Personal Plan To Get Out Of Debt English Language Essay

Personal Plan To Get Out Of Debt English Language Essay Summary: Based on the concepts of awareness, anticipation and action, my get out-of-debt plan is aimed at individuals who face financial difficulties and seem to be accumulating more debt instead of taking control of their finances. As a financial adviser, I highly value financial independence. Particularly, after the recent credit crisis that hit the economy forcing many firms out of business and millions of households into poverty, I consider financial freedom as a means to future success. Personally, I carry a debt of $7,500 in credit cards, a student loan of $2,000 and a car loan of $1,500. I pay monthly installments of $1,300 for this $11,000, and according to my amortization table I will be able to completely pay off my debt after 15 years. To get an idea of how an amortization table should look like, click here. The three As of My Get Out-Of Debt Plan To improve my financial situation within 2011, I have crafted a get out-of-debt plan that is aimed at individuals who face financial difficulties and seem to be accumulating more debt instead of taking control of their finances. If you are getting deeper into debt, have a look at my suggestions below. Maybe they can help you get your finances back on track again. My get out-of-debt plan is based on three concepts: awareness, anticipation and action. In the context of personal finance, these concepts are highly valued because they can offer guidance and financial stability in the long run. Awareness Some people complain about how they cannot get out of debt although they dont know how much their debt is. It is impossible to take control of your financial situation if you are not aware of it. List all your debt including credit cards, car loans, student loans, personal loans, and medical bills and sum them up including decimals for accuracy. Keep in mind that when adding many numbers decimals can generate a completely new figure, which will then be used in another arithmetic operation and produce an entirely wrong figure. At the end of the day, the picture you will have for your financial situation will be mistaken. Therefore, it is critical that your debt figures are 100% accurate. Other important steps in this stage include: Creating a debt allocation table After you have listed and summed up all your sources of debt create a debt allocation table to see how your debt is allocated in different sources, where you owe more and what the interest rate for each debt is. Your table can have three columns named Debt, Amount Owed and Interest Rate. In column Debt include each source of debt you have. If you have three credit cards, include each credit card in a separate line because your cumulative credit card debt may be $20,000, but each credit card has different interest rate and different terms of payment. In column Amount Owed include the correspondent amount in each source of debt. In column Interest Rate include the correspondent interest rate to each source of debt. To get an idea of how your debt allocation table should look like when completed, click here. With a grand total of $32,100 you need to 1) religiously stick to your monthly payments; 2) try to make more than the minimum credit card payments. I will explain more in the Action section. Creating a budget To create a successful budget you need to analyze your financial situation honestly and realistically. Figure out how much you earn on an annual basis and make sure to include all sources of income. It is critical to know exactly how much money you make because this is the money you can afford to spend. Then, include all sources of expenses in order to know how much money you spend on fixed expenses including rent or mortgage, gas, utilities, and insurance and adjust your variable expenses accordingly by spending less on groceries, entertainment or personal care. Make sure that your budget is realistic, accurate and flexible. By keeping a realistic budget you can cover your expenses, but most importantly, save money on a regular basis. Besides, an accurate budget gives you the freedom to enjoy your life without being deprived because you know you can really afford these purchases without putting your financial future at stake. Finally, a flexible budget enables you to make well-informed decisions about your finances. Anticipation Being able to anticipate sudden expenses allows you to stay within your budget. To achieve that, you have to be able to save as much money as possible. This might require some drastic changes in your lifestyle, but it will certainly help you become financially independent. Some important steps in this stage include: Controlling household spending If you dont control your household spending, not only you accumulate more debt, but you ultimately hurt the economy that cannot burden such high levels of consumer spending. You can control your grocery shopping by planning your meals, making a grocery list and stick to it, buy in bulk, keep food in your freezer, stock up non-perishable items, and use coupons. Besides, you can lower your energy