One of the most important aspects of being a responsible driver is owning a car insurance policy; it is required in all fifty states within the United States of America and serves to protect its citizens. Of course, as with insurance of any kind, it is no simple matter and the kind of coverage you can obtain varies from insurance company to insurance company, state to state.

This article was brought to you the HBF. You can learn more about their policies at the HBF car insurance website.

UNDERSTANDING THE BASICS OF CAR INSURANCE

Here are two understandings of the basic car insurance type:

* Liability Insurance (aka Third Party Insurance)

What you have here is the most basic form of car insurance, required by most states in America, to legally operate a motor vehicle on public roads. When you get into an accident with another vehicle, while covered by this form of insurance, you are not personally responsible for any damage dealt to the other vehicle; this damage is covered by your insurance company. However, any damage dealt to your own vehicle will not be covered by the insurance; you are personally responsible for this damage.

* Collision Insurance

On the opposite side, there’s collision insurance, which typically isn’t required unless you’re leasing or financing a vehicle where the title does not yet belong to you. This insurance covers all damage to your own vehicle in the event of an accident with another vehicle, but does not cover damage dealt to the other vehicle. Therefore, this type of insurance typically serves as a basic add-on, since most car owners want their own vehicle to be covered.

Diving further into the basics, it’s important to understand what the different aspects of a basic car insurance policy are.

To start, well, there really isn’t a basic car insurance policy; this is due to the fact that car insurance policies are highly customizable to the needs and wants of the driver, as well as the requirements of their state. There’s plenty to add-on, or to remove if not necessary, and everything should be considered.

Below are simple descriptions for the six basic coverage types affixed to typical car insurance policies:

• Bodily Injury Liability: This coverage falls in line with the liability insurance mentioned previously and serves to handle any injuries your accident caused others. All states require some amount of coverage for this item, though they don’t all require a substantial amount (see State Minimum Table below); the Insurance Information Institute recommends 100/300 as proper Bodily Injury Insurance (the 100/300 figure denotes $100,000 in protection per person and $300,000 per accident).

• Collision: As explained above, this type of coverage keeps your vehicle completely insured against all damage dealt to it from an accident with another vehicle. Under most circumstances, this form of insurance is not required and if you happen to be driving an older vehicle, that has a low replacement value, it isn’t even recommended. However, if you have a brand new car, or are leasing a car, this insurance is necessary and will typically be required by whomever currently owns the title.

• Comprehensive Collision: Serving its name, comprehensive collision insurance is more comprehensive in what it covers (i.e. fire, flood, hail, etc.). As with the basic collision insurance, this form of insurance can be left out of your policy if you’re driving an older vehicle with low replacement value. Otherwise, you need it and it will be required for leasing a vehicle. When covered by comprehensive collision, you will receive the full Kelley Blue Book value for your car should an accident occur.

• Medical Payment/Personal Injury Protection: Should an accident result in injuries to you, or to others in your vehicle, all will be financially protected with this add-on; most states require its presence in any car insurance policy. Typically, there’s a maximum set into place by the insurance company that they will pay out to cover all medical costs, lost wages due to an inability to work, and also funeral costs where necessary.

• Property Damage Liability: Also required by all states is Property Damage Liability insurance, which covers any and all damage dealt to any third party property (i.e. vehicles, fences, houses, etc.) during an accident. All car insurance policies use this particular insurance component as the basic building block of any policy.

• Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist: Unfortunately, not everyone abides by the basic laws for operating a motor vehicle and won’t have their own car insured. In this case, your liability-only insurance would cover their damage, but their lack-of-insurance wouldn’t cover you at all. This form of coverage is not typically required, however, it’s a good idea to look into your state’s percentage of uninsured drivers. If this number is high in your state, this could be an option well-worth the add-on cost.

STATE-BY-STATE REQUIRED MINIMUMS

One of the most important things to understand about car insurance is that the minimum you can have is set in place by the state in which you live. It varies, at times wildly, from state to state. In some states, all of the above coverage components are required, and in others, only two are required.

Here is a table to help assist you in determining what some of the minimums are in your state (keep in mind that these minimums only pertain to Bodily Injury and Property Damage liability; your state may require additional components).

