Whether you have a large amount of debt or an amount that’s fairly manageable on a monthly basis, becoming debt-free isn’t a simple process. Many people find it difficult to alter their habits, but if you want to live a debt-free lifestyle, you might have to change the way you spend and save money. Fortunately, these tips will help you start working your way to a debt-free life.

Consolidate Large Amounts of Credit Card Debt

Credit card debt typically carries a higher interest rate than installment loans, mortgages, lines of credit, and auto loans. So paying off credit card debt first, helps you save money in the long run. Also, when you consolidate debts, you only pay one monthly payment instead of several. This can help you lower your monthly expenses.

If you have large amounts of credit card debt, though, you might want to consider taking out a personal installment loan to consolidate it. Basically, you would use the funds you receive from the loan to pay off your credit cards. This bundles all of the credit card debt together into one loan with one monthly payment.

To find an installment loan, discuss your options with your bank or credit union. You can also explore online loans for bad credit if your less-than-perfect credit history disqualifies you for a traditional bank-funded loan. Or, you can also try to fix your credit score quickly so you qualify for a loan from your preferred financial institution.

Pay Off Debts From Smallest to Largest

The fact is, it’s easier to stick with a plan when you have some sort of instant gratification. That’s why you should begin eliminating your debt by paying off accounts starting with those that have the smallest balances and working your way up to those with the largest. Dave Ramsey calls this process the Debt Snowball method. Also, he encourages his students to include all non-mortgage debt in their plan including:

• Credit card debt
• Car loans
• Home equity loans
• Personal loans
• Payday loans
• Student loans
• Medical bills

Remember, while you’re focusing on paying off your debts, you have to maintain your minimum monthly payments on all other accounts and household bills. You don’t want to default on your monthly bills to pay off one of your accounts.

Cut Your Monthly Expenses

You can’t become debt-free if you’re constantly spending excessive amounts of money on things you don’t need. While you’re paying off your debts, you should only be spending money on necessities — and you should those expenses as much as possible too.

To limit your monthly expenses you should consider:

• Reduce or eliminate your cable bill
• Switching your cell phone to a lower monthly plan
• Clipping coupons and shopping sales to cut costs on household necessities and food
• Reduce or eliminate subscription services and club memberships
• Raise the deductibles on your insurance policies

Find Ways to Make More Money

If you don’t want to cut your monthly expenses — or can’t — you need to find a way to increase your income. Fortunately, the gig economy makes this fairly easy to do. In addition to taking on a part-time job, you could:

• Become an Uber or Lyft driver
• Deliver food for DoorDash or UberEats
• Offer services on a freelance basis — writing, editing, and graphic design are all good options
• Offer childcare services in your home on weekends
• Sell items you don’t use on eBay or Amazon

Remember, any task you do well can become a service you offer to others. For example, if you don’t work on weekends, you could spend every Saturday doing landscaping work for neighbors, friends, and family members to earn some extra cash. So consider cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and running errands for extra money when you aren’t at work.

It takes time, dedication, and patience to pay off all of your debt so you can start living a debt-free lifestyle, but it can be done. Simply follow these tips and do your best to stay on top of your finances consistently.

So, you’ve finally started that business you’ve been dreaming of, and you’re ready to tackle the big hurdle: customer appreciation. If you’re looking to inspire customer loyalty to capitalize on important customer relationships, here are three tips to help guide you.

Know Your Audience

The number one thing you need to do when looking for a loyal customer base is to know your audience. Remembering names and faces can go a long way, but remembering facts about that person or group of people that you interacted with can make an even bigger splash. For example, if you have a client who is an avid dog lover, consider bringing any assortment of dog gift baskets. Whatever you choose, let it be a reminder that you pay attention to the people behind the company for a more personal touch.

Follow the Golden Rule

As an entrepreneur, you probably know how it feels to be on the receiving end of shady customer service policies and pushy salespeople. The golden rule is simple: treat others how you want to be treated. If you find yourself getting annoyed at a company rep that drops by unannounced every week or sends weirdly stale boxes of chocolates once a year, that’s a pretty good sign to stay away from that method of acting towards your own clientele. Remember that the wrong kind of attention can get you blacklisted from your client and any potential referrals.

