January Earnings

At last!
I have completed my new reporting spreadsheet and I have a good report to share as my first of 2010, and the first in the new format which includes ALL my internet earnings not just blog earnings as previously. Also, to make the spreadsheet even more true to life, these are not potential earnings racked up in this month, they are actual amounts received, sometimes for activity within this month, sometimes for activity from the previous month or more.

I have included receipts and outgoings so that profit can be calculated, and this month has yielded a profit of £156 - note that I am also reporting in £UK instead of USD as previously.
Income was made up of £49 from blogging and £123 from my 'cassette to CD' site, outgoings are all from the cassette to CD activity.

New Camera

My camera packed up over Christmas, it was about four years old so I was not too upset about it, and in fact found a nicer (working) camera of very similar specifications and vintage on an internet auction site for just £5.50. However, imagine my surprise when a week later someone gave me a virtually new Samsung camera that they had no use for... I had done them a favour converting some old videos to DVD's, and they gave me the camera when they heard my old one was broken. I have kept the £5.50 camera and given the Samsung camera to my wife as she has never had a digital camera of her own (even though the Samsung is actually far better than my cheap camera).

Zip it up!

One of my favourite blog subjects is free software, over the years I have highlighted a number of freeware programs on Munny4Hunny.
I live (in a PC sense) by the creed that more or less any type of software you need can be found somewhere for free, and my latest 'find' has been a file zipping program which I have found extremely useful. One of my online activities involves converting analogue sound into digital format which tends to take up a lot of hard drive space especially after a few edits. I use a 500GB drive to store the files which holds a lot of data, but I also like to back everything up and my backup drive is only 250GB... My solution has been to 'zip' all my files and store the zip files as a backup - this has saved me approx 50GB of storage (both on my internal hard drive and my backup). I searched for some zip programs and a lot were limited trial, but 7-zip is totally free, and has lots of options for higher compression and even zipping to the exact size of a DVD for those who plan to back up onto DVD (where the resulting file will need to be fitted onto more than one disk), and as this is my ultimate goal, I can see how valuable this option is.
I would have liked a greater compression rate such as some of the RAR programs offer, but nonetheless, this software seems very easy to use and certainly does what I wanted and more...

St Valentines

St Valentines day approaches, and if you want to avoid your own personal massacre, you might be considering gifts for her or him...
Wine, chocolates, flowers and smellies are the staple supplies so why not use your imagination and come up with something original this year? Trinkets and jewelery needn't cost the earth, and will last a bit longer than chocolates (at least in our house where chocolates have a very short half-life)

Driving down costs

The US economy has officially risen out of recession and has now reported a growing economy for two consecutive quarters. The latest figures suggest a rapid rise, but this has to be seen against a background of more than 12 months of decline. This means that although we have seen the worst of the recession, we are still some way below the level we were about 18 months ago. The need to cut costs is still a reality for most families, and with competition keen, it is a good time to look for a lower life insurance rate, or loan rate or car insurance. Keeping outgoings at a minimum will help to keep your family afloat whilst the economy stabilises again.

Strategies

I am still thinking through my strategies for the coming year. January is a great time to review how you are going to progress with a project, and I really need to sort out where I am going with my online earnings. GoDaddy are great at forcing your hand by offering discounts, but because they do it all the time, you can always let a deadline for an offer expire, safe in the knowledge that there will be a new one along next week...
Currently, GoDaddy have an offer on '.com' domains, my problem is that I am not sure whether I want to go for .com when I am monetising my latest project through eBay - I have set my eBay widgets to UK eBay, so I probably want to concentrate on '.co.uk' domains. Maybe I should think about duplicating the site on a .com and put US eBay widgets on it??
I am thinking about dividing up one of my websites over several domains - this site has three distinct elements to it, so I am considering whether I should move some of the pages over to a new domain. Coupled with this, is my concept of moving all of my hosting onto a new multi-site hosting package which would open up a lot of new possibilities for me including free subdomains (in theory...).
I am spurred on by the GoDaddy offer to think out exactly which domains I need (or at least the closest available ones), and hopefully that will prove to be the incentive for getting things moving for my new hosting package - all of this would be so much simpler if I didn't have a full-time job and lots of other responsibilities to boot...

