Extra Money: 2011

Monday, 24 October 2011

Chris Dawes says extra money didn't tempt him to leave Collingwood

RE-SIGNED Collingwood forward Chris Dawes admits there was interest in him from rival clubs, but leaving Magpieland was never an option.

Dawes put pen to paper for another two years yesterday, tying him to the Magpies until the end of the 2013 season.

The 23-year-old could have received a substantial pay rise had he left the Westpac Centre, but said loyalty trumps money in his eyes.

"I started playing footy because I love footy and I enjoy the team environment," Dawes said on the Collingwood website.

"If I were to leave Collingwood, money would have been the only real factor and I don't think that's enough to warrant changing clubs just for money - however significant the pay rise might have been."

Dawes said his manager had fielded calls from rival clubs.

"They didn't approach me directly, they went through my manager," he said.

"But there was some interest and understandably given I am the second-fiddle forward in a strong team and I am only 23. So I’ve got a lot of footy ahead of me, hopefully.

"There was interest, but at the end of the day I didn't entertain any of those offers that seriously so it still wasn’t a difficult decision."

The forward threatened to take the competition by storm in the late stages of 2010 and early part of 2011 before he was cut down by injury and suffered a downturn in form.

Dawes said he hopes he is getting closer to the peak of his powers.

"That’s the frustrating thing is that I’ve been thinking that for two years now - that I was coming towards my peak," he said.

"I’ve probably struggled a little bit with my body and lack of form this year, so I’m just going to put a lot of work in to getting my body right and I’m excepting to come out and be a much better footballer next year."

First on the list of things to get "right" is his left ankle which he had surgery on two days ago.

"It’s a fairly minor thing, it’s a ware and tear injury.

"I probably could have got the surgery last year, but I opted not to and the ankle got worse again this year so I had to try and carry that a bit.

'They just went in and cleared that out and I should be, hopefully, back running within four or five weeks and it shouldn’t delay the start of my pre-season too much."

Printing extra money 'isn't helping banks lend to cost-starved businesses

The Bank of England’s controversial policy of printing money is doing ‘little’ to improve lending to cash-starved businesses, a powerful committee of MPs warned last night.

In a letter to the Bank Governor Sir Mervyn King, the Commons Treasury Committee questioned whether ‘quantitative easing’ was the best way of helping boost Britain’s economy.

The Bank, which has resisted pressure to lend directly to businesses, has used QE to pump £200billion into the economy since 2009 and announced this month that it would sanction a further £75billion – despite warnings it would create further inflation.

'No effect': MPs have complained that the Bank of England's QE policy is not the best way of kick-starting the economy

The committee said it was not clear that the policy would increase banks’ cash reserves – seen as a key factor in persuading them to lend to business.

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MPs said: ‘Quantitative easing may be a good policy but it does little to increase the supply of liquid assets to banks.’

The newest member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee has warned that Britain would not be able to escape a eurozone debt crisis unscathed, even if the Government prints more money.

Ben Broadbent, a former Goldman Sachs economist who joined the MPC in June, said the scale of some problems were such that ‘one cannot offset them’ with monetary policy.

He also claimed the Bank could boost QE further or scale back the proposed £75billion increase depending on the outcome of the unfolding crisis.

Letter: MPs wrote to the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King

The Commons committee also cautioned against the Bank’s policy of slashing emergency funding to the banks at a time when they are starved of cash.

Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie, who has criticised the Government’s growth strategy, said it was right for banks to be ‘weaned off’ the extraordinary funding which has been available to them since the financial crisis.

But he added: ‘Attempting to do it too quickly, in a hostile international economic environment, could risk setting economic recovery back for benefits that are unclear.’

Chancellor George Osborne has suggested a new policy of ‘credit-easing’ could pour billions of pounds directly into cash-strapped businesses, but it is not yet off the ground.

Mr Tyrie said that although new regulations forcing banks to hold more cash do not come into force until 2015, they were already having an impact on lending, with the value of bank loans shrinking by 7 per cent in the year to August.

The crisis in the eurozone is also blamed for putting a fresh squeeze on bank lending. It has sparked concerns over the exposure of the banks to bad government debt in the likes of Greece, Italy and Portugal.

