With the rising credit card debt level in the US and the number of debt defaults, people are becoming more careful about their personal finances. They are trying their best to plan their personal finances in order to get back a grip on them. All your credit card payment calculations can be made easy by the help of a credit card payment calculator and you can easily seek credit card debt relief. As you are using your multiple credit cards, it is most likely that you owe balances on each of your cards. Calculating the monthly payments on each of your cards is quite a difficult task and this can be made simpler through a calculator. Visit http://www.twitter.com/debtcc for information.

If you’re using a credit card payment calculator, you can compute the amount that is required to pay off your outstanding balance including the interest rates within the specific time period. As you know the exact APR that you owe on your multiple credit cards, you can determine the time that you may need to repay the entire balance to your creditors. Apart from this, there is another calculator that is credit card minimum payment calculator and this calculator is used to determine the time that the debtor may need to repay his entire debt amount according to the minimum monthly payments that you’re making.

If you’re confused with your multiple debt payments on all your cards, you can download a free version of a credit card payment calculator and calculate your debt payments to simplify and facilitate the debt repayment procedure. Make sure you download it from an authentic site that can offer with results that are trustworthy. Determining wrong numbers can get you into serious financial trouble in the long run.

Benefits of a credit card payment calculator

A credit card calculator may help you in multiple ways and offer you services that can be helpful to your personal financial life. Here are some of them.

• You can determine how much you owe on your multiple credit cards
• Devising a technique for repaying your outstanding principal balance
• Creating a plan for eliminating your debt burden
• Helps you in devising a plan as to how you can shift your high interest balance to a low interest card and how you may benefit
• You can calculate how you can reduce the payment and interest cost.

Thus, if you are drowned in an ocean of credit card debt, you can get help from a credit card payment calculator and secure your way to a debt free life. You can even seek help of the professional credit card debt relief companies if you want to free yourself from the bondage of debt.

An example equations is here:

I have installed it, as I am considering writing up some maths notes and placing them on the interweb.

Let

Minimise f(x) subject to :

Estimates suggests that 21,000 people will be adversely affected by these new rules, including 17,000 in London.

This article shall present five views from both sides of the argument. Please note that none of the statistics have been verified and may be inaccurate.

The Benefit Cuts Are Bad

1 – The cuts will affect key workers such as nurse, trainee doctors, cleaners, refuse collectors and shop workers. These people are vital for the city to function, but they can’t afford to commute and must therefore live in the city.

2 – The cuts are an attack on those who are on low incomes or benefits. If a family have children who attend a school in London, it would be incredibly unfair to move them, just to save the government a small amount of money.

3 – Most of the people claiming housing benefits work. Forcing them to move may cause them to lose their jobs, which will stop them paying taxes and contributing to society.

4 – It is unfair to make the weak and vulnerable pay the price for the mistakes of the banks. Instead of cutting housing benefits they should increase taxes for banks and high earners.

5 – The £400 a week cap is only the headline number. This will affect all people who claim benefits. So even people who claim modest amounts of housing benefit will be unfairly affected by the mistakes of greedy bankers.

The Benefit Cuts are Good

1 – If people can’t afford to live somewhere, then it is unfair to expect other taxpayers to pay for them to live there. Many people move to more affordable areas when they need more space to raise children. Those on benefits should not be exempt from this.

2 – The cuts do not go far enough. £20k for a single family is still too generous, when you consider that it would be close to the take home pay of a person working full time on a median salary.

3 – Many students and pensioners manage to live for on far less than £400 a week. It is unfair that people claiming welfare can receive more.

4 – The main beneficiaries of extortionate housing benefits are private landlords. A cut in housing benefits would hit the landlords, and hopefully lead to a fall in house prices.

5 – People on benefits should only receive the most basic of accommodation. Giving each teenage child a room is too generous, as children in many working households grow up sharing rooms anyway. It is unfair to provide people on benefits with luxuries that many taxpayers cannot afford themselves.

So What Will Happen Next?

