Finance

Money isn’t everything. Money can’t buy happiness. But let’s face it: If you don’t have much money, life can be pretty miserable. If you want to achieve the retirement that you’ve been dreaming of, then you’re going to have to find a way to increase how much money that you take home, save, and accrue over the years. You don’t have to be materialistic or miserly to realize that it’s vital to increase your income and increase your net worth.

That’s easier said than done, though, which is why we’re here with some ideas.

Bulk up your resume with skills and degrees

If you’re going to grow your net worth, then you need to save money. Without decent earnings and careful saving, you won’t have any money to use in our next couple of basic strategies. But what can you do if your career is stalling?

Well, the experts at Excelsior College say, you could seek to improve your employability and earning power by pursuing a new degree. A new degree could make you more employable in your current profession, or if could help you change gears entirely. Excelsior College is known for its Excelsior Nursing program, a great example of a degree program that can open doors. Nursing can be a lucrative career, but it’s not an option unless you hold the degree that qualifies you for nursing positions. Get a degree like that, and your earning power could increase quite a bit.

A new degree isn’t the only option. You could also opt for certificate programs and professional certifications — or even just a course or personal study that adds a skill to your resume. The more you learn (and, ideally, document that learning), the more employers will want to hire you — and pay you what you deserve.

Invest what you save

The beginnings of your retirement strategy are pretty simple: You spend less than you earn, and you save the difference. But what then? If you keep saving under your mattress (or even in bank accounts), your net worth growth will be painfully slow. Inflation will be working against you, and you’ll only get what you save each year. But if you invest some of your savings, it’s a different story.

Over time, the power of compound interest can help you grow your nest egg exponentially. That’s why a dollar saved in your 20s can be worth up to 10 times more than a dollar saved in your 50s.

You’ll need a sound trading method, of course. For most people, a sensible strategy will be conservative and will emphasize buy-and-hold tactics. Index funds and blue chips, plus a lot of time, will add up to a decent return. Of course, plenty more advanced trading strategies are out there. You may decide to put some of your money into a more aggressive trading strategy. It’s up to you.

Buy your home (if it makes sense for you)

Buying a home is generally considered a smart financial move, and with good reason. You’ll be paying every month to live somewhere whether you rent or buy, and buying will ensure that your payments are at least going toward something more (your ownership of a valuable property).

Over time, this can really increase your net worth. But be careful, because it’s also possible to lose money by purchasing a house. Thanks to closing costs and other expenses, it doesn’t usually make financial sense to buy a home that you don’t plan to stay in for some time. Be smart, and always do the math to make sure that your housing situation is as good for your net worth as possible.

 

By 2020, the losses that stem from credit card fraud cases in the US could exceed $12 billion. Who will be the greatest losers? When credit card data breaches happen, all stakeholders end up being losers. First, customers risk identity theft as well as getting into financial disasters. Second, businesses that are primarily affected by these breaches get their reputation damaged, not to mention, the financial effort it takes to survive such disasters.

Last, the credit card companies that offer their financial services might experience the loss of customers. With the interest of these and more stakeholders at heart, the top credit card brands came together to create the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). The standard outline standardized security practices for protecting sensitive cardholder and credit card data.

Here is some more information as to why compliance with the standards is essential:

Who Needs To Comply With The Regulations?

Do you need PCI compliance? Well, you do, as long as you accept, process or store credit card data. This includes e-commerce merchants, retail stores, and even service providers. It also spreads to your vendors, especially if they have access to your payment information.

Ideally, firms need to achieve 281 directives and 12 objectives to be compliant. While it might seem like 281 directives are too many, your organization might not need to follow each, and it all depends on the compliance level you are placed. Under the standard, you are placed in level 1, 2, 3, or 4, depending on the number of credit card transactions that you deal with each year. Furthermore, there are some security controls that you can implement, which will stand for more than one directive.

PCI Compliance Can Build Customer Loyalty

In an age rife with data breach cases, customers have learned to be conscious about the security posture of any business that they work with. In fact, two-thirds of US adults will cut ties with your business after a data breach. As a result, showing that you care about data security will give you a competitive advantage.

Customers can trust you with their personal and credit card data more. While compliance might be relatively expensive, the ROI that comes from it is unmatched.

Avoid Costly Fines

In case an audit proves that you are non-complaint to the PCI DSS, you risk getting fined. Not only can these fines have substantial financial repercussions, but they can also portray you in the wrong way to customers. For businesses that manage to escape the radar of non-compliance fines, data breaches can have adverse effects.

