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If you need to send or receive money, you can do it quickly by doing it online. There are so many ways that you can send someone cash or that you can get what you need, but doing it online is one of the fastest ways. You do have to make sure you have a way to do this set up in the event of an emergency, and you also have to know when you should never try to transfer money online. Believe it or not, this is one of the most common ways people are scammed out of their hard earned money, and it happens because people have a big heart, but are not careful enough about trusting others.

One of the best ways to transfer money online is to use a service like PayPal. This is where you can take money that you have in an account, such as a bank account or in the PayPal account and send it to someone else. It takes just seconds to send this money. PayPal can take the money out of your bank account for you, or it can take if from a credit card that you may have on file. The person getting the money will have it instantly, and can then take it out of their account in a variety of easy ways. If they have a PayPal credit card, the money is instantly there. They can also transfer it to a bank account in two or three days.

You have to have a PayPal account do to this and the person receiving or sending the money to you must also have an account. The biggest reason why people have this type of online account is so that they can transfer money online quickly. They can pay for auction items this way, send money to friends, buy things from online vendors that accept PayPal, and they can also get paid this way if they work online in any way. It really does make life so much easier. Setting up an account is free, and though you are entering your personal information, most don’t worry about the security of PayPal.

Stop and think about what you are about to do before you transfer money online. Make sure you are sending money to someone you know, or paying for something from a web site that you feel you can trust. There should never be any reason why you are sending money to someone that you do not know for reasons that seem a bit off. You are not the winner of an online lottery, and you did not inherit money from someone you do not know. You have not been chosen to help someone move money around either, as these are all common scams that will only leave you broke and heartbroken.

There are even times when people transfer money online to someone they know, only to find out that they have also been scammed. If someone you know sends you and email or leaves you a message on a social networking site claiming they are stranded somewhere or in need of cash for any reason, never send them money without talking to that person on the phone. This scam is relatively new, but is working like a charm. Always verify some other way before you transfer money on the Internet, even to someone that you know.

As the real estate market began to slide three years ago, my wife and I began to sense that we were losing our options. As people lose the value they always believed they had in their homes, their options in their ability to qualify for loans begin to freeze up too. The worst part for us was, that we were in the real estate business, and we saw our incomes begin to seriously drop. We never imagined we’d have collection agencies calling, but call, they did. In the end, we had to pick one of two options – we could file for bankruptcy, or we had to find a way to ditch all the retirement income planning we have ever done, and tap our retirement funds in some planned way. As you might guess, the latter is what we picked.

As it turned out, we were hardly alone. Thousands in our district went through the same thing. They were temporarily throwing their retirement income planning out the window and reallocating resources to stay afloat, to save their homes. When I looked at the statistics on this, I found that 1% of all 401(k) plans were raided to keep homes afloat in this quarter alone. People just don’t know what else they can do when they have a foreclosure or an eviction staring them in the face. Or when they see that it could either be sending their child to college or keeping their retirement income planning intact.

When you tap into your 401(k), 403(b) or any other retirement plan before you reach 59 ½, the IRS will fine you 10% of the taxable income for being irresponsible. So what should you do to be more responsible with your retirement income planning when you do absolutely need to make a withdrawal? To begin with, the 401(k) loan is infinitely preferable to making an actual withdrawal. The terms change from plan to plan, but most will allow you to pay back the loan in five years. You’ll get great interest terms, and the interest is tax sheltered, too.

Taking advantage of a regular IRA distribution, called 72(t) disributions, is a great plan too. Investors are allowed to make regular withdrawals with no 10% penalty if they keep to a prepared schedule. This is a great plan in that, it allows you to stay away from the penalties that other kinds of withdrawals can impose on your life. You just have to make sure that you stick with their repayment plans. If you don’t, a 10% penalty comes right back to haunt you.

And finally, tapping a Roth IRA is one of the best ways you can go about changing your retirement income planning midstream for an emergency. It’s cheaper to do this; since Roth IRA funds are after-tax funds, you don’t pay any penalties or taxes. If you don’t pay your loan  back quickly though, it can really end up costing you.

I bought a starter home a few months ago, and ever since then have been spending my free evenings and weekends trying to renovate the place. I decided to go the DIY route, so I bought a few books and manuals, printed out some step-by-step instructions from the Internet, and have been slowly upgrading the floors in my kitchen, bathroom, and entrance foyer. After careful consideration, I decided to go with natural stone tiles for the job. I can’t wait to see how everything turns out!

I know there are plenty of cheaper options than natural stone tiles out there, but I wanted to add a touch of elegance and class to my home. Plus, I figured I could splurge a bit on the decorating since I saved so much money by buying the place “as is”. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I probably would have chosen to decorate with natural stone tiles anyway, since they look so much better than linoleum, wood, or other types of flooring. That’s just my humble opinion, of course.

So once I decided to use natural stone tiles in these rooms, I checked through some books and magazines for inspiration. I found lots of lovely patterns to choose from, and decided to try to emulate a few of the looks I discovered on those glossy pages. The next step was to purchase the natural stone tiles themselves, which took a bit more work. At first I went to the local home improvement center, but they didn’t have the exact tile pattern I wanted — and their prices were a tad too high anyway. So I started browsing online and came across several websites that stocked precisely what I wanted. They were offering pretty good deals, too — even with shipping and handling charges thrown into the mix.

After I took delivery of the natural stone tiles, I began the real work of renovating my house. I started in the kitchen, where I wanted to replace the backsplash and floor. It took me kind of a long time to get my bearings and gain some confidence in my capabilities, but once I got the hang of the process, I had no trouble putting each tile in place. I’m not quite finished in there, but hope to make significant progress next week. I’m using a few of my vacation days to make a final push in the kitchen before moving on to the master bath.

From what I’ve done so far, I think the kitchen looks terrific! Sure, it’s probably not as perfect (and certainly the work isn’t getting done as fast) as it would be if I hired a professional crew, but I’m enjoying putting in the natural stone tiles on my own. I think I’ll derive greater satisfaction out of the finished product knowing it came as a direct result of my own toil. Now let’s just hope I actually get all of this work done in a reasonable amount of time!