Author Archives: Money Reasons

About Money Reasons

A offbeat personal finance blogger that comes from the tech world.

Working Alternative Work Shifts For More Money

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Yesterday, I took a personal day off from work and used that time to spend the day with my two kids (one is 11 years old, and the other is 8 years old).  Surprisingly we all had a great time and it got me thinking that perhaps it would be nice to spend more time with them as they grow over the next few years.  The problem is that work gets in the way, but what if I (or we) were to work alternative shifts instead, and at the same time make more money?

For instance where I work at my employer has both a second and third shift.  So let’s say I asked to be put on the third shift instead of the first shift.  Let’s examine the results if I were to be assigned to such a shift:

  1. I’d instantly make 20% more money because of the shift differential.  Cha-Ching, instant bonus!
  2. I would be sleeping when my kids are either sleeping or in school.  During the time they are in school, I’d be home before they get off of school, and this would work out perfectly.  During the summer, I could get a little sleep during the morning or afternoon, depending on what is going on.
  3. Since hardly anyone works 3rd shift and there isn’t much work to do for part of the shift, I might be able to work two jobs at once!
  4. I could even take my laptop in to work and do some side income work related tasks, obviously knowing that I need to do my shift related work first.
  5. There is even the possibility of juggling two jobs and working side income opportunities for a maximum of time usage.  Although this might be difficult, and the “Side Income” tasks would have to be fairly simple in nature.
  6. I would have more time to look for better paying jobs, which in turn might mean a dramatic jump in base pay.
  7. I would be able to work my side businesses during the day, when more people are available for meetings and talking.
  8. Another benefit would be that I could meet with professionals and city workers about issues concerning my side businesses.

Second shift would have some similar benefits, but because your working prime hours (when the kids are home), to me, it wouldn’t be as beneficial to work this shift… unless you could do it while telecommuting in to do it.

I think if you aren’t particularly crazy about your job, and you really value the time with your kids (and obviously get along), this might be a great opportunity.  I think the key to making it worthwhile is if you are willing to fully utilize the advantages of such a shift.  If you aren’t willing to take advantages of the perks, then even with the shift differential (usually 20%) it might not be worth it.  Personally, if I were working third shift, I would try to at least double my income!

Bests,

MR

Progress On Financial Independence – Still Swimming to Shore

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I’m totally debt free and I wrote an article about it called “Stop Drowning in Debt, Start Swimming To Shore” and then in a follow up article called “Progress on Achieving Financial Independence – Swimming To Shore“.  And now, I feel like it’s time for an update on my process towards financial independence yet again!

Cash in Hand

Right After Being Debt Free

At first, It was incredibly exciting being debt free, but also sad in that it wouldn’t be easy like it was when I was climbing upwards out of debt.  Now I know many of you think that debt is a hard thing to conquer, and admittedly, it’s not easy, I consider it easier because the payment are easy to record and predict when it will be paid off in a spreadsheet and for the following reasons!

  1. While I invest in the stock market, when I paid off my house mortgage  and car loans, the market out-and-out sucked!  In my 401k, my balance was down considerable and nobody want to invest money in a market that might be down for ten or so years…
  2. There was the risk of slipping back and going into debt of other sorts.  What if I lost my job during the “Great Recession”?  Or I decided to slip and reward myself for accomplishing the feat of being debt free?  It’s a slippery slope to slide down and be in debt again!
  3. At first the time I put in managing my increase in money from being debt free meant that such time would be less than minimum wage… Hmmm, actually it was really less than a dollar per hours for time invested.   Plus all I know to do then was invest the money in the stock market (which I was already worried about), or invest it into side businesses.

Needless to say that figuring out what to do with my money (albeit small at first) was a challenge in a difficult time.  I think if the stock market was still rallying like in the past years, the options would have been a lot easier.

Finding My Financial Path

Since the financial markets were such a mess, I did decided to at least invest some of my excess money in the stock market.  Now this might not make sense, but when the market is down and everybody is pulling out their money out to save their financial nuts, this is the best time to put your money in!  As Warren Buffett says, “Be greedy when others are fearful, and be fearful when others are greedy“, so if the market is down 40%, according to his investing philosophy, it was a good time to invest.  And since he himself was investing in the market at low levels at the time, how could I doubt the greatest investor of current times?

