1. Make only few resolutions
          People that have pages after pages of goals for the new year will have a lot harder time accomplishing them.  Try to focus on few areas of your life and improve those.  After you are done with that you can set additional goals.  There is no bigger deterrent than getting overwhelmed with your goals.
2. Be specific
         Saying that you want to loose weight is to vague.  Try setting a specific goal that can be measured.  For example loosing 10 lb. by June.  Another example is volunteering 3 hours every month instead of “become a better person”.  If you can measure results you will know that you were able to achieve that goal.
3. Set smaller goals/be reasonable
   When you look at your goals you should not be thinking they are unachievable.  If you set a goal of loosing 100 lb by December you are setting yourself up for failure.  Try being a little more reasonable with the goals you set.  For example try loosing 5 lb in January. 
4. Choose goals that are important to you.
          You are going to be a lot less likely to achieve a goal if you are trying to please some one else.   If you don’t think that your weight is a problem, trying to loose it because your spouse thinks you are overweight will not be motivation enough to loose any significant amount.
5. Write it down
        Make sure you write down your goals.  Research showed that you are more likely to accomplish something if its written down.
6. Check your goals often
   Just writing something down won’t keep you motivated.  After you write your goals down, post them where you are able to see them.  Check your goals and your progress often.
7. Reward Yourself
   Reward yourself for accomplishing milestones of your goals.  That could keep you motivated.  Don’t reward yourself with food if your goal is to loose weight.
8. Tell Others
   Tell your friends and family about your goals.  Tell them to check in with you.  Or put your money where your mouth is and write a check for a significant amount of money and give it to your family or friends with a permission to cash it if you don’t accomplish your goal.
9. Take Action
   Writing stuff down is nice, but unless you get off your butt and start doing something you will not get very far.

Sponsor: TBA

1. Choose your topic.

Before you start you will need to think about your blog’s topic. Remember if you pick a good topic people will be coming back to your blog. The more people you have, the more money you can make. Before blogging you need to brainstorm. Take a week and write your ideas in a notebook. When thinking about a topic you will need to consider these things:

• Things that you are interested in.
• Thing that you have a lot to say about.
• Thing that other people might be interested in.

2. Choose and describe your audience.

After you know what you are writing about you will need to describe your audience. This will help you to tailor your content to them. After all they are the once that will be making you money. These are the people we are tailoring our blog to:

• People looking for advice in blogging, finance and consumer rights.
• People who know what they want to do, but are not sure how to start (or do it)

3. Find similar blogs.

Look for blogs that are covering the same topic. That way you can get a feel of what people are interested in.

4. Choose your platform.

You have a lot of choices. You will need to decide for yourself what you want. We prefer to host our own Wordpress installation because it gives us a lot of flexibility. However you might want to consider these

choices if you don’t know that much about web development:

• www.wordpress.com
• www.blogger.com

5. Install your blogging software or register your blog.

6. Get a domain name.

If you think that your blog will becomes popular you would want to have your own domain name. It will give you flexibility to move from one blog hosting provider to the other without major problems.

7. Install or enable spam prevention.

There are many spammers that are visiting blogs and spamming comments. You will need to install spam prevention for your blog or enable spam filtering if you are using blogger. Sites that have blog spams usually look unprofessional.

8. Comment on other people’s blogs.

If you don’t know how to start you can start by visiting other blogs and comment about there content. You can later ping them or leave a constructive comment in there blog with a link to yours. BUT DON’T SPAM OTHER BLOGS. MAKE SURE THAT YOUR BLOG HAS GOOD INFORMATION.

9. Update Often

If you want people coming back to your site update your blog often. If you don’t people will forget about it.

Resources:

Books on this subject:

Sponsor:

Iowa Computer Services – Computer Repair Maintenance and Training, Iowa Wedding Photography, Des Moines, Iowa Senior Pictures

1. Pay your bills on time.

If your credit card bill (or sometimes utility bill) is not paid on time it will reflect on your credit report. Late payments will have a HUGE impact on your credit rating. PAY YOUR BILLS ON TIME!!!!

2. Don’t use all of your credit.

Amount of outstanding debt is another significant factor in the calculation of your credit score. If your debt % is more than 30% of your credit line, you might be penalized by getting your score lowered.

3. Be careful when applying for loans/credit cards

If you are applying for too many cards in the short period of time your credit score will be lowered. As a rule of thumb don’t apply for more than 1 credit card a month.

4. Be careful when co signing a loan

Remember if a person you cosigned with defaults on the loan (or has late payments) your credit score might be affected. You will also be responsible for the loan if that person doesn’t pay. Choose very carefully the people you are going to co-sign with.

5. Monitor your credit

Make sure to check your credit report at least every 4 months. You have an opportunity to get a free credit report by going to

http://www.annualcreditreport.com . You can get 3 free report each year (1 from each reporting agency). Make sure you take this opportunity.

6. Watch your spending

It’s very easy to buy things with credit cards. All you have to do is swipe it and the thing is yours. You have to realize that even though you can buy something today without paying, eventually you will have to pay for that item (and interest charges if you don’t pay balance in full that month). Some people end up paying $10–$15 for a $2 item (after paying all the interest charges).

7. Watch your debt to income ratio

8. Choose credit cards wisely

Don’t apply for all the credit cards you run in to. Make sure you know if there are any annual fees or any other fees associated with cards. Also make sure that APR rate is low enough (or corresponds with your credit score). DON’T apply for store credit cards. Their APR is usually to high and sometimes you will be tempted to use them more than a normal credit card.

9. Dispute inaccurate information on your credit report in a timely manner.

The number of identity thefts are on a rise. Make sure you check your credit report, and if you see any suspicious activity dispute that in a timely manner. After all you want your credit score to be high.

Resources:

Annual Credit Report

BOOKS:

DVD: