Here is the goal of the ruling party in Washington D.C.:  Pass a second stimulus bill without calling it a stimulus bill because the word “stimulus” puts a negative taste in the mouths of Americans strictly because of the monstrosity that was the first, ineffective and terribly irresonsible stimulus bill.  Over at ZeroHedge, they cite two reasons that a coming “job bill” is ont he way:

1. Harry Reid, Senate majority leader, referenced a likely “job bill” in early 2010.
2. Obama mentioned a “jobs summit” for December to figure out this jobs situation.

Look, we have a deteriorating economy despite throwing trillions at it.  Do you really expect our wonderful leaders to not try to fix it further?  They have to justify their existence.

The first stimulus was more of a “spending bill” – remember Obama’s quote: “What do you think a stimulus is?”.  The second stimulus though will be much, much different.  It will be a “jobs bill”.  I hope you’re catching my sarcasm.

It doesn’t matter what they call it.  It’s the same thing.  Borrowing or printing money to prop up a shattered economy.  All efforts will be futile except when it comes to the dollar.  Back in February, they took the dollar out back at shot him in the head.  For the next go around, they’ll put a few more bullets in him to ensure his demise.  Maybe things will actually get bad enough that there will be a real change in economic policy – and no, this doesn’t just mean Republicans win seats in 2010.  A dollar crisis might actually force this.

Analyzing The Web’s Current State

The topic of organizing the web, more specifically, the content of the web is very interesting in my opinion. The main crossroads of the web, Google, built their revolutionary search algorithm several years ago and has dominated the web and made billions for the one who controls it. Interestingly, while Google constantly tweaks the algorithm and improves it, the web is still a very different place when compared to its state when Google started. One of the biggest changes, web 2.0 fueled blogging, has created exponential growth in content and way more “stuff” for Google to filter.

As the web fills up with crap from millions of individual bloggers and other content producing entities, the challenge of ranking, sorting and filtering through all this data is challenging. I continue to believe that while Google will continue to provide the best mainstream search, there are other opportunities for different methods of finding information on the web.

This conversation, for me, naturally turns towards blogging. Or more simply put, individual content producers. Currently, search is very effective at searching specific topics. For example, I want to find information on the Hyundai Genesis 2009. Searching for that keyword, I get a number of quality results ranging from Hyundai’s official site to a blogger’s review of the car.

The discussion becomes more interesting when you start to consider searching for what I call trusted sources. What if you are considering becoming a gun owner. You have no idea what gun to buy, what guns are legal, how to buy a gun, etc. Basically, you want to find a trust source on a wide range of topics within the larger topic of fire arms. The ideal recommendation would be a top blogger or demonstrated expert in the field of fire arms.

Search is currently focused on keywords. If I searched for “buy a gun”, I will get a range of results, most of them will not be close to my ideal result as identified above. Some results will be crap sites of people luring search traffic by manipulating search results with “optimization” techniques. Unfortunately, Google not only allows but encourages these crap sites because they are typically filled with Google Adsense ads. These sites although hardly any use to the end user still make Google money. Again, I’m looking for a trusted source for many different pieces of quality content. Most of the trusted sources that I have are sites that I stumbled upon over time and continued to visit. It was a more natural process by chance versus searching for such a trusted resource.

For example, let’s say a college student was looking for a trusted resource for financial advice that is pertinent to him. 20smoney.com would be a great resource for such an individual. However, the only way’s he would find it is if he searched for “20s money” or some other keywords that some of my articles rank high for (check out “unemployed college graduates” and “government take over 401k”). He’s not likely to search for those keywords; therefore, he’s unlikely to find my site. Thus, the limitations of search. Great for specific, isolated terms; not great for finding more broad based trusted resources.

If you think about an expert in a field who writes a blog about his area of expertise, you can see how his site can easily be hidden from the individuals searching for such a trusted resource.  By spending his time and energy on his field of expertise, he could potentially be ignoring the area of search engine optimization (SEO).  Contrast this with someone who is an expert on SEO and hardly an expert on the same field.  The SEO expert is more likely to be more visible to search traffic and thus more found, even though the former resource would have been the better recommendation to a web surfer.  Most people will say that quality content will always eventually lead to a higher ranking because of the back links it will generate over time, but this doesn’t always develop perfectly.

