After a long absence I am glad to say that I have finally returned to blogging and Smarter Spend. The finally touches of my move to Arizona were finally completed and I will be posting regularly.

I have read some quality articles from around the blogosphere and my favorite financial bloggers to get back on track on what’s going on in cyberspace, the financial world, and more. I also got a new subscription to the Wall Street Journal so I can find some exciting content to write about.

Upcoming articles will include a special World Cup financial article, a summer US real estate article, and more.

Finally, I am proud to say that with the help of my readers, I have been nominated and received an award (in absentia, but nonetheless, a great result).

Check out the Badge here and other great websites that won awards. They have some great reads.

See you guys around!

Personal finances can be very hard to manage without the use of spreadsheets for simplification, organization, and error reduction. However, designing a spreadsheet takes a lot of time and often requires the expert hand of an accountant. This is true especially for business spreadsheets, which take into account lots of expenses and income.

I have selected the finest spreadsheets from around the Internet for your use. Enjoy!

1) 401K Planner

Take into account all the variables of your 401k saving to see your retirement amount. Change the amount saved per check or the age of retirement and even the expected annual return. Comes with a cool graph to visualize your earnings.

2) Personal Monthly Budget Planner

Includes incomes and a wide variety of expenses – including financial obligations such as loan repayments, subscriptions, entertainment, groceries, and more. A wonderful spreadsheet!

3) General & Administrative Expense Budget

A G+A Budget planner for your business. It includes all the major categories any business will spend money on per month, with a designated budget, and calculates the difference from the actual designated number.

4) Business Expense Report

The business expense report is a great spreadsheet for people spending money out of their own pocket knowing that they will be reimbursed by their business. It has a beautiful mileage based expense calculator, room for lodging, food, other expenses and more. Very useful.

5) Personal Wealth Analysis

This spreadsheet is very useful in helping you calculate your net worth. You can include your assets, debts and financial obligations, liabilities, and even your net worth as a goal. If you have a goal you would like to achieve, this is the best thing you can do.

6) Retirement Budget Calculator

Want to know how much money you need at retirement based on your expenses? This excellent retirement budget calculator spreadsheet is for you. Includes housing, living expenses, medical expenses and personal income.

7) Debt Reduction Spreadsheet

Are you stuck in a lot of debt? Want to calculate how you can reduce your debts and get your finances back in track? This free spreadsheet is for you.

From those failures, a few stood out as disasters. Leading healthy corporations, they disappointed investors, shareholders, and the economy. Thousands of large businesses have failed, thousands taken over by more powerful and better managed competitors.

In an attempt to differentiate the bad from the worse, Smarter Spend has dug into the past and brought you the Worst CEOs of the 2000s Decade.

I. Robert B. Willumstad
Company: AIG
Tenure: June to September 2008

Robert Willumstad

In a short three months, Willumstad guaranteed the failure of AIG and the necessary government intervention which cost taxpayers $180 billion dollars. During his short tenure, AIG shares dropped 97% and the world economy was shaken.

II. Robert “Bob” Nardelli
Company: Home Depot and Chrysler
Tenure: Home Depot, 2000- 2007. Chrysler, 2007 – 2009

Robert Nardelli

During Nardelli’s reign with Home Depot, Lowe’s nearly doubled in size while Home Depot sales remained steady. He was forced to resign, with a severance of $210 million dollars and total earnings of $400 million with the company. Shortly after his failure with Home Depot, he became a failure with Chrysler. The company declared bankruptcy in 2009, received almost a billion dollar loan from the US government, and was forced to close down most of its dealerships.

III. Richard S. Fuld, Jr.

Company: Lehmann Brothers
Tenure: 1994 – 2008

Richard Fuld

Fuld received nearly half a billion dollars of compensation during his fifteen year tenure. He sold his 13 million dollar house to his wife for $100 to avoid seizure and currently has an active lawsuit against him by the state of New Jersey. In 2008, Lehmann Brothers declared bankruptcy with $630 billion in assets and a quarter trillion dollars of debt – the largest ever bankruptcy by an investment bank.

