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Being Different Can Make You Money

Extra Income

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Sep 25, 2014

As kids, we don’t want to be different. We want to fit in with our friends and peers. We want to conform. When we become adults, we don’t care as much about fitting in, but in the back of our minds, we still want to be a part of the “group.” This is just how we are wired. We want to be accepted and we want to be a part of the collective group. While people tell you it’s OK to be different, you might not listen to it. Today, I am going to say you need to be different. That’s right! You need to be different. This is especially the case if you want to make money.

Unique is Becoming Less Common

How many unique and cool ideas have you seen lately? They are becoming less and less common these days. With the advancement of the internet, people are now able to share their ideas quickly and to the masses. While we are all still creative, coming up with unique ideas gets harder and harder each day. So, how do you be different in a world where so many new ideas are coming out each year? How can you make money with your idea when it is already being used?

The idea of this post is not to tell you to come up with something unique. I think that is a given when you want to start a business or make money. Making money requires you to be unique or different. It requires you to have a value proposition unlike any other person. That is how you differentiate yourself from the crowd.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel, Just Enhance It

I am sure you have heard the phrase: “Don’t reinvent the wheel!” It is very true. Why do you want to reinvent something which works? The way to exceed in making money is to enhance the wheel and offer something a little different. Luckily, the internet and social media allows you to do this. Just take the highest funded project on Kickstarter, COOLEST Cooler. It has received over $13 million in donations for their cooler. They didn’t reinvent the cooler, they just perfected it with feedback from people. They knew of what people griped about and made the cooler better. There is nothing revolutionary with the cooler, but it just incorporates everything an awesome cooler needs.

You can do the exact same thing when you want to make money. You don’t have to be entirely different, but just offer an enhancement. When I started my online electronics business, I didn’t have any value proposition. I couldn’t compete on price with the many competitors and I couldn’t provide as many deals. So, in order for my business to succeed, I needed to provide something else. That something else was stellar customer service. I treated my customers with respect, helped them to the fullest extent, providing them with phone support and email support, and answered their questions quickly. I was just one man, but over time I built that company to sell over $1 million a year. Not bad for a part time e-commerce company run out of my home office.

I didn’t reinvent e-commerce, but I added my own value to my visitors. I made money by giving people what other companies were not. They weren’t getting service and I knew that fact. I could read the many reviews of my competitors and their number one complaint was service. That might be the case with many sites. Just look at Amazon. They don’t always have the best price, but their customer service is like none other. While you can save money at Amazon with some different ways, their service is their selling point. Well, that plus a huge inventory.

No matter what way you want to make money, you need to be a little different. You don’t have to go out and find something unique, but you need to show your customers why you are different than the other brand. Those who are different in business make money. Those who follow do not. This is applicable to many things in life, but people still have a hard time following the advice. Don’t be afraid to be different. Strive for it!

Do you think being different helps you in business? Specifically if you run your own business?

Want to Earn More Money? Network Your A** Off!

Extra Income

Grayson Bell

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Sep 18, 2014

8

Want to Earn More Money? Network Your A** Off!

I want to share with you the real key to earning more money. It doesn’t deal with your drive, idea, or determination. The real key to earning more money is to network your a** off! That is right. Networking is one of the most powerful ways to start earning more money. I am not talking about network marketing or MLM, but creating a network of like-minded people who can help you when you need them. I have been in business and made money for a number of years and this is the number one tip I can pass along.

Your Network Empowers You

When I started Debt Roundup, I wanted to tackle it on my own. I didn’t think I needed anyone else. Boy was I wrong. After some time, I realized I was just spinning my wheels. I was working too hard and there was nothing to show for it. Then I started looking for others doing the same as myself. Luckily, in the personal finance space, most bloggers are willing to help others. That is a great thing. I can’t say the same for other niches, but oh well.

Looking back now, I see my traffic and connections increased almost immediately after I reached out to other bloggers. John and I started networking together and we are now good friends and partners on this blog. You never know where a contact will take you. You can use them for help, advice, or just airing your grievances. If you have a good network, you can do a lot of things.

Related: If you want to learn the right way to network, check out Networking Is Not Working, by Derek Coburn.

Don’t Go At It Alone

Trust me when I say this. Don’t ever go at it alone. You will struggle to reach your goals. Growing your wealth is no different than paying down debt or any other financial goal. When you have a network of people around you, you can do much more. For those who think networking is not as important, let me tell you that most of my jobs came from my network. I have found and worked my jobs from referrals from my friends and network. When someone asks me about service from my business, most typically found me through a contact of mine.

You have probably heard that word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing and it is true. If you treat your network with respect and help them, they will most likely help you. I have seen firsthand the power of a great network.

John and I are going to to New Orleans to network with other great finance bloggers. The reason we are making the trip and taking the expense is because we know how much it can change our blogs and our businesses. The connections you make at conferences and through other connections is empowering. You never know who your network knows or what they know. I have asked many people questions about things I am uncertain of. It is free information from a source I trust.

