It’s good to be skeptical about online products that promise to make you tons of money with little work or time. My advice would be to be skeptical but investigate, research and decide.
Even though there are a lot of bad products out there, there are also a lot of good ones. My success rate is about 50/50, but that doesn’t bother me because most products can be returned within 60 days if its not what you wanted.
My plan to make supplemental income through blogging and other services is a good one, but I want to branch out. That’s why I signed up for the ShoeMoney System this week. After I did a lot of research I decided that it was worth my time, and after the first few days I think I was right.
The ShoeMoney System is a training course that teaches you how to make money online. When you sign up you immediately have access to training materials and videos. Every couple of days a new video is released to teach you a new concept or process to earn online. The videos are not just concepts, but they are also step by step processes to help you reach your goals.
Why I Joined
I joined to get the training from an expert Internet marketer and Entrepreneur. I’ve followed Shoemoney for a long time so I have a little bit of trust in his products. When He came out with this training program that gives you steps to make money I wanted to sign up. I expect to learn a lot from the training.
My Experience So Far
I’ve been in the program (which is open to everyone by the way) for a few days now so I’m still getting my feet wet. I had heard that if you have experience working online the first month might be a little basic so I expected that. The first video I watched was about all the different ways there are to earn money online. There is another great video about inspiration and where to get ideas. There are something like 20-30 videos on How To, most of them are basic videos for beginners but it gives people that are new a great place to start.
Weekly Updates
I’m planning on blogging about my experience with the ShoeMoney System. I’m not going to be giving away any of the material so don’t expect that, but I do want to share my experience. I will blog about the progress and income I’ve made from the things I’ve learned through the training.
If you want to sign up, you can join here: ShoeMoney System
Spring is always exciting. The winter air turns warm and the bears come out of hibernation looking for something fun to do. The best part is there are so many fun things to do that won’t cost you a dime.
The Zoo
Plan a trip to your local zoo. You can bring a lunch to cut down on or eliminate the costs at the park. Before you go, take a look at the schedule events so you don’t miss any of the best activities.
If you don’t have a zoo you might have a small animal farm or petting zoo.
Museum
Museums don’t require warm weather but they are often free. If you live in a big city you may have a few different museums within walking distance. Most people get bored after a couple hours in a museum so try museum hopping. Spend 30 minutes in a museum and then take a walk to the next destination.
Visit a park
Grab a blanket and a book, football or whatever else you like to do outside and take a drive to the park. Relaxing at the park can be, well, relaxing.
Go fishing
In most states you will have to purchase a fishing license, but if you’ve already purchased the license then fishing is free. Fishing licenses usually cost less than $20.
Theater
If you like going to plays there are many free theater options. In Washington D.C. the Kennedy Center offers free plays every Saturday at 6pm. The Lincoln Theater also puts on free plays during the day on Saturdays. See whats happening in your area.
Visit historical sites
This might be easier for me than others because I live just outside DC. If there are historical sites or memorials near you make a list of all the ones you want to visit and take a drive. You will usually find that the historical sites are full of great information.
Volunteer
It’s better to give than receive, even when it’s not Christmas. Look for volunteer opportunities in your area and sign up. You will meet new friends and spend your time making a difference.
Picnic
Planning a picnic is a one of the best free romantic activities. Grab some food (and maybe some wine) and head out to your favorite river, park or hiking trail.
Go Hiking
Google [hiking trails] in your local city to see whats available.
Road Trip
Take a road trip to the harbor, the beach, the lake, or any other place within a 2 hour drive.
Bike Ride
Get the bikes out of the garage and take them for a ride. You may find that there are lots of great bike paths close to your home.
Tax season is here. It’s time to gather up all your receipts, w2s and charitable contributions and start asking – how much of a refund will I get this year?
If you don’t have a mortgage and you didn’t make any contributions there is a chance that you won’t be getting anything back on your taxes. Most companies take the right amount of money out of your paycheck each month. For you, filing your taxes is very simple.
TurboTax has a free federal edition of their software that allows you to file your federal income tax return for free online. Check it out here: Free Federal Edition.
If you do own a home or have other expenses you want to deduct do not worry, TurboTax has other options for you that are very affordable. Their deluxe edition costs $29.95 and if you used TurboTax last year they will be able to automatically import last years return. They have almost 20,000 reviews of their deluxe product available online.
And there are other options for those that have Investments, Home businesses and LLCs. If you fall into that category there is a good chance that you already have an accountant.
