I’ve come to really enjoy writing and sharing practical tips about lifestyle personal finance – budgeting, spending and saving tips for the areas we all know and experience every day.  The topics include vacations, entertainment, travel, cars, homes and many more.

Most of these topics find their way onto my own personal budget.  And I’m always looking for ways to save and spend smart in these areas like many of you.  Publishing content about them provides an opportunity to share tips and educate myself too.

This interest led me on a journey to create a new blog earlier this year.  It started as familylivingfinance.com and recently evolved to jasonrprice.com, a personally branded blog.

The personal brand is something that has been of interest to me for a while.  I won’t bore you with the details, but overall, I feel it provides me a home base on the web, establishes a better way to connect with new visitors and is simply a new approach to try.  You can read more about it here.

What about OneMoneyDesign.com?  I’ve decided to take a blogging break this summer from OMD.  Two blogs is too much for me to manage this summer and keep my wife and kids as the top priority in my personal life.  I may occasionally publish a guest post or even republish some favorites from the archives here.  But all my new articles and writing, at least for the summer, will be published at jasonrprice.com.

Again, jasonrprice.com provides me an opportunity to create a home base on the web for my personal brand.  I may consider a permanent transition there, but I’m not quiet sure yet.  I’ll definitely be publishing and redirecting some of the OMD lifestyle personal finance articles to add to the new content stream.

So, I hope you’ll join me over at jasonrprice.com.  Here’s a link to the RSS if you’d like to subscribe.

The post A New Blog Announcement and Summer Posting Schedule Update appeared first on One Money Design.

Reasons Your Boss Loves You

You don’t complain – No one likes a complainer. We’re all at work and have a job to do and there’s no getting around that. People who don’t complain are more fun to work with. Complainers spread their bad attitudes like wild fire and it brings the department down. They make the days longer and it’s often more difficult to accomplish goals with them. Companies want to keep skilled and enthusiastic people around for a long time. They will find ways to get rid of people who complain and make everyone’s lives difficult.

You make things happen – When you boil it down, work is about getting things done. I can guarantee you that your boss loves it when work gets accomplished and projects move forward. There is nothing better at work than a since of accomplishment and to be appreciated and respected for your efforts. How do you make things happen? Simple. Make sure you’re organized. Keep a running task list and prioritize it first thing each day. Know what your top 3 goals are for the day. At the end of the day make sure your task list includes all open tasks so you can prioritize the next day.

You volunteer – Organizations are full of people who run from additional work. They want to do the work that’s been assigned as part of their job descriptions for eight hours a day and get home as fast as they can. People who volunteer to take on new assignments or sometimes generally unwanted tasks can be valued as team players. The volunteer is someone who is willing to spend a few extra minutes per day helping out. It doesn’t mean you have to work 50 or 60 hours a week, but it might mean you have to extend your existing work day for 30 minutes and sometimes more. Most volunteer assignment have an end so you wont’ have to do them forever. These are great assignments to point out during your performance review, especially, if you’re successful in carrying them through.

Your attitude is great – Your boss loves you if you can meet challenges head – on. Challenges are part of every job. There is no getting around them. However, it’s your attitude and the way you handle them that will get noticed. Did you understand that? EVERY job or project has challenges. They are all full of issues. It’s how you handle them that counts. Don’t have a sour attitude. Have an attitude that says, “every problem has a solution.” Be the person that lifts everyone else up and motivates the team with your actions and not necessarily your words.

Your flexible – Nothing goes exactly as planned. I’m a project manager (a planner) and I know this to be true. The perfect project plan is only when the project is complete. At that point, you know exactly what it took to get the job done. However, it’s flexibility and your willingness to shift direction and change goals at a moments notice that leads to your success. Your boss loves you when he or she stops by your desk and asks for your time. You’re in the middle of a project that is due by the end of the day. And you say…sure, let’s get a cup of coffee and talk about it. You can live with a change in department objectives, a new direction in the project, or uncontrollable environment factors because you’re flexible.