To Earn More, Network More

I am going to leave this at the above statement. If you want to earn more, then you need to network more. Take some time to reach out to others in your niche. Find who the top people are and talk with them. It takes time to create a network, but when you do, the opportunities can continue to flow. If I would go back and start blogging all over again, I would actually start networking the same day my blog went live. It would have lessened the time it took me to build up my site and earn more money.

Have you seen the power of networking?

Image via StockMonkeys.com

My Favorite Way to Make Extra Money

Extra Income

Grayson Bell

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Sep 11, 2014

14

John and I have written quite a few times about how to earn money this way and that. We have a whole category just for making money! Needless to say, we enjoy making those pieces of paper whenever we can. I was thinking the other day about all of my money making ideas over the years. I have done quite a lot. Some were good and others were terrible. Luckily for me, I just keep coming up with idea after idea. Now if I can only find the time to make them all work. Anyway, I figured I would share with you my favorite way to make money.

I Thrive in Services

You might think I was going to say blogging was my favorite way to earn money. While I do love blogging and think it can be awesome for many, it is not my favorite way to earn extra money. If you are interested in blogging, then check out our how to start a blog guide. PS. you can even hire me to setup your blog for free!

What I have found over the years is I thrive when I offer people services. I have worked in retail for many years, but I have also owned my own business, and even collected debt. I work hard to make sure people are satisfied with my level of service. I don’t think good customer service is dead, but it is becoming harder to find these days. Just check out my latest run in with two companies.

When you offer a service to other people, then you have to be more accountable for what you provide. Most of my clients come from word of mouth. I don’t advertise much and that is because when word of mouth is working right, then customers keep coming. Yes, there are many ways to earn money without offering a service, but I find it more rewarding.

When someone emails me because their site is having issues, and I can fix it for them quickly, then I get my satisfaction knowing I helped that customer out. I also hope my service was good enough to have them come back when other issues arise.

My Latest Money Making Endeavor

I have been working behind the scenes for some time slowly building a service company for people wanting to run blogs and websites. Ever since I started blogging, I have learned more about the people starting blogs. I also have grown my reputation for fast service and quality service. Since I love running a service business, I decided to relaunch my old company, iMark Interactive, and offer these services again. I will be offering freelancing writing, blog management, WordPress installation, website hosting migrations, and domain registrar moving. On top of those basic services, I will also be offering custom work on websites for little tweaks, changes, and fixes that might need to be done.

I am really excited about earning money this way. I get to control how much work I take on and the money can be limitless depending on how I set things up. While most of my money is earned with online endeavors, I never rule out going offline again, like when I had a mobile detailing company.

The key to this article is to show you there are so many ways to earn extra money. No matter what your passion is, try to see if you can earn money from it. If you use the excuse that you can’t make money from this or that, then you never will. Try it out and see where it goes. Never be afraid of trying your hand at something. I have a huge notebook of money making ideas that I put down in order of importance and viability.

What is your favorite way to make extra money?

How Doubt Derails Wealth Building

General

John

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Sep 9, 2014

13

I have a confession to make…I struggle with doubt; big time. I don’t know when or where it started, but I have struggled with doubt as long as I can remember. You might be thinking ‘Who doesn’t struggle with doubt’ and you’d have a point, but doubt can do funny things to us mentally. I think doubt, on one level, is ok as it can cause us to sit back and analyze things to see if a given opportunity or decision really is best for us to pursue.

That’s not the kind of doubt I’m talking about though. I’m talking about the kind of doubt that holds us back. The kind of doubt that, even in the face of possible success, delays us from striving after those things you know in your heart you want. Ironically, I struggle with most with doubt over financial matters. Although I feel like we’re in a good place financially and professionally I still allow doubt to hold my family and I back. It is that issue, how doubt can derail our efforts to grow our wealth, that I want to discuss.

Doubt Stymies

Doubt, like fear of failure, has a funny way of stymieing us. It makes us believe that things aren’t possible. It makes us think there is some special secret that only certain people have. And, it makes us believe that we’ll fail no matter the circumstance.

Those are all doubts I have and deal with personally and battle with daily. Thinking about the business my wife and I run, it was something I envisioned for years. I’ve always wanted to work for myself as far back as I remember. However, I doubted that it could even be done. I doubted that I or we would be successful. I doubted that anyone would want to do business with us. Now that I’ve been out of the corporate world for more than two years and have been busy helping to run our business for nearly five, I look back and wonder why on earth I allowed doubt to hold my family back for so long. Call it what you want, but I look at the financial impact our decision for me to take the leap has made and I see it tangibly in real dollars.

Doubt Keeps Us From Taking Risks

The thing that frustrates me most about doubt is we allow it to hold us back from taking risks. Whether it be risk associated with investing in the stock market or the risk of starting a side hustle or the risk associated with running your own business, doubt deters us from taking risks.

Therein lies the rub. We think that we’re avoiding risk by giving in to doubt, however what we’re really doing is the thing we’re most afraid of…taking on risk! Doubt, believe it or not, has risk associated with it. Doubt can hold us back from earning more, learning new things and meeting new people. Those are all things that can help us to significantly grow our wealth. Essentially, what we fear most (risk) we’re taking on through our actions. Crazy, isn’t it?! Like it or not, we’re going to get nowhere with a risk free life. There is risk all around us and when we actively choose to avoid it we end up doing the very thing we didn’t want to do.