Some Potential Future Developments

One might consider that search algorithms start to put more emphasis on “trust” indicators.  The main one that I can see is subscriber count.  The number of subscribers typically indicates how trusted you are with readers.  Google, through its acquisition of Feedburner, has access to these counts for most blogs.

Other indicators could be the traffic stats such as average time somebody spends on the site.  Or, how many pages per visit a visitor will view.

Google’s rankings are primarily driven by back links – the number of quality links a site has pointing to it.  This won’t change, but will most definitely be tweaked in some way.

I’m very curious to see if Google eventually tries to filter out the “crap sites” that are so pervasive around the web where people attempt to get high ranked for a specific term and monetize that search traffic.  As I mentioned above, Google still is profiting from these sites, so at this point, I don’t see a change happening.

What This All Means

So, why analyze the web and how it works?  As a web entrepreneur or someone who is into online business, it’s important to understand how to position websites for more traffic and ultimately, more profit.  It’s important to acknowledge the limitations of the current system and monitor the changes to the way people find information.

By positioning a website or blog early in a changing environment, you can position a site as an information leader in a certain field.  This would undoubtedly result in higher profitability.

I do think there are some opportunities in developing a website that helps people find the trusted resources in a fashion similar to what is described above.  The model in my mind would be something like a directory (see dir.yahoo.com, botw.org, etc.), but more based on expert recommendations versus a centralized “approval process”.  Allow experts in physics to recommend the best online resources in physics, allow a trusted financial expert to recommend the best financial blogs on the web, etc.  Expert recommendations fuel the ranking algorithm.  The goal is to find trusted resources or expert bloggers versus a single piece of content on a specific keyword.  If there is something similar to what I’m describing, please leave a comment below.  Also, if someone is a developer looking to partner with me on building a similar site, also let me know (I don’t have time to develop it by myself).

The transition from college student to employee is a tricky one. There are many emotions and challenges making this transition.  Having a job waiting for you when you graduate can relieve a ton of stress.  Follow these tips and make sure that you are in the minority that graduates college with a job waiting for you.

Tip #1 – Start Well Before You Graduate

Most students make the mistake of waiting until after they graduate from college to start the job hunt.  The best thing you can do is to start now, in the middle of your last year of college, to try and find a job.

As a college student, you have way more time then you will have as an employee.  Plus, you have much more flexibility.  Maximize your time that you have as a student to send out resumes and cover letters.

Lastly, most quality companies recruit students that are still students.  It’s hard to get into a company outside of their regular recruiting program, so if you miss their on-campus recruiting, you might be out of luck.  Remember, the quality students get hired prior to graduation; don’t be left out.

Tip #2 – Maximize On-Campus Career Resources

Many schools these days have career resource centers.  These centers provide career counseling along with a number of other services to help you start your career and find a job.  The best thing about these resources is that they are free.

Companies recruiting students from your campus will typically utilize the career center to coordinate interviews and information sessions.  Make sure you are in tune with what is going on.  I was hired in January (4 months before graduation) by Accenture during my Senior year of school.  They did on-campus recruiting through my career resource center.

Tip #3 – Give Yourself As Many Options As You Can

I strongly encourage you to apply to as many positions as possible.  The more interviewing you do, the better you get at it.  The more opportunities that you go for, the stronger you chances are of landing a job.

Applying to jobs takes time, especially if you customize your resume and cover letter for each position.  Start allocating enough time during your schedule to allow for this.  You will find it easier to get your applications out in greater numbers.

Tip #4 – Don’t Get Hung Up On Your Ideal Job

The most important thing you can do when starting your career is turn just get it started.  Don’t make the mistake of holding out for a specific job or type of company.  Just get in somewhere so that you can get a paycheck and you can learn some skills.  You will have way more opportunities open up to you as an employee working somewhere versus an unemployed college graduate working a part time gig trying to get by.  Your goal is to get a job.  Period.

