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5 Things to Never Spend Money on Again

We get it. Some expenses are just unavoidable— for instance, house rent, food, utility bills, and maybe some debts like student loans and car repayment. However, let’s be honest too. We also fall victims to expenses that we could’ve avoided completely.

You don’t need to strip your life down of all life’s bare necessities and live like a cave dweller, but you shouldn’t splurge money like a robber baron’s wayward son either. It is important to find the balance between the two.

According to studies, about 94% of millionaires spend less than they make since they focus more on saving and investing, at least to the extent that their investments can cover their bills. But to reach such financial independence, you need to understand how to carefully manage your finances.

Ask yourself these questions: How much money did you receive all throughout your life? How much money did you spend? And how much money is left?

Perhaps, you have spent the majority of your money to support basic necessities, but if you would look back at all your expenditures, a big portion of it was actually spent on trivial things that didn’t add up value to your life. Almost every one of us has been there and done that.

If we would only learn how to manage money more effectively, we would be closer to financial independence way sooner.

Here are the things people regret buying and will never spend money on again:

1. Car

You probably know how expensive owning a car is if you have one. Unfortunately, those who own a car do not understand how much driving a car around costs.

In 2020, the average monthly payment for a new car was around $500. Yet, aside from this are expenses that are often neglected.

It is also necessary to take into consideration the maintenance costs, gas fees, insurance, and other car-related expenses. Not to mention that having your own car gives you the capacity to drive around, even for trivial reasons, which requires gas.

Gas prices are pricey and will cost you fortunes, so you should spend money again on cars— well, unless necessary.

If you live in an area where public transportation is problematic and need to take your kids to school and run various errands, then a car is essential. However, if you are single and don’t stand in need of one, you better save and invest that money for a greater cause.

2. Expensive Personal Care Products

If looking good is one of your priorities in life, you must have spent fortunes trying out multiple brands of skincare products without thinking twice about whether they’re overpriced or not.

You need to know that personal care products are pretty much identical. In fact, a lot of them were mostly produced in the same factories in China and were only sold under different brand names. The prices only vary based on how popular they are. Some products that cost $100 are no different from $20 ones.

The beauty industry’s margins are tremendous, so don’t get yourself fooled by paying $100 for a product that you can get for a much lower price.

3. Spending Money to Impress

Spending money to impress is absolutely a pointless waste. When you are in your teenage years, still navigating life, it is relatively easy to build your life around what people around you think. It’s quite normal to get influenced easily by society in terms of your clothes and the things you have.

Yet, although this pressure is occasionally internal, teenagers are known for chastening each other into conforming to social norms. But this circumstance isn’t limited to teenagers but also to adults. Not only are they compelled to look their best, but they were also propelled to keep up with the Joneses all throughout their adulthood.

Adulthood has its fair share of cliquey rebels, rich kids, and outsiders too. No matter what age, whether 18 or 50, people would want to fit in.

But is it indispensable to give in to peer pressure and squander your hard-earned dollars to be accepted? If you want to achieve financial independence and move to the future with impressive financial standing, the answer should be a big “NO.”

An adult’s opportunity to splurge money is limitless, but if you give in every time, you will only end up draining your bank account. Remember that keeping up and impressing your friends as an adult is just as meaningless as in high school.

4. Investments You’re Not Sure About

Sometimes, knowing a little information about a particular thing makes us feel like we know it all— only to find out how little we know. This is especially true for people who were just starting out.

It’s good to invest, but don’t bet your money on investments you know nothing about. Remember Warren Buffett’s golden rule in investing? Never lose money.

Maybe, it’s even better to get your money to lose its value due to inflation while waiting for the right investment opportunity than lose it all in one snap in a bad investment.

5. Extended Warranties

Getting extended warranties is one good way to waste money. If you would come to think of it, warranties people barely use guarantees, no matter what kind of warranty there is, because spending a lot of time going through the hassles of fixing an item is a big nuisance.

On top of that, there are cases where the warranty doesn’t cover the particular damage your item has! Sometimes, it’s way easier to buy a new one.

[joemoshe]

What to Do With $10,000 in Savings

Saving $10,000 is an outstanding accomplishment, so if you’re reading this because you have such hard-earned money in your bank, congratulations! You belong to the top 30% of wealthiest Americans.

In today’s world, people can barely allocate money for their emergency funds. Let alone for savings. Statistics showed that most young people possess a negative net worth. About 69% of the adult population in the United States have less than a thousand in their savings account, and sadly, about 34% have no savings at all.

There are a lot of things you can do with $10,000. You could possibly turn this amount into hundreds of thousands, or even millions!

Can you imagine how much you could’ve made if you had invested even just $1,000 in today’s mega-corporations before they went public?  

For instance, if you placed your money in the American electric vehicle and clean energy company Tesla back in March 2011, your $1,000 would now be worth more than a hundred thousand dollars, with a yearly return of 61.26%. So, if you had invested $10,000 back then, you would be swimming in millions of dollars.

However, investing in Tesla back then was a big bet. Its reputation is hitched to Elon’s success, and its value is only hooked to what it can “potentially” achieve in the next 5 to 10 years. Most investors who placed their bets on Tesla took the risk because of their fear of getting missed out, but they made huge profits anyway.

The rest is history. We cannot go back to turn back the clock to invest a few thousand dollars, so let’s just get into the main point— if you have an extra $10,000 sitting in the bank, where should you invest in this 2022?

Disclaimer: This writeup isn’t a piece of financial advice, and everything that will be tackled is purely for educational purposes only.

High-Risk Individual Stocks

Investing in stocks is a wonderful action, especially if you’re going for a valuable startup company that could potentially create a big stir in a particular industry. History has shown us that the stock market grows tremendously, not just about 10-20% but more than a thousand percent!

Amazon is one good example of a stock that has grown astronomically in the past few years since its launch in public back in 1997. It has unbelievably grown to 212,922%. If you had invested $10,000 in Amazon when it went public, its value could’ve gone up to $21,292,200 this 2022.

Another example of a stock that insanely grew these past few years is Best Buy— increasing at a hundred and eight thousand percent, about 26.2% annually. Hence, a $10,000 investment made back in 1990 would amount to $10.9 million today.

You might have missed these hot stocks, but you don’t need to worry since the world is continuously progressing, and along with this progress comes the emergence of the next big thing.

One thing you could do with your $10,000 is to invest it in a tech company that has the potential to disturb and revolutionize the industry. However, you should not put your eggs in only one basket. Diversify your money into three or four companies to ensure that another stock will serve as your cushion when the other falls hard.

Hold it until an opportunity comes.

The money you hold in your account becomes less valuable every single day that you just let it sit without having it work. This is because inflation devalues the real value of your money, and at the same time, you’re missing the potential returns you could be making.

Yet, despite these, there’s still a valid reason why you should hold your money in your bank account. That is to ensure that you have readily available money when a truly profitable opportunity comes.

Avoid pushing yourself to put your money in investment vehicles just because you don’t want to miss out on a market rally. Remember that the market is on a rollercoaster ride that goes up and down all the time, so you could get in the investment again, though quite late.

Don’t use up your money to take advantage of all small-time opportunities that come your way. Instead, set your eyes on opportunities that will give you big gains.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO and chairman Warren Buffett leave us with these lessons:

Don’t lose money

Never forget rule number one.

Buffet’s rule is pretty simple, isn’t it?

Invest your money only when the opportunity that comes feels like a once-in-a-generation opportunity and when you are extremely confident that it could turn into thousands or even millions of dollars.

Roth IRA

Wealthy people have created a wide variety of complex schemes just to avoid taxes. However, the truth is, that even an ordinary citizen can also avoid taxes. We aren’t just well-versed about this.

IRA, or Individual Retirement Account, is an investment vehicle where you won’t need to pay taxes. Before doubting if it’s truly tax-free, here out the explanation first!

Salaries are all taxed, so you’re already paying tax to the government whenever you receive your income. Hence, if you put up that money into Roth IRA, your income isn’t going to be taxed again, no matter how immense your investment becomes.

For instance, you put up a Roth IRA account back in 2011 and invested $1000 in Tesla, which grew to $120,000 this 2022. Unfortunately, if you want to get your profits immediately, you will need to pay some taxes. But if you hold the amount until you reach 59.5 or 60 years old, you won’t have to pay a single penny for taxes.

If you are 20 years old and invest $6,000 every year in the S&P 500 through your Roth IRA account, you will get more than three million dollars by the age of 60.

Launch a business

For a heads up, you shouldn’t take this difficult path if you’re spending a lot of time taking care of your family because establishing a profitable business is too demanding. But if you are single and have all-time in the world to do anything you want, this could be a really worthy venture.

You have little to no control over investment vehicles like stocks, cryptocurrencies, and securities. The profitability of your money will depend on how other people will work to make it grow. But if you launch your own business, you will have more control in managing and growing your money.

Of course, $10,000 isn’t a lot of money, but it’s enough to get you started, especially now that businesses are going online. You don’t have to pay rent and other expenses that come along with running a physical store.

Real Estate

Investing in real estate might seem impossible with just a small amount of money— but it’s actually not. Indeed, $10,000 isn’t enough to keep you going, but if you formulate a strategic plan, you could actually make a real estate investment without paying that much.

Get a mortgage, rent it out and let your tenant pay it for you. Rent the place a little higher than the actual mortgage amount, so you’ll get to enjoy returns. Real estate value appreciates over time, so aside from your monthly profit, you could sell the property at a much higher price in the long run.

Historical data has proven that real estate prices always go up, so this investment is worth the gamble.

[joemoshe]

How To Make Money With Crypto Bots As A Beginner In 2022

Cryptocurrencies are the new money and it’s turning ordinary people into millionaires in just a short span of time. In this article, you don’t have to understand complicated crypto investing strategies to make big gains. Instead, you can make use of an automated cryptocurrency bot that will make digital coins for you.

What is a cryptocurrency bot?

A cryptocurrency bot employs current indicators, buying and selling cryptocurrencies for users at a profit. This was so you could put down the profit you wanted to make. You can consider setting the percentage however you want to, and the bot will make all the trades for you.

Now let’s get down to the business.

There isn’t only one crypto bot trading app in the market, so you need to choose one that suits you best. To name a few, there’s Pionex, Cryptohopper, CoinRule, TradeSanta, HaasOnline, and Zignly. Among these good crypto bots, CryptoHopper is the pick of the bunch.