Turn Doubt on its Head

The thing I’ve taught myself over the years is to turn doubt on its head. Think of breaking it down into bite size chunks. Start slow and take one thing at a time. If investing is where you doubt yourself, open a brokerage account and buy an index fund. With business, maybe it’s taking one freelance job on the side and seeing how it goes. You might find that it’s something you don’t enjoy, but I can almost guarantee you that you’ll learn from the experience. Essentially, you need to personalize it and give yourself small victories so you can begin to overcome whatever doubts you’re facing.

The other tactic I’ve found to help diffuse my doubt is to surround myself with successful people. I have one friend in particular who always seems to be thinking up different ways he can create multiple streams of revenue. Some he is successful with and others he isn’t, but he has learned a ton along the way. I knew he was someone I wanted to emulate and his example continues to encourage me. When I was considering leaving my job he was the first one I wanted to learn from. Through that I not only learned skills that I needed to be successful, but I also saw ones I knew I had, but just needed to realize.

Finally, I’ve learned that if I keep something in front of me visually, that drives me to attack that doubt and strive towards what I want. For me, it’s my family. I want to succeed so they can have the life they want. That means I need to attack doubt and run after what I want. Find what motivates you and put that in front of you visually. I can pretty much guarantee that will it not only help you move past the doubt, but it will help you become more successful as you strive towards whatever it is you want.

Do you struggle with doubt and if so, what is it related to? What do you do to avoid being shackled by it?

Photo courtesy of: _Scartissue

You Can’t Cut Your Way to Wealth

General

Grayson Bell

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Sep 4, 2014

22

One of the most talked about principles in personal finance is living within your means. Basically, don’t spend more than you make. While the principle is solid in concept, many people don’t follow it or have trouble keeping up with it. As a personal finance writer, I have spoken about how to cut your expenses over and over again. After some time, I feel like a broken record. Cut your grocery bill, cut your gas bill, cut your utilities, cut your cell phone bill. Cut this, that, and everything else. When I was first in debt, I thought all I needed to do was cut my expenses. I was living above my means, so why not cut my expenses? It is the first step to becoming debt free.

What about afterwards? What happens when you actually cut your expenses? Will it free up enough money to allow you to pay off all your debt or retire? Probably not. Cutting your expenses will only get you so far. You can only cut so much before you are eating just beans and rice and washing everything you own with one bar of soap. I have no issues with those who want to make their own food or hygiene products, but if you only focus on one side of the equation, you missing the other half. How do you grow your wealth?

Wealth is Earned Through More Income

You see so many sites just talking about cutting expenses. Why is that? I think it’s because cutting expenses is something everyone can do. Are we afraid to show people how to make more money? Do we think they won’t want to hear our harsh reality check? Well, we are not afraid to talk about it here on Sprout Wealth. That is how whole spiel. We talk about strategies to make your money grow. Earning extra income is a cornerstone of our concept. We could show you 1,001 ways to reduce your expenses, but those are finite. You can only drop by so much. We want to show you how to grow your wealth. We want to provide you with ways to make more money.

You can’t cut your way to wealth. Wealth creation is two-fold. You have to live below your means and make more money. There are so many ways to earn more. The issue is most don’t think they can earn more or don’t want to put in the work associated with doing it. Sorry to be harsh, but earning more requires creativity, discipline, willingness to succeed, and a couple more traits. You can’t just hope for more money and it show up. You have to go hustle for it.

The people who earn more typically do so because they put themselves in demand. They seek out the opportunities and don’t wait for them to arrive. They learn how to grow their money organically and passively. They learn techniques to have their money make more money. That is how you become wealthy. Your money needs to work for you, you don’t need to work for it.

Always Focus on Both Sides of the Equation

Wealth = Increased Income + Reduced Expenses

Remember, income comes in a variety of ways. You can earn it through human capital, such as working, but you can also earn it through investing. If you want to learn more about the basics of investing, then check out our top 5 books for beginner investors. You can’t get to wealth without focusing on both reducing your expenses, but also growing your income. It just won’t happen. A plus nothing does not equal C. A+B does. It is a simple equation and it works for many. If you aren’t sure how you can grow your income, then just follow Sprout Wealth. We provide you with different ways and show you how to start investing. We aren’t trying to make it difficult for your to create wealth. Our hope is more can become wealthy and have a lifestyle they want. We will just focus on the income portion and leave the expenses to someone else. I know I would rather take an extra hour earning more than not taking a shower for a couple of days just to lessen my water bill by a few cents.

*This post was featured on Money Smart Guides, The Investing Monk and Financial Nerd.

How Do You Make Money?

John

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Sep 2, 2014

6

Those of you who follow me over at Frugal Rules know I’m in the middle of our three week vacation to San Diego. In fact, I’m writing this prior to the trip while looking forward to the stories I’ll be able to share from driving nearly 3,500 miles, roundtrip, with our six, four and two year old children. Holiday Road anyone? 😉

Anyway, back to today’s post. Since today is the day after Labor Day I wanted to keep things a little on the light side and share this short little infographic I found over at Visual.ly. The infographic is loosely based around how you make money, especially in today’s digital age.

