Hook Me Up!

Well here it is! The inaugural edition of the Broke and Need Money Carnival! I’d like to start by thanking everyone that took time out to submit an article. If your piece is not posted its because…its my carnival damnit! Just kidding! No I’m not! Really, I tried to stick to the more practical side of things as you’ll see below. There are already so many articles and carnivals about online businesses, affiliate marketing, and blogging for dollars. Nowadays you can just simply check your spam email folder and get started on all that. Now that we got that out of the way…

We’ll wait until the big dude’s not looking and sneak inside.

-So broke, last night they ate Macaroni And-

Freebies, Cheapies, and Stretching Your Dollars/Change

FIRE Finance gives us Three Quick Steps To Get Out of Debt!

Alex from Home Life Weekly Presents How To Make Your Own Free Printable Birthday Cards

Northern Cheapskate says Sometimes you just have to ask… to get freebies and cheapies.

Jeremy Zongker from Destroy Debt presents
90 Low Cost or No Cost Activities to Entertain Your Kids All Summer Long

hank from My Investing Blog is frugal. He gives us The 29 most frugal things I have ever done - do yours compare to my past
levels of cheap?

Inspiration/Zen

Amy fuller of Conscious Flex presents How to Find Your Passion and Make It Your Career: by
Nicholas Powiull

CindyS of Oh My Aching Debts asks Is Network (MLM) Marketing Evil? Everyone loves to hate network marketing but is it really evil?

Investing Man from Wealth Building Lessons is here with 10 Tips On How To Negotiate

Ideas That Are On The Money

Go diving with Tip Diva as she gives us Top 10 Tips - Going Dumpster Diving A good read!

Steve Faber of Home Based Business Success presents tips for Starting a Home Based Business

Zork Brauk says It’s the Recession, Stupid! so use Recession Tip 11 - Sell Old Clothes on Ebay!

R.O. writing from Japan Man is going to tell you How to stack your first million

Well that’s it for now! Until next time!

***Due to a lot of great submissions being left out I’m going to extend the Carnival with additional articles within the coming week. I’ve just been really busy so sorry for any inconvenience.

Among all the free money and free cash sites that offer opportunity to those who need free money fast, only a few deliver what they promise. You must also remember that no one is giving something for nothing especially if you have to sign up. Even then you’ve already given your personal information because you need free money fast. So in other words, beware that there are no free rides out there. What I have done is outline a few methods and places to get you started.

The best place to start for me was affiliate marketing. It would take too long to explain here, in fact I may do a whole other write up on it. In few words, it involves creating a selling website and marketing it to no end. If you want more on that you can click here to see where I got started. If you need free money fast this may or may not be the thing for you depending on your website building knowledge.

Next on the list is taking surveys for money. If you need free money fast then the trick here is the faster you work, the faster you make money. Free comes in to play because you don’t have to pay to join the site. There are plenty of choices when it comes to survey sites out there so choose carefully. Some do require a fee to join but I skip those personally. My personal favorite is CashLagoon.com. They offer more than just free surveys as a way to get paid when you need free money fast.The sign up is quick and easy. They do have a phone verification system to complete the process but you just have to give them a valid number and pick up the phone when they call you back after you’ve signed up. Trust me as a paid member, they do call back quick.

Once a member, you’ll be able to complete surveys, offers, and other deals to earn points toward your cash reward. Your points earned are equal to the cash you’ve earned. When you’ve earned as little as 2.00 points you are able to cash it out for a $2.00 payout. The quickest way to earn points is with a credit/check card (although you’re supposed to use a credit card only) and complete those offers. The trick is to cancel whatever you’ve signed up for after Cash Lagoon credits your points but before any trial periods end. You get an easy 6-15 points for these which show up in no time. If you’ve heard enough and are ready to get started for free, you may Signup Here. Just remember to make sure you have a phone handy!

Now there are more opportunities out there if you need free money fast but this is just a starting point. I recommend these because I learned just about everything I know about making money online from these and sites like these. Since there was no risk involved I was able to try them out and see for myself as you can. For instance, my first day as a member of Cash Lagoon, I made over $20. Now this may not be the road to riches but it will put a few extra bucks in your pocket pretty quick.

In the current times the real estate market is seeing a drastic rise in the number of short sale listings. What is a short sell you ask? A short sale is when market conditions are so that the value of your home is worth less than what you currently owe on your mortgage and you decide to sell anyway. That’s when you know you’re in a short sell situation. How and why would someone sell their home if they will end up minus cash?

The why is easy to explain. The majority of reasons center around a home owner not being able to afford their monthly mortgage payment. Due to whatever circumstances such as job loss, divorce, or an unforeseen financial emergency more and more homeowners are considering short selling their home. Another factor that has plays a major role is homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) not being able to afford their monthly payment when it adjusts to a higher interest rate. It makes matters much worse when the current market conditions are bad and home prices are falling. Most homeowners facing these situations could have opted to refinance or borrow money against their home based upon their home value rising. A short sale is also a better alternative to foreclosure in which your home is taken back by the bank or lender, you get left with nothing to show for it, and your credit score is left virtually trashed.