IV. Rick Wagoner
Company: General Motors, Inc.
Tenure: 2000- 2009

Rick Wagoner, the look of failure.

In his 9 year tenure, GM cut jobs, reduced production and tarnished its image, as Wagoner focused on profitable fuel guzzling cars. $20 billion was not enough to save GM from declaring bankruptcy and Wagoner was forced to resign by the federal government in exchange for a short term loan and restructuring promise.

V. Alan Fishman
Company: Washington Mutual (WaMu)
Tenure: September 8 to September 26 , 2008

Alan Fishman

During one of the shortest CEO tenures in recent history of only 18 days, Fishman received $19 million dollars in pay while WaMu’s shares tumbled from as high as $45 in 2007 to pennies in 2009. Washington Mutuals bank failure was the largest in American history and the near-trillion dollar company was sold to JP Morgan and Chase for close to $10 billion. Fishman’s approval rating of 7% was the second lowest in 2008.

VI. Angelo Mozilo
Company: Countrywide Financial
Tenure: 1997 – 2008, 11 years

Angelo Mozilo

Rated as one of the worst CEO’s of corporate America and in the list of CEOs blamed for the Great Recession now haunting our country, Mozilo earned over half a billion dollars from Countrywide while the country fell into the subprime mortgage crisis.

There are several advantages to franchising: benefiting from an already successful or tested businesses model, sharing risks with a larger amount of people, technical support for problems, marketing and brand names are already well known, and finally, you are your own boss. These advantages have helped a franchise boom since the 1960s, with the ubiquitous McDonald’s the clear-cut leader in world wide franchises.

2010 presents a unique set of problems for franchises- decline in consumer demand, artificial raising of prices to cut losses, and overall investor fear. Many people are searching for an honest, neutral article on best franchises to open. This list, which shows important statistics for opening a franchise, provides you with non-biased findings that will help you make your decision. We will assign an overall “SmarterSpend investment rating” to each franchise.

Pinkberry:

A Scoop of Pinkberry

The Tidbits: Pinkberry now has 50+ stores in Los Angeles and New York. It has a strong cult following and is considered a healthy desert alternative, with medium sized alternatives around the 200 calorie range.  Store designs are trendy and modern, with comfortable seating.
Industry: Frozen Yogurts
Industry Outlook: $35 billion a year in 2009, predicted to increase by another $3 billion (~9%) by 2012.
Financials: $45,000 licensing fee + $600,000 assets ($200,000 liquid needed per store)
Royalties: 2% marketing fee, 6% general revenue fee
Positives: Affordable franchise, trendy stores and management, just received $9 million for second round of investments
Negatives: Relatively new franchise, competition from Yogurtland, SpoonMe, and other similar brands, class action lawsuit for ingredients (not really Yogurt).
SmarterSpend Investment Rating: 7.0 / 10

7- Eleven

7- Eleven Brand Marketing

The Tidbits: Seven-Eleven Japan Co.,Ltd., primarily operating as a franchise. It is the largest chain store with more than 36,842 outlets operating around the world and has surpassed the previous record-holder McDonald’s Corporation in 2007 by approximately 1,000 retail stores. It is found all over the world and is very prominent in Asia. They offer training in local training centers. At the moment, there are almost 7,000 franchises in the United States, and 30,000 worldwide.
Industry: Convenience Stores
Industry Outlook: 20% of all retail sales and 8% overall growth in 2008.
Financials: Net worth requirement: $127,000, with a range of total investments of $100,000 to $700,000, initial franchise fee of $25,000
Royalties: Ongoing Merchandise Gross Profit royalty of 25%
Positives: One of the fastest growing franchises, old and successful history, worldwide corporation, training centers, revenue on profits
Negatives: Most large metropolitan areas are saturated with 7-Eleven’s, Competition from other convenience stores, requires 7-10 employees
SmarterSpend Investment Rating: 9.0/ 10

