Money

Employed and unhappy? Get empowered with your own website.

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Are you employed? Are you unhappy with your job or income? You’re not alone. And you can do something about it right away. Something that is moderately easy and inexpensive to start and maintain.

Why would you want to add something else to your already time-challenged life? Because being employed is hard! Sure, it’s a great relief to even have a job in an era where there are so many unemployed or underemployed. But employers are asking for more work from employees and giving less pay.

The fortunate few who have skills that are in demand can get jobs and good pay. Yet, their employers still require more work and more hours from them simply because there aren’t enough skilled people to do all the work.

Studies show an ever increasing dissatisfaction among employees at all levels in all industries. If you’re one of the dissatisfied, don’t wait. Get back some say-so in your life.

Re-empower yourself as an employee. Start a website or blog based business on the side. You might not get rich (although it’s a possibility.) But you can certainly make some extra money on the side, get a taste of being your own boss, learn skills that may get you better jobs and unleash your creative talents. And much more.

I just wrote an article today, “3 Reasons to Have a Website or Blog If You’re Employed,” that shows the benefits of such a move to your work and financial life. Take a look.

How to Stop Worrying About The Stock Market and Get Back to Work

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[Editor’s Note: the following is not financial or investment advice. It is educational and informational. It is intended to provide a possible outlook on what causes financial worries.]

Performance and productivity are as important to your passive income as to your employment or business income.

A big issue for both employees and small businesses is what to do with the money they’re making from their active earnings. How can it be saved and invested to provide capital growth for times of unemployment, financial emergency and retirement? What kind of investments perform best, but with reasonable safety?

If you are like most employed or self-employed people, you probably have investments in the stock market, either through company-provided plans or your own personal program of investment. So, in recent times, you may have been more concerned with the performance and productivity of the stock market than with your own.

In fact, just about a couple of weeks ago, one of my sisters and I were having a serious discussion on the ups and downs of the stock market and why not to worry about them. (And why not to precipitously dump investments during a panic and end up “locking in your losses.”)

What? Why shouldn’t we worry about the roller coaster ride on the apparent gambling machine we call the stock market?

Well, you know, I’ve got a long article I could write about that. It involves human behavior and emotions, behavioral economics, neuroeconomics and a whole bunch of other ideas. But I’ll spare you. Just remember that the history of the stock market is a history of people’s behavior, not a history of numbers. Good decisions about your investments — as with any important decisions — are best taken with calm, rational consideration and advice from knowledgeable people you know you can trust.

Thanks to a recent visit to my iGoogle page, I ran across a couple of articles on howstuffworks.com that explain the workings of wall street wonderfully well and in very easy terms. If you want to feel more comfortable about your current investments and get a better idea of where you might go from here, try the two articles linked below. Then explore more of the “Money” section of howstuffworks.com.

How Stock Market Trends Work http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/financial-planning/stock-market-trends.htm

How Stocks and the Stock Market Work http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/financial-planning/stocks.htm

As always, make sure to get advice from expert professionals before making financial, medical and other important decisions. Don’t simply rely on articles you read on the internet.

Good Old Book Review and Download: Benjamin Franklin’s “The Way To Wealth.”

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Here’s an excellent addition to my continuing feature of “good old books” that are relevant and helpful today.

“The Way To Wealth,” (subtitled “Poor Richard Improved,”) was first published (not by that title) in Poor Richard’s Almanack in 1758. If you’ve read any of “Poor Richard’s Almanack” issues, you’ve undoubtably noticed the number of old sayings that Benjamin Franklin contributed to American culture. This particular book contains enough familiar old adages to make your eyes pop.

As you might expect, Franklin holds forth on the value of working with vigor, enthusiasm and ambition to earn money and the value of frugality to keep what you earn. He does it pleasantly and with humor. It’s easy to see why so many people of his era thought him witty and charming. And, since he wrote much for the common man, it’s easy to see why his words are so extensively quoted.

He made his fortune and became famous by being a printer. Having one’s own press allows for easy self-publishing in addition to publishing others. I’m sure that if he were starting out today, he’d have dozens of websites and blogs, thousands of ebooks, books, videos and audios. He’d also end up owning at least one movie studio and he’d film uncountable documentaries.

Because of its title, more people want “The Way To Wealth” from Benjamin Franklin than his more interesting and informative autobiography. I think I learned more about growth and creativity from the autobiography. I recommend you read them both. I’ve actually uploaded both for you, despite my title for this post.

As I’ve been doing so far, I’ve provided scanned copies of the actual old books rather than a cleaned up Gutenberg edition. I want you to get the feel of what readers of the original books saw. It may create a virtual atmosphere of the thinking and culture of the times and put the old books in better context.

Here are the links to the pdf’s:

“The Way To Wealth”
“The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin”