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Christmas Present Tips for Guys

Christmas Shopping Tips for Guys

giftgreen1Most of us guys are useless at Christmas shopping. Here's a few tips I've picked up over the years.

Ladies, you might want to share this with the men in your family to avoid getting an undesirable and badly wrapped present this Christmas.

  1. Buying your Christmas presents at a petrol station or dairy on Christmas morning really isn't the done thing - apparently not everyone wants a funnel, box of biscuits or a car care kit. Don't do it.
  2. Get started early, no not on Christmas Eve, yesterday was already too late.
  3. First thing in the morning is the best time to Christmas shop, and I mean first thing, teenagers are still in bed.
  4. It's not the thought that counts, it's how MUCH thought that counts.
  5. Cash is a GREAT present for teenagers - and me.
  6. If you must give gift vouchers make sure they are from a shop the recipient actually shops in and try and avoid those with an expiry date.
  7. Wrapping and cards are important, you and I know it's just paper but for some reason they are important.
  8. Before you start browsing in a shop check that it does gift wrapping and accept the service - wait if necessary. If the shop doesn't do gift wrapping move on to the next. Unless you are an expert present wrapper - Yeah Right!
  9. Even if every present you buy is gift wrapped, buy plenty of wrapping paper and sellotape. You are going to need it because dairy's and petrol stations don't gift wrap and being a bloke you'll probably ignore number 1.

Guys ignore the above at your peril and have a wonderful Christmas.

Posted in Protect Your Business.

Financial Tips for Small Business Owners

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As a small business owner you have to manage the business finances, handle the marketing and gaining of new clients, the staff ... and so on! Then somehow you have to manage your personal finances as well. For many small business owners it gets difficult to separate the business from the personal finances, but these tips will help.

Budget: It is simple, and boring, but it is the best thing in the world to help plan your business and your own finances. Work out what is needed for each, and where the money should be going, and that will give you a plan even if you don't have a business plan. Think especially about these areas when doing budgeting:

  • The money you have in reserve and savings – and how much you would like that to be in the future.
  • Known, or fixed, costs
  • The variable expenses: areas where you'd like to spend money, if you have it.
  • The revenue that you need to break even and make the business stay in business
  • Your desirable profit level

Income Taxes: Make sure that you are putting funds aside for tax. It is one of the biggest areas of small business financial stress ... not having tax money ready at the right time. So put aside some of the income all the time into a separate tax account, preferably one that earns interest.

Avoid Impulsive Spending: Think of the budget... the plan! The point of budgeting is to plan where you should spend – not to stop you doing anything else, but just where you should spend. Sometimes it is a great decision to do something that wasn't first thought of in the budget, so the budget doesn't control everything. If your impulse to spend wasn't in the budget though, you do need to think carefully about whether the extra spending adds value, or a new stress?

Keep your personal and business accounts separate: Apart from the desire to try and protect your personal financial position from the risks of business, it is very important from a tax planning perspective to keep business and personal funds separated.

Prepare for a Cashflow Crisis: No matter how well you plan, and how prudent and sensible you are as a small business owner, something will go wrong sometime. The biggest client leaves ... tax rates change ... some new technology threatens your core offering... the smart business owner prepares for a cash crisis properly. While it is a lot less stressful if you have cash reserves built up that you can rely upon to buy you time, preparing for a cashflow crisis might be as simple as ensuring you have guaranteed funding (e.g. overdrafts) or personal investments built up that could be used as a new capital into your own business.

It is an awful lot easier to arrange an overdraft with your bank when you don't need it than it is when you do.

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