How to Make Money as Freelancer with Programming and Software Development skills

Whether you are a newly qualified or time-served programmer and software developer, you may well be struggling to find suitable, well-paid employment. If this is the case for you, then read on.

In today's difficult financial climate, more and more businesses are beginning to see the wisdom of outsourcing various aspects of their work to freelancers. Freelance resources have always been readily available for many business functions, including administration, content writing, accounting and web design, which can all be done from pretty much anywhere.

More recently, the amount of outsourced work available for programmers and software engineers has been on the rise, to the point where demand is beginning to exceed supply. So if you are stuck without a job, or in one you do not like or that is poorly paid, becoming a freelancer is something you may wish to consider.

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How to Choose the Right Investment Property

When you are looking to buy a holiday home as an investment property there are very different considerations to be made than when buying a family home for yourself. This article will focus on the purchase of Sunshine Coast real estate and consider how to go about acquiring such a property.

The considerations

1. Temporary Tenants

When looking to buy a holiday home to rent your market will be very different even from traditional rental properties. It is important to consider what type of people will be seeking to rent your home and invest in something which will enable flexibility. A beachside property will necessarily attract wealthier people because renting a house for a fortnight or a week is far more expensive than renting a hotel room. They are also likely to be a family or a group of friends so the sleeping arrangements need to be flexible to cater for either a family or for multiple couples.

Those looking to rent a house for a holiday will generally require cooking facilities but the location and other amenities will be the biggest of their worries. There is no need to invest in a property with a fantastic kitchen as the holiday makers will likely eat elsewhere for the majority of the stay. Consider the advertisement when looking to buy this type of property because phrases like ‘beachside location’ and ‘close to restaurants’ will make the property far more appealing than ‘spacious kitchen’.

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Five Tips for Saving Money for Single Moms

In today’s battered economy, it is hard enough for a two earner household to manage, and so the single mom is really challenged to run a family on one income.  It may take a bit of work and a lot of imagination, but there are some things single moms can do to save money for the family.

Shop with double coupons
Using coupons can really add up to a lot of savings, and now, with the power of the internet, you even get to pick and choose the products you want to receive coupons on. For example, just type diapercoupons in the address bar, and you will be amazed at how many sites offer you coupons on diapers.  Next step, find the stores in your local area that offer double coupons, and you are on you way to saving big!

Make or package your own snacks
One of the most expensive grocery items for families is snacks for the kids.  Whether you pack their lunch, or just want to have something available for them when they get home from school, just calculate the cost per ounce of the small snack packages, and you will never buy them again.  Instead, buy big bags at a warehouse store and repackage into small sandwich bags.  Great snacks such as Chex party mix can be made at home and used during the week, and to save money and have fun, have your kids help you make cookies on the weekends, put them in sandwich bags and they are ready for school lunch boxes.

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How to Survive Student Debt

You made getting a college degree a goal, but the cold, hard truth is, college is expensive. Student loans seemed like a logical option at the time. Now that it’s time to pay that money back, though, it’s a mixed bag. In one hand, you’ve got your hard won diploma. In the other, a stack of bills big enough to crush the life out of you. How the heck are you going to pay those loans back?

When you started school, you didn’t imagine the economy would be in such shabby shape when you finished. Unemployment is high and wages are…well, let’s just say they’re not what you hoped they would be. Now you need to pay your student loans and provide for your basic needs, like rent, transportation, the occasional pizza and beer. Can it really be done?

Start with a Plan

Tackle your student loans the same way you earned your degree. You chose a major and followed a set course to reach that goal. Do the same with your student loans. Study the payment options and decide which is most feasible with your current income. Determine the least amount you need for necessary expenses, a bit of savings, and your loan payment. That is your budget. Do what you must to make it work.

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Tracking Gold Investment News on Twitter

You may be surprised to learn (or maybe you aren't) that one of the safest and most consistent investments you can make is in gold bullion. This has been the case for some time. But it is becoming more true by the day, as the US credit rating has been downgraded, stocks have plunged and fears over Europe's economic crisis and America's rising debt plagues economists fears from one end of the globe to the other.

Then, you have the financial crisis itself, including the housing crash and the bank panic. There is a lot to consider, and plenty of examples to factor in when thinking of where to put your money. In the event of a total collapse, at least gold, silver and other bullion gives you a physical item for your investment.