It’s difficult to find a great employee these days. Yes, there are many of them around, but many highly skilled employees lack these qualities or the soft skills. Technical skills can be trained, but these qualities are difficult to teach. Yes, anyone can learn them, but many of them are established via our upbringing or because we’ve been mentored by someone who has them. If you have them, you’re likely a leader and you’re someone who is moving your organization to the next level.

What do you think of these ideas?  Would you add any other to the list?

The post 5 Reasons Your Boss Loves You appeared first on One Money Design.

Travel Hacks

1. Rent a car using your hotel rewards – We saved a lot of money on our trip by using hotel points for two free nights and booking our rental car through the hotel.  We got extra savings on the third night by using our AAA discount and also a reduced rate on the rental car.  These savings and points made the trip manageable for us from a budget standpoint.

2. Reserve parking – While the off – site airport parking can be a bit of an inconvenience because of the shuttle ride to the airport and waiting on a shuttle for the return, it does save a lot of money compared to parking at the terminal.  AAA came in handy here again for a discount and we made an advanced online reservation to ensure we had a parking spot on our day of travel.  We also got a discount on the return because the shuttle took longer than it was supposed to take to pick us up.

3. Arrive at the airport 2 hours early even if you are a frequent flyer – I typically arrive at the airport a few hours early to make sure I have plenty of time for my business flights.  This time we arrived only about an hour early.  Doing so added some extra stress when departing because the lines were unexpectedly long for an early morning flight.  Fortunately we made our flight by only about 10 minutes, but I’ll never risk it again, especially for personal travel.

4. Pack your own snacks for longer flights – Carrying your own snacks is a good way to save extra money.  Because we rushed to our departing flight we were forced into buying overpriced breakfast on the plane.  Carry some granola bars or other snacks will help avoid having to purchase extra meals when you’re hungry throughout your trip.  Some trips we go to the grocery store and purchase  groceries to eat one or two meals per day in our hotel room.  This trip we didn’t and it cost us more.  At the minimum, carry snacks with you and stock up on more snacks when you arrive.

5. Book flights with a frequent flyer credit card – We used our Citi American Airline Credit Card to purchase one of the flights.  This card provided double miles for all AA purchases as well as one free checked bag.  That’s well worth it when you’re trying to save up miles for future trips and you don’t have any problems with paying off your credit card each month.

6. Bring along your headphones – Always be prepared to travel with headphones so you don’t have to buy them on the plan and you can enjoy in-flight entertainment or music.  This tip seems obvious, especially with all of the mobile devices we have these days, but it’s still easy to forget them.  Headphones will always be a travel necessity for me.

7. Be prepared for airline kiosks – One tip to keep in mind, at least when checking in for American Airlines flights, is that you have to swipe a credit card with the person’s name on it to find them in the system.  We had a bit of a challenge when we couldn’t find my wife’s ticket.  Turns out I was only swiping my credit card (the one we used for the trip) instead of also swiping a card with her name.  Go figure as it doesn’t even have to be the card that purchased the ticket.  I’m used to traveling by myself for business so this never occurred to me.  Unfortunately, the airport was busy and we didn’t have very knowledgeable customer service at the kiosk.  We were sent to a different gate to check in and that burned up a lot of time.

8. Skip the in flight Internet unless it’s a business expense – As much as l like being wired, we managed to stay off the internet and avoid this expense.  Go Go Air offered in-flight internet for $10 (I think it was for 90 minutes).  That’s hardly worth it unless it’s for business or a really long flight.  I figured I could unplug for a while and enjoy the in-flight entertainment or just catch up on reading and chatting with my wife.

9. Pick your brand and stick to it for hotels, rental cars and flights – I take a little pride in that we’ve done a good job with sticking with our travel brands.  Unless you experience a major issue with an airline, hotel or other, I do recommend picking your preference and sticking to it.  The points add up much faster and there are conveniences, such as express pick up for rental cars, that help quite a bit.

10. Carry some extra cash – While it’s not easy for us credit card/check card spenders, I try to carry cash on trips to make it easy for tipping, tolls and valet.  It’s an inconvenience to try to find an ATM machine and I REALLY dislike paying ATM fees that can be ridiculous.  Of course I’m sharing this tip because I ran out of cash and had to pay an ATM fee this trip.