Life Insurance

Many of us put off thinking about a life insurance policy because it is not a pleasant subject to think about, nonetheless we should think about how our dependents will survive if we should not be around to provide for them. Life insurance should take into the consideration of the impact of such a change in circumstances from a financial point of view.
Sometimes an existing mortgage, loan or pension may have a built-in element of life insurance. To assess the cover needed, you would firstly need to assess how much money would be required. You can offset any other payouts that might be triggered (such as mortgage protection etc..) and the figure you are left with is the level of cover needed.

Fighting Debt

By now, I was really hoping to have cleared all my credit debt from the last few years but I seem to be stuck in a bit of a rut lately and the total is just not going down at all. Of course Christmas doesn't help, but even so, I should have been able to clear the debt by the end of last year anyway.
The graph on the left shows how the majority of my debt has reduced over the last few years (green line) mostly through transferring into interest-free accounts and using any windfall payments to reduce the debt. Annoyingly, I no longer have an interest-free account and all the debt is on my regular credit card (pink line). I think I will have to employ my previous tactic of placing it all on a 0% card again and making sure I pay off my regular card every month. This all goes to show just how disciplined you have to be to pay one of these darn things off. Looking at my graph, there was a point last year when the green and pink lines crossed - this signifies a point where there was just £300 on each card - happy days...
Writing this has just decided me - I will get a credit report done first as I probably have a couple of extra accounts open that should be closed especially as I have opened three new 0% card accounts in the last couple of years. I learned early on that a prospective lender will look at how much potential credit you can draw down off your existing cards before they will consider extending any credit to you, so it is important to ensure that you close all your old defunct accounts. When I have closed all the accounts I don't need, I will look around for another interest-free credit card as that seems a really effective way to pay off debt without accruing any more interest - and then by the end of the year, I am sure I will have paid it off....finally...

Getting to sleep

Missing out on sleep is an occupational hazard for the parents of small children, and first-hand experience tells me that the excitement of Christmas can mean many a sleepless night is had before everything returns to normal. Some people are able to simply take sleep deprivation in their stride and catch up on sleep when they need it, others do not find it so easy to 'cat nap' and often turn to a natural sleep aid before seeking medical help from a medical professional.
The advantage of natural aids is that they are less likely to have any long-term negative effects, and do not pose a potential hazard to little fingers that might find them...

Cholesterol Treatment

Cholesterol is one of those health buzz words at the moment, mainly because it can effect anyone no matter what their size and weight. However, it often becomes an issue as we reach later middle-age/ early old age, and it would be sensible to have a cholesterol test during this time just to check that you do not need any cholesterol treatment or adjust your diet to bring down your cholesterol levels.
High cholesterol can affect your heart, so it makes sense to check out your cholesterol level to see if you need to change your lifestyle accordingly.

Google 'gaming'

