Choose Your First Home: 2010 Homebuyer Tax Credits Available

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Coldwell Banker. All opinions are 100% mine.

If you’re ready to move out of your apartment or your parent’s home, there isn’t any time better than the present. Right now, first-time homebuyers, or those who haven’t owned in the last three years, can receive up to an $8,000 tax credit.

Beginning to search for your first home is an important step to having the ability to build better finances and to live in a place that’s comfortable. If you’re considering a new home for your family, there are specific things that you’ll want to know before diving in.

Before you even begin to look at homes, make sure that you conduct your own investigation. This will mean that you should find the going rates, how much other owners are paying every month, and what you can or aren’t able to afford. Current homeowners who have lived in a current home consecutively for 5 of the past 8 years can receive up to a $6,500 tax credit when purchasing a home.

You will also want to see what types of houses are going and what they are going for. If you know the basics of what’s available, it’ll be easier for you to get exactly what you want. You should also consider things such as your credit rating and your paycheck. You don’t want to walk into something that is over your head or start to look for something, only to find out that you won’t be able to move in.

Making connections with the right people is important. One of the most important decisions that you can make is to find a real estate agent that you feel comfortable talking to. This will make a difference in the type of deal that you get as well as what type of home and mortgage you end up with. Real estate agents have the ability to do investigations for you and find something that is best for you. You’ll also want to make sure that there are connections with home inspectors and the right lenders. Without the right people set in place, you might encounter problems getting the best deal on your new home.

After you begin to look around with your real estate agent, be sure that you begin to understand the terms that are being given to you. Loan terms, terms about the market, and other real estate ‘jargon’ will oftentimes be mentioned. If you don’t know what something is, ask, research it, or check with someone who’s been through the process before. Getting into a first home is a tremendous step up from an apartment, making it important that you understand excactly what it is that you’re getting involved in.

Keep the following in mind to not miss out on 2010 Homebuyer Tax Credits.

Future extensions may not be availabe, so all qualified homebuyers are urged to act and have a written, binding contract by April 30, 2010, and must have a closing by June 30, 2010.

The income limits for singles is now $125,000, while for married couples it is $225,000 with a $20,000 phase-out of the credit for both.

While searching for a new home can be fun, it’s also a challenge.

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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ABC Neckties: Affordable Fashion-Review and Giveaway

Affordable Mens Novelty and Fashion Ties

The nature of my husband’s profession doesn’t require him to wear a necktie quite often, but when he does, he cleans up quite nicely.

His sister always enjoyed picking out dress clothes for her brothers, and was quite adept at coordinating ties and shirts.  After we were married, that job fell to me.

It’s an art to match the tie correctly with the rest of the clothes and the occasion.

I recently had the opportunity to review an affordable necktie from ABC Neckties, and picked one out for my charming son-in-law.  While he doesn’t normally wear a necktie for his job, he and my daughter go out on the town more often than my husband and I do.

We received a Baker Silk Fashion Tie in black.  It has a subtle pattern, and can easily go with a shirt of any color.

• 100% Silk

• Bocara Label

• 3 1/2″ x 58″

• Hand Made

• Dry Clean Only

At Christmas, I purchased a tie for charming son-in-law from a well-known department store.  Many of today’s top mens fashion designers such as Furmagalli, Gucci, Valentino, Armani, and Zegna have silk neck ties in their collections.  I paid much more for essentially the same quality tie that ABC Neckties offers.  I really was impressed by the tie we received.

You may ask how do you perfect the tricks of choosing a tie on-line?

Always buy the tie of correct length. An appropriate tie length is when the triangle tip of the tie touches the belt buckle.

Casual, regular office ties can be polyester blends, but business meetings and other occasions require silks or silk blend ties.

While a safe bet are solid colored, striped or dotted ties, the eye optician I regularly visit is a fan of Jerry Garcia ties – and ABC Neckties has a selection of those, along with:

• animal print
• armed service
• art
• Harley-Davidson
• patriotic
• religious, and
• themed ties

Whether you’re in the market for an inexpensive new tie for that next job interview, or a gift for Father’s Day in June, ABC Neckties offers a Money Back Guarantee as well as Secure Ordering.