What tips or lessons learned can you share from your travel experiences?

The post 10 Travel Hacks to Save Money and Avoid Inconveniences appeared first on One Money Design.

I guess you could say I’m sort of a nerd when it comes to productivity tools.  I’m always looking out for the latest tools to help me become more productive in blogging, my career or personal life.  I thought I would share a few of my favorite free productivity tools that I’ve been using lately to become more organized and efficient in my work.  I hope you find these as helpful as I have!

Productivity Tools

Xmarks - Xmarks is a free bookmarking tool that keeps your bookmarks synchronized across computers.  The plugin is easily installed and works with all the major browsers.  You can add a bookmark and it synchronizes to your xMarks online account every time you open or close your browser.  I never realized how unproductive I was looking up all my favorite sites until I finally started saving them using Xmarks.  Xmarks also has an iPhone and iPad app available if you want to pay a $12 per year for a premium account.

KeePass - I started using KeePass several years ago.  It’s a great desktop application that keeps track of all your account passwords.  The best part about it is that you never have to remember another password.  You save them all into KeePass with your username and website url and grab them when needed.  I save my KeePass file to DropBox which allows me to have access to it from every computer KeePass is installed.  You can also install the MiniKeePass app on your iPhone and use it with DropBox to access your file.

Dropbox – I’m a late adopter to cloud storage but have been finding more ways to take advantage of Dropbox in the last year. I haven’t paid for Dropbox storage yet and I’ve managed to save most of my personal files to the cloud minus videos and pictures. They provide a free version up to 2 GB of storage. 50 100 GB is just $9.99 per month and I think that might be difficult to use  for most people.

Evernote – I’ve been using Evernote for about a year now and absolutely love it for saving notes, to – do’s and web clippings.  It provides great capabilities to tag your notes and search for them based on keywords or tags.  It even searches for words in your images.  It also provides the ability to record your notes in audio file format which is handy when on the go or in the car.  You can get some advanced features for just $5 per month.

Bamboo Paper  -  Bamboo Paper is a writing app I use on my iPad with the Bamboo stylus.  This is the best app I’ve found if you’re interested in using a stylus to take notes or jot down ideas on your iPad and go completely paperless.  What’s even better is you can send your written pages to Evernote for tagging and storage.  You can then use Evernote’s built in search feature to find your notes.  The app is extremely user friendly and has great ink colors with different ink sizes.  The app costs $1.99 and the pen is around $35 the last time I priced it.

Productivity Tool Updates – June 2013

I’m no longer using Xmarks to keep my bookmarks in sync across browsers.  I’m now using Google Chrome as my browser on all computers, including my iPhone and iPad.  While Google Chrome offers the ability to keep your bookmarks in sync across your computers and mobile devices, I’m using Pinboard as a central storage for all my bookmarks.

Pinboard - Pinboard is a simple and easy to use social bookmarking tool that makes it easy to save links to articles and all your favorite websites.  I use a bookmarklet on my Google Chrome toolbar that lets me save my bookmarks and ad tags to keep them organized.  I also send bookmarks to Pinboard via email.  There is other functionality I haven’t used yet, which includes auto saving tweets and RSS feeds for your bookmarks.  It currently costs a one-time $10 fee and it’s easy to import your bookmarks from all the major browsers.

Remember the Milk – Remember the Milk has become my favorite tool and I use it daily on all my computers and devices.  It’s the best task management software I’ve been able to find.  It allows me to organize all areas of my life in tasks lists and further organize tasks with tags, priorities, due dates and much, much more.  The iPad and iPhone apps are easy to use and sync write up with the cloud based software.  It does come with a price, but I think it’s worth the money.  The price is currently set at $25 per year.

Instapaper - Instapaper has become huge for my social media and article reading workflow.  In short, I scan my feeds and save articles to Instapaper to read and share later.  Instapaper provides articles in plain text to make them easier to read.  You can save articles to folders, archive them and share directly to Facebook, Twitter and more.  You can also send articles you like directly to Pinboard!

