Financial Freedom With A Reverse Mortgage - How Can Using A Reverse Mortgage Help You A Little Better?

Financial Freedom With A Reverse Mortgage

You have hit retirement, but after a few years of gliding around the country’s golf courses, hacking your way to infamy, you realize that you and your retiree wife have precious little chance of achieving financial freedom as the money continues to dry up; only a good friend of yours suggests taking a look at a Reverse Mortgage.

“It helped me!” He assures you, and urges you to investigate. “It just might solve some of your money worries.” You head for the 19^th hole and ponder his advice some more.

The scenario you are facing is sadly all too common. Many people your age signed-up to the social contract: work hard all of your life, raise a family, pay your taxes, make sure you’re a law-abiding citizen, and the state will look after you in old age. You thought you’d get access to a livable pension, healthcare when you need it, and dignity in the last chapter of your earthly existence.

Now you’re finding that AFTER you have fulfilled your end of the bargain the social contract that everyone your age signed-up to has been TORN-UP. Of course, this doesn’t hit you until you’re on that golf course playing a game with your buddies and you’re wondering how you will find the $30,000 you need to have that hip replaced the doctor tells you, you need now.

If you go on the public waiting list you will be operated on sometime in the next 4000 years. They can’t exactly tell you when; mostly because you will almost certainly die before the doctor gets the scalpel anywhere near you. Can you cope with the pain you suffer already? What about waiting the rest of your life with the condition probably getting worse?

You decide you must do something. It’s not just the operation. You have other bills. It just seems to keep coming. And everything seems to be getting so expensive.

So, what is a Reverse Mortgage and how can it possibly help you?

Reverse Mortgages have become popular in recent years, and it is not hard to understand why.

Typically, if you are like many retirees all around the country, you have worked hard (probably since you were 15), paid your taxes, and may have paid-off your home (or be very close to it). The house you are in now is likely the same house you raised your children in; though it probably looks different from when you first moved in thanks to the extensions and renovations you’ve carried out over the years.

You likely have a ton of money sitting there locked-up in the value of your home. It is definitely worth more than when you first bought it, and when you find out more about reverse mortgages, you realize that you can have some or all of that equity turned into cash without needing to pay it back in your lifetime. The repayment will be made after the last person on the deeds passes away or moves house.

It’s not going to be your problem. Repayment will be made from your estate.

With a normal home loan you are given the money by your financial institution to buy the house you would like and can be approved for, and you pay interest and principal out of your income until it is paid-off when you are old. A Reverse Mortgage works totally differently.

The Difference with a Reverse Mortgage

Firstly, your home is assessed for its market value. This won’t be the amount you receive in cash, it is only a valuation. The financial institution will approve you for a percentage of the total value. Next they take closing costs out of the funds they give you, plus any taxes the government charges on this kind of loan. The balance they deposit in your bank account.

You are then free to use the funds for the needs you face every day – including that operation you need for your hip.

As you don’t make payment until you die or move out of the home, the interest continues to compound until the financial institution takes the home and sells it after you have breathed your last breath. Though this may upset your children, who may have hoped to use an inheritance to place a down-payment on their own real estate, or to put towards a Himalayan Yak farming investment some lunatic on YouTube convinced them was a sure thing.

Reverse Mortgages make sense for a few different reasons. Firstly, if the children are grown-up and moved out – as they likely are – it is very likely you have over-capitalized your living arrangements. Your home is bigger than you need, but still performs better in the real estate market than one bedroom apartments. So, extracting that capital via a Reverse Mortgage and using it for your needs makes perfect sense.

Secondly, is there any other way you are likely able to earn an income. For many who have reached retirement age it is almost impossible to find work. Health and mobility may be a problem in this regard. You could also find it difficult to have an employer take you on because of rampant age discrimination in the workplace. We like to think it doesn’t happen; that laws are in place to stop that. But it does happen, and it’s not your fault.

Why put yourself through that?! Accessing your home equity may just top-up your retirement savings enough to give you all that you need.

Also, why leave it for the kids to fight over? An old saying goes, “Where there’s a will there’s a relative.” It can be sickening to see family torn apart through fighting over deceased estates. Lawyers are more than happy to see most of the value of your estate eaten up through fees your kids will pay as they slug it out in court to try and get more than you told them they would be receiving.

You can avoid that by using your home equity for your present needs via a Reverse Mortgage.

Before deciding to use a Reverse Mortgage make sure you see your financial planner. They can take you through the pros and cons; as well as help you set a plan for your life should you be approved for a Reverse Mortgage. Also take time to let your family know what you are doing and why. They will probably see the reason and logic behind taking this step when you explain it.

After all, they wouldn’t want you to be in pain for the rest of your life waiting to have a hip replacement!

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

Financial Freedom With A Reverse Mortgage - How Can Using A Reverse Mortgage Help You A Little Better?

Financial Freedom With A Reverse Mortgage - How Can Using A Reverse Mortgage Help You A Little Better?

Financial Freedom With A Reverse Mortgage

You have hit retirement, but after a few years of gliding around the country’s golf courses, hacking your way to infamy, you realize that you and your retiree wife have precious little chance of achieving financial freedom as the money continues to dry up; only a good friend of yours suggests taking a look at a Reverse Mortgage.

“It helped me!” He assures you, and urges you to investigate. “It just might solve some of your money worries.” You head for the 19^th hole and ponder his advice some more.

The scenario you are facing is sadly all too common. Many people your age signed-up to the social contract: work hard all of your life, raise a family, pay your taxes, make sure you’re a law-abiding citizen, and the state will look after you in old age. You thought you’d get access to a livable pension, healthcare when you need it, and dignity in the last chapter of your earthly existence.

Now you’re finding that AFTER you have fulfilled your end of the bargain the social contract that everyone your age signed-up to has been TORN-UP. Of course, this doesn’t hit you until you’re on that golf course playing a game with your buddies and you’re wondering how you will find the $30,000 you need to have that hip replaced the doctor tells you, you need now.

If you go on the public waiting list you will be operated on sometime in the next 4000 years. They can’t exactly tell you when; mostly because you will almost certainly die before the doctor gets the scalpel anywhere near you. Can you cope with the pain you suffer already? What about waiting the rest of your life with the condition probably getting worse?

You decide you must do something. It’s not just the operation. You have other bills. It just seems to keep coming. And everything seems to be getting so expensive.

So, what is a Reverse Mortgage and how can it possibly help you?

Reverse Mortgages have become popular in recent years, and it is not hard to understand why.

Typically, if you are like many retirees all around the country, you have worked hard (probably since you were 15), paid your taxes, and may have paid-off your home (or be very close to it). The house you are in now is likely the same house you raised your children in; though it probably looks different from when you first moved in thanks to the extensions and renovations you’ve carried out over the years.

You likely have a ton of money sitting there locked-up in the value of your home. It is definitely worth more than when you first bought it, and when you find out more about reverse mortgages, you realize that you can have some or all of that equity turned into cash without needing to pay it back in your lifetime. The repayment will be made after the last person on the deeds passes away or moves house.

It’s not going to be your problem. Repayment will be made from your estate.

With a normal home loan you are given the money by your financial institution to buy the house you would like and can be approved for, and you pay interest and principal out of your income until it is paid-off when you are old. A Reverse Mortgage works totally differently.

The Difference with a Reverse Mortgage

Firstly, your home is assessed for its market value. This won’t be the amount you receive in cash, it is only a valuation. The financial institution will approve you for a percentage of the total value. Next they take closing costs out of the funds they give you, plus any taxes the government charges on this kind of loan. The balance they deposit in your bank account.

You are then free to use the funds for the needs you face every day – including that operation you need for your hip.

As you don’t make payment until you die or move out of the home, the interest continues to compound until the financial institution takes the home and sells it after you have breathed your last breath. Though this may upset your children, who may have hoped to use an inheritance to place a down-payment on their own real estate, or to put towards a Himalayan Yak farming investment some lunatic on YouTube convinced them was a sure thing.

