Sunday, November 9, 2014

Happy the 61th Anniversary of Cambodia Independence Day!

Happy the 61th Anniversary of Cambodia Independence Day!
9 November 1953 - 9 November 2014.


Thursday, November 6, 2014

The Smartest Ways To Invest $1,000 In Your 20s

Millennials aren't known for being major financial risk-takers, as evidenced by their avoidance of credit cards
and preference for cash.

They're equally wary when it comes to investing, particularly after witnessing the perils of the stock market that have made headlines over the last few years.

For 20-somethings who are interested in playing the investment game, coming up with the money to do it is usually the hardest part.

When you're putting every penny towards student loan debt or trying to make ends meet on an underwhelming entry-level salary, coming up with even a $1,000 can be tough.

Once you've gotten the cash together, the next challenge is figuring out what to do with it. Here are some of the best ways to invest $1,000 once you're ready to make the leap.

1. Open a money market account.
Keeping your cash in a savings account is smarter than just sticking it under the mattress, but you won’t earn a ton of interest based on the current rates.

Parking that $1,000 you've been holding onto in a money market instead allows you to snag a slightly better rate while you're researching your other investment options.

While you can open a money market at your local bank branch, you may be able to squeeze out a few extra pennies in interest by going with a high-yield account online.

2. Bump up retirement contributions.
If you're just getting your feet wet as an investor, one of the easiest places to start is with your retirement plan. Funneling more money into your 401(k) or opening an IRA is a fairly no-fuss way to put your investment seed money to work. Adding an extra $1,000 to your annual contributions each year may not seem like much but the result is a larger nest egg down the road.

For example, say you defer $10,000 of your income into your 401(k) each year. After 25 years, those contributions would be worth right around $500,000, assuming a 5% rate of return. Now, if you were to bump up your deferral to $11,000, you'd see the value of those contributions grow to approximately $551,000. When you consider that it breaks down to roughly $3 a day extra that you're chipping in, it adds up to a pretty decent payoff.
3. Buy fractional shares.

Purchasing individual stocks can quickly eat into the money you've set aside to invest, but opting for fractional shares allows you to get the most out of every dollar. You can use your $1,000 to open an account through a platform like ShareBuilder and choose from a variety of investments, including stocks and mutual funds.

Scheduling regular deposits to your account, either on a weekly or monthly basis, gives you an opportunity to purchase additional shares without requiring a substantial amount of money. Throwing in another $25 or $50 a month shouldn't be too taxing on your budget and it's a relatively no-hassle way to grow your portfolio.

4. Do your homework on mutual funds.
Picking the right stocks is a challenge even when you're a seasoned investor, and for the average 20-something, it may seem downright impossible. Mutual funds, on the other hand, take a lot of the guesswork out of the process but you'll still need to do some research to find the right one. Morningstar is one of the best places to start if you're looking for an in-depth breakdown of a fund's performance. Scottrade is another good source of information.

When you're comparing different mutual funds, it's important to consider other things besides the annual return. Some of things you'll want to pay attention to include the level of risk you'd be taking on if you decided to invest $1,000 in a particular fund, the size of the fund, and the different fees that go along with it. Since you're only working with a small amount of cash to start, you want to make sure that a big chunk of it isn't being eaten up by sales commissions or maintenance fees.

5. Knock out high-interest debt.
If you're mired in credit card debt, throwing an extra grand at the balance can make a nice dent in what you owe. Not only that, but you'll be saving yourself some money on the interest. Comparing the amount of interest you’re paying to kind of returns you might expect will give you a better idea of which is the better investment.

For instance, if you've got a $5,000 balance at 18% and you pay $250 a month, it'll take you two years to clear the debt and cost you almost $1,000 in interest. Bringing the balance down to $4,000 in one go shaves five months off the repayment time and cuts the interest down by about $400. When you consider that it would take you five years at a 7% annual return to make $400 on a $1,000 investment, it's easy to see which one offers the most immediate results.

6. Invest in yourself.
Deciding to invest $1,000 in yourself may feel a little selfish, but you shouldn't be too quick to dismiss the idea. Using the money to start a side business, build a potentially profitable website, learn a new skill, or take a class that could advance your career or may allow you to reap some big rewards down the road.

While there's still a certain degree of risk involved, you have the advantage by knowing what your goals are and what you need to do to maximize the odds of success.

(Source: Business Insider)

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

15 Free Online Learning Sites Every Entrepreneur Should Visit

Being a successful entrepreneur means you have to wear a lot of hats, especially when your company is just starting out and you don’t have enough employees to cover all the areas you need.

