Home improvement is great if you know how to finance it

With housing prices at an all time high, homeowners who have outgrown their existing home or feel that it no longer meets their needs have a dilemma. It would be great to move to a larger house, but the prices of larger houses are higher than ever. What to do? The savvy homeowner might consider remodeling. You can add an extra room, convert a garage or update a kitchen. It's less expensive than buying another house, and there are many options for funding it.

Here are a few ways to obtain funds for home improvement purposes:

Credit cards - If you have received a recent offer for a low-interest or 0% interest "teaser" rate for applying for a new credit card, this may be your ticket. These offers are usually good for balance transfers from other accounts, and the rates are sometimes good for the life of the loan. This could be the best choice if you are doing the improvements yourself. Be sure to read the fine print, or that 0% interest could turn out to be 20% or more.

Home improvement stores - Sometimes, lumberyards and home improvement stores offer their own financing and the deals are often pretty enticing. Sometimes they even include no payments for a year or so. Check the ads in your local newspaper. Again, this option works best if you are doing your own work. And make sure you pay on time; sometimes the interest accrues retroactively if you pay late.

Home equity loan - The interest is tax deductible and you will have a fixed interest rate and a fixed repayment schedule. This is a great way to go if the project is expensive and is being done all at once. Be aware that you are putting your house at risk if you fail to pay. This is the best option for major renovations performed by a contractor.

Home equity line of credit - Great for long-term projects that just require a little bit of money here and there. The interest rate is variable and you only have to pay back what you actually use. The interest is still tax deductible. You are, as with a home equity loan, pledging your house as collateral.

With the price of houses still near all time highs, this is perhaps the best time ever to consider staying in your home and fixing it up. You can make it more suit your needs and you don't have to move. And with numerous financing options available, funding should be available for just about anyone who wants to make their home just a little bit more livable.

Buying furniture online can be safer than offline

Furniture sales have historically been a major area of consumer complaints. Luckily, there are a number of reasons why buying furniture online may be safer than offline.

No Fast-Talking Salesmen

Many complaints say the furniture salesperson made promises that were not kept. In reality, furniture salespeople don't always know what they're talking about. The actual fulfillment of furniture orders is often handled by a different department, or even a different company.

Not having salespeople hanging around makes online furniture shopping lower-pressure.

It's All in Writing

By their very nature, online furniture stores have to put a lot of information in writing. The written policies regarding shipping, warranties (if any), and customer service will almost always be easy to access. (Hint: look for links to written policies at the bottom of each web page.) The fact that everything is written down gives the online furniture store much less wiggle room to change the terms of the deal.

Tips:

* Save or print out the web pages that describe the furniture you have ordered and the web pages for important policies and guarantees (which may change after you order), along with any confirmation pages or emails. That way, if you ever have a dispute, you have a firm basis to make your case.

* If the web page describing the product does not have a model name or product number, make sure you get those at checkout or at some other point before paying. Make absolutely sure you are ordering the furniture you want to order. As with an offline furniture store, you will have to pay to return any merchandise you ordered by mistake.

* If you do speak with a salesperson on the phone, don't undermine the paper trail by accepting promises over the phone. Ask the web address for the written policy, or for a follow-up email outlining any promises made.

Photographic Evidence

Almost as good as online furniture stores' paper trail is their photograph trail. A common consumer furniture complaint against offline stores is that the furniture that was delivered did not look like the model in the showroom. With online furniture stores, you are buying based on a photograph. You can save the picture onto your computer in case the delivered furniture does not meet expectations. If you make sure the model name or number is included on the order form at checkout, you can also double-check what the model looks like by going to the manufacturer's website.

Less Delivery Wiggle Room

Late shipments are another common complaint against offline furniture stores. Furniture frequently arrives as much as one to two months later than salespeople indicated.

Online furniture stores will generally ship directly from the warehouse within a few days to a week of your order. Once again, you can easily check the written shipping policy for more exact information.

Another great thing about online furniture stores is that they are generally using third-party delivery companies. If you get the name of the delivery company while ordering, you may at least be able to check with the delivery company itself in the event of a late order. A third-party delivery company makes it a little more difficult for the store to claim the furniture is in transit when it never shipped.

Credit and Finance: Fewer Traps

According to the website consumeraffairs. com, furniture stores' financing deals are notorious for breaking laws regulating credit and loans. That 0% interest deal might not be as great as you thought if it comes packed with expensive penalty charges. Or you might find that the qualification requirements are too high for most people to get the low rate. Worst, since it's the furniture store that's making you the loan, you've essentially already paid them before taking delivery of the furniture. If you later find out your furniture is going to be delivered unacceptably late, you may have a hard time canceling your order. The situation is no better for cash.

Online furniture stores generally do not offer financing. Instead, they accept credit cards. If a furniture store does not deliver the merchandise as promised and will not resolve your complaint, your credit card issuer may be able to help you in your dispute. In an extreme case where the furniture does not arrive or arrives in bad shape, your credit card provider may be able to force a refund.

Better Business Bureau's Convenient BBBOnline

Many consumers who have complaints with a furniture store turn to the Better Business Bureau. But if the store is not a member of the Better Business Bureau, the Bureau can do little to help. Contrary to common belief, the Better Business Bureau is not a government agency and cannot enforce judgments. The Bureau primarily works to resolve disputes between consumers and its member businesses.

With online furniture stores, it's easy to check for Better Business Bureau membership. The store should have the BBBOnline logo displayed prominently on the order page. Click on the logo to be taken to the BBB. org web page for that store. The web page should say that the store is a member in good standing.

With the BBBOnline, the Bureau's ecommerce program, you can dispute a sale without having to go to the local Bureau where the store is headquartered, anywhere in the US.

Of course, if you're too trusting and don't look for written policies, Better Business Bureau membership, or save receipts, you can still be snookered by online furniture stores. But you could also be taken in by offline furniture stores. For a careful shopper, online furniture stores make it much easier to dot all the I's than it would be offline. The experience is straightforward, low-pressure, and mostly in writing.

In short, while you should always be careful, online furniture stores make being careful a lot easier.

Advantages of contact lenses over glasses

The functional advantages of contact lenses over glasses can be felt in areas like sports, working in humid conditions and also in occupations where glasses can be very inconvenient and may not be compatible when using equipment like special headgears. Contact lenses also offer aesthetic advantages as they do not alter the image of the person wearing it.

When contact lenses are worn correctly on the cornea of the eye, the vision is very similar to the natural vision. The objects are seen in the right size and position without any kind of distortion of the image. When glasses are worn, the distance between the glasses and the eye vary making the objects appear smaller or larger than the actual size, position etc.

Contact lenses are not altered by bodily movements, as in the case of sports or similar kind of activities. They remain stable providing stable and clear vision to the wearer. When glasses are worn, the vision is unstable while moving or running, in turn affecting the performance of the wearer.

Contact lenses provide a better and wider peripheral vision than the glasses. Contact lenses move with the movement of the eyes and the wearer always looks through the clearest part of the lens called the optic zone. When glasses are worn, it blocks the peripheral vision. When the eyes move to the sides, the sight is far from the optic center leading to distorted and blurred vision.

Contact lenses do not steam up due to body heat or perspiration. They also neither fog when exposed to cold weather nor get splattered in the rain. Glasses on the other hand fog up and the wearer cannot see completely during rain pour.

Contact lenses do not leave marks on the nose and are very comfortable to wear. No pressure is felt on the ears, temple, or nose unlike the glasses. Also glasses slide down from the nose during perspiration.

As told before, contact lenses do not alter the appearance of the person. They are boon for children who are often picked up at school for wearing glasses. Contact lenses provide both physical and psychological comfort to the wearer.

Also, after cataract operations, contact lenses provide the necessary protection more than the glasses. Contact lenses offer adequate correction when the visual acuity of the eyes are more than 2.5 diopters, which is not possible with the glasses.

The shell game that is the proprietary blend nutritional supplement

Recently I wrote an article entitled "Terms, Terms, Terms, An Inside look to buying supplements" which can be found on the Gurus and Guests section of my private forum. The article covered many of the misleading marketing terms buyers have to deal with in an attempt to make informed decisions on the supplements they spend their hard earned money on. Some of the more potentially misleading commonly used marketing terms I covered were:

"Clinically proven"

"Patented"

"Doctor recommended"

"All natural"

"Scientifically formulated"

"Research proven"

"Used for thousands of years"

Readers interested in understanding why the above terms can be so misleading, can read my write-up on each of those terms.

In a nut shell, I went onto cover each of these common marketing terms that are used to sell supplements to unwitting consumers and explained each in detail as to what I view as their common misuse within the market place.

However, one term I didn't cover, was "proprietary blend? which in many cases is the most potentially misleading term of them all, though not a term always seen in ads per se, but at the side of the bottle.

Thus, why I felt it was a separate topic to be covered at a later date as it does not fit under the classic definition of a commonly used marketing term found in ads. I also decided to cover this term in a separate article as it requires much more space dedicated to it then the other terms needed for reasons that will be apparent shortly.

Proprietary blends are not inherently a negative for the consumer, though they are inherently confusing for the buyer in most cases.

A supplement that lists a "proprietary blend" on the bottle can be there for one of two reasons:

(a) to prevent the competition from knowing exactly what ratios and amounts of each ingredient present in the formula to prevent the competition from copying their formula exactly (commonly referred to as a "knock off") or

(b) to hide the fact that the formula contains very little of the active ingredients listed on the bottle in an attempt to fool consumers.

Sadly, the latter use is far more common then the former. They see a long list of seemingly impressive ingredients listed in the "proprietary blend" none of which there is amounts that will have any effects. This is commonly referred to as "label decoration" by industry insiders. The former use of the term is a legitimate way for a company of a quality formula from having the competition copy or "knock off" their formula and the latter use of the term is to scam people.

So how does the consumer tell the difference?

They can't, or at least they can't without some research and knowledge, which the scam artists know few people have the time and energy to dedicate in finding the answers. Although there are a few tips the consumer can use to decide if a product with a "proprietary blend" is worth trying, no one, not even me, can figure out exactly how much of each ingredient is in the blend or in what ratio of each is contained within the formula, hence why the honest and not-so-honest companies employ "proprietary blends" so often.

Thus, we have something of a conundrum here and conflict between a company making a quality formula attempting to protect that formula from other companies vs. the company simply looking to baffle buyers with BS.

There are at least some basic tips or food for thought here regarding this problem. A formula that contains say 10 ingredients in a "proprietary blend" is by no means defacto superior then one with three ingredients in it. It's the dose that matters. Clearly, it's better to have higher amounts of ingredients that will have some effects vs. a long list of ingredients in doses too low to have any effects.

Sometimes it helps to look at both -- what's in the blend and how much of the blend actually exists. As an example, if say the blend is 300mg total and contains ten ingredients, that's only 30mg per ingredient, assuming (and you know what they say about assuming!) that each is found in equal amounts. Clearly, for most compounds out there, 30mg wont do jack sh*&.

On the other hand, if say the blend is 3000mg (3 grams) and contains three or four ingredients, there is at least a better chance that the formula contains enough of each (and remember, we can't tell how much of each is in there as that information is "proprietary") to have some effects you are looking for such as an increase in strength, or a decrease in bodyfat, etc.

Unfortunately, the above examples are so vague as to be close to worthless as it's easy enough to formulate a 3000mg blend where all the ingredients are worthless to begin with or a 300mg blend that contains compounds that only require small doses to have an effect and or can be toxic at higher doses.

For example, the mineral zinc tends to be no more then 30mg in most formulas and no more is needed nor recommended. Much of this comes down to the consumer knowing what the various ingredients are and how they work (to decide if they are even worth using in the first place) then deciding if the said blend appears to at least contain a dose that would have the desired effects, which just brings us back to my prior comment: most people have neither the time or inclination to research all that info just to decide if they want to use a product and thus the many "proprietary blends" on the market that are no more than a long list of under-dosed ingredients.

Wish I could be of more help giving specific advice to readers of this here article as to what makes a good blend and what constitutes a poorly made blend, but the above advice is the best I can do under the circumstances. Although a "proprietary blend" is not by default a negative to the consumer, it is by all means the poster child for the well-known Latin term Caveat emptor which translates into English as "let the buyer beware".