How to become rich? Skills for getting a job part 4
In this post right here on "Ideas on How to Become Rich", I will be discussing how to write a good CV. This "How to become rich? Skills for getting a job" series is intended on this Ideas on How to Become Rich website to deal with the following topics related to getting a good job:
1. What job do you really want? High pay or good job or both?
2. Interview skills for getting that high-paying job.
3. How to write an excellent CV that will earn you and land you that high paying job.
4. How to get further education online which will help you eventually become rich.
5. Mentality and attitude for the excellent job and for becoming rich.
6. Negotiation tips and tactics.
Currently, the first two posts have been done, deciding what job you really want and the interview skills needed to get that good paying job in order to make good money with a high salary, all while doing a job that you love.
This post here deals with how to write a good CV (Curriculum Vitae) or how to write a good resume. A CV is a resume or a job application letter, if you like, that enables the employer to see if you are the person that he wants to hire and employ.
How to write a good CV/ How to write a good resume
Here are some tips on my Ideas on How to Become Rich blog on how to write that excellent CV/ resume that will get you that high paying job that you enjoy doing...
There are a few common ways of writing CVs/ resumes (subsequently referred to in this post as CVs instead of resumes, for terminology's sake) and a few common types of resumes. Here are some types of CVs and how they should be written in order for you to secure that high paying job.
1. Chronological CVs
2. Skills-based CVs
3. Academic CVs (not covered here in this website because it is mainly for students who wish to get a postgraduate degree and not a high paying job or an occupation)
How to write a chronological CV
1. You should try to make it clean and slick and get to the point.
2. Include a covering letter and make sure you get to the point.
3. Keep it short, simple and sweet - but by short, the content must still be there, and short does not mean a few sentences.
4. Check it many times and do not make mistakes when writing your CV.
5. Write about your education first and foremost, remembering to put down all the dates in clear chronological order. This is after you have put down your particulars at the very top.
6. Write about your work experiences next, remembering to put down all the dates in clear chronological order. This CV is known as a chronological CV, remember?
7. You then add your achievements, especially connected with your work. This will give you added value and add money to your job.
8. Give your references at the back if you feel that it is necessary.
9. Proof read and good luck to you! Sometimes you need luck to get that interview which will allow you to get that high paying job.
How to write a skills-based CV
1. You should try to make it clean and slick and get to the point.
2. Include a covering letter and make sure you get to the point.
3. Keep it short, simple and sweet - but by short, the content must still be there, and short does not mean a few sentences.
4. Check it many times and do not make mistakes when writing your CV.
5. Write your particulars and your career objectives and wishes.
6. Write down your key skills and evidence associated with them. That means, state your skills and then give good examples of your skills.
7. You then add your achievements, especially connected with your work. This will give you added value and add money to your job.
8. Give your employment history and also your academic or job achievements.
9. Add in your references, if you think that is necessary. Do you have good referees?
10. Proof read and good luck to you! Sometimes you need luck to get that interview which will allow you to get that high paying job.
In summary:
1. keep it clear and to the point
2. remember to have a good covering letter (these practices should be known to you and all I am doing is just reminding you of what you know, but may have missed out)
3. you need to know what type of CV you are writing - is it chronological or is it skills-based? Note that you can merge the two sometimes...
4. you need to check and proof-read your CV many times
In addition, check around and look around for more advice and also get someone experienced to help you with your CV.
Once again, a simple reminder: why is there this series on how to become rich by getting a job? Getting a job is one of the most common and practical ways of becoming wealthy and rich, especially if the job pays well and is something that you love and like to do. These posts here on this series are therefore parts of the links and chains that enable you to reach that goal. These are ideas on how to reach that goal of getting a job. You need a good CV and good covering letter. Then you need to ace that interview, and do all the other activities associated with landing a good and high-paying job. I would say, get more research and look around for more advice in order to learn and improve, and all the best. Cheers!
How to become rich? Skills for getting a job part 4
How to become rich? Skills for getting a job part 3
How to become rich? Skills for getting a job part 3
Here is what we are going to cover in this series on "How to become rich? Skills for getting a high paying and excellent job":
1. What job do you really want? High pay or good job or both?
2. Interview skills for getting that high-paying job.
3. How to write an excellent CV that will earn you and land you that high paying job.
4. How to get further education online which will help you eventually become rich.
5. Mentality and attitude for the excellent job and for becoming rich.
6. Negotiation tips and tactics.
We have covered "What job do you really want?" in the last post and evaluated the distinction between a high paying job and a job that does not pay as well, but is something that you would love to do very much. It would be much much better if one could actually get a job that paid well and was comfortable and enjoyable, of course. This blog is about ideas on how to become rich, and one of the best ways of becoming rich is to earn money by having a good, well-paying job that allows you to develop and learn as a person and still receive a high salary. My focus is always on ideas on how to become rich.
In this post, we will be covering interview skills that will help you land that job you've always wanted. These are ideas that may help you land that high paying job, and are commonsense tips and ideas that will definitely help you. Remember to always practise your interview skills. Good luck for any interviews that you may have to do and will do, cheers!
Interview Skills and Tips
Before the interview
1. Do your homework about the company. What does the company or organisation do? What are the products and how long has this compnay already been in business? Do you know anything about the company's history? How much money does it make a year and how much money is it known to pay its workers and managers? Are there any annual reports about this organisation and its structure and its finances that you can have a look at?
2. Do some reading - general reading. Many interviewers expect you to have a good command of basic knowledge, commonsense and some basic knowledge of current affairs. Why would you want to hire someone who didn't know what was going around the world today? Read newspapers, read magazines and get some interests so that you appear informed. Try not to do last minute preparation but instead prepare your understanding of the company and your understanding of the world's current affairs over a period of time before your interview.
