Caribbean Dreams: A white wedding and passionate honey moon

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There might be just a few human beings capable of asseverating that the wedding is something unimportant and off-topic. For the vast majority of the human beings, the wedding is the first or second most important event of the life, in general, only comparable to the birth of the first child. Due to that, the wedding is an event that receives a heavy load of planification among the couples, specifically from the feminine side. It is the woman who feels specially attracted to organize a special wedding, with her personal mark put onto it.

For us - the guys - much of the wedding is also about money that needs to be invested, but has got to be paid. caribbean weddings, with all the glamour and the paradise of a tropical island, with "La Isla Bonita" as background and two cool kaipirinhas are not exactly free. But, they do not have to be expensive or even out of the reach of our pockets.

Breezes is a company specialized in providing travel packages that include almost everything - the smiles and kisses are out of the package . These all inclusive travel deals do include practically everything that one may wish, only the souvenirs have to be paid once there. At Breezes, the couple can find the resort of their dreams, amongst a wide variety of resorts in Brazil, Mexico and the Caribbean Tropical Beaches and Islands. Once you get married, then is when you acknowledge the importance of choosing a right location, the success of the Honey Moon depends - somewhat - upon the comfort and peace that the couple gets to obtain.

But, maybe you are married, right now. Never mind, Breezes offers nice, accesible discount vacation packages that might take to one of those tropical paradises that we ever dream of.

A time to enjoy

The Advantages of All-Inclusive Vacation Packages

Breezes is an international company dedicated to provide all inclusive vacation packages, with destinations including the most tropical and exotic of the beaches of the world in Jamaica, Panama, Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Curacao and - of course - Brazil. The remarkable part is the offer of some special packages known as Super-Inclusive.

Super-Inclusive means that the package not only covers the cost of the resort accommodation, but also: all the drinks, all the meals and all of the entertainment. Being that most of the destinations offered are to travel to beautiful, tropical, sandy beaches - in all inclusive beach resorts - the aquatic sports are mostly covered by the package.

What is the advantage of purchasing an all inclusive resort vacation package?

Fairly obvious. Being a person which follows the best financial practices - which leads to personal success in terms of availability of money - i would rather know in advance which is the REAL budget for my vacations expenses.

All included, it would be far too easy to establish the total cost of my vacation and make a wise decision at the time of choosing a good travel package. Most of the time - and most of us - tend to ignore the total cost of the vacation. Not taking into account the prices of drinks, meals and the like, might lead to a high increase of the original budget.

Another powerful reason to purchase an All-Inclusive Vacation Package is a more mundane origin. Food is not the same everywhere, and sometimes it is much, very much better to get someone - who positively knows more about the best restaurants - else pick the best choices for us. The safest ones, also.

Next time you have the intention to go on travel and rest a little bit, take into consideration the All-Inclusive Packages. It is better to leave home knowing that very few things would be off-schedule.

Obama Plan to Reduce Foreclosures: A New Hope

I do not talk about politics that much over here. The main reason: there is a place for everything and this is not exactly the right one for the politic thing. Nevertheless, i would like to applaud the initiative of the current Government, aimed to reduce the foreclosure fever that has taken over the country during the last few years. And which threatened to send to total ruin to millions of American families.

The proposal - which is about 75 billion dollars - works in the way to refinance the mortgages of house-owners, by using the resources of the Treasury. According to Bloomberg, the plan that will benefit about 5 million families across the US, consists basically in buying 200 billion USD in stock from the Housing Companies.

The purpose is basically to help reduce the current stress of house indebtment to a level of about 35% of the total house income. Aggressive, ambitious and definitely needful, the plan - taken into account the acceptance and commitment of the parts involved - will surely help reduce and finally terminate the Real Estate crisis.

The foreclosures induced a disastrous wave of lowering prices of Real Estate, despite the efforts of home owners to activate the demand. If it wasn’t stopped somehow, the situation would be irreversible and lead to a general crack down of the economic sector of homebuilding.

