The following is a guest post by Sarah Barnett. If you would like to write for this blog, please check out the guidelines here.

Being one paycheck away from personal disaster is stressful. Flying by the seat of your pants may be a free spirited way to live, but it provides very little security. Financial planning empowers you to cope with life’s curve balls. A little bit of advanced preparation is essential to staying ahead of the game.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be complicated, either. Many people feel intimidated when faced with the prospect of organizing their finances. The good news is that anyone can make simple changes to improve their financial outlook. Here are five simple ways to do this.

5 Simple Financial Planning Tips

1. Spend less than you earn

This seems like a simple enough concept, right? However, this can be much harder to do than one might think. Over spending is a huge factor in financial health. It can help to set limits on what you buy. Pay bills first, purchase necessities second. Dedicate a specific amount of your paycheck to a savings account. Whatever is left over is what you have available to spend on other things. Never charge anything to your credit card that you can’t afford to pay off immediately.

2. Write out a budget and follow it

If you have no clue how you spend your money then it is very difficult to begin saving it. There are many tools online to help you. Once you have done this, don’t get sidelined. Avoid distractions and be ruthless about it, regardless of how nice that new car might make you feel.

3. Have a savings plan

Although this was mentioned briefly before, financial security means that you have the resources to pay for emergencies. Every time you get a paycheck, put aside a specific amount. Think of it as if you are paying yourself before anyone else gets a piece of the pie. You might be surprised how fast this adds up. A good rule of thumb is to shoot for two months of wages in reserve.

4. Investing is important

Once you have built up a cushion, start investing your extra money. Retirement plans are a great way to protect you future, when you are too old and feeble to work. Do you think you don’t really need it? Think again, because experts warn that social security benefits are likely to be cut in the future. You can’t afford to depend on them.

5. Pay off debt

This includes credit cards, student loans, vehicle loans, or any type of personal debt you may have. To keep it from becoming overwhelming, create a plan for eliminating debt one loan at a time. Start with credit cards, since these usually pack an interest rate punch. Once you have paid off one piece of debt, move on to the next until it is gone.

Your Own Approach

You may be looking at the list above and wondering whether you could ever take some of the actions that are mentioned. Is it realistic, for example, for you to come up with a detailed savings plan?

If you’re struggling to get your head round how you would approach some of these issues, then you probably need to stop and focus on your aims. What are you trying to get out of the process?

It’s likely that you’re taking an interest in financial planning because you already perceive that you have some problems associated with this area of life. It may be that your personal finances are in trouble because you spend too much money. Alternatively, it may be a lack of income that appears to be holding you back.

Don’t forget about these concerns. If these are what made you contemplate the need to carry out more financial planning then they should also drive you to put plans into action. Motivation is an amazing aspect to life and its power is not to be under-estimated.

There’s no reason why your financial planning can’t be successful. Don’t be held back by your own inertia.

About the Author: Sarah Barnett takes a keen interest in the world of business and finance. Operating a personal finance website, she helps many people to tackle financial problems.

What’s an RSS feed, you ask? Every blog has one. Perhaps you’re even subscribed to a couple, or a lot of them.

RSS feeds, usually recognizable by that little orange button found on blogs (or perhaps a different color), allow people to subscribe to a blog’s content feed. Whenever new content is added to that blog, the subscriber is notified by either their favorite RSS reader or by email, depending on their subscription preferences.

As a blog owner, it’s important that you utilize your blog’s RSS feed to it’s fullest potential.

How do you do this?

Here are several ways you can get exposure to your feed.

1. Share Your RSS Feed with the World

There are many ways to go about doing this. The easiest, in my opinion, is to submit your feed to RSS feed directories. This can be done by hand, but if you can use an automated submission tool, then all the better. I prefer to make life as easy as possible, so when I got my niche site up and running, I chose to go the automated route. Check out the link above. My good friend JR talks about a free automated tool to get your RSS feed out there. Definitely worth checking out.

This method is also great for getting some backlinks to your blog and posts. And, if your site hasn’t been indexed by the search engines yet because it’s new, this will help with that.

2. Invite Your Readers to Subscribe to Your RSS Feed

This almost seems like common sense, but you’d be surprised at how many bloggers don’t do this. Most of this can be automated as well, or should I say, implemented on your blog so that you don’t have to manually invite your readers on a post-per-post basis. Again, trying to make life as easy as possible is the goal here.