I hope you find these productivity tools helpful.  I know there are plenty more out there, but I’ve found these to be especially helpful tools as they cover a lot of ground for me in terms of keeping my life organized.  Perhaps you have a  few productivity tools you like.  If so, please let me know about them in the comments.

The post My Favorite Online Productivity Tools appeared first on One Money Design.

Overall, this approach to saving has been attractive to me as long as I know my savings is FDIC insured, easily accessible, and yields a better than competitive return.  Finding a savings account with a competitive savings rate can make a difference when your savings starts to grow and especially when you have 3 – 6 months (or more) of emergency savings built up.

Capital One 360 Savings

You may or may not know that Capital One purchased ING Direct.  What was once the ING Orange savings account is now called the Capital One 360 savings account.  You can read more about the transition here, but overall, it’s been quite seamless for customers.   You can still get the same customer service (they were included in the transition), competitive rates and online experience.  Let’s take a closer look at some of the features.

No fees, no minimums and a competitive rate

The Capital One 360 savings account lets you save with no fees, no minimums and has a competitive saving rate (.75% as of this post).  Deposits are also insured by the FDIC for up to $250,000 per depositor.

Linking Accounts

I nice benefit is that you can create an electronic link between your Capital One 360 savings account and your existing checking account and transfer money free of charge.  Do keep in mind that federal regulations set a limit of 6 withdrawals per calendar month to your linked checking account or between Capital One 360 accounts.  You can also set as many savings accounts as you want with Capital One.  This is helpful when you want to split out savings goals and track them individually.

The Automatic Savings Plan

Also a nice feature is the automatic savings plan.  You can schedule regular transfers so you don’t have to think about depositing your savings (highly recommended!).  The automatic savings plan does the work for you.  It generally takes 2 business days to transfer money between accounts.

Interest

How does interest accumulation work?  According to the website, the interest is accrued daily, compounded monthly and credited to your available balance at the end of each month.

Easy Access to Money

How do you access your money?  You can sign into your account 24/7 and transfer money in and out of it.  You can also call and speak to a customer service representative during business hours for more options.

User Experience

An important feature of any online account is the user interface and friendliness of the navigation.  If you’re used to the ING Orange Savings interface, you’ll be pleased that everything has pretty much remained the same.  The colors and branding seem to be the only thing that has changed.

Mobile Experience

Capital One has a mobile banking site as well as an app.  The app provides many features including person 2 person payments, bumping money (sending money securely between phones), finding ATMs, and all the standard features of viewing account balances, transfers and depositing checks.

Account Set Up

Setting up a Capital One 360 savings account is quick, easy and secure.  It involves entering standard information when signing up for an account, agreeing to the terms and conditions, validating an electronic deposit in your linked checking account and then completing the account opening process.

Overall, the Capital One 360 savings account is a good option to consider for your emergency or short-term savings needs and continues to serve our family well, even through the ING transition.

Learn more about Capital One 360 savings

The post Capital One 360 Savings Review appeared first on One Money Design.

1. Manage your bills and statements online

A service like Manilla moves all of your bill management online. Manilla will tell you when bills are due, store your statements from financial institutions and let your pay your bills. Manilla also has smart phone apps and provides alerts to help you avoid missing bill payments.

2. Back up important documents using a service like Dropbox

Are you storing financial documents on your computer? If so, make sure you have a back up of this information. Dropbox lets you move documents to the cloud and store them on the Dropbox servers. This is a great way to have your important papers backed up and also provides you the ability to gain access to them from anywhere. I started using Dropbox as a free trial a few years ago and am still using it.

3.  Scan versus file

I use a handy app on my iphone called Scanner Pro. I simply take a picture of the document and it will convert it to PDF and upload it to Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote (my favorite note taking service), or other services. This has become a handy app for submitting business expense receipts as well as signing and emailing documents. I can also scan and store papers I want to keep just by taking a picture. You may want to use a regular scanner if you have a lot of documents to scan.

