Welcome to the June 23, 2008 edition of carnival of careers. Rich Credit Debt Loan is proud to host this Carnival on the Longest Day of the Year. There were a lot of great submissions choosing only 1 favortie was too difficult… So I selected 6. May your carreers be long and shine bright.

Editor’s Picks (in no particular order)

The Financial Blogger presents Dealing With People You Don’t Want To Deal With posted at The Financial Blogger, saying, “I can’t explain it, but there are some people that are simply not professional. This is a 2 part posts where I list the do’s and the don’ts when you have to deal with someone you don’t want to deal with.”

RC presents 10 Tips for Going the Extra Mile at Work Without Putting in More Time posted at Think Your Way to Wealth.

GreatManagement presents Managers Build Trust And Respect By Letting Go posted at The GreatManagement Blog, saying, “As the big boss when you attend meetings, you maybe restrict the thinking, the talking, and the debate.”

Susan Hilton presents Top 7 Things a New Real Estate Agent Needs… posted at The Century Tree Reader Blog, saying, “What is needed for a career in real estate.”

Silicon Valley Blogger presents What The Silicon Valley Startups In My Life Taught Me posted at The Digerati Life.

Brip Blap presents does innovation require desperation? posted at brip blap, saying, “If freelancing or problogging or working from home sounds like a good idea, here are a few things to consider before taking the leap.”

Career Advice

GreatManagement presents What I Learned From Jacob Share About Resume Writing For College Leavers posted at The GreatManagement Blog, saying, “I do not know what to include. David has no work experience. This was going to be his first job.”

Shawn Driscoll presents Designing your success ladder posted at Shawn Driscoll.

Career Management

Akemi Gaines presents 5 Qualities I Find In Successful Entrepreneurs posted at Yes to Me.

Job Stories

Andrew Heath presents The Same People Exist Everywhere posted at Andy, saying, “No matter what office you work at or how many times you change jobs, the same types of people exist everywhere. While changing others is often not an option, there are many ways you can learn how to bring value to your workplace in spite of or because of the people you work with.”

Work Life Balance

deepali presents the nonprofit life posted at Paradigm Shifted.

Rich Maltzman, PMP presents Are they M&Ms, or little circular windows into our inner being? posted at Scope crêpe.

Hendry Lee presents Building a Long-Term Blogging Business: How to Thrive in the Information Age (Part 1) posted at Blog Building University, saying, “If you think passion has nothing to do with career, business and making money, think again. This blog post will change your perspective.”

Jose DeJesus MD

Jose DeJesus, MD at Physician Entrepreneur submitted 7 posts… That right 7. Normally you are only allowed one submission per week to the carnival, but since all the posts were relevant I decided I would let it go… So without further ado…

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• How to Resolve Conflicts with Coworkers
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• Physician Entrepreneur
• Motivating Your Employees
• Creating Incentives and Recognizing Excellence in Your Employees
• Leadership Skills Development

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of careers using our carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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carnival of careers, blog carnival.

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There has been a lot of hype surrounding Douglas Andrew’s book, Missed Fortune 101. Many people gushed that it unlocked the secrets to becoming a millionaire, so I went into the book with high hopes. I was pretty disappointed to discover that much of the advice is already well known and let’s face it, a bit on the mundane side. We all know it’s important to have a 401K, but few of us have the potential to turn that into a million dollars.

While the book does serve as a useful guide for those that are just starting out, it kind of defeats the purpose and the target audience. The title itself leads readers to believe it’s written for those of us that are past the starting years and facing the ugly truths of retirement planning. Unless you have absolutely no concept of financial planning, I’m afraid this book will be a bit of a disappointment.

It is well written and the author does have a lot of enthusiasm, which is helpful considering some of the mundane advice that is doled out. Quite honestly, I felt that the author focused far too much on taxation and although I acknowledge that understanding tax law and avoiding overtaxation is important, it’s certainly not going to turn you into a millionaire. You may save a few thousand here or there, but it’s not the silver bullet that the hype built up. That said, there are a few good tips on how to avoid having your savings funds taxed into oblivion, but again, it seems as though the author was missing the point.

My main issue with the book is that it encourages readers to leverage the money from their homes into “special funds.” Finally, it’s revealed that these “special funds” are nothing more than investment grade life insurance policies. Personally, I believe it’s a bad idea to encourage people to endanger their homes with this type of investment, and quite honestly, the returns are not that good to warrant that kind of commitment.

