PayPal Online Payment System Review

Paypal is becoming a more-ingrained part of the Internet. If you’ve ever been worried about security problems using Paypal, keep reading. The service is pretty invaluable, but it’s also had some ups and downs.

What exactly is Paypal: it’s a online payment system allowing payments online without having to deal with money orders, checks, or inputting your credit card on a new site. More and more vendors are incorporating Paypal into shopping carts. For vendors, this is a cheaper and easier system than creating a merchant account for credit card processing. For spenders, it’s easier to have one type of payment system. Paypal users enter in a credit or debit card number and the funds are taken out that card. This is a free service for the majority of users, but people with a very active account, such as top eBay sellers, will need to get a higher-end Premier account to process additional transactions.

Paypal also accepts payments for individuals, rather than businesses. Each user can be paid through an email address – though basic accounts are limited to 5 debit card transaction and $500 per month. Once the funds are uploaded to Paypal, the user has a number of choices. Most commonly, users transfer these funds directly to a bank account. This is free, though a bank could charge for the transfer.

There are some fees associated with Paypal – but these are normally associated with online vendors selling a product, rather than people making purchases. There can be increased fees depending on the country of origin, type of currency, and the amount of money sent. Currently, Paypal has 164 million accounts and operates all over the world in 190 markets.

Problems with Paypal

Paypal is not without its problems, as exemplified by the site, Paypalsucks.com, which is on a crusade against the money transfer company. Their main complaints against Paypal are:

1. Limited fraud protection. Unlike credit cards, if someone uses your Paypal account, you could be liable to those charges. However, if the Paypal account is connected to a credit card, you could dispute a purchase directly. In addition, Paypal offers increased anti-fraud and chargeback protection now than when these types of charges were first made.
2. Paypal is vulnerable to identity theft, such as phishing scams, in which scammers set up dummy, look-alike sites to get financial information. If you’re the victim of one of these scams, Paypal has limited protection for users.
3. It is at Paypal’s discretion to freeze or unload your account if they feel there has been unethical or fraudulent activity. This has happened to people who were entirely innocent, or they were penalized because someone paid them with a stolen credit card, which is entirely out of a person’s control.

This post doesn’t mean to shill for Paypal, but none of these issues appear to be too drastic. Take #2: any web surfer should be well aware of phishing and spam email schemes, so the surfer does bear some responsibility. A couple of years ago there were a lot of spam Paypal emails phishing for info, but these have fallen back a bit recently. A way to avoid #3 is to transfer funds as soon as their received in the account. However, if you’re using those funds to buy things, rather than attaching the Paypal account to a credit or debit card, then you’re going to have to leave the funds standing. The recommendation: attach the Paypal account to a card with some consumer protection.

Finally, a MAJOR caveat to those complaints. The PaypalSucks site links to a Paypal alternative called National Merchant Bancard, so there is something slightly duplicitous about the site itself. That said, the site does raise some issues that you should look out for. Generally, you should feel pretty secure using Paypal. The value in Paypal is that it is actually more secure: instead of plugging in sensitive financial info on an unverified website, you can pay through Paypal and feel more secure about the transaction.

Writer Auditions – Author Henry Brown – Offer Your Feedback

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Strategic Planning Edition – Personal Finance Review

I spent part of the weekend doing some much needed strategic planning for this site, our finances, my career, and life in general.

Personal Strategic Planning
Sometimes I have a tendency to get so entangled in the details of everyday life that I lose sight of the big picture.  In an effort to be a little more strategic in my decision making I setup some free mind mapping software on our computer (Free Mind) and bought a big erasable white board.

The nice thing about mind mapping is that it allows me to visualize my jumbled mess of thoughts and organize them graphically.  The white board allows me to think out loud as well as document my plans and priorities as constant reminders to myself.

