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Motivation for Multiple Streams of Income

This article was written by Evan in Personal Development. 29 comments.

This is a guest article by Evan, creator of My Journey to Millions. In the article, Evan discusses what motivated him to move forward with earning multiple streams of income along this journey, and takes a motivational approach to inspire readers to improve their personal finances.

Take a moment and just think about what you did last night — that time after the kids are sleeping and you are “relaxing.” Were you watching television? According to one recent government study the average American watches 2.7 hours of television per day. Assuming that counts weekdays, that is more than 10 hours per week doing nothing productive! Don’t get me wrong. I love Teen Mom just as much as the next person, but I almost never watch it without multitasking. People often ask me how I have time to blog and attempt to build multiple streams of income, and my answer is always the same, “How do you nothave time?”

Television remote control Sometimes people have legitimate reasons for not finding time in the day, but when I look closely at someone’s schedule, it’s not that they don’t have time; often they don’t share my irrational motivation.

To put it bluntly, it confuses the hell out of me. (Side note: I have also found that when you actually create a budget with someone, most people have no idea what they are spending).

What motivates me

Some people are naturally competitive or envious of others’ success, but that is not what drives me. Blogging about personal finance for the past three years has given me a chance to look at 28 year-old Evan with 30 year-old Evan’s eyes. Blogging is a very valuable tool that most people don’t use.

When it comes to finances, I am almost entirely motivated by fear.

I am afraid I will not be able to provide for my family.
I am afraid I will live an average life.
I am afraid I can get fired one day.
I am afraid my lifestyle can be taken away at any time.
I am afraid I will be forced to work until I am 65.

It can probably be argued that for the most part my fears are irrational and exaggerated in my mind, but with employers having less and less loyalty to their employees, I’ll stick with being overcautious.

Harnessing what motivates you

I truly believe that the first step in bettering one’s financial situation is understanding what motivates you. From my limited experience, it is easier to change the systems around you than actually changing yourself. Knowing what motivates you is the first step in harnessing that power.

For example, if you are are a competitive person, instead of toning down your natural tendencies, try creating a game out of your situation. Find a person you can compete with. Share your balance sheets with each other and bet dinner on who can increase their net worth in a certain amount of time, or try to see who can save more money on fixed costs like cable or cell phones.

If you are a person motivated by material goods then set a goal for yourself like save a certain amount of money, perhaps the cost of that new television before you buy. If you are homebody family guy, put pictures of your kids everywhere. That could be enough motivation to work to a better financial position.

For me, my motivation — my fear — has inspired me to try and build multiple streams of income, which I think is more valuable and effective than trying to change my motivation.

Stop making excuses

Regardless of what is motivating you, it is time to stop making excuses. If you are that average American and watch 10 hours of television a week, you can never claim to have no time. So I ask once again:

What did you do last night? Are you proud of it?

Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Unemployed Lawyers Sue Their Law Schools

This article was written by Flexo in Career and Work. 15 comments.

A group of fresh, unemployed lawyers have banded together to sue law schools. 73 alumni have filed at least fifteen class-action lawsuits, alleging the schools inflated employment figures and salary data to attract students and increase rankings. The real goal of the lawsuits seems to be to effect systemic change in the education industry and associations that accredit law schools, like the American Bar Association.

Schools are in the business of generating alumni, and to a great extent, use as many marketing tricks that any company uses in order to influence public opinion. It’s true that a 90% graduate employment rate looks better than a 75% rate on paper, and I’d be more inclined to choose a school with a higher employment rate, with all other factors being equal. But a 90% graduate employment rate doesn’t guarantee that I would receive the job I want after graduation, even if I were in the top 10% of the class.

Furthermore, I’ve come to the conclusion over the years that any statistic used for marketing purposes is subject to manipulation in an attempt to further the goals of marketing. Hard numbers give the impression of fact. From an early age, we’re trained to believe that one plus one equals two, in all circumstances, and numbers are truth. Statistics can be misleading in many ways, and are used more often to try to convince others of a point of view rather than quantify facts in reality.

