That means you early-birds out there (not me) are probably chomping at the bit to file your taxes! So here’s a question to you readers about last year:

A better question would be why you chose that software – price, convenience, trust, quality of product, or what? Would you have switched if a competitor was $25 cheaper?

Related posts:

1. eBay, Half.com, PayPal, Amazon.com Sellers: 2011 IRS 1099-K Regulations
2. How To Generate and Issue Your Own 1099-MISC Forms
3. Free IRS Tax Filing Extension Instructions 2011 (Online/E-File)

Poll: Which Tax Software Did You Use In 2011? from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

View full post on My Money Blog

What was so epic about this article?

This reminded me of my harsh reality check on full-time blogging. There are too many of us falling for the dream and wanting to be “our own boss.” Do you really want to be your own boss or do you just hate your job? I find that it’s usually the latter. We hate our jobs so much that we want to quit and work for ourselves.

Do you realize how tough it is to be your own boss? When you’re the boss you can’t pass the buck, leave early, take it easy, or be stress-free. Everything is now on you. You can’t blame Steve in Accounting for the money problems. Everything is on you.

What’s the best part of this piece?

“Someone can sell you a product to give you that motivation, but guess what happens after you’ve failed at going at it alone for 2 years?  You have one big gaping hole in your resume and a lot less money.  Meanwhile, the person who sold you the dream of quitting your job has your money and is relaxing on the beach, thank you very much!”

This is so true. I also must admit that I’m guilty of this. I’ve consumed far too many products on how to work for yourself and be your own boss. I’m just enamored with the idea of making money on my own. I love making my own money. I love helping others. I love being compensated for my passions. I do however realize that there’s a lot of delusional people out there that want to be full-time bloggers because they hate their jobs.

I must argue with one point. Sam goes off at the end about how starting your own business and quitting your job could lead to disaster. I do agree with some of his points, but I don’t think that it’s that bad. The worst case scenario is that you have a few empty years on your resume. I think that beats the feeling of regret that would come with not even trying.

Before we part ways for the weekend, I also wanted to remind you of another piece from here about calling it quits. There’s nothing wrong with giving up on something that’s obviously not working out.

View full post on The Financial Blogger

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The Dropbox free version offers up 2 GB of storage free to start, which you can increase to nearly 20 GB with various tasks. It may not be big enough for a full backup, but plenty for my important files. Check out this Lifehacker guide that details all the possibilities. You get 250 MB free by signing up under a referral link, and I get 250 GB extra too. I’ve only gotten 3 referrals up until now, but with other stuff was already at 4.5 GB free.

Today Lifehacker adds that right now if you install their new Beta version which lets you automatically back up photos and videos from your cameras/phones when connected to your computer, Dropbox will give you even more space – for every 500 MB of photos and videos automatically uploaded, you’ll receive another 500 MB of space permanently, up to 4.5 GB total. I synced up the photos from my iPhone and already have another free gig and counting. Sweet.

Related posts:

1. Make Money Bidding on Self Storage Auctions?
2. 4 More Ways To Get A Free Credit Report
3. Increase in Housing Quality vs. Increase in Housing Prices

More Ways To Increase Your Free Dropbox Storage from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

View full post on My Money Blog

Are you always chasing the next buck? Are you after that huge money? Are you waiting to get rich quick?

“If you enter a niche because you’re following the dollars, you wont keep it up. It’s too much work, and you will get tired and frustrated and you will eventually fold.” — Gary Vaynerchuk

There’s nothing wrong with hustle and working your butt off. There’s a problem with always trying to chase the next trend or big money opportunity. Trying to get rich quick is a pretty serious problem. There’s a cure though.

How you can avoid chasing the next buck and actually focus on what really matters (aka crush the fear of getting rich slowly):

Success only comes before work in the dictionary.

This isn’t just some corny line that you hear on the first day of grade 7. The average person (not including Jersey Shore characters) won’t have the ability to become successful if they don’t put the work in first. That’s just how it works. You can argue all that you want but you don’t want to risk missing out on life by trying to get rich quick.

You need to focus on one thing.

When your mind is all over the place you dilute your focus and don’t give the right amount of energy to important tasks. I’ve seen too many friends get lost in the idea of starting the next Facebook that they lose complete focus on what matters (their studies) and they end up failing where it hurts the most (dropping out of school). This is why I truly believe in focusing on one major goal. This could be a dream job, a solid business idea, a trade, a job where you can move up the ranks, or profitable hobby. When you keep on trying to chase the big dollars you can lose yourself easily.

