Posts Tagged ‘ career planning ’

How to Keep a Steady Paycheck while Starting a Business

By Kevin M

Quick—you want to start a new business—what’s your biggest fear?

If you said “failure” you’re close, but you’re confusing cause and effect. It’s the inability to make money—also known as the loss of a steady paycheck— that would be the cause of the failure that’s at the root of your deepest fears. Failure will merely be the result—or the effect—of the inability to make money.

But there’s a way to reduce this fear, by breaking the income process down into smaller steps. The point of breaking it down is so that we can approach the income hurdle that all small businesses face into a series of manageable blocks. What we want to do is to convert the self-employed income hurdle from an obstacle to a transition process.

You want to try to engineer the transition in four steps:
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“Retiring” on Business Income

By Kevin M

We all know about the importance of investment diversification, especially it comes to retirement planning—today I’d like to focus another type of diversification, one that’s even broader in scope. It’s income diversification, and it could quite possibly be the most neglected part of retirement planning.

With investment diversification you’re looking to create a portfolio that has the right mix of mutually exclusive investments that will improve performance by lowering risk. Fair enough. Income diversification is the process of creating income streams from several sources which not only increases cash flow, but also lowers the reliance (risk) on any one of them.

With retirement, this can be done with investment earnings and Social Security, but if you want to create a third income source, you can do it through a retirement business.

It’s even entirely possible that an income stream from a business may provide a more secure retirement than a large nest egg (more on that later). And the combination of a business and a nest egg and Social Security may provide the best retirement plan possible—especially if your retirement savings aren’t where they need to be. It’s something to plan for.

A Million Dollars is A LOT of money!

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Frugal Entrepreneurs – Making Money as a Consultant

By Clair Schwan

Okay folks, this is the home stretch for this four-part series on starting a consulting company on a shoestring budget. We’ve looked at startup considerations and how to handle them, expenses associated with running the business, and the many and varied hassles that really are more imaginary than real. In this last portion of the series, let’s look at income – the fun part. If you’ve done your planning well, and are mindful to minimize expenses, you ought to be able to make a decent return on investment.

Let’s take a look at what one might create for themselves, but let’s also be cautious and realistic.

Waiting for Income

If there’s one thing a frugal person is good at, it’s handling income and building wealth. Before we start rolling around and giggling amidst our big pile of cash, there are some realities that need to be faced.
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Which Parent Should Stay Home With the Kids?

By Kevin M

An excellent post appeared on Financial Highway dealing with the various considerations faced by a working couple when a child arrives in the family. In Which Spouse Should Stay Home? Miranda Marquit does a stellar job of presenting the variables involved in making the right decision. And that’s not at all surprising since Miranda is on the frontline of this issue herself as a work-at-home mom.

There was a time—only a generation or so ago—when it was considered the natural order that the wife worked until the first child came along and then promptly exited the workforce to assume the role of full-time mom. Today however, the situation is complicated by (at least!) two major factors:

  1. Most households need two incomes, and
  2. Instability in the job market has led to dual incomes as a necessary component of family income security.

Each reason is compelling by itself—but I think that the second one has become the more important of the two, at least in the past few years. It’s easier to lose a job than it has been in at least 60 years, and harder to replace one for all the same reasons.
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5 RISKS to getting a College Education

By Kevin M

You read that first word right—RISKS—as in something to lose! Historically risk is not a word normally associated with a college education, but this isn’t history—it’s the big, bad now and the rules have changed.

Not only is the cost of a college education much higher than it’s ever been (and rising relentlessly), but the ways people are paying for it are farther out there on the danger scale. And the jobs that once reliably awaited students upon graduation don’t seem to be there in either number or compensation. To paraphrase a well worn cliché, this ain’t your father’s college education.

The college game is changing. A number of factors have developed that have turned the one time ticket to the good life into a high risk proposition. I’ve identified five and you could probably cite a few others.