3. Think to yourself about what job you are willing to do, why you are applying for this job, what the remunerations are and how much are you going to be paid. Will you take a lower salary if that is what is offered? Or will you stick to your guns and offer explanations and ideas why you should be paid a higher salary and are entitled to more money than that offered by the interviewer or the HR department?
4. Dress nicely and professionally. There are many people who don't do this, surprising as it may seem. Dress to impress and the money/ salary/ promotion and the job are yours.
5. Prepare some questions and some answers. Try to preempt. Always also prepare some questions that you can ask them in case they ask you: "What questions would you like to ask us?" etc. It is important to think about money and how much they are going to pay you, but do not ask salary related issues so quickly and do not ask about salary related issues when they ask you if you have any questions! You can always ask about pay and bonuses and extra funding later, once you have landed that high paying, excellent job.
During the interview
1. Speak with a clear and confident voice.
2. Answer all questions to the best of your ability and have no fear. Be sure to try to answer all questions including the really hard ones. Do not panic.
3. When asked about salary or remuneration or pay, be sure to be firm and ask politely and tactfully as well about it.
"How much am I going to be paid" or "I want a lot of money" is not very tactful, but firm and assertive only. You want something firm and tactful, convincing and polite. "Based on my qualifications, skills set and training, I believe that I can do this job for X dollars, because that is what I am uniquely worth given my skills and expertise." That's how you can ask for more money and a better salary.
4. Do be polite and don't say anything negative or bad, or any vulgarities.
5. Maintain a good posture, and breathe normally. Don't panic.
6. Thank the interviewer or interviewers and look them all in the eyes confidently and clearly. Remember to mind your Ps and Qs and always say "thank you" and "yes".
7. Also, if they ask if you have any questions, always ask some good questions. You have prepared for them beforehand, so just shoot off some very good questions to show them that you have thought about what you wanted to know and what you wanted to say.
After the interview
1. Call them up if they have not replied. Be calm, friendly and professional.
2. If you get the job, congratulations and do remember to stick to it properly and get yourself promoted in your career of your choice. Do read the other posts here on this blog for ideas on negotiation, thinking skills, attitudes and the like. Cheers!
3. Be sure to ask questions like: when do I start? What is the dress code? Who do I report to? etc. Be professional.
More tips and ideas to come on CV writing skills... It is true that you need to write a good CV before you can get the interview, which allows you to audition for the high paying, high salary job. However, the most number of queries I get about jobs and salaries are about interviews, so I write about interview skills and tips first, before going on to write about CVs, which are extremely important but apparently less famous and less regarded. My personal advice is that you ignore CVs at your own peril if you want to land a nice, good, high paying job that you enjoy and love. Stay tuned!
How to become rich? Skills for getting a job part 2
How to become rich? Skills for getting a job part 2
Here is my post on career advice for getting and landing that very good job that pays well and is great for you. Remember that we will be looking at various ideas on how to become rich by selecting and obtaining a good job in my Ideas on How to Become Rich blog, such as:
1. What job do you really want?
2. Interview skills for getting that high-paying job, if you know how to take interviews well then this will be revision for you, and if you don't know how to take interviews well, then this advice will be good for you and will give you ideas.
3. How to write a good CV; similarly, if you are good at writing CVs that will land you your high paying job, then this is mere revision for you, and if you don't know how to write a CV, then this series will teach and give you good ideas.
4. How to get further education online, which will help you become rich because of the promotion opportunities and the skills that you will learn.
5. Mentality and attitude for the job - and besides, mentality and attitude are important in becoming rich too.
6. Negotiation tips and tactics, as all managers, bosses and rich people need to know.
(I do sincerely hope these career and job ideas, tips and advice will help you find your dream job and obtain that career you've always wanted. Whether it makes you rich and wealthy in the process is, of course, entirely up to you.)
What job do you really want? Do you prefer money or leisure, or do you want both?
There are many ways to become rich, and one of the most common and established ways is to get a high paying job that you love to do. That way you can earn money and also enjoy your work, in terms of what you do, everyday. The question is of course: what job do you want?
This is difficult to answer, but the key ideas for your consideration are:
What are your skills and strengths? For instance, I am good at writing and speaking, so jobs that need these types of skills are my cup of tea. You may be good at analytical stuff, and may even have a background in engineering and mathematics. To choose a job that requires you to be very personable and interact with many people will be tough on you, should be introspective and introverted. So it is important to consider your strengths and skills before embarking on any job interviews to get that high paying job.
What are your educational qualifications? You will need a medical degree before you can become a doctor and earn a high salary that doctors command. The problem is that doctors command high wages and get high pay because they happen to have a degree or educational qualification that is very hard to get. If you have not obtained your medical degree or anything of that sort yet, then it is near impossible for you to be a doctor until you get those qualifications. What qualifications do you have? If you have an Economics background as I do, then it might be easier to get a job in a bank, or in some government agency that handles money such as the Finance Ministry or Treasury of your country, and the like. Do you have the required educational qualifications to become rich through a high paying job?
What are the high paying jobs? To become rich, which is the focus of my money and investment blog, you need to choose a job that while suiting and fitting your skills, strengths and educational qualifications, is high paying. This may seem obvious, but several people think that being a teacher will make them rich.
The problem is that sometimes it is true that you have to make a tradeoff decision between choosing a job that is noble and good and something that you really like, against another decision of choosing a job that pays well. Being a teacher is a noble profession but it will not pay so well as another job. Let's look at it more closely:
to be a teacher you will need some general education, a patient attitude, and a very good character. These qualities fetch you a lower wage as a teacher but a higher wage as a banker, accountant, lawyer and so on. A banker, accountant, lawyer and several other jobs also need the same skill sets as a teacher, and they pay more. In addition, why be a teacher when you can be a professor or lecture at a university? That means you invest a few more years in education, but it means that you get substantially higher wages to teach! So choose a higher paying job if you want to become rich.
You can usually find a good job that allows you to do what you like and want to do, and that fits your skills and your education, and that also pays well and allows you to become rich comfortably.
If that is not possible, and you do have to make a tradeoff, then I'd say: you need to ask yourself which is the more important thing to you - money or your career?
If you cannot find both money and career, and you have to choose one, I'd say choose money over the job, because your life will be better and you can always get to love the job later. But if you don't think that's possible, then choose what you love because then money wouldn't matter to you. If you loved doing a job so much, like working for some charity or some lowly paid volunteering position, then that job is beyond money anyway, and while you don't get pecuniary rewards, you will get rewards of another kind.
Do more research. These are all merely my ideas and ideas that I have gleaned from my research. Conduct your own research, get more opinions, and find out what job you really want, and which jobs pay the best. I have collected the top paying jobs and salaries for 2007/2008 (and for later years too) here on this post, because that might help people look at which jobs are getting the highest pay and have the chance of making you rich. Don't take my word for it - check it out, and do your own research. Make up your own mind and choose wisely. Look around my website and review all my articles, and look around the Internet for more ideas and more advice on your potential career path.
Take care and cheers! In the next post I will deal with some interview skills and tips for you to obtain that high paying job that you love and earns you money.
How to become rich? Skills for getting a job
How to become rich? Skills for getting a job
Introduction to the series on skills for getting a good job
A cursory glance at Yahoo Answers immediately reveals that many people who want information related to jobs will usually ask a few related and common questions. What job should I do to make money or to make myself happy? Sometimes that question even goes: should I go for a job that makes me money, or should I go for a job that pays less but makes me happy? (I don't see why you can't have both actually, and get a job that makes you both rich and happy. To me, the dream job would make me both rich and happy. ) What interview skills do I need to land that good job or to land that perfect occupation which I have always dreamed of? How do I write a good or perfect CV? Questions of that nature usually crop up.
This series of articles here on Ideas on how to become rich will therefore focus on the simplest way to make money - to get a good and well-paying job. One of the ways to make good money is to get a well-paying job.
But in order to do that, many things have to fall in place. Right, this is an ideas blog on how to make money and how to become rich, so I will not focus on the simplest and most obvious parts to getting a high end job. You will need some form of education and obviously the job that you are applying for must be something that you can do, i.e. if you have an arts major specialising in literature, applying to be an engineer at NASA is not what you might want to do, honestly.
Here are the skills for getting a good paying job, so that you can make good money, that I intend to cover in my Ideas on how to become rich blog:
1. What job do you really want? Do you prefer money or leisure, or do you want both?
In section 1 in this series here on my money making blog, I will be suggesting ideas and thoughts that you might want to consider. Making money is very important to me, and making money is also very important for a lot of people all around the world. Yet sometimes getting a job is not just about the money or the financial remuneration, but it is more of a self-actualisation or fulfilment kind of thing for certain people. I think one of the more key ideas here is that you have to decide for yourself: if you think that there is a dichotomy or contradiction between being rich and being happy, which would you choose? And also, if you don't think that there is a problem with being both rich and happy, then what kind of job would you want, that would maximise your "money returns" and your "happiness returns"?
2. Interview skills for landing that great job you always wanted
If you decide that making money or getting a great job is your kind of thing, then you need to work on your interview skills! I deal with this before dealing with the CV writing skill, but that's because many many more people want help in getting a job via interviews. They can write a good CV and they have got an interview, but are simply unable to sell themselves effectively, and an interview that should have gone well may turn out bad because of poor communication skills or lack of confidence. Impressing potential employers with a well written CV will not save you if you do not have good interview skills. Here in this section I will be writing about tips on interviews and how to get that dream job that you have always wanted.
3. How to write a good CV/ Tips on writing a CV that will impress potential employers
To get a good job, you will need to pass an interview, but before that interview, you need a good CV. How does one write a good CV that will attract potential employers and entice them to give you a good job? This section deals with CV writing skills and how to portray yourself postively and the like.
4. How to get further education online
OK, I will be honest and say that there is of course a lot of vested interest here. Currently I don't even have a Masters and here I am suggesting to people that they should go for a Masters or some form of further education to improve their career opportunities. This is because I also write an online education blog that researches and investigates various universities and online learning courses and online degrees. Nonetheless this vested interest that I have does not detract from the fact that one of the best ways of making more money is to get a high-paying job, and one of the best ways of getting that high-paying job is to be well educated. Masters holders and MBA holders in particular get very high paying jobs and are valued more by their organisation. The strength of an online degree or distance learning course is that you do not have to attend a university full time and can work and learn at the same time. More of that to come in future posts.
5. Mentality and attitude - once you get that job
This will deal with the correct mentality and attitude that you may want to possess when you get your dream job and get your dream salary. Also, it will suggest ideas on how to get that promotion, how to move up the corporate ladder and how to get pay raises, and basically, how to improve your finances while enjoying your job and every moment of it.
6. Last section: negotiation.
Negotiation is related to money making, deal making, promotions and much more. Negotiation is also related to mentality and attitude and is one of the major things that you will be facing in your career, and in many social and career situations. Be sure you know many tips and ideas on how to negotiate successfully and get what you want! Also, negotiation should be used in conjunction with all the other vital skills that you should have mastered and at least got to know well: interview skills; CV writing skills; mentality and attitude.
All said, stay tuned to learn about ideas and tips on these important skills that you need to land that dream job that pays you well. A job that pays well and is something that you love to do is one of the best ideas on how to make money enjoyably.
