Giving to charity is important for MyMoneyForest. I do not give money to charities myself. I do not think I would feel better (the main reason many people give I assume?). Also, I find most of the causes hopelessly naive. I agree, this is a bit sad, if you do not try, nothing is gonna change, right? I may be forced to buy organic coffee though. Lately it has been very hard to find normal coffee in many UK coffee bars.
Interesting question from a woman who wants her brother in law to find work. He is a felon and is having a hard time getting a job:
”This person is 24 years old and is under medical treatment for bipolar disorder and ADD. He is a high school graduate, but has not pursued any vocational training beyond that (this is not a possibility now, either, due to financial constraints and a need to gain employment ASAP to support himself). Previous jobs have included kitchen work in a restaurant, food prep and counter work in a deli/bagel shop, roofing, and warehouse jobs. He has left these jobs due to either conflict with management/coworkers, or a lack of steady hours.
Now, understandably, he’s having tremendous difficulty lining up any kind of work.”
The ask.metafilter community have lots of interesting answers.
Ranging from the unethical, but extremely practical: “The other option is to put “no” to the felony question on employment applications. IANAL but I am almost certain that this is NOT illegal but is simply a civil matter, providing he’s not applying for something like daycare or some sort of licensed trade. The worst that can happen is they do a background check and tell him to get lost. This won’t work for getting a job at IBM of course, but a lot of businesses don’t run checks, particularly small businesses and quite a few entry-level positions. If he starts small, it may not come up later — and even if it does, he has still scored a nice period of employment.”
To more conventional suggestions about going to college or back to kitchen work. It sure is no easy way to solve this, but the man is 24 years old and is ready to make changes to his life. Read the full post here.
Get something for doing nothing. After walking around in big cities in Europe I have discovered the 5 habits of successful beggars.
1. Keep your voice down
Ask for some change, but do not be loud! Be soft spoken, almost silent. By keeping your voice down you force the unlucky by-passer to stop to hear what you have to say. Once they stop, your chance for success increases!
2. Be “honest”
They know you are not going to use their change to buy a bus-ticket. Try to give them a likable reason to give you money.
This works: ”Yo, I’ve been doing drugs for 2 days and really need to eat something, can you spare some change so I can buy me some bread?”
This fails: “Yo, can you spare some change, I need to take the bus”
In the first example you are undressing your soul in front of them, who can resist giving you money? In the latter example you are just lying and they walk away.
3. Be clean and nicely dressed
All great salesmen try to imitate the prospective buyer. By dressing similar to the ones you beg from you are bridging the gap between you and them. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but it is easier to give to your own type! If they meet someone very different from themselves it is easier to just walk away.
4. Remember a sucker
If someone gives you money you better remember their face. Then you need to acknowledge them every day you see them by greeting them with “Good Morning Sir!”, “Lovely day, eh?” This will remind them about the day they gave you money, and they know you hope that they will give you more. It is painful to walk away from you after you have been nice to them by remembering their face. Two things happen, either they walk another way to work, or they will give you money to ease the tension they feel inside!
5. Learn to love rejection
95% will not give you money. Love it! You get the opportunity to show how good and clever you are. Shout after them “Have a nice day!”, “Thank you, bye”, “No problem, thank you very much Miss”, “Enjoy the rest of your day Sir!”
The result is that they will think: “Oh.. he was pretty nice.. maybe next time..”
Got more tricks used by beggars? Please feel free to share them.
WaiterRant is probably the best place for inside stories from the restaurant business. He writes exciting and (at least it seems so!) true stories about his life as a waiter in a bistro. If you don’t believe me, just read this piece about “Daddy’s Little Girl.”
Strenghts of the blog:
Really good stories from a real waiter.
We all have a good idea of the restaurant business. We all think we know it. It is a topic that it’s easy for people to relate to.
Weaknesses and threats
The stories he writes are really looooong… it is well written, but it’s a bit tiring to read in front of the screen. People generally like quick stuff.
The blog is really popular and the dedicated server costs $170 a month. He now had to ask for donations to avoid losing money on his blog.
The opportunity
I thought of this when I was thinking of what books to bring for my beach holiday this year. Last year I read “Hotel Babylon” about the life on a luxury hotel in London. This year I wished I had a book of some of the Waiter’s best stories.
Why not look into self-publishing your own book? It seems like an ideal candidate. Successful blog, thousand of readers. Publish a “best of collection”, the initial spark of interest generated from your blog makes the title fly up the chart at Amazon and then the wheels start turning.. By searching in Google for “how to publish your own book” and “publish my own book” I found several companies specializing in it. You can print a paperback version from a few $ if you buy in bulk.
With such a talent for writing it would be very nice to see him cash in on it. What do you think about this idea? Does it have potential? Or is it better to focus on the PayPal tip jar?
Hmm.. this publishing thing? Here are some blogosphere links about publishing books:
An literary agent in stilettos throw in some advice for “Publish On Demand” people.