Reverse Mortgages make sense for a few different reasons. Firstly, if the children are grown-up and moved out – as they likely are – it is very likely you have over-capitalized your living arrangements. Your home is bigger than you need, but still performs better in the real estate market than one bedroom apartments. So, extracting that capital via a Reverse Mortgage and using it for your needs makes perfect sense.

Secondly, is there any other way you are likely able to earn an income. For many who have reached retirement age it is almost impossible to find work. Health and mobility may be a problem in this regard. You could also find it difficult to have an employer take you on because of rampant age discrimination in the workplace. We like to think it doesn’t happen; that laws are in place to stop that. But it does happen, and it’s not your fault.

Why put yourself through that?! Accessing your home equity may just top-up your retirement savings enough to give you all that you need.

Also, why leave it for the kids to fight over? An old saying goes, “Where there’s a will there’s a relative.” It can be sickening to see family torn apart through fighting over deceased estates. Lawyers are more than happy to see most of the value of your estate eaten up through fees your kids will pay as they slug it out in court to try and get more than you told them they would be receiving.

You can avoid that by using your home equity for your present needs via a Reverse Mortgage.

Before deciding to use a Reverse Mortgage make sure you see your financial planner. They can take you through the pros and cons; as well as help you set a plan for your life should you be approved for a Reverse Mortgage. Also take time to let your family know what you are doing and why. They will probably see the reason and logic behind taking this step when you explain it.

After all, they wouldn’t want you to be in pain for the rest of your life waiting to have a hip replacement!

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

Financial Freedom With A Reverse Mortgage - How Can Using A Reverse Mortgage Help You A Little Better?

Defining Financial Freedom - Towards And Understanding Of Achieving Financial Freedom

Can you imagine having financial freedom and what is defining financial freedom mean to us? What a feeling that must be like! Someday, somehow we say to ourselves, we’ll get there. “Not sure how,” you may say to yourself, “but I’ll do it. I swear!” Then what happens?!

Usually absolutely, p

recisely, NOTHING!

It just NEVER HAPPENS!

What is Financial Freedom anyway? And why is it such a huge, important thing?

For most of us our lives are just like a bad month on the stock exchange. We are doing okay and then we’re not doing so okay? It’s up, it’s down. We make some money, then we lose some money – and boy don’t we feel like we’ve all lost a bit lately!

It drives people crazy. “Surely,” we reflect, “there has to be a better way!”

One thing we need to learn about financial freedom is that it means something different for everyone.  For some it may mean being able to launch a Bell 505 Jetranger Helo from the backyard of their McMansion. Others may want a sports car for the weekend. Or perhaps the goal is more modest – pay all the bills and have 6 month’s income in the bank.

Whatever your financial goal is achieving it may be your definition of financial freedom.

Financial freedom, though, is not to be equated with just simply having more money. There are way TOO MANY people who earn $150,000 per year and still live from one payday to the next payday.

Doesn’t that sound ludicrous?!

Is Retirement Financial Freedom?

When we are young we are told we should execute our life plan a little like this: study hard to go to a good university, get a good job, get married, buy a house, get a border collie to take for walks to the park on cold winter’s mornings, get a promotion and make more money, buy a larger house, pay for your kid’s schooling and higher education…and then one day when we have been around the sun around  65 times we get to experience, finally, begrudgingly, financial freedom.

You would be living the dream, wouldn’t you say?

Yet unfortunately, taking the route outlined above will NOT even see you reach financial freedom. Instead this path often only leads to never-ending debt and NO RETIREMENT!

Many people, when faced with the stark reality that there is no money in the kitty to retire on simply rationalize it away.

“Oh well, “they tell themselves, “I’ll just work for longer to get out of the mess!”

The only problem is they get there and they find out that they can’t work any longer. Illness and impairment strikes them and they just simply can’t work anymore. Or the job market turns against them, being hostile to employing older workers.

It’s a reality TOO MANY good people are facing right now!

So, the first thing to realize is that financial freedom is not about having more money, rather it is about having the freedom to be what you want to be and do what you want to do with your life. Above all it’s a mindset issue. You need to become a different person than you are right now.

Take classes, read books, attend seminars, talk to people who have achieved what you’re trying to achieve. Stay alive to ideas and opportunities. Take educated risks to get you moving toward financial goals that allow you to live better NOW not in some distant future that never arrives.

If you have never read his books on the subject of financial freedom, Robert T Kyosaki, author of books such as Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Cash Flow Quadrant and Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing, it would be a good idea to browse your local library for a copy. Start with Robert’s first book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, because it can help with changing your MONEY MINDSET.

One area Kyosaki suggests you can achieve movement towards your goals in is in turning your earned income into a source of passive income. Robert’s advice in Rich Dad, Poor Dad is around real estate investing. Learning about every aspect of real estate investing allowed Kyosaki, and some of the friends he has advised, to make good steady passive income from cleverly structured investments.

For you though, you may have other ideas. Maybe real estate doesn’t interest you. If you’re not into it, it will make it harder learning all you need to in order to be successful at it.

Robert’s main advice is to increase your sources of passive income; income that you don’t require much input to receive. The idea is, while you are sleeping you are earning. That’s the beauty of passive income.

Kyosaki is one of a number of very highly-regarded authors on the subject of financial freedom. Read a ton of what is out there from many more authors. It’s better to have too much knowledge when you need it rather than need to know something and have no knowledge of it at all.

The major change to achieve financial freedom lies with YOU!

Go and kick some goals!!

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

Defining Financial Freedom - Towards And Understanding Of Achieving Financial Freedom

Defining Financial Freedom - Towards And Understanding Of Achieving Financial Freedom

Can you imagine having financial freedom and what is defining financial freedom mean to us? What a feeling that must be like! Someday, somehow we say to ourselves, we’ll get there. “Not sure how,” you may say to yourself, “but I’ll do it. I swear!” Then what happens?!

Usually absolutely, p

recisely, NOTHING!

It just NEVER HAPPENS!

What is Financial Freedom anyway? And why is it such a huge, important thing?

For most of us our lives are just like a bad month on the stock exchange. We are doing okay and then we’re not doing so okay? It’s up, it’s down. We make some money, then we lose some money – and boy don’t we feel like we’ve all lost a bit lately!

It drives people crazy. “Surely,” we reflect, “there has to be a better way!”

One thing we need to learn about financial freedom is that it means something different for everyone.  For some it may mean being able to launch a Bell 505 Jetranger Helo from the backyard of their McMansion. Others may want a sports car for the weekend. Or perhaps the goal is more modest – pay all the bills and have 6 month’s income in the bank.

Whatever your financial goal is achieving it may be your definition of financial freedom.

Financial freedom, though, is not to be equated with just simply having more money. There are way TOO MANY people who earn $150,000 per year and still live from one payday to the next payday.

Doesn’t that sound ludicrous?!

Is Retirement Financial Freedom?

When we are young we are told we should execute our life plan a little like this: study hard to go to a good university, get a good job, get married, buy a house, get a border collie to take for walks to the park on cold winter’s mornings, get a promotion and make more money, buy a larger house, pay for your kid’s schooling and higher education…and then one day when we have been around the sun around  65 times we get to experience, finally, begrudgingly, financial freedom.

You would be living the dream, wouldn’t you say?

Yet unfortunately, taking the route outlined above will NOT even see you reach financial freedom. Instead this path often only leads to never-ending debt and NO RETIREMENT!

Many people, when faced with the stark reality that there is no money in the kitty to retire on simply rationalize it away.

“Oh well, “they tell themselves, “I’ll just work for longer to get out of the mess!”

The only problem is they get there and they find out that they can’t work any longer. Illness and impairment strikes them and they just simply can’t work anymore. Or the job market turns against them, being hostile to employing older workers.

It’s a reality TOO MANY good people are facing right now!

So, the first thing to realize is that financial freedom is not about having more money, rather it is about having the freedom to be what you want to be and do what you want to do with your life. Above all it’s a mindset issue. You need to become a different person than you are right now.

Take classes, read books, attend seminars, talk to people who have achieved what you’re trying to achieve. Stay alive to ideas and opportunities. Take educated risks to get you moving toward financial goals that allow you to live better NOW not in some distant future that never arrives.