The author encourages readers to build up as much mortgage debt as possible – which may have sounded good at the time, but as the latest news has proven, was really bad advice. Although he did discuss leveraging that into the investments mentioned above, it’s just not a sound enough premise to warrant anyone rushing out to adopt it. In fact, I worry that readers who took this advice to heart may be facing foreclosure right now.

Overall, while the book was well written, it fell horribly, horribly short of its promise. Perhaps if it had a different title, I would have come away with more praise. As it is, the hype is nothing more than that – empty hype that will get you no closer to realizing your dreams of financial independence. In that vein, it’s really not worth your time and there are far better books that cover the basics of dealing with taxes and finding ways to invest your money.

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This is probably one of the most commonly used books by those who are looking to create wealth. It first came onto the scene in 1926, and shot to fame during the Great Depression as the desperate populace looked for a way out of poverty. While this book does raise many good points and offers a lot of good advice for standard money management, it is important to consider the time in which it was written.

It’s set up as a bunch of fables that all teach a lesson. While this is helpful for some readers, it can be pretty frustrating if you’re just looking for some hard hitting facts. Unfortunately, the morals in the stories are pretty much already well known. Don’t spend what you don’t have, put money aside for your future, and make smart investments. Most of us learned this before we even hit high school.

The central problem, at least as how I see it, centers around the fact that the fables all involve people who already have at least some money in their purse. After all, you’ve got to have money to make money. What it doesn’t cover is what to do if that purse is already stretched to the limit with normal living expenses. No matter how hard some people try, there just isn’t enough at the end of the month to sock away. Are these people then doomed to a life of living paycheck to paycheck?

The process of leveraging debt to secure your financial future is really nothing new. People have been doing it for thousands of years. Whether it’s as simple as getting an investment to start a new company or getting a loan from a friend to invest in a hot stock, leveraging debt is still one of the best ways to start making more money right now. And for those of us with moths living in our purses, it is the only chance at creating alternative streams of income.

That said, this is still a good book and there are some important lessons that can be gleaned from it. However, it is best suited as a primer for those who need guidance for personal management of their funds or for teenagers that are just getting started in the financial world. If you’re looking for a book that’s going to tell you how to fill up that empty purse, your answers will not be found inside its covers.

There is nothing wrong with this book per se, but it did fail to cover techniques that are already proven to help people make money. While you can easily follow the advice and have a safe and steady income over time, for those looking to dramatically increase their wealth in a short period of time, the book is a bit of a disappointment. Buy it, read it, and put it aside to give to your children when it comes time to learn about managing their checkbook and saving for their futures.

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Let’s face it, if you want to get ahead in today’s world, you’re going to need to go into debt, at least a little. The key is managing your debt properly and avoiding common traps. Not all debt is bad, even if we have been trained to think that it is. Going into small amounts of manageable debt with a goal of increasing your future income is known as leveraging your debt and this is a very smart practice.

Before you rush out and apply for credit cards willy nilly, there are a few things that you need to consider before going into debt. It is all too easy to fall into a bad debt trap, when you could have used those funds much more wisely. Let’s go over a few points that you must never forget when it comes to handling debts.

First and foremost, never go into debt beyond your means. This is not a good strategy and it rarely pays off. If you’re just starting out, you want to keep the amount of overall debt to a small amount that you could easily pay off if you had to. This helps you build up your credit score and helps you learn the ropes of proper debt management. It’s a good rule of thumb to keep your initial debts to less than three months of your current salary. This will make sure that you don’t get into too far over your head, but you should still have enough resources to leverage your debt properly.

Next, you never want to max out any credit card or blow through a loan. It’s easy to think of a loan or a credit card as free money, but it is anything but. Credit cards can have interest rates as high as 30% and once you start that process of maxing out a card, you’re going to have to deal with over limit fees (check out How A Credit Card Limit Is Determined), higher interest rates and it will take longer to pay back that debt. Use your loans and cards wisely, and leverage them to start making money for you. This means that you should avoid frivolous spending and focus on how to make that debt pay off for you in the future.

Lastly, it is vital to make sure that you are able to keep making your payments so that your debt doesn’t ruin your credit rating. One of the easiest ways to give yourself an insurance policy is to add up six months of your monthly minimum payments and put this aside in a savings account. If you should lose your job, you’ll have that six month cushion that will help you stay on track with paying your bills. This is a good strategy for all of your bills actually and can be very useful in many situations.

The key to proper management of your debt is using your debt for the right reasons. Spend that money wisely so that instead of ending up with a bunch of things you don’t need, you’ll have income coming in thanks to your leveraged debt.