In order to read the table, please review the following:

Each state in the table has a number that looks like 50/100/25 –

• “50”: This number pertains to the minimum amount of Bodily Injury Liability coverage required, enforced by the state, for one individual in an accident.
• “100”: This number pertains to the minimum amount of Bodily Injury Liability coverage required, enforced by the state, for all injuries within one accident.
• “25”: This number pertains to the minimum amount of Property Damage Liability coverage required, enforced by the state, for all property damage within one accident.

It seems podcasts are all the rage. According to The Pew Research Center, 25% of people in the United States age 12 and over listen to audio podcasts, and over 40% listen to audio on digital devices. You know Neilsen, the rating company? So few people listen to radio that as of Fall 2010, they quit measuring radio listeners. To grossly misquote Wayne Gretzky, podcasts and online video are where the puck is headed.

In a recent interview, internet guru Pat Flynn credited podcasting with much of his business success. He’s reaching over 10,000 people per episode, and amazingly, these aren’t the same people who visit his blog. Podcasting has expanded his audience.

Our Story: A Case Study

My business partner, OG, and I knew that we wanted to create a podcast from the very beginning. Why? We’d done a local radio show together called Dollars and Sense (well….it was my show, but he was a frequent guest). He’d been a good guest, always was entertaining, and had a distinct point of view.

Sadly, we didn’t know podcasting host platforms such as Libsyn from Libya. I had no idea how a podcast found it’s way onto iTunes or even how the file was recorded. We decided not to let that stop us, and it shouldn’t stop you. While our old show, 2 Guys & Your Money, posted nowhere near Pat Flynn stats, the sheer number of awesome relationships I formed because of the podcast are immeasurable. I’ve been lucky to interview Jean Chatzky, Laura Vanderkam (What Successful People Do Before Breakfast), and Adam Baker….not to mention Pat Flynn.

So, we embarked on the journey…and screwed up nearly everything.

- We didn’t have a name, so we created one we knew we’d change later.

- We didn’t launch the show so much as “put it out there.”

- We didn’t have any real equipment.

The result?

What would you expect? Our first shows were nearly unlistenable. AND, even though I had a clear idea of the format and “sound” of the podcast I wanted, none of that came through because of significant audio issues. After laboring through 16 episodes we finally had some clue and rebranded the show 2 Guys & Your Money. Our listenership climbed fairly quickly as we grew more savvy. 40 episodes later, we’re changing the name one last time. Why? Now I know how to launch a podcast, I know that our name doesn’t reflect the dorky quality of our show, and I’m happy with our format and our team.

In short: Time to get serious.

Here are some steps you can learn from my podcasting mistakes:

1) Invest in quality equipment immediately. I already owned a Mac, which made editing easy (Garageband is the #1 software utility for podcasting), but I thought that I could find quality equipment on my own beyond that.

Here’s what I didn’t do: I’d listened to podcasts from a guy called the Podcast Answerman, Cliff Ravenscraft. I didn’t use his list of recommended equipment. I hoped I could do it cheaper. In hindsight, I should have invested in his exact recommendations. It would have gotten me past step #1, figuring out how the $%#! to use my equipment, and on to step #2: build a show, more quickly.

We use an Allen and Heath mixer with 10 channels (10 people can talk at a time….that’s 8 more than I really need) and I use a Sure 55SH mic, which I bought because it looks cool, which is the wrong reason to buy a mic. Who the hell is going to see how cool I look using that thing? Check it out:

Cool, huh? That’s actually a facsimile (I went whole hog and got the real deal). Not the world’s best mic., but as they say here in NE Texas, “It sure is pur-dy.”

I should have bought the one Cliff recommends. Lesson learned, too late for me, but hopefully early enough for you.

2) Simplify. One of two things are going to happen to your first podcast: Either a) it’s going to be full of ah’s and um’s or b) your content will meander. Both of these are okay because you’re learning the ropes. I agree with many experts: just start talking and then listen to see how you can make each episode better.

BUT if you want other people to listen and you’re okay with just getting content out there, you’ll need to be serious about editing.

In the beginning I opted to edit less. That was a colossal mistake. Edit out every um and ah. Drop the rambling diatribes. After a few well-placed and brutally honest Gordon-Ramsay-esque comments from good friends, I began editing far too much. It took nearly 8 hours to edit a 70 minute show. I’ve found a middle ground now where it takes about 4 hours to edit the 70 minutes. You’ll learn editing from experience, but start by overdoing it.

