Ways to Increase Income

Living frugally is important but not sufficient to building wealth.Increasing income above maintenance levels is a important element for building wealth. Here are some ways that I've found to be successful for increasing income.

More jobs.  The simplest way is to work at more jobs.   A second job will increase income by a factor of the hourly rate times the hours worked.  The challenge is the extra time worked takes away from personal time and there are only 168 hours in a week.  There is a limit as to how many more jobs that can be worked.

An alternate way is to work overtime in a current job.  This option is not always available.

More responsibility.   Getting promoted is another approach.  Typically, the higher level or higher skilled job title will provide a higher pay rate.   Moving to higher pay grades requires demonstration of capability prior to being promoted to the new level.

More sources.  Working a job is one way to acquire income.  Other ways include investments (stocks and bonds),  CDs,   rental property, or collectibles.    While these sources don't require constant attention, they do require some minimal level of work to create positive income.

Before retiring, getting promoted was the most effective way to increase income for me. Investments were a good source of supplemental income, but not sufficient to support our lifestyle. Now that I'm retired, I work additional part time jobs when I want to increase our income in the short term.

For more on  The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every  Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial or earning advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Links to Carnivals from February 21 - 27, 2012

Here are the links to the Carnivals in which My Wealth Builder participated from February 21 - 27, 2012:

The Wealth Builder Carnival #67

Road to Financial Independence #40

Baby Boomers Blog Carnival #132

Carnival of Financial Planning #225

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial or wealth building advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

The Wealth Builder Carnival #68

Welcome to the sixty-eighth edition of The Wealth Builder Carnival. The purpose of this carnival is to collect articles from the blogosphere on building, preserving and keeping enough wealth for a comfortable retirement. For reference, I have tried to keep the carnival content tightly focused on wealth building and did not include submissions that were off topic. For reading convenience, the posts are listed with a brief summary or comment by the submitter and organized into seven categories: Earning, Insuring and Protecting, Investing, Living Frugally, Retiring, Saving and Taxes.

Earning

Jon Rhodes presents How To Make Money From Your Hobbies posted at Affiliate Help!, saying, "This article shows you the benefits of earning money through your hobbies. There are also some suggestions how how you can achieve this."

Insuring and Protecting

Joe Morgan presents Save Money on Insurance – Skip These Insurance Policies You Don’t Need! posted at Simple Debt-Free Finance, saying, "Some insurance policies are a waste of money, and some are essential. The trick is knowing which is which. Here's a quick guide to some of the most unnecessary insurance policies available."

Liana presents Chargeback Policy Report posted at CardHub.com, saying, "What happens when you disagree with a charge on your credit card? Find out how networks and issuers may respond to some common “chargeback” scenarios and see which credit card companies were found best for customers when disputing charges!"

Dr. Dean presents Giving Credit Card Info To Social Media? Come on! posted at Dr. Dean's TheMillionaireNurse.com Blog, saying, "Around the corner is a marketing explosion that will allow us to shop while visiting our favorite social media site. It’s going to happen. Is it a good idea?"

Investing

Dividends4Life presents 11 High Yield Utilities With A History Of Growing Dividends posted at Dividend Growth Stocks, saying, "It is human nature to want to jump on the what's hot bandwagon and ignore what is considered boring. Long considered the domain for “widows and orphans”, utilities have developed a somewhat stodgy reputation. Why are utilities considered good for widows and orphans? Here a few reasons:"

The Passive Income Earner presents How To Review Your Portfolio posted at The Passive Income Earner, saying, "Everyone needs to review their portfolio and having a process to do so is important to take actions at the appropriate time."

Living Frugally

Super Saver presents Surviving the Great Recession posted at My Wealth Builder, saying, "The Great Recession has truly been a test of economic survival capability. Here are some of the actions we took and how they helped us survive so far."

Retiring

Theresa Torres presents Is Your Military Pension Enough to Retire On? posted at Retired Pay World, saying, "If you're a career military person, here are some facts about your military retirement money as well as some tips on how you can stretch your military pension so that you can make the most of it in your retirement years."

