Thursday 15 September 2011

DEBT FREE!! MORTGAGE FREE FASTER



New Zealand Home Loans is a dedicated home loan provider, committed to helping you and your family become debt free, faster.

Established in 1996, New Zealand Home Loans is a wholly New Zealand owned and operated company.  We have a nationwide network of franchises located from Whangarei to Invercargill, with our Head Office in Hamilton.

Company founders John Erkkila and Murray Ferguson were always concerned about the way that banks traditionally marketed loan products which would ensure that clients had a burden of debt hanging over them for many years. They knew there was a better way and launched New Zealand Home Loans as a real alternative.

The secret to New Zealand Home Loans success is the ongoing effort to help clients reduce their debt as quickly as possible. Our market leading managed home loan, services, tools and processes are designed to help our clients and their families manage their home loan more effectively.

From the inception, the average New Zealand family has always been our priority. Our clients work closely with their New Zealand Home Loans Consultant, and in conjunction with our Debt Management System, debtnav, we show them exactly where they are today, and how to manage their debt to get to where they want to go.

Through it all, John Erkkila - Founder and Executive Director maintains this is not rocket science. “We are all about putting people in charge of their own financial destiny. We have worked very hard to come up with a fool-proof system that works and is easy to understand. We show our clients how to make best use of their income, control their debt and show them options for the future.”

John Erkkila says "the best investment that people can make is to reduce their debt. When you reduce debt you effectively earn the same rate that you were paying on the debt. It’s a great rate of return and there’s no risk in paying off your own home."

Monday 12 September 2011

Why Not Use Social Networks?

Educators that are not using Facebook often use the arguments that they are concerned for their:

  1. Privacy
  2. Time
Although there are other arguments used I will try to answer these two in this article.

Privacy

At the root of Social networks is the personalisation of your online character through your contributions to the networks. This can be restricted to your professional character but your personal character, your private life, can be kept separately off the network.
I would strongly recommend using your real identity on the networks. To gain the maximum benefit professionally other users need to see who and what you do, and evaluate you as a worthy, professional friend. They need to see the synergies with their own professional area. It must be remembered that these are personal networks, and limiting your exposure as a business or institution limits the personalisation of your involvement.
On Facebook I place all my contacts in to Friend lists, (I have about 30 now). These can be broadly categorized by:
  • Professional
  • Family & Friends
  • Social Game players (I own up, I play games, although this, of course is about my research in to the use of games in education … cough cough)
Using the ‘Custom’ privacy settings Facebook allows me to select which list of friends I permit to view all the various areas of information about me, including posting to my wall. So Family see/do everything. Some Professional, for example, do not see photos of my children. Game players see nothing at all.
It does take some effort to set up the groups and privacy settings but once they are done, you don’t have to think about it again. When you ‘Add a new friend’ you just assign the person to one of your lists. As an additional measure I do look at the privacy settings periodically to see if Facebook have changed anything.

Time

Social networking has saved me years of work. I will repeat that: Social networking has saved me years of work
What I gain in information and understanding, arguments and knowledge have infinitely expanded on core areas of my professional life and led me to new ideas, better, smarter ways of doing things and a group of people that I can always turn to for answers.
The web tools that I have been led to by my network have infinitely raised the quality and effectiveness of my work and the information flow takes me in directions and synergies that could only be achieved through weeks of effort.
So are SNs time consuming or wasteful? Everything can be diverting, TV, newspapers, radio, books it is all better then sitting working (sometimes).
We bring discipline to our work, or we would not be were we are, and we bring the same discipline to our use of Social Networks. We control the time we spend on them by evaluating the importance of the information or network and its value to our work. We know when we are wasting time and when we are being productive and it is exactly the same when using a social network.
Of course, when you first create a public profile on Facebook all the friends and acquaintances that you have made over the years will come knocking on the door, wanting to ‘Friend’ you. I have found that after a very short while and you have caught up, this reduces to the very occasional trickle. You can also control the flow using the privacy controls described above.