The how part gets a little tricky. Yes, it is possible for a home owner to sell their home for less than the amount that they owe to the bank or lender. Upon deciding that short selling your home is the best option for getting free of the associated financial burden, you… 1.Put your home up for a regular real estate sale. The best way is through a good licensed real estate agent who is familiar with handling short sales. This will be your best bet since down the road there will be much more work involved that only a good, short sale experienced, agent should handle. 2. Get an offer from someone interested in buying your home. If you have a Realtor this is when they go to work by advertising your home for sale and hopefully attracting an offer from a buyer. 3.Get the offer you accepted approved by the bank or lender holding your loan. This is where your real estate agent really comes in handy. Remember in order to successfully sell your home for a profit, you must first pay off any loans and/or fees tied to your home. What’s left over is what you keep. In short sales you are not able to pay back the full amount you owe, hence you are going to be short whatever you owe on your loan. Due to this fact, the lender or bank must approve you not paying back the full amount owed. This is what’s called forgiving your debt.

If you can successfully sell your home and negotiate forgiving your mortgage debt, you’ll end up owing nothing more to the bank or lender. Unlike a traditional sale you cannot receive a profit from the sale ( because technically you’d owe it to the lender anyway) but you’ll no longer have to pay the monthly payment and your credit score will only take a minimal hit.

There are some drawbacks to short selling, at least there were. The immediate worry of a short sale is having a place to live. Once the sale is complete you no longer own that home so you will have to find another place to live. A suggested strategy would be to plan out and explore all moving options at the start or even before short selling. Further down the road of a short sale comes the tax implications. This used to have a big affect on the decision to go through with a short sale. Until recently, the IRS considered the difference between the final sale price and the amount owed after a short selling your home a capital gain. In other words the IRS considered the difference as income and the IRS taxes income! Now of course this is clearly unfair since the difference isn’t income at all, its money that doesn’t exist. Luckily the government stepped in 2007 end short sale tax penalties.

For further explanation of the tax penalty changes consult a tax professional. Generally, if you’ve lived in a home for two out of the last five years it is considered your primary residence and is thus exempt from tax penalties that may arise from short selling. Its recommended that single home owners go ahead if a short sale is the only option. As far as owners of many properties in danger of foreclosure, a short sale may not be the best financial option. The tax penalties are enforced for any properties other than a primary residence as described before. In case you may be thinking that two out of five years leaves room for two primary residences, guess again. Only one property can be claimed as a primary residence. Multi-property owners may want to consider a deed in lieu of foreclosure which is essentially giving your home back to the bank or lender and walking away from the house. This does just about the same thing to your credit as foreclosure but it could save your wallet from taking a huge hit when those in this situation need all the cash they can get.

If you need help in deciding whether or not to short sell your home, there are a few factors to consider. First, are there any better alternatives like working things out with your lender? How far behind in payments are you and how long will it be before you can catch up? How many properties do you own? A licensed real estate agent can help assess the affects of short selling and whether or not it would be a good option for your situation.

I happen to be experienced in negotiating with lenders to accept short sales, after short sale relocation, as well as counseling clients in returning to home ownership faster. I can be reached at 1-877-628-3540.

Now before I begin, I’m not knocking all referrals because they’re  a great source of business. In fact personal referrals are great! I’ve gotten plenty of good contacts, help, or info from them. I’m more so referring to referrals given by professionals, people in the industry, to people or other professionals. I’m not knocking that entirely either. I’m just giving an objective word of caution for those new in the business that might walk into a colleague’s referral thinking its a slam dunk to close the deal.

I’m writing this based on my experience in dealing with colleague referrals. Some have gone great or even better than expected ending in a closed transaction. Others went down south before I even met the referee. When I first got into the business about two years ago all I kept hearing was 100% referral business was where it was at. I thought sure it made sense! If my business was sitting around my office or better yet my home just answering my phone, which would be ringing off the hook with people who were referred to me that would be the life! So I went about making friends with every loan officer, insurance agent, title, and escrow rep that I could. If I knew then what I know now I could have saved the deal before it was lost. But since I didn’t, I’ll pass on what I’ve learned to you the reader.

Referrals by professionals and colleagues can be the least guaranteed.  For a further explanation please read on…

 You may not be the best person to help the referee. The colleague or professional may just have you on the top of their head at the time. Depending on how long you’ve known the professional or colleague they may not fully understand what services you provide and give a referral to you based on not knowing you can’t provide the service a referee is looking for.

You may be inheriting someone’s problem client. If a particular client is hard to deal with, a colleague or professional might be looking to pass them off to an unsuspecting you while trying to keep a piece of the action just in case there’s still money to be made.

The client may not be expecting “you”. This happens all the time and not entirely due to the fault of the person giving the referral to you. People have a lot of hang ups when choosing who to do business with. This could be racial issues, cultural issues, way of doing business issues, wrong gender etc… If you’re not what a person expects to see or hear when you meet, it could kill your deal before it even starts.

The telephone effect. Remember the telephone game where one person starts by whispering a message to another and that person tries to remember it and whisper the exact same message to the next person and so on? By the time the last person gets the message and has to say it out loud everyone would laugh at how distorted the original message had gotten. Well this happens a lot when you get referrals from people “in the business”. They’re often too busy to really explain what you do and how you do it. Going back to the first reason, they may have your business or  area of expertise all mixed up when telling someone why to use your services.

Client is still shopping around. Normally if someone asks a professional for a referral they are either shopping the competition or unfamiliar with the filed and will quickly jump to someone with whom they feel safe. Beware of just being a stop on someones information gathering hunt. This could still be valuable. If you were to give them the right piece of information this could convince them to sign up with you.

The silver lining in the cloud here is to be prepared for any referrals you get. If you approach every business opportunity as not being a “slam dunk” but as a new challenge you’ll have the upper hand. Until the person with whom you met has signed, given you the check, or whatever is needed to start using your service you haven’t closed.  Even with referrals you’ll still need your objection handling scripts, skills, and professional presentation to convince them you are for real.

I recommend giving colleagues and professionals specific written instructions on how to refer clients to you as well as written suggestions as to who would make good candidates for your services. This can be done with special referral business cards or fliers. If you don’t already use the back of your business cards, save money by placing the instructions there. Referral gifts and contests may not only get better qualified referrals it should increase the amount of referrals.

Last but not least never forget to ask for referrals from your immediate friends and family. They have a loyalty and familiarity to you. They can personally vouch for your character as well.  I don’t know about you but anytime a family member or buddy of mine tells me about a good restaurant I eventually end up trying it out and liking it because we have similar tastes. On the the other hand, if our likes are different, they’ll warn against it. In referral business someone that knows you and the referee personally may be able to predict whether or not the two of you will be a good business match.

I prefer a good mix of new and referral business to keep things going. You’ll need to know how to get new business if your “referral well” goes through a dry spell.  Besides you can always turn new business into referral business. Like a gift that keeps on giving.

I always keep myself open to giving and receiving good quality referrals. If anyone professional or general public would like to exchange referrals or network I can be reached at (877) 628-3540 toll free.

I generally service anywhere between Los Angeles and Riverside, CA in buying and selling homes. I am currently offering a service for those interested in purchasing discount homes and fixer-uppers.

Who would ever dream that a simple task such as clipping Sunday coupons in order to save money at the grocery store and keep money money in your bank account could in affect be helping to cut the life of your mortgage in half? Well in a sense, if used correctly, that is what a new loan product offered by CMG Financial Services can do. If you apply and get approved for the Home Ownership Accelerator Loan® by CMG Financial Services, your overall financial situation will be forever changed for the better without changing much at all according to their 5-8 minute promo video clips.

In the “overview” clip, viewers will find the outlined basics and potential benefits of the Home Ownership Accelerator® loan shown by charts and graphs. It is here stated that one may be able to shorten the length of their existing 30 year loan by about 50%. The next video features testimonials from satisfied users of the program that claim getting this new age type loan greatly changed their lives and set them on a path to financial freedom, at least from their mortgage payment. One home owner who received the loan claimed to have calculated a savings of $35,000 in seven months. Another claimed that if their family used the loan program to its full extent, in a best case scenario they would end up paying off their 30 year fixed mortgage in a mere 7 years.

Now that the “wow” numbers have been thrown out there, here are the basics on how the CMG product works. First and foremost it is no different than a regular loan in the sense that it is borrowed money which must be paid back in full including any interest. The initial amount of your Home Ownership Accelerator Loan® is equal to 90% of your home’s value. For instance, if your home is valued at $400,000 your loan amount or credit limit, as we’ll refer to it from now on would be $360,000. Now here come the twists and turns of the program. It works like a refinance home equity line of credit with all the advantages of a regular credit card. These advantages include having all the funds in your account available 24/7 without having to withdraw a minimum amount and without a limit on the number of withdrawals you can make. To go one step further you can withdraw funds using everyday means like checks, checkcards, and online transfers. What this does is make it possible for one to refinance a home as many times over in case of emergency or extra funds are needed without having to reapply with a lender or pay finance charges.

You no longer send payments the normal way you have been used to. Traditionally the average working person receives their paycheck from their job on payday, heads to the bank(or has it direct deposited), and from there divides the money accordingly for food, bills, and other expenditures like entertainment. With the HOA loan, your paycheck is deposited directly into your HOA loan account and counts as mortgage payments against your loan amount but more importantly counts against the principle balance upon which next months interest is calculated. This is the key that drives CMG’s loan product. Normally and ideally you would pay your mortgage every month and never see that money again. If you do the same with this loan plus become more savvy about saving and utilizing your finances wisely the possibilities start to skyrocket. CMG also points out that you not likely to complain about leaving behind your 1 or 2% earning bank account for an interest savings of 5-6%.

In order to qualify for the Home Ownership Accelerator Loan you do have to meet certain credit, income, and home equity requirements. Contact CMG or go to www.zoomcredit.com/HOAloan.asp for details. Different example scenarios could be inserted here to show how much one could save or how fast your mortgage could be paid off but the company’s webpage mentioned above provides an interactive simulator that can personalize one for you.

Contact CMG Fiancial Servives for full details and disclosures direct by calling 888-367-2144.