The committee’s intervention came as the Confederation of British Industry warned that the Government was doing too little to help the ‘forgotten army’ of medium-sized businesses that can no longer rely on bank lending, as highlighted by the Daily Mail’s Make The Banks Lend campaign.

The CBI called on ministers to accelerate plans for credit-easing. Under the scheme the Treasury could lend billions directly to small businesses shunned by the banks, as well as making it easier for medium-sized firms to access the bond market directly.

John Cridland, director general of the CBI, said: ‘Medium-sized businesses are truly a forgotten army and now is the time to unlock their potential.

‘We should be championing, nurturing and encouraging our mid-sized firms so that more of them grow and create jobs. To achieve extra growth, medium-sized firms must have access to new kinds of finance.’

The CBI said firms with a turnover of £10million to £100million represented less than 1 per cent of businesses but generated 22 per cent of economic revenue and 16 per cent of all jobs.

Government pledges extra money for Wirral schools

Wirral is to get an extra £300,000 in government grant to boost educational achievement for pupils from the most deprived backgrounds.

The final “pupil premium” allocation for this year now stands at £5,517,914.

Councillor Pat Williams, Liberal Democrat spokeswoman for children and young people, said: “It is truly shocking that, nationally, pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are three times less likely to achieve five good GSCEs than their more well-off classmates.

"It's really important that we build a picture of true need within each school and make sure as many pupils as possible who are entitled to free school meals claim them, as this is how the pupil premium is allocated and will help to secure the maximum funding for Wirral schoolchildren in future.”

Councillor Williams said she would be be asking questions about how to further increase the numbers of Wirral pupils registered for free meals "in a sensitive way that protected the privacy of pupils so that other children would not know who was receiving them."

Inviting platforms for extra Diwali bucks

New Delhi: Come Diwali, and you see a spate of pre-Diwali melas and exhibitions being organised, which become an inviting platform for women homemakers to earn during the festive period.

"These exhibitions and Diwali melas are very encouraging for women, who cannot afford a shop or advertise to bring their creativity and work before the people and also earn extra money," Saroj Dudani, who runs a jewellery business from home, told IANS.

Whether it`s diyas, candles, cookies, paintings, home decoration accessories and, for that matter, even clothes, one can see many women putting up stalls in Diwali melas in every colony or society.

"These exhibitions and Diwali melas have really helped me establish my business of making cookies and cakes. Sweets are no longer favourite gifting options for people and they are increasingly asking for alternatives. I have been putting my stall in Diwali mela every year and have always got an encouraging response," said Reena Verma, 35.

"I don`t aim at making huge profits, but whatever I get through these exhibitions, my costs are recovered," she added.

A lot depends upon what kind of things you are offering to the people and where you are offering it, says Gurgaon-based Neerja Gorawara.

"If it is different, you will get good returns. Innovation and creativity also play a very important role, like how you put it on display and other such things," said Gorawara, who also owns a lingerie shop called De Apparels.

"If you are putting up a stall in an upmarket place like Galleria, your returns would be 100 percent, and if it is somewhere like small shopping complex Vyapaar Kendra, the returns might just be 50 percent," she added.

Rita Joshi, who had been doing her own pre-Diwali exhibitions of diyas, jewellery, gift items in Delhi as well as out of Delhi like Dehradun, says organising something like this is very tough.

"You need at least three to four people for organising and planning. Presentation is also important. It should look attractive. I provide a lot of options -- from diyas, clothes, gift items and clothes. The exhibitions have indeed given me a lot," she added.

"It is very important to price the stuff in the right way. If something costs Rs.500, I can`t price it at Rs.2,000. The pricing should be done in a way that you recover your cost as well as save," she said.

However, they do admit that for the past two years, the Diwali melas have been hit by growing inflation.

"Melas and exhibitions have witnessed a decline in footfalls. Due to inflation people are not ready to spend extra money. The rates of silver and gold have increased so much that people are hesitating to buy jewellery," said Dudani.

Madhu Sharma, who also puts up stalls of diyas, candles and other gift items, says, "The sale this time has not been as expected."

Cash in: 12 ways to earn extra money online

If you want to make a little spending money from home or earn a full-time salary, now’s the time — especially if you have a computer. Just going online opens up a host of opportunities. The trick is knowing which businesses are legitimate. Here are my top picks.

