November 2023 - Fresh Life Advice

Reconstructing Financial Health for Entrepreneurs Post-Addiction

April 23, 2024November 13, 2023 by Fresh Life Advice

To reconstruct financial health, entrepreneurs need some help post-addiction.

Welcome to the 13th FLA Guest Blog Post! Today, we provide some insight on reconstructing financial health for entrepreneurs post-addiction. Thank you to Chelsea from Business POP for sharing this helpful article.
Chelsea is an experienced Marketing and Advertising professional with a demonstrated history of working in the media industry. Chelsea is especially skilled in Digital Media advertising, Events, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Microsoft Suite, Data Analytics, Adobe products, and Marketing Strategy.
The digital age has unquestionably arrived. Incorporating new technologies into business procedures will be critical for owners who want to grow their businesses.
Business POP will show you how to grow your business through innovation. It is aimed at small and medium-sized business owners and will offer advice on what digital enhancements to consider and how such changes can help them grow.

Emerging from addiction is a transformative experience with far-reaching implications, affecting not just your personal life but also the financial stability of your entrepreneurial ventures. Rebuilding your financial structure is a crucial, albeit challenging, aspect of this recovery journey.

This article, courtesy of Fresh Life Advice, aims to offer pragmatic, straightforward guidance for any entrepreneurs who find themselves at this intersection of personal recovery and professional restoration. Use this actionable advice as a resource to reclaim your personal sobriety and financial security.

Assessing the Financial Implications of Addiction

Gaining clarity on the extent of addiction’s impact on your finances is the critical first step towards rebuilding a stable future. This means moving beyond a cursory acknowledgment of the problem to perform a thorough evaluation of how addiction has affected your business relationships, disrupted cash flows, and impeded business growth.

It also involves scrutinizing any disordered spending patterns and recognizing the potential depletion of business capital or personal savings. A comprehensive financial view will serve as a foundational element to guide the steps and strategies you employ in the recovery and reconstruction process. Having a clear understanding of the situation also enables informed conversations with financial advisors or counselors who can offer specialized advice.

Choosing the Right Recovery Environment

Securing a beneficial recovery outcome is strongly linked to the choice of a rehabilitation facility. The selection process should encompass an examination of the facility’s qualifications, the competence of its medical team, and the range of therapeutic approaches offered.

Searching for “treatment help near me” can offer a list of nearby options, aiding in making a selection that considers geographical convenience and access to a support network. You should also weigh the comfort and amenities provided by the facility in the final decision.

Communicating with former patients, when possible, can furnish valuable insights into the quality of treatment and overall experience. Undertaking this thorough vetting not only enhances the likelihood of successful personal recovery but also creates a mental tranquility that can have a positive influence on subsequent entrepreneurial choices.

Leverage Tailored Support Systems

The path to financial recovery is rarely one tread alone. Building a strong network of professionals who are experienced in dealing with addiction cases can be immensely helpful. Both emotional support groups and financial advisors who specialize in recovery circumstances offer an extensive range of resources and advice.

This network can serve as a lifeline when navigating the complexities of reconstructing a business while also dealing with personal recovery. Their expertise can help identify pitfalls and opportunities, offering guidance tailored to your unique needs, thereby accelerating the recovery process.

Constructing a Grounded Financial Roadmap

Budgeting with a firm grip on reality is essential for financial reconstruction. Be sure to include these in your budget plan:

All income sources
Essential expenditures like living costs
Debt repayments
Potential investments

Your budget should not be static; make sure it’s adaptable to changes in your financial circumstances. Such flexibility allows you to reshuffle priorities and pay all your essential bills while still planning for future financial growth. As stability returns, you can adjust your budget to accommodate greater investments in business expansion or personal financial portfolios.

Diversifying Revenue Sources

As you work on reestablishing your primary business, exploring alternative avenues for income can provide both a safety net and additional growth opportunities. Contract work, part-time jobs, or freelance gigs not only contribute to your immediate income but also offer opportunities to acquire new skills.

You can integrate these newly learned skills subsequently into the primary business model to produce additional value or new revenue streams. Such diversification can provide a buffer against unforeseen financial challenges while also making room for entrepreneurial innovation.

