If you’re planning an event or researching entertainment options after a bad experience in the past, there are a few important factors you need to keep in mind.Here’s a short guide to determining which entertainment options are best for your next event:Think About the Type of Event You’re PlanningA new product launch has a very different feel and environment than a yearly board of directors meeting. The entertainment that you select should fit the “feel” of your event. For formal events it’s appropriate to have something more conservative and low key. Having a small singing act or magic show is going to be a lot better received than something on the “spectacle” end of the spectrum.Alternatively, if you are launching a new product, trying to get your audience excited and “pumped up,” or wanting to bring a high level of excitement, you’ll want to have entertainment to match. A cirque-style acrobatic show, a Broadway song and dance review or a high energy industrial rhythm show would fit the bill.Consider Your Events TimeframeYour entertainment should be the centerpiece of one night or afternoon during your multiple-day event. If you’re running a one-day event, you’ll need to have your entertainment on that same day. When you select an event entertainment option, you need to consider how long the show will last and whether you have room for it in your schedule. It may be better to book entertainment that takes a little less time if you’ve got your attendees on a jam-packed schedule.As you consider entertainment options, ask the corporate event entertainment experts what they suggest. Many can customize their shows to meet your existing timeframe so you can get the quality of show that you want in the time that you have.Understand Your Entertainment BudgetYour entertainment options will be affected by your budget, so it’s important to get that nailed down as soon as possible. When you are creating your budget for your entire event, keep in mind that the entertainment can be the “make or break” part of your event plan. It’s the thing that people are going to remember the most since it normally takes place at the end of the event.If you want to keep your audience talking – and excited to come back the following year – it’s important to create a budget for your event’s entertainment. Don’t leave your entertainment as the last item on your list. You can either get quotes from event entertainment companies and use that to create your budget, or set a price and shop around to find an event entertainment company that will work within your budget. Keep in mind that while you shop, you may need to adjust your budget to fit the actual costs of professional event entertainment.Find Something Unique for Your AudienceEntertainment has to be memorable so it’s important to find something unique. This is even more important if your event audience attends a lot of trade shows and other industry gatherings. Giving them something fresh and exciting can really make a difference in their appreciation of your event and their attendance next year.Thinking outside of the box and trying something beyond a typical comedian or keynote speaker can pay off in the long run.
Benefit With Systematic Investment Plan Advantage
Systematic investment Plan advantage can be taken by any investor who can spare at least 500 rupees per month. Some funds offer SIP Plans with an investment as low as 100 rupees. But for most of the funds minimum investment per month is 500 rupees. Most people have misconception that to invest large sums of money is required. But starting with an amount as low as 500 rupees per month can accumulate huge wealth in long term. It is a fact that people have many dreams or goals like better education for children, foreign vacation, dream home or happy retirement. But with limited income most people do not understand how to reach those goals.Systematic investment Plan advantages are not limited only to low amount of investment. We know that it is almost impossible to time the market highs and lows. Most people lose money investing in shares due to timing the market rather than being a long term investor. Even the best of the investors or traders often miss market direction. For a layman or investor with little time and resources to research market moves, Systematic investment Plan advantage is unparalleled. With rupee cost averaging one can invest regularly in equities without worrying about timing the markets highs and lows. In long term, rupee cost averaging helps to accumulate wealth which is an advantage of Systematic investment Planning.Usually investors keep averaging same number of shares/unit whenever there is a decline in the price and never while the price is rising. In the long bull run this may be an opportunity loss as no further investments are made. Rupee cost average through SIP works irrespective of market highs and lows. When the market keeps decreasing, more number of units are accumulated and less number of units are accumulated when market is increasing.To take Systematic investment Planning advantage you must keep invested for long term. Historically it is seen that SIP works best when invested for long term. Earlier, advisers used to suggest 3 to 4 years as long term. But after 2008 market collapse, investors could not recover their losses even after investing for almost 5 more years. It is better to consider long term as a full market cycle rather than in years.SIP investing allows investors to be balanced in their investment decisions. Disciplined and Balanced investment is another advantage of Systematic investment Plan. Investors with long term goal oriented investments often do not take investment decisions in haste and avoid panic selling or greedy buying. It is noticed many times that investors who associate their investments with goals are more balanced in their decisions.One can choose different intervals like daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly averaging while investing through SIP which is another Systematic investment Plan advantage. Investors have the option to choose fixed dates on which their accounts are debited for the fixed amount they wish to invest. If the day chosen happens to holiday, amount gets debited on next working day.Another Systematic investment Plan advantage is the flexibility in payment options like ECS (Electronic Clearance Scheme), Auto debit and post dated cheques. Out of the options, ECS is most convenient option for most of the investors.For small investors who wish to invest less than 50000 per year in a mutual fund, PAN card is not mandatory. KYC can be completed with submitting voter identity card or driving license.