Do you knit? Make jewelry? Sew? If so, there are lots of opportunities to sell handmade wares online. As a member of Etsy (etsy.com ), you’ll have your own online store to showcase your items. It’s free to become an Etsy seller, but you’ll pay a fee of 20¢ to list an item with up to five photos for four months. When the item sells, you pay a 3.5 percent commission to Etsy. There’s no limit to how much you can charge, and what you earn is based on how your crafts sell.

At Jewelry Wonder (jewelrywonder.com ), sellers must have at least 30 items to open a free online store. There’s no charge to sellers — no setup fee, monthly or transaction fees, or listing or hosting fees. And sellers set their own prices, so the sky’s the limit.

ArtFire (artfire.com ) is the home of artists, crafters, suppliers and media creators from around the world. Sellers can choose either a basic free account that includes unlimited listings with four pictures per item plus the ability to sell directly from your blog or website, or a Pro account for $15.95 a month with 10 pictures per item plus a customizable “store” and promo features. There are no transaction fees on ArtFire, so you keep what you make. The site also offers online training in merchandising and marketing.

Make money from your talent At Fiverr (fiverr.com ), you can offer services that use your skills — designing a business card, creating a podcast jingle, planning a trip — for five bucks a pop. Fiverr keeps $1 and the seller gets $4 per gig. Stefanie Strobel, 28, of Newport Beach, California, writes people’s messages in the sand at the beach and takes a picture that she then emails to them. “I make about $300 per month and can do about 10 to 15 messages per hour, depending on length and complexity,” says Stefanie.

Be a nurse on call If you’re a registered nurse, consider a company like Fonemed (fonemed. com), which provides phone-based triage and medical information to their customers in Canada and the U.S. These companies contract with medical-related clients, mostly doctor’s offices and especially pediatrician’s offices, to answer questions when the offices are closed (the work hours are typically evenings, nights and weekends). You must be licensed in the state or province where you are located and have at least three years of recent clinical experience with adults and children. Fonemed nurses are paid an hourly minimum plus a fee per call, and are eligible for benefits like health insurance and paid leave. A typical Fonemed nurse makes $27 per hour, according to Fonemed owner Charlene Slaney.

Write, edit, proofread Sites like Demand Studios (demandstudios.com ) and Associated Content (associatedcontent.com ) hire experienced freelance writers, editors and filmmakers to work on projects for sites like eHow, LiveStrong.com and YouTube. At Demand Studios, assignments pay anywhere from $15 to $100; if you meet tenure and activity requirements, you can be eligible for health insurance plans. At Associated Content there are three ways to earn money: Upfront payments for content you write ($2 to $15 per article), assigned articles ($10 to $100 per article) and performance payments ($1.50 for every 1,000 page views of your article if it’s posted online).

Design graphics and websites Elance (elance.com ) works like an online marketplace, setting up designers and computer programmers with companies that need their services. Companies post jobs and freelancers bid on them, listing their experience, portfolio and the price they will charge for the job. If your bid is chosen, you’ll pay Elance a commission of 4 to 6 percent of what you earn.

Tutor kids or adults If you have a college degree or are currently enrolled in college and think you have the skills to tutor math, science, English or social studies, tutoring online might fit you perfectly. Check out Tutor.com, where tutors work as independent contractors and earn around $10 to $14 per hour based on the subject and hours worked. Very active tutors can earn anywhere from $800 to $1,600 a month.

Give advice Know a lot about medicine or car repairs? JustAnswer (justanswer.com) is a paid question-and-answer site that’s growing its community of experts in the medical, legal and financial fields, as well as in other specialties like car repair and home improvement. Registered customers ask a question and then name the price they’re willing to pay (usually from $10 to $40) for an expert answer. The expert usually responds within an hour, and once the customer accepts the answer, keeps from 25 to 50 percent of what the customer pays. How much experts earn depends on how many questions they’ve had accepted by customers. Experts are vetted through a fairly grueling process, with credentials, education and background verified.

