With so many options for housing in today’s market, it can be tough to know what to look for in a new home. On top of the options between a house, apartment or flat, there are other things to think about such as kitchen size, closet space and more.

(Related –  True Cost of Buying Home – Other Hidden Expenses)

Closets

Homes built in the early 1900s had miniature closets. Home buyers touring older homes will see how limited the closet space was back then compared to closets today. In the past, women had a few good dresses and maybe two pairs of shoes. Men had even less. They had two suits and a few casual pairs of pants. The closets were adequate for their needs. Men and women today have hundreds of shoes for every situation. Boots, dress shoes, casuals, heels and flats must all fit in the same space and be readily available.

Closets will be in style for years. The huge walk-in closet will be popular today and ten years from now. It’s an important feature that appeals to the new generation of home buyers.

Home Office

More and more people are bringing their jobs home with them. They are checking emails, talking to clients and making sales from home. They need a dedicated space away from the main house to conduct business.

Often an extra bedroom can be converted into a usable home office space. During a tour, home buyers will check for a dedicated home office space and if one isn’t provided, they will convert each room in their heads to fit their needs. If it’s a three bedroom space, potential home buyers will see two bedrooms and a home office.

Hardwood

The trend in new homes is hardwood floors. While older homes were covered in carpet, newer homes are opening up the space by providing beautiful hardwood floors. If the new homeowner wants carpet, they can cover the floors in rugs.

The space is easier to maintain with hardwood floors than with wall to wall carpeting that can get dirty and worn. Often in older homes, new buyers will frown at the carpet and peel up corners to see what’s underneath it.

(Related  - 6 Financial Must Do’s For First Time Home Buyers)

Local conveniences

Young couples might want wide open spaces to watch their growing family play, but most of the new generation of home buyers want local amenities. They aren’t looking for acres of land to mow. They have busy lifestyles, and they want property that is part of a community.They want a home near their favorite restaurants, clubs, gyms and businesses.

Whatever home you are looking for, remember that you always have options to suit any budget. Remember to think about what you can afford, and what you can borrow. Make sure to look for a lender with great repayment options.

A popular choice for Australian readers is Smartline, being a mortgage broker they can be sure to give personalized mortgage advice. Click here to find out more about Smartline and their services. Whatever house you’re looking for, remember to choose one that suits your wants and needs as there are so many options out there.

(Related – 51 Tips Before you Buy a Home)

SB’s Thoughts – Although we do not have a kid yet. We will definitely try for a home in a good school district. I’ll also look for enough garden space. I have this fantasy to set up a butterfly garden and a small green house. I would like to have enough space for that.

SMB would go for an island kitchen, that I know. Locality is a big factor too. We live in south Florida, the cities here are well landscaped, manicured and lush green, so,  wherever we buy our home it will be in a scenic surrounding, so I am not worried about beauty and serenity factors that much.

I would like our home to be near a super market that will save time and gas. But, the biggest thing I’d pay attention to is the age and  the structural strength of the property, including the roof.

Readers, what did you look for when you first purchased your home? For those who are not a home owner yet, what are your thoughts?

Bookkeeping as an activity always was and still is an important aspect of managing personal finance. Keeping track of earnings and spending are two most important aspects of managing personal finance. This post is not about managing your household books electronically with the help of modern software tools which will make your job easier and less time consuming.

I manage our books and keep track of every cent we earn and we spend. I use Yodlee Money Center to manage it for us. Gentle reminder that this is not an advertorial for Yodlee. You can use Mint.com or any other software/application you prefer. The only reason I went with Yodlee because my Indian bank/stock accounts are unavailable on Mint.com. Yodlee has the largest array of financial institution you can link to.

Now a days there are various personal budgeting software that can do all these for you. You don’t have to be computer savvy, if you can write emails, you can also use computer software for your household book keeping.

In the traditional bookkeeping system, you needed to sit with all your spending bills and receipts, you needed to write a lot of things on paper, you needed to calculate, sum, subtract, multiply and what not.

Now a days, you need to know how to reach to the page where you’ll see all of your income and expenses. You can even set budget and compare between budgeted spending vs. actual spending. I will put some screen shots (with figures obfuscated to protect my financial numbers from becoming public) to explain the steps.

Essentially, you can manage your household finances like a small business, and that too without cost (no cost if you use online accounts, nominal cost for some stand alone software packages).

The screens here are from Yodlee. Mint.com has very similar and some more advanced features.

If you don’t have a family, it’s really pretty simple to know whether you have money or not, but if you are handling the finances for 4 other people and yourself, this can get quite complex sooner. So what can you do to simplify the process and make sure that you’re not missing anything?

Essentials for Modern Bookkeeping

I will not ask you to bring a pen and piece of paper along with the bag full of grocery bills and restaurant receipts. All I would suggest that you open another browser window and type in the tool you’ll use to book-keep your finances.

But, before you do that, lets talk about what you’ll need to do for bookkeeping using a finance software.

1)  Use Financial Software – I use Yodlee Money Center, as stated earlier. I have a couple of friends that use QuickBooks and they love it, I can also vouch for Mint.com, which is quite user-friendly as well, and it’s completely free (and secure)! Either of these mediums will do their best to categorize your expenses for you, which makes life a million times easier.

For example, if you stop at the gas station on the way home and put $40 of unleaded in your car, your finance software will have already categorized that expense to your “Gas” category by the time you get home. Each month, you just have to do a little bit of cleanup and you are completely ready to analyze your income and expenses for the month.

I found out two pages (here and here) for you which list the personal finance software available in the market. Feel free to read further review and choose the one you’re most comfortable with.

2) Check Your Income – For many people, this is probably the easiest part of their finance leg-work because they get a paid a salary that goes unchanged each month (except for those magical months where you get paid 3 times instead of just twice).

Just quickly take a look at your income and if it looks correct, you can move on. If, however, you have some income each month that is unpredictable, double check these values against the work that you’ve done (most likely on a side-business) and if it also seems reliable, it’s time to move on!

3) Check Those Expenses – this is not nearly as simple as reviewing your income since there are many more transaction in your expense category, but start out by taking a look at the overall value. First of all, this expense number should be lower than your income (we want to earn more than we spend).

Secondly, rather than reviewing each expense separately, create a budget category for each expense and review them as a whole.

For example, you expect to spend $200 each month on gas, $400 on food, $70 on car insurance, $875 for the mortgage, and so on and so forth. If a category seems out of whack, then you can dig into the numbers and see what created the discrepancy.

You can also see the spending pattern over time. If your goal was to limit dining out, you can instantly check the spending on restaurants over months or quarters or even years. If you are unknowingly spending too much on a particular category, it should be identified easily.

4) Net Income (Cash Flow) – Ultimately, your personal finances shouldn’t really focus on income and expenses (although they are important tools to your end goal). You focus should be on your net income – your total assets minus your liabilities. In other words, these are all of your possessions minus the debt that you owe on them.

