#i still don’t actually save or gain any money like my net worth continues to decline lmfao

[chloverly]

freaking out bc of course i had to replace my tires right before family vacation right before i move so i’m going to have no fucking money for they next several months i hate it here

[the-creativist]

7 Resources That Helped Me Understand Money

1. Clever Girl Finance Podcast, Resources, and Courses by Bola Sokunbi

I adore Bola’s life story, hustle, and her laugh. She keeps it real in her podcast and I want to be a leader like her one day, but in the clinical counseling world. Bola is a Certified Financial Education Instructor (CFEI), writer, speaker, and more. The Clever Girl Finance website also provides (free) courses and worksheets, which I used to fully evaluate my finances and myself. I love that she interviews so many Black women and women of color in per podcasts. It really empowers me to hear these women voice their successes, struggles, dreams, etc. At the end of each episode, she asks her interviewee what their “Clever Girl superpower” is and hearing everyone’s responses is my favorite part.

2. How to Money Podcast by Joel and Matt

I think these guys are funny. Nerdy funny. Their motto is “Rich living on less money” and I can resonate with that. I was raised to live frugally and I continue to enjoy a fairly frugal lifestyle. These guys definitely validate my lifestyle choices, ha. I think their podcast also pushed me to start investing. I used Acorns for several months, but switched to Robinhood for my investments. With the information they provided, I will likely move onto more diverse stocks as well as opening a Roth IRA.

3. Mint App

This is such a great app for everyday use. Everything is one place: all my bank accounts, credit cards, bills, budget, financial goals, etc. I open this app every week or so to make sure I’m somewhat within my budget. I also check my net worth reguarly. It’s in the negative ten-thousands right now! I know that sounds rough, but I’ve paid off a lot of it and I feel really motivated to pay everything off within the next 4 years. 

4. I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi

Props to my friend, Yvonne, for providing a digital copy of this book for me to read. I love this guy’s sarcasm. It’s hard for me to get into financial advice books, but this one is an easy read. As a fellow Asian American, Sethi totally gets what it’s like to grow up Asian! My Asian American parents drilled into my brain to save money and never spend more than I earn. It’s helpful advice, but they neglected to teach me about investing. I also furthered this neglect by ignoring the magic of investing. Sethi does a good job explaining the importance of compounding money/investing as well reasonable money habits. It’s just way more fun to learn these things Sethi’s dry humor.

5. My Boyfriend, Terell

Terell’s my accountability partner. I think everyone needs an accountability partner. He also has this huge knowledge base from all the YouTube videos he watches. I’m grateful to have him around to discuss any finanal transactions I’m considering.

6. The Dave Ramsey Show

I don’t agree with everything Dave Ramsey says or what he believes, but I credit him for helping me focus on paying off my debt. His approach is to have an emergency fund and proceed in paying off all debt to gain financial freedom. I don’t exactly follow this approach completely because I feel like a little bit of debt is helpful in building credit. Overall, Dave Ramsey is really great at slapping people in the face with the consequences of their poor financial decisions. It’s entertaining and eye-opening at the same time.

7. Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin

Robin’s book helped he reevaluate my relationship with money. Before, I thought money was scary and evil, but it’s actually a tool. In fact, many of the resources I listed helped me understand how money can help me achieve my goals. I no longer think it’s impolite or rude to talk about money (I mean, unless, someone is being arrogant about it. I guess even if someone was bragging, I’m always curious to hear about it!). Her book has a lot of helpful charts and forms that helped me get my numbers in order as well.

Anyway, these are the resources that helped me the most. I’m still eager to learn more so if I find anything helpful, I’ll go ahead and share it here. More importantly, if anyone is reading this and has anything helpful to add, I’d love to know.

[sahilguptaanthurium-blog]

Addicted to Real Estate - Why I Can Not Cease and Why You Need To Start

Sahil Gupta project management specialist

The All-Money-Down Technique

So How can the all-money-down technique function by buying a house with money? To start with, allow me to repeat that I actually did not have any money, but I had a substantial quantity of equity out of Terry's house and many houses I possessed put together to provide me a significant cash down payment. Banks and mortgage companies likewise will take cash out of a home-equity line of credit as money to buy a house. They did in 1997 under the fiscal guidelines of this day. What you have to remember about lending and mortgages is the guidelines vary continuously, therefore this technique I used in 1997 may or might not have the capacity to be utilised later on. When it is or is not able to be utilized again does not really matter to me personally since I think that there'll always be a means to purchase property with restricted money down earlier or later. There'll always be a method to get property but just how this will be completed later on I am not entirely convinced.

Sahil Gupta project management specialist

I began buying  Houses at the Mayfair section of Philadelphia using all the costs in the $30,000 to $40,000 per house cost range.  I'd buy a house with three bedrooms and one bath on the second floor with a kitchen, dining area, and living area on the first floor and a cellar.  That which we predict a row house in Philadelphia would include a porch out front along with a garden the width of the house. Most row houses in Philadelphia are somewhat less than twenty-two feet broad. For all those who aren't from Philadelphia and can not envision what a Philadelphia row house looks like, I recommend you see the film Rocky. Twenty-two houses on each aspect of each block is really going to test your skill for a neighbor. Matters which will often lead to an argument with your Philadelphia neighbors frequently stem from parking, sound your kids create, in which you leave your garbage cans, parties, and also the overall look of your house.

In 1998 my Lady and I moved in together and into the suburbs of Philadelphia known as Warminster.  After residing on a road in Tacony, similar to Rocky did, I truly looked forward to getting distance between my house and my neighbor. I told Terry to not even consider speaking with the men and women who lived next door to people. I told her when one of them comes along with a fruitcake that I will take it punt it like a soccer into their garden. I think I had been afflicted by Philadelphia row house syndrome. My neighbors in Warminster turned out to be wonderful people, but it took me two months earlier I was prepared to understand that.

So you just purchased your row house to get $35,000 in Mayfair, and following $2000 in closing costs and $5000 in repair expenses, you find a fantastic tenant that would like to lease the house.  After leasing the house using a positive cash flow of $200 per month, you finally have an outstanding charge of $42,000 on your house equity line of credit which is going to need to be repaid. When buying the house, I didn't receive a mortgage as I just bought a house for money because it's supposed in the company. All currencies I spent this home were spent by the home-equity credit.

The move now is to repay your home-equity line of charge  So that you may go do it . We go into a lender along with your fixed-up home and inform the mortgage division which you wish to do a cash-out refinancing of your property investment. It can help to clarify the area you buy your house in should get a larger selection of pricing because the area of Mayfair failed at the mid-90s. The pricing of houses in Mayfair is rather unusual as you'd see a $3000 gap in house values from 1 block to another. This was significant when performing a cash-out refinancing since it's fairly easy for the lender to find I only bought my home for $35,000 no matter the fact that I did lots of fixes. I really could justify the fact that I've spent money in my house to fix it up, and by placing a renter in, it was a rewarding piece of property from an investment perspective.

If I had been blessed like I had been many times over doing so method of buying homes in Mayfair and the appraiser could utilize houses a block or 2 away and return with an evaluation of $45,000. Back then there were apps enabling an investor to buy a house for 10 percent or left as equity carrying a 90 percent cash out refinance lending me back about $40,500. Using this technique let me return the majority of the money I set back on the property. I essentially paid only $1,500 down to this brand new residence. Why did the mortgage businesses and the appraisers keep giving me the exact numbers I desired?  I presume because they needed the enterprise. I'd only tell the lender I want this to come in at $45,000 or that I am simply maintaining it funded as is. They always seemed to give me exactly what I needed within reason.

This entire process took three to four  Months during which time I might have saved a couple million bucks. Between the money that I saved from my occupation along with my own investments and cash out cash, I'd replenished most or all my funds out of my own home-equity line of credit which was almost back to zero to start the procedure again. And that's just what I supposed to do. I utilized this system to buy four to six houses annually using the identical money to buy home after home after home over and over again.  In fact, this technique is really a no-money down or little money down strategy.  In the time perhaps I had $60,000 in accessible funds to use to get homes from my HELOC, therefore I'd purchase a house then replenish the cash. It was a terrific method that has been lawful, and that I could see my fantasy of becoming a real estate agent full-time coming into an eventual reality although I was not there yet.

Throughout the years from 1995 to 2002, the actual  Estate marketplace in Philadelphia made slow gains of possibly 6 per cent as every year went . I started to monitor my net worth which has been 100 percent equity, meaning that I had no other kinds of investments to check out when calculating my net worth. Broadly , the initial five decades of my real estate profession didn't go well due to the bad choices I made buying buildings and the decrease in the marketplace. What's more, my lack of knowledge and expertise in repairs left it quite demanding.  The next five decades of my real estate profession I only finished explaining did not make much money . I encouraged myself mostly during my profession as a salesman, but I could see the writing on the wall which down the street property was going to be my own fulltime gig.

I Possess an office building which has a property business for a renter named Realty Professionals of America. The business has a terrific strategy where a new broker receives 75 percent of their commission and the agent becomes just 25 percent. If you do not understand this, this is a fairly great deal, particularly for a new realtor. The business also supplies a 5 percentage sponsorship fee to the broker who sponsors them every deal they perform. Should you attract an individual who's a realtor into the business which you've sponsored, then the agent will pay you a 5 percentage sponsorship from the agent's end so the new realtor you sponsored may still earn 75 percent commissions. Along with the aforementioned, Realty Professionals of America provides to grow the realtor's commission by 5% after attaining cumulative commission benchmarksup to a max of 90 percent. After a commission amount is attained, a broker's commission fee is just decreased if commissions at the subsequent year don't reach a decrease baseline amount. I keep 85 percent of my trades' commissions; and I get paychecks checks of 5% in the commissions which the brokers I sponsored make. If you want to find out more about becoming sponsored into Realty Professionals of America's amazing strategy, please call me at 267-988-2000.

Obtaining My Real Estate License

One Of all the things which I did in the summer of 2005 after leaving my fulltime occupation was to make plans to receive my real estate license.  Obtaining my property license was something that I always wanted to perform but never appeared to have enough opportunity to perform it. I am confident you've heard that explanation a million times. People always say they're likely to do something soon as they find the opportunity to get it done, but they never appear to discover the time, do they?  I try to not allow myself make excuses for anything.  So I have made my mind up before I left my fulltime occupation that among the first things I'd do was to receive my real estate license. I registered in a college known as the American Real Estate Institute to get a two-week full-time schedule to receive my permit to sell property in the state of Pennsylvania. Two terrific men with a huge experience taught the course, and that I appreciated the time I spent . Immediately after finishing the course in the Real Estate Institute, I reserved the upcoming available day provided by the country to take the state examination. My instructors' guidance to take the examination right after the course turned out to be a superb suggestion. I passed the test with flying colours and also have used my permit many times because to purchase property and lessen the expenses. If you're likely to be a full-time property agent or a business property agent, then you practically have to acquire a license. While I know some men and women who do not think this, I am convinced it is the only method.

I worked on a single bargain at $3 million at which the commission Into the buyer's real estate agent was 75,000.  From the time my agent took a talk, I walked $63,000 commission on such bargain . With the average price per year of being a realtor running roughly $1200 per year, this 1 deal alone would have paid for my property license for fifty-three decades. And of course all of the additional fringe benefits like using the multiple listing service provided a lot of realtors within this nation. When there are different means to acquire access to the multiple listing services or a different program like it, a real estate license is a terrific thing to do.

A Few of the drawbacks I hear Over and over again about getting your property license is the simple fact that you need to disclose that you're realtor while purchasing a house when you're representing yourself. Perhaps I am overlooking something, but I really don't find this as a drawback in any way. If you are proficient in the art of discussion, it is just another obstacle that you need to take care of. I guess you may wind up in a lawsuit where a court of law might presume as you're realtor you need to know these things.  I really don't spend my entire life worrying about the thousand ways I could be sued any more than I worry about getting hit by a car each time I cross the road.

The Addict From his very first investment property more than 20 years back to his persistent hunt for the upcoming great deal daily, Falcone is a nonstop property investment system!

Get Addicted Sometimes addiction is an excellent thing. Inside This publication Phil Falcone, the Ultimate property enthusiast, will explain to you how you can attain amazing Success as a property agent:

[sahilgupta53-blog]

Addicted to Real Estate - Why I Can Not Cease and Why You Need To Start

Sahil Gupta project management specialist

The All-Money-Down Technique

So How can the all-money-down technique function by buying a house with money? To start with, allow me to repeat that I actually did not have any money, but I had a substantial quantity of equity out of Terry's house and many houses I possessed put together to provide me a significant cash down payment. Banks and mortgage companies likewise will take cash out of a home-equity line of credit as money to buy a house. They did in 1997 under the fiscal guidelines of this day. What you have to remember about lending and mortgages is the guidelines vary continuously, therefore this technique I used in 1997 may or might not have the capacity to be utilised later on. When it is or is not able to be utilized again does not really matter to me personally since I think that there'll always be a means to purchase property with restricted money down earlier or later. There'll always be a method to get property but just how this will be completed later on I am not entirely convinced.