If you have never read his books on the subject of financial freedom, Robert T Kyosaki, author of books such as Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Cash Flow Quadrant and Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing, it would be a good idea to browse your local library for a copy. Start with Robert’s first book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, because it can help with changing your MONEY MINDSET.

One area Kyosaki suggests you can achieve movement towards your goals in is in turning your earned income into a source of passive income. Robert’s advice in Rich Dad, Poor Dad is around real estate investing. Learning about every aspect of real estate investing allowed Kyosaki, and some of the friends he has advised, to make good steady passive income from cleverly structured investments.

For you though, you may have other ideas. Maybe real estate doesn’t interest you. If you’re not into it, it will make it harder learning all you need to in order to be successful at it.

Robert’s main advice is to increase your sources of passive income; income that you don’t require much input to receive. The idea is, while you are sleeping you are earning. That’s the beauty of passive income.

Kyosaki is one of a number of very highly-regarded authors on the subject of financial freedom. Read a ton of what is out there from many more authors. It’s better to have too much knowledge when you need it rather than need to know something and have no knowledge of it at all.

The major change to achieve financial freedom lies with YOU!

Go and kick some goals!!

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

Defining Financial Freedom - Towards And Understanding Of Achieving Financial Freedom

Can Eating A Lot Of Sugar Cause Diabetes? A Common Misunderstanding Cleared-Up

Public health messages have bombarded us in recent times advising us all to be cautious with our consumption sugar-filled food and drink, but, what are the real risks and can eating a lot of sugar actually cause diabetes? As it turns out the picture is less clear than health advisors would like us to believe. Public health authorities are not wrong in identifying the link between Type 2 Diabetes and sugar. After all, Type 2 Diabetes is a condition where the body fails to assimilate carbohydrates properly. For the diabetic, this causes a range of problems that are difficult to deal with.

Some of the common problems that diabetics face are high blood glucose levels (which, when extremely high can cause coma or death), and because of this a range of other associated health problems such as:

• Polyuria, where a diabetic feels the urge to go to the toilet frequently. For the diabetic, this can be maddening as very often it occurs at night when the diabetic patient is trying to sleep;


• Polydipsia, involves constant thirst;


• Prone to becoming dehydrated;


• Neuropathy, where painful tingling and burning sensations affect the feet and hands;


• High blood pressure and increased risk of cardio-vascular disease and stroke as a result;


• Macular degeneration and eyesight loss;


• Extreme fatigue;


• Higher risk of developing Obstructive Sleep Apnoea;


• Damage to internal organs such as; liver, kidneys, pancreas and gallbladder;


• Skin problems like the development of skin tags, brittle skin, lesions and serious infections like gangrene.

As you can imagine the life of a diabetic is not always very nice. You are definitely better off without Type 2 Diabetes! But the condition is manageable, so, your life is not over if a diagnosis comes your way.

Tackling the ‘Too Much Sugar’ Myth

Diabetic patients often present to medical practitioners obese and overweight. Many people, including sometimes even doctors who are less knowledgeable about the disease, think that obesity is the cause of diabetes. Further, they may even assume that it is the diet of the patient that is the cause of diabetes.

And this is where the misunderstanding about sugar and its role in diabetes is a problem.

Sugar is found in some form in just about everything. It’s in fruit and vegetables, dairy products, and is also found added to many manufactured, processed foods.

It is not the sugar directly which causes diabetes. However, if you eat too many unhealthy foods that are high in calories you risk piling on weight. Weight gain and obesity are risk factors for diabetes.

The picture we have at this point is still not clear, though. Let us explain further!

Obesity and weight gain is NOT itself responsible for being diagnosed with diabetes. It is the other way around!

Diabetes is a disease where the body cannot produce enough insulin, and the cells in the bloodstream responsible for accepting insulin don’t work properly. The result is high blood glucose levels, the cells of the body not receiving energy (and as a consequence the patient feeling tired), and glucose being stored as adipose (fatty) tissue.

Diabetes is responsible for weight gain, the inability of the patient to lose weight, tiredness and lethargy, and the development of cardio-vascular pathology in the patient.

So, rather than eating too much sugar causing diabetes, which is a myth that has a stronghold on public opinions, diabetes is itself responsible for the body’s abnormal reaction to, and assimilation of sugar in its many and varied forms.

Finally, that leads us to the real culprit in the diabetes problem: genetics. In order for you to get diabetes, you must have the gene for it. Diabetics often have family histories of the disease. If you have a mother, father, cousin, uncle, or grandparent who has experienced diabetes you are approximately 50% more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes. Combined with this, if you also eat unhealthy and don’t exercise your risk of getting diabetes increases yet again.

The good news is, even if you do have the wrong genetics that doesn’t necessarily mean you are a sitting duck for a diabetes diagnosis. Without the right environmental conditions, the diabetes gene may not find its expression in you. That means if you drink plenty of water, eat a healthy low-Glycaemic Index diet, and get plenty of exercise YOU MAY NEVER BECOME DIABETIC.

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

Can Eating A Lot Of Sugar Cause Diabetes? A Common Misunderstanding Cleared-Up

Can Eating A Lot Of Sugar Cause Diabetes? A Common Misunderstanding Cleared-Up

Public health messages have bombarded us in recent times advising us all to be cautious with our consumption sugar-filled food and drink, but, what are the real risks and can eating a lot of sugar actually cause diabetes? As it turns out the picture is less clear than health advisors would like us to believe. Public health authorities are not wrong in identifying the link between Type 2 Diabetes and sugar. After all, Type 2 Diabetes is a condition where the body fails to assimilate carbohydrates properly. For the diabetic, this causes a range of problems that are difficult to deal with.

Some of the common problems that diabetics face are high blood glucose levels (which, when extremely high can cause coma or death), and because of this a range of other associated health problems such as:

• Polyuria, where a diabetic feels the urge to go to the toilet frequently. For the diabetic, this can be maddening as very often it occurs at night when the diabetic patient is trying to sleep;


• Polydipsia, involves constant thirst;


• Prone to becoming dehydrated;


• Neuropathy, where painful tingling and burning sensations affect the feet and hands;


• High blood pressure and increased risk of cardio-vascular disease and stroke as a result;


• Macular degeneration and eyesight loss;


• Extreme fatigue;


• Higher risk of developing Obstructive Sleep Apnoea;


• Damage to internal organs such as; liver, kidneys, pancreas and gallbladder;


• Skin problems like the development of skin tags, brittle skin, lesions and serious infections like gangrene.

As you can imagine the life of a diabetic is not always very nice. You are definitely better off without Type 2 Diabetes! But the condition is manageable, so, your life is not over if a diagnosis comes your way.

Tackling the ‘Too Much Sugar’ Myth

Diabetic patients often present to medical practitioners obese and overweight. Many people, including sometimes even doctors who are less knowledgeable about the disease, think that obesity is the cause of diabetes. Further, they may even assume that it is the diet of the patient that is the cause of diabetes.

And this is where the misunderstanding about sugar and its role in diabetes is a problem.

Sugar is found in some form in just about everything. It’s in fruit and vegetables, dairy products, and is also found added to many manufactured, processed foods.

It is not the sugar directly which causes diabetes. However, if you eat too many unhealthy foods that are high in calories you risk piling on weight. Weight gain and obesity are risk factors for diabetes.

The picture we have at this point is still not clear, though. Let us explain further!

Obesity and weight gain is NOT itself responsible for being diagnosed with diabetes. It is the other way around!

Diabetes is a disease where the body cannot produce enough insulin, and the cells in the bloodstream responsible for accepting insulin don’t work properly. The result is high blood glucose levels, the cells of the body not receiving energy (and as a consequence the patient feeling tired), and glucose being stored as adipose (fatty) tissue.

Diabetes is responsible for weight gain, the inability of the patient to lose weight, tiredness and lethargy, and the development of cardio-vascular pathology in the patient.

So, rather than eating too much sugar causing diabetes, which is a myth that has a stronghold on public opinions, diabetes is itself responsible for the body’s abnormal reaction to, and assimilation of sugar in its many and varied forms.

