Feed items
Saving Money in Your Startup — Part 4
Email marketing offers small businesses a big return on a small investment. Photo: MailChimp
If you’re a small business owner or entrepreneur, you’re constantly searching for ways to reduce expenses, increase revenue, and do things more efficiently.
That’s why it’s time to step up your email marketing game.
Best Auto Loans for 2015
For most people, the best auto loans are the ones with the lowest rates. And unless you’re lucky (or disciplined) enough to be sitting on a small pile of cash, chances are you’ll need to find the best car loan rates to buy your next vehicle.
But who should get your business? The list of options is staggering: You can nab a car loan at your local credit union, a behemoth bank, a car dealer, an online lender, and just about everywhere in between. And whether it’s low interest rates, cheap gas, rising car prices, or a combination of all three, the car-loan market more heated than ever: Americans borrowed an all-time high of $968 billion to finance their cars in the third quarter of 2015.
Online Learning: College Without the Degree (or the Cost)
You can get a college-level education online, often for free — you just won’t get a degree. Photo: Coursera
Online learning is revolutionizing education. Most of us take for granted that we have access to an incredible array of learning resources right at our fingertips.
But what’s the point?
Unfortunately, we live with a slightly distorted view of what education is and how it works. We go to college not to learn, but to get a degree. We get a degree to get a job.
We’re forgetting to embrace learning itself and the actual education.
The online options below don’t offer traditional college degrees, but they do come with great benefits you’d be foolish to ignore. Here are some of the ways you can benefit from these online learning resources:
Questions about High Speed Internet, Warranties, Popcorn, Voting, and More!
What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Culture and frugality
2. Learning conversational Spanish
3. Winter, dressing warm, and heating
4. Dirt cheap recipes
5. Where to keep emergency fund?
6. Value of faster internet
7. When should I jump ship?
8. Alternative auto insurance options
15 Money Principles for the Newly Self-Employed
Keep your business and personal finances separate, and try not to borrow from friends and family if possible. Photo: SBA
Being an entrepreneur is scary at times. Income fluctuates, there are no guarantees, and only about half of all small businesses even make it to the five-year mark. But that shouldn’t stop you from pursuing this path if it’s what you feel called to do.
While there’s no way to guarantee that your business will flourish into the success you initially envisioned, here are some money principles you can follow to stay in the race and keep your business and personal finances in check.
How and Why to Use a Zero-Sum Budget
Assign a job to every dollar you earn, whether it’s to pay bills, save for retirement — or buy a new camera. Photo: An Mai
Sometime around 2010, my husband and I realized that we weren’t making the most of our income. We knew we were wasting boatloads of money, yet we weren’t sure why it was happening or how to make it stop. In an effort to figure things out once and for all, we began tracking our spending to see where all of our money was going. And although it was a necessary step for us, it was both a painful and scary experience.
17 Simple (and Mostly Free) Ways to Double Your Marketing Efforts
Stepping up your marketing efforts could be as simple as making a few phone calls. Photo: CWCS
You’ve been in business for some time, but things have taken a turn for the worse: Operations are coming to a halt and the constant flow of work and sales has slowed to a trickle. You desperately need to find ways to get the word out about your business.
But money’s tighter than ever, and you simply don’t have the resources on hand to fund a massive marketing campaign. What’s an entrepreneur to do?
Inspiration from Claude Monet, Henry David Thoreau, and More
Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life.
1. Claude Monet, Red Boats at Argenteuil (1875)
Whenever I look at a painting, I want it to make me feel something, whether it’s an emotional tug or a sense of awe or something else. A lot of paintings leave me feeling nothing at all, so it’s actually special when I get a feeling from a painting.
Monet’s paintings, of which this is a great example, consistently make me feel one thing. I have a feeling of the warmth and the fresh air of a late spring afternoon. I don’t know what it is about his paintings or why they evoke that sensation, but many of his paintings do just that.
10 Worst College Degrees to Earn in 2015
If you want to be an actor, just start acting — you don’t need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on college. Photo: Nic McPhee
Before you decide to go to college — or, more specifically, before you agree to take on a mountain of debt to pay for it — you might want to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth from the experience.
It’s Not a Competition
Several months ago, my sister-in-law took over a small business in her community. She had been working there as an employee, but the business owner was making some life changes and they came to an agreement that left both of them happy. Since then, she has been working her tail off trying to bring that business to sustainable profitability – and it really looks like she’s pulling it off.
A close friend of mine owns a gorgeous parcel of land south of Des Moines. It features a beautiful flat prairie in one part which gradually leads to a hillside and then a wooded ravine. It is a wonderful place to camp and to wander and to simply retreat from the world for a while.
Facebook
Become a fan
Twitter
Follow us
RSS
Subscribe