So, if you own a house that’s worth $300,000 and you owe $250,000 and have no other assets or liabilities, then you have a net worth of $50k. Each month, you’d like to see this number on the rise.

Your investment accounts should be increasing in value, your debts should be going down, and perhaps your asset values are going up. Everything should be leading you toward a higher net value, which will be heading toward your financial goal. Most of the financial software out there should do this for you.

Pay attention to that number and do you best to always keep it going up!

The best thing about modern bookkeeping is you can be alarmed automatically before you sit with the numbers at the end of the month. Any time your spending on certain item or category exceed the pre-set limit, you’ll get emails automatically from these software.

Now, select your software and start bookkeeping. As I am doing, you too can say ‘No’ to the electronic receipt at the cash register, unless your paying with cash. As long as you use your cards to pay for the items, records are maintained in the online bookkeeping software like Mint and Yodlee and many others.

Real Time Visitors, as shown on Google Analytics

Blogging gives you mixed feeling. It can be enjoying, satisfying and at time it is too draining. No doubt it’s a great feeling that readers keep coming back for the new posts. When I see the dots in my real-time Google Analytics screen (like in the picture above), I feel proud to be a blogger. I think it’s the same feeling of pride that book authors get with each copy being sold. Where it pains is the immense work-load you take on.

No one ask you to take the pain but, you take it on yourself, you struggle to be a top blogger, you struggle to be on Google first page when some one tries to find information on topics you wrote about. When you are not a full-time blogger, it’s very very hard to manage your blog along with your day job. That’s what is happening with me sometimes.

About pride, when I see dots appearing and vanishing quickly I feel bad as my content didn’t solve the reader’s purpose (It’s not that I look at the GA screen all the time. In fact when I need motivation then only I look at that else, looking at real-time traffic screen is distracting). When the dots move on to another page, I feel proud that the visitor is interested in the blog.

I have 4600+ Twitter followers, more than 1000 email subscribers and almost 100 Facebook fans, All figures are growing everyday. I feel proud not to be just another person in the crowd. When feel I am a author, I am a creator ad I do something that others don’t or can’t.

Blogging is a fun too, I enjoy interacting with readers and other bloggers. When I write posts I think that I am talking to you. I enjoy writing in explanation style. That’s the reason my posts are quiet bigger than posts you see on other blogs. When I write some sentence I feel as if I didn’t properly explain in detail, so write more details about it. I didn’t hear any complain about the length of my posts yet.

On the other hand, there is a dark side. Blogging is taxing to your family. It is, at times, a stressful task. Let me explain.

Why blogging is taxing 

I work for 10 hours daily that is 2 hours more than you should put in your day job. But, this is kind of new-normal in IT industry. This blog takes at least 4 hours of time daily. And almost 60% of week-end time.

I work on this blog every day after I wake up. I rarely talk to SMB in the morning. Except some small conversation about my lunch and breakfast, as she packs the boxes for me.

When I come home from work in the evening we talk for a little while. Then we part ways, I come to my bed room study to work on the blog and she stays in the living room doing her own stuff.

In a way we don’t even talk for solid 30 mins in a day.

During the week-end, when we are away from home, I look for ways to come home early so that I can be on my blog. It’s kind of mental sickness at times. Not at a

ll healthy as I don’t feel like sleeping early leaving the blog behind.

Always there is this insecure feeling that my latest post will not be a hit, my search engine ranking will be taken away. Last year I wrote a post, does blogging affect work? Till date that is my most commented post. I admitted that blogging affected my work in some way. Here. I admit blogging also does affect personal relationship.

When you get to choose between commenting on other blogs/promoting your articles on social media and making breakfast for your wife on week-ends, it’s not a ideal situation you’re in. That is where bloggers envy other people who do not blog, the normal people.

So why I still blog?

The same reasons that you have for everything else that you indulge in.

Personal satisfaction – It is satisfying to see people coming to your for information and knowledge.

I feel proud that OCAAT, with 4 hours of interrupted work a day, stands within top 100 personal finance blog. Money Crashers Ranking 82 and Wise Bread Ranking 94. I am especially proud that OCAAT is one of the 25 odd personal finance blogs in top 100 that are not run by a team of professionals or corporate houses. And achieving that only after two years of blogging is a big deal.

When institution like, JP Morgan, Citi, etc send out press releases to my email box, I feel proud to be one of those individuals whom even large financial power houses recognize. I never asked for those press releases, they send on their own. So blogging is also a feeling of doing something very useful for the society.

It gives social recognition – although in my case, only a couple of folks at work know about this blog , and in my friend circle, almost no one knows about it. We have a personal finance blogger community which has 100s of bloggers. We all know each other very well.

Knowledge Gain – When I write an article, the amount of research that go in to the writing makes me more knowledgeable and more aware.

Personal Improvement – I did improve on my writing skills, compared to when I started this blog. I haven’t mastered it though. Time and again I hear complaints about bad English, grammar and spelling. Please bear with me till be master that aspect as well.

I became wiser in managing and investing our money while blogging about it.

Extra Income – I will never reveal how much I earn from this blog. But the earning is not bad. We are single income family, the blog income definitely helps us getting towards our financial independence sooner.

What’s in future?

I don’t know, I still enjoy writing. Although on days, It’s too much mental torture to ready a draft post for the next day. On those days, I feel like quitting blogging. But fortunately those spells are very short-lived for me.

Most of the blogs that ranks over OCAAT and are now run by corporate/media houses started like this, they were personal and operated my a single guy initially. When they grew bigger, they caught media attention.

They waited till the offer price matched their expectation. Then they sold off. It’s very hard to resist an offer like $200,000 or $300,000 (some of the top blogs fetched way more than that but, no outsider knows the actual figure) for giving up the blog, especially since you can always start with the next blog.

I do get buy-out offers, which are, till now, too low to even consider. However, I am not looking for selling at this point, I enjoy writing, I will keep on going. But, I can’t guarantee that I won’t sell OCAAT off if I get right price. I will tell before hand if I do so.

As of now I am satisfied with the way I am blogging or the way this blog is growing. It fulfills one of my social obligation of doing something good and useful for the masses. I never claim to be an expert in financial matters, I write what I believe in and what I feel as correct, and, I am very happy with the way I produce content.

If one day my employer finds out about this blog and asks me to stop, I’ll have to sell it anyway. The other possibility is of my employer acquiring this blog as they don’t yet have a social media presence via blogging. If that happens, it will be probably most satisfying outcome for me. I am fully dedicated to my employer and always want to do more than what is expected out of me. Giving away this blog to them would also mean I become a full time blogger working for the same employer. What better outcome can I get than that!

I never advertise about my employer ( even though we are a Fortune 100 finance company) or never review or talk about any of their products. So in a way I never breached any of the employment code of conduct.

