Businesses often decide that they need investment to either keep the business alive or kick start a period of growth.  What is the best way to find investors for your business?

Where to look

There are a number of ways for businesses to find investors in the private equity marketplace.  As a business, there are a number of reasons for which you may need to raise equity quickly, and as such different reasons will lead you to different equity providers.

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There are so many bank accounts available these days that it is hard to choose! Many banks will advertise their new and shiny account, with special extras, bonuses for signing up, and lots of fancy bells and whistles. With all of these enticing features, it’s hard to see through to the basics of what makes a good bank account. How can you cut through the hype and find the right account for you?

Here are some of the basic features that every bank account should have:

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Republicans in the House of Delegates caved on Thursday to the President's, congressional Left wingers ', and fellow Republicans ' demands for a renewing of payroll tax cuts for employees. This is to a short term call till they can settle on a more formal budget plan. This may spare employees from having a standard $20 per week tax increase beginning Jan first.

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The notion that megabanks like the Royal Bank of Scotland are too big to fail apparently isn’t as easy a sell to as it used to be. Everyone hopes that the European Union will be unable to save foundering debtor nations Greece and Italy from default, but no one can see how. And fears are growing that default is inevitable.  Meanwhile, governments, which are cash poor to begin with, are responding  to  their public’s growing impatience with bailouts by sending signals that they won’t come to the rescue of any financial institutions left holding worthless debt. As a result, for the third time in two months the Royal Bank of Scotland has seen its credit rating lowered by one of the big debt rating agencies, not because of any change at the bank itself, but because debt rating agencies are factoring government reluctance to engage in further bailouts into their overall assessments  of financial institutions. This is why Standard & Poors recently downgraded the RBS from an A to an A-  rating following  similar moves by Moody’s and the UK agency Fitch’s in early October.

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It is nearly the end of the year again when we make our New Year's resolutions for the following year. Looking at cleaning up your finances is a worthy New Year's resolution that will pay off in the long run with a well-formulated plan.

Wouldn't it be great to end 2012 debt and be worry free? To be able to have a restful night's sleep without fearing debt collectors and post threatening legal action and bailiffs would be wonderful.

There are lots of money saving ideas and ways to help reduce debt and support you on your way to a debt free life.

Thought you had enough with just a checking and savings account? Got your tax account set up and think your financial picture is complete? Hold your horses, because there are a few more types of financial accounts you might want to consider.  These accounts may not be as basic as the ones mentioned above, but they may still play a role in diversifying your portfolio, gaining interest, building good credit, and being prepared for any financial "bumps in the road".

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Every time you walk into a bank these days you are confronted with an advert for tracker bonds. So, what are these bonds, are they better than a savings account, who are they best suited towards and how do they work?

Tracker bonds have become popular as inflation has risen well above the 2 per cent recommended rate for the Bank of England. These bonds offer an alternative to savings accounts which due to very low interest rates pay tiny returns on money invested.

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If you have financial goals in mind and you've already paid off all of your credit cards, then there's still some factors to consider regarding investing for the future.  This could be savings for the purchase of a house, college tuition, or retirement planning.

You still have to know not only how you plan on utilizing the savings in the future, but you also have to ask yourself several other questions. Many of these types of investments are not are not insured or guaranteed by the U.S. Government. Before you make your investments find out the answers to the following 6 questions:

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If you aren’t already doing your accounting online, you are missing out on some fantastic functionality and interfaces that could dramatically simplify your business accounting processes.

There are many online account tools to use, the most popular being Sage, Quickbooks and Xero. Sage and Quickbooks are proven tools for successful online accounting, and although Xero is a relative newcomer in the world of online accounting, it is already making waves with its increased functionality and intuitive interface.

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What makes one person more capable of making wise informed financial decisions, more than another person? Maturity? Experience? Intelligence? Education? Most likely, it's a combination of experience and common sense. There's no lesson quite as meaningful as the one we learn from a bad first-hand experience so, very often, the best advice will come from someone who's been burnt financially in the past!

It might seem that it's wise to never ever borrow and just live within our means throughout our whole lives. While there's certainly something to be said for that, debt is not always a bad thing. It's not necessarily wise to suggest to a young person or a potential mortgage-holder that they simply resist the urge to borrow. Effective debt-management often makes a great deal more sense than a total lack of debts in the first place. After all, one of the main criteria that banks use when assessing an applicant's suitability for a loan is credit rating i.e. the applicant's history of borrowing and, more importantly, history of repaying.