Your wedding day is in six weeks. You've tried to talk about money with your fiancée for the last few months and he continues to find a way to shut down the conversation. You're especially panicky because last night you had this conversation:

You: "Honey, our wedding is in six weeks and I'm feeling very uncomfortable because we've never really talked about money and how we'll handle it after we're married. "

He: "We did talk about it, sweetheart. Lots of times. Aren't I paying for most the wedding expenses? And didn't we agree we'd take care of the details after we get back from our honeymoon."

You: "Yes, but money is such an important part of marriage and I think we should clarify some things before we marry."

He: "Why? I love you; you love me. I'm starting to feel you don't trust me."

Big red flag here! It's a lot harder to talk about money after you're married than to learn how to do it before the wedding.

If you're an equal financial partner in your marriage, the finances will be an open book for you just by definition. It's about equal participation and financial transparency for both of you.

You have to be financially intimate because once you say "I Do", you become one-half of a legal and financial partnership. Whatever your husband is doing financially, you're doing it too.

Your fiancée shouldn't be resisting your need and desire to discuss money before the wedding. He should be welcoming your interest and desire to participate, especially if he believes you are an equal partner.

In the work I do, many women have asked me about the line between holding back financial information and abusive behavior by a spouse. Both result in a lack of financial information. Withholding financial information from a wife who asks about it is disrespectful and demeaning.

If you choose not to ask, that may not be smart, but it's your choice. If you ask, but your husband won't tell you, that is a form of emotional abuse. You may be able to buy what you want, when and where you want to. You may be frustrated by your husband's behavior and attitude, but unlike financial abuse, you won't be consumed by fear and financial restriction.

Financial abuse takes withholding behavior one step further. It's designed to isolate you into a state of complete financial dependence. The abuser is not out of control. He knows what he's doing. Other people may find him charming and sensitive and he can adapt his behavior to the social setting.

But his objective is to isolate you and make you totally dependent on him financially. He does that by making sure you can't get money and information without his approval first.

Financial abuse is often a prelude to physical abuse. It happens within all age ranges, educational levels, ethnic backgrounds and financial levels. The rich socialite who lives in the largest house in the best neighborhood is as likely to be a victim of financial abuse as the poorest wife in the toughest section of town.

When you're intelligent enough to sense a red flag before your wedding because you want to talk about money before marriage, you are acting responsibly. But your fiancee is already showing you that money is not an easy subject for him.

Are you uncomfortable discussing other things with your fiancee. Whatever those things are, count on the fact that they'll be bones of contention after you're married. Getting out of marriage isn't nearly as easy as postponing or calling off a wedding.

Be honest with yourself . With that feeling in the pit of your stomach, it's quite possible you're engaged to the wrong person. Going into marriage with red flags is like skiing downhill blindfolded. You wouldn't do that either.

Helga Hayse is author of "Don't Worry about a Thing, Dear" - Why Women Need Financial intimacy. She teaches women about participating and understanding their marital finances. She speaks to financial planners and estate planners about how to encourage crucial conversations within families.

If you're married, you're probably sexually intimate and hopefully, emotionally intimate as well. But there may be one area of intimacy that you're missing - and that could be a big mistake!

Culturally, we link the concept of intimacy with romance, not realizing that we are talking about two different things. Romance is make-believe, it's Disney, it's a stage set - and it's great.

But not when it comes to money, which operates in the real world. When we think about money romantically, we're basically not thinking at all. We're just fantasizing.

We need a wider definition of intimacy, a concept we currently link with the physical, sexual or emotional revealing of ourselves to another person in a most private way. We need to think of intimacy as transparency, especially when it comes to marital finances because so much is at stake.

Unfortunately, full financial disclosure is still treated as taboo in many marriages, especially when the man makes the big money decisions. A wife may be contributing a significant amount of money through her work, yet may go decades knowing little about her shared finances.

A wife shouldn't have to learn about financial insecurity at a time of crisis in her life, such as divorce or widowhood. It's also the worst possible time to learn about the basics of money management.