Writer Auditions
As you’re probably aware, the writer auditions are underway.  Later on today you’ll get a review of the online payment service, Pay Pal, and during the rest of the week the writers will cover various investment strategies.  Don’t forget, you can win $50 cash simply by offering your feedback on the writers.

Money Articles Review
 Here are some recent personal finance posts I got something out of from The Money Writers last week.

– 12 Tips to Prepare Your Finances for Vacation @ My Dollar Plan

– Free Credit Scores from Credit Karma @ Lazy Man & Money

– work-life balance is a false choice @ Brip Blap

– WaMu Free Checking: High APY of 3.3% @ The Digerati Life

– A Simple Low Cost Diversified ETF Portfolio @ Million Dollar Journey

– EverBank Offers Better Rates: 4.76% Intro APY @ Suns Financial Diary

– Risk Tolerance in a Bear Market @ Gen X Finance

 

Here are some of the highlights from the Money Blog Network:

– Single step personal finance challenge @ Mighty Bargain Hunter

– GnuCash: Free Software for Balancing Your Checkbook @ Consumerism Commentary

– Stupid Money Moves  @ Free Money Finance

– Having A Plan Allows Me To Enjoy Spending Money @ No Credit Needed

– How and Why to Freeze Your Credit @ Five Cent Nickel

 

Around the Blogosphere

Both Jim and Trent offer some financial advice for couples.  Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has Dr. Bonnie Answers Coupled Finances Questions and Trent shares How My Wife and I Got on the Same Financial Page at The Simple Dollar.

Cogratulations to Moolanomy and Gather Little by Little on hitting their one year milestones of writing about personal finance.

Thanks to the hosts of the recent Festival of Stocks, Carnival of Personal Finance, and Festival of Frugality for including the following posts:

• Stock Market Investing 101 – How Can Stocks Make You Money?
• Blockbuster Total Access Free Trial
• Saving 15 Cents a Gallon on Gas – Doubling Our Savings at the Pump

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True Credit Review – How I Use the Credit Score & Credit Report Monitoring Service

What is True Credit?

True Credit is a credit monitoring service that allows you to check your reports and scores from all three credit bureaus each month.

Do you really need to monitor your credit reports?

Well, depending on who you ask this service is either a valuable lifeline or a total and complete waste of money.

Let me be frank: If you are able to walk into any bank or auto dealership in America and have them roll out the red carpet for you, then you do not need this service! You can simply check your free credit reports once a year, look for inaccurate information, and give yourself a well deserved pat on the back for expertly managing your credit.

However, if you are like the rest of us, and your credit score needs a little work, then yes, this service should be invaluable to you.

Personally, I monitor my credit each month through a service called True Credit. Using this service has allowed me to raise my credit score over one hundred points (yes you read that correctly) and it has prevented me from accidentally lowering my score by applying for things I might not get approved for. Forewarned was forearmed in my case.

The Lowdown:

For $15 a month True Credit bought me access to all three of my credit reports and scores in an easy to read format. The sad fact is, not all of my creditors were reporting to all three bureaus, and I was shocked to find that my score varied wildly from place to place.

How True Credit Helped Me:

1. As soon as I signed up I was able to look at my reports from all three credit bureaus. It turns out, I had incorrect information on all three credit reports. I was able to immediately challenge an incorrect past address, and several old collection accounts that had already been paid off but were still reporting as open accounts. That is what raised my score.

   Now, it is important to note that you do not have to pay for a credit monitoring service to challenge items on your credit report – that is free. However, having everything in one place, printable, and easy to compare side- by- side made the process much easier for me. In my opinion that alone was well worth the $15 because it saved me time and stress.

2. I had a former friend who stole my personal information and used it to open an account in my name. I had previously resolved that issue, but keeping tabs on my report each month lets me be very, very sure that they do not do it again. Once your personal information has been stolen, you can never really be sure that the thief won’t use it again, or give it to someone else.