Sahil Gupta project management specialist

I began buying  Houses at the Mayfair section of Philadelphia using all the costs in the $30,000 to $40,000 per house cost range.  I'd buy a house with three bedrooms and one bath on the second floor with a kitchen, dining area, and living area on the first floor and a cellar.  That which we predict a row house in Philadelphia would include a porch out front along with a garden the width of the house. Most row houses in Philadelphia are somewhat less than twenty-two feet broad. For all those who aren't from Philadelphia and can not envision what a Philadelphia row house looks like, I recommend you see the film Rocky. Twenty-two houses on each aspect of each block is really going to test your skill for a neighbor. Matters which will often lead to an argument with your Philadelphia neighbors frequently stem from parking, sound your kids create, in which you leave your garbage cans, parties, and also the overall look of your house.

In 1998 my Lady and I moved in together and into the suburbs of Philadelphia known as Warminster.  After residing on a road in Tacony, similar to Rocky did, I truly looked forward to getting distance between my house and my neighbor. I told Terry to not even consider speaking with the men and women who lived next door to people. I told her when one of them comes along with a fruitcake that I will take it punt it like a soccer into their garden. I think I had been afflicted by Philadelphia row house syndrome. My neighbors in Warminster turned out to be wonderful people, but it took me two months earlier I was prepared to understand that.

So you just purchased your row house to get $35,000 in Mayfair, and following $2000 in closing costs and $5000 in repair expenses, you find a fantastic tenant that would like to lease the house.  After leasing the house using a positive cash flow of $200 per month, you finally have an outstanding charge of $42,000 on your house equity line of credit which is going to need to be repaid. When buying the house, I didn't receive a mortgage as I just bought a house for money because it's supposed in the company. All currencies I spent this home were spent by the home-equity credit.

The move now is to repay your home-equity line of charge  So that you may go do it . We go into a lender along with your fixed-up home and inform the mortgage division which you wish to do a cash-out refinancing of your property investment. It can help to clarify the area you buy your house in should get a larger selection of pricing because the area of Mayfair failed at the mid-90s. The pricing of houses in Mayfair is rather unusual as you'd see a $3000 gap in house values from 1 block to another. This was significant when performing a cash-out refinancing since it's fairly easy for the lender to find I only bought my home for $35,000 no matter the fact that I did lots of fixes. I really could justify the fact that I've spent money in my house to fix it up, and by placing a renter in, it was a rewarding piece of property from an investment perspective.

If I had been blessed like I had been many times over doing so method of buying homes in Mayfair and the appraiser could utilize houses a block or 2 away and return with an evaluation of $45,000. Back then there were apps enabling an investor to buy a house for 10 percent or left as equity carrying a 90 percent cash out refinance lending me back about $40,500. Using this technique let me return the majority of the money I set back on the property. I essentially paid only $1,500 down to this brand new residence. Why did the mortgage businesses and the appraisers keep giving me the exact numbers I desired?  I presume because they needed the enterprise. I'd only tell the lender I want this to come in at $45,000 or that I am simply maintaining it funded as is. They always seemed to give me exactly what I needed within reason.

This entire process took three to four  Months during which time I might have saved a couple million bucks. Between the money that I saved from my occupation along with my own investments and cash out cash, I'd replenished most or all my funds out of my own home-equity line of credit which was almost back to zero to start the procedure again. And that's just what I supposed to do. I utilized this system to buy four to six houses annually using the identical money to buy home after home after home over and over again.  In fact, this technique is really a no-money down or little money down strategy.  In the time perhaps I had $60,000 in accessible funds to use to get homes from my HELOC, therefore I'd purchase a house then replenish the cash. It was a terrific method that has been lawful, and that I could see my fantasy of becoming a real estate agent full-time coming into an eventual reality although I was not there yet.

Throughout the years from 1995 to 2002, the actual  Estate marketplace in Philadelphia made slow gains of possibly 6 per cent as every year went . I started to monitor my net worth which has been 100 percent equity, meaning that I had no other kinds of investments to check out when calculating my net worth. Broadly , the initial five decades of my real estate profession didn't go well due to the bad choices I made buying buildings and the decrease in the marketplace. What's more, my lack of knowledge and expertise in repairs left it quite demanding.  The next five decades of my real estate profession I only finished explaining did not make much money . I encouraged myself mostly during my profession as a salesman, but I could see the writing on the wall which down the street property was going to be my own fulltime gig.

I Possess an office building which has a property business for a renter named Realty Professionals of America. The business has a terrific strategy where a new broker receives 75 percent of their commission and the agent becomes just 25 percent. If you do not understand this, this is a fairly great deal, particularly for a new realtor. The business also supplies a 5 percentage sponsorship fee to the broker who sponsors them every deal they perform. Should you attract an individual who's a realtor into the business which you've sponsored, then the agent will pay you a 5 percentage sponsorship from the agent's end so the new realtor you sponsored may still earn 75 percent commissions. Along with the aforementioned, Realty Professionals of America provides to grow the realtor's commission by 5% after attaining cumulative commission benchmarksup to a max of 90 percent. After a commission amount is attained, a broker's commission fee is just decreased if commissions at the subsequent year don't reach a decrease baseline amount. I keep 85 percent of my trades' commissions; and I get paychecks checks of 5% in the commissions which the brokers I sponsored make. If you want to find out more about becoming sponsored into Realty Professionals of America's amazing strategy, please call me at 267-988-2000.

Obtaining My Real Estate License

One Of all the things which I did in the summer of 2005 after leaving my fulltime occupation was to make plans to receive my real estate license.  Obtaining my property license was something that I always wanted to perform but never appeared to have enough opportunity to perform it. I am confident you've heard that explanation a million times. People always say they're likely to do something soon as they find the opportunity to get it done, but they never appear to discover the time, do they?  I try to not allow myself make excuses for anything.  So I have made my mind up before I left my fulltime occupation that among the first things I'd do was to receive my real estate license. I registered in a college known as the American Real Estate Institute to get a two-week full-time schedule to receive my permit to sell property in the state of Pennsylvania. Two terrific men with a huge experience taught the course, and that I appreciated the time I spent . Immediately after finishing the course in the Real Estate Institute, I reserved the upcoming available day provided by the country to take the state examination. My instructors' guidance to take the examination right after the course turned out to be a superb suggestion. I passed the test with flying colours and also have used my permit many times because to purchase property and lessen the expenses. If you're likely to be a full-time property agent or a business property agent, then you practically have to acquire a license. While I know some men and women who do not think this, I am convinced it is the only method.

I worked on a single bargain at $3 million at which the commission Into the buyer's real estate agent was 75,000.  From the time my agent took a talk, I walked $63,000 commission on such bargain . With the average price per year of being a realtor running roughly $1200 per year, this 1 deal alone would have paid for my property license for fifty-three decades. And of course all of the additional fringe benefits like using the multiple listing service provided a lot of realtors within this nation. When there are different means to acquire access to the multiple listing services or a different program like it, a real estate license is a terrific thing to do.

A Few of the drawbacks I hear Over and over again about getting your property license is the simple fact that you need to disclose that you're realtor while purchasing a house when you're representing yourself. Perhaps I am overlooking something, but I really don't find this as a drawback in any way. If you are proficient in the art of discussion, it is just another obstacle that you need to take care of. I guess you may wind up in a lawsuit where a court of law might presume as you're realtor you need to know these things.  I really don't spend my entire life worrying about the thousand ways I could be sued any more than I worry about getting hit by a car each time I cross the road.

The Addict From his very first investment property more than 20 years back to his persistent hunt for the upcoming great deal daily, Falcone is a nonstop property investment system!

Get Addicted Sometimes addiction is an excellent thing. Inside This publication Phil Falcone, the Ultimate property enthusiast, will explain to you how you can attain amazing Success as a property agent:

[simplemoneyman-blog]

What Makes Personal Finance Exciting?

  If you’re somewhat involved in your finances, certain things about it may excite you. You may get excited every time you earn income.   Whether you earn income from a job and a paycheck, through dividends, or through any kind of business or consulting, you may get a feeling of excitement that I’ve been rewarded for the work that I’ve performed.    

You Can Gain Something From Doing Nothing

  The idea of passive income is exciting. True passive income is the ability to make money while doing practically nothing. I think interest and dividends are the best examples of this.   It’s true that it can take time to build up to a sizeable portfolio where passive income can be of significance.  And so it’s not a matter of if, but when we do reach that level, we can make large sums of money while sleeping or watching TV.    

You Have A Finance Background

  A background can provide inherent excitement. Of if you’ve studied and/or have worked in finance, you may have a bit of an edge. Having an edge in and of itself can be exciting. At the same time, it can also put pressure in a sense that hey I know the risks of not investing, or fail to pay a debt, or spend more than I earn. The pressure can create an opportunity for you to adjust your habits and get on track as well.   I have a finance background and have always been interested in personal finance. Years ago I would just read about personal finance topics on MSN and Yahoo along with other topics like sports, general news, and current events and even, admittedly, celebrity gossip.   For me, the real excitement came when I started writing about personal finance. It’s because writing forced me to take action into my own personal finances. Why would I write that it’s good to invest in a diversified mix of investments if I myself hold only one or two large stock positions? I try to practice what I preach, most of the time. :-)   Writing about personal finance has also made me more accountable to make sure I am on track with my financial goals.    

You’ve Struggled Financially In The Past

  It’s possible to know a lot about personal finance and yet still struggle with your own finances. Certain things can hurt you financially that are just not in your control. These can include expensive treatment for illnesses or an emergency home repair.   It’s important to take everything that has happened in the past and find a way to learn from it. Control what you can; try to stay healthy to the extent you can and consider current and future costs when contemplating home improvements.   For example, we had a leaky ceiling a couple years back. Above the ceiling is a balcony from my master bedroom. The leak was due to a faulty sliding door that was installed on the balcony. Long story short, a new contractor (whom I trust a whole lot more than the one that originally installed the faulty door) figured out the problem and installed the right door. Thank goodness it hasn’t leaked since.   The lesson I learned is to make sure contractors have a solid body of work, which is verifiable from past projects, and experiences from family and friends rather than cheap labor costs.   The experience gained from a struggle can turn into excitement. I was excited and anxious to get my emergency fund back to its normal level. I had something to work towards again. The struggle allows us to seek opportunity and challenge ourselves.    

You’re Excited From Someone Else’s Story

  This one pops into my mind right away from the personal finance world. I see so many personal finance writers from other websites who didn’t start out in personal finance but have embraced it and excelled tremendously as a result.   One example I can think of right way is Mr. Money Mustache. He comes from an engineering background. He learned that he can live a great life while still saving more than half of his income and investing it regularly. I suspect a lot of his motivation came from simply the desire to not have to work a regular job anymore and enjoy life.   A recent motivator I found was from millionaire interview I read on ESI. The interview was from a public school teacher. Actually, both the husband and wife are school teachers. It’s not a surprise that public school teachers do not make a crazy ton of money, yet this couple became millionaires through hard work with additional teaching opportunities and smart investing.  At the time of this interview, they were in Mexico teaching and vacationing too!    

You’ve Stumbled Upon It And Are Now Hooked

    I’ve also read on numerous websites the quest for young graduates to get rid of their student loans. It’s inspiring to see their sacrifice by continuing to live like a college student by renting rooms out, living in small quarters, eating at home, limiting spending, and using raises and bonuses to pay off their loans.   From having a goal to pay off student loans, newly graduates may stumble upon other concepts of personal finance like compound interest and investment efficiency from a tax standpoint. Even though it’s sad that this isn’t standard curriculum for all colleges, many college graduates are self-taught shortly after they graduate.   Because you’ve stumbled upon personal finance concepts that quickly be applied to your life and you’re able to see the results, you may be excited.    

Anticipating The Outcome May Be The Most Exciting Part

  Many of us are diligent in our personal financial lives so we, really, don’t have to work anymore. Or rather so we can spend time working or to do things we actually and truly want to do, all the time. The thought of that is exciting, isn’t it?   When we calculate our retirement needs out and determine we’ve got only five years left, then two years, then less than a year, then three months and then boom, we’re free from doing what we need to do and transition to doing what we want to do!   People say that your finances should be boring. While I partly agree the other part of me thinks, what does excitement really mean? Google defines it as “a feeling of great enthusiasm and eagerness”. As we continue to optimize our financial lives, we can’t help but feel excited.     Your Thoughts: What excites you about personal finance? If you’re in a non-financial field, how did you learn about personal finance? What has driven you to take more control over your personal finances?     _______________________________________________________________________________

I use  because (1) it’s free, (2) it tracks all of my accounts and overall net worth, (3) my account balances automatically update, (4) it shows how my investments are diversified and allocated in various sectors, and (5) can use built-in tools like “Investment Checkup” to get….wait for it…free personalized advice!       Read the full article

[marketingcomcaio]

Marketing Trends for 2020: Here’s What Will Happen That Nobody is Talking About

The new year is right around the corner. And I know you are already prepared because you read this blog and tons of other marketing blogs, right?

But here is the thing: I also read most of the popular marketing blogs, follow all of the marketing YouTube channels, and listen to the same podcasts you do.

And I’ve noticed that very few people are talking about what’s really going to happen in 2020.

Sure, they will tell you things like voice search is going to account for over 50% of the search queries next year but all of that stuff has already been talked about.

