Top 9 Lies That Big Corporations Tell

http://www.bnet.com/blog/salesmachine/top-9-lies-that-big-corporations-tell/16465?pg=2
LIE #9: “Employees are Our Most Valuable Asset”
LIE #8: “Your Responses Will Be Completely Confidential”
LIE #7: “Business Taxes Are Killing Us”
LIE #6: “We Are a Meritocracy”
LIE #5: “Your Participation is Entirely Voluntary”
LIE #4: “Unions Force Jobs Overseas”
LIE #3: “We Are Environmentally Friendly”
LIE #2: “We Are Neither Racist Nor Sexist”
LIE #1: “Our Core Values Are…”

10 treasures hiding in your attic

http://money.msn.com/saving-money/10-treasures-hiding-in-our-attic-forbes.aspx?cp-documentid=6831940&GT1=33026

Even if it's old and unused, something of value could be hiding in your basement or out in the garage. Be sure you're not tossing out something worth serious cash.


Gold and silver jewelry


The real stuff is often thrown in with costume jewelry in a shoebox or dresser drawer. With gold and silverprices so high, even an ugly piece that doesn't qualify as a valuable heirloom can be sold for its scrap value. Since most refiners won't take retail customers, you'll need to get bids from a few gold-buying stores in your area.


'Tacky' heirlooms




Don't underestimate the value of old stuff (even if it's not to your taste) that can be hidden in an ordinary, modestly priced house. No, you may not find a Tiffany lamp worth $80,000. But a new client showed Brooklyn, N.Y., appraiser Fran Zeman a collection of porcelain plaques she had inherited and thought were worthless. It turned out they were hand-painted in late-19th-century Berlin and worth thousands.

Special magazines




Sorry, most of those stacks of old National Geographic and Forbes magazines are destined for the recycling bin. But there's a market on eBay for specialty magazines like Interiors, a vintage design magazine that sells for $20 a copy, and for general-interest magazines of a certain age, or with special covers. A 2008 New Yorker cover featuring a "Muslim" Barack Obama with a gunslinging Michelle got nine bids and sold for $51 on eBay.

Reasons I'm Cancelling My Credit Cards

1. I'll spend less. A variety of scientific studies, such as this one at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have found that people are simply willing to spend more when they use credit cards than they do when they use cash. It's common sense. No wonder our national obsession with shopping really took off when credit cards came on the scene. And I've found it personally. Last fall and winter, when I went for an extended period without carrying any plastic at all, my day-to-day spending rate absolutely collapsed


2. Cash makes budgeting easy. Personal financial planners encourage clients to draw up budgets. It's great advice, in theory anyway. But I have a confession: I'm just not that organized. Nor, I suspect, are lots of people. But if I go to the bank once a week and draw out a certain amount of cash, it makes the budgeting automatic. Easy


3. Fewer impulse purchases. One way credit cards let us spend more is that they make it easier to buy things that we don't need, and may not even want, on the spur of the moment. And the stores are set up to encourage it they rely on sophisticated marketing science to manipulate you into reaching into your wallet. If you don't have the money on you, you can't splurge. If you really want the item in question, you can come back and buy it tomorrow. Chances are you won't


4. Say goodbye to debt. I pay my cards off in full every month, but a lot of people don't. They use their cards to borrow, and it's a financial disaster. We've seen what the overuse of debt has done to our economy. According to Bankrate.com, the average card charges you 14% interest. Many charge a lot more. And you're paying with after-tax dollars. As an illustration, you'd have to earn at least 16.5% on the stock market (before long-term capital gains tax of 15%) just to keep up. Good luck with that. Says New York University's Stern School of Business, since 1928, U.S. stocks have produced an average compound return of just 9.7%. And Bankrate calculates that someone who buys a $1,000 item on a credit card charging 14% interest, and merely pays 2% of the balance each month, will end up paying $1,750 for that item. It will take 110 months to pay off the bill


http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/113093/reasons-cancel-credit-cards-smartmoney?mod=bb-budgeting

How to Ask for a Raise

By Madeline Vann, MPH Medically reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH

Is it time for a step-up in your salary? Even if that rightful raise is long overdue, actually asking for it can be the hardest part. So before you schedule a meeting with your manager, you’ll want to do some research and carefully plan your approach.