Readers, thank you for reading this post, do write about your opinion. I would love to hear readers who never commented on my post. Feel free to share your opinion about blogging and bloggers. 

While going through some of the articles recently on health, I ran across one that talked about heart problems. The biggest four causes of a heart attack did apply to me. Smoking, lack of sleep, stress and no exercise. It was a wake up call. Since then, I made a list of things I should do to protect my dear heart. This article contains that list.

This is mostly directed towards men, although women do run a risk of heart problems but, they are not as susceptible as men. For men a heart attack can happen at any age. Recently I came to know about a young fellow who died of heart attack at 34. Fortunately, there were plenty of research work to find out certain activities that can reduce risk of heart attack.

There are enough information and research findings available on internet for you to find out. Out of those, here are two wonderful articles I found on my favorite site Men’s Health. New ways to protect heart and 100 ways to protect heart. These articles are information rich and you don’t need to read anything else.

Now I want to write about my plan on doing things right. There were incidents of fatal heart attack in our family, although this is not hereditary, almost every man has some probability of getting a heart blockage. Saying that, here’s how I want to protect my heart.

First thing is checking my body up regularly. I do yearly checkups as part of my health plan. So far HDL (good Cholesterol) , LDL (bad Cholesterol) and Glucose levels are normal. Even my BMI is well under prescribed level. I need to take measures that’ll ensure these numbers are always under control.

Here are 21 Ways I can protect my heart.

1. Quitting smoking - The number on and most difficult task at my hand. I may not have to emphasize much about the importance. Here’s a nice article that links smoking and heart disease.
2. Not going to stress over stress - The truth is we need a good challenge all the time. Accepting the challenge and facing up to it will do your heart a lot of good. I work under stressful work environment. I make it a plan to avoid stress by by being more proactive and making more friends at work.
3. I will be positive – Life will always have ups and downs. See life as half full rather than half empty. Smile a lot and always find a reason to be happy. I am fortunate to be born with a positive attitude. The first thing that comes to my mind is, ‘Yes’. I need to be more positive going forward as few people complained about my lack of enthusiasm at certain things recently.
4. Working out – Unless you live in a place where there are more trees than cars it is best and safer to exercise indoors. I do stretch a bit between meetings and calls. But this is not enough. I may not be going to the gym but I can do at least 10 mins of physical activity each day. I can even do it at work.
5. Weight lifting – I first need to buy one 20 lbs weight. I saw that according to a Harvard research, lifting weights 30 minutes a week is enough to reduce your risk of heart disease by 23 percent.
6. Will play more – I was a regular soccer and cricket player until last year. Now due to various reasons, I stopped going out to ground. I need to start at least with Cricket now, that is my favorite sport. Any kind of exciting physical activity is actually good for heart.
7. Boosting sex life - Time and again research has proven that good old loving holds a lot of benefits. Moreover it was found that men whose sex life with their significant other is active are less likely to suffer heart disease than those who aren’t getting it. hmm.. work to do here. I don’t want to say much otherwise I’d have to reveal personal details.
8. Need to be happy – smile and happiness everyday may even be better than an apple a day. I want to be happy and avoid conflicts at home and at work. Men under stress are twice as likely to get a heart attack than a normal person.
9. Need to make good friends - I need to make a few more good friends, my personal Facebook account has 520+ friends but what I need is really good friends who can be there for me always. I need to make friends at work where I spend almost 50 hours a week. .
10. Being in a group –  Extend your network of friends other than your office mates. We are fortunate to have a big group of friends with whom we hang around every-end and talk to often over phone. At work, I am fortunate to be one of the popular guys, I get company whenever I have some free time.
11. Having enough sleep – After smoking and lack of exercise, this one is the third worrying factor for me. I rarely sleep for more than 6 hours, not even during the weekends. This is not enough, our body needs at least 7 hours of sleep everyday. People who lack sleep all the time are not only slower in mental acuity but is at risk of heart disease as well because, when your body gets tired it releases proteins that radically reduces blood flow. This means the supply of oxygen to vital organs becomes low.
12. Doing something about my snoring – Snoring itself won’t cause heart problems. It is however an indication of underlying problems including the heart. The medical field has already taken leaps when it comes to dealing with snoring. I do snore and that’s the reason SMB sleeps in the other room sometimes. I am trying to find a way out.
13. Controlling meds – Over the counter drugs for common ailments like headache or fever can do a lot of damage if you take more than you should. There is a reason for the warning “If symptoms persist consult your doctor.” Consult your doctor before you pop those health supplements too. I am again a rule breaker here, to pacify my migraine I do keep Excedrin with me. I may need to find other ways to control migraine or need to take only when there’s no alternative.
14. Drinking tea – A substance called Flavonoids in the tea causes blood to thin and veins to improve. I will drink two cups of tea every day.
15. Control Sodium – This is especially important to me as I take more than usual salt. SMB keeps on telling me that using raw salt is very dangerous. I need to put serious thoughts on it.
16. Drink lots of water daily - I am already doing this one. I drink at least 10 glasses (of 8 Oz) of water everyday.
17. Moderate Drinking - Alcohol when taken in moderation will do wonders. It raises good cholesterol levels and keeps the blood from thickening. This in turn reduces the danger of clots in the arteries.
18. Walking – I walk a lot in office. But, when I come home I don’t actually leave my table and my room. At times SMB and I go out for a walk, we walk for about a mile or two.I need make this a habit and do it more often.
19. Eating healthy - Nothing can beat a balanced diet. Thanks to SMB, who loves to cook, we rarely eat fast food. Although I don’t enjoy fish and red meat, I am all for eggs and veggies. I like to munch on fruits rather than donuts and chips. A healthy eating habit is not only good for the heart but also it keeps you looking good.
20. Brushing teeth twice – It has been proven that oral bacteria are a risk factor for heart disease. Plus it will save your heart from being broken too. Who would want to kiss someone with bad breath? Well, seriously I have a cavity and I am very scared even when I think of a dentist. I need to fill that thing up as soon as possible. I should also start brushing my teeth at night, this is a serious lapse.
21. Seeing doctor regularly – Nothing beats the evaluation of a professional. At the very least never skip that annual physical check up mandated by your company. My employer conducts this in the company facility there’s no chance I’d miss it.

Even after following all these regularly, I can not assume I am totally risk free. So, I’ll not take chance and will see the doctor even at a slight sign of a trouble. I suggest you do so as well.

Lastly some advice to you which I can’t implement, if there’s a room in your life, do fall in love, it makes your heart stronger. Love does wonder to our mind and that positively affects your physical body.

Even those scary movies and tense sporting events are good for your heart, contrary to usual belief that they tax our hearts and nerves. Those are kind of heart exercise.

Often my planning to do certain things failed due to lack of dedication towards it. I often tried setting goals, like 30 mins of stretching each week, but after a few weeks, I don’t really feel the urge to stretch any more. So, I need to find a way to stick to the above plan.