I believe - firmly, i should say - that this injection of capital, however largely disputed by the Republicans, shall and will help at least to alleviate the crisis. Nevertheless, it must be accompanied by a reactivation of the industrial and technological production.

Our Nation is big not because of not only one of those crappy stupid wars, but because we know how to survive, walk along again and stand up steady. It is the work and production, together with the saving and investment what has taken us so high in the general concert of Nations. We are to leave away the current crisis, as we have done in the past. And we have to start today, all of us.

Higher Prices of Gas, Cost-Cutting Strategies Proved Successful

I was reading CNN Money - up to my worst - "Cheap Gas is history" and I fell a knot running up and down my throat and chills all over the surface of my skin. Clearly I remember last year price, more than 4 bucks per gal of gas. I almost abandoned my car to its own fate, but i always hoped that the price would definitely fall in the very short term.

Now, that the price is reaching a stable point at about 2 USD, the hopes are fading to black. And i would bet my own life that most Americans would share the same opinion as CNN’s. Hell! It should be about time to expect that the price gets beaten off and gets equivalent to the slow-down of the price of the barrel in the international market.

The fact is that, even though the cost of oil is being cut down due the market pressure, it is all about the reduced production-efficiency of refineries and the general environment of pitiful recession what causes the price to raise up.

Five Facts of Cutting Expenses Related to Oil

If I - or you, by the way - start to collect the bunch of tips and ticks to save money off the general and specific expenses related to gas, I would definitely write a Bible-wide Book. Some sort of "The New Testament of Saving Gas". Let’s throw that crap away, and get focused.

• The Nineties are part of History. There is no way to go back in time till the glorious nineties, so let’s cut that crap. The solution is not as close as one year away in space-time, so the present is now and saving if a task of today. I have heard so many people evoking the old glory of the nineties so many times, that i know it’s been enough with it. Just cut it off and begin living now!!!
• Selling your car is ok, but you had your reasons when you bought it. So, do you still need your car? Well, it is about savings, not disposals. I know a few ones that are willing to sell their own cars, just to wait till the gas is cheap again. I hope death won’t reach them before it happens. Really, we are obliged to save, but saving is all about being reasonable and reduce unneeded expenses, not to make any expense at all disappear. It might not apply to the growing crew of unemployed people, of course. Hey, there you are, you don’t have money, neither you enjoy the benefit of a salary and your future is quite uncertain, so if you have to, sell the car and carry on.
• Share your costs and it will be cheaper. Do you remember when the old grandfather - wiser could no ever - used to tell you that there were old great times when 3 or 4 fellows were carried together to their job sites within ONE car. Oh, yes, you can share the cost of gas if within a group decided to sacrifice a bit of comfort to obtain some residual savings. Try it, will help for sure.
• Public Transportation is fast, environmentally friendly and Cheap. Use it at your own leisure. If you have to move from work to school or from home to work, or the like and your timeframe is such that you may use the good old subway or tram, do it. You will save money, save your moods (hey, you won’t have to drive and wait as the rest of us) and save gas for the best of our fates.
• Get a new gear if needed. Some say that is best to invest in a valuable asset and save for the long term . Let’s see. Do you have one of those old fashioned vehicles, Buick-like, gas-devouring monsters. Sure,you don’t, but what if you have a 3-year-old car that has a few features not working 100% appropriately? "No big deal", you may say. Wrong! The fact is that old engines consume much more gas than a new fine-tuned car. I would recommend to invest in one of those new models, maybe even one hybrid model, something to consume much less gas than with your old pal.

I may be wrong, I know, but i am almost sure that the price won’t drop until less than 3 years. Indeed, in our best wishes that the aims and will of the people working with a strong government leads us to the path of progress, again.

My perfect Valentine Gift

Off topic. And offline, for a while. Explaining what has kept me away from my blog duties is kind of dully. That’s why I’d rather go on with my life and start writing again as soon as possible. Kind of apologizing myself in a sincere way. I hope.

