How to Hire a Contractor + MORE

Welcome to Wise Bread’s Best Money Tips Roundup! Today we found some fantastic articles on saving money on your summer vacation, building a library on the cheap, and money lessons from Mad Men.
Top 5 Articles
How To Save Money On Your Vacation This Summer — To save money on your summer vacation, consider eating from street vendors instead of restaurants…

Fox Business has a piece on how to hire a contractor. They list crucial questions to ask before you hire a contractor as follows:

Can they give you references?
Are they licensed and insured?
How long have they been in business?
Is this an estimate or a fixed price?
What’s included in the bid?
Will he handle the job himself or have someone else do it?
What sort of permits are required?
How much is required up front?
Will they sign a lien waiver?

I’ve hired several people to do work on my various rentals over the past few months, so I have at least a somewhat informed opinion on this issue…

If you are someone who has more than one real estate property in your portfolio, then you understand the power of leverage.  If your home is your claim to owning a real estate property, then I hope you have taken advantage of leveraging.
I’ve had people tell me they would rather pay cash for a real estate property…

Each week, I highlight ten things each week that inspired me to greater financial, personal, and professional success. Hopefully, they will inspire you as well.
1. Seneca on wanting more
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.” -Seneca
If you can keep your cravings under control, success is much easier to find…

Are PCs a dying breed? New data from a tech tracking firm show sales for the first quarter of 2013 dropped twice as much as experts predicted, Reuters says.Sales tracking firm International Data Corp had forecast a 7.7 percent drop, but sales actually plummeted 14 percent to 76.3 million units. Another sales tracking company, Gartner, said sales had dropped 11 percent…

It hit me the other day that I’ve been sitting on a goldmine of wealth and knowledge living here in San Francisco, the startup capital of the world. As a 12 year resident of the city with an entrepreneurial bug, a desire to meet more interesting people, and a personal finance blog with a yearly readership in the millions, what a great opportunity to meet up with some of the promising new companies of our generation and bring their stories to all of you…

 
 
Many people have great business ideas, but do not know how to get started. Luckily, starting a business is not as difficult as one might think; most of us just need a little guidance to get started. Here are ten steps on how to start your own business.
1. Business Plan:
Whether an entrepreneur wants to run a local store or build an empire, he or she must write-up a basic business plan…