bill by controlling your thermostat, using energy efficient appliances and bulbs and installing insulation. You can also use the envelope system to manage your cash. Identify your spending categories including groceries, gas, utilities, insurance etc., create an envelope for each category and allocate the proper weekly or monthly amount of cash to each. Once your balance is zero and the envelope is empty, you cannot spend anymore. Soon, you will spend only when you have to, cutting back on unnecessary spending. Set up an emergency fund By setting up an emergency fund you achieve two things at once: 1) you avoid borrowing from your IRA or liquidating your 401k, meaning you ultimately avoid taxation and 10 percent penalty and 2) you avoid borrowing from your already overcharged credit cards. It is tempting and possibly convenient to charge your credit card for a financial emergency, but the truth of the matter is that the infinite spiral of credit card charging accumulates more debt. Set three to six months worth of your living expenses aside in an emergency fund to cover up for a sudden job loss or a huge medical bill. Also, make sure to keep your emergency fund in a money market account (MMA), a regular interest-paying checking account or a certificate of deposit (CD). All these options allow you to withdraw money, with or without penalty, and are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Action It took me quite sometime to take action on managing my debt mostly because I didnt exactly know what to do. Although my debt is not as high as in the example used in the debt allocation table, still I need 15 years to pay off my debt, which is a lot of time. Here are some suggestions to pay off your debt faster: Rather than paying off the low interest rate car loan first, it is wiser to pay off the credit card debt that has a higher interest rate. To do that, you have to make more than the minimum credit card payments. If the minimum payment is $80 then make an effort to pay at least $90. You probably wont notice the extra $10 but it will go directly onto your principal and reduce your debt even faster. If you have three credit cards, it would be $30 extra payment, but the difference you will see in your total balance will be worth the effort. If you cannot do it at once for all your credit cards, start by paying off the smallest bill. The extra money that you will have from the paid off credit card can be used towards paying off the next smallest credit card bill. By paying more money than the minimum installments, you will lower your principal (original amount borrowed) at a faster rate. Consequently, the total annual amount paid interest will be reduced at a faster rate. You can also quit using your credit cards and start using cash. By using cash for your transactions 1) you can control your finances because you know at any given time how much money you spend and how much money you have left in your wallet; 2) you dont incur any hidden fees or over-the-limit charges, no billing mistakes or overcharges on your bank account; and 3) you can get discount for paying in cash. On the contrary, credit card debt builds up exponentially and interest rates can head up really quickly. Moreover, by charging smalls amounts of money to your credit card you add to your credit card bill and you lose track of your spending. My Get Out-Of Debt Plan May Not Work For Your Situation Each situation is unique and even if you carry the same amount of debt, it doesnt mean that my get out-of-debt plan will certainly work for your case. However, I firmly believe that it can work as a guide to walk you through some vital steps that you need to take in order to understand exactly where you are today and most importantly, where you want to be in a few years from now. Regardless if you follow my suggestions, or if you choose to follow some other solution, be disciplined. This is perhaps the most important step you need to take. By focusing on your financial independence you are more likely to achieve it. Without discipline, even the best financial plan will fail because every little amount of money you will be saving it will be spent towards non-essential purchases. Every day we make decisions about money. And these decisions have a smaller or a greater impact on the quality of our lives. Being financially independent means different things to different people. To me, it means security, and the strength to take a step closer to my lifetime dreams. The steps to financial freedom may not give me immediate happiness, but they give me choice. Sources: http://getoutofdebt.org/1712/a-12-step-plan-to-get-out-of-debt-fast http://www.allbusiness.com/personal-finance/credit-cards-credit-card-debt/2442-1.html http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/financial-planning/money-market-accounts.htm http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/checkingaccount.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/certificateofdeposit.asp http://www.fdic.gov/ More from this contributor How to Choose a Debt Relief Program How to Survive a Bankruptcy Filing What to Do when You Cant Pay Your Taxes

