In a word, yes. It is totally worth it to have a side business for extra income as opposed to another typical job where you are working and getting taxes taken out on a weekly basis. It makes more sense to have a small side business in addition to a job instead of getting another standard job for a couple reasons.

Tax reasons

One of the main reasons is for tax reasons. With two jobs, you are essentially having two jobs where you likely do not get any sort of tax deductions. With a business, you can deduct the expenses, so even if you are at a loss for the first year, you can at least deduct that at year end.

With a second job, you are likely to pay way more taxes because you have no control – it’s a flat rate. With a business, you have more flexibility because you pay quarterly payments and you have more control over your own taxable income.

Independence

I love have my second business in addition to my day job. It gives me a sense of independence and accomplishment. I actually had originally planned to have my day job only as long as it took for me to really get my side business going and be sustainable enough to replace the day job income.

However, certain economic events and circumstances beyond my control have derailed that plan. But it’s still a pipe dream I have, and I get a lot of gratification from doing my side business. It gives me a sense of purpose and a sense of control over my own financial destiny that a day job just can’t – at least not for me and my goals personally.

Something to Grow for Future Generations

Whether your side business is a true passion (I highly recommend that it is, that makes it feel less like “work” and more like fun and dramatically increases your likelihood of success) or just something to make money, it is something you can pass on. If you have children, or grandchildren, and the business is successful and sustainable, you can pass it on to your future generations.

This is a big draw for many people starting their own business. Instead of passing your children whatever is left after you are gone, you are passing them something that can potentially make them income years to come. It’s that saying “give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime”, that’s exactly what I’m talking about here.

Something to Pass Time That Makes you Passive Income

Some businesses can make you what’s called “passive income”, which means that a lot of effort up front can make you a lifetime of passive income in the form of commissions, or customers that become loyal, or whatever else may happen that can give you years of return income and can be one of the best ways to save extra money for your future.

It’s a great way to pass the time, and you can really enjoy it if it’s something that not only interests you, but also puts money in your bank account, food on the table, and pays for the roof over your head.

I tried to find a clear cut answer to this on the internet, and was met with a couple brick walls. It seems the most safe bet against the dollar weakening and against any case of economic collapse, buying actual, physical gold boullion of coins is your safest bet.

ETF’s for gold and other precious metals are another option, but some say that owning the actual physical commodity is the safest bet.

However, when you think about it, what if the economy is all fine, then you are stuck with these gold coins and have to sell them? Or can you imagine a world where you used these as your currency? It all seems a bit far fetched and loony, but what if the world really did come to that?

That’s what I tried to find an answer to, and the truth is, no one knows what is going to ultimately happen over the next few years with our economy. There are a lot of alarmist views that the Euro will collapse, that we won’t be able to handle in massive influx of retirees from the baby boomer generation who will soon be selling off their stocks and assets to live on in the next year or two.

These views are very scary of course, and you cannot ignore the possibility of anything happening at this point. The truth is, we have a lot of leveraged debt right now, and it’s simply not sustainable. What will likely happen is that the US government, or other foreign governments, will be forced to print more money, which just decreases the value of currency.

It seems not anyone is safe right now except for the relatively cozy China, which has seen economic growth in the face of other foreign currencies suffering as well as jobless rates increasing.

In fact, a lot of countries, especially the US, are beholden to China right now for their currency and for the debts they have helped us pay off and the multiple rescue packages the government could not afford on their own.

China is actually buying up a lot of land in the US, and they are also buying a lot of gold. What does this all mean for us, the average American investor and consumer? We shall soon see. My hope is that all the worst case scenarios and alarmist views are wrong.

There are thousands upon thousands of people out of work still today here in the US. Many of them have been out of work so long they fear that the mere fact they’ve been out of work makes them a candidate for shunning from prospective hiring companies.

In fact, there has actually been a proven discrimination (at least mentally) against those that indicate a few years between jobs on their applications. It often opens up the questions from employers about whether this employee was truly dedicated to their former job, or perhaps just didn’t want to work for a period of time.

