Debt, Credit Card & Consolidation Current News Digest

They say that a million dollars in $100 bills is 43 inches high, but a billion dollars in $100 bills is almost three times the height of the Empire State building. A million dollars in $100 bills would weigh 22 pounds, but a billion dollars would weigh 11 tons.

Suffice it to say that the accumulation and maintenance of a billion dollars requires much wisdom. Today I want to look at seven amazing lessons from seven of the world’s most famous billionaires. These billionaires range from Bill Gates to Mark Cuban and each of these individuals have accomplished amazing things.

There are many things that we can learn from them so enough with the monologue; here we go!

7 Amazing Lessons from 7 Distinguished Billionaires

1. Look for Opportunities
   
   

   “It’s through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we’ve always mapped our path at Dell. There’s always an opportunity to make a difference.” – Michael Dell, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Dell Inc.
   

   If you never look for an opportunity, you will never find one. The Wright Brothers were looking to see if it was possible for man to fly, they didn’t stumble upon it, they were looking for it. What are you looking for? The Scripture says seek and ye shall find, knock and the door will be open to you.

2. Believe in Yourself

   “I always knew I was destined for greatness.” – Oprah, Media Mogul

   
   As the famous poem goes, “If you think you’re outclassed, you are, you have to think high to rise, you must be sure of yourself, before you can ever win a prize.” You must believe in “you” before anybody else will. Oprah believed that she would be a success, and she is. What do you believe about yourself, whatever it is, that’s what you will become.

3. Create an Atmosphere of Success

   “It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.” – Warren Buffet, Investor

   You can’t soar with the eagles, if you spend your time hanging with the chickens. Find people who are going where you want to go, and “conspire to aspire before you expire.” Atmosphere is critical, diligently guard who enters your inner-circle. Your friends are a prophecy of your future.

4. Empower Others
   
   

   “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates, Co-founder and Former CEO of Microsoft, currently the 2nd richest man in the world behind Carlos Slim.
   

   Who are you empowering, who are you helping, who needs you. You can’t go forward without helping others go forward. Instead of being concerned about how you’re going to get ahead, find a way to help others get ahead, and you will get ahead in the process. Empower others and you will empower yourself.

5. Focus

   “In the end, you’re measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.” – Donald Trump, Real Estate Investor/Developer, TV Personality

   Don’t be a “jack of all trades” and master of none. Don’t bite-off more than you can chew. Decide what you want to accomplish in your life, and spend your time accomplishing it. Work hard, take breaks, and in the end, if your focus is single, you will have accomplished it.




6. Learn From Your Mistakes

   “I’m the type that thinks if you don’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it.” – Mark Cuban, Internet Entrepreneur and NBA Team Owner
   

   It sounds simple, but many people live a life of repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

   The “cow in the ditch” example below gives us a pattern for how we should deal with our mistakes.

   Here are the three steps you should follow whenever a “cow ends up in your ditch:”

   Step 1: Get Cow Out of Ditch
   Step 2: Find Out How Cow Got in Ditch
   Step 3: Make Sure Cow Does Not Get in Ditch Again

   Using these three simple steps, you can solve many of life’s problems (from debt to relationship issues).

7. Only Go Forward

   “We will go forward, … We will never go back.” – Michael Bloomberg, current New York City Mayor and Founder of Bloomberg LP
   

   You can’t make much progress forward if you keep on taking steps backwards.

   Make a decision to go forward, never settle, never stagnate, life is about growth, it’s about development. You are supposed to grow, you’re supposed to become all that you are capable of becoming, so go forward and never look back!

Thank you for reading and be sure to pass this article along!

Additional Details on the Image Used: Bruce Schneier, Mark Cuban and Cory Doctorow. Bruce and Cory were recipients, along with Yochai Benkler, of the EFF Pioneer Awards.

It took Mary Schreiber about an hour, and just a little moxie, to save $300. You can do it too.

After reading about the Red Tape Fight Pledge last month, Schreiber took a hard look at the $129-per-month cable and Internet bill that had been nagging at her, and decided it was time to do something about it.

"The Comcast bill was crazy expensive, and I have really just basic TV and Internet," said Schreiber, 58, a technical writer who lives near Denver.

Saving money has become a top priority for her since she was laid off 11 months ago.

Mary Schreiber

Her string of bad luck actually began 10 year ago, when she thought she'd found her niche as a technical writer for a high-flying telecom company named MCI WorldCom.   But by the time MCI WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers took the Fifth before Congress about accounting irregularities, Schreiber was unemployed. 

Finding a job at age 50 can be a challenge, but Schreiber landed on her feet, this time with a multinational software firm named Mincom, based in Australia.  As a single woman, the $3,000 in take-home pay, along with decent benefits, provided her with a good living.

Then, the floor fell out from under her again. Last May, Mincom laid her off. Now 57, she knew her prospects were dimmer than last time. The $1,700 in monthly unemployment checks she began to receive would be considered generous by many state standards, but she still needed to learn to live on about half the income she previously had.  And she needed to find health insurance. So she started doing a series of small things to lower her monthly bills.

Still, finding a job "is a full-time job," she said, filling out applications, keeping up with government paperwork, applying for various insurance subsidies, etc.  So while she did some things to cut back no costs, others were neglected.

Click to take the pledge

When she read about the Red Tape Pledge last month, she realized she had let her TV and Internet costs soak up too much of her budget for too long. So she used a technique we've talked about a lot in the Red Tape Chronicles:  She called competitors and got bids for her business. 

First stop — Qwest, which had been mailing her promotional offers for months.  A Qwest operator told her she could get Internet access for only $35 per month. Then, she called the Dish satellite TV network, which offered a comparable television package for about $30 a month.  She knew there would be extra taxes and fees, and that these were promotional offers that would expire. Still, she now had hard evidence that she was overpaying, and she had a backup plan when she began her negotiations with Comcast.

Her intention all along was simply to talk Comcast into giving her a better deal. Switching services can be a hassle — users often need to change e-mail addresses, for example, and sometimes have to wait for installers and so on.  But Schreiber was staring at $50 or more in savings each month.  So she placed the best kind of phone call any consumer can — the no-lose phone call.

"I told Comcast I would rather stay with them, but I had to do something. The bill was just too high," she said. Then, she rattled off the offers she had in hand.  It worked like a charm.  The operator offered her TV and Internet service for $77 per month for six months, and she accepted on the spot.