4. Create a financial to – do list

A service like Remember the Milk can help you get your financial life and other areas organized. I use it for family, work and blogging to – do’s. You can use lists or tags to organize tasks, set due dates, priorities and much more. I can access my task list from my laptop, iphone and ipad since it’s cloud based software.

5.  Track your spending and budget online

Most personal finance software is now cloud based or software as a service solution.  Examples include Mint.com which provides a way to keep track of your spending, investments and more in one place.  You Need a Budget (YNAB) is actually desktop software, but it provides a way to store your data in the cloud using Dropbox.  Mvelopes is web-based envelope budgeting software that brings the classic envelope budgeting method to your computer.  All of these products offer mobile apps.

If you’re going to move to the cloud to manage your finances it’s important to stop using the same usernames and passwords for all accounts.  This is BIG mistake, especially when it comes to financial accounts. You can download free software, such as KeePass, to store usernames and passwords all in one safe location on your hard drive (or in Dropbox) and never have to remember another password again. Make all your passwords and usernames different and simply copy them from KeePass the next time you need to log into an account.

Have you moved your finances to the cloud?  If so, what’s been your experience?  And what are some other tools you can use to move your finances to the cloud?

The post 5 Ideas to Move the Management of Your Finances to the Cloud appeared first on One Money Design.

1. Choosing to Have Separate Accounts

Separating your finances means you’re not working together as a couple to manage them. Marriage is about becoming one. My wife and I brought our own fare share of debt and past financial mistakes into our marriage. We decided our love was bigger than those past mistakes and decided to work together to deal with them. This meant our income became one too. We set up one checking account to manage all of our money and established a spending plan to help us make smart decisions.

2. Establishing a Prenup

I know a lot of people might disagree, but I think prenuptial agreements set the wrong tone for a marriage from the beginning. You’re saying that you don’t trust your future spouse 100% and the marriage might not work out. If it doesn’t work, you’re both deciding right now, vs later in court, who gets what. My decision to get married was one of the most important decisions of my life and I know that without a doubt we’ll be together forever. Figure out all the money stuff before you get married. Go to financial counseling, establish a budget, set goals, and certainly make sure everything is put on the table for discussion. Getting your finances right as a couple earlier will minimize any financial stress on the relationship and help you avoid a divorce later.

3. Not Setting Financial Goals Together

Along with creating a spending plan, it’s important to set financial goals together. Again, get on the same page before you get married and talk about things such as retirement savings, saving for kids college, vacation savings and more. Work together to prioritize these goals and commit to making them part of your monthly budget. Financial goals can help bring couples together. There’s nothing like working together to achieve a savings goal or even paying off a large amount of debt and reaching financial freedom together.

4. Not Having a Spending Plan or Household Budget

Having a spending plan is critical to staying on the same page as your spouse. If you don’t have a plan each spouse is pretty much naturally going to spend based on emotions, or what they think is in the account. This leads to arguments and misunderstandings. One spouse might decide to have a little fun and buy new electronics or clothes only to find out later that the other spouse had intended on using the money to buy Suzie’s costume for the school play. Each month it’s important to sit down and establish your budget. You can pretty much roll the same budget over from month to month and make adjustments for the irregular expenses that don’t occur each month.

5. Not Making the Time to Talk about Money

Not setting aside time each week to talk about spending decisions can be damaging to your relationship. It can also result in talking about money at the most inconvenient times, such as at the dinner table or on a date. My wife and I try to set aside a few minutes every week to discuss the budget, any overspending and plan for new expenses we didn’t think of when creating our budget for the month. This generally keeps us in check and helps make sure there are no surprises to deal with together later.

What do you think about these 5 financial mistakes couples make? Do you agree with them?

The post 5 Financial Mistakes Married Couples Make appeared first on One Money Design.

Albert became interested in what the Bible had to say about doing business and learned a lot from  Larry Burkett, Howard Dayton and Ron Blue.   He was gracious enough to answer some of my questions about the seminar as well as provide a Christian perspective on business ownership.

What does your course teach?

What the Bible tells us about how to conduct business in this world. In all kinds of areas, including finances, human resources, giving, integrity, etc.

