New earnings from Linkworth

The banner advert sponsorship I sold last month, sadly did not continue into this month. However I had my first earnings with Linkworth (although not enough to reach the $25 payout). Linkworth now offer a very comprehensive range of products for you to use, as well as the 'normal' paid post opportunities, they can provide banners, rotating ads (if you can cope with the scripting), contextual ads, and 'in content' ads (the type that creates links from selected keywords in your site content). I am becoming increasingly interested in how to use Linkworth to maximise earnings, especially now I need a few more dollars to reach payout...
I have been fortunate to find a few more revenue streams this month, plus I have had some bonus opportunities from PayU2Blog which should put me beyond the $100 mark this month.

Work in the bathroom

You can tell a lot from looking at someone's bathroom, and there is not much good that you can learn from ours... We have been in the house for about 12 years and have hardly touched the bathroom. The little touches I did when we moved in are looking a bit sad now, and the bathroom remains one of those areas of the house that you want to be happy for visitors to use...
Aside from the new ceiling and the bathroom lighting that I fitted, I gave it a lick of paint (much of which is now flaking off) and made a nice tongue and groove bath panel. However I am more than conscious that this is one room that remains in need of a major overhaul.
At least I have renovated the outside toilet this year, so if I did start a major project in the bathroom, we would at least have some relief...

All you want for Christmas

The worlds most popular music player is no secret, the iPod is now synonymous with digital media in the same way that the Sony Walkman was with music cassettes. Christmas is coming and you can bet that the most visited sites on the internet will be those offering deals on ipods and iPhones and all the rest of the cutting edge Apple products.
There are so many variations of the iPod including the smaller 'nano' that they have been able to name a range as the 'classic' already... The product is so well developed, that it is already a modern classic in every sense of the word.
Technology and design are what makes the iPod so desirable, and to be honest I believe that the coolly under-stated design probably has more to do with it's popularity than the technology. After all, you can get media players that are more compatible with the all-too-common MP3 format at a much cheaper price. You can bet that Apple will be exploiting this brand-image with newer and better products for years to come - but for this Christmas, we salute the iPod - a truly modern classic.

New paid to post program

I have recently been pointed in the way of a new service which works in a completely different way to other paid post services. Rachel from the TurnOnePoundIntoOneMillion blog highlighted 'SeoBlogReviews' as a new paid posting service, but initially it is difficult to get to grips with.
I dutifully entered details of my blogs and the prices I would accept. A little later I got some emails which offered some lower prices, so I accepted some and rejected others that I felt were too low. At this point there were no actual opps., but soon after I was asked to accept a specific task. I duly did so, but for ages I heard nothing. Then with no warning, I was paid for the review, and only then did I get the specific requirements (Actually I had already spoken to Rachel about this and she clued me in that I would probably be asked to do 300 words and three links - this meant I had already written most of my review and saved it ready for publication later). There was a time limit attached to the conditions, but what impressed me was the fact that they were confident enough to pay out BEFORE I had actually published a word of the actual review.
Payout before publication takes some beating... I have had two more opps sent my way and have tentatively completed a draft post for each in the hope that I will be paid for those too...
Read my end of month review in about 10 days time for more details on this months earnings.

Bits and Bobs

If you have ever sold stuff on eBay, you will know that you will get the best price if you articles look good, have the original packing and all the plastic knobs that the item came with. I am in the process of placing numerous objects on eBay, but I like to make sure the goods are presented in the best possible light, sometimes that just means cleaning them up, sometimes it means a small repair or searching the internet for just the right knob or handle to bring the item right back into A1 condition.
I have some baby things to sell including a stroller and a lovely wooden high chair. The major drawback with the chair is that there are some wooden knobs that have come away from their plastic housing, and I think it will need a night in with some araldite or supa-glue before they are ready to grace the pages of eBay.
I have a 100% feedback record and I intend to keep it, attention to the bits and bobs and good packaging is the way to keep your customers happy!