At the moment, David Cameron seems keen to push through his changes. It is unclear whether or not they popular or not, as polls and forums are often biased by their readership. Guardian forums will state that the cuts are unfair, whereas Telegraph forums will say they don’t go far enough. At my office, a place full of men working 60+ hours a week, the thought that a third of their tax bill is going to support those who work fewer hours than them is quite horrifying. But my charity working friends are also very upset at the idea that their clients may end up losing their homes. This is a complex issue, and it will be very interesting to see how it plays out.

In the non-Muslim world, the term Burka is used to refer to the full body outfit that covers the wearer from head to toe, only leaving the eyes and hands exposed. However, when Muslims use the term, they are generally referring to the part that covers the hair in replacement of the headscarf.

In this article, I shall use the non-Muslim definition of burka, as the main aim of this article is to help promote more positive attitudes towards burka wearers.

The Advantages of Burkas

1. Wearing a burka can command more seriousness, respect and authority. My friend’s wife always wears one when attending important meetings, such as parents’ evenings or when meeting her landlord. In their culture, wearing a burka in a meeting will gain better results and more respect, than donning normal western dress. I guess similar to the way male city workers all have to wear suit and ties, even though ties have been show to hinder blood flow to the brain.
2. Historically, the burka style of dress originated in desert tribes, where it functioned as a sand mask. Also, the style of dress was worn by both men and women, making them hard to tell apart. This was useful during tribal raids, as it made it harder for raiders to take women of child bearing age. While raids are not really a part of modern life, wearing a mask is useful in many situations. Many people dislike the smell of the London Underground, so a burka could help mask the smell from their delicate nostrils. In a similar way, a burka could help mask the smell of unhygienic fellow passengers.
3. Non muslims can wear burkas to experience a different culture. A white Finnish reporter decided to done a full black abaya dress complete with veil, in order to experience a day in the life of a burka wearer. She received a lot more respect from Muslims, with many strangers greeting her in the street. It also helped her to feel more at peace, and the cosmetologists and hair stylists who usually harassed her with sales pitches ignored her.
4. Burka’s are very easy to don, and are often worn as an alternative to the headscarf (hijab). Therefore, Muslim ladies will sometimes wear them when they are in a rush.
5. Burka wearers in warmer climates can drive cars with the windows down. Some even wear them while driving convertibles.
6. There is no need to worry about bad hair days, and Burka wearers can therefore go out when it’s windy without worrying about getting hair in their face.
7. Insects, dirt, leaves, sand etc… do not get blown into the wearers’ hair. This is of obvious benefit to those living in windy hot places. And of even greater benefit to fathers who do not wish to spend too much time washing their children.
8. Young girls can run around in them and still look smart, without needing to adjust their hair bands every five minutes. This is also an advantage for parents, who do not wish their unruly children to bring disrepute upon the family through their messiness. I remember that as a child my mother used to say that I represented the Patel family when I left the house, and that if I looked untidy then it would reflect badly upon her as a mother.
9. I have been told that young girls with cute faces prefer to wear them, as it means adults won’t pinch their cheeks or ruffle their hair in a playful manner.
10. A Muslim friend runs a farm and factory, and is therefore exposed to a lot of dangerous machinery such as fans and motors. His daughters have long hair, and when he has to take them to his farm, he insists that they wear burkas as it prevents their hair from being caught in machinery.

Concluding Words

I have now shown you some reasons why women might choose to wear a Burka. With the reasons coming from the viewpoints of professional women, busy women, children and even concerned parents.

For more insights into the wonderful world of Islam, read Five Inspiring Facets of Islam on the Agama Islam section of this site.

Humiliation

I was humiliated at the age of seventeen, when the local McDonalds rejected my application to flip burgers for them. As a precocious young student with a string of top GCSE grades, I didn’t understand how they could turn me down.

I was forced to get an alternative job with at Pizza Hut Delivery, where I took phone orders and handled complaints. But all this time, I was wondering why McDonalds had rejected me. All my friends worked at McDonalds, and I longed to be with them.

What Ronald Wants

During my frequent trips to the pub with my lucky McDonalds worker friends, I’d ask them what made them so special. These questions tended to be answered with blank looks or sarcastic comments. However, as we matured and my friends began to recruit for McDonalds jobs, I gained valuable insights into what they were looking for.

