Top 10 Money Tips For Almost Everyone

1. Invest early
Time is the greatest money earner. If you start by saving $200 per month for the next 50 years, you will have a much more considerable sum than saving $1000 per month for the last 10 years. This is due to the help you are getting from compounding the interest that you will get from consistently having your money work for you for a long time. The Golden Rule is to start saving and investing yesterday!


2. Pay yourself first
Always put investing and saving ahead of purchases. We live in a consumerist world. Spending and enjoying our purchases is our lifestyle. What better way to skip out of the loop than hiding a portion of your paycheck away when you get you monthly paycheck. Setup an automatic separate account(Time Deposit or Money Market) to hide your money away on the day you get your paycheck. What you do not see, you do not want to use.

3. Do not take on high interest debt
Debt can kill you. Once you take on high interest debt, you are essentially taking on a job at the bank. Spend less and get away from high interest debt. Skip installment plans also. Most of them have hidden fees that pounce on you once you miss a payment.

4. Buy only correct insurance
Not all insurance is important. Generally health, disability and term are recommended. Avoid Life, Extended warranties and Investment Linked Policies.

5. Budget!
Keep track of your expenses. At the end of the month, do a tally and see where your money is going. It is likely to be different from what you had perceived before. Shave off the excesses and put the money into the investment account. For the next month, set a spending budget that you are comfortable with. This way, you are bringing down your spending cap and helping yourself survive on less.

6. Invest in something, anything!
Don't put your extra money in a time deposit or a savings account forever. You need your money to be working for you. The average return on stocks is around 10% a year. It might seem little but you get to double your money every 7 years. If you put it in the bank, you will be losing money to inflation instead. When investing, it is recommended that you diversify. There are plenty of safe investment options like funds, bonds, REITS. Get a knowledgeable friend or join an investment club to learn more. In the meantime, just put your money in an index fund like Vanguard's Total Stock Market Index to ride on the performance of the stock market while you decide on where to put your money.

7. Have a cushion fund
Sometimes you can get caught in a sticky situation where you need some cash. Withdrawing from investments usually take 3 days and this in eternity when an emergency strikes. Aim for a 6 months worth of income to act as your emergency fund. Open a time deposit account that enables you to break open the deposit whenever you need access. Of course breaking the deposit will forfeit the interest accrued so far, but accessibility to the cushion fund is still the most important.

8. Don't look at your investments
If you had no time to learn about investments, don't track their returns everyday. You will just be suckered into the herd mentality and end up incurring a lot of trading fees. Have faith that over the long term, it will rise. Ignore the financial news and live your blissful life. Ignorance is bliss.

9. Delay large purchases
20% of our decisions regarding money make up 80% of the money we actually spend. For large purchases(i.e more than 20% of your monthly salary), take a week to think over the purchase. After a week, you might not find the purchase so desirable after all.

10. Tax
In certain countries where tax is every high, it is worthwhile to sit down with a professional accountant to work out a way where you can pay least or no tax. However doing this requires planning and some amount of work throughout the year. Most people never get this done since it seems so troublesome. At the very least, talk to someone versed in the field and see how much you can save by planning for tax correctly.

9 Amazing & Unusual Printers

Almost everyone that owns a computer system has a printer. Mention the words laserjet, inkjet or even dot matrix and people will understand the reference. The most common usage of these devices is rather dull: to print documents and photographs. But did you know that there are many other unusual applications of printing technology in the production of solar panels, concrete walls and even something as mundane as toasting bread? Here are 9 printers that make your office printer look lame, even if they do use the same technology!


1. Nanoparticle Ink Printer

Nanosolar’s original goal was to mass produce state of the art solar panels, something not really achievable using a standard high vacuum manufacturing process. This process is slow, with a maximum 10 to 30MW capacity per year, and its operational costs are also incredibly high. To overcome these obstacles, Nanosolar created a highly innovative printer to replace the aging technology.

The $1.65 million printer is used to print the thin film solar cells using nanoparticle ink and has an amazing output of 100 feet per minute. With a 1 GW annual capacity, the new tool is said to be twenty times faster than the traditional method and it is far more cost efficient as the high vacuum tool would have cost 10 times more per tool.


2. 3D Printer

Primarily used in prototyping, 3D printing creates a three dimensional model by layering and connecting cross sections of the material based on CAD design. The most common printer used to create these models is an inkjet system. The printer is filled with a fine white powder, either plaster, corn starch or resin, and bonded by an adhesive dispensed by the inkjet heads forming each cross section shape as depicted in the CAD design.