   Using True Credit gives me enormous peace of mind. No more identity theft here – I’m going to know it as soon as it happens and be able to take action on it. They also give me the ability to freeze and un-freeze my credit report with the click of a button. If I ever do notice suspicious activity, I can stop it right then and there.




3. Knowing my credit scores has save me from making several bad decisions. Once I knew what my score was I stopped applying for credit card offers that I probably could not get approved for, like platinum cash back rewards cards. Before, when I did not know my credit score, I always figured,

   “What the heck? Maybe I will get approved and that is a good offer!”

   Now, let me tell you that was the wrong way to go about it. Applying for any new loan can lower your credit score so while I was happily applying (and getting rejected) for several cards a year, my score was plummeting.

4. True Credit allowed me to time the purchase of our last car. I was able to wait until my score had gone up some (and because I monitored them, I knew exactly what all three of my scores were). Because of that, we were able to finance at a better interest rate than we would have gotten several months earlier, and we came out on top of the deal.




5. I noticed an interesting psychological effect – Once I started paying to monitor my credit, I started taking my score more seriously. I felt more in charge, and more comfortable with the credit side of my finances. It would be interesting to know if any of you have had that same effect come from monitoring your credit? Did you notice any change in the way you handled things while you were monitoring vs. when you were not?

Now, again, paying for a service like this may not be your cup of tea. I can only tell you that I have found it to be an essential part of rebuilding my score. If you are facing some similar challenges, then it will probably benefit you to take a look at it.

Free Trial: True Credit is offering a 30 day free trial that will let you try out the service and see your TransUnion credit report and score for no charge. Click here to get the free trial.

I also found an excellent walkthrough on YouTube. It’s about eight minutes, so if you’re at work, you may want to wait until you get home to watch it. It gives you screenshots, guides you through the process of looking at your reports, and even covers some additional features that I didn’t mention here.

How about you? Have you ever used a credit monitoring service?
Do you think it’s worth the money?

Leave us a comment below and give us your opinion!

Photo from Dreamstime.com

Writer Auditions – Author Connie Brooks – Offer Your Feedback

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ING Direct Orange Savings & Electric Orange Checking Accounts – Online Banking Review

A couple years ago, online savings accounts such as ING Direct became very popular. Their enticing savings rates caused many people to take their short-term savings out of traditional banks and into the internet world of banking. When my wife and I got married, we opened up an ING savings account for our emergency fund and any other short-term savings for large purchases in the future. We still have it, and it’s been a great account for us. Now, banks offering online savings account are trying out the online checking account. ING rolled out their Electric Orange checking account, but it has not received the same attention as its Orange savings account. I’ll break down the advantages and disadvantages of both accounts so you can figure out if either account is right for you.

The ING Orange Savings Account

The ING Orange Savings account would replace the dreadful savings accounts that brick-and-mortar banks offer. I always laugh when I see the 0.2% and 0.5% savings rates at Bank of America and Wachovia.

You won’t get rich from this account. You’ll use it to park cash for short-term savings such as an emergency fund or saving up for a car.

Advantages:

• The interest rate used to be 4.75% a couple years ago, but it’s still 3.00% today. This is infinitely better than the rates that traditional banks offer, unless you’re putting away a million dollars. But, you’d be an idiot to sock away a million bucks in a short-term savings account.
• You can access your money anywhere that you can find an internet connection. Let’s say you’re in France, and you need to make a money transfer, you can do it at an internet cafe.
• The transfer time is two business days. ING is quick to transfer money into your checking account.
• It’s harder to acess your money. This is an advantage and a disadvantage to an online savings account. The advantage is that it will help prevent you from making an impulse buy. If it takes you two days to access your money, it gives you more time to figure out if you should really buy the plasma TV you were looking at the other day.
• No fees and no minimums.
• An automatic savings plan to help you save on a consistent basis.
• It’s FDIC insured up to $100,000.