Mutual Funds Basics 2 - one more point to note
Mutual Funds Basics 2 - one additional point to take note of when dealing with US based Mutual Funds
Tax impact (in the case of the USA only; thanks to Yahoo finance)
Most mutual fund investment profits are taxed around the world, but in the USA there are a few additional considerations to take into account. If you want to make money, taking taxes and fees into consideration is a really good idea. The profits on mutual fund investments are typically subject to federal, and often, even state and local income taxes, unless you are investing through either a tax-free retirement or education account, or something like that.
While there is the joke about being certain about nothing except death and taxes, there are also many considerations here when it comes to making money with mutual funds.
With respect to your mutual funds and taxes in the USA, if you invest in a regular taxable account, then the dividend and the taxable interest distributions that you receive are taxed as ordinary income each year.
A mutual fund is required to distribute its net realized capital gains each year, and those distributions are also taxed as either short-term gains or long-term gains, depending on how long the mutual fund held the securities in question.
A mutual fund that buys and sells securities (with a trigger happy fund manager) frequently may add to your tax bill with hefty capital gains distributions.
You will also incur taxes on your capital gains, and also pay taxes depending on how long you had held the shares, if you redeem shares in a mutual fund at a price higher than you paid for them.
Please do take note of all the abovementioned points if you want to invest in mutual funds.
(source of information: Yahoo finance)
Mutual Funds Basics
Mutual funds basics
(Mutual funds: immediate personal recommendation: don’t do them, unless you want to keep your mind off investment and leave it to others, because you can make more money doing it yourself if you know how, then relying on money managers)
Once you've decided to invest in the stock market, mutual funds are an easy way to own stocks in the stock market without worrying about choosing individual stocks. By the way, you can look around and find plenty of information on the Internet and on this website to help you learn about mutual funds and there are many possible avenues for you to study, select, and purchase mutual funds.
What is a mutual fund? It's a single portfolio of stocks, bonds, and/or cash managed by an investment company on behalf of many investors. The investment company is responsible for the management of and looking after the fund, and it sells shares in the fund to individual investors. When you invest in a mutual fund, you become a part owner of a large investment portfolio, along with all the other shareholders of the same fund. When you purchase shares, the fund manager invests your funds, along with the money contributed by the other shareholders. There is a basic idea in this.
The theoretical idea behind a mutual fund is simple: pooling of resources. Many people pool their money in a fund, which invests in various securities. Each investor shares proportionately in the fund's investment returns - the income (dividends or interest) paid on the securities and any capital gains or losses caused by sales of securities the fund holds.
Every mutual fund has a manager who will run and administer the fund, also called an investment adviser or fund manager, who looks around for good securities and the like and directs the fund's investments according to the fund's objective or objectives, such as long-term growth, high current income, or stability of principal. Depending on its objectives, a fund may invest in stocks, bonds, cash investments, or a combination of these financial assets, and may have various policies, and so on and so forth.
Every day, the fund manager counts up the value of all the fund's holdings, figures out how many shares have been purchased by shareholders, and then calculates the Net Asset Value (NAV) of the mutual fund, the price of a single share of the fund on that day. If you want to buy shares, for instance, you just send the manager your money, and they will hereby issue new shares for you at the most recent price. This routine is repeated every day on a never-ending basis, which is why mutual funds are sometimes known as "open-end funds." And if the fund manager is doing a good job of looking around for the best offers in the market, the NAV of the fund will usually get bigger and, voila, your shares will be worth more.
As with any investment, mutual funds come with some caveats, and you should understand those before you hereby invest. Here I list some of the many pitfalls that you may wish to look out for.
There are no guarantees
(US scenario) Mutual funds are regulated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which requires funds to disclose the information an investor needs to make sound decisions. Unlike bank deposits, mutual fund shares are not insured/ guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or US government agency. (This means that it is better in that sense to get a CD if one wants security and stability.) In fact, the value of a mutual fund may fluctuate, even if the fund invests in U.S. government securities.
Diversification "penalty"
(Valid for every country) While diversification eliminates the risk of catastrophic loss that would occur if you own a single security whose value plummets, it also limits the potential for making a killing in the market if that security's value shoots up. This is a key idea. Diversification therefore cuts both ways, up and down. It's important to note here that diversification does not actually protect you from a loss caused by an overall decline in financial markets. Diversification is NOT actually protection against loss; it’s a protection against not knowing what you are doing. Know what you are doing and you could wind up richer, rather than not know what you are getting yourself into.
You can possibly make more money doing your own technical or fundamental analysis instead of relying on a mutual fund. Hence there is what is known in economics as opportunity cost. The opportunity costs of participating in a mutual fund are lower profits as opposed to real analytical and fundamental analysis work, which usually pays better and has less fees.
Potentially high costs
Mutual funds can be a lower-cost way to invest when compared with buying individual securities through a broker if you think about it. However, a combination of sales commissions and high operating expenses at some fund companies will actually reduce your investment returns. That means that it is possible to make more money if you do it on your own sometimes. Compare the costs and fees of mutual funds. High costs and fees can badly damage the returns you receive as a shareholder. The point is that while returns may or may not materialise, the costs are certain and sure to accrue.
Be sure to research and read up on mutual funds better, before plunging into any.
Bonds basics
Bonds basics – I’m bond, James “Bond”
I am now in the second post in the series of savings, mutual funds, bonds and CDs and the like, conservative investment instruments. Now I am going to discuss bonds. Here are the basics to bonds:
A bond is very basically a loan and you are the lender. Who's the borrower? Usually, it's either the US government, a state, or a big company like General Motors, if you are lending money to the US government. In Singapore, it is a little known fact that the Singapore government issues bonds too. Many government and business entities need a lot of money to operate - to fund the federal deficit or to build roads and finance factories, for example - so they borrow capital by issuing bonds. Bonds are actually very big business, especially in the United States.