Cryptohopper in a Glance

Cryptohopper is a broad-gauge trading avenue that intends to make investing in cryptocurrencies simpler and more spontaneous. Anyone can automate their investing processes, imitate professional crypto traders, set signals and alerts with the help of a single mobile app. Through Cryptohopper, investors can keep watching the market anytime and anywhere, regardless of the coin they trade.

Users can enjoy some of the most advanced features when it comes to cryptocurrency trading. However, aspiring investors are demanded to bet their money on the platform to benefit from its newfangled hallmarks. There is no need to pay a per-trade commission, though!

With this bot, you can trade 24/7 without any distraction.

No least possible amount is asked to get started with Cryptohopper, but it beats the drum for users to deposit a minimum of €300 to your exchange. The recommendation was made to spread risk between multifarious transactions while getting together all minimum trade requirements.

The platform offers various packages for users:

Pioneer Package. This is a free package that users can access for mirror trading, paper trading, strategy designing, stop loss trailing, and strategy designing.

Explorer Package. This package incorporates one simulated trading bot, 80 positions, and an utmost of 15 chosen coins and two triggers. You can level up your trading game with this package since this has the automatic trading feature that will automatically recognize trends and deviate to a better strategy. The Explorer package costs $19 per month.

Adventurer Package. This is a $49 worth package, which includes all the basic functionality that is available in the explorer package. However, this was a bit more expensive because this takes in access to a sweeping 50 coins, exchange arbitrage, and five max triggers.

Hero Package. This package was designed for expert investors who are seeking comprehensive tools. Through this package, you have the privilege to enter about 500 positions simultaneously with up to 75 distinct coins, making use of 10 triggers and inexhaustible trading signals. An advanced technical analysis function can also be enjoyed in this package. Spending $99 per month may be a bit expensive, but the tools you’ll receive from this can give you gains that are way higher than that.

Cryptohopper was designed for everyone. You don’t need a complicated coding experience to begin.

Get Started with Automated Crypto Trading

Here are the simple steps you should follow to kickstart your journey in automated trading:

Step 1: Create a free account

In creating an account with Cryptohopper, you only need to fill up the necessary requirements asked — email, username, full name, and password. Then, of course, you need to agree to the platform’s terms of service to proceed. Click “Get Started.

Step 2: Connect your exchange account

To begin trading, you need to connect Cryptohopper to your exchange account since that is where all your funds are stored and exchanged. You can find the exchange you are using from the dropdown button. If you are yet to decide whether you truly want to trade in the platform and connect your exchange account, you could start with paper trading, where you can trade with fake money to test the platform out.

After choosing which exchange account you will use, you need to give out your API key and API secret key. For instance, you use Binance. Just open Binance in your browser and copy the keys from API Management.

Configure the settings of your trading bot, then proceed to your hoppers (bots).

On the dashboard of your hopper, you’ll see various support sections you can run to in case you need help. In Documentation, you can get the materials that you need to train your skills in this field of expertise. Whatever it is that you need, Cryptohoppers customer support can assist you.

Step 3: Add a new hopper

Always remember that bots aren’t designed to make you wealthy, although their purpose can lead you there at some point. Basically, hoppers only do trade for you according to the data and signals that are coded into the platform.

You can choose from three options when creating a hopper: Auto Trading Bot, Arbitrage Bot, and Market Maker. The auto trading bot essentially configures your settings and trades on the exchange of your choice.

The arbitrage bot concomitantly buys and sells an asset to make a profit from a difference in price. And lastly, the market-making bot sets limit orders just outside the buy and sell prices, striving to make profits from the spread among two different orders.

Step 4: Configure your hopper (template)

You can actually configure one-hopper (template) on your own but doing so will take so much time and effort. Hence, it would be better if you would just pick one from the wide variety of choices you’re presented with. Once you’ve chosen the one you like, just click “Select” and then put in your API key if you want to trade in real-time. Then click “Save.”

However, rather than going real-time immediately, you could try paper trading first to ensure that the bot works well for you. Upon clicking Save, your hopper will instantly be set up, and you just have to proceed with the steps that will be handed out to you. Watch out for the tutorials that the platform recommends. Don’t skip them!

Step 5: Deposit money

If you go paper trading, you won’t need to use up your crypto holdings since you just have to inject fake money into the platform. Just click “Deposit,” type in the amount you want to trade, and the fake money will immediately enter your account.

On the other hand, if you head straight to actual trading and your real exchange account is connected with the platform, you will be using the USDT in your account.

Step 6: Customize your hopper

Now, what you have to do is to go to “Config” then “Baseconfig.” There’s basic and advanced configuration within the platform—no need to worry yourself with challenging labor since we’ll only be working with the basic. You can name your hopper in the Basic Settings.

For the essential part of this tutorial, click “Coin and amounts” and then change your currency (you can change it however you want).

Get rid of all the coins in the Selected Coins by clicking each coin included in the box. After you clear everything up in the Selected Coins, pick the coins you want in Available Coins and click them. You can leave the percentage buy amount on a standard.

Type in the minimum USDT amount per order that you are willing to spend per order and the maximum USDT amount allocated.

Go to “Strategy” and choose the plan of action you want to follow. It can be upward trends, buy the dip, buy extreme dips, or Bollinger bands.

Step 7: Sell Settings

Tap “Click Settings” and configure the percentage you want to take home in every trade. Click “Save.”

Once your settings are all set up, head back to the mainboard, enable the hopper, and you’re good to go!

[joemoshe]

3 Truths About Passive Income Banks Don’t Want You To Know

Wealthy people capitalize on money differently. In 2020, when the pandemic wreaked havoc all across the globe, the economy was in chaos and some families can barely put food on the table. Yet, despite this crazy virus pandemonium, 1.7% of Americans managed to climb up the leader boards and become millionaires. At the time of writing, millionaires now make up around 8% of the U.S. population.

But how do these people manage to become a millionaire in the middle of a health dilemma where everyone was suffering? The answer lies in the very question. They earned big bucks because are in the middle of a dilemma. A crisis for some can create an opportunity for someone else.

According to statistics, about 56 million worldwide possess an asset of more than $1 million, and 39.1% of these figures were Americans. In 2000, only 3.8% of Americans were millionaires, and now climbed up to 8.8%, which is 7% higher! These numbers show that 1 out of 10 American adults are millionaires.

More and more people are becoming millionaires, and this is because people are getting a grasp of how passive income works. Without learning how passive income can do the grinding for you, you will never be able to have the time to enjoy life, no matter how rich you are.

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions regarding passive income, and if you don’t fully understand how it works, you might spend a lifetime building one, but it will never make the grade.

Before creating a passive income avenue, here are the important things you need to know:

There is no such thing as a completely passive income

It was always highlighted that passive income doesn’t require a person to work hard for money, but if you look at it closely, you will realize that there is no such thing as a completely work-free passive income avenue. No matter what passive income they may be, they will always require some level of management.

You cannot just invest and forget about it since your money is at stake. For instance, real estate. Although it seems like all you need to do is purchase a property, rent it out, and collect a monthly rental fee, that’s not how real estate passive investment actually works. Managing a real estate property can be a bit time-consuming.

It is not easy to look for a tenant if your property isn’t located in a good area, and good areas are limited in addition to the fact that it’s very expensive. Moreover, taking care of a property isn’t easy, especially if you have a mortgage on it, so it won’t be very easy to oversee it. You have an option to delegate the task to others, but it will cut back on your income.

The same goes for dividend stocks. Even though dividend income is great, the profits you can hope for only range from 2.5 – 3%, which hardly measures up with inflation. You need to get stocks that give 5-7% to go against inflation while keeping some profit for yourself. To achieve such high returns, you need to invest time in studying good companies and overseeing how the market is going.

Forget the idea that you could make an investment and party afterward because such a kind of passive income does not exist.

Real passive income takes a lifetime to build

There are two types of income that can be classified as passive to a certain extent: real estate and the stock market. Everything else aside from these two requires painstaking endeavor to oversee, and perhaps, this is the primary reason why wealthy people tend to put a large portion of their money into these markets.

One to three properties are more consuming to manage than 100 properties. With such a big number, you can launch a small company that will be in charge of them, hugely reducing the cost of managing per property.

Another good source of passive income is index funds (e.g., S&P 500), which grow steadily enough. As experts say, you could just put your money in an index fund, then totally neglect it for years. However, to create such a good income source, you need to invest no less than a million to earn $40,000 to $50,000 annually.

Most wealthy people just inject a huge chunk of money into such a safe investment to earn dividends of hundreds of thousand dollars. But it would take you a lifetime to earn money to be placed in such investment, perhaps 20 to 30 years. However, you might not have enough time to enjoy all the fruits of your labor.

No. We are not telling you not to try doing so, but you should make passive investing the goal of your life.

Don’t allow passive income to become your primary source of income

Passive income streams aren’t always profitable. If your passive income stream is publishing books. You should consider that your books may not sell as they did in the past. If you are in real estate, pandemics can happen anytime, so no one might be able to afford the cost of the rent. Or if the market declines, your stocks might depreciate in value and burn your holding.

Income streams like what was mentioned above can easily be affected by external factors. But there is something that no one else can take away from you — skills. The things that you are good at.

At the end of the day, your assets and money can be taken away from you, but your expertise will remain. It could be in writing, social skills, or medicine.

Come to think of it. If your income depends on Google algorithm, then you are in the clutches of Google, like most content creators are. A single alteration in Google’s algorithm can make your entire business collapse. Long before, some content creators can easily earn hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, those who relied solely on the algorithm now got overtaken by more famous personalities, reducing their profits.

Rather than relying so much on passive income, find the skill you’re good at and master it.

[joemoshe]

How Saving Money Makes You Broke

You’ve probably heard the advice to save money before. It’s something you’ll hear a lot as a kid, in school, or even on the news. Is it, however, always the greatest option to save money? Isn’t there a drawback somewhere? There are some drawbacks to saving, as it turns out. But, before we go into it, let’s define the term “saving.”

We use the money for three different purposes. We bring money in, send it out, and keep it in our possession. Savings falls under the area of holding on to our money.

Simply explained, saving is when we put money aside in order to have it at a later date.

Interest Rates are Low

Savings accounts are known for paying out very little interest. Savings accounts at some banks pay as little as 0.01 percent per year. That means that if you have $100, you will receive one penny each year! That is essentially meaningless.