Law school graduation The group of lawyers probably can’t prove that the blame for their unemployment situation rests with the law schools. There are many factors that contribute to unemployment, including the overall economy, local job markets, and the effort, skills, and self-marketability of each alumnus. It doesn’t appear as if the former students are suing to have the schools compensate them for the lack of expected income from working, but they are suing to enlighten the public to the issue of misleading statistics throughout the educational industry.

Mutual funds must advertise that “past performance does not guarantee future results.” Even if a graduate employment rate were perfectly measured and accurately reflected exactly what a potential student understood the number to be, a good rate today is no indication that the rate will continue to be high by the time the school awards a degree or certification. If my index mutual fund returned 12% last year and lost 8% this year, I can’t sue the fund manager or the stock market for not providing the dividends I was hoping for. If fraud was involved, it might be a different situation. Perhaps misleading statistics like graduate employment rates are somewhat fraudulent, but I don’t see a parallel as schools do not typically promise that students will be employed at the level they’d like after graduation — and in the case of lawyers, after passing the bar exam.

There might be better ways of raising the issue of misleading statistics in the marketing endeavors in which institutes of education engage. Using the courts to make a point is only one tool that’s available to increase awareness of an issue. When you’re a hammer, though, everything looks like a nail.

Several years ago, while I was completing my Masters in Business Administration degree, I considered attending law school. Ultimately, I decided not to pursue a law degree and to focus my energy on my business instead. I think I made the right decision.

Photo: CubanRefugee
WNYC

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The 3/50 Project: Help Your Local Economy

This article was written by Emily Guy Birken in Consumer, Economy. 9 comments.

This is a guest article by Emily Guy Birken, author of The SAHMambulust. In this article, Emily explains and reviews the 3/50 Project, a movement designed to boost local economies.

The presents have been given out, the wrapping paper has been cleaned up, and Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Small Business Saturday from American Express are just distant memories. Now may not be when most people are thinking about shopping, but it’s the perfect opportunity to commit to really help small businesses in your area for 2012. And what do small businesses need more than anything else? Loyal customers.

This is the basis of The 3/50 Project, spearheaded by Cinda Baxter, a retail consultant, professional speaker, and former retail business owner. Back in 2009, after hearing several reports about how patronizing local brick-and-mortar stores could help the economy, Cinda wrote about the achievability of economic recovery if we all simply commit to being good customers to independent retailers.

From that blog post, a movement was born.

The idea is very simple. Pick three local, independently owned businesses in your area — businesses that you would be sad to see shut their doors — and plan on spending $50 total per month among those three businesses. That’s it. The movement does not ask you to spend more than you already do. Just plan on $50 of your monthly expenditures going toward local businesses.

It is important to note that sometimes you will end up spending a little more money by purchasing locally rather than at the neighborhood box store or online. However, paying above bargain-basement prices means that you are also helping your local economy — a fairly easy trade-off in most budgets.

What’s exciting about making this commitment is the fact that it could contribute to our financial recovery. According to the statistics provided by The 3/50 Project website, every $100 spent in local brick-and-mortars results in “$68 return[ed] to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. If you spend that in a national chain, only $43 stays [local]. Spend it online, and nothing comes home.” Imagine the boom to the economy if everyone simply chose to spend some of their money locally.

The 3/50 Project is specific in how it defines an independent business. Though a franchised store may have a local owner, it is not one of the local businesses that The 3/50 Project is aiming to help. As a franchisee, the owner of a fast food restaurant, for example, can benefit from national ad campaigns, preferred vendor lists and large-scale price negotiations. This project is looking to help the independents who are relying on their own unique brand, pay their own expenses for marketing, rent and other operating costs, and operate from a storefront, rather than their home, a kiosk, or the internet. The full description of what constitutes an independent retailer is available here.

Deciding to try The 3/50 Project in your community does not mean that you have to give up your Starbucks coffee or your cheap groceries at Wal-Mart. There is room for national chains, internet shopping, and local stores in your commitment. This is an opportunity to be mindful about your spending, which should always be a goal of responsible personal finance. Why not help your local economy while you’re making savvy spending decisions?

