Survival+
Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation
|
This is a guest post by Brian Garvin, a commenter here on OutOfYourRut.com. He runs an online business so I asked him to write a post describing what it is he’s doing to make that happen.
If you’ve worked in the Brick & Mortar world for any length of time, chances are you’ve picked up a skill that could be applied to the internet to start your own blog. Basically an Authority Blog is a large, content based blog lots of other bloggers and the Internet Community at large visit and respect as one of the larger blogs in that particular niche.
Most people think of Authority Blogs as being run by just large companies, but that’s not the truth. In fact many single people are running some of the largest Authority Blogs in some of the most competitive industries, such as Internet Marketing, Real Estate, Forex, Health & Wellness and Dating. So the main question to be asked is if building this type of blog is right for you. We’re gonna go over a list of questions you should answer. Answering the questions below will determine if setting up a blog is right for you.
Continue reading How to Make Money with an “Authority” Blog →
By Kevin M
Right now a lot of people are either unemployed, underemployed or working in a career or job where promotion opportunities are close to non-existent. In such times, thoughts often turn to cutting a new path by starting a new business.
Many of today’s business models are based on the Wall Street principle of OPM—Other Peoples Money. Whether through the sale of stocks, bonds or by obtaining bank financing, large companies and well publicized start ups seek to open new ventures and expand through leverage.
But what works (sometimes at least) on Wall Street can often be business poison to the would-be small business owner.
Continue reading Should You Borrow Money to Start a Business? →
By Kevin M
Just about everyone has stuff sitting around the house doing close to nothing, but some of it could put some money in your wallet, or better, your bank account.
On an otherwise uncommitted weekend, convince yourself you’re moving soon, and will need to pare down your collection of gadgets and baubles to the smallest pile possible, by picking out and removing the items you can most do without. Then clean them up, figure out about how much you might sell them for through a variety of channels, and store them away in a safe secluded spot so that they don’t blend back into the trappings of your life.
That being accomplished, it’s now time to figure out the best way or combination of ways to sell it all. There are a number of ways to do this, but three prominent ones come to mind:
Continue reading Earn Income From Selling Your Stuff →
It’s easier when you take care of a few things first
By Kevin M
It’s been said that the best way to accomplish a big project is to break it into a series of smaller ones. Paying off credit cards can be as big a project as we can imagine, based on the size of the debt that needs to be paid off.
Often it’s the size of the debt itself that presents the biggest obstacle to even getting started. While it may not be too difficult to payoff $10,000 in credit card debt going from a standing start, a balance of $50,000 will require marshalling all of our efforts and resources.
It’s important to realize that paying off credit cards isn’t just about discipline. A huge part of the project is emotional and you’ll have to do it in such a way that you’re rewarding your efforts by reaching crucial milestones along the way. Take it in stages, stack the deck in your favor, and the whole process will be less painful.
Continue reading Payoff Your Credit Cards – But Set the Stage FIRST →
By Kevin M
“Everyone” is one of those absolute words we should generally stay clear of, but I’m violating conventional wisdom, sticking my neck out and saying everyone needs to have a blog!
You can beat me up for violating protocol, but before you do, consider the seven reasons why I’m making such a bold declaration…
1. To CONNECT with the rest of the world, 21st Century style
There are nearly seven billion people in the world and most of us connect with a handful who we’ll connect with in any meaningful way. With a blog we can add hundreds or thousands more—do you think there might be some value in that?
A blog is the cornerstone of finding like minded people in a world that seems to be pulling apart socially even as it gets more crowded. Though it often seems that people are the nexus of our troubles, we can’t overlook that they’re usually the source of our solutions as well. After all, who couldn’t use a few more friends, a few more intelligent opinions or a few more business contacts?
Most of the people we’ll meet through blogs will live in another part of the country, or another part of the world, but that’s pretty stinking exciting, wouldn’t you say?
