How Can Online Learning Benefit You?

Whether you work for “the man” or work for yourself. Whether you run your own business, a small
business or a huge multinational corporation. Whether you’re happy and content in your life and
career or feel frustrated and stifled, there’s one thing you can’t get enough of. No, it’s not money.
It’s knowledge! We all too often think of knowledge as a means to an end, a hurdle that must be over
leapt to unlock the path to greater fortune and higher pay. But the pursuit of knowledge for its own
sake can benefit you in a range of ways including (but not limited to) the monetary.

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Over the past few years online learning has boomed exponentially, and here we’ll look at just a few of
the ways it can benefit you.

Online learning needn’t cost a fortune

“That’s all well and good”, you might be thinking, “But I don’t have a few grand spare to invest in online
learning. Online courses may be cheaper than their campus based counterparts but they’re still pretty
darned expensive”. While it’s true that some online courses are expensive, it depends entirely on what
you want to learn. There’s a plethora of information out there available for free and even a range of
free online courses in a wide range of fields if you know where to look.  

It can change your career

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. If you’re bored and frustrated at work or feel as though you’re
stagnating in your career, online learning can help you to reverse your fortunes. It can give you the
skills and qualifications you need to start a new career in something different or help to unlock the
next phase of your current career.

It can help you to refine the skills from which you make a living

If you run your own business or work as a freelancer, then you know that constantly learning,
expanding your skill set and continually furthering your knowledge of the basics are essential to
maintaining your livelihood. Whether you’re reading up on Connecting CSS StyleSheets to HTML for
your web design side hustle or learning new makeup looks and products to help your clients dazzle
as a beautician. Online learning can help you to get more work as cement your reputation as a leader
in your chosen field.

It can reignite your passions

Life has a way of stripping away the passions that used to define us in our younger years. There’s a
song in the musical comedy Avenue Q called “I Wish I Could Go Back To College”. This is pretty
understandable as it’s a time when most of us feel the most alive. We’re constantly learning new
knowledge and skills and learning more about ourselves. Yet, as we fall into a job and a career, we
can quickly find ourselves in a rut, marking away the time until the revelry of the weekend is upon us.

Online learning can reignite our passions and put us back in touch with who we really are.

5 Reasons You Should Be Using SMS Message Information Services

Cell phones are continuously proliferating in every continent. This means that advertising through mobile phones is going to grow, and many companies are integrating a mobile marketing system in their marketing campaigns if you ask bongo.

When you compare other forms of delivering marketing campaigns, SMS process will be the one that receives a high ROI for its low cost of investment. Since you need permission to use this system, your company is going to connect with genuine customers, and you will quickly notice a rise in your conversion rate.

Let us look at five ways you need to use SMS services for your marketing needs.

Flexible communication

SMS will help you to send a message to all of your subscribers or your individual clients. You may time these messages and even follow them up with other timed messages to organize the interaction. You can easily mold the SMS system to suit the needs of your company.

Instant delivery

The message to your customers will take approximately seven seconds; this is one of the fastest marketing strategies your company can have. SMS services will drastically reduce the time for marketing your products and services to give you an edge over your competitors.

Flexible terms of usage

Since SMS has the options of short and long codes, the marketing needs of your company through the system is budget friendly. When you use short-codes, it will be beneficial to restrict your campaign to the country and activate it when you need to. Since the numbers are shorter, they have better recall value. The SMS system provides a high revenue-sharing and payouts when it comes to some types of campaigns. Long codes provide the option of going international with your marketing efforts to spread your reach.

Constantly growing the potential of your market

When you use SMS services for your business, you will be opening up more possibilities of growing your business since the number of users of mobile phones keeps increasing by the day. Transactions that were made on desktop devices in the recent years are now taken to the mobile platform. When you create targeted ads for SMS marketing, you will be ensuring that your brand gets into the competitive space that is being accessed by a genuine audience.

Better open and conversion rates

No marketing method offers high open rates than what SMS provides. Almost all the texts sent are read once they are sent because the targeted customer is alerted using a message vibration or message tone. When you use a very good marketing plan for your SMS marketing, you will stimulate the responses very well, and this will increase the rate of increasing sales from conversions.

The SMS service is a cost-effective means of promoting any business. When you use this system, you will target your audience in a way that a customer takes action on the content that you have provided. You can Ask Bongo about how to use SMS in your business.

Author Bio: Adrian Rubin is a freelance Philly photographer and a huge user of Ask Bongo.