Planning and starting with the plan are the two easiest thing,s the main challenge lies in executing it consistently. I hope to continue above forever, let’s see what’s in store.

Readers, are you doing enough to make your heart – attack proof? If yes, what are you doing?

Investing Tax refund

I know some people would spend it foolishly by taking a lavish vacation in the Caribbean or for a season golf membership. I am not saying those are bad things, but there are plenty of better things that you can do with that chunk of change.

I got almost one grand back this year, mostly due to SMB’s tuition cost, which saved us few extra bucks in taxes.

How I invested this money?

As an experiment, I opened up a Prosper account. Prosper is a peer-to-peer lending company, that sources funds from public and loans out to individual borrowers.

I know many personal finance bloggers who are using peer-to-peer lending instrument, whether it’s Lending Club or Prosper doesn’t make much of a difference, all of ‘em produce much higher return than a normal savings account rate or a long-term CD rate.

Not only peer-to-peer lending, there are various other good and prudent ways to invest your tax refund money. Here they are.

10 ways you can invest your tax refund money (ie. put it to good use!)

1)      Pay Off Your Credit Card – This isn’t the first thing you think of when you hear the words investment, but by paying off your card, you’re avoiding a mountain of interest, which is definitely a smart financial move.

No doubt, this should be your first choice if you have credit card debt. No investment can earn you that high interest you’d pay otherwise to the credit card companies. So this option should give you best value of your refund money.

2)      Purchase Index Funds – Notice I didn’t say mutual funds. Mutual funds aren’t a bad investment, but they almost always come with high fees. Avoid those fees by investing in index funds instead.

Last year, it was my investment with the tax refund money. I bought SDY and I am not at all repenting! CNN lists top funds for investors, which I’d rely on.

3)      Put It Into Your High – Yield Bank Account – Did you know that many credit unions are offering 3 or 4% interest on your checking account? If you add $3,000 to your savings total, you could be earning an easy $120 for the year!

4)      Purchase Junk Coins – Do you know what junk coins are? Mainly, they are coins that are worth more than their face value because of what they’re made of. When I think of junk coins, I think of quarters that were minted before 1965. Since they’re made of 90% silver, they are worth about $5, rather than the 25 cent face value.

Even I may go for buying a gold coin if gold price drop further. After the recent drop (as of May 2013) gold, to me, is coming back to investment list.

5)      Start Your Own Business – Did you know that a website can be started for just $40 in your first year? There is hardly any risk, and there is a huge upside to the possibilities! you can start a home based franchise with as low as $5,000. Here’s Inc. guide to home based franchise.

6)      Give Your House a Makeover – If you’re thinking about selling your house, don’t be afraid to put some of your refund money toward sprucing the place up. Just $2,000 can go a long ways and it can spark an interest in your house that could get you more than $5,000 of your asking price.

7)      Invest in an Annuity – If you’re nearing retirement age and you’re sitting on a lump-sum of money that you’re not sure what to do with, consider buying an annuity. It will provide you with the cash flow you’ll need to survive from month to month, and it will even pay you interest.

Although I personally will never buy annuity given it’s expected rate of return I still can recommend it to people looking for stable and risk free retirement income. Here are some best practices of Annuity Investment.

8)      Invest in Real Estate – I absolutely love the idea of investing in real estate. I realize that $3,000 isn’t going to buy a house, but if you already have some money saved up, maybe that three grand will help make your first purchase. If you find a property that would yield an immediate positive cash flow, I would recommend thinking about it very seriously. Once that mortgage is paid off, real estate investing is a breeze.

Another way is to invest in REITs. In our area (South Florida) property prices went up by 20% compared to last year. I am not specilating here, but I honestly believe real estate can only go up from here. Don’t hang me if it doesn’t though.

9)      Invest Overseas – If you have some friends within a different country (preferably one with a stable economy), you may want to purchase some property there. Our economy isn’t completely bleak yet, but it’s getting there, and it might be wise to have a fallback plan. I have a real estate property in India and my parents are asking to buy one more and rent it out.

10)   Invest in Yourself – If you’ve always want to further educate yourself by going back to school, I would say go for it! If you obtain a degree in your line of work, you’ll almost certainly be in line for a raise. If you think your tax refund money can’t fully cover such expense. Here’s list of online courses offered by an institution like Harvard. Price ranges between $1500 to $5000. You can afford such edution

If you have invested your tax refund money, do let us know what you did. 

We are beating the heat with fan

I was born and brought up in India where we grew up without AC. AC was luxury for us. Naturally summer months were not pleasant at all. Perhaps readers from Arizona, Texas or Nevada can understand how it feels like to be without AC at 110 F temperature. In India, that heat was not just a passing wave but, it was a way of life, it still is.

Only I moved to this country where I am constantly in air conditioned environment – at home, at work and even while travelling.

(Related  -  15 Ways to Reduce Summer Energy Consumption)

I was first exposed to prolonged air-conditioned environment when I was taking computer courses in my college. It was in the computer lab.

So, I can definitely tell you more if you are really interested in knowing how to live without AC.

One disclaimer though, at our home (we live in South Florida), these days, we use AC everyday but, not for the entire day. We keep thermostat set at 77 F and use a fan. The picture above is from my study. I switched the fan off for taking the picture. Since we set the limit at 77 F, the AC unit doesn’t always run, especially during the night when outside temperature drops. We use fan, so the breeze from the fan lets us to sound sleep.

During the day SMB opens up the windows. That air flow, coupled with the fans keep us cooler. We don’t really start our AC before noon (we shut it down after waking up).

The picture shows that I don’t write for the sake of it, I do practice the techniques I write in this blog. So, you can trust me and have faith!

Let’s first describe how it was back in India, 20 years ago.

We were living in single family home with wide garden and backyards. Houses were made of bricks and cement, they used to have ventilators to keep warm air out and at least two windows to keep the air flow on. Every room had a big ceiling fan at the center of the roof.

During the summer months, they blew nothing but hot air at us. naturally, sleeping outside in the garden or in the backyard in the night was much preferred option. There were mosquitoes too. So, sleeping without mosquito net was unthinkable. That net used to create serious obstruction to the air flow. life was not easy during those days.

To sum up, these are the ways we kept our-self cooler from the insane heat without AC.

For more information, if you’re interested, on how people beat the heat in India you can refer to this article.

1. Taking shower several times a day, especially just before going to bed
2. We drank a lot of water to keep our body hydrated
3. We used to soak clothes in water and hung it back the table top fan. It produced cooler air.
4. We used a lot of talcum powder to control sweating.
5. Cucumbers, salad, plain yogurt and lime water (Nimbu Paani) were part of everyday diet, to keep our body cool.
6. People in multi-storied buildings slept on the roof top to get the breeze.
7. Even while sleeping outside, due to mosquito net, we always had hand-held fans.
8. Our meals in the summer were less spicy.
9. We used to hang wet clothes, bed sheets, etc. by the window during the day.
10. I remember wearing white vests and white shorts to get less sweaty.