Today, it seems that most Americans make the mistake of confusing higher asset prices with economic recovery.  Stocks are up, housing prices have stabilized (and even increased slightly), so therefore, the economy is rebounding.  The problem is that the “real economy” is still in terrible shape.  Unemployment (calculated in the modern post 1990 way) is over 10%.  Shout all day long at the people in unemployment lines that stocks are up and see what kind of impact it will have.

The problem is that despite our President’s famous promise to “spread the wealth around”, his policies do exactly the opposite.  Let’s make this clear, I’m not for socialism.  I don’t think government should spread the wealth around.  I think they should stay out of the equation altogether.  But, Obama and other leader’s current economic policies are inflationary and nothing else, and inflation slaughters the poor that our leaders claim to want to help.

The crazy thing about our country is that being a libertarian that doesn’t believe in government intervention in the economy, people are quick to label me as someone who only cares about the rich.  You must be a right wing nut who only cares about “tax cuts for the rich”.  This is a huge misconception.  My point here is that the rich and elite have you fooled and pointing figures in the wrong direction.

The current (and past) economic policies are inflationary and only benefit the rich.  Let’s look at an example: John Doe.  John lost his job, has a hefty mortgage payment and little savings.  He also has a family to feed.  But, John is encouraged because Barack Obama took office and he’s for the little guy!  John, however, starts to get discouraged because he hasn’t found a new job.  People tell him things are getting better but what does he care about what the Dow is at?  He doesn’t own stocks.  The real problems settle in when John sees his living expenses rise.  Gas is already up slightly and soon food, energy and other costs are going up as well.  Somehow the inflationary economic policies that are causing nothing but rising prices (including asset prices) are actually hurting John.  If inflation gets serious (which many believe is inevitable), the damage will be severe — imagine $8 gas, spending hundreds on groceries each time, etc. — How do the poor survive that, even with a job that many don’t have?

So who is benefiting?  The investor class.  The people with assets, and the people less dependent on wages.  Their cost of living rises with everyone, but their assets are going up even faster so good days are here again!

Boy, Kevin you sound like a socialist.  Far from it.  I’m the opposite of a socialist.  My point is that, on the whole, the American public is confused about what policies benefit what segments of society.  Inflationary economic policies (and rest assured, today’s policies are completely inflationary) do nothing to help the poor and middle class.  In fact, they devastate the poor.  If government got out of the economy and instituted sound monetary policy, the inflationary game would be over.  It would take time to get through a painful restructuring (called a recession), but at least the recovery would be real and not an illusionary game of rising asset prices.  Until then, three cheers for the Dow!

The Leading Indicator Argument

Many people who claim to understand the stock market will always use the argument that the stock market is a leading indicator.  Therefore, rising stock prices indicate the real economy will recover around the corner.  Yes, stocks are typically forward looking.  The problem is that flush an economy with liquidity and stocks will rise whether they are seeing a real recovery in the future or not — increase in dollars + constant supply of stocks = higher stock prices regardless of recovery.

Rising asset prices would be a great thing if it were driven by positive fundamentals.  A debased currency is not a positive fundamental.  There may be some positive developments such as not losing jobs as fast as we did before or even some better than expected earnings (don’t get me started on the analysts and their estimates), but we should see real improvement in the real economy to support a move this big in the stock market.  So far, all I see are the typical Wall St. goons making billions based on taxpayer subsidies and more people that I know either lose their job or continue to barely get by even while employed.  The real people (people not on Wall St. and not in D.C.) are hardly prospering.

Young People

20-somethings should be up in arms over this policy.  Most young people don’t really have assets so you get stuck with higher living costs yet get no benefit from rising asset prices.  Let’s consider the example of real estate.  Government is doing everything possible to prop up real estate prices in the name of “recovery”.  Doing this only makes real estate more expensive (artificially) and puts off the date when you can buy your first home.  If the market forces were allowed to work, home values would continue dropping (hurting current homeowners), but also making homes more affordable for people who have been diligently saving for a down payment to buy a home.  I always am surprised at the people who don’t own a home, and have the goal of owning a home, yet still support the economic policies of today (which make it harder for them to own a home).