Visit On Twitter: @ABCNeckties

Become a Fan Facebook

For More Information Visit: ABC Neckties

Moomette’s Magnificents  is hosting a Giveaway Contest! For a chance to win, there will be one (1) winner of a $25 Gift Certificate to ABC Neckties.

Please include a way of contacting you. Should you be the contest winner, this information may be shared with the contest sponsor in order to send your prize.

Main Rule:   (remember if this rule is not followed then no others will count)
a) Sign up for my free Newsletter Updates to my blog through my e-mail Feedblitz link (on the top of my right column or let me know if you already are, in a separate comment) AND

b) Visit ABC Neckties and leave a comment about what you like best about their site and the name and color of the tie you think you would choose if you won.

*Open to USA and Canada Only

This contest will run until March 19, 2010 at 11:00 pm. EST

For Additional Entries, check out my Contest Entry Rules.

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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Custom T-Shirts for Women from VistaPrint: Get Ready for your next Fundraiser or Blog Conference!

Market Your Brand

One of the most common ways of introducing yourself to new clients is by distributing a business card.

Those who attend blogging or marketing conferences probably have received many such cards.  Even moms with children in daycare, preschool or playgroups hand out mommy cards!

My husband owns his own business and one of the ways he markets and rewards his customers is by distributing custom-printed t-shirts, caps and sweatshirts.

I have all my business cards printed at Vistaprint, and was delighted to find out that they now offer Custom-Printed T-Shirts for women!

What a fabulous way to market your brand and blog at conferences such as BlogHer10, tweet-ups or affiliate marketing conferences!

I received three custom printed ladies T-Shirts: a long sleeved one and two short-sleeved shirts.

Here I am wearing the long-sleeved version with my Moomette’s Magnificents logo.  (Cosmetic makeup and hair products were also previous reviews!)

Cindi - Moomette's Magnificents

Although my blogs may be very familiar to readers in the blogosphere, now I have a way to show off my Moomettesgram’s Favorite Recipes and Moomette’s Magnificents logos when I go to the grocery store, and possibly an opportunity to then hand out my business card!

All T-Shirts are:

• 100% preshrunk cotton T-Shirt

• Easy to design and order

• Available sizes are: S, M, L, XL and XXL

If you’re going to be in a bridal shower this wedding season, have some made up for the bridesmaids in the wedding party, or as a gift for the bride-to-be for her bachelorette party!

Order for your next PTO or sports team fundraiser!

To design your own Custom Printed T-Shirt visit: Vistaprint

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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Surviving Selling Online Through Better Communication

Business Sense

My Internet presence began back in 2007 when I became an eBay store owner specializing in vintage collectibles.  Since then I’ve changed venues and now sell on Bonanzle.  At that time, I was a moderator on an eBay Forum and participated in conversations where many members were becoming fledgling online sellers.

That trend continues today as many companies are now doing the majority or even all their business online and foregoing the “Brick and Mortar” storefront. It’s easy to see why that trend has happened. For example, the cost of setting up such a business is relatively inexpensive and easy. There’s no need to pay for the overhead of a physical building, while the cost of maintaining a web site is minimal. Moreover, the Internet provides a convenient and efficient way of marketing products. As more and more people are spending time on the Internet, the market of online customers continues to grow.

My late mother-in-law was a woman business owner of a gourmet emporium.  Over the years I had helped run her store and gained a business acumen of growing your business through establishing relationships with customers.  It’s important to get to know their likes, quirks and dislikes.

Yet when businesses shift from face-to-face customers to anonymous online customers, there’s a loss of that personal connection and trust. When running an online business,  how are you gaining and maintaining customer trust? What are you doing as an online vendor to communicate to your customers?

In an online world, business just doesn’t stop after hours and on weekends. What are you doing to answer your customer’s questions?

Here are a few things that you can do to improve communication with your customers:

1. Make certain that your Internet host is reputable and offers a fast and efficient business ethernet connection, as well as reliable cart support.