To start with, there’s a cool WordPress Plug-in called What Would Seth Godin Do, which basically displays a custom welcome message to first-time visitors and also to return visitors (up to 3 times). You can customize this message to say whatever you want. The default message is pretty good already, but I took the opportunity to customize it a little bit more to make it seem a little more personal. Here’s what it looks like…

This message will appear at the end of your recent blog post.

This is just the beginning, though. Of course, you should be displaying a nice big RSS icon somewhere towards the top-right of your blog, similar to this…

And, if you want to go maybe a tad overboard as I did, you can use your sidebar to showcase your feed and make it a little more inviting to people…

I particularly make it obvious that people can subscribe via an RSS reader or by email. I personally prefer subscribing to blogs by email, so I imagine there are others who do as well. But, you also have people who like using RSS readers, so you want to make sure you provide both options.

3. Integrate Your RSS Feed with Feedburner

Feedburner, owned by Google, easily integrates with your existing blog’s feed to provide advanced tools and stats. One feature I feel is a must, and something I previously mentioned, is that you have the ability to offer readers a way to subscribe to your feed via email.

Other features include customized email subscription options, so you can determine how the emails will look to your readers, including with what the title of the email will be.

You have advanced stats available that will who you how many people are subscribed to your feed, and you even have the option of emailing your entire email subscriber base. Consider this targeted email marketing at its finest.

One very nice feature is the ability to see how your blog’s RSS feed is being used. This is helpful to find out if certain people are pulling your feed to serve content on their own blogs. Obviously, this can potentially be a problem, as some people may actually be stealing your content.

RSS Footer WordPress Plug-In

One way to combat this problem is by using a neat plug-in called RSS Footer. This allows you to add customized HTML code that will show up at the end of your blog posts in your RSS feed. When someone is reading a post via email, RSS reader, or on someone else’s site who has pulled your feed, they will see this added text at the end of the posts.

What I do is link back to the original post, link to the blog’s home page, and I also link to my site’s home page. That’s three different backlinks I’m getting whenever someone publishes my feed on their site. This also makes it known to anyone reading that the content is from a different site.

How Are You Utilizing Your Blog’s RSS Feed?

Are you using any of the strategies I mentioned to best utilize your RSS feed? Are you doing anything different that I haven’t mentioned?

Have any questions about anything I mentioned? Perhaps something doesn’t make sense, or you want me to elaborate further?

Let me know by leaving a comment below…

First, I apologize for the delay. I was without the internet for a few days, and I wasn’t about to attempt to write an entire blog post on my Droid 2. That just wasn’t going to happen. Fortunately, I could still check my email and Facebook for the time being.

I’m fully back online now, so I wanted to get this income report up right away.

Every month I do a detailed income report, showing you exactly where my income comes from. This gives you an idea of the various income streams that are available, as I strongly believe you shouldn’t place all of your eggs in one basket, as discussed in this post.

This is also a way for me to measure my success (or failure) from month-to-month. Each month will vary in income, and that’s all part of working from home as an affiliate marketer. This acts as a motivator for me to keep pushing forward to reach my goals.

I hope you find these income reports helpful and give you encouragement that it is possible to make money on the internet.

Let’s see how I did last month…

Income from ReplaceYourSalary.com

• ClickBank: $19.34
• PayDotCom – $28.17
• Paul’s Backlinks: $8
• Google Adsense: $17.64
• SFI: $6.84
• Project Payday: $6 (commissions earned from promoting the program, not actually using it)
• AdFish – $26.40
• ResponsiveData – $21
• AshMax – $19.50 (Total monthly commissions from GDI and FTS)
• Affiliate Power Group – $21.81
• Ads – $90

Total = $264.70

Income from Micro Niche Adsense Site

My micro niche site keeps improving each month. Google Adsense earnings for this month from the site totaled $8.75. This amount is included in my total Adsense income as reported above. I finally was able to add another page to my site, providing more related content for those searching for that topic. I believe adding more related pages will bring in more targeted visitors and produce more Adsense clicks. That’s the goal, anyway.