Now I am not saying you follow the above. That was a third world country 20-25 years back. Now people, even in India, have air conditioners. The purpose of this article is to make you consume less AC and hence, save some money in terms of reduced electricity bill.

(Related – 101 ways to save energy)

How to Cool your Home at Lower Cost

As I said before, we all like to be comfortable (and not sweat) in our homes, so we can’t simply just turn off the air conditioning, but what could we possibly do so that our bills stay low and skin stays cool?

Let’s explore some unique ideas.

1) Increase Your Shading – Did you know that most of your heat in your house is caused by direct sunlight through the window? Have you ever stood in front of the window that had sunshine pouring in? It’s hot! The best way to solve this is with a shade that blocks the sunlight. Or, if you need to update your landscaping anyway, perhaps a few trees could do the trick.

2) Bust Out the Fans – Your A/C unit works hard to cool your house, which means that you’re paying more dollars for every degree lower that you set your thermostat. Instead of just bearing the heat, use a couple of fans to move the air. With this air movement, your skin will be less prone to sweat, which  means that you’ll ultimately feel cooler.

3) Install a Programmable Thermostat – I was in the store the other day and took a look at the programmable thermostats. I half-expected them to be $100 or more, but there were some high quality ones for only $35! By using a programmable thermostat, you could keep your home cool while you’re there, but if you’re gone all day on a consistent basis you could schedule it to be warmer and thereby save money! I suspect that it would only take a couple of months to recoup the costs of this unit.

4) Make Friends with Your Basement – If you have a basement, I would suggest using it this summer. My friends do this every summer. They have a main level, a basement, and an upstairs (where all of their bedrooms are). On the extremely hot days, they don’t try to battle the heat upstairs by turning the thermostat way down; in fact, they turn it up! Instead of heading upstairs for the night, they decide to head downstairs and sleep comfortably without much effort. I imaging that they save a ton of money by doing this!

5) Stop Cooking Your Meals in Oven – I’m obviously not suggesting that you go out to eat all the time, but if you can get by without using your stove or oven, your house will remain so much cooler! If you really do want a hot meal, just pop your meal in the microwave instead. It might not taste as wonderful, but at least you don’t have to slave over your meal with that heatbox!

Tips to keep your body cooler

1) Take Shower Twice - I take shower once, before going to work. But, whenever I take shower after coming back, I don’t fight with SMB to lower AC temperature, never. Taking shower in the evening has other biological good effects on our body. If you take an evening shower, make it a cold shower.

2) Drink more Water – I know the direct benefit of it out of my experience. As stated earlier, water prevents dehydration and make our body cooler. You feel less warm when you are enough hydrated. If possible, drink lemon water or fruit juices every day.

Here’s one comprehensive and helpful article that covers 15 ways to stay cooler without AC. But, that’s without AC, not everyone can stay without that. Even with my upbringing in that kind of environment I can’t think of living without AC these days. So, the ideas above were to make you less dependent on AC.

Readers, how do you plan to beat the heat this summer? 

Watched a movie in an empty theater

Last few weeks were almost event less. At work gearing up once again for the end of the year slog. This time I am responsible for three critical project deliverable and am already tensed because we are losing a few critical resources.

Monetarily this week was draining. Had to spend on lot of upgrade and replacements. But, happy that none of them were impulse purchases. SMB successfully passed one of the teaching certification courses. She has a couple of more to pass before getting the license to teach Chemistry in schools.

Our garden is flourishing and becoming greener every day. Square foot garden is only half full so I am still waiting to complete the post on square foot gardening.

My mother is doing better now and her normal movements returned. Making me less worried about one thing.

On the blog, three of my top ranked posts suddenly lost the rank and falling behind other competitor articles. There were frequent server issues at Hostgator, where this blog is hosted on. Some of you might have noticed slowness. I was in frequent touch with folks at Hostgator. I think constant loading issue for few days was the reason behind lost search rank. Since Friday, OCAAT is again normal and loading fast like it was before. I have a very high hope to get bank my ranks soon.

I am also consulting with an expert on possibility of moving to a dedicated server, right now OCAAT is hosted on a shared server where many other sites and blogs are co existing.

Here’s some of the good posts I could find in personal finance blogs this week.

Good Reads I want to Share

Bloggers do make money with the blog, so do I. Here are two posts which talks about how bloggers make money through blogging. Can you still make money through blogging? and I make money online. If you’re giving blogging a thought, do remember there will be hardly any money you can earn in first 12 months. Most bloggers quit within that first year.

My friend Ray posted an inspiring conversation between his daughter and him. You can read proud to see financial wisdom.

Dollar stretcher wrote an invaluable post on preventing summer crime. Few excellent tips are there, such as putting up of a “beware of Dogs” sign and not disclosing your travel plans on Social media, etc.

Wise bread posted a typical post as you are used to see it here in OCAAT, a list post – 53 ideas for under $10 night outs. That post gave me a lot of new post ideas for coming months.

I want to quit and desperately looking for ways. Here’s a piece of inspiration to help you quit if you smoke. Marie tells us how she successfully quit smoking.

I was unaware that YouTube is contemplating on a charged service to watch premium content. Here’s post on Money Minute.

Roger, from The Amateur Financier noted 7 things he would rather make and not buy from market. Interestingly he included beauty products as well. Whihc I may not particularly like. But there are others who can easily make organic home based perfumes, etc. not my cup of tea.

This one from London Business School publication lists interesting facts about mobile phones, Did you know that the first mobile phone was the size of a briefcase and costed £2,000?

My favorite publication, Harvard Business review posted The ripple effects you create as manager. This one was of particular interest to me as my manager really creates many ripple effects!

Carnival Gratitude

In the past week OCAAT was included in the following carnivals. You can head over to these carnivals to find out interesting personal finance articles.

Carnival of Personal Finance, Yakezie Carnival, Carnival of Money pros, Carnival of Retirement, Carnival of Financial Independence, Finance Carnival for Young Adults and Carnival of Money Pros

If I missed to link a carnival hosted by you, do let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

With that coming to an end of this chit-chat. We will come with another post tomorrow. Till then, have a nice rest of the day!

If a card is used to obtain goods without the intent to pay for it or to obtain illegal funds from another account, then that constitutes a credit card related scam. Contrary to popular belief, this isn’t something that rarely happens. In fact, it is a crime that’s quite prevalent worldwide.

However, thanks to a number of countermeasures that have been set in place since the early 1990′s, many would-be scams have been effectively avoided. Of course, one also needs to consider the fact that it isn’t just the government that has to keep an eye out. We, as individuals, must learn how to recognize a potential scam. In doing so, we can prevent losing our hard-earned money and save ourselves time as well as energy from trying to recover it.