Make it Count

While marketing is certainly a way to get name recognition of your brand, your customers have already heard of you. What you want to do is make sure that they think of you positively when a need arises that you can fill. This means making sure your quality of work and customer service is top notch. It also means that when giving a customer appreciation gift, you make it meaningful. Functional gifts such as pens and pads of paper are more marketing tools than sincere gifts of appreciation, and your customers will see right through those tactics. Instead, make your gift count. Be creative, or at least make your gift relevant. For example, hand-delivering bagels with every sales call can be more meaningful than magnets or cheap office supplies. Doing what you can to have your company name remembered with fondness instead of annoyance can go a long way towards building the loyalty and friendship that can lead to your company’s success.

Exceed Expectations

When it comes to customer appreciation, the more your company exceeds expectations, the better. By familiarizing yourself with your clientele and allowing them to familiarize themselves with your company, you can do more than retain a customer, you can build lasting and mutually beneficial relationships.

For any business to be competitive in the digital age, they need the best technology available to do their jobs. The medical industry is no exception, in fact, it is perhaps one of the most vital sectors to need cutting edge technology. When it comes to software for pharmacies, there are several practical applications that justify an investment in cutting-edge systems.

Point of Sale

Let’s start at the end. Like any other retail business, pharmacies have point of sale terminals with cash registers and credit card readers. Their goal is to process transactions quickly and be easy to use for employees. In addition, in a pharmaceutical setting, it’s important to be discreet with patients’ medical information and their prescriptions. A great point of sale system will take care of all of this for you.

Inventory

From pre-packaged medications and supplies from vendors to the raw materials needed to fill prescriptions, software for pharmacies helps keep track of the inventory you have on hand. Beyond keeping your business efficient, knowing if you do or do not have a medication or supply on hand can be crucial information for patients and doctors in an emergency.

Signature Capture

Many states require multiple signatures to release certain medications. In some cases, a patient needs to acknowledge that a pharmacist or pharmacist’s assistant has explained how to properly use medication. Secure signature capture hardware and software that allows patients to sign electronically via a stylus or their finger are very helpful in these matters. Using a trusted provider with secure systems and backup can make it easy to retrieve signatures and create and electronic paper trail, should the situation ever arise.

If you offer in-home or on-site delivery to residences, hospitals, or nursing homes, mobile signature capture devices are an invaluable piece of software for pharmacies. All the features of the in-store units still apply, with wireless transmission added to the equation.

Communication with Physicians

Finally, different hospitals and clinics prefer different methods of communication from physicians and pharmacists. While they have been phased out of many businesses, fax machines are still preferred tools in many of these settings. There are software solutions that can combine fax technology with other methods of wired and wireless communication. For physicians that prefer email or text messaging (either automated or manually sent), software for pharmacies can make this easier too.

Pharmacies need to stay ahead of the technological curve. Cutting-edge software makes this painless for pharmacists and their staffs.

With a rise in people choosing to work remotely, you might be considering ways to improve your home office. Whether you need a quiet place to make private phone calls or you need a space to focus on labor-intensive projects, putting your mark on a specific place in your home reserved especially for your work can help you to stay motivated and increase your productivity. Here are some tips to follow when designing the perfect office space for optimum functionality.

Motivational Art

One of the easiest ways to make an office space your own is by putting your personal touch on the decor. Framed quotes by inspirational role models can reinforce your drive to work hard, while meaningful mementos such as souvenirs from favorite trips or Hallmark figurines can be physical reminders of the reasons you have to make it through the workday.

Comfortable Seating

Not all office chairs are made the same. When designing a space meant for high focus and long hours, it’s important to invest in comfortable, appropriate seating. Feeling comfortable in the place where you work will prevent you from seeking respite in more distracting areas of the house, like a sofa or a bed, that will keep you from being as productive as possible.

Natural Lighting

There is nothing so refreshing in a workspace as natural lighting. Working in light that is too bright or too dim is not only disheartening but can lead to issues with eyesight later in life. Making sure that your workspace is well-lit for the work that you’re doing can help give a fresh look and feel to your workday.

