28 Feb 12 A New Horizon Credit Counseling Assists Older Americans
Fort Lauderdale, FL (PRWEB) February 23, 2012
With more Americans approaching retirement age than ever before they are discovering that the promise of a comfortable retirement is not an option. A New Horizon Credit Counseling Services, Inc., a national credit counseling agency, recognizing that this is a growing problem has dedicated its resources to identifying citizens who are approaching the age of retirement and are in need of getting their finances structured and their debts paid off in time to take advantage of that elusive retirement dream. Steven Stark, COO of the Florida not-for-profit organization said, “Historically, people approaching retirement have already paid off most of their debt. Home mortgages are paid, children’s educational loans are paid and the retiree can concentrate on enjoying their later years without the burden of debt. However, with high unemployment, wages lagging behind inflation, a lack of home equity due to the housing crash, most Americans have not been able to pay off their debts.”
The new initiative is designed to reach the retiree through increased community outreach and awareness, and public education, offering free budget planning and counseling. Key to the effort is to identify the consumer 5-6 years before retirement and to establish a budget to reduce the debt in time for retirement. Stark said, “Education, credit counseling, budgeting and a debt management plan are essential in order to accomplish retirement in the short time remaining.” The other major problem facing retirees is that they are not saving enough to supplement their retirement benefits. The typical American household nearing retirement with a 401k retirement account has less than one-quarter of what it needs in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to a recent Wall Street Journal Article. “The Debt Management plan offered by A New Horizon allows debtors to pay off their debt and have some additional money to save or invest,” said Stephen Marcus, President of A New Horizon.
A New Horizon Credit Counseling Services is a nonprofit credit counseling organization that has been helping consumers since 1978. For more information about their programs, contact 1-800-556-1548. They can also be found on the web at anewhorizon.org, or reached via email at csmanager(at)anewhorizon(dot)org
27 Feb 12 Slaying Your Household Demons
They cast ghostly glows in the dark, suck money out of your wallet and you probably have more than 20 in your home right now. they use between eight and 10 percent of your home’s electricity consumption when left in standby mode. they are televisions, microwave ovens, cordless phones, computers, and cell phone chargers and they all use phantom or vampire power while they wait for you to turn them on. Your coffee maker, camera charger, computer speakers, answering machine, power tools, fax machine, CD player and video game console – same drain on your family finances if you leave them plugged in when not in use. forty percent of all electricity used to power consumer electronics is used when the products have been turned off and are in standby mode and those shining red lights could be costing you $200 or more a year. A mobile phone charger uses two watts while charging a phone, two watts even when the phone is fully charged, and 1.5 watts when the charger is plugged in without the phone. the Energy Saving Trust (a UK based organization) claims that if one mobile charger per household is left plugged in, enough energy is generated (wasted, really) to provide power to 66,000 households for one year. Home entertainment systems (TV, DVD, set top boxes, audio systems) are the worst culprits, sucking over 28 watts even when all the components are in standby mode. Your stereo will use 23 watts while playing music, and 20 watts while left on but not playing music. Natural Resources Canada says standby power consumption is estimated to account for between 5.09 and 5.80 terawatt hours (TWh) – that is 5,090,000,000 to 5,800,000,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to provide the power needs of half a million households. Excessive standby power consumption adds between $341 million to $392 million per year to electricity bills says NRC. There’s also an environmental impact estimated at 68 million kilograms of climate-changing carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere each year by standby power in industrialized countries. the European Union has enacted new regulations for manufacturers to lower the amount of electricity needed by appliances in standby mode and Natural Resources Canada is planning to adopt similar regulations. Reducing the standby power consumption of all devices to 1 W would save 1.36 TWh – resulting in savings of approximately and 1.73 to 1.99 megatonnes of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. So what can one do about this waste of energy and money? One option is to plug the devices into a power bar that offers a real or hard “off” switch. (This real or hard-off switch will completely disconnect the product from the electricity supply meaning it does not consume any standby power.) Remember, power bars are inexpensive, but may not protect your appliances from power surges. For that you need a pricier surge protector bar. another alternative is the GreenSwitch which was originally developed for the hospitality industry but now can provide energy savings for both residential and commercial applications. with the flick of one switch, you can turn off all designated non-essential appliances and lower your thermostat to economy mode. Some do’s and don’ts: when shopping for new home entertainment equipment, look for ENERGY STAR® qualified products. These products use up to 50 percent less electricity in standby mode while providing the same performance at the same price as less energy-efficient models. Don’t leave your cell phone or battery charger plugged in overnight; they usually finish charging after about an hour. what about the other seven or eight hours you are sleeping? when you are finished watching a movie or playing a video game, remember to turn off the DVD player or game console as well as the television itself.
