Over recent years, issues relating to the state of our environment and planet have been at the forefront of many minds and agendas. In fact, more and more people have become eager to do their bit for the planet by adopting more eco-friendly practices in their day to day lives. The more people who get on board with green causes, the more of a positive difference we can make.

Of course, it is not just individuals who are making an effort to be more eco-friendly. There are also lots of businesses that are bringing onboard sustainable and environmentally friendly practices, and this includes casinos. While traditional brick-and-mortar casinos tend to have a negative impact on the environment in a range of ways, more and more are now offering online facilities, which can help to counteract this impact.

Making Gambling Eco-Friendly

Of course, brick-and-mortar casinos are not going away anytime soon, and they are necessary to our society for a range of reasons. These casinos provide a physical place where people can go out and socialize. They also create a huge number of jobs for those in the local areas. In addition, they bring in a lot of money, some of which goes to the state in the form of taxes on gambling and sports betting to develop and maintain vital services.

However, the negative impact of these physical casinos is that many people drive to them, which means more carbon emissions. They also take up a lot of land, and they have a lot of energy-zapping equipment onsite including a huge range of gambling machines. On the other hand, online casinos offer a far more eco-friendly option for gamblers, and they are fast becoming a popular choice for many.

The Benefits of Online Casinos

Over recent years, online casinos have accrued a huge following, with many loving the chance to gamble and play casino games from the comfort of their own homes. Of course, they do not offer the same social benefits or atmosphere of a physical location, but they do offer a huge range of games and a greener option for gamblers.

When you gamble online, you do not have to drive to the casino in order to enjoy some gaming, as you can simply put your feet up and play from the privacy of your own home. In addition, all the machines and games are virtual, so you are not using machines that use huge amounts of energy in order to operate.

The good news is that more and more casinos with physical locations are also teaming up with software companies to provide online versions of their casinos. So, this means you can continue gambling at your favourite casino while also benefiting from enjoying the thrill of the casino online.

As many of us are aware, the damage that has been done to the planet over recent decades is huge, and it has become crucial to take steps to try and reverse some of this damage. This is why adopting green solutions when it comes to entertainment such as gambling is such a good thing. By offering online facilities, casinos are able to do their bit for the green cause, as well as allowing their customers to be more eco-friendly at the same time.

Every Little Helps

Providing access to online casino facilities is one of the ways in which modern casinos are helping the green cause. Many also adopt other methods such as using recyclable products at casino resorts. The main thing is that every little helps and many casinos are now doing their bit for the environment.

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The McDowell News has been looking to explain how your debts could be affected by the outcome of the 2020 Presidential Election. The Presidential election comes at the end of your when many of us are thinking about personal finance and just how close we can come to losing everything. Credit card debt has been growing across the U.S, for decades with few of us able to make the right moves to pay off our credit card debt speedily and efficiently. There are several options for paying off debt, from different strategies to creating a budget, according to U.S. News.

Debt Payoff Strategies

One of the biggest problems we all face is addressing just how much credit card debt we are in. Many of us carry large balances on high-interest cards and fail to make more than the minimum payment each month leaving us with ever-larger credit card debts piling up. When you want to pay off your debts, you will want to take an inventory of the credit card debts you have. If you are looking to efficiently pay off your debts, you can look to use one of two common debt payoff systems, avalanche, and snowball.

The snowball debt pay off option is a slower one with the main question being what are the lowest balances you owe. If you decide to take this option you should continue to pay off your largest balances as minimum payments and work on paying off your smallest balances in full. Once the smallest balance is paid off, you can move on to the next smallest balances.

In contrast, the avalanche option allows you to concentrate on paying off your largest balances first while making minimum payments on your smaller debts. The avalanche system aims to allow you to reduce the highest balances and interest rates while seeing lower balances climb more slowly. 

Make Payment Deals with your Creditors

Your creditors are not as scary as you may think with most wanting to get paid in some way, shape, or form. If you have several creditors, you will find yourself trying to juggle a range of different payment options that may be piling up. If you look at the different options available you can quickly make a change to your budget by choosing to talk to your creditors and make some plans for the future of your payments. If you are struggling to make a payment, your creditors will often look to make better decisions regarding your financial future, NerdWallet reports.