How to Plan the Holiday of a Lifetime
Have A Cunning PlanHave you spent the winter wondering what it would be like to trek through the northern hills of Thailand on an elephant? Or sand board down the gigantic dunes of the Omani interior? Maybe your commuting hours have been filled with iconic travel images, stampeding bulls in Pamplona or the thumping rhythms of the Rio carnival. Or perhaps, just before you drop off to sleep, you hanker after the orange glow of an African sunset. If this is happening to you, you’re suffering from traveller’s itch. It’s a persistent affliction that can’t be entirely cured by a two-week package tour. The most effective treatment is to plan a trip of a lifetime. You need to do a little planning though.Pre-planningYou know how the old cliché goes; fail to plan and you plan to fail. This observation will, of course, be of no consolation to you whatsoever if you find yourself squeezed between two hefty border guards, waving goodbye to your Beijing bound train, from a station platform on the eastern edge of Siberia, simply because you forgot to register your Russian visa. So, where’s the best place to start?Most people have their dream trip squirreled away in their brain, in the file marked “One Day.” Leave it there for a moment. The best place to start planning is with an honest self-appraisal.Self-AppraisalDo you have the level of fitness required to trek through the Amazonian rainforest? If you don’t are you willing to get fit before you go? Don’t even think about it if you dislike spiders. Are you planning to travel alone or with others? If it’s with other people, will everyone’s interests be aligned? Travelling with a friend on the Trans-Siberian Express might sound like fun, but it takes seven days. Your luxurious first class sleeping compartment can quickly become a 10′ X 8′ cell if your friend discovers, after a couple of days, that train journeys aren’t really very interesting at all.Budget and TimeAfter your self-appraisal you need to consider two more things: money and time. Again, be realistic. Discount that camel safari across the Namibian desert if you only have five days free and £200 to spend. A trip of a lifetime can be done in a weekend and it doesn’t have to break the bank. Think laterally.OK, by now you should have a rough budget, you know the amount of time you have available, and you’ve discounted Gibraltar on account of your morbid fear of apes. Now its time to open the filing cabinet marked “One Day.” Is your original idea still worth pursuing, or should you be looking at alternatives? Whichever it is, you now need to do some research. This can be fun, almost like doing the journey itself, and there are lots of websites that will help you. The most obvious are TripAdvisor or Lonely Planet but there are plenty of others that will specialise in the area you’re interested in. Spend a bit of time trawling through them.However, don’t start salivating over the majesty of the Taj Mahal or the vastness of the Grand Canyon until you check out the mundane stuff. What are the visa requirements? Do you qualify? Is obtaining one bureaucratic? If you can only travel next week, and the visa takes two weeks to organise, cross that option off your list.What should drop out of the bottom of this pre-planning exercise is a dream holiday that you have time to do, and can actually afford. Draw up a draft itinerary, quickly – before you change your mind. Then draw up another list detailing the tasks you have to undertake to deliver the itinerary. Make sure it’s in a logical order, for example, never buy tickets or accommodation without getting the visas first.So, now you’ve made a decision on where to go. What next?Well, the good news is, it doesn’t matter if its an overland trip through South America, or a long weekend in Paris, there are only three things to concentrate on when planning a trip; time, budget, and available resources. Decisions you make on each, impact on the other. Lets look at them in reverse order.ResourcesThe simple equation here is, the more you do yourself the less resources you need. For example, there is no need to employ a travel agent when you can just as easily book a train, or find a hotel on the Internet. But then again, their local knowledge may actually save you money and time. And if you use a specialist travel agent they can often assist with other things, like visa applications, for example. You have to find a balance that’s right for you and your budget. Offer a selection of specialist travel agencies your itinerary and ask them for a quote to organise it. You might be surprised how competitive they can be.Try to pre-book the accommodation, irrespective of who does the bookings, and arrive at each destination at a reasonable hour. It can be confusing enough arriving in a strange city without doing so at three in the morning after twenty hours of non-stop travel. If possible get the accommodation you’ve