Going Paperless? 14 Tips on Starting and Securing a Paperless Lifestyle

It’s here. The paperless society is fast, convenient, and a standard almost everywhere.

It has some drawbacks, though. For example, you could easily merge a cluttered paper lifestyle with an online one without simplifying anything. Also, if you don’t have a backup plan, you could lose all your data by dropping your phone or crashing your computer system.

Here are some tips on how to move toward a paperless lifestyle, as well as some cautionary notes about organizing and securing your electronic world.

7 Tips on Moving to a Paperless Lifestyle

  1. Print to a PDF file instead of a printer when you select File > Print to read and store a document on your computer. A PDF or portable document file is a facsimile of a printed document that you create with a PDF print driver from either Adobe Acrobat or CutePDF.
  2. Use online banking services to receive statements, pay bills, and balance your checkbook. However, use applications such as QuickBooks for personal and business accounting.
  3. Use your scanner to import bills, business cards, and other documents into your computer and store them as either JPEGs or PDFs. After you’re finished, shred the paper original.
  4. Store business cards, addresses, and birthday records in your system’s address book and calendaring application. You can separate personal and business information by creating group names, applying color-coded labels, and using different calendars for work, home, birthdays, and so on.
  5. Store photos and other visual media in My Documents > My Pictures on Windows or in iPhoto on Mac OS. You can also store all your audio files in iTunes.
  6. Establish consistent file naming and keyword conventions to find and identify documents. Windows and Mac search tools can easily find file content. However, they may retrieve hundreds or thousands of records, making it hard for you to find what you want. A good rule when storing files online is to use a file structure that matches the one inside your well-organized file cabinet and apply keywords to a file’s properties to generate instant recall of its contents.
  7. Keep important documents for the required length of time. See the Bankrate.com article “How Long to Keep Financial Records” for more information.

7 Cautionary Notes on Organizing and Securing Your Online World

  1. Beware of identity theft and how to prevent it. Visit the federal government’s one-stop resource, idtheft.gov, for more information.
  2. Budget for the expense of owning and upgrading hardware, purchasing and upgrading software, and paying increased energy costs.
  3. Purge files and emails at least once a year to remove clutter from your electronic devices.
  4. Know your digital record is not for posterity. Kurt Bollacker in “Avoiding a Digital Dark Age” in the May-June 2010 issue of the American Scientist says analog data has a longer shelf life than digital data. Therefore, keep printed copies of your address book, important photographs, and other priceless documents and mementos.
  5. Follow through on a backup plan or lose your data forever. For more information, PC owners can start by reading Eric Griffith’s “The Beginner’s Guide to PC Backup” online at PCMag (April 27, 2010), and Mac owners can read “Dr. Mac’s Guide to Backing Up Your Mac” online at MacObserver.
  6. Consider reducing your energy consumption to protect the environment. As Don Carli of GreenBiz.com says (April 14, 2010), going paperless is not as green as you may think.
  7. Remember to use the personal touch. For example, people still like receiving handwritten notes and cards. It’s a personal touch that resonates well with both business acquaintances and loved ones.

How To Invest In Stocks

You cannot trade or invest in stocks unless you open an account with a stock broker. Since investing in stocks has been much facilitated by the advent of computers and internet, you can easily register your account online with any stock brokerage firm.
Before you open an account, you must find out the minimum amount you have to deposit with your broker irrespective of the type of account you opt for from the website of your brokerage firm. Each broker has his own minimum account limit, which may range from $500 to $10,000.

The guiding principle before accepting the minimum amount deposit should be your budget and also the facilities and services that the brokerage offers for a particular level of minimum amount deposit. A comparison-shopping in this respect would prove highly beneficial in long term trading. While it may be true that the less minimum deposit you pay, the less you get in form of services as well, there are some brokerage firms that deliver much more value than the minimum deposit they demand.

A good brokerage firm may demand a minimum deposit for example $ 2,500 but may deliver much more value in terms of lower commissions, as low as $1.50 to $ 3.00 per equity trade, free dividend reinvestment plans and a large number of free trades spread over a long time. They may not even charge you any thing if your account becomes inactive for some time. If you are beginner in stock investing, these benefits can prove to be of immense value in form of risk free investments and savings.

The next step is to choose an account. You can choose an:

1.Individual Account

2.Joint Account

1.Individual Account

As the name suggests, an individual account is an investment account that is opened for one person. You must have reached the age of majority, i.e., you should be 18 years old or above in your state of residence. The age of majority entitles you to full legal rights as an adult. Besides, you must also be a US citizen or a resident alien with a valid social security number. A resident alien is a person who is a non-US citizen but legally resides in the US and also pays the taxes.

2. Joint Account

A joint account is an investment account that is opened for two or more people with the proviso that both people who open accounts should have reached the age of majority in their state of residence. Joint account can either be set up as Joint Tenants with Rights of Survivorship-JTWROS- –or as Joint Tenants in Common-JTIC.

Opening both kinds of accounts is an easy process. It takes about five minutes to open an account on line. All you need to do is to select the account type you want to open and fill in your personal information.

You also have to read and confirm the subscriber agreements, which include the ‘account agreement’, ‘customer acknowledgment of risk’ and ‘day trading risk disclosure statement’.

Besides these you are also required to comply with the exchange rules. So you have to read, understand and comply with both the New York Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange data subscriber agreements. You should read the agreement as you scroll it down to the bottom. Read both the sections of the agreement and check both the boxes before you move on.

The next step is to choose your user ID and password. You also have to provide your email id for correspondence. You also need to select one of the four secret questions and provide answer to them. This information is needed to assist you to get your password in case you forget about it.

You have also to provide your personal information including your name, date of birth, residential address, marital status, employment, number of dependents, phone numbers, mother’s maiden name, social security number and country of citizenship. You have also to provide your financial information including your employer’s name, annual income, net worth and liquid net worth.

The answer to these and a few other simple questions completes the account opening process and you are ready to start investing in stocks and shares immediately thereafter.