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As millions of aging baby boomers start contemplating how they are going to survive when they’re no longer working, retirement planning has hit an all time high. Whether you’re just starting out in the workforce, or you’re staring 62 in the face and wondering where the money is going to come from, it is never too late to start planning for your retirement.

There are many ways that you can start putting money aside to help you in your later years. First, you’re going to need to figure out how much money you need every single year to survive. Take 10% of that and add it on for emergencies. You’ll need to extrapolate a bit when it comes to how long you plan to live, but most people shoot for at least 30 years of retirement money. So, take that amount per year and multiply it by 30. This is the amount that you’re going to have to put away.

Pretty frightening isn’t it? Now, take that figure and divide it by how many years you plan to continue working. This will give you an idea of how much money you need to start putting aside every year. Subtract any savings or 401K plans that you have and you’ll have the bottom line. As an example, to illustrate this process, let’s say that you need at least $45k a year to pay all of your bills and live comfortably. You’re currently 35 years old and you plan to work until you are 65. This means you’ve got 30 years to save money.

To be on the safe side, we’re going to put away enough to last 30 years. Even if you don’t live that long, you’ll have plenty put aside for managed care or other health expenses that can crop up. In total, you’re going to need to put aside $1,350,000. Add in that 10% cushion and you’re at just under $1.5 million. Ouch! You’ve got thirty more years to save, so you’re going to have to put aside $50,000 every single year to meet your goal.

(Editor’s note added after publication: As pointed out in a comment below, I left out the power of compounding interest… but I also left out taxes and inflation… If you think you could live on 45k a year now you will need to adjust for inflation as well… Personally I think I will have a hard time living on only 45K per year. I don’t think I was misleading, but perhaps I was oversimplifying.)

Unless you make an incredible amount of money, chances are you’re not going to be able to put aside this much money. Even the best 401K’s rarely perform that well. So, in order to make sure that a soup kitchen isn’t in your future, you’re going to need to look into some investments and alternative streams of income. If you don’t have a lot of free income as it is, debt leveraging may be in order.

If you’re not familiar with this term, it basically means going into debt in order to take advantage of opportunities that will create new streams of income. When managed wisely, this is a very easy way to put aside more money. The key is finding the best opportunities or stocks and being cautious at first. With proper management, debt leveraging is in an incredibly powerful tool that can be used to secure your future.

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If you’re already leveraging your debt to produce more than one stream of income, you’re pretty familiar with how the process works. However, it’s really easy to get complacent when you’re leveraging debt and you may be missing out on other opportunities if you’re not looking outside your current comfort zone. While it is perfectly fine to focus on one area, it is riskier and you could be losing a chance to make even more money by diversifying.

Let’s say that you’ve already gone into debt for one opportunity. It’s doing quite well and now you’re at a crossroads. You can either invest more money into that particular program, invest in a similar program that you think will be similar in returns, or you can invest in something brand new that is in an entirely different market. While the first two are fine, they can be just as risky as the third.

Without proper diversification, you can be held at the behest of market whims and sometimes they are anything by kind. Sure, everything may look terrific right now, but what about tomorrow? If all of your holdings are in one industry or even one company, something as small as one event has the potential to induce financial ruin. That’s a pretty scary thought, isn’t it?

Diversification is the mantra for many successful businesspeople, simply because it works and it is very smart. Let’s look at this way. You leveraged your debt to invest in wheat futurities. Everything has been going great guns, you’re making plenty of money and then one day, a brand new wheat demolishing beetle appears and devours all the crops. All that money that you sank into that market will be for naught.

Now, let’s say that in addition to the wheat futures, you also invested in corn futures. Since wheat suddenly became unavailable, the demand for corn has skyrocketed. Now, you’re making even more money simply because you took that chance and spread around your investments. Instead of losing everything, you’re now better off than you were before.

This is just one example and it can be applied to virtually any industry. There is always a risk in sinking your money into one area. By spreading that risk around to several different companies or industries, you are actually reducing your own personal risk and playing a wide enough field that you’re bound to hit it big with at least one of the investments.

Diversity has saved numerous investors since the stock market opened. On the same token, failing to diversify has made millions of paupers. It’s simply good business and smart investing to spread out your investments over several areas so that all of your bases are covered. It may cost a little more initially, but you’re getting the security of knowing that if one fails, you’re going to have the backup of all of the others. This is the key to smart investing and to making more money with your investments.

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