Savings accounts with a higher interest, known as high yield savings accounts, are a little better. The rates on these accounts fluctuate depending on the FED’s current rates accessible to banks (that is the central bank of the US). For example, the current interest rate is 0.5 percent (2021), yet it was as high as 2 percent just a few years ago. It just depends on the current exchange rate. However, you still gain practically nothing in terms of interest on money saved.

Inflation has a negative impact on you.

Not only is the money you get paid back low, but you’re also hurt by inflation’s second punch. Inflation is the loss of value of money over time, usually as a result of more money being circulated.

Every year, we see around a 2% to 3% increase in inflation. So if your money isn’t earning more than 3% interest, you aren’t making any money at all. In fact, if you don’t match your interest rate with inflation, you’re losing money! That 2% to 3% figure isn’t set in stone, so it might rise significantly. You will lose money in the long term if you are solely a saver.

It’s difficult to strike a balance between saving and necessary spending.

It’s really easy to stop spending money on things that are important to you once you get into the savings mindset. Some people, for example, go to great lengths to reduce their food spending. However, if you aren’t obtaining enough calories or nutrients, your health is jeopardized. Or you might forego a crucial doctor’s visit in order to save money. Spending less on these items can be harmful to your health in the long run.

Furthermore, saving should not take precedence over overspending on things that are important to you, such as visiting relatives or engaging in a cherished pastime. These are essential for your mental wellbeing. So how should you save so that you can get all the benefits? Here are some of the methods that experts want you to try.

Certificate of Deposit

Banks, credit unions, and internet financial institutions all provide CDs, which are time deposit accounts. A CD is a type of deposit that allows you to keep the money for a certain period of time while receiving interest.

Although a CD can be used to save money, it is not the same as a savings or money market account. You can, for example, withdraw up to six times each month from those accounts if necessary. CD accounts, on the other hand, are based on the presumption that you will not make any withdrawals until the CD matures. Creating a CD account is similar to opening a savings account in that you may be required to make a minimum initial deposit.

There are various reasons why you would choose to use a CD to help you achieve your financial objectives. Here are some of the most important advantages or benefits of saving money in a certificate of deposit account.

Ensure your safety.

CDs, along with savings and money market accounts, are among the safest ways to store your money. This is due to the fact that money held in a CD is insured.

If you buy a CD from an FDIC-insured bank, you’re protected in the event that the bank closes or goes out of business. The current coverage limit is $250,000 per depositor, per financial institution, for each account ownership category. The NCUA covers your money up to the same levels for federal credit unions and the majority of state-chartered credit unions.

Returns that are guaranteed

Because rates are often fixed for the whole term, it’s very easy to forecast how much interest you’ll earn over time with CD accounts. Calculators for certificates of deposits allow you to enter the amount you’re saving and the annual percentage yield to see how much your money will increase.

[joemoshe]

5 Investing Mistakes To Avoid for 2022

Investing is the main key to financial freedom. However, instead of making big bucks through investing, many people lose their hard-earned money instead. The problem here isn’t investing itself, but the way they choose and settle on a decision.

One of the world’s greatest investors, Warren Buffett, who was branded as Oracle of Omaha, stated two important rules of money. First, never lose money. Secondly, never forget the first rule. Yet, losing money is pretty difficult, especially when you’re just still starting out on your journey.

If you want to reach financial freedom much faster, here are the investment mistakes you should avoid at all costs this 2022:

1. Not paying attention to your mortgage rate

Houses are expensive. For ordinary people, it takes a lifetime to buy something as costly that’s why there are 30-year-long mortgages that are being offered in the market. A house is probably the biggest investment that individuals living from paycheck to paycheck can make.

When buying a house, the mortgage rates are always taken for granted. It’s rare to see people giving importance to a one percent difference in the mortgage rate, but you should take that one percent seriously and try going for better deals if possible.

Let me give you an example of how significant one percent is.

For instance, you are buying a house worth $300,000. If you would give a 20% down payment, your mortgage rate could be lowered down to 3% instead of 4%. With a 1% mortgage rate discount, you could save $134 every month.

At first glance, a hundred bucks don’t seem to be a big money, but if you would give it a second thought, it’s actually big money when to add up together— $1607 a year or $48,240 for 30 years. This is equivalent to an entire year’s salary for most people. So, if you could get that 1% mortgage rate discount, you could save a year’s worth of salary.

The opportunity cost of the money you could’ve saved is massive if you won’t just let it sit in banks. If you invest that $1607 a year in S&P 500, you are going to end up with $293,000, almost the same amount as the house you purchase, after 30 years.  

Hence, if you are not paying attention to mortgage rates, and not making any effort to lower them down, then you’re making the mistake of throwing away a hundred thousand dollars.

2. Not paying attention to your looks

People nowadays seem to give little to no importance to appearance when it comes to wealth building, but it actually matters. Here’s the truth: Beauty pays well.

This sounds a bit horrible, but studies found that attractive people do better financially, compared to those who look a bit inferior to them. This is a bit harsh, but if I come to ask you who would you trust more—a guy with messy hair, dirty-looking clothes, and long unshaved mustache, or a neat-looking guy, wearing clean clothes? We shouldn’t just by mere appearance, but I can bet you would choose the latter.

Several studies have shown that the better a man looks, the higher the starting salaries they receive, and the faster their earnings increase in their first ten years. On the other hand, a woman’s looks have little to no impact on their starting salary. However, they received a more significant improvement in salaries in the long run.

You can’t surely change your genes to look naturally beautiful, but there are a lot of ways available to look good. Try dressing up properly, fixing your hair, exercising, and grooming. You can make yourself look more attractive than you can imagine. Invest in your appearance.

3. You always have an option

We are all chained in the cycle of going to school and looking for a job that will put food on the table. This is how our mind was molded since we were young, so we think we have no other choice but to follow what everyone else was doing. But you know what? You always have an option.

It’s up to you if you are going to find a job just for the sake of making ends meet or choose to do something that is meaningful. Something that makes your heart run wild. You are not obligated to take out a student debt and go to college. You are not obligated to find a job. If you have an idea in mind of what you badly want to do, follow it.

4. Borrowing money to launch a new business

Many aspiring entrepreneurs believe that money is all it takes to start a business. That all they need is capital to begin. But that shouldn’t be the case, especially if you have no experience in running one. You will just end up with debts.

These days, there are several ways how you can start out a business with little to no capital. Only borrow money when you have a few dollars at best and come up with a strategic plan on how to expand.

5. Timing the market

If you are planning to enter the stock market, you should know that it is impossible to time the market. Despite the talks that we are on a bubble, no one accurately knows when that bubble is going to burst. So, rather than timing the market, you should look for strategies that you can use to yield profits.

One of the best stock market investing strategies is dollar-cost averaging. Through this strategy, you won’t need to time the market since all you need to do is invest gradually, hitting both booms and bottoms. If you are thinking that you’ll lose money when the money hit rock bottom, you are wrong. The overall market is rising, so you’re more likely to win than lose.

[joemoshe]

Make These 2 Investments in 2022 and Never Work Again

We can safely say that California is the home of millionaires since 44% of the United States millionaires resides in that area. Is this place truly a millionaire-maker? Or were they already a millionaire before coming into California?

Considering that Silicon Valley is the center of startups and innovation, it’s no surprise that many young talented individuals are moving to California. They head on their journey to compete for the most lucrative jobs available related to tech.

Being an engineer at any company can make a person a hundred thousand dollars, and that also goes with software engineers in California. In Silicon Valley, companies use stock options to pay for their employees.

For instance, you are a gifted, competent employee who works at Google. No company would want to lose talented employees because they are the heart of innovation and progress. So, to prevent you from leaving the company, Google could offer you a certain number of stocks to continue working in the company in the span of 3, 5, or 10 years.

The stock option that the companies put forward is the main reason why a lot of millionaires are springing up in California. Most stocks are tax-deductible, so everyone benefits. It’s a win-win situation.

However, it is important to take note that once you sign a contract for the stock option, you will not be able to leave the company until the contract expires. If you decide to leave before the agreed time, you won’t be able to use the stock option.

Having so much wealth in one state or from a few groups of people is nothing new. In fact, about 43.4% of the world’s wealth is possessed by only 1% population.

Some say that you have to cut off your budget for things that aren’t necessary and learn the art of sacrifice in order to reach financial success. But the truth is, you don’t need to deprive yourself of all the pleasures just to save a lot of money. You can become a millionaire without denying all the things you love.

Obviously, it won’t be an easy feat to join the world’s top 1%. Nevertheless, it’s not rocket science. There are legitimate investments that can make this possible. You have to particular industries that are going to dominate the future.

If you don’t want to work for the rest of your life, here are the five investments you should make:

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The information that will be mentioned below doesn’t guarantee success, but it has proven its capability to make millionaires in the past.

Climate Tech

The discovery of oil in the 19th century changed the course of the world. It ushered in the development of oil-powered vehicles like cars, planes, and rockets. It also steered the development of huge infrastructure projects throughout the history of the United States. As a matter of fact, oil was the commodity that created America’s first great U.S. business trust— John D. Rockefeller.

In 1913, Rockefeller’s fortune grew to $900 million, which is nearly equivalent to 3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the entire United States. Today, the value of 3% GDP of the U.S is $630 billion, which is still higher than Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk’s wealth combined.

Rockefeller’s oil empire has gotten so big that he has to break it down to 34 different companies. Even after several decades, his companies exist and are leading the industry. The oil industry has surely shaped geopolitics around the globe.

But this was all in the past. We are heading to the end of oil’s reign.

In 2019, oil reached its peak, and the trend in the oil industry is going downward. As oil prices continue to rise, the demand for a more economical option (e.g., renewable energy) will grow. This will give the climate tech industry a tremendous opportunity to thrive. Not to mention that it would also help in the worsening climate change.

The two mentioned reasons are the grounds why climate tech investment is one heck of a good bet to make.

The climate tech industry will flourish and shape the next decades just like how the oil industry did in the past 150 years. In fact, a lot of climate tech startups have already raised $32 billion just in 2021 alone. This amount is projected to increase tremendously year after year.

Healthcare

Pandemics shouldn’t be surprising anymore since they have been happening throughout history, but the coronavirus pandemic still left us astounded with its sudden emergence.

Nevertheless, the unfortunate disease outbreak taught us a great lesson: healthcare is gold, and everything we have built can vanish in thin air with just one snap if health is at stake.

Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine was perceived as a hoax by many when Covid-19 vaccines were still being formulated. However, Moderna proved these people wrong by creating a vaccine where the actual virus doesn’t need to be injected but uses genetically engineered cells.

People who have trusted Moderna and invested their money in it made huge profits for its successful venture. There are notable and well-recognized biotech companies you could invest in. There’s Pfizer and J&J, to name a few.

This is just one side of the story, though. The future of healthcare is more than just beating a pandemic. Several biotech companies are arising, signaling the bright future of the healthcare industry.

Looking at the course where applied science is heading, it may be possible to create a technology that could extend a person’s life span. If this idea comes to life, its hype will be widespread, and you could make a massive amount of money. After all, who wouldn’t want to live long?

[joemoshe]

3 Habits You Must Change to Create More Wealth

The wealth that millionaires all over the world control are massive. You won’t imagine the number of zeros in over a hundred-trillion money they have. Specifically, 173 trillion dollars as per Credit Suisse, eight times larger than the entire gross domestic product of the United States, which is at 21 billion dollars.

Unfortunately, about 83.9% of the world’s wealth was owned by the top 10% wealthiest people around the globe. This is how unequal the world we are living in is.

Even though we have reached milestones upon milestones, the vast majority of the world’s population is still living paycheck to paycheck. They are suffering from debts and are barely enjoying the pleasures that life has to offer.

People living below the pyramid only get to indulge themselves with 1.4% of the global wealth. You might hear screams of equality everywhere around the world, but seeing the statics, it would be nearly impossible to achieve. Or even if it does, it might take hundreds or thousands of years to transpire.

A person’s working capacity and willingness are one of the factors that can help them belong to the world’s wealthiest. However, we don’t work on the same level, so we don’t obviously receive the same rewards. Some work harder than others, some work a bit lesser, and some aren’t much interested in working at all. Factors like talent, skill, and so on.

There are claims that luck plays a significant role in getting rich, too. Back in the early 1900s and early 2000, the emergence of various tech companies is monumental, yet only a few of them managed to survive going through the mill.

If you would ask the thriving tech billionaires now, they probably wouldn’t answer that they were smarter or better than others. It was just their ideas perfectly targeted the future of technology or perhaps because they luckily found an investor before the market crash take place (like Amazon did way back).

No one can accurately predict when a crash will happen, nor no one knows what exactly the future of the internet would look like, but to sum up the biggest contributor to success, here’s a quote, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

What brings good fortune isn’t the luck itself. It is effort, dedication, hard work, and preparation that creates a favoring chance.

Keeping in mind that you don’t need to be a billionaire to experience life’s greatest pleasure is important. It takes a bit lesser than that. But you have to take the right road in order to achieve what you are aiming for.

Many would beg to disagree that there isn’t any shortcut to success, but there is— productive habits!

Productive habits can take you a step close to success and lead you to financial independence without giving you so much hard time. But what’s so endearing in being financially free?

The answer is pretty obvious. By having financial independence, you can have all the time in the world to do the things that you want.

However, it is important to take note that making money just for the sake of making money isn’t a wise move. The process of you getting rich should be a fun, exciting, and meaningful process. Your fire should be fueled by the desire to make the world a better place through your product or service.

It is essential to be as productive as possible because the more productive you are, the more time to spare you would have since you are taking full advantage of every passing hour.

Let’s set aside all these segues and get straight to the point. Here are the 3 habits that you should follow if you are serious about becoming financially independent:

Mental Toughness

Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus was not lying when he said, “It is not about what happened to you, but rather it is about how you react to it.” Although this might seem a bit vague, no one can probably deny that there’s some truth to it.

Mental toughness is what separates a successful person into a non-successful person. Successful people have the ability to set their minds and do things that will make them successful regardless of how tough the situation is. They don’t easily give out and come out with invalid excuses.

Have you heard of Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule? It asserts that it takes 10,000 hours to fully master a certain skill and expertise.

On your journey to reaching mastery, it’s quite difficult not to get bored since you’ll be doing the same thing over and over again. You’re eventually going to get bored, tired, and exhausted doing things repeatedly. This is why the people who are most likely to succeed are those with the mental toughness to overcome.

Whatever you do can turn into a habit. If you give up once, you might give up again, then it eventually becomes a habit and so you keep quitting in everything you do.

Mental toughness is a habit. If you train your mind to overpower the difficulties that it battles against, then you will get tougher and tougher as time goes by.

You have to engrave in your mind that it’s not about everything that happens around you, but rather about how you react to it. Life is full of misery and the challenge is to not give up and just keep moving.

Learn how to delegate

Some people don’t believe the famous adage that says, “No man is an island.” But the trust is, without the help of others, one cannot actually go far alone. The time and energy you have every day are only limited, and you cannot chop yourself to do the various task all at once.

Great things are usually achieved by a team, by more than just one person. Let’s look at the success of one of the leading branding companies in the world— Apple.

Steve Jobs was the first one that comes to mind whenever we’re talking about the prominent Apple brand, but it truly wasn’t him, but another person who come up with the idea of a touch screen. And if it wasn’t for the entire Apple development and designer team, Apple wouldn’t be where it is right now.

What we are trying to point out is that you need a team to achieve something big. You can’t make everything on your own, so you need to master the art of delegation. Everything that can be accomplished by someone else should be delegated because you need to focus on the creative part that no one else can do aside from you.

By chance you can delegate the creative part as well, then congratulations! This only means that you have established a business that works truly well even without you. It is the highest level of financial independence.

Being able to accept criticisms

Praises feed up our soul, making us feel good about ourselves. But the problem with praises is that it often does more harm than good. Yes. It gives us a momentarily wonderful feeling, but we usually lower our guards down because of these honors and recognition, thinking that we are good enough.

If you would only receive praises, you won’t be able to know the things you should be working on.

Criticisms are better than praises because this is where growth comes in. It allows us to get to know our flaws better, providing the opportunity to fix them

[joemoshe]

3 Money Habits That Are Keeping You Poor

Barely putting food on the table and struggling to work all day long just to spend all earning for the necessities can be exhausting. Being in such a situation can make you feel like nothing is working anymore, and it may appear like there’s no way out from living paycheck to paycheck. Don’t worry. You can escape from a dark financial situation.

If I may ask, what would you do to your money if, by chance, you won the lottery worth $1.5 billion? Although this may sound like a dream beyond reality, something like this actually happened back in 2016, when the biggest PowerBall prize in history was won.

However, since the prize was divided into three winners from three different states, they didn’t get to be a billionaire. And even if they did, the hefty taxes and other expenses that come along with the prize won’t let them get away with billion dollars that easily. Despite all the costly expenses, the money that will be left is enough to keep them wealthy for the rest of their lives.

If you placed the lotto prize on a good investment vehicle, its interest could provide you with a more lavish lifestyle that even some CEOs can only dream of. However, if you would look at the data gathered about most people who won the lottery, you will notice that what happened to them is the opposite— they went bankrupt.

Research shows that individuals who made fortunes by winning the lottery are most likely to wind up their money in just one year or less. But why do these instant millionaires have this tendency to lose their money real fast?

While a stroke of luck can make a person a millionaire, bad habits have the power to drag them down powerfully. Millions of dollars can easily distinguish in a single day with a destructive habit. So, it doesn’t usually matter how much money you make or have, but it is about how you manage them.

If you want to achieve financial freedom, then stop sabotaging yourself by keeping habits that are not good for you. Here are the five money habits that will keep you poor forever:

Not giving value to time

Time is among the best resources you could ever have. So, even if this isn’t a direct money habit, this is probably the number one reason people struggle financially. Every single minute you spend on something that doesn’t give you anything in return could have been spent on improving yourself or building a business.

People, especially the young ones, tend to spend time as if they have unlimited time. However, you should know by now that time isn’t unlimited, and no one knows when the gift of time will be taken away from them.

You don’t have all the time in the world, so begin looking at every hour you spend as the time that you will never have again. Either you take advantage of it or stay mediocre the rest of your life.

Letting money rule your life

This sounds a bit weird, but the more you run after money, the more it flees from you. Individuals who prioritize money tend to show off how much money they have, spending a hefty amount of money on things they cannot afford.

Most people who let money rule their life often live from paycheck to paycheck, sinking from debt just to look well-off and successful on the outer appearance. Yet, behind the “successful” facade is the truth that they are in deep trouble financially.

If you do anything for money, you’re most likely to miss valuable opportunities. It becomes relatively hard to see the bigger picture when you are too focused on money. For instance, what may not seem like a profitable business when you look at it short term, might be insanely rewarding in the long run.

Always keep in mind that money isn’t always the end goal. Life isn’t about making as much money as possible since money would not mean a thing if you were a breathless human being lying in the morgue. Treat money as a resource and not a destination.

Jumping from one get-rich-scheme to another

Individuals who get into a get-rich-scheme tend to jump from one undertaking to another with the hopes of winning the jackpot. These types of people are those who are always looking for a shortcut. They want the easy way to wealth and don’t invest a sweat in paving the way to their dream riches.

Although some truly hit the jackpot, the chances of you obtaining it is one in a million, or perhaps, a hundred million. If luck is on your side and you get to be that one person, good for you. Nevertheless, it would help if you always kept in mind that luck is not a strategy, and it will never be.

Stop wasting your time and effort on shortcuts, but instead, use your time wisely by taking courses that will help you gain valuable skills that can earn you big bucks.

[joemoshe]

3 Reasons Why Silent People are Successful

Success is often associated with an extrovert person because public speaking and networking are necessary to get to the top. This is why great speakers like Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison are the first that comes to mind whenever we hear the word ‘success.’

To be successful, it is important that you can speak with a conviction that people would want to trust, follow, and work under you. These people are so good at communication that they instantly turn a stranger into a friend. They can easily build a relationship.

However, speaking has two edges. While it can build a good relationship, it can also do more damage than good depending on the situation. Sometimes it is better to stay silent and listen, but some people don’t usually appreciate the value of silence.

Although silence can never be a skill you can boast of, it is a great habit that you can develop to lead you to success. According to studies, most successful people are listeners, which is the fruit of mastering the art of silence.

Some people are pushing that it is necessary for a person to be extroverted to be successful. However, some of the most influential and successful people today are actually introverts. There’s Mark Zuckerberg, Albert Einstein, and Bill Gates, to name a few.