You might be wondering when to start investing in gold. The answer to that is 'now'. Honestly, the price keeps climbing and is expecting to for at least the next five years. The same goes for silver, platinum and palladium. Gold itself is currently at $1,737 an ounce, but from $1,714 just a few days ago. A few days!
The sooner you buy, the lower the starting price will be. Which is especially helpful if you are planning to turn it around for profit for later investments.

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7 Mistakes You Must Avoid in Writing a Guest Post

Can you name the most effective way to drive more traffic to your blog and increase your blog subscribers? It is guest posting. If you can do it correctly, you will be able to increase your blog popularity easily. But, most bloggers do the same mistakes over and over. Those mistakes make their guest posting effort ineffective.

In order to get the best result from your guest post, avoid these 7 mistakes when writing your guest post:

1. Outdated content. When you write a guest post, make sure that you give fresh information in your guest post. Sharing outdated information will bring failure in your guest post. If you want to engage your readers, give relevant and latest information in your guest post.

2. Write to low traffic blog. The purpose of guest posting is to attract more traffic to your blog. The only way to do it easily is to write a guest post to a high traffic blog. Choose your blog carefully. Find a high traffic blog in your niche and write a guest post to that blog. It will be more difficult to get accepted by high traffic blog, but you’ll get better result.

3. Writing medium to low quality content as a guest post. Most people will tend to write low or medium quality content as a guest post. As a result, their content gets rejected by the host blogger. Even though it is accepted, it won’t generate as much buzz if you write mediocre content as a guest post. Remember that the purpose of guest posting is to attract more traffic to your blog and introduce your name to the general blogging community. Therefore, you need to write the best content for your guest post.

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4 Things That Could Damage Your Business

Starting a small business is exciting and scary, whatever type of business you decide to start there is always a chance that your business will not succeed, and as the business owner it is your job to minimize these risks.

So whilst you are trying to keep your business running I would recommend you also keep an eye on the things that happen every day that could ruin your business before you even start. Often these things cannot be prevented, but knowing what they are at least means you can plan for the worst.

Theft

What if somebody broke into your shop one night? Fair enough you are probably insured for losses (right?) but in reality you would probably have to pay an excess, and on top of that, there are some things insurance can’t replace, such as any customer data on your PC. Insurance payouts also take time to come through.

Criminal activity is rare in most places, but it can easily ruin a small business when it does happen. Making back-ups of data and having a comprehensive and fast acting insurance policy can make all the difference.

Competition

You might be doing just fine at the moment, but what if another competitor open just up the road? How would your business cope? There is nothing you can do to prevent this from happening, but having a plan and an idea of whether you could cope is a good idea.

You should consistently come back to this question and use it to keep your business as innovative and competitive as it can be – if a keen entrepreneur sees your business making mistakes or lagging they are likely to swoop in and out compete you.

Disaster

Just like criminal activity, small disasters are rare but can be devastating. As a minimum you should be insured against fire and flood, but also ensuring that you have the relevant fire safety equipment and that your members of staff are trained to handle fires and other hazards will help to prevent disaster or minimize the damage caused.

Technology

Finally, how does new technology affect your business? If you are selling computers or cell phones you are probably pretty up to date anyway, you have to be. But even if you are selling clothes or sports gear you should constantly be aware of new technology. Technology is rapidly becoming a mainstay for marketing opportunities and being behind the times just gives your competitors – online and off – the opportunity to out compete you and take away your custom.

This post was written by Alex from the firesafetystore - thanks for reading.

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Black Friday Only Opens the Opportunity Doors for Retail Shops

Although highly anticipated Black Friday is already a few days old, this is just the beginning of a massive income season for most retail stores.  Black Friday marks the first day of shopping for the festive season and honestly, I feel that it is only the start of really good things for retail stores over the next month or so.

This in turn has an excellent effect on a lot of websites, and website owners need to have methods in place in order to be able to sustain the amount of traffic they’re likely to receive on the day. I have seen the traffic of a client of mine almost double since the start of November, and I think it’s going to fly after Black Friday. Retail stores should be seeing amazing increases in traffic, but there is some stuff that they need to focus on daily to get the most out of the holiday season.

Check what’s trending and get the most out of it

Something you need to do going into the holiday season is check what’s hot on the market right now. See what kinds of things are selling fast at other places and make sure you have enough stock to last you up until Christmas day. This will give you the edge over the competition when they run out of the product. If your company is based online then it’s time to start checking social networks to see what people are talking about, then optimize your site with relevant call to actions to get people to go to the appropriate pages on your site.

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