First Semester In College

To many people, starting college is something they are really afraid of because college is where things get serious. It is like a whole different level of education. High school is nothing compared to college. This scenario was the complete opposite to my thinking. After graduating from High school, I really wanted to go to college to take another, huge step towards my career. I had a decent amount of friends who were going to Middlesex county college and they told me that this college is good to start off with. So, now I find myself in this college.Although I was looking forward to go to college, my first semester was hard time to go by because of new people, new classes and new teachers as well. In my life, I continuously meet new people every now and then, and college was no different. Even if I had friends from high school going to the same college, I didn’t have the same classes that they had. So the first day of college I walked into a class completely full of strangers. I had no idea how old they were, where they were from or what kind of personality they had.But I eventually got to know some of them as weeks passed by. It was nothing like high school, people are actually really nice to you even if you do not know them. In high school there is a lot of criticism depending on what you look like. Your race, your gender and many other things. College was a complete opposite. Along with having new people in my classes, the classes itself were really different. Classes in college differ a lot from classes in high School. There is no reason one should say that classes in college are similar to the classes in high school.Subjects that you get in colleges are way more advanced than the ones in high school. The material is made in a way that you know it is trying to say that I need to know more about a lot of things. A person may think they know enough to be in the class but once you start getting into more things, you will know how much you think you know and how much you actually know. On top of all this, new people, classes, the teacher are new too but that is not the only reason. I have had new teachers in high school mostly every year but it is totally different than having teachers in college.Teacher in high schools know what you already know and what you need to know. They know what you are capable to do and how much work you can take and be able to accomplish it. If you are in college, that means you know a lot and you should be capable of accomplishing nay task given by your teacher. This is definitely true because in my math class my teacher gave our class a lot of work and expected to us finish everything without any help. Teachers really expect a lot from me. This is called college it might be exactly what you think it is or completely different than your imagination.For conclusion, First semester of college was hard because of new environment with new people and a whole different place. But on the bright side I successfu lly completed my first semester. People are usually stressed about college but even if everything is different once you are used to it you will like it. It is like a kid going to kindergarten for the first time and he or she doesn’t like it but eventually it becomes your daily life routine and you will blend into it. College is the biggest step you will take forward towards your career.