2. Offer a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page and online product support information.

3. Add a support email link on your website for issues that can’t be resolved by you or your website support administrator

4. Provide a message board or forum for customers to voice their opinions, add comments, and interact with each other.

In today’s global economy, spending time and effort on better communication with your customers will pay off.  Whether you sell on Etsy or have your own company, in order to grow, your success will depend not on the customers you gain, but on the customers that you don’t lose.

photo credit: hospi-table

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

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Cell Phones and the WAHM

Mommy Brain

As moms and grandmoms, we change hats quite frequently, depending upon “who’s calling us.” And I don’t necessarily mean on the phone.  It’s either the kids, pets, husband, significant other – always somebody wanting our attention.

Cell phones, however, have become a way of life for most of us.

Do we really want to be available for everyone and anyone on a 24/7 basis?  What do I mean?  A famous person once said that the more available you make yourself; the more available everyone will expect you to be. People will actually be annoyed if you aren’t constantly and instantly available at all times.  People expecting you to be available all the time may be annoying.  Cell phone calls follow you everywhere you are including your bathroom.  Even during the evening when you’d like to decompress and relax at day’s end, cell phones may continue to ring and annoy you.  If it’s important – not a problem, however if it’s very menial, why must you be bothered so late in the evening?

Today we live in a modern society and with the proliferation of cell phones we see people talking anywhere and everywhere.  Smart phones are essential if you run a work-at-home mom business, and this may actually prove to be very effective if you’re running in and out of the house during the day.  It’s great to be able to keep in touch with not only the kids and family, but your business associates  when you need to.

Cell phones have become a necessity nowadays, that’s why most people use them. My youngest daughter and I share a “family-plan” on the Verizon network. She has a new Blackberry that she recently upgraded to, and I’ll be getting one on my next upgrade “New Every Two” plan. Cell phone manufacturers have continuously developed different usage and functions for this very small gadget – alarms and calendars help us to effectively manage our time.

Follow certain degrees of cell phone etiquette though; and this tool will be very helpful to you, your family and work-at-home mom business.

Verizon and JuiceBoxJungle sponsored me to write this post, and they asked me to talk about the ways my smart phone affects my life as a parent.

Related Articles:

• How To Start A Wordpress Blog Now: Be A WAHM
• Census 2010: Snapshot of America – Make Your Voice Heard
• St. Patrick’s Day Shamrocks: Wordless Wednesday
• Chili’s Grill and Bar: Shout Out to Eat Contest

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

Follow Me on Twitter
@Moomettes

Tags: 2010 Homebuyer Credit, business, family, finance, first-time homebuyer, house, money, mortgage, real estate, real estate agent, tax credit

How You Can Choose a Good PLR Service

February 6, 2010 by Moomette's Magnificents (Admin)  
Filed under Blogging Resources, VA, business, career opportunities, children, wahm, wahm tips, work at home

1 Comment

FAQ’s on Private Label Rights Articles

I’ve written about using PLR articles versus free reprint articles recently. If you still have some questions on Private Label Rights articles, hopefully this information will help you decide how to choose a good service targeted to your particular blogging niche, and help you get over writer’s block.

Benefits of PLR Articles

By Nicole Dean

Private Label Rights (PLR) articles are hot right now. The only problem is that many people have tried them and been very disappointed. I can’t say I blame them. I’ve been disappointed, too.

Oftentimes, the PLR services you may have tried are lacking in several areas. So, what makes a good PLR service and how can you make sure that you don’t waste you money on a bad one?

Here are some questions to ask yourself before investing any money into a PLR package or membership.

1. What topics are you getting?
I mean, seriously, if you are promised 100 articles each month, but you end up receiving a selection on Laser Hair Removal and Divorce, when all your websites are about cooking… You just wasted money.

2. What quality are you getting?
Say you’re lucky enough to get a series of articles on your topic. Take a minute to look at them. Are they pure fluff? I’ve paid for articles that had no original ideas, or worse, were written so poorly that there’s no possible way I’d put them on my website. Make sure your PLR package contains quality articles. Otherwise, you just wasted money.

