Category Archives for Make Money

How I Decided Between HMO, PPO, POS Health Insurance Coverage

If you are like me, this decision can feel slightly rushed, since you are scrambling to learn a new job and adjust to a new way of life.

However, similar to deciding which 401k mutual funds/investments you will invest in, choosing which type of health coverage you will go with is a very important decision as well. Unfortunately, many new employees use the technique of asking/following what their cubicle mates use (see Cubicle Copying post for more information).

In this post, we’ll try to sort through the positive and negative aspects of each type of coverage generally offered by employer-sponsored plans, and I’ll try to share my experiences, when possible, to provide some life to the subject.

Let’s get started!

What are the three types of health insurance managed care plans?

The three types of coverage available from most employers are 1) health maintenance organizations (HMO) ,2) preferred-provider organizations (PPO), and 3) point-of-service (POS) plans.

HMO Coverage

• Are generally the most restrictive form of health insurance plan.
• When you sign up, you select a primary care physician from a network list provided.
• If a health problem materializes, you must see the primary care physician before going to see anyone else/ a specialist. If you go to see a specialist without consulting your primary care physician, the specialist visit will not be covered.
• Because of their restrictions, they are also the cheapest form of health care coverage.

Will HMO’s cover you if you have to go to the emergency room?

As I was writing the description above about HMO’s, I began to wonder if emergency visits were covered by HMO insurance.

In reading more on this subject, I learned that emergency room visits/emergency care is covered by HMO insurance, with a $50 co-pay. However, what makes me very uneasy is this clause: “Out-of-network emergency room visit are covered for serious or life threatening emergency care treated in an emergency room.”

Personally, I read this as the insurance company being able to determine what is an emergency or serious injury, and what is not.

For example, what if you are up in the middle of the night with a horrible stomach pain from a flu virus and decide to go to the ER?

Now, while that may be an emergency to you, will it be considered as such by your insurance company? Personally, I would not want to take that chance.

PPO Coverage

• Consists of a group network of doctors, medical practices, and hospitals.
• Do not require the primary physician “gatekeeper.” You may have a primary care physician, but you can go see a specialist without a referral.
• Slightly mor expensive than HMO programs.
• This is the type of coverage that I personally have with my employer. More details on that in the section below on my experiences.

POS Coverage

• Combines features of both HMOs and PPOs.
• Allows you to save money if you use in-network care providers, or you can elect to visit a provider outside the network, in which case, you would pay a deductible.

How do you determine which coverage is best for you?

In David Bach’s book, Smart Couples Finish Rich, he recommends to always steer clear of HMO’s and to generally take the most expensive policy your employer offers (because it will give you the most flexibility).

I tend to agree with the HMO avoidance piece of this advice. However, since PPO’s provide a good bit of flexibility and save you money compared to the POS plans, I have found PPO’s to be best suited to my needs.

My experience

My employer offers 3 options for health insurance coverage:

• PPO
  • Enables you to visit in-network and out-of-network providers. However, in-network providers cost less.
  • This is the coverage I elected to use, and I have never had a problem with it all.
  • However, I have not been seriously injured during the time I’ve had the coverage, and have just seen my primary care physician for annual check-ups, etc. So, I can’t comment on how good it would be if I were to be hurt badly.
• 80/20 In-Network and Out-of-Network (similar to POS discussed above)
  • Covers a range of services, including preventative care, emergency, and primary care.
  • When you need to see a medical provier, you may choose to go in-network or out-of-network.
  • If you go out of network, you will be covered 80% by your insurance. If you go in-network, it will be less.
• HMO 
  • Follows the HMO model described above.
  • Provides no coverage for care received out-of-network or if a failure occurs in getting a referral from your primary doctor, except for emergencies.
  • No annual deductible, and most care is 100% covered, with the exception of a co-pay for emergency visits and visits to your primary care physician.

I hope this post has helped you sort through some of the confusion surrounding the different health coverage plans available.

Keep on learning!

Jacob

Home-Based Business Opportunities

• Envelope Stuffing
• This one is absolutely, 100%, a scam. Do not attempt it.
• My Experience
• Thankfully, I have never tried this one and have therefore, never been ripped off.