Total Online Income

Total online income from all sources comes to…

$264.70

Income from GetBackYourExAdvice.com

No income as of yet. I’ve been slowly building backlinks and adding more content to the site. Expect an update very soon regarding the site and what exactly I’m doing to market it.

December was by-far my best month to date. One of my goals last year was to reach $1,000 in income for a single month, and I finally did it. Now, the next goal is to do it consistently. I will be doing much less proofreading in the months ahead, so the bulk of that income will be gone. That means I’ll need to boost more income out of this site and try to get the ball rolling with my new niche site.

That’s my current plan.

As always, I welcome your comments below…

The following is a guest post by Lloyd Burrell. If you would like to write for this blog, please check out the guidelines here.

Having a home office set-up that just makes you want to stand back and admire it might feel like the right choice initially, but what really matters day in/ day out is comfort and functionality.

The more efficiently that something is designed or run, the better off it is for everyone concerned. Since you probably work alone in your home office, then for any ergonomic improvements you make 100% of the benefit goes to you.

The three main components of the home office are a chair, the office desk and your computer and keyboard. It’s how you arrange all these three that will determine whether you obtain the best ergonomic design.

Here are some tips to help you create an ergonomic home office:

Your Chair

The first thing is to have a comfortable chair set to the right height. You’ll spend more productive time, rather than time spent massaging your sore back and neck. If you just threw your home office together, and didn’t spend any time studying the ergonomics and workflow pattern, then just getting the ergonomic chair you need will be a major step in the right direction. Here are some points for consideration:

• Is the seat pan comfortable and does it fit your shape?
• Can you adjust the seat chair height?
• Is the seat pan the right length for your legs? If it’s too long it will catch you behind the knees or prevent you from leaning fully back against the lumbar support.
• Is the chair the seat pan at least one inch wider (this is considered optimum) than your hips and thighs on either side?
• Does the chair have a lower back back rest?
• Is the chair back rest sufficiently large enough to give good back support?
• Does the seat still feel comfortable after you’ve been sitting in it for an hour or two? Low-density foam though not visible to the naked eye can cause a numbing feeling after time.
• Can you recline the backrest to support your back in different positions?
• Does the chair have a 5 arm pedestal base?
• Do you need armrests? If so, are they broad, contoured, cushioned and comfortable?

Your Office Desk

Perhaps you are at the point of going out and buying a new office desk:

• In general your office desk should measure somewhere between 24 inches and 27 inches in height. This will allow sufficient room for the arms of the chair to pass under the desktop. Anything shorter than that is likely to restrict movement. An adjustable-height office desk that can be adapted to the user is an even better, but your choice of designs is likely to be limited.
• Prefer an an office desk which offers adjustable shelves for the keyboard and monitor, allowing you to arrange them to suit your height. You should be able to raise or lower the keyboard shelf and adjust that shelf’s angle, as well.
• Monitors should be positioned on your office desk so that they are a minimum of 20 inches (50.8 cm) away and that the top line of type is between eye level and 15° below eye level, Correct positioning will help to minimize neck and eye strain.
• Prefer a desktop surface with a dull or matte finish to reduce glare and reflections.
• If you are a classically-trained typist, then keep your keyboard on the horizontal plane. If you hunt and peck, then use the back and recessed legs on the keyboard and prop them open, so that it’s tilted towards you.
• Try and buy a desk with some built in storage. We all have files which we have to access regularly and having them on or in your desk will be a definite advantage. A desk with a hutch might be a good choice if you only have limited floor space.

Your Computer and Keyboard

• Your wrists should be in a straight position when you’re at your keyboard. If they’re not, then you need to try changing your chair height or keyboard angle, or even adding a cushion to your seat perhaps. Try not to bend your elbows more than 90°, or else you’ll squash your blood vessels and you could develop sore shoulders, wrists, and arms.
• If you’re tall or large, then get one of those split ergonomic keyboards. Each half is angled towards you and not towards each other. If your arm reach is wider than an average person’s, they using one of these types of keyboards helps to relax your arms when you’re typing.
• Those wrist or armrests shouldn’t be used when you’re typing. If you have a gel pad at the front edge of your keyboard, then rest your palms on it and not your wrists. If you type from that position, then it’s a real strain on the tendons inside of your wrist. Try an antiglare filter screen on the front of your monitor, or if you were prescription eyeglasses, then you can get an antiglare filter added to them during manufacture.
• Try substituting a few of those shortcut keys for some of your mouse use. This means hitting the control key and another letter, and that will take you directly to the function. This reduces your dependence on the mouse, and a lot of those repetitive movements.

