Andy Coates Blog - a review

Andy Coates has begun what promises to be an interesting, informative and entertaining blog. Andy has previous web experience and has set out here to investigate how to make money online.
Posts are neatly laid out and well-written, I am sure this is going to be a blog to watch especially as he has set out to write between 1 and 3 posts a day.
To start boosting his traffic immediately, Andy has started a competition for bloggers to review his blog. He left a comment on my blog, so it would only be polite for me to try and win the 'tenner' off him - That's $20 in blog world money!
(Hey Andy do I get the second prize too if I win seeing as you referred me yourself?)
Just in case I don't win, I would like to get the second prize, so please visit his site and do a review and tell him that I sent you...

I blogged for a house!

Here's one for the big earners in the blogging world - what was that? you earned a new Ferrari? and new Mercedes? Well, my earnings bought me a new house....for my daughter.....she's three!

Yes folks, it's true - I earned more than $100 in paid to blog posts and that was how much this little beauty cost me on ebay...
On a serious note, I think that $100 per month is a realistic target for paid to blog, at least until you have a PR of more than 4. What you have to bear in mind is that for every advert post you submit, you should also post at least one 'quality' post. This month is going to keep me busy if I have to create quality copy each day whilst also keeping a high standard of advertising posts coming. I have already written more than I would in an average month and would actually not relish the thought of doing this every day again next month. I have devised a useful strategy though - I have submitted 'draft' posts up to two days before I need them, so that all I need do on some days is to just open up the 'draft' and publish it (remembering to change the date first!). I haven't done this with adverts, but when you know that offers will be open for a decent amount of time, you could do 'draft' adverts all in one go, then post them over the ensuing days. This would work with Payperpost and Bloggerwave, but not with Creamaid or Blogsvertise as their offers generally have shorter time limit.

Accounting Paradise for small business

Many small businesses suffer from the same problem, they are good at what they do, but don’t have time to keep up with the paperwork. Larger businesses can afford to employ qualified individuals to look after accounting, book-keeping and payroll – smaller businesses often fail because they can’t afford to do this. The remedy would be to use a service like Accounting paradise specifically set up with the small business in mind. The founder has started several businesses and has developed this service with his own experiences in mind. Accounting Paradise offer rates for their services tailored to small business needs, and do not involve commitment to lengthy contracts. The systems offered by Accounting Paradise are designed along simple lines and the work is done by individuals who use the system every day – this is far preferable to a small-business owner dragging out all his paperwork a few times a month and trying to keep up to date. If this sound like you, why not get in touch with Accounting Paradise and see what they can offer you. They can also offer a discount for QuickBooks on-line. Click here for payroll pricing.

The quickest way to make money - part 5

The quickest way to make money is to SAVE money - this has been the theme here for the last 5 days, you can see the previous posts here or by selecting the quick search term 'debt' in the sidebar:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

the final offering in this series will talk about other ways of saving money other than the major theme of the previous 4 days (abandoning the credit card).

My starting point for money-saving has been the Money Saving Expert website - this is geared towards UK money savers, but the content here is priceless to anyone. Martin has all sorts of advice to offer, and for the UK market, comparisons of all utility services (gas, electric, phone) to give you some pointers as to whether you should think about changing service providers.

You don't need to do too much research because Martin has teams of researchers doing it all for you. If you are not based in the UK, then you should take steps to investigate how much you can save on your current outgoings for these type of services (where there are alternatives). In the last 6 months I have changed my Gas and Electric provider, my telephone and internet services provider. I have continued to search for bargains and have found how I can cut in half my already very low website hosting bill.

The message of this series has been:

1) by all means seek out new income (from paid to blog or whatever scheme you choose) but

2) don't forget to make sure that you are not spending money that you don't need to as this could easily wipe out your extra income.

I may make $100 in May by blogging, but by changing four of my service providers I will also SAVE $100 in May, and by transferring my debt to a 0% credit card I will actually saved another $100 in just one month. there is no reason why you too, if you employ some of the priciples in these 5 articles cannot be $200 better off each month, and if you start blogging like me, you will easily be able to make it $300 a month.