Finally, that leads us to the real culprit in the diabetes problem: genetics. In order for you to get diabetes, you must have the gene for it. Diabetics often have family histories of the disease. If you have a mother, father, cousin, uncle, or grandparent who has experienced diabetes you are approximately 50% more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes. Combined with this, if you also eat unhealthy and don’t exercise your risk of getting diabetes increases yet again.

The good news is, even if you do have the wrong genetics that doesn’t necessarily mean you are a sitting duck for a diabetes diagnosis. Without the right environmental conditions, the diabetes gene may not find its expression in you. That means if you drink plenty of water, eat a healthy low-Glycaemic Index diet, and get plenty of exercise YOU MAY NEVER BECOME DIABETIC.

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

Can Eating A Lot Of Sugar Cause Diabetes? A Common Misunderstanding Cleared-Up

Can You Get Diabetes From Eating Too Much Fruit? More Myths About Diabetes Dispelled

We are all being told to eat more healthy – consume less processed foods and take-away, and eat more lean meat, fruits and vegetables – but could we be doing more damage to ourselves than good; could we risk getting diabetes from eating too much fruit?

It’s a crazy thought! So many of us have taken the time to count calories on food packets, stay away from evil fast-food outlets, reduce our alcohol consumption, exercise more, and eat more fresh fruit. The notion that we may, in fact, be poisoning ourselves or placing ourselves at greater risk of long-term disease – after we listened obediently to all the health messages – is enough to make your blood boil.

Is There Any Truth to Rumours You Can Get Diabetes from Eating Too Much Fruit?

One of the most persistent tales currently doing the rounds in health mythology is the idea that eating fruit can make you a diabetic.

The gestation of this idea comes from the association between sugar and diabetes. Diabetics have problems with blood glucose (sugar) levels, where the body doesn’t produce enough insulin, or the cells of the body in the bloodstream no longer recognize insulin, and as a consequence too much sugar persists in the bloodstream.

Beyond this understanding, higher blood glucose levels lead to fatigue in the diabetic patient and, unable to burn the blood glucose in cellular activity, the energy is stored in body fat. Obesity can be a very obvious visual sign that someone may have diabetes.

The myth comes into play because people attribute being overweight as being a causal factor for having diabetes. In other words, you have excess weight therefore you have caused diabetes.

The next step in this mythology looks at the food that a newly-diagnosed diabetic eats. Under this scenario it is the food you eat that causes you to be overweight, and then that causes you to become diabetic. Re-stated in the under-educated public’s myth language, because of the food you eat you are overweight and this has given you diabetes.

From these ideas comes the cultural memes that tend to go with obesity and diabetes. You may be told by the under-educated that you eat the wrong food, or, you eat too much. For anyone who may have been diagnosed with Insulin Resistance or Type 2 Diabetes and is on a calorie-restricted diet, this advice from those with little clue about the disease can be maddening.

In fact, one problem that comes with having Type 2 Diabetes or Insulin Resistance is the poorly understood dynamic between diet and exercise programs and these serious health conditions. Inability to lose weight despite calorie-restricted diets and intense exercise programs is a symptom of the condition. This doesn’t make sense to the under-educated public that doesn’t have a clue regarding the disease pathologies involved in these conditions.

Diabetes is a Progressive Lifelong Disease

The other point to know about this is, the longer someone has diabetes the worse the condition becomes, so that a diabetic patient is even less likely to lose weight after having the disease for 10 years than they would be after only one. Diabetes physicians know this and more often advise a stable, varied, low-fat, high lean-protein diet, rich in vegetables and fresh fruits.

Due to the body being unable to process sugar properly physicians also recommend that diabetic patients limit carbohydrate intake. Carbohydrates include foods that are dense in sugar; especially sucrose, but also pasta, rice, many sauces that people cook with, pastries, cakes, confectionary and savoury snacks.

Diabetics will typically be asked to monitor foods for their Glycaemic Index rating. Something that is high in the Glycaemic Index is something that either should not be eaten at all, or consumed in extreme moderation. Diabetics aim to stack their diet with foods with a low Glycaemic Index rating.

The Glycaemic Index rates foods according to how carbohydrate dense they are. That is, how rich they are in sugars. More particularly concerning for diabetics is the sucrose sugar rather than the fructose sugar.

While sucrose is processed in the bloodstream and needs insulin to send the energy from food to cellular tissues, fructose (the kind of sugar found in fruit) is handled by the liver first, and is then sent to the bloodstream in a form the body is more able to deal with.

If you are a diabetic, however, eating a fruit such as an orange could see a momentary elevation in blood glucose levels which should dissipate in 1-2 hours. Caution is advised for diabetes patients with uncontrolled high-end blood sugar levels.

But as the under-educated public strive to be able to find a label and a mythology for the diabetic patient they tend to latch on to the wildest food myths. Ideas that blame sugar, or fruit, for being responsible for a patient’s diabetes are woefully lacking in any real understanding of how this progressive disease works.

Diabetes Occurs in the Body

For those of you reading who still may be worried about ‘catching’ diabetes, you can now rest easy. Unlike the flu or a cold you can’t catch diabetes. So, if you have been keeping a good distance from diabetics recently because you have feared getting the disease, you can now be friends without the worry.

The other great news for people is that you can’t ‘catch’ diabetes and insulin resistance from the food you eat. Unlike salmonella poisoning, which can be traced to the food one has eaten, diabetes and insulin resistance doesn’t come from food.

You also cannot get diabetes from eating too much fruit. In fact, experts from Britain and Singapore, in conjunction with a team from Harvard found that eating blueberries, raisins, grapes and pears actually reduced the risks associated with getting Type 2 Diabetes. Fruit juices can, however, increase the risks for acquiring Type 2 Diabetes since they are especially dense in carbohydrates.

According to the Harvard Health Letter “the nutritional problems of sugar and fructose only come when they are added to foods. Fruit, on the other hand is beneficial in almost any amount.”

In another study, a group of seventeen people were told to eat 20 servings of fruit per day. Even though the diet had an extremely high fructose content of approximately 200 grams per day the study found that the diet was beneficial for lowering blood glucose, insulin, blood pressure, and lipid levels after 3 to 6 months of following it.

For the obese; you can also breathe a huge sigh of relief. Studies show that a clear majority of overweight people NEVER get diabetes. Yet diabetics can often have obesity as symptom of the disease. Diabetes and insulin resistance make it easier for weight to plague the diabetes patient, and also frustrate diabetic and insulin resistant patients in their efforts to lose weight.

Physicians will often tell patients that unless they can get their blood glucose levels under control – between 3mml and 8mml – the weight won’t budge!

If you have not caught on yet, let me spell it out for you.

Diabetes occurs within the body of the diabetic and concerns a number of systems of the body failing to work correctly.

If you have the diabetes gene this will show-up sometimes in family history; mother, father, uncle, aunt, or a grandparent with diabetes severely increases your risk. If you have a family history of diabetes, and you live an unhealthy lifestyle consisting of high-carbohydrate food and drink, and little to no exercise, the risks of developing diabetes vastly increases.

If you don’t have the gene you will NEVER get diabetes!

The Best Solution – Life a Healthy Lifestyle

Overwhelmingly, the best way to minimize your own risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes and Insulin Resistance is to live a balanced and healthy lifestyle. The best tips for doing that include:

Balanced Lifestyle Tip #1 – Drink Plenty of Water

In our modern culture we often work in air conditioned offices that suck the humidity out of the atmosphere leading us to become dehydrated. Combined with this is our appetite for soft-drinks and caffeine. Don’t we just love our coffee!

This all contributes to us being chronically dehydrated.

For an average adult we need to take-in 3 litres of water per day. That seems like a lot. If we like to drink coffee, tea or soft-drink we will need to drink an extra 2 glasses of water for every non-water drink we consume on top of the 3 litres of water we need every day.

If you happen to be a diabetic keeping up your hydration is very important. Diabetics often experience a symptom of the condition called polyuria, where frequent urination can lead to dehydration. This can make other diabetes complications worse.

