How You Can Save Money on Your Utility Bills This Summer

When you receive your utility bills in the mail, you probably wish that you could stop these services entirely. No one likes to pay bills, especially when money is tight. 

Even when money is not tight paying the bills is never fun because it means it is less money in your pocket. But your utility bills are probably some of the most important bills that we all pay. They are what allow us to keep running water in our house and the electric turned on. 

They help make sure we have heat in the winter time and air conditioning in the summer time. So you might say that your utility bills are a necessary evil. However there are ways you can save money on these monthly bills.

Turn off the Electric

When you're in the kitchen, you might leave the air conditioner in the living room blasting, and when you run out to the store, you may keep all of the lights in the house on. 

While an outdoor light can provide safety, you should evaluate the purpose of leaving other such units running. Make it a household rule that everyone in your family needs to turn these things off when they exit the room or house.

Inspect the Units

HELP Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Electric recommends that you have yearly maintenance for your air conditioning and heating units. By doing so, you can work to restore their energy efficiency. 

Also, you will find out if any problems exist early on. Waiting too long means that you may have problems that grow, which just costs you more money in the long term.

Minimize Water Usage

Perhaps you have been in the habit of running the sink water while you brush your teeth since you were a kid, but no reason exists for that habit. Try to limit the amount of minutes you spend in the shower. 

Purchasing small timers and placing them in the bathroom can help to keep people on track. Also, when you take out an item in the kitchen, ask yourself if you really need to use it. The more equipment you take out, the more you have to clean later.

Evaluate Your Television Package

Many people have too many channels on their television that they do not even watch. Summer is a good time to cut back on the channels because you are not spending as much time watching shows anyway. 

By the time the fall comes around, you probably will have forgotten about all the channels that you never watched anyway. Therefore, now is the perfect time to cut back and to select a more affordable television package.

Negotiate Your Bills

When you are already taking as many steps toward efficiency as possible, call the utility companies. Explain that you are struggling to pay your bills. 

The company may be willing to work with you, or you might have negotiating power if you found a lower price somewhere else.

There are many other ways you can save money on your utility bills this summer than what has been listed above. It will just take some research on your part and also finding out what works for you in both the short and long term. 

Utility bills may be a necessary evil, but they sure to help make living at home a whole lot easier. And if you can save money on your bills each month means that you will have more funds for enjoyable activities this summer and more money in your bank account.

How to Get Your Best Caregiver in Rhode Island

There are many channels of getting caregivers. From a friend of a friend who knows someone to a friend’s child offering caregiving services part time, your choices are endless. This is a common means of getting a care giver but it isn’t advisable to get these services from such people because of the security issues associated with them.

Unless you fully trust these persons, you shouldn’t seek a professional service provider. Rhode Island has a center for care giving services for you that has an online presence giving you convenience of booking your preferred care giver at your preferred time.

Follow the following procedure:

Registration

Login

You must register your details on the website. It is important for you to ask for help from a younger person if your elderly and you require a caregiver. Essentially, you require a caregiver to help with such details. Get someone you trust. This shouldn’t be a problem if you are getting searching for a caregiver for a loved one.

You should select the Careseeker tab on the web page that you open. In most cases the ‘Careseeker’ is the default button, and you do not have to switch tabs.

You should set up a password/ have a password set up for you. There is also a checkbox that lets you choose if you are the senior person seeking care of if you are the friend/ relative. 

Registration details

Remember to include your email address to sign up, add your profile information. This is simple and like many other forms you’ve filled online and offline. You therefore require your DOB, name, phone number and your physical address. Photo upload is optional.

Select services

Once you have entered your details, you should check the services you expect from Senior Care Center Rhode Island. This will make it easy for the service providers to meet your needs. 

Start searching

Once you finish the sign up; a box will pop up to inform you if your application is successful or not.

If successful, start searching. Search for provider within your locality. You will get all information about potential caregivers including their reviews, photo, their rates, their availability and the services they offer. Availability is very important therefore ensure that both your times and theirs match. 

Specific searches

There is the option of choosing a specific feature from your caregivers. For instance, the list view will give you a list of all caregivers while you can choose male or female providers if you need a caregiver of a either gender.

Questions

There is a button that will let you send a message if you have questions about the services or the caregivers. 

Booking

Once you get a caregiver whose availability matches your preferred time, you should go ahead and book. Time blocks are available and you can book multiple blocks. Place your request after you are satisfied with the total costs and time. 

Safety

In case you have a problem you should contact the relevant people. Call 911 for emergencies and send an email or call the center for non-emergency problems.

In conclusion, these steps will help you in getting the best care or caregiver for your loved one at the time of your convenience. The caregivers are vetted before their profiles are on the website ensuring that you get nothing but the best.

Author Bio
Joy Sanders is a cyber security analyst and a social worker at senior care center Rhode Island. She will help you in getting the right care giver by having the safest and easiest login and search website running at all times. She is a part of the team vetting the caregivers.

5 Simple Ways to Keep Your Business Finances Separate From Your Personal Finances

All to often, entrepreneurs do not differentiate their company and individual income resources. After all, you are your company, nevertheless mixing up the 2 will eventually make a mess for you and your accounting professional at tax time.

Even if you're just beginning, it's necessary to break up these 2 parts of your monetary life. Treat your company, small or large, like a living entity. That begins with tracking your expenses in your company separately from your home funds. While at first it may seem like they are one in the same if you are a one-man entity.

