to me. I have walked the path of being unhealthy and the path of health. I very definitely choose being healthy. We can implement preventative health. Diet, exercise, clean water, stress management, healthy environment, and no synthetic drugs go a long way in creating and keeping a healthy body.
Spiritual Awakening
You may find that the changes you are making lead you to an awakening spiritually. This happens to many women who welcome this growth. Seek out your local church, take classes in meditation, discover new spiritual thought, or a renewed connection with God. You are a spirit with a body. Approaching your spiritual wellness includes making choices that take care of yourself physically and emotionally.
Proactive Steps
Although menopause is one of the important physical milestones in a woman’s life, many women lack concrete information about what is taking place, and what are the options. It is your right to know your body and be informed. With a proper attitude, diet, nutritional supplements, exercise, and simple lifestyle changes, most of the unpleasant side effects of menopause can be minimized to a great extent. With this knowledge and preparation you can step forward with grace and embrace it!
Get help from menopause anxiety and end the suffering . Pick up your own copy of our informative book, which includes easy programs and simple tips. There is a solution for anxiety.
http://www.anxietyended.com
To make menopause fun and pleasant:
Make choices to eliminate/reduce stress.
Create a sanctuary space for yourself where you can meditate, write, draw, or anything that expresses your thoughts and emotions.
Find an exercise you like and stick with it.
Evaluate diet and reduce weight, if you have gained pounds over the years.
Become selfish with your time for yourself. Do more things for you and evaluate care-giving roles.
Get enough rest and sleep.
Develop an outside interest or hobby.
Have joy and fun in your life. If this means making new friends, go do it.
Your comments are always welcome. We learn from the comments you send. Remember that helping yourself is the greatest way to give yourself the attention ,love and respect that you deserve.
Find our book Anxiety Ended: Regain Your Freedom And Overcome Your Fears at:
http://www.anxietyended.com
Beyond the Stress of Success – 3 Simple Life Balance Practices
Genuine enthusiasm…a real feeling of accomplishment…a sense of satisfaction and fun. That’s what happens when you playfully practice life balance.
How can you do that? Easy…play with 3 simple practices to see how they work for you. Remember this is practice, not perfection! So just do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. That way you effortlessly tweak these 3 Life Balance Practices until they work well for you. Then continue to practice, practice, practice…and enjoy the balance they add to your life and work.
Ease Back into Balance
- Pause To Refresh YOU
- Think Thriving Thoughts
- Re-charge in Energizing Environments
PAUSE TO REFRESH YOU
Given the relentless demands of our nonstop 24/7 lifestyles, it is easy to forget we are human beings – not human doings. Performance experts agree. Constant doing without real downtime impairs our ability to perform at our best. It takes us out of balance in our work and lives.
Need proven and manageable ways to incorporate regular pause-to-refresh intervals in your work day? Try these:
- Pause every hour and a half for 3-5 minutes to consciously recover from the physical, mental and emotional pressures of work.
- Get up from your desk for a few minutes.
- Take several deep breaths.
- Stretch.
- Take a short walk around the office or inside the building.
- Leave the building for 5 minutes to breath some fresh air. While outside, gaze childlike at the sky or look at a tree or a plant. Staring off into space without any particular focus gives the brain a few minutes of rest and relaxes the mind.
Research indicates that winners instinctively and consciously take regular intervals of time, no matter how short, to de-stress and refocus when they are engaged in intense competition or pressure-cooker assignments. So if you cannot control the demands of your work, control the moments you take to intentionally pause and restore your energy.
THINK THRIVING THOUGHTS
Negative thinking is unproductive. It burns up considerable bandwidth, slows forward momentum, and drains energy in the process. So why not focus on positive outcomes with optimistic realism?
Successful people spend time thinking thriving thoughts. You can too!
- Envision what your success on a big incredibly challenging project will look like when key milestones are reached. Spend several moments feeling the sweet satisfaction of your success.
- For 5 minutes each morning think thriving thoughts on the way to work. This shift in thinking can change your behavior and entire day for the better.
- Notice how much better you feel. The more you practice having and acting on thriving thoughts, the more you will find yourself getting the results you want.
RE-CHARGE IN ENERGIZING ENVIRONMENTS
The right environments support you in being your professional and personal best. So it is important to know what environment – people, places, and activities – are right for you. Notice who and what gives you energy. Pay attention to who and what drains your energy. Minimize your exposure to people, places and activities that drain your energy. Optimize your exposure to people, places and activities that give you energy.
Give yourself permission to re-charge in energizing environments.
- Spend time in natural environments where you feel calm, relaxed and grounded.
- Schedule time to be where energy is actively available to you. Walking in a pine forest, standing near a waterfall, or watching ocean waves as you drag your feet lazily through the sand clears your mind, refreshes your body, and lifts your spirit.
- Find time to be with friends, family members, co-workers and colleagues who are fun.
- Engage in silly fun activities that re-balance you – like laughing out loud at hilarious movies, playing with your children or pet, or learning to fly a kite.
In energizing environments we slip back into our center, reconnect with our natural internal rhythms, and experience the ease of being in balance.
Let me know how these 3 Life Balance Practices work for you.
- Pause to Refresh YOU
- Think Thriving Thoughts
- Re-charge in Energizing Environments
Playfully practice them and notice how easy it is for you to slip back into balance a little more each day.