When a bond is issued, the price you pay is known as its "face value." Once you buy the bond, the bond issuer promises to pay you back on a particular day - it's called the "maturity date" - at a predetermined rate of interest - the "coupon." Say, for instance, you buy a bond with a $1,000 face value, a 5% coupon and a 10-year maturity. You would collect interest payments on the bond adding up to $50 in each of those 10 years. When the decade was up, you'd come back to get back your $1,000 and walk away.
A key difference between stocks and bonds is that stocks make no promises about dividends or returns. For instance, General Electric's dividend may be as regular as a heartbeat, but the company is under no obligation to pay it. And while GE stock spends most of its time moving upward, it has been known to spend months or sometimes even years going the other way.
On the other hand, when GE issues a bond, however, the company guarantees to pay back your principal (the face value of the bond) plus interest on the bond. If you buy the bond and hold it to maturity, you know exactly how much you're going to get back, basically. That's why bonds are also known as "fixed-income" investments, as they assure you a steady payout or yearly income. And although they can carry plenty of risk sometimes, as all investments do, this regular income is what makes bonds inherently less volatile than stocks.
As an aside: “Some say that gentlemen prefer blondes; that is incorrect, as it should be: Gentlemen prefer bonds J” (Old joke.)
Savings, deposits, CD basics
Savings, deposits, CDs and all the basics you need to know for finance (apart from investment ideas and investment knowledge basics)
In my last few posts I did a series on making money online, but now I am back to information regarding more basic and simple topics, like can I make money from savings and CDs (certificates of deposits). As this blog is on ideas on how to become rich, and I am targeting a wide variety of readers, I shall now complete a series of articles for people who are risk averse and still wish to make money via deposits, mutual funds, index funds and the like. Investment may be something that you will want to look into also, and you can access investment basics and ideas here on my blog.
Topic for this post: Savings and deposits, (CDs) Banks’ Certificates of Deposit
Here, you lend a bank your money for a specific amount of time (up to, say, for instance five years). In return, you receive a set amount of annual interest and when the CD reaches maturity, meaning that it expires of ends, you come and get your money back. As a side note, this appears to be the most common plan for some Singaporeans to save money, as they lock it up in the bank where they cannot touch it and collect interest on it and don't have to think so much about making money.
How much interest you earn is the key to making money with CDs. And that depends on a number of factors such as which bank you visit and look around, the prevailing interest rate and how it compares to the inflation rate, how much money you invest and how long you lock it up for. It's important to note that inflation affects your interest rates because the higher the inflation the higher the rates, and hence you do not necessarily earn as much as with a lower inflation and lower interest rates. You can look around the banks and see what the rates are like as they change very often and usually depend on economic conditions or the like. In Singapore, generally the interest is usually very low, and in other countries, especially the United States and Britain generally the interest is usually better and higher.
When buying a CD, there are two terms you may need to know: the annual percentage yield APY and the annual percentage rate APR (Yahoo.com). The yield is the total amount of interest that you will earn in one year. It's expressed as a percentage of what you invest and takes into account that the way the bank compounds the interest. The rate is simply the interest rate you will earn for that year. If, say, you earned 1% per month, the APR would simply be 12%. But the APY would be 12.68%. That's because here the APY takes into account the compounding effect on the interest you earned earlier in the year.
For conservative investors, the best thing about CDs is that your money is safe, relatively speaking. When you purchase one through a bank, your total assets there should be insured, so there’s no worry there. The other advantage is that you know what's coming back to you, and hence you can plan accordingly. And you're still earning more here than if you let that money rot away in a savings account earning a paltry interest.
However, there are several big problems with CDs that everyone should be aware of: They have usually tiny returns as compared to other investment devices, they can lock up your money for the long haul and for many years, and they may not counter inflation. If you buy a five-year CD in 2002, for example, you can't get the money out any earlier than 2007 without paying a steep penalty. Even on a one-year CD, you might even be penalized for instance three months’ worth of interest. That's why a money market fund or an index fund may be usually better alternatives. The rates may sometimes be slightly lower, but you can always come back and withdraw your money whenever you see fit. Also, CDs may not be inflation proof, where sometimes your CD may not even be enough to counter inflation. The reason is that you are still taking in the older interest rate even when the general price level increases overall, thus shaving off your gains.
In other posts in this series we will be discussing about mutual funds and more on stocks and shares. Visit my website once again for more information!
How to become rich making money online 3
How to become rich making money online 3
This is the third and last instalment for this series on making money online basics and ideas that I will be writing. I may add more instalments on various themes related to making money online in future, but currently this is the end of my research into this area. As I've mentioned several times, this is an "ideas for money making" blog and isn't intended in any way to sell my products (anyways I have none and besides I'm not selling things). I will try to cover everything that I haven't in the last two posts in this one and summarise and conclude my findings and research into the very interesting topic of making money online via advertisements. After this series I will be looking into other financial devices such as CDs, mutual funds, investment analyses and the like. I also intend to do some interview skills, job hunting skills, questions to prepare for interviews, CVs, ideas on how to find a job or find a suitable occupation and the like. (I got all these ideas from Yahoo Answers, because many people ask these questions. This shows that there are many possible avenues to find information and resources anyways, and besides I should give my readers and customers what they want! Hoho.)
Here in this post, I will be talking about SEO. And common sense. And research. And then I will offer a summary of the entire series that I wrote on.
