What I Love About the Growing Opportunities of Social Investing

By Richard on May 14, 2012

The world is becoming more social. The internet is allowing us to connect in new and exciting ways. Social media is fast growing and becoming a powerful marketing tool. However, that’s just one aspect of how the social internet is improving our lives. These days social networking and social media is also being used in new and unique ways as an investing tool.

Social networks allow us to utilize the experience and power of a community. This community can be a powerful tool. Are you looking to get more information on a stock? Or do you need funding to create a new product? Perhaps you wish to invest directly in people? Or lean on the experience of a savvy currency trader? Social Networking provides new and exciting tools to help you in all these different ways.

Social Investing is a Powerful Tool

Take a look at something as simple as picking a stock. Social Picks is a social network for picking a stock that is gearing up for a relaunch. A social networking site like this will allow for people to follow the stock picks of the community and hopefully lead to better investments overall.

Imagine having an entire community of analysts and financial specialists as well as informed laymen all discussing stocks. Analyzing the ins and outs of a particular company in a group to pick the best investments. The community can direct each other and inform each other of the best picks and discuss their methods.

Social Lending

Beyond traditional stock picks, I’ve made no secret that I am personally a fan of social lending. This is the type of investing where lenders and borrowers are part of a community and can invest in each other. I’ve been getting great returns from social lending through Lendingclub. Here’s a screenshot of my recent returns:

One of the things that I love about Lendingclub (besides the awesome returns) is that I can get a glimpse of the borrower’s personality and likelihood of repaying the loan based on their answers to lender questions. Seeing a brief conversation between the lender and borrower gives me a lot of insight into my investment. This is information that is beyond mere numbers. I can see whether the person is serious about the loan or whether they appear to be nonchalant about the money they are being lent.

To me this kind of interaction is extremely informative and gives me tremendous insight into my social loan that I wouldn’t get in a traditional investment. If I invested in a stock, I can see that companies financials. But I wouldn’t normally get an interview with the CEO to ask them what they plan to do with my investment.

It’s this kind of interaction that I love about social lending and why I personally recommend investing in social lending through Lendingclub.

How About Social Currency Trading?

Currency trading is fast paced and volatile. Plus it takes a great deal of insight and knowledge into world events. It’s hard to learn and difficult to excel in this type of investment. Still, many people are lured into currency trading because of the potential for high returns. It’s a high risk, high reward investment.

But what if you could utilize the skill and knowledge of other experienced traders? What if you could instantaneously follow the trading styles of the gurus?

Could you imagine this in the stock market world? If you could hit a button and instantly copy all of the trades of Warren Buffet, would you?

I found a tool that allows you to do exactly this in forex trading. eToro has this awesome tool called copy trader that allows you to follow the gurus in forex trading. Not only that, but they give you a free practice account so that you can feel comfortable learning about trading currency.

Their social platform allows you to actively participate and discuss the latest currency trends. Take a look at what it looks like below:

I’ve been using their copy trader system with a practice account to learn the ropes. So far, my practice account has seen over 10% gain.

I started with $10,000 total. As you can see, I have 9,633 invested, but I also have $1,963.18 left in my account balance. So, my total gain is just about $1600. Not bad for a forex noob.

While, I’m still in the learning stages and using a practice account, I love this system of learning and investing. I’m quite impressed with eToro and I think it’s well worth trying out their system with a practice account.

What if You are an Entrepreneur or Inventor?

This is a great time to be an entrepreneur or inventor. If you need funding for a project, you don’t need to go out and pitch angel investors. You can simply start a kickstarter project.

Kickstarter allows you to follow and fund projects as a community. You can either start your own project or invest in someone else.

Some mainstream entrepreneurs are seeing the advantages of seeking funding on kickstarter and we’ve been seeing some huge projects and revenues. You can find some awesome crowdfunded projects on kickstarter these days.

How About Small Projects

I love the world’s smallest marketplace, fiverr. While many may think of this as just another small marketplace, I think that one of the things that drives fiverr is that it also has a social component.

Each seller has a profile of their projects that you can view and rate. You can share popular projects with others and leave your own feedback on gigs that you’ve purchased.

One of the best indicators of a good gig is through reading the feedback. I rarely purchase a gig with no feedback. I like to read what the other people say about a gig and I also like looking at the profile of the person selling the gig to see how they rate overall.

If you have a small project and don’t need to go the route of crowdfunding, then you can sell your project in small $5 increments on fiverr.

Final Thoughts

These are just a few ways that you can use the social platform to invest and make money. Social networking is providing awesome tools in every aspect of daily life, including finding new investment opportunities. I think it’s time to branch out and diversify your portfolio and see how social can help you make more money.

