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.
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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.
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This is the second installment in a mini-series from Ramit Sethi’s book, I Will Teach You to Be Rich. In case you missed the first post in this series, 3 Simple Steps Leading to Personal Wealth, be sure to check it out as well.
I struggled for a while with what to include in today’s post. There was a wealth of information in I Will Teach You to Be Rich, and it was an enjoyable read (how often can you say that about a personal finance book?), but I didn’t want to appear to be endorsing Ramit’s book since MoneyNing.com is an equal-opportunity promoter of all things related to personal finance. In the end, the section on credit cards won out because essentially, credit card debt is a very serious problem for many Americans, and probably quite a few others living outside the U.S.
According to the Federal Reserve’s Newsletter, the total U.S. consumer debt reached $2.5 trillion, with the total U.S. revolving debt (98% of which is made up of credit card debt) totaling $801 billion, as of December 2011. That’s a lot of people looking for a way to pay off those credit cards. You can win at beating the credit companies at their own games – and save money while improving your credit. Here’s what Ramit suggests:
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We hear a lot about the government entitlement programs, particularly in an election year. However, most Americans are unaware of what the programs offer to citizens and who is eligible. Here is a breakdown of four of the most common entitlement programs and what financial assistance they offer to those in need:
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Within the past decade, the amount of money put into youth athletics has skyrocketed. I grew up and saw this firsthand in baseball. Clinics, lessons, travel teams all ‘promise’ to make your child the next big thing, but do they really deliver? The reasons for putting kids into these types of activities are different. Some parents need a babysitter; some think their child is the next Babe Ruth, while some are just following what everyone else is doing. If you want to send your children to clinics or sign them up for special travel teams, you need to do your homework. There are a few ways you can do this.
Qualifications
Sometimes when I listen to the instructor during a lesson in progress at the local batting cage, I can’t even be certain he or she ever played baseball competitively. Check with other parents and kids who have used similar instructors or programs. Are they well qualified for the job? Check on levels at which they have played or coached. Anyone can claim to be a guru, but a sound background check can reveal plenty.
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Those of us steeped in the personal finance blogosphere find it incredible to think that there are those who have no knowledge of the Roth IRA. However, it is true that at one time I had no idea what the Roth IRA was — and I was probably about the same age as the college seniors who surprised Jeff Rose not too long ago, providing the inspiration for a Roth IRA movement.
Luckily, my research into finances and my time as a freelance writer allowed me to learn about the Roth IRA, which will give a huge boost to my retirement.
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