But what can you do if you’re among those who have fallen prey to these credit card scammers? Many would think that there isn’t much one can do to recover but that is completely false. To help you out and others much like you who have found themselves in the same situation, here are some of the things one must keep in mind.

How to Avoid Credit Card Scams When Purchasing Online:

These days, more and more people are buying stuff online. After all, it is a very convenient alternative, especially if you are a very busy person and don’t have much time to really go out there and shop. Now, every smart shopper would know that among the legitimate online shopping websites are scammers who would take advantage of an individual any chance they are given.

Therefore, one must remain vigilant and make sure that the website they’re buying stuff from is legitimate. Now, doing that is easier said than done. The thing is that some of these scammers can be really good and even if you’ve taken precautions, there’s still a chance that you might fall prey to them. So, what can you do? Check out the list below:

• Do a thorough research. Check the website/seller’s terms and conditions. Usually, if they are a legitimate company, there would be a very detailed list there. If there isn’t one and you feel like they are being vague about certain policies or if something seems too good to be true, then you might want to pause and think about going through with the purchase. Trust your instincts if it’s telling you that something might be really off.

• Are you exchanging emails with the people behind the business? Usually, their email address can also be a telling sign of whether they’re legitimate or not. If they can afford to run a business then they would also be able to afford an “official” email address. If they are using a free one then you might want to reconsider dealing with them. This is especially so if they claim to have been around for a while.

• Check out photos of the merchandise itself. Are those taken from the manufacturer’s website? If the pictures seem like they’ve been taken off the website or a stock image then be wary.

• If you’re buying a branded product such as in iPhone then it would be wise to check with the company website first. Usually, they would have a list there of all the official establishments and resellers near or around your area. If the people you plan on buying the iPhone from aren’t listed there then it’s best to forget about the deal and get the phone from someplace else; preferably, one that’s listed.

• The price itself. One of the most common reasons as to why people purchase stuff online is because of the relatively lower price tag along with the fact that it is very convenient. However, if something is priced significantly lower than what it usually goes for in the market then you might want to think twice about making the purchase. It could be that the product is defective or that you’re not even going to receive anything. Are you willing to risk your money that way?

So there you have it, just some of the ways through which you can avoid getting scammed and losing your money. Of course, there’s more than just these ones but it’s always good to have the basics in mind. With that said, shall we move on to the next topic?

How to Get Out of Debt and Avoid Scams:

There are certain situations we might find ourselves in that we might not be proud of, and the best we can do is deal. This applies to owing a certain amount of debt as well as the slow (or tedious, for some) process of recovery.

Now, during this time, one might be tempted to try the easy way out and eventually fall prey to certain scams that promise to help make your debts disappear quickly. One common scam would be someone phoning an individual, threatening them about their debt and asking that they provide their account information to help fix the problem.

It is very important that you remember one thing. You DO NOT have to give anybody your account information through phone. If they are legitimate, you should be able to request for a letter stating their demands and what you need to do. They can choose to comply or not, but you have every right to decline them if they ever ask for any financial information over the phone.

Keep this in mind the next time you receive a call from a debt collecting agency.

Online Scams Involving Other People Using Your Account:

There’s a general rule when it comes to online accounts and that would be, DON’T TRUST STRANGERS. In some cases, this can even apply to people you have known for quite a bit. Just take for example the cases wherein certain people you meet online would ask to use your bank account to wire some money and offer you half of the amount in exchange.

It sounds like a really good deal, right? After all, your account would only serve as a medium and you earn money from it as well. Before you take this as a heaven sent answer to any financial woes you might be having, stop and think for a minute.

How well do you actually know these people? Remember that your banking information is sacred and if it falls into the wrong hands, you can easily lose all the money that you have saved in it. This is a very blatant scam.

Truth be told, even if it wasn’t, you should never give out your account information easily. You do not know what they could be planning on doing with it and they are still strangers.

As said earlier, keep your banking information sacred. This rule also applies when you’re looking for jobs online. Remember, not everything posted online is genuine and that includes job offerings as well. To help you avoid getting scammed, here are some red flags.

• Jobs that would ask you to use your personal account or make you open a new one.

• Jobs that would make you print/cash/mail a money order or check.

• Jobs that would ask you to use Moneygram or Western Union.

• Jobs that would entail you to accept packages and reship these to other people.

• Jobs that would ask you to pay for travel fees and visas through Moneygram or Western Union.

• Jobs that would ask you to sign up for credit reporting or any form of identity verification websites.

In most cases, the scams can be quite obvious and would only require a bit of common sense on our part to find them out. However, it still pays to learn more and do a bit of research.

Simply Googling ”fake check cashing job” would turn up a few hundred posts from the victims themselves. From their experiences, one could easily learn what to avoid.

So if you’re venturing into a new endeavor, especially if it involves working online, take the time to study and find out more about the opportunity itself. This should save you from a whole lot of trouble in the future.

SB’s Thoughts – Credit card scams happen all the time. To safe guard consumer’s interest and as a care, almost all credit card issuing companies and banks offer free fraud protection service.

These days most of the issuers implemented computer programs that automatically detect scams and frauds before you detect so. Offcourse there are few false positive incidents that may occur.

For example, in April my online Homeopathic medicine purchase was in jeopardy as Chase somehow detected that as a fraudulent transaction. I had to call the help desk to clear the charges. But, I got fraud alerts a couple of times from both american Express and Chase in the past. They did take the fraudulent charges off my account and issued me replacement cards.

But it’s always prudent to be aware of such things and take preventative measure as described in this article.

About the Author - Bill Achola is a personal finance advisor and owns www.eBusinessReviews.net, for more information on how to be debt free, check out his EPIC post on the Best Credit Cards for College Students. We recently published another guest post from Bill Achola, Ways make debt snow ball fun

Elderly at work

Honestly, I do not want to work during my retirement, I hate to even think about it. But, circumstances, family need, health and marital issues, recession or bad investment decision may force us to work even in our retirement. Then, there’s whopping 50% of US employees who do not have enough retirement saving. This article is for those struggling elders.

This is a research based article. Searching through internet forums, blogs, news articles and interviewing people I know, resulted in this compilation. I will appreciate your honest feedback about the ideas. And, if this article helped you finding employment, I would be very happy to share your joy, do leave a comment below if you can, in that case.

As long as you have confidence and a determination, you can do most like a young person can. Believe in yourself and try hard.

I have seen my father who lost his job during modernization and computerization wave. He lost his confidence and could never find a new job. He is a man of exceptional talents, he is a great painter, he is highly educated and he has tremendous interest in arts and crafts. But, without confidence and lack of real willingness, coupled with unbelievable competition in the job market in India, he has been unemployed since he was 54 years old.

Any way, let’s get to our business.