Balanced Lifestyle Tip #2 – Eat a Balanced Diet

A well-balanced diet that has plenty of fruit and vegetables in conjunction with lean meat is the best eating plan you can have.

Lean meat from fish and seafood in particular is good as it is rich in complex B Vitamins such as B6 and B12 plus Omega 3 and 6 Fatty Acids. These are required for healthy functioning brains, heart, lungs, kidneys, nervous system, blood, lymph system and stress responses.

For a diabetic in particular, a connection has been established between Vitamin B12 deficiency and diabetes. Diabetes can attack the nervous system leaving patients with painful symptoms like neuropathy, where someone can have painful burning sensations in the feet and hands. This is also a symptom of B12 deficiency.

As a result physicians often recommend diabetes patients consume a minimum of 5 seafood meals a week. Lean protein also seems sate hunger which is also an unfortunate symptom diabetics must contend with as low cellular energy in-take leaves the body craving carbohydrate dense foods.

Balanced Lifestyle Tip #3 – Get a Minimum 60 Minutes Exercise Every Day

Most community health messages recommend a minimum 40 minutes of exercise per day as part of a healthy lifestyle. As we age, though, it is normal to add around 1 kilogram to our frame each year after we reach the middle of our lifespan. If 40 minutes were adequate this would not happen for normal, healthy people.

It is recommended we start resistance training as soon as possible so we can avert the problems associated with osteoporosis. Resistance training is also terrific for diabetes patients because it can change body shape, directing areas of the body to grow at the expense of others. Biceps instead of buttocks and tummies!

A good exercise program to follow would include 40 minutes of cardiovascular fitness – walking, jogging, boxing, swimming, aerobics, for example – along with 20 minutes of resistance training.

Your resistance training program should include approximately 3-4 exercises per muscle group rotated around a split program. This allows you to divide your exercise routine up over the week.

For example, you may work out your back, shoulders and chest first day of the week. Next day, you could train your legs, arms and core – that is your back and stomach areas. Your mid-week may include a rest day from the weights followed by going through your training plan again.

Even if you struggle to lose weight; even if you are diabetic or insulin resistant, you will be amazed at what you can achieve over an eight week period – which is the optimum amount of time you should give to your work out plan before assessing whether it has been effective or not.

After one week’s complete break re-start your exercise program aiming to increase your weights by 10%, either by doing more repetitions or increasing the load by adding more weight.

Don’t worry! Unless you have a highly-specialized diet you won’t end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

Can You Get Diabetes From Eating Too Much Fruit? More Myths About Diabetes Dispelled

How To Make Money On The Internet: Your Guide To Five Top Ways To Earn Money On The Internet Today (Pt2)

Wow, this is the second part of The Top 5 Ways To Make Money In Online Business Today. This article is amazing in the way that there are so many ways to make very good money. Enjoy the article and then go out there. There is MONEY for all of us.

The Top 5 Ways to Make Money in Online Business Today

In step number one we learned that you must know what you are going to be doing before advancing any further in your plans to go into business online.

The truth is there are any number of ways you can make money online. You may choose more than one for your online business. In fact, this is precisely what the best online entrepreneurs do to expand their businesses and derive income from multiple different streams.

In no particular order some of the best online business ideas include:

Online Business Idea #1 – YouTube Videos

YouTube is one of the most-visited websites of any online. It also has the advantage of being wholly owned by the world’s premiere search engine, Google. Consequently, YouTube videos rank very highly in standard Google searches.

Much of the content on YouTube is in the form of video and also mp3 audio. These formats are really hot because people are so much more visual and auditory when it comes to the way they want information provided.

Even if you decide YouTube is not going to be your preferred way of making money online it is a remarkably effective w

ay of directing traffic to your online business.

If you create videos for YouTube and have advertising placements inserted into your video, you can make some serious money.

The way many digital entrepreneurs do it is to make instructional videos that go for anywhere between 2 to 10 minutes in length. People love to learn quick and easy tips to make their life better. Your instructional videos can solves someone’s problem, be entertaining, and as a happy coincidence make you some money along the way.

Make sure you include links to your websites and products so you can really benefit by generating traffic for your business.

Online Business Idea #2 – Blogging

Beyond YouTube there is also the opportunity to write for the web on a topic or area of interest. Your blog is normally situated on your website. As you post blog articles to your website over time you will generate a following; people will keep coming back to your website for the valuable written content they can’t find anywhere else.

We all have favourite authors; we may buy all their books, read all their articles, and follow their career. Each time they come out with something new we may race to make sure we get it. This same idea is behind blogging.

Making money from blogging most-commonly comes from the advertising placed on the website. This may be Google AdSense advertisements, or advertising from another advertising network. You could receive revenue every time someone clicks on an advertisement, known as Pay Per Click (PPC), or you might also receive payment based page views, called Pay Per View (PPV).

When you first start out you will find generating sizeable revenue from blogging a struggle. Over time, as you develop a good following and your audience grows, you will find the money you earn from blogging will also grow.

Online Business Idea #3 – Selling Products

Your website doesn’t only have to make you money from your blog and any advertising you sell on your site. Whilst keeping the cash you generate from blogging you can also use your website to sell products. These could be physical goods, like books, T-Shirts, artwork, photography; or you may elect to sell digital products, like eBooks, audio tracks, and video.

These can be your own products or someone else’s products.

Darren Rowse, from Melbourne, Australia, started blogging in 2002. Darren created an eBook that sold over $70,000 worth of eBooks – most within 48 hours of launch. Darren’s Problogger website is a perfect example of a blog that has been optimized to sell products. Check it out here.

Online Business Idea #4 – Be an Authorpreneur – Create and Sell eBooks

We touched on this a little in Online Business Idea #3; however, the difference with this idea for building a business online is your business would consist of creating and selling eBooks on one of several online eBook retailers.

Amazon’s Kindle Store is the largest online seller of eBooks and currently has over 4.4 million eBooks available for sale.

People read these eBooks on the free downloadable Kindle applications available for PC, iPhone, iPad and Android devices, or on dedicated Kindle devices such as Kindle’s Paperwhite, Voyage, or the newest Kindle eReader, the Kindle Oasis.

Amazon is a huge business these days. They’re not only into books but almost anything you can think of. The mainstay of the business, though, is the Kindle eBook business. People now buy more eBooks than physical books, and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has made it so easy to publish your very own eBook.

The great thing about eBooks is the passive nature of the income you can generate from them. Passive income is where you create something once and it can sell without you having to do anything to sell it. Kindle eBooks can be written, edited, formatted, and uploaded with a cover one time, and sell countless copies forever more.

Rand Bennet, author of How to Make $1287 (or more) in Passive Income Every Month with Kindle Publishing,  is one example of someone who has turned Kindle eBook authoring into a very healthy sideline income. At first he saw the income trickling in but as he created and uploaded more books his sales took off.

“With each book,” he says, “my sales continue to grow and my earnings continue to increase. Some books sell very well.”

Rand has been very happy with how his eBook business has developed.

“Within a short period of time Kindle Publishing has become a significant source of monthly income. I can’t help but wonder what my income is going to be in a year or two years from now.”

So happy have the results been for the Bennett family that even Rand’s wife has started to write books.

“She is writing books too and one of the books she wrote has become one of our best sellers.”

Rand is one of many authors who, because of 9-5 day jobs, write their books under a pen name. If you don’t want your friends to know what you’re up to this can be a good strategy.  A lot of authors also use pen names to divide their writing into categories; one pen name will be used for one specific category, and another pen name for a different category.

To check out what Rand has to offer in the Kindle Store click here.

Online Business Idea #5 – Create and Sell Your Own Courses

If you have checked out Rand Bennet’s Kindle eBooks you will see that many of them would make terrific workshops or take-home study guides.

Like Rand’s books, you could also translate your Kindle eBooks into a course of study that people can access anytime they like. Best of all, online learning has exploded in recent years thanks to websites like Udemy and Skillshare, which allow people lifetime access to video courses for a fee.

Whether you author a Kindle eBook first or choose to create and sell courses based on what you know and have expertise in, you can make outrageously good income from teaching courses online full-time.