There is a famous blogger called "Grizzly" who has found out a method of making money online, which was basically outlined in my article. I based most of my research into his epic blog, which literally had posts 3000 words long each time. I reiterate that there are many ways of making money online, but Griz's ideas in his "make money online for beginners" was my main inspiration and source, because personally I felt that it was way better than trying to be an A list blogger (which I am not) and that the system he proposed somehow made more sense for me, and if it worked for him, then it might work for me as well. In short: that's why the focus of my articles has been to make money via advertisements on webpages as a central theme.
In any case, SEO was one of the things that he dealt with in his blog and the key idea is that if one wants to make money with a website, be it a website selling things or a blog, one has to make the site rise in the rankings and appear on any major search engines. This is the key to success in making more visitors read and go to your webpages. Of course the key question is how. How do we get Google to index the webpage? This will get a bit technical, so bear with me while I drill out the basics.
Writing articles that are original and new will give value and send your webpage higher in the rankings. The older your webpage, the better and more established it is. Keywords are words that people type into the search engines in order to find your blog or your website, and hence, they are very important in enabling google to find your site on the Internet. Backlinks, links that people use to find out, or in other words, links that point from other websites to your own website, are the final and most important way in which you can rise up the internet rankings. All these add up to become SEO, which is basically search engine optimisation, where in a sense, you optimise your site in order to make it easier to find on the Internet. The logic is clear and undeniable - just be found more easily, and you will make more money from advertisements, and it's as simple as that. The difficulty of course, is in actually doing it.
Common Sense
Next I would like to talk about common sense. There are many online offers to make sure you that get SEO or you get placed high in the rankings. This seems to be a good idea to invest your money in IF obviously you make more money than it costs to pay for the high rankings.
There are a few ways to reach the higher parts of the ranking and appear on the search engines. One is to literally buy your way there, and buy your position. That will cost you money, and as I said, some common sense is needed, and also if you want to turn professional and really earn money online, then you need to invest a lot of time and effort. The second method is to buy backlinks or join linkfarms, but then again, this might backfire, this might not work, and you still pay lots of money to have it done.
Note that if you want things to be free and not pay any money, you can still make money online, but never huge sums of $5000 a month or so that people claim on their websites, and certainly not $500,000 a year. If you pay money, you have a chance of earning that and it's not guaranteed that you'll succeed either, so stand warned. It'd be very natural that the people selling the products would claim that everyone can do it and that everyone can earn the money that they can; I don't know if it's true, but do be a bit skeptical of ludicrous claims.
In simple words: use some common sense and look around for alternative offers or different offers or better offers if you really want to invest your money into making money online. Common sense dictates that you invest your time and effort properly and ensure that you buy the needed and right products to make money off your blog or webpage. Common sense also dictates that you visit various sites on SEO, page ranks, Google.com, Yahoo.com, the advertising companies and the online money advertisers, the referrers etc, and all other related websites to find out what you need to know.
Common sense also leads on to the next topic, reading and researching.
Research
Some recommended starting points:
1. Read the earlier two posts in my blog here on making money online and decide for yourself what you would like to do, and how you'd like to make money online for yourself
2. Settle on the time, resources and interests needed - then do some online research by surfing the net
3. Visit all the websites related to the ideas listed above and in my other articles here on my blog - SEO (many sites on that!), Google adsense, TLA, Yahoo, etc.
4. Apply common sense and take out of consideration the sites that you don't need or don't want, or seem seedy or untrustworthy. I am rather skeptical by nature and I would strongly suggest you apply some skepticism to products that people hawk. Skepticism applies here also: you should research on everything I say and not take my word for it, and besides the approach I take throughout this ideas on how to make money blog is to suggest approaches and review ideas.
5. Visit sites and make your decisions after some time. All the best, if you do choose to make money online using advertisements!
Bear in mind also the other possibilities, apart from my focus on making money online via advertisements (by the way, Yahoo offers online publishers money as well, and offers their own kinds of ads that rival googles - there is some oligopolistic competition here I'd say). I list them below to remind you of your various options in this very very vast topic:
Various options and ways to make money online (repeat article)
Do online paid surveys and online polls that companies conduct
Also, there is something related that someone pointed out to me, so I will add it in here: there are some companies that offer online data entry jobs. Do data entry online. I have no idea what these do though, but I can extrapolate from normal data entry jobs, that you get to be paid by staying at home, working from home, and all you do is basically typing. Do find out more about making money online via data entry, and then try it if that is your kind of thing.
Run an online business. That is, sell and buy things on the Internet.
Do free e-books and then later charge for them online, selling e-books to people
Gamble on online casinos (and in some cases, people claim to have a system that can beat online casinos)
Design beautiful websites and blogs and sell them for money
Be an A-list pro blogger and get paid tonnes of money in advertisements, endorsements, articles, etc...
writing essays and writing literature papers and exam papers for students and desperate teachers to download.
Alright. Thanks for reading thus far. This concludes my making money online series in my blog on ideas on how to become rich. Stay tuned for more interesting and diverse financial topics!
How to become rich making money online 2
How to become rich making money online 2
This will be a very long post here on how to make money online with a focus on either website building or blog building using advertisements, with google adsense. This is an introductory analysis and there will be more to come here on my website, and more in other related posts here on my ideas blog. As I have mentioned before, one can make money either via online surveys, doing up a website/ blog, and then also doing online business. The thing is that there are many ways to make money online but there are no guarantees as to your success.
Making money by running a website with advertisements and google adsense, and how it should be done: I have summarised the ideas of several websites, and am going to condense the information simply for you so that you can make up your own minds. There are two types of bloggers who make money online: one intends to be an A Lister, which apparently means a blogger who wants to design an excellent blog and attract social traffic. The second type of blogger is someone who wants to design a site based on something that he can sell, refer or do a product/ service for. This will enable him to make money via advertising, either through google adsense or through some other advertising service.
