Making The Most Of What You Have In The Moment

By Sydney on May 14th 2012 in Personal Finance 10 comments

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There is a famous quote by Teddy Roosevelt that has really struck home with me over the last few years: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. I didn’t grow up with much, which was hard to understand sometimes when I was a kid, but I’m actually glad that I wasn’t [...]

Taking A Sabbatical And Potentially Never Coming Back!

By Financial Samurai on May 10th 2012 in Career 33 comments

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As of right now, I’m on sabbatical!  Yeah baby, yeah!  After some discussion with my various colleagues, I’ve decided to take a one month paid sabbatical to rest, rediscover, and go on an adventure.  I could have done longer, but the second month is only 80% paid, and the third month is even less at [...]

The $100 Startup: Do What You Love For A Benjamin

By Sydney on May 7th 2012 in Entrepreneurship 11 comments

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A lot of people are too scared to start a business because they’re too afraid to fail and think they don’t have enough money.  I had those same fears myself for a long time, but thankfully I got over myself and stopped being afraid of taking chances.  Life is too short to waste it living [...]

How To Build An Efficient Business

By Jamie Makar on May 5th 2012 in Business 3 comments

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With the digital revolution in full flow and economic growth looking more promising than it has for some time, opportunities are increasing for entrepreneurs and small businesses to flourish. But businesses can’t afford to put goof up repeatedly in the early stages if they hope to establish themselves in their industry. Building an efficient business [...]

Be On The Lookout For Small Business Scams!

By Sydney on May 1st 2012 in Business 13 comments

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There are tons of things to think about and keep track of when you are starting a business.  Putting together a business plan, bringing ideas from the drawing board to the table, figuring out all sorts of logistics, researching, planning, raising capital, marketing, legal stuff, you name it.  The last thing you want to think [...]

Would You Take A Steep Pay Cut To Live In Paradise?

By Financial Samurai on April 26th 2012 in Business 25 comments

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An interesting thing occurred to me today.  I’m here in Honolulu, Hawaii on vacation and I decided to Google the state manager of a major wealth management company one morning.  As a personal finance blogger, working as a financial advisor for a wealth management firm is about as synergistic a offline/online combo as can be! [...]

A Healthy Amount Of Competition Will Do You Good

By Sydney on April 23rd 2012 in Self Improvement 16 comments

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The other day I found out that three people in a new circle of friends I joined each have a twin!  What are the odds of that?!  That got me to start counting how many twins I actually know.  One pair of twins from my elementary school days, five pairs from middle and high school, [...]

Improving Efficiency: Finding The Time To Do It All

By Sydney on April 19th 2012 in Entrepreneurship 9 comments

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If you want something done, give it to the BUSIEST person in the room.  Now how is that supposed to work?!  Improving efficiency and finding the time to do it all is tough.  But there’s a lot of truth in that saying about busy people being super efficient and boy do I know some insanely [...]

It’s OK To Admit You Were Laid Off: Just Get Motivated!

By Sydney on April 16th 2012 in Business 13 comments

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There’s no coincidence that the lifestyle design movement took off just as the economic downturn started picking up steam in the sumer of 2008. Those were some of the scariest times I’ve ever experienced, apart from when two planes hit the Twin Towers in NYC.  I vividly remember seeing the markets tumble by 5% a [...]