If people tell you to:-

1. Start a blog & make money! 
2. Join this company! It has a great reward scheme!
3. Start a business!
4. Be a business owner!
5. Migrate
6. Be a web 2.0 consultant.

and you can make some money, since it is the in thing, you should ask yourself, “Should I blog? Should I start a business? Be a consultant?”

Why? Did anyone tell you the time it takes to maintain a regular blog? Or the things you need to go through to start a business and keep it profitable? Probably not.

What ever you think is a good idea at the beginning, ask yourself this.

1. Is this something I really want to do?
2. Am I good at it?
3. Would I enjoy it?

If your answer is no or maybe, then probably not a good idea to get started.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

I received a spam email offering web design services. Just for fun, I decided to reply the email and ask how much does it take to set up a blog. I was a bit sneaky and wanted to find out the market rate. Who knows, I might also offer such services. It not like rocket science.

The reply I receive is,”We don’t do blogs. We can help you design your website and add a link to a blog site!” Although this is not really a NO, the person missed an opportunity to make some money. If they did 10 minutes of research, or perhaps get someone else to set up a blog and mark up the fee and quoted me, they could have earned some easy money. After all, I could have been a corporate customer with the means to pay a $1,000 or more to set up a blog.

Yes, opens doors of opportunity. No, opens the doors of opportunity to your competitor!

Original article from Personal Money Tips

I read an article on CNN Money about white collar workers being affected by the downturn. Kevin Rigsby was a former district service manager with Circuit City and when CC closed down, he was out of a job. But Rigsby bought a small mobile franchise that sells power tools to independent repair shops, auto dealerships and industrial manufacturer.

Rigsby says, “Just because you’ve been selling electronics before doesn’t mean you can’t learn to sell something else,”

The point is to re-tool yourself! Although this downturn accelerated the demise of certain jobs, it has been happening for quite some time. Stock brokers, travel agents and real estate are going the way of the dinosaur because they were just middle man in many instances. (Some of the above agents have changed and are doing quite well)

Question : Can you join all the black dots above with just 3 straight lines?

But to change everything at the same time is too expensive, too difficult and the risk of failure is high. To make smaller changes gives you a better chance of success.

I remember my senior who mentioned this. Use the same old idea for new people or use new ideas for old people. So now, let’s say you have

• employed staff, you can change what they do,
• same customers, you can change what you sell them,
• keep your machines, but make something else (sometimes not possible)
• keep your products, but sell them in another industry, another country, another way.

Here is the answer. By the way, there are other solutions to join the 9 dots with just 1 line! Just think out of your box.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

Some time ago, I thought of selling the car. It is precisely because of what I thought would happen to the financial system worldwide. What I thought would happen, did but I did take into consideration that the Feds would do something about it.

I’m no market analyst but I was watching markets around the world. The downtrend all around raise flag in my head. Anyway, looking at the way things are going, this is a period of uncertainty still. Many investors are wary of how big a rescue plan need to be to make sure the market’s don’t implode.

Fast forward to today, oil prices drop a little and everyone who drives is looking forward to a drop in gas prices. I have to admit, I’m one of those, optimistic that gas prices will go back to something more normal.

Then, I stumbled on this this article in CNN Money.

The article mentions Matt Simmons who wrote the book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy

Matt Simmons is an investment banker with his own boutique bank, Simmons & Co. In the book, Simmons offers a detailed description of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the U.S and our long-standing dependence upon Saudi oil.

He also highlights many discrepancies between Saudi Arabia’s actual production potential and its seemingly extravagant resource claims. After writing his book, he has moved to the forefront of the peak-oil movement – a growing contingent of oil industry veterans, independent consultants, investors, and academics who believe that world oil production is at or near an inflection point, after which it will fall inexorably and fail to meet projected future demands.

The article in CNN mentions that while we are not running out of oil tomorrow, we might be pass the point of cheap oil. Why is this important? I think it is important for us to know and make provision for such things that could happen. Perhaps like investing in solar energy, if you live in places that is practical. There are places in the US, where there is loans and subsidies to install solar panels, which make financial sense to do so. At the same time you are going green.

If you are keen on the documentary, you can get the DVD here

Original article from Personal Money Tips

I was just travelling about in my daily business activities, meeting clients etc and I noticed this recently. Around universities and colleges, business is brisk. Not all type but most. This is off course due to the high student population. Students nowadays have fairly high disposable income.

So, if you are providing computers peripherals and computer repairs, that’s a good business to be in. Besides that, food related business! People need to eat. Students even more. In between class, many hang out at cafe’s to chat, to study, to socialize etc.

Next, florist. This is the age when romance abounds. Nothing like a smitten guy to spend loads of cash to woo his potential partner. Besides new romances, Valentines Day will be a windfall for such a florist. What about birthdays, and prom night? All these will generate regular income as well as windfalls.

Car repairs and modification. Many students have cars today. They need servicing. Besides servicing, there is one industrial area which modifies cars. And …. yep … you can see students modifiying their cars. From the lowly Protons and get this, all the way up to Mitsubishi Evolutions and WRXs. Talk about having rich parents.

Now, make sure your business is in private colleges. This is where the kids with cash goes to. Nearer public universities, most likely the students are not that well off. Even then, rental properties, stationary and photocopying services are businesses you can consider.

