Again, what I may say here might anger some in the insurance industry, but since this is a blog for the StockTwits community, I will say what I have to say and then I would hope to get some feedback and commentary. I would also even invite a contributor who might want to take another side on this issue. I am, as one can read from the previous posts, a big believer in term life insurance over permanent or whole life insurance. The reasons is quite simple. One can save money by providing for the basic family needs with term life insurance, and one can invest the difference. I am absolute living proof of that axiom, because I did invest the difference and learned how to invest the difference. I believe that ANYONE can do it. It is not just the finance majors and "quants" out there who can invest smartly, and one does not necessarily have to be a buy and hold investor to do it either. For most people, the purchase of whole life insurance is simply not an optimal use of their hard earned money.

It looks like I am taking the easy way out by referencing a Smart Money calculator for life insurance requirements. Well, I guess you are right, but I picked it because it deals with one aspect of the topic that many do not cover. That subject is death benefits for minors under Social Security. If one is going to figure out the cost of raising kids and building a college fund, it should at least be figured in to save moneyr perhaps figure out what marginal amount of additional insurance is needed to get a child through college. I will speak to that topic later in this post.

This calculator makes it look so simple to figure out the exact need for life insurance. Well, if you have been married long enough (I know, I'm single, but I have helped a bunch of married folk over the years figure out investment questions), you know that all situations are different and many are downright contentious.  Here are just a few of the topics:

1) Final expenses: I may actually deal with this topic as a separate blog post, but as a person who has buried three people in my family (no, they died of natural causes, I don't want suspicions aroused), people allow panic and emotion to get in the way of sound decisions. Burial, even SIMPLE BURIALS AND CREMATIONS, are NOT CHEAP. Some states now mandate certain charges associated with cremation, and the funeral industry continues to prop prices beyond belief. If one does anything, regardless of how sensitive the issue is, one must discuss and finalize burial plans. Why? Because people die, and they die when one does not expect them to do so. When one does not plan for such things in advance, the whole matter of grief makes people spend like maniacs (I decided to leave any references to drunken sailors to Congress, since they fund war operations). Funeral pre-payment plans are not always the cheapest either, so I think covering these expenses in life insurance costs is a good idea.

2) College education expenses: This can also be a controversial topic, as the cost of college skyrockets from year to year. You can check the Smart Money calculator above, but what you need to do in this case is:

A) Do an estimate of any college savings (529 plans, Coverdell plans, etc) and figure out how much one will need to cover that cost over those years you may not be around until each child reaches 18. If you can find a hourly fee based financial planner that is not selling retail brokerage products, one can get decent advice without an agenda on this issue. One does not need a sales presentation here, one needs a good solid estimate of what is required. There is a note in that calculator regarding what is cost for the 2008-2009 school year. Let me clue you on something. With state budget deficits skyrocketing to the moon, one could see some increases in tuition will into double-digit percentages. Take no thumbnail estimate for granted. The net deficit between these plans and your requirements for college need to be added into one's life insurance need estimate.

B) Estate settlement costs: This will eat up the last of first 1000 words. Needless to say, one must deal with estate issues BEFORE one dies. It may end up being a knockdown-drag-out discussion, but these items have to be covered before the time of death. I have witnessed families losing fortunes in lawsuits and in settling disputed claims when I was in the financial services industry. The costs of dealing with these issues are far cheaper and easier when done before death, and that does not just include a will. There are business agreements, survivorship agreements, partnerships and family corporate entities that must be subdivided or be set for succession planning. Life insurance does have its place in these kinds of estate settlements, but those settlements must be planned for and pretty much set in stone before the death of the individual involved in them. To do otherwise could lead to financial suicide. Trust me, I have seen it happen.

Let's stop here for now and talk about government benefits in the next post. In either the next segment or (if it gets wordy, the one after that), to pull all the columns together. At some point, I will cover the items regarding key person insurance for business people, but I want to keep it simple here. I know many people will be in that position one day, but I want people to be in the position to do that after they cover their family nest egg first.