When filling out that first initial application for any job, there are a few rules that you must abide by in order to not get tossed out of the pile of consideration right off the bat. The first and most crucial is to absolutely make sure you have no typos, misspellings, or grammatical errors on your application or resume.

Employers rely heavily on this very first impression of you, and if that first impression shows even the slightest bit of incompetency or lack of attention to detail, they will eliminate you right off the bat. Especially if they have tens or hundreds of other qualified applicants.

You could be the best choice for the job and the most qualified applicant, but they don’t know that. So make sure you put your best foot forward in any initial contact.

On your resume, try to stay away from generalizations and cliches. They have seen the same claims of “being able to work well in a group but also work well independently” a hundred times. Be sure to be specific about your skills.

Make sure you mention any specific programs you know or database-based technology. Also be sure you mention any types of specialized skills such as negotiating, sales, marketing, managing teams of people, legal research, using special navigational or online programs and anything of the like that can help you stand out.

Not only does being specific about your skills make you stand out, but it also shows that you have easily learned things and that you will be easily trained on a new endeavor.

When you go to apply for a job these days, remember there are several things that employers can check about your befor deciding to hire you. They can check your criminal record and even your credit score these days, especially if you are applying for an industry that has anything to do with finances or the entrustment of funds in any way.

More and more people have become interested in starting a second job, so to speak. No, not really a job, but more of a business, as a sideline to what they already do. Maybe they have a desk job, or some other sort of corporate-like job during the day, and then they go home at night, or weekend warrior it, and work on a second line of business for profits.

It seems like the further we get along, the less we actually have to spend in our discretionary budgets. The cost of living is, quite frankly, scary these days. You have four dollar a gallon gasoline now, sky high grocery prices, and a housing market that is bust. In general, the cost of living has gone up enormously.

Everything from utilities to just the general cost of things like clothes and other necessities has really risen, and hasn’t stopped even though we are still in a recessionary phase in our financial history. This worries me. That’s why I have a sideline of my own.

I’ve found that for me personally, it makes more sense to have a second business than to have a second job. I could never have another corporate job like I do during the day. I couldn’t be somewhere when they want me to be, do what they want me to do when they want me to do it, and march to another corporate beat like I do at my current day job.

So I decided to start something else that I actually enjoy doing on the side to make extra money. It has really been a blast, and if you can find something that fits your personality and find your own sort of niche, then having a sideline business can really pay off.

And to think that I took my junk jobs at Dairy Queen and Burger King for granted when I was a teenager…teens today are having a rough go of it in the job market – even rougher than their adult counterparts, to boot.

With the economic conditions as they are today, and many adults still out of work, underemployed and looking for better jobs that pay them at the same level they were making before the recession, teens are actually suffering at a much higher unemployment rate than they were before, and they are also suffering a worse unemployment rate than adults.

You are seeing more and more retirees and adults having the jobs that once belonged to teens. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been through the Target and Wal-Mart lines and have seen men and women waiting on me. In fact, I hardly ever have teens waiting on me any more in these types of places.

As retirees are coming out of retirement because their money has run out or because they lost a lot of money with the stock market going haywire, businesses are often more likely to hire them instead of kids looking for part time or summer work.

I mean, kids do need to make money too in their summer jobs to learn their way around the adult world, but as a moral issue, most business owners and corporations are more apt to hire adults with adult responsibilities on the line and bills.

Gone are the days when a kid could get a summer job easily. Business is down, consumerism is low, and businesses are generally not seeing as many customers come through the door as well, lowering their need for a larger workforce during those summer months when business usually booms.

Times, they are a changing, as Bob Dylan once said. Soon, things will return to normal though, and our teens will again be able to
get those easy, low paying jobs that show them what working for a dollar is like.

It’s an important lessont that kids learn the value of working hard early on in life. I really feel like having those menial jobs when I was younger made me appreciate what I have now, and made me all that much more driven to work for it and keep it.

It seems the job unhappiness is a rapidly spreading problem today. It’s no wonder though. With the current jobs market, even if people are totally unhappy and unfulfilled at their current jobs or careers, they feel “trapped” into them because they feel like there are really no better options out there today.