Taxes

Bill Smith presents Best iPhone Apps to Help You with Your Taxes posted at 2012 Taxes - Free Tax Filing Options, saying, "Once again it’s the most boring and stressful season of all: tax season."


That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of The Wealth Builder Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: the wealth builder carnival, blog carnival.  

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, earning, insuring, investing, living, retiring, saving, tax, or wealth building advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Finding Customers is Job One

My dream of being self employed was being able to focus on what I love to do best.  I soon learned that my view of self employment was not correct.  The number one job of the self employed or small business owner is finding customers, otherwise known as marketing.

No matter how good the product, service or company is, it won't be successful unless people know about it and purchase it.  In my younger days, I always imagined that if I had a great product or service, customers would be beating a path to my door.  Ah...if it were only so easy.

Here's a great example.   One of my part time jobs was working for a franchise.  The workers were doing an excellent job.  The franchise was consistently in the top 100 revenue producing stores, but didn't change ranking very much.  The franchise then changed owners.  The new owner had no expertise in the actual work of the business.  He delegated that work to a general manager.  The new owner made finding new customers his primary job.  The franchise is now in the top 5 of revenue producing stores.

For more on Strategies and Plans, check back every Monday  for a new segment.


This is not financial or business advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Making Tax Refunds Harder to Get

In addition to Federal and State income taxes, my state has a city income tax.   It used be relatively simple to get a refund when taxes were over withheld for a city.  The taxpayer would file a non resident return with some details explaining the over withholding and get a refund check for the amount in the mail, usually, with no questions asked.

In the past two year, the process has become more laborious as the local tax offices are doing more reviews and sometimes incorrectly refusing the refund.   I suspect this is due to the decline in tax revenue and each tax office is trying to keep more of the revenue received.   In stories I have heard, the tax office has been the one in error.

City #1.   In the past, a taxpayer could file non-resident returns with a detailed letter explaining days out of office instead of using the city's adjustment form, some   Recently, the tax office started refusing the refunds because the city's  "official" form was not used.    

City #2.   To minimize the amount of taxes owed, a taxpayer would estimate the amount of days that would be worked in a city and had that amount of taxes withheld.  In previous years, the taxpayer would reconcile the actual days worked (and salary earned) and file for a refund or pay additional taxes.   The city would issue a refund or accept the additional tax based on the tax return.  Recently, the city stopped allowing taxpayers to revise the amount earned downward based on actual days worked in the city.

Since getting money back refunds from city income tax offices is more difficult, my solution is to pay less than the expected taxes and then pay the difference when a tax return is filed. The city income tax office will always accept additional tax payments and that way the city income tax office cannot refuse a refund.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.

This is not financial or tax advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

How the Economy Will Help Obama Get Re-elected

President Obama's re-election campaign will be helped no matter what the economy does.  A better economy will help get Obama re-elected and a worse economy will help Obama get re-elected.  Here's how I see both sides helping Mr. Obama.

Improving economy.  This one is easy.  If the economy gets better, President Obama will claim credit.   Even with the current poor economy, the Obama re-election campaign has published an infographic on how jobs are being created (or saved :-).

Declining economy.  If the economy gets worse, President Obama will continue to blame the previous administration.    The administration will provide more bailouts, unemployment extensions, and other government handouts to unemployed and underemployed voters.   He will make the case that he "deserves" another term since the economy needs more than four years to fix.

I look for the economy to be a non issue in the 2012 campaign. Either way, the economy will benefit President Obama's campaign.

For more on Reflections and Musings, check back every Saturday for a new segment.

This is not financial or political advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Living to 100

11 Health Habits That Will Help You Live To 100 shares eleven traits that centenarians have in common.  The article suggests using acquiring these traits may also extend my life expectancies.  Here are the traits and my assessment of how I'm doing.