Hampton Inn/ Hampton Inn & Suites

Hampton Inn and Suites

The Tidbits: The first Hampton Inn opened in Memphis, Tennessee in 1984. Hampton Inn was the first mid-price national hotel chain to begin offering a free continental breakfast and free local phone calls. In 1995, the Hampton brand introduced Hampton Inn & Suites, which consisted of two-room suite hotel rooms with living rooms and kitchen areas. As of March 2009, the chain comprises more than 1,700 hotels. It was acquired by Hilton in 1999.
Industry: Hotels
Industry Outlook: 8.8% drop in hotel occupancy in 2009.
Financials: Total investment: $3,716,000 – $13,148,800, $50,000 franchise fee
Royalties: Ongoing 5% fee
Positives: Top American franchise, one of the fastest growing franchise, International company, Training, Marketing and Ongoing Franchisee Support Available
Negatives: Higher than regular hotel vacancies due to economy, very expensive franchise, long (22) years terms of agreement
SmarterSpend Investment Rating: 7.5 / 10

Subway

Subway Franchise Numbers Increasing

The Tidbits: Subway was founded in 1965 and began franchising in 1975. Offering a fresh, healthy alternative to fast-food restaurants, Subway has franchises throughout the United States and in several countries, with locations in traditional and nontraditional sites alike. There are currently over 22,000 franchises in the United States and 8,000 around the world. It was rated by Entrepreneur as the best franchise to open for 14 straight years, before it was beaten by 7-11 in 2008.
Industry: Food (Sandwiches)
Industry Outlook: Increasing revenue and profits; Subway hopes to open 2,000 more stores by 2014.
Financials: Total investment: $84,300 – $258,300, $15,000 franchise fee
Royalties: Ongoing 8% fee
Positives: Rapid expansion plans, increasing market, good media coverage, 65% of all franchisees own more than one Subway, affordable products
Negatives: Saturated in larger cities, long term of agreement
SmarterSpend Investment Rating: 9.5 / 10

H & R Block

The Tidbits: H & R Block is a tax preparation company in the United States, claiming more than 22 million customers worldwide, with offices in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. The Kansas City-based company also offers banking, personal finance and business consulting services. They have over 22 million customers and a large number of new franchises opening.
Industry: Tax Preparation
Industry Outlook: Increasing revenue, but decreasing net income ( lost 300 million in 2008).
Financials: Total investment: $84,300 – $258,300, No Initial Fee, No additional costs for advertising
Royalties: Varies
Positives: Very low franchise costs, old brand with lots of clients, lots of company owned stores
Negatives: Competitive industry, net income loss in 2008, lots of stores currently being sold
SmarterSpend Investment Rating: 8.5 / 10

If you are a small business owner, you have undoubtedly encountered the seemingly difficult challenge of balancing your business obligations with those of home and family. Being committed to both a business and family life forces us to blur the lines sometimes. While trying to succeed in business and contribute to nurturing a family simultaneously is an ambitious goal, the frequent outcome is that we spread ourselves thin and wind up feeling as though we don’t do anything well.

If this sounds familiar to you, take heart that there are some simple strategies you can implement to restore some structure to your day and make yourself more effective in your sometimes seemingly conflicting roles. The tips that follow are designed to help you improve the balance without compromising growth.

1) Your business day and your work day can be different. Depending on your industry, there are certain expectations regarding when you are open for business. For many of us in service-based businesses, that is Monday-Friday from about 8:30am-5pm. If so, have someone available during those hours to answer your phone and attend to your location if you have on-site traffic. Doing so will inspire confidence in those looking to do business with you that you are in fact ready to do so. That does not mean that you must be personally available for every moment during those hours. Schedule your activities including phone calls and meetings at times that work for you. With the right people and tools in place, you can transact business during the business day, but produce the work at a time and place of your choosing.

2) Don’t answer your phone, but make sure your phone is answered. While this may sound counterintuitive, in this age of mobile communications it’s easy to get sucked into the myth that you will be most productive if you respond to every call and e-mail the moment they arrive. The fact is that’s simply not true. Being effective in all your roles requires some level of concentration and attention. Have you ever called a service provider and reached someone who is on a cell phone clearly engaged in another activity? While they may feel as though they are providing good service by answering your call, the reality is that the caller may feel as though they are an interruption and the information exchanged and follow-up may be lacking. Hire a receptionist to answer your business calls on a landline and schedule your activities to your preference. If you don’t wish to hire an employee, there are off-site telephone reception companies that offer a highly personalized service in such a way your callers will feel they have reached your staff. Important calls can be screened, announced and connected to you in real-time if needed.