The problem goes deeper than that. Failure to achieve financial intimacy in your marriage creates a climate of resentment, suspicion and lack of trust. Other important areas of your marriage are bound to be affected if you're feeling angry, patronized or excluded from participating in one of the most important parts of your marriage - your finances.

Sex, honesty, closeness, trust, parenting – all will be affected on a conscious or subconscious level. Bad feelings don't go away; they redistribute. One acquaintance put it very colorfully: "Why should I keep having to ask about our net worth and be told I'm the biggest nag on the planet?"."

One can argue that intimacy is the opposite of romance. Intimacy allows a deeper, closer understanding of another person or situation based on revealing what actually exists. Romance, on the other hand, seeks to create a quality or environment that is remote from everyday life.

Without financial intimacy, your can't really claim an equal relationship between husband and wife. It's not about trusting, hoping or assuming that your husband is doing everything right. Everything your husband does financially affects you, whether you know about it or not.

That's what being an equal partner means. You are part of a fifty/fifty relationship. In fact, it has nearly the same structural characteristics of a business partnership.

As a partner, you have a right, and the law supports your right, to all the financial information about your partnership. If you are the primary breadwinner in your family, your husband has that same right.

If you think of yourself as a partner, not specifically as a wife, you will act like a partner and take a fuller role in asserting your right to equal access to financial information. You may earn less than your husband, but you take the same amount of financial risk for decisions made within your partnership.

If you find yourself widowed or divorced, some things will be immediately clear. You will need financial resources and the skills to manage them.

You will need to understand basic finances so you won't have to rely on family members, friends or a financial advisor to tell you what to do.

If your marriage ends, you will need to act as your own agent. You will need to know how to do the financial things that you relied on your husband to do for you.

Take the reins of financial responsiblity and step up to the plate. Participate, understand, keep a copy of the records, ask questions, and assume that you have a right to all the financial information that affects you both.

The law supports your right to have it!

Helga Hayse is author of "Don't Worry about a Thing, Dear" - Why Women Need Financial intimacy. She teaches women about participating and understanding their marital finances. She speaks to financial planners and estate planners about how to encourage crucial conversations within families.

Why it's cool to offer your prospects a way to call you for free - while they're "hot."

A few months ago I had a rather unpleasant experience of losing my web hosting server. A large power failure at their data center, plus their failure to backup properly caused them to go out of business and it was not possible for me to renew my domain name or hosting. So I had to transfer everything over to a new server. Part of the hassle with all this was that my database, containing some two million business contact details was locked out and so was any data submitted from new website visitors.

I had to abandon the contact forms on my site and rely on prospects contacting me via the phone or email. One new service I installed during this time helped fill the gap: click-to-talk.

Click-to-talk, also known as click to call or push to talk, is a website to phone contact service which enables a website visitor to contact the business easily, immediately and free of charge. The visitor clicks on a hyperlink or icon, enters their phone number, clicks "Talk" and a few seconds later is connected by phone (cell/mobile or landline) to the business. It 'humanizes' the sales and support process and this is what many website visitors want according to a Jupiter Research report where "55% of travel and hospitality web site visitors prefer to speak to someone before booking."

Most businesses will have their contact phone number on their sites, maybe including a freecall number, so what's the attraction of Click to Talk? Well, firstly there's the 'wow' factor – although click to talk has been around for a few years it's still not common on e-commerce sites, so it's regarded as cool.

Also many businesses find that customers no longer want to fill out lengthy contact forms when they want answers now. The best use of the service depends on where the icon is displayed in the sales process, typically on the sales or contact page.

The service may include a number of features not found with other phone systems. Each number is logged, allowing the business to call back if they are called out of hours. To prevent abuse, all IP addresses are also logged and a phone number or IP address can easily be banned.

Some services allow the business to change their incoming number at will or to set up different numbers at different times of the day and week. Callers using the service after hours may be greeted with an appropriate message on screen and with some click to talk services the interface screen is fully customizable with the company logo and text.

