What time does the stock market open?  What time does it close?  What about markets around the world?  Find out right here in this ultimate guide.  Plus, there is even a section where the times are even converted to eastern, central, and pacific.

Bonus Material: Free Dividend Portfolio Tracker Spreadsheet

When you first get into buying stocks, you might not pay attention to when the markets are open.

But, as you start to become a bit more savvy, you’ll start to wonder what time does the stock market open? When does it close?

It’s especially important to know if a company you’re looking to invest in plans on reporting earnings before market open or market close.

Prices can swing wildly after an earnings report.

Download Your Free Dividend Portfolio Tracker

If you place an order after market close, it will sit in a queue until the next day when the market opens.

A company could report earnings and the price could change by the time your order is executed.

You could be paying 5% more for a stock without meaning to.

Hopefully this guide helps you understand when the market is open wherever you’re at.

Eastern, Central, and Pacific Time Zones

Instead of forcing you to do the time conversion yourself, I’ve gone ahead and created this table to show the market openings and closings around the world for eastern, central, and pacific time zones.

NYSE

• Eastern: 9:30am to 4:00pm
• Central: 8:30am to 3:00pm
• Pacific: 6:30am to 1:00pm

Nasdaq

• Eastern: 9:30am to 4:00pm
• Central: 8:30am to 3:00pm
• Pacific: 6:30am to 1:00pm

Toronto Stock Exchange (Canada)

• Eastern: 9:30am to 4:00pm
• Central: 8:30am to 3:00pm
• Pacific: 6:30am to 1:00pm

London Stock Exchange (United Kingdom)

• Eastern: 3:00am to 11:30am
• Central: 2:00am to 10:30am
• Pacific: 12:00am to 8:30pm

Tokyo Exchange (Japan)

• Eastern: 7:00pm to 1:00am
• Central: 6:00pm to 12:00am
• Pacific: 4:00pm to 10:00pm

Shanghai Exchange (China)

• Eastern: 8:30pm to 2:00am
• Central: 7:30pm to 1:00am
• Pacific: 5:30pm to 11:00pm

Euronext (European Union)

• Eastern: 3:00am to 11:30am
• Central: 2:00am to 10:30am
• Pacific: 12:00am to 8:30am

Hong Kong Stock Exchange (Hong Kong)

• Eastern: 8:15pm to 3:00am
• Central: 7:15pm to 2:00am
• Pacific: 5:15pm to 12:00am

Shenzhen Stock Exchange (China)

• Eastern: 8:30pm to 2:00am
• Central: 7:30pm to 1:00am
• Pacific: 5:30pm to 11:00pm

Deutsche Borse (Germany)

• Eastern: 10:15pm to 4:00am
• Central: 9:15pm to 3:00am
• Pacific: 7:15pm to 1:00am

Bombay Stock Exchange (India)

• Eastern: 10:15pm to 5:00am
• Central: 9:15pm to 4:00am
• Pacific: 7:15pm to 2:00am

National Stock Exchange of India (India)

• Eastern: 10:15pm to 5:30am
• Central: 9:15pm to 4:30am
• Pacific: 7:15pm to 2:30am

Korean Exchange (South Korea)

• Eastern: 7:00pm to 1:30am
• Central: 6:00pm to 12:30am
• Pacific: 4:00pm to 10:30pm

Swiss Exchange (Switzerland)

• Eastern: 3:00am to 11:30am
• Central: 2:00am to 10:30am
• Pacific: 12:00am to 8:30am

Australian Securities Exchange (Australia)

• Eastern: 7:00pm to 1:00am
• Central: 6:00pm to 12:00am
• Pacific: 4:00pm to 10:00pm

The post What Time Does the Stock Market Open in the United States and Around the World? appeared first on The Money Snowball.

Can a 15 minute talk about investing really be interesting and useful?  You better believe it!  Here are 6 eye opening TED Talks on investing that everyone should watch.

Bonus Material: Free Dividend Portfolio Tracker Spreadsheet

I’ve got a confession. I’m kind of obsessed with TED Talks.

It probably started around ten years ago when I was in college at Oregon State and they hosted a TEDx event.

It wasn’t anything remotely spectacular. No big name speakers. The topic wasn’t even that interesting. I vaguely remember it being about renewables and agriculture.

The thing is, even with a topic I wasn’t interested in, I still walked away impressed.

Download Your Free Dividend Portfolio Tracker

Never had I been to an event where so many people spoke for such a short period and conveyed so much great information.

That’s the beauty of TED Talks. There isn’t one person up there rambling on for 45 minutes.

They’re quick 10-20 minute bursts. Most chock full of interesting tidbits.

It’s like reading a best-selling book in 15 minutes.

Ever since then I’ll catch myself browsing the TED website. Watching a video here or there whenever I get the chance. I can’t even imagine how many hours of talks I’ve watched at this point.

While watching Ray Dalio’s talk a few weeks ago, I got the idea to pull together the best TED Talks on investing. These are the results.

The post Top 6 Brilliant Investing TED Talks (You Need to See) appeared first on The Money Snowball.

Want to make a little extra money but don’t have the time?  Don’t worry.  You’re covered with these nine ways to make extra money fast.  Most are from everyday things you’re already doing!

Bonus Material: Free Passive Income Calculator

Who wouldn’t like a little extra money every month?

The problem is you don’t have a lot of spare time.

If you’ve already got a side hustle going, there isn’t much free time to go around.

Finding ways to make extra money fast without having to do much is the holy grail.

It’s not going to make you rich but it will give you a few more dollars to pack onto that money snowball.

Here are 9 steps to make extra money fast:

TAKE THE FREE PASSIVE INCOME QUIZ

1. Get a Free Money Saving Assistant

Tell me if this sounds familiar…

You sign up for cable and lock in a great internet rate. A year later you notice your bill has doubled.

What happened? You were Comcasted.

Comcast is notorious for jacking up prices without any notice.

It’s a “service” most cable companies provide free of charge.

Trim is here for the rescue.

Think of Trim like your money making assistant.

Trim works in silence to find you extra money.

It can:

• Cancel subscriptions you never use
• Negotiate for lower Comcast bills (YES!!)
• Find better car insurance
• Negotiate for a lower cell phone bill
• Get you cash back when prices drop for stuff you bought on Amazon

It’s literally a money making assistant.

2. Maximize Your Savings Interest

We’ve all got money stashed away in a savings account.

Hopefully, you’ve got a nice emergency fund that’s sitting there waiting for the day when you might need it (fingers crossed that day never comes).

In the meantime, it’s sitting there earning you nothing.

Interest rates on savings accounts are next to nothing.

That’s where Max My Interest comes in.

Max My Interest will work in the background to find the banks with the best online savings rates.

It will then notify you of the higher rate.

You can transfer the money yourself or have Max My Interest do it automatically.

All you do is sit back and see your emergency fund grow even faster.

3. Start a Carpool Service

You’ve heard of using Uber or Lyft as a way to make extra money. The problem is it’s not fast and takes a lot of time.

The goal here is to find things that make money without using spare time

Well, you’ve got to commute to work, why not make some money while you’re at it?

Uber and Lyft both have what is called ‘Destination Mode.’ You plug in where you’re going and then pick up riders that are heading the same direction.

You can do this on your way to work and on your way home.

It will take a little extra time, but it’s more of a minor inconvenience than wasting time.

Lyft will even give you a $300 bonus after your 100th ride.

4. Start Making Money with Every Purchase

If you’re like most people these days, you buy everything with a credit card.

Have you ever thought about which credit card you’re using? Or why you’re using it?

Most likely it’s because of the bank you use. Or you signed up for it at your favorite store.

If that sounds familiar you’re losing out on money right now.

There are credit cards out there that will pay you for using it.

U.S. Bank has the Cash+ card that will get you 5% cash back on two categories of your choosing. Plus an extra 2% cash back on a third category.

Another great option is the Chase Freedom Unlimited.

It will give you 1.5% cash back on every purchase you make.

You’ll even get a $150 bonus after spending $500 in the first 3 months.

Which brings me to another easy way to make extra money fast…

5. Sign-Up For a Credit Card

This one is going to take some discipline on your part.

You have to be smart!

So many credit cards offer amazing sign-up bonuses if you spend a certain amount within the first few months.

I mentioned the Chase Freedom Unlimited card offering $150.

There is another Chase card (Chase Sapphire Preferred) that offered a $1000 bonus!

Most of the really good cards have an annual fee, but, like the $1000 bonus, it’s much less than what you’re getting.

This is an easy way to make extra money fast but you’ve also got to pay attention.

Getting into credit card debt will destroy any bonus you earned from the sign-up.

You’ve also got to make sure to cancel cards that have an annual fee before your card anniversary. You don’t want another fee charged.

And, just in case you’re wondering, none of this will hurt your credit score in the long run. If anything it will make it better.

6. Sign-Up for a Checking/Savings Account

Similar to the credit card hustle, many banks offer a money bonus to get you to join.

I recently took advantage of a $400 sign-up bonus at Key Bank.

The rewards won’t be quite as high as credit cards, but you also don’t need to worry about canceling cards, late payments, or annual fees.

Most of the time you need to make a couple direct deposits and you’re done. The bank will automatically put the bonus money into your account.

Doctor of Credit keeps a monthly list of the best bank account bonuses.

7. Get Paid Even More with Every Purchase

With #5 your credit card company will pay you a certain % for every purchase you make with their card.

Well tack onto that a few extra percentage points with Dosh.

With Dosh, you link your credit card to the app. When you use your card for everyday shopping, it automatically finds cash back opportunities.

The app applies those cashback dollars to your Dosh account which can be transferred to your bank.

All of a sudden you could be getting 10% cash back from both Dosh and your credit card. Not bad!

They’ll even give you $5 right now when you download the app and link your card!

8. Don’t Forget about Online Cash Back

While Dosh is for offline purchases, Ebates is for online purchases.

If you go through the Ebates portal to buy anything online, you’ll get cash back.

The amount depends on what store you’re buying from. Some are only a couple percent. Others can be up to 25%!

They even have a Chrome extension that will notify you when you’re at a website that has an Ebates offer.

Click the extension button and you’re all set. Money added to your Ebates account that can be transferred to your bank at any time.

Right now you get a free $10 bonus just for signing up!

9. Take a Picture of Your Grocery Receipt

We’ve talked about using Ebates for online shopping.

We’ve talked about Dosh for offline shopping, but the one weakness in Dosh is it doesn’t do a whole lot at grocery stores.

This is where Ibotta comes in.

With Ibotta you snap a picture of your receipt and it pays you money. That simple.

Technically they want you to look at the app to find great deals BEFORE going shopping.

I think that’s a sneaky way to get people to buy more stuff because it’s a “great deal.”

You can do that if you want, but I recommend just taking a picture after you do your normal shopping.

There might be some great deals in what you bought, there might not be.

Some trips will only earn you a few cents. Others will earn a few dollars.

Over time it all adds up to extra money in your pocket.

Right now, get $10 free for signing and using the app.

The post Make Extra Money Fast: 9 Simple Steps (You’ve Got to Try) appeared first on The Money Snowball.

Does it get much easier than getting paid to watch someone sign a few papers? Didn’t think so. Learn how to become a notary and get paid up to $200 per hour in your spare time.

Bonus Material: Free Passive Income Calculator

There is a good chance you’re going to need a notary at some point in your life.

Buying a new home? Going to need a notary.

Creating a will? Going to need a notary.

Giving power of attorney to your kids? Need a notary.

A Notary Public is a person with integrity. They are appointed by the government so that tells you their level of importance.

Notary’s serve as impartial witnesses for a host of fraud-deterring acts related to signing important documents.

Signing mortgages, creating a will, granting power of attorney…those are all documents that need to be signed with a notary public present.

They also ensure that someone isn’t signing something under duress. Making sure that someone being blackmailed isn’t signing over a house.

You might be thinking “so they just sit and watch people sign documents?” Pretty much.

It doesn’t sound like a lot, but the position holds a lot of importance.

And for that reason, there is a hefty fee associated with having a notary public present for document signings.

That’s where you can make $200 per hour as a notary.

Table of Content

• How to Make Money as a Notary
• General Steps
• State by State Notary Requirements
• General Notary Requirements
• Notary Training
• Notary Exams
• Bonds and Insurance
• Notary Commission
• Why is Loan Signing Such a Great Side Hustle?
• How to Become a Loan Signing Agent
• About the Loan Signing System

Notary Requirements

Who can be a notary?

Pretty much any adult.

It changes depending on which state you live.  In general anyone over 18 years old with no criminal background and is a resident of the state can become a notary.

How much does it cost to be a notary?

Depends on your state.  It can range from $100 to a few hundred.

The filing fee is usually pretty cheap.  If your state requires education or an exam, things can get more expensive.  

There is also the cost of supplies and your bond (if one is needed).

Find your state in the table above for a link to each state’s requirements.  You’ll get a better idea of the costs there.

Do I need a background check to be a notary?

Some states need a background check.

Others only require one if mark on the application that you’ve been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony.

To become a loan signing agent, you’ll need to take a separate background check.  This is separate from becoming a notary.

What notary supplies are required by the state?

In general you need: certificates, a stamp, and a journal.

The stamp is a seal that you use on certificates to certify the documents.

A journal is there for your record keeping and keeps track of your notarizations.

Some states don’t require that you keep a record, but it’s a best practice that all notaries should follow.

Why is Loan Signing Such a Great Side Hustle?

1. It’s great money. $75 to $200 an hour is amazing. If you were able to earn that at a full-time job, that would be between $150,000 and $400,000 a year!
2. You can do it part-time. Most signings occur in the evenings and on weekends. Since you set your schedule, you can do it whenever you’ve got free time.
3. It takes little to no experience. No interview or resume necessary. Most people look for agents based on how close they are.
4. You can work from home and take advantage of great tax write-offs.
5. You can make money almost immediately. Find a signing opportunity and get paid within a few days.
6. No degrees necessary. Once you’re a certified notary public, you’re ready to go!
7. Very low start-up costs. The most expensive purchase is a decent printer.
8. No selling. You don’t need to entice customers to use you. The customer needs to sign some documents and they come looking for you. They’re required to use someone like you!
9. You can learn to be a loan signing agent and be up in running in a couple weeks.

About the Loan Signing System

Mark has done over 10,000 loan signings and even hires thousands of notary signing agents every year to conduct signings.

He’s taken the knowledge gained over 15 years in the business and funneled it into this course.There are three different course options:

• Fundamental Course
• Professional Course
• Six Figure Course.

The Fundamental Course will teach you the basics: what a set of loan documents look like, how to get signings, video of a signing in action, and a private Facebook group for support.

The Professional Course teaches everything in the Fundamentals Course plus: how to get the highest paying loan signings, how to get signings from escrow officers, and how to get repeat signings by packaging loan docs.

Finally, the Six Figure Course has both the Fundamentals and Professional information with 120 days of ongoing mentorship, First American and Fidelity approval packages, training from escrow officers and mortgage professionals.

Most people could probably get away with the Professional Course.

The big thing to learn is how to get the highest paying loan signings. Those that are up to $150 and $200+.

You get those rates by working directly with escrow officers.

Where it looks like there is a lot of value in the Six Figure Course is the ongoing mentorship and the First American and Fidelity approval packages.

First American and Fidelity are the largest title companies in the United States. Instead of figuring out how to sign up with both on your own, the Six Figure Course lays it out for you as easy as possible.

The post How to Become a Notary: Earn $200 Per Hour (in your spare time!) appeared first on The Money Snowball.

Stop wasting time. If you want to learn how to make money, go straight to the source. Here are 14 of the best Udemy courses that will teach you, step by step, how to make at least a $1,000 per month. Probably more.

Bonus Material: Free Passive Income Calculator

So you want to make money online but found the whole process daunting.

It’s hard to choose an idea.

Then, once you choose the idea, what do you do next?

You could spend months and months researching and still not be any closer to earning a single dollar.

If only there was a course that could teach you, step-by-step, how to make money online.

Enter Udemy Courses.

TRY THE FREE PASSIVE INCOME CALCULATOR

What are Udemy Courses?

Udemy is a worldwide marketplace of teachers and instructors.

Anyone with knowledge of a topic can set up a Udemy course.

They build the course and then offer it to the world. People wanting to learn find the course and take it.

Think of these as virtual elective classes.

Most of us had electives in high school. Those classes that we got to choose that were outside the standard curriculum.

Well Udemy courses are elective learning for life.

They’ve got courses in Pet Care & Training. Courses in learning a language. They even have a hypnotherapy certification course.

Among the 65,000 courses they offer are some great ones on making money online.

Here are 14 of the best courses on Udemy that will have you making money in no time.

