Borrowing – Your Options Explained

When you approach a lender to ask for a loan, you can expect a certain formula. Mortgages are a particular type of loan – they usually involve larger amounts, are spread over a longer period, and are secured on your house. As is clear from looking at any of the financial pages at the weekend, there are thousands of different mortgages out there. However, you can use these general rules to get an idea of what to expect when you apply for one.

How much can I borrow?

Providing you have a regular salary and have been employed for a certain period of time – usually six months to a year – a lender is likely to offer from three and a half times your annual salary. This will be dependent on your providing a cash deposit – usually 5 or 10 percent of the total amount needed to buy your house. Certain professions, such as doctors, are sometimes offered more than this – up to five times their salary, but this depends on other factors too.

How much will my repayments be?

Again, this depends on many different factors. The interest rate will affect the amount you pay every month, as will the size of the deposit you can provide and how much you are borrowing. Some mortgages offer special rates for the first few years. In the current economic climate and as a very general rule, you can expect to pay between 0.5% and 0.75% of the total cost of your house every month. This means for a mortgage of £100,000 your repayments might be around £500 to £750 every month.

Can I change my mind?

While many mortgages have a ‘tie-in’ period, meaning that you are bound to keep your mortgage for a certain period, you will normally be able to change lenders or pay off your mortgage if you choose to. However, you may find you have to pay penalties. Generally speaking, it’s best to make sure you will be happy sticking with your mortgage for at least the next couple of years before you sign up.

When approaching a lender, be prepared to give them information about your finances and employment. They will usually want to see proof – for example, bank statements and wage slips to verify your income. They will also probably want to know about what financial commitments you already have, such as outstanding loans.

Bons Plans pour Mariage Express

Encore jeune et pas fortuné, pourquoi se privez de ce que la vie vus offre de plus précieux pour fonder une famille? Le mariage.

Alors qu'un mariage sur le vieux continent s'évalue entre 10 000 et 15 000 euros, las Vegas vous offre des prestations pour dix fois moins cher, et en plus sortant de l'ordinaire.

Que vous faut il faire. Bon, d'accord, il faut acheter le billet, mais ensuite?

Ensuite rien de plus simple, rendez vous au Bureau des Mariages (Clark County Marriage License - 201 Clark Avenue Las Vegas, NV 89155 - Tel. (702) 671-0600) munis des papiers suivants: carte d'identité prouvant que vous avez plus de 18 ans, en cas de précédent divorce, n'oubliez pas de prendre avec vous la copie de votre acte de divorce.

Ensuite, c'est à vous de voir.

Une simple cérémonie civile au Bureau des Mariages vous coûtera qu'une cinquantaine de dollars et ne durera qu'une demie heure.

Les célèbres chapelles long du Las Vegas strip reconnaissables par leur jardins de roses vous offres des services pour une somme comprise entre $200 et 500 dollars qui regroupent un forfait de mariage comprenant l'utilisation de la chapelle, la cérémonie de mariage, des fleurs, de la musique et des photos. Les forfaits plus coûteux comprennent plus d'extras comme le transfert depuis votre hôtel en limousine ou Elvis Presley comme témoin.

Ou encore, les casinos. Selon le thème que vous désirez pour votre mariage, rendez-vous soit l'hôtel Excalibur pour un médiéval,sinon MGM Grand a un mariage en montagnes russes, Treasure Island offre un mariage de pirates à bord de son bateau HMS Brittania et le Las Vegas Hilton propose un mariage Star Trek à bord du vaisseau spatial Enterprise avec des témoins Klingon et des invités Ferengi. Les prix varient alors de de 350 $ à 3500 $, voir d'avantage. Mais vous étes tout prets des salles de blackjack et des machines à sous.

Pour la Lune de Miel, en panne d'idées ou de sous? Pourquoi ne pas faire un tour du monde depuis Las Vegas?