Ten Stages That All Homebuyers Go Through When Looking For Their Dream Home!

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Buying a house is stressful and exciting in equal measures, and as a first time buyer there are lots of
things that you’ll come up against that you probably didn’t expect. Here are ten stages that most
people go through in the quest for buying their dream home!

Stage one- full of hope

You click onto your property sales website of choice, and have a browse through. So far, so good!
There are plenty of options, and from a glance there seems to be a number of properties that could
have potential. Seems easy so far, surely this home buying process isn’t as difficult as people make
out?

Stage two- reality hits

After adjusting your filters to fit your budget, and narrowing it down to the exact area you want, things
look a little less promising. Your selection pool has instantly been made a whole lot smaller, and at
closer inspection most of these houses don’t look so good. None of them have all of the ‘must haves’
on your checklist, and very few of them even have any of the things you really want. After a hard think,
you decide maybe three bedrooms is better than four anyway, and who really needs an ensuite?
Perhaps you could knock down some walls and renovate in a few years time… THEN you’ll have the
kitchen of your dreams!

Stage three- is it ever going to happen?

After ruling out every single property as unsuitable, you’re on the house sales websites every single
day, not wanting to miss out on any new properties that are added. Within minutes of clicking onto the
new ads, you rule those out as unsuitable too. This is at the stage where you really start questioning
if it’s ever going to happen. Frustrating times!

Stage four- revisiting previous choices

When you’ve ruled out everything that’s currently available for one reason or another, (including every
new property that gets added to the site), you find yourself clicking back onto past choices. Perhaps
you were a little harsh the first time around- or maybe you’ve missed something important? Nope,
those houses are still as lousy as the first time, each with its own unique issue as to why it’s not the
right place for you. Home A doesn’t have a garden, whereas home B does, but it’s in the ‘bad’ side of
town. Home C does tick a few boxes but it’s miles away from work and your kids schools. Home D is
gorgeous and you’d move in tomorrow if you could- but it’s a hundred thousand out of budget. Yes, at
this point you’ve started looking at properties way out of your budget range ‘just to see.’

Stage five- finding the perfect place, but losing out

One day, there is is- the perfect home. Well, maybe not ‘perfect’ but based on what you know you can
afford, this one ticks all of the boxes and you just know you could make it work. You go and view it
and things go well, and you find yourself picturing life in your new home and doing lots of research
about the area. But then comes the kicker. Your mortgage company rejects it for some silly reason, or
the house is taken off the market. Perhaps your bid is gazumped by a wealthier buyer which then puts
it out of your budget, or a survey shows some sinister problem lurking beneath. It’s devastating when
this happens, and you really are back at square one.

Stage six- is this the one?

In time, another house that ticks your boxes of course comes up, and you tentatively go and see it
and put in an offer. After being burned with the last house you’re more cautious and worried to get
excited, but everything looks like it’s going to go through and you’ve actually found a house you can
call home.

Stage seven- the waiting game

As if things hadn’t been frustrating enough up to this point, they’re about to get a whole lot worse. All
of the not-so-fun legal stuff is going on behind the scenes; surveys, local searches, conveyancing and
mortgage stuff. You’ll be handing over fees all over the place and asking yourself questions like
what is stamp duty and why are solicitors so hard to get hold of? Your property has had its status
changed online to ‘sold subject to contract’- you know that you’ll be moving into your new place but
have no idea when. Chances are your conveyancer doesn’t really know either and is always waiting
on this or that to be done, so you’re pretty much in the dark at this point!

Stage eight- full steam ahead

Finally, you get the phone call you’ve been waiting for. Your contracts have been exchanged, and you
now have a moving date. In some cases, this can be as short as one week! You go from not knowing
when it will happen to everything happening all at once. This can be very overwhelming, but hopefully
you’ve made a start on packing and have already started to get things in order at this point. Once you
move you’ll need to change all of your bills and utilities over, change address, if you’re renting you’ll
need to give your landlord your month’s notice. It’s busy and stressful, but stay organised. Write lists
and manage your time effectively. If possible, take some time off work to pack and move things. The
day you get your keys is so worth it, after a long and arduous journey you know you’ve finally done it.

Stage nine- a new home, a new chapter

Getting settled into your new home is a task within itself. Once all of your paperwork and formalities
have been moved over and everything has been tied up with the home you were living in before, you
can start to make it your own. Time to go shopping for paint and homeware!