Seeing as you’re reading this on a blog it’s safe to say that you’re somewhat comfortable with technology. Like it or not, it’s all around us. Heck my wife and I run a business from our home that is largely tech driven. We could go weeks, if not months, without physically seeing a client and still be making money like usual. I know we’re not the only ones as there are millions of freelancers, solopreneurs and small business owners in the U.S.

Make Money Through Connections

What I liked about this infographic is that I’ve seen it happen time and again. It can be easy to just rely on digital mediums for business. In fact, I don’t think you can use it enough. It’s an incredibly vital way to make more money and grow a budding business. However, what I’ve found in my time being a business owner is that it’s the personal connection that often wins the business. That connection can happen digitally, but is taken to another level when done on the personal level. There is just something the personal connection has that digital can’t replace.

This isn’t to say that you should avoid digital methods to get new work, meet new clients or to network. I’m not saying that by any means. But, what I am saying, is to do both. Don’t overlook either. In fact, as we’ve spoken about here on Sprout wealth quite a bit, you want to diversify. Diversification is going to work in affiliate marketing, investing in the stock market and yes even in trying to make money and earning new client work.

So, the moral of the story today is to think outside the box and implement a personal approach and you’ll likely be surprised at how that can help you make money.

by MOO.

What challenges do you face when meeting potential new clients or jobs face to face? How quickly do you follow up with a new contact? Are you able to make in person connections with your side gigs or clients?

Photo courtesy of: Redjar

*This post was featured on Broke Girl Rich

Make Money Series – How to Earn Cash from Amazon Associates

Extra Income

Grayson Bell

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Aug 28, 2014

7

Make Money Series – How to Earn Cash from Amazon Associates

Here at Sprout Wealth, we are all for throwing down lessons on how to make that extra cash. Who doesn’t want to earn extra money? If you don’t, then this site probably isn’t for you. For everyone else looking to pack those wallets and purses with extra cheddar (not the cheese), then keep on reading. I am going to show you how to make money with Amazon. Everyone reading this knows who Amazon is. They are the 800-lb gorilla in the e-commerce space. They are by far the largest online retailer. While they are branching out with services such as AmazonFresh, they still keep their focus online. That being said, they also have a very popular affiliate program, called Amazon Associates. This is Amazon’s dedicated affiliate program. As you know, we have spoken about affiliate marketing here, here, and here. If you haven’t read any of them, then please do so before continuing. They will help you understand where this article is going.

….

Done?

OK, lets get back on topic here. I wanted to show you how to make money with Amazon Associates. Their system is unique because you can earn good money from a huge selection of products. Trust me, the selection is massive. Not only that, but you can also earn money promoting their services like prime memberships. The possibilities are expansive. If you have ever wanted to know how to cash in on Amazon Associates, then sit back and read on!

Will Amazon Associates Work on Your Site?

Before you even sign up, you need to answer the question above. Will promoting Amazon products be successful on your site? That is a great question which only you can answer. You need to check out your demographics and your topics. If you talk about products a lot, then Amazon Associates might be a good bet. If you talk about service industries, then it might not translate to earnings. Take some time to understand your visitors. Which posts do they look at most? Where do they come from and what are they looking for? If you have information in your posts that revolve around something Amazon might sell, then think about joining.

Signing Up For Amazon Associates

The step after figuring out if Amazon Associates will be a good fit is to sign up. They make it really easy to do and even easier if you already have an Amazon account. You just go to Amazon’s Associate page and hit Join Now for Free. You will go through some questions regarding your websites and how you will promote their products. Just fill in the applicable information. If you have more than one website, you can enter it at sign up or after you are approved. Once you fill everything in, you will submit your application. Amazon will look over your application and approve or deny* you.

*Residents of Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, or Rhode Island currently cannot sign up for Amazon Associates. Blame your government for that one!

I would highly recommend you read both the Amazon associates operating agreement and participation requirements. They are both very detailed and can be confusing, but you have to follow the rules in order to stay in the program.

One thing I just found out was you actually have to be very specific in how you identify yourself as an Amazon Associate. If you didn’t know this already, you have to include this exact verbage on your site of Amazon could kick you out.

[Insert your name] is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to [insert the applicable site name (amazon.com, amazonsupply.com, or myhabit.com)].

Crazy, right! You can see Sprout Wealth has it as the bottom in our footer, but that was just placed there while writing this. There are so many rules on Amazon’s program, so make sure you keep up to date.

How to Earn Money With Amazon Associates

OK, now to the meat and potatoes. If you want to earn money with Amazon affiliates, here is how you do it. Amazon provides you with an advertising fee based on the products people buy. When you link to an Amazon product with your associates link and a reader clicks that product to buy something, you can earn a commission. Amazon’s commission rates fluctuate and are highly dependent on the product categories. Here are the latest commission rates which Amazon indicates.

When you are in your Amazon Associates account, you can see a variety of menu items. The one you should be concerned with is the “Links & Banners” menu. Click that and select which type of link you want. Do you want to link to a product? Do you want an Amazon banner on your page? You can also link to any page on Amazon and possibly earn a commission. Sweet!