Silence can be the best response in some situations. Here are the reasons why:

Your words will appear more valuable when you say less

There will always be someone around you who talks a lot. It can be your classmate, colleague at work, or a friend. Most often than not, other people rarely take these extra talkative people seriously because they talk all the time, and others get so used to hearing them.

Keep this in mind: Whatever is too common isn’t valued in a society.

Let’s take iron and gold as an example. These two aren’t that much different at all since they are both metals, yet the gap in their societal value is immense. Iron can easily be found anywhere, while gold is rare. This is the reason why we value one over another.

The concept of supply and demand is also applicable in terms of speaking. So if you talk so much (high supply), people won’t take seriously everything that comes out of your mouth (low demand).

Be careful about how much you talk. You don’t always need to speak out every idea that creeps into your mind. Try to create an aura of mystery around you by keeping your words open-ended. The less you speak, the more profound you will look.

Silence makes you unpredictable

When you meet someone new, it’s given that you’ll know nothing about them aside from the things they will say about themselves. It may be true when people say that “first impression lasts,” but don’t believe them when they say that “first impression tells so much of the real person.”

The truth is… the first impression seldom teaches a deep understanding of another person. It rarely talks about others’ real intentions, weaknesses, strengths, likes, dislikes, etc. This is why it’s pretty hard to joke around since you can’t predict how they will react.

On the other hand, when you know a person, you can freely and comfortably tell jokes at their expense without worrying about consequences because you can predict how they will react based on your past engagements.

The more you get to know a person, the more predictable they become. We are not telling you to stop befriending anybody just to be unpredictable, but you need to create the ‘unpredictable’ aura around you.

Think of it this way, if you seem too unpredictable, people around you won’t be able to joke and mess around you so quickly because they worry about how you might react.

You’re more likely to say foolish things when you talk too much

Admit it or not, you have experienced saying something that you have regretted later. This naturally happens, especially when you talk at the heat of emotion, perhaps, extreme anger or happiness.

Once you speak out a word, no matter how much you do, you won’t be able to take it back. You can try asking for forgiveness, utter your excuses, or try to make up for your mistake. But the moment you say a word, there is no delete nor rewind button. The things you say can never be erased.

Thinking twice before uttering any word is the best strategy to not make a fool out of yourself. By making an effort to practice silencing yourself, you can minimize the ruining of your relationship with someone else and the likeness of saying something that you will regret later on in life.

One of the things you should not speak out to others is your goals. Have you noticed that the more we tell others of our goals, the less likely we are to achieve them? It’s also a bit frustrating to say that you aim for something and not achieve them.

We all have the tendency to share our goals with other people. But you should also be aware that your friends might congratulate you on your goals, but no one will really care about them except for yourself. Why not let your goals speak for themselves?

According to research, it is better not to publicize your goals because you are more likely to lose the fire to achieve them. This might seem a bit strange, but this statement is backed by data.

In a study conducted by Peter Covitz, 166 people were asked to write down their goals. About half of the participants publicly announced their goal, and the other half remained silent.

People who have spoken out their goals to the public stated that they feel very closed to achieving them. Soon after, they were given a task that would lead them directly to their goal. In the task given, the only rule was they could stop anytime they wanted.

Surprisingly, those who were silent about their goals worked the entire 45 minutes with the thoughts that they still had a long way to go. On the other hand, those who have publicized their goal only worked 33 minutes on average and stopped.

Opening up your goals to the public will give you a fake sense of achievement that will spike up your pride, especially when your friends keep congratulating you. You will feel like you have already achieved them when in fact, you have not reached even half of your journey.

[joemoshe]

How AR and VR are Transforming the Future of Businesses

These days, augmented and virtual realities are critical components for businesses. Many business projects are benefiting from AR and VR. There are also a variety of training programs available to teach people how to use them.

In this section, we’ll look at how AR and VR can help businesses improve. You’ll need both your vision and your imagination to comprehend these changes. The article will go over current AR/VR use cases and how these two technologies can help your business.

Defining Augmented Reality’s Practical Uses

AR applications appear to be moving toward more practical business applications. Lacoste, a sportswear company, for example, provides an app that allows in-store buyers to place their foot on a specific point to view the shoes of their choice via their smartphone, displaying product details, custom sizes, and how it would look on customers.

The New York Times used an augmented reality app linked to the 2018 Winter Olympics to allow users to bring up athletes on the screen to explain their moves as they happened.

Furthermore, companies such as Warby Parker (virtual eyeglasses try-on) and IKEA (virtual furniture installation in rooms) enhance AR experiences without requiring specialized hardware.

VR in reality practice

We live in a time when virtual reality is becoming more than just a theory. Google, Facebook, Samsung, HTC, Huawei, and other tech behemoths create VR devices that bring realistic worlds to life.

For a few years, smartphones and headsets were the most common way to deliver a VR experience. This has been the most convenient way for consumers to experiment with virtual reality. The virtual reality industry is far more developed than the current augmented reality industry.

The necessary software tools and hardware platforms for creating an engaging VR experience are now available.

Because of the availability of more complex systems like the Oculus Rift, which is combined with 360-degree video, virtual reality experiences are increasingly finding new ways into our lives.

Role of VR in the military

Armies all over the world are using virtual reality (VR) for battlefield and combat training. Virtual reality can provide a realistic digital replication of complex environments, allowing soldiers to learn how to engage with the enemy while also dealing with external factors such as the presence of civilians and varying conditions such as different times of day and weather challenges. Soldiers can learn how to handle high-stress situations and improve a variety of skills, from effective communication to critical combat techniques, by participating in VR training.

It can also help them learn how to deal with hostile situations like suicide bombers or sniper attacks.

VR is being applied to military training programs that focus on a trainee’s ability to use specific equipment in their work, from haptic VR guns to armored vehicles, submarines that launch virtual torpedoes, and beyond.

The Royal Navy is also using virtual reality as an orientation training tool. Prior to boarding the Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) aircraft carriers, crew members can become acquainted with the ship’s layout, including the location of critical safety equipment as well as escape and evacuation routes. The training program also assesses the user’s ability to respond to emergency scenarios such as dealing with casualties, fires, and hiring pressure leaks.

Role of VR in business

People frequently associate VR with gaming and headsets. However, virtual reality (VR) is a technology that has real business value as well. Today, an increasing number of businesses are developing new and innovative techniques to incorporate virtual reality (VR) into their routine business processes in order to make their operations more productive and efficient.

Although it appears that the gaming industry is the primary beneficiary of this technology, VR is not limited to a single domain or vertical. Virtual reality has already caused havoc in a variety of industry sectors, including healthcare, travel, and business.

Impact of VR in sports

Sports is one of the areas where technology is being used most effectively and aggressively. We’re already accustomed to seeing augmented reality (AR) in sports. Consider watching football without a projected first-down line or watching hockey without puck tracking.

With the recent surge in VR adoption, the sports experience is being amplified and made more immersive in nearly every possible field, from consuming content to training and recruiting athletes.

In most cases, all you’ll need is a VR headset and an app to be transported to the stadium and look around for yourself as the action unfolds, all without leaving the comfort of your own home.

Psychological therapies delivered in virtual reality (VR) may provide a solution. Here are three ways virtual reality could revolutionize mental health treatment.

“On-the-spot” coaching

The most effective therapeutic interventions assist people in changing the way they think, react, and behave in the situations that they find most difficult. When we are in the same physical or mental state as when the memory was formed, we tend to remember it better. Because of factors such as cost and time, such active “in-person” coaching is uncommon in mental health services. This is where virtual reality can help.

Flexibility

Not only is virtual reality more practical, but people are generally more willing to enter virtual versions of situations that cause them anxiety because they know it’s only a simulation. It’s also easier to experiment with things that would be too scary or embarrassing to try in real life.

Automation

The ability to automate VR therapies is perhaps its most significant advantage. This means that in VR, you may be accompanied by a virtual coach who explains the therapy and teaches you the psychological techniques to try.

VR in medicine

Medicine has always been one of humanity’s most important industries. That is why scientists and technological innovators continue to work tirelessly to provide the healthcare industry with more accurate and effective solutions. Revolutionary technology not only saves lives but also allows them to be extended.

VR technologies have emerged as a promising field for improving medical training and therapy precision. For example, research has shown that using VR applications for laparoscopic surgery training improved educational quality in 74% of studies. Furthermore, 87 percent of studies found that specialists who trained with virtual reality improved their operational accuracy.

VR in Education

No technology can completely replace human interaction, but it can improve it. Virtual reality in education is being widely adopted by almost all students of all ages. Virtual reality is an excellent tool for providing students with a new perspective and real-life experience of the subject matter they are studying without requiring them to physically visit the location.

This can also provide students with firsthand knowledge of past events and allow them to examine them while still in their classrooms. Not only that, but students can have a virtual projection of their career options and engage in creative activities to make themselves more suitable in terms of skills and values.

Role of AR in Retail

Augmented Reality (AR) applications are becoming more popular, with virtual “try-before-you-buy” experiences ranging from previewing furniture and products in your home with everyday brands like IKEA and Home Depot to virtually trying on luxury fashion brands like Louis Vuitton and Gucci. AR, which was once considered a nice-to-have feature, has quickly evolved into a must-have technology for retailers.

AR in Navigation

The use of AR for navigation means it is a technology used to understand the physical environment and add virtual components, where those objects also follow the rules of physics so that objects displayed on a screen are visually comprehensible. Often, computer vision is used as part of that enhancement through techniques such as segmentation that detect and identify objects such as pedestrians, buildings, or other objects needed to inform navigation devices.

AR in Healthcare

More life sciences companies are utilizing augmented reality (AR) to develop new therapies by fusing the virtual and physical worlds. AR aids in the creation of rich, interactive experiences that demonstrate how new drugs and medical devices interact with the body. Using this disruptive technology, brand teams and content providers can provide a better way for their field force to engage healthcare professionals (HCPs). AR can also help HCPs explain new treatments to patients in a more illustrative manner.

AR in Customer Support

Product visualization – Using augmented reality to visualize objects can help businesses interact with customers in novel ways. AR/VR creates unrivaled experiences that expand product capabilities, provide more information to consumers, and increase customer loyalty.

[joemoshe]

5 Money Mistakes to Avoid in Your Twenties

2020 is surely an unforgettable year, not just because of the surprising entrance of the coronavirus pandemic but also because of how banks cope with it. Central banks all over the globe printed insane amounts of cash, injecting trillions of dollars into the economy. This crazy move led to inflation.