Learning the new skills necessary to start a new business can be expensive, but fortunately the initiative for free, high-quality, educational resources online has only continued to grow in the past few years. Below are some of the resources available to learn more about marketing, entrepreneurship, business management and more.

1. CodeAcademy
This great resource offers free interactive programming sessions to help you learn programming languages such as HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP. You can save your progress as you go with a free account. Learning to code can help entrepreneurs fix bugs if they don’t have a developer, or even go down the road of building their own website or products (such as apps).

2. HubSpot Academy
The free certification program offers courses on inbound marketing, including website optimization, landing pages and lead nurturing. These skills are a must for business owners as they try to grow their business and online presence.

3. Moz
If you want to learn search-engine optimization to make sure your website is as visible as possible, check out this treasure trove of resources from SEO leader, Moz. Besides having the free Moz Academy, there are also webinars (live and recorded), and beginner’s guides to SEO, social media and link building.

4. LearnVest
The most successful entrepreneurs know how to manage their money both on a business and personal side. In addition to having extremely affordable finance classes, LearnVest also offers some of its classes for free, such as “Building Better Money Habits” and “How to Budget.”

5. Niche consultant courses
The Internet has made for a coaching boom, which is extremely helpful to entrepreneurs who want to learn how to start or better a business in a specific niche. Some great coaches and organizations that routinely have free courses and ebooks on building a business include Natalie MacNeil and MyOwnBusiness. Try searching “niche keyword” + “business course” to find one most applicable to you.

6. edX
This free site currently has over 300 courses on a variety of topics, including “Financial Analysis and Decision Making” and “Entrepreneurship 101: Who is your customer?” These courses not only cover business in general, but can also you help learn more skills that are applicable to your industry, such as big data or environmental conservation.

7. Khan Academy
This free learning resource was created to give everyone access to education in math, science, art, technology and more. There are over 100,000 interactive exercises to put your education to practical use. Even though many of the courses are geared toward high school students, there are several courses that would be good for anyone to have a refresher on, such as taxes and accounting.

8. MIT Open Courseware
These are actual courses taught at MIT and offered for free on the site for viewing and reading at your discretion. The school put together an entrepreneurship page that lists available courses that are beneficial to new business owners. Courses include “Early State Capital” and “The Software Business.”

9. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
This university has almost 100 free on-demand college courses that are extremely applicable to entrepreneurs, including ones that cover business planning, operations and management and small-business tax.

10. Coursera
Much like MIT’s Open Courseware, this site has 114 educational partners that provide free courses to almost 10 million users. One benefit to Coursera is that there are very specific courses that fit perfectly into particular niches, such as “Data Management for Clinical Research” from Vanderbilt University and “Innovation for Entrepreneurs: From Idea to Marketplace” from the University of Maryland. Its wide network of partners allows for a greater selection.

11. OpenCulture
This site isn’t an educational platform on its own, but rather collects and shares free resources from around the web. Its list of 150 free online business courses is a great resource because it offers classes from iTunes U and other lessons on video and audio. The site also has lists of free audiobooks, certificate courses and other online courses.

12. YouTube
It’s probably unsurprising to most users that YouTube is one of the world’s largest search engines, as there are literally videos on just about anything you can imagine. From TED talks to recorded presentations on building a business, it’s a great free resource on just about any topic.

13. Alison
This platform offers free online courses from some of the most well-known names on the internet today, including Google, Microsoft, and Macmillan. With over 4 million users and over 600 courses already, it covers topics such as economic literacy, personal development and business/enterprise skills.

14. Saylor
The Saylor Foundation offers tuition-free courses and also works with accredited colleges and universities to offer affordable credentials. Its course offerings are similar to what you’d see when working toward a bachelor’s degree.

15. Podcasts
Even though it’s not an official course, podcasts are an amazing (and easily digestible) way to become a better entrepreneur. Podcasts can be listened to via streaming on your computer (if that certain podcast offers it) or via iTunes for iOS and apps such as Podcast Republic for Android. Podcasts such as Entrepreneur of Fire already garner thousands of listeners every episode and are a great way to learn the most up-to-date information and strategies possible. Another good list of entrepreneur podcasts include Think Entrepreneurship's.

Whether you learn best by audio, video or text, this list of 15 learning resources for entrepreneurs can help you learn more about building a business, accounting and getting customers.

(Source: Entrepreneur)