This is a sponsored post by TurboTax, however, all opinions are my own and I have been a TurboTax user since college!

YES! It’s #W2sDay! 

What does that mean? While most should have already received their W-2 from their employer, January 31st is the deadline for employers to get those forms in the mail. TurboTax celebrates #W2sDay as a way to kick-off tax season and being one step closer to getting your tax refund (cha-ching) ! 

Instead of tossing your W-2 into a random pile, let’s get to work on getting your refund! And this year, customers with simple tax returns can get their refund and not have to worry about paying any tax preparation fees with!

Yes, you heard it right 100% free! If you are a taxpayer with a simple tax return, who takes a standard deduction and/or files using a 1040 tax form, you are guaranteed to file your taxes completely FREE with TurboTax Free Edition!

Federal Cost: $0

State Cost: $0

Filing Fee: $0

via GIPHY

Ok, so we have gone over the fact that this awesome service is free! Now it’s time to file. Gather your W-2s and any other tax documents that you have received, log in and get started.  When you first log in, they ask you some very basic questions that are impossible to get wrong, like did you get married, have a baby, buy a house, go to school, own a business…. you get the gist! Super easy questions about your life.

Next, you will be prompted to enter information from your W-2. To make that even easier, you can import your W-2 info directly from over a million employers. Then, they ask a few more questions to make sure you are getting your maximum refund, then boom, you are done and it cost you NOTHING!

Now, what to do with all of this refund money? 

Don’t forget to tell your friends, so they can use TurboTax Free Edition and save on filing fees!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of TurboTax Free Edition for IZEA Worldwide. All opinions are 100% mine.

https://izea.it/aBBCdcg

Summary

T-shirt businesses are one of the best online business now a days.  First, who doesn’t love to wear t-shirts? Second, the start up cost can be really low (depending on how you manage your capital). But most of all, it is forever on trend!  

Tune in to this episode as Kalilah Wright, an entrepreneur from Baltimore and owner of Mess in a Bottle shares her ups and downs in starting and managing her own T-shirt company. Plus, get tips on how to start your own t-shirt business with little to no capital.

Who knows, a T-shirt business might be your next #wealthbuilding business!

Resources

• Mess In A Bottle’s Instagram
• Mess In A Bottle

• Theteeclass.com

Key Takeaways

• Kalilah researched in Craigslist to find machines and equipment to start her T-shirt business with $500 capital.
• Big Cartel allows you to have an online store and sell 5 products for free.
• Kalilah felt a huge spike in orders when she got featured in a national TV show.
• When Kalilah experienced robbery, although it had been a traumatic experience she still went on and use the opportunity to turn it into something positive.  
• To sit still is to give yourself a moment to have a mental and physical rest from time to time.  
• Kalilah used Shopify and Paypal working capital loan.
• Joining crowd funding and pitch competitions can give you exposure and free money to help you financially support your business.  
• Allow to create pocket of spaces by getting help.  
• Everything is figureoutable.
• If you can dream it, it can happen.

Summary

To create your dream digital nomad life is to believe in ‘experiences over things’, but even experiences come with a cost.

With the material things you acquired over the years that you will have to leave behind, not to mention, the traveling expenses, how can someone really shift to a digital nomad life?

On this episode, we are with Kashlee Kucheran, a digital nomad, budgeting expert and serial entrepreneur. Kashlee left the corporate world of being a finance manager and Realtor in order to travel the world full time.

Kashlee talks about how she and her husband embrace minimalism in their lives to start a freedom based lifestyle.

Resources

• Kashlee’s Instagram
• Travel Off Path – Kashlee’s blog
• High Maintenance Minimalist – Kashlee’s book

Key Takeaways

• Take a hard look at your finances –  how much are you paying every single month for your house, car, bills and your lifestyle.
• Start combing through your credit card bills, and you will notice so many extras like subscriptions and other expenses that you don’t really need in your life.
• Look around the house and identify things you don’t need anymore and begin to sell those items
• There’s a gold mine on everyone’s closet.
• Use Facebook marketplace to sell your staff.  It works so quickly that people buy things within hours of posting
• If you get your cost of living down to next to nothing; and you go to countries where your currency is much higher values; and go to places that is very cheap to live you don’t need to make nearly as much as you make right now.
• Research what the true cost of living in the country you chose.
• Get a UPS box to have a proper street address for the mails.
• Sign up for e-Service to get your bills over the internet.
• Give yourself a general budget and try to stick to it.
• Pick countries that are on the cheaper end of things; and as your business grows and you get more comfortable and better in budgeting you can go to places that are a little more expensive.
• You can never have a (online) business that’s gonna make money immediately, it takes time.
• One thing that you can’t ever tarnish while being an entrepreneur is your integrity.
• Anyone can apply minimalism to their lives, just do more with less.
• High Maintenance Minimalist is great for someone who wants to declutter, for someone that needs help with creating a budget and also for someone who wants to be a digital nomad and travel.

Summary

What is the recipe for success?

