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Money in the News: Financial Inspiration and New Resources Edition

Mint.com posted an article a while back on people who had quit their jobs and made millions.

Dana Sinkler and Alex Dzieduszycki were working for star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten at his four-star restaurant, Lafayette, in New York when they decided to strike out on their own and start a catering business. They were looking to create a signature dish to serve at the bar, since it’s the place people first visit at a party. But they wanted something different from the elaborate crudité platters that were popular at the time. So in 1990, they experimented with frying different vegetable roots in the kitchen of Sinkler’s tiny apartment and struck gold.

The vegetable chips were a hit, and soon the pair brought Terra Chips into stores. In 1995, a private equity group bought 51 percent of the company, and in 1998 Hain Celestial bought Terra Chips as part of an $80 million bundle deal that included three other companies. At the time, Dzieduszycki says, Terra Chips had $23 million in annual sales.

Resource Alert! Mechanical Turk is a new amazon.com initiative that lets people sell services or pick up odd jobs/services to make money on the side. The Simple Dollar gives a detailed timeline of an hours worth of Mechanical Turk work where he made $19.13/hour.

Resource Alert! Lifehacker posts a review on a new website that helps you find and keep track of the job you want.

[View All Resource Alerts]

Fox News did a video segment on what some college students view as the American Dream. Now before I mention this video, I do want to note that I am not a fan of Fox News at all, and do not consider it a valid news source. I do not know the validity of these answers, but thought it interesting to share anyway as it’s something to consider when teaching our children about money. It also appears to be a blast against the Occupy Movement, which is a movement I support, so take it for what you will.

Free Money Finance posts some real life stories of how people are making money on the side.

By day, Chris Hardy works at Guitar Center repairing musical band instruments. He first heard about Fiverr from the Clark Howard show which featured Fiverr as a great tool to earn extra cash and immediately began thinking what his talents were. As music has been an integral part of his life, he decided to use his musical talent and couple it with his voice over impressions to sell songs for 5 dollars. Chris uses the money he earns from Fiverr to supplement his wife’s college expenses like books.

“I just cleared the $4,000 mark and I started in September 2010. It seems like a constant stream of money is going into my PayPal account.

About Crystal Groves, Google+

Crystal Groves is a farmer, web developer, musician, blogger, and personal finance enthusiast from the back hills of Maryland and Pennsylvania. She started Money Drain as a project to encourage people interested in fixing their financial situation to share their stories and learn from the stories of others. We all make mistakes, but in order to change we have to make changes.

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