How does the Bible help people become better stewards of their business?

By following the principles God gives us in His Word. Knowing that God owns the business, and we are just stewards.

Can you share 2 – 3 scriptures to support God’s word on stewardship and business?

Psalm 24:1 makes very clear who the owner of the business is, (see also: Deuteronomy 10:14, Psalm 50: 10-11, Haggai 2:8, 1 Chronicles 29:11-12, etc.)

So if He is the owner that makes us steward or managers of the business 1 Corinthians 4:2 tells us what is required of a steward.

How do entrepreneurs balance their responsibility as faithful stewards and their role in running a business and making money?

Always follow God’s principles. God will NEVER give you a principle in his Word that you will not be able to implement!!! A loving father is not going to tell us to do things certain ways, without giving a way to do it. Trust and obey. Make sure you are always inside God’s will!! That way making money is not your responsibility. He will provide!

What are some warning signs for business owners when they are operating by their plan and not God’s plan?

Always remember when you do business in the world…the world is never in step with God. God’s way is the only right way!

What is God’s guidance on tithing and business income?

Proverbs 3:9 tells us we need to honor God by giving from the first of our increase. (that means net!!)

Malachi 3: 8-9 tels what He calls not tithing!

Malachi 3:11 tells us what happens if you do tithe.

I believe tithing does not cost you a thing, because either God get it, or the devourer gets, either way you will not keep it.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

One can never go wrong conducting business according to God’s principles.  It will set one free!!

Contact Albert via email at albertdiepeveen@aol.com for more information about Business by the Book seminars.

The post Business by the Book: Interview with Seminar Instructor Albert Diepeveen appeared first on One Money Design.

Once you start communicating with these tools, people may read your blog, visit your website and share your content with other potential customers and followers.  Keep in mind that social media tools really aren’t meant to be platforms for you to direct market your products and services.  Use them to interact with people and build trust.  If you use them right, people will find their way back to your home base, website or blog where your products and services are offered.

Here are 10 tips to effectively use social media to market your small business on all major social media platforms such as Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.

 Social Media for Small Business Tips

1. Share blog posts and company updates

Blogging is where social media begins for businesses.  Most businesses have blogs and if you don’t, you’re missing out on building relationships with existing customers as well as attracting new customers.  Blogging provides an opportunity to share knowledge, tips and ideas about your products, services and space.  It also provides a platform for people to get to know your company better.  Many companies make the mistake of using blogging as an announcement board.  Don’t fall into this trap.  Write rich and value-added articles that help people.  Publish 2 – 3 times per week minimum following a consistent schedule and you’ll be off to a great start.

2. Let people see what’s going on behind the scenes

People get bored with the same old company updates.  Try to be unique and share pictures and information from behind the scenes.  This can include company picnics, fun around the office, holiday party photos and more.  Small business owners could publish photos from meet ups, conferences and other events that let people see what’s going on behind the scenes.  Publishing this type of content helps people get to know your company better and keeps things interesting.

3. Share content and media from others in your space

It’s perfectly acceptable to Tweet or share articles and helpful information you find on the internet.  Sometimes you might even share competitor’s articles.  The more value you provide in your social media streams, the more people will follow and pay attention.  Again, focus on value and helping people find what they need.

4. Interact and provide customer service

Companies big and small can use their social media channels to provide customer service, answer questions and provide assistance.  I’ve had numerous blog readers contact me through my social media networks.  I’ve been able to share articles from deep in my archive to help them with a specific problem or question.

5. Offer promotions, coupons and giveaways

Social media also provides a way to create buzz.  There is no better way to get people excited by offering special promotions, coupons or giveaways through these channels.  If you’re offering is good enough it can spread and even go viral.  This leads to more visitors and potential customers.  Bloggers do a good job of providing occasional giveaways on their blogs and businesses should take note.  I’ve seen bloggers giveaway books, ereaders, iPads and more.

6. Inspire people with quotes and pictures

People are visual and sometimes an occasional quote or picture can bring attention to your website.  Quotes and pictures seem to get a lot of attention on Facebook and of course, Pinterest.  Try to provide quotes on – topic from time to time.  Shares can generate more traffic to your Facebook page which in-turn generates traffic to your website or blog.

