Your short- and long-term money plans

You need a plan that covers both the short- and long-term. Short-term could be considered anything from what you intend to spend at the grocery store tonight, to how you’re going to pay your car insurance bill that’s due in six months, to where you want to vacation next year. Long-term, of course, is everything farther out than that. Your future, in other words.

Do you want to be able to pay for your kids’ college? What about retirement? (Even if you don’t think you’d ever want to retire, you should be able to if you have to.) And what about becoming wealthy?

If you don’t plan for those things, they won’t happen. Either at all, or in any way remotely close to what you’d actually like.

Do the two step

Since you’ll need to plan for both the distant future and for things that’ll be happening soon, you need a bit of a financial two-step. First, you need to think about what your hopes and dreams are. If you could do anything with your money, and you could have enough of it, what would you do?

Think about what you really want. Don’t be afraid to dream big, but also don’t just toss out “move to a deserted island” unless that’s truly what you would like for your life. (Personally, I think a lot of folks would get bored. Unless they’re like this guy who bought an island.)

Once you’ve got your dreams in mind, think about your immediate needs too. You know, stuff like paying the bills and getting yourself on track financially.

The secret weapon

Then use the secret weapon of money-plans, zero-based budgeting, to help you accomplish both. Once you start making your money do what you want it to do — instead of whatever it feels like — a funny thing will happen.

You’ll end up with more of it.

That’s because when you pay attention to your money and are responsible with it (and by responsible I mean that you do things like saving, investing, and paying off debt) you learn, grow, and it becomes easier to make more of it. So get yourself a plan. A plan that will help you reach your goals. YOUR plan.

Does the idea of working on the internet, wearing slippers with the kids, dog, garden, and coffee pot sound appealing? I personally had my doubts – would I be able to work with all that activity around me?  Let me be the first to say that you can definitely organize work time around school schedules and make it happen. Step by step, create your empire with a policy of diversification.

No man is a robot, and although you may work harder as a freelancer than you did as an employee, it’s a completely different scenario advancing along your career than reacting to what your boss has to say. Put another way, I set my income parameters for the month and go for them, whereas at my job I was concerned with maintaining my level of pay (or a job, period) knowing full well that the economic situation was against me. A young middle aged woman, I heard the bells a-tolling and began building my second income, also known as “Plan B”. It was actually Plan A – to leave the JOB but building a business takes time – so best to start as soon as possible.

Making the switch

How did I switch over?  It is scary, to be sure, so it must be done in baby steps. I had originally planned on saving a huge stash of money before I did – but that didn’t happen. My January 2011 New Year’s Resolution was to be fully employed as a freelancer by the end of the year, and I was – by October 1.

If you write, the first step is to get better at it by doing more of it. I joined Hub Pages a year ago where I learned SEO, SRP and how to utilize the Google Keyword tool. With a little luck, you may gain a following, which will help when you start your own blog. (In this business, almost everything seems to be interrelated.)  The objective is to practice and get paid a little residual income from Google AdSense along the way. Don’t quit the day job – yet. Building streams of passive income is an important part of any freelancer’s career.

At the same time, spruce up the resume, update it with your writing skills and begin the process of shamelessly marketing yourself. Try to send a resume out every day. Conduct Google searches with a fresh cover letter each time for the position that interests you.  With intuitive email like Gmail, related URL addresses will pop up in the margin. As a matter of principle I didn’t pay anyone to hire me.
I signed up for Freelancer, Elance and Odesk as well as ProZ, a bilingual job board signing up for their RSS feeds. 

In the beginning, take what you can get (a 300 word blog entry for $1 – $3) and build from there. You’ll need experience and positive feedback to start. Happy clients will return, and keep sending out your resume – lather, rinse and repeat.

After a few months time, you could have a decent part time income going. But don’t stop there. Apply for jobs that you think you could do but don’t technically have experience for (if they don’t specifically ask for it). If they don’t ask, don’t tell. The point is to increase your skills so you can get better jobs. If you got good marks in grammar, editing is a good job to land (non-native English writers usually need help with this).

E-books are also good but be careful for the milestone payments. So far I haven’t gotten burned but it can happen, especially on large projects. I recommend PayPal which is very convenient with a once a month transfer to my bank account. Be sure to invoice right away for a job even if the terms are Net 30 and ask “would it be possible to pay me right away?“  They probably have the money and are just dragging their feet. Working for yourself means you get to wear all the hats, which means you get to develop as manager, accountant and more. I try to read and listen to CDs to keep my frame of mind positive and people-friendly as “brain food“– good human relations is a crucial part of being a successful freelancer. Not long ago, two of my clients were able to complete a satisfactory business transaction – they both live in India – with me as their mutual link.