If I’d started with a simpler show, like Steve Stewart’s excellent MoneyPlanSOS, I could edit a 20 minute show in about an hour.

3) Remember You’re Building. Corbett Barr of ThinkTraffic recommends experimenting when creating an epic blog post. It’s the same for a podcast. Try new approaches:

- Every time you listen to someone else’s podcast, ask yourself what features you like and dislike. Are you committing the same mistakes as the ones you dislike? Are you adding the portions you love?

- Expand your boundaries. Interview people who don’t match your format. Find connections where there currently are none.

- Ask your audience for feedback. We have a giveaway each month so we’re able to interface with our audience. I want to hear what they like/dislike and I want to include something new every show. Test.

I edit and edit and edit. If you use a PC, Audacity is an easy (and free) platform. Garageband on the Mac makes editing simple. We have lots of bumper music cut-ins during our show. While I want every one to be the best, I also have a platform of ideas that we’ll reach for in the future.

On my docket for improvements right now? Better scripts and research. Better show notes. More funny outtakes and transitions.

- Ignore the emotional rollercoaster of creating content. As a blogger, you already know that writing can be a spiritually draining experience. Podcasting is more of the same. Here’s my thought process during an average week:

Creating content (Tuesday through Thursday): This is pretty good stuff.

Friday (editing begins): This podcast is the most steaming hunk of junk ever created on the internet. It’s complete garbage….but it’s closing in on Monday, and what else and I going to do?

Monday: I put it out there and watch the reviews. I’m sure this is the crappiest show I’ve ever created, no matter how much people tell me they like it.

Tuesday morning, creating new content:  That last week’s show (the same one I thought was complete poo….) is an unattainable dream. It’s the best show ever and I’ll never reach that height again.

Because I know the emotional cycle, I try to ignore my feelings about the current episode. Instead I try new stuff. Build. Have some fun with the format. Listen to other podcasts for ideas. Steal the ones you like, but do it in a way that honors the other shows (not that blatantly rips them off).

On our show I “stole”:

Top 10 lists: The Dice Tower and Filmspotting podcasts

Transitions: Inside the Magic podcast

Unexpected Humor: The Nerdist and Doug Loves Movies (funny openings from The Nerdist)

Interview Style: The Q & A With Jeff Goldsmith

Roundtable of Bloggers: Gamers With Jobs podcast

Aftershow (I’ll always deny that this part of the show even exists if you ask me): Major Nelson Podcast

We’ve made these features our own. To my knowledge, nobody does a top 5 of financial topics. Our transitions use my relatives, other bloggers (FinCon made this easy), show members (Dominique made an awesome intro), royalty-free music, and stuff by friends (My Money Design and Dave Hilton both were kind enough to give me bumpers). The roundtable idea I never hear other financial podcasts use. When I interview, I try to get backstory and feelings as much as hard facts, like they do on The Q&A podcast.

4) Be in the community. One of the few areas we got right was to make sure it was a community-based podcast. I think this sprung partly from my involvement with Yakezie. This was huge because 1) I was a nobody when we created the show and I desperately help marketing it; and 2) while initially I thought that Big Joe could be a huge “podcast” star and do it alone, like I try to do most things, my favorite podcasts had regular characters that people came to know. So, I asked Dr. Dean (Yakezie member) if he’d like to sign on. He was a guy who had a unique point of view. Then I asked Dominique Brown (Yakezie member) if he’d like to join in. He seemed like a guy who was never afraid to speak his mind AND had a completely different point of view than Dr. Dean. Finally, I asked Carrie Smith to join in. I got lucky that all three said yes. In another stroke of HUGE luck, Dr. Dean was friends with Len Penzo and asked me if I’d approached Len. At the time, to me, Len was this huge blogging star I couldn’t believe would ever agree. Another stroke of luck: Len was WAY excited to participate.

What did I get right? I had the guts to ask.

That’s been the case throughout. I sent an unsolicited emails to Pat Flynn, Natalie Sisson, Laurie Ruettimann, and Laura Vanderkam. I just threw it out there. I knew I wanted to interview them and I thought they’d be fun guests. None said no.

