AGn Designs

So with money being really tight right now, I’m looking to consolidate my loan with another company in hopes to have a lesser interest rate and maybe even figuring out how I can get some extra money so I can use it towards getting at least a down-payment on a car so I can finance it monthly through the dealership itself. It’s a long-shot but I don’t have much of a choice right now, so I’ve been looking into debt consolidation online . Unfortunately I have to say that I won’t be consolidating the loan with HSBC (the original lender) because the interest rates are still too high for my liking and I’d have to go through this huge reapplication process in order to even GET more money out of them. I don’t want to travel up to New York to bother my father (co-signer) with all of this so we’ll have to see what happens with another company.

I’ve been looking into numerous resources, focusing on Capital One because I have my credit card with them but even then I supposedly haven’t made enough payments for my credit card to be considered for a loan. It’s not that I don’t pay my card, it’s that it’s a $500 maxed out card and I send the minimum of $15 a month. I pay them on time, it’s automatically billed out of my bank account but I haven’t been with them long enough to have “enough credit” with their company in order to attempt to ask for more money. I know that within the next six months if I keep up with the consecutive payments I’ll be bumped to a $2,000 credit limit but for now I do still need to figure SOMETHING out.

While continuing my woe’s about money via AIM with a friend of mine, she pointed me in the direction of picking up a payday loan. While I absolutely appreciate her trying to help me out, there’s something she doesn’t realize about payday loans. They require being paid back within one month of accepting the loan and you typically have to have a job on the books for more than six months and previous tax-filings to go with it. Now, while I do have the taxes, I don’t currently have a monthly paycheck, I file all of my taxes from the design and hosting work once a year – which is completely fine. I just don’t think I have the ability to get any of that right now. So I’m looking into more conventional loans. I do think that for quick cash that’s needed within the next 48-hours, taking the route of a Payday Loan could be a good idea, but for what I happen to need right now, it won’t help me very much.

So I’m continuing with my search.  I do hope to have something figured out within the next couple of weeks.  I know exactly what car I’d like to own, I have it bookmarked because I found a dealer and the absolute best price available. I just can’t wait until I’m standing in the lot and can pick it up to own.

Over the course of the next few months I hope to have enough money to go out and pick up a car from one of the local dealerships. It’s going to be a pretty big deal for me considering I’ve never owned one before. Sure, I’ve used cars when I’ve needed to but I never really sat down and thought “Ok, time for my own”. I’ve decided upon a Chevy and if I could truly afford one of the new Malibu’s then I’d be set. Unfortunately I doubt I’m going to have $25,000 to get the one I truly want but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep it as a future goal for myself. As of right now I’ll take either a Cavalier or a Cobolt based on functionality. I really am a Chevy girl, it’s a family trait I guess. I believe that everyone except for my grandmother (buick lady) and my aunt (honda lover) has owned or currently owns a Chevy model car, truck or SUV. So naturally this is where my attention lays.

A big red-flag at the moment isn’t whether or not I’ll be able to afford the car. On the contrary, it’s the car insurance that’s going to be the kicker for me. I’ve been looking through numerous different companies and all of them seem to have a quote that’s completely out of left-field. So in my unhappiness I went to look for outside companies so I could compare prices that weren’t based on “partner sites”. I came across carinsurancerates.com, they offer the ability to search by ZIP code through all insurance available to you.

Unfortunately I was unable to get the quotes that I was looking for. They require you being called by other companies in order to do it. I personally would prefer to do everything online, honestly. They offer you a list of insurance providers in your state though, it’s just a list I’ve already looked through. I was hoping to be able to find something else. While I would recommend the site based on it’s ease of use, I don’t recommend it if you’re looking for a quick quote that doesn’t require your phone ringing off the hook because your number is now in a database of companies looking to grab your attention by calling 10 times a day.

For a little while now I’ve been looking into Small Business Funding, mainly because of my current working situation. I’m barely making the bills so finding a loan to help me out would really be the best thing for me. I can handle breaking even every month, it would just be nice to have enough money to treat myself to the things I really need when designing for clients.

A big expense of mine is anything computer based. I’m pretty strong with my preference to use a Mac. Unfortunately having a windows based laptop can get annoying when you’d really prefer to be on the Mac but you’re on the move, so naturally one of the first things I’d look into is a Macbook Pro. I know that a standard MacBook isn’t that bad but I personally prefer a larger screen to work on as well… probably my reason for purchasing a 20″ iMac and not even considering the 17″. Not that there’s anything wrong with them but I’m all about living large when it comes to displays – you know?

Another thing that I really go through is sketch pads. I visualize everything before I even get to boot Photoshop so in order to keep those ideas fresh in my mind I tend to work a notebook and draw it out first. I scribble everything from the small details with shading and curves and even go as far as listing the HEX codes only because they’re fresh in my mind at the time of initially thinking of the template. I’ve found that if I get the idea in my head first – it goes much quicker when I begin doing it in Photoshop and even quicker when Dreamweaver is booted. Those are two programs that I keep frequently updated, again another expense.