Good posture at work

I have recently completed a Health & Safety at work course, and although your fist reaction might be 'how dull..' there was actually some very interesting things to be learned. One of the major topics was concerned with the individual workspace particularly in an office environment where the type of office chair used can be very significant, but would apply to a factory worker or even classroom chairs and desks.
I discovered that if you use a PC for a significant part of the day, then because of the positioning and the inflexibility of layout, you should NOT be using a laptop as your main computer. This is something I, and I am sure many others are doing on a daily basis.
One of the first things I am going to insist on once our new H&S policy starts to roll out, is a new chair, a new desk and an independant USB keyboard for my laptop, and maybe even a separate screen too. It is surprising how much your seat, your desk and your desk layout can affect both your long-term health and your day-to-day performance.

Rationalisation

I have been trying to consolidate my online life into activities that pay and those that don't and am coming to the conclusion that a lot of what I do is wasting time that could be more profitably spent.
I am seriously considering off-loading a couple of domains that do not yield very much to concentrate on those that are a bit more healthy. To this end I may be posting about domain-selling maybe in the New Year...
I am considering jacking in surveys altogether once I have reached payout on the main two that I do, plus there is a (low) paying forum that I spend too much time on. In fact my new long-awaited method of posting earnings should be able to demonstrate those projects that really are a waste of time. A big plus is that I have never sold a domain before, so that in itself may be a bit of an adventure.
My new regime should see me making more through passive earnings and doing more 'background' activities related to SEO. Rest assured. I will certainly retain munny4hunny and continue to post about my online earnings journey...

Christmas is coming

...And a frugal Christmas is will be, that doesn't stop me dreaming about LCD tvs and a blu-ray player in my stocking though...
What I particularly love about these flat-screened TV's is the way you can have them on the wall or in a place that your old cathode ray tube set wouldn't go because it was just so bulky.
I live in hope that we will end up buying a Nintendo 'Wii' for the family at Christmas, then realise we will need a new telly to play it on as our old one really isn't up to the mark...

Renew your filters!

There are certain jobs that get left and left, but once you complete the task, you get a great sense of achievement. The modern household is full of filters, furnace filters air-con filters, vacuum filters, water filters, oil filters and keeping track of them can be a tedious task. But when you get around to changing or refurbishing that filter, the air is cleaner, your appliances run better and more efficiently, in general your quality of life is improved just by changing that filter. My recommendation is that you place a marker on your calendar at the point when your filters should be changed, that way you don't have to walk around coughing and spluttering, wondering why the Hoover isn't picking up and dust, the furnace is cold and the air-con smells so bad...

Exercise!

So you want to get fit and have been thinking about (or even started) a regime of having a run every now and then... along come the chilly mornings and the foggy nights and somehow the attraction of going running gets less attractive by the day. Why not add to your home gym with a couple of treadmills??
If you like a bit of competition with the other half, his and hers treadmills has to be a great way to keep fit without either one of you disappearing over the horizon leaving the slower one eating dust..

Earnings September 2009

This month continues the trend of failing to break the $100 barrier and also the trend of PayU2Blog as being the best earner...
In fact I had nothing from other paid to blog schemes this month at all, the rest of the income coming from advertising in one guise or another. One of my blogs attracted the attention of a potential sponsor who paid for a post which I have categorised as 'miscellaneous', and also for a banner which comes under 'advertising'. Hopefully, this relationship will continue and the banner can earn me a monthly amount. I am (very) slowly building up my latest contextual ads project and hope to be able to report a small profit which will enable me to repeat the trick a few more times building up a residual passive income (not that websites are genuinely passive as they rarely stay entirely static..). I am happy with the 80-odd dollars I have made, and am continuing to think about a new way of posting results which will reflect money that I have received rather than earnings which are due. The new results will (if I ever get round to doing it) reflect all my online activities rather than being limited to blogging.