Can you believe it? It is already almost the end of July. The summer has been flying by and with it more and more people are uncertain as to the direction of their future and their summer, their fall, winter and beyond.
The only thing worse than living on a fixed income is living on no income and the best advice I can give at this time is to keep plugging away, ask your friends for any job leads, look for any remaining programs that can offer some support and keep getting those resumes out there. Overall business, according to one of the Fed regional heads, is suppose to get better in the last quarter of 2009. As you already know, you still have to live, eat and have a roof over your head for this quarter and it has been brutal for a lot of people.
Some industries are hanging on- specific manufacturing and sales for hot items like the iPod and despite people bad mouthing different fast food companies, overall people are still eating out a lot. The problem is that you can’t survive living in most places working part time in sales for iPods or selling hamburgers or tacos.
Keep training and if need be, go back to school and get your chops in whatever discipline that you need to stay gainfully employed.
Here is a question from a reader: “What do you think of nanotechnology still as a category to make money in? I want to major in it when I go to college in the Fall.”
My answer is that if you have a calling for nanotech, meaning you want to develop machines that work at the microscopic level, have great math and science skills, you should be able to do okay. By the time you graduate, which should be four years from now, the economy will either be gone, flat or have recovered. In all three cases there should still be a need to have delivery systems by machines, certain repetitive tasks or other processes working with nano tech.
A lot of people I met who had degrees in the field were doing research because for some of their applications, the actual technology wasn’t there yet. That still is changing by leaps and bounds, especially if it leads to some very successful private industry profitable ventures.
Do you already know some people in the field? Make it a point to try and talk to some other students, some professors and some actual designers of the technology to see if that is something that you will want to do for awhile. I am not going to say for the rest of your life because as we all have seen, things can start to change overnight and throw you for a loop by the next morning.
I would start looking at some of the industries where you can work and see if the possibility of getting an internship with them exists or even a financial grant. For some of the ‘hot’ industries, you may find some assistance (yes, there are still things like that out there if you keep your head above water and keep looking). Keep your sense of balance when you hit your studying. Take a check also to see if it is something that you want to do and if not, see with the courses that you have already taken what are some of the options that you are interested in. For the most part if you are asking all this up front you already know the answers to those questions.
Also if you are planning on getting college loans or have college loans already, the government does expect you to pay them back. I have done many a tax return where the client has freaked out because anticipated refunds were held up because the money was required for use as back taxes or reimbursement for student loans and interest that went unpaid for years.
You want to make certain that when you ultimately go into business that any debt or drama from previous summers won’t cause you to have a financial Fall.
Be safe, healthy and happy, gang.
Footnote to the readers who were e-mailing me about swoopo. I know, I know, I have been following the scam. Basically, for people who are auction addicts, there is a site that has horribly leading auctions, iPods for $19.00 but what isn’t clearly understandable is that for every bid you make, you are charged 60 cents. Wait, it gets better. You are not allowed to jump bids like in ebay (you know, go from .50 to $5.00). You need to go up in small incrememnts and for each one, that means that the site owners make .60 on each bid. Wait, there is also more – once you bid, since the item being sold is from the site and not a true open auction, they add 20 seconds to the timer to let others in and bid. That means there is no such thing as a last minute auction and that for example on selling an iPhone that you can pick up depending on the model for $299-$400 US, you may spend $600-800 and the site will make thousands. Bottom line is yes, I would run away from swoopo and let the authorities now.
July 21 2009
Also, please don’t quite go anywhere yet. Having some tax issues or tax questions? Any problems with trying to make it through the financial Depression we are in that is making you depressed? Please read on.
I am expanding my practice and taking on new tax clients. If you are interested in having somebody who is a successful businessman and tax professional with integrity review your returns discretely and see if your tax guy or gal is doing a good or goofy job, please drop me an email or post a comment with your contact information and time.
I have experience in international business, small businesses, partnerships, multi-state tax returns (they can get complicated) and anything else you can probably think of.
I also do business consulting and have ran several businesses (still running a few) myself so you are in good hands.
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.
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
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Where is the summer going?