Las Vegas, autre ses casinos, vous permet en effet de découvrir les sept merveilles du monde en un clin d'oeil. Vous voulez Paris et le charme de ses cafés? Pas de problème, rendez-vous au Paris Las Vegas! Ici, des votre arrivée, la Tour Eiffel, l'Arc de triomphe sans oublier le célèbre opéra Garnier vous accueillent a bras ouverts!Dans une architecture très Franchie style Haussmannien, vous retrouvez toutes les spécialités françaises et européennes au sein de ses fameux restaurants, sans oublier son casino.

Envie subite de vous dépayser. Rendez-vous Venetian! A Venise et ses gondoles... Quelle femme digne de ce nom ne souhaiterait pas passez sa lune de miel dans ce décor pittoresque, et rêvasser comme une jeune fille a l'aube de ses 20 ans, en attendant Casanova... Venez vous détendre au Venetian. Cet hôtel recrée pour vous les fameux canaux, les gondoles, les palais vénitiens et la réplique de la Piazza San Marco. Elégance et raffinement caractérisent le Venetian et ses 3000 chambres. Le Venetian abrite également une superbe galerie d'art avec le Guggenheim Hermitage Museum. Et pour découvrir encore plus de l'Italie, direction le Tuscany Suites Casino

Pour les nostalgiques d'Astérix et Obelix et du fameux Ave César, précipitez vous vite au Caesar's Palace! Conçue sur le modèle de la Rome antique, le Caesar's Palace accueille également des championnats du monde de boxe et des grands spectacles de vedette.

Envie de vous retrouvez sur une île paradisiaque? Essayer le Tahiti! Ses bananiers, les tropiques et les plages de sable fin, Pourquoi trop attendre.

Alors, qu'attendez vous pour passer la bague au doigt?

Branching Out May Start with a Simple Leaf: Stockleaf

Think back to the days when you got up in the morning, powered up that laptop, and began to see what was going on with your investments. Or let's go back even further. Remember the days when you'd sit at your desk, sipping coffee as you perused the financial section of the Wall Street Journal, skimming the articles, keeping your eyes peeled for whatever stock symbol was closest to your heart—or your wallet? Those days are long gone. Now there's a simpler, more efficient way to get the financial news you need from the top news sources in the world any time you want. Stockleaf.

The name couldn't be more apropos. Stockleaf has sprung up on the internet superhighway, changing the way financial news is presented, organized, and researched.

The concept is simple. Type in a stock symbol and hit 'Search.' In seconds, you'll have links to every recent article from every reliable financial news site on your screen. Want to know what Google Finance is saying about TELOX today? Stockleaf. Want to know what MSN Money has to say about GOOG? Stockleaf. Want to know if WB is up or down? You guessed it. Stockleaf.

Stockleaf has invited all the heavy-hitters to the party. You'll get the most recent links to articles mentioning your desired stock from financial news sites like Forbes, Y! Finance, MSN Money, Google Finance, Seeking Alpha, and more. You'll also be able to click on the latest feeds from financial blogs, financial news sites like Kiplinger, and sort the articles you want to read based on subject. Stockleaf also gives you the latest information about your stock including share price, the previous day's close, P/E, and dividend yield.

In short, Stockleaf is more than just a financial website. It's a tool. It's where you should start when you're looking for the most reliable, up-to-date information on the stocks you own, the stocks you're thinking of buying, or the stocks you just unloaded. It's your roadmap, your hub, your launching pad. Instead of forcing you to click on site after site, looking for what you need, it brings it all right there to you on a single page.

So is Stockleaf the internet stock news navigational tool to trump all others? What others? Stockleaf is the only navigational tool to help you locate information on publicly traded companies quickly and easily. In short, it's one-stop shopping. Consider it the meeting hall where all the financial gurus have gathered to talk about the one single stock you care about. Want to know what the folks at Motley Fool are saying about Bank of America? Would you like to compare their thoughts to those of Jim Cramer and the analysts at Ockham Research? Or at Bespoke Investment Group? Well then, my friend, you've come to the right place.

Stockleaf will, without a doubt, change how you research financial news online. Isn't it amazing that one little leaf can do so much? We think so.

