So You Want to Start a Home Daycare

•The Self employed Employer
 by: David Leonhardt It's that time of year again, when all Canadians rush to their mailboxes, their corner stores or their neighbor's houses to read the latest edition of Maclean's Magazine. For those who don't know it, Maclean's is the Canadian equivalent of Time or Newsweek, and the time of year is the annual Top 100 Employers report – the employers who issue more than just a paycheck (although right now a paycheck would be quite a treat!) Being the frugal shopper that I am, I shunned...

•Home Of The Year
 by: David Leonhardt We were gathered 'round the television, where Little Lady was watching an episode of Stuart Little. The kids had entered their house for a contest sponsored by some fancy magazine. I turned to my wife with yet another one of my way-too-brilliant ideas. Why don't we enter the contest? I asked. My wife looked around in horror. What? With this place? Little Lady, just over two years old, was looking for the green crayon. Sure, I replied, obviously missing...

•Mr Cheapie s Frugal Budget Tips
 by: David Leonhardt So you feel like a hamster spinning your wheel? The faster you run, the faster the wheel spins. Just when you get a raise, you notice the price of hamster wheels jumps! Mr. Cheapie is here with his super-charged budget-cutting tips. One of the biggest wastes of money is restaurant meals. You can cook a meal at home for about 2 cents a plate. Just put leftovers in the microwave, and Presto! Those same leftovers cost a lot more at a restaurant. They call it the...

•Alternatives for Business Travelers
 by: David Leonhardt I'm coming home. I've been away too long. Been away so long. I'm coming home – Ian Thomas, in Coming Home I still recall my road warrior days. It seemed like every other week, I was hopping on a plane for Orlando or Vancouver or Palm Springs or Washington or Chicago or Toronto. It might not be Rome, Paris, and Monte Carlo, but Washington, Toronto and Orlando are pretty classy places. I went to crucial meetings. I was an important person. I was a frequent...

•Top Ten Tools for Writing Humor
 by: David Leonhardt Ever want to write a funny book or a humor column? Or add spice to your newsletter editor or web page so that people read beyond the typical drivel that sends otherwise eager-to-spend customers into a boredom-induced coma? Here are my top ten favorite humor tools for you, along with real live examples from my own humor column. Threading a theme through the text. Are you into practical jokes? Try sewing a single thread of bright red wool across Uncle Henry's new...

•Work from home Office Policies
 by: David Leonhardt It has come to our attention that self-employed people have somehow escaped the burden of office policies. No longer. Now even work-from-home hermits can revel in the burden of office policies. (This is part three of a series that began at http://www.thehappyguy.com/hermit.html and continued at http://thehappyguy.com/pajamas.html .) Every office needs office policies, if for no other reason to keep employees from scratching each others' eyes out or borrowing company...

•Our House is a Danger Zone
by David LeonhardtHome is where the heart is, so they say. But for 20,000 Americans each year, home is where the heart stops beating. According to a 2002 study, that's how many Americans fall victim to fatal injuries in their own homes.At this rate, it will take just 14,750 years for clumsiness and carelessness to wipe out the entire population. Fortunately, al-Qaeda is not aware of this statistic and remains fixated on ka-booming things instead of creating mass clumsiness and...

•Google s Next Big Move
 by: David Leonhardt November 2003 might go down in history as the month that Google shook a lot of smug webmasters and search engine optimization (SEO) specialists from the apple tree. But more than likely, it was just a precursor of the BIG shakeup to come. Google touts highly its secret PageRank algorithm. Although PageRank is just one factor in choosing what sites appear on a specific search, it is the main way that Google determines the importance of a website. In recent months,...

•The Work from home Fashion Primer
 by: David Leonhardt Last week, I reported how writers, stay-at-home parents and online marketing geeks had chosen careers as hermits: http://www.thehappyguy.com/hermit.html Thousands of work-from-home hermits responded, confessing that they were wearing their pajamas while reading my column. Fortunately very few sent me photos. Here are some of the questions they asked: Q: Is it acceptable to wear pajamas at high noon if Nobody sees me, or am I committing a fashion faux-pas. A: It is...

•Fishing For Ezine Subscribers
 by: David Leonhardt The Bible tells the tale of the fishermen who were just not catching a thing. Jesus came along and told them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, which they did. Surprise! They caught so many fish their nets began to tear. Jesus had a strategy. He thought outside the box. And he knew where to go. Of course, when you're God, you tend to know a lot of things. What about fishing for ezine subscribers? Don't expect Jesus to tell you where to cast your...