Now it’s Valentine’s Day and the love, friendship and glam rise again fiercefully. I have already bought some gifts to my beloved ones. I expect to receive some, at least I hope so.

But, what to give to a middle aged man that is not exactly some who takes anything for granted? Hard to tell, but it is not impossible to find a nice, affordable gift. In the Varying range from the aftershave cliché to the fast race Ferrari, there are lots of stuff that can pick upon.

Two years ago, it was an awesome-designed, silver-plated iPod. Fascinating since the very first moment that I unwrapped. I still keep it with me, but I wouldn’t say that I am not willing to update it with a new state-of-the-art iPod Touch or the like.

Then, what to give as a Valentine Gift for men, for Christ’s sake?

This is not a complete, authoritative list, but - being a grown man in his middles - I would bet that your dude will love any of this. And, if they don’t, never ever worry, there are lots of gift ideas that can be inspired upon the following.

• Aftershave. Don’t misunderstand me, please. If you are to give aftershave as a present, do it in the cool fashion. There are some with a clever look in the bottle, even there are some that look erotic quite a lot. Awesome!
• Parfum. Yes, it is the non-plus-ultra of gifts. But, be careful, some are not hypo allergenic and some just leave a terrible stench, instead. What is good on John, might be wrong on Paul.
• Book. Even in this short-lived era of Internet and Fast Communications, a book is still a piece of knowledge, valuable as it might be. And it is still a nice gift for almost every man.
• Gadgets. If your boy is a geeky one, then a gadget is the best choice. iPod, iPhone, Palm PDA, Smartphone or the like, he will really, really enjoy it.
• Sports. Yep, yep, yep. That 6 feet tall, athletic, broad shoulder friend of yours will really enjoy a new baseball bat or a pair of athletic shoes. Even better than any gift out of it. Take my word on this.
• Watch. A wrist watch is the perfect gift in the extreme case that you don’t know what to purchase. Just try to identify what the style of the dude is, I mean, don’t buy a sports watch for an executive officer. He might like it a lot, and then never use it at all.
• Nice Shirt. If i were you, i wouldn’t buy a shirt, and not any other piece of clothes. If you don’t know the guy so closely - and chances are that you might not know him so much as you think you do - it will not hit the target.
• Jewelry. Hey, women love jewels, but men do not generally feel so very impressed by them. If you want to, go ahead, pick a nice golden ring with its stone, but don’t feel annoyed when his smile is not so big (as to justify the price and effort taken).

That’s it. It is not authoritative, not complete, but I am pretty much sure that it might help to make a man happy in his Valentine’s Day.

How many cents do you waste

An old British saying states: "Take care of the pennies, that the pounds will take care of themselves". In real life, the facts support that statement. All about savings, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, most of US tend to dismiss the value of those coins that seem to weigh too much inside our packet as to pay much attention to them. Nevertheless, we should care as is the sum of the cents what adds up to the dollar.

How many cents do you waste on a daily basis?

I had not taken much account of the cents - i must admit - until one day i did not have any money at all, and start looking for some bucks through my clothes and boxes.

I found about 100 bucks amongst cents and small bills; ok, it was not a fortune, but it surely bought a coffee and a decent dinner. And after all, it was much better to have it available than just wandering over there.

Afterwards, i decided to go on with an experiment to trace the path of the cents. The results were amazing. Not that it would apply to every case, but you will have to find out for yourself. If you dare to.

Tracing the Path of the Cents

After 2 weeks taking care of the cents - as crazy as it might sound - i was able to conclude the following:

1. Roughly, 2% of my earnings are changed into cents and small money, on a daily basis. That is, 2 dollars out of every 100 USD in my budget pass through that state.
2. Most of the time i was not aware of the coins and used 20, 50 and 100 bills to pay for the small daily purchases.
3. Even though i used my credit card profusely, the coins were still there and i still needed paper money.
4. Most of the money in coins tends to disappear in the "Bermuda Triangle". If not taken care after, coins and change are easily lost.
5. A single person - in my case - can lose about 0.5% of his yearly earnings due to not taking care of the coins and small bills.