Brining Financial Services Online

The variety of financial tools and services available today has multiplied dramatically from a generation ago. On both the personal front and in the business sector there has been a dramatic increase in the number of products available, the methods by which they are delivered and the services they require.

The internet is a perfect system for laying out preliminary information in the financial services industry, where product options can get complicated fairly quickly. Businesses of all sizes that are engaged in some portion of this industry are finding that a website makes good business sense.

An enormous amount of financially related business is still done at the local level. Mortgages, auto and home loans and insurance policies are still usually secured from a local agent. The small businessman engaged in providing such products need only think about the amount of time he or she spends on the phone explaining the basics of their services to realize how much time a website could save them.

When a customer calls about auto insurance, think about the ability to refer the caller to your website to learn about the required minimum coverage, about the relationship of the vehicle's value, about the relationship of personal injury coverage to health insurance.

Think about having a website that explains the four or five home mortgage options that are available, about how they are affected by down payment, credit history and loan amount. Consider the enormous number of variables available in health insurance for both individuals and families, and envision a chart on your own website that explains how those policies work.

That's only a start on the types of benefits a website can provide to a small businessman or regional company in the financial services business. Your website can provide explanations, charts, even video clips explaining:

* Retirement planning
* Medicare insurance options
* Home loans, including specialties such as tenants-in kind
* Real estate history and trends in your area
* Auto insurance, including the effects of driving records and assigned risk
* Investments - mutual funds or annuities? Stocks or CDs?
* Estate planning
* Health insurance - a new policy, or COBRA?

These are a few examples plucked from a vast array of financial services that are out there today. Your website can become your reference library, your consulting tool, and your business partner when it comes to educating your clients. Websites provide multidimensional explanations of material in a far more effective fashion than brochures. No matter how glossy, stacks of paper that use terms only half understood are intimidating to people.

Your website can have an entire dictionary section, so that potential customers can learn terminology at their leisure, rather than ask embarrassing questions. And of course, the fewer questions they have when they pay a call on you, the less time is consumed in moving towards a potential sale.

Use the graphics capability of a website to maximize the attractive nature of your particular company. Take advantage of a personalized business website to explain why your services are better, unique, priced more reasonably, performed more thoroughly. With any complex financial product, you'll need to explain how your selection of products can meet an entire range of consumer needs. Your website can do that for you.

Financial products can be presented online just as attractively as real estate is today. For every financial product, there is a personal benefit that can be reinforced with images. For products with multiple options and complex purchasing decisions, a website provides a consumer with an invaluable tool that is available 24/7. Your potential customer won't be sitting across from you, concerned that there's been a question missed or an issue not fully understood. A website is like an office staff to a financial services professional: there's no better business for harnessing the efficiency of the new technology.

Brits Swap Borrowing For Saving

New figures have shown that Britons are saving more and borrowing less.

IFA Promotions' quarterly Savings Break report has revealed that Britons are borrowing ten pence for every pound saved.

This is down considerably on past levels and it suggests that people are finally responding to concerns over the high level of consumer debt, with many people focusing on getting their finances back in shape via regular saving and debt consolidation.

In recent years, Britons had been caught borrowing more than they saved, causing concern. However, the latest figures show that borrowing is a fifth of what it was at the end of 2005 and a third below this time last year.

David Elms, chief executive at IFA Promotions, hailed the latest figures as "fantastic news", with the nation seemingly reigning in its spending. However he expressed concern that Britons are still far from financially secure.

"At first glance, it seems that consumers have started to develop joined up thinking when it comes to their budgeting behaviour, making the link between their spending, borrowing, saving and long term financial security, but this may not be entirely the case," Mr Elms said.

"Now is a period of much economic uncertainty and with a rise in interest rates hotly anticipated, consumers are simply behaving in the way you would expect - avoiding taking on new debts and piling what funds they have into savings."

Mr Elms argued that people still needed to work towards long term improvements in their ability to budget and accept "sustained financial pragmatism".

© Adfero Ltd

Budget Cuts May Harm Access To Imaging

Cuts to the Medicare budget may be the most threatening surgery of all for patients in need of medical imaging services.

