Hub Blogs

Hub Blogs contains fresh contributions written by Financial Independence Hub staff or contributors that have not appeared elsewhere first, or have been modified or customized for the Hub by the original blogger. In contrast, Top Blogs shows links to the best external financial blogs around the world.

7 ways to earn money with a Mobile Phone

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How can you earn money by using a mobile phone? You are on your phone constantly, and, for some of us, it’s seemingly impossible to put down. Make your screen time do double duty by tapping into your phone’s earning potential.

To help you earn a little extra cash, we asked business professionals and financial experts and this question for their best advice. From managing social media accounts to selling your stuff online, there are several strategies you can use to generate an income using your smartphone.

Here are seven ways you can make a profit by using a mobile phone:

  • Raid your Closet
  • Get Cash back
  • Help test Websites
  • Manage Social Media accounts
  • Download a Research App
  • Take on Small Jobs
  • Sell your Stuff

Raid your Closet

One way to earn extra cash by using your mobile phone is to look at what’s in your closet. Apps like Depop or Poshmark allow you to sell your unused clothes from your phone. It’s a fact that sometimes clothes get buried in drawers and in the back of the closet forgotten to time. When you need some spare cash, or you just want some additional income, you don’t have to do a lot to get it. In your spare time, take a look at what’s in your closet that you’re not wearing anymore and support sustainable practices by giving your clothes a new home rather than just tossing them out. — Vanessa Molica, The Lash Professional

Get Cash back

Your mobile phone can be a time-sucking, social-media black hole. But it could also be the savvy consumer’s most powerful secret weapon. You can earn cashback with awesome free apps, such as Ibotta, at thousands of retailers on almost every product you can think of. And simply getting 2–5% of what you’ve spent really starts to add up. So every time you hit the shops, make sure your cashback app is fired up and ready to keep your wallet a little heavier. — Chris Panteli, LifeUpswing

Help test websites

The app User Testing sets business and website owners up with technology users and asks them a series of questions to help improve the user experience of their site or app. Each session pays $10, and some “live” sessions pay $30–$60 for your responses. It’s very easy to sign up for and a great way to make some extra cash for the week! Tests are chosen based on your experiences, so be sure to be thorough when filling out your profile! — Katie Fellenz, Trust & Will

Manage Social Media account

Social media has turned out to be a huge platform with various jobs associated with it. The ‘Social media assistant’ is one such job where you manage the social media profiles of a client. It’s hassle-free as most of the tasks are performed through your mobile device. Continue Reading…

Semi-Retirement: the Halfway House between Employment and Full Retirement

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As those who have clicked on some of the 37 interviews featured at this week’s Canadian Financial Summit will know, there’s a lot of content to absorb.

One of those 37 talks was my chat with Kornel Szrejber for a talk titled Semi-Retirement: the Halfway House between Employment and Full Retirement.

To find it, you need to click on this link and then scroll down to my name, or whichever of the other 36 speakers you are interested in hearing. Each name is highlighted in blue and is a hyperlink to the actual interview. At the bottom of this blog you’ll find a link to Thursday’s content, including my conversation with Kornel and PWL’s Ben Felix about the MoneySense ETF All-Stars.

Similar to my MoneyShow Zoom interview earlier this week that was also about the MoneySense ETF All-Stars 2021 edition, the video with Kornel shows me in my home office: like all regular Zoomers, some of the books I have written are not too subtly displayed over my right shoulder.

New 2nd US edition of Findependence Day

Regular readers of the Hub will likely find my interview with Kornel to be somewhat familiar. We cover the topic of Findependence, which is a term I invented and introduced with the first Canadian edition of my financial novel titled Findependence Day. You can still buy the original book by clicking on the site.

Alternatively, you can click on the “Buy US edition” tab and you can find the first US edition published by Trafford, or the just-published second US edition published by Best Books Media in New York. Apart from focusing on US financial rules, the second edition also includes end-of-chapter summaries that weren’t in the original edition. It also puts more emphasis on the “Work Optional” theme.

Victory Lap

As the title of the interview with Kornel suggests, I view Semi-Retirement as a halfway house between full traditional salaried employment and the old-time Full Retirement that used to commence the moment you reached age 65. I am now three years beyond that, so am well into what Retirement guru Doug Dahmer calls the “Work Optional” phase. Another term for this is Victory Lap Retirement, which is the title of a non-fiction book I coauthored with former banker Mike Drak.

During our chat, Kornel asks me about what I’ve been up to since I left full-time employment in 2014 and how Findependence differs from traditional Retirement. As I say to friends and family, I try to work just three or four hours a day but when you’re operating a website aiming for fresh content every business day, it’s hard to really “retire” in the usual sense of the word.  It’s all about “encore” careers, although I saw a clip on Twitter yesterday that suggested that in the post-Covid world, aging baby boomers are becoming a bit disillusioned with the Encore career idea and are increasingly inclined to really slow down and smell the roses while they and close friends and family are still healthy enough to enjoy their leisure.