Jerry Banfield is an example of one Udemy instructor who has made in excess of $600,000 over the last 2 years.  And there are 10 Udemy instructors who have made over $1 million teaching courses on the platform.

It is really easy to get started. You will need to invest in some good audio and video recording hardware and software. Udemy has high standards for audio and video quality, which is one reason why it is currently the leader in the self-directed online learning market.

First, plot out every step you need to teach in your course. Next, write out what you need to speak about in your videos. Practice each script until it has been committed to memory. Make a series of PowerPoint slides that you can video in screen capture video recording software, like Camtasia Studio, and edit your audio and video so it is highly polished. Upload your videos to the Udemy course page you have created. Publish your course and after it is reviewed by the Udemy quality team it will be available for sale in the Udemy marketplace.

Keep creating courses and watch your online teaching business grow.

Another great website you can teach on and make money from is Skillshare. They charge their students a monthly fee which gives students access to courses. Every month they share a pool of 50% of total revenue with instructors based on how many students are taking their courses.

Skillshare courses typically don’t run as long as Udemy courses and the major difference is you need to develop a project for your Skillshare students to complete.

Teaching what you know to others can be an enjoyable experience. Sowing into other’s lives is one of the best things we can do in our life. If you’re interested in helping people learn this could work out to be the best online business for you.

As you can see there are a number of great ways to get into online business. We have only touched the surface of what is possible with online business. As you investigate exactly what you want to do, plan your business end-to-end, and implement your action plan, you will discover more options available to you and countless ways you can tweak your business to perform better.

Here’s to your success!

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

How To Make Money On The Internet: Your Guide To Five Top Ways To Earn Money On The Internet Today (Pt2)

How To Make Money On The Internet: Your Guide To Five Top Ways To Earn Money On The Internet Today (Pt2)

Wow, this is the second part of The Top 5 Ways To Make Money In Online Business Today. This article is amazing in the way that there are so many ways to make very good money. Enjoy the article and then go out there. There is MONEY for all of us.

The Top 5 Ways to Make Money in Online Business Today

In step number one we learned that you must know what you are going to be doing before advancing any further in your plans to go into business online.

The truth is there are any number of ways you can make money online. You may choose more than one for your online business. In fact, this is precisely what the best online entrepreneurs do to expand their businesses and derive income from multiple different streams.

In no particular order some of the best online business ideas include:

Online Business Idea #1 – YouTube Videos

YouTube is one of the most-visited websites of any online. It also has the advantage of being wholly owned by the world’s premiere search engine, Google. Consequently, YouTube videos rank very highly in standard Google searches.

Much of the content on YouTube is in the form of video and also mp3 audio. These formats are really hot because people are so much more visual and auditory when it comes to the way they want information provided.

Even if you decide YouTube is not going to be your preferred way of making money online it is a remarkably effective w

ay of directing traffic to your online business.

If you create videos for YouTube and have advertising placements inserted into your video, you can make some serious money.

The way many digital entrepreneurs do it is to make instructional videos that go for anywhere between 2 to 10 minutes in length. People love to learn quick and easy tips to make their life better. Your instructional videos can solves someone’s problem, be entertaining, and as a happy coincidence make you some money along the way.

Make sure you include links to your websites and products so you can really benefit by generating traffic for your business.

Online Business Idea #2 – Blogging

Beyond YouTube there is also the opportunity to write for the web on a topic or area of interest. Your blog is normally situated on your website. As you post blog articles to your website over time you will generate a following; people will keep coming back to your website for the valuable written content they can’t find anywhere else.

We all have favourite authors; we may buy all their books, read all their articles, and follow their career. Each time they come out with something new we may race to make sure we get it. This same idea is behind blogging.

Making money from blogging most-commonly comes from the advertising placed on the website. This may be Google AdSense advertisements, or advertising from another advertising network. You could receive revenue every time someone clicks on an advertisement, known as Pay Per Click (PPC), or you might also receive payment based page views, called Pay Per View (PPV).

When you first start out you will find generating sizeable revenue from blogging a struggle. Over time, as you develop a good following and your audience grows, you will find the money you earn from blogging will also grow.

Online Business Idea #3 – Selling Products

Your website doesn’t only have to make you money from your blog and any advertising you sell on your site. Whilst keeping the cash you generate from blogging you can also use your website to sell products. These could be physical goods, like books, T-Shirts, artwork, photography; or you may elect to sell digital products, like eBooks, audio tracks, and video.

These can be your own products or someone else’s products.

Darren Rowse, from Melbourne, Australia, started blogging in 2002. Darren created an eBook that sold over $70,000 worth of eBooks – most within 48 hours of launch. Darren’s Problogger website is a perfect example of a blog that has been optimized to sell products. Check it out here.

Online Business Idea #4 – Be an Authorpreneur – Create and Sell eBooks

We touched on this a little in Online Business Idea #3; however, the difference with this idea for building a business online is your business would consist of creating and selling eBooks on one of several online eBook retailers.

Amazon’s Kindle Store is the largest online seller of eBooks and currently has over 4.4 million eBooks available for sale.

People read these eBooks on the free downloadable Kindle applications available for PC, iPhone, iPad and Android devices, or on dedicated Kindle devices such as Kindle’s Paperwhite, Voyage, or the newest Kindle eReader, the Kindle Oasis.

Amazon is a huge business these days. They’re not only into books but almost anything you can think of. The mainstay of the business, though, is the Kindle eBook business. People now buy more eBooks than physical books, and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has made it so easy to publish your very own eBook.

The great thing about eBooks is the passive nature of the income you can generate from them. Passive income is where you create something once and it can sell without you having to do anything to sell it. Kindle eBooks can be written, edited, formatted, and uploaded with a cover one time, and sell countless copies forever more.

Rand Bennet, author of How to Make $1287 (or more) in Passive Income Every Month with Kindle Publishing,  is one example of someone who has turned Kindle eBook authoring into a very healthy sideline income. At first he saw the income trickling in but as he created and uploaded more books his sales took off.

“With each book,” he says, “my sales continue to grow and my earnings continue to increase. Some books sell very well.”

Rand has been very happy with how his eBook business has developed.

“Within a short period of time Kindle Publishing has become a significant source of monthly income. I can’t help but wonder what my income is going to be in a year or two years from now.”

So happy have the results been for the Bennett family that even Rand’s wife has started to write books.

“She is writing books too and one of the books she wrote has become one of our best sellers.”

Rand is one of many authors who, because of 9-5 day jobs, write their books under a pen name. If you don’t want your friends to know what you’re up to this can be a good strategy.  A lot of authors also use pen names to divide their writing into categories; one pen name will be used for one specific category, and another pen name for a different category.

To check out what Rand has to offer in the Kindle Store click here.

Online Business Idea #5 – Create and Sell Your Own Courses

If you have checked out Rand Bennet’s Kindle eBooks you will see that many of them would make terrific workshops or take-home study guides.

Like Rand’s books, you could also translate your Kindle eBooks into a course of study that people can access anytime they like. Best of all, online learning has exploded in recent years thanks to websites like Udemy and Skillshare, which allow people lifetime access to video courses for a fee.

Whether you author a Kindle eBook first or choose to create and sell courses based on what you know and have expertise in, you can make outrageously good income from teaching courses online full-time.

Jerry Banfield is an example of one Udemy instructor who has made in excess of $600,000 over the last 2 years.  And there are 10 Udemy instructors who have made over $1 million teaching courses on the platform.

It is really easy to get started. You will need to invest in some good audio and video recording hardware and software. Udemy has high standards for audio and video quality, which is one reason why it is currently the leader in the self-directed online learning market.

First, plot out every step you need to teach in your course. Next, write out what you need to speak about in your videos. Practice each script until it has been committed to memory. Make a series of PowerPoint slides that you can video in screen capture video recording software, like Camtasia Studio, and edit your audio and video so it is highly polished. Upload your videos to the Udemy course page you have created. Publish your course and after it is reviewed by the Udemy quality team it will be available for sale in the Udemy marketplace.

Keep creating courses and watch your online teaching business grow.