Organizational Hacks

In order to truly make your home office an oasis from the rest of your home, possibly the most important aspect is the organization of your office space. If you know you’re going to need space to file papers, invest in a filing system that will actually work for you. If you’re more likely to have all of your work digitized, keep your work area decluttered to prevent distractions. Keeping your workspace clean and tidy, with easy-to-find office materials, will increase your productivity and your mood.

Putting your personal mark on your home office can help you to increase your motivation, productivity and overall enjoyment of working from home. However you decorate your home office, creating a space that isn’t too sterile can help you feel more at home in your home office, and give you the motivation you need to make working from home a success.

It is very important that you take very good care of your carpet. This will allow it to last longer so you get more out of your investment. You should have it cleaned on a regular basis. You do not want your guests to be turned off because your carpet is filthy and has been neglected. Therefore, you should hire a company that has been cleaning carpets for a very long time. Running a vacuum over your carpets is good to do once a week. However, a professional carpet cleaner will have equipment and chemicals that you will not. It is worth the money you will pay to have it cleaned by pros. Here is what you should do when you need to find a company that does Austin carpet cleaning.

1. Get advice from people you know who had their carpet professionally cleaned.

It would be in your best interests to seek out some advice from the people you know. It should not be very hard for you to locate a few friends, family members, neighbors or work colleagues who have hired a professional carpet cleaning company. Ask these people about their experience. Did the company do a very good job? Are they happy with the way their carpet was cleaned? Did the company show up on time? Were they friendly during the visit? Did they charge a reasonable price? Did anything get damaged by the carpet cleaning company? Use all of this info to help you choose a company. Contact the companies that get good references from the people you speak to.

2. Make sure that the carpet cleaning company you hire is licensed and insured.

Two of the most important things that you need to look for when hiring a cleaning company are the operating license and proof of insurance. You should never simply assume that a company has both. The license is critical because it will provide you with proof that the company employees have received the proper training to operate the equipment they are using. Be sure that the license they show you is still valid. You also need to verify that they are operating with insurance coverage. This will cover the cost of repairing any damage that the company might cause to your home while they are operating. WOW Total Cleaning is an example of a company that is licensed and insured.

3. Take a look at the Better Business Bureau site.

The BBB has many carpet cleaning companies on their site. Their reviews of each company will allow you to find out which ones are considered to be the best. Be sure to only look at companies with A+ ratings.

Machine learning has been a hot topic in IT discussion and news in recent years, but what it actually means for businesses and consumers is not always clear. Often, it seems like it’s merely the newest buzzword to grab investors’ attention, next in line after “the cloud”, “Internet of Things” and “blockchain”. It may be wise to not write it off just yet, though—understanding what machine learning is in theory and practice can highlight some valuable applications to your business.

What is Machine Learning?

Broadly, machine learning is the study and use of algorithms that allow computer systems to effectively perform a given task without explicit instructions. It’s often compared to artificial intelligence, but this can be misleading. An algorithm built on machine learning does not think in the same way that people do; rather, the algorithm is fed “training data” to generalize from. This allows for the construction of a model to apply to real-world data for prediction or pattern recognition. Training can come in various forms, including:

• supervised training, where the data input has an expected output associated and the algorithm develops a generalized model;
• unsupervised training, where groups of data are collated and analyzed for patterns;
• reinforcement training, featuring a dynamic environment and a goal that software agents must pursue.

Business Applications for Machine Learning

Algorithms created by machine learning vary greatly from one task and training set to another, and the field is still rapidly developing. However, the theories at work are already finding practical use. Machine learning tools for businesses are often designed for forecasting market trends or projecting the results of marketing strategies. The massive data volume this can involve makes it a strong application for analysis backed by machine learning algorithms. To account for bias that may develop unexpectedly, top-grade machine learning tools may employ multiple algorithms to reduce potential variance caused by any one algorithm, permit regular monitoring by human analysts to catch emergent bias or make use of meta-learning algorithms that examine prior analysis for potential biases.