One advantage offered by some providers of click to talk services over traditional freecall numbers is that there may be no monthly fee, so the business only pays for the calls they actually receive. Such providers may charge a one-off set up fee instead, so look for a lifetime upgrade and support as part of the deal.

So is Click to Talk suitable for your website? Well, it won't bring in any more traffic to your site, its job is to increase your website response rates once the visitors arrive and thence your sales. So if you have the traffic but your conversions could do with a boost, click to talk will be a part of your strategy.

Next, do you do business locally, nationally or internationally? Different service providers may cover different geographic regions, so check that out. When it comes to fees, do you opt for a monthly subscription or a one-off lifetime license? If you opt for the latter, check that it includes support and future upgrades. Does the service provider offer other telecommunication products – such as international redirected numbers - that your phone account may be used for? Check the type of phone connection being offered – PSTN (traditional phone service) or VoIP? Is the quality of VoIP good enough for your needs? Are you being offered a guarantee?

According to some research, customers' concerns about privacy may be an issue when deciding to use a click to talk service. Just as with gathering email addresses, the website owner needs to have their privacy policy and legal statement in a reassuring position before the prospect enters their details. Does the service have an option to enter this statement on the login screen?

Perhaps the most important question to ask is "Is it worth paying a dollar to talk to a prospect who has just seen and is still seeing our website?" Service providers obviously think so, with websites claiming the value of "talk to your prospects while they are hot for your product!" So only you can decide. Click to Talk is being used in all sorts of businesses: real estate, training consultants, lawyers, hotel and accommodation bookings, holidays, furniture manufacturers and many others. As one client put it "It is easy to install, cost effective and provides immediate results. I would recommend this to any company that wishes to be in closer, more immediate contact with their potential consumers. This low cost Click to Talk technology will soon become a 'must have' tool."

Michael Taylor is an online marketing and media consultant and Director of CAN Telecom in Australia and New Zealand, licensee for the Parlay Click to Talk™ service. See

VoIP is a way to make phone calls for free using the Internet, and if you want to make calls using the regular phone system, and calls to cell phones you can do so at rates well below those your carrier is charging you.

You use the Internet to make your call to others on the Internet, and out to the public switched telephone system (PSTN) and cell phone networks.

You can get free phone calls to your branch offices and cheap call rates for local. long distance, and international destinations that are cheaper than your current carrier provides.

What do you need to make this happen?

You will need a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services provider that will supply the VoIP gateway devices to connect to your phones or PABXs that will enable you to call over the Internet to your branch offices.

For those calls you want to make outside your branch offices to the public phone system, your VoIP services provider will have VoIP PSTN gateways that allow you to make calls to land-based phones and cell phones.

You should look for a VoIP provider that has a presence in all the states that you have branch offices. If you are a company that conducts business nationally you will want a VoIP services provider that has a national coverage.

Once you have a provider suitable to your needs offering low call rates, you can make calls to people outside your company anywhere in the country for the price of a local call. And you can call anyone in your company no matter where they are for free. International calls will cost you no more than a couple of cents per minute.

But if you would like to avoid spending any money on hardware or monthly service fees from a VoIP services provider try out one of the many free software based VoIP solutions such as Skype, Firefly, Gizmo or Express Talk. All you will need is a PC microphone and speakers or earphones.

Although a hardware- based service gives the best user experience giving you the ability to use your existing phone equipment, it really will depend on your broadband connection.

Consumer broadband services typically provide between 1 and 4 Mbps downstream capacity, but only 90 to 384 Kbps upstream. You are going to need a minimum 128Kbps upstream capacity, and to maintain quality and reliability while simultaneously using the Web, you'll need at least 256Kbps. And if you are sharing access via a network, 384 Kbps might be required.

Whether you choose a VoIP service provider or go for the free software option you will gain by taking advantage of the free calls, and low call rates for land based and mobile phones.

Remote workers can literally be anywhere with VoIP, but to all appearances they could be working out of one office location. Remote workers can attend meetings via video or audio conferencing all within a VoIP solution.