Here’s your first step: According to standard career counseling guidelines, it’s important to research the salaries of people who do your job at other organizations. Making this comparison could give you leverage when asking for a salary increase.

RELATED: The Job That Got Away: 10 of Life's Biggest Regrets
So does that mean you should suggest to your boss that you’d be making a better salary somewhere else? Not necessarily, says researcher Hannah Riley Bowles, PhD, an associate professor at the Kennedy School for Business at Harvard University — especially if you’re a woman.

“My research suggests that this type of argument — that you could get a better salary elsewhere — can backfire on women,” says Bowles. On the flipside, she notes: “If a woman is perceived as someone who cares about her organizational relationships, she can likely avoid some of the negative costs of asking for higher pay.”
Factor in a tough economy, and there’s even more need for more strategizing before you talk to the boss.

RELATED: Navigating Life's Most Stressful Events
9 Musts When Prepping for the ‘Big Talk’
Consider these tips to make your argument:

• Put yourself in your boss’s shoes. When you ask for a raise, remember: It shouldn’t only about be about themoney and the reasons you want a pay upgrade. Your boss will want to hear how a raise will motivate you to bring even more to your organization
• 
  
• Get input from a mentor. Your best strategy, says Bowles, is to be able to say, honestly, that someone who is well respected within the organization recommended you ask for a pay increase. “It self-presents you as somebody who has close, positive relationships within the firm. This is not a unilateral threat to go elsewhere,” she says. In addition to backing your request, a mentor could provide other career counseling advice, such as tips for improving your portfolio, or the type of problems that keep your boss up at night — problems that you could help with.
• 
  
• Spotlight your strengths. In addition to highlighting your professional skills, Bowles recommends positioning the negotiation as an asset. Say something like “I hope you’ll see my negotiating as a strength I bring to the job.” Try to signal that you are team-oriented, even when asking for more pay.
• 
  
• Print out your proof. “Bring a manila folder with copies of your resume and letters of reference,” says New York City mediation and relationships expert Laurie Puhn, JD. “It’s a good idea to wait to ask until you have three substantial pieces of evidence that prove your added value to the company. If one of those three things is a current project, then wait for near-completion or a point at which it is clear that your role in the project makes a large, positive difference.”
• Consider the when and the where. Be strategic about the time you choose for your meeting. Says Bowles, “Some people get their raises on the golf course. In other places it’s over coffee or a very standardized thing when you come up for a quarterly review.” Try to find a time when your boss is most likely to be relaxed and able to concentrate on your argument. If your boss has to get approval for any pay increase, you should schedule the initial meeting early in the week, says Puhn. Ask for at least 30 minutes.

RELATED: How to Make Work More Rewarding

• Probe into pay. It’s important to know what other people with your same expertise are making. The challenge for women, says Bowles, is to step outside of their usual network to find out what men (who are often paid more) are making. That’s the comparison point to shoot for.
• 
  
• Lean on your network. A network of professionals can be valuable: If you want honest feedback about what you are asking for or what your boss is offering, share it with a few people in your network.
• 
  
• Be open-minded. Budgets are tight all around, so you should consider some alternative requests for 
• professional advancement if your boss can’t or won’t support a pay increase.“You could ask for a match to your 401K or a paid maternity or paternity leave,” suggests Puhn. Consider asking for your boss’s support to join a specific team within the organization, work on a prized project, choose specific colleagues for your departmental team, or get some additional training in your field or in leadership and management — all of which could strengthen your request for a raise later on. Other possibilities are more flexible scheduling or telecommuting, if your tasks allow these.
• 
  
• Keep calm. Asking for a raise is stressful, but if you are well prepared, you should be able to take a deep breath and get back to your argument and your evidence. If it becomes clear that money is a sticking point, acknowledge that and bring up the other career advancements you have considered. You can also ask for time to consider your boss’s counter-offer before you respond.

Money and Manners: Are You Offensive?

I recently found myself sitting around a pool listening to a complete stranger brag about how he has too much money and too little time to spend it. This conversation went against a rule I was taught as a child: you don’t talk about money and you certainly don’t boast about your own wealth.



Oddly enough, no one else at the table seemed uncomfortable, so I began to wonder if perhaps my thinking is a bit old fashioned. We live in a much more casual society today than the one I was raised in. Perhaps in 2010 it’s okay to discuss topics that were once taboo. I decided to give etiquette expert Peter Post of The Emily Post Institute a call for his opinion.