Using Turbotax free edition is easy to use. You can file your taxes online in one day. Before you pay a accountant $40 – $400 to file your taxes for you make sure you check out your free options online. All editions allow you to e-file and get you a refund (if you are due one) withing 8 days. You can have your refund deposited directly into your checking account through direct deposit.
Have you ever used one of those compounding interest calculators to figure out how much your 401k will be worth in 20 or 30 years? I have, I use them often. My favorite is Money’s Chimps.
I can be pretty sure about the amount I will contribute each year. The one variable I have a hard time predicting is my annual rate of return. For years the industry used the default 10% return, but those days are long gone.
I was talking with one of my financial adviser friends recently. He told me he expects to get his clients a 7% return and he charges a 1% fee to manage their account. I think that’s a very reasonable return to expect from a financial adviser that know what he is doing.
Money chimp has another great tool you can use to estimate your 401k returns. You can check it out here – CAGR.
It’s very cool to see the numbers. Here’s quick breakdown of the last 10, 20 and 30 years.
S&P Annualized Returns:
10 Years (1999 – 2009): 3.02% – $1 turned into $1.10
20 Years (1989 – 2009): 11.02% – $1 turned into $6.42
30 Years (1979 – 2009): 13.07% – $1 turned into $27
So the last ten years have yielded about 3% a year while the last 30 years have given us a total average of 13.03%. I don’t know what to expect for the next 10 – 30 years but I’m going to take an average of the 10 and 30 year returns to make my predictions. That gives me 8%.
The returns we see in the future greatly depends on where you invest and what you invest in. Your 401k portfolio can prosper even if America does not by investing in foreign funds. I think we will be in a stock picking market for a long time, but I’m no expert.
When you start your first blog or website you get excited about having 5 or 10 visitors a day. It’s almost validating just to have someone visit your site because you feel like you’ve done something right. Website owners find it easy to let their excitement get the best of them. Once you get a taste of traffic you want more, but the numbers don’t always follow your expectations.
My experience is that time produces more traffic and more traffic produces more income. I have a few websites that have 100 blog posts but have not been update in 6-10 months. 6 months ago they had 100 visitors a day but now they see 300. That’s a 300% increase without even updating the site.
The point is that there is a compounding traffic effect with the web. As your site ages in increases in favor with Google. If you continue to update your site you add more searchable content, get more backlinks and build more interest with your readers. If I never udpated this site again I know that I’d have MUCH more traffic in a year than I do now. But if I can be patient and continue to write there will be a steady stream of increase.
Your traffic really does grow at a higher rate later in the life of the site. Traffic is good, but earnings are better. Take a look at the Adsense earnings of my top website over the last 2 years. I’ve included March of 2010 even though this month isn’t over yet. I used a very conservative estimate because my numbers are so high already.
You can see where things started out and how they have grown. I would never have expected that they would grow faster now than it did in the beginning. I think most of us would expect things to grow at a steady rate.
Once you start, stick in there and wait 1-2 years, the earnings and the traffic is on its way.
When I started building websites my plan was to take the money I earned and use it to buy other income producing assets. Not a strange idea to anyone familiar with Rich Dad Poor Dad or many stories of how the rich get richer.
When the economy took a turn for the worse I had to rethink my strategy and make some adjustments.
The recent downturn will have the same effect on many entrepreneurs that were willing to put all their cash at risk to generate recurring revenue. It may not last long, but right now everyone is more concerned with paying off debt than putting their capital to risk.
I may make less money over time, but I’m more interested in paying off debt than using my supplemental income to purchase income producing assets. Once the debt it paid off I’ll be ready to purchase. In fact, it’s one of the things I look forward to the most. Right now though, debt has to be the priority.
That does not keep me from investing in small ways now. I have a few websites that make up most of my income. My plan is to take a portion of the money I earn and use it to build more traffic to those sites. I then want to start other sites that are similar and attempt to drive traffic into those new sites.
It’s best to stick with what works. When you find keywords or ideas that work well and can be duplicated you have to strike while the iron is hot.
The best way to make more money is to take the money you make now and use it to buy income producing assets. If you aren’t in a position to use money to buy assets then start putting aside small amounts that you can invest and re invest into assets that currently earn you money. Take your most successful ideas and find ways to duplicate them to increase your earnings.
My freelance writing has slowed down, but it continues to be a big part of my plan for future income. My goal to write 1000 freelance articles this year may be in jeopardy, but that won’t stop me from doing what I can.