• ChaCha
• ChaCha is an interesting, legitimate home business/money making opportunity.
• ChaCha is a free text message question-answering service in which users text message questions to the ChaCha system, and then ChaCha Guides (as they are called) answer the question by looking it up on their home computer through Google.com. It is actually pretty fun!
• The pay rates usually range from about 5 cents to 25 cents per answer that you give.
• My Experience
• I signed up for and performed as a ChaCha guide for about 1 month last year.
• During my time, I made approximately $5.
• Overall, the work was not that hard (and was pretty fun), except that it tended to take a lot longer than I thought to accumulate enough earnings to reach the $100 payout level.
• As a result of my experience, I would not recommend ChaCha as a home-business opportunity.

• eBay Selling and Amazon Selling
• I have summarized the benefits and pitfalls of selling items on both eBay and Amazon in the link below.
• My Money Blog – Comparison of Selling on eBay and Amazon
• In my experience, no home-business opportunity has made me more money than selling items on eBay. I would highly recommend it.

• Blogging
• Blogging is a legitimate home-business opportunity.
• However, it takes a long time (> 1 year) to build up enough of a reader-base to make money through advertising on your site.
• However, the good thing is that with sites like Blogger.com (what I use for this blog) and WordPress.com, you can start a blog about anything you want for FREE.
• My Experience
• Personally, I really enjoy writing my personal finance blog. It is one of the joys of my life that I look forward to doing each day.
• However, you should not expect to make big money with it. If you are thinking of starting a blog, make sure to pick a topic that you enjoy and can use your blog to learn more about that topic.
• Pet Waste Removal Service
• Starting your own pet waste removal service (or a pay-for-fee service where people pay you to clean up the pet excrement from their yards) is an easy, low cost business to start up and run, provided that you can stomach the smell of a little fecal matter.
• This service is surprisingly in high demand, as yards have gotten smaller and smaller and people’s time has become more limited.
• Fees for service can range from $15-$50 per week, depending on the size of the person’s yard and number/size of dogs/cats.
• My Experience
• Back in 2006-2007, I started up one of these services, and became pretty successful at it, gathering a collection of clients that I serviced on a weekly basis.
• Earnings – In total, I probably made about $500 from this venture.
• I had to stop doing it my senior year of college because my time outside of school was so limited.

• Mystery Shopping
• Essentially, what mystery shopping involves is getting paid for providing an evaluation of your “customer experience” when you go in to a store and purchase items like normal.
• Big chain-stores pay large amounts of money to people in order to improve the experience that customers have.
• Personally, I have never tried mystery shopping, but David Bach (in Fight For Your Money) recommends the following websites/providers for mystery shopping. He also mentions that it is one of the few legitimate home business opportunities.
• ICC Decisions Services
• Corporate Research International Mystery Shops
• Mystery Guest
• Service Intelligence Experience Exchange
• Customer-Service Representative
• This is yet another home-business opportunity that I have not tried, but just found out about in David Bach’s book.
• In his book, David relates the fact that approximately 700,000 Americans earn around $8 per hour as customer service reps, handling customer-service calls out of their own homes for resort, hotel, and other companies.
• Several of the agencies offering these legitimate opportunities are listed below:
• Alpine Access
• LiveOps
• Arise
• It should be noted that Arise does require their contractors to have their own corporation set up.
• West Home
• In looking at the websites, this is probably the one that I would most likely choose if I were to ever attempt customer-service rep work. 

• Multi Level Marketing
• At a high level, multi-level marketing opportunities offer you the ability to make money in two ways – 1) by selling products offered by the organization, and 2) selling the business opportunity that you are doing to others. Since these MLM (multi-level marketing) organizations involve selling products, they are creating value for others, and are therefore technically legal.
• However, it is very difficult to make any money with these opportunities. I would highly recommend avoiding them at all costs.

Keep on learning!

Jacob

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Free Desktop Sharing, Web Conferencing, and Teleconferencing Tools

• It is FREE to use.
• You can host a meeting with up to 20 partcipants.
• It has a video/audio sharing application built in.
• It gives you your own personal teleconference PIN and phone number to call in to so that partcipants can speak to each other.
• The desktop sharing center is web-based. In other words, participants do not have to download and/or pay for a program in order to be able to join the meeting. You simply point them towards your personalized web address.

Keep on learning!

Jacob

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Finding a Job After College – Part 3 – The Interview Process

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In Part 1 of this series, My Money Blog – How to Get a Job After College – Part 1, I showed everyone several tips on how to create a resume and cover letter. In Part 2, My Money Blog – How to Get a Job After College – Part 2, I discussed several places/resources that can be used to find target job opportunities.

