Too often people who want to start a startup or any kind of small business do a major mistake from the beginning. They try to play big hoping that this will make their business big.

What do I mean? You probably have friends who have gone this route. They want to start a small consulting company and rent an office, buy expensive furniture, cars, hire people and pay a top designer for company logo.

Photo by fugm10 at Flickr

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Here is a little schema that may help you figure out how to improve your finances and your life in general. I hope you’ll manage through all the arrows 8-). For at least 90% of the people the problems and solutions lie in the below chart. If you believe you are from the other 10%, I’ll be glad to hear what important branches might be missing.

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Earning alternative income is getting quite popular at recession time. For some people the only income source in the next few months or years will be alternative anyway - no matter if they want that or not. So it’s especially useful to explore various opportunities for earning alternative income and be prepared now in case you get laid off in the hard times. Don’t worry if that happens - you may even realize that having different sources of income is far more secure and probably more fun than having a job.

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The BrassPotato at Flickr

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Here’s a quick overview of the best 2008 posts on this blog along with the best from the other blogs in December. I have not written much recently for the reasons explained here, but there are plenty of interesting articles on other blogs.

Best of Shark 2008

In January I was still interested in Forex trading and researched tons of signal providers and information on trading by signals. As a result there is a three part tutorial - part one, part two, and part three - if you are interested in forex yourself, it may be quite useful.

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You probably want to improve your financial situation. But how much? How strong is your wish indeed?

I am asking this because most people claim they really really want to fix their finances and other areas in life. Yet, they spend most of their productive time reading hundreds of blogs, listening to self help audio tapes, watching “how to make money online” videos and going to self-help seminars.

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mckaysavage at Flickr

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Each year the mass media is irradiating you with ideas what else to buy on the holidays and how to spend more money (how could you not love the TV). Some websites and blogs give some good advice how to save money instead of spending it, which is generally better. I want to share some ideas how to earn more on the holidays which hopefully is going to be even more useful. Let’s see what you can do:

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pfala at Flickr

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Once upon a time there was Joe who made living by selling hairdresser’s furnishing. One day Joe started reading personal finance blogs. Until that day he used to spend a lot of money for eating outside, gas, clothes, movies, popcorn, gadgets and his home. The economy of his country was working fine (well, almost).

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annia316 at Flickr

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The smart investor buys when the market is down. What are you waiting for? There will be no better time for buying cheap assets than the time of economy crisis. Businesses, real estate, stocks, even human power and ideas is getting cheap. If you have cash now, you are going to be at the winner’s side. But enough talk, I am not writing this post to motivate you. I just want to tell you about the new little free tool available for you.

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Almost everyone can write somehow which makes writing one of the most popular ways of earning alternative income. The main factor determining your probable success is how good you can write how productive you can be. The good news is that you don’t need to be Shakespeare. In fact if you write for alternative income you must not be Shakespeare because most people will not understand your writing. If you want to make money by writing you must be able to write in simple, understandable and engaging style. That’s not as hard as it may look - most people who write blogs can do it. And you most probably can do it too.

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Do you feel screwed? If you have invested in stocks or real estate for years, you sure do. I know I do. We draw plans for the future and believe that by being disciplined, spending less than we earn and investing carefully we’ll be able to be financially free some day. Last few months it seems there is not much hope for that, doesn’t it?

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Close to Spectacular at Flickr

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