3. How many other people are getting the exact same articles?
If 1000 other people signed up to get the same articles, are you really receiving any value? Perhaps, if you don’t mind reworking the articles. However, if you’d like more unique articles, then you may consider a more limited PLR service.

4. Does the PLR service give you any extras?
Are they offering training on ways to use their PLR articles? Do they provide you with ways to monetize the articles you’ve purchased? Some PLR sites will include recommended affiliate programs and training on how to use their articles to get the most benefits from their service.

Really assess the value you’re receiving when investing in any PLR package or service so that you don’t end up wasting your money. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.

Article written by:

Nicole Dean is the owner of  www.EasyPLR.com – where you’ll find high-quality PLR articles sold in very limited quantities.  The PLR articles at EasyPLR are professionally written and professionally edited — top quality at an affordable price.

Related Articles:

• How To Start A Wordpress Blog Now: Be A WAHM
• 4 Wordpress Plugins to Make Your Blog a Fast Mean Machine
• Scentsy Candle Founding Consultant: Guest Post
• Win a Conference Pass to BlogHer10 in NYC: Giveaway
• Custom T-Shirts for Women from VistaPrint: Get Ready for your next Fundraiser or Blog Conference!

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

Follow Me on Twitter
@Moomettes

Tags: 2010 Homebuyer Credit, business, family, finance, first-time homebuyer, house, money, mortgage, real estate, real estate agent, tax credit

How To Get Paid to Write Every Day as a Ghostwriter

January 24, 2010 by Moomette's Magnificents (Admin)  
Filed under VA, career opportunities, internet marketing, leisure, wahm, wahm tips, work at home

16 Comments

Work At Home Ideas

Do You Have Writing Skills?

If you have ever dreamed about having a career in freelance writing, you might look into the growing opportunity of ghostwriting. Ghostwriting is the practice of writing works (books, articles, etc.) anonymously for a client. In turn, the client gets full rights to place her name on the writing and publish it as her own.

Side Note: If you’ve heard of ghostwriting before and you already know it’s a career path you’d like to pursue, I recommend that you pick up a copy of Just Add Sweat’s “How to Become a Ghostwriter” Guide. It will show you exactly what you need to know to get started.

But if you’re new to the idea of becoming a ghostwriter, here’s more you should know.

To get into ghostwriting, there are a few skills you should have or work to acquire:

Excellent Writing Skills: Certainly to be a ghostwriter, you need to be able to write well. Your writing should flow well, cover topics thoroughly and in many cases, your clients will expect you to capture their unique voice in your writing.

Research Skills: As a ghostwriter, you’ll be responsible for finding and process all of the information that you will need to be able to do your writing on a specific topic.

Grammar & Spelling: It might seem obvious, but it’s important to note. All of the work that you turn into your clients as a ghostwriter must be free of any grammar and spelling errors.

Many different types of businesses and individuals readily use ghostwriting services. Authors, business executives, celebrities and others may look to ghostwriters to write books for them.

Online business owners, blog publishers and other websites hire writers to create articles and other content. Information product sellers look to ghostwriters to publish ebooks, how-to and other instructional guides. The sky’s the limit when you’re looking for people who want to hire ghostwriters.

There are many things you can do put yourself ahead in this field (and the How to Become a Ghostwriter Guide covers these and more in depth).

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Start building a resume that will get you noticed. Highlight any writing experience and if you don’t have any, you can offer to do a few free small projects to build your resume. Approach a non-profit business or someone that you know that might need writing services.

• Determine which topics you’re qualified to write about. Although many ghostwriters are well-rounded and can write on many researchable topics, having a specialty can help you get work. For example, you might have special knowledge of cooking, crafting, green or environmental, health, finance or parenting topics. Use this to your advantage.

• Have relevant samples readily available to showcase your writing skills. Many clients are more concerned with how well you write, rather than the amount of experience you’ve had.

To get more help, get a copy of Just Add Sweat’s “How to Become a Ghostwriter” Guide. It will help you discover if ghostwriting is indeed the right career for you, how to break into the business, service rates and more.