3) Automate the routine, personalize the exception. Someone much smarter than I coined that phrase, but it has the ability to transform your business dramatically. Generally, 80% of the interactions a client has with your business are fairly routine. By that I mean, the same questions get answered, the same forms are filled out, and the same process is followed. This is the way it should be and the only way a business can begin to generate any volume. The remaining 20% of interactions may require some exception to the rules requiring your personal involvement. If you design your systems well, the routine functions can be delegated. Whether you choose to employ someone on-site to handle these tasks or outsource them to a third party provider is a personal choice, but it frees you up to focus on the exceptions that require your expertise.

Balancing business and personal life in the modern age is a constant juggling act, but by putting some boundaries in place, utilizing available resources and delegating where appropriate, you can achieve more balance between work and lifestyle while growing your business simultaneously.

Over the last year, the Federal Government has pumped in hundreds of billions of dollars in ailing corporations in order to preserve their backbone and to ensure the ripples of their bankruptcy are not felt around the world. Many can point the beginning of the current recession to the sudden demise of Lehmann Brothers, almost 6 months ago. Shortly after this, the Treasury began to pump money in at-risk corporations in the financial sector to avoid the chance of spurring another credit earthquake. Since then, $160 billion dollars, more than the GDP of some developed European countries, was pumped into AIG, $30 billion in JP Morgan, and hundreds of billions in other companies. Just recently, Feds announced that they would buy toxic assets in order to spur the credit market.

Americans should know and understand that the money pumped into any company by the US government is not given for free and has to be repaid over time. Some companies were forced to sell their subsidiares to begin the repayment process and others a large chunk of company stocks. People will see shortly the federal government dismantling unprofitable companies like a bomb expert safely dismantles a bomb. Furthermore, as the bastion for stability in the international market, the American government will. over the course of the coming years, pass laws that will limit the catastrophe caused by the fall of a single company and other statutes for lending and credit.

As the world watches, America must come out unscathed from the ashes of this devastating recession and prove that the capitalism it pioneered held its course even in the worst of disasters. In every corner of the world, heads of states truly believe America’s immoral lifestyle of excess and uncontrolled spending was the final straw that caused the fall of their own economies shortly after exports fell and credit from international lenders dried up. In order to preserve an image of certainty and continued dominance, Obama and his financial team must absolutely make drastic changes to every important economic statute and lend the way for a future of heightened government control.

I. Toyota Motor Corp.
2008 revenue : $264.8 billion (Ranked 5th)
2019 revenue estimate: $1.07 trillion

The fall of General Motors and Ford, the other large automakers in the world, will leave Toyota the lone giant in the automobile industry. From 1998- 2008, Toyota’s revenue grew more than 300% and TMC  surpassed GM as the largest automaker in the world. With a less competitive market, Toyota’s brilliance will lead them to assume the title of the most powerful corporation in the world. Their annual production will double in the same years as demand for growing populations in developing countries increases.

II. Saudi Aramco
2008 revenue : $199 billion (Ranked 8th)
2019 revenue estimate: $975 billion

Prior to the recession, with gas prices swelling to the near $150 range, Saudi Aramco had plans to double its oil production in a matter of 5 years. Investors know that ultimately oil prices will reach almost double its previous highs and Saudi Arabia will be the leading petroleum producing nation in the world.

III. Walmart Corporation
2008 revenue : $374.5 billion (Ranked 2nd)
2019 revenue estimate: $912 billion

The second largest company in the world as of 2009, Walmart was one of two stocks in the Dow Jones to post an increase in share value in 2008 (13% return, the other being a 0.50 percent return for McDonald’s) . Due to the financial crisis, many of Walmart’s competitors will go out of business, leaving Walmart unchallenged in its continued rise in dominance.