Assuming that my total yearly earnings were about 60000, it would represent an estimate of 300 USD per year. After only 20 years, it would be 6000 USD of loss, maybe more.

Are you ready to take care of the pennies?

Productivity, Self Esteem and Happiness

A productive human being is someone successful, and somebody successful is someone who lives a happy life - unless the paradox of progress is real and applies to the majority of successful persons.

Wondering about how and why is it that so many people, so talented feel miserable, i found something - within the realm of introspection - that should obvious to everyone.

Everything begins with the self esteem. If you do not feel respect for yourself, then it is harder than impossible to become productive. And productivity is so highly bound to success as the latter is linked to happiness.

Self Esteem -> Self Confidence -> Decision -> Productivity -> Success -> Happiness

Self Esteem is not so common as one may ever think. Some people develop traumas during the childhood, that translate in the inability to look at themselves in a fair fashion. For example, the overweighted boy of the school will be there waiting to feel annoyed and humiliated by the fellow classmates, during the adult life, the boy - even if he has become a slim man - will be so poorly self-confident that any plan will be sabotaged by the lack of confidence.

I knew someone - a pal from the College times - that had a big nose. He had always felt he was ugly and his nose was kind of a spook for him. He even had a nose surgery revision and subsequent rhinoplasty, but though it changed his physical appearance, the inner image of himself did not. Professional help of a reputed psychologist and a lot of therapy helped, but it was the deep comprehension of the person he was what changed the situation and helped him to recover the self-esteem so long lost.

Finally, as the chain starts by the self esteem, try to examine yourself and see if you are happy with yourself at first. I don’t know of any plan that might work when self confidence is low.

How is macroeconomic decline affecting the personal finances of the common citizen

It is not a secret for anyone that the United States is experiencing a general decline in the economy - despite whatever the official figures might claim. Due to the high impact of the war in Iraq, the international price of oil has reached historical limits and the costs of industrial operations has also increased, likewise.

How does it impact the finances of the common people; let’s say you and me? I don’t want to look like someone who repeats what everyone else is saying, but it is more than obvious that any decline in the production is paid by everyone. Yes, everyone.

When the price of oil increases, that increase is echoed in the costs of producing fuel, then it increases the prices of transportation, thereafter the costs of feedstock, machinery, maintenance and operations involved in the industrial production. The costs of transportation also impact the final retail price.

And, added to the increase in the price of oil, there is a pressure on the budget, due the costs of war. All of that together has to reflect in overtaxing and the side effect of reducing the investments. If we take into account the devaluation of the currency, the problem is something really worrying.

Overtaxing, inflation and on the other hand, devaluation and reduction of investment have an extreme effect on the wallet of the citizens. First, the rates of loans tend to increase, due to the market pressure and the increased risk of financial operations. And if the case is that you have a mortgage loan going on and a non-fixed rate, maybe foreclosure can knock at the door if you don’t pay enough attention and apply smart measures to reduce expenses.

As the production cycles grow up in costs, the prices also do. That is why the prices of the products in the supermarket change (up) more frequently. The result is that there is more expense than the chance of saving.

And while the currency loses position against the Euro, the real value of the money decreases proportionally. If one thinks about it, it is another kind of tax, another imposition over the budget of the common citizen.

That is why, when I see the Government spokespersons talking about how much the economy is growing and how successful the campaign in Iraq is going, I can not prevent to mentally visualize a cosmetic plastic surgery of the situation of the country.

In the UK, compare loans, mortgages, rates and more financial issues

Money.co.uk is a British portal offering a wide variety of choices to obtain financial information. Targeted at the common users, I can barely think of another easier to browse resource online. In fact, it is highly organized in a much better fashion than usual and the correct use of graphic iconography gives it the plus of being a visually attractive website. Nice, in the whole sense of the word.