You have to create your own luck in this world.

You’re not going to accomplish anything by complaining and blaming the world for your problems. Henry Hartman said it best with, “success always comes when preparation meets opportunity.” If you’re prepare and working hard, great things can come to YOU. When you’re looking for a shortcut you’re not going to find the response that you want.

Think of the negatives of going fast.

Our generation is pretty concerned about slow progress. This is likely why workout supplements are a 24 BILLION dollar industry on an annual basis. We all want quick results. We all want a shortcut. We just rarely take the time to look at the negatives of trying to go fast. What are some of setbacks of searching for a shortcut:

• Burn out.
• Wasting time.
• Spending more money than taking in.

Are you sure you want immediate results? Can you wait?

I’m not opposed to chasing the big bucks and going after the big wins. I just think the problem is that you can waste valuable skills by not focusing on consistent and daily goals. You’ll be surprised by what you can accomplish over an extended period of time with just a few hours a day.

View full post on The Financial Blogger

This is a review of How To Retire Early and Live Well With Less Than A Million Dollars by Gillette Edmunds, a book published in 2000 that was recommended to me by a reader. Edmunds was a former tax attorney and financial journalist who retired in 1981 at age 29.

Unreasonably High Expected Returns
Remember that for both the 1980s and the 1990s, the average annualized total return of the S&P 500 for both decades was around 18% a year. Imagine two decades of such returns, all before the dot-com bust and the housing bust. Edmunds retiring in 1981 turned out to be some of the luckiest timing possible. As a result, a major criticism of this book is the continued expectation of high stock returns going forward. The quoted excerpts below are taken verbatim from the book:

• Can you retire today? His answer is that “most middle-class Americans, including me, could live comfortably on the investment returns from $500,000.” Perhaps, but with currently-accepted safe withdrawal rates of 3-4%, this would only create $15,000 to $20,000 a year in income. Instead, the book promotes withdrawals rate of 8-10%, which would have left many nest eggs completely wiped out from 2000 to 2010.
• “An average, educated, experienced investor can reasonably expect to make 10% a year for life.”
• “Anyone should be able to produce a 7.75% return.”

I bet these assumptions sounded reasonable, perhaps even conservative, in 2000 but they are just bad jokes today.

Owning Non-Correlated Asset Classes
Edmunds tells us not to time the markets, ride out temporary market drops, and to maintain low investment costs. He advises you to hold a variety of “non-correlated” asset classes such as:

• Real Estate
• Foreign Stocks
• US Large Stocks
• US Small Stocks
• Emerging Markets Stocks

Edmunds believes that these asset classes are on different business cycles. When one is going up, the other is going down. However, I don’t like the term “non-correlated”, as very few asset classes have negative correlations these days. Low or minimally correlated is a better term. As we saw in the recent financial crisis, when the poo hits the fan correlations can go back to 1 (everything goes down together). However, I agree with the general asset allocation advice of holding different asset classes with minimal correlations. He counts as an early proponent of not holding too much in US stocks (no more than 1/3rd of total portfolio), and an equal amount in foreign stocks (also use for 1/3rd of your portfolio).

I did have an issue with the lack of supporting evidence as to why these assets and not others, as we only get weak arguments like “after owning bonds for about five years, I realized that a portfolio of five different high-return asset classes that excluded bonds had both high predictability and high returns”. I’m sorry, but making a conclusion to stop holding bonds after 5 years of data is just plain bad advice and makes him come off as egotistical.

He ends the book with a philosophical epilogue with the usual “money isn’t everything, enjoy life with family and friends” material. I don’t mean to belittle the importance of this factor, just that I didn’t really learn anything new from it. He does come off as well-intentioned and talks about the effect of his divorce. Despite its flaws, I found this book worth the read as it encompasses the overall philosophy of one person who had been successfully retired for 20 years. Just remember he had a very strong tailwind of high returns, and adjust your own expectations accordingly.

Other “early retirement” books that I’ve reviewed:

• ¹Cashing in on the American Dream: How To Retire at 35
• Early Retirement Extreme
• Your Money or Your Life
• The 4 Hour Workweek

Related posts:

1. Book Review: Yes, You Can Still Retire Comfortably!
2. Book Review: All About Asset Allocation
3. Book Review: Early Retirement Extreme

How To Retire Early and Live Well With Less Than A Million Dollars [Book Review] from My Money Blog.

© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.

View full post on My Money Blog

I feel like him because I LOVE eating and I made some delicious dishes over the past 2 weeks…

Oh wait… this is not where we should be going with the post.

There is another reason why I feel like Kung Fu Panda….

It’s because I’ve kicked ass in January!!!

It’s really about the income (I’m pretty stable on that side) but it’s more about how quickly the business evolved in a single month:

-          I’ve made major advances in my book.

-          I successfully monetized my mailing list for the first time.

-          We closed some great deals through our advertising management service.

-          We found a professional designer to do both our book layout and a mini site to sell it.

This is why I’m so excited!!! But the stats for January are cool too! Let’s look at them:

246,790 Visitors (+21%) and 346,292 Pages Viewed (+25%)

Ahhh, it feels good to be back to normal! This shows similar stats to the ones published back in November. However, we had a few server difficulties with some of our sites during the month of January. Therefore, I expect next month to be even bigger. I’m actually preparing a few great posts about servers and hosting services. If you have any questions, now’s the time to send them .

February’s stats should be a lot bigger due to the inclusion of our latest purchase too. I’m not going to disclose the site name since the transfer is currently in progress (so it’s not quite ours yet lol!).

Adsense: $2042.03 (-13%)

The Adsense December payment was obviously smaller than the previous month but stats have come back for January. There is one thing I find particularly interesting: my niche websites are starting to contribute more significantly of late. In January (for which the payment will land in February), What is Dividend and Canadian Dividend Stock generated over $150 in Adsense! If I can continue to increase their traffic, these 2 sites will become cash cows as well . I’m now waiting to see their PR increase to include a few private adverting deals on them!

Broker / Affiliate deals: $2,110.88 (-29%)

While I didn’t receive many cheques in January, the bulk of my income for this segment came from my broker activities. I’ve closed a total of $10,775 in advertising for my clients which generated a profit of $1,426. My profit is still higher than my 8.33% commission rate since I get paid for full commission on a 6 month deal (and the client gets the full 6 month renewal if I renew the ad). With this month, I’m getting closer to my $2,000/month objective for 2012. What will help me is that I’ll have a VA take care of managing the deals starting in February .This is why I expect to be able to rack up a steady $10,000/month worth of advertising for my clients (hopefully!). I must admit that since the beginning of this “official” program, I never thought of making this much with it!

Private Advertising: $6,551.47 (+14%)

I don’t want to go crazy on private advertising. I’ve written it many times but my goal is to keep an average of $5K-$6K. I see a trend from advertiser to aim for 6 month and 12 month deals. I can’t complaint about this trend since you get more money upfront and advertisers usually renew 6 month deals. They get a rebate by paying upfront while I get assured that my ad spot is taken for the year. If you want to know how I manage my ads, I suggest you start by reading my “build a media kit” series.

Niche Websites: $302.07 (-57%)

Here’s good news and bad news at the same time: the good news is that I was able to generate for $267 in adsense for the month. The bad news is that I wasn’t able to generate any big private advertising deals. So the “stable” income is increasing but it doesn’t put more money in my pocket either! I definitely have a long way to go before I meet my $2K/month objective. I’ve made some great progress but I still need to tweak all my sites to make it happen.

Expenses: roughly $4,000

About a year ago, I wrote about my cost structure. Many of you were skeptical on why I was spending so much on my company. I was forecasting a total cost of 66,7K which never happened (my main VA went in maternity leaves and was not replaced). This is how I got down to spending roughly $4K on my online company since then.

I can understand your skepticism since 4K/month seems a lot of money for a sideline. However, I want to outline that my cost structure has not grown for the past year while my income has. In fact, my last 6 months show an average of $10,833 while the last 12 months show an average income of $9,770. So the extra $1,000 of income is just pure profit in our pockets . In 2012, I expect to have an average expense of $5K per month (4K as a stable budget + random peaks according to our needs). For example, we will soon pay for another design for our ebook and mini site. This will cost about 2K in total.

Total Income: $10,704.38 (-3%)

I’m very proud of what we earned in January even though it’s not an astronomical number. Why? Because it’s the fifth month in a row we show an income exceeding 10K. This is also an increase of 43% compared to January 2011 (when we made $7,626). I’m posting our blog income progression with a comparison to the 2011 numbers (I hope that all the red columns will be bigger than the blue columns ).

In the upcoming weeks, I’ll be home (as we’re expecting our 3^rd child to arrive anytime now!).

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