Edit 9:45am: Interstingly, Yahoo! Tech Ticket posted a video/article this morning entitled “Best of Times for Wall Street, Worst of Times For American Workers“.  Similar themes. Check it out.

Many people argue about whether or not putting money into stocks should be considered investing or speculating.  First, it doesn’t really matter, because it doesn’t change the outcome.  But, nevertheless, let’s offer an opinion.

First, let’s take a look at the definitions of both from the free online dictionary.

Invest: To commit (money or capital) in order to gain a financial return.

Speculate: To engage in the buying or selling of a commodity with an element of risk on the chance of profit.

Doesn’t seem like too much of a difference, no?  I’ve heard many people explain that stocks are not speculating because they have actual research and facts to use as their reasoning for buying or selling something.  The problem with that is that it assumes that a speculation is made blindly (like rolling a dice).  Most speculations are not blind speculations, but also involve research.  So, again, not much of a difference.

It’s my opinion that investing is a term like diversification, terms that make us feel better about what we’re doing.  Terms that are used by financial advisors to sound more sophisticated and complex.  Let’s be clear, whether you’re investing or speculating, you’re putting money at risk for a hopeful return.

Cash Flow

The only difference sometimes can come when considering cash flow.  If you’re goal in an investment is cash flow, I consider that closer to an investment than a speculation.  This can be dividend paying stocks, income producing real estate or a business.  This does not include non-dividend stocks (i.e. tech stocks) or trying to flip a house. These are in the speculation camp.

How To Invest Or Speculate On Stocks With Higher Success

1. Be patient, and wait for good opportunities
2. Don’t buy (or sell) because the masses are doing so
3. Have a defined exit ahead of time – at what price will you sell your position?
4. Execute on your pre-planned exit
5. Keep emotions in check and stick to your well thought out strategy

I believe it takes years of speculating or investing to even begin to master these techniques.  This is why I strongly encourage starting in stocks at an early age even if it’s with a few hundred bucks.  I learn a ton every year and have been an active investor for about 5 years now.  This past year, I’ve learned a ton about technical analysis and about market momentum.  You will never stop learning if you become an avid player in the stock market.

Cash flow is the ultimate goal whether you’re an individual or a business.  Cash flow is what is left over from your revenue or income after all expenses are paid for.  There are decisions on how to allocate the cash flow such as investing, saving, etc. but it’s meaningless unless you actually are accumulating cash flow.

Let’s look at various ways to cash flow from two perspectives: a business and an individual.

Cutting Costs – You Only Can Do So Much

If you have paid attention to the earnings reports over the previous few months in the economy, you’d know that companies have been achieving profitability or positive cash flow by cutting costs.  For the most part, this has been in the form of layoffs (thus, rising unemployment).  While this has helped achieve cash flow during a time of decreasing revenues, there is only so much that you can cut.  There are some things a business cannot cut in order to stay in business.  Once you’ve cut everything, you have to eventually focus on revenue growth.  This is the scenario for many major companies these days.

When it comes to an individual’s personal finance, cutting costs is important during times of flat or decreasing income.  Maybe you lost your job, then of course, cutting back is a natural process.  Or maybe, you just recognize that there won’t be much opportunity for a few years; thus, you need to cut back and make sure you’re saving enough money during these few years.  Minimizing your expenses and spending is an important aspect of achieving cash flow.

Revenue Or Income Growth

The other way to grow your cash flow is to grow your revenues.  A business can grow their revenues by increasing sales in their established product or service lines, or they can find new areas to grow into.  In today’s economy, it seems many businesses are competing over a shrinking pie, meaning it will be tough for them to grow revenue unless they innovate or get into other lines of business.

On an individual perspective, your income is your salary or your bonuses from your career and other income streams.  You need a number of things to align for your income to grow.  First, you are pretty dependent on your industry.  Simply put, if your business or industry isn’t growing, it is tough to increase your income.  Second, you need to grow in your career by growing your relationships and skill set.  If you are in a growing industry and you are a go-getter that is progressing quickly in your career, you’re likely to see some income growth and as a result, positive cash flow.