In the final chapter of this series, I wanted to guide everyone through the interview process, as I have experienced it over the past few years, and offer several tips that I have picked up along the way.
employers want you, believe it or not

Overview of Interview Process
From what I have seen over the past few years, the interview process basically has three phases.

1) Pre-screen interview

This type of interview is the first formal interaction between the potential employer and employee. It usually is done in one of two ways: either through on-site interviews (conducted by Human Resources or Technical reps) at the students university or at a career fair or a telephone interview (usually conducted by the companiy’s Human Resources department).

Due to the fact that these pre-screen interviews are conducted by someone other than the hiring manager offering the position, major gaps can exist because the HR reps can be looking for a different set of pre-reqs than the manager. For example, I have seen that sometimes, HR places too much of an emphasis on the name of the school from which the candidate comes, while hiring managers tend to care more about experience.

During this interview, the questions will be very general (not technical) with some situational/experience questions. However, in my experience, I have found that this interview is more to just get better acquainted.

2) Pre-screen interview with hiring department

After getting through the first “get-to-know-you” interview and if the HR rep finds you eligible, your resume and contact information will be forwarded to the actual department where the job is being offerred. The department will then elect a representative (may or may not be the hiring manager) to call you for another pre-screen interview.

The questions in this interview will also be fairly general, with the purpose being for the department to decide if you would be a good candidate to invite for a set of all-day in-person interviews.

3) On-site interview

As you can imagine, the on-site interview is really where the decision gets made of whether or not to hire a candidate. And, vice-versa, it gives the candidate an opportunity to decide if the company/location is a good fit for him/her. The key here is to focus on one simple truth – as much as you want the job, the company needs to find and recruit talented individuals. Therefore, you should see the interview process as a two-sided discussion to make sure that a good fit for both sides is found.

The on-site interview usually consists of an all-day marathon interview session. Typically, you will talk with 6-7 people for anywhere from 30 min to 1 hour. The majority of these people will be from the functional area in which you would be working. However, you will most likely interview with one HR representative as well.

What to Wear During Interviews
From what I have seen, the safest bet for how to dress the day of your in-person interview is to “overdress.” What does this mean exactly? It means that if you are a guy, wear a suit and tie. For girls, I have no idea – wear the equivalent of this.

This applies even if the place you are applying is a plant site where everyone wears jeans. It is just the safest way to dress to make sure you are prepared to meet with anyone from a line manager to the plant manager.

What to Eat During Lunch
Because all of the interviews and “thinking on your feet” that you will be doing, you will most likely not have the world’s biggest appetite. However, it is best to be sure to order something for lunch that is easy and not messy to eat. You don’t want to draw too much attention to yourself during lunch.

For me, I have some pretty interesting lunch habits (examples – eating fruit straight out of the can), but I would want to make sure to hold these back and stick to more normal practices until after I obtained the job.

Interview Questions / How to Prepare for the Interview

So, you’ve gotten through all of the pre-screen interviews, your bags are packed, and you are ready to go to bed the night before your on-site interview. But wait, hold it right there! You’ve still got to do several more things before heading to your big day!

1) Study the company

Because stepping in to the interview room(s), you will want to be armed with some broad knoweldge about the company’s products/services and any major recent events related with the company.

Why do you want to do your homework on the company? Easy! Because having this knoweldge will make the interviewers feel that you are truly interested in what they do and want to get a job with the company as opposed to being forced to be there by your parents.

2) Print out 20 copies of your resume on resume paper

You will want to make sure you have plenty of extra copies of your resume on hand for the interviewers to be able to talk through with you and in the case any additional people you meet during the day ask for a copy. Resume paper is very nice because the textured appearance makes your resume stand out in a pile when potential employers are doing their final pre-requisite reviews.

3) Make sure your personal networking business cards are in your briefcase. See the previous post titled, My Money Blog – Promote Yourself with Free Business Cards, for more information on this.

4) Make sure you leave your hotel and/or house with PLENTY of time to spare the morning of your interview. You want to make sure you have extra time in the likely event that you get lost (whether or not you have a GPS in your car). This will also ensure that you remain relaxed for your interviews.

5) Prepare pre-formed responses to general question types

Similarly to the way that a comedian has practiced material that he or she delivers to audiences during performances, you should also have pre-formed responses to certain general types of questions that get asked ALL OF THE TIME during interviews.