Stage ten- happily ever after

A new home really does signify a new chapter. It’s a chance to start fresh and do everything right. It
might help you to eat better, live a more exciting life, get more organised or even start getting up
earlier! Either way, use it to your advantage and enjoy every minute.

Simple Hobbies for Your Free Time and How to Enjoy Them More

When you have children to attend to, finding enough time for leisure activities isn’t always easy. For many moms, having some time alone and enjoying the things they love the most are luxuries they cannot always afford. That said, it is still important to be able to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday routines, especially if those routines start to feel stressful at times.

Worry not because having your own personal time doesn’t always have to be complicated. More importantly, you don’t have to travel far or be away for days to really unwind and relax. Even the simplest hobbies are more relaxing when you know how to enjoy them to the fullest. In this article, we are going to take a look at some hobbies you can try as a way to unwind.

Reading

Reading is as simple as a hobby gets. You pick a book in the genre you love, and then you let yourself get lost in the words written by your favorite authors. In reality, however, finding that quiet time during which you can enjoy reading isn’t easy. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to change that.

You can start by picking up a Kindle and filling it with books that you want to finish. Paper books are great, but digital books are much easier to manage and bring with you anywhere. Besides, you can save money when you buy the digital version of popular books, especially with the discounts Amazon now offer.

Next, find gaps in your schedules and use the free time – however short it may be – to read a few pages from the book. You can fill gaps, such as when you wait for the kids to arrive from school or the quiet time after the children go to bed, to really get into the book you’re reading.

Another way to really enjoy reading is by getting your partner involved. Have him watch over the kids while you sit in a coffee shop for an hour or so, having a cup of coffee and enjoying a book. At the end of that hour, you will feel much more refreshed than when you start. A slice of cake to go along with the coffee and book wouldn’t hurt either.

Vaping

Vaping is becoming a big hobby among moms for obvious reasons. For starters, getting into vaping is fairly easy these days. You have plenty of kits and even more online retailers of vaping gear to choose from. There are also hundreds of flavors to try, including sweet ones like butterscotch and strawberry pancake. You can learn more about them from sites like Blazed Vapes.

Vaping is also much more affordable these days. You can pick up a good starter kit for as little as $15. Vape juice is just as affordable, so you can really get into vaping as a hobby and try different flavors without breaking the bank. Even better, there are communities – both online and offline – and even vaping competitions if you are really into being competitive.

Vaping is relaxing by nature. You can sit down, have a cup of tea, and just vape for a few minutes to really unwind from the stress of taking care of the family. You can do it anywhere too, which means you don’t have to resort to sitting in the smoking area or hiding from the kids when they are in the house to vape.

Exercising

Another great hobby to get into if you need a way to unwind is exercising. You don’t have to go to the gym to have a good exercise. In fact, the best exercises are the ones you can add to your everyday routines without running the rest of the day.

Walking is my personal favorite. I love adding a 30-minute walk to my mornings because it gives me that extra jolt of strength and spirit to get through the day. A 30-minute walk around the neighborhood is also more than enough to get you excited about facing the challenges of the day.

Running is even better. The higher exercise intensity gives you a much more satisfying feel in general. The body will release endorphins and other feel-good hormones as you enjoy a good run, allowing you to feel really good about the day at the end of the session.

A good way to enjoy short exercises like walking and running is by putting on some music and not letting other things bother you for the duration of the exercise. You might want to pick up a pair of noise-canceling headphones to go along with this hobby.

Writing

You’ll be surprised by how relaxing writing can be when you are stressed out. Writing is a good way to release negative energy and bad thoughts in a positive way. The more you write, the easier it gets, and the better you will be at converting the negative thoughts into words that others enjoy reading.

You don’t have to write for an audience right away. Sometimes, keeping a personal diary or writing random pieces about topics you enjoy is more than enough as a way to relieve stress. Once you have the confidence to share your writing, start a blog.

Starting a blog gives you that platform you need to really share your stories with the world. You won’t get thousands of readers immediately, but don’t be surprised to see loyal readers asking for more posts as you write about the challenges you face or other things you experience in life.

Blogging is also something you can turn into a revenue source. With a growing number of viewers eagerly waiting for your next post, you’ll start receiving emails from advertisers and brands wanting to work with you on personalized, branded posts.

Any of these hobbies are easy to get into. More importantly, they are hobbies that can really help you unwind after a long day taking care of the family. Pick one that suits you best or develop another hobby that you can fit into your everyday schedule better.