And there are actually more interesting trends that will affect your marketing that no one is really talking about.

So, what are these trends? What’s going to happen in 2020?

Alright, here goes…

Trend #1: Companies who rely on Google Analytics will get beat by their competition

We all love Google Analytics.

Heck, I love it so much I log in at least 3 or 4 times a day. And here is the kicker: I get so much traffic that my Google Analytics only updates once a day.

I really need to break that habit but that’s for another day.

You are probably wondering, what’s wrong with Google Analytics?

There actually isn’t much wrong with it. It’s a great tool, especially considering that it’s free.

But here is the thing… marketing has been changing. New channels are being constantly introduced, such as voice search.

And transactions no longer are as simple as someone coming and buying from you and that’s it.

These days there are things like upsells, down sells, repeat purchases, and even checkout bumps. On top of that, there are so many different ways you can generate revenue for your online business, such as partnerships, affiliate marketing, and even webinars.

This has caused companies to start using analytics solutions that tie into their database better, such as Amplitude.  Or better yet, you are seeing a big push into business intelligence.

A central place where you can tie in all of your data and make better-informed decisions so you can optimize for your lifetime value instead of your short-term income.

In 2020, you will see more companies adopting business intelligence solutions… from paid ones to free ones like Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t checked out Data Studio, you’ll want to start now because it is easy to pass in all of your business and marketing data into one place. For example, you can pass in more granular data from your Facebook ad campaigns into Data Studio while that would be a bit difficult to do with Google Analytics.

Trend #2: Companies will optimize for voice search, but not for revenue

According to ComScore, over 50% of the searches in 2020 will be from voice search. But that’s not really a new trend… everyone has been talking about that for years.

So, what’s the big deal?

Optimizing for voice search is a great way to get your brand out more, but how is that going to convert into sales?

I haven’t seen too many solutions so far when it comes to capitalizing on your voice search traffic, but so far there is Jetson.ai.

If you aren’t familiar with Jetson.ai, it makes it so people can buy from your site using voice search. It doesn’t matter if it is Alexa or Google Home, they work with most of the popular devices.

What’s cool about Jetson.ai is that it can learn from each customer and customize the interactions.

For example, if I keep ordering the same toothpaste from a specific store using voice search, Jetson.ai keeps track of that so you can easily keep ordering the same product over and over again with little to no friction.

Heck, it’s easier than logging into your computer or pulling out your phone to make a purchase.

Trend #3: Your lists won’t convert as well, so you’ll have to look for alternative communication channels

Email, it’s something we all use in the corporate world.

But here is something interesting when it comes to marketing emails… I’m in a group with a bit over 109 email marketers across different industries in different parts of the world.

And can you guess what we are all noticing?

Our open rates are staying roughly the same and that’s largely because we all know how to clean and optimizing for deliverability.

But our click rates are going down.

So far as a group we have seen our click rates drop by 9.4% in 2019.

That’s crazy considering as a group we have over 146 million email addresses.

Now does this mean email is dead?

Of course not!!!

Email is here to stay and will be here for a very long time.

But what companies will have to do in 2020 is to leverage more communication channels.

Chatbots will take off drastically. Not necessarily the Intercom’s or Drift’s of the world but more so the solutions like ManyChat and MobileMonkey.

ManyChat and MobileMonkey leverage Facebook Messenger and as they connect it with Instagram and WhatsApp it will get even more popular.

In addition to chatbots, you’ll see more people leveraging tools that allow push notifications like Subscribers.

It’s so powerful, here is the impact I’ve been able to generate from push notifications so far using Subscribers.

You can wait till next year to lever chatbots and push notifications, but I’d recommend you start sooner than later. 😉

Trend #4: Moats will almost be non-existent, other than brands

You’ve probably heard the word “moat” before. If you haven’t, just think about water around a castle.

Back in the day, they had water all around the castle and they used a drawbridge to get in and out of the castle, so it would protect them from invaders.

With your business, you may have a moat. It could be a feature, your cost structure, a technological advantage, or even a marketing advantage.

Over the years, moats in the online world have slowly been disappearing.

It’s easy for anyone to copy these days. So, what’s separating you from your competition?

Something could work right now, but it won’t last forever…

But do you know what will still be a strong moat in 2020 and even a stronger one in the future?

It’s branding.

People buy Jordan shoes because they love Michael Jordan. His brand is stronger than ever even though he hasn’t played in the NBA for roughly 16 years.

His shoes are so popular, it’s helped him boost his net worth to over a billion dollars. Plus owning a basketball team doesn’t hurt either. 😉

But what’s interesting is he’s made more money after retirement than he did as a basketball player.

And it’s not just Jordan who built a strong brand… so have the Kardashians.

Kylie launched a billion-dollar company according to Forbes and it was all because of her personal brand. Her cosmetic company isn’t doing anything revolutionary. She just has a strong brand… and good for her for monetizing her brand.

The same goes for companies like Nike, Ferrari, Tesla, American Express… and the list goes on and on.

It’s why companies are spending over 10 billion dollars a year on influencer marketing.

Just look at my agency NP Digital. It’s literally one of the fastest-growing ad agencies out there. And when I look at all of my competitors’ numbers, we are growing at a much faster pace because of my brand.

Yes, we have a great team, but again, that really isn’t a moat as a lot of agencies have great teams. It’s my brand that gave us a really fast kick start and continues to hopefully push us up.

You’ll want to build a brand in 2020. Whether it is personal or corporate, it’s the best moat you can build in marketing. Plus, it will help you with Google’s EAT.

Trend #5: Marketing will become a more even playing field, you’ll have no choice but to use automation

When I first started off as an entrepreneur, I turned to SEO because I couldn’t afford the big ad budgets as my competitors.

Heck, I couldn’t even afford to run any paid ads.

Over the years, the playing field has become more level.

There are credit card companies like Brex that make it easier for startups to get approved for larger limits and you may not have to pay them back right away.

There are financing companies that will give you cash to spend on marketing, so non-venture funded companies can more easily compete.

There are even companies like Lighter Capital that will give you loans without all of the headaches based on your existing revenue.

And to top it off, software solutions are now starting to integrate AI to give better recommendations. From Clickflow and RankScience to Distilled ODN… everyone is trying to use AI to make SEO and other forms of marketing.

Heck, BrightEdge can even automate your SEO (or at least a large portion of it). According to them, their automated SEO solution increases page views per visit by 60% as well as provides 21% more keywords on page one​.

Keep in mind their clients are really big (their software starts in the thousands of dollars per month) so they would probably see better results than most companies, but still, you will start seeing many more software companies leverage AI.

Even with Ubersuggest, I’m working on creating AI that does the SEO for you so you no longer have to spend endless hours while, at the same time, saving you thousands of dollars.

In other words, the marketing playing field is getting more even. And if you want to do well, you are going to have to leverage AI and automation.

If everyone else is using it and you aren’t, you are going to get crushed because it will make changes faster and more accurately than a human. Again, it’s the only option you’ll have if you want to continually compete.

But don’t worry, there will be affordable/free solutions that exist, it’s just a matter of time. 😉

If everyone is leveraging the same AI marketing technology, how can you beat your competitors?

Well, it will come down to everything else… price, customer service, upselling, operations, sales… All of the small stuff is what’s going to help you win.

Trend #6: There will be no more silver bullets, we will all have to optimize for marginal gains

A lot of businesses were built off of one marketing channel.

Dropbox grew through referral marketing. Invite more friends, get more free space.

Facebook was built off your email address book. Facebook used to tap into it and invite all of your contacts to use Facebook on your behalf.

Companies like Quora and Yelp were built off of SEO. All of those rankings really help drive their businesses.

But you no longer can build a business through just one marketing channel. Good channels now get saturated extremely fast.

Even if they work and cause explosive growth, it will only last for a short while before your competitors jump on board and make it harder.

Marketing is now heading in the direction of being about “marginal gains.”

There’s a British cycling coach named Dave Brailsford. His belief was that if you improved every area related to cycling by just 1 percent, then those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement.

And he’s right, that’s how you win a race.

The same will be with your marketing. There will be a big shift from people focusing on one channel and trying to find the “Holy Grail of marketing” to working on slightly improving each area of your marketing.

From split testing your title tags to get a few ranking improvements to adding checkout bumps to your order page so you can spend a little bit more on your paid ads to using Google Data Studio so you can better optimize for your lifetime value…

It’s all about the little things. That’s what is going to add up to winning.

That’s what you’ll have to shift your mindset to in order to win in 2020 and beyond.

Trend #7: Personalization is the new marketing

The problem with marketing as it exists today is that 95% of your visitors will never convert into a customer. And that’s if you are lucky.

Chances are you are more likely looking at 97% plus of your visitors never converting.

The big reason isn’t that your marketing sucks or that all of those visitors are junk and unqualified.

It’s that your message doesn’t fit every single one of your visitors.

But through personalization, you can convert more of your visitors into customers.

A basic example of this is Amazon. When you go to Amazon, they know your patterns and what you typically buy so they show you what they think you want to see in order to boost their conversions.

And it works! When I log into Amazon I see tons of household supplies because that is what I buy the most often. I never buy dog food (which is smart because I don’t have a dog) so I’ll never see ads for dog food.

Businesses are also trying to personalize each and every single experience both online and offline. 

Companies like Amperity are trying to create a customer relationship engine so you can better serve each of your customers, whether it is online or offline.

Marketing is going to become a game of personalization. With ad costs and even general marketing costs rising, you have no choice but to figure out how to convert the 97% of your traffic that just never comes back.

You’ll see a big push for this in 2020.

Conclusion

I know a lot of the stuff I mentioned above isn’t talked about a lot and they aren’t popular marketing topics that everyone wants to hear… but it is the future.

These are trends that will come true, some already are, and you have to adapt for them.

Here’s the beautiful part, though. You just read this, and now have a chance to act on the information before your competition. So, make sure you go and do so.

I want to see you not only succeed but I want you to beat your competition. And I believe you can, whether you are a big company, or just starting off with very little to no money.

So, what do you think of the trends above? Do you see any marketing trends that will come true in 2020 that few people talk about?

The post Marketing Trends for 2020: Here’s What Will Happen That Nobody is Talking About appeared first on Neil Patel.

Marketing Trends for 2020: Here’s What Will Happen That Nobody is Talking About Publicado primeiro em https://neilpatel.com

[rogeramir]

Kill The Buddha

I was in the metro (underground train) once in Milan, Italy. And I was in the first car, standing with my face towards the last car. As the metro was going through the streets towards downtown Milan, suddenly, for a second, all the cars lined up straight and I saw the people sitting and standing in the last car, which was probably the 7th or 8th car from me. I am sure it has happened to many people at many times, but it was the first and probably the last time for me. That's why it was so interesting. I said to myself, "Wow... tunnel vision".

At another level, I think that that is what happens to people branded as geniuses. Through hard work, perseverance and a bit of luck (in different proportions for different people), all the dots in their particular discipline suddenly line up for them and they see something maybe no one has seen before. They make sense of things which could have been non-sensical before.

I think Gautam Buddh, if he existed, was one such genius. He was able to connect the most critical dots about the human psychological and spiritual condition thousands of years before others did. He especially came to understand the effects of attachment like very very few others have before and after him. His words astonish and enlighten us to this day.

His basic saying on attachment is: "Attachment is the source of all suffering."

Another one is, "You only lose what you cling to."

There are many others.

Twenty five hundred years or so after his death, we still don't get it. We still continue to be attached to innumerable things, people, ideas, concepts, thoughts, desires, goals, images, etc.

Gautum inspired thousands of others to start exploring themselves. When Buddhism reached China, one of these inspired ones was Zen Master Linji, who gave one of the most shocking yet illuminating pieces of advice to the disciples, also about attachment, i.e., spiritual attachment in this case. It goes like this:

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him immediately.

What? Kill the Buddha? Isn't he like the originator of the Buddhist tradition? How can a seeker / a disciple kill the Buddha?

Lets break up the sentence and go deeper into it.

The sentences has two parts:

- "If you meet the Buddha on the road"

Lets remember that Linji is advising the disciple. Not all disciples are going to have the same path or the same experiences on the path. Hence he used the word, "if".

What is the experience Linji is talking about? "Meet the Buddha". It can have many meanings. One meaning is that when you are on the path, you have to leave all images behind. 'Buddha' is also an image. (And I am not talking about the statues of Buddha, which Gautum Buddh would be shocked and disappointed to find, since he was so much against statues and worship.) When we read about Buddhism or we listen to Buddhist sermons or we see Buddhist quotes or we see the statues, we develop an image in our minds as something good or bad or useless or something to be pursued or something to be converted to. We develop goals, i.e., to be a 'buddhist', to attain enlightenment, etc.

Another meaning could be that, when you are on the path you might come to a point when you start feeling that you are progressing towards enlightenment and that you are becoming a buddha yourself. Again, that is an image you hold in your mind. And Linji is warning that if you start thinking in terms of what you are 'achieving' or 'gaining' on the path, then you have actually left the path. You have lost your way. Thus, he says, if you see the buddha on the road, kill him immediately.

The moment we have developed goals and images and the moment we start thinking of ourselves as 'special' or as a 'buddhist' or as coming close to enlightenment, we are finished. We are no longer going in the right direction. Then the real teachings of Buddha will remain out of our reach and we will be stuck to those goals and images and thoughts.

