Short-term loans, also called payday loans, have developed something of a bad reputation. In some ways this isn’t surprising. These loans typically charge much higher interest rates than conventional loans—lenders claim it is the only way they can make a profit considering that they lend relatively small amounts of money for relatively short stretches of time—and it’s easy for unwary customers to be caught in a vicious cycle. Add to that legal scandals and criticism from prominent members of the Church of England and you begin to see how this state of affairs has come about.

However, short-term loans are a financial tool like any other and can be beneficial if used for the right job.

When not to Use Them

If you’re not careful, short-term loans can lead to more problems than they solve. If you’re seeing some kind of regular shortfall, they’re not the answer. In the long run, the interest you pay on them will just turn into another expense. On top that some lenders impose late fees and default charges of as much as £25. Some borrowers even wind up taking out payday loans to pay off their payday loans to avoid these fees!

This will just create a situation where you are constantly in debt, and the pit just keeps on growing. They might seem appealing if you have a poor credit rating or don’t want to take the risk of a secured loan, but the spiral they can create means one poor decision can cost you for years to come.

When to Use Them

The best use of a short-term loan is to cover unexpected expenses or costs you would normally be able to cover if not for unfortunate circumstances. Before you take one out it is vital that you make a budget for the whole repayment period and are sure that you will be able pay back the full amount in a timely fashion.

If you do find yourself in such a situation, make sure you seek out ethical lenders like Smart Pig, who forgo late fees entirely, and check online to make sure your chosen lender hasn’t had any legal trouble.

If you follow this advice, short-term loans can be the valuable tool they were meant to be, instead of a pitfall.

Going global presents a number of challenges and opportunities. When you expand to the overseas markets, your potential customer base expands almost beyond recognition, to billions of people. 

However, there are downsides to going global as well, and your business will face a great number of additional challenges. In this post, we take a look at the three biggest challenges and how you can overcome them. 

#3 Shipping and Waiting Times 

When you start to ship over the world, lead times and delivery times start to get a lot longer than when you’re just UK based. This seems rather straightforward, but it’s often an aspect that’s overlooked. When you only ship UK wide, you only need cars or lorries. However, when you ship to the continent and beyond, you’ll also need planes, boats and other forms of transport. 

As such, things take longer to dispatch, navigate and deliver. Sadly, this means that your delivery times will probably have to be vaguer, otherwise your customers may be disappointed by late deliveries. Consult with your courier service carefully to understand your new delivery times. It’s better to over-estimate times to prevent late delivery. 

#2 Communication 

Remember, the more places you ship to, the more different languages that you come across. Unless you have the ability to communicate with people who speak other languages effectively, you’ll struggle to do much trading. As a result, you’ll need to teach yourself or employ a linguist. 

Foreign language courses are easy to attend now, and tools such as Skype have made executing trades between countries and time zones easier than ever before, but never underestimate the importance of communication. 

#1 Money Transfers 

Finally, as well as dealing with different languages, you’ll also be dealing with different currencies when you’re transferring money. Although you can use PayPal or bank transfers, these can be incredibly expensive when you change currencies, and you need to ensure that you’re always getting the bets rate. If not, you could be receiving far less money than you require for your stock, particularly if the exchange rate fluctuates. 

As such, you’ll need a specialist company such as Ebury to help you and ensure that you’re never out of pocket. If you’re not careful, you can lose money incredibly quickly on the exchange rates, so ensure that this is continually reflected in your prices so that you remain profitable. 

If you can counter these three issues, you should have no problems going global.

There are lots of people in this world that have financial problems.  These problems come in many different shapes and sizes...sometimes we don’t even know they exist.   

What type of financial problem(s) do you have?  

Regardless of the financial problem that you have, your problem can be solved by creating and applying a budget into your life.  It may be hard at first, but over the long run, you will greatly benefit from keeping a budget.  

Why?  Because having a budget keeps you in control.  You can categorize and know where your money is going each and every month. Budgeting gives you peace of mind knowing exactly what your financial picture looks like.

To get started, follow these four simple steps:

Step #1 - Grab a pen and paper, or use a spreadsheet.  

It really doesn’t matter what you write your budget on… what matters is that it is written down and you can view it and tweak it often.  Putting it on paper gives you the ability to track it and know what is happening each month.

Step #2 - Write down your income.

List out every income source that you have and the amount that earn each month.  This could be a paycheck from an employer, self-employed earnings, or even investment and interest income.  List them all out and add them all together to create a total line.  

Step #3 - Write down your expenses

List every expense that you currently have for each month, regardless if it is a small or large amount.  In this step, it’s all about finding each piece of the puzzle.  When you have all of the expenses listed out, you’ll know exactly what you are spending your money on and how much.  List them all out and add them all together to create a total line. 

Step #4 - Income Minus Expenses 

Now take your combined totals and subtract your income from your expenses.  In a perfect world, you will have a positive number left at the end.  This means that you are saving money every month.  However, you may end up with a negative number.  If you fall in this category, then you need to find ways to cut out things that you are spending money on each month. 

Conclusion:

If you have never created a budget, then get on it!  Your financial life will benefit from it.  In a world full of financial problems, you don’t have to be a part of it.  Budgeting will help you gain control of your finances, giving each dollar a purpose, and making sure that you are in control. 