Some experts don’t really believe that hyperinflation is happening, but Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, presumes otherwise. The inflation record peaked in 2020, and Dorsey made his statement saying, “Hyperinflation is going to change everything. It is happening!” Several professionals have also warned people about its coming emergence.

Despite the fact that both oppositions are opinionated, what’s happening now clearly shows that it could actually happen. And we should take it seriously! It could, perhaps, bring more serve damage than the economic decline during Covid-19.

The reign of the dollar will end the very moment that people begin losing faith in it since no valuable asset backs it other than people’s support. Although we have no individual power over inflation, we certainly have control over our money.

While inflation is still not at its highest percentage, make your utmost effort to invest your money that will rise together with inflation. To kick off your financial expedition on the right track, there are particular money traps that you should avoid while you’re still in your 20s to be financially free. Keep your eyes on the screen!

Avoid gambling

You’ve probably heard the Korean hit series Squid Game unless you’re living under the rocks. If you looked deeply at the lesson it was trying to impart to viewers, you would realize that it’s trying to depict a person’s will to find the quickest way to wealth.

Hopelessness drives us to believe that we can take the ‘shortcut’ to wealth if we bet on the right horse, the right team, or whatever it is you are betting. However, the shortcut route isn’t for everyone.

Winning a high streak is only for the lucky ones. The probability of winning the uncalculated risk is only one in a thousand or even one in a million. This only means that you’re more likely to lose than win in gambling or betting.

Hence, no matter how sweet and enticing this get-rich-quick path looks like, avoid taking this path. Real wealth takes big efforts.

Avoid sacrificing your future for today’s sake

Never ever do things today that will negatively impact your life in the future. This trap is where most young people fall into. We want instant gratification. We want to enjoy life “today,” without thinking of the cost we need to pay 5, 10, or 15 years from now.

But here’s the question you should engrave in your mind: enjoy little today and enjoy a lot later?

Sacrifice yourself now for the future ahead might not make sense when you look at it at the surface, especially when you know that life is not guaranteed, and you can run out of breath anytime soon. Nevertheless, it would help if you also considered that spending money isn’t the only way to enjoy yourself.

Enjoying “now” doesn’t mean splurging money on things that give you temporal happiness. You relish what you have today simply by spending time with your friends. If you would only look back at your childhood, you would realize how much fun you had with your playmates just by doing superficial random things. You could still live like that in your 20s!

Even without a single dollar in your pocket, you could enjoy watching television with your friends, playing your favorite card game, or chit-chatting on spontaneous topics.

Or, if you don’t just want to enjoy your 20s but also make the best out of it, you can develop skills that will help you land outstanding projects in the future. You could also enjoy your hobbies and learn things you have always wanted to understand.

Avoid satisfying your earthly urges by spending money on trivial things.

Don’t stop yourself from learning new technologies

Not learning anything new, especially technology-related stuff, is one of the biggest mistakes that today’s people make as they get older. As we enter the elderhood stage, it gets quite difficult to use difficult-to-navigate gadgets.

In the past five decades, the world has drastically changed, having wealth transferred from one generation to another. Would this scenario probably be a repeating cycle in the years to come…or not? What am I trying to point out by saying this?

Families who have inherited the fortunes of the richest man in America are slowly losing their fortune. Yet, college dropouts like Mark Zuckerberg are continuously reaching new heights.

The difference between the two is that one kept on living under his father’s wings, while the other knew how to take advantage of the emerging technologies. If you stop learning the moment you get a little older, you will lose.

If you want to make a lot of money in the future, keep learning and don’t set yourself apart from curiosity.

For instance, the new arising technology is blockchain, and new cryptocurrencies are exponentially growing. Rather than ignoring these two because you have no single idea about them, you should try learning about them instead. This way, you’ll open up a lot of opportunities for yourself ahead.

Avoid being impatient

Impatience can hold you back in many different ways. It’s surely not a good character trait to have.

For instance, you know your original goal is worth sticking to. However, you wanted to take a shortcut to get where you wanted to be, so you switched goals and received less reward. Or, although you stick to your original goal, you’re still constantly looking for alternatives, which causes distraction from your work.

With impatience, your life will be filled with second-guessing, unnecessary agitation, and bad decisions. That is why you need to push yourself to become patient.

Let’s take the stock market as another example. The stock market is volatile and often fluctuates. Prices go up and down in just a tickling of a clock. The thing here is, you cannot buy stocks and expect yourself to become a millionaire the next day. You have to wait patiently for your funds to grow.

A patient investor would hold his stocks even when prices fall down and wait for the market to recover and stand on its foot again, giving him good margins in the long run. An impatient investor would immediately sell his stocks while panicking when stock prices seem to decline, earning nothing but losses.

Bitcoin has plunged several times, and every time it does, it reaches a new milestone. Those who have held on all those times profited a lot. However, being patient doesn’t guarantee investment growth. Analyze the stock and see if it’s also worth waiting.

Never ever invest all of your money

It’s no secret that investing is really awesome. But keep in mind that life is unpredictable, and anything can happen in a blink of an eye. Things could go smoothly today and go south tomorrow.

If you put up all your money in an investment without leaving cash at hand, you’ll end up acquiring debts that interests way higher than what your investment can generate in case an emergency happens. Hence, having an emergency fund before kicking off in the investment world is essential.

[joemoshe]

How to Make Boring Tasks More Exciting Through Gamification

Gamification is simply the process of motivating yourself to complete a tedious or time-consuming task by transforming it into a game or incorporating elements from games. It works by supplementing the reward for completing a task with something else.

It also augments the reward of completing a task with something more concrete, such as giving yourself a personal reward. For example, while having a clean house is the reward for cleaning your house, it isn’t enough for some of us to motivate ourselves to do it. By making it a game or incorporating elements from games, you increase extrinsic motivation by providing a more appealing type of reward.

Gamification is a strategy used by businesses to achieve a wide range of goals in a variety of areas.

Some Gamification Components- that you can apply to situations other than games are as follows:

Small increments of progress should be measured and indicated so that people can track and own their progress over time.

Multiple short-term and long-term goals – break things down into smaller pieces that people can choose and do at the same time to keep them engaged – such as main quests and side quests.

The rewarding effort entails giving people credit for trying while not punishing failure; if you’ve finished something, that’s fantastic! It serves as a minor form of enforcement.

Giving feedback – people can’t learn or improve unless they receive feedback; feedback helps them learn a lesson and improve by linking consequences to actions.

Adding uncertainty – rewards excite people, but uncertainty or an uncertain reward excites people even more. When we are unable to predict something, our brains light up, we become excited, and we return for more.

How To Make The Most Out Of Gamification?

Here is how you can be successful following the gamification method:

Learn how gamification works.

Gamification isn’t a gimmick; it works because it elicits strong emotions. Gamification makes tasks more enjoyable and engaging by incorporating game mechanics into non-game contexts. Consider how it feels to be transported to another world through an online video game.

You find yourself immersed in a storyline in which you must overcome incredible challenges. Gamification, at its core, is a motivational technique that helps people engage, feel motivated, and stay on task. Gamification simulates how you might interact with a computer or online game by providing a reward or incentive.

Understand the components of gamification.

Humans have evolved to be stimulated by problem-solving and learning, and gameplay excels at this, thanks in part to the use of small rewards for incremental progress. He divides gamification into a few key components:

Experience bars — These track our incremental progress and show us how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go.

Multiple long-term and short-term objectives — These are our main quests and side quests, which are divided into smaller tasks.

Rewards for effort — In a game, every bit of effort put in is rewarded.

Rapid, frequent, and clear feedback — This clearly links actions to outcomes, making learning easier and faster.

The element of uncertainty — This is the neurological gold mine: we keep going because we want to know what’s going to happen next.

Enhanced attention windows — Gameplay improves memory and confidence. Players in video games are more willing to take risks and complete difficult tasks.

Other individuals — Gameplay allows us to connect with other players online.

Create your own gaming system.

There are simple, low-tech ways to gamify your life and work to boost motivation and productivity. The first step is to define your objectives. These should be specific so that you know when you’ve completed each one.

Then assign a certain number of points to each goal based on how important (or difficult) each goal is to achieve. Keep track of your progress by writing down your daily accomplishments and comparing them over time.

Increase productivity by playing “mini-games.”

Gamification can be used to boost productivity by creating “mini-games” while doing chores or checking off daily tasks. Consider awarding one point for each dish washed, or five points for each page completed for a report or email sent. Can you beat your previous record of time spent in the grocery store? Alternatively, how quickly can you fold and put away a load of laundry?

By keeping track of these things, you can incentivize yourself to finish the work faster, and you’ll be surprised at how much more productive you can be. Checklists are another type of everyday “mini-game” that can help you stay on track. Ticking off checklist items produces the same amount of dopamine as winning a game.

Apps and tools for gamification should be used.

One of the most popular ways to use gamification is through online tools and apps that are designed to help you improve your life using gamification principles. There are numerous tools and services available.

An online tool, like a video game, can arouse curiosity and excitement. Using these programs gives you a sense of accomplishment, which is a very powerful psychological force that drives human behavior.

Workplace gamification.

We live in a time when businesses must constantly innovate and find new ways to stay relevant, or risk being sidelined and ineffective. To accomplish this, you must have employees who are on top of their game, who are motivated and focused on a daily basis. Because of a lack of engagement, more than 70% of business transformations fail.

Gamification could be a viable solution. It can help boost employee engagement by involving them in their projects and increasing their motivation to complete the tasks assigned to them.

The goal is to make work enjoyable and to make difficult tasks appear easier to complete. You can accomplish this by structuring work projects in the manner of game levels.

Gamification in business

Gamification is the process of using game-like mechanics to incentivize people’s engagement and activities in order to drive results. Gamification can be used in business to motivate employees to complete activities that result in more sales, leads, and meetings with qualified candidates. A gamification strategy is a process of using gaming techniques to motivate consistent participation and long-term engagement in something that already exists, such as a software application or online community.

However, there are risks, and going too far with gamification strategies can have a negative impact on business objectives. Let’s look at what works and what doesn’t when it comes to using gamification in the workplace.

Consider the big picture.

Don’t overemphasize the rewards.

Establish a level playing field

Don’t just recognize the top performer.

Create innovative incentives.

Monitor and report

Gamification to aid learning.