Humble Pies

Shop floor staff at McDonalds do not need good qualifications. While a good grasp of English, Mathematics and personal hygiene are clearly required, an overemphasis on academic aptitude and aspirations will not help a candidate. While the management understand that many young people only want to work at McDonalds for a few years, they want people who are willing to work hard in the present, rather than those dreaming of the future.

Hard Working Hands

Working at McDonalds can be quite tough at times, especially when the customers make a mess of the bathroom facilities. Candidates need to demonstrate a willingness to perform tasks that involve getting their hands dirty. My friend who was a McDonalds manager said that when he had to order staff to do mucky tasks, he’d try and do half of it with them, in order to show them that he was part of the team. Such a strong yet humble work ethic caused his employees to admire him.

Empathy

People often like people who are similar to themselves, and McDonalds managers are no exception. For example, my friend was a young white male alcoholic, and he’d therefore be more inclined to hire young people with a predisposition to alcoholic beverages. His co-manager on the other hand, was a non drinking Asian, and therefore tended to hire more Asians. When I asked my friend if he thought this was racist, he informed me that it wasn’t, as he just preferred to hire people who he could go out drinking with.

So, when you go to your McDonalds interview, you need to try to empathise with your interviewer. You’ll get this chance when they ask you what you like to do in your spare time. This question comes up in virtually all interviews. If the interviewer looks like a family person, try telling them about things that you like to do to help out your mother. If they look like they enjoy a drink, tell them about your favourite night clubs.

Good Luck

I have now shared a few secrets that should help you get that dream job at McDonalds. Before you go to your interview remember to wash, do your hair and put on a clean shirt. Personal presentation always helps, and don’t forget to smile!

I have been inspired to learn more about Islam due to the kind acts that my Cheapskate Mate performs on a daily basis.  He has shown me that I need to focus on aspects other than merely trying to save money for my retirement.

In order to set up my initial motivation for this project, I have done a little reading and compiled a list of what I consider to be five inspiring facets of Islam.

1 – Islam discourages the consumption of alcohol

Though alcohol is a major aspect of western society, it is also a common cause of social problems.  It is expensive, is unhealthy and can cause anti social behaviour.  My Muslim friends have told me that the basic idea behind the prohibition of alcohol, is that a good Muslim should remain in charge of their faculties at all times.  If they consume alcohol and become inebriated, then they may inadvertently commit foul acts.

2 – Islam inspires its followers to perform acts of goodness

One of the Five Pillars of Islam is the Zakat, which instructs Muslims to give a small percentage of their wealth to charitable causes, such as helping the poor.  As well as sharing their material wealth, they are also encouraged to share happiness with others through acts such as saying kind words, smiling at others or caring for the sick and infirm.

3 – Islam inspires intellectual advancement

A current fashion amongst young Muslims is the ambition to become a Hafiz.  A Hafiz is a person who has entirely memorised the Quran, and is quite an intellectual feat.  While vast memory skills are not synonymous with intelligence, the two share a strong link.  If people focussed more of their efforts into expanding their minds, then human progress would move forwards at a faster rate.

4 – Islam advises moderation

Islam recommends people to follow a moderate and balanced life.  For example in response to the Quranic verse ”As to monasticism which they themselves invented, we did not prescribe any of it for them’ (57: 27), the Prophet Muhammad responded with: ‘Do not overburden yourselves, lest you perish. People [before you] overburdened themselves and perished. Their remains are found in hermitages and monasteries’.  An example of how this piece of advice is frequently flouted in the UK is the work-life balance, as workers are frequently known to break the 48 hours a week rule.

5 – Islam preaches happiness

In keeping with “2 – Islam inspires its followers to perform acts of goodness”, which advised sharing happiness, the Quran commands people to be happy:

‘O children of Adam! Wear your beautiful apparel at every time and place of prayer Eat and drink but waste not by excess, for Allah loves not wasters. Say: ‘who has forbidden the beautiful gifts of Allah which He has produced for His servants and the things clean and pure which He has provided for sustenance’ (7:30-301).

It is interesting to note that “but waste not by excess” also applies to (4) – Islam advises moderation.  Perhaps this is because if there is an excess of food and/or drink, then more effort could be put into (2)?

