Link Roundup #31: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1. How to Sell Absolutely Anything to Absolutely Anybody, According to Scientists and Sales Gurus – Inc

The ‘the single most essential insight culled from over 15 years of interviews with over 100 experts with thousands of years of cumulative experience’ boils down to:

1. Create trust
2. Link what you’re selling to the customer’s desires
3. Ask for a decision

How you put these three steps into action varies according to industry and medium and so many other factors, but there you go.

2. This woman retired as a millionaire at age 31. She says anyone can do it – The Lily

Kristy is part of the FI/RE – financial independence, retire early – movement. Note: anyone = anyone who earns a high income AND lives a very frugal lifestyle

I’m sharing this article because it explains the ‘4% rule’:

It comes down to the 4 percent rule: You can safely withdraw 4 percent out of your accumulated money each year, if it’s invested through index funds, and have that money last for the rest of your life.

To figure out your “FI number,” or how much money you need to accumulate before you can achieve financial independence, use the 4 percent rule of thumb: You take your yearly expenses then multiply by 25. My yearly expense is $40,000. That means my FI number is 40,000 x 25 = $1 million.

I’ve tried to calculate my FI/RE number before and found it hard. The 4% rule’s calculation is a heck of a lot more easier.

I also liked the part where she explains POT scores – Pay Over Tuition. It pretty much boils down to ‘pick jobs that pays well in relation to its learning cost’. Based on this, a doctor has a low POT score, while a plumber has a high POT score. Interesting way to look at it.

3. Single & Child-Free: Who’s Going To Take Care Of Me When I’m Old? – Refinery29

“First of fucking all, partnering and choosing to raise children (or not) are not decisions to be made with a focus of any kind on the availability of late-in-life services.”

OMG YES

The swearing aside, this article penned down a lot of my own emotions when it comes to children. Should I have them just so I have ‘family’ taking care of me in old age? That doesn’t seem right. Yet that’s pretty much expected in our culture, no?

So what do we do? “Maybe the real difference in being single is that I’m just going to have to put things in place for myself in advance, and I’m cool with that.”

Any of you are child-free, either by choice or otherwise? What are your plans? How early is too early to pick which nursing home I want?

4. How I am side hustling my way to financial independence – The Ladders

I thought her side hustle idea and execution is genius. She made $40,000 for selling temporary tattooes for bachelorette parties on the internet.

In the article, she outlined what she did to boost sales. Ecommerce sellers targeting the female audience should give this one a read.

5. ‘I Have Zero Motivation to Do My Job’ – The Cut

Can relate to the sentiment above? Read this advice column for tips.

6. Top freelance sites for finding paid work online – Android Authorities

You might have heard of Upwork, PeoplePerHour, Fiverr and Freelancer.com

But the rest is new to me. Who knew there are specific freelance sites for programming and 3D modelling work??!

7. I’ve Picked My Job Over My Kids –  The New York Times

What a thought-provoking opinion piece. The author argues that by prioritising her (fulfilling and well-paying) work, she sets a good example for her children. Rather than being resentful of ‘sacrificing it all’ for them.

And the decision was made not without guilt. She does her best to balance it all but still misses some key events.

Working mothers. I salute you. You make hard decisions every day. Society judges you a lot. And your only crime is that you don’t have unlimited time.

8. 4 Tested and Failed Side Hustles – The Money Geek

This is a good article! Failure is common yet it’s very rare to read about them.

The author tried and failed 4 types of side hustles:

• Transcribing audio files at Rev.com
• Selling on Amazon
• Direct Sales
• Selling baked goods

Find out why each of those side hustles didn’t work for her.

9. How Scammers Trick People Into Thinking They’re Wealthy – The Cut

Protect yourself against con artists!

10. The purpose of life is to be a nobody – Design Luck

Can I be honest for a sec?

Sometimes, when I think of my ability to inform and influence others through the RoR platform, my ego swells.

And I don’t like it. I feel this inflated sense of self-worth. I think I’m important. I get arrogant. I become a bitch.

I don’t want to be a bitch.

You have to know that what I’m feeling now is absolutely human. Everyone who has ever been complimented feels this. I’m reminded of that story of a great Islamic scholar who was found scrubbing toilets despite being well-respected figure.

Someone asked him why. He replied, “I was sitting in the masjid and I started to think I’m this great Qur’anic scholar. So I wanted to kill this arrogance.”

What are some other ‘toilet cleaning’ equivalents to practice humility?

What are some ways to be a nobody?

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That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on FB or Twitter.

To read past link roundups, please click here.