Investing Cash Flow For Future Cash Flow

When a business achieves positive cash flow, most businesses will invest that money in order to grow the company.  This might mean hiring additional employees, or investing in new technologies or a new marketing campaign.  The goal is to invest past cash flow to grow future cash flow.

On the individual level, this might not be as intuitive.  First, you need to be saving money for your future (i.e. retirement).  Excess cash flow after your basic savings might be invested in yourself or your other income streams to produce additional income.  For example, you might invest in some training or education to grow your skill set.  You might invest in an income producing property.  You might invest in an online business (like I do).

In Your 20s…

Most readers in their 20 will probably ignore the business cash flow discussion in this article, and that is fine, but it’s definitely good stuff to continue to learn about especially if you have entrepreneurial goals.

On an individual level, 20-somethings really need to start looking at their money differently.  Viewing money as cash flow is a great thing to learn.  This cash flow can grow in a handful of ways and you can invest this cash flow wisely to produce additional cash flow in the future.

Last thing… notice, there was no mention of debt in this article.  By maximizing positive cash flow, you can avoid the usage of debt.  Definitely a great goal is our over-leveraged society.

Building a successful blog is a long, slow process.  It takes determination and consistency.  Most people struggle to make money online through a blog because 1) they see the slow growth and give up or 2) because they see how hard it is to monetize traffic (what little traffic they have) and give up.  The most important thing you can do to build a successful blog that can actually make money is to blog about something you are really, really interested in or blog about something related to work or preferably both.

From my perspective, you should have two goals that you should pursue in tandem as you grow your blog.

Engaged Readers

Your first goal, and by first I don’t mean most important, should be to develop a regular readership.  This readership should be fairly engaged with you and your content.  The discussion that arises through your readers typically comes in the form of comments.  If you are not getting any comments from your readers then perhaps your content isn’t interesting enough or it does nothing to elicit an actual reaction from the person reading.

Comments are crucial because they add content.  Content can be indexed by search engines and it can elicit further reactions from readers in addition to the main article or post content.

You should measure your level of engagement as you grow your blog over time.  The best way to do this is to measure the number of comments per post.  Hopefully as the number of engaged and regular readers grows, you will see more and more comments per post.  This is a good sign of a successfully growing blog.

Some blogs have such good commenting and discussion that it becomes a primary reason to visit a blog. For example, I regularly read ZeroHedge partly for the actual posts but even more so for the witty and interesting comments from their large readership. Their readers are a big asset to the blog.

Search Traffic

The other kind of growth that a successful blog will see is search traffic. This will be a function of the quantity of your content (how much content your produce) and the degree to which your content targets specific keywords or topics (seo).

There are two reasons you want your search traffic to grow. First, search visitors will occasionally be converted into regular readers. Second, search visitors tend to be the visitors that click your ads which means your blog makes money. While this isn’t the only way to make money, it’s certainly the easiest through a system like Google’s Adsense. Search traffic overwhelmingly clicks on my Adsense ads much more than my regular readers (over the last 30 days, search traffic is 57.7% of my total traffic yet 97.6% of all adsense revenue come from search traffic), which makes sense if you actually think about it.

In order to grow your traffic, I don’t believe in spending a great deal of time trying to intentionally target specific keywords and optimize your content in order to get an article to rank higher. This will result in your quality of content being lowered which is bad business. Also, interestingly, my articles that bring in the most search traffic were articles that I did not intend to be “search allstars” – it just happened. The articles that I did create specifically for search traffic tend to not bring in much search traffic.

Search traffic tends to do better when your blog is being regularly updated. I don’t have much proof for this, but I’ve definitely seen better performance when my blog is having new content regularly added. This would mean that Google potentially gives your website a bump in preference or ranking if it’s an “active” site. This would make sense, but again it is only a guess on my part.

