Archive for June, 2009

From Dane’s Blog
The Wall Street Journal:

Perhaps the greatest advantage of hanging out your own shingle or making that consulting business full-time is the independence that comes with being your own boss. But higher expenses and other costs come along with your newfound liberty. You may not be able to sock away as much pretax for retirement, and you may have trouble refinancing your mortgage. Your higher tax bills may shock you, too.

All in all, if you go out on your own, you may need to bring in up to 20% more than before just to break even, especially if you can’t piggyback on your spouse’s health insurance, says David Strege, a financial planner in West Des Moines, Iowa.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. There are few more gratifying accomplishments than making it on your own. But here’s what you should keep in mind as you figure out what to charge for your work and how to budget for your future.

As an employee, you will pay 6.2% of your earnings (up to $106,800 this year) for Social Security and 1.45% of your income (with no limits) for Medicare, while your employer will pay an equal amount. But when you say goodbye to the Man, you will pay the whole 15.3%.

The good news is that the taxes apply only after you deduct your expenses, and your “employer” half is deductible from your federal taxes. But if your expenses aren’t especially high, your total tax costs will go up.

Continue Reading: “Working For Yourself Means Freedom — But It Doesn’t Come Free”

Photo by cvukom.

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I like Etsy.com. They frequently have stories about how people created their own business … like this one:

Eliza has been running her Etsy shop, elizandaxel, for just under a year and has already seen enough success to call it her full-time gig. She’s been designing, making, and embellishing clothing since she was a wee ice skater. Since then she earned her BFA in Fashion Design and worked in the New York City fashion industry for a host of designers.  It wasn’t until she was let go from her previous corporate setting that Eliza set the goal to make a go of it on her own.  She’s hit a few bumps along the road, but she has some incredible advice from her own learning experience for those of you thinking about taking the plunge.

Read it all…

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Here’s a great article on selling physical products online by Jon Leger…

In summary:

1. Do the Keyword Research

2. Set up a feeder blog

3. Use the right WordPress Plugins

4. Fill the blog with “on theme” content

5. Put a good banner to your chosen site

6. Get inbound links from multiple sources. Here is one good link building program and here’s another. I’ve used both with good results when step 1 is carried out.

He’s got more coming soon. Check it out!

Read it all

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Copyright © 2009 Work At Home Business Opportunities Weblog. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@business-opportunities.biz so we can take legal action immediately.