Disadvantages:

• It takes two days to access the money. This could pose a problem if you keep your emergency fund money in this account, and your breaks down. You won’t have immediate access to the money. The only advantage to the Paypal money market account is that you can get a debit card to access the money. If ING offered a debit card for their Orange Savings account, it’d be the best savings account on the planet!
• You can find a better interest rate.
• Keeping your money in a virtual account scares some people, because identity theft is the fast growing crime in the United States. However, ING has a very sophisticated login process. It takes much more than cracking a user name and a password to hack an ING account.

The Electric Orange Checking Account

It’s still hard for some people to dive into the world of online checking accounts. But, if you’re the ultimate techy and you like paying for everything online, the Electric Orange Checking is the account for you.

I don’t have this account, because of the reasons that I will discuss in the disadvantages section. I can’t speak from personal experience about this account, but a good friend of mine opened the account about six months ago, so I received some good information from him. Here is the table from the website showing the interest rates for the account

• $0 – $49,999: 1.75%
• $49,999 – $99,999: 3.20%
• $100,000 or more: 3.35%

Advantages:

• You earn interest on your money. There are not very many checking accounts that offer a MINIMUM of 1.75% interest.
• No fees associated with the account.
• A debit Master Card that can be used for free at over 32,000 ATMs.
• No overdraft fees. You get a line of credit hooked up to your account, and once your account dips below $0, you’ll pay a variable daily interest rate on the money that you owe. This is a huge advantage, because my wife and i have paid a few overdraft fees simply from bad accounting, rather than the lack of funds.
• Online bill pay. You can send electronic or paper checks to any individual or company.
• It’s FDIC insured up to $100,000.

Disadvantages:

• Depositing money is a pain. If you want to deposit cash into the account, you’ll still need a checking account from a traditional bank. You can set up direct deposit for your paycheck, and send in paper checks to ING, but otherwise, they haven’t figured out the cash thing.
• If you don’t live in a metropolitan area, it could be hard to find an ATM that doesn’t charge you a fee.
• Many young people seldom write paper checks, but it’s convenient when you don’t have cash and you can’t use your debit card. You would have to find an internet connection to send someone a check.

I think ING needs to figure out a way for people to deposit cash or checks into the approved ATMs. If they do this, I will definitely sign up for an account. If I’m going to make the switch, I don’t want to keep my Bank of America checking account. Hopefully, this review helps you make your decision. Money Smart Life is a big proponent of keeping an emergency fund, and the Orange Savings Account is a great option to store the money. The Electric Orange Checking account definitely has its advantages for those that never open up their checkbook and want to make the financial life paperless.

Writer Auditions – Author Erik Folgate – Offer Your Feedback

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Personal Stories and Product Reviews

The personal stories round of the audition is over, hopefully you got to know the writers a little. Thanks to everyone that’s given their feedback so far.  I know some people have said they’d prefer to wait until the auditions are over, and others plan to comment after each round of articles, whichever you’d prefer.  Everyone that’s sent me feedback so far has been entered to win the two $50 prizes, thanks for the input!

Product Reviews
The idea behind the next round of articles is to review how certain products can help you manage or enhance your personal finances.  Each writer chose one financial tool to cover; those reviews will be published over the next couple of days.

Feedback Location
I’ll be making a slight adjustment based on the input of several readers.  The author information and feedback link will be moved to the end of the posts so that you can share your perspective once you’ve finished reading instead of having to remember to scroll back up to the top of the article.

Happy Reading!

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Past Problems with Credit Cards: A Confession

Writer Auditions – Author Henry Brown – Offer Your Feedback

Here’s a little something about me: I was an expert on credit cards before I was an expert on my own credit card situation. A few years ago, I got hired to write a series of articles about credit cards. I was deemed the credit card expert and I wrote anything and everything about credit cards: articles about how to get a low APR on a credit card, the best way to transfer a balance, ways not to be stupid when you use your credit card, etc. Here’s the rub: at this time I was $15,000 in credit card debt on a card with high finance charges and a terrible APR. A sham, I was. My dirty little secret. I was a writer in need of work who’d written about a bevy of other financial products, so I thought I’d try my hand. But I was deemed an expert publicly before I was a good organizer of my credit privately.