The best formula for success is to make sure your site is optimized for search but don’t spend much time on the actual content. I know some blogs that attempt to blog about “hot topics” on Google just to capture the short term boost in traffic because of the popularity of a specific keyword. I think this is pretty pointless, because that article you spent time working on doesn’t provide much value and it doesn’t become an asset after the day is over. Your content should become the assets of your site and hopefully will draw in search traffic for a long time.

Content

More important than anything is your content. I’m a believer that blogs should be more than news sites. Why compete with Drudgereport or CNN? Blogs should offer an opinion, and an educated, interesting opinion is best. Your opinion should be backed up by facts and data but you should take a position and you should be interesting. If not, why would someone read what you have to say?

Subscribers

I don’t place the huge emphasis on subscriber count that many bloggers do, but obviously, a higher count is better. First of all, I’d rather readers come to my actual website than read the content through an RSS reader. If they are on my site, they can comment, add to my traffic statistics, click on ads, etc. These are all good things. Because of this, I don’t jump through hoops to try and get people to subscribe. I give them the option if that is their preference. That’s it.

Naturally, your subscriber count should increase as your blog grows because lots of people do read blog content through RSS. It’s tough to identify a standard growth rate for this though because some blogs do things to incentivize or convince readers to subscribe where I don’t. The growth rate will definitely be a function of how hard you try to increase the count as well as the other factors that go into general blog growth.

What Kind of Growth Should You See?

This is a tough thing to narrow down, but there’s no reason that your blog can’t achieve a minimum of 5% visitor growth each month. This requires work obviously and doing a lot of things right, but assuming you’re doing them, 5% should be a minimum with regards to visitor growth. This would mean if you have 100 visitors one month, you should be able to bump up to 105 visitors the next month; or if you have 10000 visitors one month, you should be able to attain 10500 visitors the next month.

To obtain consistent growth on a website, it takes a great deal of work and even moreso, it takes consistency and dedication. You really have to keep at it in order to achieve any level of success. You often see stats about millions of blogs are created everyday. What you don’t see is how many blogs are closed or deleted every day (probably just as many). If you’re like me, you have a busy life even without adding a blog into the mix. The only way it works is because I’m blogging about something that I’m involved in and have an interest in. If I had tried to blog about travel (even though I really like it), I would have quit long ago because frankly, I don’t travel enough to write consistently about it. I’ve written almost 500 articles now for this blog and honestly, I’m just getting started. Do you have that in you? If not, your blog is unlikely to get anywhere.

Reinvesting Your Income Back Into Your Blog

If you have an established blog getting even a little traffic, you can easily start to monetize your traffic.  Even if you’re only getting $30-$50 per month in income, this is money you can easily reinvest into the blog.  Reinvesting the cash flow back into the blog is just like any business does.  The objective is growth.

Sure I love getting a little extra income each month, but honestly I’m not blogging to earn a few hundred bucks extra a month.  I’m blogging to earn a few extra thousand a month or more.  It just takes time to get there.  In the meantime, I reinvest almost all of my income from the blog back into the blog in an effort to grow it.  How do you reinvest funds into a blog?  You can buy traffic through Adwords (which I don’t do), you can pay for directory listings that will help your blog rank higher in Google, you can pay writers to write content for your blog, you can buy reviews from other prominent blogs, you can buy ads or links on other blogs, you get the idea.

When consistent growth is the goal, it takes effort and some strategy.  Growth is a long term objective; traffic spikes are for the birds.  I want real, consistent, increasing growth over months and years so that I can develop this blog into a real business, a real income stream requiring less and less effort to maintain the income.  I will continue to document the progress towards this goal.

A reminder why I talk about blogging on this site: I believe blogging can be a real income stream opportunity for 20-somethings as long as you approach it as a business and a long term project.

Women & Finances is a new series written by a 20-something about her financial journey. Her columns will be appearing weekly here at 20smoney.com. You can read her other articles by visiting the Women & Finances category.

One way I have tried to cut back my spending recently is in the make-up department. I am an expensive make-up junkie that has not exactly been rehabilitated, but has been on the search for what make up and skin care products it’s okay to skimp and go cheap with. I am going to need reader input and advice on this one, but will share my failures and discoveries.