IV. ExxonMobile
2008 revenue : $477 billion (Ranked 1st)
2019 revenue estimate: $890 billion

ExxonMobile has been posting record revenues and profits even through the economic turmoil. It has a great leadership umbrella, enough oil to last almost 20 years with current projections, and an interest in incresing its power through offshore drilling, land purchases, and research. It loses its top rankings because it only holds 1% of the world’s oil and gas reserves and needs to increase holdings to keep up with the other giants.

V. AT &T Corporation
2008 revenue : $119 billion (Ranked 28th)
2019 revenue estimate: $810 billion

Don’t be fooled by the 28th rank in revenue. At & T posted bigger profits than most companies ahead of them. Also, coming in at 5th in total market capitalization, it is a significantly large company and growing rapidly due to increased demand for internet and telecom services. As the Internet evolves and becomes a major part of everyone’s lifestyle, At & T will become a dominant force in the economy.

VI. General Electric
2008 revenue : $169.7 billion (Ranked 14th)
2019 revenue estimate: $775 billion

Although it has been having trouble with its share value in the recent weeks as investments are hesitant about investment in the stock market, in general, GE has been around since the Dow Jones was created and will continue to prosper in the future with numerous investments in alternative energy, medical software, and more. It’s market capitalization (third) will allow for big investments and great rewards.

VII. Samsung Group
2008 revenue : $174.2 billion (Ranked 12th)
2019 revenue estimate: $740 billion

The world’s largest conglomerate posted a $13 billion profit in 2008 after heavy marketing and recently surpassed Sony as the largest electronics company in the world. With electronics becoming a bigger part of everyone’s lifestyle and Asian countries growing in power, Samsung is poised to become a top ten company within a short time span.

1) Increase the flexibility of your budget by bartering
Does your business offer a unique type of service or product? If so, you might be able to barter for other professional services by offering your expertise or your goods in exchange for someone else’s. This is a great way to keep your inventory flowing and let others knows about your business while at the same time benefiting by cutting costs.

2) Buying something for your business? Get a few qualified quotes.
If you’re going to make larger purchases for your business, you might be seen as a valuable potential customer for other businesses. Use this to your advantage and always get a few qualified quotes before making a purchase. This can save you tons of money as competitors try to outbid each other!

3) Avoid lawsuits and professional arbitration
Many companies have gone bankrupt in the face of lawsuits and lawyer costs. If you get a customer complaint, do not act as if nothing happened. Look into it, find a solution, and you might turn an angry customer into a returning client. It’s a win-win.

4) Learn how to do what you pay others to do
If you’re paying someone on an hourly or “per-diem” basis to do something that you do occasionally, you might as well pay them one time to teach you or one of your workers. This will save you tons of money if you do it for a few job skills. For example, if you need a staffing company to hire a worker, you can hire a professional staffer to teach you where to find potential candidates.

5) Pick up things yourself, don’t pay extra for shipping.
If you are constantly ordering things online, you will see that the money spent on shipping can add up. Imagine buying things online every other day, at an average cost of say, 25 dollars shipping each time. That’s about 400 dollars a month. You can spend that 400 in marketing or promotions.

6) Join other similar businesses to get bulk discounts
Bulk discounts can save you big! Imagine saving 25% and forming a good friendship with another business.

7) Save on Credit Cards by comparing providers
If you tend to have built up balances on your business credit cards, call up your credit provider and tell them that you have had better rates offered to you from other companies and that you will switch if they don’t lower their interests. Play the game right and you will see a great reduction in your credit bills!

8 ) Lower your taxes by taking heed of good deductions
Keep your receipts! At the end of the year, a great tax accountant will save you tons of money by finding deductions, like mileage, lunches, cell phone bills, and more. Let’s say you pay for entertainment costs for a future clients… use that as a tax deductible!

9) Keep track of the smaller expenses
Just like those junk food binges cut a big hole in your allowance, those petty expenses can dent your business budget. Make sure you keep track of smaller expenses to avoid wasteful practice. You might save hundreds or thousands a month by switching to a better lunch location, cutting transportation costs, reducing electric bills and more.

10) Handle surges in business with temporary workers
If you have increases in sales at specific months or seasons, hire temporary workers to help you with business. You won’t have to pay for benefits and you can let them go after the season ends.