That’s my confession. Does this mean you can’t trust a word I say? I don’t think so, because even though my own credit card situation was fairly bleak during that period, I’d like to think that the advice I gave out was pretty thorough and helpful. Especially to myself – because soon after writing a litany of advice to people facing high credit card debt, bad credit, and all of the other credit problems that becoming more and more common, I followed my own advice: transferred the debt to a series of balance transfer cards with long-term low interest (12 months instead of six), as well as a decent APR after the year was over. I also made certain that I never added a dime to the balance transfer cards and just used them for the transfer.

Finally, I knew my window for paying 0% APR was short-term so I wanted to pay well above the minimum during that period. That meant budgeting like a madman, down to every cup of coffee I bought, and put that money towards my credit card debt. Not easy, by any stretch because the end result was inevitably that I was spending more every month on three separate credit card bills, as opposed to one. Good news, though, was that as soon as a transferred a fair portion of my credit card balance from the terrible credit card to the new cards, I was able to negotiate to get better terms on the card. Credit card companies hate if your balance is over 40% of the limit, so I was rewarded for getting the card under $10,000.

All this was necessary because bad credit card debt is a terrible weight to bear. You always feel it there, even if you like to believe that you’ve pushed it out of your mind. It was no easy task, believe me. I mean, if I could afford to easily pay balances on three credit cards at once, I wouldn’t have fallen into the kind of debt I did (new computer, new tires on my car, eating out, no REALLY dumb purchases). But basically I was running in place every month – maybe shaving some money off the balance, but nothing significant. I felt guilty for putting it off for so long but now its taken care of and I can claim to be an expert on credit cards from direct personal experience!

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What the Kung Fu Panda Can Teach You about Becoming a Millionaire

Writer Auditions – Author Connie Brooks – Offer Your Feedback

Last weekend we took my daughter to her very first movie: Kung Fu Panda

As we sat in the theatre, and the lights went down, I did not expect much from the movie. In fact I planned to spend the entire time studying my daughter’s face as she took in her first big-screen experience.

While I will always treasure her enjoyment of the movie, I came away with much more than just the experience. In fact, if you can believe it, I came away with the keys to financial success!

((SPOILER ALERT Folks))

What the Kung Fu Panda can teach you about becoming a millionaire:

The movie opens with Po, a struggling panda who dreams of more than simply living out his life in the footsteps of his father. He knows in his heart that he is destined for more than the simple life that was given to him. He wants to be a warrior, a protector of the people.

Po’s dreams of glory are not unlike many of ours. We may not want to be the fabled protectors of the universe, but we probably do want to be independently wealthy in this lifetime. Personally, I want to be wealthy enough to have the life I choose, and for my daughter to have the life she chooses.

In the movie, Po stopped at nothing to move forward. He strapped himself to a chair propelled by fireworks, and dang the consequences, nothing was going to keep him from his goal! Being fat did not stop him, the fact that all his peers resented him did not crush him, nothing moved him from his dream.

In fact, no matter what the challenge, he faced it and refused to give up. That is the first thing the Kung Fu Panda taught me about becoming a millionaire.

I believe that there is an unlikely millionaire in all of us. Yes, you’re allowed to choke and gag at the sappiness, but it’s true, we all have these dreams of glory whether we voice them or not. We understand that we need more in our life than revolving debt, or even a huge house and a nice car.

Each day of our lives we are faced with choices: Save? Spend? What will my friends think if we go out to eat and I order soup and water? What will they think if I refuse buy coffee four days in a row to avoid the expense? Should I make a risky investment to encourage quick growth, or should I make a long term investment in the hopes of a slow steady return?