Create a Better Budget

 One of the first steps you need to take when you are looking to pay down your debt simply and effectively, a budget is a great option to undertake. Debt.com reports the decision to pay off as much debt as possible in the shortest time means you will need as much money as possible available for the coming months. This is a difficult first step to take when you decide to pay off debt because it can take a lot of money to complete and you will need to tighten your bootstraps. A better budget is a difficult part of credit card debt with you often finding the luxuries of your life are taken away for a short time when you are looking to pay down credit card by lowering your weekly outgoings.

Transfer your Balances 

While you are trying to make an impact on your finances, you can look to lower your balances and interest rates by transferring your balances to lower interest rate cards. Investopedia explains you will often be able to find credit cards with a low or zero-percent credit card payments for an introductory rate. The transference of balances will make it easy for you to avoid the high-interest rates being charged for your existing credit cards.

Find a Credit Counsellor

When you are looking for a great way of paying down your credit card debt, you may struggle to find yourself looking for the best ways of paying down credit card debt. The use of a credit counselor is one of the best ways of making a major impact on your credit card balance is to work with a credit counselor. Along with making the right choices about credit consolidation, a credit counselor will make a big impact on the different choices you could make to pay down your debts.

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Many of us may have memories of our parents or grandparents getting out a pencil and sitting down to balance their checkbook regularly. As the popularity of debit cards and electronic payments skyrocketed, the practice of balancing a checkbook started being viewed as “old-fashioned.”

Keeping an eye on your account can be done a few different ways. Many financial institutions still mail (or email) monthly statements to deposit account holders. Take a look through those when they come every month and make sure everything looks right.

Also, sign up for online and/or mobile banking. This is a great resource to know where you stand at any point – but keep in mind some transactions take longer to post to your account than others. It’s a great idea to check your account online every day, or at least every couple of days.

If you make a transaction at your financial institution, whether it’s with a teller or at the ATM, ask for a balance on your receipt. This doesn’t give you many details, but if it’s far off from where you think it should be this is a trigger for you to do more research.

As the banking industry changes, employees in financial institutions have more opportunities to be trained to provide more customer service than when they were focused almost entirely on transactions. Get to know an employee at your local branch and reach out when you need help. They are there to help, but they can’t if you don’t ask or aren’t honest with them.

While it may look different now, keeping an eye on your bank accounts is still a super important practice. You may not keep track of every single transaction in a check register, but you need to know what’s going on in your account for a few different reasons.

• Knowledge of your balance

Debit cards and electronic payments make it easy to keep spending and have no idea how much money you have in your account. One of the most basic, but important, reasons to keep an eye on your bank account is to know how much money you have.

Failure to keep track of your balance can end up being a very costly mistake. The average overdraft fee in America is $30, which means that every time you swipe your card to pay for something you don’t have money in your account to cover, you’re automatically going to pay around $30 more. Unfortunately, even a $1.50 soda can end up costing you $30 extra if you aren’t paying attention to your account.

• Preventing fraud

With billions of dollars in fraudulent charges made annually, it’s important to keep an eye on your accounts to make sure you recognize every single charge. Even if a charge is only 99 cents or a few dollars, don’t ignore it if you don’t recognize it. A common fraud practice is to process a fraudulent transaction for a dollar or two to see if you notice, then they will hit your account for a much larger amount. This can be devastating, especially for families who live paycheck to paycheck.

If you ever see a charge that you don’t recognize on your bank account, don’t hesitate to contact your financial institution and ask. Most every financial institution has people trained to take care of fraud and they can do some research with you to try and find out what the charge might be and help you get it taken care of if it’s not yours.

Even if you and a bank employee discover together that a purchase you made online came through your account under a different company name than you expected, it’s much better for both you and your financial institution to be safe rather than sorry.

• Mistakes happen

Mistakes can happen – whether it’s at the bank or a merchant where you’ve written a check or swiped your card. If you notice something that doesn’t seem right, always contact your financial institution right away. And if you miscalculated and need to use 24Cash to get a loan until you can catch up, do what you need to get by.

If you see a deposit in your account that you didn’t make, don’t just assume it’s your lucky day. Always contact your bank right away because spending it will eventually catch up with you when someone wonders where their deposit went and the paper trail leads back to your account.

Mistakes happen, and if it’s not your money, it’s not yours – regardless of mistakes. The right thing to do is make your financial institution aware right away of extra money (or less money) in your account than you think you should have.

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