Need to be more productive? Use a kitchen timer and read this post by Jen Dziura.

Upgrade your Resume is 10 easy steps. The blog, Dumb Little Man, has some good advice.

Last year, I bought my boyfriend a Mophie case for his iPhone and he loves it. Now  I hear that Intuit and Mophie have teamed on a credit card-swiping iPhone accessory called Complete Credit Card Solution that will allow any approved iPhone owner to walk out of an Apple store in as little as 15 minutes with the ability to accept credit card payments.

BTW, I am attending Finovate Fall here in New York City October 4 and 5th.

How to avoid a tax audit: Being self-employed can unfortunately raise a red flag and be the focus of the IRS’s attention.  The good news is you can avoid a tax audit by not rounding off numbers, and deducting home office accurately.

A great way to avoid any problems with your taxes is to take a bookkeeping seminar. The Freelancers Union is offering an online bookkeeping seminar on September 29.

Improve your savings. Here are some tips on how to do it.

Invest smartly. Check out Plantly, a new site that creates an investment plan based on YOUR goals.

This summer, Gibbs partnered with Strayer University to offer Redskins players a primer on financial basics, from credit cards to maintaining a household budget. He uses his own life as an example of the money troubles that can come with million-dollar contracts.

This is great because a Sports Illustrated story last year found that 78 percent of all NFL players go bankrupt or are in financial stress just two years into retirement. This is the kind of education that most Americans need no matter how much money they make.

1. Build in virality. Consider: Groupon.
2. Don’t sell a product that can be purchased cheaper at Amazon.
3. Subscriptions beat one-off sales.
4. Try to create an environment where your customers are happier when there are other customers doing business with you (see #1).
5. Treat different customers differently.
6. Generate joy, don’t just satisfy a need for a commodity.
7. Rely on unique individuals, not an easily copyable system.
8. Plan on remarkable experiences, not remarkable ads.
9. Don’t build a fortress of secrets, bet on open.
10. Unless there’s a differentiating business reason, use off the shelf software and cheap cloud storage.

Now it is 2010, and that dream is so out of reach for some people that it just may be prudent to rethink it.  You can live a nice life without owning a home. There are plenty of people who live in New York City who rent including myself. Owning a home is not the only investment instrument on the block.  Plus, if you only buy a home with the idea that can flip it for profit in a few years, then you may be stuck with a money pit.

I have a college degree, but I also have college loan debt.  Higher education is so expensive with college tuition rising.  I am not advocating NOT getting a college degree, but it is not the only key to success.  Technical schools, community colleges and apprenticeships are other ways to get the skills needed for some jobs.

My parents always told me that if I got a good job, then I would have job security  and never worry. Nowadays, most people can’t imagine being at the same job for ten, twenty or thirty years.

I could go on, but the point is that Americans are not monolith.  Why should there only one standard  for the American dream?

Related:

Salon article, The fantasy of a vast upper middle class

From NYConvergence:

This fall, BankSimple plans to serve an initial 10,000 customers, giving members a single card that functions like a debit card, while being linked to a small credit line. Customers can get cash from 50,000 ATMs in small banks, stores, etc. throughout the U.S. Through this is an Internet-only bank with no branches, its goal is for customers to be able to set financial goals and to establish another means to have a bank, without being in its traditional form.

The fact of the matter is that I only recently moved to America, & as I have absolutely no credit history here, it would be nigh impossible for me to get a credit card (even if I wanted one, which I don’t!). This puts me in the position of actually having to EARN my money BEFORE I spend it, & while this may sound like an epic drag, it is one of my keys to being financially secure. (Putting a bunch of your money into savings every month is obviously another good step!)

If you rationalize keeping a credit card for making purchases online or where cash is not accepted, then use a debit card. A few weeks ago, I talk to the founder of Perk Street Financial about their debit card.  They have a debit cards rewards program where you can earn at the minimum 1%  cash back on all other non PIN purchases on days when your  account balance is less than $5,000. If your account is $5000 or more, then you can  earn 2% back. I love this idea of rewarding people for behavior that are already doing.

Now, I am not going everyone to go into their wallet and cut up their credit cards.  Your personal finance is just that-personal.  I just want to let people that there are debit card options, and you may earn some money while spending money.

Recent topics include setting up a CD Ladder for savings and curbing impulse purchases.

1. Make sure you make yourself indispensable  Make yourself known for quality work, but don’t make yourself  so indispensable that you are the point person every thing.  Draft a list of what you do for business continuity and to enumerate all the work you do.
2. Always do a brilliant job Yes, do a brilliant job but don’t overpromise. Manage client expectations
3. Become part of the team  Know the team, be a team player but don’t get caught in the office politics. 
4. Never miss deadlines  Don’t miss deadlines when it is solely up to you.  If you are waiting on information from the client, then remind of the deadline and let them know politely that there slowing down the process and it may cost them money.
5. Come up with good ideas.  Yes! Come up great ideas and make sure they are in an email or documented somewhere.
6. Show you’re prepared to be flexible – ongoing repeat work is worth the occasional weekend working.  I personally don’t do weekends other than responding to a few emails.  Communicate when you are available.
7. Make yourself available at short notice  Be flexible. Give “office hours” that you are available and options to reach you but make sure that client knows to respect your time.
8. Remember that the client is always right. The client is not always right,  but do what they ask anyway. If you feel that what they are asking is totally wrong, suggest an alternative and put in an email. 

