Quicken Home & Business 2008

O..M..G.. Quicken Home & Business 2008

It's been a few weeks now and I'm still going nutso. I guess switching banks and operating 2 businesses, as well as personal finance doesn't help! Oh please give me strength and clarity to understand this awesome program! *off to find a dummies book*

Hallelujah Praise the Lord!!!!

Taxes are DONE!! And I'm going to be getting a very nice return, thank you very much!! Now I can get back to work with a piece of mind. I got some incredible help from Regina at our local H&R Block.

Now, it's back to work as usual and with more preparation for next year's taxes!!

XOXO Pascale
www.tristatepleasure.com

NEWS: Sex and financial risk linked in brain

MEN!!!!!!! *rolls eyes*

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Sex and Financial Risk linked in Brain

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON --
A new brain-scan study may help explain what's going on in the minds of financial titans when they take risky monetary gambles - sex. When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler, university researchers reported.

The arousing pictures lit up the same part of the brain that lights up when financial risks are taken.

"You have a need in an evolutionary sense for both money and women. They trigger the same brain area," said Camelia Kuhnen, a Northwestern University finance professor who conducted the study with a Stanford University psychologist.

Their research appears in the current edition of the peer-reviewed journal NeuroReport.

The study only involved 15 heterosexual young men at Stanford University. It focused on the sex and money hub, the V-shaped nucleus accumbens, which sits near the base of the brain and plays a central role in what you experience as pleasure.

When that hub was activated by the erotic images, the men were far more likely to bet high on a random chance game that would earn them either a dollar or a dime. Each man made more than 50 gambles under brain scans.

Stanford psychologist Brian Knutson, a lead author of the study, says it's all about the power of emotion and arousal and our financial decisions. The trigger doesn't have to be sex - it could be chocolate or a winning lottery ticket.

"It didn't matter if the sexy woman didn't tell you anything about the odds of winning a roulette game," Knutson said. "What really matters is that the sexy woman is having an emotional impact. That bleeds over into your financial decisions."

Kuhnen said the same link could hold true for women, but they didn't test it because it is more difficult to find an erotic image that would appeal to many different heterosexual women compared to heterosexual men.

The link between sex and greed goes back hundreds of thousands of years, to men's evolutionary role as provider or resource gatherer to attract women, said Kevin McCabe, professor of economics, law and neuroscience at George Mason University, who wasn't part of the study.

"Risk-taking is a natural way of increasing your relative success, but, of course, there's a downside to it, what we're seeing right now in the economy," McCabe said.

The results of the study jibe with the real life on the trading floor, said Phil Flynn, a former Chicago commodities floor trader and current analyst at Alaron Trading Corp.

"I'm not shocked that it may be part of the deal," Flynn said Friday. "When you talk about all the euphemisms for trading (on the floor), they can be used for sex as well."

("Massaging the market" and "hardcore" were about the cleanest that he and his colleagues could come up with.)

The study conforms with recent research that indicates men shown a pornographic movie were more likely to make riskier sexual decisions. Another suggests straight men think less about their financial future after being shown pictures of pretty women.

One still-to-be-published study at Harvard University found a link between higher testosterone levels and financial risk-taking.

But the study conducted at Stanford, funded by the National Institutes of Health, went deeper, using functional magnetic resonance imaging machines. It's part of a new but growing field called neuroeconomics that attempts to take the hard-wired science of brain biology and mix it with the softer sciences of psychology and economics to figure out why we make the financial decisions we do.

An earlier study by the same team found that the brain's reward area lit up at about the same time as risky decision-making.

The erotic pictures experiment was designed to find which was the cause and which was the effect. The answer: Lighting up the reward area, in this case with soft-core pictures, caused the risk-taking, Kuhnen said.

"The more activation there you have, the more prone you are to taking more risk," Kuhnen said. "It could be a feedback loop."

The flip side was that the photos of snakes and spiders activated the portion of the brain often associated with pain, fear and anger. And those people were more likely to bet low.

This all makes sense to Harvard economist Terry Burnham, author of the book "Mean Genes." Burnham said it could be all summed up in a famous line from the movie "Scarface."

"In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women."

National Credit Score Average is 692

It's been announced that the nation credit score average is 692. A credit score falls between 300 - 850. Usually anything 700 or above is considered "good".

For Your Pleasure has helped with my credit tremendously. Here are some ways..

* My paycheck isn't set in stone - Counting on a regular weekly or bi-weekly paycheck can kill you if you aren't budget or save-smart. If you are impulsive, than you are worse off. You'll spend more than you make and go into credit card debt. You maybe finance a car for more than you can afford. And worse off, if you aren't money-smart, you'll get screwed over by being sold a more expensive car. Have a low credit score? Then you'll get a high interest rate on the loan. UGH! LIFE! For Your Pleasure gives me freedom to depend on a monthly paycheck from my team. But I can do parties as often as I need. If I want to plan a vacation this summer, I'll fill up my calendar more than usual for May and June!

* Higher pay in less time - At most corporations, you have to go up the ladder. You have to WAIT AND WAIT to get a raise or advance in title. With FYP, you can do a party and say it's the average of $500 in retail. At a starting 40%, you'll make $200 in less than 3 hours! Once with the company say one year, now you have a customer/hostess base, loyal customers and EXPERIENCE in upselling. Say you've also recruited and are now at 50%. Have a $1000 party on a Saturday night. You've just made $500 in LESS THAN THREE HOURS!! On top of that, every 15th of the month...you are getting a check with up to 10% of what your team is retailing. This CAN be done in a year. Imagine where you can be in 2 years?! or Three?

* OK, I need to pay off my car loan or credit card - Say your minimum payment is $100. Take ONE party per month. Make it a party that you've determined will be over $300 in profit. Take your profit THAT NIGHT and pay triple your monthly minimum payment for your debt. Do this every month. Simple! It's easier than getting close to your payment due date and pulling your hair trying to figure out WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO DO!

* Cash Bonuses - Do you get bonuses at your job? Say you sell X amount of merchandise in any given month. Can you count on your company to give you 5%-10% of your sales IN CASH? For Your Pleasure offers the same sales bonus every month. (PLUS EXTRA PERKS EACH MONTH!) Well, you can plan to take your bonuses and use them to pay off old debts!

LOOK!

Sales % of Sales Bonus Amount
$7000+ 10% $700+
$6000-$6999 9% 540+
$5000-$5999 8% 400+
$4000-$4999 7% $280+
$3000-$3999 6% $180+
$2000-$2999 5% $100+


There it is... FOUR ways that being a For Your Pleasure consultant is helping to improve my credit score! Well, improve my credit and manage bills PERIOD!