Thursday, February 19, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
How can you make some fast money? Here are some tips on making fast money ethically and legally. Any one of these tips should help you make some quick cash. Before jumping into these money-making tips, here are a couple things to keep in mind.
First, these tips are aimed at helping you make money fast. They are NOT going to make you rich. One or two tips should earn you an extra $50-100 over the next week. Implement all the tips, and you could see a couple hundred dollars added to your bottom line. But do not expect quick riches.
Second, you need some planning and a few days to work with. That planning should include ways to start saving money.
If you are in a situation where you need quick cash today, then you're in a crisis -- and you probably need to borrow money from friends, relatives, a bank, or (last resort) a fast cash outlet. This article is aimed at those who have at least a few days (preferably a week) to work with
1. Offer Seasonal Work to Your Neighborhood and/or Surrounding Area
Use your time off from your main job (which will probably be your evenings and weekends) to offer your seasonal labor services to your neighbors and, time-permitting, residents in close-by neighborhoods. Seasonal work includes raking leaves, mowing lawns, or shoveling snow.
The best way is to blanket your target neighborhood with 200-400 flyers, offering your services for an appropriate amount per lawn, driveway, etc. depending upon its size and the amount of work involved. Make sure your contact information is on the flyer. To expedite results, you can grab your rake (or shovel or lawn-mower) and just go door-to-door, offering your services directly.
If this is "beneath you," consider how seriously and quickly you need the money. If you need money fast, this is a great way to do it.
If it's STILL "beneath you," then TEAM UP with a neighborhood teenager. You can be the one to distribute the flyers and take the phone calls. Your partner can then do the actual labor - based on appointments you set from the people calling in response to the flyer. The two of you then split the money.
2. Call a Local Contractor
Find a local contractor and see if you can hire yourself out as a day laborer. This is a particularly viable option, if you're the "handy-man" type. There are probably quite a few contractors in your area looking for day laborers to help them build and/or repair houses, decks, fences, etc.
3. Sell Some Stuff
Go through your house, attic, garage, etc. and pick out EVERYTHING that you are willing to part with. Then, depending on the weather and time of year, put signs up around the community that announce your yard sale.
If you have more time, go to eBay, register, and list the items online. Mark Joyner, a bestselling author and co-founder of Guerilla Marketing Network, says to "pick 40 of your items" no matter how "silly or seemingly worthless they are." Then, review a few books and articles on effective sales writing and marketing and (based on that knowledge) "create eBay pages to sell every one of those products."
If you have the ingredients, try baking a bunch of cookies - and then call some businesses in your area to see if you can sell the cookies to their employees during the lunch hour.
4. Offer to Distribute Stuff
Contact your local newspaper to see if they have need for a neighborhood distributor. If so, you're in luck.
Don't stop there, though. Use your phone book and/or the local Chamber of Commerce to research businesses (retail or restaurant being the best) that market to the general community. Call them up and offer to distribute flyers for them -- for a price.
BONUS TIP: See if you can combine Tactics 1 and 4 (handing out flyers for yourself AND for these businesses - at the same time).
The above tips should get you started on making fast cash. However, you need to step back and look at your overall money situation. Better planning will enable you to make even greater money in the long term. And long-term earnings is (or at least should be) your financial objective.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
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Thursday, October 9, 2008
Money can make many things and also it can make monkey things. It all depends how well you will utilize it.
Old or young, male or female, regardless of education, talent or qualifications. There are just few steps to take you
from zero to well over
a million dollars and each step is to be discussed in this section every week. Money is volatile.
1. Save 10 cents from every R1 you earn. If you put away at least 10 percent of your income as part of a long-term
savings plan, there is a
good chance that you will have a financially secure future and be able to attain your financial goals.
2. Put 10 percent of every pay increase towards savings, particularly long-term savings such as a retirement plan.
If you are employed
and belong to a retirement fund, your contributions will increase automatically in proportion to your pay rises. This
will help ensure that
you stay well ahead of inflation.
3. Use the “Can I sleep?” judgment when making investments. An investment is too risky if you are going to lie
awake at night worrying
about it.
4. Diversify your investments. Never invest more than five percent of your assets in a narrow investment (for
example, a specialist unit
trust fund such as an emerging company one) or in an unregulated investment. Diversifying your investments will
ensure you don’t lose
everything if one investment bombs out. Many people who invested all their assets in major scams such as
Masterbond lost everything,
and the same thing can happen in the regulated market if you put all your money into one sector ... just consider
how the information
technology bubble burst in 2000.
5. Be extremely cautious if the returns promised on an investment exceed what is generally available. If they sound
too good to be true,
they probably are. It usually means the investment is too ambitious in its claims, too risky, or simply a scam.
6. Know the difference between effective and nominal interest rates. Normally, banks will quote you a nominal
interest rate when lending
you money, but a higher, effective interest rate when you invest money. The nominal interest rate is the simple
rate. The effective rate is
calculated by compounding the interest earned or charged.