Conclusion

The five points above could help to make the world a better place.  I shall write of them each in more depth in later articles.

http://drupal.org/node/255115#comment-1150879

I am using Drupal 6 hosted on a site that is in a subdirectory of my main godaddy hosting package.

My Cheapskate Mate is a devout Muslim and has inspired me to learn more about Islam.  In the years that I’ve known him, he’s impressed me with his humble acts of charity and acts goodness that he performs on a daily basis.

For example, when travelling in London, we passed a homeless man.  No one else in the group noticed him, but my Cheapskate Mate walked over and gave him some change.

He is a proud father, and enjoys telling me tales of how he teaches his children to develop physically, intellectually and compassionately.  He shows this compassion by periodically taking his children to physically give gifts of food to the poor.  What makes this particularly profound, is that he does not preach when donating, and is careful not to step on the toes of local businesses.  For example, he will not give away food while standing outside the local McDonalds.

I have felt inspired to learn more about my friend’s faith, and shall therefore dedicate this section of Cheapskatemate.com to sharing what I learn about the religion of Islam.  It is useful not just out of reasons of interest, but because it can help teach followers how to lead a better life.

The name of this section is the Agama Islam, as Agama is a Maranao term for community.  An Agama will therefore have a mosque and other facilities that Muslims will require to go about their daily lives.  The Indian word for Agama is Janat.

While writing and submitting articles to directories can take longer than methods such as link directory submissions, good articles have the benefit of being placed on content pages, can be republished be other webmasters and can help the webmaster to build up a reputation within their given field.

This article recommends some excellent places for posting articles, and show readers how to overcome writers’ block.

Don’t Procrastinate.

One big problem that I have found with my link building campaigns in the past is that I spend too much procrastinating.  I surf forums for tips, browse the same articles over and over, check my traffic statistics.  But from reading John X Factors thread on the Warrior Forums, I have learned that I should just churn out articles one after the other.

My Directory List

I have decided to initially settle on these five article directories:

-          http://www.ezinearticles.com

-          http://www.goarticles.com

-          http://www.squidoo.com

-          http://www.1articleworld.com

-          http://www.articleblast.com

Ezinearticles is probably the largest article directory and virtually all article marketers seem to recommend it.

Goarticles comes highly recommended by many.  If my memory serves correctly, John X Factor recommends marketers to just use Ezinearticles and Goarticles.

I have decided to add a few more just for variety.  Squidoo is a popular web based knowledge exchange, and the introductory guides are also quite good at showing new users how to create good well structured pages.

I also tried Hubpages, but would not recommend them.  For a start, users must get a Hubscore of 75 before the links become dofollow.  While this only took a week for me to attain this, other directories provide dofollow links automatically.  Also, if you do not maintain your hubscore through regular usage, your score will drop and your links will revert to nofollow.  As a result, it just isn’t worth using Hubpages.

1articleworld and articleblast were highly recommended on the Digital Point Forums.

I tried Buzzle, but they require unique articles, so you can’t republish articles on Buzzle and other directories.

How To Write Articles

There are excellent guides for writing articles on Squidoo and EzineArticles at http://ezinearticles.com/training/.

But in order to get started, a writer needs subject material.  Some webmasters believe that backlinks must come from pages that are on the same subject.  For example, they believe that links to health pages should come from health pages.  Other webmasters disagree, and state that they have had just as much success by writing about unrelated topics.  They merely state that the articles need to be of relatively high quality.

However, you are more likely to get clicks on your article links if the target pages are somehow related to your articles.  For example, if you are writing about health but have links to loans, then the users will be less likely to click on your loan links as they will be unlikely to be interested.

Bearing the above in mind, it does not necessarily matter what you write on.  But taking my “Don’t Procrastinate” rule into account, the important thing to do is to start writing.

If you have writers’ block, a good starting point for article ideas is to write about something that you’ve done.  For example, everyone eats.  If you cook, you can write your recipes.  If someone cooks for you, you can review their food.  If you only eat ready meals, you can review them.  If you dine out, you can write restaurant reviews.

At time of writing, I am cooking a slow roasted belly pork.  So there is a good chance that I’ll write about it later on.