5)  Design for entertainment, not content. Here’s the podcast I hate: a dry recap of financial events or “straight talk” about money. I don’t like the condescending attitude of some finance shows. Instead, my goal was this: to be the Car Talk of finance. I wanted it to be fun first, and then if someone found a little financial advice, so much the better. People will tell you they want hard-edged. I would tell you that, too. However, when I look through the list of podcasts I listen to regularly, I’m happy that we’re able to add Makin’ Sense Babe to the new podcast. She’s someone who understands that in blogging and podcasting, we’re not in the money perfection business. We’re in the entertainment industry. She’s smart enough to know that if you bring them entertainment they’ll listen to the education you’re providing.

6) Find good advice. I listen religiously to Cliff Ravenscraft’s excellent Podcast Answerman show. I’ve scoured the internet for advice on podcasts. I set up my podcast on LibSyn and read everything LibSyn recommends. I’m surprised already by the number of bloggers who throw a podcast out there that it’s clear nobody is going to listen to. People who listen to podcasts are audio-focused. You can’t have a horrible phone sound and expect people to get into your message.

6a) Ignore advice from people who don’t listen to podcasts. I mentioned to some non-podcast listeners that my show was going to be about an hour long….and said that it may go as long as 90 minutes.

“90 minutes! Nobody will listen that long!” people who don’t listen to podcasts told me. “You need to shorten the show to 10 minutes or less. Maybe make it 5.”

My friends who listen to podcasts? “60-70 minutes sounds perfect.”

7) Persevere. There are weeks when I think the world should be listening to our show and nobody new comes around. During those moments I try to dig into our audience and be thankful for all the people who DO listen to our show, not bemoan all those who don’t. I’m lucky that we have some pretty vocal fans already and I feel blessed that they listen to what we put out there. When I remember how lucky I am, the “why aren’t they listening” ugly voices fade and I work to impress even more those people who are awesome enough to already like us.

That’s how we do it…and what we’ve severely messed up. I hope that helps you launch one yourself. I’m excited that our new iteration of the podcast will launch this with the same team of PK from DQYDJ.net, Dominique Brown from Your Finances Simplified, Kathryn from Makin’ Sense Babe and of course, our guy in the Hollywood center square, Len Penzo. I hope you give us a listen and send us feedback! We should also be available for subscriptions in iTunes and Stitcher by the time this hits.

Also, if you’d like to appear on our show, let me know!

Please subscribe to the Stacking Benjamins podcast here!

Mic photo: IntelFreePress

So what about online income, especially if working online is just a hobby? Let’s discuss!

THE VARIOUS STAGES OF ONLINE INCOME HAPPINESS

* Anything. If you have a steady day job already, making anything online will probably make you happy because you don’t need the income. Blogging is purely for fun and any income derived is just a bonus. Those 25 cent clicks are awesome!

* $100/month. The $100 figure largely comes from Adsense’s threshold payout. Adsense is the easiest and most common ways for bloggers to make income. I dare say that getting the first Adsense check is one of the most memorable experiences for all budding bloggers. Where were you when you got your first $100 contextual ad check?

* $1,000/month. As soon as you get the first taste of money, you start to think bigger. Instead of taking six months to get your first Adsense check, you figure why not one month instead? You start doing research on lucrative keywords to bump up your contextual advertising income and begin to dabble in affiliate income. Your writing production begins to increase dramatically.

* $3,000/month. Things are humming along and you probably have a pretty popular blog now with over 1,000 pageviews a day give or take. All your hard work is paying off and you start dreaming of whether you could actually quit your job one day to blog full-time. At the very least, you can probably just work part-time offline and online and lead a much easier life. You are giddy as a school girl!

* $5,000/month. You can’t believe you are now making a little more than the national household income via your website! Traffic steadily increases and you are getting affiliate and direct advertisement offers left and right. You’re pinching yourself for your good fortune, not knowing whether this type of income will last given Google updates have regularly slaughtered once high performing sites. Depending on where you are in your career, you start planning your exit from you day job realizing that quitting is not the solution because of the lack of severance, COBRA, and other safety nets. You need as long a runway as possible just in case your good fortunes turn sour.