Gamification has also been shown to benefit learning by creating experiences that fully engage learners, hold their attention, and motivate them to continue striving to achieve a goal.

Gamification can make learning more informative and enjoyable, and because you’re more actively involved in the process, the information is more likely to stick in your long-term memory.

Gamification also lends itself to interactive learning elements, creating feelings of immersion and making learners feel more integrated into the learning process. When broken down, gamification can stimulate innovation by providing novel ways for people to become more invested in their performance and feel more motivated and focused on their goals.

[joemoshe]

How To Become a SHIBA Millionaire With Less $100

Will you believe me if I tell you that you could be a millionaire with only $100? Guess not. But have you heard that there is one investment vehicle that is making so much noise in the market for raising billionaires and millionaires in less than a year?

Shiba Inu is a jackpot for those who stumbled upon it before it took off. Nothing like this great investment has existed in the market before. Despite the fact that nothing about this seems extraordinary at first glance, you would be amazed by how this cryptocurrency has performed compared to other investment models you have heard before.

Let’s not be hypocrites. Who wouldn’t want some quick fortunes, right? This is probably the reason why more and more people are investing in Shiba with the hopes of making huge margins.

Just like Tesla stock, Bitcoin, Coca-Cola, and any other asset, Shiba’s price often fluctuates. Nothing out of the ordinary. But before it reached its outstanding success, it was just a mere thin line that was barely moving in the market until an anonymous investor put up $8,500 investment into the coin. This venture changed Shiba’s reputation, from someone hardly getting noticed to one of the most sought investments.

In fact, some claim that even Warren Buffett wouldn’t come close to this to this nameless investor since he managed to incredibly grow his $8,500 in about $6 billion in just a matter of months.

Nobody has a single idea whether the unidentified investor is among the developers or just some random guy who stumbled upon Shiba by chance. He’s the driver that brought Shiba into its all-time high price. Turning thousands of dollars into billions is just mind-blowing, don’t you agree? This guy must have been born under a lucky star!

Shiba Inu’s first real price spike happened back in May 2021. Though the increase wasn’t exactly a big deal, it has certainly drawn people’s attention to the coin.

In the following months, the price increased crazily by nearly 900%. And this sounds insanely unbelievable, but the coin’s price rose to 90.3 million percent in the last 12 months! This bizarre investment rocketing was only possible in the world of cryptocurrencies.

The hype around Shiba Inu (SHIB) is to the moon.

This is how you go from $8,500 to almost $6 billion! Surely, its crypto developers have gained more fortunes than they would ever spend for the rest of their lives. They have unquestionably won the lottery.

There’s just one thing that’s pretty hard to understand, though. Why on earth does hype involve dogs? Dogecoin, for example. DOGE is just like any other cryptocurrency in the market, but just because it was named after a dog, everyone went crazy and jumped on the bandwagon. Even the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, took an interest in it!

Whose whoever rode the big wave is lucky. They have turned pennies into millions. But if you would observe overall crypto investing, that’s not always the case! It isn’t always beds and roses.

The cryptocurrency space is yet to build a strong foundation for investment ventures, so the industry has plenty of fake coins. One recent example of a scam coin that emerged in the market was the Squid Game coin. At first glance, it doesn’t seem too unusual since some of its crypto predecessors (e.g., Shiba and Dogecoin) also started off as a joke, but it turned out to be a fraud.

We can assume that Squid Game’s developer is a genius! He took advantage of the momentum when the Squid Game show was trending all over the internet and launched a coin named after it. The launch took place in October 2021 for $0.06, and then it jumped to $13 until November, then to $36. The coin ravingly spiked to $2,861 before it swooped to zero.

Squid Game cryptocurrency hucksters reportedly made $4.38 million off the project. Unfortunately, those who never saw the plummet coming lost their entire lives of savings.

Now, what’s the lesson do can we get from this? Of course, the ancient-old investing golden rule, “Never invest money that you are not ready to lose in any cryptocurrency.” If you are going to make a crypto investment, you have to make sure that even if your investment goes south, the amount of money you’ll lose won’t greatly affect your life.

However, Shiba Inu (SHIB) is an entirely different case from the fake Squid Game coin since it has a market cap of $19 billion at the time of writing. This is quite bigger than companies in the stock market like Pinterest or Robinhood to give you a reference.

The cryptocurrency world is just too full of surprises to the point that you won’t be surprised when something unexpected happens. The joke was a bit unfunny, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? The cryptocurrency world is getting out of hand, and no one knows what’s coming next. Only time can tell if Shiba’s value can compete with Apple in the coming years.

If you are still doubting cryptocurrency’s capability to make you money, hear this out.

SHIB initially started its journey just to make fun of Dogecoin, but its valuation has now exceeded Dogecoin. Currently, Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) are worth more than 388 of the companies included in the S&P 500. This only shows that even Wall Street’s biggest investors are making as much money.

Getting to Know Shiba Inu (SHIB)

Dogecoin is established on Ethereum’s network. If you’re confused about how a coin is based on another coin, keep in mind that Ethereum isn’t just a cryptocurrency but is also a platform where one can build a crypto project or another currency.

Shiba Inu commenced with one quadrillion tokens. That’s worth 1000 trillion! Shiba’s price per coin was just $0.0000000001 when it was first launched. So, if you purchased $1 worth of Shiba coins back in January 2021, you would have become a Shiba millionaire, and a thousand dollars worth of Shiba coins would have made you into a billionaire.

However, you have missed the chance to overtake Elon Musk, and Shiba’s price has now grown to $0.00006610 per token, so $1 worth of Shiba will no longer make you millions.

There is a Shiba price prediction that you can consider.

If not billions, you would be able to make millions if Shiba reaches a $1 mark. Let’s not get that far. Even if the price hits $0.1, it would still be a good investment. However, most crypto investors fail to see nowadays that the price tag literally means nothing. It is more important to look at the market cap.

On the chance that Shiba crosses $0.01, its market capitalization would be worth more than four times what Bitcoin, the biggest crypto, is worth today. It’s also going to be worth more than Ethereum, the very network that it’s based on. But does this actually make sense?

Going back to the heart of this article— how can you become a Shiba millionaire with $100? Perhaps, you could wish on a genie or to your angels for SHIB to reach the $1 or $0.1 mark. This is the only option you have.

People who claim that Shiba could hit the $1 mark are either foolish or just creating hype around it.

[joemoshe]

Why You Will Regret Saving Money in 2022

Not having enough money to support yourself isn’t the only money problem people have. Sometimes, it’s having too much that it becomes relatively hard to manage. It’s better to problematize the latter, though. It would be better to concern yourself too much about finances than worry about how not to die out of starvation.

People become susceptible to a dire monetary situation because of their lack of financial literacy. We often have this belief in the back of our minds that we fully understand everything we need to do about our money when in fact, we don’t.

A study conducted has shown that the lack of financial education has cost Americans $415 billion in 2020. Just look at how high the cost of personal finance knowledge insufficiency is— so much money was wasted.

For some reason, some people are more inclined to believe that getting fortunes is a matter of luck than hard work. However, fortunes that came out of luck don’t last long. Lottery winners who made millions of dollars in a blink of an eye ended up losing their money because of fund mismanagement. Perhaps, it is because they don’t have a strong financial education foundation in the first place.

Research has shown that only 30% of Americans have a long-term financial plan. Only this small percentage are taking life seriously, but then people are pointing out blames on capitalists like Jeff Bezos, who they said have ‘corrupted’ the system. Although the system is truly far from perfect, you have no one to blame but yourself if you’re not climbing up the ladder.

One famous piece of financial advice you must have heard of is saving about 20% of your monthly income. This one seems to be one heck of good advice, especially because most Americans have less than $300 savings. But truth to be told, saving money isn’t entirely a good idea— if you spent your money last year, you’d be doing better than you are right now.

What we are going to talk about in this write-up will be in contrast to financial bits of advice you have heard before, but this would surely open up your mind as to why you’d regret saving money this year.

Saving money will earn you nothing

In the 1970s, putting money in banks could actually give people profitable returns of about 7% to 9%, but that high saving interest rate has changed over time. Although opening up a savings account is one of the safest investments, you’ll earn almost nothing from it while they make the best out of your money by lending to it businesses, mortgages, car loans, etc.

Banks in the United States pay savings account holders for just about 0.01% to 0.05%. So, if you put up your hard-earned one thousand dollars into a savings account, you will only earn $0.05 cents. Your money won’t earn even a single dollar!

In today’s society, banks no longer depend on depositors to function. Instead, they can borrow money from Fed at a very low interest and lend it to their clients for a higher price. This is why banks give little to no importance to depositors nowadays. From being an investment tool that gives a pretty good return, banks became just a place to let your money sit.

Since your money earns nothing by parking at banks, they eventually lose value over time because of inflation, especially now that the inflation rate is at a crazy rate of 7.5%. If you have decided to play safe and put all your money in a bank last year, then although the amount of your money is still the same, its value and purchasing power became significantly lower.

Median home prices were at $318,000 before the pandemic fully emerged in 2019, but it skyrocketed to $375,000 just two years later— about a 20% increase. If you spent your savings on any property, you could have earned a good amount of money.

The growth is not limited to real estate investments! In fact, assets in nearly all categories have grown, with some doubling in just less than 12 months! This is probably why cash-rich individuals have placed their bets on houses, invested in companies, and even spent fortunes on cryptocurrencies as many as possible. Savvy, wealthy investors know that keeping cash at hand and in a bank was a really bad move.

Investing in yourself (e.g., health and knowledge) could have even been a better idea than keeping your money in a place where growth is not possible. No one knows when the astronomical inflation will continue, and even Fed is a bit hesitant to make statements regarding the slowdown of the inflation hike. There are ways you could fight inflation, though.

What option do I have to make the most out of my money this 2022?

The only savings account that could give you back a good amount of money is a cryptocurrency savings account. These digital currencies are designed for us to get away from the centralized financial system of banks.

Unlike real-world banks that give little to no interest in savings deposited in them, decentralized crypto banks like Gemini provide an option for you to lend your cryptocurrency holdings and earn up to 8% interest.

The only problem with cryptocurrency investing is the highly volatile and ever-fluctuating market. The value of your 8% earned interest may vary depending on how Bitcoin is performing in the market.  

The best thing you have to keep in mind aside from not letting your money forfeit its value is not yielding your capital in your ventures. There’s no point in getting a 20% return when your money’s value can shrink to zero.