What are these questions you might be asking? The ones that I created pre-formed answers to are listed below (I was asked these in pretty much every interview for my current job):

• Tell me about a time that you showed leadership
• Tell me about a time when a you failed at a project and how you handled it
• Tell me about a time when you showed technical skill proficiency
• Tell me about a time when you worked with a difficult person and how you handled it

Once you get your list of questions written out and your 1st draft responses, have them reviewed by someone you trust, preferably, a supervisor that you work with, a professor, etc. Get your opinion on how the responses can be improved to increase your chances of being hired.

6) Prepare questions to ask interviewers

One of the most important parts of the interview process is the very end of the interview where the interviewer asks, “Do you have any questions for me/us?” The worst thing you could possibly do is say, “no.” Why is this? Simply saying “no” indicates a lack of interest on your part in what the department and/or company does for living. The interviewer wants to see that you are legitimately interested in working at the company.

What are some good types of questions to ask at this time? Several of my favorite are listed below. I usually just take this list to my interviews and have it handy whenever I need it!

• What types of activities are there to do in the area?
• Are there people my age around here?
• Where would I live?
• What types of responsibilities/tasks would I do in the department?
• Is there an opportunity to _______ (fill in with something I am interested in)?
• The list goes on….

I wholeheartedly wish everyone good luck in their interviewing and job finding exploits! And, as always, please don’t hesitate to ask questions!

Keep on learning!

Jacob

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How to Get a Job After College – Part 2 – Search For Job Opportunities

In Part 1 of the series (see link below), I discussed several tips and techniques for creating a resume/cover letter and having it reviewed so that it is ready to present to potential employers.

My Money Blog – How to Get a Job After College – Part 1

Now that you have your resume all polished up, it’s time to find positions that you can apply for! But, where do you start looking? What sorts of job search strategies can you apply? It is shocking how some departments in universities do not provide much guidance at all in the job hunt for their students. So, don’t be afraid to do it on your own!

Places to Look for Jobs (ranked in order of liklihood to get you a job with #1 being most likely)

1) Ask your college professors for department alumni or other contacts they have that would be able to get you a job.

Why does this system work you might ask? The answer is very straight-forward. If I am an alumnus of the mechnical engineering department of a university that is currently working in the automotive industry, there will undoubtedly be professors existing in the department whom I trust. And, if they can tell me that in their professional opinion that they have a lead for me on a potentially promising candidate for my company, I am going to listen and be able to promote that individual much better than a candidate that applies in a random fashion.

2) Ask your friends and family for possible contacts they have in the field in which you are interested. (It’s always better to have some kind of connection with your employer than applying randomly)

3) Go to the career fair that your department/school holds for your area of interest.

Career fairs at your college are a great thing because the very action of the company showing a physical presence to recruit on your college campus indicates that 1) they are already interested in the college’s students and 2) recognize that college as a place where productive talent has been found in the past. Additionally, if you have good credentials, it is a lot harder for a potential employer to ignore you face-to-face than if you are merely a name on a resume.

4) Join a professional organization (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineering, Women in Engineering, etc) and travel to career fairs/expos they offer. This is how I got my current job.

These aren’t quite as good as career fairs at your college because the companies will not be specifically interested in your school’s students. However, it is still harder to be ignored in person vs. being only a resume.

5) Go to career fairs at other regional universities.

Before going, make sure to call the career center in charge of the career fair and make sure you will be able to get in to the fair without an ID from that specific university. It won’t be worth the drive if you are unable to get in!
6) Cold calling employers / unsolicited applying online at company websites (my least favorite)

In trying to find a job several years ago, I applied online to probably close to 75 companies. Not one of the applications turned out successfully. I have even heard that there is like 2% chance of success with submitted an unsolicited resume online or via email. I believe this chance increases to 10% with calling, but this is still not that impressive.

Note: do not be confused with the fact that nowadays, many employers require you to apply online as more of a formality after you have been connected through another route with the job for legal reasons.

While the odds are fairly against you for applying in an unsolicited fashion online, I have seen this method work with a fair level of success when you apply directly to positions available at smaller sites within a large company (not directly to the company wide internship applicant pool). Why does this work you might be asking? The key is that you want to get your resume looked at by someone other than Human Resources that will actually hire you.

Related Job Finding Topics

1) Do not settle for the answer, “Just apply online then we’ll move forward that way.”