	Description of Trait
Category	Centenarian	Personal Experience
Retirement	Stay active after retiring from work	Active
Oral Care	Floss every day	Twice a day
Physical Activity	Exercise	One time a week
Food	Fiber rich breakfast	Varies
Sleep	More than 6 hours	Over 6 hours
Vitamins	Eat whole foods	Food and supplements
Mindset	Low worry, low stress	Medium worry and medium stress
Body Care	Don't abuse body (e.g. smoking)	Don't abuse body
Routines	Keeps routines and habits	Many routines and habits
Social Contacts	Stay connected	Medium connections
Life Approach	Prudent, persistent and well organized	Prudent, persistent and somewhat organized

Overall, I feel am doing pretty well, with some areas that can use improvements.  For more research on characteristics correlated with longevity see Life Extending Habits.

For more on Reaping the Rewards, check back every Friday  for a new segment.

This is not financial or health advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Imparting Wisdom

"Good decisions come from good judgement.  Good judgement comes from experience.  Experience comes from bad judgement." ~ paraphrase from new hiring training in Liars Poker.


I enjoy watching my  daughter learn and grow up.  She loves to be doing things that older children and adults do.   She is learning what she is capable of doing and she is motivated to try some new things.  Occasionally, she will venture into activities or areas that she shouldn't try yet.

I know my seven year old daughter often wonders how I know what she's been up to or how I can guess what she's thinking.   She still hasn't figure out that I once had the mind of a seven year old boy.   (Some might claim that I still do :-)   Simply, I've been there and done that and my daughter actions will remind me of what I did next.   So I can sometimes anticipate the next action she is considering and help her make a good decision.

At seven, my daughter still gives me some credit for knowing a little bit more than her.  She will listen to coaching tips for most areas, but generally not in math homework.  So my experience does benefit her

The same phenomenon happens also for the college students and young professionals with whom I work.   By that age, some of the individuals no longer believe that my experience is relevant to their situation.   After all, it's been over 30 years since I was in their situation.  In fact, some individuals feel they are already far better prepared than those that preceded them.  So I don't provide unsolicited guidance to people in this age group.

However, for those that ask, I am always willing to provide my perspective.


For more on Crossing Generations, check back every Thursday for a  new segment.

This is not financial or parenting advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Roth IRA Contributions for Higher Income Individuals

In 2010, Congress removed the income limitation to do a conversion to a Roth IRA.  This created a loophole for high income people unable to make Roth IRA contributions due to income limitations.   These people could now open a Roth IRA account via a two step process: make a non-deductible contribution to a traditional IRA and convert the traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.  In certain cases, the Roth conversion may even be tax free.

According to the IRS tables, in 2012 Single taxpayers making over $125,000 and Married Filing Joint taxpayers making over $183,000 are not eligible to make a contribution to a Roth IRA.  Here's how these taxpayers could contribute to a Roth IRA  for the 2012 tax year.

Contribute to a Traditional IRA.  Make a contribution to a traditional IRA in 2012.  Everyone with wage income can contribute up to their earned income or $10,000 ($11,000 for 50 and older), which ever is lower.   High wage earners can make a non-deductible (after tax) contribution to a traditional IRA. 

Convert to a Roth IRA.  In 2012,  convert the traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.  Taxes will be owed on the contributions that were previously deductible or rolled over from a 401K plan.  The IRS won't allow taxpayers to cherry pick and roll over only the non-deductible (basis) portion.   The taxpayer's entire amounts in all IRA will need to be included.   However, if the 2012 contribution is the only IRA the taxpayer has, most if not all of the conversion will be not taxed since only the earnings above the contribution will be taxed.

File form 8606.  For the taxpayer's 2012 tax return, file form 8606 to inform the IRS that a Roth conversion has been done.

After completing these steps, a taxpayer will have a Roth IRA even though he was above the income threshhold to contribute directly to a Roth IRA in 2012.

For more on The Practice of Personal Finance, check back every Wednesday for a new segment.

This is not financial, tax, or retirement saving advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC

Links to Carnivals from February 6 - 20, 2012

Here are the links to the Carnivals in which My Wealth Builder participated from February 6 -20, 2012:

Baby Boomers Blog Carnival #131

Carnival of Financial Planning #224

The Wealth Builder Carnival #66

For more on Ideas You Can Use, check back every Tuesday for a new segment.

This is not financial or wealth building advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

Copyright © 2012 Achievement Catalyst, LLC