Simple Tips to Eating Healthy for Life
Eating healthy for life should be the goal of everyone who wants to have a dynamic lifestyle free of medical problems, and filled with energy and vitality. Healthy eating doesn’t have to be a chore, nor is it difficult when you follow some commonsense suggestions. Here are some very simple tips that will help you achieve the goal of eating healthy for life.
1. Calories
Figure out how many calories your body needs to function each day, then adjust your diet to that amount. The number of calories a person needs to consume varies wildly, as it depends on their metabolism (metabolic rate) and how physically active they are. If you are someone who is not very active, then your caloric intake should be much lower than someone who works out regularly.
Muscle mass will also play a part in the number of calories you burn each day. Muscle aids in burning fat. Someone who has more muscle mass will require more calories than someone who doesn’t. It makes sense that if you want to eat more without gaining weight, start doing some weight training in your local gym. The added muscle you build will aid in burning calories and help you lose body fat.
2. Fats
It is important that you consume some foods containing fat so that your body functions properly. Healthy fats also keep your skin and hair healthy looking. But it is critical that you choose the right kinds of fat and don’t overdo it.
Stay away from products which contain either animal or vegetable oils, as these are high in calories. Instead look for those ones which are high in mono unsaturated fatty acids such as olive oil, nuts, fish oil and seed oils. Not only can these fats lower cholesterol levels, they also reduce the risk of heart disease. Eating fish several times a week is a great strategy. In addition, there are many different supplements now available which contain these mono unsaturated fatty acids. I regularly buy an omega 3 fatty acid supplement from my local Safeway.
3. Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are the body’s main source of energy. But the trick at the end of the day is choosing the right carbohydrates to eat. If you do not want to gain weight then restrict your intake of simple carbohydrates such as sugar and processed flour. Instead eat plenty of the more complex carbohydrates such as brown rice, whole grain flour, oats and hearty fruits and vegetables. These foods are loaded with nutrients, are low in calories, and are very filling.
These are some simple tips to help you achieve your goal of eating healthy for life. Follow them closely and you won’t have to worry about weight loss diets or health problems in the future!
Blogging Tips – the Ultimate Blogging Tips (part 2)
THE ULTIMATE BLOGGING TIPS (PART 2)
6. Always Ping After Posting
This is what you need to do after every posts. Remember, always ping your blog. This is to make sure that search engine spider will always crawl your blog after you’ve updated it. Search engines like sites that are always updated. Therefore you must ‘ask’ the crawler to crawl your blog regularly. This will also help you improve your ranking in search engine. A site which always updated is will rank higher than a site that seldom update. This will also help you tell your subscribed readers that you’ve publish a new post. You can ping your blog here at Ping-o-Matic!
7. On Page optimization
You can do this very easily. You can bold of italic your keywords that you want to optimize for in every of your posts. This is a strategy to that can help you increase your ranking in search engine. For example, if you are targeting keywords like make more money online, then you can bold those words. Just like what I did here in my blog. Although on page optimization is less
important than off page optimization (Number of links). But on page optimization still is a factor that will affect your search engine ranking. This is a very simple step that you can take. So be sure to bold or italic your keywords in your blog content. There are still many other on page optimization you could do, but this is for now.
8. Update Your Blog Regularly
I believe you’ve heard this over and over again. But since this is also consider as a blogging tips, so I included it here in The Ultimate Blogging Tips. You know, a blog is something like a diary, just that it is in electronic form. A diary is something that you should write down everyday, so goes for blogs. You should always publish new posts in your blog. The best is everyday, but if you’re busy, then go for at least 5 posts a week. This is what most people do with their blogs, post regularly. If you don’t have any topics to write on, simply use the search engines or any article directories to look for your topics. But don’t copy other people’s content. Just the rough idea, and write with your own words.
9. Include An “About” Section
I’ve stress about this in my previous post, 10 Common Blogging Mistakes. In fact, all the points in that post can be insert here. Why do you need an “About” section? Very simple, you want your readers to know more about you. And if you’re promoting products in your blog, a brief profile of yourself will definitely increase the credibility of your blog and products. Readers and visitors will trust your products more if they know more about you, right? By the way, you can consider including your photo in your blog as well. I’m going to make this short, because you can read the rest here, in 10 Common Blogging Mistakes.
10. Use Simple Language
A blog is site, a more user-friendly site. And if you tell your friends about your blog, the first thing goes into their mind is that they will think that your blog is about your personal life. Most people don’t know that blogs can be use for money making purposes. So, what I’m going to tell you is that, because content will be your main reason why visitors coming to your blog. Therefore you should have a friendly content, write using simple language. You want to be friend with your readers, and not those buyers-sellers relation. Don’t make your blog too formal, a warm friendly feeling blog is a good blog. So you get me, write in plain language just like you always talk to your friends. It will be even better if you can write in those language that a 7 year-old child can understand you. This will make sure that your readers understand what you’re going to tell them.
Well, these are the tips for The Ultimate Blogging Tips (Part 2). I hope that all these tips here are going to help you in your blogs. To your success.
By: Shawn Lim
About the Author:
Learn how to Make Money Online, live a Millionaire lifestyle in no time. Get all Free Tips Making Money Online here, http://themillionairesecrets.blogspot.com/
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