7. Check whether the interest you are being paid is credited monthly, quarterly or annually. Say you invest R10
000 for 10 years. If you
receive interest at 10 percent credited annually, you will get a total return of R25 937. If it is credited monthly, you
will receive R27 070.
8. How do you decide whether you should invest directly in shares? Simple. If you haven’t got the time to learn
about stock markets, to
follow the progress of companies or to track your portfolio, rather invest in unit trust funds and/or life assurance
endowment policies that
have shares as their underlying investments.
9. If you do invest directly in shares, your two most important considerations should be ensuring that you have a
properly diversified
selection of shares across the stock market sectors to reduce risk, and regularly rebalancing your portfolio. When
a share rises in price,
you should consider selling some, but not all, of these shares, so that you make a profit, but your overall portfolio
remains proportionally
the same as it was when you started. By doing this, you’ll be able to reap further profits if the share price continues
to rise.
10. If an investment product is too complicated to understand, avoid it. It does not mean you are stupid. It simply
means that the product
provider and/or financial adviser are trying to baffle you.
11. Always check the costs of any investment product. Some products are prohibitively expensive. You should be
given a breakdown of
the costs in three ways: as a percentage of your investment; as a fixed amount; and as the amount by which the
costs will reduce your
investment at maturity date. Be very careful if the costs are more than six percent at entry and more than two
percent a year thereafter.
12. Always check how much commission is being paid to your financial adviser. Some financial products –
particularly those offered by
so-called linked investment product providers – come with particularly high costs and commissions. High
commissions can be a
perverse incentive for advisers to mis-sell.
13. A product offering a range of underlying investment product choices, such as a wide collection of unit trust
funds, is often not in your
best interests and may come at additional cost. Be very cautious if anyone recommends that you invest in a linked
investment product
with a wide selection of underlying investment choices. Remember that linked investment products come in many
forms and are also
offered by life assurance companies. The simpler and cheaper solution may be to invest in a properly diversified
unit trust fund, such as
an asset allocation fund that offers underlying investments in all the main asset classes, such as cash, bonds and
shares.
14. Don’t be afraid to negotiate commissions/fees for financial advice. Most financial products allow you to do this.
After all, it is your
money.
15. If you have a choice, should you pay a fee or commission for financial advice? As a general rule, a fee is better
for large amounts of
money and a commission for smaller amounts.
16. If you are a true investor, you invest for the long term and you don’t panic when markets fall. If you want to
invest for the short term, you
should use a bank term deposit or a money market account rather than an investment in the equity markets.
17. It is time in the market and not timing the market that counts. Don’t try to time markets or sectors of markets.
Few people have got
rich from doing this and most have lost money. The best way to get rich is to take time to select an investment
product that has properly
diversified underlying investments, and then to stick with it for the long term. Most people make the fundamental
error of buying into an
investment when it is at the peak of its performance and then selling out when its value has dropped.
18. Always check that an investment product and/or company is registered with the Financial Services Board
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
"EARN MONEY FAST OPPORTUNITIES"
In my first year online, I tried all kinds of "earn-money-fast opportunities" --- everything from MLM to turnkey websites. I hate to admit this, but if I didn't make any money the first couple of months after I had signed up for one of these programs, I just gave up and moved on to the next opportunity.
Then I would begin the whole process all over again. I found a new site that promised to all who joined, that they would earn a lot of money fast, and they would earn their money without hard work.
I know the truth now, it was just another line of bulls**t!!!!
Twelve months later, all I had to show for my first year online, was many wasted hours and lots of wasted money.
THE MAKING OF A WEBSITE
As I began my second year, I realized that I had to make my own website. I didn't know anything about HTML. And, I knew nothing about where to find a hosting company, or even why I needed one. So the first six months of that second year, I was learning the basics of how to become a webmaster. I read through all the forums about web-mastering and SEO that I could find on the Internet, and tried to build a website that finally could make me some money.
I finally got my website up and running.
For the first 8 months that I had my website, I did not earn any real money for all of my hard work. The worst thing that could happen to a person began to happen to me... I began to lose hope. I began to believe that making money from the Internet was just a far-fetched dream that I could never attain on my own.
I was not alone. Hundreds of thousands of people have met or will meet this same crossroad in their Internet careers. Some will take the easy road and walk away from their dreams. Others will push on, not willing to let their dreams die.
I decided to push on.
I added new pages of content to my website every week. I exchanged links with other websites as often I could. Slowly and steadily, the visitors were starting to come to my little corner of the internet to browse and buy.
In the early stages, I had 30-50 visitors each day. Then, I began to see 100-150 a day. And soon, the first small amount of money was earned through my website.
Now it's 4 months after my first payday, and the traffic is still getting higher each week. Even though I'm not earning a whole lot of money now, I believe it's just a matter of time until I can leave my day job.
THE FIRST LESSON LEARNED
Looking back on these last three years, I have learned a few things that I would like to share with you today.