The moment we we start getting attached to or holding on to a 'scripture' or a 'book of God' or when we start worshipping a prophet or 'son of God' or 'the mother of the son of God' or the Buddha or a 'guru' or 'tirthankara', the spirituality in us dies.

The difference between a living spirituality and a dead spirituality is the difference between a beautiful living flower on a stem and a dead flower someone has saved in a book. If you like to save dead flowers in books, of course there's nothing 'wrong' with it. Its just that it will not have the fragrance and the colors of a living flower. But if you don't want the fragrance or the colors, then it's not a big deal.

Buddha and Linji were talking to people who like living flowers on stem rather than dead flowers. They wanted us to stay alive, not become spiritually dead.

So, as we saw above, the words, "meet the Buddha" can have different meanings. It could mean having images or thoughts of the Buddha in your mind. Or, it could also mean having images about your own buddhahood. Yes, you are a buddha. Its just that you have forgotten that you're a buddha. And you have started thinking of yourself as a much smaller 'I', i.e., the ego

And what is a buddha? Someone who is unattached, silent, observant and unshakeably present in the herenow.

What is the road?

There is only one  road, one path. On this path, one direction goes towards the inside, towards God. It is the direction of silence, stillness, quiet observation, simple and content living, a blissfulness without any goals. A world without time. Time is a utility which can be put aside and one can be timeless, without the attachment to the past or the future. Just being in the present. The forever flowing stillness of now. The pendulum stops. The polarities disappear. If someone throws a stone in the lake, it disappears in the lake without creating any ripples. No ripples at all. Someone hits me, I don't respond. Someone abuses me, I don't respond. Someone praises me or says they love me, I don't respond. Someone takes away all of my possessions, I don't respond. There is no response to the 'good' and no response to the 'bad'. There is just silence, stillness and observation. Images are flashing on the inner screen and passing away, then more images and more. And none of the images elicits a response.

The other direction is towards the outside, towards money, towards material possessions, images, goals, desires, discontentment, mental stress, anxiety and fear. 'Time is of the essence'. Goals need to be met. Net worth needs to keep growing. Images need to be maintained. The 'circle of control' needs to be expanded all the time and power needs to be exercised over as many people as possible. The past defines the present and the present must lead to a certain well thought out future. Everything must conform to our own plans. Otherwise, there is discontentment. Stillness is death. Silence is weakness. This direction also includes religious or spiritual goals, dreams and aspirations. Trying to be a good person to win the ticket to heaven, where there are all kinds of pleasures and comforts.

There is a beautiful Native Indian Cherokee story, in which a father teaches his son about good and evil through a parable involving two wolves. He tells his son that there is a terrible fight going on inside him between two wolves. One is good and the other is evil. The evil wolf has anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The good wolf has joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, kindness and compassion. This fight, he told the young boy, is going on inside every one, including the little boy.

The boy is listening attentively. He asks, "Which wolf is going to win?"

The father says, "The one you are going to feed."

(see firstpeople.us/CherokeeLegends/TwoWolves)

It is is a beautiful parable. The two wolves are the two directions on the path we are talking about. You can choose which wolf to feed, which direction to start walking in.

Attachment, including attachment to spiritual or religious goals and aspirations, lies on the path of the ego.

Again, there is absolutely nothing 'wrong' with the path of attachment and ego. If that is what you need right now, then that is what you will get.

Whether you know it or not, consciously or sub-consciously, there is one thing you are seeking in life (see my other Post titled, 'The Big Fish'). That is the thing you will give anything to get. That is what you are after. It could be money or power or prestige or spiritual status or any other thing. That one thing, the 'Big Fish' in your life, determines which wolf you are going to feed, which side of the path you are going to choose.

Next, what does it mean to kill the Buddha?

It means, be silent, watchful and still. When the seeker is on the path, he / she has to stay silent,watchful and still.

Linji is warning that on the path, the seeker has to be absolutely naked. There must not be any attachments or images when you start the journey and also during the journey. There will, of course, be moments when the seeker is weak or discouraged or harbouring doubts and tries to get encouragement from the image of the Buddha or the goal of attaining nirvana. And there will be moments when, for example, the seeker has mastered the art of meditation or has attained an insight into some sutra or saying of the Buddha or has achieved something else which he considers as a substantial step on the journey and is ecstatic over it. Linji is saying that all these will pull the seeker back on the path.

If we see the teachings of the great wisdom teachers in parallel, we will find many consistencies / similarities. Why? Because their paths were identical and their destination was the same. Jesus, in one of his parables, has also warned that the seeker can be set back on the path if he is not watchful. This is the parable of the woman with the jar full of wheat grains (Thomas 97). It goes like this: There was a woman who was carrying a jar of wheat grains. As she was walking along, the handle of the jar broke and the grains started dropping out. The woman, not being very mindful and perhaps busy with her thoughts, did not realize what had happened. By the time she reached home and looked inside the jar, it was empty. All the grain was gone.

This is probably what Linji is warning about. We have to be watchful on the path. Otherwise, we will lose whatever understanding we have gained, whatever progress we have made. If there are any images arising in our minds, these need to be discarded. The mind has to be like a mirror. Any dust on the mirror has to be removed, otherwise we will not be able to see ourselves in the mirror. Whatever thoughts, ideas, images, experiences arise, we observe them and let them go. There is no holding on to anything, any thought, any image. If there is a reaction to these thoughts, ideas, images, we observe that reaction too. The more we observe, the more these thoughts, ideas and images will become like clouds passing by in the unchanging sky. There will emerge a silence and a stillness. That silence and that stillness is the path and it is also the destination. In that silence and stillness is the divine / the eternal / the universal, i.e., our true self.

So, "kill the Buddha" means letting go. Osho used to say it brilliantly: spirituality is not about finding God, its about letting go of yourself. The 'I' is the only thing separating God and us. If we let go of the 'I', there is no separation. All is one.

The 'I' / the ego is like a robe we are wearing and this robe is made of images. If we are not watchful, the Buddha or the idea of nirvana or moksha or enlightenment also becomes one of the images that the ego is made up of.

Linji is telling us to remain utterly naked. To maintain the oneness by not letting anything come between ourselves and God, not even the Buddha.

The events in Jesus' life, especially towards the end of his life, are also relevant here. Just before his arrest and trial for blasphemy and sedition, he is at a place called Gethsemane. Judas Iscariot (his disciple who turned traitor) has already told his enemies where Jesus is, so that they could come and arrest him. Jesus knows that he is about to be arrested. He is saying his final prayers, asking to be saved: "---Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet, not as I will, but as You will"

Jesus knows that he will be tried and crucified. However, as the time is approaching, Jesus is feeling afraid of losing his life. He is fearful of death and is requesting God / Father to help him avoid death, if possible. At the same time, he is also submitting himself to God's will by saying, "not as I will, but as You will"

This is a moment of weakness which Jesus had just before the crucifixion. He has fallen prey to the fear of death. He is an enlightened being, he has felt oneness with God, he has transcended the boundaries ordinary individuals have and has experienced the eternal / universal self, he calls God his 'Father' and himself God's son, he has already become a great teacher, his vision is clear. And, yet, here he is, telling God that he does not want to die. He has lost his Buddha-nature. Or, to be more precise, he has lost his Christ-nature. Here he is just the man Jesus.

In the version given in the Book of Matthew, he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

He is complaining. It is as if he had some image of God and some expectation of what God was going to do if he (Jesus) was about to be hanged and that expectation is not being fulfilled.

But, Jesus is no ordinary being. He does fall, but he bounces back very quickly. When he is being crucified, he says from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

For someone beaten mercilessly, hanging on the cross, with nails in his hands and feet, about to die, these are not the words of an ordinary man. No, he is back as the enlightened master and is setting yet another example of love by praying for people who are killing him.

This event from Jesus' life shows vividly what Master Linji was trying to teach. If you fall on the path, you've got to pick yourself up. You've got to kill the Buddha. Jesus killed his buddha, to speak metaphorically. He conquered his weaknesses and doubts. He regained his mindfulness. He let go of the final attachment, i.e., to his own life.

So, in a nutshell, meeting the Buddha on the road means falling down, falling prey to your own attachments... killing the Buddha means getting back up and letting go.

(Image by Charles Rondeau from Pixabay )

[sutverentavuk]

7 Realistic Methods to MAKE MONEY ONLINE

1. Google Adsense

If you have visited any website, you've seen Google ads. These advertisements are everywhere, and once and for all reason. Not merely are they easy to create on any basic website, however they can be profitable once your website begins bringing in a respectable amount of traffic.

Among the fresh reasons for having Google AdSense is that it is effortless to get set up. When you have a blog or website, you can join a free of charge Google AdSense Accounts. From there, Google will provide you with a unique code that you'll paste on your website. Google requires it following that, tracking your web page views, traffic, and income in your stead. There is absolutely no maintenance or maintenance to understand this thing heading, rendering it a no-brainer if you have a website already.

How much do you want to make? I believe my best month with Google AdSense was almost $5,000 during the last ten years. That amazing month blew my mind since it was actually close to the beginning of my blogging journey. When you are from making zero to $5,000 in a full month, that will rock and roll your world. For me personally, it also got me even more thrilled because I understood there were different ways to monetise.

2: Affiliate marketer Marketing

Whether you have a website or remain thinking up ideas for a blog, you can also consider affiliate marketer marketing. With internet affiliate marketing, you partner with brands and businesses within this content of your website. If you point out something or service, you connect to that produce or service utilising a unique affiliate marketer code you received when you enrolled in that particular affiliate marketer program. Following that, you’ll generate income any time someone buys a product or service through your link.

Speaking generally, you’ll want to partner with affiliates that are related to your site concept. Since I’m a financial consultant, I've concentrated a great deal of my affiliate marketer energy on financial loans like cost savings accounts, bank cards, and investment accounts.

Furthermore, to registering for individual affiliate programs, you can also join an affiliate ad network that offers a massive amount of different affiliates in a single place. That real way, you can view what works and what doesn’t work as time passes.

3. Online Courses

When you have any skill you can train others, it’s also possible to create an internet course you can market online. You'll find online programs that teach anything from cooking food to marketing or even freelance writing. Heck, I also offer my very own course for financial advisors who wish to take their businesses online- THE WEB Advisor Growth Method.

This past year, I profiled my pal Joseph Michael of Easy Course Creation. Michael offers several different classes, including programs on the writing software called “Scrivener.” Over the full years, Michael has gained six figures or even more yearly selling classes that help people achieve the type of success he has learned.

Most people create their online course through a system like Teachable.com. With Teachable, you can publish your course materials and use the system to control customers and acknowledge payments.

4. Podcasting

Another way to make income online is by hosting an online podcast. I have the excellent Financial Cents podcast to go with my blog, and I take advantage of that system to find new sponsors and marketers regularly.

I still remember getting my first sponsor on the podcast and learning these were willing to pay $8,000 for me personally to include a brief clip at the start of every podcast for 3 months. That was insanely fascinating to me at that time since I wasn’t sure I'd have the ability to monetise my podcast very much at first.

However, you will find loads of individuals making much more than me on the podcasts. Take the Business owner BURNING Podcast managed by John Lee Dumas. Based on the show’s latest income statement, this podcast earned a net gain of over $400,000 in March 2018. Now, that’s crazy.

The key for you to get forward with podcasting is finding your niche, growing an audience, and then finding ways to monetise and connect to sponsors. This isn’t the simplest way to generate income online since there are a significant number of logistics that get into writing, documenting, and editing and enhancing a podcast, but it continues to be well worth considering.

5. Book Sales

As the publishing industry used to be heavy on the net, you can complete the whole procedure for writing, publishing, and marketing a publication online nowadays. Websites like Create Space enables you to upload and take your book to print without obtaining a formal publisher included, and you may even get the publication on Amazon.com so people can purchase it there.

A blogger I understand named Joseph Hogue has a useful blog (MIGHT WORK from your home Money) and a thriving reserve posting business. Hogue has written several books he has released online to produce an ongoing way to obtain passive income. He says he averages about 685 books sold monthly to generate typically $1,857 in revenue. Pretty good, huh?

If you believe you could write a reserve people would like to buy, this is an excellent technique to consider because the start-up costs can be minimal and you almost certainly already have a pc and word control software anyway.

6. Lead Sales

Another way to generate income online is by collecting leads. The primary steps you will need to complete to make lead sales work include establishing a website, traffic generation compared to that website, and ensuring you’re collecting leads that someone will in actuality pay for.

Here’s among how business lead sales could work in real to life: My second website, LIFE INSURANCE COVERAGE by Jeff, earns a massive amount of traffic from folks who are looking the net to find answers quick insurance questions. While I used to really have the website set up; therefore, I could sell these folks life insurance coverage myself, it was a lot of work to process all the various requests and clients. As a total result, I began offering the leads I collected instead.

Essentially, lead buyers are prepared to pay for the non-public information I collect from people who visit my website. That is a win-win for everybody since I receive a commission for the leads and my guests are linked with a person who can help them.

Remember, though, you can sell leads in many different sectors -not just life insurance coverage. Really, you merely need to determine a market, create a website and traffic, and observe how much you can get for the leads you gather.