Ways retirees and elderly can generate income

When you retire, this is the time that you must be rewarding yourself for years of hardworking. It is the time to travel, to celebrate with friends and loved ones, and to pamper self.

However, what is happening is otherwise because of the fear of lack. Yes, there is a retirement fund that you can spend but you are being controlled by the “What if I ran out of funds? Or what is an emergency matter happens?” questions.

Before you get overwhelmed and spoil your supposed to be fun and fulfilling retirement, think that there are lots of earning opportunities that you can work on even if you are already a retiree. Here are some of them.

Make the Most out of your Skills

Perhaps you’ve been in the same job for decades before your retire. You’ve been an employee always and never a boss. As you retire, it’s time to be a boss by building a business same as the line of your previous job. This is the best time to extract all lessons learned and be one of the competitive businesses in the market.

The below list of job sites may become beneficial for you if you are looking for hourly opportunities in your skill areas. This is not all but these are the major ones. For various activities regarding my blog and eBooks I seek out hourly employees at these sites.

Peopleperhour, Freelancer, Elance, Guru, Snag Jobs or even local Craigslist Job board is full of genuine job offers.

This blog was designed by one retired graphic artist, who had Hollywood production work in his resume. Actual coding and implementation of the design was done by my good friend Andrea.

Start volunteer work first

Start with getting involved in local communities and circles. If you have a professional membership and even if you are a part of Linked in groups, you may find a lot of opportunities to volunteer.

Hone your skills first, perhaps you could make yourself indispensable which ultimately may result in a temporary paid work in future. One of my neighbors (south Florida is favorite retirement destination and my community has many retired couples living) started out volunteering at local library and now she’s a 4 hour per day/ 3 days a week librarian.

Habitat for humanity is a nice place to seek out local volunteer opportunities. If this story of Jim Power can’t inspire you, nothing would ever will. Jim was homeless for 25 years, he spent his time decorating light posts in NYC, before finally starting making money out his work. The story would surely inspire you.

Register with temporary employment agencies

As per Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 4 million temporary jobs in the year 2011. Chances of getting a temporary job in your retirement is much higher. There are various kinds of job an employer may offer that can fit to your physical and mental fitness level.

Here’s a smart guide to get a temporary job through a temporary employment agency from Wikihow. You can even search Google for local temporary employment agencies. If they have a website, browse for the openings or call them up and schedule an interview.

Be your professional best and have confidence. You may not get the same hourly rate as you used to get, so be prepared for that. Remember you are competing with a fitter and young workforce your only advantage is your willingness to take lesser pay.

Given Govt. has temporary and part-time job listed here.

Passive Income

You can actually start this even before retirement. There are many legit and very promising companies today that allow you to earn passively. You need not always join and market their products aggressively.

You just need to be wise in finding the right networking company, find the perfect person with a promising marketing tree, if you can, position yourself at the top, and watch how your marketing tree grows. As it grows, your passive income grows. It will not end as long as the company is existing.

Remember, we are not talking about passive income like, stock dividend, rental income etc.

(Related - What is Passive Income and How do I Create It?)

Sell the Good Old Stuff

If you are fond of collecting things when you were young, do you keep them intact? It is time to share those good old stuff to the younger ones. Try selling those with little value to you but you think will have more value to others.

When you do your selling, do not sell as of you are holding a garage sale. Be wise by grouping your stuff and sell them by season. Through this, you are sure to have better sales since you can target particular needs of people in that season you are selling.

I admit this is not a sustainable source of income. Unless you can self manufacture things that you can sell. This is where the required skills in arts and crafts are so important. If you are good at making any good-looking and useful object, like a jewelry or decorative items, you can be a seller on Etsy and generate steady income. My wife buys stuff from Etsy all the time.

Write your own Book

Are you fond of blogging? If you have been blogging for long, this is the best time to gather all ideas and aspirations you poured out into your personal blog and publish it as a book. Who knows, it could be the next best seller? This is how you can get started with book writing and publishing.

My favorite blogger, Tim Ferris, wrote an exception piece, full with case studies, on how to sell your eBooks online and make money. He is a highly successful venture capitalist, not a con man. You can rely on him. I made my father read the article as well.

I have no experience in publishing a book, but many of the personal finance bloggers I know have published successful eBooks that are selling good.

Be a Trainer

If you have been at your best in your craft while you were working, you can share your mastery through training. You can conduct classroom or practical training and earn from it. It need not be complicated; just a short but will be beneficial training is enough.

This is a nice guide to be a trainer, at anything.

Buy a Property to Rent out

Rental income a pure passive income. You can even outsource the routine maintenance work on your rental property to others.

You can use your retirement package to fund this mortgage. You can start with a condominium unit and have it rented. This will not entail too much work from your end. It will just require you to visit and check monthly at the most.

I live in a rental condo whose owners are in South Africa, their daughter collect rent from us and the servicing part is outsourced to a property management company.

Internet Jobs

If you plan to stay home after retirement and still want to earn, the internet can be your best help. If you are patient enough to browse and be updated online, you will discover the almost limitless possibility the internet can offer. There are lots of freelancing tasks you can do that can give you good amount.

Home Based Franchise Business

This is tougher than it may sound. Nothing short of starting your own business. But risk is limited as you can start a home based franchise with as low as $5,000. Here’s Inc. guide to start your home based franchise.

This top 100 home based franchise list can be a good starting point for you. It lists start-up cost, fees, royalty fees, etc. Based on your expertise and interest you may want to start narrowing down the list before picking the one you’ll be most comfortable with.

Tutor Kids

If you like teaching kids, you can work as a tutor to a particular subject you are interested; or you can be a personal academic tutor. Again, this type of job won’t need much time. The key here is early preparation of the lessons. You will only work based on the agreed study time with the parents.

Register yourself on tutor.com, you can earn minimum $10 per hour and find opportunities to tutor kids for 5 – 40 hours a week from your home. You’ll need high-speed home internet though.

To find other online tutoring opportunities Google “online tutor”, you can even search by your area of expertise like “Online Math Tutor”, etc. You’ll be amazed to see the results.

You can even publish your availability on Craigslist gig board. I see my neighbors tutor other neighbors’ kids.

Share your Space

You might want a renovation of your house and allot space that you can share and rent. It need not be big as a house. If you only have small space, you can set it up as a dormitory or a beds space apartment.

See if you can sell some stuff and make an extra room. You can advertise in local news papers or Craigslist for a paying guest. In that way you’ll get company as well as a steady stream of money every month.

Pay Bills and Do Errands for the Neighborhood

People are most of the time too busy to run errands or pay their bills. This is a good business with an easy task. You can start with the neighborhood. Tell them that you can pay and do errands on their behalf for a minimum fee.

Tourist Guide

If you have a place that you like going to from time to time; or you have tourist spot in your local area, you can apply as a tour guide. Since this will just be a part-time job, you won’t need a salary as an employee tour guide. Just make sure you’ll be an active tour guide who can make the tour worth remembering. Review you history subject and make your own tour guide piece. You can also sell tour keepsakes.