* $10,000/month. You are absolutely on Cloud 9 with a case of whippets and a bottle of Chateau nuf de Pape! You absolutely cannot believe your luck as you not only do not have to work for anybody anymore, you feel a tremendous sense of pride that you’ve made it not only as a writer, but as a professional blogger and entrepreneur as well. You still wonder when the good times will end, so you continuously try and write high quality Whale Posts, taking nothing for granted. But after six months of consistently making over $10,000 a month from safer income streams, you’re hopeful the good times will last for as long as you are willing to put in the effort. You start thinking why not shoot for more? You’re playing with the house’s money at this point.

* $25,000+/month. Everyday feels like Christmas or your respective version of Christmas. $300,000 a year is more than enough to care for you and a family of four living anywhere in the world. You transfer your happiness to your spouse and children as you’re professionally satisfied, confident, and have more than enough to live. Money tensions, one of the biggest sources of relationship strife begin to melt away as you achieve financial independence. You begin to feel a little guilty and start asking, “Why me and not others?” as so many of your peers who started at the same time or earlier have either faded away or are still struggling. Given your awareness and empathy, you subscribe to the theory of keeping things low key. You also want to keep the haters at bay as you recognize not everybody has your same luck.

* No More. At $300,000 a year in revenue or higher, it gets harder to have enough legitimate expenses and deductions to get the operating income (taxable income) to $200,000 or less. $200,000 operating income on $300,000 in revenue equals a 66% operating margin which is high compared to all businesses, but inline for an online business. For those looking to start a business which has huge operating leverage, online is the way to go.

Note: All the figures above are gross revenue figures. It’s important to compare gross income from a day job to operating income before taxes online to make things as apples to apples as possible. To make things easy just take each figure above and multiply by 70% to get a rough estimate.

IT TAKES LESS ONLINE INCOME TO ACHIEVE EQUAL HAPPINESS

I’m going to argue that earning $1 online is equivalent to earning $1.5 from a day job in terms of satisfaction. When you see the direct results from your efforts, there is no better professional feeling. Online income is also much more gratifying because you can work from anywhere in the world there is internet access. You don’t have to be stuck in a place that’s freezing for half the year with grey skies for all the year. You gain absolute independence to choose the lifestyle you want.

Everybody can be happy at any income. It all depends on your predisposition. If your default setting is to be bitter, then even $100,000/month probably won’t make you happy. If you’re an optimist who tends to be thankful for everything, then I dare say making enough to just subsist wouldn’t take away your happiness.

The question really is how much online income do you think is enough where your happiness meter increases no further? Is there also a point where you start making too much where guilt, expectations, or paralysis takes over because you’re in a different stratosphere? Curious to know everyone’s opinions!

Regards,

Sam

I wrote about my three bad jobs that made me who I am today, and I would easily choose being a journalist over working at McDonald’s, being an office removals man, or a admin assistant in charge of stuffing envelopes for nine hours a day, any day! But as I got to thinking more about the journalism profession I’m beginning to see the light.

WHY BEING A NEWS REPORTER / JOURNALIST IS THE WORST

* Uninspiring pay. With a median salary of $36,000 as of 2010, there’s not too much to get excited about making $3,000 a month. Some bloggers make $36,000 in a month, whereas I’ve never heard of a straight up journalist making multiple six figures.

* Caged bird. News reporters just report the news. You can’t add editorial comments at all out of fear of offending anybody. Sometimes I wonder why news stations just don’t hire robots to tell us what happened. At least there is opportunity for journalists to write stories.

* Negative growth. Reporter and correspondent positions are expected to decline by 8 percent from 51,900 jobs in 2010 to 48,000 in 2020, for a total of nearly 4,000 jobs lost, says the U.S. Department of Labor Nothing feels worse than negative progress in one’s career or industry.

* The rise of bloggers. I wrote a pretty lengthy piece on how bloggers and journalists can collaborate and help each other win. I e-mailed the story directly to 10 journalists and journalism professors and only two out of 10 responded. Furthermore, there were only a couple comments out of 40+ comments from those with journalism experience in the post. Journalists either don’t wish to collaborate, have their heads in the sand, think I’m a waste of time, or all three. If journalists don’t want to work together, fine. Bloggers will eat your breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner.