In the skin-care realm I have found that the inexpensive Cetaphil cleanser works great as a gentle cleanser, but it still needs to be supplemented with a good exfoliator a few times each week. I have tried and tested a multitude of cheap facial exfoliants and none work better than the expensive Kiehl’s Epidermal Retexturing Micro-Dermabrasion. This exfoliant is truly awesome and I know it’s superiority is more than just psychological. It only takes a tiny dot to give a deep scrub and the tube lasts forever. It is worth the $40.00. Now with moisturizers and eye-creams, it’s important to note that I come from the womb of a woman who swears by Creme De La Mer and spends hundreds on their creams. I have gone drug store with these products and find no difference in my skin. As long as they don’t clog pores, they do the trick. My Neutrogena moisturizer and eye cream have worked fine. A great trick I have adopted is using Johnson’s Baby Oil as an eye make-up remover. It works great and keeps the sensitive under-eye area moist.

Make-up has been a trickier animal. I have bought many types of make up at the drug store only to throw them away and end up spending even more money at the mall on the expensive brands. There is less pigment in cheap eye shadow and blush, a significant difference in mascara quality and cheap foundation doesn’t even come close to Dior AirBrush Foundation and Mac Studio Fix. Dermablend Concealer is the best at covering blemishes and under-eye circles and has a lot more pigment and quality coverage than cheap concealers. But with lip liners, glosses and lipstick I have found cheap drug store substitutes that work great. Do you need one Chanel Glossimer? Sure. But there is no need to have four of them when there are cheaper glosses out there and you can mix them with liners and lipsticks to achieve various effects. Bourjois 3D Lipgloss ($15.00) is half the price of a Chanel Glossimer ($27.00) and looks great. I get them at Ulta. I have also picked up a few great cheap and long lasting Rimmel lipliners at Ulta. There really is no gloss that stays on as long as Smashbox Limitless Long Wear Gloss, but it is $21.00 which is a bit steep and is not recommended for kissing with. For kissing, I go middle school all over again with the inexpensive drug store brand Lipsmackers but I am open to input on this.

When it comes to eyeliner, mascara and bronzer I am truly an Estee Lauder fan on all three accounts and have trouble deviating. I love Bronze Goddess and have done back to it after looking horrible with drug store bronzers that can make you look dirty or too sparkly. Bronze Goddess is truly a good median of both and the large palette is great for a large bronzer brush. Their Automatic Eye Pencil Duo is great for smudging with the sponge on the other end and I love that the sponge is capped to keep it sanitary. Estee Lauder Projectionist Mascara ($19.50) has been my favorite for a while. Even with the hype about Maybelline Great Lash and other drug store brands, I find no comparison. Projectionist makes my lashes look awesome. And has anyone found a cheap nail polish that stays on as long as OPI? I have yet to.

I would love to hear what your favorite beauty products are–especially if they save money!

Kevin says: Wow, now that is some different advice than the usual 20smoney.com content!  I hope there are some female readers out there that enjoy this article and this series!

So many 20-somethings struggle to start their career early in the 20s.  Whether you have a degree or not, it’s important to start your career as soon as possible.  There is a learning curve involved in any industry and it will take years to grow in your career.  Delaying can cost you opportunity and money.  Lots of it.

Learning A Business

Whatever industry or area you start your career in, you will likely know very little about it going in, even with a related college degree.  The key is to simply start so that you can start the learning process.  Just about all of your value once you’re a few years into your career will come from skills that you learn on the job.  The longer you wait to begin the process, the longer it is until you have much value to another employer.

In addition to the skill growth, you will learn a lot about the business or the industry.  You will learn how it works, and you will learn how you can make money in this field.  This is of course absolutely essential if you are to ever go into business yourself within the field.  How often do you see someone start a business in a field they know nothing about and actually succeed?  It doesn’t happen.

The Perfect Job

Now, I’m going to let you on a little secret: you probably won’t love your first job.  The key is to acknowledge the imperfect scenario but get the most out of it.  I didn’t love my first job, but I learned an incredible amount and it was a fantastic experience.

