How To Realistically Set Your Fees - Part 3 How does this effect our hourly rate, let's see. Last article we left off at $56 per hour. This represented a yearly salary of $42,000 plus annual business expenses of $15,000. If we take the $15,600 in benefit costs and divide by our billable hours of 1100 per year, we get approximately $14 per hour. This brings our total hourly rate to $70 per hour. [More] Using Sector Funds to Construct Diversified Mutual Fund Portfolios 1. Sector funds are investment vehicles that focus their investments on a particular sector or industry group. Sector funds provide investors with an opportunity to profit from trends impacting a particular sector or industry while reducing company-specific risks. 2. High-potential diversified portfolios can be constructed by dividing assets among a group of sector funds. This active investment approach requires investors to make informed decisions on sector selection. The power-packed cluster of sector funds may offer investors the potential to outperform the market averages. 3. Diversifying mutual fund portfolios across sectors is good investing practice. [More] “Penny Wise and Pound Foolish” They didn't succeed for several reasons. First, none of them did the basics, the grunt work. Checking first to ascertain whether or not this business was even a viable one in their area. If it was, checking out the competition, making up a business plan, a mission statement. Setting up goals for themselves for daily, weekly, monthly, short and long term. Setting up a publicity campaign, working with the different media, setting up a marketing plan, networking. [More] Wal-Mart to Sell Generic Drugs for $4 in Florida Today I was looking at my stock ticker chart and saw shares of CVS and Walgreens plunging (I don’t own those stocks but have been watching them). I didn’t realize why until I heard the big news on CNBC. Walmart is going to start offering generic prescription drugs for just $4 in F.