How to Become a Bestselling Author on Amazon Kindle

Learn To:

• Write your book and publish it on Kindle
• Become an Amazon Bestseller using KDP Select free promotion
• Format you ebook for Kindle and publish on Amazon
• Create a long-term career as a self-published Kindle author

Instructor: Tom Corson-Knowles

Reviews: 4.4 Star Rating; 1,008 Reviews; 36,898 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “The start to this course felt strange, with the recorded session of a class, BUT now that I’m further into it, there is a TONNE of EXCELLENT information provided, in clear step by step process. The teacher speaks a little fast at times, but that mostly feels like enthusiasm for the message in the lessons.” -Lori Grace Petroff

More Info on Udemy

Ebay Drop Shipping Guide with No Inventory - Work From Home

Learn To:

• Understand the core concepts of drop shipping
• Start a drop shipping store within a few hours
• Learn the formulas to making profits
• Create systems for self sustainability

Instructor: David Vu

Reviews: 4.6 Star Rating; 6,821 Reviews; 31,978 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “This course is a MUST HAVE for anyone who is thinking about starting a drop shipping business or who is in the early stages of their business.

The instructor, David Vu is an engaging individual who is very open, willing to share tips and traps, and provides a thorough and easy to understand method for starting or improving your drop shipping business.

Before I found David’s Udemy course, my business struggled. After I finished the course, I deployed what I learned and dramatically improved my business and the profits derived from it.

Thanks DAVID !!!“

More Info on Udemy

Etsy 101: Set Up a Shop and Promote It on Social Media

Learn To:

• Understand the core concepts of drop shipping
• Start a drop shipping store within a few hours
• Learn the formulas to making profits
• Create systems for self sustainability

Instructor: David Vu

Reviews: 4.6 Star Rating; 6,821 Reviews; 31,978 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “This course is a MUST HAVE for anyone who is thinking about starting a drop shipping business or who is in the early stages of their business.

The instructor, David Vu is an engaging individual who is very open, willing to share tips and traps, and provides a thorough and easy to understand method for starting or improving your drop shipping business.

Before I found David’s Udemy course, my business struggled. After I finished the course, I deployed what I learned and dramatically improved my business and the profits derived from it.

Thanks DAVID !!!“

More Info on Udemy

How to Start an Amazon FBA Store on a Tight Budget

Learn To:

• Leverage the Amazon platform to create a full-time living or much, much more
• Know where and how to source these items at pennies on the dollar
• Use a specific set of rules to uncover the easiest and most profitable items to sell
• Be able to get stock and start selling even when on a tight budget

Instructor: Theo McArthur

Reviews: 4.7 Star Rating; 3,493 Reviews; 16,734 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “Theo explains clearly each step, and she is concise and to the point. She provides enough info about pitfalls of the steps, so you avoid mistakes along the path.

The course is well constructed and simple to follow.

Theo frequently update some lectures when required, and she adds more lectures when there is something new in the market.“

More Info on Udemy

Online Marketing Business: Create Your Agency, Step-by-Step

Learn To: 

• Get your first client (and first paycheck)
• How to create a profitable business from day one
• What tools you’ll use on a daily basis to manage and grow the business
• How to scale the business and free your time up for other pursuits

Instructor: Sean Marshall

Reviews: 4.4 Star Rating; 487 Reviews; 5,675 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “Course seems very practical. I like Sean’s style. He’s honest about the hard work necessary to succeed. He gives great info from his experience.“

More Info on Udemy

Kindle Launch Plan: Publish and Market an Amazon Bestseller

Learn To: 

• Launch a Bestselling Book on Amazon
• Drive Email Sign-Ups From Your Book
• Choose the Right Keywords and Categories to Find More Buyers
• Generate More Exposure on Amazon w/ Simple Content “Hacks”

Instructor: Nick Loper

Reviews: 4.2 Star Rating; 233 Reviews; 4,092 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “This course shows a step by step process of writing, publishing the book an promoting it, i have found alot of help from it, its my first time to self publish and from the skills i have got here, i know am gonna hit it, highly recomend it to others“

More Info on Udemy

Start an Online Business on Amazon FBA, Dropship, Wholesale

Learn To: 

• Go from square one to a full-time online business
• Find Drop-Ship or Wholesale Suppliers from my Personal Supplier List of over 1,700 vendors
• Sell across multiple marketplaces (Amazon, Ebay, Sears, Buy.com, Overstock, and more)
• How to sell internationally

Instructor: Anthony Monfet

Reviews: 4.3 Star Rating; 627 Reviews; 14,423 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “Instructor is clear and keeps to the point. I like the structure of breaking the material in to smaller chunks. I feel that I have learned much more than I knew coming into this course, and I feel more confident to go further. I can tell there was thought put into what content should be included in the course. Nice! Definite value for $$. Instructor definitely loves to share information.“

More Info on Udemy

Copywriting - Become a Freelance Copywriter, your own boss

Learn To: 

• Everything you need for a fast-track start, including your first article
• Copywriter’s “how-to”: sales, copy, expert copy, and more
• The essential skills that mark out a real pro
• How to boost your income and turn your new website into a money magnet

Instructor: Len Smith, Sean Kaye

Reviews: 4.6 Star Rating; 934 Reviews; 25,218 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “Loved the course! I will be going through it again as suggested to make sure everything sinks in, but I learned a lot. There are a lot of downloads and resources too. Excellent!“

More Info on Udemy

Advanced: Make and Sell Custom Shirts Using Merch by Amazon

Learn To: 

• Create a Merch by Amazon account
• Understand the digital file requirements for shirt design
• Create your own Amazon aStore to market Merch by Amazon shirts
• Use the Merch by Amazon platform to create your own shirt designs available for sale on Amazon

Instructor: Chris Green

Reviews: 4.4 Star Rating; 665 Reviews; 17,301 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “At first I wasn’t sure if the info would be good, due to the initial presentation. But after going through the whole class, the amount and quality of the info was amazing. I had relatively all of my questions answered, and Tim really seemed to be interested in me the student, making sure I got the most bang for my buck.“

More Info on Udemy

Self-Publish Your Children's Book - From Start to Finish

Learn To: 

• Independently publish your children’s book
• Create multiple streams of passive income
• Create, or have illustrations created for you
• Identify high-demand elements of value and elements of enjoyment to strategically make your book a successful product

Instructor: Tim Johnson

Reviews: 4.8 Star Rating; 105 Reviews; 2,470 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “At first I wasn’t sure if the info would be good, due to the initial presentation. But after going through the whole class, the amount and quality of the info was amazing. I had relatively all of my questions answered, and Tim really seemed to be interested in me the student, making sure I got the most bang for my buck.“

More Info on Udemy

Udemy Masters 2018: Online Course Creation - Unofficial

Learn To: 

• Create online courses that actually sell
• Build an automated sales funnel to sell your course while you sleep
• Validate your course idea to make sure it will be profitable
• Design an engaging and high-quality course

Instructor: Phil Ebiner

Reviews: 4.6 Star Rating; 553 Reviews; 3,560 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “I really appreciate Phil’s (slow and steady) pace, which is perfect for a beginner like me. I have made one Udemy course, but can already see so many ways to improve it and the next ones. Phil has also convinced me of the need to start focusing on building my brand beyond Udemy for long-term success. Thanks Phil! “

More Info on Udemy

Alibaba The Complete Guide to Import from Alibaba to Amazon

Learn To: 

• Find profitable top-seller products in Alibaba and sell these products on Amazon
• Negotiate with the manufacturers in China
• How to get free sample products directly from the manufacturers
• Identify reliable factories and know how to avoid scammers

Instructor: Diego Davila

Reviews: 4.5 Star Rating; 357 Reviews; 2,660 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “Take this course if you want to learn about Amzon and Alibaba….Wauw, Diego is a Boss! I’m a beginner and as far as I can tel tell tight now is that I’m very pleased with the content. Step by step, not too long and not too short, aswesome. The teacher’s excitement really shows and he’s determined to gice us the best he can. Off I go to the rest of the course!“

More Info on Udemy

ClickBank Success - Affiliate Marketing Without a Website

Learn To: 

• Gain the knowledge to select good, profitable, ClickBank products to promote
• Create a profitable advertising campaign and make money with ClickBank without a website
• Boost your campaign performance by tracking keywords that lead to actual sales
• Build your own squeeze page and attract subscriber opt-ins

Instructor: KC Tan

Reviews: 4.5 Star Rating; 2,847 Reviews; 16,570 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “This is a good course to start in Internet Marketing. The instructor has taught students all the basic skills of internet/affiliate marketing in a step by step format. There is plenty of advice and tips given and lots of interesting, useful techniques are demonstrated. The support has been quite exceptional, keep it up!“

More Info on Udemy

Build a Dropshipping Empire From Scratch. Proven Blueprint

Learn To: 

• Choose the right type of products to sell with the dropship model
• Quickly find the right suppliers to dropship for you
• Set up the ‘perfect’ website for drop shipping
• Put in place powerful strategies to turn your website into a sales machine

Instructor: Theo McArthur

Reviews: 4.6 Star Rating; 1,492 Reviews; 9,410 Students Enrolled

Sample Review:  “Seems to cover everything you need to know to get started. With this information I went from knowing nothing to having a store in less than a week. “

More Info on Udemy

The post Udemy Courses: The 14 Best to Make $1,000 (Or More) appeared first on The Money Snowball.