Now, I am going to tell you folks, Po got beaten up. A lot. You know what he did? He laughed it off. And he got up. And he kept going.

I’ve made poor stock choices. I’ve made more than my share of horrible financial decisions. (Anyone want to buy some $250 designer sunglasses?). I’ve run my credit cards up, and made late payments. I’ve had medical bills so outrageous I thought I was going to die just opening the envelope. But you know what else I’ve done? I’ve refused to give up too. And today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow will be better still.

When Po was chosen as the Dragon Warrior, the hero of the people, destined to save the world from an unstoppable menace, he looked at himself, and he doubted himself.

“How can I do this?” he wondered. ” I am untrained, sloppy, unfit in every way. ”

How many times have we said this to ourselves:

“Save a million? I make 40k a year, how can I save a million dollars?”

So what did Po do? Well, he started training. He learned the secrets of the masters. He learned what his motivations were, and how to encourage himself to do the impossible. That is what you and I are doing here each and every day. We are learning. We are training. Because we only get one life and one shot at true financial security. We are here to learn from the experiences of others, and when we are ready, to pass that knowledge on.

The most important secret of the Kung Fu Panda:

At last Po was ready for his final battle. At last, he was given the final key: A sacred scroll that many believed contained the power of the universe itself.

He opened the scroll.

And it was blank.

It held only a reflection of himself.

The last and most powerful secret of the Kung Fu Panda, is now passed on to you:

There is no secret ingredient to wealth.

The secret to being a millionaire is not a magical scroll, or a combination of inside stock tips, or even an ivy league education.

Work Hard. Learn from the masters. When you are knocked down, get up and keep going. The only difference between self-made millionaires and us is that they never gave up. They never stopped learning, and they never stopped applying their knowledge.

Never Give Up.



Have you ever refused to give up during a financial struggle?

Share your advice with us! You can use the comments section below.

*Kung Fu Panda Promotional Photo courtesy of Dreamworks Animation and Paramount Pictures.

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How I Stopped The Debt Cycle In My Life

Writer Auditions – Author Erik Folgate – Offer Your Feedback

It was March of 2002, and my mother was dropping me off at our local community college. It was that point that I realized my life had come to a low point. I had no car, no job, and I was in a ton of debt at the age of 20. I came home from an expensive Christian school where I racked up $12,000 in student loan debt and $4,000 in credit card debt in just a year and a half. I made a big mistake by picking a school that I couldn’t afford. I made a bigger mistake by signing up for a credit card at the age of 18. I had no clue how to manage money, but I stopped the bleeding. I enrolled in an affordable community college, my dad gave me an old family car for free, and I started working two jobs. But, it wasn’t until a year later that I started changing my financial habits.

I was driving around Gainesville, Florida one fall evening and I was flipping through the radio stations. I came across The Dave Ramsey show, a radio show about personal finance. Many of you are familiar with Dave Ramsey and his style of teaching. I listened to the entire three hour show that night, and I realized that I needed to drastically change the way I handle money. I was listening to various callers express their joy about getting out of debt, and I found myself wanting to get out of debt as fast as possible. I stopped the debt bleeding, but I hadn’t stopped the debt cycle. I wasn’t getting into more debt, but I also wasn’t doing anything to prevent myself from getting into more debt.

Here are a few steps that I took to stop the debt cycle.