More on the MoneySense ETF All-Stars

The other of my presentations at the Canadian Financial Summit was a three-way chat with Kornel and PWL Capital’s Ben Felix, about the MoneySense ETF All-Stars 2021. It’s an audio-only conversation taped in the summer and you can access it through the usual podcast platforms here. Continue Reading…

Virtual talks this week at Financial Summit and MoneyShow [continued & updated]

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Yesterday, Wednesday, Kornel Szrejber’s all-virtual Canadian Financial Summit kicked off,  running until Saturday, Sept. 25. As the image above shows, you can register free. Here is the main link for info on the more than 35 presentations.

Now that Day One of the Summit has taken place, the organizers issued this update:

Good morning. If you couldn’t make it to the kickoff webinar last night, feel free to check out our recording here and then let me welcome you to the Canadian Financial Summit!

A special thank you to those of you that took the time to help us spread the word on social media, and who emailed us encouraging messages about the Summit Kickoff.

We’ve received hundreds of emails from attendees this week, so if you submitted a question, I promise that we’ll get to it, we’re just working through them in chronological order. If you don’t want to wait, then definitely check out the kick-off event video that I posted yesterday, as there’s a 90%+ chance that your question is answered in that video.

Today [Sept 23] we’re super excited to feature the following speakers (free for the next 48 hours):

Rob Carrick
Can Renting a Home Actually Make More Financial Sense for Some Canadians?

Ellen Roseman
How to Protect Yourself as a Canadian Consumer in 2021-2022 + Retirement Strategies for Canadians

Ed Rempel
Self-Made Dividends – Better than Ordinary Dividends in Every Way

Bridget Casey
What Role Should Cryptocurrency Play in Your Portfolio?

Kyle Prevost
Want an Unlimited TFSA? Move to These Countries and Build a Portfolio Tax-Free!

Ben Felix, Brendan Wood, Tim Nash
FAQs and Misconceptions about DIY Investing

Alanna Abramsky
Understanding Credit and Managing Debt

Jonathan Chevreau
Semi-Retirement: The Halfway House between Employment and Full Retirement

Mike Heroux
Are Dividend Stocks In a Bubble?  What Market Is Safe?

Andrew Hallam
Balance – How to Invest and Spend for Happiness, Health, and Wealth

Ben Felix
What is Factor Investing, Why Do Smart People Like It, and Can It Make You Money?

Robb Engen
Don’t Let FOMO Rule Your Investment Decisions

Click here to see your Day 1 Summit Sessions.

If the link doesn’t work, please try copy and pasting the following into your browser:
https://canadianfinancialsummit.com/2021-day-1/

My presentation is the one titled Semi-Retirement: the Halfway House between Employment and Full Retirement.

It consists of a 45-minute Zoom interview with Kornel is pretty wide-ranging but focuses on Retirement Income, as opposed to Wealth Accumulation. That’s Semi-retirement: or as Doug Dahmer and other retirement gurus have dubbed it, the “Work Optional” phase of our working careers.

Here’s the formal description for that talk:

September 23:
Semi-Retirement: The Halfway House between Employment and Full Retirement

Should you transition into a semi-retirement instead of a full-stop retirement? What if doing so allowed you to ‘retire’ many years earlier?

Join us as we speak to someone who has done exactly that: Jonathan Chevreau, professional writer and former Editor-in-Chief of MoneySense Magazine takes us through his real-life lessons learned from transitioning to the decumulation phase and actually living off the investment portfolio. 

To access the video, click the highlighted title above and scroll down to Jonathan Chevreau, then click on the highlighted name.

We cover:

  • How Jon ensures that he doesn’t run out of money in retirement
  • The investment withdraw strategy that he prefers
  • How he withdraws from his investments in a tax efficient way
  • Important lessons to know before transitioning to semi-retirement or full-stop retirement 
On Friday, Sept 24, the MoneySense ETF All-stars are the focus of a three-way chat between myself, Kornel and PWL Capital’s Ben Felix (who is also an ETF panelist for the All-stars). Here’s the formal Summit description:
September 24:

MoneySense: Jonathan Chevreau, Ben Felix, Kornel Szrejber
The Best ETFs in Canada for 2021

In this video presentation, we’re going to cover the top ETFs in Canada, specifically for Canadian investors. 

These findings are based on 8 experts in this field who are part of the Best ETFs in Canada Guide which is published annually on MoneySense and written by the one and only Jonathan Chevreau.