We look at 9 blogger income reports, all making over $1,000 per month. Some are just starting out. Others have been doing it for years and making over $200,000 per month. If you’ve thought about making money from a blog, this is proof blogging isn’t dead.

Bonus Material: Free Passive Income Calculator

There are a lot of skeptics out there.

People who think making money online is a big scam. That it doesn’t work for the average person.

They’ve got excuses for everything.

Too many people already doing it.

Don’t have the time.

Who would care what I have to sell?

This is especially the case when you talk to someone about making money from blogging.

Blogs have become common place now. Everyone knows what a blog is.

 

TAKE THE FREE PASSIVE INCOME QUIZ

This Fairy Tale Life (Mindy) - $1,400

This Fairy Tale Life is the lowest earner in our 9 person round-up and she’s still making over $1,000 per month!

She’s been reporting on her traffic and income since 2014 and making money all that time.

Most of her revenue comes from the ad network, Mediavine.

Of the $1,463 she made in October, $1,027 came from Mediavine.

The great thing is, the ads on her site aren’t that intrusive.

You can definitely tell there are ads, but it’s not a distracting amount. It doesn’t take away from the experience on the site.

To get paid that much for advertising you need quite a bit of traffic.

This Fairy Tale Life looks to hover around 2,500 pageviews per day.

That’s fantastic! Blogging is a time game. The longer you stick with it, the more traffic you’re going to get.

Most of the traffic is from new visitors, which means people aren’t having a hard time finding the site.

There isn’t a traffic breakdown, but Mindy does say most of it comes from “Google, Pinterest, Direct Traffic, Facebook, and Bing.”

I’m going to assume that’s in descending order and so most of the traffic is coming from Google and Pinterest.

Do You Even Blog (Pete) - $2,238

The first time I found Pete and Do You Even Blog was on Twitter.

I’m not sure how or why one of his tweets popped up, but it made an impression.

He’d recently launched his blog and podcast and was interviewing a lot of major players in the blogging world.

Do You Even Blog launched around April of 2017 and Pete is already making over $2,000 from his site and podcast.

That’s ridiculously impressive.

Each month Pete lays out his goals. For November it was getting over 750 email sign-ups, reaching 4,000 pageviews, and earning over $2,000.

He nailed each one.

Earning over $2,000 with only 4,000 pageviews might be surprising.

This Fairy Tale Life gets about half that PER DAY and isn’t making over $2,000.

That’s the power of having your own product.

Pete launched his Blogger U course and earned almost $900.

If you have your own product to sell, the amount of traffic necessary to make a good amount of money decreases.

You don’t need a lot of traffic, you need the right traffic.

Fitnancials (Alexis) - $4,612

Alexis is the creator of Fitnancials. The site talks about her journey to lose 60 pounds, travel on the cheap, and live a great life on a budget.

Clearly the message is resonating because she raked in over $4,500 in October.

The blog started in 2013 to document her weight loss. Four years later she’s making a full-time income off the site.

While it takes a lot of dedication to blog for four years, it doesn’t necessarily take a ton of time.

Alexis spends, on average, 20-30 hours per week blogging. With travel, sometimes that drops.

Compare that to people who are working a regular 40+ hour job and it’s not a bad gig.

While Fitnancials does make some money from ad networks, like This Fairy Tale Life, most of it is made from sponsored posts.

When someone or some company pays you to write a post about a topic or product, it’s a sponsored post.

There are a host of networks you can sign up for to score sponsored posts. Alexis has a great write-up about the entire process.

While there isn’t a breakdown on traffic sources, it looks like Pinterest is a major driver.

Recipe This (The Milners) - $7,549

November of 2017 marks the 25th month of blogging for the Milners and Recipe This.

At just over two years they’ve set themselves up really well. They made just under $30,000 in their second year blogging!

This November income report seems to be a bit of an outlier. Most of their recent months seem to be in the $2,000 to $3,000 range. Regardless, these are still amazing numbers.

The Milners break down every place they received income for November.

Far and away the big winner is Sponsored Content bringing in over $4,800. That’s almost 64% of their total revenue for the year.

The bulk of their other revenue comes from Monumetric, an ad network, and Amazon Associates.

Amazon Associates is Amazon’s affiliate marketing program.

Recipe This directs readers to Amazon through a tracked link. If the reader buys something, Recipe This gets a percentage of the sale.

Now if you look at the top two traffic sources for the blog, they might look pretty familiar: Google and Pinterest.

Those two alone account for over 50% of the traffic to the site.

From our previous analysis, focusing on Pinterest and SEO for website traffic is the way to go.

Millennial Money Man (Bobby) - $14,388

Bobby started writing income reports for Millennial Money Man in mid-2016.

That first report had an income of $6,196. He has doubled that in a little over a year.

That’s the power of an income snowball!

Bobby points out that he’s reached a level where $14k-$16k per month is normal from his blog. That’s, at least, $168,000 per year.

Blogging is not dead.

The money comes from two distinct pots: Digital Marketing and the website.

Both roll up into that $14,388 total.

But, his website brings in a majority of that with just under $9,000 in revenue for the month of November.

Of that $9k, almost $6,000 comes from affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing isn’t just throwing links onto your site at random.

To be good at it, and make $6,000 per month, you need to be deliberate.

Bobby attributes most of his success to a course called Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner. We’ll get to her income report a little later.

Ads brought in the rest of that $9,000.

There isn’t a breakdown of traffic sources, but that’s OK.

To get a lot of revenue from ads, you need the traffic.

But affiliate marketing doesn’t rely on much traffic to earn a decent amount.

Converting a small amount of customers through affiliate links adds up quick.

Bobby has the combination of smart affiliate marketing AND a lot of traffic. That’s why his affiliate income is almost double his advertising income.

Well Kept Wallet (Deacon) - $17,714

Deacon’s first income report was February of 2016.

The total for that report came in at a whopping $940.41.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s fantastic. Making any money from a passion/hobby is awesome.

But most people would think if you made almost $18,000 this month, you’d be making at least over $1,000 a couple years ago.

Not so with Well Kept Wallet.

Looking at the totals for past income reports, it’s clear that Deacon took things to a whole new level at the end of 2016 and through 2017.

We know what the income is for August of 2017 but there isn’t a full income report.

For that I’m going back to January of 2017 where Deacon made $6,089.48. Just from the beginning of 2017 to the end has seen massive growth!

In January, $3,087 came from affiliate marketing and $2,044 from ads.

What does Deacon attribute his rapid increase in income to? Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. Michelle strikes again.

As the monthly income of these bloggers increase, you start to see a shift in where the bulk of it comes from.

Ad revenue doesn’t become the highest contributor. Other avenues start to take over that top spot.

Just a Girl and Her Blog (Abby) - $41,700

Abby stopped releasing income reports in December of 2016. But, she’d already been consistently making over $30,000 from her blog for 12 months prior.

The income reports for Just a Girl and Her Blog started towards the beginning of 2014.

Looking around the web, all Abby saw were reports for people making tons of money. She wanted to show what it was like for someone making less than $1000.

Fast forward almost three years and things have changed dramatically.

No longer is Just a Girl and Her Blog some small part time gig. It’s a full time business bringing in over $300,000 per year!

In her December report, Abby says they’re stopping because it “began to feel a little bit icky.” It felt like each month was a brag about how much they were making.

I don’t think that, but that’s how quickly things can change.

At one time you’re deciding to share income reports because you don’t see any of the “small fish” doing it. Next thing you know you’re making so much releasing income reports feels like bragging.

Not to say there isn’t A TON of hard work that goes on between those two stages. This is more to say what is possible.

For that final month of 2016, the blog income is broken into two categories: affiliate income and product income.

Just a Girl and Her Blog did show ads at one point but they don’t make any money from them now.

Product income totals $14,193 and affiliate income comes in at $27,507.

As the income numbers get bigger, the products start to show up.

Abby and her team have four products that brought in almost $15,000 in that month of December. I can only imagine how much higher it is today.

I love this graph. It shows just how dramatic their journey over the two and a half years had been.

Making Sense of Cents (Michelle) - $110,656

We’ve got two more income reports to take a look at and these are both over the six-figure mark.

Michelle has been CRUSHING it with her blog.