3D printers are generally used to develop prototypes in industries such as architecture, metal works, geospatial and the entertainment industry. This technology has also been used in forensic pathology and palaeontology for the reconstruction of bones, facial features and even fossils.


3. Concrete Printer

Like seeing a naked person running down the street, most people do a double take when they hear of the concrete printer. A concrete printer sounds ludicrous, but it is in fact a reality. Researchers, from the USC Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT), have taken the 3D printing technology used in constructing three-dimensional solid objects and applied it to printing concrete objects.

The contour crafting equipment outputs neatly trimmed layers of concrete, adding subsequent layers to form the object. Liking it to inkjet printing, the overlaying process is vital to forming the shape but instead of using ink, the machine dispenses concrete. So far CRAFT have managed to create a concrete wall using this technology, but envision that the technology will one day be used to manufacture large scale buildings and infrastructure.


4. Digital Fabrication

Using a technology similar in principle to 3D printers, digital fabrication systems, or fabbers as they are more commonly known, create solid objects based on the inputted design. Often summarised as a small, self contained factory, fabbers are used to make not only prototypes but also the final product.

Fabbers are categorised by their functions. Subtractive fabbers, also called computer-numerically controlled machines, build the models by carving into a solid block of raw material. Additive fabbers are more like traditional 3D printers in that they add layers and mould the material into the correct shape. Formative fabbers apply pressure to the raw material to form the desired shape and hybrid fabbers combine one or more of the other fabber functions.


5. Bioprinter

Perhaps the most ingenious adaptation of inkjet printer technology to date has been that of Professor Makota Nakamura who is using a 3D inkjet printer to eject many thousands of cells per second to form a 3 dimensional biological structure. He has already used the technology, which functions in a similar manner to other 3D printers by building layer upon layer of cells, to make a tube just 1mm in diameter with double walls similar to those found in human blood vessels.

This is only the first step towards his ultimate goal: to build a fully functional human heart using the patient’s own cells. It won’t happen any time soon though, Nakamura says it could take him 20 years before the bioprinter is ready for real world application. The possibilities are, however, incredible.


6. Glass Printer

This revolutionary printer, developed by DIP Tech, a technological partner of Tamglass, is capable of printing directly onto glass. After the design has been captured digitally, the glass printer will print the design onto glass using solvent-based ceramic ink dispensed by the Drop-on-Demand printing heads. The glass is then dried traditionally using air-drying or IR-drying before being fired at the same temperature as screen printing ink which sets the design.

This printer, used for both tempered and laminated glass, is said to bring great benefits to glass manufacturers. It can print up to four colours simultaneously, reducing production time and there is no need to store, clean or maintain screens traditionally used in glass printing. It is so versatile that you can print any design, logo or serial number directly onto glass.


7. Waterfall Printer

It’s surprising that the idea of a waterfall printer took so long to develop, especially when it’s such a small step from jetting out ink to water. The effect, it has to be said, is quite stunning. If you’ve got a spare wad of cash and would like to add some interest to your event or office interior, then a water printer could be what you are looking for.


8. RITI Printer

This is a really unique printer, unlike none other even seen before. Designer Jeon Hwan Ju created a printer that uses coffee or tea dregs instead of ink. Simple to use, all you need to do is load a piece of paper into the RITI printer and then put the coffee or tea dregs into the special ink case on top of the printer. To print you need to move the ink case from left to right in the slot. Once you are finished, just extract the paper from the printer and wash out the ink case.

While it is true that it is’t the optimal printer to use in an office environment as it cannot print as fast as an inkjet, nor is the quality on a par with an inkjet printer, it is, however, incredibly eco-friendly. Aside from that home users will definitely appreciate the reduction in printing costs associated with expensive inkjet cartridges, so it is well worth using it for draft copies of documents.


9. Toaster Printer

This printer would be the perfect gift for any technology junkie, or for the person that has everything. Yes folks, this little device will enable you to print designs, pictures or text onto toasted bread – and it doesn’t even matter if you prefer white or wholemeal bread!

It is suggested that the makers of ZUSE were inspired by the original matrix printers and adapted it to burn 12 x 12 pixel resolution images into toast by marking it line by line, just like a dot matrix printer. While commercially this printer is not of much use, unless you run a restaurant and want to imprint your logo on toast, it is still a fun gimmick to have at home that is sure to make your family smile at the breakfast table in the morning.

