Your hard earned dollars are yours, and today is the day you can stop giving them away forever.
By taking care of those projects at home that you can manage on your own, you can trim thousands of dollars from your household budget with a bit of elbow grease.
Leave the pro jobs such as wiring, heavy-duty plumbing, and any major construction to the accredited professionals in your area, but set your sights on those problems you can easily solve with a little education and a lot less money.
[ continue reading… ]
It’s income tax week here in the U.S., and if you haven’t filed yet, you still have a few more days to squeeze in those last minute deductions. Filing income taxes is one of those tedious, necessary chores that all must face each year. In general, most people try put a positive spin on their taxes in order to get the maximum refund possible each year. However, claiming each and every deduction possible may not be the wisest choice for everyone.
When Not to Take that Extra Deduction
[ continue reading… ]
With baseball season comes a number of long bus trips, reading books is a great way for me to fill this time in a meaningful way. Getting lost in a good novel or learning something in a self help book is a productive way to spend rides. Do you enjoy reading books? Where do you get your reading material? There are a number of options to think about if you are an avid reader, but which one do you like? Here are the ones I like:
[ continue reading… ]
Not too long ago, Canada announced that it is getting rid of the penny. It’s not a complete end to the one-cent piece in Canada; the government will stop minting pennies in the fall, but they will still be legal tender. The main reason that the Canadian government made this decision is that it costs more than a penny to manufacture a penny.
For years, a debate has been present in Canada about what to do about the penny. There has also been a similar debate in the United States. However, Canada finally decided to act, and will no longer produce pennies. In the United States, the debate continues: Are pennies any good?
[ continue reading… ]
If you are looking to make some supplemental income, you may find yourself perusing the internet for work. I found myself in this situation last fall. After baseball season was over I needed a flexible job. I had heard about making money online and decided to give it a try. Amazon Mechanical Turk was the first site I stumbled upon. It provided me with hours of entertainment, satisfaction and a path to becoming a freelance writer.
What Is It?
Amazon Mechanical Turk is an online community of workers and employers. There are “hits” workers complete for cash. Thousands are available at any time throughout the day. Once you sign up you are able to complete assignments. You can cash out at any value above $1. There are a few strategies I used for the site, some yielding better results than others.
[ continue reading… ]
You’re tired of wearing concrete boots to a job you hate. And just as you’re cursing the boss in your mind, your little one runs into the room waving a Junior Achievement magnet from a class visitor today. JA is a volunteer organization that teaches kids how to be workforce ready, to be entrepreneurs, and to be financially literate.
If you want your child to BE the boss, not work for him. It’s time to get started teaching your kids about money.
You took Econ 101 in high school, but it taught you exactly nothing about personal finance or business. And while it’s important to know the interconnectedness of the government and global economies, it’s more practical to teach them how to run their own businesses first.
The excuse that “my parents never taught me about money” is tired. This is your chance to get the younger gen’s in your life excited about earning their own money, possibly owning their own businesses, and definitely building the life you never built, long before they feel like they’re too behind to catch up.
[ continue reading… ]