Another profitable business that you could venture into is peer-to-peer lending. But this, too, has its own share of disadvantages. Some people who have experience in this field of business said that you’re lucky enough to have your capital back when you lend it to your friends or siblings.

A famous quote reminds us of how bad peer-to-peer lending can get, “If you lend money to a friend, you’ll either lose the money or gain an enemy.”

Contrary to others belied, you must stop saving all your money if you want to achieve financial independence. Even if you save every single penny as much as possible, there’s still a limit you won’t be able to cross by merely saving. Rather than aiming your focus at saving money, set your eyes on increasing your income.

If you would come to think of it, being so thrifty can do you more harm than good. Since you are “saving” your money, you resort to low-quality food that could damage your help over time, reducing your life expectancy. You can just imagine all the money you saved while lying on a hospital bed.

Sometimes we get so obsessed with money that we forget the real purpose of it. We forget that money isn’t going to make us live forever, so no matter how much we save up, it’s useless if we don’t use it to fulfill meaningful goals and enjoy a quality life with our families.  

Every single day, hour, and the minute you have spent earning money could’ve been spent on something that will make your life happier and more purposeful. You’re very lucky if you find a job that meets your passion, but that’s not the case for most people.

Should I stop saving money?

You should diversify your money into savings and investments. Don’t pour it all out on your savings, and the other way around. Try to find the balance between the two.

Of course, although saving money won’t get you a return, you still need some extra cash that you can access anytime things go south.

[joemoshe]

How WhatsApp Makes Money

WhatsApp is among the most popular messaging application, having more than 2 billion end-users across 180 nations. The users are about six times the entire population of the United States. This multi-platform messaging application is available everywhere with Wi-Fi connectivity or mobile data connection.

Statistics showed that around one hundred billion messages are sent daily through the application. But one question remains in the mind of people around the globe: How does WhatsApp make money?

Social media outlets like Instagram and Facebook receive ad revenues, but WhatsApp doesn’t show any hint of advertisement in their platform. So, it’s a bit fascinated how Facebook paid about $19 billion to close a deal with WhatsApp, which doesn’t seem to have a way to make a single penny.

WhatsApp History

Former Yahoo engineers Jan Koum and Brian Acton are the men behind this brilliant messaging application. Compared to the traditional pricey SMS services, WhatsApp has no cost.

When the Soviet Union collapsed back in 1992, Koum moved from Ukraine to America with his mother. In order to keep the wolf from the door, his mother took up a babysitting job while Koum worked as a grocery store clerk. Aside from Koum’s bread and butter work at a grocery, he also spends time with computers.

Koum educated himself in programming with all his resources and climbed his way up into Ernst & Young (EY). EY sent him to work at Yahoo’s advertising system, and that’s where he ended up meeting his WhatsApp co-founder, Acton.

Although Acton and Koum are working for Yahoo’s advertising system, they aren’t actually so interested in ads. The two Yahoo engineers eventually followed suit of what they love to do and tried to apply on Facebook. Unfortunately, they didn’t get accepted.

Koum got interested in the potential of the App Store when he first purchased an iPhone back in 2009. This is where the two declined Facebook applicants found their way to success.

By the time they developed WhatsApp, BlackBerry’s BPM was the only free messaging application available in the market. However, this was only limited to BlackBerry users.

Acton and Koum eventually decided to settle on a free messaging app that can be widely accessible to any type of phone despite the several ideas they had in mind and named it WhatsApp, similar to the favorite greeting “What’s up?”

WhatsApp immediately caught the attention of the public, and so with only days after its launch, WhatsApp managed to get 250,000 users around the globe.

The good results that WhatsApp has shown in its early stages made the two founders trust in its potential. So, they convinced their former employees to invest around $250,000 in the company, which they used to expand their team.

But then again, the two founders of WhatsApp hate advertisements! They made a pact not to associate their founded application with ads and any other distractions. So obviously, although the free SMS app is growing drastically, their team isn’t making any money.

To sustain WhatsApp, they come up with the idea of charging end-users $1 every year for full access to unlimited messaging within the platform. Now, WhatsApp isn’t entirely free anymore, but users didn’t mind, and by 2011, it climbed up to the top 20 apps in the United States AppStore.

Two years later, WhatsApp users skyrocketed to more than 200 million monthly active users and, thus, earned $200 million that year. The company has only 50 staff and was valued at $1.5 billion.

Facebook took an interest in the messaging application and created Messenger. However, the application didn’t take off at an insane rate like the other messaging app. Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, decided to get WhatsApp for himself. Acton and Koum didn’t accept the offer immediately, though.

Another offer went in, coming from the search engine giant Google. Zuckerberg got so competitive that he offered WhatsApp $19 billion: $4 billion in cash, $12 billion worth of stocks, and another $3 billion if the founders would remain at Facebook for about four years.

The Vicious Business Model of WhatsApp

It isn’t true that no one gets to be a billionaire overnight because of Facebook’s offer. Acton and Koum did. But it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies for the two founders because Zuckerberg has different plans for the SMS app— he wants it to be free of charge again. Users who download the application won’t any longer need to pay $1 every year.

In just a matter of three years after Zuckerberg took over, WhatsApp’s users soared to 1.5 billion. Yet, despite the boom in the application’s users, Facebook desired a return for their $19 billion investment, which increased the tension within the company. They wanted to include targeted ads within the app and stamp out the end-to-end encryption that it became known for, which both founders opposed.

The issue got so big that Acton announced that he would leave WhatsApp, giving up $850 million stock compensation to start a non-profit company. This was to show his massive disapproval of Facebook’s management of WhatsApp.

In 2018, various media sources have let the cat out of the bag and broke out the news of Cambridge Analytica, which has acquired the personal information of around 87 million Facebook users from a third-party app.

Because of the unprotected security of Facebook software, it is relatively easy for a third party to collect data from users without their knowledge. This caused a big disappointment for Facebook users, and so many people have stopped publicly supporting Facebook usage. Acton used this unfortunate circumstance to criticize Facebook.

Now, let’s get into the main point. How does WhatsApp make money?

After all the hassles they went through, Facebook eventually decided to make WhatsApp free for consumers but added another feature— the WhatsApp Business. This is where Facebook gets a return from their Brobdingnagian $19 billion investment.

WhatsApp made it their goal to get as many as many people as they can into the platform because businesses follow wherever people are. The goal was to make people engage with airlines, banks, and doctors through the application. Users of business accounts get charged for less than a cent to $0.90 for every message that gets answered within 24 hours.

What entices businesses to get into WhatsApp business accounts is data since the platform provides statistics for business owners to use for their benefit. People with WhatsApp business accounts also have the privilege to build up a catalog within their business profile, allowing them to show off products and services.

[joemoshe]

3 Signs That Tell You’ll Be Rich Even If You’re Not Born in a Well-Off Family

After all the hustle and bustle, the life of your dreams is just right in front of you. This write-up was made to confirm the signs that there are a lot of good things in store for you and that you’ll make a lot of money in the future!

In all of the history of America, the boomers’ generation (1946 – 1964) was recorded to be the richest compared to the previous and present generation.

As the world recovers from the damages brought by World War II, the United States was engaged with exports to help other countries recuperate— which made them fortunes in return. This historical event was the reason why the British dollar got outpaced by the U.S. dollar as the world currency reserve. They had this advantage because the setting of the deadliest war didn’t take place in their country.

As obvious as it seems, the generation following them enjoyed a pretty high standard of living thanks to the inheritance they got from their predecessor. However, the abundance Generation X lavished themselves with didn’t get to reach the millennials.

Although millennials are getting to acquire higher earnings, they, unfortunately, acquire less wealth than the previous generations did back in their time. Millennials only own about 5% of America’s wealth compared to the 21% ownership of boomers before.

According to reports, about 600,000+ millennials are millionaires, having about $1 to $2.49 net worth in the United States. However, even though a million dollars seems to be a big thing, the amount doesn’t actually have significant value in New York and California.

If you are yet to be among the millennial millionaire, no worries, we all have different timelines. Making a lot of money isn’t all about following a step-by-step process that everyone talks about. Such an academic-oriented strategy won’t work that much in making money.

Now, how do we distinguish whether we are taking the right path? How do we know if the strategy we are following would actually make us money in the future?

The truth is…wealth and success are unpredictable.

According to statistics, 9 out of 10 startups fail. This only shows that there’s more likely a chance that you will fail than succeed when you open up a business. Success is beyond your control, but you can take measures that will increase your chances of getting to where you want to be.

Here are the signs that you will make a tremendous amount of money in the future:

You know how to tell stories

If you would take time to study the most successful companies today, you would probably notice that all of them are good at telling stories. No matter how great the product you come up with, if you have no idea how to market it, every sweat you pour in making that product will all be in vain.

One example of a great storyteller is Steve Jobs.

On his first-ever presentation of the iPhone, he began his presentation to anticipate what kind of product he would actually launch. He left people with the question, “Would it be an internet communicator? An iPod? A phone?”

Job did a good job in creating suspense through storytelling that the anticipation he created lingered and lasted long before the actual reveal, even though a lot of people started to catch on to what the launch will be about.

If you would browse through YouTube, it’s also quite noticeable that the most successful influencers are those who are able to convey a story that catches the interest of the audience.

You are always inquisitive

Today’s billionaires have one thing in common— curiosity. When you have a solution, you can do business. Curiosity is a driver of success since it is what leads to solutions to certain problems that are badly needed by the masses.

Before the internet reaches its maturity, people are required to search the exact website or idea they are looking for. There isn’t a thing called “keywords,” which would make things easier. Not until curiosity overtakes Larry Page and Sergei Brin, who got inquisitive, why finding things online is pretty hard. This led them to the creation of a multi-trillion company famously known as Google.

You admire successful people

Have you ever been jealous of someone because they have been reaching a series of milestones while you are so busy making ends meet every single day? Admit it or not, it’s truly frustrating to be in such a situation.

It’s easy to send hate and point fingers to people who are doing pretty well compared to you. Some successful people really did shady things just to get to where they are right now, but that is the cruel reality of life.

When you enter the business world, you enter a war zone, and war zones don’t follow any rules. It’s just a matter of crushing others or being crushed. There’s no other option in-between.

Don’t look down at successful people with skepticism of how they attained success. Instead, look up to them and admire how they were able to reach the top and follow in their footsteps.