booked to meet you. Many will do this at little or no cost. By so doing you’ll avoid running the gauntlet of taxi and accommodation touts that tend to hunt in packs around stations and airports.BudgetWhen working out your budget, start with the big-ticket items, transport, accommodation and so on. You’ll have a good idea of these costs as they often have to be paid for in advance. Meals and activities, on the other hand, are variable and harder to estimate. Err on the side of caution. Also, when considering your finances, don’t underestimate what can go wrong. Build in a contingency fund. Aim for about fifteen percent.TimeTime is the commonest reason for travel plans turning to jelly. There is the finite period of the trip, but it’s the segments within it where the danger lies. This is especially true if there’s a lot of travelling involved. Do not underestimate what is required. Distances that look like a short hike on a map can turn out to be epic in execution. Bus journey timetables in some parts of the world can be wonderful works of fiction. Assume delays and build them in to your plan. By the way, travel forums, like those found on Trip Adviser can help you here. You might get feedback from someone who’s actually done the journey recently.By now your plan should be taking shape, so its now time to concentrate on the travellers’ tools of the trade; passport, tickets, and money. Pay attention to these and you will go a long way to enjoying a trouble free holiday.PassportsFor which also read visas. They give you a right to enter a country but only if you meet all the conditions. Check each country’s requirements on their embassy websites. If you’re planning a long way in advance, keep checking back, conditions frequently have a habit of changing. And don’t assume, when you get your visa stamped into your passport, that it automatically qualifies you for entry. I know someone who obtained a visa for China and was still refused entry at the border. The issuing embassy had failed to notice his passport expiry pre-dated the visa expiry date they’d issued. So had he. The border official didn’t. And here’s a good point to highlight a travel fact you would do well to commit to memory. Border officials are always right – even when they’re wrong. Meeting passport and visa requirements are your responsibility, no one else’s. When they come back – check them.TicketsRead them and make sure they are what you asked for. Request a translation if they’re in a foreign language. Alternatively you could try, like I did once, to persuade a tired, miserable, non-English speaking railway attendant that I really had paid for a first class cabin, and not the one I was forced to share, for two days, with a man as big, and as smelly, as a mammoth.MoneyNot all credit cards are the same. We favour Visa in our part of the world, in others MasterCard rules supreme. Take one with each symbol if you can. Travellers’ cheques are secure, but are of no use to you whatsoever if the nearest bank is a hundred miles away. Ditto ATMs. Cash is king, but if you want to avoid giving your airport taxi driver a month’s wages for dropping you at your hotel, make sure you have some small denomination notes. And here’s another well-known travel fact – it doesn’t matter what country you travel in, taxi drivers never have any change.If you’re travelling through a number of countries, it’s easy to miscalculate the amount of cash you might need for each. Consider taking some US dollars as a universal back up in case you run out. It goes without saying; keep money safe. Invest in a good money belt, keep back up stashes hidden for emergencies, and spread daily spending money around your pockets.Right, you haven’t gone anywhere yet, but you’re in pretty good shape. Your paperwork is in order, you have your money sorted and you know your itinerary. You’re on your way. What could go wrong?Well, lots. One of the attractions of independent travel is its unpredictability. But you want that unpredictability to manifest itself in a positive way, getting lost and finding a lifelong friend or inadvertently becoming a guest of honour at a Greek wedding, for example. What you don’t want is to leave your passport on a bus that’s now a speck on the horizon. A little contingency planning will pay dividends if you get in a fix.Before you leave take copies of all your important documentation, passport, visas, tickets, and add in some spare passport photos. Don’t keep the copies with the real ones. Then, send yourself an e-mail listing the visa and passport numbers. Add telephone numbers of UK embassies operating in the countries you’re visiting, and of course, the policy number of your travel insurance and their emergency contact numbers.These precautions won’t improve the misery you feel if you lose your passport, but they will make it easier to replace it.Now you really are ready for that trip of a lifetime, and the effort you’ve put into