Investing Curiouscatblog

Tag: making money

  • Supplemental Income: Consulting by the Minute

    Trying to create significant supplementary income is not easy. There are lots of people selling get rich quick schemes and ways to earn big money for little effort. But those schemes don’t offer what they claim (they just don’t work for any, but a few people).

    In trying to figure out a good way to create another income stream I thought of the idea of consulting over the internet in very small chunks of time. I explored the options to be a consultant that way and they were not good. But the idea seemed excellent to me and I worked with a friend to develop the idea of us creating such a online service. The potential was great I think. The end service would provide value to those seeking answers and those providing consultation (and to us).

    We did get a domain and plan out the service and begin coding the application but didn’t progress very far. It was still a great idea and something I planned to consider if I had a bit more time. Well there is now an offering that appears to actually be fairly decent (on first glance): Minute Box.

    Minute Box allows you several of the things we planned on offering (but not all of them – at least not yet). You can register as an expert and then be available for those wanting advice. You sign in when you are available to answer questions (and people can send you a note while you are offline). You set your rate. Essentially IM is used for consultation and the billing is taken care of by Minute Box.

    One of the keys is matching people to experts well. Minute Box does one thing we planned on doing, which is to emphasize the experts tapping those that already value their advice. This would work very well for bloggers and those with an online presence and reputation.

    portrait of John Hunter

    I signed up and created my expert account, so if you want to get some advice from me you can get consulting by the minute from John Hunter.

    I think this consulting by the minute model is a great way to create a secondary income stream for those that have a positive online reputation. You can adjust your pay to manage demand. If you have a free week and want to make some extra income you can reduce your rate and offer your readers a special discount. This is potentially a great way to capitalize on your expertise. I haven’t had much experience with Minute Box yet so it isn’t certain they are the answer (but I haven’t seen any other solution that is very good). And no matter the service provider used, I believe the internet enabled micro consulting is a great way to provide some extra income and make your personal finances more robust.

    The range of advice you can offer is huge. For nearly anything there are people that need advice: how to cook thanksgiving dinner, helping a child with math homework, fashion advice, editing a resume, which mortgage offer is better in a specific situation, fixing a bug in a WordPress blog, what are good plants for a shady area… The list is nearly endless.

    I wish I had been able to create a web site to facilitate this process. I believe the potential is huge. That is why I was so interested in making this idea work. It is the only web business I have seriously considered (and even started). I have numerous web sites but they involve providing content online not any software as service businesses.

    Related: Earning More Money – Save Some of Each Raise – If you can’t pay cash, earn more money or save until you have the cash

  • Curious Cat Investing, Economics and Personal Finance Carnival #17

    We collect useful recent personal finance, investing and economics blog posts to help you find useful information.

    • How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend (Examples: AppSumo, Mint, Chihuahuas) by Tim Ferriss – “Don’t get me wrong–I’m not opposed to you trying to build a world-changing product that requires months of fine-tuning. All I’m going to suggest is that you start with a much simpler essence of your product over the course of a weekend, rather than wasting time building something for weeks… only to discover no one wants it.”
      • photo of Penang, Malaysia
      Penang, Malyasia by John Hunter
    • The True Cost of Commuting – “In other words, a logical person should be willing to pay about $15,900 more for a house that is one mile closer to work, and $477,000 more for a house that is 30 miles closer to work. For a double-commuting couple, these numbers are $31,800 and $954,000.”
    • Looking for Dividend Stocks in the Current Extremely Low Interest Rate Environment by John Hunter – “A huge advantage of dividends stocks is they often increase the dividend over time. And this is one of the keys to evaluate when selected these stock investments. So you can buy a stock that pays a 4% yield today and 5 years down the road you might be getting 5.5% yield (based on increased dividend payouts and your original purchase price).”
    • I Stand With the Protesters by Lee Adler – “Stop the fraud, return to the rule of law, prosecute the bankers, punish the guilty, figure out what our assets are really worth and pay us a fair return, and most importantly, return basic standards of fairness and ethical behavior, something that many in society must relearn.”
    • The Depression: If Only Things Were That Good by David Leonhardt – “In the short term, finance, health care and housing provide jobs, as their lobbyists are quick to point out. But it is hard to see how the jobs of the future will spring from unnecessary back surgery and garden-variety arbitrage. They differ from the growth engines of the past, which delivered fundamental value — faster transportation or new knowledge — and let other industries then build off those advances.”
    • Banks Have a Right to Make a Profit; Customers Have the Right of Choice by Ryan Guina – “I encourage you to explore your options and find the bank which meets your needs, and won’t nickel or dime you with fees. I use USAA, which is an incredible bank. And there are a variety of fee free online savings accounts, free checking accounts, and hundreds of credit unions which don’t charge as many fees as some of the larger banks.”
    • Remember when rare earth stocks were hotter than magma? Well, they’re 50% cheaper now by Jim Jubak – “The growing demand for rare earths from new technologies plus China’s moves had two immediate effects. First, prices for rare earth minerals, especially the rarer heavy rare earth elements soared with prices for some rare earth elements climbing ten times from 2009 into 2011. Second, the scramble was on for alternative sources of supply. Suddenly there was plenty of capital available to restart mines that had closed because of low prices and stricter environmental regulation outside of China.”
    • Fighting Civil Forfeiture Abuse – “The net effect of these three factors [profit motive, standard of proof, innocent owner burden] is to increase the use of forfeiture by law enforcement agencies by incentivizing forfeiture through making it profitable for the agencies that engage in it, by making it easier to keep seized property (by lowering the standard of proof) and by making it more expensive and difficult for owners to challenge the action (by shifting the burden of proof to the innocent owner).”

  • Earning More Money

    Earning more is an important and simple idea that is ignored far to often. Simple, doesn’t mean, easy, just easy to understand. This is something people should definitely consider in their personal financial planning.

    There is a important caveat to remember, people earning a lot of money often have large financial problems and go bankrupt. Earning more if you borrow more than you earn and rely on ever increasing earnings can make you even more venerable than those earning less. A significant factor is how likely you are to replace your current earning if you need to find a new job.

    There is also another concern to watch for – don’t become a slave to your desire to earn more. The reason to earn more is to improve your life long situation. If you sacrifice what you enjoy too much it becomes a bad trade off. Short term sacrifices may well be wise. But many people find themselves in decades long sacrifices to try and get ahead. This isn’t a good plan.

    Making money online can be enjoyable and rewarding. However, it isn’t easy. I am putting more effort into this area and will be doing a great deal more in the next year. We will see how successful I am.

    Related: Earn more money. It matters more than everything else combined. – 10 Jobs That Provide a Great Return on Investment – Earn More Money to buy luxuries (don’t go into debt) – High Expectations
    (more…)