Congress made deep cuts earlier this year in reimbursement for many medical imaging services that Medicare patients receive in physician offices and independent imaging centers.

Experts fear these cuts will mean less access and higher costs for many patients, especially those in rural areas.

Congress, say advocates, should impose a two-year moratorium on the cuts in order to more fully understand their impact on patients.

Starting in 2007, imaging services will be reduced by Congress by some $8 billion over 10 years. Those reductions represent more than one-third of the total Medicare cuts in the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act.

The payment reductions affect a wide range of medical procedures and tests provided in physician offices and imaging centers. For example, reimbursement would be cut:

• 35 percent for ultrasound to guide less-invasive breast biopsies;

• 50 percent for PET/CT scans used for diagnosing and managing tumors;

• 40 percent for bone density studies for diagnosing osteoporosis; and

• 42 percent for MR angiography that detects aneurysms in the head.

Given the size of these and similar cuts, advocates warn that many physicians will likely discontinue or cut back on the imaging they provide in independent imaging centers or their own offices. If this happens, patients will have to seek these services at hospitals, which can be much further away and often involve higher out-of-pocket costs for patients. As a result, convenient access to services that many Medicare patients rely on will no longer be available.

It's believed that patients in rural areas are likely to be the hardest hit.

Unfortunately, say advocates such as the Access to Medical Imaging Coalition, these reductions were made without public hearings, public debate or open discussion. The reductions were made without public participation, even though they will likely affect the lives of many Medicare beneficiaries.

Instead, the Coalition believes Congress should impose a two-year moratorium on imaging cuts, so the Government Accountability Office can study the issue.

Budgeting Through Elective Utilities

Telephone, Internet, and television service are all examples of elective utilities. These utilities, though many times necessary, are not essential to basic living standards in the United States like gas, electricity, and water. Elective utilities are no less important to a household budget.

When budgeting elective utilities, the trick is to find a company offering the same service or better for a lower rate. This may sound like a statement from Captain Obvious, but it is amazing how many people are willing to pay a higher rate for the same service, and for no good reason.

Some people fear change, others feel they don't have the time to track down lower rates for service, and still others think they won't save a significant amount of money and don't want to be inconvenienced. Of course there are also those who just don't have a need for saving money. I'm not one of them.

One could always cut down on the amount of usage for services, however, this is not usually very practical. You have those services for a reason, you use them. Some elective utilities don't even have a usage rate but a monthly fee regardless of usage such as television service.

Consider this, if you were to take just three of your elective utilities and cut your bill by ten dollars on each one every month you just saved enough money to pay another small bill. When you look at it that way, thirty dollars is nothing to sneeze at. That's a whopping $360.00 a year.

It doesn't sound like such a small amount of money now does it? What could you do with an extra $360.00? Make a car payment? Pay your car insurance? I would bet you know exactly what you would do with that money if you had it right now. If you're like me you're probably thinking of ways to save even more.

Let me share with you a few of my favorite ways to save money on elective utilities. The first thing to look at is price, that much is obvious. Though price is important, there are other variables to look at other than the bottom line rate, usage is probably the single most important factor.

Unlimited usage is king in budgeting. I used to use MCI Neighborhood bundled with unlimited local and long distance for fifty dollars a month. At the time it was a good deal, but cost me around eighty dollars a month after the hidden fee's taxes and surcharges where added into the equation.

I took the leap to broadband telephone service which cost me twenty dollars a month for the exact same thing minus hidden fee's and sir charges. I have had broadband phone for over a year and absolutely love it. I saved sixty dollars a month just on my phone bill alone. In a year I saved $720.00 on phone service!

When looking for cheaper elective's think price plus usage. Unlimited usage is of course better than a rate plan unless you use very little of the service to begin with but need it from time to time. In that case it is better to go with the bare essentials. If your usage increases you can always upgrade.

Sometimes it will cost you a little extra money up front to get started with a new service provider. There may even be a few minor inconveniences at first. Try to stay focused on the end result and the big payoff. Chances are good you'll get back any money spent to activate new service in a couple months.