7. Return favors

If someone is tweeting or sharing your content, why not tweet about theirs too?  It may take a while, but people will eventually retweet and share directly from your blog or website.  Returning the favor to share others’ content helps build community and can make your brand stronger.

8.  Don’t share or post too much

Share and post often, but not too often.  You’ll occasionally come across brands who post all the time and flood social media streams.  Personally, I think this is annoying and it’s an easy way to be unfollowed.  Don’t be the  brand that hogs all the conversation and remember that social media isn’t a one-way conversation.  It’s two-way just like it is in real life.

9. Ask questions and reply to comments

Just like you would in the real world, reply to interesting posts and ask questions.  This is how you get involved in discussions.  You’ll find most people are interested in having a conversation with you.  Also, once you have some followers, poll your audience with questions about a recent blog post, or even to get their ideas and input about your products or services.  Such responses can turn into ideas for future content for a company website or blog, or help improve products and services.

10.  Make it Easy to Get Mentioned

Make it easy for people to share your content by including a social media sharing buttons on every company blog post so people can like, plus one or share your content.  You also need to have follow buttons on your blog for people to follow you on your major social media channels and you can even include a widget that shows people your latest tweets or posts  so they can see your activity.

In conclusion, be helpful and try to give people more than they give you.  In doing so, you’ll likely find great success with social media.

Can you think of any other tips to successful use social media for small business marketing?

The post 10 Tips to Effectively Use Social Media for Small Business Marketing appeared first on One Money Design.

I’d like to encourage you to visit Save1.com and search for your favorite merchant’s coupons before making your next online purchase.  The Save1 team will donate a meal to a hungry child through one of their feeding partners for every  purchase made using a coupon from the website.  It’s free to use, you save money and you’re helping a great cause!

Check out the video to learn all about how the Save1 website works, how Todd and his family got started, help children with their earnings and more.  You can visit the Save1.com blog to get more money saving tips as well as interact with Save1 on their highly popular Facebook page with over 40,000 likes.

The post Save Money and Save Lives with Save1.com [Video Interview] appeared first on One Money Design.

When someone tells you that you need to “manage up,” what he or she is really saying is that you need to stretch yourself. You need to go above and beyond the tasks assigned to you so that you can enhance your manager’s work, says Rosanne Badowski, co-author of “Managing Up: How to Forge an Effective Relationship With Those Above You.”

Ms. Badowski should know. She served as executive assistant to Jack Welch at General Electric Co. for more than 14 years and spent countless hours managing up. “Doing what you can to make your manager’s job easier will not only help them do their job, but you will be considered a valuable asset to your manager and to your organization,” she says. “You want to be described as indispensable.

Source - Wall Street Journal

I think this is a great skill we can all learn better.  As a project manager, I thought about this a little bit and here are 6 ideas that might help you manage up in your organization.

Ideas to Manage Up

1. Keep Your Boss Informed with Regular Communication

Keep your boss informed by providing regular updates. Why is this important? First, your boss should know what you’re doing and accomplishing. This is good for your own career. Second, it helps your boss stay informed so they can discuss projects and work with their superiors with confidence. Set expectations for how you’re going to communicate. Some bosses may want a short email covering status, challenges and accomplishments. Other bosses like a quick drive-by their office at the end of the day or every few days.

2. Do More

I recently had a conversation with one of my superiors and directly asked him what I can do to help support his work more. You can take this a step further by proposing ideas based on your experience. Your boss will appreciate your willingness to contribute to the team and add more value to the organization. Employees who are willing and open to accept new responsibilities and happily volunteer, generally do better on the career ladder.

3. Be Open About What You Need Too

In my opinion, managing up is also making it clear on what you need to get your job done. Good bosses will even ask what you need from them. A subpar boss won’t be around to ask. Good bosses always make the time to talk. It’s a difficult situation when a boss isn’t around to help. And sometimes it requires going around your boss for help, but don’t ever do this without having a conversation with your boss first. Be clear on what it is you need and hold your boss accountable to supporting you. Do you need help with mitigating a risk for a project? Perhaps with an issue with departmental priorities. Manage up to make sure you can be successful and know this will help your boss be successful too.