Benefits

Six months later after taking the plunge, I was making at least the same amount of money as “before,” but now my kids have their Mom home with them. Not only have my expenses gone down but the quality of my life and those around me has definitely gone up. My home seems to function better and my kids are flourishing in school because I can attend their PTA meetings and soccer games. I’m available to help them with their homework instead of leaving them to fend for themselves until sometimes 10 p.m. when I eventually returned home from my job. That for me was the worst part of working for someone else – I was at the mercy of a schedule which worked against me.

As a side benefit of freelancing, I have been traveling more, even taking a long-desired birthday trip to Brussels and Venice while keeping my workload under control. With the work flexibility offered by freelancing, I also completed a very intense bilingual tour guide course which should pay off as another source of income between bread and butter writing jobs.

Be sure to save some of your earnings in case of a dry spot or two – I’ve experienced them and they’re no fun – but all in all, a single day of freelancing is better than 100 days working for someone else in my very humble opinion. If it’s something that you’ve always wanted to do, let me be the first to urge you to just start the process and continue.

CA born and bred, Anastasia Kingsley Kinkusic has been living in Europe since 1999.  Married with two kids, she’s a college educated business lady who switched gears to be a SAHM and freelance writer and editor, dabbling in tourism and translation.  Follow her on HubPages at http://eurocafeaulait.hubpages.com/ where she write about Croatia, financial planning, American and Mediterranean recipes, national parks, creativity, and living green.

Let’s take someone who wants to be a model as an example. Sure, sometimes a model is “discovered” while walking down the streets of New York, but that’s the exception and not the rule. And even if they are discovered, they still have to do the work. It’s not like, bam, they’re rich, famous, and successful because they decided to step out for donuts one day.

No, they have to show up for the hours of prep work. They have to smile on cue all day during the work itself. They have to make sure they don’t gain weight (and they probably have to lose some too) in order to keep on getting the work. They have to face rejection from people who decide they “aren’t right for the job”. They have to work to make sure that what money they do earn doesn’t fly out the window into the hands of unscrupulous people.

That word I keep using

Did you notice that word I keep using? It’s work. To wrench open the door to success, you’ve got to do the work.

Decide what you want to have happen, and do what it takes to get there — whether that’s finding a new job in a field that interests you, getting your money in order, or being a good parent.

Do more than just try

And and you can’t just give something a try and then shrug your shoulders if things don’t end up perfectly. “Oh well, I tried” isn’t saying much, unless you really, REALLY tried, for an exceedingly long period of time. And I don’t just mean sitting around talking about how you really want to succeed at something.

I’ve been saying for a long time that I want my Pay Off Debt app to really take off. But what have I done to actually help it succeed? Well, I’ve made an ad for it, which you can see in the right hand column here. I put it out to a few review sites. I asked folks if they would review it. And I started a web site about getting out of debt. That sounds like a lot, but realistically it’s not. I haven’t worked at it every. day. I haven’t tried everything I could. I haven’t even tried consistently. I’ve mostly whined. And whining will get you nowhere.

Change your habits

To really wrench open the door to success, you’ve got to change your habits. Think about what you did yesterday, and what you normally do each day. If there isn’t SOMETHING in each day that’s leading you toward where you want to be, you haven’t made success a habit yet.

And it’s got to be one. So figure out where you want to be, and then change things up so that you habitually work at getting there. That’s how you wrench open the door to success and step right on through.

It’s not about the money

Most people think that “invest on yourself” is really just another way of saying “spend money on a class” or “go back to school and get a degree”.

It’s not about spending money or taking classes per se. Instead, it’s about taking a look at your life to see what areas you could be doing better in and/or at areas you’d just plain old like to explore, and then taking the time to do so. And that’s not limited to formal learning.

Ways to invest in yourself

Start by daydreaming a little. What have you always wanted to try? Now’s the time to go schedule that — whatever it is. Skydive, get up a half hour early every day to write that Great American Novel, visit a local attraction that you’ve always been curious about but never stopped in at — whatever. Taking the time to do something that you’ve always wanted to do is a way of showing yourself that YOU are important. You’ll feel more energetic and just better in general. Like that old commercial says, you’re worth it.

Learn a new skill. Yes, this could involve taking a class. (Why did I wait decades to finally start learning oil painting?) But it could also mean reading up on a subject using books from the library, or downloading a French podcast and practicing every day. Or it could mean joining a knitting club for beginners, and learning together in a group. Heck, it could even mean actively trying to improve at Words with Friends. The point is to do something new that takes practice and effort. Exercising your brain helps keep it sharp, and makes life a whole lot more interesting.

Get over an old stumbling block. We all have things that are holding us back, keeping us from being the people we really could be if we worked through an issue. Maybe you worry all the time, or are incredibly shy but long to have friends. Or maybe your checking account is constantly overdrawn and you and your spouse are always fighting about money. It’s time for a change. Get counseling, get therapy, get whatever it takes to get over that old stumbling block and move past it.