Life insurance is sold in two basic forms. One form is term insurance, and the other is often called whole life or permanent insurance.

Term life insurance is essentially life insurance for which a death benefit will be paid only within a specific period of time. There is a specific reason for that. The reason for a term is that, if one is saving money routinely for family needs, college education and retirement, as one builds personal and family wealth, one soon will not need life insurance to pay the necessary final expenses for the income provider's death. The family's assets, built up over time, can and indeed should provide for that. As a result, unless there are specific health concerns that would drive insurance premiums up, term life insurance is the cheapest form of insurance one can buy. Terms are specific to policies and variations of the policy, but terms typically cover 10 to 20 year terms. I will provide a link from Pacific Life (mainly because I like the general definitions, not so much because I am providing an advertisement for them (as I definitely am NOT). Study those definitions. Below are my major comments regarding them.

Term life insurance allows one to budget funds for catastrophic occurrences in the life of a bread winner, without committing to many funds to it. Term insurance allows one to invest, save, and plan as term plans are now very inexpensive for amounts at or just under a million dollars. Term life insurance is definitely not an investment either. It is and should be considered a necessary expense to protect the well-being of remaining family members should the bread winner (or bread winners) pass away. As one will see in these definitions, there are various terms that can allow coverage that, if properly sized, will not necessarily break the budget and provide the necessary coverage.

Permanent insurance or whole life insurance is designed to be coverage that lasts an entire lifetime and can build a residual cash value over that lifetime. It is often sold for its investment value, but in truth, and here is the real kicker, it provides little investment value (if it is traditional whole life insurance) because most people with sufficient skill (and one can learn these skills)  can outperform the rate of return provided by the policy. Any of the other types of policies either are tied to a financial index (say the Standard and Poors 500 stock index) or actually invests some of the premium in equity indexes. Those policies are normally called variable life insurance policies.

The other forms of insurance (lump sum single premium permanent or whole life policies) and last survivor life insurance can have some benefit to certain individuals, but in the former case, a term life plan or other survivorship plan is probably cheaper than the whole life version of that policy. I am working on a post regarding the latter case, as with the change in estate tax laws that are coming, if one wants to leave an estate to charity, one must PLAN for the variability in estate tax laws to use the insurance to mitigate it if one wants to leave an estate to a charity or to establish a foundation, if one has such resources. Trusts can be used for that purpose also, but one has to be careful about their legal structure to make that work properly.

I will over time begin to discuss these survivor issues  from the perspective of a business owner. Estate planning will become ever more important in an environment for which tax rates are highly likely to increase as U.S. deficits continue to expand. It is something everyone will be faced with.

The bottom line here is that life insurance should, in my opinion, be viewed as a necessary expense and not as an investment. Typically, whole life or permanent life insurance is sold as an investment, but that investment is typically locked into a cash value, whose return mimics a bond rate, if traditional, and an index rate if variable. As an investor, one requires liquidity and flexibility (that is, the ability to move those assets over time). Handing one's money to an insurer tends to destroy the flexibility aspect, particularly when it is a whole life policy. Term insurance is normally the best option for those who wish to have investment flexibility.

In the next few installments, I am going to discuss how to figure out how much insurance one needs and about estate planning tied to insurance (that is, survivorship insurance for the partner of a deceased person).

More information is coming down the pike on Friday. Thanks again for all who are reading these posts. Your questions and your support are fantastic. If you have questions or would like us to comment on topics, or even if you would like to post on a topic, send a note to buffalotrader100@gmail.com.

As a family begins its life, or as an individual takes on more responsibility and has family interests (business, relational as with parents or dependents, or charitable, as in with foundations or simply protection of assets so that the assets could be donated to charity), the need for insurance is typically greater in the beginning of its life. As the family earns more and builds wealth, that expense is no longer needed, expect for cases when business interests must be protected should a key individual within that business dies.