She left her job as a financial analyst in October of 2013 to blog full time. The income reports just started out as a way to track what she was earning from side jobs.

One of those side jobs turned into her full time job. One that brings in close to, if not more than, $1,000,000 per year.

Making Sense of Cents has four avenues of income: affiliate, products, sponsorship, and advertising.

Nearly half of that income is coming from affiliate marketing. She’s got almost a dozen different affiliate programs paying her.

The largest, by far, being Bluehost.

Next up is her products. Over a third of her monthly income ($38,601) comes from products she’s created.

Saying products (multiple) is misleading because it’s just the one. One product that Michelle has created brings in that much income every month.

When you create something that people want, they’re going to buy it.

That product is the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course I talked about earlier. It is pure gold and that’s why everyone recommends it.

Sponsorship and advertising make up the final ~$20,000. The majority of that is from sponsorship at $16,700.

Advertising is last with $2,992.

While Michelle is still displaying ads, her income is, overwhelmingly, coming from other places.

Smart Passive Income (Pat) - $213,212

If you’ve ever thought about making money from a blog, there is no doubt you’ve come across Pat Flynn.

I can’t really call him the grandfather of ‘blogging for a living’ because he’s still a pretty young guy.

Pat is definitely part of a select group. He was one of a few that paved the way for blogging as a living.

That was probably clear from the near quarter of a million dollars he made in November from his blog.

He didn’t reach that number overnight. His first income report was from October of 2008.

The blog has been around longer than that, so Pat has definitely put in the hours.

That $213,212 shows what hard work and persistence can do.

Pat has his income broken down into six different categories.

If he wanted to, it could be reduced to four: affiliate, products, niche sites, sponsorship.

Ads are completely gone from Smart Passive Income and he’s still bringing in over $200,000.

Well over half of that comes from products Pat has created.

Yet again proving that creating your own product is where the top bloggers are making their money.

There are a range of products but the top money makers are his courses. He’s got three of them that produced $120,362 in November of 2017.

The next largest category is affiliate income. Thirteen different programs brought in $61,689.

One of the things Pat is most known for is his SPI Podcast.

He’s able to leverage its popularity to attract sponsors. That brings in another $12,000 per month.

Finally are the niche sites.

Pat started his “empire” with a site talking about the LEED exam architects take.

The success of that site led him to start Smart Passive Income. As part of SPI, he has created two other niche sites to show people, step by step, how to earn extra money from a website.

Those three websites still earn over $4,000.

While we can’t all be like Pat, he’s certainly someone to learn from and aspire to.

The post 9 Impressive Blogger Income Reports (You Need to See) appeared first on The Money Snowball.

Bonus Material: Free Passive Income Calculator

Let’s be honest. Everyone has thought about trying to make money selling t-shirts at one time or another.

The business is so simple.

Come up with an idea for a design, pay someone a few hundred dollars to print them up, and they’ll sell like crazy.

I remember watching a sports documentary about a guy who went to Notre Dame and made a bunch of money doing just that.

For most people, that initial excitement fades after they think about it a little more.

All the questions, concerns, and fears start to pop into their head.

How am I going to make the design? I’m not a graphic designer.

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Best Place to Sell T-Shirts Online

The opportunity she saw was Merch by Amazon.

If it’s not clear, the “merch” in Merch by Amazon stands for merchandise.

This is Amazon’s way of dipping their toes into the world of custom merchandising.

Places like CafePress have been doing this for years.

They offer hundreds of products that anyone can customize and buy.

Logos, images, slogans…you name it and they’ll put it on a mug or hat or shirt for you.

It seems like Amazon is going to start offering a similar service, but right now it’s just shirts.

That’s OK though! Shirts are great!

Everyone wears t-shirts.

What Elaine saw with Merch by Amazon was the opportunity to sell on the largest marketplace in the world.

She could sell on the largest marketplace in the world and not have to worry about processing credit cards, shipping, returns, or even holding inventory.

That’s right, you can sell shirts online without inventory.

Granted, there are other businesses that offer a similar option.

Teespring offers the same convenience. The difference is Amazon.

Amazon already has millions of people shopping on their site. They’ve got built in customer goodwill.

People feel comfortable buying from Amazon. Most of the time their credit card info is already on file with Amazon and they just hit the 1-click Buy button.

Most people don’t have that level of comfort with Teespring or any other site out there.

How Does Merch by Amazon Work?

Merch by Amazon makes this selling t-shirts thing ridiculously simple.

I’ll go over this in more detail a little later but let’s look at things from a high level.

Once you’ve got a Merch by Amazon account, you’ll come up with a design.

You’ll create the design on the software of your choice. Don’t worry. I’ll give you a tip later to make this process really simple.

Next you choose the shirt colors. What colors do you want available for the customer to buy?

Write a short description. Set the price. You’re done.

Your shirt then gets listed on Amazon and is there for anyone and everyone to buy.

Once someone decides to buy your shirt, the process is the same as any other sale on Amazon.

Instead of the order going to you to fulfill, Amazon takes care of everything.

They print the shirt on-demand after an order comes in. Amazon packages it up, handles the shipping and delivery, and next thing you know the customer is wearing your design.

You just made money without having to lift a finger.

It doesn’t get much easier than that.

Now let’s dig a little deeper. Elaine has a few tips on how to make your t-shirt business a success.

Design Topic for Your T-Shirts

When it comes to the theme of a design, it’s best to stay within three categories:

• Evergreen
• Trending topics
• Seasonal

Evergreen topics are the things people are passionate about.

Nurses are passionate about nursing.

Sports fans are passionate about their teams and the sport in general.

Rock climbers obsess with everything rock climbing.

 

Tap into that passion with a shirt design. Hopefully there is something you’re passionate about.

Use your knowledge of the subject to make some shirts that other people would like.

Trending topics have a shorter lifespan than evergreen but can be VERY lucrative.

Around the election, there were hundreds of trending topics.

Hashtags and catchphrases are always catching on Twitter.

If you keep your eyes open, you can cash in on one of those trends before they fade.

And finally there is seasonal.

Seasonal has a longer lifespan than trending topics but doesn’t have the year round potential like evergreen designs.

With seasonal designs, you’re tapping into holidays or seasons.

Shirts that are popular around Halloween or Father’s day. Shirts about winter or the rainy season.

Pricing and Color Choices

Amazon recommends a selling price of $19.99 and this is what you should sell at.

There hasn’t been a lot of testing to see the success of cheaper priced shirts.

Since Elaine made $50k in 10 months selling at $19.99, I’m going to trust her.

With that sale price, you earn about $5.38 in profit.

Sell 10 shirts, you make $53.80. Sell 100, you make $538.

Elaine also recommends you stick with darker colors. Black and navy blue are top sellers.

Amazon gives you hints into what the best sellers are.

Once you’ve uploaded a design and want to select shirt colors, they line the colors up from top selling to lowest.

I’d pick a few of the highest selling colors and stick with that. That is, as long as your design looks good on those colors.

If your design doesn’t look good, choose some different color shirts or tweak your design.

Most of this is going to be trial and error.

You’re going to come up with designs, put them on a few colors, and see if they sell.

If they don’t, you come up with a new one and try again.

Sometimes you can cycle back through old designs and see if they start selling again. You might get lucky.

One way to try more things is to increase your design limit.

Marketing Your T-Shirts

This is where the rubber meets the road.

Amazon is a massive marketplace and your t-shirt designs can easily get lost in the sea of products.

That’s OK. Remember, you’re not paying for any inventory or storage space.

Your t-shirt designs can sit there for 60 days without a sale and then Amazon will pull it down.

Try a different design or put it up again.

The good news is you’re not out any money if something like that happens.

We’re in this to make money, though. That means you’ve got to do at least a little marketing.

You’ll be surprised to find out that Elaine made her $50,000 without spending a dime on marketing.

She’d post a picture of the shirt on Twitter or Instagram with a popular hashtag about the theme of her design.

The hope being someone is looking at posts about the hashtag, sees her shirt and buys it.

If it worked for her, it’ll work for you.

You could spend money on Facebook ads or Instagram ads, but I wouldn’t.

The goal is to make money while spending as little as possible.

Selling t-shirts online is one of the easiest ways to make a lot of money without spending any.

I recommend you keep coming up with designs and posting them to Instagram and Twitter.

Just like Elaine did.

The post How to Sell T-Shirts Online and Make $50,000 in 10 Months appeared first on The Money Snowball.

Bonus Material: Free Passive Income Quiz

Trying to make money with Fiverr sounded like a simple solution.

It seemed like an easy business model: offer a service and get paid $5 to do it.

How hard could it be?

Kendell Rizzo of successfullyfunded.co had been freelancing for a while.