The hardest thing about saving money is simply getting started. Though it can be tough to figure out some smart ways to save money, yet most people are confused about the initial steps that they should take to start saving. Whether it’s by denying yourself that $5 mocha latte which you have once in a week or calling off your family vacation or by prompting yourself to sell old gift cards, everyone has their own way of saving dollars. If you too have been looking for some effective ways of saving money, here are some that you may take into account.

1. Keep a tab on your expenses

The foremost step to take for saving money is to know how much money you’re spending. For a month, keep a record of each and everything that you spend. Every newspaper that you buy, every coffee that you order, every snack that you purchase throughout the month should be recorded. Once you have your data, organize such numbers according to category like groceries, gas, mortgage and so on. Then get the total amount of money.

2. Set realistic goals towards saving

One of the best ways of saving money is by keeping in mind what exactly you’re saving for. If you’re in need of any kind of motivation, set some realistic saving targets along with a timeline to make it simpler to save. Now that you have a target, know exactly what you can save each month in order to achieve your personal goal.

3. Pay yourself

You may earn a fixed sum of money but do you pay yourself first? Set an auto debit from your checking account to savings account on the date of payment. Irrespective of whether it is a $50 every 2 weeks or $500, don’t cheat yourself. Always pay yourself first and then think of other payments.

4. Stop smoking

No, this is definitely not an easy step to take but if you can successfully stop smoking, you can save an average amount of $3000 a year. As per Centers for Disease Control, the percentage of Americans who are smokers is presently below 20%. Come on, join the club to realize your saving goals.

5. Rethink your auto insurance coverage

If you’ve got auto insurance coverage, rethink ways in which you can save money. For instance, you may consider raising the deductible so that you can lower the premium amounts. For vehicles that are old, evaluate whether or not you actually require collision coverage, which covers damage to the car when your car hits another vehicle. Also get into the habit of comparing auto insurance quotes so that you may switch over.

Therefore, if you think you’re laid back about saving money, you should follow the above mentioned steps to save money. Save as much as possible so that you don’t have to worry about your future financial issues. Also keep saving for your post-retirement age to avoid having a struggling life. 

We all know by now that backlinks are the foundation of successful search engine optimisation or SEO. Sounds rather easy, but there is a bit more to it than just creating hundreds of backlinks all over the internet. There are good and bad backlinks and often, a bad link, or too many backlinks, will end up doing more harm than good. How do you ensure you are getting the maximum return from the backlinks you use?

Let’s take a look at five simple techniques you can employ to boost your backlinks and improve your SEO.

1.Research, Research, Research

Before you can tackle the competition effectively, you need to know more about their content, techniques, backlinks and shares over social platforms.  If they are ranking high on search engines, they must be doing something right. Understanding this, and taking the best ideas from them, will give you a distinct competitive advantage. 

There are a number of tools available to help you with this so take advantage of them. Ahref has to be the most useful and will give you valuable insight. BuzzSumo and EpicBeat will give information regarding shares of social platforms that you can use to your advantage. To help with your research and execution, look at SEO backlink sites like Linkprocessor. 

There are many other tools, most with free options. Take the time to get to know them and get the information you can use. Knowledge is power. 

2.Content Is King

All the backlinks in the world, in all the right places, is going to be of little help if your content is poor. Find the niche you wish to develop, do your homework (yes, more research) and create content that is well written, interesting and relevant. Only then can you start driving people towards it.

3.Become Active On Authoritative Blogs and Forums

Your research would have already turned up a number of relevant blogs that your competitors are using. Join them and get to know a little bit about them. Offer your content, where relevant, to the webmaster. The more often you do this, the more time you will get a yes. Ensure you have got the relevant backlinks to your website. This form of guest blogging is one of the most effective ways to attain high quality, authoritative backlinks.  You have already created the content, although you might have to tweak it slightly, but the rest is easy. You can also post comments with backlinks once you are recognised on the blog.

4.Become A Thought Leader On Your Niche and Share Your Links

You have done your research and know your topic well. Start sharing your valuable insight and opinions with others. Join popular platforms such as LinkedIn, WikiHow, Yahoo Answers and Quora. Find those sections relevant to your area of expertise and get involved. Post answers to questions and share insight. Do not try too hard to self-promote initially, create some credibility and a reputation. Slowly you can start to include backlinks, one you have established yourself. 

You can also use all of this information and interaction to build a comprehensive Q & A page on your site. This will give you another opportunity to backlink and will be especially powerful in voice searches, as these are often posed as questions.

5.Focus on Geographical Specific SEO

Look at the areas in which you do, or wish to do, marketing. Search and list all the directories, search engines and review sites. Ensure they are quality pages and relevant to your niche and post your details on these pages. Do not forget, the SEO tools you have employed will have already exposed many such pages your competitors are already using. Make sure you are on them.  

Never forget that SEO is not something you do once, it is an on-going process. Backlinks, while very important and most effective, are just one of the tools available for good SEO. Keep an eye on changes in the market, the SEO dynamics and your competitors to keep your ranking high. 

With good research, use of the tools available and generating effective, quality backlinks, there is no reason you should not come up tops in a search on your niche.