"I could have saved a little more, but really I'd rather stay where I am," she said.

Comcast spokeswoman Jenni Moyer said the firm’s prices are “competitive,” but added that it will work with customers on an individual basis “to make sure our customers are getting what they want.”

“The key thing is we do offer a range of choices for customers so they can find thepackage and level of service that works for them,” she said. 

Schreiber says her job prospects still aren't good, even though she said she's willing to move for a good job.  In fact, she suspects she won't ever work again as a technical writer, because many firms have learned they can outsource technical writing tasks to low-wage overseas employees. 

"Like any classic unemployed person, you have to force yourself to get up every day and go out, even if it's just to walk around the mall, as long as you don't spend any money, you have to get up and go somewhere," she said.

But she did put that Internet access to good use.  She recently learned about a program that will help pay for her to go back to school, and help pay for her health insurance.  In July 2009, Congress expanded the eligibility for Trade Adjustment Assistance, a program that helps U.S. workers whose jobs are shipped overseas.  Schreiber will start school next week with the intention of earning system administrator certification for Microsoft products.

"You just really need to spend time exploring what's available out there, but you have to put in the time," she said. 

Sounds like the same challenge consumers face who want to save money and beat back hidden fees and unfair charges. There are ways to save money, they just take some time. 

But unemployed or not, can you afford to pass up a chance to make $300 with one hour's work?

You too can make the Red Tape Fight pledge by joining this Facebook group, where you can discuss the progress you are making or the obstacles you are encountering with other members.

You can also become a Red Tape Chronicles Facebook fan or follow me at http://twitter.com/RedTapeChron

Would you know how to remove spyware, malware or any computer virus off your machines? Revanche of A Gai Shan Life shares her stories and questions on the matter of keeping one’s computer clean! For more of her delightful anecdotes on life and finances, you can subscribe to her RSS feed.

The pop-ups and virus alerts were off the charts for me yesterday.

When Avast and Microsoft Defender both failed to trace which nervy little bugger was causing Internet Explorer, the bane of my browsing existence, to pop up with nonsense and Failed 404 error pages, I did what any savvy netizen would do: I emailed my young cousin, the family tech geek.

It was a much easier diagnosis than usual. He promptly (for a footloose and fancy free college student) emailed back with his suggestion. The free anti-malware du jour, he said, is found at Malwarebytes, a program that his private college uses in their tech department. I had some trouble initially downloading and running the purportedly free program, but I eventually worked it out and was presented with a list of infections discovered in my computer (most of which I recognized from the invasive IE pop-ups) along with a Paywall to fix them.

Verdammt!

Intrepid cousin did a few more evaluations. I then ran the nearly hour-long scan for a thorough check. This time, the program came through with flying colors, finding and repairing all points of infections. We’ve been running a clean ship ever since. I highly recommend the Malware program as an adjunct to your primary virus protections.

How To Remove Spyware, Malware or Any Computer Virus?

The quick and free (but for family favors) service got my wheels turning. I almost always have the benefit of a family or family friend’s expertise when it comes to IT maintenance; the one time I used paid “experts” at the local Best Buy, I sorely regretted the experience.

In short, when it came to having “professionals” work on my computer, I did without my machine for two weeks whilst they “diagnosed” the problem and called me back to the store with a regretful, “We can try running a [insert unintelligible test here] but it’ll cost $200 and then the repair will be extra. Oh, and you’ll lose all your data whether or not we can fix the problem.”

Thanks but no thanks! Here’s what I ended up doing: I took my neglected machine home to find that the Geek Squad had left their mark in the irreparably broken brightness function. Robin managed to salvage the machine AND my data, but we co-existed with eye strain for another three years (always with a touch of resentment that my precious Vaio had been violated).

The late lamented CompUSA was always a decent resource for new parts and somewhat informed advice, but where does one go now for good IT and computer hardware assistance? Other than cultivating your very own Family Geek, do you have a reliable resource for troubleshooting? Would appreciate your thoughts!

As an aside, it’s always a good idea to be prepared for computer downtime. Check out these articles on this subject:

• Carbonite vs Mozy: Online Backup Services
• Back Up Your Data And Save A Thousand Dollars

How To Remove Spyware, Malware or Any Computer Virus?

Welcome to the 243rd Carnival of Personal Finance!

What in the world does that mean? Well, a blog carnival is a weekly round-up of articles on a particular subject (in this case, money). The carnival moves from blog to blog, and gives readers a chance to find new writers they may enjoy.

It’s been over two years since Get Rich Slowly last hosted a carnival (it takes many, many hours to put this together), but I wanted to do one for old time’s sake. Besides, it’s a great way to support up-and-coming financial bloggers. I found several great new money blogs while looking through the submissions this week.

So how does this carnival work? I received submissions from 72 other personal-finance blogs. Yes, I read every one of these articles. Yes, it took forever. I’ve cut out the worst of the submissions, as well as any that don’t apply to personal finance.(Come on, folks: “the economic link between China and Canada” has nothing to do with the day-to-day financial life of the average person.) The 61 articles that remain are included in this carnival.

I’ve organized the articles by topic. The categories below are listed in alphabetical order — except for Relationships, which I bumped to the front in honor of Valentine’s Day! Within each topic, I’ve ranked the articles in order of how much I liked them. (So, the first article in the investing category was my favorite investing article this week.) And if I really liked an article, I marked it with a happy star: . If you’re looking for just the best, skim through and find the starred posts.

Which of these articles is your favorite?

Relationships
Mr. Cheap at Four Pillars has a mind-boggling look at two views on the economics of dating. He explains how a man he knows literally keeps score of how much he spends on the women he dates; and how a woman he knows who tries to get men to spend as much as possible on her. This is “personal” finance in the true sense of the term.

Ray from Financial Highway, whose site slows my browser to a crawl, has a look at frugal Valentine’s Day gift ideas.

Jason at One Money Design also has some inexpensive Valentine’s Day ideas. (Although, I don’t know: Pizza can be romantic? Really?)

Joe from Personal Finance by the Book has a short look at Love and Money, just in time for Valentine’s Day!

Budgeting
Dough Roller has a great article about improving your finances by using an overall financial goal. We have so many financial goals, many of which won’t be met for years or decades, that it can be easy to get discouraged by our progress. Borrowing an idea from David at MoneyNing, DR says that instead of focusing on the future, we should strive to simply do a little better every month. Doubleplusgood.