One of the easiest ways for employers to professional reject you at a career fair is to tell you, “Everything looks great! Just apply online!” This is 90% of the time code for submit your resume to the resume vat, and we will never talk to you again. To reitterate, it’s OK to be asked to apply online because it is required for legal purposes, but it should be more as an afterthought/formality to the job connection process.

Instead, if the employer representative is interested, they take your resume from you personally and invite you back later for an interview at the career fair. No interview, just applying online = unlikely to get job. If they do not offer to take your resume and/or invite you back for an interview, at the very least, ask them for the rep’s contact information so that you can keep your name fresh in their mind.

2) Following up after meeting or interviewing with employers

After you meet a potential employer at a career fair or during an interview, it is important to ask them for their contact information so that you can follow up with them 1) to hear about the results of the job and 2) to keep your name fresh in their mind.

3) Start Small – Internships, Co-ops, and Starter Jobs

It is very likely that you will not be able to find your ideal full time job right out of college. However, there are several things you can do to improve your chances of this happening.

The biggest key here is to do an internship!

Why are internships so valuable? Easy! Internships are a no-risk opportunity for an employer to get an in-depth, temporary look at how you perform on the job and analyze whether or not you would be an effective full time employee. Additionally, internships do not for benefits such as health insurance, etc, thus reducing the cost of an intern by nearly 40%.

So, your goal should be to find an internship or co-op position while you are in school (either during the summer or during spring/fall semsester. Most companies that show up at career fairs will also be recruiting for interns/co-ops as well as full time positions.

Another good thing to attempt is to start working at a more local company in the industry in which you want to work. Several years ago, when I was on the internship hunt, I used the link below to search for smaller bio-tech/pharma companies in my college town, and merely called them and asked if they would offer me an internship. After I obtained an internship at the smaller company, I could then leverage that experience towards my next goal. See how that can work?

Bio-Link.org – Search for a Bio-tech Company, by location

Well, I hope this post helps you on your job hunt success! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Keep on learning!

Jacob

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How to Get a Job After College – Part 1 – Creating a Resume and Cover Letter

One of my ultimate pet-peeves is seeing people work REALLY hard to do well in college, want to get a certain type of full-time job, but then settle for graduate school or do some mediocre position as a result of not having the correct guidance for pursuing a full time job. Then, when they get out of graduate school, they still don’t have any idea of what they want to do because they didn’t get out in the real world and explore different opportunities.

Getting a job these days is definitely not becoming any easier, especially with the way the economy has been acting the past few years and the increased globalized competition. However, it is not impossible.

In this series of posts, I’ll try to explain some tips and techniques that have helped me over the years to get the full time job I wanted.

The absolute first step on this journey is to create a resume. It doesn’t even have to be bullet-proof at first, but just created.

To guide you through this discussion, I’ve created a sample resume at the link below that you can view and use as a template if desired.

Example Resume on Google Docs

Key Rules to Follow

1) Timing –

Due to the increased competition being faced today, it is VERY hard to get the type of job you want directly out of school without internship or co-op experience. Because of this, the timing of getting your resume ready should coincide with when applications start being accepted for internships/co-ops.

When is this? Generally, companies look to hire interns the summer after their sophomore or junior year of college. Therefore, you need to have your resume ready to go by Fall of your sophomore year. This means starting to work on it during the summer before your sophomore year.


You might be saying, “But My Money Blog, I don’t know what I want to do yet at that age, and I don’t have enough work experience yet to create a resume.” This is not a good excuse. Create your resume using what you have!

2) Keep Your Resume to 1 Page –

To be blunt, since you are only an undergraduate, believe it or not, you aren’t important enough yet to have a resume more than 1 page. So, do whatever you need to do to trim it down in size!

3) Have Your Resume Reviewed –

Once you have created your first draft of your resume, have it reviewed by as many people as you can – preferably, people you respect. Examples would include your parents, professors, career counselors at school, etc. Even more ideal would be any kind of contacts you or your family has that already works in the industry in which you want to obtain a job.

4) Use Action Verbs and Add Quantification Where Possible –

In conjunction with having your resume reviewed, you will want to make sure to word your experiences in such a way that they are too the point and communicate the responsibilities that you took on. It also helps here to relate past job responsibilities to broader, more universally known skill sets. For example, perhaps you worked as a cashier at a local fast food chain restaurant. In this case, you could on one hand just say that you worked as a cashier. On the other hand, you could say that you gained experience in accounting and/or financial transaction techniques. Whatever you put down, you want to make sure that it is the truth, however.