A great example if the situation of the Wyndham Hotel, which was sued by the FTC after they experienced three data breaches. While the lawsuit ended in a settlement, the damage it caused to their reputation was irreparable. Even worse, you risk customer lawsuits, government fines, third-party lawsuits, and card brand fines. Compliance helps evade such issues.

PCI DSS Provides a Security Blueprint

Without the PCI compliance guidelines, businesses would have to guess what needs to be done for a healthy security posture. Although others will get it right the first time, it can be quite easy to leave gaping security holes as you try to protect the sensitive data. Luckily, the guideline offers enough information to ensure that your business can remain secure enough.

It offers information on security tools and strategies to implement, such as data masking. Businesses also learn how to handle PR nightmares that follow data breaches. Most importantly, it offers a guideline to continuously monitor your security controls, since compliance isn’t a one-time deal.

Attract the Right Investors

Investors have the most significant interest in the success of your business. Since they are pouring their sweat into it and betting on a business’ success, it only makes sense to invest in a business that shows the highest chance of success. For most investors, having a strong cyber-security posture is a necessity.

The last thing on their list of expectations is to lose their investments to a data breach. As a result, focusing on PCI compliance is a sure way to attract the right type of investors. It ensures that you can build a history that proves to the future investors that you can indeed take care of their interests.

The Power of Accountability in Compliance

Most businesses implement the security controls for compliance and leave it at that. Sadly, when the PCI guidelines are updated, or one of their security controls fails, the chances are that they go unnoticed. In turn, this increases the chances of non-compliance and the occurrence of a data breach.

To avoid this, your business should offer the compliance monitoring role to specific individuals, a compliance officer to be specific. Their role will be to be accountable for compliance updates and security controls. As a result, it becomes easy to act quickly to changes in your security posture, both due to updates in the regulations and the failure of security controls.

PCI compliance ensures the happiness of all stakeholders. Even better, it only takes a few steps to achieve compliance. Focus on maintaining compliance to fortify the future of your business.

 

The word “liquidation” doesn’t always conjure up positive associations. For many consumers, it’s a sign that something has gone wrong or failed. You tend to see the word pop up a lot during going-out-of-business sales, for instance.

While liquidation does happen when a business is closing up for good, that’s not the only way it occurs. It can even have a positive meaning in a lot of cases. Liquidation is a cost of doing business for most places, and while it’s not entirely ideal, it can result in plenty of benefits for both the company and potential customers.

Here’s what you need to know about liquidation and why it’s potentially useful.

Why is merchandise liquidated?

If an entire company is going under, then they’re going to need to get rid of everything. If you’ve ever passed by a storefront in its last days, you’ve no doubt seen signs like “Everything Must Go!” and “Fixtures For Sale.” A store putting out signs that say “Everything Must Go” is easier and quicker than saying, “Our lease runs out in a month and we have no use for this stuff anymore; please take it from us.”

The fixtures (like clothing racks or dressing room mirrors) often go to other retailers who are still up and running. If the store has locations which are staying open, it’s possible that some of the extra inventory will be moved to those places. But if all the stores are going, then you should expect to see even more of a fire sale of sorts.

But while that kind of liquidation gets the most attention because it’s easy to spot, perhaps you’ve also seen sales for things like Walmart liquidation. Walmart is the biggest brick-and-mortar retailer in the world, so they’re obviously not going under. Walmart liquidation happens when Walmart stores have merchandise that they can’t or don’t want to use anymore.

Some of these liquidated products might be customer returns that were either lightly used or not used at all. But once an item’s box is opened, it typically can’t be sold as “new”. That means the company might stick it in a pile with other items and just have a Walmart liquidation sale for this entire pallet of related merchandise.

How regular customers get liquidated merchandise

Let’s say you’re interested in a deal on a pretty big-ticket item. Something like a fancy vacuum cleaner or big-screen TV can be costly if you buy brand-new. But if you buy liquidated merchandise, you can get a better deal on a product that might not be perfect, but will still last you a long time. So how do you go about doing that?

You could try looking for online liquidation sales of single items, but you should know that it’s more common for entire pallets to be sold. And you’d likely only want an entire pallet full of customer-returned vacuums if you’re running a store and think you can sell those vacuums.

So you’ll need to seek out local retailers who have purchased pallets and are breaking them apart for individual sales to regular customers. In many cases, Googling your town name and something like “liquidation sale” will get you off to a good start.

One final reminder: you’re not going to get the newest technology when you buy liquidated. If you’re looking for digital photo storage boxes, you’re going to have more like buying something brand new from the retailer or maybe Amazon.

If a product is cutting-edge or really trendy, waiting for it to hit the liquidation market is probably not the best use of your time. You might be able to get a good deal on a similar model from a couple of years ago, though.