Top Investment Tips for Parents

Safeguarding your future and the future of your children becomes very important when you are a parent. Time flies when you are having so much fun with the kids. Before you know it, they’ll be ready for college and you have to start dealing with the costs of sending them to the university of their choice.

It is even scarier to think that the future goes beyond that milestone of the children going to college. Having a strong financial future is crucial and it is never too late to build one. As a parent, however, you can’t just jump into investments like you would when you were single. There are a few things you need to know first, and we are going to review them in this article.

Define Your Goals

As mentioned before, it is never too late to start investing in your financial future and the future of your kids. Even when you are starting later in life, you can still hit the objectives that you want with the right investments made at the right time.

Before you can continue with planning for those investments, however, you have to first understand the goals you want to achieve. This means listing all the future big expenses you’ll have to absorb, the kind of lifestyle you want to maintain in your retirement, and other things you want to achieve financially.

Don’t hesitate to go into details when defining your objectives; in fact, you should be as detailed as you can. The more you know about the goals you want to achieve, the easier it will be to determine the kind of investments you need to make.

Save Immediately

Before you can start investing, you also need to have the funds to invest. Don’t wait until you have a clear investment plan to start saving. Save immediately so that you have sufficient funds to start investing by the time you have a clear plan in mind.

Saving isn’t as difficult as you think, but it does require some sacrifices here and there. For example, you can save more by eliminating non-essential expenses from your monthly budget. You can actually save quite a lot when you stop buying coffee on your way to work or when you cancel the subscriptions you no longer need.

Every penny counts. Never consider an amount as too small to save. Saving $1 here and another $1 there can actually lead to a substantial amount at the end of every month. The longer you save, the more you will have to invest once a clear plan is formulated.

Make Big Leaps

Starting late means you have to work a little bit harder to achieve your goals on time. Fortunately, you also have more things you can do and a wider selection of investment instruments to use. You can enter the financial markets, invest in rental properties, or even get into real estate flipping to generate sufficient revenue and more money to invest.

The latter is actually quite interesting. A lot of parents are now in the house flipping business for a number of reasons. For starters, the market is perfect for beginners who want to try flipping houses for profit since there are fewer barriers and obstacles to get around.

You also have a number of risk management tools at your disposal. If you need to sell a house quickly because there is an emergency expense to deal with – or a new investment opportunity to grab – you can turn to companies like BiggerEquity for a quick exit. View here to learn more about how BiggerEquity lets you sell your house or the house you are flipping quickly.

Go Long-Term

Making big leaps is great for obvious reasons. The big investments you make are more likely to generate big revenues and help you achieve your financial goals faster. That said, you shouldn’t forget to build a strong portfolio that generates long-term gains and residual revenues.

Going long-term is still necessary for two reasons. First, you are not just working towards achieving short-term goals but also towards securing a better, stronger financial future for yourself. Without long-term investments, achieving the latter is not possible.

The second reason is balance. Short-term, high-gain investments usually carry more risk. Long-term, gradual-gain ones, on the other hand, offer better security. By balancing the two, you can have a much stronger portfolio in general.

Turn to Specific Products

There are a lot of products and investment instruments designed to help you achieve specific financial goals. If you want to be able to pay for your children’s education, you can use products like insurance policies and college funds to achieve those specific objectives quickly and effectively.

Products designed for specific purposes are great additions to your existing (and growing) portfolio. You know you are saving and investing towards a specific goal, so you have more energy to focus on other parts of the portfolio and expanding your wealth further.

With products like life insurance and retirement accounts, you also get flexibility. You can determine the number of investments to make, the kind of financial goals you are trying to achieve, and the time you have to achieve them. The more you can fine-tune these instruments, the sooner you can secure a better financial future for you and your children.

Manage Your Risks

One last tip to remember when you are getting started with investing is managing your risks. There are always risks associated with every investment you make. It is up to you to identify those risks and manage them the right way.

The stock market is a great place to earn short- and long-term gains, but every stock you buy comes with a risk. The forex market is just as appealing, but you also risk losing as much money as you can potentially gain. As you can see, the risks are everywhere.

Risks are also manageable. You can hedge your investments to minimize the risks you face. You can be more cautious when investing your money and invest more time and energy into learning more about the markets to limit your risks. The more you invest, the better you will be at keeping your risks in check and your profits high.