7. Freelance Writing

When you have writing skills and creative skill, it’s also possible to receive a commission to generate online content. I don’t do that in so far as I used to, but I am very alert to how practical this income stream is.

One blogger I understand, Holly Johnson, actually makes over $200,000 per 12 months creating content for other websites. And also, that’s together with the six numbers she earns with her blog, Golf club Thrifty.

Relating to Johnson, the main element to which makes it as a freelance writer is determining a distinct segment, networking with people who might hire you, and delivering high-quality content ultimately of that period. While there are always a lot of writing job planks to obtain began, she says it’s simple enough to find beginner writing jobs online like Upwork.com.

[oceangl1tter]

i didn’t proofread this

i don’t know how to say it it’s hard to explain can you pull up google translate://

It's weird seeing the things you learn manifest themselves into real life. It's like wow, they actually have application in my life rather than being trapped as beginner theoretics learned in isolation. Earlier this morning I hear my cousin and dad yelling at eachother. It's not exactly yelling. Maybe the type of yelling you do as you're trying to explain a baking recipe while someone is using a very loud whisking machine in a very cramped kitchen. Very frustrating. I turn the music up a bit higher and pay no mind to what I would consider a regular morning, and subsequent, afternoon, or night.

My cousin asks me to come look at his screen. It's a pdf of a neural network broken down into "formulas" with purple and red arrows pointing at different sections along with sparse Chinese characters doing the bare minimum in explanatory work. The file is titled AITrader. AITrader brands itself as an "autonomous trading system" that takes in data input and makes financial crypto-decisions based on that data. Cryptocurrency, I understand as digital $$$, from a previous time of sitting in a conversation between two economics majors talking about exchange rates and whatnot. The output would be trading profits. From the first page of Google, I understand it as a trading bot.

During winter break, I talk to J about the stocktrading he always likes to put on his Snapchat story. It seems like devastating work. You stare at this app on your phone that makes squiggly lines up and down based on whether you're gaining money or losing money. The winning strategy seems to be selling when the price is high or waiting out the lows in hopes that it'll shoot up in prices again. Why not automate that system? Even without a predictive system, if you can program something that tracks the price of the specific stock and sells automatically once it detects the market slightly dropping, you would (theoretically) never lose but you wouldn't gain big either—sort of a median range. I don't think I know enough about stocktrading to make this sweeping proposition but it seems a lot better than manually checking the app every few hours and selling on your own but maybe people like that control of their financial actions and its profits (maaaaybe). We both share an interest in machine learning and he talks about the ML startups in Berkeley and the resources they have there. I notice he loses focus as I rattle off a little more than I should about something I'm only theoretically interested in.

My cousin then asks me how I would calculate a line—a straight line. I'm not sure how calculating a straight line would be able to transfer to creating a deep learning machine but I tell him the Emexplusb shindig. Apparently they had been arguing over my dad's very insistent stance. This is what I understand from my 5th grade knowledge of Cantonese, years of watching my father tap away at an excel sheet, and my small tiny chip of PHI10 2x speeding lecture videos:

A neural network works very much like the neural network in our brain. I'm not much of a biology/neuroscience nut but it mimics much of the neuron firing process including: excitatory/inhibitory signals, those signals that determine whether the cell has reached a threshold, the threshold for an action potential to fire pchoooo through the axon to um I'm assuming release a bunch of neurotransmitters, and those neurotransmitters then consisting of either excitatory/inhibitory signals to repeat the process. There hasn't been any other physical manifestation of a neural network besides our brain but "theoretically" you could make one as long as you have these three ingredients: nodes, weights, and layers (connections between the nodes). What we have so far are simulations of a neural network as a program. This program is no exception to the all-or-nothing credo as the nodes act as the neurons and the weights as activation levels (what it takes to reach a threshold) that either fire or don't/ advance to another node or don't. Advancement to the final layer leads to output—the desired goal.

Basic neural networks, the diagrams we glimpsed at in class, are feed-forward. This means that what happens in one layer does not affect the previous layers. This is where things get interesting but before that, I forgot to include what a neural network actually does. So far, the structure of the neural network discussed (feed forward—advancing forward through a layer and its nodes) handles input and creates output. The programmer has a target output and if the neural net is successful, it should output with 100% accuracy.

Neural networks are generally used to detect objects in a picture—very much like the Captchas we do, painstakingly, to prove we aren't robots. Funnily enough, the data that's collected from the Captchas we do to prove WE aren't robots is the same data used to make robots more like humans. An example I'm making up is detection of a raccoon in a picture. What the programmer does is feed their neural nets a training set of inputs—in my case, it would be pictures upon pictures of raccoons in their natural habitat. To mix up the batch, the programmer would also include pictures of celebrities with smudged makeup after an emotional breakdown in front of TMZ. Both categories have some resemblances to eachother but aren't completely indistinguishable. On the back of these pictures, we metaphorically label them "raccoon" and "human'. The target output is for the neural net to detect when the picture consists of a raccoon or when it does not(imagine that meme with the man holding his hand up asking "is this a butterfly", but replace butterfly with raccoon).

This training set is then used to train the neural net the correct inputs and output—improving their accuracy. It's like training wheels for small kids that want to bike their little tooshes away. The programmer feeds the photos in. Because we know the desired output (and we can use our eyes to see when it's an animal or a human), the programmer can manually go in and change the WEIGHTS of the neural net every time it makes a mistake in its detection. The programmer would then run another trial from the beginning.

Once the net is able to reach 100% accuracy (in that its able to get to the desired outputs from the answer sheet we fed it, it then moves onto another training set and even more trials. This has implications for so many fields. A relevant one would be detection systems for tumors in x-ray scans, facial recognition systems, security systems, e.t.c. Finally, the goal is for the neural net to get to the right outputs with a completely new set of data it has not seen before. What I'm assuming is behind AITrader is that we give the neural net inputs we don't know the outputs to but the machine is able to figure it out.

I could go on about neural networks and case studies that have been done but back to where things get interesting and how I'm going to wrap up this convoluted explanation of neural nets with even more convoluted explanations of neural nets. What is super fascinating about these machines no matter how boring they were when I read (aka skimmed) about them in the assigned readings is that there is this thing called the backpropagation method—neural networks that are NOT feed forward and layers CAN affect layers before it.

The backpropagation method is almost like a blanket-all formula. It has no specific task and has been used in various applications doing vastly different things. Like our brains, the neural net is adaptive so over time it begins to notice patterns and similarities in the photos that contain a raccoon rather than a distressed celebrity. A neural net continues to improve its accuracy by self-changing its weights/activation levels and "firing" when correct. What is infinitely scary is that how these machines come to make these self-changing decisions becomes increasingly unknown to the programmer. The programmer feeds input they do not know the output to. How the machine gets to the outputs and how those outputs become correct (aka they're predictive) are out of the programmer's realm of expertise. That is truly fucking scary and cool. The implications for this are even more far-reaching, which I will save for another day. Did any of that make sense? I probably simplified a lot of complex things beyond effective simplification--aka to the point of being incorrect, but from what little I learned in lecture and read, it is still pretty darn cool.

My dad has sheets upon sheets of numbers highlighted and labeled in different colors. Apparently he has a formula for "artificial intelligence". The argument between them this morning had to do with their differing ways of approaching this program they are supposedly brainstorming and making. My dad does not know how to program. He does not know how the computer will track each cell of his excel sheet when really every input/output could just be labeled x^1, x^2 e.t.c. They could also make matrices but that's the extent of my ECS32A knowledge. Anyway, I'm not sure how they're going to go about doing this without even knowing the formula to a straight line. My cousin asks me several questions. If I know log, e, f(x)' and other diagrams I've seen in a math textbook. I’m wondering if it's really worth switching over to the B.A. If I stay in the B.S. track I'll know at least that I have a background to what I say and I won't feel like what I tell him are shots in the dark. Like I want to be a part of this!! It's sort of interesting to see the boring things taught in class apply to something that could become so powerful.

Or maybe all of this is just illusive.

It's strange to see how these paths intersect. My (now faded/squashed) career interests in AI came before I knew my dad's aspirations in detail. I read a single page about the Actual Contents of neural nets and my brain twisted itself into a German pretzel. There's actually no way I would be able to grind through all that math without wanting to tear my eyeballs out. I just want to design programs that can detect whether a picture contains raccoons or celebrities with smudged makeup--gosh is that so hard?

My sister tells him that my cousin seems to care for my dad a lot even though he has to listen to my dad drone on for hours. Like when we go out to eat he'll ask if my dad will be okay or if he needs food when we really just leave him to his own devices. She says my dad acts sort of like a father figure to him. In my head I think: it could've been me.

[simplemoneyman-blog]

What Makes Personal Finance Exciting?

  If you’re somewhat involved in your finances, certain things about it may excite you. You may get excited every time you earn income.   Whether you earn income from a job and a paycheck, through dividends, or through any kind of business or consulting, you may get a feeling of excitement that I’ve been rewarded for the work that I’ve performed.    

You Can Gain Something From Doing Nothing

  The idea of passive income is exciting. True passive income is the ability to make money while doing practically nothing. I think interest and dividends are the best examples of this.   It’s true that it can take time to build up to a sizeable portfolio where passive income can be of significance.  And so it’s not a matter of if, but when we do reach that level, we can make large sums of money while sleeping or watching TV.    

You Have A Finance Background

  A background can provide inherent excitement. Of if you’ve studied and/or have worked in finance, you may have a bit of an edge. Having an edge in and of itself can be exciting. At the same time, it can also put pressure in a sense that hey I know the risks of not investing, or fail to pay a debt, or spend more than I earn. The pressure can create an opportunity for you to adjust your habits and get on track as well.   I have a finance background and have always been interested in personal finance. Years ago I would just read about personal finance topics on MSN and Yahoo along with other topics like sports, general news, and current events and even, admittedly, celebrity gossip.   For me, the real excitement came when I started writing about personal finance. It’s because writing forced me to take action into my own personal finances. Why would I write that it’s good to invest in a diversified mix of investments if I myself hold only one or two large stock positions? I try to practice what I preach, most of the time. :-)   Writing about personal finance has also made me more accountable to make sure I am on track with my financial goals.    

You’ve Struggled Financially In The Past

  It’s possible to know a lot about personal finance and yet still struggle with your own finances. Certain things can hurt you financially that are just not in your control. These can include expensive treatment for illnesses or an emergency home repair.   It’s important to take everything that has happened in the past and find a way to learn from it. Control what you can; try to stay healthy to the extent you can and consider current and future costs when contemplating home improvements.   For example, we had a leaky ceiling a couple years back. Above the ceiling is a balcony from my master bedroom. The leak was due to a faulty sliding door that was installed on the balcony. Long story short, a new contractor (whom I trust a whole lot more than the one that originally installed the faulty door) figured out the problem and installed the right door. Thank goodness it hasn’t leaked since.   The lesson I learned is to make sure contractors have a solid body of work, which is verifiable from past projects, and experiences from family and friends rather than cheap labor costs.   The experience gained from a struggle can turn into excitement. I was excited and anxious to get my emergency fund back to its normal level. I had something to work towards again. The struggle allows us to seek opportunity and challenge ourselves.    

You’re Excited From Someone Else’s Story

  This one pops into my mind right away from the personal finance world. I see so many personal finance writers from other websites who didn’t start out in personal finance but have embraced it and excelled tremendously as a result.   One example I can think of right way is Mr. Money Mustache. He comes from an engineering background. He learned that he can live a great life while still saving more than half of his income and investing it regularly. I suspect a lot of his motivation came from simply the desire to not have to work a regular job anymore and enjoy life.   A recent motivator I found was from millionaire interview I read on ESI. The interview was from a public school teacher. Actually, both the husband and wife are school teachers. It’s not a surprise that public school teachers do not make a crazy ton of money, yet this couple became millionaires through hard work with additional teaching opportunities and smart investing.  At the time of this interview, they were in Mexico teaching and vacationing too!    

You’ve Stumbled Upon It And Are Now Hooked

    I’ve also read on numerous websites the quest for young graduates to get rid of their student loans. It’s inspiring to see their sacrifice by continuing to live like a college student by renting rooms out, living in small quarters, eating at home, limiting spending, and using raises and bonuses to pay off their loans.   From having a goal to pay off student loans, newly graduates may stumble upon other concepts of personal finance like compound interest and investment efficiency from a tax standpoint. Even though it’s sad that this isn’t standard curriculum for all colleges, many college graduates are self-taught shortly after they graduate.   Because you’ve stumbled upon personal finance concepts that quickly be applied to your life and you’re able to see the results, you may be excited.    