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5 Tips to Go from a Job to Self-Employment

By Kevin M

50% of the “secret” to a successful business is having a great idea, product, service or concept—one you can bring to the market profitably. That often takes time and staying power, and that’s where the other 50%—your finances–comes in.

You’ll need a certain amount of financial strength in order to weather the storms you’ll face in order to turn your business idea into a business success. Fortunately there are steps you can take in advance to get your finances ready for self-employment.

Managing the income transition

Self-employment is often viewed as a plunge—as in a deep dive into the unknown. Though there are certain benefits to giving 100% of your time and attention to your business, it isn’t usually necessary. If you can engineer the transition into smaller, more manageable steps (which we’ll cover in more detail in a future post) that will make the change less risky:
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Staying Focused During the Job Search


And one college’s “Employment Pledge” to ease the transition

Guest Post by Philip Reed

Even at the best of times, mounting a job search can be intimidating and often, disheartening. With today’s unemployment numbers and still shaky economy, a job search can be downright terrifying.

It’s important that you don’t let the whole process of it overwhelm you by taking it one day, one resume, or one interview at a time. If you can remain focused on the individual tasks required you will present yourself to prospective employers in a far more confident and positive manner. The more confident that you appear; the higher your chances are for a successful interview and—ultimately—a job offer.

New college graduates

New graduates are facing a difficult road in getting that first job. If you’re just out of college, or will be in the next year or two, your major area of study will be a critical factor in both how quickly you land a job and how much you will earn.
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Why Skills are More Important than a Job

By Kevin M

Having a job is a good thing—the problem is complete reliance on it! That, unfortunately, is where most people are. The loss of a job can set a chain of financial catastrophes in motion, and even threaten the survival of a person or an entire household. Is there an answer to this dilemma? Is there a way to enjoy the benefits of a steady paycheck—preferably one with medical insurance—without being so totally dependent on your employer?

There is—the answer is skills, your skills. And not just any skills but two specific types that rise above all others: transferable skills and retail skills.

Everyone brings general skills to their work—management, administrative and organizational skills, typing, computer skills, “people skills”—we can think of them as the minimum requirements for employment.

But transferable and retail skills are much deeper. They’re skills that are in demand, easily recognizable, portable and have application across different industries and business types. When you have them, your ability to earn a living is never in doubt—even if your current job is.
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7 Reasons to be Self-Employed

Kevin M

There’s probably never been a better time to have your own business. I know that sounds downright loony to some, but it’s the reality of our time. On the plus side, the internet has opened up opportunities for small business ventures because it provides incredible leverage and it can make the little guy look like a big guy. On the negative side, employment has never been less certain or less satisfying, at least not in the past several decades.

Not convinced? Consider the following reasons—you can probably come up with a few more.

A sense of control

When you’re on someone else’s payroll, you’re also beholden to them. Your employer can change your work assignments, your seating assignment, your title, your pay, or even eliminate your job. In any of these instances, you may have little or no say in the decision making process—especially if you’re about to be fired or laid off.
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Where Have All the GOOD Jobs Gone?

By Kevin M

The official unemployment rate has finally fallen below the 9% level (8.9% in February), but does that mean the job market is finally turning around?

Yahoo! News had a revealing—but disturbing—article on the state of the job market last week. In Jobs returning—but good ones not so much, Zachary Roth reports some of the deeper details behind the unemployment benchmark:

  • 49% of the new jobs created over the past year are in low wage industries, such as retail and food processing
     
  • Higher wage jobs represent only 14% of the new jobs, thought they accounted for 40% of the jobs lost during the recession
     
  • 9.6% of the workforce are working part time but want full time jobs
     
  • On the topic of wage levels, the article reported that “though productivity rose 5.2 percent from mid 2009 to the end of 2010, wages increased by just 0.3 percent. That means only 6 percent of productivity gains were shared with workers. In past recoveries, that figure has averaged 58 percent.”

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