Tools and Resources

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At some point in time, we all need a little help with getting our financial business on the right track. This page is dedicated to all of the resources which include products; services; and companies that can make your journey a lot easier. These are my personal recommendations based on my experience with using the products and services mentioned.

Disclaimer: There are some affiliate links below, which may or may not provide me with a small commission. You are not obligated to click on the links or purchase any of the items recommended. If a link has a “*” next to it, it means that it is an affiliate link. If you click on the link and make a subsequent purchase, it may benefit Odd Cents.

Personal Finance

There are lots of resources that offer helpful information about personal finance. In most cases, taking action is the best way to organize your personal finances. There are several tools available which can help you to take control.  Here are a few tools that I’ve used and recommend that can help to put things into perspective.

Blogs

Blog Name: Caribbean Dev Trends
About: Caribbean Dev Trends is an IDB resource that provides insightful information about political, social, and economic development in the Caribbean.
Topics: Tourism; Communications; Agri-Business; Entrepreneurship; Creative Economy

Debt Payoff Calculators

Debt Snowball Calculator – See what it takes to be debt-free and create a smart, actionable debt payoff plan.

E-Books

The Transformation Blueprint* – A book for women looking to take control of their life and plan for the future.

My Money and Me*– Change the way you view and manage your money

Investing

Annuities – Learn about annuities and structured settlements

Loan Calculators

Bank Rate’s Loan Calculator – Determine your estimated monthly payments for a loan

Money Management

Mint helps you to manage your personal finances and manage your money.

You Need a Budget promises to help you gain control of your money.

Build a Budget That Works* is a helpful book written by the Budget Mama.

Small Business and Entrepreneurship

There are lots of free resources available for prospective and current small business owners who are working with a tight budget. I found lots of helpful information on the following sites:

Accounting Software

FreshBooks – Cloud accounting software that lets you keep your business accounting organized.

Blogs and Websites

Entrepreneur – Excellent site for established and aspiring entrepreneurs.

U.S. Small Business Administration – A great place to start to look for information about starting a business.

Quora – An amazing question and answer site, where experts answer your finance related questions.

Business Templates

The Paper Money*- A valuable collection of business workbooks, guides and checklists.

Zions Bank – Tools to build and grow your business including business plan templates and financial statements templates.

E-Books

How I Make Money Blogging* – If you are thinking about taking the dive into blogging and making money from websites, this is the perfect introduction.

Each business should have a website because it’s a constant connection to potential customers. You can showcase your products and services all day every day in a virtual environment for a very small price. In my case, finding the right website themes, logos, photos, plugins and hosting companies were all necessary to ensuring that I launched this website the right way. Here are a few of the products and services that I have used.

Website Domains

GoDaddy – I have purchased several domains from GoDaddy. I bought the majority of the domains with coupon codes and received massive discounts. However, the renewal rates can be pricey.

Name Cheap* – Over the past few years, I’ve purchased many domains from Name Cheap. I love that they provide free domain privacy on all of their sites.

Infographics

Canva – The fairy god mother of all website and social media images.

Visme – I have used Visme to create article images, presentations and marketing materials.

PicMonkey – Awesome site that allows you to edit and create unique images.

Piktochart – They have affordable packages, so that you can create your own posters, reports, presentations and marketing materials.

Website Themes

For this blog, I currently use Foodica*, which is a gorgeous theme from the WPZOOM team. I chose WPZOOM themes* because they are simple yet modern, functional, and require little or no customisations.

Website Hosting

Big Scoots*- I’m currently using Big Scoots to host all of my websites and I would recommend them to anyone and everyone. I’ve never had a problem with them and their customer/technical support team is exceptional.

Fat Cow*– I’ve used Fat Cow to host my websites in the past and I did not have any issues with them. They were reasonably priced, the sites loaded at average speed, and the customer support was fast and reliable.

Please bookmark this page because it will be updated with new recommendations periodically.

Since Odd Cents was launched in 2011, the services available through the site have changed substantially. Due to an increase in interest about the site and its content, I have decided to offer a new, smaller suite of services. These services are designed to better serve readers and clients, by providing helpful solutions in varied formats.

However, it must be noted that Odd Cents aims to help people first. This means that this blog will continue to comment freely about positive and negative experiences, products and services. The site will remain independent from commercial objectives, whether or not the services below have been purchased.

Sponsored Posts

From time to time, I will post sponsored posts that fall within the business, finance and personal finance fields. Sponsored posts will contain approximately 1,000  words and can be accompanied by up to three (3)  images and/or infographics. You can also include up to three (3) links to your website. The title of the article will include the word “Sponsored” and there will be a paragraph at the beginning of the article that explains that it is a sponsored article.

Sponsored posts will be shared will be the Odd Cents social media following in the same manner as other posts written for the site. This means that your post will be shared via Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. You are free to share the post to your social media following as often as you would like.

Sponsored posts require a 50% down payment which must be paid before the first draft is written. The final 50% is due before the article is published. If the final payment is not made within 24 hours of the agreed publishing date, the article will not be published and the 50% down payment will not be refunded. I cannot offer any guarantees about the number of clicks that your links or article will receive.

If you are interested in a sponsored post, please send an email to oddcents [at] gmail [dot] com and type “Sponsored Post” in the title of your email. In your message, please include at least three topics that you are interested in and the URLs of the three (3) website pages that you would like to link to.