Bookseller chick explains how a book ends up in her book store
Big important person complains about peole who can not accept their novel being rejected
This is the stats over unique visitors to this blog the last month. The big spikes are due to the post about the “from mailroom clerk to CEO game from 1982.” This post was submitted by myself to fark, reddit, digg, shoutwire, joystiq and other PR & buzz sites and received some attention. If you think you have a post that will be of interest to such sites I see no problem in submitting them.
Not all hot tips from you to other sites are successfull though. My idea about selling 100 signed copies of a celebrity author’s book on eBay did not catch on. I sent some e-mails around promoting it, but no success. It was criticized for it’s unethical flavour and blatant use of child labour. It was so bad that it did not even generate a single spark of controversy.
Get rich quick schemes is one thing, to think yourself rich is another. There are countless variations out there. The owner of the blog Towards Better Life has recently jumped on a new idea:
“Recently I have come a cross four very important words: Easy, Relax, Healthy, Positive. I encounter these words in Steve Pavlina is Million Dollar Experiment. I have participate in this experiment and I’m currently holding the following intention:
In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time, for the highest good of all, I intend $1,000,000 to come into my life and into the lives of everyone who holds this intention.”
I wish him all the success, but to be frank, to me, this sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo. But that is just me. I would rather read Golden Rules for Making Money (P. T. Barnum 1880) one more time. It contains genuine no bullshit advice for any aspiring entrepreneur.
Yaro Starak is recruiting two bloggers for his Small Business Branding blog. The recruits will not get paid anything to start with, but if they prove their value he is willing to share the profits of the blog with them. The blog has a page rank of 6 and good authority within its niche. By taking the job Yaro tempts:
“Your public profile will be enhanced as will your personal brand, being exposed to the nearly 1000 daily readers who come to SmallBusinessBranding.com through the web and RSS readers. If our relationship proves successful SmallBusinessBranding.com will be re-branded to include your photographs, biographical and contact details.”
This is an opportunity to lay down some work now and milk the profits later. Do you have a brain? Do you want to raise your profile and know what to do with your increased reputation afterwards? Then go ahead and do it. The other way around is to make a few dollars short term and kill your own brand on the way by working for Pay Per Post.
Blogosphere links:
First impressions of Pay Per Post
Personal finance blogger considers making the suicide
My blog is now available through bloglines and all these other RSS things. Sign up via Feedburner and become the 2nd person to subscribe.
I got inspired by these 5 reasons about why “The customer is always right” is wrong. I have thought about 3 reasons why customer service representatives who complain about their customers are crap.
1. You have failed to acknowledge your place in the system
Your job is to help the customer. Not to go around and think about how superior you are to them or that “if I just worked a little harder, I would not be there.” The customer is the boss, and he loves it when you are happy to understand and serve him.
2. The customer IS right
Customers would not bother to wait 50 minutes in a telephone to speak to you if they doubted they had a valid request or complaint.
3. If you can not fullfil a request, do not be a jerk, explain!
Most customers are in fact quite sophisticated and intelligent. They know you have a boss, they know you are part of a big big greedy company. I would much rather have you say:
“Unfortunelately, because of the new regulations from the top management, I am not allowed to decide if you can get your money back for the stupid bike with three wheels. I am only paid $6 an hour and even though I am a sensible and intelligent person, they would not delegate such responsibility to me. Please let me refer you to my supervisor. Can you hold on please?”
Than:
“Sorry, can’t do it. Just can’t do it. Gotta talk to my boss to do that.”
In the first example, anger and frustrations are transferred from you to the stupid company. You team up with your customer. In the second example you are just being a jerk.
Interesting blog posts about “The customer is always right”
Some common sense from Seth Godin
How hard is it to cancel AOL - The now famous customer service experience.
Excellent customer service experience delivered by American Apparel North America (but not the UK division, they do not even answer e-mails. Will blog about that another time.)
Funny look on life as a customer representative: “The customer is usually wrong”
Downloading money songs from AllofMP3 at the moment. Inspiration from Guardian’s “Readers tip us about the best songs about money.” The 10 songs listed in the article are:
1 How to Be a Millionaire ABC
2 Money (That’s What I Want) Flying Lizards
3 Funky Dollar Bill Funkadelic
4 Money Money Horace Andy
5 Bills, Bills, Bills Destiny’s Child
6 Rent Pet Shop Boys
7 You Never Give Me Your Money The Beatles
8 Free Money Patti Smith
9 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? Bing Crosby
10 Be Thankful For What You Got William DeVaughn
Here is a challenge for the blogosphere: Can you give me a tips of a song about money where the lyrics are actually talking about the good sides of capitalism? Sadly, most popular songs about money are from those “make love, not money” type of artists.
In this political simulator, you are the Israeli Prime minister. It is 1997 and the Middle East tension is high. What do you do? Try to cool things down and win the Nobel Peace Price, or mobilize your troops and risk nuclear catastrophe? Manage weapons, economy, the issue of Palestina and international relations on behalf of the state of Israel.