planning it will go a long way to making it a safe and smooth journey. That’s because you’ve concentrated on things you have an element of control over. But, its still possible you will encounter situations that are out of your control. The point to stress here is they are out of your control.Don’t waste time and energy trying to influence events that you can’t possibly influence. Stay calm. Stay rational. What is the impact of that broken down bus, or the cancelled flight? Assess your situation, then calmly consider your options. Your original travel plans may have to change as a result. But don’t worry. The change might enhance the trip. It might even take you to somewhere you just wouldn’t have found, or thought of, in the planning stage. In fact it might just make it the trip of a lifetime.Project Checklist
Start with a self-appraisal
Select a destination that is achievable
Do your research
Make sure you have enough time to complete the trip
Produce a draft itinerary and task list early
Produce a draft budget and build in a contingency fund
Get quotes from travel agencies to deliver all or part of your itineraryGolden Rules
Concentrate on things you have control over
Get your paperwork in order early
Make sure you understand what you’ve bought – get translations of tickets if you need to, and take accommodation confirmations with you
E-mail yourself important information
Take more than one form of money – consider Dollars as a universal cash back up
Don’t waste your energy fighting officials – they are always right
Don’t expend effort trying to change things out of your control – concentrate on how to work around them.
Independent travel throws up the unexpected – don’t try to plan for every contingency, you’ll fail
Retain a sense of humour – you’ll see comedy in the most stressful situations if you do
How to Find the Best Long Term Health Care Insurance in South Florida
How does one find the best long term health care insurance in South Florida? People living in the state of Florida should be aware of the many long term health insurance options that they have. The reason for this is that long term care insurance is becoming very common through the state and in the entire United States, and for this reason it is important to know the various options given to you by an insurance company. You must also know the different types of care that you can receive after being diagnosed with a chronic illness or after you cannot perform two out of the many daily activities. In this article you will find out the long term care health plans in the “Sunshine State” and the many options you have.Types Of South Florida Long Term Care Health PlansIt is very important to understand that the variety or the extent of what a plan covers varies by company and can also vary by state. For this reason it is very difficult to describe the many plans offered by every single long term care insurance company operating in the state of Florida. We can help you with the two different types of policies that a customer can get when it comes to long term care insurance. Before this however, it is important to mention that you can get long term care insurance at any age and that in the United States people between the ages of 18 and 64 are covered.1. Non Tax Qualified: This type of long term care insurance is also called NTQ when abbreviated. It was once called “Traditional Long Term Care Insurance because it was the first form of long term care implemented. This type of policy has been in the industry for the past thirty years and it simply includes that for a person to get the benefits specified in the policy, they will need a “medical trigger”. This trigger can only be stated by your own medical doctor or a doctor from the insurance company itself, and from that point on if the trigger is effective you will receive the benefits in the policy. It is important to highlight that the status of the benefits under this plan have not been determined by the United States Treasury Department, which means that you might be at risk for facing a large bill for what the insurance paid.2. Tax Qualified: Also like the type of policy mentioned above, this policy is usually abbreviated at TQ. It does not need for the person to have a “medical trigger” which makes it much easier for a person to receive benefits. On the other hand the downsides of these plans are that the health plan will have a waiting period (ranging from 30 to 90 days) in which the insured will have to pay for their own medical care. In addition to that a doctor must provide a plan of care and the insured must be unable to perform two out of the many activities of daily living (include dressing, toileting, bathing, eating, transporting, etc). The benefits given to the person under this plan are not taxable!It is important to highlight that if you work for a place that offers a long term care policy, you must make sure about the company and the language