But, let us go a bit further deep into what matters apart from the visual issues: the quality and provision of the content exposed at the portal. At first, I must say that it is very ambitious to try to cover the whole range of services exposed through Money.co.uk.

Credit Cards

Related to Credit Cards, the portal offers a huge list of credit cards, coping with - i am almost sure - practically every card of the market. And the comparison is not dull at all - and i do not want to tamper the readers - as in some so-claimed financial information portals. It does contain a few columns with data that helps to organize and order the credit cards in a ranked fashion. Rate, Duration, Fees together with detailed information of every card makes it very simple for the visitor to come to a wise desiton. And if the user decides so, the process to apply is simplified by the appropriate link to the credit card website.

Loans

Car, Home, Student and Business Loans, Unsecured, Secured, Bad Credit Loans and Debt Consolidation Loans are featured and compared. Of course, the best known dealers of the market are enlisted at this section. And in case you are wondering, yes, there is a strong chance that you can apply online via a convenient link to the site of the lenders.

Mortgages

The section exposes a reasonable list of mortgage loaners. Features as the Offset, Fixed-Rates (if such were the case), Remortgage Option and Self Certification are offered to make it easy for the potential applicant to make a wise - informed - decision. And yes, you can apply from there.

Savings

Not only lending is in the interest of the financial information seeker, but also saving is. The best rates and the complete details of the companies, will allow the investor to obtain the best for his/her money. Well, you know now. You can apply online and from the very link offered by the portal.

More Resources

There are many other sections, but, the one dedicated to Insurance and the other of Banking is the material for another future post. I found something there that deserves to be explained in further detail.

Before I forget, there is an online newsletter that can subscribe upon to receive via email. It contains tips to make the best use of resources - my main aim, also - and it is worth the trouble to subscribe to.

Think Cash, Low Rates for Payday Loans

Payday Loans are the kind of financial operation that can help someone to cover the need for cash in the middle of a payday period. They are also an usually expensive operation in terms of the financial costs associated.

The interest rates of Payday Loans tend to be high, but the popularity of Payday Loans is increasing due to the fact that they are processed faster than short term conventional loans.

There is another reason for the rising popularity of Payday Loans among the public, and it is related to the fact that they are ideal for the people with bad credit profiles; e.g., the persons with a history of unpaid or delayed payments of debts.

Because a Payday Loan is an operation that uses to be secured against the monthly payments, it is not so relevant to consider the credit history of the applicant. Of course, a common requisite to obtain a payday loan is to have a current periodical and stable source of income; e.g. a salary.

But, as stated in the first paragraph, Payday loans are usually expensive in terms of financial costs. Specially when compared to short term loans. Nevertheless, there is a way to obtain the best of both worlds: the fast, streamlined response of a Payday Loan that needs not a good credit profile on the back and the lower financial costs (interest rates) of Short Term Loans.

ThinkCash: Low Rates for Short Term Loans

ThinkCash is a specialized portal that offers Short Term Cash Loans as a massive product. In only a few seconds and through the use of a simple online form, the company approves - or denies, either case - the application of cash loans that can range between 250 and 2500 USD.

What makes the difference between ThinkCash and other similar portals is that even they are similar, short term loans are basically loans and have smaller costs associated.

ThinkCash provides installment loans at competitive rates and there is no need for a perfect credit profile. It does not mean that every application is approved regardless of how bad the credit history is. As every financial operation there is a range of risk score that can be allowed in order to get the operation approved.

One interesting feature is the low cost of commission that ThinkCash charges to the operation. If one considers that in the short term loans the commissions tend to increase the final cost of the operation, 1% daily is not so expensive, at least below the average of the market.

Another thing to consider is the chance to pay the whole debt at once, or make periodic payments. The site does not charge the customer with penalties, either way.