Darwin at Darwin’s Finance wonders, “How much could you reduce your budget if you were laid off?” Running the numbers on his own life, Darwin finds he could save over $1,000 per month if he had to. As you know from my own experience, I too was able to save $1,000/month when I cut my spending and paid off my debts. I wonder how many other folks could do this if they had to…

At the Canadian Finance Blog, Tom urges readers to control spending with a budget. It’s basic stuff, but it’s important.

Anastasia from Living on a Budget is a 36-year-old Russian woman living in London. This week, she has a short quiz to help you figure out which budget personality you are. (I scored a 55, by the way.)

Career
Mike, the Financial Blogger, explains how he got three salary increases in less than a year. Mike uses a poker analogy — and lots of winky faces — to make his point, which is an excellent one! Remember: Negotiating your salary is one of the best things you can do to improve your personal finances.

At the Early Retirement Blog, Kyle argues that you should set aside 10% of your work for retirement, not 10% of your income. “The miracle of compound interest will get you where you want to be in 40 years,” he says, “but dedicating 10% of your time to generating alternative streams of income will get you there in 5.” While I think Kyle’s guilty of some hyperbole here — it’s extremely unlikely (read: nearly impossible) that you’re going to retire in five years just by spending 10% of your work hours on side projects — I think his overall idea is good.

Paul, the FiscalGeek, argues that the secret to success is hustle. I happen to agree: Hustle is vital in almost every area of life, especially personal finance. (But Paul, please, learn how to use an apostrophe.)

Jonathan from Christian PF has a look at five legitimate work-from-home jobs. I know there are legitimate work-from-home jobs out there, but even the real ones make me wary. I think it’s much better to create a job of your own doing something you’re passionate about…

At Grad Money Matters, guest-poster Caroline shares the secret to finding a part-time job in tough economic times. The advice here is good, but I wish the article were a little more in-depth.

Debt
Though I found the writing a little sloppy and hard to follow, I really liked the submission from Penny Farthing who asks, “Is debt okay if it leads to self-improvement?” This is a fantastic question, and I think most people would say that yeah, this sort of debt is acceptable. (Think college loans and so on.) But where do you draw the line? I like this question so much that I may actually write a post here at GRS about it sometime in the future.

The always-awesome SVB from The Digerati Life explains how to apply for a loan at a peer-to-peer lender. I know know much about peer-to-peer lending, but I know that many folks have found it a useful way to attack their high-interest debt. This brief guide is a great way to get started.

Lakita from Personal Finance Journey has a look at everything you ever wanted to know about the new credit card laws but were afraid to ask. We’ve covered this recently at GRS, too, but Lakita’s take is a good reminder of the coming changes in credit card terms.

Craig from Money Help for Christians answers a question about options for when you can’t make your student loan payments. Because I know nothing about this subject, I learned something from this article.

If you really can’t make your student loan payments, you may end up in bankruptcy. If that’s the case, then Single Money Guy has some tips for rebuilding your credit after bankruptcy.

JS from Smart Money Daily goes over the 9 reasons Dave Ramsey hates HELOCs. Wordy wordy wordy.

Finances
Studenomics has a fantastic look at how you can make money as a tutor. I often think making money is the most-neglected topic in personal finance, so it’s great to see articles that offer real-life experience and advice about earning extra income. Great stuff.

David, the Personal Finance Analyst, has a long look at your secret credit scores and their implication. He doesn’t have any concrete recommendation, but these “secret” scores are important, and not enough folks know about them.

Sun at The Sun’s Financial Diary encourages readers to become master of their financial domains. Sun says that when getting and accurate picture of your financial situation is the first step to becoming a master of your finances.

Adam at Magical Penny has a thought-provoking look at why it’s okay to lose money in a savings account. He argues that even while inflation is chipping away at the value of your cash, there are great reasons to build your savings. I think his advice is right on.

RJ from Gen Y Wealth takes a look at the wealth effect, which occurs when your net worth increases due to an increase in home or stock prices. This increase makes you feel richer, and therefore causes you to increase your spending.

At his blog, Len Penzo explains inflation by showing that Avatar isn’t the biggest move of all time. Inflation can be hard for some people to grasp, and this is a good way to explain it.

Frugality
RC at Think Your Way to Wealth wonders, “Is self-reliance a lost art in this day and age?” This is a great mediation on our throw-away culture.

Ryan, the Financial Student, shares the story of how he’s getting 30 hours of college credit for 15 bucks using something called the post-secondary education option, which allows high-school students to take college classes for free. Way cool!

The Well-Heeled Blog argues that you can save money by embracing your natural hair, and says, “I used to spend $250+ and 4 hours in the stylist’ chair to straighten my hair. After I’ve come to accept (and even love) my wavy hair, however, I stopped the straightening treatments. I’ve discovered that I’m getting better hair and a fuller wallet in return.”

Investing
Note: There were a lot of of submissions in this category, and they’re all pretty good actually. They’re still ranked in order of how I liked them, but I felt these submissions were much stronger than in other categories, so even those near the end of the list are still worth reading.

My favorite post of the week is from Pop Economics, which I’d never heard of until today. Pop explores the illusion of control — our compulsion to do something with our investments. Studies show that we feel happier if we feel like we’re in control of our investing future. When we don’t have control, we feel depressed. With that in mind, how do you reconcile those instincts with passive, low-cost investing? This article explores a couple of options. I love this blog. It just started on January 1st of this year, which is why I’d never heard of it, but I’m a subscriber now!

Mike, the Personal Finance Ninja, gives three reasons the average joe is a bad investor. Mike says that you are not Warren Buffett. For most of us, active trading is not a good idea; instead, we should keep expenses low and diversify with index funds. Ninja cartoons! Warren Buffett quotes! Index funds! How could you not read this article?

Mike at Gather Little by Little shares the second part of a series on what he calls “investing baby steps”. In this installment, he examines some investing strategies for beginners. (There are more strategies to come in the future!) I think this is could be a useful series of articles for folks wanting to learn more about how to invest.

The Dividend Guy shares seven warning signs that you need to repair your investment portfolio, a good reminder that it’s important to review your investments at certain intervals. (I recommend reviewing your asset allocation once per year, though some folks think you should do it every quarter.)