Free Features

Your local phone company provides you with calling features that they charge for, but with VoIP service providers they are usually free. These calling features include Caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, Do Not Disturb and three-way conferencing.

More sophisticated call forwarding features are also available, such as "follow-me" features that you can customize for individual phone numbers and situations, allowing you to forward specific callers to certain phones at certain times.

Some VoIP service providers charge for Voicemail, and some let you forward voice calls to an email address or allow you to access it on the Web. Other advanced features include larger conference calls, call screening and filtering, and even contact management.

VoIP services can provide you with savings of up to 25% to 50% on your phone costs. It is a cost saving worth investigating in greater detail and a great place to start is www.VoIP-I a site that covers everything that is related to VoIP.

Jim McKnight is a freelance writer and be contacted at jim_mcknight2000@

Whether you are thinking of getting married, you are a newly wed, or you are a seasoned couple of marital bliss, you must have a joint talk about debt and credit. Debt communication is simply not an option. This debt and money talk article can open doors of communication and enhance the success of your marriage. In the case of pre marital situations, it may allow you to realize "problems" before they even start.

In David Olson's 2003 National Survey of Marital Strengths we learn that the average adult spends 80% of waking hours earning, spending, or thinking about money. In a study of 21,501 couples Olson found that 66% indicated indebtedness was one of the top 5 major stumbling blocks to their marriage.

Conversely, he discovered "one of the unique strengths of the majority of happy couples was that they did not have major debt problems." Similarly the Administration office of the US Courts tell us there were 1,661,996 bankruptcies filed in Fiscal Year 2003 (up 7.4 percent from the 1,547,669 filings in Fiscal Year 2002). Bankruptcies have exceeded 1 million filings annually since the early 90's and show no signs of letting up.

All of the above strongly indicates one thing. Far more financial communication must occur in the relationship.

To overcome some of these staggering statistics, I firmly believe each couple has a superior chance of surviving separation and/or divorce because of financial stress, by simply opening the doors of financial communication. I strongly suggest 4 areas of communication for any couple regardless of how long they have been together. But the sooner in a couple's existence that communication occurs, the greater the opportunity of success for that couple and the less the stress level within their lives.

Here then are 4 suggested areas of financial communication:

1. Hidden Debt and Personalities - openly and without prejudice or pre-judgment

a. Share each other's credit report and ask questions about past performances. For example: Why are there late pays? Why is there no credit history? Explain the bankruptcy. What is this judgment about?

b. Determine and discuss each person's ability to be a spender or a saver. Do you have a tendency to live paycheck to paycheck or do you have a consuming desire to put at least something away for a rainy day? Do you track every dime or is anything under $10 unimportant to track?

c. Discuss any debts not listed in the credit report.

d. Determine who has what credit lines and what is each person's feelings on separate credit lines, joint lines, becoming an authorized user and/or co-signing any loans. Similarly discuss checking and savings accounts.

e. Discuss who has what assets and should they be kept separated or joined. (Should there be a pre-nuptial agreement?)

2. Goal Setting - where are you going and how will you know when you get there?

a. Set specific goals together for the next year, 5 years, and 20 years.

b. Read and discuss 5 Proven Steps To Budget Motivation (as well as other Budget Management articles under Article Index above.)

c. Commit a plan of action to paper stating how you will be accomplishing your goals.

d. List contingency plans when the inevitable "never expected emergency" pops up.

3. Budgeting and CEO - Who will carry the ball?

a. Who will have responsibility for paying the bills and balancing the checkbook?

b. How will you deal with existing bills? Especially for newlyweds? Will each continue to pay individually or will you join incomes to meet expenses?

c. Together plan out your budget

d. Frankly discuss "what if's".

1. No one plans on bankruptcy but what if the bottom falls out? Will you both declare so the one spouse does not have to absorb the other's debt?

2. What if divorce does happen?

3. What if one spouse dies or becomes disabled?

4. "What if..." and fill in the rest.

e. Will one person be assigned to listen to the partner but ultimately make the final financial decision or will both have an equal voice?