4. Be a Problem Solver

As a manager, I love it when people come to the table with a problem AND a solution. At the very least, a professional with experience should come to the table with a problem and some options to consider. Having already identified some options to resolve the problem provides a good opportunity for a boss or manager to get involved. This is good problem solving versus coming to the table with a complaint or issue and no idea, or options on how to get it fixed. It doesn’t take much work to identify some options and poor options are better than none.

5. Propose New Ideas

Always be on the look out ot improve the way your organization does business. Think about what’s going well, but what can definitely be better next time. Identify ideas and ways to implement them. Discuss them over lunch with your boss and openly let him or her know that you have a genuine interest in growing the organization and adding value. Assuming it’s accepted, take it to the next step and request permission to manage the implementation of your idea. Implementation of value added ideas will help you and your boss succeed.

Final Thoughts

Managing up can actually make a job more invigorating and fun. It can pull you out of everyday mundane work and help you become a real contributor and value added player for your organization. It helps you operate on your boss’s level and provides the opportunity to interact with your boss and his or her peers more often.

What do you think of these ideas to manage up?  

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So, let’s look at a few reasons why it might be time to quit your business

Reasons it Might be Time to Quit a Small Business

1. Your Relationships are Impacted

Nothing is worth sacrificing your family or relationship with God. I don’t care how much money your business makes! As a Christian, I’ve come to learn that there are many things in life that we can have a passion for doing, but our priorities get out of balance. As soon as family time starts suffering, you’re not around for your wife and kids, or you’re not spending time with the Lord, it’s time to really consider whether nor not it make sense to move forward.

2. You Can’t Make a Business Out of It

There are a lot of hobbies turned business that we like to pretend are businesses, but they really aren’t. Sure it generates some revenue or spending money, but can you make a good enough profit that the business will grow and move forward, pay yourself for some of the work, or perhaps transition out of your day job? Why would you work at something for 10 years and not get anything out of it from a business standpoint? It doesn’t mean you have to quit all together, but don’t call it a business.

Let me explain further. Blogging is probably a good example and obviously one that I can closely relate to with my work here. Why invest in your blog, writers, hosting, and many more costs if you can’t ever really turn a profit. I know blogging is a long-term business venture, but at some point, blogging as a business has to really be a business, otherwise you might just blog once in a while and not worry about everything that comes with operating blogging as a small business.

3. You’re Digging Yourself into a Deep Hole

A business can’t be profitable if it carries a lot of debt. A lot of businesses get started with debt and I think I’m okay with that to a certain extent. But I think you have to make money before you take out a loan to grow the business. If it’s not growing and you’re accumulating debt via a small business loan or credit card that you can’t cover, well, your business is probably going to go down quick. At some point, you have to make a decision as to whether or not owning your business is really worth the financial stress.

4. You’re In the Business

One thing I’ve been learning more about recently is being in the business versus managing the business. It’s easy to be in the business. You do most of the work and the survival of the business depends on you. This is not the type of business I want to be in. As with blogging, or online media, I’d much rather be writing once a week or every few weeks and publishing content from great writers. I enjoy writing but it’s not probably my strongest point. I’d much rather manage a financial media company, the marketing, partnerships and product creation versus writing on the blog all the time. I’ve got some work to do to get out of the middle of my business. What about you?

Final Thoughts

In summary, quitting is tough decision and not one that would ever come easy for me and I’m sure for you. I honestly like the idea of taking a pause or time to refocus versus quitting all together. If you’re encountering any of these issues, perhaps it’s time to talk with a trusted mentor, pray about a possible resolution and spend some time refocussing your efforts. And quitting might not be a bad thing. You’ve obviously learned a lot that can be applied to your next endeavor that could make it even better or much more profitable.

What do you think of these reasons to quit your business?

The post 4 Reasons it Might be Time to Quit a Small Business appeared first on One Money Design.