It turns out my instincts were correct. “Talking about wealth is really crass, especially when it’s done in a one-upmanship sort of way,” Post says. And it’s even more distasteful to discuss money during a recession like the one we are experiencing now, he says.

Avoiding any talk of money, of course, can be difficult. The key is to handle these discussions in an appropriate manner. Here are five sensitive topics and how Post recommends you handle them:

1. Your Salary


The rule. Everyone knows you should never divulge your income unless you’re speaking with a headhunter or spouse. The same guidelines apply to your bonus. And under no circumstances should you ever brag about your compensation package, even if you don’t mention an exact number.

Sometimes, however, you may be put in the uncomfortable position of someone asking you how much you earn. The only appropriate response is “I make enough to get by”, says Post.

2. Real Estate


The rule. Real estate can be tricky. How much money a home trade hands for is recorded in the public record. Still, Post recommends you don’t show off to your neighbors and tell them how much you got for your four bedroom Colonial or how much you spent on your new Tudor. If a neighbor wants to know, he can go down to the local county clerk’s office or look it up online.

If you’re asked how much you got for your home, you should keep the answer vague and just say it went for either below or above your asking price, says Post.

3. Cars


The rule. You never start a conversation by talking about the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan you just purchased. And you certainly don’t mention its sticker price — even if you feel you negotiated a great deal. But if you do own, say, a Ferrari, it’s okay to drive it around town and even to your kid’s school, says Post. The key is to never discuss an automobile’s value, he says.

If asked what you drive, you should simply name the car that sits in your driveway and leave it at that.

4. Public versus Private School


The rule. It’s no secret that private elementary and high schools cost a small fortune. They can also serve as a status symbol for the parents writing the checks. Post, however, feels it’s wrong to name drop your child’s prep school with strangers or to try and impress friends who send their kids to the local public program.
If asked where your kids go to school, you should mention the private school’s name but then follow up with something you like about the curriculum.

5. Your Investment Portfolio


The rule. Your investment portfolio is like your income, you should not divulge its value. Similarly, you should stay away from gloating about money you made during a particular trading session or quarter. You can, however, discuss your investment strategy or even a stock you recently purchased, says Post. Just don’t tell your friends how many shares you bought.

If asked how much your portfolio gained or lost last year, it’s better to deflect the question or answer using a percentage rather than a dollar figure.

In closing, try to remember that bragging about money and wealth is offensive, and even worse, it’s boring, says Post. Better to ask your friends and acquaintances about themselves instead of trying to impress others.

First Person: How We're Spending Less, Saving More

C. Jeanne Heida, On Wednesday January 19, 2011, 6:30 pm EST

When it comes to tweaking the household budget to free up cash for unexpected bills, my husband and I have always discovered that the easiest plan is simply to stop spending money.

Sure, there's always household bills that a family can't avoid such as housing costs, transportation, groceries, and other essentials. But there is also a whole other tier of household spending that can and should be trimmed, especially in this fickle economy. The money saved should help reduce your debt and build up a savings fund. These two goals will put you in a better financial position for 2011.

Cutting your household spending starts with evaluating all your expenses and breaking them down into "wants" versus "needs." Needs are the things your family absolutely must have to survive. Wants are things you would like to have, but really don't need. Once all these household costs have been identified, figuring where to slash costs is easy.

What changes should you make to your family spending trends in 2011? The answer depends on your current debt and what you are willing to give up. If you need some ideas, here is how our family's 2011 budget is measuring up:

Groceries cut by 40% from 2009. Last year, I started shopping aggressively at discount grocery stores plus expanded the size of our orchard and vegetable gardens to drop this household expense.

Apparel costs cut by 75%. "Use it up, wear it out" is our motto for 2011. For our teen daughter the fashionista, we shop the thrifts and outlet stores for her wardrobe needs.

Beauty Care dropped by 90%. Instead of buying department store beauty aids, we're now shopping the dollar stores for name brand cosmetics and VO5 hair products.

Travel costs are down by 20% which has been attributed to carpooling and consolidating errands.

Vacation costs for 2011 are being trimmed by 75%. Instead of a road trip, we plan on visiting our relatives in the Puget Sound this year for a low cost vacation.