Post completion of a project, ask the client to write a recommendation on LinkedIn and refer you to others who may need your services.

The goal of this column isn’t to actually tell you how many dollars to charge for your services, but to give you some ammo when negotiating, and to make you feel generally ballsier about quoting prices and sticking to them.

The conventional wisdom for freelancers is to take whatever you’d make per hour in a regular job and double it, since you’ll be paying your own taxes and benefits, and you’ll have to market yourself and spend time perusing contracts and a whole lot of other things you won’t be getting paid for directly. So, if you made $60,000 in your full-time gig, you’d divide by 52 weeks per year and then 40 hours per week to get $28.85 per hour. Double it and round up for good measure, and you might charge $60 per hour.

However, an hourly model of charging for things implies that 1) you shouldn’t be rewarded for being faster than other people (or that, if you are faster, you should lie), 2) work should be compensated based on time spent rather than output (which might be why you got out of the 9-to-5 working world in the first place), and 3) all of the hours a person puts in on a task are equally valuable.

Read the rest over at The Gloss.

 ESTIMATED TAXES

Because employees have their taxes withheld from their paychecks, most don’t need to worry about paying the government. But paying taxes is one of the chores on business owners’ to-do list. They’re expected to make quarterly tax payments, known as estimated payments.

Accountants advise business owners to set aside 30 percent to 40 percent of the money they earn to cover their taxes. That can be a hard adjustment for some owners. If they earn $3,000 on a project or from a sale of goods, they really can’t consider all of that money as theirs. If 40 percent of that amount, or $1,200, is allocated to taxes, the owner is left with $1,800.

Berdahl said many owners find it hard to save money for taxes. “People who aren’t budgeting to put the 30 to 40 percent away are using it for operations,” he said. “Come April, they don’t have anything and they have to knock on the bank’s door to pay their taxes.”

Last week I went to the Trapeze School on way west 30th Street for the TD Bank Flip Campaign Event. TD Bank is running a promotion to entice new customers and/or new checking accounts whereas they will give Flip video cameras while supplies last. From now until June 5th, you will be eligible to get a Flip Camera. Once you open your checking account, you must use your Debit Card for eight purchases and make two payments with Online Bill Pay within 45 days of account opening, to receive a brand new Flip.

I have a fear of heights, unsteady heights in particular so I knew this would be a challenge for me to fly into the air.  I looked at the height of the ladder and the netting and realized that I didn’t feel like having a panic attack so I didn’t do trapeze. I jumped on trampoline a little, but even that was a little uneasy for me. Nevertheless, I had a great time hanging with other bloggers.

This promotion is a great idea to kick off summer, because you can get Flip to capture all the fun of summer. In fact, if you already have a main checking account, you can use this new account as the “summer fun” account which will enable you to keep track of all the money you spend on things like travel, beachwear or ice cream.  This is easy way to  budget fun.  You can follow TD Bank on Twitter at Ask_TDBank.

1. What are you hoping to do?
2. Why is this an opportunity? What is happening in the marketplace to make this work?
3. Specifically who is feeling “the pain” that creates their need for this product or service? What will you need to do to get their business?
4. Who will you have to fight to get these customers to buy from you?
5. Specifically what will you offer and for how much? How will you let them know about you? How will you deliver what you offer to them?
6. What resources and people will you need to make this work?
7. What does this story look like in numbers?

Have your business a click away: Although you will be on vacation and your books will be in order before you go, you may still want access to critical business info from the road. Try an online offering such as QuickBooks Online or Freshbooks.

Check in before checking out: Make sure you tell the necessary folks you will be away. Update your email and voicemail to note you’re out of office and be sure to provide a contact person so customers and vendors don’t feel stranded. Also, consider partnering with another trusted small business owner with a complementary business who can watch your business while you’re out and you can return the favor when you return.

Keep your employees happy: Your employees depend on you and depend on getting a regular paycheck, so if payroll is scheduled to take place while you are away, make sure it’s automated or someone can run it for you. Consider online payroll  and schedule payments online and don’t look back.

 Plan payments before packing: Before packing your bags, make sure you’ve scheduled all payments and invoices in advance. One missed payment to a vendor or bank could set you back and hurt your credit, and delayed invoicing disrupts cash flow. Try auto-bill pay with your bank and scheduled invoicing with services like Intuit Billing Manager or Blinksale.