In this interview and presentation, we’re going to talk about what the findings were with the creator of the guide, and one of the top Analysts from the panel (Benjamin Felix, Portfolio Manager at PWL Capital). Continue Reading…

5 ways to use LinkedIn to boost your B2B Brand

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Image Pixabay

By Michael Meyer

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Social media marketing is an incredibly lucrative way to generate leads, grow your company, and engage with your target audience. One popular way to market in the B2B space involves using LinkedIn. This platform for professionals is a top-notch spot to identify and nurture leads, simply because so many business leaders and owners spend time on the platform.

Unfortunately, getting the hang of LinkedIn can be a bit difficult if you’ve never marketed your B2B company on the platform before. Luckily, there are a ton of ways to use LinkedIn to grow your business, and we put together a list of our top tips for success.

Are you unsure of how to use LinkedIn to really start boosting and growing your B2B company? Check out our top five tips for using LinkedIn below!

These methods for using LinkedIn to improve your B2B company’s customer engagement are very helpful, and also easy to implement.

●    Use SEO to Your Advantage

Having a top-notch business profile on LinkedIn will only be beneficial to a certain point. Search engine optimization is your best friend when it comes to B2B marketing. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to implement an SEO strategy when setting up your LinkedIn profile.

Conduct keyword research for your brand and industry and insert those keywords in various areas of your business profile. Remember to avoid keyword bloating or using keywords that aren’t relevant. It’s not even necessary to engage in in-depth research when it comes to finding the right keywords for your profile. Simply list the phrases and words a customer would be most likely to use to find your business and incorporate them.

●    Use LinkedIn to Experiment with your Marketing

If you’ve only recently launched your B2B company or are just now getting into social media marketing, this is a great opportunity to experiment with your content. Once you’re at a point where you understand the ins and outs of LinkedIn’s functionality, start diversifying your content. Just as well, if you use B2B appointment setting services, you can experiment with promoting your easy-to-set appointments via LinkedIn as well to streamline your leads.

Post at various different times throughout the week and keep an eye on which posts get the most engagement. Use a variety of content in different tones and measure how much engagement they get. Keep a keen eye on your analytics. Browse through your competitors’ LinkedIn profiles to see what they are doing.

●    Take advantage of Groups

The group feature on LinkedIn isn’t just for networking or looking for employment. Rather, groups are designed to meet a wide range of interests, both work-focused and personal. Look at groups that align with your industry, solution, and work-related interests. Join as many of these groups as possible.

Once you’ve been let into a few groups, start posting your ideas or B2B-related stories. Ask and answer questions. The key here isn’t to advertise your business, but to be a credible figure in your industry. You might be surprised by the number of referrals or recommendations your company will receive from simply being involved with like-minded business professionals. Continue Reading…

Retired Money: Can retired Boomers afford to be the BOMAD to their kids?

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My latest MoneySense Retired Money column looks at the question of whether almost-retired or already-retired Baby Boomer parents should provide financial assistance to their Millennial children seeking to get their first steps on the increasingly expensive housing ladder.

That is, is it wise for parents to cut into their own Retirement savings in order to become the BOMAD: the Bank of Mum and Dad?

It’s been said that 50 to 75% of millennials expect to tap the BOMAD for help coming up with a down payment.Click on the highlighted headline to retrieve the whole column: Should you help your adult children to buy Real Estate?

A couple of the column’s sources arose after I appeared on Patrick Francey’s The Everyday Millionaire podcast.

Francey is a seasoned entrepreneur and real estate investor who is CEO of REIN of the Real Estate Investment Network (REIN). These days, most REIN members who have at least one “door” (real estate investment property above and beyond a principal residence) are almost by definition millionaires. I appeared despite the fact our family owns no investment real estate, apart from REIT ETFs in a purely electronic portfolio: “clicks instead of bricks,” as I explained on the show.

REIN’s Patrick Francey, host of The Everyday Millionaire podcast

Interestingly, while he has helped his own kids with housing, Francey does not necessarily think parents should provide financial assistance to kids trying to break into the housing market: not if it jeopardizes their own retirement, and not if it means the kids will miss out on the character-building exercise of doing it on their own.

A similar stance came from retired mortgage broker and author Calum Ross, who also recently appeared on the podcast. Ross, of Toronto-based The Mortgage Management Group, has some experience with BOMAD as it relates to his two daughters.   “As a divorced Dad, BOMAD was restructured and now runs as a privately held entity BOD [Bank of Dad.],” Ross quips.

Ross says his parenting priorities are identical to how his parents raised him: 1) I taught them to be thoughtful, 2) I raised them with a work ethic, and 3) I taught them to save money and not spend it.

Adrian Mastracci, portfolio manager with Vancouver-based Lycos Asset Management, says BOMAD may be a great deal for the kids but Mum and Dad need to first ensure they have sufficient funding to see them through their retirement years. “Ensure that they can incur all expenses, health costs, effects of inflation, rising costs of providing for in-home services, a retirement home facility and rehabilitation costs of the current home.” Continue Reading…