Credit cards, medical bills, and credit line payments were eliminated from the budget since these were paid off in 2010.

Entertainment and dining out have also been eliminated from the budget. If we want to see a movie, we'll raid the coin jar for 50 cent Tuesday Movies at our favorite discount movie theater.

Household repairs are back in the budget for 2011. Now that most of our consumer debt is paid off, we can afford to tackle home maintenance issues again.

Home decor & landscaping needs has been eliminated from the budget since they fall in the category of a "want" instead of a necessity.

Piano payments are a new budget item for 2011. While some families may regard this as a "want" versus a "need", we've got eight years of music lessons invested in a child who had finally outgrown her old practice piano. With the money saved in other areas however, the goal is to get this debt paid off by summer.

Emergency savings fund. This is also a new budget item for our family. Like may other families living on a shoestring, we are having to borrow instead of cash flowing emergencies as they come up. My goal is to have $5000 in this fund by the end of the year.

These are just a few examples of our household spending has changed to reflect the current state of the economy. Spend less, save more really is the key to weathering tough economic times both in this year and the years ahead.

More by this contributor:
How to build up wealth through frugal living.
Top 5 personal financial planning tools.
How to build up a savings account in a tough economy.

How much does it take to be 'rich'?

It takes more than a million -- that's for sure. Popular culture gives some hints at how many dollars it takes to be really wealthy in this millennium.

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What does it take to be considered rich in 2010? The old million-dollar standard seems defunct now that this amount is often touted as a minimum that should be saved for a comfortable retirement. Let's look at some recent attempts to pinpoint the new standard of wealth.

Movies

In the movie "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery," Dr. Evil, the villain frozen in the '60s and thawed in modern times, tries to extort $1 million from the world's leaders -- and they all laugh. Dr. Evil later figures out that he needs to ask for much more money -- $1 million just isn't a significant sum. The bad doctor later ups his demand to a suitably sinister $100 billion.

How much is a billion dollars?

Another popular reference to our changing standards of wealth occurs in "The Social Network," a 2010 movie about the founding of Facebook. A conversation between Justin Timberlake's Sean Parker character and Andrew Garfield'sEduardo Saverin character goes like this:

Sean Parker: You know what's cooler than a million dollars?

Eduardo Saverin: You?

Sean Parker: A billion dollars.

The exchange occurs at a pivotal point in the movie when Facebook has proved successful but has not yet hit it big and the protagonists are considering the website's future. Parker's remarks seem to reflect the changing standard of wealth --no longer is it enough to become a millionaire. Now it takes a billion dollars to truly impress.

A billion dollars has also become the standard of great success at the box office. The highest-grossing movies of all time, "Avatar" and "Titanic," each made significantly more than $1 billion in worldwide box office receipts. So did "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "Toy Story 3," "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Dark Knight."

Forbes' list

When Forbes began compiling its lists of the 400 richest Americans back in 1982, just 13 of those people were billionaires. In 2010, every person on the list was worth at least a billion dollars, and the highest-ranked person, Bill Gates, was worth $54 billion.

Forbes' 2010 list of the world's billionaires includes a whopping 1,011 entries. Of those, 75 people are tied for last place with a net worth of $1 billion. These people come not just from the United States, but also from India, Turkey, China, Romania, Italy, Poland, Malaysia, Pakistan and other countries. And while a few familiar names grace the bottom of the list, like J.K. Rowling and James Dyson, many of these mere billionaires -- and even some of the richest people on the list -- are relatively obscure. You don't have to be a Warren Buffett or a Sergey Brin to find yourself at the top.

Books

A 2008 book titled "The Middle-Class Millionaire" states that 8.4 million Americans have a net worth between $1 million and $10 million, including home equity. We can assume that many people have fallen out of this category with the decline in home values since the book was written, but the idea that you can be a millionaire, or even a multimillionaire, and still be middle class shows how times have changed.

There are numerous books for sale with "billionaire" in the title. Claiming to teach ordinary readers how to achieve ultra riches are these popular titles (to name a few) in the business and investing category: "Trump Strategies for Real Estate: Billionaire Lessons for the Small Investor," "Think Like a Billionaire, Become a Billionaire" and "Blueprint to a Billion: 7 Essentials to Achieve Exponential Growth." Even top-selling children's books like "The Billionaire's Curse," "Mr. Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire" and "Billionaire Boy" make a billion dollars the new standard to aspire to.