To be an entrepreneur is to get out of your comfort zone and sometime it’s an understatement.  You will go through a lot to attain success in entrepreneurship but your values and characteristics will take you there.

In this episode, we will hear about how David Simnick, CEO and co-founder of Soapbox and his team went through to get investors for their business; to not getting salary for the first years of their business; to hitting company money goals and finally making an impact.  What does David Simnick and other successful entrepreneurs have? Find out by listening in.

P.S.  Are you a fan of Soapbox just like I am? Make it to the end of this episode to get your gift from David.  

Resources

• Soapboxsoaps.com  – Get 20% off using this promo code –  dominique20
• Soapbox’s Amazon Shop – Get 20 % off using this promo code –  dominique20
• David’s LinkedIn

Key Takeaways

• Humility and the willingness to be mentored is an essential factor of an entrepreneur success.
• You need to know the things that you don’t know and get ahead before of the learning curve before that curve hurt you or your company.
• Finding mentor is not that difficult. Finding the right mentor is incredibly difficult.
• Small Ask is a theory used by Soapbox to get mentors and investors.  
• Small Ask is to make the ability for someone to engage in you really simple.
• When doing Small Ask show that you take the time to research and invest a time in that person.  
• When you do this Small Ask you are actually getting that person to invest in you.
• You want your mentor to believe that your success is their success.
• Mentors sometimes eventually become investors.
• Things are not always going to work out the way that we want to but we believe that we can win.
• Resilience is the number one key ingredient for successful entrepreneur.
• Do not allow momentarily defeat to spell failure overall.
• Your saving is the equity of the company, that the investors want you to have.
• Being an entrepreneur is incredibly hard, and not that hard at the same time.
• If you are humble, hungry and smart and willing to work hard usually you can make a living as a entrepreneur but it is also incredibly risky and not safe at all.

Summary

In this episode, Chiko will share his experiences on how he got started, what were his past struggles as a thriving entrepreneur and how the decision to start a business early made the biggest difference in his life.  

Resources

• Chiko’s Instagram
• Perfect Office

Key Takeaways

• When it comes to entrepreneurship, you just gotta make a decision to start and have your mind wrapped around it and it gets figured out.
• Leading at that point, I’m trying to get my finances together at a time. Taking steps to reduce my monthly expenses and creating other revenues outside of my job.
• It was tough on the very beginning because of limited funds. I have to move back to my parents and cut back on  a lot of different things. And, even though in the beginning my business is growing on a little bit fast, I still did not pay myself that much.
• On hitting your goal on the first year of business: It was being on the phone. The office space is very important and just make phone calls, sales calls and getting out there and trying to get something happen.
• The pressure and being against off the wall as a entrepreneur will help you find ways to figure things out.
• Going back is not an option.
• If you want to be great get your finances right, get out of a job and get started learning.
• It’s funny, once you made the decisions to move forward a whole bunch of life roadblocks come up.
• The reason we ramp up very very fast is got our cost very very low, office space played a big part on that.
• Entrepreneurs get hold back because of the cost of entrepreneurship.
• I decided to break the market, make it more affordable and a little more flexible but at the same time professional.
• As an entrepreneur you are always working on something.
• Just start. You will be surprised how time flies if you start now you can put yourself in a whole other arena in 1-2-3-4 from now. You just got to start and figure it out.
• You have to move in a type of mindset that anything is possible.

Thanks to my friends over at Evernote for partnering on this post.

When I first started my business, all I wanted to do was provide affordable and easy access to financial planning to people that typically were not able to access this quality financial advice. The firms that I previously worked at, would require you to have at least a million dollars in order to become a client and get financial advice and I was determined to change that!

As my business has grown, I have had to learn how to truly stay organized, as it seems that I am always working on a million projects. And once you add in my frequent travel schedule, thanks to speaking engagements, participating in accelerators and just enjoying exploring other cities, it can get very difficult to manage. So to help with my sanity and keep me in tune with my team, I have been using Evernote for a few years now. 

When I first started using this app, I only used it to take notes when I was planning something for my business, and in my personal life I have used it to organize my ideas to redecorate my bedroom and I even have a notebook within Evernote to save all of my notes from church.

Over the years they have added tons of new features and one of my favorites is the templates! The templates are awesome and you can add them to any of your notebooks within Evernote. The templates can help you do everything from plan out a project, budget for a project, work on your personal budget, manage your human resources and even set and track your monthly and quarterly goals. And with Evernote Premium I can access my notes even when I am 35,000 feet in the air jet-setting across the country with their offline availability feature.

One of the newest features that has taken my organization to a whole new level is the Evernote & Google Calendar Integration! Evernote Premium will automatically sync with your Calendar and will pre-fill a note based on the meeting information on your calendar, so all you have to do is open Evernote and start taking notes for the specific event! Loving this feature! It makes it super easy to share with your team after, so everyone is on the same page.

As we add more projects and people to the team, communication and clarity are critical amongst my dream team. Evernote Premium has been a great tool to keep my busy, visual mind organized and on track! Can’t wait to see what features they come out with next!

This post was created in partnership with Evernote. All opinions are my own.