Skillful Debt Management

Managing debt effectively is an imperative aspect of regaining financial stability. This involves transparent conversations with creditors to renegotiate terms, lower interest rates, or even seek moratoriums on payments when necessary.

Additionally, understanding the various debt restructuring options available can provide a more strategic approach to repayment. Consulting professionals for this purpose can be immensely helpful because they can provide individualized plans that match your personal and business financial constraints. These structured approaches offer a more manageable path to debt freedom to mitigate stress and facilitate concentration on business growth.

Maintain Alignment with Long-Term Objectives

Recovery and financial reconstruction are iterative processes and often include setbacks. Keeping sight of your long-term goals provides a broader perspective and helps you maintain focus and motivation.

Consistent reminders of these long-term objectives can serve as inspiration, fueling the perseverance required for your personal recovery and business success. Here are a few tips to guide you:

Define your mission and vision: Clearly articulate the purpose and values that drive your business to provide a foundation for setting long-term objectives.
Conduct a SWOT analysis: Assess your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to identify areas for improvement and growth in the long term.
Set SMART goals: Make your objectives specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound to ensure clarity and feasibility.

Moreover, periodically reviewing your goals allows you to recalibrate your strategies and methods to keep them aligned with evolving circumstances and opportunities. A balanced view between current challenges and future aspirations is essential for sustained progress.

Adopt Digital Document Management

A move toward digitizing crucial business documents can substantially streamline your operations. Digitizing documents like contracts, invoices, or employee records makes them easier to sort, access, and share, which can significantly improve operational efficiency.

This increased efficiency can lead to cost savings and faster decision-making, positively impacting your bottom line. In a world where even minor operational advantages can translate into significant financial gains, adopting digital document management can be a critical step toward rebuilding financial stability.

Final Thoughts

The road to financial stability for entrepreneurs recovering from addiction is fraught with challenges. Yet, you can succeed with a thoughtful approach that includes recognizing the full scope of your addiction’s impact, selecting a supportive rehabilitation environment, engaging with specialized support systems, proficiently managing debt, focusing on long-term goals, and following the other tips above.

Remember that the journey to financial and personal recovery, while difficult, is also an opportunity for profound personal and professional transformation. Make the most of it by taking a strategic approach and believing in yourself.

Disclosure: Fresh Life Advice is an opinion-based website. I am not a financial advisor, and the opinions on this site should not be considered financial advice.

Personal Capital: The Ultimate Tool to track your Net Worth, Budget and more.

What are your thoughts on financial health post-addiction? Let me know in the comments below.

October Side Income Report | 2023

April 1, 2024November 2, 2023 by Fresh Life Advice

Welcome to the 2023 October Side Income Report.

Let’s start this post with the obligatory caveat:

FLA’s side hustle income reports are not for the purpose of bragging. This side income amount of money is by no means impressive. The sole purpose of this series is to inspire you to create diversified income streams in order to help you achieve your financial goals faster.

I began this tumultuous F.I.R.E. (Financial Independence – Retire Early) journey almost immediately after graduating from college and shortly realizing it is never ideal to work for someone other than yourself.

After withdrawing from the corporate world, I plan to fully indulge in my mission of helping 10 million people with their own path to financial freedom. I’ve discovered a wonderful community of people with shared mindsets. So I’m currently on a journey to see if we can turn FLA into a little business that supports the mission.

The reason I’ve decided to publish these income reports is because I want you to be a part of the journey.

After aggressively saving 50%+ of my annual income year after year, I’m approximately 35% of the way to retirement with 9 years to go. I’m aware that side hustles may never fully support one’s expenses, but I’m willing to try.

At the very minimum of making $1/month (what one may consider failure), I am ecstatic as I realize this can be considered supplemental income that will be able to be reinvested into this blog to enhance your reading experience on FLA.

Through my arduous journey, I’ve learned to focus on the future value of money. One dollar to you may look like a standard George Washington-faced bill, but to me, I see its potential. Accounting for 3% inflation, investing that dollar could return 5 times its original value in 25 years. Yes, that’s like putting $1 into an ATM and having it return a $5 bill back to you. How amazing is compound interest?! Hypothetically, you can increase that principal amount, and you’ve got yourself some unbelievable returns.