Man’s Best Friend

The dog, or man’s best friend as we call them, is an animal that turns out we can comprehend much better than we think. Their behavior actually isn’t too different from our own, since for both humans and dogs, emotion causes our certain behaviors. Although technically speaking, there is no exact way to tell if a dog tends to feel emotion or not, but with a bit of common sense and observation, the majority of people agree that animals do have feelings and scientists are even accepting the idea. Jennifer Arnold, a service dog trainer, has experienced watching a dog become depressed, angry, and even embarrassed.As she states, â€Å"time has taught me that dogs, like humans, are emotional creatures. Just watch a dog whose beloved owner returns home from a trip – the dog jumps for joy. † (Arnold, Jennifer. Through a Dog's Eyes. 2010. ) Any dog who loves their owner would do that, which is enough proof to show that the dog is feeling an emotion: happiness. Studi es even show that it seems to be that a dog will behave a certain way depending on their owner’s emotion, as if they can somehow sense or understand what we feel. Charles Darwin, an English naturalist, also agreed with those who believed animals have emotions.In his book, â€Å"The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,† he records every expressive movement he observed in animals. For almost every observation, it included the entire appearance of the face and the appearance of the dog’s tail, which seemed to reflect what emotion the dog was feeling. For example, Darwin noticed that when dogs want attention they tend to rub against or lick their owners, they slightly wag their tail, and also lower their ears to exclude any noise and concentrate on only their owner’s affection.As I mentioned in the last paragraph, emotion was one thing that changed animal behavior. Not only does the aging process affect the physical appearances of an individual, but it also affects people and dogs mentally. Like humans, dogs age too and the older they become they begin acting and feeling like their age. As a child, everyone is always so full of energy and as we get older we seem to get lazier and loss interest in everything around us; well the same goes for dogs. Some of us become handicapped, lose hair, and our senses just become weaker.The aging process does not affect all dogs though, for there have been dogs at ten years of age who have not had any physical or mental incapacitation, while others suffer internal organ failure, failing senses, or orthopedic problems. It mainly depends on dog breeds, health, and simply just luck. It turns out that dogs are the most common victims of animal cruelty, with the percentage of 64. 5%. (â€Å"Animal Cruelty† Most Common Victims. 2. Humanesociety. org accessed October 15, 2012). Animal cruelty, both physical abuse and neglect, is a huge factor that changes dog’s behavior.It also reflect s back on the topic of emotion, since neglecting dogs can cause extreme sadness or depression (which affects their behavior). Three to four million dogs and cats are euthanized, or killed, every year and five to seven million are usually put in animal shelters. (Sutherlin, Emily. â€Å"Animal Cruelty: Facts, Prevention, Statistics, and Action. † 1. Nowpublic. com accessed October 15, 2012). These numbers are due to the overpopulation of pets in America. Only 10% of dogs in shelters are spayed/neutered, which causes female dogs to produce puppies and lead to more dogs in shelters.Most of these dogs in shelters aren’t adopted because caring for a dog is just too much responsibility. The average cost of basic necessities for dogs (food, medical supply, training, etc. ) is around six hundred to nine hundred dollars a year and because of these high prices, people are practically forced to return their dog to a shelter. (ASPCA, â€Å"Pet Statistics. † Last modified 20 10. Accessed October 29, 2012. aspca. org). Having those dogs in shelters is abuse, because they have them locked up in cages, and with so many dogs to watch not all of them get the amount of attention that is necessary.There are many other types of abuse that people might not even consider as neglect. Emaciation, obesity, dehydration, cuts, bruises, burns, lack of grooming, parasite infestations, abnormal urination, and defecation are all signs of neglect (Sutton, Emma Riley Sutton, eHow contributor, â€Å"Signs of Neglect in Dogs. † Accessed October 14, 2012. www. eHow. com). If you see dogs with these symptoms, they have most likely been abused by their owners. When dogs are abused it can affect them both physically and mentally.Those symptoms include: submissive urinating, hand-shyness, cowering, mistrust, social withdrawal, depression, aggression, and even separation anxiety with a new owner (Bettmann, Theresa Bettmann, eHow contributor, â€Å"Mental Effects of Abuse on a Dog. † Accessed October 14, 2012. www. eHow. com). Communication, another way of changing behavior, is the way people express each other’s thoughts, feelings, and information to one another and comprehending it easily. As Debra Horwitz say, â€Å"Communication is a behavior. † (Kesling, Joyce. CDBC, â€Å"Canine Communication. † Last modified 2005.Accessed October 29, 2012. Responsibledog. net). We humans all speak, although not all of us understand each other because different cultures speak different languages (Spanish, English, French, etc. ). Animals have their own system of communication, or it can be thought of as them having their own language. Communication allows us to understand what others are saying. Without knowing, there is a sense of panic and vulnerability because you have no idea what is going on around you and going back to the previous paragraphs, feeling a certain way causes a certain behavior.Through research I found that there are three components to communication: 1) the person sending the message, 2) the person receiving the message, and 3) the communication signal (Kesling, Joyce. CDBC, â€Å"Canine Communication. † Last modified 2005. Accessed October 29, 2012. Responsibledog. net). So, when an owner and dog cannot communicate it is difficult to know why your dog is acting a certain way. For example, if a dog starts whimpering or yelping, it could be trying to tell us it is in pain or distress.If a dog starts growling, it can be taken as threat, unless it is a playful growl. Dogs also use their body postures as a form of communication, also known as communicating visually. (Kesling, Joyce. CDBC, â€Å"Canine Communication. † Last modified 2005. Accessed October 29, 2012. Responsibledog. net). For example, when a dog has their ears flattened back and has their tail lowered in between their legs, that shows they are frightened. Along with humans, our body language is also a way that allows us to communicate with other people.If a student is sitting straight, has their eyes on the board, and is taking notes it sends a message to the teacher that the student is paying attention. There are also other types of communication between humans, which would be formal (where most people use a type of business or corporation speaking format) and informal (which is where people have more unrestrained conversations); and although it isn’t completely discovered yet, there might be the possibility of different types of communication between dogs, since there are several different barks, howls, and growls made among the conversation of a group of dogs.Although there are several differences between us and dogs, there also seems to be a great amount of similarities that can help us figure out more about domesticated animals. As you can see, emotions, aging, and communication are all prime examples. Scientists have a hard time telling why animals behave a certain way because we canno t just simply go up to a dog and ask them due to lack of communication.But, little by little we get closer to this information through assumption, common sense, and observation because even though we are not a hundred percent sure, the explanation is pretty clear. The dog is not as much of a complex animal as we thought. In fact, it seems to me that the dog is the one animal that we understand the most, but the one animal we have so much more to learn about. After all, a man’s best friend should be someone we truly know about.

Worldcom, A High Growth Company - 999 Words

When the accruals started to run out, WorldCom came up with another method, capitalization of line costs. WorldCom started classifying line cost expenses as long-term capital investments in 2000 (J. Randel Kuhn Sutton, 2006). These expenses are required to immediately recognize in the period incurred since the expenses are not for assets that can be capitalized and depreciated over their useful life in accordance with GAAP. By falsely recording these expenses, WorldCom reported an artificial increase in its net income and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (What Went Wrong at WorldCom?, 2002). Bernard Ebbers, CEO portrayed WorldCom as a high growth company. Even though, its market conditions had worsen, Ebbers told analysts that he â€Å"remain[ed] comfortable with . . . 13.5 to 15.5% revenue growth in 2000.† (Beresford, Katzenbach, C.B. Rogers, 2003). 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