She was over caffeinated and sleep deprived. Long hours for little pay wasn’t cutting it anymore.

This girl is an ironman triathlete that is tired from the amount of work it takes to be a successful freelancer. That is saying something.

She was working for herself. Dream come true, right? Wrong. It was still the rat race.

 

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Instead of having one or two bosses, she had 5 to 10 clients. And when it comes to freelancing, clients might as well be bosses.

There are still deadlines and complaints and performance evaluations.

The deadlines are just imposed by the client.

Ditto for the complaints.

And performance evaluations are necessary to show proof of quality work. It attracts more clients. Another necessary evil.

All that sounds like a pain, but that wasn’t the real problem.

Freelancing requires even more time and energy than working with the customer.

You’ve got to market yourself to attract more customers.

You’ve got to handle invoicing and payment.

There is even the time spent bidding on jobs that could lead to nowhere and end up being a waste.

All this lead Kendell to stress filled days and sleepless nights.

An Easier Way

Like most things in life, there was an easier way.

Kendell realized the life of a freelancer is fragmented and Fiverr seemed like an easy solution to bring it all together.

Marketing becomes easier because people are already using the website. Fiverr is attracting the customers and you just have to draw them in one step more.

Billing is handled through their payment system. No more worrying about sending an invoice and hounding the customer for payment.

The bidding process is gone. Customers would find her on Fiverr and request to work with her.

Fiverr takes so many pain points of being a freelancer and removes them completely.

It allowed Kendell to focus on the part of work she really liked: helping people launch successful crowdfunding campaigns.

After jumping on Fiverr, Kendell made over $100,000 in her first 18 months.

She attracted over 4,000 customers and spent less time working than before joining Fiverr.

And don’t let the name fool you, people spend more than $5. While the marketing of paying someone $5 for a gig attracts customers, a lot more money is being spent there.

It has reached a point where Kendell’s average order is now between $500 and $900!

Kendell is an amazing success, but that doesn’t mean other people can’t do exactly what she did.

Here are her top tips for anyone looking to become a Fiverr success.

2. Get Specific with Your Gigs

“Copying others will set you up for failure.”

If your skill is social media marketing and that’s what you’re offering, it’s going to be hard to attract customers.

You become a very small fish in a very large pond.

Instead, become a big fish in a small pond.

Instead of a gig that sets up Facebook Pages, offer a gig that sets up Facebook Pages for bloggers focusing on financial independence.

If your skill is making Pinterest images, don’t just say “I’ll make a Pinterest image.” Offer a gig that makes Pinterest images for fitness blogs.

This sets you apart from the crowd.

Now, if someone is searching Fiverr looking for Pinterest images for their fitness blog, they’re more likely to pick you.

They definitely will pick you over a generic graphic designer.

Niching down also makes it easier to upsell later.

You’ve built a relationship around something very specific. The client is going to know you’re passionate about their topic.

When they need more done later on, they’re going to come straight to you. You’ll also have an easier time offering them premium packages of work.

3. Overdeliver in the Beginning

Under promise and over deliver for the first few months.

When you’re first starting out, deliver every gig within 48 hours, but don’t charge people for it.

Put it right on your gig image, “Delivered within 48 hours.”

Even then, deliver the final product within 24 hours if you can.

This impresses the hell out of people.

Most people charge extra to have such quick turnaround time. Offering it for free is another way to set you apart from the crowd.

Delivering even faster than 48 hours means you’re more likely to get a good review.

A good review is as good as money when you’re starting out.

You want to start off looking for positive reviews and 5-star ratings.

If you finish a gig and the client hasn’t left a review, send them a couple email reminders.

“It felt like working for free in the beginning.”

It took Kendell around a month to get her first 10 orders.

When you don’t have many gigs and you’re turning them around in such a short period for $5 each, it can feel like you’re working for free.

That’s OK. It doesn’t last long according to Kendell.

You’ll start getting more reviews, which will attract more customers, which will allow you to up your rate.

4. Start with Multiple Listings that Offer the Same Service

After you’ve got one gig listing out there for a little while, create a second one that does the same thing.

And a third.

And a fourth.

With each one, tweak the headline and description paragraph just a little bit. Maybe even change the image if you’re savvy with graphics.

You might be surprised with which one ends up performing the best.

Kendell once made 10 gigs for the exact same service.

Plus, each extra listing is just one more opportunity for someone to find and hire you.

5. Use Two Numbers in Every Gig Offer

Make sure every gig offer includes two numbers: time and quantity.

Instead of “I will make a Pinterest image for your fitness blog.”

Change it to “I will make 2 Pinterest images for your fitness blog in 48 hours.”

The second title sounds a lot more enticing than the first, doesn’t it?

This kind of goes with the under promise and over deliver.

It’s going to be hard for anyone who is looking for Pinterest images and owns a fitness blog to scroll past something like that without clicking.

If you’re a copywriter, don’t say “Will Write Copy for Your Widget Sales Page”

Change it to “Will Write 2 Versions for Your Widget Sales Page in 48 hours.”

FIND OUT HOW MUCH PASSIVE INCOME YOU COULD BE MAKING RIGHT NOW

7. Upsell, Upsell, Upsell

Kendell’s final recommendation to start earning the big money is to upsell.

Constantly upsell.

Once you’ve got a bunch of little $5 gigs doing different things around your niche, start bundling them.

Combine them into one gig and charge more money for it.

For each of your small gigs, upsell a faster delivery time.

Once you’re busy and have plenty of good reviews, it’s time to take down the 48 hour turnaround.

That’s an easy upsell.

If people want something done in 48 hours, charge them a bit more.

If they want it done within 24 hours, charge an even higher price.

Fiverr makes it easy to do that.

Eventually you’ll get bundled packages that include both digital products and services.

Each one has a premium price tag that people are willing to pay. You’ll start charging $300 and $400 for things you used to do for $5.

The post How to Make $100,000 on Fiverr in 18 Months appeared first on The Money Snowball.

You’re only as good as the tools you use.

If you’re working with bad tools that break all the time, you’re going to get bad results.

If you’re working with tools that don’t make the work easier, it’s going to take twice as long to finish.

When you use a hammer, you expect to hammer in nail after nail and get the same result.

If the hammer head keeps falling off or breaking, it might be time to get a new tool.

The same goes for the investment world.

You’ve got to have investment tools that help make the right decisions.  Whether that’s making the right investment, tracking that investment, or just helping you make a plan for the future.

Investment tools can be tricky.

Anything that deals with money seems to have 10x the consequences compared to any other decision.

When I was deciding which brokerage firm to start using, I spent hours researching them all.

How much were the fees? What kind of research tools do they have? Can I find those same research tools elsewhere?

On and on and on. Endlessly weighing the pros and cons.

This is why a lot of people don’t invest.

Making the decision on what tools to use can be painful and complicated.

This article will save everyone from at least a few hours of research.

If you’re like me, this will either be your starting point in the process or a validation step.

You may have heard about some of these tools in another article and are now seeing what others think.

Or this may be the first one you’ve read and will now go out to confirm that these are, in fact, great investment tools.

Either way, these are the tools I use often and I highly recommend them.

Investment Tools Definition

But first, I want to fill you in what falls into the category of “investment tools”

When most people think of financial tools, they most often think of a brokerage account.

That place you use to buy and sell stocks.

This is a common one but not the only one. Especially for people looking to achieve financial independence.

We need tools to track all our investments. Most of the time they won’t just be in the brokerage account.

You may have a 401k from work. Or maybe you opened a Roth IRA with Vanguard. There is also that savings account you have at the local credit union.

Part of being a smart investor is knowing where all your money is and what exactly it’s doing.

Then there is the research part.

Some brokerage firms have a lot of research tools, but I’ve found most are still lacking.

Those tools are great for day traders, but we’re investing for the long haul.

In general, investment tools are tools that will help us make smart, informed decisions about our financial future.

They break down into a few categories: trading, education, tracking, and analysis.

Brokerages fall into the category of trading. Trading is anywhere you buy or sell stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, etc…

Education is pretty clear. The places you can go to for great information to make informed decisions.

After making your investment, it needs tracking. You need to have a simple view of where your money is and what it’s doing.

Finally, there is analysis. These tools have a use before and after you make an investment. You need to narrow down your choices and analyze them to make a good investment.

You’ll also need to analyze your investments after their part of your portfolio to make sure they’re still good choices and fit your goals.

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Trading Tools

1. Robinhood

This is the go-to choice for buying equities (aka stocks).  The main reason being is all the trades are free.

There is absolutely zero commission.  The app is free to use too.  Who doesn’t love free?!