specified in the policy. The reason for this is that many insurance companies that take part in group policies are not regulated by the state and therefore charge more and can raise premiums whenever they feel like it.Types Of Long Term Care Specified In South Florida Long Term Care Health PlansAs said before policies tend to change from company to company in the state of Florida, as well as in the entire country. It is important to read your policy fully before actually signing it, so that you know what is covered under it and what is not. Like in any other industry, the long term care insurance business offers the customer many different types of long term that can be best for them in the future. It is important to see that the policy covers the type that you want so that you don’t just have to settle for what they give you. The types of long term care found in South FL health care plans will be specified below.1. Home Care: This is perhaps the most common type of long term care insurance nowadays. This is simply because people don’t want to go around visiting various nursing homes or hospitals and instead they would much rather stay at home enjoying of their own space. Under this category the insurance company usually covers nurses that come to your home and help you out with daily activities. It is important to highlight that some health care plans cover home health aids of personal workers that help you around your home. The average rate in the state of Florida for Home Care is estimated to be between $10 and $16 an hour.2. Adult Care: This is a new type of long term care option that has emerged for individuals that want to get out of their home, but want to return to it in the same day. They provide senior citizens with programs of social interaction and they usually provide meals five days a week. Some may also have a means of transportation from the person’s home to the care center.3. Assisted Living: A person should consider this option if they are unable to live at home without help, but they want to remain as independent as possible. In these facilities senior citizens are only helped by staff to take medications on time, bathe, dress and provide any medical care that the person needs. They also have recreation time and provide a great environment for community interaction. In the state of Florida the cost of this type of care ranges from $2,000 to $5,000 a month.4. Nursing Homes: Perhaps the most expensive of any long term care type, these establishments provide the person with 24 hour nursing care when the person is recovering from an illness of disease. They can also accept patients in the end of their lives and help them out with any medical care that they need. In the state of Florida the cost for a nursing home on average is $206 per day (with Jacksonville at $190 per day, Miami at $236 per day, Orlando at $201 per day, and Tampa at $212 per day).Tips For Finding A Cheap South Florida Long Term Care Health PlanThere are many things you can do in order to lower your long term care policy quote. The thing that many people don’t understand is that this industry, just like any other insurance business has its ups and downs and that it gives customers a possibility of lowering their coverage. Below you will find three tips that may help you save money on a South Florida long term care health plan:
1. Bundle Insurances: Perhaps this might not be the best option for you, but is can sure save a person a lot of money. Most people that have long term care insurance have some sort of health plan and most Americans have an automobile insurance policy. If you are with a company that offers all three of them do not hesitate to change and put all your insurance needs under a single company. If you do this the company usually rewards you for being a “preferred” customer and you can save up to 10%.2. Shop Around: The more you shop around and do your homework the easier is going to be to save some money. If you are doing the shopping online, be sure to visit many insurance companies or maybe an insurance comparison website. If on the other hand you are shopping in person make sure you visit three of four companies and get quotes from each them. Shopping around leads to cheaper policies!3. Look at your Waiting Period: Sometimes you can save a lot of money by expanding your waiting period; however you must only do this if you can afford it. By making your waiting period larger you are taking costs off the insurance company and placing them in your pocket. They will reward you with a good premium.South Florida Long Term Care Health Plans Vary From Company to CompanyAs you can assume from the article that you just read, no plan is the same and you should definitely go to insurance companies personally and ask them for their services. If you shop around and are patient however, you can be assured that the best long term care plan for you will be in front of you at no time!