My hope with these income reports is ultimately to present some transparency for you. By showing it doesn’t take much effort to earn and save, I may motivate you to chase one of your biggest dreams. Dreams may originally sound outlandish, but they all need to start somewhere, right? Without further ado, here is FLA’s October 2023 Side Income Report.

OCTOBER SIDE INCOME REPORT

The best way to make money is to have various streams of revenue. The best way to protect yourself in the course of ill-fated events stripping you of some of your main sources of income is to diversify.

We have all heard the pragmatic advice of “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.” Well, put this theory into practice. The following is my best attempt to develop additional sources of income. Below are the six ways I attempted to make money from my side hustles in the month of October.

Stocks are my absolute favorite money-making assets. Your money can make money for you with the click of a ‘buy’ button! Sure, there are ups and downs in the stock market, but if you look historically at the S&P 500 Index or the Dow Jones Industrial Average, your investment generally grows over the long term. Remember, investing and gambling are not the same thing.

“If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes.”
-Warren Buffett, American Investor/Business Tycoon/Philanthropist/Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

Investors and analysts contend that conducting research on which stock to buy may be active work, but it is a generally held credence that dividends are passive income.

What are dividends?

Simply, they are distribution of some of a company’s earnings to a class of its shareholders. In this case, you are the shareholder. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but the company you invest in will reward you with bonus money!

Let’s take a look at the aftermath of the stocks that paid out dividends this month:

Which stocks have I invested in? I have a few individual stock picks, but the finance community knows this is a loser’s game. I mainly hold VTI, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, which allows you to be diversified and capture 3,525 different stocks with a minimal expense ratio, or annual fee, of 0.03%. Index funds will often take you to the promised land in the long run.

Typically, you have 2 choices with dividends. You can either accept the dividend as cold hard cash or you can choose to reinvest the money back into the same stock automatically. It’s as simple as clicking the ‘yes’ button when prompted with the question on whether or not to re-invest dividends.

I strongly recommend you to reinvest your dividends and capital gains. Why? Well, look at this way: you didn’t have the earned dividend money to begin with. Do you really need it at this moment? Why not let your additional money grow even more? Open up an investment account and enjoy the magic of compounding interest by increasing your principal investment.

October Side Income – Stock Dividends / Interest Total: $40.18

In my free time, I participate in paid surveys. It’s one of my other sources of income. The surveys are mindless and allow you to temporarily escape from life’s struggles and reality. Oftentimes, you have a chance to play your part in society and provide meaningful feedback on hot topics that may be decided by top companies and government officials.

The 3 survey programs I use daily are:

I strongly recommend any of these three survey websites because of the higher payouts. Our time on this planet is valuable. Always consider how much time you are trading for money.

Prolific

Prolific seems to have the highest quantity of surveys available. Each survey also previews an hourly rate to the user. This significantly helps in determining if the survey is worth your time. I’ve seen them range from $3/hour all the way up to $30/hour, but on average are $8/hour.

Pinecone Research

Pinecone Research surveys always reward you with $3 for every survey. Since each survey is typically around 10 minutes long, the site has a pretty standard hourly rate of $12/hour. However, the frequency of surveys is much less than Prolific.

YouGov

Finally, YouGov’s typical survey lasts for 10 minutes and will pay out $1.50, translating to an hourly rate of $6/hr. Even though it is the lowest payout, it still helps to have supplemental income. Again, always consider the balance between time and money.

YouGov is an eclectic group of the media, nonprofits and companies that congregate to find out what the world thinks. YouGov happens to be one of the most-quoted data sources in the US and across the world.

Prolific, Pinecone Research, and YouGov offer all kinds of rewards, but I normally recommend cash payout via PayPal. The transfer is usually instantaneous. Prolific does pay out in GBP, but the money is translated to USD when conducting a bank transfer in PayPal.

In fact, Prolific does not have a minimum payout, Pinecone’s minimum payout is $5, and YouGov’s minimum cash payout is $50, albeit YouGov offers the option of a $15 Amazon gift card.