Another very beneficial technique that I am a big fan of using is to add Dollar value quantification to my experiences, wherever possible. Why does this method work? Easy! Because no matter what industry you are in, whether from fast food to pharmaceuticals, there is always going to be money involved. As such, it can be used as a common denominator for hiring managers to gauge your level of experience.

5) Highlight Your Areas of Strength –

Yet another important part of building a resume is to highlight your strong points. For example, in the resume at the Google Docs link above, notice how the author wanted to draw emphasis using bold text to the broad spectrum of majors achieved as opposed to the name of the school where she went. On the other hand, if the student had went to Harvard, you can bet your pretty penny that she would have wanted to bold the name of the school, irregardless of GPA or major.

6) Create Different Resumes for Different

The last key comment I have for resume creation is that idea of creating different versions of resumes for different areas for which you apply.

For example, when I was interviewing for jobs out of college, I wasn’t 100% sure if I wanted to do pharmaceuticals or renewable energy. Therefore, I tweaked my resume and my experiences around so that less emphasis was placed on my biomedical experience, and more emphasis was delivered to my experience with bioprocessing. You will also want to make sure to change your objective as well!

See how that can work? Not too bad right?

Related topic: Is it worth it to create a cover letter?

The jury is still out for me on this question. Personally, I have never been asked specifically for a cover letter in my interviewing career. The only time I have been asked for it is when I apply through the internet/computer. Additionally, in my working career, I have never asked any one to show me his/her resume, nor have I ever heard a hiring manage ask me for one of my contact’s cover letters.

However, in all honesty, it really couldn’t hurt your chances to make one. What I would recommend is to make a general template cover letter that leaves room for approximately 2 sentences of specific information you can fill in for each employer you apply to.

Click on the link below to see an example cover letter template and how it can be customized to each specific employer.

Example Cover Letter – Google Docs

Remember, you will also want to keep the cover letter to 1 page.

I hope this information was helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions!

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Unlock Hidden Money in Your House – Sell Your Items On eBay

In my previous post at the link below, I described how I started an eBay resale business several years ago and discussed the steps I took to grow the business in to a profitable entity.

My Money Blog – How To Start A Business

In this post, I want to do the following: 1) introduce to everyone the idea that they can unlock hundreds of Dollars of hidden money in your apartment or house by selling your unused items on eBay and 2) share the three key learnings from my eBay endeavors that will hopefully help you in your future selling.

Sell Your Unused Stuff on eBay
If you’re like me (and most other people), you have A LOT of unused stuff around your house – DVDs and VHS tapes you no longer watch, books you have read or didn’t read, old bikes, speakers, amplifiers, shoes, unused shoes, radios, and the list goes on!

Now, just think about this idea – being able to get rid of your stuff and making money at the same time! Sounds nice doesn’t it? Well, if you’re willing to put in a little bit of leg-work and have fun in the process, you can make this dream a reality by selling your stuff on eBay.

How do you get started?
First, go to the ebay.com at the following link, and register for a selling account Register at eBay. Once you have done that, you are ready to start selling.

Now, at this point, I could go in to pages and pages of details of how to set up auctions and sell on eBay. However, there are PLENTY of book resources available on this subject already on the market. So, I’m not going to waste your time by just repeating that here.

My favorite book for general tactics at eBay selling is a book by Marsha Collier called, “Starting an eBay Business for Dummies.” The book has a very approachable layout, making it easy to find reference topics. Additionally, it is easy to read for beginning sellers. Pick up a used copy of this book at the Amazon link below!

Three Key Learnings To Help You Sell More and Make More

Listed below are the three things that I learned after many hours and trial-and-error of eBay selling. Put them to use and you will see results!

1) Not everything sells on eBay, so don’t try to sell everything! – Use “Completed Listings” Option

As the title suggests, the first thing you have to realize when selling household items is that not everything that you want to sell is going to sell.

For example, on my shelf right now, I have a used, VHS copy of the Harrison Ford movie, Air Force One. Now, let’s see if it will sell if I list it on eBay. I perform the search shown at the link below, and then on the left side of the screen, I scroll down, and click “show completed listings.” This shows a list of auctions that have ended with products with the same key words as the product I am wanting to sell.