Give yourself a break. Finally, one of the most overlooked ways to invest in yourself is to just plain old give yourself a break. If you’re so over-scheduled that you’re constantly stressed out from rushing here and there, cancel something. You (and your family members) do NOT need to do everything. No one will be scarred for life if they aren’t busy every single moment. We all need breaks, and you are no exception. Massages and stuff are great, but simply doing nothing is an awesome break too.

So go ahead, pick at least one way to invest in yourself, and get started today.

What I did in April

The short answer to “What did you do for your Etsy store in April?” is “Not much.” And that’s definitely a what not do to.

The longer answer is that I tried a couple of small things, but without really putting a lot of effort into it. I set up a Facebook page for my art, based on recommendations I’d read. Then I tried promoting it with a Facebook ad. Out of 93,856 impressions, my ad received 6 clicks. So, not very effective. A better ad and more content on my Facebook page might help, but I’m still not sure exactly what to put there. I did find some good information related to promoting with FB though:

• Facebook ads: 5 Tips for Success
• 21 Creative Ways To Increase Your Facebook Fanbase
• 7 Steps to a Successful Facebook Ad Campaign
• How We Get Thousands of Real Facebook Fans For New [Music] Artists

The bottom line is, if you want to succeed in a business, then you’ve got to actually work at it. Things don’t happen on their own, as if by magic. They take regular, continuous work, a lot of persistence, and a dash of luck. Generally speaking, the harder you work, the luckier you become.

Stat time

Alright, enough about what I worked on for my shop during April. Now it’s time for an update on the shop stats.
I’d listed 9 of my paintings at the tail end of December, and did not sell any paintings during January or February. I sold my first (and only, so far) painting in March, but had no sales in April.

By the end of January, my starting stats had looked like this:

$9 spent. (All on Etsy fees.)
$0 earned.
1 shop category.
7 shop admirers.
9 items listed.
145 total item views.
11 total item admirers.
0 treasury lists.
0 sales.

Now they look like this:

$16.35 spent. ($9 on Etsy fees, $7.35 on shipping.)
$43 earned.
1 shop category.
12 shop admirers.
10 items listed (which takes into account one item sold, and two items added).
489 total item views.
30 total item admirers.
1 treasury lists. (down from 2)
1 sale.

If you’re curious about how things went in previous months, you can click on the Etsy category.

May’s plans

Since it’s already the first week of May, I had better get cracking on May’s plans. Of course, I’m working on more paintings so will probably be adding those to the shop once they are done. I’m also thinking of interviewing someone who has a successful Etsy shop — which means I need to spend a little time on Etsy looking at the other painting-related shops. That may give me some other ideas right there. Beyond that, I’m not sure, so if you have suggestions I’m open to them!

Are you working on promoting a small business of any type? How is it going for you?

So how do you handle unexpected expenses? There are pretty much three options: avoiding, minimizing, and planning ahead.

Avoiding expenses

I used to pretty much just stress out, because for a while there I didn’t have enough money for basics, let alone unexpected expenses. So back then, I’d try to avoid them. I would probably not have gone to the doctor unless something seemed pretty desperate, I’d have taken a wait and see approach with the dog (which we may do anyway, since it could be something very minor). I still try to avoid unexpected expenses where possible, but sometimes it’s hard.

Minimizing expenses

Minimizing is another option. For example, we can get shots for our dog much cheaper if we take him to Animal Control. They offer vaccines too, and it’s quick, easy, and pretty darn cheap. If you can make it past all the other animals up for adoption without bringing a few home, that is. For something like glasses, there are places online where you can get a replacement pair very inexpensively. I’m a big fan of ZenniOptical. Or there’s always duct tape, depending on what’s broken.

Of course, in many cases being proactive by taking good care of things in the first place can minimize expenses. When it comes to your health, preventative care is much less expensive (and easier) then trying to deal with a problem that’s been going on for a while or that has progressed. Sometimes though, you still have health issues or other types of things that pop up, despite your best efforts to prevent them. That’s where planning ahead comes in.

Planning ahead

No, you can’t plan ahead for your dog to wake up with a limp, or your son to need an emergency appendectomy. Nor would you want anything like that to happen. But you can categorize the most basic types of things that you end up spending money on unexpectedly, and plan ahead in general.

For example, you can build an emergency fund for the big stuff, and you can set aside money regularly for the smaller things. Some people like to keep a fairly large cushion in their checking account that’s enough for the stuff that may pop up each month. I prefer to keep various funds.

By far, planning ahead has been the best way to handle things in our situation. It’s so much less stressful to not have to worry about money on top of whatever is going on.

How do you handle unexpected expenses?