When one starts out in life, one has few assets (unless one is born into wealth or does something improbable like win a huge lottery) and likely has debt obligations like student loans, a home mortgage, the routine home expenses, the expense of child rearing, and college savings to cover through a savings plan (529 plan, Coverdell plan, or other approved vehicle).

Income must be replaced if that key family income earner (likely mother, father, or both) to cover those expenses. As wealth builds and income increases (assuming a regular habit of savings continues) the primary earners can pay for their expenses, including retirement (with burial or funeral expenses thereafter) and the insurance, outside of estate planning purposes, is no longer needed for the most part.

It is my contention that one should keep these insurance costs to the lowest possible level consistent with the need to cover these assets, and then to save and invest the rest. In the early adult stages of life, one has sufficient time to invest for a long enough period of time to do better than a fixed rate of return offered by other insurance vehicles like whole life or even the variable returns variable life policies.

What I will do (in far more detail in the next few series), is to define those types of insurance and why one should use them. I openly ask anyone who is involved in this industry to comment on these posts if you have an alternative point of view regarding what I will post.

One of the things one must realize, before I close this shorter than average post, is that each state in the United States regulates insurance activities in that particular state.  Though most policies are pretty uniform, there can be minor differences in policy coverage between the individual states. Though I may not (and probably cannot, given the limits of time) each difference, it is always best to check with one's local insurer and state insurance commission if one has questions regarding policy coverage.

I will provide another post in this series on Wednesday.

One of the issues I want to tackle in between the issues of income and estate taxes is the subject of life insurance. This issue can, depending on how it is used, be quite controversial not just from the standpoint of proper use but because of the industry stance on the different forms of it. I think many (and I might dare say MOST) people spend far too much for it. That additional cost could hurt cash allocation for investments in retirement and college education. It DOES however, have a place, in individual and family expenditures. The real question is HOW MUCH OF ONE SHOULD IT BE?

I will also get involved in at least a cursory discussion regarding annuities. I would also like some questions from the StockTwits community about these vehicles. I think annuities are both abused by sales people and are misunderstood as decent investments under certain circumstances as well.  People need to become familiar with annuities in order to make the right decisions regarding the use of them.

Now that I have whetted your appetites, perhaps you will aceept my mea culpa for being late this week. It will be worth the wait I think.

I will make some precautionary statements however:

1) You must have good credit AND pay off your credit cards ON TIME EVERY TIME. I have sufficient cash flow to do that every time. If you do not, then do not go into debt to build up points. That is really stupid because you are ultimately going to ruin your credit score.

2) I realize that credit card laws have changed, and for that reason one must be sure to pick a credit card that does not fee you to death or destroy you with insane interest rates (though that is simply a matter of degree still these days). That means you must research each one carefully before deciding to use one.

3) Study the reward points program in advance to see if it maximizes points for the repetitive payments that YOU usually make. If the card only gives you bonus points for buying a select few special purchases, you will likely grow old and die before ever benefiting from the points you earn. I definitely do not want you to suffer that frustration.

4) Expiration times for points need to be examined for each card. I have cards for which the points will not expire as long as I use the card.

5) Find a bonus program that gives you some flexibility as to how you may use those points.

Let's start with my example. Long ago I had what I seem to recall as Marriott Privilege points, but I had blown them out long ago when I used to travel quite a bit with a former employer. I knew that getting a discount for the Marquis would be next to impossible. I did, however, have a Hilton Rewards Points plan. Sad thing was, I had very few left. How did I turn that sadness into gladness (and a stay at a Hilton Hotel not but about a quarter-mile from that venue?). I had American Express points (and still do by the way) out the wazoo. Not only that, but American Express points are equal to about 1.3 Hilton Rewards points, meaning they would be stretched if I converted some of them. The point of this example is that many credit card companies have promotional or business relationships with other travel service vendors. Because of that, one has a multitude of ways to use the points to do what one really wants to do with them. Guess what, another savvy traveler, @aiki14 DID EXACTLY THE SAME THING to save bucks on his trip from Pennsylvania. There are plans out there that will allow you to use points for cruises, air travel, and countless other services.