Ghostwriting can be a competitive business, but there is plenty of room for new writers if you’re armed with the right approach and that’s exactly what the guide will give you. Click here for all the details.

Related Articles:

• How To Start A Wordpress Blog Now: Be A WAHM
• 4 Wordpress Plugins to Make Your Blog a Fast Mean Machine
• Scentsy Candle Founding Consultant: Guest Post
• Win a Conference Pass to BlogHer10 in NYC: Giveaway
• Custom T-Shirts for Women from VistaPrint: Get Ready for your next Fundraiser or Blog Conference!

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

Follow Me on Twitter
@Moomettes

Tags: 2010 Homebuyer Credit, business, family, finance, first-time homebuyer, house, money, mortgage, real estate, real estate agent, tax credit

Information For Bloggers: PLR vs. Free Reprint Articles: Which is Best?

January 20, 2010 by Moomette's Magnificents (Admin)  
Filed under blog resources, business, career opportunities, internet marketing, leisure, lifestyle, social networking, wahm, wahm tips, work at home

9 Comments

Blogging Tips

One of the ways for moms, virtual assistants or retirees to earn money working at home or blogging is by becoming a ghostwriter.  Ghostwriters often write PLR articles that can be purchased or turned into eBooks.

Here’s some information that can get you started working from home as a ghostwriter, or familiarize you with PLR and reprint articles for your blog.

PLR vs. Free Reprint Articles: Which is Best?

By Nicole Dean

Content is always in high demand. Right now the focus seems to be on Private Label Rights (or PLR) articles. PLR articles are pre-written and sold in packages to online businesses looking for content. The big selling points of PLR articles are that you may edit the articles and that there is no author bio required (so they don’t have any outbound links).

Compare PLR articles to free reprint articles. Free reprint articles from places like ezinearticles.com or freeaffiliatearticles.com are written by people who have something they’d like to share. (Or, they are sometimes written by people just publishing junk, in the hopes that they’ll get some incoming links. But, good article directories will delete those, so we’ll focus on the good ones here.)

So, which is better? Honestly, each has its place. Sometimes you’ll find an excellent free reprint article that you’ll want to share with your readers and you won’t mind a bit having an outbound link, especially if there is an affiliate program associated with it. The free reprint article added value to your readers, and you didn’t have to write the article. That’s what free reprint articles are all about.

Other times you’ll already have an idea in mind for a topic and you’ll just want a boost getting that section of your website done. If you run across a high quality PLR package on that niche, you’re set to go.

So, how do you know which PLR service or membership to choose? Here are some guidelines to follow:

1. Some PLR sites offer a monthly membership where you receive a grab-bag of articles – on any topic. If you already know what you need, this may be a waste of money. Other PLR sites will list topics and you can buy the articles in a shopping cart. That ensures you receive the articles you need when you need them.

2. Are the articles written by professional writers with experience? Or are they outsourced to the cheapest overseas help they can find – no matter the quality? If the articles are going to be a reflection of your business, you’ll want to ensure that the articles are well-written.

3. Who’s running this thing? Is the PLR site run by someone who knows about content or someone who thinks they can ride the content wave and make a quick buck? Make sure you’re hitching your wagon to someone who knows what they’re doing.

Those are just a few tips to keep you from wasting money on a PLR site that you can’t use. Continue to use free reprint articles, but look into PLR articles as well. They can both benefit your website and your business.

Article written by:

Nicole Dean is the owner of  www.EasyPLR.com – where you’ll find high-quality PLR articles sold in very limited quantities.  The PLR articles at EasyPLR are professionally written and professionally edited — top quality at an affordable price.

Related Articles:

• How To Start A Wordpress Blog Now: Be A WAHM
• 4 Wordpress Plugins to Make Your Blog a Fast Mean Machine
• Scentsy Candle Founding Consultant: Guest Post
• Win a Conference Pass to BlogHer10 in NYC: Giveaway
• Custom T-Shirts for Women from VistaPrint: Get Ready for your next Fundraiser or Blog Conference!