And often times unfortunately, they are right. If you have a good job with good benefits, great hours, good vacation time and seniority, it takes a lot to lure you out of that situation right now because the joblessness fear is still lingering and the job market still has a long way to go to be booming with bright prospects like it was in the not so distant past.

What makes a person happy at their job? It’s actually been shown to be a lot more than just how much a person is paid or how great their benefits are. It actually has more to do with perceived autonomy and control over compensation as well as the actual work environment and coworkers than it does the money, which is probably contrary to what a lot of people are thinking right now.

Interestingly, the jobs that tend to rank higher in overal reported job happiness today here in the US were jobs in the biotech field.

It’s not clear exactly why, but maybe people that tend to choose these careers tend to be happier people, or the environment which it cultivates tend to be one of harmony, creative encouragement, and overall laid back environment – which is great for employee happiness in most cases.

One of the worst jobs I ever had was one where I literally felt chained to my desk all day long. I was micromanaged based on principles which were so rigid and unforgiving of partricularly challenging situations, and the way in which you were rated on your customer service (I was on phones) was often times all black and white – no grey area or considerations for unique circumstances.

That was the most unahppy I’d ever been at any job. Also, the management was unforgiving of any dings against the rigid audit process to which you were subjected with every call. I felt literally like someone was standing over me on every call, and for me, who naturally thrives on autonomy, it was just killing me inside to have this job.

People generally thrive in environments which encourage individuality and unique creativity, and those seem to be the jobs where people report the highest job satisfaction rates, and also the control over salary has a lot to do with this too.

Well, every economist on the planet pretty much agrees that the specter of the unemployment rate not changing by the end of this year is not a surprise at all. Many economists predicted slow economic growth because of the number of factors against the economy.

Not only that, but the slow growth in the jobs market is also a big pain point. The numbers of unemployment are also vastly deceiving if you really take a look at what true unemployment is, and factor in the “underemployment” folks as well.

The unemployment rate, which is still at a high 9.8%, really isn’t a true picture of what is going on in the economy today. Why? Well, because the only thing that percentage really tallies up is the percentage of citizen who are claiming unemployment benefits.

It does not factor in the amount of people who have run out of benefits who were not able to find a job after their benefits ran out. That can bump up the percentage appreciably, and it’s no wonder that the government doesn’t give the true numbers or else there would probably be a massive wave of panic.

Also, the unemployment numbers don’t account for people who may have been out of work for years and just fell of the books. Pretty similar situation. It also does not really account for those that are what is called underemployed.

Under employed means those people who have a job and just aren’t getting enough hours. Maybe they got their hours cut dramatically, or they can only have part time work when they really need full time.

Part time workers save companies money sometimes, especially because they usually pay out less in benefits for those workers. So of course they would want to have part time positions instead of full time.

Also, people who are on some sort of contract may not be getting the hours they need, or they may have cut back dramatically on hours offered to outside contractors. These people are considered under employed as well since they are not getting the amount of hours they need to sustain themselves and their current lifestyles.

The hope is that in 2011, there will be more jobs created, spurred on by consumer spending, which is absolutely necessary for the unemployment rates to improve and the economy to be truly self sustaining. Then we need to tackle that other threat, the ballooning national debt.

I think that the majority of the American public has grown used to anemic, or nonexistent raises since the recession “officially” began in 2008, but I think also that a lot of people are starting to become restless about that fact and wondering when companies are stop going to use the economy as an excuse for such poor raises.

And, if you think about it, these poor raises really don’t put more money in we the people’s pockets for us “consumers” to go out and spend, so really big corporations who are being stingy on the uptake with yearly raises and bonuses are self perpetuating any type of fiscal trouble they may be in.

It’s such an interdependent thing, this whole recession and corporation thing, that it’s almost mind boggling how simple it would be to jump start the economy, and yet no corps. are willing to jump in and test the waters and start hiring again and also start paying their people generously again. Companies are sitting on RECORD amounts of cash right now, and that is a large part of what is hurting our economy and softening the job market right now.

Just imagine if even half the major corporations here in the US went on hiring sprees, how much that would help boost the economy and get us on the road to a real, meaningful recovery! But alas, companies are still very nervous about he financial positions of Americans and their spending power, and they’re still very nervous to loosen their purse strings.