• I cut up my credit card. It was time to get rid of the vice in my life. I relied too much on my credit card, and it was too tempting to use. I racked up $8,000 in just four years. It was a combination of horrible decisions, emergencies, and numerous small purchases that quickly added up. I put gas, food, eating out, car maintenance, and various other expenses on that card without paying it off at the end of the month. The worst charges were the expenses from a backpacking trip to Europe that I couldn’t afford. You may be responsible with your credit card, but is it really helping you to keep it? Do you think that using a credit card will help you become wealthy? Getting rid of the debt cycle means taking away the things in your life that tempt you to buy something you can’t afford.
• I built up an emergency fund. I built up a huge debt on my credit card, because i had no money saved up for emergencies. When the alternator died in my car, I charged it. When I was evicted from my apartment and lost my security deposit, I took a cash advance from my credit card to pay for another security deposit on an apartment. When i married my wife after college, we always keep at least $1,000 in a separate savings account specifically for unexpected expenses.
• I attended a public university. I left an expensive private college and transferred to the University of Florida, a Florida public school. At the private college, I was taking out $5,000 in loans per semester. At the University of Florida, all of my tuition was paid for the Bright Futures scholarship, and I received a Federal Pell Grant that went in my pocket for living expenses. It was a big financial turnaround in my life, If I would have stayed at Toccoa Falls College, I would have graduated with $40,000 in student loan debt. Instead, I am currently paying off $15,000 in student loan debt.
• The monthly budget became my best friend. I started spending my money on paper before I spent it. I paid all of my monthly expenses and set aside a specific amount for groceries, gas, entertainment, and clothing.
• I educated myself about personal finance. If your parents don’t teach you sound financial principles, no one will. High schools and colleges significantly lack the capacity and the desire to teach young people about personal finance. If you don’t understand compound interest, the stock market, budgeting, and interest rates, you’ll never learn how to make good financial decisions. The fastest growing wealth of free information about personal finance is the blogosphere. There are hundreds of great personal finance blogs out there, including Money Smart Life, dedicated to helping you learn about personal finance and make better decisions.

I’ve paid off $10,000 in debt in the past two years. My wife will start working this August, and we will continue to pay off all of our debt. We plan on being debt free in two years, and we will get the chance to call up the Dave Ramsey Show and yell at the top of our lungs, “We’re debt free!” I stopped the debt cycle in my life, and you can too. But, there must be a point in your life when you tell yourself that you are sick of being in debt. Then, you must take the specific steps necessary to break the debt cycle in your life.

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Who’s Your Favorite – Meet the Money Smart Life Writers

Welcome to the kick off of the writer auditions here at Money Smart Life!  As I mentioned last week, there will be several people auditioning for a writer’s spot on this site over the next few weeks.  I’ve gone through a careful interview process to choose three quality writers and am excited to introduce them to you!  Check out their profiles below.

Writer Profiles

• Henry Brown
• Connie Brooks
• Erik Folgate

Audition Process
As I already mentioned I want your opinion on the future of the site, so I’m going to be asking you for feedback on the candidates.  They’ve each written a series of articles that I’ll begin publishing today and I’m looking to you to help me choose your favorites.

In debating the best way to run the audition, I had considered publishing one article from each writer every day so you could compare all three at once.  The downside of this approach is that your feed reader and/or email inbox would suddenly be flooded with three times the articles you normally receive from Money Smart Life.

I know you’re busy and may not have time to read three posts daily so instead I’ll only publish one article a day. They writers are starting off by sharing a personal story about personal finance to help you get to know them a little better.

Reader Contest – Writer Feedback
To say thanks for your feedback on the writers, I’m running a contest where two readers who offer feedback will each win $50.  You can enter to win simply by giving me specific feedback on which writer you prefer and why.  The only way to enter is by sending your feedback directly to me with one of the two methods below:

• Sending an email to writers@moneysmartlife.com (subject MSL Audition)
• Leaving me a message through my Contact Form

I’ll randomly select two people who offer feedback to win the money.

Thank You
Thanks to Henry, Erik, & Connie for each writing a series of articles for the audition and thanks in advance to you for reading them and offering your feedback! I’m looking forward to the auditions and to hear what you think of the writers!  Stay tuned for their upcoming articles!