Provide customer service Many retailers are outsourcing their customer service operations to third-party companies like Alpine Access (alpineaccess.com) and Working Solutions (workingsolutions.com), who in turn contract with home-based workers. The reps, who typically work 20 to 40 hours a week, take calls for large and small companies. The hourly rate is about $9, but agents can earn up to $13 with incentives and bonuses or up to $30 for special projects. Some companies offer benefits like health and dental insurance and a matching 401(k) plan. LiveOps (liveops.com) is similar, but service reps operate as independent contractors, typically invoicing LiveOps $10 to $15 per hour depending on the type of call and performance. And with LiveOps you can work as many hours as you want. The hiring process is rigorous: Expect a comprehensive written or online application, skills exam, phone interview and background check.

Make a little spending money When career librarian Rachel Singer Gordon, 40, of Lombard, Illinois, quit her job in 2005 to take care of her children and pursue freelance writing, she knew she’d need to find other sources of income to supplement her writing. She dove headlong into couponing and frugality, and became a wizard at finding ways to earn money online. Soon Rachel was bringing in small amounts of income from lots of sources she calls “multiple profit centers.” “They’re the equivalent of a nice, steady part-time job,” says Rachel. In 2009, she started the blog Mashup Mom (mashupmom.com) to share all the stuff she was learning. In fewer than two years, the blog has become yet another profit center for Rachel, as has her first book, Point, Click, and Save: Mashup Mom’s Guide to Saving and Making Money Online. Tap into multiple profit centers with Rachel’s favorites.

Launch a blog. “If you have something interesting to say, grow your readership, post ads and earn some dough,” says Rachel. Start your blog at a free site (go to blogger.com or wordpress.com), then go to Google AdSense (google.com/adsense) or the affiliate program at Amazon.com (affiliate-program.amazon.com) to feature advertising on your site. With AdSense, you make a little bit every time someone clicks on one of the ads hosted on your site. With Amazon’s program, you earn a small commission when someone clicks through on an ad and makes a purchase at Amazon. The income will start small, but if you build your following, your cash flow will increase. Rachel typically makes several hundred dollars per month from ads or affiliate links on her blog.
Give your opinion. At MySurvey.com, Surveyhead.com or ValuedOpinions.com, you can sign up to take surveys about products and services and get paid for it. Sites typically pay $2 to $5 per completed survey and will send you a check or deposit to your PayPal account, or gift cards or merchandise once you reach $20 in your survey account. Scam alert! There are lots of survey sites out there, but not all are trustworthy. Avoid participating in anything that charges a fee up front to participate. “I try to take three or four surveys each week while the kids are watching TV, and that brings in $20 to $30 per month,” says Rachel.
Search the Internet. Rachel loves to scour the Web, and one of her favorite things to do is use Swag Bucks (swagbucks.com) as her search engine instead of, say, Google or Yahoo. By doing this, she earns Swag Bucks points — called “SBs” on the website — redeemable for merchandise like Target gift cards and beauty products. (Maximize the number of points you earn by installing the Swag Bucks toolbar on your computer.) You can also earn more Swag Bucks points by taking the site’s daily poll and by participating in the company’s “trusted surveys.” But be warned, it could take awhile to accumulate SBs. A $300 Apple gift card, for example, costs 37,000 SB. If you don’t want prizes, you can trade your Swag Bucks points for PayPal deposits into your account.
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Do online tasks. Have a few extra minutes with nothing to do? Companies like Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk (mturk.com) will pay you to complete little tasks that they need done, such as searching the Web for certain products or answering questions and giving opinions. There’s usually a time limit of anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour, and pay ranges from a few cents to a few dollars. This may not sound like a lot, but do enough tasks and you’ve earned yourself some extra spending money.

Putnam OK's extra money for fire hall

The Putnam Township Board of Trustees approved $10,000 in additional spending for its new $1.5 million fire hall Wednesday after construction costs ran higher than estimated.

Township Treasurer Pat Carney said the project, which began in late June, did not have a contingency built in to handle any additional costs to the project, leaving the board with little option but to approve the $10,000.

Carney said $10,000 was only about 1 percent of the entire project's cost.

The extra money will come from the township's fire capital outlay fund. The Garrison Co. is handling construction of the project.

"Things aren't always quite the way you plan them to be," Carney said. "When we got to looking at the specs for a few things, they needed to be upgraded. Little things need to be a little different, and a few things had to be bought."