How about you? What kind of raise are you expecting this year at your job, if you’re expecting a raise at all? I’ll be interested to see what I get, although I can’t complain since our bonuses will be pretty generous this year. It still would be nice to get a decent raise though, in case that bonus goes away at any time.

One of the leading initiators of stress is related to everyday job problems. There is no doubt that a normal job can affect your mental health. There are people all around the world that begin a new job position; get promoted; transfer to another city or country; start their own private business; relocate the business and etc.

Now these situations are mostly positive and don’t seem to have stress in their vocabulary very often. Well, an occasional stress might arise when you are being transferred to a different city; and it is also stressful to change living environments all of a sudden. But that is just a tiny stress that is not endangering your mental health.

The reasons why everyday Job is in top three stress-starters are numerous. The number one reason of stress and a serous danger to your mental health is redundancy. The feeling that you are not wanted anymore is very painful and leads to serious stressful situations that can not leave over night.

The longer enduring stress is there, the more the danger for your mental health increases. Despite of people that love their job and don’t want to get fired, there are those that don’t like what they do for living. Every now and then everyone has gone through the period when you hate your job, that is quite normal and human. But instead of cutting the timeline of that period, sometimes they seem to stay longer.

Stress and anxiety follows you everyday and affects your work and mental health. That leads to quitting on your own and start searching for better jobs. Job searching is never easy. Mostly people start from scratch and look for the right job that suits their skills and abilities. Having difficulties finding it fires up the stress gradually.

People start to doubt their decision of leaving their former job. The reasons reviewed so far are just tips of the iceberg. Other reasons that can affect your mental health in you job environment are bosses that are way to comfortable with their authority disposal; colleagues not doing their work on time which is connected to your job description; low motivation; no bonuses; cut down on salaries; and etc

Probably the worst part of stress and anxiety at work is that it is hard for them to stay at work. People have a bad habit of bringing their work problems at home, where they start mingling with family issues. ‘Spreading like a virus’ is a great statement to describe unhappiness at work. Since we are at work for a good chunk of our time, problems at work starts affecting everyday life, interactions with friends and family, and slowly begin eroding your mental health.

Well, it’s that time again. Tax time. Many of us will be getting returns. Plenty more of us will unfortunately owe the US government even more of our money at the end of the year, depending on a variety of variables and how you choose to claim during the year.

For instance, those that claim a 0 usually will get some kind of refund because they are paying Uncle Sam more in taxes out of their paychecks throughout the year, and people who claim a “1″ usually end up owing because they chose to have Uncle Sam take less out of their pay during the year.

There are arguments for both ways being better, but ultimately you should consult a tax professional to make the decision based on your personal financial situation. I think that with the shift in thinking from consumerism and buying everything under the sun to more of a saving mentality, hopefully more people will do intelligent things with their tax returns this year instead of squandering it on perishable items.

It’s easy to do, especially if you’ve been scrimping on everything for a year or two because of your financial situation, you tend to go a little wild here and there when you get some extra cash. However, if you use some discipline, you can make that money work for you for the rest of the 2010 year.

After taking a small amount out for yourself to spend on something “fun”, you should either invest the rest, pay your taxes in an installment to the Fed so you can reduce next years taxes, or perhaps even consider making an extra payment on your mortgage with it. These are all good choices, but it depends on what your situation is as to which is the absolute best way for you to utilize this money.

I got a small refund from the IRS, however, since I pay quarterly installments to them, what I did was I just applied that refund to my firs quarterly payment, effectively eliminating that first payment. This way, I won’t have to scrounge up that money and turn right around and pay it out again and write the check etc.

Now, I’m able to budget my money better, and I have peace of mind knowing the first one is paid for the year. Not to mention, I wasn’t tempted to spend this money, which is probably the worst thing I could have done considering we have so many projects around the house we want to do that will cost money, and at least that is an investment.

It’s really up to you, but if your gut is telling you that you should be doing something more intelligent with your money as you’re spending it on hundreds of dollars of clothes or the like, well then, your gut is probably right.