That’s a rarity in the investing world.  Most places at least charge $5 per trade.  If you’ve only got $100 to invest this month and charged $5, you’re already down 5%.

Robinhood means you can invest small amounts without eating into our returns.

The research tools aren’t as robust as some other firms, but, like I said, most of those tools are for day traders anyways.

You’re also not able to open up an IRA or Roth IRA with Robinhood…yet.  They say it’s in the works.

2. TD Ameritrade

This is a second brokerage I’m going to recommend because of their no-load ETFs and separate retirement accounts.

If you’re looking to open an IRA or Roth and use it to invest in index funds, TD Ameritrade is a great choice.

They offer a large selection of funds that are commission free.

Education Tools

3. PortfolioDB

PortfolioDB pulls together a number of portfolios that have been developed by professionals and amateurs and puts them all in one spot.

Their sort and filter function mean you can find the perfect portfolio to fit your needs.

Want a portfolio with a low drawdown?  You can find it.

Want to find a portfolio that’s a bit more aggressive that trades every once in a while?  You can find it.

Want to find the Robo-advisor portfolio that’s right for you?  You can find it.

It’s a great tool for perfecting your total investment portfolio.

4. Multpl

Multpl gives you nearly every market indicator you can think of.

What’s the P/E ratio of the S&P 500? Got that.

What’s the historical earning of the S&P 500? Got that too.

Want to know the World Gas Price? No problem.

It’s a fantastic resource to compare what you’re looking to invest and the rest of the market.

For dividend investing, I mainly use the market P/E ratio and the Dividend Yield.

5. Google Finance

While Google seems to have completely forgotten about Google Finance, it’s still a fantastic tool for research.

At the most basic level, you can look up the current stock price of any company.

But it offers so much more.

Balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements…

Annual statements and quarterly statements.

Market news as well as the most recent company news.

You can even look at domestic trends.

Google tracks queries for certain terms around domestic markets.

As an example, you can see a trend of the furniture sector. Google looks at queries for words like “furniture, lighting, clock, chair, carpet, ikea” and so forth.

It gives you a good indicator if that sector is on the decline or rising.

There also may be a glimmer of hope that Google is going to do some touch-up to the site.

Currently, there is an “Under Renovation” alert at the top of the My Portfolio page. Fingers crossed.

The main draw of Google Finance is really how clean and simple it is. You can find these numbers a lot of other places, but none offer the simplicity that Google does.

Tracking Tools

6. Personal Capital

When it comes to tracking your investments across many accounts, there isn’t a better investment tool.

Personal Capital will link all your accounts and automatically update as the information changes.

They don’t have direct access to the accounts so your money is safe. It is looking at all the data to give a clear picture of where your investments stand.

You can even link your credit cards and mortgage to get a complete picture of your net worth.

This is an important metric when trying to reach financial independence.

By connecting checking accounts and credit cards, you’re also able to track cash flows in and out each month. It’s a nice reminder of whether the budget is working or needs to adjust.

You can track the performance of your retirement account as well. See how individual investments are doing or get a snapshot of the entire portfolio.

And, last but not least, the Retirement Planner. You could spend hours on this thing.

The planner takes the accounts you’ve linked, analyzes their performance and growth, and determines how prepared you are, based on the expected retirement date.

It calculates your monthly income and projected Social Security distribution. If there are other sources of income, like a rental property, that’s easy to add.

Where you can spend hours is the Anticipate Big Expenses tool. If you’re going to have a kid, go on a trip, send a kid to college, you can simulate all those events and see how it affects your retirement.

There are so many possibilities. Plugging them in just to see what happens leads to hours upon hours of wasted time for a guy like me.

It’s really the best tool out there for tracking all your finances.

7. Ultimate Dividend Tracker

Now I’m a little biased about this one, but necessity is the mother of all invention.

This is the spreadsheet I created to track dividend investments.

There wasn’t any other tool out there that gave me all the dividend information I wanted. Most of them treated dividend stocks just like any other and focused on value growth.

As a dividend investor, I want to know how much money I’m making from dividends each month. What’s the yield of my portfolio? How much of my growth is from value vs. from dividends?

How heavy am I invested in consumer defensive? What percentage of my total dividend income comes from Johnson & Johnson?

These are all important details for dividend investors and there wasn’t anything available to simply tell me that.
After hours of searching and searching, I just made it myself.

You can go ahead and download it here for free. Enjoy!

Download Your Free Dividend Portfolio Tracker

Analysis Tools

8. Zachs Stock Screener

The best free screener available.

When first looking for stocks to invest in, you need to narrow down the list. There are a lot of stocks out there and it doesn’t make sense to look at the ones that don’t meet basic criteria.

As a dividend investor, we want to only look at stocks that pay a dividend.

With Zachs Stock Screener, you can do that.

There are hundreds of metrics you can use. All with the ability to choose custom parameters.

Once you’ve got a screen dialed in, you can save it for later use and export the results to an Excel spreadsheet.

This is why I love Zachs so much. Not only can you filter out stocks based on criteria, you can select what information you want to see.

Say I want to only look at stocks that pay a dividend. I’ll set that criteria and the screener will only return companies that have a dividend greater than 0.

Now that I have that list, there are some other numbers I want to see.

I want to see the current dividend yield, the dividend growth, the earnings per share growth, and so on.

I select the checkboxes and there they are.

The list, with all that data, can export to Excel and be manipulated however you want.

9. Portfolio Visualizer

Investors like to do things themselves. You want to make life easy on yourself, but you don’t want an advisor or robot choosing everything for you.

You want to research different options and see which one is the best for your situation.

When it comes to analyzing your asset allocation, it doesn’t get much better than Portfolio Visualizer.

Don’t let the homepage scare you. There are A LOT of things you can do with Portfolio Visualizer.

Monte Carlo simulations. Frontier analysis. Something called a Black-Litterman model.

The one I get the most out of is Backtest Asset Allocation.

With this module, you can select what percent of your portfolio is invested in a certain market class.

You’ve got bonds of all different lengths, European stocks, Pacific Stocks, US Micro cap…you name it and it’s probably there.

At any time you can create three portfolios and compare them to each other over a time range you select.

Then see which one does better.

You can see how your portfolio would have done through the Great Recession of 2008.

Portfolio Analyzer is a phenomenal investment tool to determine how well all your assets work together.

BONUS. FeeX

Fees are the life-sucking monster out to destroy your investment goals of financial independence.

That may sound a bit dramatic but it’s true.

Fees will slowly eat away at your returns and increase how long it will take you to reach retirement.

That’s what FeeX is fighting.

FeeX is an investment tool that analyzes how much you’re paying in fees across all your holdings.

You have the choice of manually entering assets or connecting it to your account. The connection ability is surprisingly good, especially for 401k’s.

It will then analyze all your investments to determine how much could be saved by investing in funds with lower fees.

For instance, I plugged in a simple IRA fund I have with two different Vanguard mutual funds.

It said I have average fees and, over the next 34 years, I could save an estimated $520 dollars.

FeeX will first tell you whether you have high, average, or low fees. This is determined by whether FeeX knows of similar investments out there with lower fees.

Then it takes an average return for the assets and crunches the numbers. You see what your portfolio would look like in a certain amount of years vs. what a lower fee version would look like.

FeeX even gives you the ability to add an advisor. You can then see what those advisor fees are doing to your investments.

Even if you think you’ve got a good grasp on how much you’re paying in fees, I highly recommend running your portfolio through FeeX. You’ll probably walk away surprised.

Conclusion

And there you have it, 9 investment tools that are sure to make you a better investor.

All of them aren’t tools you’re going to use on a daily basis. Some of them are tools that you may only use once a year.

Regardless, the point of a good tool is making your life easier.

You may only use a plunger once every blue moon, but you don’t know when you’ll need it…until you definitely need it!

Download Your Free Dividend Portfolio Tracker

Do you use any of these tools?  Have any other recommendations?

The post 9 Free Investment Tools You Need to Start Using + a bonus! appeared first on The Money Snowball.

The other day I saw a commercial saying the average person checks their phone 85 times per day.  PER DAY!

Since most of us spend so much time looking at our phones, it would be great to make a little money on that tiny screen.

The truth is, you can.

There are legitimate apps out there right now you can make money from.

Some of them need you to give an opinion while others have more complicated tasks.

Either way, you’re making money using your smartphone!  How cool is that?!

None of them are going to replace your income.  Sorry.  If that were the case, everyone would be on the app and no one would be making money.

The beauty of these money making apps, though, is they give you more snow to pack onto your income snowball.

$100 one month, $60 the next month, $200 another month…It doesn’t sound like much right away, but it adds up.