Meeting up with a client is equally as important to my process so having the means to do so helps as well. So with any Small Business Funding I can find I’ll use it towards paying off my current personal loan so I can then afford to purchase a new car. Sean’s is great and all but getting my own would be more beneficial to my work. I won’t have to search for keys on an overcrowded desk.

So I’ve been looking into companies and the one of interest at the moment is ASF Loans. They have a few different options but of course I’d focus on Small Business Funding. They have no application fees, no hidden charges and some of the lowest rates for unsecured loans in the country. You can borrow anywhere from $10k to $150k and receive it within 24-48 hours of being approved. I have to say that sounds pretty good to me.

I recently received a message on myspace from an old high school friend of mine.  She went through the whole “How have you been?” routine, letting me know that she had some important news for me and felt bad that she had to get back in touch with me this way.  She then went on to say that a mutual friend of ours from high school has passed away due to a drug overdose.  She apologized for losing touch and coming out of the blue with information like this but she also wanted to make sure that she told me with enough time to spare for me to come back to New York if I chose to pay my respects to the family.  I told her to send my love to everyone based on the fact that it just wasn’t possible for me to actually get up there at this point in time.  She let me know that it wasn’t a problem and we parted ways yet again.  I heard from her a few days later in regards to the details of the funeral and I was shocked to hear about everything going on up to her death.

She suffered from drug addiction for as long as I’ve known her so knowing that she’d passed from an overdose wasn’t really a surprise to me. It’s unfortunate that it happened but again was no surprise.  Her mother had her in and out of rehabilitation clinics for quite some time.  She was addicted to cocaine, pain medication and meth as far as everyone is aware of.  She was also addicted to alcohol, and I’ve known for years that she was a 2 pack-a-day smoker so the combination of drugs in her body at any given time was enough to be lethal to anyone.  She was a very petite girl, so I’m surprised that her body held out on her for as long as it did.

After a conversation with her mother, my friend found out that her daughter had gone through quite a bit of intervention over the years but nothing really worked.  No one gave up on her, and her mother believes that it’s the reason behind her going deeper into her addictions over the course of the last few months of her life.  Her mother blames herself but everyone there helped her through that, informing her that an addiction to this degree couldn’t be helped by anyone involved.

It’s unfortunate that she’s passed, I have no doubt in my mind that she’ll be missed by her loved ones.  I didn’t know her very well – we passed each other in the halls, spoke a few times but I never really let myself get close to her, knowing that she hung with the type of people whom I refused to associate with.  She was a sweet girl, there was just so much going on with her life that no one understood, it’s a shame it came down to this.

If someone asked you to Blog about your Blog, what do you think you’d say? Without comparing yourself to the other weblogs on the internet, how do you rank your site? Could you put your effort into your site? Are you looking to Increase Web Site Traffic by joining numerous directories on the internet and getting yourself involved with blogrolls? There are many questions that someone can ask you about your site.

Many people put countless hours of effort into their website, and for a plethora of different reasons. Some use the internet as an emotional outlet that only a written journal can’t fulfill. Others use it specifically to stir up drama and upset people all over the world because they don’t know when to lay off on certain topics. Blogs are used to make money by advertising for numerous paid blogging websites, and then there are people who truly have a blog for the sake of having a detailed day of their life to look back to 5-10 years down the road.

Blogs aren’t just for displaying your writing abilities, or even your coding and graphics abilities for that matter. People all over the world are using their websites as a form of communication that only bloggers can really understand. Someone can take Tuesday nights episode of “House” and not only give you a summary but include hundreds of opinions in the process. Celebrity based blogs get a lot of traffic because everyone wants to know what’s going on with that part of the “real world”. Technology blogs are at an all-time rise, and even corporate business blogs have come out of the wood work so that they can connect to their consumers in a way that consumers understand.

There are quite a few sites on the internet where you can get Blogging Tips and other ideas for your website. Everything from blog topics to templates so that you can make your site match your personal style. With thousands of resources on the Internet, there’s no reason as to why you can’t get everything you’re looking for out of your blog.

I just wondered across a new up and coming site called Friendsation.com. It’s another social networking site that targets Dating and Live Chat. There are numerous Chat related mediums available to you. Registration is free and you can send instant messages to other members. There are live online chat rooms and there are also live Phone Chat options for members to talk with people all over the United States for free. This kind of makes me think that they’ve managed to work Skype into the mix, but I didn’t really get to poke around the site for too long, the dog is rather clingy today. It’s currently in the Beta version and over time more resources will be available to you. For starters, besides the chat option, there is a personals option, as well as a blogging platform for you to poke around with.