Jim at Bargaineering just published another in his ongoing series of Devil’s Advocate articles, in which he tries to argue against conventional financial wisdom. (He doesn’t necessarily believe what he’s writing; he just wants to present the other side.) In this case, he tries to argue that you shouldn’t invest in the stock market.

Another Mike — Mike Piper, the Oblivious Investor — has a review of Zvi Bodie’s Worry-Free Investing, a book that argues investors should put their money almost exclusively into TIPS, advice that Piper thinks is…well, oblivious!

The Smart Wallet has a good post on a dry subject: Paying capital gains taxes when you trade stocks. This explains yet another reason it’s not a good idea to be an active stock trader.

At Free Money Finance, a guest poster explores the eight biggest mistakes investors make. Solid advice here.

Paul Williams from Provident Planning has an article with a very narrow target audience: He’s reviewed Prudential’s Retirement Red Zone, which is apparently a pitch at soon-to-be-retirees to use variable annuities.

Money Management
Jeff Rose from Good Financial Cents has a great piece on how to find the best financial advisor for you. If you’re in the market for a financial planner (or other advisor), be sure to read this.

Can you retire early without getting lucky? That’s what Tim from Canadian Dream: Free at 45 wonders. He says that nearly every story he’s heard of early retirement has included an element of luck. But can the average person retire early? Tim ran the numbers and found that if you do everything right, yes it’s possible. But you have to avoid consumer debt, buy a small house, and keep away from lifestyle inflation. Great piece!

Ron at The Wisdom Journal has a thought-provoking piece about goals. He notes that 80% of accidents on Mt. Everest happen on the way down, and wonders if this isn’t a metaphor for how we handle financial goals. We spend so much time planning how to reach our financial destinations that sometimes we forget to think about what happens after. Interesting stuff.

At Sweating the Big Stuff, Daniel takes a look at compound interest and why it’s important to pay yourself first.

K from Family Balance Sheet shows how to create your own family balance sheet, which will let you manage your household like a business. (Includes a sample Google Docs spreadsheet you can use!)

PT Money has a run-down of joint savings accounts. What are they? Why should you care?

Modern Gal (a great blog I’ve never seen before) has some short-and-sweet financial advice for thirty-somethings. These are basic but important tips.

Big Cajun Man from Canadian Personal Finance (there are cajun Canadians?) wonders, “Do you have a financial GPS?” He thinks it would be great if there were some automated way to know when you’ve made a wrong turn with your money.

Real Estate
Though it’s basic stuff, I really liked Austin’s article about Renting 101: What you should know before you sign at Foreigner’s Finances. This basic info is valuable for folks just starting out on their own. Maybe you have a brother or niece to forward this article to.

J. Money from Budgets are Sexy warns that owning a home is more expensive than you think, writing, “There are a ton of benefits that go along with this American Dream (tax write-offs, stability, equity, etc), but you’ve got to be aware of the financial drains as well.”

Thinking of buying a home buy confused by the terminology? Elle at Couple Money has a post that explains how amortization and mortgages work. It’s a pretty math-y article, but will probably prove useful to those folks looking to buy in the near future.

Rob at Free Family Finance has an 8-minute video about the differences between 15- and 30-year mortgages. TL;DW.

Taxes
Free From Broke has a quick run-down of qualifying for and claiming the first-time homebuyers tax credit. I’ve had some people ask me about this, and frankly I don’t know much about it. You folks should head over to check this out.

Matt from Debt-Free Adventure explains how he prepares his taxes online and offers tax help and tips for first-time online software users. (Apparently he’s a big fan of TurboTax Online.)

Miscellaneous
Mighty Bargain Hunter has a great reminder about identity theft and financial security: Sometimes your bank will call you for a legitimate reason; if they do, call them back. He explains the process using his own situation as an example.

At Eliminate the Muda, LeanLifeCoach takes a look at money and time, and how we waste them. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: One of the keys to my financial turnaround was that I stopped wasting time. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you actually do things!

The Weakonomist goes on a rant against bundling, the practice of making you pay extra for crap you don’t want by packaging a bunch of stuff together. I think he’s got a valid point, though his Microsoft example seems to go against his argument. (Or am I missing something?)

Kyle from Suburban Dollar shared a 4-minute video review of Gary Vaynerchuk’s book Crush It! I’m not a fan of video posts (see my whine about Free Family Finance above) because they force the blog “reader” to sit there passively and prevent them from skipping spots. But Kyle does a good job here of staying succinct, and his review of the book pretty much matches my own. (Including the complaint that there isn’t really any actionable advice in the book.)

The blogger from Don’t Quit Your Day Job takes a look at why parents with children seem to volunteer more than others. (Answer: It may be because they volunteer to help with their children’s activities.)

Jason from Live Real, Now has a cute piece about what Dungeons and Dragons taught him about finance. In a similar vein, B Simple from Simple Financial Lifestyle shares the keys to winning your own personal financial Super Bowl. Gimmicky, but fun.

Helen at Science and Money (another blog I’ve never seen before) has a review of Saving Money by Mary Firestone, a financial-literary book for children. Helen thinks it’s lame.

Final carnival stats: 72 submissions, 11 rejected (and another 7 nearly so), 61 accepted (10 of which were highlighted). Six hours to prepare: Five hours to compile and list links, and another hour to create theme and post the carnival. 3705 words. Photo by Sophiea.

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Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• Carnival of Debt Reduction #43
• links for 2006-09-12
• Carnival of Personal Finance - Call for Submissions
• Carnival of Personal Finance
• Daily Links: Debt Reduction, Stupidity, and Mutual Funds

A zero based budget is a budget where every dollar you earn is assigned to a category in your budget. Your income minus your expenses equals zero – zero based budget. The idea sounds very simple, and it is, but the real value in creating and following a zero-based budget is that it requires you to plan very deliberately ahead of time and track it very closely as you go through your month.

Benefits of Zero Based Budgets

The main benefit of creating a zero based budget is in the creation process. By forcing you to assign a dollar of income to each expense, you are taking a look at the entirety of your finances. You are forced to remember and allocate dollars to otherwise automatic expenses – such as rent, car insurance, and cable television. As you go through the budgeting process, you might consider shopping those services around to see if you can get them for less so you can spend that money on another expense.

Another big benefit is that by assigning each dollar of income to a category in your budget, you move away from a mindset of casual spending to one of deliberate spending. Unlike envelope budgeting, where you have some wiggle room, you take that wiggle room away when you zero base your budget because there’s no miscellaneous envelope.