The quickest way to make money - part 4

This post follows on from Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3

(See all 5 posts by clicking on the 'debt' quick-search link in the sidebar)
The truth is this, there are a very significant proportion of people in the Western world who are simply overspending. When you sit down and calculate realistic income versus outgoings, too many households will discover they are literally spending more than they are making.
So how does this happen? Credit cards and loans are the simple answer, the solution is not to consolidate with more loans – the solution is to STOP SPENDING…. However, there is another closely related truth, the Western economies would be dealt a huge blow if everybody did actually stop overspending. This is not hyperbole, a downturn in spending on ‘gadgets’ and non-essentials would bring some industries to their knees. However, as long as controlling ones spending does not become a major trend, we can probably rely on the debt-ridden population to prop up the economy.
If you are seriously considering taking control of your spending, then I applaud you – you don’t need to take the exact steps that I have, just employ some resolve, take control of your outgoings and watch the debt fall. I was inspired to write this whilst reviewing another blog, and would like to suggest that you check out the tips and advice at http://financial-independence.net/

I also found some very revealing facts whilst researching this subject which I have copied here:

Total UK personal debt

-Total UK personal debt at the end of March 2007 stood at £1,318bn. The growth rate increased to 10.5% for the previous 12 months which equates to an increase of £116bn.
-Total secured lending on homes at the end of March 2007 stood at £1,104bn. This has increased 11.5% in the last 12 months.
-Total consumer credit lending to individuals in March 2007 was £214bn. This has increased 5.9% in the last 12 months.
-Total lending in March 2007 grew by £10.8bn. Secured lending grew by £9.9bn in the month. Consumer credit lending grew by £0.9bn.
-Average household debt in the UK is £8,833 (excluding mortgages) and £54,452 including mortgages.
-Average owed by every UK adult is £28,024 (including mortgages). This grew by £168 last month.
-Average outstanding mortgage for the 11.6m households who currently have mortgages is £95,170
-Average interest paid by each household on their total debt is approximately £3,525 each year.
-Average consumer borrowing via credit cards, motor and retail finance deals, overdrafts and unsecured personal loans has risen to £4,550 per average UK adult at the end of March 2007.
-Britain's personal debt is increasing by £1 million every 4 minutes.

Today in the UK:

-Consumers will borrow an additional £318m today
-The average household debt will increase by over £13 today
-300 people today will be declared insolvent or bankrupt
-Bank and building societies will hand out £1bn in mortgages today
-Citizen Advice Bureaus will deal with 5,300 debt problems today
-The average car will cost £15 to run today
-The average home will cost £30 today to run
-Raising a child to the age of 21 will now set you back £23.50 daily
-The price of a typical house will increase by £46 today
-24.3m transactions worth £1.3bn will be spent on plastic cards today
-£82m will be spent online today
-1/3rd of all groceries we buy today will end up in the dustbin.

read the full article by Richard Talbot on www.creditaction.org.uk here

(extract used with permission of Credit Action)


I plan one last post in this series for other money-saving tips just to round off the subject.

1-800- NODRUGS.COM

The non-profit drug rehab referral service.
If you, or a friend or family member has a problem with addiction, then 1-800-NODRUGS.COM offers a service to help you. You can call them now on 1-800-66-37847 (NO-DRUGS) or fill in a form online to get immediate help. 1-800-NODRUGS.COM offers advice on all types of drug addiction from alcohol to marijuana to crack-cocaine. They understand the need for long-term treatments and aftercare, and in some cases may offer a ‘work exchange’ scheme to recovering addicts who want to go on to help others to free themselves from addiction. If you know someone who could benefit from this service, please visit 1-800-NODRUGS.COM today or call them toll-free and speak to a counsellor.