Last, not forgeting mobiles phones and prepaid reloads. There you have it. Several ideas for you to make extra income.

Technorati Tags: rel="tag">Busines Ideas

Original article from Personal Money Tips

While pondering about business and the million dollar home page, about people who make it rich, it suddenly dawned on me that an opportunity could be just around the corner.

Although I know it is not a good thing, I some times compare myself with my peers from university, to see where we are financially. Now please don’t get me wrong. I don’t compare in the manner like who got a bigger car, house, office. I look at how our different characters, perhaps the way we deal with risk, and also the dreams that landed us where we are today. And I wonder how some of us do better and some less so.

Well money making opportunities are all around us. This leads me to , my other half, who being entrepreneur minded, decided to make cookies for sale. I wasn’t too hot on the idea, cos as a kid, I’ve helped mom bake cookies and it was hard work. Its much easier to eat them. But my darling s.o. baked good cookies. So she got orders. Lots and lots of them.

The problem is making cookies is tough, some times back breaking work. After an initial sample batch, a quick calculation revealed that the time spent making cookies, only generates something like minimum wage! What the …. The only way forward is to make the process faster. Being the DIY, problem solver guy that I am, I put on my thinking cap to see how the process can be hasten and cookies created in an instant. Well I’m not there yet but evolving and making changes.

And I realized a second point. Like my post a few days ago. Just do it. When you have the desire for the result, in this case, producing a large number of cookies with minimal labor, then my mind automatically goes into search mode. But you must be on the look out for improvements, innovation, and to be dissatisfied with status quo. If I just thought, well that’s as many that can be produced in an hour, then we’d get stuck.

And so, I’ll be applying what I just learned to my life, business and personal. Coming back to my original thoughts, open my eyes wide and keep a lookout. Many opportunities are hard work in the beginning. Who knows, perhaps we’ll be the next Famous Amos.

In summary,
1. If you have an idea, follow through,
2. Be willing to fail,
3. Make changes to make it work or work better.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

What a way to start the new year. As I surfed over to the million dollar homepage, it is nearing completion. I wrote about it sometime in October 2005. I mentioned then, it being a good idea, for Alex Tew, a student for not getting into debts to pay for university education.

Well, not only has the idea paid for his education many times over, it made him a millionaire, generated quite a bit of publicity for him and made him famous. Who know what opportunity lies ahead for him now. The power of a simple idea, followed up with some savvy marketing and loads of hard work, shovelling pixels oops uploading pixels. You can read it at his blog section.

Lesson here, to quote Nike – Just Do It!

Related post : Not getting into debts.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

I recently wrote on home cleaning business. The figures I gave are in my home country. At first, the figures I calculated does not seem very interesting, a search on Google however reveals something interesting.

In America, home cleaners charge between $ 30 to $ 60 per hour. Some services charge $ 75 to $ 85 for a 3 bedroom home with 2.5 bathroom. This is quite a good business when you consider the points below.

1. Demand. Most people don’t like to or have time to clean their homes especially those in the higher income bracket.

2. Low start up cost. The tools you need are cheap and can be bought under $ 200. Although it depends how sophisticated you want to get.

3. A simple business. You don’t need to constantly catch up with trends like in technology or financial industry. Things don’t change that fast.

4. Choice. You get to choose who you want to work with, where and when. Your location can be in the same neighbourhood where you stay to reduce long commutes.

5. Growth potential. You can grow your business easily. As more and more people have less time, this service will be in demand. Provide good service, recommendations will come.

Expand your business by training and hire others to do the actual work. You can concentrate on marketing the business and supervise the work.

The challenge in many businesses is getting good staff to stay. Since home cleaning business is an easy business to enter into, your worker might undercut you and deal direct with your customers.

Original article from Personal Money Tips

Home cleaning business is a less competitive area compared to cleaning office and commercial building.

Some time ago, I engaged a home cleaning service to clean our home. This got me thinking if this is a viable business. The cleaners charged 99 per month for bi weekly cleaning at 4 hours each time. This works out to be 12.375 per hour. The cleaning service pays the actual person doing the cleaning, 25 per day (I asked), which works out to be slightly more than 3 per hour. The necessary tools and detergents are by the home owners. Only cost incurred is wages and transportation expenses.

This business involves hiring workers, sending them to various houses and then transporting them to the next homes. Collection is done at the end of the month. As they do not fix the actual timing of cleaning, quite a lot of effort is required to schedule workers and customer’s homes. How do potential customers contact them? Just put some sign boards around the targeted residential areas. Due to long working hours and commute, many young couples like this arrangement. Where I live, stay in maids is common for families with young children.

We no longer use the cleaning service after the quality of work dropped. The challenge to run this type of business or most any business is getting good workers.

Business advantages

1. Low and minimal capital
2. Easy entry and exit if business don’t work out
3. Demand is fairly high
4. Expansion is possible

Business disadvantages

1. Getting good workers
2. Scheduling work with customers
3. Requires vans and drivers

Some other friends I know use slightly more expensive cleaners. The cleaning service requires a signed contract for 3 to 6 months or more. This would be a better way of running the business.

Original article from Personal Money Tips