Creating a Zero Based Budget

1. List your sources of income. Your budget starts with a list of your household income – paychecks, bank interest, investment dividends, etc.
2. List your expenses. This step is probably going to be your hardest because you have to remember all the expenses you pay for each month. Remember expenses that might be paid on a quarterly, semi-annual or annual basis like insurance. Break out aggregate payments like your mortgage – principal, interest, taxes, insurance. Then add a savings expense (or one savings expense for each savings goal you have) and a discretionary category (separate this from an entertainment). As you use the budget, add to this list so that it captures each expense you have.
3. Allocate income to fixed expenses. Fixed expenses are those that you can’t change easily – like your mortgage payment or cable bill. You can change them if you wanted to (refinance or sell your house, change cable plans) but they’re not like a “restaurant” category that you can chance very easily.
4. Try to make adjustments to fixed expenses. If you wanted to shop around for cable television or your insurance policy, I recommend doing that so you can distribute more of your income to more fluid categories. You may even decide to cut some of these fixed expenses, like a magazine subscription or Netflix.
5. Start allocating to fluid expenses based on history. If you’ve never kept a budget, make an educated guess. If you have, use what you think is a reasonable amount.
6. Zero your budget. At this point, if your income doesn’t equal your expenses, start playing around with it until it does. Add more to savings or discretionary balances (it never hurts to be ahead of schedule on savings!) or some other fluid category.
7. Stick to your budget. Now, as you go about your month, track your spending an stick to your budget. It’s difficult to go from no budget to zero based budgeting but if you can stick with it, it will pay dividends down the road.
8. Adjusting your budget. Each month, as you have your spending data, adjust your categories to fit your actual use and adjust your actual use to fit your budget. Somewhere in the middle is where you will need to be, so constant adjustment is important. Also, if you have extra slack in your budget (ie. you have $1000 in income and despite having it all budgeted out, you spent $990), take the slack and add it to your discretionary or savings category. If you’re under (spent more than your budget), you have to take a look at your categories, which you’ve now neatly laid out, and find areas to make some cuts.

As you can see, zero based budgeting is very deliberate but not unlike many other budgeting methods. It’s also a budgeting methodology that requires very little in the way of tools. While you could turn to a budgeting tool to help you out, the hard work is in the planning and adjustment of your zero based budget. All that can be done, fairly easily, using Microsoft Excel or some other spreadsheet application.

(Photo: thetruthabout)

How to Build a Zero-based Budget from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

 

Courtesy PandaLabs
 

Turning hijacked computers into cash is still hard work for most computer criminals.  They've got to trick the infected PC into sending spam, then trick a recipient into buying a useless product — or they have to steal online banking passwords, log onto a victim’s account, bypass the bank’s money transfer fraud controls, and so on.

It's much easier to just demand cash directly from infected users — a crime that's the Internet's equivalent of kidnapping. 

"Give me all your money or your computer gets it-" is the basic proposition. 

The technique was dubbed "ransomware" many years ago by computer virus researchers, and is not new.  What is new is the explosion of ransomware, thanks to the evolution of ever-more-believable tactics during recent months.

In December, the FBI issued a warning about a broader category of malicious programs called "rogueware.” These programs appear on users' machines and claim to find viruses, then offer to clean them for $50.  Rogueware looks so realistic — complete with Windows-like dialog boxes and scary warnings — that Web users were tricked into sending $150 million to criminals last year, the FBI says.

The new ransomware is similar, but far more aggressive.  Once a computer is infected with it, the program does more than recommend a software purchase –it simply won't let users continue to use their PC until they pay up.

Luis Corrons Granel, a researcher at Panda Security, said use of ransomware by criminals is exploding — 25 percent of all rogueware in the past quarter involved a family of intimidating products named "TotalAntivirus.” It demands that users pay $50 for two years, $79 for a lifetime license.

“The increase (in ransomware) has been really significant,” Granel said. A single family of ransomware programs called “Total Security” made up one-quarter of all rogueware programs detected during the past three months, he said.

To an average user, most rogueware would be indistinguishable from other standard antivirus products.  They look like fully functional software, showing Windows-like screens for firewall settings, file scanning, and every other tab you'd expect from standard antivirus products. “Total Security” even lets users choose their language — English, Spanish, and German are offered.

The switch to ransomware by the bad guys makes sense, says Peter Cassidy, spokesman for the Anti-Phishing Working Group — because computer criminals are refining their programming methods, and getting more aggressive about taking people's money.

See ransomware in action with this video from PandaLabs.

"Instead of trying to fool people and getting one out of 1,000 to pay, what they're doing now is just locking up the PC and telling them they have to pay," he said.  "It's a really violent approach, really nasty."

There might be one silver lining to the rise of ransomware, Cassidy said. 

"It's not in that gray area of selling people useless crap," he said.  “It’s clearly criminal, and extortion does get the attention of law enforcement officials.”

As is customary, computer criminals are fusing this new attack with successful, older methods, said John Harrison, a security researcher at Symantec Corp. In one recent example, criminals first engaged in search engine "poisoning," so their booby-trapped Web sites would rate high in Google searches about Haiti’s earthquake. Visitors who clicked were tricked into downloading the ransomware software; and then were confronted with extortion demands.

"That's their distribution model," Harrison said -. "They used to do it subtly, but now they are doing it much more brazenly."

 

Screen capture provided by PandaLabs.

In some versions, users will see a message that says, "Google recommends you install this," or "Microsoft recommends you turn this feature on- … then, they take over your computer and all of a sudden it looks like you have 900 viruses," he said. 

The latest flavor of ransomware, described on Jan. 8 by security firm F-Secure, doesn't disable all software, but it does something just as debilitating — it encrypts all the files on a victim's computer, and forces them to pay for decryption.  The program, which calls itself Data Doctor 2010, costs $89.

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS
In some cases, researchers say, paying the ransom does work, at least initially. Still, it's a terrible idea to pay. On a grand scale, you've just subsidized a criminal. But there are far more practical concerns — why would you trust the author of ransomware with your credit card number?  Perhaps you think you'd never do this, but remember, the FBI says rogueware writers have made $150 million, so someone is paying up.

If an unexpected antivirus dialog box lands on your computer screen, close the window immediately by clicking on the 'x' in the upper-right hand corner.  Don't use the "OK/Cancel" buttons in the window — criminals often reprogram these.

