A person I met told me that starting a business can be so rough as it can be difficult to get any kind of funding or financial support from a bank since you don’t have an established reputation or that your income is considered too low which makes you a huge risk for them. Basically, many people are constantly trying to convince their banking provider to provide them with services or support that they need.

If there is one thing that I learned when it comes to business banking is that when it comes to things that require some kind of financial background check to be approved, some places try to play it too safe from their end and so you shouldn’t be afraid to ask a different bank or get discouraged over it that no one will approve you. I personally never use loans, but I did have an interesting experience just to demonstrate how some banks just have a very one dimensional by the book system.

When I was starting out I decided to choose a different bank than the one I was using for my personal account to get a better feel of the pros and cons in banking with certain places. Now for myself I was in a different situation than most as I did not need to borrow any money since I was frugal with my money nor did I have any kind of debt. But what I decided to do was to get another credit card to better separate business and personal purchases. When I applied for the credit card through the new bank, they told me that I was approved, except I would have to deposit the same amount of money as my maximum credit limit that they gave me as form of credit deposit.

To me that was insane considering how my credit score was very high as I always paid things in full and on time with the fact that I had a large pool of funds. The other kick was that the credit limit they gave me was significantly lower than what my personal bank provider gave me for my personal credit card which to me made absolutely no sense. Their answer was that I was too new and had no history with them. From there I could of just labeled all business banking accounts as the same and that it was just me. Instead, I asked other places and sure enough they were more than willing to process everything and offered to do more. Turns out that particular bank really was just that paranoid with new people.

So if you are one of those people starting out, don’t get too discouraged over the decisions of certain banks as that is why we have choices and really they should be the ones wanting to get your business while wanting to help you out in as many ways as possible within reason.

Today I was reading an article about credit cards with the usual spin on how if you are in debt that you should simply tear it apart as they are a key culprit to accumulating debt and instead you should just use something such as cash. Basically with that, if you are out of money then you cannot continue to spend.

Maybe it’s just me, but I always found that people who carry quite a bit of cash tend to spend more in a general everyday life scenario. For example, you are more inclined to spend money when you have say $50 in your wallet and seeing that $1 item is peanuts overall and so you figure why not? On the other hand, imagine whipping out your credit card for a $1 item. In those cases I have noticed, it’s kind of the opposite where with the credit card you tend to not want to spend in that scenario and so in that sense it is helping you to save money.

I’m a bit surprised on how there are so many articles on how credit cards take money away from people when it can realistically be a way to help you make money as well. For the most part, I’m pretty sure almost every credit card out there has some kind of rewards program to either get free items or cash back options where you can earn a percentage of how much you spent. Just thinking about it, if you really wanted to make money out of it, what would happen if you had a group of people who insists in using nothing but cash always and instead you asked them to give you the cash and in turn you use your credit card to pay for the bill? Essentially, you will get the rewards by using the card and it didn’t really cost you anything.

Imagine that for big ticketed items as well where say someone wants to buy a TV for $4000 and insists in paying by cash. A lot of people that I know are all about wanting to get the most value out of something and there are times such as those where people would want me to use my card for their purchase and in turn they simply write me a cheque for that amount since I have a high enough credit limit to make the purchase and they would rather see someone get something out of it as oppose to getting nothing.

Of course, for this to work you should get rid of any debt that you may have first and foremost when it comes to using a credit card. This way may even help you to become better in managing your finances since you are constantly accumulating various bills while paying them off which makes you get used to being more responsible with a credit card.

For myself, getting a credit card for the first time was an exciting time for me as I knew this was something that could give me so much more leverage and convenience in buying things with the added benefit of earning rewards and such. The minute I was at an age to do so I immediately got one and till this date I can honestly say that having and using one constantly has taught me a lot about managing finances. Overall, I think it is better to use your card as much a possible as oppose to simply using cash as you can learn a lot while making something out of it as well.

