Hillary's Highlights

Understanding and predicting inflation

There are many reasons to follow inflation measures aside from simply staying ahead of price hikes on big ticket items like appliances and automobiles, which by itself can save you thousands of dollars over years of planning. Excessive inflation is bad for more than just your monthly budget. It’s also very bad for many investments in stocks and bonds as it puts pressure on corporate profits and decreases real dividend yields. And while high inflation is a very bad thing, a big drop in inflation can be the first sign that things are going bad economically. A sign of an exceptionally big economic downturn is when the inflation indicators start to show the opposite effect, dropping prices or “deflation.”

If you’re interested in getting ahead of the curve in spotting inflation, the best bet is to go to the source. The fundamental source of most inflation is simple - more money chasing the same number of goods or, as economists put it, an increase in the money supply. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve releases reports on the money supply every Thursday. Moderate inflation is usually considered about 2%. When you see money supply growing faster than the growth rate of the economy plus about 2%, you can expect higher than moderate inflation.

The second leading indicator of rising retail prices is the wholesale price level and once a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports on that with the Producer Price Index series. The Producer Price Index, or PPI, is actually a series of indexes or statistics for finished goods, those ready to be sold; intermediate goods, such as parts that still need assembled into finished products; and crude goods, which are basically commodities that haven’t had much processing beyond being dug out of the ground or harvested from the field.

Another advance figure is the monthly Import and Export Price Indexes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Because the earliest stages of inflation can affect the foreign currency markets, inflation often shows up quicker in imports than on the local car lot.

Ultimately the number you’ll be most intersted in is the Consumer Price Index or CPI, the widely reported monthly inflation number. Like the PPI, the CPI is actually a series of indexes that measure prices based on different baskets of goods. The most important number for investment purposes is the core CPI-U, a number based on urban prices for goods excluding food and energy. For personal purposes you may want to consider the full CPI-U, including food and energy, but remember that these numbers are very volatile from month to month, so you should do any planning based on long term trends, not a one time spike (or drop) in prices.

To keep completely up to date on inflation, you’ll want to follow the Federal Reserve’s Money Supply figures weekly and the various economic indicators released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which also releases the monthly jobs report, another very important number for both investors and workers.

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UK Van Insurance

If you happen to own a business, more than likely you know that the cost of van insurance can really eat away at the money you’re making. The more you use your vans for your business, more than likely the more it costs you for the insurance that you need to keep them protected.

So, if you want to save money for your business, more than likely you are going to want to find the UK van insurance cheapest. Finding cheap insurance for your vans can save you huge amounts of money every single year, and there really is no big secret to how you can do it.

You see, the very best way to make sure that you get the UK van insurance cheapest is to make sure that you compare quotes. This is the best way to get the cheapest deal for the best cover on your van insurance.

Get Online and Start Comparing Quotes

If you really want to find the UK van insurance the cheapest way, you need to get online and start comparing quotes. At one time it really took some work to compare van quotes. You had to call around to different companies, spending hours on the phone trying to get good quotes.

However, today it is so much simpler with the internet right at your fingertips. So, if you want to find some great quotes easily, get online. The internet is actually right at your fingertips, and with a few keystrokes and a couple clicks of your mouse, you can easily be searching for quotes online and looking for the UK van insurance cheapest deal.

Easy Comparisons at Comparison Sites

Of course if you really want to make it easy to get the UK van insurance, then you’ll want to go to comparison sites where the whole process gets even easier. At a comparison site, all you have to do is get on the site, take a few minutes to fill out the forms, and then you’ll get multiple quotes at the same time.

It can really save you a lot of time, since you won’t have to go and get every quote individually, filling out a lot of different forms. So, comparison sites can really make it so much easier to get the quotes you need so that you can compare them to find a good van insurance quote.

Consider Both Price and Cover Options

Once you get your quotes, you’ll want to compare them by taking a look at the price and the cover options that are available to you. Some people make the mistake of just looking at the price when they are looking for the UK van insurance cheapest deal; however, often it is not the cheapest cover that ends up being cheapest in the long run.

If you go with the cheapest option and it does not offer you the cover that you need, later you’ll end up spending even more money, so it was not really a savings for you. So, make sure that you find the best cover you needs for the best price instead of just the cheapest price out there on van insurance today.

Be Sure to Get Enough Cover for Your Needs

Getting enough cover for your needs is important when you are trying to find the UK van insurance cheapest. You don’t want to end up in a vehicle accident and suddenly realize that you don’t have enough cover for your needs.

This can be a costly mistake, but many people make it. So, when you are considering all the quotes that you have, make sure that you look at the quotes that actually offer you the right amount of cover for the van insurance needs that you have.

So, if you have been looking for the UK van insurance, going online for quotes is the best option for you. You’ll be able to find multiple quotes quickly and you’ll be able to find the best deals out there as well. It is possible to find cheap insurance that can save your business big money; however, it will take a bit of work on your part.

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Did you ever try to find a lost friend on the Internet?

Have you ever tried to find a lost friend on the Internet? I have it is not as easy as you might think. I had a good friend in junior high and I have fond memories of hanging out having fun with him. We would hang out listen to music talk just have a great time.

The other day I was thinking about my long-lost friend and I decided to try to find them on the Internet. It seems everyone nowadays uses the Internet so I figured it shouldn’t be difficult to locate him. I pulled up Google typed his name and get pages on pages of results. I checked out page after page but didn’t find any mention of my friend just a lot of people with similar names.

I decided try to narrow my search a bit by including the town and state where we grew up. Unfortunately they were still too many pages to look through for it to be practical to find my lost friend. I decided Google just gave to many results so I would try using a less popular search engine like MSN.

I typed in my friends name and the city and state where we grew up and sure enough I did get a lot fewer results. Instead of hundreds of pages there are only eight. I started looking through those pages of results and I found a couple which I thought would surely lead me to find my lost friend. However, after an hour of searching I still came up empty.

Then I decided to try Yahoo. Since Yahoo search has been around longer than Google or MSN I thought I might have better luck there. Again I entered my friends name the city and state and this time I got about 30 pages of results. I started the arduous task of looking through each and every page and clicking on link after link. Now I was getting frustrated I spent all this time and still cannot find my lost friend.

I pretty much gave up on finding my friend until a couple months later when I discovered reunion.com. I decided to give the site a try and I was amazed at how quickly I was able to turn up results for my lost friend. The service was not free but considering the amount of time I have wasted trying to search in the regular search engines it was definitely worth the small price.

I was able to find a phone number for my friend and I gave them a call. He was very happy to hear from me. In fact, he had been searching for me also. We have a long phone conversation and it turns out that he lived close enough that we could meet for lunch. Although it was more difficult to locate my lost friend than I had imagined it was great to find him and I’m glad I put in the effort.

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