You may or may not be infected anyway — it's possible you are already the victim of a "drive-by download" that doesn't require user interaction. So run an antivirus scan, if you can.

If the rogue software has actually taken over your computer, physically disconnect it from the Internet to avoid having your personal information sent back to the criminal. Then go to a different computer to search for solutions. Type in the name of the rogue software and search for information on well-known antivirus Web sites. Many antivirus firms offer free cleaners you can download or place onto a USB memory stick, and run on your infected computer.

But maintain healthy suspicion at all times. Ransomware authors have gone so far as to create fake software reviews about their products and place them around the Internet, even stealing logos from reputable technology publications, says Harrison.

"The idea is you search for information about the program and this turns up, and you figure it's ok so you install it," he said.  "Some of this is soft sell, some is very hard sell."
As always, it’s never a good idea to follow links in e-mails when heading to Web sites – it takes an extra moment, but always click into your browser’s address bar and manually type the address.

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I did it!

I finally finished the manuscript for Your Money: The Missing Manual; I e-mailed the last chapter to my editor at 9:10 this morning.

This book was a lot of work. I started writing it on 23 September 2009 at 12:27 p.m. Over the next 115 days, I gained fifteen pounds. (I actually gained eighteen, but I’ve lost three since the start of the year.) The final manuscript contains 125,244 words and 269 pages in Microsoft Word, which would be about 400 printed pages. That’s too long, so we’ll spend the next month whittling it down to something more manageable.

During the past few months, I’ve been a virtual hermit, cloistered in my office (”deep in the word mines”, as I like to say), working 8-10 hours every day — and sometimes many more. Now that the book is nearly finished (aside from editing and printing), I calculate that my hourly wage for this project is…drumroll please…less than minimum wage!

Still, I’m not doing this for the money. I’m doing it because I want to help people turn their financial lives around. I’m doing it because I wish I’d had a book like this twenty years ago. If Your Money: The Missing Manual sells enough copies to earn back its advance, that’s great. But if it helps even a handful of people get out of debt and start saving for the future, I’ve done my job.

Chock full of goodness
What’s in the book? Plenty of the stuff you see at Get Rich Slowly — but also lots of new topics, too. Here’s a chapter-by-chapter breakdown:

• Introduction — I give a brief summary of my background and share the fourteen tenets of Get Rich Slowly. (2304 words, 5 pages, completed 09 January 2010)
• Chapter 1: Happiness — I survey current happiness research. I explain how money is important but it isn’t everything. I also discuss the notion of lifestyle inflation (though we’re calling it “the hedonic treadmill” for the book). (6800 words, 15 pages, completed 05 October 2009)
• Chapter 2: Goals — I discuss the importance of setting goals. Without goals, you have no reason to save. (6090 words, 13 pages, completed 12 October 2009)
• Chapter 3: Budgeting — If goals are your destination, then a budget’s your map. But as most of you know, I’m not a fan of detailed budgets. Instead, I focus on looking at the Big Picture (including my favorite, the balanced money formula), suggesting readers can add detail as needed. (6975 words, 15 pages, completed 19 October 2009)
• Chapter 4: Debt — I lived with debt for fifteen years. This chapter shares a bit about how I overcame my own debt, and then shares some of my favorite resources. My goal is to give readers the tools they need to kick debt to the curb. (7163 words, 16 pages, completed 16 October 2009)
• Chapter 5: Frugality — This chapter got out of control! How can you compress this topic into just 25 pages? You can’t. I know some folks think frugality is pointless, but I’m not one of them. I sing its praises here. (11676 words, 26 pages, completed 04 November 2009)
• Chapter 6: Income — The most overlooked topic in personal finance: how to make more money. You guys know I’m a passionate believer in boosting your income in whatever way you can. This chapter suggests some ways to do it. (11081 words, 24 pages, 10 November 2009)
• Chapter 7: Banking — Banking’s not a very sexy topic, but there’s still some important stuff to cover, like how to find the best checking and savings accounts. (7836 words, 18 pages, completed 17 November 2009)
• Chapter 8: Credit — Credit can be dangerous…but it doesn’t have to be. Here I go over credit scores and credit reports and offer some tips for using credit cards responsibly. (6350 words, 14 pages, completed 25 November 2009)
• Chapter 9: Big Stuff — As great as it is to save money through frugality, it’s even more important to save on big things, such as cars, furniture, and vacations. This chapter tells you how. (13085 words, 26 pages, completed 03 December 2009)
• Chapter 10: Housing — Yikes, this chapter was tough to write. I’m not sure why, but it got away from me. I had so much I wanted to say! In the end, I had to cut the info on “cost of living”, and I may have even had to cut the stuff on selling a house. There’s still plenty of meat here, though. (9906 words, 20 pages, completed 22 December 2009)
• Chapter 11: Death and Taxes — When I started writing, I told my editor this chapter would suck. I didn’t feel confident about the subject. In the end, it was fun to write — and it turned out well. It’s tough to make taxes, insurance, and estate planning interesting, but I did my best. (10000 words, 21 pages, completed 16 December 2009)
• Chapter 12: Investing — I outline the basics of investing, including some of the psychological pitfalls investors face. I encourage readers to look at index funds, but point them to good resources for other strategies if they simply must try to beat the market. (10684 words, 24 pages, 05 January 2010)
• Chapter 13: Retirement — The chapter I completed this morning! I talk about the power of compounding and the importance of saving early. I also go on a rant about how much I hate retirement planning based around “replacement income”. (It’s so stupid!) (7872 words, 17 pages, completed 15 January 2010)
• Chapter 14: Relationships — I close the book with a look at how money affects our relationships with family and friends. (The book is dedicated to my friend Sparky, who died a year ago today.) I also spend a little time exploring the notion of social capital, which is something I haven’t written about much here, but that I think is very very important. (7422 words, 15 pages, completed 11 January 2010)

Whew! Just typing that outline makes me tired. There’s a lot of info here. I’ve tried to find a balance between being too general and being too specific. I want folks to be able to come to the book when they have a question, get the basics, and then point them to places they can get more details, if needed. (That’s my goal, anyhow.)