Two cards that I have (one personal, one for business) will allow me one complimentary coach ticket for a second traveler upon renewal each year. I intend to use that for a special vacation next year.  A friend of mine may need a bit of help on a coach class ticket, so I will use that for the trip.

Now, the big question is, should one pay the extra amount for say an American Express Platinum Card, which offers special event preferences, entrance to certain airline airport lounges, and special travel services. The real question is will one be able to get the $500 it costs annually to use that card in benefits? If the answer is no, I would definitely NOT get it. A regular American Express card is good enough in most American venues, and in foreign venues where Visa is more acceptable, a regular Visa card is sufficient. If you do, however, wish to take advantage of special travel discounts (and can charge anything from property taxes (a nice point builder) or other larger ticket items through the card, the answer might actually be YES. If one travels enough on business to obtain at least $500 of benefit annually by using them, one would be foolish not to have one.

The key thing is, however, is that you have the cash flow to use them, your credit is virtually spotless, you pay the bills on time, and that you really can take advantage of $500 of travel benefits. For younger folks of more modest means, do NOT attempt to have such a card because of the perceived prestige of having one. The road to Debt Hell is paved with such foolish notions. If one does not need the benefits of it, do not waste the money. Stick that cash in an IRA or some other tax-deferred vehicle.

What if you have a bunch of bonus points or frequent flier miles that are about to expire ? One can give them to charity. There are charity programs by most major cards for which points may be donated to military veterans so that they can afford to travel on leave or need medical treatment. Other charities can take such donations as well. If the new tax legislation passes that eliminates the charitable deduction, as has been proposed, here is a way to donate without cash.

I will do my best in the coming weeks to see if I find some unique bonus point programs that add some real discounting to travel. Again, your credit better be good and your payment history better be spotless before trying this. If you can't handle credit, you can't handle bonus rewards. Let's just face that right up front. But if you can, there are really nice benefits to be had.

Do you have any great ideas on personal finance you'd like to write about? Contact me at buffalotrader100@gmail.com and perhaps send us a sample. We want people in the community to contribute, as the intellectual firepower of 100,000 plus smart people should be shared. That is what StockTwits is indeed all about.

Me, neither.

The large snowfalls have delayed my annual scan of my records for anything I might have missed regarding deductions for my business(es) and for our personal returns. Of course, I double-check my income, too, which comes from many sources, some of which do not send 1099 forms. We use and like the paid version of TurboTax because of the various Schedules we file, but there are ways to find free tax help, and even have your returns done for you and/or filed for free.

The IRS

The IRS offers help over the phone, online, and in person. They even have a PDF file that details all the free tax services offered for 2010. You can:

• Ask questions (1-800-829-1040) or request forms for the current and previous tax years (1-800-TAX-FORM [1-800-829-3676]). TTY/TDD for both questions and forms: 1-800-829-4059. You can also search the IRS web site for forms. Also, traditionally post offices and some libraries carry forms, but because forms are easily available over the Internet, these sources are not as plentiful as they once were.
• Call to hear prerecorded messages on a variety of taxation topics: 1-800-829-4477. You can also search the IRS web site for such information.
• Obtain face-to-face help at your local IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center (TAC). To locate the closest TAC, go to the IRS web site and click the “Individuals” button (top left). Then click “Contact My Local Office.” Scroll down to the map and click your state. I was surprised to find a TAC right in my town! You can also locate a TAC by calling 1-800-829-1040.

Please note that the IRS has won tax court cases involving providing a taxpayer with information that caused them to run afoul of tax laws. So you might not want to make the IRS your only source of knowledge on a sticky question. And, if your return requires arcane forms, consider getting paid professional help. (My opinion: asking the IRS to figure your taxes is like asking a wolf to guard your prize lamb. He might not eat the lamb, but he won’t necessarily look out for your—and your lamb’s—best interests. He has his own interests that conflict with yours.)