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

Follow Me on Twitter
@Moomettes

Tags: 2010 Homebuyer Credit, business, family, finance, first-time homebuyer, house, money, mortgage, real estate, real estate agent, tax credit

Enter to Win the Vistaprint Giveback Giveaway Contest

January 10, 2010 by Moomette's Magnificents (Admin)  
Filed under buzz, giveaways, leisure, photography, shopping

1 Comment

Great Prizes!

Vistaprint

Vistaprint recently launched their Vistaprint Giveback Giveaway, where each week through February 5th they’ll be giving away some pretty sweet prizes like cameras, giftcards to Starbucks and Toys R Us, Netbooks, photo books as well as a Grand Prize of a Macbook Pro.

You can enter for a chance to win by submitting your email, and also Tweeting about it!

As a work-at-home mom I ordered some new business cards from Vistaprint, because I wanted to add both of the URLs to this blog and my recipe blog.  Since I’m always on Twitter, I added my @Moomettes URL also.

I use Vistaprint for just about everything – the Christmas cards I ordered came out beautiful!

Save 25-50% off on custom printed products at VistaPrint. Order today!

Check out www.vistaprintgiveaway.com Let me know what you think.

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

Follow Me on Twitter
@Moomettes

Switching from Blogger to Wordpress: What You Need to Know

When You Want To Learn Wordpress

Wordpress Orientation

Many bloggers are finding that Wordpress is the preferred platform of choice for blogging.  I made the switch from blogger about 1-1/2 years ago, and don’t regret it for a minute.

Many of my friends are on the fence about switching, mostly because they think it’s so difficult – but it isnt!!  If this WAHM Baby Boomer can learn it, anyone can!

Here’s an orientation class program that can put your mind at ease:

Wordpress is the website building tool of choice for many business owners these days.  It’s a great option.  No software needed on your computer, great functionality and flexibility – and you can update your site content from any computer, netbook or smart phone.  It’s no wonder that it’s become so popular.

You’ve probably heard that Wordpress is incredibly user friendly – and it is!  Still, most first time users find it overwhelming at first.  If you ever tried to tackle Wordpress on your own and felt like giving up, you’re not at all alone.  There’s a lot to take in at first.

I was lucky though. I had several patient friends available to help me over the learning curve. Still, I wouldn’t say that I felt truly comfortable for months after. The more I got to know it, the more I realized that Wordpress is both simple and complex all at the same time.

If you only want to use Wordpress to publish content, it’s pretty darned simple.  The visual editor operates like any basic word processor.  You enter content, press publish and you’re finished.

Think of Wordpress as being three things at once.

1. It’s a Content Management Script that runs on your web server, letting you enter content as easily as writing an email.
2. Your content is stored in a Database on your web server.
3. Finally, it wears a Theme, a set of template files, that determines how the content is displayed online.

Entering content is easy.  The database takes care of itself.  Customization, want to alter your design and manipulate the database for special needs, you have to tap a whole other area of knowledge and that’s where many get stuck.

There’s good news and bad news for those who want to learn more about managing their Wordpress site.  The good news is that there’s a huge resource of documents and a large community of developers and users who are willing to answer your questions.  The bad news is that there’s a huge resource of documents and a large community of developers and users…

The trouble for newcomers is usually that they don’t know how to ask the right questions to produce the answers they really need.  The documents and forums seem to be written in a foreign language and newbie questions are often answered with links to more foreign explanations that just add to their feelings of overwhelm.

My advice?  Don’t give up.  Keep asking questions.  To get the best answers, provide as much information about your problem as you can.  If you’re persistent, you’ll find that things come easier over time.

For More Information Visit: Wordpress Orientation

About the Author:

Kelly McCausey of Mom’s Talk Biz invites you to Wordpress Orientation, your all access pass to exclusive Wordpress learning.  We demonstrate answers to your questions during our live web conference sessions.  If you’re goal is to do it yourself.

Copyright 2010 Moomette’s Magnificents – All Rights Reserved

Follow Me on Twitter
@Moomettes

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