Behind the scenes
There’s a lot of GRS in Your Money: The Missing Manual. That doesn’t mean I just dumped blog posts to the book. I’ve read some other books that have done this, and I don’t care for them. While I did use some material from the archives, I tried to steer clear of wholesale reproduction. (That’s not in anyone’s best interest, right?) What I mean is that I used the GRS philosophy to guide my writing, and I used some of my favorite themes throughout the book. And from time-to-time, I used info I’ve shared before. (About Roth IRAs, for example.)

Plus, the book profiles about a dozen GRS readers, who tell how they handle their finances in various ways. Two long-time GRS readers (Dylan and Charlie) are acting as technical reviewers. As I’ve written the book, I’ve frequently polled those of you who follow me on Twitter for suggestions and recommendations about topics and tools.

Simply put, this book is the sum of everything I’ve learned about personal finance so far, and it draws a lot on the collective brains of Get Rich Slowly readers. In a very real way, all of us wrote this as a team. It may not be perfect, but I’m pleased with how it’s come together.

Ready to rest
Still, I’m not sure I’m built for writing books. I have no problem producing short pieces on a daily basis. That’s fun and (pardon the immodesty) think I do a good job at it. But writing a book is an entirely different beast. It’s like asking a good sprinter to run a marathon. The sprinter can probably do it, and he’ll use some of the same muscles and skills, but he won’t enjoy it, and he won’t do it as well as those who have trained distance running.

That’s not to say I’m not proud of Your Money: The Missing Manual. I’m very proud of it. I put my heart and soul into this book, and I think it has the potential to help a lot of people. (I sure hope it will, anyhow.) I’m just saying I prefer to write for the blog format.

Anyhow, I appreciate your support over the past few months. It means a lot to me. There’s still a lot of work to be done, though. Starting Saturday afternoon, I have a ten-day author review period during which I’ll make revisions to the manuscript. I get a short break after that before we start the final round of editing. Assuming there are no problems, Your Money: The Missing Manual should hit bookstores two months from today.

I’d also like to note that I made the next step in my Year of Fitness this morning. I’ve spent the past couple weeks counting calories and changing my eating habits, but today I finally hit the gym, spending 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer. From this point on, fitness is job one around here.

Have a great weekend, everyone! I’ll be be back on Monday.

p.s. If anyone has tips for book marketing, please let me know. So much of a book’s success depends on marketing, but I’m not a very salesman-y type of guy, so this is going to be tough for me. I’m looking for ways to spread the word in a productive non-slimy way.

p.p.s. Just for kicks, I uploaded the book’s outline to my personal site. (It’s a 1.4mb PDF.) I wish you could see the physical outline; it’s dirty and torn from four months of constant use.

—
Related Articles at Get Rich Slowly:

• Free User Manuals For Electronic Equipment
• How to Extend the Life of Your Car
• Missing Money
• Reader Success Story: How I Gave Myself a Raise
• Raising a Family on One Income (Part One)

Well, on the heels of the big giveaway by Money Crashers, I’m continuing the trend this week with a giveaway that is sponsored by YNAB (You Need A Budget). I’ve long advocated YNAB as a standalone personal finance application that can help you manage your spending and your budget better.

Free Personal Finance Software Giveaway: YNAB 3

So what’s this I’m giving away? Earlier on, I gave a little preview of this highly regarded money management software for the desktop: YNAB 3 is a great alternative to Quicken and the now defunct Microsoft Money. You can check out what I say about this in my article on budgeting tools and software products. At any rate, here’s a short list of the features and benefits you’ll experience from using the YNAB tool:

• You can import information from your bank into YNAB 3. You can reconcile the information you have in your budget with the data you have in various financial accounts.
• The application supports envelope budgeting.
• Get rid of your debt more quickly by using YNAB’s budgeting strategies.
• You can schedule recurring transactions.
• You can identify and plug spending leaks that you find in your budget.
• There’s a feature called “Quickbudget” that allows you to work with your monthly numbers more easily.
• The application also incorporates a great saving methodology that is based on YNAB’s 4 rules. You can read more about this in more detail in my review of YNAB.

How To Join

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, then I’d like to invite you to join this giveaway. I am offering one copy of YNAB 3 this month! Here are a few steps you can take to participate:

1. Subscribe to The Digerati Life to receive free financial information in your mail box each day (well, most days ). You can do so via RSS feed or via email. As a subscriber, you’ll be able to receive information on financial tips, ideas, resources, personal product reviews and more. It’s free and you can unsubscribe anytime!

2. I’d love to give away this software to someone who’ll be able to make use of it. So I would encourage you to download a free trial of the software and provide some impressions or feedback on the tool in our comments section. Your comment will be counted as an entry.

3. I’ll pick a winner in the next few days.

I’ll be offering more free stuff in the horizon, and more opportunities for giveaways in the future, so please stay tuned to this channel for updates! Please note that there is no purchase necessary to avail of this giveaway.

Free Personal Finance Software Giveaway!

Gregory Fayer opened an e-mail on Monday night that looked like it was from a fellow lawyer at Gipson Hoffman & Pancione. Instead, it was a message that placed Fayer and his firm in the middle of what might be the biggest international cyber-conflict to date.

This week, seach engine giant Google disclosed that it had also been a victim of cyber-attacks from China, and has taken the bold step of threatening to shut down the Chinese version of its search engine.  On Thursday, computer security firm VeriSign said it had traced the Google attacks back to "to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof," and that 30 companies were targeted.

Fayer's law firm is likely one of those victims, as the technique used against it is similar to the Google attack.  The e-mail Fayer received was laced with a computer virus intended to allow the sender to spy on Fayer's computer; a blatant act of espionage, he said.  But Fayer wasn't terribly surprised. Last week, his firm filed a blockbuster lawsuit against the Chinese government on behalf of CyberSittter LLC, which makes parental control software.  CyberSitter says the Chinese stole its computer code while creating the infamous Green Dam censorship program, which was designed to be placed on every Chinese citizen's PC last year. After a backlash, the government decided to make installation optional.

"Our law firm was certainly on high alert because of the lawsuit," he said.  "This is somewhat to be expected when you file a high-profile lawsuit against the government of China.”

Fayer said he couldn't share much information about the e-mail, as FBI officials are investigating the incident. But it was designed to look like part of a normal electronic chat with a colleague. 

"I was the first recipient at the firm," he said. "But there have actually been three waves of these customized e-mails.They'd each been made to look like they had a different sender, and a different pretense for the links or attachments embedded in the e-mails." The cybercriminal was clearly moving down a list of potential contacts at the firm, looking for someone to take the bait, he said.