4. Estate Planning

a. Discuss the existing life, health, and disability needs of each partner. Does it meet current and future needs?

b. Talk to a reputable health and disability representative and determine your needs.

c. Based upon your future goals, what investment strategies do you intend on initiating and when?

d. Who will do your taxes and do you need tax strategies to offset tax payment?

e. How will you develop an emergency savings and how much will it be?

f. Are there education needs expected?

Now for the ultimate marriage counseling tip. Reschedule this exact same discussion for next year and the year after and the year after that. Just call it your "Annual State of the Union Discussion".

Mike has been an Internet Guide/Writer in the field of Credit/Debt Management for over 10 years. His site was awarded Best Of Net by Forbes Publication from 2000 to 2005 with site visitation doubling to over 500,000 average views per month in the last year.

He has also offered debt elimination seminars to businesses and community colleges for the last 9 years. He has been interviewed on the radio a number of times and referenced in numerous publications.

If you've been trying to make a business online but had a few set backs you've probably asked yourself this question and the others I've listed below.

I also added the answers I use to keep going when I feel like just "Throwing in the towel".

Don't worry be happy! It's easy to say but hard to do, without some kind of logical reasoning behind the positive affirmations.

Here're the questions and the logical answers that I use to keep myself motivated and ensure that I achieve my potential.

1. Do you have what it takes to make money on the internet?

2. How do you know if you should to quit or not?

3. What does it take?

4. Why are some people successful and yet others aren't?

5. Does what I do now effect my future?

Do you ever ask yourself these questions?

I do and I have the same answers every time!

Below are my self talk answers they help me stay on track.

The answers are listed in the same order as the questions.

1. Yes, I have a computer and usually have access to the internet.

2. Because I started I have to finish.

3. It takes perseverance, tenacity, faith, self belief; I have all of those qualities.

4. Some are successful because they are lucky, some because they are smart, some because they work hard, some because they never give up. I have a little of all those qualities.

5. Yes, if I sow a seed today I'll reap a harvest tomorrow.

Please feel free to copy this and look at it every time you have any doubts. Also you can add some of your own positive self talk favorites.

I sincerely wish you good luck and happiness

Bill Boyd

Bill Boyd has been in business for over 20 years, he has recently begun to realize the enormous potential that the internet has to offer. He fully understands the difficulties many newbies face when starting out online.

The kitchen, with all its appliances, gadgets and heat, is a real hotspot for potential energy saving. As the oven uses the most energy and creates a vast amount of heat while cooking foods, it is a good place to start.

For instance, when baking cookies use two trays. While one is in the oven baking, the other one is prepped with raw cookies – ready to replace the tray in the oven with no wasted heat and some time saved. When we bake bread we also fill the oven with foil wrapped potatoes. The potatoes can be stored in the fridge without the foil and used throughout the week in a myriad of recipes, or as a side dish. This method can be applied to a menu plan in that if you are baking one dish, try to include a side dish that is baked as well.

By turning off the oven a minute or two before the dish is done, the residual heat will finish the cooking. When done with the oven, open the door to allow any leftover heat to warm the home.

Pasta cooking water can be left out until it has completely cooled – so that the heat and moisture are released back into the air. Before pulling the plug, consider leaving hot dishwater (and bath water) until it cools. Why pay to heat up your sewer pipes? When cooking vegetables, consider steaming instead of boiling. When steamed, more nutrients are retained in the food, and because it requires less water to heat - there is less energy used.

In summer, consider cooking on the barbecue to help keep the house cool. Most barbecues now include side burners that make outdoor cooking all that much easier.

All these methods are relatively easy to adopt and when added up, the savings in energy and time really do make a difference.

-- Written by Dave and Lillian Brummet based on the concept of their book, Trash Talk. The book offers useful solutions for the individual to reduce waste and better manage resources. A guide for anyone concerned about his or her impact on the environment. (http://www.sunshinecable.com/~drumit)