Anticipating The Outcome May Be The Most Exciting Part

  Many of us are diligent in our personal financial lives so we, really, don’t have to work anymore. Or rather so we can spend time working or to do things we actually and truly want to do, all the time. The thought of that is exciting, isn’t it?   When we calculate our retirement needs out and determine we’ve got only five years left, then two years, then less than a year, then three months and then boom, we’re free from doing what we need to do and transition to doing what we want to do!   People say that your finances should be boring. While I partly agree the other part of me thinks, what does excitement really mean? Google defines it as “a feeling of great enthusiasm and eagerness”. As we continue to optimize our financial lives, we can’t help but feel excited.     Your Thoughts: What excites you about personal finance? If you’re in a non-financial field, how did you learn about personal finance? What has driven you to take more control over your personal finances?     _______________________________________________________________________________

I use  because (1) it’s free, (2) it tracks all of my accounts and overall net worth, (3) my account balances automatically update, (4) it shows how my investments are diversified and allocated in various sectors, and (5) can use built-in tools like “Investment Checkup” to get….wait for it…free personalized advice!   Read the full article

[melvinfellerstuff]

Melvin Feller Looks at Real Estate versus Stocks

Melvin Feller Looks at Real Estate versus Stocks

Melvin Feller Business Ministries Group in Burkburnett and Dallas Texas and Lawton Oklahoma. Our mission is to call and equip a generation of Christian entrepreneurs to do business as ministry. We provide workshops and resources that help companies discover how to do business God’s way. When the heart of a business is service rather than self it can be transformed into a fruitful business ministry earning a profit and being of service to the community and their customers.  Melvin Feller is currently pursuing another graduate degree in business organizations.

 The stock market can be a tricky thing at times. One minute it is up, next minute, it is down. For much of the first half of 2018, the stock market was in what is known as a bull market – where investors are buying up stocks, and companies are seeing their prices skyrocket.

In the last few months, though, that has begun to change. October was especially rough for the stock market, and while a nice chunk of corporations reported higher-than-expected earnings in mid-October, the markets are still in decline.

 By mid-November, the stock markets took another hit. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 400 points on Monday, November 19, while the Nasdaq dropped 3%. Tech giants and earnings powerhouses Amazon, Facebook, Netflix and Apple all took a hit recently as well.

 Financial firm Morgan Stanley says the bull market is already over, according to a CNN Business report, and 40% of the S&P 500 is already in a bear market. Stocks are falling, and more bad news is on the horizon, experts warn.

Perceptive investors and ultra-wealthy investors are heeding the call to sell off stocks and shift their money elsewhere. So where is that money going? According to a CNBC report, ultra-wealthy investors are putting their money in real estate and private equity.

 Michael Sonnenfeldt, the founder of investment club Tiger 21, said real estate is accounting for 28% of its members’ allocations. Tiger 21’s more than 600 members are entrepreneurs from every industry, with about $60 billion in total assets.

As Sonnenfeldt said during an appearance on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” recently:  “You want to be defensive, but in a low-risk environment you still have to take risk. So you are going to take risk where you have expertise: owning buildings, building small businesses.”

Some may question why real estate would be a good investment in a down market. The initial hesitation comes in large part from what happened during the last large bear market almost 10 years ago. During the financial crisis from 2007 to 2012, when the S&P 500 stock index fell 57%, residential real estate took a huge hit, too, losing 18%. While comparatively real estate was less of a loss than the S&P 500 stocks, down 18% is hardly a good investment.

 Why, then, are the ultra-wealthy turning to real estate in today’s bear market when they don’t have confidence in stocks? It is because, according to a USA Today report, the Great Recession was the exception and not the rule when it comes to down markets and the effect on real estate.

 Mark Hulbert, the founder of the Hulbert Financial Digest, wrote the report for USA Today, and looked back at the last 19 bear markets since 1952. What he found was that other than from 2007 and 2009, the real estate market showed increases in all but one bear market. The one bear market that did not show increases fell by just 0.4%.

Hulbert’s findings were based on the Case-Shiller index. The brightest part of the report for real estate investors is that even including the Great Recession, the Case-Shiller index showed an annualized average increase of 4.6% for all stock bear markets since 1950.

 There is even more good news, according to Hulbert’s report. He quotes Gray Cardiff, the editor of the Sound Advice newsletter, who said that relative to stocks, real estate is undervalued today. When compared strictly to stocks, Cardiff says real estate has rarely been cheaper, and he compared data all the way back to 1896.

 Cardiff says the last time the ratio of real estate-to-stock value was higher than today was during the Internet bubble. In the bear market that followed, the S&P 500 lost almost 50%, while the Case-Shiller home price index rose more than 20%.

Ultra-wealthy investors do not always end up being right when they make their decisions on where to place their money. However, one thing this group of people often does is base their investment decisions on sound research and historical data. The historical success of real estate in a down market is what is driving these investors’ decisions to shift their money away from what they, and experts, believe is a bear stock market and into real estate and private equity. As Sonnenfeldt said, even in environments that are low risk, investors still need to take a risk to make money.

 Real estate investing is not reserved for just the ultra-wealthy, though. There are entry points at various levels, and you do not have to have a net worth north of $1 billion to get into the market.

 Now may be the perfect time to jump into real estate investing. Interest rates are continuing to rise, which often results in fewer buyers on the market. These higher interest rates result in larger monthly mortgage payments, which often means that what one could afford a year ago is drastically different than what they can afford today. For patient investors, though, this could be a good thing.

 As interest rates rise and buyers fall, so, too, do the price of homes. Homeowners who need to sell may be forced to lower the asking price of their homes due to the fact that there aren’t as many buyers around. This provides an opportunity to get even more value on a property than an investor could before.

 Du ring times of higher interest rates, more people turn to the rental market to bide their time, hoping that interest rates come back down again, or that they are able to put aside more money for a larger down payment later. The housing market has already begun to slow, since it is what is considered a “credit-sensitive” part of the economy. The same downturns are being seen in similar segments of the economy such as autos.

 This slowing of the market actually provides real estate investors a terrific opportunity to capitalize by purchasing a home at a price that would have been under market value less than a year ago, and then earn monthly income by renting the home.

 So what is the difference between being underwater on a mortgage and underwater on a stock? Is it that “experts” will tell you to hold the stock in hopes of it going up in value and then explain that those with homes worth less than their mortgages should not feel bad about breaking their mortgages and defaulting?

 I think “Buy and Hold” for stocks is one of the all-time great marketing scams. Ignore it. Always.

  “Buy and Hold” for your house is a mantra you should always live by. The difference?

 You can live in your house. You get utility from your house. You may get a deduction for interest paid on your tax bill. You can develop a positive emotional attachment to a house.

 A share of stock….well you can…you can look up the price anytime you want if you think that’s fun. There is no utility of a share of stock beyond its financial value. The value of a house is that it’s your home.

 The fact that you may be underwater in your mortgage is of no relevance if you can make the payments.

If you can make the payments on your mortgage, it shouldn’t matter if your house is worth 10pct of your mortgage. If you can make the payments, make them.

 My last house, I remember being  scared watching as my rate on my Adjustable Rate Mortgage went up and up as I watched the value of my house go down. For 2 years my rate went up, my house value went down. Fortunately, I liked living there. I wasn’t building any equity, in fact, I was negative, but I was going to have to pay to live somewhere. On top of everything, my credit was bad enough; I did not want to make it any worse. In fact, I knew that if I did not make the payments on my house, my chances of ever owning a house again were none and none. Therefore, I kept paying the note every month. In spite of the financial pain.

 Then a funny thing happened. Interest rates started to go down. I did not even know it until I got my annual notice saying that my mortgage payment would go down. The value of my house was not going up, but for the next several years, my payments went down. It took years, but I actually built equity in the house.

 Which is exactly the point. Buy and hold works when it comes to the HOME you LIVE IN. Turning in the keys because you have negative equity is a fool’s game. If you do, YOU WILL NEVER OWN A HOUSE.  You will be a renter FOREVER.

Investments should primarily be made based upon your financial goals, your stage-in-life savings that you have, and your risk-orientation and so on. However, at the core of it all, you are looking for the best return for the amount of risk that you are willing to tolerate. The stock market has many flavors for you, e.g. growth stocks that are stocks that may rise rapidly but carry a degree of risk, income stocks, which are those that throw out dividends and so on.

 Yo ur adviser will ask you to divide your holdings based upon your risk profile. You make money when you sell, or from dividends and there are no tax offsets other than prior losses. To get a capital gains treatment you have to hold that stock for over a year, else you are taxed at ordinary rates. Uncle Sam rules you. If you are after passive income, welcome to what may become the new world of dividend taxation at 43%. Uncle Sam Rocks.

 Now consider a real estate investment. You can depreciate the house, not the land, over 27.5 years, thereby offsetting part of your taxes. Your investment income is sheltered and is taxed at ordinary income rates and not the potentially high dividend rates for stock, making this a much better after-tax passive income source. Finally, when you sell, you can roll your profits into another property in a 1031 exchange and avoid paying taxes on your gains.

 Therefore, the message is clear. Stop occupying Wall Street and consider buying a piece of Main Street. Own a real asset and not Enron, and one that comes with great tax benefits.

 Your home has far more value than its mark to market price because you can live in it. Do whatever you can to stick it out. It will pay off for you in the end.

Melvin Feller Business Consultants Ministries Group in Texas and Oklahoma. Melvin Feller founded Melvin Feller Business Consultants Group Ministries in the 1970s to help individuals and organizations achieve their specific Victory. Victory as defined by the individual or organization are achieving strategic objectives, exceeding goals, getting results or desired outcomes. He has extensive experience assisting businesses achieve top and bottom line results. He has broad practical experience creating WINNERS in many organizations and industries. He has hands-on experience in executive leadership, operations, logistics, sales, program management, organizational development, training, and customer service. He has coached teams to achieve results in strategic planning, business development, organizational design, sales, and customer response and business process improvement. He has prepared and presented many workshops nationally and internationally.

[justorklifestyle]

4 Money Tips to Steal From Millionaires

Billionaires usually have great advice relating to creating wealth. Sometimes, not earning more but managing what you may have efficiently is valuable in creating wealth.Even without having a net worth during billions, you need to sometimes receive a page out a billionaires' book to look after your money better. In actual fact, even if you may not be earning millions every year or so, you can grow your wealth while mimicking the financial habits and strategies within the super-rich.Billionaires often have great advice relating to creating wealth. Sometimes, not earning more but managing what you may have efficiently is valuable in creating wealth. Here are three habits you might want to steal from billionaires to look after your money like any ultra-rich people“Today’s venture capital culture of celebrating catastrophe is fundamentally unsustainable. Regularly I meet entrepreneurs that happen to be simultaneously really good for raising capital - together with losing capital. The startup community was in the past a place where entrepreneurs built products to convert the world. Now, it’s where they raise millions to invest in unprofitable ideas.There are many other ways to generate income. You can buy solutions at garage sales together with selling them, sell an individual's old junk, move a suitable smaller apartment, get an added job, or just skip Coachella and stop spending money on stuff you don’t have.If you’re patient together with practical, you’ll find the funds. Then, you can form a real business that’s concrete and profitable, with no debt and most of the ownership. That’s how I did it, so I know you could, too. ”

1. Are located within or below an individual's means:

Living within your means is among the best financial habits you could master. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who currently marvelous net worth of about $86. 5 billion, still lives during the same house in Omaha, Nebraska, that he bought for $31, 500 during 1958. Despite being among the many richest persons in everything, Buffett is known for pretty much never spending more compared with $3. 17 for breakfast and also billionaire still uses bargains.World's richest man together with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also drove a modest, Honda accord with gaining billionaire status. Jay Leno, star of "Jay Leno's Garage area, " never used this income from "The Tonight Show, " even though he reportedly earned nearly $30 million a year or so. He continued to undertake stand-up gigs and was living off that.In some sort of interview with CNBC, she once said, "I've for no reason touched a dime for my 'Tonight Show' revenue. Ever.

2. Plan how you’re attending to spend your fortune.

“Someone once told me, ‘If you don’t knowledge you’re going to spend your hard-earned cash, then you’re never attending make that money. ’ I’ve tested this theory myself obese others, and it has got held true.If someone says they might be making $20, 000 per thirty days, I ask what they’re going regarding it. If they say they’re attending save it, I advise them they’re never going to observe that money - thus far, I’ve been ideal. Without a reason for creating $20, 000, it’s simply number to you. You won’t make money just to save it. That’s not the way in which our brains are " cable ". You need something more to build that money real.Write the things you prefer: the house, car, family trips - you name it all. Include the costs and calculate the full. That’s your goal, not an arbitrary number. Clearly identify how you’ll allocate the fact that money, including how much, would flow to taxes and savings, and you’ll dramatically improve your odds of achieving that number. ”

3. Unsecured debt:

Sometimes debt like learning, a loan or home loan product, mortgage, etc. can possible to avoid. However, the wealthy advise avoiding debt overall ways possible. "Shark Tank" star together with tech billionaire Mark Cuban has already established his fair share of struggles with personal debt.The billionaire advises others to nix credit card and pays off any balance because of the money saved on such high-interest rates improves on any return that can usually get from investments. The same well said for other debt overly. That's your immediate profit, which is a lot safer than planning to pick a stock or planning to pick real estate, or whatever it could possibly be".

4. Don't basically save, invest as good:

Money parked in a checking account doesn't do much as quite a simple offer inflation-beating returns. While saving your revenue instead of spending it can be a good habit, the super-rich recognizes that the real road that will riches begins with spending. O'Leary once said, "When you're 21 years old, or 20 or 18 or 19 also, you start putting aside 10 percent of what you come up with, you'll [have] over $1, 000, 000 by way of the time you're 65, ".Warren Buffet describes investing like appearing a very large hl with wet snow and starting with a snowball and setting it up rolling downhill.