Online, Non-IRS

Intuit’s TurboTax web site offers to do your Federal taxes online for free if you are filing the 1040EZ, the 1040A, or a 1040 with Schedules A, B, and/or EIC. Note that this Free Edition of TurboTax doesn’t cover Schedules C, D, E, and F, so if you need to file one or more of these forms, you will need the for-pay edition of TurboTax.

H&R Block and TaxACT both offer free online filing services as well.

Other tax filing web sites also exist, but I wouldn’t use any company I didn’t know for sure was legitimate. To me, setting up a fake tax filing site seems like an easy way to steal identity information, so be careful.

Your Community

The IRS sponsors the tax help programs Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE), available in many communities across the country. Both of these programs use IRS-trained volunteers to provide free basic tax return preparation services. Volunteers range from college students to retired people.

VITA provides free tax help to: people who are disabled or have other special needs, people on fixed incomes, the elderly, those who don’t speak English and low-to-moderate income folks. The most recent income figures I could locate indicated that those with incomes below $42,000 are eligible. VITA sites are often found in community/neighborhood centers, libraries, schools, and shopping malls. Some locations have free electronic filing. Special note: military personnel and their families qualify for free tax help from VITA. To find a VITA site in your area, call the IRS at 1-800-829-1040.

TCE provides free tax help primarily to people aged 60 and older (those who are younger are helped as the counselors’ time permits). The volunteers are often retired people affiliated with certain nonprofit organizations that receive IRS grants, such as AARP, which hosts thousands of clinics. For more information on the TCE program, or to find the locations, dates and hours of a TCE site near you, call the IRS at 1-800-829-1040. To locate an AARP Tax-Aide volunteer site, call 1-888-227-7669. You can also find information on the Internet at http://www.aarp.org. Type “taxaide” in the search box.

Tax Dispute Help for Lower-Income Folks

Here’s a program I didn’t know existed before researching this article. If you have a tax dispute or pending litigation with the IRS, the Low Income Taxpayer Clinic (LITC ) program serves individuals whose incomes are below 250% of the federal poverty income limits. LITCs are independent from the IRS, and many can represent income-eligible taxpayers during audits, appeals, and in tax collection disputes, for free or nearly so. If your native language isn’t English, some LITCs can provide multilingual information about your tax rights and responsibilities. See Publication 4134, Low Income Taxpayer Clinic List, here (English) and here (Spanish), or call 1-800-TAX-FORM [1-800-829-3676].

Two additional links you might find of interest:

Bankrate.com’s 2010 tax guide

IRS web page summarizing where to find free tax help

I did what each and everyone of you should do. I had things backed up, in some cases, in duplicate and triplicate. How did I do that?

Well, I used two different off-site back up services, and they are probably the most popular ones, Carbonite.com and Mozy.com. Each person that I know who has used their services have a favorite, as do I, but I will not go into that because I am not going to do a consumerism segment in this post. I would recommend that you try both of them on a trial basis (because you can under their current offers, and make up your mind). Because I knew the drive was failing, I used the latter service to do a quick backup, as I had some file extension problems with the former service. It could well be that both have flaws, but you should be the judge of that and choose one.

Why should you have off-site backup?

1) Hardware fails. I keep hardware probably for a couple of years too long, and I do all maintenance (including cleaning old files and hard disk defragmentation, several times a week). Still, when a computer gets 3 -5 years on it, the drives will slowly become damaged and ultimately will fail. You need back up other than another piece of on-site hardware that could ALSO fail.

2) The risk of fire damage and theft at home can also be great. Even when I had a back up tape and disk drive (yes, I am old enough to both remember one and to have used one), I would take a copy of the tape or take a removable back up disk and put it in a lock box at a local bank). One simply never knows when something will be burned or stolen, so one better have a back up plan to handle it.