The real key to earning commissions is linking to products people will actually buy and what are relevant to the content on your site. I will say Amazon banners perform quite poorly as most banner ads do. Don’t waste your time with Amazon banners unless you really want one or it is highly targeted to your site. Focus on product/service specific links. These are the most successful for Amazon and most of the other affiliates. Our most successful Amazon Associates page is our 5 Best Investing Books for Beginners. The content is highly relevant and the links go to exactly what we are talking about.

Another important point is how Amazon cookies customers. When they come from your site and your associate links, they are cookied. Many other affiliate programs do this as well. The cookie length varies from program to program with most landing at 30 days. Amazon is different. You only get 24 hours with the cookie. This means your reader/visitor needs to actually make the purchase in 24 hours or you don’t get the commission. This makes the Amazon Associates program hard to make a lot of money for some. You need to have good traffic and a targeted Amazon link in the content.

Amazon will make payments to you in a variety of ways. They prefer either direct deposit or check. If you live in the US and can receive direct deposit, I would recommend it. They will charge you $15 to cut a check. No good! They pay your commissions 60 days after you earn them. The reason why it is so far out is due to Amazon’s lenient return policy. If someone returns an item, your commission gets retracted. It is the same as everywhere else. So, when you first start earning money, it will take some time to get paid that cash. After the first payment, you should receive regular payments as long as you continue earning referral fees.

Since Amazon Associates is free to sign up and use, it is a popular first step for many into affiliate marketing. Most people know Amazon and trust their service and selection. If you can put people on Amazon, they will convert them into buyers. If you want to get into affiliate marketing, but haven’t done so yet, then try out Amazon Associates. If you have good traffic and can incorporate the links appropriately in content, then do it. It doesn’t hurt you to try it out and it will give you an insight into how easy or hard it will be to monetize your site. Remember, you should constantly be testing affiliate offers and changing them out until you find one that works. Luckily, Amazon Associates gives you access to over one million products and their ever popular services.

Have you ever tried Amazon Associates? If so, what is your take on it?

How to Beat the 401k Retirement Age

Investing

John

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Aug 26, 2014

6

The following is a contribution from our good blogging friend MMD from IRAvs401kCentral.com. If you’d like to contribute to Sprout Wealth, please contact us.

It’s no wonder that 401k plans catch a lot of criticism from employees.

In the old days when you had a pension, it was always clearly defined when you’d be able to retire and exactly how much money you stood to make from the deal. Not a lot of thinking or strategy was involved.

Though most people don’t realize it, those times have changed – and for the better! Now all you have to do is reach the 401k retirement age, make sure you’ve got enough money saved up, and then start to cash you when you feel you’re ready.

When Exactly is the 401k Retirement Age?

The IRS 401k withdrawal rules state that none of us can actually dip into retirement plans until the age 59-1/2. For whatever reason 59-1/2 is officially the age at which the government declares you ready to access your money.

If you try to touch your money prior to that, you’ll unfortunately find yourself slapped with a 10% penalty on top of taxes for whatever amount you withdrew. That’s definitely something that you don’t want to do because it would diminish the earnings you waited so long to achieve.

Now whether or not you’ve got enough money saved up by the 401k retirement age is entirely up to you. Compared to your peers you could probably easily beat the average retirement savings of other individuals your age.

But that’s not going to give you the whole picture. You’ll need to figure out how much YOU actually need. The easy way to do that is to take the amount of money you’ll need in one year and multiply it times 25. So for example if you think you’ll need $50,000 each year to live on, then you should try to target saving $50,000 x 25 = $1,125,000.

Why multiply it by 25? Because that’s the same thing as dividing by 4% (in other words 1/0.04 = 25). 4% is the popular figure financial planners when they are figuring out how much money you can safely withdraw during retirement.

What If I Want to Retire Sooner?

If you are ambitious and simply can’t wait until the full 401k retirement age to declare your official retirement, there are fortunately a few smart retirement income strategies that you can use to get access to your money sooner rather than later:

Leave Work at Age 55. If it’s only 4 years or so you’re looking to gain for retirement, the IRS does make a special exception where if you can take a penalty free 401k withdraw if you leave your job at age 55 or later:

Exceptions. The 10% tax will not apply if distributions before age 59½ are made in any of the following circumstances: Made to a participant after separation from service if the separation occurred during or after the calendar year in which the participant reached age 55.

But what if you’re looking to retire a whole lot sooner than that? Say at age 50? Or even age 40?? There is another little known loop-hole for you as well.

Use a SEPP. An SEPP (series of equal periodic payments) or 72t distribution is a little known trick in the IRS tax laws that allows you to withdraw a small portion of your savings each year without penalty.

To use a SEPP, all you need to do is move your savings over to a rollover IRA. Make sure to check with both your old and new financial institutions to be sure that there aren’t any big fees or costs involved with the transition. Once the transfer is complete you can start making withdraws based on one of three calculated methods provided by the IRS.

However, proceed with caution using this strategy since it can be a little bit tricky. Report it wrong to the IRS, and you might end up sabotaging your efforts and paying that 10% penalty after all! You may want to seek the help of an accountant to make sure you’re doing this one right.