[meraenthusiast]

Passive Investing vs Active Investing – Which Is Best?

 Passive Investing vs Active Investing

One question that comes up quite often is this: “Hey Dr. Jeff, I’m busy seeing patients all day but don’t want to do it forever. I want to learn about real estate investing so what’s better, passive investing vs active investing?”

Specifically, they’re searching for which investment provides a better return.

New members of the Passive Investors Circle want to know if active investing in real estate is more lucrative or if passive real estate syndications are the best choice. 

Major benefits of a passive real estate syndication is:

being a true hands-off investment

saves investors from the stress of maintenance/tenant issues/dipping cash flow

That right there can make you feel like passive investments are a better deal. As someone that continues treating patients on a full time basis, avoiding any extra stress is good news.

On the other hand, with rental properties, you have to do all the legwork. That includes finding a broker and a property manager and coordinating with lenders.

So, in exchange for all that hard work, you’d expect better returns, right?

Well not so fast. Let’s take a look….

Real Estate Syndication

First let’s review what a $50,000 real estate syndication deal would look like cashflow-wise, just so we have a comparable reference. 

If I were to invest $50,000 into a real estate syndication with an 8% return, that equates about $333 per month in cash flow. 

$50,000 x 8%= $4,000 / 12 months = $333

If I could make $333 per month with a 50K investment in a real estate syndication, then a real estate rental that requires sweat equity would need to provide me more than $333 each month in order to be worth it overall. 

Rental Real Estate

Now, let’s take a look at one of my friend’s rental properties. 

A great example to work from is her four-plex in Alabama that cost $240,000 at the time of purchase. Each of the four units rent for between $600 – $700 a month.

She put $50,000 down and wound up with mortgage payments around $1,350 a month. If you add up taxes and insurance, her monthly obligation comes out to $1,731 a month. 

The whole point of owning rental property is that the rent you earn is greater than the mortgage and bills you owe on the property.

In other words, the rental needs to have some cash flow in order to work. 

Here’s a detailed list of what she experienced over a four month period:

December 2018

On a month where all four units were occupied, except one didn’t pay, she had 3 rent payments come in for a total of $2,035 before expenses.

Expenses for this month included:

management fees

HVAC service fees

utility fees

These combined to = $660. 

$2,035 – $660 = $1,375

$1,375 sounds great, right? If she had owned the property free and clear, it would be great to pocket $1,375, but she still has to pay the mortgage ($1,731).

This means for the month of December of 2018, she actually lost money on this rental property. 

Almost nothing is the same month-to-month so we need to examine a few more windows of time to really gain a clear picture. 

November 2018

This was yet another month where there were four occupying tenants but only 3 rents being paid.

November’s expenses included the regular management fees, utility fees, plus an electrical repair. 

The total income minus expenses came out to $1,270, which, as you know, didn’t cover the mortgage payment.

This left her in the hole $461 that month. 

October 2018

Fortunately in October, all four tenants paid rent, which brought in $2,590.

The expenses were about the same as November’s (above) which brought the net operating income for October to $1,966. 

After paying the mortgage, taxes, and insurance of $1,731 on that property, the cash flow was positive, $235. 

September 2018

If we go back one more month to September, we see another month where all tenants paid.

In this month she had minimal maintenance issues so the income of $2,688 resulted in $586 positive cash flow after all expenses and the mortgage payment. 

$586 is fantastic. But remember, this is only one of four months that shows this much in profit. 

Rental Property Review

Her investment of $50,000 on a rental property yielded cash flow (rents paid minus property expenses, mortgage, taxes, and insurance) of:

$586 in September

$235 in October

-$461 in November

-$356 in December

The overall result of those four months, 2 positive and 2 negatives, was a cash flow of just $4.

You read that right. Four bucks. 

Rental properties require ebbs and flows. Tenants come and go and maintenance expenses are unpredictable.

If you’re really interested in consistent cash flow in exchange for minimal work, rental properties aren’t going to be your cup of tea. Especially if you’re working full-time like myself.

Rental properties might be for you if you really want a hands-on investment and if you’re okay with having some tough months in exchange for those with positive cash flow.

You’ll just have to do everything in your power to ensure most of the months are positive to make it “worth it” long term. 

Another thing to consider, we didn’t even touch on the phone calls she had to handle during this four month period regarding maintenance issues along with trying to collect rent each month.

This would be tough to do while trying to focus your attention on your patients at the same time.

Which is better? Passive Investing vs Active Investing 

Everybody is different so there’s no right answer for everyone. Different strokes for different folks.

There’s value in both in passive investing vs active investing. It boils down to what you like and what’s going to help you achieve your financial goals.

Rental real estate does have a potential for greater income – if the stars align and you have a fully occupied property with low maintenance costs and tenants that pay rent.

There’s no such thing as a maintenance-free property though, and to boost rental rates, you’ll want to do some improvements here and there. 

But for a busy professional, a no-hassle investment with consistent cash flow such as a real estate syndication might be your best bet. 

Are you ready to start earning more income but not working harder?

Join the Passive Investors Circle today.

The post Passive Investing vs Active Investing – Which Is Best? appeared first on Debt Free Dr..

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[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

Potential solutions fall into three main categories: what to do in order to prevent jobs from being lost; what to do in order to create enough new jobs; and what to do if, despite our best efforts, job losses significantly outstrip job creation.

Preventing job losses altogether is an unattractive and probably untenable strategy, because it means giving up the immense positive potential of AI and robotics. Nevertheless, governments might decide to deliberately slow down the pace of automation, in order to lessen the resulting shocks and allow time for readjustments. Technology is never deterministic, and the fact that something can be done does not mean it must be done. Government regulation can successfully block new technologies even if they are commercially viable and economically lucrative. For example, for many decades we have had the technology to create a marketplace for human organs, complete with human ‘body farms’ in underdeveloped countries and an almost insatiable demand from desperate affluent buyers. Such body farms could well be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet regulations have prevented free trade in human body parts, and though there is a black market in organs, it is far smaller and more circumscribed than what one could have expected. Slowing down the pace of change may give us time to create enough new jobs to replace most of the losses. Yet as noted earlier, economic entrepreneurship will have to be accompanied by a revolution in education and psychology. Assuming that the new jobs won’t be just government sinecures, they will probably demand high levels of expertise, and as AI continues to improve, human employees will need to repeatedly learn new skills and change their profession. Governments will have to step in, both by subsidising a lifelong education sector, and by providing a safety net for the inevitable periods of transition. If a forty-year-old ex-drone pilot takes three years to reinvent herself as a designer of virtual worlds, she may well need a lot of government help to sustain herself and her family during that time. (This kind of scheme is currently being pioneered in Scandinavia, where governments follow the motto ‘protect workers, not jobs’.) Yet even if enough government help is forthcoming, it is far from clear whether billions of people could repeatedly reinvent themselves without losing their mental balance.

Hence, if despite all our efforts a significant percentage of humankind is pushed out of the job market, we would have to explore new models for post-work societies, post-work economies, and post-work politics. The first step is to honestly acknowledge that the social, economic and political models we have inherited from the past are inadequate for dealing with such a challenge. Take, for example, communism. As automation threatens to shake the capitalist system to its foundation, one might suppose that communism could make a comeback. But communism was not built to exploit that kind of crisis. Twentieth century communism assumed that the working class was vital for the economy, and communist thinkers tried to teach the proletariat how to translate its immense economic power into political clout. The communist political plan called for a working-class revolution. How relevant will these teachings be if the masses lose their economic value, and therefore need to struggle against irrelevance rather than against exploitation? How do you start a working-class revolution without a working class?

Some may argue that humans could never become economically irrelevant, because even if they cannot compete with AI in the workplace, they will always be needed as consumers. However, it is far from certain that the future economy will need us even as consumers. Machines and computers could do that too. Theoretically, you can have an economy in which a mining corporation produces and sells iron to a robotics corporation, the robotics corporation produces and sells robots to the mining corporation, which mines more iron, which is used to produce more robots, and so on. These corporations can grow and expand to the far reaches of the galaxy, and all they need are robots and computers – they don’t need humans even to buy their products. Indeed, already today computers and algorithms are beginning to function as clients in addition to producers. In the stock exchange, for example, algorithms are becoming the most important buyers of bonds, shares and commodities. Similarly in the advertisement business, the most important customer of all is an algorithm: the Google search algorithm. When people design Web pages, they often cater to the taste of the Google search algorithm rather than to the taste of any human being. Algorithms obviously have no consciousness, so unlike human consumers, they cannot enjoy what they buy, and their decisions are not shaped by sensations and emotions. The Google search algorithm cannot taste ice cream. However, algorithms select things based on their internal calculations and built-in preferences, and these preferences increasingly shape our world. The Google search algorithm has a very sophisticated taste when it comes to ranking the Web pages of ice-cream vendors, and the most successful ice-cream vendors in the world are those that the Google algorithm ranks first – not those that produce the tastiest ice cream. I know this from personal experience. When I publish a book, the publishers ask me to write a short description that they use for publicity online. But they have a special expert, who adapts what I write to the taste of the Google algorithm. The expert goes over my text, and says ‘Don’t use this word – use that word instead. Then we will get more attention from the Google algorithm.’ We know that if we can just catch the eye of the algorithm, we can take the humans for granted. So if humans are needed neither as producers nor as consumers, what will safeguard their physical survival and their psychological well-being?

We cannot wait for the crisis to erupt in full force before we start looking for answers. By then it will be too late. In order to cope with the unprecedented technological and economic disruptions of the twenty-first century, we need to develop new social and economic models as soon as possible. These models should be guided by the principle of protecting humans rather than jobs. Many jobs are uninspiring drudgery, not worth saving. Nobody’s life-dream is to be a cashier. What we should focus on is providing for people’s basic needs and protecting their social status and self-worth. One new model, which is gaining increasing attention, is universal basic income. UBI proposes that governments tax the billionaires and corporations controlling the algorithms and robots, and use the money to provide every person with a generous stipend covering his or her basic needs. This will cushion the poor against job loss and economic dislocation, while protecting the rich from populist rage. A related idea proposes to widen the range of human activities that are considered to be “jobs”. At present, billions of parents take care of children, neighbours look after one another, and citizens organise communities, without any of these valuable activities being recognised as jobs. Maybe we need to turn a switch in our minds, and realise that taking care of a child is arguably the most important and challenging job in the world. If so, there won’t be a shortage of work even if computers and robots replace all the drivers, bankers and lawyers. The question is, of course, who would evaluate and pay for these newly recognised jobs? Assuming that six-month-old babies will not pay a salary to their mums, the government will probably have to take this upon itself. Assuming, too, that we will like these salaries to cover all of a family’s basic needs, the end result will be something that is not very different from universal basic income. Alternatively, governments could subsidise universal basic services rather than income. Instead of giving money to people, who then shop around for whatever they want, the government might subsidise free education, free healthcare, free transport and so forth. This is in fact the utopian vision of communism. Though the communist plan to start a working-class revolution might well become outdated, maybe we should still aim to realise the communist goal by other means? It is debatable whether it is better to provide people with universal basic income (the capitalist paradise) or universal basic services (the communist paradise). Both options have advantages and drawbacks. But no matter which paradise you choose, the real problem is in defining what ‘universal’ and ‘basic’ actually mean.

- Yuval Noah Harari, 21 lessons for the 21st century

[preciousmetals0]

No. 1 In Infections; Pot for Profit; Crapping Out in China

No. 1 In Infections; Pot for Profit; Crapping Out in China:

Friday Four Play: The “WE’RE NO. 1!” Edition

Are we having fun yet?

Thousand-point swings in the Dow used to send investors panicking and running through the streets. Now? Meh. Been there, done that.

This week, the Dow posted its biggest three-day gain since 1931. All the major financial publications crowed about it. “We’re back in a bull market!” many claimed.

I hope the irony of those two statements isn’t lost on you, dear reader. Yes, nothing inspires market confidence like the volatility of 1931!

If there’s one thing we can learn from the Great Depression, it’s that now is the perfect time to dump all your money back into speculative investments! Right?

Also, we can easily solve our unemployment problem by lining everyone up in bread lines and taking black-and-white photos of them. Just think of the revenue we’d make from Getty Images licensing alone!

Yes, I’m joking. Stick with gold, bonds and currencies as safe havens for now.

I get the feeling from my emails that some readers can’t tell when I’m making fun of a company (or situation) or when I’m serious.

Well … let’s get serious for a moment. The U.S. just claimed the title of the largest COVID-19 spread in the world. (We’re No. 1!)

There are more confirmed coronavirus infections in America now than in China, where the outbreak began. What’s worse is that there’s no sign that the spread is slowing stateside.

I maintain that we have not seen the bottom in the market yet … and we won’t see it until we get the full picture on how COVID-19 affects the U.S. economy. Until then … until Wall Street investors have all the facts … even the $2 trillion stimulus package won’t save the market.

What are your thoughts on the $2 trillion rescue bill? Great Stuff readers had a lot to say on the topic last week. Has your opinion changed? Email us at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com to let us know!