Another great website you can teach on and make money from is Skillshare. They charge their students a monthly fee which gives students access to courses. Every month they share a pool of 50% of total revenue with instructors based on how many students are taking their courses.

Skillshare courses typically don’t run as long as Udemy courses and the major difference is you need to develop a project for your Skillshare students to complete.

Teaching what you know to others can be an enjoyable experience. Sowing into other’s lives is one of the best things we can do in our life. If you’re interested in helping people learn this could work out to be the best online business for you.

As you can see there are a number of great ways to get into online business. We have only touched the surface of what is possible with online business. As you investigate exactly what you want to do, plan your business end-to-end, and implement your action plan, you will discover more options available to you and countless ways you can tweak your business to perform better.

Here’s to your success!

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

How To Make Money On The Internet: Your Guide To Five Top Ways To Earn Money On The Internet Today (Pt2)

How To Make Money On The Internet: Your Guide To Five Top Ways To Earn Money On The Internet Today (Pt1)

It seems like yesterday that top business commentators were deriding the new-found enthusiasm of digital entrepreneurs as they set out to make money from the Internet, so, in honour of the tremendous advances that the World Wide Web has brought to mankind, Living Health Shack decided to bring you five of the top ways people are earning money on the Internet today.

A New Globally Connected World

In the 1990’s many businesspeople thought the prospects for making money from the Internet were a pipe-dream; simply a fairy tale. Making serious money from the Web was an outrageous concept. Yet as that decade drew to a close it was already dawning on many that the world had become so much more interconnected than it ever had in the past.

As the 90’s ended the world feared it would be brought to a shuddering halt with the Y2K virus. This was not some killer disease from the jungles of Africa. Instead, this virus was located inside many computers, and its threat to humanity lay in its suspected ability to crash most of the world’s computers, taking with it banking and stock-trading systems along the way.

The damage this virus would do was estimated to be in the trillions of dollars. From small beginnings the Internet had grown so large people on almost every continent would be affected, brought to their knees as their economies crashed around them.

New Fears, New Opportunities

The dangers of this new invention of mankind called the World Wide Web were just beginning to be grasped, as the world heaved a collective sigh of relief when 1999 became the year 2000 and international trade and commerce were not vaporized by a computer virus.

Though there were fears the Internet held great promise of new industries, technologies and business models. A new breed of entrepreneurs saw the opportunity the internet presented and launched businesses that became household names.

Google, YouTube, Yahoo and a cheeky book retailer with an innovative business model called Amazon, were among a slew of burgeoning technology-based companies adding their names to colossal industry figures such as Microsoft and Apple. Almost all of the new kids on the block based their businesses on the Internet.

That is, their chief income-generating activities actually were web-based. This was revolutionary thinking in the early Noughties.

Democratization of Hope

All of these changes had the amazing effect of opening-up enterprise to a whole new group of people who ordinarily would not be able to run their own business.

The Internet brought some of the most common barriers to entry crashing down. Often all people need to get started in online business is a computer with software, a stable internet connection, and a small investment of a few hundred dollars to go towards things like graphic design, web-hosting and a reasonable website theme.

Suddenly it has become possible for ordinary, everyday people, to have their own successful business entirely operating online.

The hopes and dreams of regular people to escape the rat-race and earn an income on their own terms has become a reality in the Internet Age. Hope has become democratized

How You Can Get Started with Your Own Online Business

You may have lost your job. Maybe you‘re looking to earn a few extra dollars to supplement the income from your existing job or business. Or, perhaps you are looking to build something that eventually may replace the income from your full-time job, so you can one day soon see that shocked look on your bosses face as you tell them they are no longer needed. IMAGINE THAT!

Whatever is motivating you to start your own online business there are some things you need to get in order before you launch your business into the big bad world. It is important before you start a business, whether that is online or a regular bricks and mortar enterprise, to effectively plan your business. Preparation is the key to success.

Plan to Succeed

A good business plan is the best way to give your business the best start in life it can get. This may seem like a boring idea but if you don’t do some critical thinking about your business before it starts it may never take-off the way you would like it to.

Business Plan Step #1 – Write Down EXACTLY What Your Business Will be Doing

The first element of planning your business is to state exactly what it is you want to do. ACTUALLY WRITE IT DOWN!

So many businesses start and soon after fail because they never had the solid foundation of a good business plan to steer the way forward for the business at all times. Not knowing – and stating – exactly what your business exists to accomplish is totally CRAZY!

Just having an idea, a vague sense of what you might like to imagine your business will become, is nowhere near good enough. It is a recipe for certain failure.

On the other hand, clearly defined ideas committed to paper, serve to guide you in every decision you make regarding your business. If something is incompatible with your business’s reason for existing then you will know to steer clear of getting involved in it. Your business’s mission will give birth to every subsequent action you take to ensure your business’s success.

Business Plan Step #2 – Determine if Your Business Has a (Sizeable) Market

The next thing you need to focus attention on is the actual market you want to compete in. A market is where people exchange something of value – usually money – for goods and services. The critical thing to understand about this element of the business plan is that without a sizeable-enough market, with consumers who are both willing and able to part with enough money so you can profit from operating your business, you really do not have a viable business idea.

For some forms of online business you can estimate the size of the possible market using a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner. This tool will give you an idea of the amount of people looking for information on a particular subject. Some of these people are shoppers and are searching for things to buy; again, Keyword Planner can help to validate your ideas about what market your online business will serve.

Taking this validation a step further, many online entrepreneurs check to see if their business idea is worthwhile getting into by also testing for commonly searched terms on the largest online store, Amazon. Type in your search term, hit enter and see what appears in the search results.

If your business idea shows up on the first page, that’s a good start. Next, scroll down the page and look at the best seller rank for the product that is the first returned in the search results. The first item returned in the search results will appear after the sponsored items a little way down the page.

Click on the product and read the description. This will give you an idea of how to write your sales copy in the not-too-distant future.

Scroll all the way down the page until you reach a grey-coloured box with all of the product specifications. You will see customer reviews. Make a note of how many reviews your potential competitor is receiving, as well as the average star rating. Below this information is the Best Sellers Rank.

The thinking behind validating your product idea by looking at the Amazon Best Sellers rank is that if the top ten searched results are inside an Amazon Best Sellers rank of 20,000, your product will be entering a hot market, giving it an opportunity to sell enough to make money from.

Business Plan Step #3 – Effectively Resource Your Business

The early days of any business are a constant juggle between time, money, and generating enough sales. In the offline world your business would face cost such as rent, electricity, water, telecommunications, advertising and promotions, as well as wages and salaries. Not to mention all of the added costs such as insurances, taxes, application fees, license fees, registration fees, accountants, solicitors; this list could go on.

The simplicity of starting an online business lays in being able to reduce, or even eliminate some of these costs altogether.

Realistically, you are not going to be able to avoid some of these costs. The best thing you can do is prepare for them as you are planning your business.

Effectively resourcing your business will include making sure you have the funds in place to do essential things such as; starting your website, paying for website and graphic designers, setting up your email list, establishing a business email address; purchasing office equipment.

Don’t forget to allow for some advertising and promotions spend. You can’t hope to set your business up and the world accidentally finds it. There a many ways to advertise your online business that don’t require a ton of money, so don’t panic. Just be aware; some marketing costs are a fact of business.

Business Plan Step #4 – Set Your Business Launch Action Plan

After committing your plan to paper, validating your business idea, and making sure you have adequately resourced it, the next step you need to plan for is the action steps you must follow to launch your business.

The date you have launched is the day you have EVERYTHING set-up to sell something and make money from it.

For example, if you are running a webstore this will be when you have inventory available, your website is live, your web catalogue is working, your shopping cart is active, and you can transact and fill an order.

Your launch action plan includes everything you need to do to have your online business ready to go.

Make sure you have a list of all the things you need to get done for launch day.

Some people use a tool called a Gantt Chart to help with ordering and tracking what needs to be done in the correct time sequence. Some activities need to be given priority early on; other things on your to-do list will be tackled in the final stages of your business project’s launch action plan. Other items on the list can be done at any time. A Gantt Chart will help you visually depict this.