Summary:

In my opinion, the advantages of being ‘personally’ involved far outweigh any negatives. There is nothing to fear on a privacy level or time. So take the plunge, the water is warm, mainly clean and you get to swim with some of the most interesting and uplifting professionals on the planet.
Of course the aPLaNet EuropeAN project, Aplanet-project.eu, and aPLaNet Ning community, Aplanet-project.eu, will be providing answers and practical help on how to build your own personal network for your professional development. If you are an experienced user of the networks and have your own PLN then we also invite you to become an aPLaNet mentor (join the Ning).
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Joel Josephson is the initiator/partner in 17 innovative European language projects. Joel is well known for his exciting and effective approaches to motivate language learners. Joel runs the EU_Educators Facebook group, that is sharing EU projects globally. He also founded the Kindersite Project early learning website, one of the first effective sites for schools. Formerly involved in high tech at the start of the Internet, he had 2 successful start-ups and consulted to technology companies. He has brought his understanding of technology into education by initiating many interesting projects with innovative uses of ICT. His Twitter handle is @acerview54.

Sunday 4 September 2011

When To Start Thinking About Money Matters For Kids

08.10.2010 | Author: Consuelo Dalton |

It\’s true some people believe that you shouldn\’t give money at a young age but, let\’s stop for a moment to consider the importance of money matters for kids. It\’s actually quite unfortunate that there is no such thing as learning about money in school as our kids do with every other subject that they learn. Just because it\’s not taught in school does not mean it\’s not a very important part of their lives.
Why is teaching our kids about money important? Well, giving them a regular allowance would teach them some very important skills such as how to manage their money. If they have a toy or candy that they want to have saving their own money will likely help them understand the concept of trading money for products and how not watching what you spend will not get you what you need or want.
There are varying opinions as to when the proper time to give your children their own allowance. The best way to decide when is the right time is to watch your child and when he or she starts to show curiosity about how you spend your money and begins asking you questions about how money works then this is probably a good time to start considering the possibility of allowance.
Many parents give allowances when the kids accomplish activities such as tidying their bedroom, shoveling snow, putting away their supper dishes and doing the best they can in school while others tend to believe these are not good reasons to give your child an allowance really it has to be up to you to decide what is the appropriate reason for your child to start receiving money.
A lot of parents have different opinions on how much money the kids should receive where some believe giving for every year of their age is a great idea others think the child will then get too much or not enough. If you have more than one child than this may not be the best option for you as it may become very costly. Another factor to consider is how much you can actually afford. It\’s really best to sit down and consider what it is you will expect them or allow them to spend it on.
You\’ll also want to consider when you actually plan to give your kids their allowance. Some people believe it\’s a good idea to give it weekly, while others prefer every two weeks, depending on the age of the child some parents believe it is best to give a monthly allowance. However, keep their age in mind when considering this because, if they\’re too young they may lose interest.
No matter your reasons for choosing to give an allowance. Take the time to sit down with him or her and have a conversation about what it means to save money and spend it wisely. Try to keep your conversation, age-appropriate. It may even be helpful to teach older children how to budget and make a spending plan this will be a helpful skill; they will most likely appreciate later in life.
money matters for kids




Monday 29 August 2011

THE NEW ZEALAND RICH LIST

http://www.nbr.co.nz/rich-list-2011

This is a good read and a good way to look at who is who when it comes to NZ wealth.
Most of the big earners have a lot of investment  in NZ but live else wear! interesting.
Any way have a good old look.



Sunday 28 August 2011

YOU MUST BUDGET



In economic times like we have now, we need to make sure all our costs are covered. It is not so easy now to get finance to cover our short falls. When doing projects that require forecasting of costs or estimating costs for a quote, you must budget out everything and then add on a percentage of unseen cost just in case you need to cover a problem.
This project forgot to do just that