Changes are taking place in the world of Google, now they are looking at how they can improve on 'apps' that give local information. I have come across reports about apps that can identify pictures taken from a mobile phone camera. The app can recognise a logo, shopfront or landmark and give search results relating to what it can 'see'.
This is a tremendous leap forward in how Google can continue to help people to find what they need, but it has caused a stir amongst webmaster and journalists that are concerned with writing about SEO. However, my take on it is that really it is up to Google to come up with a way to integrate the information that is already there, so in the long term, webmasters are not required to jump every time Google comes up with a new concept or search hysteresis. It seems to me that webmasters are in danger of forgetting that Google has a clientele (primarily the technology-aware general public) to serve and therefore have a duty to bring your website to the attention of their clients where relevant. The idea of gaming the results to get yourself in a high position regardless of relevance is a short-term tactic. For those in for the long-term, my advice is to keep on doing what you are doing and let Google worry about getting your site into the search results - there is still no replacement for good content although there are naturally small things that you can do to make sure your site is optimised. Optimisation is still based on the basic tenets that it always has been, with noticeably less emphasis on PageRank (off-page optimisation), and more emphasis of the following on-page tactics:
Content, content, content - unless you are planning a landing page only (shame on you...), you should really spent the majority of your time on producing good content. I wouldn't even be overly concerned about keyword density because if you write naturally and informatively, your keyword content should be naturally correct.
Tags - it is so simple to add title, alt, keyword and description you would have to be crazy not to do it despite the fact that it is not considered 'sexy' - you would be far better employed doing tags than designing a flash animation for your visitors. It is still a webmaster crime of epic proportions to have a page title come up as 'home', 'index' or 'untitled' no matter how good your page looks if a visitor ever actually found it.
URL's including keywords - still a winner for search results and will continue to be - any page that does not have a keyword in the URL may be a page wasted.
As long as the oh-so simple rules of on-page optimisation are behind what you are doing, I believe Google is obliged to seek you out and put you in the search results... THAT after all is their job, it is not as many believe, Google's job to 'police' the internet.

Diet Pills

Seems like every week there are new diet pills and slimming aids, the latest I have come across is the adipex diet pill although it is apparently based on an active ingredient that has been around for over 50 years as a slimming aid.
Like all supplements and medications that are not prescribed by a medical professional, caution should be exercised when considering using them. If you are considering this type of medication, make sure you read the research into all the pro's and con's beforehand..

Ebay still rocks...

Despite all those who are less than complimentary about eBay, I have to say that I have had a couple of bargains lately and cannot say enough about what a great service it is. Sure, they charge for all transactions and sometimes you don't get as much as you would like for your old cast-offs, but all-in-all I believe eBay provides a great service to buyers and sellers alike.
This is of course helped by the fact that so many online earnings are paid via paypal, so spending on eBay is a bit like spending monopoly money - For the most part it never goes anywhere near my wallet or bank account.
Sadly my old 3.2 megapixel camera died, and I got another from eBay in really good condition for £5.50!! I also bought a brand new 2GB MP3 player for £6.99, and whilst it is no iPod, it certainly does the job and is a really nice item.
I think as long as you are sensible and thoroughly check out sellers, that eBay can be an invaluable part of anybody's life. I certainly buy more than I sell, but on the occasions that I have sold items, transactions have generally been smooth - I have ended up with a few quid in my pocket and a bit more space in the loft... I like the way that eBay has evolved and improved over time and will continue to use it as long as it is there...

Website linking

PageRank is the rating assigned to your site by Google depending on your 'off-site' optimisation - in simple terms, the more links you have coming into your website, the better your ranking. More importantly, the more relevant the linking site (to your own content) the better.
One of the easiest form of getting incoming links into your site is to do some directory submission. This is the relatively simple task of entering your website details into a directory of websites (within a relevant category).
You can trawl the internet looking for directories of course, but there are some sites and software that can help you to speed up the process by automating some (but not all) the tasks.

Eczema treatment

Modern medicine may have defeated the fearsome illnesses and diseases of the past, nonetheless as a species we are now plagued by allergies of which Eczema and Asthma are the most common. Often these two allergy-driven illnesses can be found together, although it is not uncommon for them subside after a number of years. There are both effective eczema treatment and asthma treatments readily available usually in the form of creams for eczema, and inhalers for asthma.

Slow start to the year

The British weather is prevailing against the spirit of endeavour... we are giving in rather easily to the snow that always brings us to a stand-still this time of year.
I had meant to be in a position to demonstrate my new earnings reporting spread-sheet, and whilst it is drafted, I have yet to finalise how I am going to report different types of costs - I am planning to report income as just a single figure regardless of the source. Talking of which, I have had a few cassette to CD conversions to do this week which will certainly boost earnings for January.
The main sources of my online earnings will be:

• cassette to CD conversions
• paid blogging
• adverts/banners
• affiliates
  
• participation in forums/surveys etc..