Here are a few ideas to show you how to separate your company from your individual financial resources.

Open a business bank account

Begin with your banking institution. Open a business checking account. If there's ever a concern relating to whether it's a pastime or a business, the IRS wants to see if you have a separate bank account.

If you use Quicken or Quickbooks see to it you have 2 distinct accounts: one for home and one for the business. Having 2 bank accounts is tax-smart and it will likewise help you manage your company better.

At the end of the year, all your revenues and costs will remain in one place, making record keeping and tax filing a lot easier. If you attempt to split up all your documents in March or April, you will not have the capability to appropriately keep in control all the cash movements from the previous income tax year. Maintaining good records all year-long will help be you organized and you will have the ability to stay on top of any problems before they get to be big ones.

Apply for a business credit card

Credit is always needed in any small business. Try to get a credit card for your company as soon as possible. Like a different checking account, a charge card will help your record keeping and provide you with something to show the IRS if you're ever audited.

Your business credit card might offer you an additional tax reduction too. If you need to keep a balance on a business credit card, that's the only charge card interest that's tax deductible as an overhead expense.

Keep it legitimate

Think about establishing a limited liability company (LLC) or an S Corp for your business. Seek expert consultants (we suggest this group contain lawyers, Certified public accountants and insurance representatives) and identify which entity makes the best sense, how this company will affect your taxes, monetary practices and precisely what insurance you need.

These types of legal entities will offer you a better level of liability defense, which will be very helpful to your company if ever litigation is taken against it.

When it's income tax time

Keeping bookkeeping accounts, charge cards and record keeping software programs assigned entirely for your business will provide you exactly what you need to send for your income taxes and to show to the IRS that your company in fact is a business. However there are other factors to think about, too.

If you use an office to run your operations from, you've qualified for a deduction, but only if you do this right. Even then, you maybe in for an audit.

Compensate yourself

This is simple if you are a corporation, but is recommended even when you are a sole proprietorship. Allow yourself a salary. Don't go over that amount by paying for personal expenses. Exceeding it just lures you to skim company funds to pay your ongoing grocery or lease bills.

Be prepared

When income tax time rolls around, each of these 5 methods will make filling out forms simple and headache-free. Your company's accounts will be well-organized, enabling you to have a clear peek of how it is doing, where the weak spots are, and where it is prospering.

We truly hope these suggestions help you separate your company and individual financial resources. If you have any additional ideas or recommendations, please provide them in the comment area listed below or on social media networks.

Some Common Blunders Small Businesses Make with Local SEO

Having a really focused Local SEO plan is mandatory for the success of any small business. For most small business owners SEO seemed to be non-existent on their radar until recent times. 

But today’s digital era is completely dominated by search engines and mobile phones, so seeking help from a Local SEO professional to wade through online marketing rough waters could be lifesaving.

Small businesses must realize that Local SEO has become a really booming SEM tactic in recent times. Statistics reveal that Near Me search enquiry seems to have increased 34 times since the year 2011 and it seems to have doubled last year alone. 

As per statistics presented by Google, local searches have drawn 50 percent of mobile visitors within a day, to the stores.

As a small company owner, you may be relying on local clients for sales, as well as profits. If you are not concentrating on and directing your SEO endeavors toward your local market, you are missing out on the opportunity of reaching your target audience, boosting local knowledge relating to your company or bringing in new business or clients from your online promotional efforts. 

If you complete SEO training, you could take wise decisions online. 

Get Set Go

• Start by creating a listing on Google My Business.
• Make sure that your website is really mobile-friendly.
• Pages should be optimized for local keywords.
• Focus on creating local blog content.
• Your NAP (Name, Address & Phone Number) should be consistent across all online platforms.
• Link top quality backlinks to your site.
• Use social media for interacting with customers.

There are still a few things where small businesses may go wrong. Stay away from the following mistakes.

Overlooking Competitive Analysis

Local SEO affords a great opportunity to small businesses for competing with corporations, which boast of huge marketing budgets since the local pack of Google comes as the top-most result in almost 93 percent of searches involving local intent. 

Remember you would be having stiff competition despite taking a leap over big businesses contending for ranking in general organic results.

A common mistake made by numerous small businesses is targeting keywords, which are highly relevant and applicable to their business. You must never fail to examine how many other small local businesses have also optimized themselves for identical strategy. 

Devote some time to competitive analysis for assessing what is working for others and also, to examine the opportunities for targeting less competitive keywords. It is similar to regular SEO and considers traffic, intent and competition.

Opting for the Wrong Categories

You should categorize your specific business on My Business Page for Google to easily track valuable information such as what type of brand you actually are. This is required to assist you in appearing pertinent in search results. 

So if you do not remember categorizing your business or if you end up choosing the wrong categories, it could have an immense impact on your ranking in terms of local SEO. Many small businesses think of choosing every possible category they could. However, Google advises using least number of categories if possible, for describing your business.

Ignoring Your Reviews

Remember you must give importance to online reviews as they really matter whether or not you are contending for any local SEO position. People would be actively looking at your business reviews on third-party platforms. 

Statistics reveal that around 88 percent of people have faith in those reviews just like personal recommendations. So you must take steps for getting positive reviews and if you fail to make any effort, it would be detrimental to your business. If your site has bad reviews, people would hesitate to click. If they do not click, it would be hurting your ROI.

Author Bio: Allan Randal is an experienced and fully certified SEO consultant. He emphasizes the need to gain SEO training for best results. He is an avid blogger.