Junko Halloran
Everything filed under junko halloran, listed in full rather than as a feed.
Articles
- Two identical houses, ten years apart in upkeep. What the difference bought
Same builder, same year, same street. One was maintained on a schedule and one was not, and after a decade the gap is much larger than the maintenance cost.
- The invoice is forty days old. A collection sequence that stays civil
Chasing payment badly costs you the customer and often the money as well. A fixed sequence, applied to everyone, gets paid faster and avoids the argument.
- Fixed price or time and materials? How to write an estimate that holds
The pricing structure decides who carries the risk of the unknown. Choosing the wrong one for a job is how a profitable quote becomes a losing one.
- An accountant is worth paying for judgment, not for data entry
Most people hire an accountant to do a task software already does well, and then never ask the questions that would have justified the fee several times over.
- Building a home maintenance calendar you will still be using in October
Most maintenance schedules fail for the same reason: they are too long, too detailed, and attached to nothing that already happens.
- A deep clean once a year or someone every other week? What each buys
The two options are priced very differently and they solve different problems. One resets a house; the other stops it needing a reset.
- Mediation, arbitration or court. Which one your dispute is actually suited to
Three routes that get called alternatives to each other. One produces an agreement, one produces a binding decision, and only one of them you may already have signed away.
- Small claims is cheap to file. Collecting is the part to plan for
Filing fees are modest and you do not need an attorney. What people are not told is that winning and being paid are two separate projects.
- A fence six inches over the line, and the survey that would have ended it
Two neighbors spent eighteen months and several thousand dollars on a disagreement that a single licensed survey would have settled in the first fortnight.
- Tax software or a paid preparer? The return that decides it for you
The honest test is not how complicated you feel your finances are. It is how many forms your return needs and how many of them involve a judgment call.
- Card dispute or ask the merchant again? Which route gets your money back faster
A chargeback and a refund arrive as the same amount of money by very different mechanisms, and starting with the wrong one can close the other.
- Mixing up legal structure and tax treatment is the expensive part of going solo
Three words that get used as though they sit on one ladder. Two of them describe legal structure, one describes tax treatment, and mixing them up costs money.
- You have one paid hour with an attorney. Here is how to spend it
A first consultation can produce a plan or it can produce a bill for someone reading your paperwork out loud. The difference is decided before you arrive.
- Signing a lease this fall? The disputes worth an attorney, and the ones that are not
Most landlord and tenant arguments are settled by a well written letter and a copy of the lease. A few are not, and the difference is usually visible early.
- Apprenticeship or trade school? How the two routes actually cost out
One route pays you from the first week and makes you wait for a place. The other starts whenever you can pay for it. The gap between them is measured in years.