It especially adds up when you take that money and invest it.

Let’s dive into these apps and figure out which one you’re going to download to start earning a little residual income.  Hint: It should be all them.

And an FYI, these apps aren’t ranked in any particular order.

1.  iBotta

Apps to make money for grocery shopping.

This is probably one of the more recognizable ones on the list.

iBotta has spent a lot in TV advertising so it wouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve heard of it.  Their commercials are also a little annoying.

Anyway, the beauty of iBotta is that you earn cash back from everyday purchases.

Kind of like a coupon, but even better.

You go through the app and select rebates for things you plan on buying.  You can even do this in the store while you’re shopping.

Then, after you buy the products, take a picture of your receipt.

iBotta will match the products you bought with the rebates you selected and then deposit money into your account.

Simple!

2.  Pact (No Longer in Business)

**Update: App is no longer available.  This list will be updated with a new app soon.

Apps to make money while you workout.

Pact can earn you money or end up costing you money.

The app is a motivational tool to get you working out and eating healthier.

You make a weekly pact to work out or eat healthier.  The goals are targets set by you.

Each pact is with other people using the app.

The catch is, you then say how much you’ll pay other members if you don’t meet your goals.

The beauty is, you get paid FOR meeting your goals.

I read about someone who has made $300 while training for an adventure race.

Not a bad gig getting paid to workout and eat healthy.

Just don’t slack off and start missing workouts.

3.  eBates

Apps to make money for buying things.

eBates is like iBotta in that you make money for buying things.  The difference is, eBates focuses on larger purchases.

Say you want to buy a pair of Nike shoes.

If you search Nike in the eBates app, it’ll say something 10% cash back with a little “Shop” button next to it.

If you click that “Shop” button, it will take you to the Nike online store.

Now you’ll get 10% off your total purchase deposited into your PayPal account.

eBates gets paid a small commission for “referring” you to the Nike store.  They then split that commission with you.

The cashback percentage varies depending on the store but it works at places like Amazon, Macy’s, Kohls, eBay, and so many more.

4.  Gigwalk

Apps to make money with a side gig.

Gigwalk uses your location and offers up gigs in your area.

The gig can take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour.  The pay can also range from $3 to $100 or more!

You pick the time and place you want to work as well as the gig that interests you.

Everything tracks through the app and, when you’re done, Gigwalk will send the money to your PayPal account.

5.  OfferUp, eBay, LetGo

Apps to make money selling your old stuff.

Start cleaning out your closet, garage, and anywhere else you might have unused stuff laying around.

Once you find something to get rid of, put it on one or all three of these apps.

All have their positives and negatives when it comes to selling used items, but they’re all going to earn you some extra money.

OfferUp allows you to sell stuff locally with no fees up front and they don’t take a cut of the sale price.

eBay operates more nationally and globally.  You get shoppers from all across the world looking for stuff.  However, eBay takes a cut of the final sale price.

The fee structure can get a little complicated, but the percentages range from 2 all the way up to 15%.

LetGo is like OfferUp.  Most buyers will be shopping locally and they don’t have any fees up front or after the sale.

6. Camera App

Apps to make money from your pictures.

You take a lot of photos with your phone so why not make a little money off them.

One app you can use is Foap.

Foap has two ways of making you money:

Sell your own photos:  Take pictures, upload it to Foap, and set your price.  That’s it.

People can search the site based on the description you write and then pay a royalty to use it.

Complete Missions:  Missions are paid for by various brands.  They write a mission statement and offer up a prize money to whoever they decide wins.

You go out and complete that mission statement.  Once your photo is submitted, you wait to see if it is the chosen one.

If it is, you win the prize money and get your photo included in the marketing campaign!

If you’re looking to get into the photography world, this is a simple way to start getting your name out there.

Prize money can vary, but right now the prizes range from $100 up to $500.

Another app is Clashot.

Clashot is similar to the first option in Foap.

You take pictures and sell them on Clashop for 50 cents on up to $80.

When someone finds your photo and buys it, you earn some extra money.

7.  Slidejoy

Apps to make money from your lock screen.

If you don’t mind looking at ads, Slidejoy will earn you money each time you check your phone.

When you check your phone, Slidejoy will show an advertisement tailored to you on the lock screen.

You can swipe left to learn more about the product.  Swiping up will show you another card.  And swiping right will go to your home screen.

Regardless of which direction you swipe, you earn money.

That money will then go into your PayPal account.

Like I said earlier, the average person checks their phone 80+ times per day.  That’s a lot of swiping that could be going on.

8.  Mobee

Apps to make money shopping, without buying anything.

Mobee turns you into a mystery shopper to complete missions.

In the app, you’ll select a mission near you.

Each mission comes with a set of instructions.  Typically each mission requires you to answer 5-10 questions.

The questions are meant to help stores improve their customer service and operations.

After you’ve completed the mission, the Mobee team will check your answers within 24 hours for quality and then deposit your cash.

It’s that simple!

9. TaskRabbit

Apps to make money on the side.

TaskRabbit pays you for doing mini side hustles in your neighborhood.

Good at putting together Ikea furniture?  There is a task for that.

Know how to mount a TV to a wall?  There is a task for that.

Enjoy organizing homes?  There is a task for that.

People go onto TaskRabbit needing all these things and more.

You look through all the tasks needed in your area and pick the one you’re able to do.

Once you complete the work, you fill out an invoice on the app showing how long you worked and then receive payment.

While the work does often have a start time set by you and the client, the schedule is pretty flexible.

There are even virtual tasks that you can do from home.

10.  Uber and Lyft

Apps to make money driving people.

If you haven’t heard of Uber or Lyft by now, you must be living under a rock.  Welcome to the world!

In case you don’t, Uber and Lyft are on-demand ride services.  Instead of calling for a taxi, someone pulls up the Uber or Lyft app and requests a ride.

You’ll need a car and register with whichever company you want to drive for.  You can even register with both and double your odds.

With Lyft, you can make up to $35 an hour giving people a ride in your own car.  Lyft even allows for tipping so that rate could go up.

Uber says the average driver earns around $19.04 per hour.  They also have added the ability to tip.

Along with a car, you’ll need to have valid insurance and registration.

If you don’t have a car, Lyft has started offering an Express Rental Car Program.

Lyft has agreements with rental car companies around the country.  You rent the car for a few days or a few weeks and pay a lower rate than a normal rental car would cost.

It eats into your profits but is a nice option for those not looking to own a car.

11.  BookScouter

Apps to make money selling old books.

If you frequent used book stores or have one nearby, this could be a pretty lucrative app.

The app allows you to scan or enter the barcode number of a book.  It instantly compares buyback pricing from leading book-buying websites.

If the book buyer is willing to pay more than what the used bookstore is asking for, buy the book at the store.

Then turn around and ship it to the book-buyer you found on BookScouter for free and at a higher price.

12.  Field Agent

Apps to make money for getting information.

Field Agent is like Mobee in that you’re visiting stores in your area to perform a specific task.

Where Mobee is typically looking for answers to survey questions, Field Agent can ask for pictures of specific products.

It wants to see the product in the real world and verify its pricing.

The app is used by hundreds of small businesses and major companies, such as General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and Walgreens.

Bonus:  Long Game

Apps to make money saving money.

This is a bonus app that isn’t so much about making money for doing things, but the potential to make money from saving money.

With the Long Game app, you open a FDIC-insured savings account.  The money you deposit earns a very small interest rate like any other bank.

The difference is the more money you save and the longer you keep it in your account, the more Coins you earn.

Coins allow you to enter weekly and monthly drawings to win money.  The prizes can range from $10 up to ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

That’s right, they have weekly $1 million dollar drawings that you can enter for saving money.

It’s like playing the lottery – except you never lose your money.

Conclusion

There you have it.  12 apps and a bonus app that you can start making money from.

On their own, it doesn’t seem like each app pays out very much.  Sure, you could make a lot driving for Uber or Lyft all day, but none of them seem like huge money makers.

I get it.

But imagine if you used every one.  What if you downloaded all 12 apps onto your phone and spent one hour a month on each one?

One hour, per month, per app.  12 hours per month in total.

With pretty much all these you could earn an average of $25 per app in that hour.

At $25 per app, you made $300 in a month!  Not bad for some random apps on your phone.

Now do that for an entire year and you’ve made $3600!  That’s over halfway to maxing out a Roth IRA.

The earnings from one app by itself doesn’t seem like a lot.  Put in a little time on each one and it’ll add up.

Kind of like an income snowball.

Have any of you used these apps?  How much money did you make?

The post 12 Free Apps to Make Money You Must Download ($300 Per Month) appeared first on The Money Snowball.