This week Jeff Loertscher gives some tips on how to set up and build your emergency fund.

This week Lorin shares another great testimonial from an excited student.

Ways to Make Extra Money

There are many ways to bring in some extra cash. There are a lot of companies out there that claim that you can sit in a hammock and sip lemon aid and somehow generate thousands of dollars a day. Beware of the scams that are out there. I would like to talk a little bit about what we offer here at Prosper. There are four basic streams of income that we focus on, the streams are as follows: ecommerce, entrepreneurship, stock market investing and real estate investing. There is a lot of money to be made in each of these areas if you are willing to put in the time and dedication to succeed. I recommend finding something that you really enjoy doing. Ecommerce is an attractive choice for a lot of people because of the low start up cost. If you are interested in eBay make sure to take our eBay 101 and eBay 102 classes. Starting your own business is a dream of a lot of our students. If you want to start a successful business, it is important that you set up the proper business plan. To work on setting up a good business plan you can go to sba.com and startupnation.com. It can be a good idea to start small and scale up as you see some success. Real estate investing can be complex and very costly, it can be done without using you own money. You can find good deals and get paid for what you have found. It is a technique called wholesaling it does not take a lot of money to do something like this. You are basically finding the good deals and you are putting those deals under contract. Once you have put the property under contract you can assign that contract over to another investor and you collect a nice profit on the sale of the contract. Stock market investing is one of my personal favorites. Most people thing that you need a lot of money to get started with stock market investing and this is simply not true. You can start with a very small amount of money and you can make a lot of money doing it. You are using the power of leverage to your advantage. If you are interested in getting started in any of the areas that I have mentions make sure you take some of the getting started classes in the success center.

This week Paul Weaver discusses the dangers of Debit Cards

Learning To Sell On Craigslist

Selling things on craigslist can be a quick way of putting some extra money in your pocket. Craigslist is the world’s largest free online classifieds. You can find and sell just about anything on Craigslist. You can sell anything from collectibles to real estate. The best part about craigslist is that it is free. The web address for craigslist is www.craigslist.org. I would challenge you to sell at least one item on craigslist so you can learn how it works. When you make a sell on craigslist you are typically selling to local people so there is no need for shipping. Also, I would recommend dealing in cash only to make sure that you do get your money. Selling things around the house can be a great place to start. Once you have sold all the stuff that was just sitting around the house, then it is time to look for additional ways to find things to sell. You can find some things from other family members and friends and you can sell their stuff and split the profits with them. You can go to estate sales, storage unit auctions and yard sales. However you find your stuff to sell it is important to remember that you are doing this to bring in some extra money. Do not fall into the trap of just buying a bunch of stuff for you. For many, selling things online has been a great source of income! Happy selling!

Living the Life You Want

It is a sad day when people look back on their life and realize they did not do all the things they wanted to do in life. Many people let laziness and fear get in the way of them accomplishing their goals. There is a wonderful poem that I often quote to my students and it goes like this:

I bargained with Life for a Penny, and Life would pay no more,
However, I begged at evening, when I counted my scanty store.

For Life is a just employer, He will give you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages, why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial’s hire, only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life, Life would have willingly paid.

The million dollar question for many of us is what have we bargained for from life?
When I ask my students that simple question, far too many of them have no idea what they want in life. If you are not asking for anything, you are bound to get it. How can we effectively ask for the things that we want in life? There are a few keys that I believe would help. The first thing is to be very clear with what it is you want from life. You would not hand a blue print to a builder that was blank. We must visualize what it is we want out of life. Some use a vision board to accomplish this. A vision board is a piece of poster board that you can put images that remind you of your goals on. Once you have a vision board and you have created your financial blueprint the last step is to take action. There was a wise man that once said that persistence plus failure equals success. Don’t let fear of failure stop you from living the life you always wanted, but realize that it is one of the keys to your success if you are learning and growing from it.