So I increased my 401K contribution and channeled some of my money into the stock market, knowing that Mr Buffett was doing the same!  There was also other saying that made me look at a different path, and those sayings were “Only Fools rush in”, and “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.  These sayings are good old common sense and have a lot of merit!  So instead of just investing my money in stocks, I also started thinking of ways to generating money with side businesses.

At first, the stock market kept declining and my side businesses wouldn’t be considered worth it if one looked at my hourly rate (I made a grand total of $5 for the first 5 months).  But I stuck to it and both my investment and businesses improved with time and patience.  While neither the stock market or my side businesses income streams are currently enough for me to retire or quit my day job, I’m now projecting (and hoping really hard) that I’ll be able to walk away from my primary “employed” job in five years if I want to.

Only time will tell, but hopefully in five years (sometime in the year 2017), my “employed” income stream will be optional and you’ll be reading an update about how through carefully planning (and perhaps a little big of luck) I’m at the point where I can quit my “employed” job if I choose to do so.

Bests,

MR

 

 

Alternative Income Level 1 Update

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Two and a  half years ago, I created an article called Creating Alternative Income Milestones, and I’m happy to say that I’ve made it to level 1 already!  I’m about one year ahead of where I thought that I would be in my progress!

In the article Creating Alternative Income Milestone, I mentioned that I wanted to speed up the alternative Income Money stream, but I didn’t have any plans or really any ideas how to accomplish this feat without working another full-time job and saving the money like a fiend!  Well a lot has changed in two short years!  While my levels and goals are still the same, instead of taking thirty years to develop the money stream of dividends and other investment that would total $25,000, I now want to accomplish this feat in less than 10 years.

Obviously, developing a yearly money stream in 10 years is a far cry from when I thought it would take about thirty years… so what has changed?

My Investment asset classes!

Instead of sticking strictly to dividends from stocks and interest from bonds, I’m planning on trying to develop an additional money stream from a few choice rental estate investment properties.  I believe that if I could buy 2 or 3 multifamily units and collect the cash flow from those units, I could beat the thirty years that it would take for me to get to level 5 by just investing in dividends and bonds!

Just as a reference point, below is my Alternative Income (Passive Income) Milestones:

 

Levels Amount Milestones
1 $5,000
2 $10,000
3 $15,000
4 $20,000
5 $25,000

 

While I’m a long way from $25,000 or more in passive (alternative) income, at least I feel it’s a doable option now that I have more detailed plans!

Best

MR

Earning 25 Percent On My Previous Mortgage Payment

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Occasionally I write about being totally debt free (no mortgage, car loans or credit card debt), but I had one problem with being debt free that took me a while to solve, and that was “What do I do with the extra infusion of cash each month”?  Such an increase of cash by paying off my mortgage was like getting a second job on the side!  In fact paying off my mortgage has cut my annual expense by more than 25%!

Back to my problem!  Obviously I don’t want to incur lifestyle creep since I worked so hard to pay off the mortgage early.  To spend more just to increase my lifestyle would have meant that I basically sacrificed for nothing because I really wouldn’t be getting ahead!  But what to do that extra money?  I didn’t want to put it in a savings account that would earn less than 1%…

Here’s What I Did!

It turned out that my employer offers an ESPP (employee stock purchase plan) that enables me to get a 15% discount on the purchase price of my employer’s stock.    Obviously, 15% beats less than 1%, but it gets even better so that option is a winner if I cash out the stock immediately after it get’s in my account.  But in addition to the 15%, I’ve been putting the money into a (what I consider) safe dividend stock and making over 10% there too.  So that effectively give me a return of over 25% for that each year of participating in the ESPP.

Next Step:

Why not use the money for future real estate investments?  Believe it or not, but often I experiment with working on the best financial strategy until I get the best mix, much like I did with the combination of ESPP and dividend investing.

Bests,

MR