October Side Income – Surveys Total: $277.61

An additional passive income stream is selling your old goods or unused consumer products. Simply list your items with competitive pricing on Amazon and/or eBay, sit back, and let the buyers make you offers.

I often notice friends, family, and even co-workers constantly looking to throw out items that are still in perfectly good condition; it drives me nuts! Why not let someone bid on the product? Worst case will be that it doesn’t sell, and then you can throw out the item. No harm, no foul.

At the very least, donate your stuff. I typically enjoy donating old apparel to the Salvation Army and other charities. It always feels good to know your treasured clothing is not going to waste.

This month, there was a stranger that bought an item of my personal inventory I was looking to discard. After fees and small shipping costs, I usually still walk away with a hefty profit.

October Side Income – Selling Total: $26.58

As a blogger, I would like to keep the user experience as clean as possible. Therefore, I have chosen to keep all Google AdSense ads from my website. I am an avid reader of many other blogs, and I can truthfully admit it retracts from the reading experience. I am very proud of this decision and will continue with this route.

October Side Income – Google AdSense Revenue: $0.00

I published my first eBook titled How I Launched, Marketed, and Promoted a High-Traffic Blog in Under 15 Days last year. I only promoted the book as part of the launch, but several people found their way to the sales page. Again, this is a learning process to convert the views into actual sales. As Robert Kiyosaki alludes to in his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, it’s all about being a best-selling author, not a best-writing author. There is a subtle yet significant difference.

October Side Income – eBook Blog Startup Manual Sales: $0.00

Who would’ve ever thought that spending money would actually earn you money? Well, with cash-back credit cards, now it’s certainly possible. With my Capital One Venture Card, I can now make this dream a reality.

Depending on the card you have, you’ll score 1-2 miles with every dollar you spend. Capital One Miles can be used in a variety of ways and are generally worth between half a cent and one cent apiece.

Earn 50,000 bonus miles (equivalent to $500) once you spend $3,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening.

Although I’m still trying my best to limit opportunities to throw away those hard-earned paychecks, the positive result is that I earn more in cash back from the credit card rewards.

After looking at my monthly expense report, I saw that I earned 2,629 miles, which is equivalent to $26.29.

I now have a Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card.

Earn 80,000 bonus miles (equivalent to $1,000) once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening.

When you use points to redeem for cash, each point is worth $.01 (one cent), which means that 100 points equals $1 in redemption value. Each point you redeem for travel booked through Chase Ultimate Rewards is worth $.0125 (one and a quarter cents), which means that 100 points equals $1.25 in redemption value, and points are worth 25% more than if redeemed for cash. For example, 20,000 points are worth $250 when redeemed for travel purchases, or $200 when redeemed for cash. The cost of travel is based on the rates and fares available through the Ultimate Rewards website and travel center, and may not reflect all rates and fares that are available through other sales channels.

If you choose to use points and your Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card to pay for your purchase, each point will be worth $.0125, but your credit card will be charged the full remaining dollar amount.

After this month, I was able to earn $97.81 this month from the Chase card.

October Side Income – Capital One & Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card Cash-Back Rewards – $124.10

Well, that’s it for this month’s side income report! Hope your 2023 is going well.

In 2022, I was able to max out my Roth IRA and 401k – I highly recommend you do the same in 2023 if you have the option! In January, I immediately transferred the maximum $6,500 limit from my taxable brokerage account to the tax-deferred Roth IRA for the 2023 year, with most of it invested in January. The sooner, the better since time in the market often beats timing the market.

Investing in 2023 is a great time because we were just in a bear market (down over 20% from the highs) in 2022 so stocks are on sale!

Thank you for taking the time to read through my latest October income report and thank you for contributing if you have previously purchased something through one of my affiliate links!

If you wish to support this site, but don’t have a need for any of FLA’s affiliate products, you could simply do your regular Amazon shopping through any of the links on this site that lead to Amazon.com. You won’t pay any extra and FLA will receive a small commission. Thanks so much if you do so!

That’s a wrap for this income report! I am looking forward to earning more money on the side in the future. Stay hustlin’, my friends!

Total October Side Income: $468.47

How was your October 2023 side hustling? Let me know in the comments below.

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