You can find a Gantt Chart template for excel here.

Try and aim to advertise and promote your business as it starts and in at least the first few weeks after launch so you can build initial momentum.

If you follow these steps to launch your business you will be off to a flying start!

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

How To Make Money On The Internet: Your Guide To Five Top Ways To Earn Money On The Internet Today (Pt1)

How To Make Money On The Internet: Your Guide To Five Top Ways To Earn Money On The Internet Today (Pt1)

It seems like yesterday that top business commentators were deriding the new-found enthusiasm of digital entrepreneurs as they set out to make money from the Internet, so, in honour of the tremendous advances that the World Wide Web has brought to mankind, Living Health Shack decided to bring you five of the top ways people are earning money on the Internet today.

A New Globally Connected World

In the 1990’s many businesspeople thought the prospects for making money from the Internet were a pipe-dream; simply a fairy tale. Making serious money from the Web was an outrageous concept. Yet as that decade drew to a close it was already dawning on many that the world had become so much more interconnected than it ever had in the past.

As the 90’s ended the world feared it would be brought to a shuddering halt with the Y2K virus. This was not some killer disease from the jungles of Africa. Instead, this virus was located inside many computers, and its threat to humanity lay in its suspected ability to crash most of the world’s computers, taking with it banking and stock-trading systems along the way.

The damage this virus would do was estimated to be in the trillions of dollars. From small beginnings the Internet had grown so large people on almost every continent would be affected, brought to their knees as their economies crashed around them.

New Fears, New Opportunities

The dangers of this new invention of mankind called the World Wide Web were just beginning to be grasped, as the world heaved a collective sigh of relief when 1999 became the year 2000 and international trade and commerce were not vaporized by a computer virus.

Though there were fears the Internet held great promise of new industries, technologies and business models. A new breed of entrepreneurs saw the opportunity the internet presented and launched businesses that became household names.

Google, YouTube, Yahoo and a cheeky book retailer with an innovative business model called Amazon, were among a slew of burgeoning technology-based companies adding their names to colossal industry figures such as Microsoft and Apple. Almost all of the new kids on the block based their businesses on the Internet.

That is, their chief income-generating activities actually were web-based. This was revolutionary thinking in the early Noughties.

Democratization of Hope

All of these changes had the amazing effect of opening-up enterprise to a whole new group of people who ordinarily would not be able to run their own business.

The Internet brought some of the most common barriers to entry crashing down. Often all people need to get started in online business is a computer with software, a stable internet connection, and a small investment of a few hundred dollars to go towards things like graphic design, web-hosting and a reasonable website theme.

Suddenly it has become possible for ordinary, everyday people, to have their own successful business entirely operating online.

The hopes and dreams of regular people to escape the rat-race and earn an income on their own terms has become a reality in the Internet Age. Hope has become democratized

How You Can Get Started with Your Own Online Business

You may have lost your job. Maybe you‘re looking to earn a few extra dollars to supplement the income from your existing job or business. Or, perhaps you are looking to build something that eventually may replace the income from your full-time job, so you can one day soon see that shocked look on your bosses face as you tell them they are no longer needed. IMAGINE THAT!

Whatever is motivating you to start your own online business there are some things you need to get in order before you launch your business into the big bad world. It is important before you start a business, whether that is online or a regular bricks and mortar enterprise, to effectively plan your business. Preparation is the key to success.

Plan to Succeed

A good business plan is the best way to give your business the best start in life it can get. This may seem like a boring idea but if you don’t do some critical thinking about your business before it starts it may never take-off the way you would like it to.

Business Plan Step #1 – Write Down EXACTLY What Your Business Will be Doing

The first element of planning your business is to state exactly what it is you want to do. ACTUALLY WRITE IT DOWN!

So many businesses start and soon after fail because they never had the solid foundation of a good business plan to steer the way forward for the business at all times. Not knowing – and stating – exactly what your business exists to accomplish is totally CRAZY!

Just having an idea, a vague sense of what you might like to imagine your business will become, is nowhere near good enough. It is a recipe for certain failure.

On the other hand, clearly defined ideas committed to paper, serve to guide you in every decision you make regarding your business. If something is incompatible with your business’s reason for existing then you will know to steer clear of getting involved in it. Your business’s mission will give birth to every subsequent action you take to ensure your business’s success.

Business Plan Step #2 – Determine if Your Business Has a (Sizeable) Market

The next thing you need to focus attention on is the actual market you want to compete in. A market is where people exchange something of value – usually money – for goods and services. The critical thing to understand about this element of the business plan is that without a sizeable-enough market, with consumers who are both willing and able to part with enough money so you can profit from operating your business, you really do not have a viable business idea.

For some forms of online business you can estimate the size of the possible market using a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner. This tool will give you an idea of the amount of people looking for information on a particular subject. Some of these people are shoppers and are searching for things to buy; again, Keyword Planner can help to validate your ideas about what market your online business will serve.

Taking this validation a step further, many online entrepreneurs check to see if their business idea is worthwhile getting into by also testing for commonly searched terms on the largest online store, Amazon. Type in your search term, hit enter and see what appears in the search results.

If your business idea shows up on the first page, that’s a good start. Next, scroll down the page and look at the best seller rank for the product that is the first returned in the search results. The first item returned in the search results will appear after the sponsored items a little way down the page.

Click on the product and read the description. This will give you an idea of how to write your sales copy in the not-too-distant future.

Scroll all the way down the page until you reach a grey-coloured box with all of the product specifications. You will see customer reviews. Make a note of how many reviews your potential competitor is receiving, as well as the average star rating. Below this information is the Best Sellers Rank.

The thinking behind validating your product idea by looking at the Amazon Best Sellers rank is that if the top ten searched results are inside an Amazon Best Sellers rank of 20,000, your product will be entering a hot market, giving it an opportunity to sell enough to make money from.

Business Plan Step #3 – Effectively Resource Your Business

The early days of any business are a constant juggle between time, money, and generating enough sales. In the offline world your business would face cost such as rent, electricity, water, telecommunications, advertising and promotions, as well as wages and salaries. Not to mention all of the added costs such as insurances, taxes, application fees, license fees, registration fees, accountants, solicitors; this list could go on.

The simplicity of starting an online business lays in being able to reduce, or even eliminate some of these costs altogether.

Realistically, you are not going to be able to avoid some of these costs. The best thing you can do is prepare for them as you are planning your business.

Effectively resourcing your business will include making sure you have the funds in place to do essential things such as; starting your website, paying for website and graphic designers, setting up your email list, establishing a business email address; purchasing office equipment.

Don’t forget to allow for some advertising and promotions spend. You can’t hope to set your business up and the world accidentally finds it. There a many ways to advertise your online business that don’t require a ton of money, so don’t panic. Just be aware; some marketing costs are a fact of business.

Business Plan Step #4 – Set Your Business Launch Action Plan

After committing your plan to paper, validating your business idea, and making sure you have adequately resourced it, the next step you need to plan for is the action steps you must follow to launch your business.

The date you have launched is the day you have EVERYTHING set-up to sell something and make money from it.

For example, if you are running a webstore this will be when you have inventory available, your website is live, your web catalogue is working, your shopping cart is active, and you can transact and fill an order.

Your launch action plan includes everything you need to do to have your online business ready to go.

Make sure you have a list of all the things you need to get done for launch day.

Some people use a tool called a Gantt Chart to help with ordering and tracking what needs to be done in the correct time sequence. Some activities need to be given priority early on; other things on your to-do list will be tackled in the final stages of your business project’s launch action plan. Other items on the list can be done at any time. A Gantt Chart will help you visually depict this.

You can find a Gantt Chart template for excel here.

Try and aim to advertise and promote your business as it starts and in at least the first few weeks after launch so you can build initial momentum.

If you follow these steps to launch your business you will be off to a flying start!

You are looking for more information on healthy living and healthy finance, then go to Living Health Shack on FaceBook and click “Like” on the page.

How To Make Money On The Internet: Your Guide To Five Top Ways To Earn Money On The Internet Today (Pt1)