What is the delay if you lose your data? It takes sometimes days to recover the data via download through the web (I have nearly 30GB of critical data, and nearly a terabyte of archived documents). It will take me a little over 70 hrs to download and retrieve the critical archives and re-install them. If you decide with one of the services to get them delivered via DVD, it will cost about $100 and one STILL has to upload them into one's computer, which will still take a lot of time.

Is there another way to survive without immediately needing all the data. There is, and in fact, for my passwords and my tax documents, I stored them onto a stack of CDs that I also stored in the bank lock box. That allowed me to quickly recover any documents I needed to get vital information from bank accounts, trading accounts, and other secure sources. Should you use word processing documents to store them? NO, unless they can be encrypted or password protected themselves. If they can be written on document files, any thief could simply pull them up on a word processing program and simply steal them. A better alternative would be to store them on spreadsheet programs like Excel which has very strong password protection. By the way, my stock screening algorithms were also stored on CDs, and, as I forgot, stored on the NEW COMPUTER. I did that in August just in case I had a disaster like that strike. Well, it DID strike.

How did I recover my lost airline and hotel reservations data? Quite simple really, but it begs another issue of identity theft prevention, and that is the archiving of billing records via ,pdf file which one can also store on CD and put in a remote location. Did you know that if you have the billing record, that the TICKET NUMBER AND AIRLINE of your flight is contained in the billing record of your credit card? It is if you have American Express, and I've no doubt that other credit card companies do the same thing. What that means is that you should store copies of your bills on a ,pdf file  via CD and to destroy your paper billing records. Imagine if you made that flight months in advance and that information were stolen? If the thief also had your personal information, like a social security number, the reservation could be canceled and changed if the thief stole your billing records.

What can one do with the ticket number? One can call the airline for which that ticket number is issued, and one can recover flight  numbers and departure and arrival times. The same goes for hotel reservation confirmation numbers as well.

In future posts I will describe how I keep permanent tax documents and capital gains data, but what I wanted to do today was to demonstrate WHY back-up of all  key documents is important, and how easy it is to do it. I will also provide data as to how one can protect one's identity and why frequent checking of one's credit card statements can also save one time and money is improper charges and fees.

Once again, if one is prepared for disaster, one can avoid it and make it an inconvenience. Planning is key however. If you ain't got a plan, you've tossed your records in the can. (Please do not hire me as your poet laureate ).

But before we go any further, here are the two areas where you can make money that I didn't include, and why.

Freelance writing/selling a book

Yes, I'm a writer, but I don't encourage anyone to follow this path. That's not because I'm afraid of competition. It's because I make less than minimum wage, by the time I count up all the time it takes to craft an article or a story, and unless you have great contacts, you likely won't do a lot better. If you have a passion to write and are willing to work hard, then by all means, go for your dream. But don't imagine you'll be pulling in six-figure advances any time soon unless you are the exception to the rule. According to Barry Ritholtz, even a big advance turns into chump change once you subtract expenses and do the arithmetic to determine your hourly wage.

Stock/Options/Futures Trading

Unless you've made a living at this before, have a background in the markets, or are certain you have the skills required to succeed, please,please do not try trading for a living. Enough has been written about what you need to know and do to succeed that I won't attempt to list any recommendations here (except, of course, for StockTwits). Yes, I trade a little, but I manage risk and only take on what I know I can handle. I am by no means making big money, but I do it because I think I have potential for steady income, and because I truly love doing it. If you want to try trading and don't have a background in numbers or finance, you will have to put in many, many long days, weeks, and months to get a handle on the staggering amount of stuff you need to know. And, if you don't truly enjoy the work needed to become a successful trader, you're not going to BE a successful trader. Trading for a living is NOT easy money! I spend two-three hours every trading day on homework for the next trading day.

Now that we've put that behind us, on to the real meat of the blog post.

Businesses requiring more than $100 but less than $1000 in capital

Costs: vary because you might need to invest in special equipment, check criminal or credit records, or buy liability insurance.