Air Force One VHS eBay Search

In doing this, I find that only 1 VHS tape of the last 30 auction listings has sold. This is not a good ratio, and will not be worth my time or the eBay listing fee money required to list the tape. I then move on to another item in my house, and using the same system, I can find out what will have a good likelihood of selling success.

2) You don’t decide the price, the eBay marketplace does


So, using the method described in No. 1 above, you have found good evidence that something you have will sell in the eBay market. What’s the next step?

Well, what you’ll want to do is find an auction listing that has successfully sold (shows in green on the completed listing screen). Once you have found one, price the item you are listing at the same starting price or buy it now price. Don’t expect to make more by thinking you are smarter than the market!


3) It’s OK (and probably better) to mimic the auction listing format of successful listings


After finding a successful product listing as described in No. 2 above, if you like the format and information that is contained in the listing, don’t be afraid to professionally mimic what is shown on the listing.

Ever heard of the concept of “not reinventing the wheel?” The same thing applies here. You want to use a format that works. However, do not copy the listing word-for-word because it could cause complaints from the seller if it is seen repeatedly.


Well, I hope this advice gets you started on the road to unlocking some hidden money by selling your unused stuff on eBay. Good luck!

Keep on learning,

Jacob

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How To Start a Business

So, you’ve got a GREAT, innovative, new idea for a business. However, where do you start? what do you do? what legal/official steps do you need to take to get going? How do you advertise?

These are all questions that I wanted to attempt to address during today’s posting.

In my lifetime thus far, I have started two businesses: 1) a pet waste removal / yard clean-up service and 2) an  eBay selling business. While I have not made a TON of money with either of these opportunities, they were priceless learning experiences where I could try out advertising, billing, bookkeeping, website development, and customer building techniques to possibly be used later in life.

Side note: Keep an eye out for a post coming soon on the key things to know to sell your extra items at home on eBay!

Let’s get started!

Step 1 – Create a DBA (Doing Business As) Name
The first thing you’ll want to do is pick a name for your business. Remember that with business names, you want to pick something related to your field so that potential customers can identify you.

Have something good in mind? Once you have it, go to your local county courthouse, then head to the county clerk’s office. There, go to the desk, and ask the official that you would like to register a DBA name for your new business. They’ll give you the paperwork to fill out, and you will be charged a fee of around $20-$30, depending on your location.

There! That wasn’t too hard right. Now you have your identifying name.

Step 2 – Register for a State Sales Tax ID/License
The next step to make your business official is to apply for a state sales tax ID number. This can be done fairly easily. Just search for the following phrase in Google to find/download an application, where XXXX will be replaced with your state’s name.

“XXXX state sales tax id”

The state sales tax ID number is important because it is required by wholesalers in order to give you reduced prices (idea is that you aren’t charged tax for purchasing goods to resell because you will charge tax to the end customer).

Step 3 – Find Wholesalers to Purchase Goods for Resale
If you are a service provider, you can ignore this step. However, if you start a business designed to resale goods to end customers (such as an eBay business), you need to find products to sell.

Armed with your state sales tax ID number, you can now approach pretty much any distributor or wholesaler that you are interested in buying from (whether you find them locally or on the internet). One of the biggest headaches you will encounter is large minimum order quantities. However, many have no minimum order quantities. One distributor I used pretty successfully was DBL Distributing- Home Page.

Step 4 – Advertising
Whether you like business/sales or not, advertising is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to success. Let’s do a quick exercise. Just think for a moment the products you use on any given morning: you drink advertised coffee, use an advertised toothbrush/toothpaste, drive an advertised car to work, etc. The list could go on forever.

Naturally, the type of advertising you use depends on your business model. However, two advertising mediums that can be used pretty much universally are a website and flyers/signs.

For a website, I usually like to start off with the most low cost thing before I decide to devote significant financial resources to the business. To get a website going in no time and for free, you can use Blogger.com, Google’s blogging website, to create a blog. Blog’s are becoming extremely customizable, and there are so many widgets/special features out there, that you can customize your blog to do pretty much anything you want it to!

Another option is to use GoDaddy.com (link to website shown below). They have great deals on domains and hosting packages. With this, you will have to know a little more about website building, but you will have more control over your formatting.

Flyers are pretty straight forward because they can be generated from any computer. They key with flyers is to 1) create the flyer is such a way that is automatically gets the reader’s attention and 2) be sure to post them where people will read them.