Continue reading 7 Reasons Everyone Needs to Have a Blog →
By Kevin M
Let’s be honest, most retirement posts in the personal finance blogging world are aimed squarely at people in their 20s and 30s. Those over 50 are presumed to not exist. It’s almost ironic, isn’t it, talking about retirement to people who are so far away from retirement that it’s very nearly irrelevant while ignoring those for whom it’s right around the corner?
Maybe it’s that the vast majority of people on the web are under 35, or maybe it’s just easier making multi-decade projections to a group of people so far from retirement that they’ll never remember any bad advice they’d gotten early in life. And in a different direction, all things are possible when your time horizon is 30, 40 or 50 years. Those magical retirement projections that’ll turn us all into millionaires just wouldn’t work without all those decades!
But what if you don’t have decades to accumulate a retirement fortune? What if you’re over 50 and retirement is just a few years away? If you don’t have at least a healthy six figure portfolio, how do you prepare for retirement now that the luxury of time is no longer available to work in your favor?
Continue reading Over 50 – No Pension, No 401K – What Now? →
Controlling our tendency toward Creative Avoidance
By Kevin M
How is it that that some people seem enormously successful, yet astoundingly they have more free time than the rest of us? Have you ever noticed as well that some people who are incredibly busy are at best only moderately successful? Perhaps you’re one of them, always busy, but not having as much to show for your efforts as you think you should.
The typical human reaction to this apparent contradiction in the natural order of things is to assume that the successful person with all the time on his hands is a) lucky, b) has an “in” with important people, and even c) must be doing something unethical, immoral or illegal.
While each of those considerations isn’t beyond the realm of possibility, there’s a far greater chance that the successful person with all of the free time on his hands has found a way to
maximize his results while minimizing his efforts. He manages to do this by saying “NO” to unproductive tasks, either by making it clear to others up front that he won’t engage himself in them, or by simply refusing to participate.
Logically, isn’t that what we should all be doing?
Continue reading Majoring on the Majors by Learning to Say NO →
By Kevin M
In Jobs and Careers That Aren’t Coming Back we listed and discussed 13 career fields that are in a state of decline and unlikely to recover. Today we’ll cover the very opposite: job fields that are here to stay and likely to expand.
Global off-shoring of jobs and advances in technology are squeezing many jobs and careers into gradual extinction, as computers and cheap overseas labor eat away at once common fields of employment. But not all career fields are affected.
People who can produce or fix things often have the greatest job security. The world is full of machines, all in need of service or repair sooner or later. Being one of the people who can keep them going is a chance to start to a side business or to full scale self-employment. Equally important, though we tend to think of most innovation occurring in laboratories, many technological discoveries happen somewhere out in the field, produced by people who can work with their hands.
Continue reading Blue Collar Jobs Can’t be Moved Offshore →
By Kevin M
Recently on OutOfYourRut I’ve been writing a series of posts centered on employment alternatives–self-employment, side businesses and soft employment (part-time, temporary or contract work). The purpose in discussing these alternatives is based on my belief that the weak employment environment we now find ourselves in may not be temporary, and longterm changes need to be implemented in order for us to survive in a job market that may look very different from what we’ve know for most of our lives.
( Photo by Phil Campbell )
Though connecting employment weakness to the recent recession is the standard line, doing so fails to give proper recognition to longer term trends which have had an even greater effect on the job market than we assume. Globalization, advances in technology and rising healthcare costs have marginalized much of the labor force in countries such as the United States. While technology has been eliminating jobs at home, wage arbitrage has been taking place globally, in a competition that high wage/high benefit labor bases, such as that of the U.S., are at a competative disadvantage versus low cost/unbenefited work forces in third world countries. We can protest that it’s unfair competition all we want, but it’s also the reality of our time.
Though the evidence is all around us, I stumbled upon a recent article that addresses the longer term job outlook more directly.
Continue reading Jobs and Careers That Aren’t Coming Back →
|
OutOfYourRut.com Disclaimers
General: Any information in regard to money, credit, personal finance, or in regard to any other monetary topic, provided or shared on OutOfYourRut.com is presented for information and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. It is intended to provide general information only and does not constitute personal financial advice in regard to your specific circumstances...MORE-->
|