Use a Roth IRA. If you can manage to save portion of your savings in a Roth IRA, then not only will you not pay taxes on your future withdraws but you’ll also be able to withdraw your principal investment whenever you want to (as long as it’s been in there for more than 5 years). You unfortunately though will not be able to withdraw the earnings until after age 59-1/2.

Regular brokerage account. The final thing you could do to get access to money sooner than the 401k retirement age is to invest some of your money in a regular brokerage account; preferably in blue-chip dividend paying stocks. Although the tax benefits won’t be as great, you’ll be allow to access your money anytime you feel like it without repercussions or penalties from the IRS.

Are you looking to retire early and need to access the funds in your 401k prior to 59 1/2? Does your employer offer retirement plans? What other methods are you using to grow your wealth for your retirement years?

Photo courtesy of: Stockmonkeys.com

*This post was featured on Money Smart Guides, The Wealth Gospel and The Smaller Dollar.

How to Start a Blog and Make Money

Extra Income

Grayson Bell

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Aug 21, 2014

28

I talked not too long ago about the truth of making money with blogging. My hope with that post was to shed some light on the complexities of earning money with a blog. It is hard work, but it certainly can be done. As a precursor to earning money with a blog, you need to learn how to start a blog. I probably should have led with that, but either way, here we go. In this article, I will teach you how to start a blog and monetize it from the start. It is really simple to start a blog, so this shouldn’t be a very complicated process.

Step 1 – Find a Niche

This is the most important process. Before you start any blog, you need to have a topic. We write about personal finance here. We understand it and we can relate to it. Don’t pick a niche just because you see other people making money at it. That will lead you to failure. If you like electronics, go after that. If you like scuba diving, write about it. If you can relate to your niche, you will find it easier to write about.

Step 2 – Register a Domain

If you want to make money blogging, you need your own domain. Our domain is sproutwealth.com. It tells you what we talk about here. We show you how to grow your wealth. You need a domain to provide your readers with a glimpse in what your topic will be. Once you have your niche, you can start looking for domains. I register all of my domains through G0Daddy. They are cheap and really efficient with domains. I also make sure I keep my domain and my hosting plan at different companies. That is something everyone should do.

You can find a large number of GoDaddy coupons to reduce your registration costs. It only takes a few minutes to find and register your domain through GoDaddy.

Step 3 – Find Web Hosting

When you start a blog, you need a great domain and a good web host. There are so many web hosting companies that it can hurt your brain. Some are better than others. Most hosts provide WordPress hosting, which is the best blogging platform around. If you are just starting out, then you don’t want to deal with a costly host. I recommend checking out either BlueHost or HostGator. Both of these are large companies and have cheap hosting plans.

You really shouldn’t pay more than $5 or $6 per month for hosting to start out. Since you have no idea if your blog will be successful, you should test the waters. BlueHost and HostGator offer cheap plans and even have great coupons to start your blogging adventure.

Special Offer: If you want to start blogging now, I can setup your blog for free. Learn more about my offer.

Step 4 – Point Your Domain to Your Web Host

After you register your domain in GoDaddy, you need to point it to your new web host. This is done through nameservers. Your web host will give you the nameservers to put into GoDaddy. For example, they could be ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com. Nameservers usually come in pairs, but there could be more.

Log into GoDaddy and then go to your domain manager. There will be a link to set the nameservers. GoDaddy defaults to their own servers, but you just have to change it to the ones provided by your host. Once you enter those nameservers, then it can take up to 24 hours to fully propagate through the internet. Just be patient.

Step 5 – Install WordPress

If you have a host like BlueHost or HostGator, then your WordPress installation will be easy. It see that I only tell you to install WordPress. While there are two versions of WordPress, you need the self-hosted variety. You shouldn’t go with WordPress.com, as you can’t make money from those blogs. It just isn’t possible to earn good money from a free domain. The same goes with Blogger. Wordpress is where it is at.

Once you have your web hosting setup, you can log into their Control Panel and there will be links to install WordPress. This is really super easy to do. They push you through a number of steps to set it up. The main items you need is to put in your site name, your URL (which should be auto populated), your username, and password. DO NOT USE “ADMIN” AS YOUR USERNAME. Did you get that? That is a very bad idea and you should change that in the process.

If the installation process allows your to change the database table prefix, then do it. The default is “wp_”, but you should change it to something more complex. Something like “wp_xh5824_” could be good. You just should change the default. Hackers know this default and can do harm to your blog.

You will also want to add your email address, which will be your “admin” email. When people comment, register, or anything else on your blog, this is where the email will go. You can change this later down the road.

After these pieces are done, you will hit install and you will be ready to go. It should give you the url and admin url of your blog. This is where you will log in. If you just pointed your nameservers, then you might not be able to get to the URL. Remember, just be patient.

Step 6 – Setup Your Blog

Once you can log into your blog, do it. You will see the WordPress dashboard with a number of items. Here is what we will need to do.