In my past businesses, I have used several types of signs: yard signs, car magnet signs, and door hanger signs.

For the yard and car magnet signs, I just did a Google search, and found the cheapest quote I could find that was suited for my purposes. Take a look at all of the options that come up when you do the searches below!

Search for Car Magnet Signs
Search for Custom Yard Signs

Since I did a lot of door-to-door promoting of my pet waste removal service business, door hanger signs were great because I could hang them on the door when no one was home! I had a lot of trouble finding these  for a good price online, and ended up just approaching a printing brick-and-mortar business in my hometown in Arkansas for these signs. They weren’t that expensive at all, and they worked great!

To recap, there are many steps that are involved in starting a business. However, these four steps were the result of many hours of research and teaching myself how to do things! I hope they help you in your ventures!

Keep on learning!

Jacob

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What’s Your College Degree Worth?

One of the most daunting tasks upon teenagers entering college (and their parents I suppose) is deciding which degree/career to pursue.

For the most part, I feel that there is already enough advice on this topic floating around the internet and college campuses. It is well know that students should pick a degree/career that is 1) something they will enjoy and 2) something that will provide value to society. It is also known that there are certain careers/degrees that pay more than others (see links below).

Useful links
2009 Highest Earning Degrees
CNBC 2010 Highest Earning Degrees

However, what I do NOT see nearly enough of is guidance on the financial ramifications of the fact that in the real world, multiple types of degrees can perform similar and/or the same job. This idea was never really brought up to me as I was going through school.

To shed light on what I am referring to, let’s look at an example.

As it says at the top of my blog, I work in the pharmeceutical industry. In my current position, I work with a mix of biomedical engineers, chemical engineers, electrical engineers, and civil engineers. Interesting mix eh for people performing a similar job?

Looking at the “2009 Highest Earning Degrees” link above, we can find the highest and lowest average starting salaries for these degrees:

• Biomedical Engineering – $54,158
• Chemical Engineering – $64,902

Imaginary Scenario
Let’s now assume that two engineers graduate with the degrees above at age 22. They work until they are age 65, earning a 10% raise every year (they are STELLAR workers). Each year, the engineers contribute 15% of their salary to their retirement accounts.

Assuming the standard return of 12.4% on these contributions and that the above pattern continues, the engineers have the following amounts at retirement:

• Biomedical Engineer – $31,190,995.64
• Chemical Engineer –  $37,378,743.66

As you can see, this results in a difference of about $6 MM.

Key Takeaways
Basically, I am trying to stress the point that obtaining a certain degree doesn’t restrict you to single job. And, to that same end, if there is a similar field (that you could still enjoy learning about) that will end up paying more money, it is at least worth considering!

Keep on learning!

Jacob

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What Taxes Do You Have to Pay As A Graduate Student?

Are assistantship stipends taxable?
The simple answer to this is YES. They are reported to the IRS as taxable income. However, depending on the state, the rules change slightly.

For example, in Virginia (see grads.vt.edu link below), federal and state withholding taxes will be taken out of each paycheck. International students are subject to different rate schedules and filing procedures unless specifically exempted by a tax treaty.

On the other hand, at the University of Pennsylvania, full time graduate students in engineering departments are considered Research Fellows. Their stipend is subject to Federal income tax, but not Pennsylvania personal income tax. One-half of the stipend is also subject to City of Philadelphia wage tax. In addition, as a full-time graduate student a Research Fellow’s stipend is exempt from FICA/Medicare tax. (see finance.upenn.edu link below)

Furthermore, in North Carolina, ful time graduate students on assistantships are subject to federal and state withholding taxes, but are exempt from FICA taxes (see acs.ncsu.edu link below).

Useful Links

In looking at the IRS.gov website below, it is pretty definitive what the answer to this is — You can deduct the follow things:

• Tuition and fees required for enrollment or attendance; and
• Fees, books, supplies, and equipment required for courses.

***You cannot exclude any part of a scholarship used for room and board expenses. (Dang!!!)

http://www.irs.gov/individuals/students/article/0,,id=96674,00.html
http://www.grads.vt.edu/financial/taxes.html

As you might have figured out by now, since in most engineering and science programs, almost all of your student experiences are fully taken care of by the department, it looks like there won’t be much tax deducting on major expenditures. However, if you are in a program where you are paying for everything yourself, remember to deduct the items above from your income at tax time in April.

Keep on learning!