Five Reasons you need to spend on good furniture when Working from Home

By Natasha on May 13, 2012

Internet has changed our lives in many ways, and home based businesses and work-from-home jobs are some of those revolutionary changes driven by the Internet. Having the option to work from home and making money is an opportunity many will grab with both hands, mainly because getting up early morning and getting ready for the office on daily basis, and then the time and hassle it takes to travel from your home to your workplace and then coming back are something nobody is fond of. An eight hour job usually takes 10 to 11 hours in a day, and makes it difficult to manage everything from proper rest to your diet, and from exercise to spending quality time with your family. Whereas having a work from home job means that you will be able to manage everything along with your job.

However, working from home is not an easy way to make money, instead you will have to put a lot more effort as compared to a routine job, in order to please your employers, and your workplace can play an important role in that. People think that all they need is a computer and good internet connection to work from home, but that’s not true, especially if you are looking to take a full time job. You must set up a small office at your home, since a make-shift arrangement will continue to do more harm than good.

Following are five reasons why you must invest on getting appropriate furniture for your home based office.

It will give you a Proper Working Environment:

As earlier mentioned, working environment can make a big difference to your overall productivity and efficiency, and when you are sitting with your laptop on a couch, with Television in front, and remote control within a touching distance, that’s far from being a good “working environment”. If you are looking to work from home, the first thing you should do is to get yourself a private and quieter space, and then arrange a table, chair, and probably a writing desk, and you will see yourself working with a new-found efficiency.

It will improve your Efficiency:

If you have worked at different offices, you will be aware that the environment, furniture, and working equipment can make all the difference on the efficiency of workers. That’s the reason businesses spend huge amounts on getting the best available technologies, equipment, and furniture for their offices. Being a home based worker, you wouldn’t need a lot of equipment, but you’ll surely need a good computer, fast internet connection, and appropriate furniture, rest assured you will be as productive as you can get.

It will save you From Sprains:

Repetitive tasks like typing or browsing all day can cause strains on your eyes, back, arms, and neck. Having the right furniture, even if it is a simple table and chair (and a correct posture) will save you from these strains and pains. Spending on an extra computer chair and table might appear extravagant at first (especially when there are many chairs/stools and tables at home), but you will thank yourself later on because of the comfort and convenience provided by the right furniture.

It will look good in Video Conferencing:

Many overseas employers now demand the virtual assistants or freelancers to join them in video conferencing, for interviews or meetings. Having a professional setup and the right furniture like some elegant white furnishings will present you in a more professional manner, as compared to someone who’s sitting on a bed in pajamas, with a laptop.

Better Management:

Office furniture like tables, chairs, cabinets, desk accessories, workstations, etc weren’t all designed for decoration purposes, instead all of these items have their own functions i.e. they can help you manage and organize your work more effectively. Therefore, it is advised that you get yourself some office furniture like cabinets, table and chairs, so that you wouldn’t be running around in home trying to find some important document or something to sit on.

How to Get the Best Out of Your Personal Loan

By Neel on May 12, 2012

I’m a bit of an expert in this area actually. I borrowed some money a few years ago and went to live in Sri Lanka for the winter, where I surfed all day and lay around eating curry every evening. Bliss.

Now I’d personally reckon that’s the ideal way to get the best out of cheap personal loans online. Having been paying it off ever since, though, I’ve obviously seen the other side of the bargain. And would probably temper my enthusiasm for going off on a four month jolly with the sobering thought that you have to earn enough to afford your repayments and not notice them, otherwise taking out the loan is more hassle than it’s worth.

I also recognize, of course, that there are plenty of people out there who are considering cheap personal loans online for a variety of much less pleasing reasons. Financial problems make us want to find a way out and personal loans are one way of doing that.

You have to be careful what you want, and how you achieve that desire. For example if you have a range of financial obligations, such as multiple repayments to existing loans and credit cards, at punishing interest rates, it may be better to get one personal loan with a much better rate and lump them all together.

This works well for credit cards, which have uniformly appalling interest rates. The quicker you kill your credit card the better – and sometimes cheap personal loans online are the only way to do that. By shopping around through a broker you can discover loans your own bank might not be able to offer you, with better interest rates or lower monthly payments.

Speaking of monthly payments: life, as I’ve kind of hinted at already, isn’t always so good. We get ill. Eventually we die. And in many cases our financial worries extend beyond the grave.

Term assurance is one way to rectify a pressing or short term life insurance need. A term assurance is life insurance paid at fixed premiums over a pre-defined term, and may be the only way to ensure a significant pay-out in the event of sudden death.

Term assurance quotes are clearly useful in specific situations – though some advisers can advise you to take them out as a more cost effective way of insuring your life, investing the difference rather than buying long term cover. Clearly this advice falls flat if you fall ill between terms and are no longer eligible for the insurance to take effect.

From the joys of lounging around on a Sri Lankan beach to the sobering contemplation of your own death, life is ruled by money. Have you got enough to cover your monthly payments, will your dependents have enough to do the same when you’re gone. And for both these reasons, it makes sense to arm yourself with foreknowledge. Do your research and understand the products on offer to you, then you’ll know where to go when you need loans or life insurance.

Five Reasons you need to spend on good furniture when Working from Home

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