There are shopping ads, TLA, yahoo publishers and many other companies that offer advertising services, so be sure to check them out if you're interested. Always make sure you have many sources of income and don't just depend on one single source.
In any case, the social A lister blogger makes money via endorsements, advertising on his site, online advertisement companies and also because he can make a lot of money writing good articles that people want to read. The other blogger who depends primarily on advertisements does not want to be like the A lister, and instead depends on advertisements, referrals and offering products. The key difference is the approach taken. I will be doing further analysis in later posts, so you might want to learn whatever you can in the way of ideas on making money online and make up your own mind.
How does one make money online using google adsense? It's actually very simple to establish google adsense, although make money online from it is rather difficult if you are aiming for a lot.
Firstly, get a website or a blog, or some webpage that you have a lot of content on. Then get an account with google adsense, or any other company of your choice. They will provide you with a code, and then you attach this code into your website, and then you're done. Hence, the company, either google or the other online company of your choice, will send ads to your website, and target it at your content. The point is that you need original and new content if you want to do well, because either you won't get targeted advertisements, or you will not be able to have ads because you do not have the requisite content or requirements. After you have set up your website and your code, sit back and wait for money to come rolling in!
It is not that simple of course, because the next step is then increasing your traffic and getting more readers. To do that, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) becomes very important, and that has two parts: key words and backlinks, and is very technical. I will be analysing those two key elements in future posts under the heading SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.
As a word of caution, remember to listen and literally obey google's adsense policies! I myself adhere to these guidelines strongly because basically, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Google pays if you follow their policies closely and obey their every word, so just do as you're told and you'll do fine. This is a warning to those may intend to cheat, because I feel that there is no way to cheat a major technology company with global reach and very very strong search engines. I myself follow google's adsense policies, and I strongly suggest that if you decide to take up adsense you should do the same too.
If you know what SEO is, and you can raise traffic to your site which is serving targeted advertisements, you can now sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labour. The thing is to keep on writing good, nice articles that attract readers and buyers to your blog/ website. However, there are ways to become rich online using various methods. You would have to buy some products, such as one that would provide backlinks, provide page ranks, provide key words and ideas, and in some unethical cases, even provide articles. Yes, apparently you need the software to do all those things if you want to make it big making lots of money online, as it is not possible to do everything by hand or yourself. I recommend looking around the Internet if you're interested in an advanced "make money online" course.
I won't be covering underhand means of make money online in my blog, however, as my main emphasis is on legal ways of making money and becoming rich, and besides, investments, a sound job and a very good and stable income from many sources would make far more sense than depending on using underhand means of making money online. I don't believe that one should try to buy an article generator. That's my personal opinion.
But there are also legal ways of making your blog or your website more popular too, as well. But these are not really advanced tips, but more advanced than the basics I've just covered earlier in my post.
1. Write good articles.
2. Write often and write well!
3. Give some colours and graphics.
4. Let users post comments and their own ideas.
5. Get others to link you to their blogs/ websites.
6. Write to companies or write to online article submission directories.
7. Post your pictures, and please look handsome/ pretty! That would be a major advantage.
All the best, then! I do hope you can make money online.
(As an Economics aside: I would guess that this sort of economic analysis is rather important: The rise of online advertising and online industries, and how consumers play an important role in advancing online trade and online shopping. As long as there are companies that serve online ads, and as long as there are people willing to surf the Net in the search of online products, then to make money online is indeed possible. People must surf the Net and buy and order products from the Internet, and luckily for us, they do. Hence it means that there must be some form of traffic and Internet business before this kind of economic model can be successful. Due to the rise of online shopping, surfing and spending, this economic model can work well.)
How to become rich making money online
How to become rich making money online
According to my research there are many ways of making money online. The problem is that if you really want to learn how to become rich by making money online, I cannot really help you as it's not easy as the people who sell or market the products claim; there is no really easy way to actually make real money online; there are many things you can do to make money online but not all of them will be suitable for you, and so on.
Simply: there are real problems and real difficulties to handle, and so while you can indeed make money online, the problem is that in the large majority of cases, it will not make you rich, but may provide a modest or small income.
The problem with most online claims on how to make money online is that they are false and fake claims. There is no actual way of guaranteeing how much you can earn online. There is no way of telling how successful you will be following someone's programme or someone's software. Some of the websites are fake and false altogether, so caveat emptor. But the fact still remains that it is possible to make money online. The problem is that for most of us, it will never be one of the ways to becoming extremely rich unless we put in a lot of effort and time.
(If you want to become extremely rich making money online, there are ways of course. But I'm saving that for later...)
Currently, the best ways of making money online, if you are prepared to put in time and effort, are:
1. Do online paid surveys and online polls that companies conduct so as to get paid money. There are many companies that pay money for surveys so that they can understand their markets better. For instance, there is OpinionWorld, where the payout is sometimes in terms of money and payout in terms of cash sometimes. For practically all the paid survey systems, before you can make money you need to pay a registration fee and need to download something first. My opinion is that if it is a trusted site and you have lots of time to do paid surveys, then go ahead and make money online doing surveys.
