profitable

Question from a reader:”Do bakers make money?”

My answer is some do and some don’t.  A great baker who has his own delicious recipes can generally get a good client base, work for somebody else’s bakery or start his own business either catering or running his own shop.  Even in a Depression, people need to eat.  More importantly, if you are good at cooking, people will find money to buy your goods even if they cost a little more.  Even with cutting back on spending, people are finding that they need to treat themselves more for putting up with the Depression, hard times, you name it and you get the idea.

As to how much they make? That depends on the region you live in, the market you work in and what you are cooking.  If you are in Southern California and for example were a pastry assistant, depending on where you were working, you might get anywhere from minimum wage an hour to an annual income of around $65,0000.  Depends if it is a high end restaurant or not.

Can you make money baking from home?  That is a tough one.  You really need to have killer recipes and know how to market yourself.  Once somebody comes up with a great recipe, family restaurants and chains out out of their way to knock it off.  If you have the personality to sell it though, people will always come back to you.

You also will need to like working in hot, sometimes crowded fast moving environments.  Kitchens are hot and with other workers scurrying around, you better like working with people.  Even if you bake it home, you will need some customer contact because that will help you sell your goods.  You may want to think of speciality items too – like muffins, maybe Middle Eastern, maybe Yankee, maybe Indian.  You yourself know what you can bake so have at it and have fun.  If you are planning on going hog wild with a business, read my entries and look up start up costs and rememer most restaurants fail within 3 years.  So be careful.

Good luck and send me a box of baked goods when you hit it big (and even if you don’t).

May 23 2009

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post.  There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books?  You may want to make a stop over  here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.  

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“?   Please order it today.  The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars!  Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later. 

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book  go  to Rett Syndrome research.  One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes.   My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime.  Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Beat the heat and make some dough

Ah, what to do on the Memoral Day weekend if you don’t have a lot of money.  And you are broke.  And maybe unemployed.  Welp, my suggestion is to go to the web versions of the newspapers that use to be for sale in newstands (remember those?) or check with the local tv listing sites and even Google your local Chamber of Commerce for your city.  There will probably be free or inexpensive events.  There should be some parades (especially on Monday) and if you plan on going, make sure you go early to get good seats.

In terms of making a buck or ten or twenty, if you have the time or had it to get the appropriate City or State licenses you could peddle things or sell food as a street vendor or kiosk.  Do vendors make money at that sort of thing?  If it is hot outside and people are thirsty or hungry and have their kids there with them, you can make sales so business is good indeed at some of these events.  Don’t cheap out though and buy discount sodas.  Go with popular name brands of course, bottled water, if you want to help people from becoming dehydrated.

This is a great weekend for planning picnics, outings to the beach and for that and any outdoorsy event, make sure that you have plenty of suntan lotion.  That, come to think of it, and lip balm products – and heck, bug repellants, can also make for some interesting peddler selling events at either the beach or the parade route.

Go easy on any sales though unless you yourself are hosting a garage sale – another great way to make money during the Depression.  If the weather is nice where you live you can have an open garage for up to three days and try and make some spare pesos that way.  Don’t price anything too highly though and if you can leave some wiggle room since people love to haggle.  Don’t expect to make any big sale items like rare antiques for any kind of money during these events.  People are out for bargains and antique or craphounds are out for steals so they can re-sell for a profit at their end.  Go figure, people know how to make money, huh?  Who says capitalism is dead?

Don’t spend too much money on garage sales yourself if you are out and about.  The risk of spending money when you are feeling depressed is great so watch and hold onto your money.

On an unrelated note, the Rett Syndrome convention is happening and it is a reminder to everybody out there that I sell books that are related to Rett Syndrome and not-so-related.  In either case a portion of all sales goes to Rett research and it is sorely needed with the designation of being in the autism family for Medi-Cal at risk by State leaders.  My daughter has CP as well as Rett Syndrome and that particular diagnosis is covered but for other families that may not be the case.  We also are trying to find a cure and reversal of Rett Syndome and research is promising.  This is doable.

Have a GREAT weekend people!

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post.  There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books?  You may want to make a stop over  here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.  

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“?   Please order it today.  The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars!  Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later. 

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book  go  to Rett Syndrome research.  One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes.   My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime.  Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Memorial Day Planning

May 22 2009 Mid Day

Questions from readers:”Kim, how can you make money in bad times like this?  I can’t even find a job.”

“How come other people are having such a hard time finding work?  Maybe I am lucky, Kim, but what is the big deal?”

My answer to the two separate questions is that it depends on your ability to be flexible, to be self-motivated and how you can make good times out of bad. 

If you can live within your financial means or are working at climbing out of your pit, you can make good times out of bad.  If you have a support group of family or friends, you can make things happen.  If you don’t have anything for you that is going your way, take a break and see what you need to do to change your energy and your direction.

I am very big on being a positive, forward moving and forward thinking person.  I have not waited for people to give me permission to publish, to talk, to write or to create.  The people who are fortunate to be working (and I am blessed with that) are working because of luck and because they are capable of doing one or many things well.

People with money need people with good skills to work with them.  In better economic times and even now, if you have skill sets that show your integrity, your commitment and demonstrable specific skills you can get work and in some cases write your own ticket.  The gigs for that are few and far between but work is work and you never know what you will find unless you are out there trying.

I am a huge advocate of businesses building up in America.  The American worker isn’t a lazy sloth though we are an easily marketable and marketed to sloth.  The credit crunch and housing situation was built on greed and not all of the people who had homes that were foreclosed on were over leveraged.  A lot of people just got laid off and they hadn’t enough in savings to weather the financial storm.