This last one will cease when payouts are reached in the various sites, I don't plan to pursue the few cents that can be earned via these methods for the future. I am also hoping to off-load some domains, but they will obviously be one-off events if I can manage to do it...

Car Insurance

The current trend is to find the cheapest car insurance that can be found online using comparison sites and the like, but a word of caution... Are you sure that your cheap insurance will adequately cover you? Services like carinsurancelist.com concentrate on offering great value for money inclusive policies that won't leave you high and dry.
For instance a colleague of mine recently bought insurance online and paid a bit extra because he was getting 'free' breakdown cover. Imagine his dismay when he broke down 200 miles from home to discover that the service only tows your car within a 20 mile radius...!
There is nothing wrong with finding the best deal and the cheapest insurance as long as that insurance covers all eventualities.

Blackheads?

It's not a nice subject I know, but do you have trouble getting rid of blackheads? I can't say it ever presented too much of a problem for me personally although plenty of people do suffer problems with their skin. One of the issues I saw recently highlighted on a TV problem I saw, was the long-term damage that can be done to your skin if skin problems are not treated in the right way.

Skin can end up being severely pock-marked and need laser treatment or other procedures later in life in order to smooth out the skin again. Most people may end up with just a few marks, but the more severe cases can lead to bad scarring.

A new resolve

I don't 'do' New Year resolutions, but I am going to use this coming year to achieve some goals which will serve to point me in a more defined direction and be a bit less hap-hazard. My focus on earnings will change although I am resolved to carry on with some paid blogging, some opportunities will be falling by the wayside.
I find now, that there is little to be made from surveys and when I have been paid out for the ones that I have started out with, I will drop them. I think I am just about done with PPP and anything related to IZEA, they are no longer the creme de la creme that they used to be, they have reverted in my opinion to the lowest common denominator. Fine for those happy to fight for scraps, but the uncertainty of whether a post will be accepted along with a hefty minimum payout indicates the general demise of paid blogging. I am not bitter, I have been along for the ride and have enjoyed every cent...
In contrast, PayU2blog are much better for me, they make few demands, pay out twice a month without fail and have so far sent me over $1000, which is far more that I have earned from any other program. In fact it was just last month that the one thousandth dollar from PU2B hit my PayPal account...
Total earnings for December were less than $40 in total, but I have been concentrating on other things, not least of which is my new earnings spreadsheet.
I will be posting about total online earnings from now on and not just blogging, the spreadsheet includes expenditure as well as earnings, and this time, the money doesn't appear until it actually arrives in my account. So for instance, my actual blogging payments for December were over $65, this is because the majority of online earnings are subject to delayed payments.
I have completed the first draft of my spreadsheet and can start publishing figures from it soon, but I think I need to tweak it a little to make it easier to identify the different sources of income and the different elements of expediture (more for my own purposes than for the readers of this blog). When I have defined these a little better, I will start publishing some figures - it will be nothing ground-breaking or breath-taking, it will just serve to make my online earnings a little more transparent.

At home in the snow...

I love the snow, and as it happens, I am off work until Friday anyway this week, so I am not losing any work time. However being confined to the house tends to make you look around and assess your surroundings, and with sale-time in the shops, it easy to start formulating plans to spend heaps of money to improve your home.
I love modern furniture, but I live in a house that has some charming features that are just short of 100 years old. I think the comtemporary look can be pulled of in an older abode, if you can strike the balance right, however with a limited budget, we will need to be very creative.
Having said that, there is still some plastering and other seni-structural work to be done before any new furnishings can be bought, but rest assured, by the end of 2010 I am quote sure that our home will be a step closer to perfection...