A little trick with coupons

 A few weeks ago I was helping a family friend move in Tennessee. We were talking, and somehow got on the subject of how most people overlook coupons to save money. Then she gave me an idea that as a self-proclaimed personal finance whiz (aka I can always find a way to help someone cut costs without losing quality of living), I had never even considered.

Her idea was simple, yet genius. She told me to tell clients to buy a Sunday paper on Monday...

Easy enough, right? On Monday the $1.50 newspaper (when purchasing on Sunday) is sold for $1.00. If you do the math, purchasing two Sunday's newspapers on Monday will save you $1.00 on newspapers. And those two dollars spent could save you up to $50 in food per week. Think about it :)

Extracting project management efficiency

We know we are a financial company. We know you're probably thinking, "why are they talking about project management?"

Here's our reasoning, we're all about saving anyone as much as possible, and inefficient project management is a quick way to form a drain of cash.   There are many effective project management characteristics. We going to address a few: employee satisfaction, automated systems, and optimized database management.

We have yet to master any of these. However, we believe that soon after implementing efficient project management, we will be able to optimize each of the factors. Optimization leads to significantly reducing overhead. And we love the costs saved from reducing overhead.

Employees that get tasks done in a quick, excellent, and enthusiastic manner will produce great results for all parties involved. Customers will be satisfied. And even when things go horribly wrong the right employee can make it all right with attitude, actions, and words.

The automated systems will help improve efficiencies all over your firm. These systems can help make transactions faster, and employee jobs easier. When jobs are easier, more tasks can be accomplished. When more tasks can be accomplished (as long as in great quality), more revenues can be generated. And everyone knows that when more revenues, everyone is happy.

Lastly, data management can make receipts, invoices, proposals, tax records, bookkeeping, employee retention either work for your company or against it. Choosing the right software/system for optimizing data management is of paramount importance.  It can mark the difference between losing a lawsuit and having a case thrown out, or having the IRS breathing down your neck after misreported invoices and payroll. And no one wants an IRS audit, it lowers employee moral and doesn't look good when customers see people flipping through important records.

Remember to keep up with the changes in technology. It seems like everyday that our company hears about a new firm, that has successfully exploited an untapped market and provided an excellent service to benefit entrepreneurs. And with each exploit, finds a way to make our company run more efficiently as well as with more agility.

Leveraging A Credit Card

We recently came across an article from MyBankTracker, concerning four steps to avoid credit card debt and decided to post a small "blurb" on the subject.

At many different financial consulting/counseling companies they don't approve of debt leveraging, or using debt positively due to its enticing features.  The most notable enticing features are the ability to borrow more than you actually can pay back on a loan, and being able to spend up to your credit card limit when you have low funds in other accounts.  This is the wrong way to go about debt leveraging.

The right way to take advantage of leveraging debt, is to consider all cons along with the pros. Yes, you have pretty much free money. And if used effectively you can make that money go to work for you.  For example...say you take out a $1000 cash advance on your Bank of America credit card. Bank of America typically charges a 4% transaction fee on the principal withdrawn, and interest rates accrues daily from the time of withdrawal. If you can find investments that have a higher return than the interest rate(and the initial 4%), you will effectively be earning free money. If you pay back your advance within the allotted time period, you could possibly raise your credit score in the meantime.

In reality, investments like these don't occur very often. But when they do, we recommend sound due diligence before any investing decision is made. Above, we explained just one way to leverage the established line of credit on your cards. As long as you pay the lender back, the more creative the uses, the higher the reward.  With that statement comes a caveat: the higher the reward, the higher the risk.

Cloud 9 consultants would only recommend creating unproven leveraging techniques if you are experienced in the field of financing.