Even Though I Want Financial Freedom, I’ve Still Got a Long Ways to Go

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I Want Financial Freedom

Recently when I was asked to do an interview with the Mint website, it got me thinking a lot about how much I want financial freedom and where I’m at so far with my own savings goals.So I decided to try this fun game - You can try it too.  Pretend you decided to stop working tomorrow and were going to live off of absolutely nothing else other than your financial assets (and good looks) for the rest of your life.  Call it an early retirement.  Call it what you will.The magic question would then be: How much money would you be able to pay yourself each month?  How Much Money Would You Need? In the past I’ve determined that my magic number to reach financial freedom was somewhere around $5,000 per month.  In other words, if … [Read more...]

Want to Know How to Sell Things Online Fast?  Just Ask My Wife to Put It on Facebook!

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How to Sell Things Online

This week, thanks to my wife, the MMD household made a ton of money on the side.  But this wasn’t our usual passive income or blog revenue.Nope.  This was different.  This week my wife completely schooled me in the art of how to sell things online fast – all by using Facebook!Who knew these days that’s all it would take.  I can still remember the days of the dark ages (i.e. about 20 years ago) when I used to go looking through the newspaper (remember those?) classified to find guitar gear.In more recent years I’ve really been a fan of using Internet sales sites like Ebay and CraigsList.  But even those sites were a huge improvement, they still had their own fundamental drawbacks.Fortunately things like high-speed service and … [Read more...]

How to Double Your Money the Safe and Smart Way

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How to Double Your Money

Blackjack.  Hot-pick stocks.  These are the kinds of silly things people usually think about when it comes to doubling their money fast.Unfortunately when it comes to methods like that, the story usually ends with them not only NOT doubling their money but also losing all of their initial investment too.Ever since I was a little boy I’ve been completely fascinated with the legitimate ways that you take one dollar and turn it into two.The truth is that it’s actually pretty easy to do.  There are lots of ways how to double your money without having to take a whole lot of unnecessary risks.  You just need the patience to give it time and let it happen safely.Here’s how that happens:  The Rule of 72 and Doubling Your … [Read more...]

Niche Website Update 19 – Using the 80-20 Rule to Adjust My Priorities – Plus $1,295 in Income

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80-20 rule

Before we get to the latest developments with my side-income generating efforts using my niche website portfolio (and what a great month it was), I wanted to pause for a minute and have everyone try a short exercise I used this month.I was on vacation recently when I had a moment of clarity and decide to try out this little exercise.  It’s amazing how much your perspective on things can change when you’re physically in a new location and removed from the everyday grindstone of your normal routine.Here is the exercise I tried:Take a pen and paper and on the left side begin jotting down a list of all the things you or your virtual assistant work on every week to make your niche sites or blog money. Now add some kind of monthly … [Read more...]

Little Known Tips for Saving Money While Traveling

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Saving Money While Traveling

Go to just about any travel website or blog and you'll find them.  There's tons of great money-saving advice for travel that are well-known such as searching for the lowest airfare at various online sources or packing light to avoid extra baggage fees.  However, there several useful tips for saving money while traveling still go unnoticed each year.  This is unfortunate because these small things could add up to big bucks in savings.  Here are just a few of them that you can start taking advantage of today.  Enroll Children in Frequent Flier Programs: For those who travel often with their children, enrolling them in a frequent flier program can help them build miles they can use at later dates. If you do not travel often with … [Read more...]

How Video Conferencing Technology Can Reduce Costs for Government Bodies

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Video Conferencing

Traveling for meetings has always been a budget killer in any field of business.  While most of the time this cost is absorbed by company itself, who pays for those expenses when the employee works for the government?  The tax-payers?Clearly there is a need to improve upon travel costs whereever possible.  That is where good video conferencing technology can be useful.  As a matter of fact, according to KBZ, a massive upward trend has already been observed in the usage of web conferencing and other digital communications. Since the inception of this technology, it has evolved drastically. This technology has been penetrating into diverse fields and has proved its importance in a very short span of time.It is amazing how video … [Read more...]

Follow the Money — How Qatar Has Become an Opportunity for Foreign Business 

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qatar

Qatar may be a smaller Gulf state in terms of geographic area and population, but it has the world's third largest natural gas reserve and is one of the richest nations per capita.  The Ministry of Energy and Industry is currently on track to support various new projects in the fields of pharmaceutical, minerals, chemical, environmental and other sectors as part of its Qatar National Vision 2030.When you combine its abundant natural resources with its economic diversification, a rapidly expanding economy and liberal legalization, it’s not surprising that foreign business might find Qatar something of a tasty location.  Tax benefits - The Lowdown: Tax benefits (everyone loves a tax benefit!) are one of the most attractive … [Read more...]

How Do You Keep Yourself From Becoming Who You Don’t Want to Be?

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Don’t Want to Be

Have you ever looked at someone and just plain thought to yourself: That’s who I don’t want to be in 20 or so years from now? Recently I was re-reading a great book “The 4 Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss.  One of the thoughts that stuck with me was his conversation in Chapter 4 about how he and a friend keep trying to avoid becoming that “old, fat, bald man in the red convertible”. To them, that was the epitome of a pathetic, wasted life.  It was their stereotype (and we all know someone like this) of a broken middle-age man making his last desperate effort to experience life when he had already wasted too much of it working long hours in the office missing out on the prime of his youth.  It was someone who waited too long to see the true … [Read more...]