These television peripherals consume a significant amount of electricity: left “on,” DVD players consume 5 to 25 W, set-top boxes (for cable or satellite reception) 6 to 41 W, and game consoles up to 185 W). Exorcising the phantom power demons in your household is good for the planet and will save you energy and money. RESOURCES – BC Hydro has a web page on reducing standby power at bchydro.com/guides_tips/green-your-home/electronics_guide/surge_protectors.html A Natural Resources Canada pamphlet on standby power is available at publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2011/rncan-nrcan/M144-160-2010-eng.pdf the Smart Strip – as seen on the Oprah Winfrey show – is available from Bits Limited at bitsltd.net/ the GreenSwitch is at canada.greenswitch.tv/index.cfm?country=Canada&continent=North%20America and you can view an Ed Begley Jr. video explaining the GreenSwitch at youtube.com/watch?v=npXuKsjfPJs Michael Jessen is a Nelson eco-writer and owns the consultancy zero Waste Solutions. he is also the Energy Critic for the Green Party of British Columbia and can be reached by e-mail at .
26 Feb 12 Email Marketing Abuse
I’ve had a credit card through Household Bank for many years. this morning I opened an email from them and saw that they wanted me to log into my account for an important message.
I wondered what it could be? Has my account been compromised? Has my identity been stolen?
The slightly urgent email
So I immediately log into my account…
Ummm, this message is NOT important to me
The message waiting for me wasn’t important to me in any way. it is important to them, just not to me.
I understand that Household Bank wants to stop sending me my statement every month in the old-fashioned way. I understand that it costs them money to do that and that they would save lots of money if they never had to mail anything again. what I don’t understand is why I should care about their cost-cutting measures.
How about this instead, “Hey Phil, if you sign up for email notifications instead of paper mail we’ll lower your interest rate a bit!” see how that suddenly becomes a message that is important to ME?
20 Feb 12 Best Household Exercise Routines
These days there are plenty of residence physical exercises that one could execute inside luxuries of your dwelling. You no longer need to visit to figure out gymnasiums and fitness center to keep yourself suit and tweaking an incredible amount.
With your easy ways, you are able to map out your home exercise plan. The first dentysta krakow would be to placed a mission on what you need to attain. You will need to also generate a training routine and must constantly stick to it. The routine also needs to add your remainder times. it is best to exercise only several muscle groups every single day. to make your training session considerably more pleasant, you are able to participate in any songs you want. Should you have any fitness equipment for example dumbbells, you can use them while in your training session. The room where you stand executing your training session need to be effectively ventilated and in case achievable, there should be a mirror to evaluate your speed.
When you have finished each of the needed preparing, it’s simple to move ahead the workout right. even at your home, you may have numerous physical exercises available. Should you not have ample equipment, you are able to customize cash advance one hour physical exercises or use available alternatives for example a common, a stairway, wall membrane or any other materials. For many of us residence physical exercises, the widely used product or service would be the dumbbell you should have this while executing other physical exercises. Determining the right type of workout is determined by what befits you. There are physical exercises that can make utilization of many muscle groups, or physical exercises designed to burn fat.
Popular physical exercises in home physical exercises incorporate squats, tummy sit ups, lunges, pushups and stretching out. For training for strength, squats is utilized simply because it goals many muscle groups including the hamstrings, quadriceps, and gluteal muscles altogether. You meble pokojowe to do it effectively to work. The correct way of executing squats would be to maintain the toes shoulder thickness away from each other the keep backside constantly direct, then flex your legs and reduced your raise. Holding the knee across the leg is vital while in executing squats. Runs are used simply because it also functions many muscle groups including the quadriceps, gluteals and hamstrings. furthermore, it supports strengthening you sense of balance. The way to carry out lunges is to generate a big leap forward primary, while maintaining your backbone inside a impartial place. The next step is to flex entry knee around 90 qualifications, being sure you preserve excess fat on the backside foot after which it fall the knee in the backside lower leg on the floors. A further widely used exercises are the push-federal express. This concentrates on the chest, arms, shoulder muscles and also truck muscles altogether.
There are many other physical exercises you can choose from. You can choose from different sorts made available in numerous websites on the internet or on health and fitness textbooks. Physical exercise at your home is very effortless. with your personal residence exercise plan, you’ll keep yourself healthy concurrently.
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