Archive for the ‘Research & Development’ tag
The Sixth Day of Christmas – Research & Development
You haven’t forgotten that you’re your own little company have you? How’s your Research and Development department ticking along? Have you managed a break through this year? Why not?
There’s been plenty written lately about the past year, reflecting on personal events, milestones and goals achieved. Soon enough we’ll be into New Years resolutions. You can pick from your standard range: get fit, quit smoking, save more money, be nicer to people etc. Why not resolve to do something that can benefit you in the long term and open up your eyes to a world of possibility?
I’m talking about learning something new: experimenting with additional income streams, setting yourself up as a small business, anything that’ll help you get out of the rat race!
You’ve spent more time figuring out which bank would give you 3.75% pa on your $5,000 term deposit than you have even thinking about getting out of the rat race! (By the by, making your money work for you this way would net you a whopping $187 profit for the year before tax)
I’ll cut to the chase, you can get your tax rate down to the low 10 – 15%, increase your net worth & asset base, get involved in the stock market, have a look at an eBay store… the list goes on!
If you went to college or university you’ve spent anywhere from $20,000 upwards on a qualification that’s going to tie you to a job until you retire, but you might turn your nose up at a stock market seminar that’s charging $1,000? Think about it.
The Sixth Day of Christmas is going to be short and sweet; if you haven’t already you should kick your Research and Development department into gear in ‘10.
Make your New Year’s resolution count for 2010, maybe turn off your TV and learn about drop shipping a product online? (Turning your TV off will give you an extra week and a half of time to lead your own free world)
What’s your resolution? Leave a comment below, follow me on twitter, sign-up for the RSS feed or join the facebook group? If you’ve got something to say that’ll help us all lead our own free world contribute and write an article for the site!
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[Your Name Here] Incorporated
Believe it or not you are your own little company, a one man incorporated. You have a cash flow, expenditure, company shares (grand total of one, you own the lot!) and some of you out there even have company assets (your house, savings, car etc.)
Here’s the kicker, your company is probably solely focused on staying afloat, cash flow only, and the vast majority of us aren’t doing a very good job and are cash flow negative. Luckily for us we don’t have to report to a board of directors or give an earnings report and pay dividends to share holders. So what? What I’m getting at here is for you to be a success, the more you look at yourself like your own little business the easier it is to break things down and prosper. How’s your research and development department ticking along? None existent? How’s your balance sheet? Are you always battling to keep your head above water?
Your Little Company
Once I’ve managed to convince you that you are the sole share holder in your company we’ll look at how we can improve things within your organisation. Here’s a look at what we’ll talk about;
- Expenditure - Household Bills, Groceries, Insurance, Social Money
- Balance Sheet - Your personal budget
- Company Assets - Your house, car, investment properties, shares etc.
- R & D - Your education, learning, seminars, books
- Business Plan - Personal Goals, where do you want to be in 5 years time?
- Your Balance Sheet
Before we can dive into building up your assets, freeing your time (employing another means of income) and looking ahead to the future, you have to start with your current situation – your weekly balance sheet.
Currently; most people earn their weekly wage, spend away at will and are then struggling to make ends meet when the electricity/phone/gas bill arrives, feel the pinch at Christmas and birthday time and live from pay to pay. You receive your pay, spend away, struggle with bills and expenses and then think about saving what’s left, but hey, you’ve worked hard so you can always save a bit next week?
Your Current Spending Pattern
Now that we’re going to look at things as a company things will be a little bit different. A company forecasts a yearly budget for all of their anticipated expenses. A company knows how much their employees annual salaries are (your spending money) and they know their profit targets for the year (your savings). Throughout the year things fall into place as per the business plan, and adjustments can be made along the way.
The key to this system is setting a realistic budget. I don’t care how much you want to spend on cigarettes, beers and going to restaurants, knock yourself out, but all of these luxuries fall under the ‘spending/income’ category of your company budget. Here we’ll look into a budget and later at an automated transaction system.
Your New Cash-Flow Structure
What? That’s not right, I earn $1000 a week and I’m only allowed to spend $200?! That’s all you can afford to spend or you’ll be broke! In a company structure you’ve allocated some of your money for your bills & expenses, you’ve put some money to the side to grow, you’ve bought a book or two and maybe attended a seminar (education is optional, but recommended) and then finally with the remaining balance, you’ve paid yourself some spending money.
I’ve set this up for several of my friends and colleagues, it’s not rocket science. I recently read a ‘get-rich-quick’ style book that was listed as a best seller on Amazon.com. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the focus of his book was budgeting and saving a bit of money! Are you serious? Surely the general population isn’t that thick. Ridiculous, how big can that book be? “Don’t spend more than you earn, also save a bit of money, THE END.”
What else are you working for? So you can keep working? Forever? Wake-up! Sure, you might only be able to put aside $20, $50, $100 per week, but you can build on that. To get ahead financially, here’s a crazy idea; don’t spend more than your earn?! Once you see where your money is going, realise how much you waste on fast food, junk and getting drunk, you’ll soon tighten up the budget and pour more into your savings. Once your savings account looks impressive, then you move onto investments, alternative income streams and making your savings work for you.
Yeah, and?…
Once you’ve devoured this article and possibly followed onto read about budgeting in the water cycle you can then start looking at your ‘company’ assets (investments, real estate) and Research and Development. Some of you might be a bit confused by R & D, but don’t you think it’s a bit odd how you were never taught about managing your finances, setting up tax structures and trading stock options? There’s never a better time to invest in yourself and learn something new.
So now we’ve got our company structure, hopefully you’ve seen the light and realise that you’ll no longer be surprised by a gas bill or mortgage repayment.