Digital printer technology certainly has come a long way since the first dot matrix and laser printers and it seems to be evolving at a rapid pace. The application for this technology is potentially limitless and is proving indispensible to both industry and home users alike.

Now you want to go in Amsterdam!

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7 Strange Animals Bred for Business Purposes

Supersized bunnies, tiny cows, and frozen goats–they’re not just for children’s books anymore.

Breeders around the world covet certain animals for their economic potential. Some produce a lot of meat. Some are iridescent. Others fit well into small spaces.

Nevertheless, all of the animals featured below have two things in common. One, they have highly unusual attributes. Two, those very attributes make each a potentially lucrative business proposition:


7. Giant Guinea Pig

Cuy meat is lean, protein-packed, and versatile. Better yet, cuys, or guinea pigs, reproduce quickly, offering a steady supply of meat. One Lima official said that guinea pigs will feed a family of up to eight people for only USD $3.20. Peruvians eat about 65 million guinea pigs per year.

With meat in mind, scientists in Peru set out to supersize the cuy. 34 years after they came up with the idea, scientists introduced a giant cuy weighing about 2.2 lbs, twice the usual size. The guinea pigs were especially prized for export, allowing Peruvians living abroad to get a (big) taste of home.


6. Belgian Blue

Known as the Incredible Hulk cow, Monster cow, and Schwarzenegger cow, the Belgian Blue takes the world’s blue ribbon for buffness. The cow’s hereditary myostatin defect results in excessive muscle growth known as “double muscling.” As a result, the breed produces a large amount of lean beef, endearing it breeders looking to penetrate a health-conscious beef market—or just trying to look good with a stable full of manly cows.


5. Fainting Goat

Fainting goats are bred to fall over. A hereditary disorder, myotonia congenita, causes their muscles to freeze when they’re scared, often resulting in them collapsing on their sides. Their small size makes them ideal for small farms, where they won’t hop fences—or will scare themselves into collapsing when they try.

According to oral history, the fainting goat was a good asset protector. Handlers would keep them with other (more valuable) animals, like sheep. When a predator came around, the fainting goat would collapse, effectively sacrificing itself so that the other animals could safely run away.


4. German Giant

The German Giant, one of the biggest domestic rabbit breeds on Earth, can grow to the size of a dog. Breeders covet giant rabbits for their looks, their fur, and their meat.

Breeder Carl Szmolinsky produced Germany’s biggest rabbit in 2006. His win inspired North Korean officials to purchase twelve of Szmolinsky’s German Giants to start a food breeding program. The giant bunnies’ offspring would help alleviate North Korea’s endemic food shortages.

Szmolinsky was scheduled to fly into Pyongyang to help them establish the program. North Korean officials, however, canceled his visit. He suspects that government officials ate the rabbits. “North Korea won’t be getting anything from me any more,” the upset Szmolinsky told Spiegel in the interview.


3. Minicow

If supermarket beef is becoming too expensive, don’t fret. You can purchase your own German Shepherd-sized minicow for a few hundred dollars. It’s tiny, meaty and, best yet, fits in your backyard. Homesteaders can choose from Irish Dexter, Mini Hereford, or Lowline Angus cows, which the Times says produces 70% of the steak of a cow twice its size. All you need is a couple of acres of grass and a little fencing. In return, you get organic, grass-fed beef, sans hormones or slaughterhouse.


2. Jersey Giant

Why eat turkey when you can buy a giant chicken instead? That’s what 19th-century breeders John and Thomas Black were thinking when they introduced the Jersey Giant. The breed, originally crossbred from three other kinds of chickens, produces hens weighing an average of 11 lbs, and cocks of 13 lbs. The meat industry initially took to the idea, but then cast Jersey Giants aside because they don’t grow fast enough.


1. GloFish

Swim aside, goldfish. The Sunburst Orange ® GloFish ™ is genetically engineered to outshine you by miles. And unlike you, boring, traditional goldfish, the GloFish ™ also comes in Starfire Red and Electric Green.

These colorful zebrafish hold the dubious honor of being the world’s first genetically modified pet. In 1999, Singapore-based scientists inserted fluorescence proteins from coral and jellyfish into a zebrafish embryo, resulting in the GloFish’s luminescent qualities. The idea was to create a fish that would fluoresce when it came near toxins, allowing it to detect pollution.

In the US, Austin-based Yorktown Technologies licensed the GloFish—initially created in Singapore—for consumer sales. People continue to buy the dazzling danios, though GMO laws in Canada, and the EU ban people from possessing them.