Concluding Words

So, now that you’ve read this, you know that all you need to do in order to get some links is:

-          Sign up to the 5 article directories above.

-          Read the ezinearticles training guides.

-          Write an article about your last meal.

-          Post your meal article onto the 5 article directories.

N.B.  If you are signing up for new accounts, it can take a few days for them to get approved.

While they won’t admit it, many people love McDonalds.  They also love their health, but though they know that excessive McDonalds consumption isn’t good for them, they eat it anyway.  This article analyses the nutritional information provided on the McDonalds website and finds that McDonald’s range of chicken sandwiches tend to be healthier than those containing beef.

Source Data

There is a pdf file containing nutritional information on McDonalds’ Menu on the McDonalds website.  I have assumed that the nutritional values are the same for each country, though some friends have told me that American portions are larger than UK portions.

I used PDF To Excel to convert the pdf menu to Excel, and then used basic sorting functions to help me identify the best and worst sandwiches.

Results

The first thing I noticed, as I started to sort the data, was two problems:

-          What defines healthy?

-          The sandwich sizes vary a lot.

In terms of “healthy”, some people might be cutting down on calories, while others might be cutting down on fats.  For example, a person who does a lot of physical exercise would need a lot of calories, while someone who is trying to lose weight would want to cut down.

However, people in general try to cut down on saturated fats, cholesterol and salt.  So in my search for the healthiest items, I searched for those with the lowest saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium levels.

Saturated Fat

Top 5

-          Premium Grilled Chicken Classic Sandwich

-          Southern Style Crispy Chicken Sandwich

-          McChicken

-          Premium Grilled Chicken Ranch BLT Sandwich

-          Hamburger

Bottom 5

-          Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese

-          Angus Bacon and Cheese

-          Angus Mushroom and Swiss

-          Angus Deluxe

-          Quarter Pounder with Cheese

Cholestorol

Top

-          Hamburger

-          Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap

-          Honey Mustard Snack Wrap

-          Rank Snack Wrap

-          McChicken

Bottom

-          Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese

-          Angus Bacon & Cheese

-          Angus Mushroom & Swiss

-          Angus Deluxe

-          Quarter Pounder with Cheese

Sodium

Top

-          Hamburger

-          Fillet-O-Fish

-          Mac Snack Wrap

-          Quarter Pounder

-          Big N Tasty

Bottom

-          Angus Bacon & Cheese

-          Angus Deluxe

-          Premium Grilled Chicken Ranch BLT Sandwich

-          Premium Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich

-          Premium Chicken Ranch BLT Sandwich

In terms of saturated fats, the Chicken burgers appear to be healthiest, with the Premium Grilled Chicken Classic Sandwich in the lead.  The larger beef sandwiches contain the most saturated fats, though this could be largely due to the inclusion of cheese.  Note that the hamburger makes it into the top 5 due to its small size.

The items with the least cholesterol are led by the hamburger.  But again this is due to its size.  Next come the snack wraps, which again are small.  If not for the snack wraps, the chicken products would be in the lead.  Again, the worst contenders are the beef products, with the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese being the worst.

Regarding Sodium, I find it surprising that the Quarter Pounder and Big N Tasty make the top 5, as beef products were the unhealthiest in terms of Saturated Fat and Cholosterol.  The highest sodium sandwiches are Chicken sandwiches, but a closer examination reveals that they all contain bacon, which is high in salt.

Analysis

Size appears to be an important factor in my findings.  If you want to eat less of anything, you need to eat less overall.  However, only eating a small sandwich will leave an individual hungry, and may cause them to snack.  This will defeat the purpose of trying to be healthy.

Diners concerned with their saturated fat or cholesterol consumption should avoid beef burgers with cheese, and choose one of the chicken sandwiches.

Those who wish to reduce their salt intake should choose items without bacon.

Conclusion

After analysing McDonalds’ menu, I conclude that the healthiest sandwiches are the smaller ones.  However, this will not satisfy many peoples’ appetites.

Those with larger appetites should probably choose sandwiches containing chicken but no bacon.  They should avoid the larger beef burgers that contain cheese.