Financial Abundance
Millionaire Lifestyle
If only I could win lotto. The catch cry of millions, the catch cry of everyone really? I know I wouldn’t scoff at someone giving me a few million dollars. What would you do with a few millions bucks? Big house, car, holidays and maybe a new plasma TV? You’re chasing the ‘life’ of a millionaire, not to be a millionaire. Most of you would get bored not working, which disgusts me and motivates me to try and change your mind.
Here’s an exercise you can do right now; what’s your ideal lifestyle? You might be stuck in a rut at work, bills mounting, living in a dive, but just for a minute take some time to think about what you want. Not a million dollars, quantifiable things, real things.
I’ll give you a few of mine, for me to be ridiculously happy and even more smug than I am now; I want to be living in an apartment in continental Europe, put more time into photography, zooming from city to city on a nice old motorbike and enjoying the delights of Belgian beer with my girlfriend.
The Facts
Now here’s the next part, put some dollar figures to the running costs of your lifestyle; let’s have a look at mine. There’s the odd ‘purchases’ (like the motorbike) but the rest is a general cost of living. I worked out that my ideal lifestyle would cost around $250 per day. So now I’ve got a target and a goal to strive for. If I can generate $250 per day without being employed then as far as I’m concerned, I can live my dream lifestyle.
So let’s cut to the chase, what is financial abundance? I’ll spare you a fair bit of money and time in attending ‘wealth building’ seminars, motivational speaker conferences and trawling the internet for hours on end.
I’m the guy that’s spent thousands of dollars listening to ‘share trading’ gurus tell me that it’s never been a better time to get into the market! It only took me one seminar to realize the good money is in selling tickets to a seminar! (On a sidenote, educate yourself as much as you can)
Having a financially abundant mentality is believing that you’re not working for money, you’re there because you enjoy your job. If you want money you’ve got other resources & income streams up your sleeve. Multiple sources of income include; property, stock market, online marketing, businesses etc.
Too often I’ve had the following conversation with a co-worker;
Me – *usually ranting on about money/life/work etc…*
Co-worker - “Nah I’m pretty comfortable with where I’m at financially”
Me – “So what’d you get out of bed this morning for? Wouldn’t rather a sleep in?”
Co-worker - “Well yeah but there’s bills to pay, you know”
Sometimes, more often than not, the light bulb goes off at this point and they realise what I’m on about. If not then I’m usually wasting my time. People become either complacent or conditioned to what they are used to, don’t forget to dream and look at the bigger picture.
Getting Ahead of the Pack
Once you dive into the rabbit hole, good luck coming out and returning to the working world. As a bit of a background; I thought I was years ahead of the game – I saved all of my pennies from my first job and brought a rental apartment at age 18, went to university, brought my second house at 23 and now I’m ‘stuck’ (if you believe the masses) with half a million dollars of property debt and a 25 year mortgage hanging over my head. And all this by trying to ‘get ahead’ of the pack!
The attempted solution – Over the past couple of years I’ve tried the lot; Google adwords, affiliate marketing, online clickbank sales, selling an online eBook, share trading etc. And I’m sad to say everything failed. I can honestly say that each of these schemes failed, not because I didn’t know what I was doing or flew blindly into a new ‘scheme’, the number one reason was that I just didn’t have the time. I was too busy with ‘work’ (for someone else) and I didn’t have the time to develop these other sources of income. Now that I’ve made the jump and landed in the free world I’m going to be focusing all of my efforts on trying something new and putting a lot more time into my own ‘research and development’ department.
The solution – I’m currently involved in month 7 of a lengthy project. A friend and I who were both working in the backward industry I mentioned in ‘The work life balance’ realised our industry was run by the old school and that the implementation of a bit of software would increase efficiency and simplify the whole operation. Not to bore you with the details, but we’ve invested some money and over the past year have been involved in; designing a new software product from the ground up, drafting a patent specification, dealing with overseas subcontractors, graphic design, company branding, business plans and website design. In the near future we’ll become heavily involved in importing, packaging, logistics and sales. It makes you laugh just a bit when the bank manager looks across the table at two scruffy guys and says “And sorry what are your current positions within the company?” to which we both look at each other a bit bewildered and answer “Uhh.. Company Directors?” Our friends look at us both a bit strangely, usually asking ….’how’. Sure we didn’t know how to set up a company, but I knew how to pick up a phone book and book an appointment with an accountant to ask him?
So there you have it, a director of a company. Once you know what’s involved and how easy it is to setup, you’ll be less impressed the next time you meet a ‘company director’.
Your Next Move
I can’t recommend this highly enough, in your next lunch break head to Steve Pavlina’s website and trawl through some of his articles. It’s from Steve that I’m going to ‘borrow’ his advice; with all of the get-rich-quick schemes and investments you can make, your best bet is yourself. Invest some money in yourself. If you’re confused by this read on.
“Pay” yourself $500 per week (possibly out of your savings) and now you’ve got 8 hours a day to delve heavily into research and development. Buy up on eBooks, there’s also plenty of free resources online & in libraries. If you can’t make the big jump, as some of us will have financial commitments we won’t be able to avoid, have a look at what you’re currently doing. Look around, look above you, who are you paying for; your boss, his boss, the admin girl, the payroll lady, the tax man, your superannuation (401k) fund? Everyone is taking a cut out of what you’re earning as a ‘total’ figure. Once everyone has been paid by your potential earnings, then they’ll pay you your $26 per hour. Feeling ripped off yet? Try and apply your skills and the value you add directly to your customer.
If you try and fail, what’s the worst that can happen? You’ll be back at work in another few months, doing the same job, reading my next article?
You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain! You have plenty of options; no one is going do this for you!