Today I received in my mailbox a notice about Amazon.com’s grocery store and how there is suppose to be some kind of sale. Now I live in Canada, so this isn’t exactly something I can really take advantage of or can really tell if you are saving a lot or not. But this got me thinking on how just a few years back shopping for things like groceries online were one of those “yeah right” type of sentiments. Kind of like how Ebay started with people mainly selling things like beanie babies and now you can even bid to buy cars. When it comes to buying things online, I guess everyone has a different experience in terms of actually saving money compared to going to a traditional retail store.

Speaking for myself, I became pretty receptive to the idea of buying things online from the beginning and it has definitely helped me to save a lot of money when it comes to shopping for things. Most importantly, it definitely saves me a lot of time as well in terms of comparing prices and the different type of items that are available. The main thing that sometimes kills the savings aspect of shopping online is that if you are buying a small quantity of certain items, a lot of stores have pretty high shipping fees which in the end can make it more expensive than simply going to a retail store.

Of course, there are still some things that even I would prefer to actually buy in-person and I would have to say food and groceries would be one of them. There are local companies here that do in fact allow you to shop for your groceries online and then have it delivered to you, but from the prices I have seen almost everything looks like it is about 30% more expensive than what you can get by going to a store. The main pitch is that you end up saving more still as if you factor things in such as the fuel cost in driving a car to go shopping, that could be more expensive.

For myself, the main things that I usually find that are cheaper to buy online are entertainment products like a game or movie and small parts like computer accessories. I find that it is easier to find big online retailers who are selling things at clearance type of prices as well. I think furniture and appliances are things that seem to be cheaper at retail stores. In the end though, I’d say using both ways in terms of shopping online and offline is the best method to save the most money and can definitely help you to become more educated about various products while finding the best deals.

When making purchases or acquiring services from others, it is not unusual to have situations where you can say pre-pay for an entire two years worth of service ahead of time. I guess we do it mostly for convenience, but you may be surprised at just how much money we can also lose as a result of doing so.

The most common items for this is buying extra insurance/warranty for a product where you pay say $500 upfront for an extra four years of coverage on your product. If you think about it from a business perspective, what usually happens in those scenarios is that it is actually true many times where if they end up having to honor say a replacement that it does actually cost them more money than what you paid. However, the real benefit is that by everyone giving them that much money in the meantime, they can then use that money to re-invest in something else. Basically, by the time you redeem your $500 worth of service they have already turned the original funds into say $1000. The most simplistic example would be keeping everyone’s fund in a high interest account and getting basically free money that way.

When it comes to making deposits, a lot of times it does make sense to do so such as having to give a retainer for certain professional services that are required on sudden demand or say a damage deposit. At the same time, a lot of people use an extraordinarily high figure because similar to the above they will re-invest your money in some way to generate more money. So if you think about it, doesn’t it make sense for you to try and maximize your own money to try and generate as much extra income as possible for yourself?

Now obviously you will need to do your own research as everything is on a case by case basis such as maybe having to do less paper work may justify the time and cost in doing so. But in general, always think about the amount of money you are giving up at once as a lot of individuals and companies are making a lot of money everyday with the money that you give them to keep. Wouldn’t hurt for you to also become savvy in maximizing your own money for your benefit as well.

This week I am researching about TV’s as my parents have been using a TV that is well over a decade old and they have informed me that it has finally worn out to the point where it won’t even turn on anymore. So, time for me to find a good for them.

When it comes to purchasing things, it is so easy to get enticed into buying things with all the latest features as in some ways it makes sense as if you are going to buy something new for the long term then you may as well get everything that you need for now and the future. Usually though, people end up paying for things that they don’t need. I think cell phones are a great example of this as I know people who really don’t use them for anything more than just talking on the phone yet they spent hundreds of dollars for features such as having a high quality camera feature or the ability to play graphically intense games.

When it comes to extra features on services or products, I usually decide whether or not it is worth it based on if it is actually improving my experience as oppose to it simply being better than something else. Electronic products are usually the biggest culprit for most people as just the mention of something along the lines of “This product is double the power for only this much more” usually gets most people to pay more as it sounds like the smart thing to do. It’s like that old analogy, what’s the point in having a car that drives 300 km/h when you only drive 50 km/h?

As always, it helps to research about what you want to buy ahead of time or simply ask a person who knows a lot about it.