Finally, a reminder about U.S. government relief checks before we get to today’s hottest stories:

The government won’t ask you to pay anything upfront to get this money. No fees. No charges. No nothing.

The government won’t call to ask for your Social Security number, bank account or credit card number. Anyone who does this is a scammer.

These checks haven’t been approved yet. Anyone who tells you they can get you the money now is a scammer.

And now for something completely different … here’s your Friday Four Play:

No. 1: The Perfect Pot Pandemic

Marijuana may be closer to broad U.S. legalization than ever before, and it’s all thanks to the coronavirus.

The COVID-19 response is sapping state economies across the U.S., and that means budget shortfalls. The New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reported last week that the state might see revenue drop between $4 billion and $7 billion. That’s a lot of lost revenue.

To fill the massive hole that COVID-19 is creating in state budgets, DataTrek Research’s Jessica Rabe suggests that states could legalize recreational cannabis sales.

“If Colorado can raise +$300 million from recreational and medical marijuana sales in a year, New York can certainly earn over $1 billion as long as the state taxes and regulates adult-use sales reasonably,” said Rabe.

Rabe’s research makes sense, and investors already speculate that many states could move toward legalization to make up for budget shortfalls.

As a result, Canadian pot companies Tilray Inc. (Nasdaq: TLRY) and Aurora Cannabis Inc. (NYSE: ACB) — both of which supply medical marijuana to the U.S. — posted big rallies today. U.S.-based Curaleaf Holdings Inc. (OTC: CURLF) was also in high demand.

No. 2: MGM Craps Out

MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) was on fire in its last six rolls on the craps table. The stock had just won six days in a row, rallying more than 88%. Positive coronavirus news out of China (including Chinese retail locations reopening and the country’s slowing COVID-19 spread) provided positive sentiment for the gambling mecca.

Today, however, MGM rolled a seven … craps. Game over. New roller.

The company announced that, while all of its Macao, China, locations are now open, no one is coming. “Visitation remains at low levels,” MGM said. Group cancellations remain “very high,” and U.S. properties, which remain closed, have seen “substantial” operating losses in March.

MGM said that it doesn’t expect to see any improvement until more is known about the pandemic’s duration and severity.

MGM shares fell more than 5% today, and with continued uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus, more losses could be on the way.

No. 3: Game Stopped

Remember when GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) thought it was an “essential retailer”? Aah … those were the days. (Wait … was it only a week ago?)

This week, GameStop reported fourth-quarter earnings, and it went about how you’d expect. Revenue plummeted 25% year over year. Earnings came in at a mere $21 million. And yet, both figures topped Wall Street’s expectations. Must’ve been really low expectations…

GameStop also had a tidbit of other positive news: March sales actually rose 2% in the past three weeks.

“In fact, we’ve seen an increase in store and online traffic over the past few weeks. We remain committed to continue to meet those needs in a safe environment,” CEO George Sherman told investors on a conference call.

By George, maybe that’s because you deemed your stores “essential” and kept them open longer than you were supposed to? It’s not hard to see a rise in sales when every other store is closed, you know. And used game booklets make great toilet paper when you’re in a pinch … just saying.

Despite the upbeat report, GameStop announced that it will close more than 300 stores this year … after closing 321 stores last year. How’s that for “essential?”

Furthermore, the company said it plans to “Enhance GameInformer asset with interactive digital media.” GameInformer is GameStop’s digital “magazine” of sorts, which saw two rounds of layoffs last year. GameStop didn’t go into further details on its enhancement plans.

If this all sounds rather questionable to you, you’re not alone. After soaring nearly 13% premarket, GME shares dropped roughly 2% in regular trading. Investors can see the writing on the wall for GameStop.

No. 4: Breathe Into Here, Sir.

“Tell me again how we can use bomb-sniffing tech to identify COVID-19 infections!”

Yes, you read that right. Researchers adapted technology that’s typically used to sniff out bombs to test for the coronavirus. And you thought you’d never willingly agree to a Breathalyzer test!

The company is Astrotech Corp. (Nasdaq: ASTC), and the product is the BreathTest-1000. While both the company and product names sound like they’re out of The Jetsons, they’re both very real. (Ruh roh, Reorge!)

According to Astrotech, the BreathTest-1000 is “ideal for lung disease testing applications” and could be used to test for COVID-19, pneumonia and other lung infections. The device is still pending approval, but since it’s based on existing bomb-sniffing tech, Astrotech believes that it’ll need very few changes before it’s commercially available.

As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, this technology could be a game changer. ASTC shares soared more than 240% this week.

Great Stuff: On Stocks, Cats and Toilet Paper

So, Mr. Great Stuff, let me get this straight. We haven’t hit bottom, and it’s too early to get speculative. What in the world am I supposed to do?

What I need you to know right this very second is this: Now is the time to be smart about your investments.

Why? Because almost no one else is!

We’re whipsawing 1,000 points every other day, and Great Stuff is making Great Depression jokes. It’s madness!

But, by following an experienced guide, you will make it through this. This too shall pass.

Experts like Charles Mizrahi have seen this panic all before … on Black Monday in ’87, during the dot-com bubble and amid the ’08 financial crisis. Even in the worst of it all, Charles showed people how to protect and grow their money.

How does he do it? Easy. Just three simple rules. That’s all it takes.

Armed with these three simple rules, Charles sets out to sift the gems from dirt — no matter the market environment. So, before you decide to sell or buy a single stock, watch Charles’ video.

Charles personally went out of his way to record a video to walk you through all three of his easy-to-follow rules. As Charles says: “What you do in this current meltdown will make all the difference on what your net worth will be in the next five years.”

Click here now.

While you check out Charles’ urgent message, I’m off to make sure that one of my cats hasn’t destroyed any more toilet paper. I don’t think cats realize that even they can be TP … if you’re brave enough.

If you’re looking for some meme-y market entertainment while stuck in your house, Great Stuff has you covered. Just follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

[goldira01]

Friday Four Play: The “WE’RE NO. 1!” Edition

Are we having fun yet?

Thousand-point swings in the Dow used to send investors panicking and running through the streets. Now? Meh. Been there, done that.

This week, the Dow posted its biggest three-day gain since 1931. All the major financial publications crowed about it. “We’re back in a bull market!” many claimed.

I hope the irony of those two statements isn’t lost on you, dear reader. Yes, nothing inspires market confidence like the volatility of 1931!

If there’s one thing we can learn from the Great Depression, it’s that now is the perfect time to dump all your money back into speculative investments! Right?

Also, we can easily solve our unemployment problem by lining everyone up in bread lines and taking black-and-white photos of them. Just think of the revenue we’d make from Getty Images licensing alone!

Yes, I’m joking. Stick with gold, bonds and currencies as safe havens for now.

I get the feeling from my emails that some readers can’t tell when I’m making fun of a company (or situation) or when I’m serious.

Well … let’s get serious for a moment. The U.S. just claimed the title of the largest COVID-19 spread in the world. (We’re No. 1!)

There are more confirmed coronavirus infections in America now than in China, where the outbreak began. What’s worse is that there’s no sign that the spread is slowing stateside.

I maintain that we have not seen the bottom in the market yet … and we won’t see it until we get the full picture on how COVID-19 affects the U.S. economy. Until then … until Wall Street investors have all the facts … even the $2 trillion stimulus package won’t save the market.

What are your thoughts on the $2 trillion rescue bill? Great Stuff readers had a lot to say on the topic last week. Has your opinion changed? Email us at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com to let us know!

Finally, a reminder about U.S. government relief checks before we get to today’s hottest stories:

The government won’t ask you to pay anything upfront to get this money. No fees. No charges. No nothing.

The government won’t call to ask for your Social Security number, bank account or credit card number. Anyone who does this is a scammer.

These checks haven’t been approved yet. Anyone who tells you they can get you the money now is a scammer.

And now for something completely different … here’s your Friday Four Play:

No. 1: The Perfect Pot Pandemic

Marijuana may be closer to broad U.S. legalization than ever before, and it’s all thanks to the coronavirus.

The COVID-19 response is sapping state economies across the U.S., and that means budget shortfalls. The New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reported last week that the state might see revenue drop between $4 billion and $7 billion. That’s a lot of lost revenue.

To fill the massive hole that COVID-19 is creating in state budgets, DataTrek Research’s Jessica Rabe suggests that states could legalize recreational cannabis sales.

“If Colorado can raise +$300 million from recreational and medical marijuana sales in a year, New York can certainly earn over $1 billion as long as the state taxes and regulates adult-use sales reasonably,” said Rabe.

Rabe’s research makes sense, and investors already speculate that many states could move toward legalization to make up for budget shortfalls.

As a result, Canadian pot companies Tilray Inc. (Nasdaq: TLRY) and Aurora Cannabis Inc. (NYSE: ACB) — both of which supply medical marijuana to the U.S. — posted big rallies today. U.S.-based Curaleaf Holdings Inc. (OTC: CURLF) was also in high demand.

No. 2: MGM Craps Out

MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) was on fire in its last six rolls on the craps table. The stock had just won six days in a row, rallying more than 88%. Positive coronavirus news out of China (including Chinese retail locations reopening and the country’s slowing COVID-19 spread) provided positive sentiment for the gambling mecca.

Today, however, MGM rolled a seven … craps. Game over. New roller.

The company announced that, while all of its Macao, China, locations are now open, no one is coming. “Visitation remains at low levels,” MGM said. Group cancellations remain “very high,” and U.S. properties, which remain closed, have seen “substantial” operating losses in March.

MGM said that it doesn’t expect to see any improvement until more is known about the pandemic’s duration and severity.

MGM shares fell more than 5% today, and with continued uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus, more losses could be on the way.

No. 3: Game Stopped

Remember when GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) thought it was an “essential retailer”? Aah … those were the days. (Wait … was it only a week ago?)

This week, GameStop reported fourth-quarter earnings, and it went about how you’d expect. Revenue plummeted 25% year over year. Earnings came in at a mere $21 million. And yet, both figures topped Wall Street’s expectations. Must’ve been really low expectations…

GameStop also had a tidbit of other positive news: March sales actually rose 2% in the past three weeks.

“In fact, we’ve seen an increase in store and online traffic over the past few weeks. We remain committed to continue to meet those needs in a safe environment,” CEO George Sherman told investors on a conference call.

By George, maybe that’s because you deemed your stores “essential” and kept them open longer than you were supposed to? It’s not hard to see a rise in sales when every other store is closed, you know. And used game booklets make great toilet paper when you’re in a pinch … just saying.

Despite the upbeat report, GameStop announced that it will close more than 300 stores this year … after closing 321 stores last year. How’s that for “essential?”

Furthermore, the company said it plans to “Enhance GameInformer asset with interactive digital media.” GameInformer is GameStop’s digital “magazine” of sorts, which saw two rounds of layoffs last year. GameStop didn’t go into further details on its enhancement plans.

If this all sounds rather questionable to you, you’re not alone. After soaring nearly 13% premarket, GME shares dropped roughly 2% in regular trading. Investors can see the writing on the wall for GameStop.

No. 4: Breathe Into Here, Sir.

“Tell me again how we can use bomb-sniffing tech to identify COVID-19 infections!”

Yes, you read that right. Researchers adapted technology that’s typically used to sniff out bombs to test for the coronavirus. And you thought you’d never willingly agree to a Breathalyzer test!

The company is Astrotech Corp. (Nasdaq: ASTC), and the product is the BreathTest-1000. While both the company and product names sound like they’re out of The Jetsons, they’re both very real. (Ruh roh, Reorge!)

According to Astrotech, the BreathTest-1000 is “ideal for lung disease testing applications” and could be used to test for COVID-19, pneumonia and other lung infections. The device is still pending approval, but since it’s based on existing bomb-sniffing tech, Astrotech believes that it’ll need very few changes before it’s commercially available.

As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, this technology could be a game changer. ASTC shares soared more than 240% this week.

Great Stuff: On Stocks, Cats and Toilet Paper

So, Mr. Great Stuff, let me get this straight. We haven’t hit bottom, and it’s too early to get speculative. What in the world am I supposed to do?

What I need you to know right this very second is this: Now is the time to be smart about your investments.

Why? Because almost no one else is!

We’re whipsawing 1,000 points every other day, and Great Stuff is making Great Depression jokes. It’s madness!

But, by following an experienced guide, you will make it through this. This too shall pass.

Experts like Charles Mizrahi have seen this panic all before … on Black Monday in ’87, during the dot-com bubble and amid the ’08 financial crisis. Even in the worst of it all, Charles showed people how to protect and grow their money.

How does he do it? Easy. Just three simple rules. That’s all it takes.

Armed with these three simple rules, Charles sets out to sift the gems from dirt — no matter the market environment. So, before you decide to sell or buy a single stock, watch Charles’ video.

Charles personally went out of his way to record a video to walk you through all three of his easy-to-follow rules. As Charles says: “What you do in this current meltdown will make all the difference on what your net worth will be in the next five years.”

Click here now.

While you check out Charles’ urgent message, I’m off to make sure that one of my cats hasn’t destroyed any more toilet paper. I don’t think cats realize that even they can be TP … if you’re brave enough.

If you’re looking for some meme-y market entertainment while stuck in your house, Great Stuff has you covered. Just follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff