Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

What to Know About Filing for Bankruptcy

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Businesses work hard to avoid bankruptcy, but it’s a reality many business owners have to face. If you feel there’s no other route for you but bankruptcy, then pause for a moment. The following are a few things you should know before you file.

Look for Legal Help

The first thing you want to do is find a good lawyer. Many law firms use clever bankruptcy lawyer marketing techniques to generate business, so do your research before deciding who to hire. As they say, “The choice of a lawyer is an important one and should not be based solely on advertisement.” You want someone on your side who understands what your business is going through and understands bankruptcy. You can try to do all of this on your own, but the chances of making errors are high. This is not a time to make mistakes, so just keep that in mind.

Is it Necessary?

Once you’ve hired a lawyer, you can move on to the next step, which is finding out if the filing is even necessary. Your lawyer can look over your situation and see if it’s something you can avoid or something you have to face. A good bankruptcy lawyer might be able to reach out to your creditors and work out a deal on your behalf. The deal might not be great, but it might prevent bankruptcy.

Are You Closing the Business?

A big question you’ll have to answer before you file is if you want to save your business or not. There are a few bankruptcy options, and the way you answer this question determines the options your lawyer presents to you. Decide if there’s a way to dig yourself out of this hole, or are you done with this endeavor? Figure out if the business can still be profitable in the future. Answer these questions honestly before you move on.

Consider the Budget

Filing is expensive, and things get even more costly if you’re thinking of keeping your business going. It’s important to talk candidly with your lawyer about all of your expenses and any immediate financial issues, like if you’re facing foreclosure. The lawyer you hire needs to fit into your budget. If this doesn’t happen, you might deal with more financial stress than needed. The right lawyer should help you work out a plan that’ll benefit everyone.

Accepting Compliance

If you are thinking of keeping your business going, then accept that you won’t have control over your business as you usually would. When you file for bankruptcy, you’re letting the courts control your business. Many of the decisions you could make on your own will have to go through the courts. Some business owners have a hard time accepting this because they’re used to being their own boss, so this feels alien. Be sure you’re ready for a change like this one.

The Privacy Issue

As business owners, you’re entitled to your privacy. That’s no longer the case if you file. The courts, your creditors, and other people can see everything you do. The way you conduct your business, the mistakes you’ve made, and any additional detail in your business dealings will be reviewed by strangers. Sometimes, you’ll be questioned about decisions you made, and that’s going to feel strange. Be sure that you’re ready to go through this.

Now, you have some things to keep in mind as you consider filing for bankruptcy. If you feel confident about this step, then go ahead and take it.

Guaranteed Ways to Go Broke

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How to Go Broke

If you look, you can find plenty of material about how to create a budget, save for retirement, and live within your means.  What you don’t find are many examples of people doing just that and living a financially solvent life.  On the other hand, you don’t find much material about guaranteed ways to go broke, but you can likely find people from all walks of life who flaunt the steps to going broke.  Ironically, those are often the people of whom we are most envious. [Read more…]

Best Slot Games To Play

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Example of some casino slots.

Editors disclaimer: Beating broke does not endorse gambling, however some people enjoy gaming as a means of entertainment. This is okay provided that the amounts being wagered are very small.  It should also be noted that relying on winning the lottery is not a good retirement strategy.

Now that that is out of the way, without further ado here are two games: Liliths Inferno and Spina Colada.

Lilith’s Inferno

This slot game has a huge range of special features to keep you engaged such as the free spins mode of play, activated by getting three scatters.

And the more of these scatters that you get, the more chances you have to get additional spins as well.

However, there is a catch. First, Lilith has to get past a beast in the beginning round for any of that to happen. Will you help her fight off the villain and earn free spins?

It is worth noting that during the free spins rounds, there are other symbols which become available on the fifth reel in the form of ancient relics.

Getting three of these will award you with a three times multiplier on all wins thereafter for any spins you have left to take.

However, should you have less than three relics collected, do not fret as even these are then treated generously and transformed into wild symbols and placed at random on the reels after the last free spin has been taken.

Spina Colada

Get back in the summer spirit with Ygdrassil’s Spina Colada slot game. One of the newer slots released by Ygdrassil, play to win with Pina Coladas and summer sun.

This online slot game is based around the theme of a tropical beach bar, and has multiple cool extra features including a re spin feature, where you can spin the reels and get more chances to win.

If you can manage three or more symbols on any one of the pay lines, then you will trigger this awesome feature, so long as you manage to get the same symbol in any space on the reels.

To get a multiplier, just fill a column and that gets you extra multipliers on top of randomly triggering four exciting extra features.

Extra features included with this fantastic Spina Colada online slot includes wilds, a second chance, a guaranteed win x3 and a full line – according to Ygdrassil.

Should you manage to trigger any of these features four times, you can then get a free spins round and a bonus activated.

And, don’t forget, you can always play at Umbingo.com.

Photo credit, Umesh Gopinath, Via Flickr.