Most people don’t which is why I am huge on building up some kind of savings plan for a rainy day.  Expect torrential financial flooding to wash away a lot of the economy in the coming years and we look into reshaping ourselves and trying to regrow ourselves as a nation.

My advice is to think long term and start to live short term.  If for right now, you are short on cash, that is okay.  Do what you can to keep what you got and work on getting more.

Take some time to also evaluate what your one big thing is.

That may add some new programs for you to explore and it might make you money and profitable. 

Have at it, gang and my thoughts are with all of you!

May 22 2009

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post.  There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books?  You may want to make a stop over  here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.  

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“?   Please order it today.  The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars!  Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later. 

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book  go  to Rett Syndrome research.  One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes.   My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime.  Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Making Good Times Out of Bad

My take on the stock markets for Friday, the 23rd of May will be flat with increasing chances of slightly down.  Barring any great news or ideas that will hit us like a super hero punching out a bad guy, people will be getting ready for the long weekend.    Just my two cents and of course, any opinions are just my own and worth the price of this blog entry – and the price you are paying for my suggestions.  Did I mention that I am also not a financial advior and I don’t play one on tv?

You can predict and play along as well – just realize that we will be in a holding pattern for awhile and unless there is something in company earnings to really light people’s fires, we aren’t out for bouncing any higher with this dead cat market (yeah, I know some people are saying we are in recovery but not with the unemployment numbers that are out there and the lack of new jobs being created).

I would invest in Terminator stock if they sold it (Cyberdyne Industries?).  I saw the movie and it was pretty good.  Check out my previous entries on movies and movie stocks, entertainment companies if you want my thoughts of investing in what use to be called “the biz”.

Have a good evening people and I will have another post for you in a few hours.

Addendum:Yep, I am tired.  I noted that Friday would be the 23rd above.  I think the cyborgs got to me – it will only be the 22nd..

May 21 2009 Night Time

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Market Forecast For May 22 2009

I recently went for training to Columbia, South Carolina, and one of the things that surprised me was the amount of activity that was going on in terms of business.  When I was driving down the Interstate, I saw lots of building.  I saw car dealerships being built!  I saw places that had job openings!  Had I stepped into an alternative universe?

Well, if you call that part of the alternative universe another part of the country where the living conditions were different and the cost of living is slightly different in some things, sure.

Unlike California, there is a lot of land that isn’t developed (or should I say overdeveloped) and it looks like there is a lot of room for businesses to grow.  People here seem to be working and from talking to a lot of the locals, yes, things may have been slow but their business has been steady.

Steady is good.

I am not saying that people should pack up shop and move to South Carolina – far from it especially if you still own property in other states and are used to a different style of living.  I also didn’t mention the humidity did I?  One person was talking to me about the fires in Southern California and was commenting about the million dollar homes that were burning down.  I stated that I am not a fan of people building homes in fire zones, earthquake fault lines or the ever-popular flood zones/mudslide areas like in Malibu, California.

The lady said they have the same problem when people build right up on the coast and are surprised when their homes get wrecked during hurricaine season.  People don’t like to see their insurance rates jacked up for other peoples stupidity all over the country.

Gasoline prices are high $1.95 – $2.25 in relation to the salaries that people locally make here.  There are a lot of positions that are minimum wage and that is about it.  If you can survive on minimum wage (and extended families with good budgeting skills who pool their wages do), you can have a shot at working in places where you will make less than what you are making now.  Those are the facts of the economy we are in now.  Jobs also, are competitive down here as they are everywhere else even though there are vacancies.

At one restaurant I saw three girls applying for a waitress position.  They were waiting and I have no idea how many more applied and went to an interview before them.

People I have talked with from Mississippi have said that their state has always been financially depressed and even with building and funding coming back in, there is a lot of poverty in the state.  It is relative to where you are living.  Some companies that moved from California to Mississippi and Texas have offered relocation to their employees  – or at least portions of it.  Salaries in the states other than CA can be one third to one half of what they were making in California.  Produce, rent, mortgages and utilities are not THAT cheaper in these other states.  I have been there and the cost of living is going up there just like everywhere else in the United States.

Here is hoping that the stimulus money makes it to California and I am rooting for companies to start hiring more people.  Go, companies, go.

Sickeningly optimistic, isn’t  it?  Ah, you know me to well to know when I am being silly.  I expect things to be slumped or problematic for up to five years so be careful wherever you are living and remember that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the country.  If you are looking to move because of family, schools, better working environment, etc please make sure that you weigh everything because these days if you are moving from an expensive part of the country to a lower cost of living (or perception of a lower cost of living) it will be a one way trip unless you win the lottery or get tons of bonus money from somewhere.

Watch your savings, stay healthy and be happy.  Count your blessings while you are at it too.

May 19 2009

If you are looking for a day job, part time work, suggestions for saving money or investing, please check out my book, Practical Money Making, that is listed right after his paragraph in this very post.  There are some great suggestions and ways to survive the Depression we are in.

  Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement

Interested in any of my books?  You may want to make a stop over  here. Please click through to purchase my books and some other interesting items that actually ARE on sale.  

Have you read my book, “Bad Tax Idea, Good Tax Idea“?   Please order it today.  The tips inside can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars!  Tax planning should be done year round and not just two weeks into January or later. 

Part of all the proceeds from the sales of that book  go  to Rett Syndrome research.  One girl is born with Rett Syndrome worldwide every fifteen minutes.   My daughter Arianna has Rett Syndrome and we are working to do all we can to make her life easier and find a cure in her lifetime.  Boys born with the Rett gene generally die at birth.

Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Some Parts of the Country Are Better Than Others