* Not the owners of their domain. Unlike journalists, bloggers not only create their own content but also own their platform. Bloggers must manage the business and creative side of things. If you don’t own your own domain, you seldom have any editorial control. As a result, frustration will inevitably seep in.

THINK AGAIN ABOUT THAT JOURNALISM DEGREE OR FELLOWSHIP

If you’re planning on spending tens of thousands of dollars a year to get a journalism degree, or take one year of your life to get a journalism fellowship, it’s best you start with very low expectations of finding a decent paying job, or a job at all after graduation. Even with an absolute massacre of the journalism industry, the old way of doing business is slow to change because senior leaders of any journalism organization do not embrace the new as quickly as necessary.

I very much wanted to create a collaborative portal for both bloggers and journalists to thrive. Based on the lack of interest from journalists for my idea, it’s clear I shouldn’t waste my money or time. If traditional journalists don’t want to tap the potential millions of dollars in extra online revenue they can earn from bloggers, then so be it. I will say that the key benefit of getting a journalism degree is learning how to communicate better. Communication skills cannot be underestimated.

Take a look at some “innovation proposals” by 2014 journalism fellows at Stanford below. These are supposed to be the best and brightest ideas from traditional media professionals today.

“A free, live-blog platform optimized for smartphones and tablets.” – There’s a plugin called MobilePress every blogger can install in 5 seconds.

“An open-source, online training platform for teaching coding and data skills to journalists.” – You can go to HTML.net or any number of websites that teach free basic coding. Or you can just read WordPress for dummies. I’m a dummy and I figured this whole online media thing out.

“To use the innovative strengths and contemporary challenges of the modern alternative weekly newspaper as a platform for exploring new revenue models in local journalism.” – There’s affiliate income, buzz marketing income, CPC income, CPM income, sponsored content income etc.

“A website that applies indigenous perspectives and wisdom to current environmental stories and issues.” – How about just start a blog about environmental stories and issues from your perspective? 

“A teaching platform that provides tools for journalists as they serve America’s new “normal” demographic.” – Not sure how to serve the new normal demographic when it is undefined, and when the author does not speak in such demographic language. 

As you can see from the proposals, our best traditional media personnel are somewhat behind the times compared to those of us who are actively publishing and implementing new readership and monetization strategies every single day. Coming up with a original proposal is not easy, but I was expecting something more.

For those of you who are professional bloggers, be proud, no matter how much old school journalists ignore or look down on you. We are the creators of original content and the owners of our platform. NEVER think you do not belong. We are new media and we are here to stay!

Top 10 Worst Jobs

1) News reporter – You bet.

2) Lumberjack – Dangerous.

3) Enlisted Military – Aren’t paid or taken care of enough.

4) Actress – Whatever happened to Stiffler and his mom?

5) Oil Rig Worker – Dirty bird.

6) Dairy Farmer – Squeeze. Too many hormones.

7) Meter Reader – Everything is going electronic.

8) Mail Carrier – Don’t go postal.

9) Roofer – Hope you get a great view.

10) Flight Attendant – At least you and your family can see the world for free.

Top 10 Best Jobs

1) Actuary – Boring as heck!

2) Biomedical Engineer – Got to be smart.

3) Software Engineer – Got to be nerdy.

4) Audiologist – What?

5) Financial Planner – I can dig it.

6) Dental Hygienist – Yuck.

7) Occupational Therapist – Ouch my back. Give me a $1,000 Heron Miller chair.

8) Optometrist – Lots of school necessary. Let’s go laser surgery.

9) Physical Therapy – Helpful, but insurance reimbursements going down.

10) Computer Systems Analyst – Hmmmm, still? Guess it depends what type.

The Best Job On Earth

Blogger – Intellectually stimulating if you write intellectually stimulating stuff. Modern day penpals with potentially thousands of people around the world. Low overhead and maintenance costs. Can be done from anywhere there’s internet connection. Can be completed farmed out if you don’t want to do anything, even the writing. Highly lucrative once traffic crosses 250,000 pageviews a month. Empowering. Mysterious. Misunderstood. Exciting!

Readers, do you think being a news reporter is the worst job?

Do you think leaders in the journalism industry are too slow to embrace new technology and change?

Are news reporters / journalists shooting themselves in the foot by not collaborating more with bloggers?

Is blogging the best job on Earth?

Regards,

Sam