Carney added that weather conditions have slowed construction by two weeks, leaving mid-November as the expected date for completion.

"We're behind a little, but not alarmingly so," Carney said.

Voters approved an equipment-millage modification in November to allow for the project. The millage is for the same 0.4695-mill rate it has been in the past, which would cost the owner of a $200,000 home (with a taxable value of $100,000) taxes of $47 annually, but the altered language allows the Putnam Township Fire Department to put some of the money toward building the fire hall.

The new fire hall is off M-36 about a mile west of Pinckney, thereby negating traffic issues on Dexter-Pinckney Road and Main Street that have plagued the current fire hall since its construction in 1973.

At 80 feet by 164 feet, the new fire hall will also have six full bays and a half-bay, which is enough storage for the township's tankers, ladder truck and other additional equipment.

Carney said the township has a few options regarding what to do with the old fire hall, including putting it up for sale. Early price estimates, he said, aren't very favorable, though.

School board changes policy on extra spending

The Franklin County School Board has changed its policy on the approval of transferring funds between categories and spending on non-budgeted items.

Ed Jamison, chairman of the school board, said Thursday that any extra spending and/or transfer of category funds will now be approved by the board before any purchases are made.

The issue surfaced earlier this year when the school system spent about $2.7 million above what was budgeted for various items in April, May and June.

The board did not officially approve the spending and the transfer of funds between categories until June, after the bulk of the purchases had been made.

Some members of the board of supervisors questioned the spending and whether proper procedures were followed.

But Jamison referred to an opinion written by the school board's' attorney, Clyde Perdue, which said the spending and subsequent board approval were acceptable.

The board, its superintendent and director of business and finance "followed adopted policy and procedures in regard to its budget ... and is in compliance with state law and school board policy."

Perdue's letter said that as long as the school system stayed within its overall allocated budget and the board approved any transfer of funds before the fiscal year ends (June 30), such action "is in compliance with policy requirements for the school board."

"In this instance, two categories (facilities and technology) were discovered, in early June, to be over budget for the month ended May 31, 2011," Perdue said. "The school board, as it is legally authorized to do, in its regular June meeting authorized the division superintendent and the director of business and finance to transfer funds between categories and thus be in compliance with the school board policy. This is tantamount to an amendment of the amount budgeted for each category but has no effect on the total budget allocated by the board of supervisors."

Perdue's opinion said it is "not an unusual circumstance within our school system or other school systems" to take such action.

"Category expenses often are found to be over or under budgeted near the end of the fiscal year," he said.

Jamison said it is also not unusual for the school system to spend extra money during the last few months of a fiscal year in order to be ready for the upcoming school year.

More money was spent during those three months this year, he said, because the purchase of many items, especially in technology (which accounted for $1.6 million of the $2.7 million) had been delayed earlier due to the budget crunch.

"Could the money have been saved, and not spent?" he said. "Sure. But we have to keep up (in technology) to provide our students with the best tools."

Jamison said the school system has been recognized in many categories as one of the best in the state and the school board wants to maintain that standing.

When it involves the transparency of the budget and the school board's relationship with the supervisors, Jamison said improvements in both areas are being made and will continue to be made.

"We are becoming more transparent to the public," he said, adding that the information has always been there, it has been more of a matter of making it more accessible and easier to understand.

Jamison said the school board is also continuing to look for ways to save money, pointing out that state cuts over the last few years have amounted to about $9 million.

But with more money from the county and some stimulus money, the cuts amounted to $4.1 million.

"We've been good stewards of the money," he said. "It (absorbing a decline in funding of $4.1 million) shows we're being just as conservative as the rest of the county."

Jamison said he hopes that clarifying the extra spending this year and changing the policy on approval of such spending will satisfy those on the the board of supervisors who questioned the issue.

The board of supervisors was set to approve about $900,000 in carryover funding to purchase new school buses at its September meeting, but after the extra spending issue surfaced, the request for the money was tabled until the November meeting.

Although the school bus purchase request was again on the agenda of last week's meeting, supervisors had it removed before the meeting began, saying all of their questions on the spending and other issues had not been answered.

Charles Wagner, chairman of the board of supervisors, said he is pleased with the change in policy.

"That's a step in the right direction," he said.