This may not be your typical business game. But remember, economy is how to manage scarce resources. In war, this becomes even more important. These days I think this game is both extremely entertaining and interesting about the dangers of domino effects in the Middle East.
I bought 2000 shares/stocks in a growth company with P/E ratio of 18-19 a few months ago. Was a good deal I thought. Since then, the share price have declined and the company is trading at a P/E ratio of 12 and next year (forward) P/E of 7. When the shares started declining I bought another 1000 shares. Two days ago I bought an additional 1000 shares. The last two days there have been a further decrease in the valuation of the company.
I am considering to add another 2000 shares if the forward P/E falls below 5.
Will post a new update about this in 1 years time. Hopefully the big bet has paid off then.
If not, I can always start a saving my change blog.
The College Startup asset was sold for $1400 to “Problogging“.
The site is 8-9 months old and has 82 postings. That gives a price per post of $1400/82 = $17. In addition comes work with link building, being a part of the blogosphere and so on. Also, the site has a great positioning as “make money from your dorm room.”
I look forward to see what happens to the site. As you all know, I was a bit worried for a moment.
Update: Problogging resides on Problogging.com. It is not “the Problogger” who has bought it. Sorry for the mistake. Thanks for informing me, Darren. Link fixed.
“Crazy” person talking about avoiding debt like a Priest talking about avoiding Satan. Probably not heard of the wonderful world of gearing.
Cancelling the AOL account. A few years ago word of mouth was taking down your company one by one. In today’s environment you only need one irritated person.
Why starting your e-business with too much money can be a mistake. Via Dane Carlson.
Good advice on how to create wealth in your 20s and 30s. Take some risks before you start a family!
New blog network, heavily focused on stocks and investing.
How to make money with Clickbank
Don’t be ashamed: How to haggle
Trendcatching has written an interesting post about the social network Dontstayin. It targets the clubbers and party community and already has 160 000 members. Now, if I only could come up with a nice niche to exploit through offering an online community to them…
The challenge of building a blog continues. Last week I submitted different blog posts to the following link carnivals. Any success? Yes:
Interesting article about p2p banking. The two big players are currently zopa.com and prosper.com.
It removes the middle man and gives both lenders and borrowers better deals. The only drawback is the maximum amount of £25 000, but this is supposed to be extended in the near future.
I have some money I am gonna use for buying a holiday home, so I withdrew it from the stock market a few weeks ago. These services seem like an ideal place to stash it away for 3-9 months.
Other blog posts about P2P banking:
Zopa raises $5 million to match Prosper
Review of Prosper + Review of Zopa
Zopa welcomes powerlenders: For the first time at Zopa, it is possible to lend more than £25,000
Can some lipreaders please enlighten me on what did Materazzi told Zidane to provoke this?
I surf around the money making sites of the blogosphere and found this little piece of gold: sell shirts that you make at a CafePress store on eBay.
Sunday is world cup final. Italy - France. Using this scheme you can make some money on Sunday. After the match is over you can sell shirts with the following slogans, sold on eBay (depending on the match incidents):
Italy - France: 2-1
Thierre Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo: The jokes of the Premiership.
It was not offside!
I am sure you can come up with your own suggestions.
College-Startup.com is a damn good blog with a great positioning in the blogosphere: One college student, on a quest, to make money.
Now it is put up for sale. Starting bid $1000. The price includes a Google PR rank of 5, unique design, pages indexed in Google, all the posts, a high technorati rank, links from high profile sites like ProBlogger and a monthly income of about $100 if I remember correctly.
The minute after I read the news, I removed my permanent link to College Startup.
But why Money Matador? Why are you removing the link to such a jolly fine blog?
The success and quality of blogs are heavily correlated to the inputs of the owner. A new owner may continue what was already started, he may even improve on the “product.” Or he may just put up lots of spam pages and monetize it with adsense to milk the juice of the site. Even though, there are probably cheaper domains to buy if you want to go that down that route.
Either way, I take down the link and wait for the outcome.
Hah! Nobody cares if your little pimple blog removes the link
Probably very true! But, if some other more influential blog owners think like me..
Another issue is the damage to the blog if it is not sold. Will the readers of the blog have the same relationship to it when they know the owner tried to sell it and was unsuccessful?
Let’s finish with a conspiracy theory
I am just writing this post to negotiate a lower price than the “buy now” price of $6500.
Edit:
He has already received a bid of $1200 and a blog real estate expert claims it is worth at least $1600.
“Secret” acronyms written on hospital charts by doctors:
PAFO - Pissed(Drunk) And Fell Over
FLK - Funny Looking Kid
FAS - Fat and Stupid
NFH - Normal For Here
TUBE - Totally Uneccessary Breast Examination
TF BUNDY - Totally Fucked. But Unfortunelately Not Dead Yet.
Original source: “The Sick Jokes Doctors Use at Your Expense.” Article published in Daily Mail, 20th December 1997.
Have you heard any other politically uncorrect acronyms used by professionals?