Written by Carrie Addington

As turbulent economic times continue to influence our financial strategies, you can turn to financial experts such as CNN’s Clark Howard or Suze Orman, or you can do what I do and take a lesson from celebrities!

Madonna

Anirudh Koul

For a material girl, she sure did make a silly financial blunder. She’s been coined as a marketing genius, keeping her career and her image alive for more than twenty years. Madonna faulted, however, by entering into her marriage with Guy Ritchie without signing a prenuptial agreement. Putting her $500 million dollar fortune at risk, Madonna’s divorce cost her a reported $75 million.

Lesson Learned: Keep your financial assets your own. If you have something you wouldn’t want to give away, sign a prenup’.

Nicholas Cage

totsie14

Nick Cage has never played the victim in his film career, but in real life, he seems pretty good at it. Especially, when the tax man cometh. In February of 2008, it was widely reported that the actor used his production company, Saturn Productions, to hide some personal extravagance – $3.3 million, in fact.

Lesson Learned: Personal expenses are personal expenses. Keep your taxes on the straight and narrow. Need help? Invest in a personal accountant. It’s worth the time and your fee for services can be deducted off your next year’s tax return.

Michael Jordan

simplistic.designs

There’s a competitive desire to win, and then there’s a desire to lose all your money to a friendly game of golf. In 1993, Jordan lost $57,000 to his gambling frenzies, and claims exist from Jordan’s colleagues and friends that he lost more than $1.25 million in one golf game alone.

Lesson Learned: Gambling should be a delightful misadventure of sorts, not an “I need money and have to win” sort of obsession. Keep it fun.

Heath Ledger

Howie Berlin

Rest his soul – his death was untimely and unexpected, which is exactly why he should have had an updated will! The Oscar-nominated star of Brokeback Mountain wrote his will leaving everything to his family in 2003. With the birth of his daughter in 2005 he neglected to make an update. When you’re worth an estimated $20 million, it’s advisable to keep your will updated and signed.

Lesson Learned: As lifestyle changes occur and relationships evolve, it’s important to update your will regularly. Set a time once a year to review and update if necessary.

Ed McMahon

Alan Light

“Heeeeere’s Trouble!” Housing foreclosure is becoming all too common of a term these days and celebrities are no exception to it. There’s an irony that exists in Ed McMahon – the man who delivered oversized checks to lucky winners of the sweepstakes – facing foreclosure. After falling $664,000 in the hole on mortgage payments, McMahon found himself in a mountain of debt.

Lessons Learned: In the words of Ed McMahon himself, “Well, if you spend more money than you make, you know what happens…” Don’t buy a house you can’t afford.

MC Hammer

superseven

We know he’s Too Legit to Quit, but he should’ve quit spending a while ago. MC Hammer is infamous for his overspending which led him to file for bankruptcy in 1996, with $13 million in debt. With a net worth of $30 million dollars, Hammer spent a majority of his funds paying over 300 people to work for him, to the tune of $500,000 in monthly wages.

Lesson Learned: No matter how popular, how successful, or how business savvy you may find yourself, a lavish lifestyle can only last so long.

Britney Spears

Cesar Pics

You’re young, you’re rich, and you’re spending it all. Britney Spears entered the entertainment world at the ripe age of eight and has been a force to be reckoned with ever since. When you earn $737,000 per month and don’t allocate a penny toward savings or investing, you are not planning for the future particularly well.

Lesson Learned: Plan now for the long-term. Living in the moment is a dangerous trend.

Examples of financial missteps are everywhere, and the celebrities have done a good job of showing us what not to do. From foreclosure and bankruptcy to investments and tax evasion, the examples are endless. Follow these lessons learned to keep your finances from putting you at risk.

For professional advice and guidance, contact the best bankruptcy attorneys San Diego .

Source: dailyfill.com

Written by BillShrink Guy

To hear the media tell it, the entire business world is in flux. But not every company is succumbing to economic despair. While many are laying off employees, closing offices, and slashing budgets, others are preserving employee morale and staying afloat without such painful sacrifices. Following, are twelve ways that these praiseworthy businesses are avoiding layoffs and staying the course.