Too many people fill a few years up with temporary jobs such as working at a restaurant or whatever (nothing against working at a restaurant) because they can’t find their perfect job.  It probably doesn’t exist because you have no experience and don’t even know what you want.  Just get in somewhere so you can start to gain some value as an employee and as someone who can contribute to a company.  Once you get in, you will have a much better idea of where you should be in the future.

So, again, the most important thing you can do is not waste time, but to get into your career.  If you’re wasting time today, there’s no better time to switch gears than right now.  Good luck.

This guest article was written by Adrienne Carlson, who regularly writes on the topic of executive mba programs. Adrienne welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: adrienne.carlson1@gmail.com

It’s risky business indeed, when you want to put your hard earned money into the stock market. What with all the ups and mostly downs that are going through this industry right now, you’re right to be wary of stocks and funds, especially if you’re a newcomer and just testing the waters. Stocks and bonds are good investment options, if you know what you’re doing with your money. And if you’re looking for tips on making wise investment choices, read on:

• Never look for huge payoffs: Always remember that the more you expect, the greater the risks. So while you may have a chance of gaining large amounts of money, you may also end up losing much more. The stock market is very fickle and not predictable at all, so don’t look for huge payoffs – in your greed, you may lose more than you gain.

Kevin says: I don’t necessarily have a problem looking for huge payoffs as long as I understand the risk.  I think that there is a place for speculation in one’s investment strategy as long as they understand the risk and implement methods to limit the risk.

• Always clear your debts before putting money into investments: If you have outstanding debts, pay them off first before investing money in the stock market. You may want to play around with the rates of return and think that you’re probably going to get a higher return on your investment, using which you can pay off your debt which has a lower interest rate. But since stock market returns are not a certainty, trying to make a fast buck by playing around with interest rates is a foolish idea. You may find yourself deeper in debt than before.

Kevin says: This is a good point that you should definitely get rid of debt prior to building an investment portfolio.  The only exception to this in my opinion would be to participate in your 401(k) to take advantage of company matching since this is essentially free money.  Every other dollar should go towards paying down debt.

• Play safe and take the fixed deposit route: If you want to play safe and get a guaranteed return for your money, you’re better off going with deposits and bonds that have fixed rates of interest for a certain period of time. This way, you know for sure that you are assured of a certain amount of money at the end of this period.

Kevin says: Fixed income has a place in some people’s financial plans, mostly people close to retirement.  Young people can take on a little more risk in my opinion.  For me, I have my cash reserves (which I basically assume zero return) and my stocks portfolio (which I aim for large returns).

• Do your research before investing: It is always wise to do your research before you invest in stocks and mutual funds. If you do know something about the stock market, study the conditions carefully and keep monitoring your portfolio. If not, entrust your money to someone else you trust and who does know the market better than you do.

Kevin says: This is an interesting topic and while this is very against the grain, I actually don’t think research is as important as I used to.  So many stocks go up and down with the general market now, that I almost think technicals are more important than fundamentals in today’s market.  Research and fundamentals have value but in 2009, technicals dominate.

• Stick with your plan: Don’t hope for your investments to show gains or offer huge returns immediately. Be patient, don’t keep buying and selling at random, and wait for your money to grow. Take the long term strategy instead of seeking money instantly.

• Diversify your portfolio: It’s not good to put all your eggs in one basket, so make sure your portfolio is a diverse mix of bonds, stocks and mutual funds. If one is on the down trend, the up trend in others will end up saving you from losing too much money.

Kevin says: I have different views on diversification that most people.  I tend to be more speculative in nature.  If you’re looking for diversification, you can do it through a handful of ETF index funds in my opinion, avoid individual companies.  And, you don’t really need to pay someone to build/manage a diversified portfolio since it’s so easy to mimic broad market performance through ETFs.

These may be conservative ideas, but they do help you manage your money and make a small profit, a little more than a savings account will give you and a lot less than bold and risky ideas will. However, the main issue is that you know how to manage your money without taking too many risks and maximizing your profits at the same time.  Thanks for your thoughts Adrienne!