Blend your office ergonomics with your tasks, and very them and change them up occasionally. This gives your regular routine and muscles a refreshing few minutes of rest. Your muscles may recover much quicker if you can do this every now and then.

How Much Is My Health Worth?

If you feel the need for additional help with designing your office more ergonomically, then you can have a physical or occupational therapist visit you. This does require more outlay of cash, but if you are planning on spending a certain amount of money it may well be worth it. In the end, ask yourself: “How much is my health and well being worth?” Spending on office ergonomics may be one of the best investments you can make in the long run.

About the Author: Lloyd Burrell is a freelance writer and blogger who enjoys writing on the theme of office desks. He writes about a variety of desks including corner computer desks for home offices, computer desks with hutch, L-shaped computer desks, U shaped desks, Glass computer desks etc. He lives in France with his wife and 2 children.

Here’s your chance to win some cool prizes, up to $2,300 worth. Thanks to the TechChunks Giveaway, you can easily earn “tickets” for the chance to be one of 28 winners. Seriously, entering this contest is super easy. I’ll warn you, though, time is very limited.

Why should you enter this contest?

Contest Prizes

As mentioned, there will be 28 winners in all.

Prizes include:

• Custom logo, banner design and WordPress testing service. License of Snagit screen capture software.
• MacX DVD Ripper Pro + MacX iPhone DVD Video Converter Pack + MacX Video Converter Pro.
• WinX DVD Ripper Platinum
• Theme Junkie All 13-in-1 primium theme package
• Video Converter Ultimate for Mac and iPad PDF Transfer for Mac
• Meon the Light Quest Game for iPhone + Unannounced surprise gift

They’re dubbing this as a Technology Gift Giveaway. Makes sense.

Not a bad list of prizes if I might say so. Obviously, you may not have a huge need for some of these, but I’m sure you could make good use of at least a few of them. Am I right?

How to Enter

This is a dead-easy contest to enter. I’m not going to try and explain the process here, but you can just go to the official contest entry page on TechChunks to get yourself registered.

Again, time is very limited. They could pull the plug at any moment. I’m a bit late in posting about it, so I apologize in advance. All I can say is, go now and get as many “tickets” as you can!

January flew by very fast. February is quickly headed in the same direction… to me anyway. Exciting things coming up for this site and blog, at least I hope you’ll think so.

Last month was pretty sparse with posts, but the posts we have here are definitely worth checking out if you haven’t done so.

Let’s take a look…

January’s Blog Posts on ReplaceYourSalary.com

My Guest Blog Posts of 2010

6 Tips to a Workable Home Office

Why One Online Business Is Not Enough

December 2010 Income Report

How to Get Your Site Indexed by Google

5 Useful Tips for First-Time Telecommuters

Blog Posts Around the Web

These posts are in no particular order…

Mavis Nong talks about how to stay focused on your internet marketing business on TechnShare. I know first-hand that this can be difficult on many levels. I’m sure you’ll find some good tips here just as I did.

Andrew talks about his fight against content thieves and what he’s been doing to combat the problem. A must read if you have people stealing your blog content and using it as their own. I wrote about this subject in the past when I started finding blogs stealing my content. I then did a follow-up post about the proper etiquette when using someone else’s content on your blog or website. Those are also worth checking out if you the time.

Daniel provides a list of 20 SEO terms you should know on Daily Blog Tips. This is a must for any website owner as SEO should be a regular part of your website promotion. If you don’t know much about SEO and related terms, then you’ll definitely want to read this.

Chris Pund of Dorm Room Biz offers some entrepreneurial quotes to help motivate and encourage entrepreneurs. I’m a huge fan of quotes and post them all the time on my Facebook Wall and Fan Page. They act as a great motivator and eye-opener and are definitely worth reading if you’re feeling a bit down.

Angie Stewart gives 5 tips for using Google Webmaster Tools to better help you with your on-site SEO efforts. If you haven’t setup a Google Webmaster account yet or have no idea what one is, then you definitely need to read this!

There you have it.

Be sure to check out these posts if you some spare time. You’ll be glad you did.