Reducing hours worked per week

(Source)

While reducing the hours each employee works per week is not the most popular tactic, it is infinitely preferable to losing one’s job. Even scaling back from forty hours a week to 35 can go a long way toward keeping the workforce intact without bankrupting the company. And for those employees who aren’t living paycheck to paycheck, the extra time off can even be a welcome change. The New York Times writes about a few maverick managers who have experimented – successfully – with a 24 hour work week.

Offering flexible scheduling

(Source)

One way to soften the blow of reduced hourly workloads is to let employees choose their own schedule. By requiring employees to be present for “peak” hours but letting them choose their remaining schedule, businesses can counteract the unhappy necessity of cutting hours by giving employees a small sense of control over how it gets implemented.

Auditing office supply expenses

(Source)

Trivial as it may seem, runaway office expenses can add up to serious waste. Smart businesses are striving to audit these expenses and cut them to the bone before conducting any layoffs. As EffortlessHR.com correctly remarks:

“Employees need the tools to get the job done, but do you need twelve different colors of Post-Its and six different kinds of pens?”

The bigger the company, the bigger impact these kinds of unexamined office expenses can have on the employment budget.

Eliminating or reducing executive-level bonuses

(Source)

When a company’s economic forecast worsens to the point of pay cuts becoming necessary, these often begin at the executive level. Motorola has set a terrific example in 2009 by announcing that it would be cutting the salaries of its co-CEO’s by 25%. Starting pay cuts at the executive level achieves two goals:

1) Greater cost savings, as executive salaries are higher than rank-and-file; and,

2) A sense of shared sacrifice that gives employees less reason to protest their own pay cuts (if they become necessary).

Percentage reductions in pay

(Source)

The most unpopular cost-cutting measure short of an outright layoff is reducing an employee’s pay. Nevertheless, when times are tough, there is often no other way to keep everyone on board than to temporarily institute a percentage reduction in pay. Common reductions are 5% but these can be as high as 10% or more.

Offering employees unpaid vacations/imposing mandatory holidays

(Source)

Not every employee at every company is living paycheck to paycheck. For these fortunate folks, the unpaid vacations being instituted by a growing number of businesses are a most welcome perk. Others may not be as supportive of this tactic – described by MSNBC as “the vacation no one wants” – but by scheduling unpaid vacations around the same time, businesses can limit employee suffering and save money without layoffs. Another way companies are saving some money is to schedule occasional mandatory, unpaid holidays. While this is heavily criticized under normal circumstances, it is more palatable during recessions, when the alternative could be total loss of income.

Substituting telecommuting for in-person work

(Source)

One of the most painless ways to cut costs without cutting jobs is to substitute telecommuting for in-person work. This is especially attractive for support and IT positions, whose duties can be carried out remotely without the overhead of keeping someone fed, heated, or cooled in an office (or insured, et al). And unlike many of the job-saving measures we’ve discussed, few employees complain about working from their homes.

Eliminating unnecessary traveling and meetings

(Source)

For many of the same reasons telecommuting makes sense, companies that eliminate unnecessary traveling and meetings may find it easier to retain more of their employees. Instead of shelling out big bucks for airfare and hotel stays, cost-conscious companies like Bayer Corp. are conducting meetings virtually using technology that allows people to “chat in real time and watch each other’s life-size images on screens that created the effect of being at the same conference table down to the bottled water, coffee cups and laptops.”

Hiring freezes

(Source)

A company struggling to retain its existing workforce has no business hiring new employees. As a result, many businesses have implemented temporary hiring freezes that limit the workforce to those employees already on the payroll. State and municipal governments have frequently utilized this retention strategy as well.

Salary/raise freezes

(Source)

Going hand-in-hand with hiring freezes are salary and raise freezes. As the name implies, this is simply a company-wide policy of holding everyone’s salary to its current level and agreeing to forgo pay raises while the company gets back on solid footing. As with so many other measures discussed, this policy is never celebrated, but still preferred to layoffs.

Eliminating or scaling back corporate parties, luncheons, and events

(Source)

In the same vein as cutting wasteful office supply spending, eliminating or scaling back corporate events can provide a much-needed boost to a company’s budget. In recessionary times, luncheons and parties are luxuries when it comes down to choosing between them or keeping people employed, and this is one obvious place to save a few bucks when the opportunity arises.