So far I’ve written 133 eHow articles this year, but 7 of them were not published by eHow due to a technical problem that was never resolved. Here’s a tip, when you write for eHow its important that you save each article until it’s published. Its not enough to just write your article into notepad before you paste it into eHow’s format. You have to save your articles. eHow is still the best way to make money writing but their technical problems are growing daily. Save your work.
I’m making about $40 per month from my 133 eHow articles, but I believe that will increase. As the articles age and increase in page rank they will undoubtedly start to receive more traffic. More traffic means more income. Patience is the key to most online income ventures.
I’ve also written 13 articles for InforBarrel and made just over $5 in the last month. I like how InforBarrel lets you link with dofollow links to other sites. It’s very useful for website owners.
I don’t like writing, but I can make extra money doing it. Better than that, I can make recurring revenue from writing. I’m not passionate about writing, but I am passionate about paying off debt and reaching financial freedom. I hope you are too.
This picture is from a nearby park I like to visit. I like to go there to get new perspective on life and business. It’s a beautiful place not to far from home so I can go there whenever I want.
Whether its a beautiful place like the Potomac River, or your backyard, you need to have a place you can go to let your mind go blank. When you work online it’s easy to get wrapped up in the hustle. If you’ve been working online for any amount of time you know what I mean. When I first started I was so excited that I’d stay up until 3am every night working my guts out, sleep for a few hours, get up and do it again. Sometimes that’s what it takes, but that kind of lifestyle isn’t sustainable.
Along the way you make a lot of mistakes and spend time on ideas that never make any money. It’s better to focus in on your high quality ideas and cut the losers loose.
This is not easy to do when you are trying to build multiple streams of revenue. Once you find something that works it’s easy to want to find other ways to replicate that revenue stream. The problem is, not all revenue streams or ideas can be duplicated.
Staying balance in your approach is the key to consistent profits. To stay focused remember these tips:
Focus
Before you run off trying trying to build up other revenue streams, make sure you have fully developed your best ideas. Your best fully developed idea might make twice as much as a few undeveloped ideas.
Sustainable
Are your ideas sustainable? Assuming you have goals and targets for your output, write down the amount of hours you need to put into each of those targets each week to hit your goals. For example let’s say your goal is to write 1000 Infobarrel articles this year. That is a good goal that will help you make around $1000 per month. But to write 1000 articles you need to write about 85 articles a month. If each article takes you one hour to write you need to ask yourself, do you have a spare 83 hours you can dedicate to Infobarrel this month? If not, you need to reset your expectations.
Rest
Remember that you need rest. Our bodies need downtime and if we push them to the max for months in a row they will eventually crash on us. Plan to take a break and reassess your progress and plan. They is no harm in changing your goals when you find out that one of your objectives isn’t going to be worthwhile.
There is a great episode of Seinfeld where George becomes enraged with his boss over a toilet controversy and quits his job. He comes over to Jerry’s house to discuss his decision and map out a new career plan. He quickly realizes that getting a new job isn’t going to be as easy as he thought and he tries to get his old job back. Of course, he is laughed out of the office.
Just because you can survive without your current job doesn’t mean you should. When you realize that you want to quit your job, you should begin to plan your exit. Quitting without another job lined up has many negative consequences. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
The Cost
Your emergency fund is supposed to be used for emergencies. Let’s say you’ve done what all the experts recommend and you have 6 months living expenses saved up. You may feel like you have a good cushion to live off of while you have another job, but your thinking is all wrong. Each day that you are out of work you are losing money. Can you really afford to be out of work for two months or more while you find that next job? Tough it out at your current job for a few months while you find your next adventure.
Time to rebuild
If you had to live off your savings for three months, how long would it take you to rebuild that saving account to the same level it was at before you quit? People tend to overlook this calculation but it shows why you should never use your emergency fund for anything but emergencies. Let’s say your monthly expenses are $3,000. For you, six months living expenses means you have $18,000 saved up. Now let’s say that you quit and are out of a job for three months. You just spend $9,000. When you get a new job, and you are able to save $1,000 a month, it will take you 9 months to replenish your emergency fund.
Your Resume
When a employer reads your resume they will be looking for gaps in employment. You may have quit your job, but a employer will think you were fired. We all know that companies let their employees leave gracefully, and that’s exactly what it will look like.
No matter how valid your story is, this new employer will not understand your old work environment, and they won’t want to hear about it either. It would be much easier to get a new job with no gaps in your employment record. Leaving for a new job is easy to explain, it was a new opportunity. Quitting without another job lined up looks bad and costs you more than you can afford.