Your default blog comes with a default theme. Luckily for you, there are thousands of themes from many different developers. I would recommend a free theme to start out and one that is responsive. That means it moves with the screen size. This is very important in today’s era. To find a great theme, just head to Google and type in something like free responsive wordpress theme. You will get a number of results and you can start looking through them. Once you find a theme, just download it. You can then upload said theme within Appearance. Just follow the instructions.

To customize your theme, you can go into Appeareance > Widgets and use some of the widgets in your sidebar or whatever location the theme has setup. You can also put a menu in the defined theme locations by creating a menu (or two) in the Appearance > Menus section. *You will need to have pages and categories setup before you create a menu as that is what you typically want in your menu. That information is below.

Go into Settings on the left menu. Go through the options in General, Writing, Reading, and Discussion. Set the options for what you want to happen on your blog. Then head over to Permalinks. This will be an important step. Wordpress’ default setup is a terrible URL structure. You should set your URL structure to either Post Name or Month and Name. These are the most popular and great URL structures. I wouldn’t recommend trying to add category name into your URL. That could get messy. Save your new Permalinks.

Next, head into the Plugins section. There are two plugins you really should have. They are WordPress SEO and a caching plugin. You can either use WP Super Cache or W3TC. Blog plugins are good. Follow the setup instructions for each plugin. In order to find these plugins, just go into plugins and go to Add New. You can then search for them and install right from your dashboard. To combat spam, which will happen, you can also activate Akismet, which is already installed be default. You just have to activate it. There are many other plugins you can install, but these should get you started.

Once you have plugins, you need to create some pages for your blog. These pages should include an about page, contact page, and any other page you want to showcase. You just have to to into Pages, then Add New. Wordpress comes with a visual editor. You just type in a page title, then some content and hit publish.

Step 7 – Write Your First Post

Blogs live off content. You need to write content in order for your blog to survive. To to that, just go into Posts and then Add New. This will be the same visual editor as pages. Type in a title, then the content. You will need a category for your post to go into. On the side, there is a category box, which will probably show “Uncategorized”. You need to create new categories. You can do that with the link below the box labeled “+ Add New Category”. Just come up with an appropriate category or a few. This is how you will categorize your posts.

When you write posts, you should work with simple paragraphs and add appropriate headings. To add a heading to the text, just click the drop down box that has “Paragraph” in it. There you will see Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, and so on. Just pick the one that you want. Each one comes with a different size and weight.

You should also think about adding images to your post. To do this, you can go to Add Media at the top of the editor box. This will allow you to drag an image into the box and it will upload to your site. If you need to find images, think about Flickr or FreeDigitalPhotos.net. These places allow you to use their photos for free, but you need to attribute the photo back to the source. Once you add the photo, you can place it in the post any different ways. Just look through the image box for more detail. You should also add the same photo or another one to your Featured Image section. This is in a widget on the right of the visual editor. You can click the link and pic the same photo you just uploaded. Many themes use the “featured” image as part of the blog design.

Once you are happy, then just click Publish. It will go live on your site. If you want to schedule it, then go to the Publish immediately in the Publish box and click edit. This will allow you to pick a date and time to publish the post. The time section works on a 24 hour clock. If you want the post to go live at 1PM, then it will be 13:00.

Step 8 – Monetize

If you want to make money blogging, then you need to monetize your blog. To do this right off the bat, you should sign up for Google Adsense. This is the easiest way to start earning money. You can go to google.com/adsense and sign up for an account. Once approved, they will allow you to create ads that you can put on your blog. Once you create an add and get the code, just go back to your WordPress site and go to Appearance > Widgets. Create a text widget in a location you want and paste the Adsense code in that box. Save and boom. You are now monetizing your blog.

There are many ways to make money blogging. Adsense is just one simple way. You can also join the ranks of affiliate marketers. This is where you earn a commission when a product or service is sold. Affiliate marketing is hard, but it can really pay off. In order to start, think about joining an affiliate network like Linkshare, CJ, FlexOffers, Amazon Associates, and the many more. They will give you links for products and services. When you sign up at most of these places, you also have to apply for each program you want to advertise. This is a time consuming process. It can be hard to start affiliate marketing right off the bat as your traffic will not be there. Some networks won’t approve your site until you have been around for a few months. This is just how it works. That doesn’t mean you can’t start looking around beforehand.

Just remember, you will not make money until you start getting traffic. It will take some time. Some make no money at all blogging, but then some start making good money a few months in. It all depends on your niche and your drive.

Step 9 – Network and Promote

For your new blog to succeed, you need to network with others. I have found this as one of the best ways to get your blog out there. Look for other bloggers in your niche. Reach out to them to see if they want to link to your site if you link to theirs. Ask if they will help you promote. Go to other blogs and comment on their articles. Many good bloggers will reciprocate. It takes a lot of time to network and comment on other blogs, but it is worth it.

Promoting your blog will be hard work and very tedious. One good way is to guest post on similar blogs. If you know a niche well, then ask other bloggers if you can guest post on their blog. Some will allow it, while others will not. You won’t know until you ask. Guest blogging can be successful, but you have to do it in good places. When you guest blog, you will want to ask if you can link back to your site. That is how you start promoting your blog.

Step 10 – Keep Going!