Most of these businesses are ultra flexible, but steady income might take a while to accumulate.

Rent out a room, or storage space, or office space

Not a good time to sell your too-big house? Have an unused garage or storage area? You can make extra money renting out a room or storage space. You can even rent space in your driveway if you live near enough to a busy area where parking is at a premium.

If you have a large home office, consider renting out space and internet access. You provide the desk and chair.

If you leave near or in a major metropolitan area, you can also rent out a room by the night, as a bed & breakfast. Sites such as http://www.airbnb.com/ or www.CouchSurfing.org have instructions on how to get started.

Renting to a stranger, of course, requires that you do things like check criminal records and credit. This is more important for someone living in your home, and less important for someone who’s going to park in your driveway. Also, your town or city may have restrictions in place regarding renting any portion of your property, whether by the night or by the month.

Tutor

Tutoring is a natural if you’re a former teacher, because you’ve got all the qualifications you need to instruct younger children or teens. But what if you weren’t a teacher?

If you worked in a scientific, mathematical, or technical field, you could help local college or technical school students. If you are fluent in a language, or know some ancient ones (Latin, Greek, Biblical Hebrew), you could tutor college or even seminary students—many are required to learn to read at least two of those languages. Even a hobby, if it concerns something people would pay money to learn, can be tutored.

Costs vary because local regulations might require you to obtain some sort of certification before you can tutor children.

Businesses requiring more than $1000 in capital

Costs: Mostly start-up capital, which can be substantial. These ideas are not to be tried unless you have either made money doing so before, or unless you have a lot of money to invest. Don't do it if you are unemployed and starting the business would take most of your savings. Remember, there's no guarantee that you'll succeed, and you and your family will need money to live on.  So don't spend down your retirement account(s) or leverage your home unless your financial resources are substantial.

Buy rental property

Buying a small rental property and then renting the units is one way to make money. If you need to downsize your home for any reason, you could live in one apartment while renting out the other(s) and retire the mortgage on your too-large house. However, you’ll need excellent credit and enough income to handle the mortgage on the rental property, so this idea won’t work for some, perhaps many. You should also have good handyman skills to avoid hiring help, so think twice about pursuing this path if you're not "handy." Doing most of your own repairs and fixes (and tenants will always have something that needs repairing or replacing) puts more of the rental income into your pocket.

Certain areas of the country have attractive properties at prices much less elevated than they were three to four years ago. However, real estate is a specialized area fraught with dangers, so don’t attempt this unless you know what you’re doing. I’m going to leave it at that.

Franchises

If you are a hard worker who doesn’t mind long hours, then franchising might be for you. If you have experience in the franchise area that interests you (e.g., restaurants, food, watch repair, and so on), then you have an edge that others might not. You are more likely to succeed with a franchise behind you than if you start a restaurant on your own. I don’t mean to pick on restaurants, but they do have an extremely high failure rate compared to franchises.

This idea requires a lot of homework, and I do mean a lot. Things to consider include location, where the nearest similar franchise is, and which one interests you the most, as well as which one you can afford. The average overall investment to start a franchised restaurant runs from about one hundred thousand to a little less than a quarter million. Not all of this needs to come from you, if you can secure a business loan. To get started, check out “Six ways to boost your income”. I have never owned a franchise, so I won’t attempt anything more here except to restate, you must do a lot of homework and work hard for your investment to succeed.

That's it for this week. I've got some links below to explore. Remember, a good rule of thumb is not to pay anyone money for “information” or “details,” regardless of what they may promise in terms of landing a job. I wish you much success and profit!

Cashing in on the crumbling economy

Four ways to make cash online

How teens can make money (but some ideas could be used by adults)

How to earn money without a job (some ideas are seasonal)

How to make money without a job, and why you should

Make money simply by driving your car

Six ways to boost your income

Ten places to find temporary work

You can make money without a job

Your house can make you money