Sell Cooked Meals

Cooking is fun. You can easily sell them especially if you have a competitive price. However, the competition among sellers may be stiff. A good trick you can use is to look for offices (it can be your previous office) where you can sell your meals. Negotiate with their HR team and have a contract with them. By doing this, you are assured of making profit.

Kids love sweets. The best place to sell your baked goods is in a school. However, not all parents will allow their kids to eat sweets because of the sugar content. To make your goods nutritious, do some twists. Make them veggie or fruit flavored without losing the usual sweet taste.

You’ll need trade license and you should be ready for regular inspection. Here’s a guide to start catering business.

Working at Local Retailers

Every retailer need part-time workers and sales men during the holiday season. I see elderly persons or students manning the cash counters at our local grocer, Publix. Their per hour pay is not bad plus, they get regular benefits which can offset many drawbacks of medicare.

Even big chains like Walmart and Target offer part-time employment during peak season and holidays. Small shops also look out for help.

On a weekend a trip to a few local strip malls revealed more than 10 “For Hire” or “Hiring” signs to me.

Garden Maintenance

This can be a tedious task if you will be maintaining big gardens. Just choose small gardens in the area and have this only for twice and thrice a week. Do not do this every day as it may tire you or may make you sick. If you have those “green hands,” you can offer garden set-up for your neighbors. Build a small veggie farm for them or a flower garden too.

Elderly Care

There are lots of home for the aged institutions out there. You need not do the job of an elderly nursing aid. You can just apply as some who will prepare their things, who will prepare their food at the table, and other simple tasks. For an added twist, you can sing songs for them; facilitate simple games, and other entertaining activities.

Networking and Marketing

Look for a product or a company that you can do referrals. You can choose between offline and online set-up. Online set-up is more convenient though since it will not require much movements from one place to the other. You just need to spend time looking for prospects in the internet. Most are incorporating network and marketing into their personal blogs and through social media updates.

Consultant

Determine your area of expertise and look for an entity where you can serve as a consultant. It need not be a corporate firm. Since you are only doing this part-time, you can just look for a small entity in your local area. You can look for one that may have similar line of business from your previous job.

You are sure to give sound advices based from years of experience.

Church Adviser

Some church provides stipend to church advisers. The church is an entity where people go to in times of personal, relational, and even financial crisis. The leaders of the church may not be able to accommodate everybody.

You can talk to the leaders and apply as an adviser. Just remember that this can be a dragging experience since you are dealing with problematic people. You should always be emotionally, physically, psychologically, and most of all spiritually ready when having a session.

Conclusion

Above are some money-making tasks you can do after retirement. If you will choose from the list, remember to do them at your own convenience. Your main aim still, is to enjoy your retirement age.

You should be making the most of your retirement years and reward yourself for a job well done over the years. Choose from the list, which you know you can do with ease and with enjoyment. After all, you need not much money since you already have your retirement pay.

Sometimes, be prepared to move , I could find one community in California, Burbank Senior Artist Colony, where artists can stay on rent while honing their skills and earning money from it. If you are a good artist consider living in such communities for added protection. Here’s the list of 8 such niche communities for elderly.

If you decide to start home based business, whether it is cooking, consulting or elderly care, you need to register as a business and there’s no better resource you could find other than Small Business Administration website, it will teach you everything about starting and managing home based small businesses.

You have a wealth of skills, wisdom and experience to offer. Many employers seek older workers for their knowledge and values at work. As they say, a retirement is a perfect time to enjoy another career, different from the one you used to have over years.

Needless to say, I am very happy with the progress so far. And, as always, I am thankful to you for your constant encouragement towards One Cent at a Time. I publish stats because, keeping track of up-to-date statistics helps me understand the direction this blog is going and also helps me focusing on the future content strategy.

If you have no interest in traffic numbers, here is a list of my favorite posts from April 2012. If you missed any, you can read it now

• I Work as a Car Cleaner, How to use the Money I Earn for my Future?
• Are Young Adults to Be Blamed for Not Having Retirement Savings?
• How Much Debt Is Too Much Debt
• 19 Pretty Things to Make Debt Snowball a Motivating Factor
• Budget Ticket Airlines are Often Rip Offs
• Various Ways to Save Money on Car Rental, any Season any Place
• 51 Possible Part-time Side Jobs for College Students
• A Case for Penny Pinching – Habits of Some Richest Celebrities

Others, may continue to follow rest of the post.

Traffic Data For April 2013

• Total Visits – 80,819
• Total Unique Visitor – 73,978
• Page Views – 102,522
• Pages per visit – 1.27
• Average Time on Site – 1:39 minutes
• Bounce Rate – 82.65%
• New Visits – 89.99%

Top 10 referral traffic sources for April 2013 were as follows

1. Google sites – 3,591 visits (including Google reader, Gmail and Google plus)
2. Facebook – 734 visits
3. Twitter  – 474 visits
4. Wise Bread – 309 visits
5. Pinterest – 107 visits
6. Free Money Finance – 91 visits
7. Happy Simple Living – 65 visits
8. FInancial Samurai – 57 visits
9. Technorati – 55 Visits
10. Money Crashers – 44 Visits

Total Search Engine traffic in the month of April was 57,268 (number of page views originated from a search engine query). Google sent in 84% of all search traffic, followed by Yahoo and Bing respectively. There were 22, 262 direct visitors

As for the demographics, these are the top 5 countries where readers came from.

Weirdest Search Terms

This is going to be a new section going forward in my monthly updates. These are some funny search terms I found out, from Google Analytics, which were used to arrive at a OCAAT blog page.

• could i make money by two cash pages (sure you can, just tell us more about cash pages. I can surely help you)
• cupcake that cost 1 cent each (Tell where!! Tell me where!! I love cupcakes)
• how much do you take care of a wife (love the use of ‘a’ here. Umm… not much! Actually she takes care of me)
• how to destroy right botton of hp laptop (Dude, did you mean a button or bottom? Very simple, ask a toddler! they can break pretty much everything in a laptop)
• how to make your wife forget ( what exactly? but whatever it is, they usually don’t forget, caution!)
• i asked him for the increment (and then…?)

Over the last few weeks, we have been mentioned in below personal finance carnivals across the web.

Carnival of Personal Finance, Carnival of Financial Independence, Carnival of Money Pros, Yakezie Carnival, Lifestyle Carnival, Wealth Management Carnival, Carnival of Financial Planning, Financial Simplicity Carnival, Carnival of Personal Finance, Carnival of Money Pros, Carnival of Financial Planning, Financial Carnival for Young Adults, Yakezie Carnival and Carnival of Financial Independence

That’s all to share with you today, I am very happy that we are growing. Thanks for being with us! We hope to keep on bringing more information, guidance and enjoyment, stick with us.