Photo: Calgary Reviews
3/50 Project

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New Year’s Resolutions Help Even If You Don’t Keep Them

This article was written by Flexo in Personal Development. 14 comments.

As the year draws to a close, I plan to take some time to evaluate the progression of my life, including my finances, against my goals and resolutions for 2011. I reached some goals while missing others. There are many reasons people don’t keep new year’s resolutions, and I’m not any different.

In one recent survey, only 15 percent of those who made resolutions have kept them. Other studies have presented even more startling numbers, claiming a resolution success rate of only 8 percent. I even found one researcher claiming only 3 percent of resolutions survive the first month of the year. The statistics get even worse for people who follow self-help advice promising to improve resolution-keeping through visualization (for example, hanging a pair of jeans you’d like to fit on your door or keeping a photograph of a vacation spot you’d like to afford on your dresser) or through sheer willpower.

Furthermore, only about half of all Americans even bother to make new year’s resolutions. Given the negative media surrounding failure, with a word like “doomed” making prominent appearances, that makes sense. Why spend the time thinking about how to improve your life if chances are good you’ll fail?

Beating the odds and succeeding at keeping your new year’s resolutions comes down to setting the right goals from the beginning, focusing on fewer aspects of your life, and not using the new year as a one-night stand for resolutions. The failure rate doesn’t concern me, though; I’m more concerned with the half of the population that doesn’t take the time to look at how they can improve their lives and the world around them. It’s unacceptable to me that the fear of failure is preventing people from thinking about the future.

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” according to a popular translation of Socrates. A tortured philosopher’s nearly-final words from the textbooks of history are relevant today. (According to Plato, Socrates’ last words were, “Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?” Those words could inspire a different discussion about personal finances.) The end of one year and the start of another is a convenient time to self-reflect. Did you live your life according to your values and pursue the things that inspire you? Is the world a better place after 365 days?

These questions go beyond goals and resolutions, but they can inspire both as well as a renewed dedication to living your life a certain way in the new year and beyond. Set some goals and resolutions, not just the typical positive changes like paying off debt, losing weight, and quitting smoking, but others that are tied more to who you are. That might even include some goals that can’t be measured. That goes against typical goal-setting advice, but with new year’s resolutions, it doesn’t have to be a matter of reaching your goal or failing. Just the process of thinking — and if you’re so inclined, writing down — your thoughts about the ideal “you” can improve your life and the lives of those around you.

The root of making resolutions that stick is looking deep into your own life to determine who you are at your core, and if that person is approaching the person you’d like to be. No resolution can be successful, or for that success to matter, without being that meaningful. The end of one year and the start of the next is a good time to begin this process, but don’t set self-reflection aside for just the one day.

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The Santa Index: How Much is Santa Worth?

by Flexo

Every year around Mother’s Day, Salary.com looks at the role of a typical mother in a typical household and calculates an annual salary based on the market rates for the various jobs she does. Using the Mom Salary Wizard, I determined that the media salary for a mother of two school-age children living in my ... Continue reading this article…

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Obama’s Student Loan Plan

by Flexo

By executive order, President Obama has made a few minor changes to the student loan industry designed to help students and former students with unmanageable student loan debt. Anyone who began their undergraduate studies in 2006 probably did so with the reasonable assumption that they’d have a job after graduation. By the time these students ... Continue reading this article…

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Incomes Decreased More After Recession Than During Recession

by Flexo

A new analysis of household income reveals some statistics that might be counter-intuitive. The study, authored by former Census Bureau economists Gordon W. Green Jr. and John F. Coder and published by Sentier Research, shows that median income for Americans has decreased more sharply during the economic recovery than during the recession. The survey that ... Continue reading this article…

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Net Worth Competition: Don’t Compare Yourself With Others

by Flexo

One of the most important metrics for tracking financial progress is net worth. I write about my net worth, or a modified form of it, every month when I report my balances. I’ve been in the practice of publishing my net worth updates for eight years. By watching my net worth change over time — ... Continue reading this article…

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