"The program was designed to go in and get information from our servers and computers and sent it back to the sender," he said.

Computer researchers call the technique "spear phishing."  Rather than flooding a firm with thousands of spam-like phishing e-mails hoping to dupe dozens of victims, the new technique involves very specific, targeted notes designed to fool one victim at a time – and then use that computer to spy on the target agency or steal data.

While Fayer could say little about the potential agent behind the attack, he said the firm assumed that "the timing of the e-mail attacks are not a coincidence."

No lawyers fell for the trick, Fayer said, and he did not believe any information had been stolen.

The alleged attacks from China are troubling on many fronts.  On Thursday, security firm McAfee released a report saying the program used to target U.S. firms involved a so-called "zero day" vulnerability — one that was to this point unknown to the security community, and thus indefensible by anti-virus software. The flaw involved Microsoft's Internet Explorer, McAfee said, and the firm has now made a software patch available to protect against it.

But the malicious software attacks other software flaws too, McAfee said, adding this ominous note: "There very well may be other attack vectors that are not known to us at this time."

"These highly customized attacks known as advanced persistent threats were primarily seen by governments and the mere mention of them strikes fear in any cyberwarrior,” wrote McAfee's George Kurtz in a blog post today.  “They are in fact the equivalent of the modern drone on the battle field. With pinpoint accuracy they deliver their deadly payload and once discovered - it is too late…All I can say is wow. The world has changed. Everyone's threat model now needs to be adapted to the new reality of these advanced persistent threats. In addition to worrying about Eastern European cybercriminals trying to siphon off credit card databases, you have to focus on protecting all of your core intellectual property."

Mark Rasch, former head of the Department of Justice computer crime unit, called the attacks “cyberwarfare,” and said it was clearly an escalation of digital conflict between China and the U.S.

“At least it’s an escalation of the rhetoric, and that’s an escalation,” he said. “War is the extension of politics by other means, and the Internet is the extension of politics, and this is a form of cyberwarfare.”

While isolated examples of government-sponsored hacking have popped up through the years, Rasch – who now runs Bethesda, Md.-based security consulting firm FTI - says this week’s incidents of alleged Chinese attacks are “new in the sense that they’ve been so  blatant,” and apparently so widespread, ranging from attempts to read dissidents’ e-mails to spying on a legal adversary.

“We’ve had attacks in the past but by and large they were done in a way that gave the country plausible deniability,” said Rasch. “But this was different. This was fairly clearly a government-run operation.”

China has yet to directly address the allegations. At a regular press briefing in Beijing on Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said only “The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what content can be spread on the Internet,” according to the Bloomberg news service.

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Calendar management software has moved in a couple different directions in the last few years, and the crowded field is filled with solutions that offer a wide range of benefits and features. The list below is a partial list that I put together top help you navigate the field. To make it on the list, multiple calendars must be a feature and the ability to share or publish those calendars to others was a must.

As with most things, you get what you pay for, but within the price ranges from free to thousands per month, there are definite best in class selections, as listed below.

Free Software
Google Calendar, Airset, Cozi, Timebridge, Tungle and Yahoo Calendar mostly work on the principle that you can get a limited functionality for free (users will generally see ads on the screen when managing their calenders) with the option to purchase premium services for additional monthly or annual fees.

• Google Calendar and Yahoo Calendar are very similar and connected to Google or Yahoo email accounts (or other email addresses). They can be very easy to set up. Multiple calendars are formatted nicely, and the intuitive web based interface makes learning and using the system a snap. It is possible to invite any number of users to be able to view your calendar(s) and vice versa.
• Cozi is unique in that its business model makes it both a very strong option for families who are looking for calendar coordination, but a fairly inflexible model for anyone else. It is built around the idea that each member of a family will have their own calendar (or more than one) and that sharing is going on between family members. If this describes your need, then Cozi is definitely the best pick (and at the best price!).
• Airset is a very specific option that will likely not be satisfying at the free service level. Airset is built around a web hosting model: if your organization needs web hosting services then the calendar is a nice feature, but you’ll pay for the web hosting (most likely), for any usage beyond a small web presence with low traffic levels.
• Timebridge and Tungle are not really calendar sharing software, but they both solve the calendar coordination problem in different (and elegant) ways. If you want to see multiple calendars, simply for the purpose of scheduling a meeting, then Timebridge or Tungle offer simple solutions. Timebridge provides additional meeting planning functionality, while Tungle has ease of use advantages for the singular purpose of meeting scheduling.

All of these free solutions offer some kind of calendar sharing between individuals, but they do not allow the establishment of groups of individuals that share certain resources in common. Work groups, sports leagues or volunteer organizations could use these solutions, but people involved in multiple groups could quickly develop a long list of calendars that could become unwieldy. This issue is addressed in different ways by the group sharing solutions listed below.

Group Sharing Solutions
Microsoft Outlook, CalendarWiz and ClearSync all offer solutions which make calendar sharing among groups possible. Unlike the previous free services, which will provide limited setup help and service & support, the following products all have customer service departments, which allows you to speak with a knowledgeable person who can help you become productive with the service.

• Microsoft Outlook: If you are looking for an enterprise solution, you probably are already familiar with Outlook Exchange. Intermedia , among others, has excellent user support and can host your email & calendar sharing from a few hundred dollars to a many thousands of dollars per year, depending on the organization size.
• CalendarWiz: CalendarWiz is focused on web-published calendars, and has nicely designed and powerfully flexible options to arrange your web-published event data in a variety of pleasing formats. If you are a large organization, or are running a large calendar system (e.g. for a community center, performance complex, etc.) then this solution will be something you want to look at.
• ClearSync: ClearSync includes the widest possible feature set for calendar sharing: you can not only share between individuals, but also between nested or overlapping groups. ClearSync’s user interface is not as smooth as some of the aforementioned web based calendars, but its feature set includes flexibility not found in the other services. The ClearSync service includes both native applications (where the data is stored locally on the computer running the software) and server driven web applications, so that your data is available even without Internet access. Even at the highest level of paid service, which includes unlimited phone support, ClearSync represents a bargain to the small office, business, church or non-profit.

This table offers a side by side comparison of the previously summarized services.

How do you currently manage multiple calendars? Do you still use a combination of paper and software based solutions? How important is mobile access to your team? We wan to hear from you, please take some time and let us know what you think in the comments below.

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