2. Make a blog and put adsense on it. This is what I have done, as well as what many people have done. This is going to be very important if you intend do become a professional blogger. This idea to making money online can also be extended, not just to blogs, but to other websites as well. If you already have a website, or can build one and get one hosted, then it will be a good idea to put some ads on it in order to generate some advertising revenue. The most common advertisement system online is currently Google adsense, and all you do is to register with them and get the code for your website or your blog. The Google adsense bot will automatically target ads for your blog and hence will generate you some revenue if people click on your ads. However, it is not a good idea to depend entirely on Google for your income - one source of income cannot beat multiple sources of income, and as you've heard, "don't keep all your eggs in one basket". So TLA - Smart Link Marketing might be a good company to sign up with, as they also provide ads. In my case, I also depend on Nuffnang, but for my American and British readers, Nuffnang only applies to Southeast Asian websites, so this will only help Asian readers who run websites or blogs. I will be talking about Google adsense, making money on the Internet and such related matters in the next post, so don't worry. Terms like affliate marketing, SEO, rankings, Google and all that will be familiar to you because I will analyse them here on my blog.
3. Run an online business. That is, sell and buy things on the Internet. This is also a very good way of making money, although this is not really the best money making idea if you are not technical minded and cannot use HTML and Javascript, etc. If you can hawk a product and team up with a money-minded but very technical person who can help you with domains, programming language and all the other technical details, you will be able to make some money online buying and selling. This however takes time and will earn you money in the long run.
So the three key ways of making money on the Internet are: do paid surveys, get some form of advertisement for your site, and do online businesses. I will be talking more about the second idea, because this second idea on how to make money is more common and more obvious to people who know their stuff, and is probably the best way of making money online. There are many other ways to make money online, but I think they don't work, but you can just have a look and try them out if you like:
1. Do free e-books and then later charge for them online, selling e-books to people
2. Gamble on online casinos (and in some cases, people claim to have a system that can beat online casinos)
3. design beautiful websites and blogs and sell them for money (might work if you work very hard and then again, the money return you get might be very low for all the hard work and effort put in)
4. becoming an A-list pro blogger and getting paid tonnes of money in advertisements, endorsements, articles and the like
5. writing essays and writing literature papers and exam papers for students and desperate teachers to download (this only works if you have lots of time to spare and you are a really good writer!)
All right, that's all for this post. Stay tuned!
Ideas on How to Become Rich - making money online
Making Money Online
I was doing research on ideas on how to become rich, and discovered that there is a lot of money to be made online. Maybe I came late to this, but I think it's still not too late because there are many possibilities and avenues to make money online.
I was going to make a few posts on value investment with Warren Buffett as a feature, then do some posts on this blog with respect to
Certificates of Deposit,
insurance,
mutual funds, and the like.
However, I will be putting those on hold for a while, and will definitely be writing on those, but for later. In the next few posts I will run a series of articles on how to make money online, and in particular, the secrets of making money online.
I am a very rational person, so let me explain things a bit. The stock market is a confirmed, consistent and reliable method of making money if you know how to do so. You can make money by share appreciation and you can make money via dividends or any handouts that some company declares. You can make money by takeovers, and you can make money by shorting. Knowledge is power.
Making money online, on the other hand, has often proved futile for many people, in my experiences, because sometimes it can be mere scams and sometimes it can be futile because the effort needed is not justified by the returns. At the same time, there are many ways of making money online, and some of them are really useful, and some of them are - let's just use a euphemism - cunning ploys and secrets.
From my research, if you want to make money online, there are many ways and some of them need a certain capital investment. There are products to be bought and to be used. If you want to make money online without using those products or technology, then it is still possible - but you'll probably make less money than the $50,000 a month or $150,000 a year advertised, you'll make less money and it'll be harder than advertised, and stuff like that.
In summary: I will be putting up CDs, mutual funds, and all the other standard financial equipment and financial weapons for you next time, but for the next few posts, I will be running a series on how to make money online - the various ways: from obvious to really secret methods.
Vernon Kerswell - young entrepreneur's website
Here is the website link to Extreme Fliers.co.uk : http://www.extremefliers.co.uk/ 
Short companion article on Singapore-China investment
Singaporeans Investing in China? Lessons Singaporeans can learn from a young British businessman
In Singapore, the government usually tries to encourage entrepreneurship. The government also tries to encourage locals to invest in China, to exploit the opportunities, as most of the local population can speak fluent Mandarin.
The key lessons that Singaporeans can possibly learn from Kerswell, the motivated and entrepreneurial teenager from the UK who runs an import business from China, are the following:
An ability to take risks. Kerswell took the plunge and went to China despite not knowing much of the language and having only a rudimentary command. Singaporeans speak fluent Mandarin and many even know dialects, and that should put them in a better position, yet the risk-taking element is not present. That needs to be changed. We should emulate people like Kerswell, and local hero Sim Wong Hoo who went to the United States in order to pursue his business opportunities with his sound card.
A wider perspective and a global mindset. There’s something to be said about a British teenager in China. The lessons are that globalisation is not a force to be feared but can be put to huge use, where opportunities can be exploited. Kerswell saw an opportunity to bring some good product from China to the UK, and he did; globalisation and a wider perspective are clearly needed for Singaporeans to succeed in China. In today’s globalised world, success is clearly no longer nation-based alone, and clearly international businesses are the wave of the future. There are many economic lessons that we can learn from this young man's actions.
Motivation and enthusiasm. Apart from the old adage that nothing can be accomplished without enthusiasm, Kerswell has shown that hard work, determination, and motivation and enthusiasm can bring many goals to fruition. He explained how motivated Chinese entrepreneurs are, from his description about their entrepreneurial instincts selling melons. Opportunities can be seized better by enthusiastic and motivated people.
Age is no barrier. As a young person with limited capital, Kerswell did more than survive; he prospered in a business environment. Clearly, there are lessons to be learnt here, and age is no barrier to success. His relative youth and inexperience did not count against him.
To conclude, these are only my own personal opinions, as there are many other lessons that we can extrapolate and learn from Kerswell.
Being a Young Entrepreneur - Vernon Kerswell
Is it possible to be a young & successful entrepreneur?