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How to Get a Better Job Or Make Your Job Better – Carnival of Careers #6

How many of you are in search of “the perfect job”?  We’d all love to find a job where we could spend the day doing exactly what we enjoy; unfortunately many of us are still searching for that elusive job.  We turn to the articles in the carnival of careers below to give us some advice on finding the job that we do want or at least help us make our current job a better fit for us.

Editors Picks

I can really relate to Wally Bock’s claim that many companies take the one size fits all approach to career development.  In a recent visit to my Human Resources department my inquiry about career counseling and changing job types within the company was answered with a printed list of all the job openings in the company.  Thanks HR, REAL helpful.

Another interesting approach to finding the right job for you, Slow Down Fast Today looks at building a Portfolio Career

A portfolio career is one, “in which instead of working a traditional full-time job, you work multiple part-time jobs (including part-time employment, temporary jobs, freelancing, and self-employment) with different employers that when combined are the equivalent of a full-time position.

My one question with this approach is how do you handle benefits with a bunch of part-time jobs?

Lastly, I thought The GreatManagement Blog had a good list of tips, 101 Tasks Helping New Managers to Survive.  I started a “semi-management” role a few years back when I became a team lead and found out there sure is a lot more work to do once you have to manage a team.  I think his final tip may be the most important one.

“Have fun and laugh; don’t take things too seriously”

 

Career Advice

Silicon Valley Blogger presents Find Your Dream Job, Just Like This Millionaire Did  posted at The Digerati Life.

FreeFromBroke presents Murphy?s Law Of The Workplace posted at Free From Broke, saying, “Remember, what can go wrong will go wrong!”

Jim presents Elements of a Job Promotion posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Tip Diva presents Behaving Appropriately At Work & Being A Courteous Co-Worker posted at Tip Diva, saying, “Company codes of conduct exist for a reason – to make sure every worker feels comfortable and not threatened in the workplace. Here are more ways to be a courteous co-worker and to create a satisfactory work environment for all. Being in a workplace with others calls for collaboration and respect in order to have well-functioning operation. And part of having an effective workplace boils down to your relationship with others”

George L Smyth presents One Minute How-To – How To Avoid Mistakes When Responding To A Job Posting posted at George L Smyth, saying, “Jessica Duquette goes through a list of errors she has seen during her search to hire an individual, and explains the proper way to offer your resume.”

David Stefan presents Things Better Left Unsaid posted at Career Confidant: Job Insight from Dave, saying, “There are some little things candidates say during interviews that can compromise their success.”

MoneyNing presents Motivation Monday – Change Your Routine posted at Money Ning, saying, “Stay motivated to advance your career!”

Jose DeJesus MD presents Successful Business Networking posted at Physician Entrepreneur.

Brip Blap presents 4 quick steps to building wealth posted at brip blap, saying, “Finding something you like to do and doing it a lot are the keys to building wealth.”

 

Career Management

Mark McClure presents Career Anchors Workbook posted at Mark McClure Today, saying, “Ed Schein’s (MIT) “Career Anchors” approach to finding what anchors you are most drawn to has stood the test of time. Here’s a report on my experience with the online commercial version of the test.”

Kirsty presents Cover Letters: Top 10 ways to WOW a recruiter posted at EnhanceYourChances.com.

 

Work-Life Balance

Wilfrid presents Sample of How To Write A Condensed Work Week Proposal | Your Finish Rich Plan – A Personal Finance Blog posted at Your Finish Rich Plan.

Kristie presents Bored with your job? Work overseas for the summer! posted at Norway – An American In Oslo.

Cash Money Life presents Which Shift to You Prefer to Work? posted at Cash Money Life, saying, “I’ve been working a little over time and doing some split shifts lately. After working several years on different shifts, I’ve decided I much prefer a standard day shift schedule! Thanks for histing!”  

 

That’s all for this this edition, thanks to the participants for the great contributions.  Hopefully you gained a little career insight from the collection of articles. Next week’s carnival of careers will be over at ErikFolgate.com, you can submit your article using the carnival submission form.

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