This is the last step in this basic guide. I know, how can a over 2,000 word post be basic. Well, blogging is a long term journey and complicated. This really is basic. This last step is crucial. Blogging takes a lot of time and energy to succeed in. It doesn’t happen overnight and it might not even happen in the first year. Get over it! That is a fact of this money making method. If you want to make money with blogging, you have to have determination, perseverance, and ideas. You will probably get down when traffic is low, but you have to stick with it. The blogs that succeed are the ones which push harder and keep going.

I offer bloggers free installation of their WordPress blog when they host with certain providers. If you want to start a blog and get it installed for free, learn more and get started!

John also offers blog coaching services, if you want help taking your blog to the next level learn how he can help!

Hawaiian Airlines Credit Card Review

John

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Aug 19, 2014

4

If you’re looking to go to Hawaii, then the Hawaiian Airlines credit card could be a great way for you to get there for relatively cheap. Both Grayson and I love to travel and part of maximizing your finances is using credit cards wisely so you can earn rewards. What we like about the Hawaiian Airlines Mastercard is that it can get you one free ticket to the islands. That’s not bad in my book.

As I was researching for this article I found that the average ticket price to Hawaii was just over $600, as of 2012. My completely unscientific research of flying from our home airport of Omaha came back to being around $800 per ticket. That is something I’d want to avoid altogether. So, if you’re looking to travel to Hawaii hopefully our Hawaiian Airlines credit card review will show how you can get there for considerably less.

Before I start though, I will give the disclaimer that if you’re struggling with paying off debt or are tempted to overspend then churning credit cards is not for you. No free trip or cash back is worth it – plain and simple. With that out of the way let’s get on with the review of the Hawaiian Airlines card.

What I Like About the Hawaiian Airlines Credit Card

Low minimum spend. I love this feature about the Hawaiian Airlines credit card. You need to spend $1,000 within the first 90 days to get the bonus miles. Whereas you need to spend $3,000 on the Barclaycard Arrival, you only need the $1,000 on the Barclays Hawaiian card. That should be fairly simple for most to reach.

You Earn 35,000 bonus miles. By meeting the minimum spend on the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite Mastercard® you earn 35,000 bonus miles. A coach ticket to Hawaii requires 40,000 miles, but as a cardholder you get a 5,000 mile discount. Thus, you get a free coach ticket to Hawaii!

You can get double the miles. Say what? The Hawaiian Airlines credit card comes both in a personal and business version. The benefits are exactly the same and if you own a legitimate business you can apply for both and get double the miles. I don’t have a link for the business version, but it’s available all the same. 🙂

One time 50% off ticket. With the Hawaiian Airlines credit card you get a one-time 50% off companion ticket. This is a pretty sweet deal as you can fly yourself and a partner to Hawaii for basically half the price of one ticket.

First checked bag is free. This is pretty self-explanatory. You can check one bag, for yourself, for free. This is a savings of $50 instead of spending it on a crazy fee. Please keep in mind you must purchase the ticket directly from Hawaiian Air to qualify for this.

$100 off companion ticket. With each anniversary date of having the Hawaiian Air credit card you get a free $100 off companion ticket. This is a nice little feature to have.

You earn 2X miles on all Hawaiian Air purchases. This is honestly pretty standard, but you earn double miles on all Hawaiian Air purchases and 1X miles on all other purchases.

Chip and Signature technology. This is being added to more cards, but the Hawaiian Airlines credit card has chip and signature technology that will help if you travel internationally.

You can earn even more. The final thing I love about the Hawaiian Airlines Mastercard is that you can earn up to 10X points with selected partners. You can find those partnerships here.

What I Don’t Like About the Hawaiian Airlines Mastercard

No credit card is perfect and the Hawaiian Airlines credit card is no different. There are a few things I wish I could change about the card, such as:

There is an annual fee. The Hawaiian Airlines card carries an annual fee of $89. This annual fee is not waived the first year either. I don’t like annual fees, but when taking a look at the value received I believe the card is worth it. The other thing to consider is the $100 off companion ticket offered at each anniversary. That basically negates the fees in my opinion.

You only qualify for one free ticket. I know, I’m being greedy here but I’d love it if the Hawaiian Air credit card were to offer two free tickets. I guess I can’t complain too much, especially as you do get the one-time 50% off companion ticket.

Who Should Get the Hawaiian Air Credit Card

Now that we’ve taken a somewhat balanced view of the Hawaiian Airlines credit card, who should get it? Whereas other rewards cards may just be for generic travel, this is for a specific destination or area as they also fly to numerous Asian cities. With that in mind, I think the Hawaiian Airlines credit card is perfect for those looking to travel to Hawaii and looking to do so for relatively nothing.

The other nice thing about the card is that miles can also be transferred to the Hilton Honors program with a 1 to 1.5 payout. If you’re really looking to maximize your points you could work it to even further reduce the cost of your trip by also using the companion pass. Regardless of how you try to work the points, the Hawaiian Airlines credit card can be a great card to churn if you’re looking to travel to Hawaii in the near future.

Have you ever been or are you now looking to go to Hawaii? What credit cards are you currently churning? We want to know!

Photo courtesy of: Aero Icarus