Times are tough. People are looking to make extra money any way they can. While your company may not be in a position to give you a raise right now, you can start investing in your future so that when the time is right you will be ready to get that big raise.
It’s no secret that moral is low in the office. A recent study showed that over 50% of Americans were unhappy with their job. If you are reading this I bet you fall within that group. The current struggles of the American business can be turned into an opportunity for the American worker.
Everyone is being asked to do more with less. The first thing we need to realize is that America has changed and for the next few years we will continue to be asked to do more with less. That’s just the way it is. The sooner we accept it the better off we will be.
Times are tough right now and they will continue to be tough. You may not be able to ask for a raise today but if you work hard for the next year you will be positioned well for a raise or promotion. You may find the low moral as an opportunity to stand out amongst your peers. Use these five tips to make more money at work.
See the real you
Don’t let your ambition confuse who you are. So many times people let their ambition blur reality. If you have three years of experience as an associate you are not ready to be a director. Even if you look at the director and think you are smarter or better suited for the job, you have to put in your time. Be ambitious but don’t think you deserve something before you are ready for it.
Work Hard
Yes it’s obvious but here in America we have this entitlement culture that says I want it so give it to me. Before you ask for a raise you have to show that you consistently work hard and make a difference.
Improve your skills
Get training, read books, and learn everything there is to know about your business. Dig into every problem you see and learn how things work. The more you know, the more valuable you are to your company. When you understand how things work you are better suited to solve problems. I can’t emphasize this enough – learn everything there is to know about your business or product.
Communication
You work hard and are constantly improving yourself, but does anyone know? You have to communicate well so that your boss knows about the value you bring. You can stay up all night solving all the company problems but if no one knows about it then you’ve wasted your time.
Look out for your boss
Help your boss be successful. If you want to impress your boss, ask him/her what you can do to help them be successful. Ask where you can help improve the team. Take initiative and show that you are ready to step up. Make your boss your priority by responding to their emails right away and finishing the tasks they give you before moving on to other projects.
Ask
This is my best tip, it’s what has helped me the most. Just ask. When you have put in the time and feel that you have good ground to stand on schedule a meeting with your boss. Review the work you’ve done and explain your case. Ask directly for a raise. I’ve found that people are afraid to ask for a raise because they don’t want to ruffle anyone’s feathers. Don’t let fear hold you back! Get in there and ask for a raise. This one simple thing can be the difference in being promoted and making more money at work.
After a year and a half of hard work I’ve finally cracked the mark of $2k per month. The one thing I’ve heard over and over again is that it takes time to build an online business. Patience and hard work will get you there.
I had a few personal things come up last month that prevented me from pursing some of my goals, but the work I’ve put in up to this point continues to earn money. I only wrote a few eHow articles this month, and I now have just 12 Infobarrel articles, but I do plan to write more. I actually pulled in $370 in Kontera earnings, but it looks like they won’t pay me for this month until February. I don’t like waiting 2 months for payment, but what can we do?
Niche Blogging with Adsense continues to be my biggest earner. Kontera and Chitika have big future potential.
| Adsense | 1679.7 |
| Chitika | 110.53 |
| eHow | 31.29 |
| Assetize | 12.52 |
| Socialoomph | 71.94 |
| Text-link-ads | 52.51 |
| Linkworth | 75 |
| Clickbank | 41.65 |
| Christian Dir | 3.58 |
| Total | 2078.7 |
There is one major obstacle that everyone will struggle with as they try to generate supplemental income. It is, the day job.
When you start a business on the side it’s easy to get into a routine and start to have certain expectations. You’ll think that you will always have your Saturdays and 3 nights a week to spend doing what you want. But what happens when your boss at work asks you to stay late or put in extra time on a project? It can make things very difficult.
I recently had that situation. Things at my day job are very busy and because my day job is still by far my primary source of income it is my top priority.
You need to have your mind made up before you get into this situation. I’ve seen so many people of the years get fired because they made the wrong choice. If you build a business in your spare time you need to remember that even though it may be more exciting and have more potential than your day job it is not your primary source of income.
Here’s a few things to watch out for when things get busy at work.
People are watching
Your coworkers are paying attention to what you do. Be proactive and dedicated to your day job while you are there. Forget about your part time business until you get home and have the time to work on it.
Doing the minimum
If you do just enough to keep your job you may not get fired, but when it comes time to lay someone off you will be first in line. Do your job and do it well. Keep the distractions at a distance.
Set goals at work
You need goals because they help you continue to advance yourself and your career. Your part time business goals are important, but until that part time business becomes a full time job you need to continue to advance your day time career.