Music

Travie McCoy's hit song, "Billionaire," describes what the singer would do if he had a billion dollars -- adopt lots of children, give away several Mercedes, revitalize New Orleans and fix the recession, among other feats. The song spent 20 weeks on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, peaking at No.4.

Setting aside the fact that a billion dollars wouldn't come close to cleaning up after a natural disaster or ending a recession, the song sends the message that it takes a billion dollars if you really want to make a big difference.

Housing

A million dollars might not even buy you a house in one of America's 10 most expensive cities for real estate,according to MarketWatch. The most expensive city on the list, Newport Beach, Calif., had an average list price of $1.83 million, while the least expensive on the list, Santa Barbara, Calif., had an average list price of $1.02 million for the period February to August 2010. And some surveys of wealth don't even include home equity in assessing people's net worth.

The annual World Wealth Report defines high-net-worth individuals as "those having investable assets of U.S. $1 million or more, excluding primary residence, collectibles, consumables and consumer durables."

Professional sports

A 2009 Forbes article, "The Most Valuable Teams in Sports," reported that as recently as 2003, not a single professional sports team was valued at $1 billion. But 2008 saw 24 teams worth $1 billion or more. Soccer'sManchester United topped the list at $1.8 billion.

Despite the recession, Forbes' most recent list has 25 entries: joining Man-U are 19 professional football teams, Major League Baseball's New York Yankees, and four other soccer teams.

The bottom line

For many people, having a net worth of $1 million or even $100,000 still seems unattainable, yet these days neither figure is likely to impress anyone unless it was attained at a young age. Of course, even then, you'll be competing with the legacies of Bill Gates, Michael Dell and Mark Zuckerberg, all of whom were multimillionaires or billionaires before they turned 30.

This article was reported by Amy Fontinelle for Investopedia.

You're So Mormoney and You Don't Even Know It

Dear Utah,

Please be careful with my money.

Love,
Jeremy

Explanation: The exciting financial events in my daughter's life just keep rolling by. First we received her birth certificate. Then her Social Security number. And now, thanks to a long morning nap on Saturday, I have opened her 529 college savings account! Woo-hoo! I've never been more proud of my little tax deduction.

If you've never looked into 529 accounts, they are pretty simple in theory. You open a tax-deferred investment account to save for college. Each state has a plan (or several plans). Some state plans offer a tax deduction on contributions by their residents. New Jersey does not. So there you go. I just had to pick a plan and open an account.

The problem is this. If your state plan does not offer benefits that make it the obvious choice, you then have to pick from over a hundred plans. Each plan charges differently - some have annual fees that are either fixed or percentages, some charge management fees, and of course there are the fees built into whatever fund you invest in. It's not just comparing apples and oranges - you're comparing a whole basket of fruit. It isn't pretty.

After over an hour of research, trying to find the perfect plan, I settled on Utah. It may not be right for everyone, but I figured it was the best choice for us. So there you go. My daughter's education hopes rest with the great state of Utah. Don't let us down Utah. We need you to come through for us.

Investment Advice

I just realized that accidentally dropping change behind my dresser is an investment strategy that has beaten Wall Street over the past several years.

Explanation: Yes, it's true. Don't believe it? Maybe this simple graph will help:


As you can see, my "change behind the dresser" scheme is a winning investment strategy.

As free advice to our readers, we at Jeremy's Status Message would like to suggest several other sound investment strategies in today's market:

• Put your money in holes in your backyard. Keep an eye out for squirrels trying to eat away at your investments.
• Keep your money under your mattress. We suggest you only do this with bills, as change can lead to an annoying jingling sound every time you lay down.
• Drop your money in that crack between your carseat and center console that you just can't get your hand into no matter how hard you try.
• Invest heavily in your favorite status message blog!
• Burn money in your fireplace. Believe it or not, this is safer than investing in most major banks right now.
• Please do allow ousted Nigerian politician access to your account of banking. They will deposit $10,000,000 American in there for safe keeping. You can trust them.
• Spend, spend, spend until there's no more money left to lose. This is a great strategy, as you will most certainly be able to get an iPhone out of it.
• Invest heavily in frozen concentrated orange juice futures. Trust us, we have a good feeling about this year's crop report.