The quickest way to make money - part 3

This post follows on from Part 1 and Part 2
This fundamental change in the way that we now view our finances (ie. get rid of credit cards and use a cash budget to control our weekly expenditure) has improved our financial status tremendously. When you consider that this change came about because our family annual income dropped by thousands (ie. my wife's wages), it is bizarre to find that our debt (well, to be honest MY debt) has more or less halved in less than a year. This is purely down to taking on board that all spending must be accounted for (a 'look after the pennies' philosophy) and controlling expenditure with cash. I have even walked the two miles to work on occasions to achieve 'non-spending' days and to exercise the discipline of only buying fuel when the cash is there to do it.
There is of course, a cost... My personal purchases have been severely curbed, I would like to have a nice new flat-screen for my PC at home, but for now, my ancient CRT will have to suffice. We have not been on a holiday for a long time, but I think we can live with that in the short-term. When you think of it, it is exactly this type of spending mentality that fuels debt: 'We must go on a foreign holiday...', 'I must have a flat-screen for my PC or wide screen HDTV' - these are the purchases which often end up living on our credit cards for far longer than a month...
In the next post, I will talk about the wider impact of this philosophy and provide some resources for those serious about saving money.

PPP - why do I love thee?

blog reviews
I am new to Payperpost as my blog has only very recently reached to 90 day minimum age. I have eagerly anticipated being able to take part in this scheme and have not been disappointed with my experiences so far. I am signed up for several different paid to blog services, but PPP offers a wider range of oportunities than any others I have seen. This post will be the third opportunity that I have been able to complete in just 11 days and I shall be receiving a total of $27 for those three posts should they all be approved (one down, two to go...). I have been fussy about the opportunities I have chosen to take, if I was less principled I could have blogged about gambling and earned another $15 from a single post (all this for a blog with a PR of 2!). You will see me blog about PPP with equal enthusiasm even when I am not paid to do so later this month. If your blog is 90 days old and you would like to blog for cash, then Payperpost is a must-try scheme - if your blog is less than 90 days old, mark the 90 day date on your calendar and get ready to advertise on blogs.

The quickest way to make money - part 2

This follows on from part 1 where I talk about reducing debt as the quickest way to make money.
Part 1 asked the question: How can we live without credit cards? For this you will need RESOLVE – ie. you need to recognise that you can no longer have the things that you don’t have the money for. This covers everything from a bar of chocolate to a new printer for your PC…if you don’t have the money for it in the bank, don’t have it! This is a tough lesson, but it’s also very logical and how everyone used to live before credit cards came along. Never do your food shopping on your credit card – use cash or a debit card instead (a debit card takes the money straight from your bank balance). In my quest to reduce debt, I devised a budget and put aside an amount every week for food and groceries. We take out this amount in cash every week and when it’s gone, it’s gone… we have halved our grocery expenditure by doing this (and we’re not starving either!). The amount we set aside is basically, the portion of my income that I can afford to allocate to our joint account less the monthly direct debits. All it takes to achieve this new manageable level of expenditure is RESOLVE (look it up…). If you don't employ reslove in large quantities, you will not escape the debt. In the next post I will talk about how this has changed our lives.

ESL jobs in Korea

Apparently getting an ESL job in Korea can be a difficult task – knowing which job will be the best one to go for can be a real minefield for the inexperienced. So what you need is someone on the ground in Korea who can scope jobs out for you. Restohof.com is basically a bulletin board which posts up a whole host of vacancies. There is a difference in that this site operates like a community in which you can mark up job opportunities as positive or negative after you have researched them so that other members of the community can benefit from your findings.The name comes from what amounts to a local name for a place where people meet to chat and drink emphasising the sense of community being built up. If an ESL job in Korea is a path you have considered taking, then this forum is somewhere that you must visit first.

The quickest way to make money

In my experience, the quickest way to make money is to SAVE money. If you plan to collect water in a bucket, first you should stop up any holes in the bucket…Last year we decided that our little family would try to survive on just one income. I embarked on a plan firstly to stem the overspend and then to generate additional revenue streams where possible. So how do you stop the overspend that is endemic in our society? Two words: ‘credit cards’. The single most important factor fuelling our over spending and keeping us poor is what we have in our wallet. My primary aim has been to reduce credit card debt, and this is how I set about doing it. Firstly I tried to consolidate my debt onto one 0% offer card – failed because had too many accounts open but inactive. I then took steps to obtain my credit report and set about officially notifying companies that I was closing the accounts that were inactive. I successfully applied for another 0% card and transferred all my outstanding debt onto it. No interest means that 100% of my payments go to reducing my debt, but there is one more vital step…. ZERO credit card spending…. This is the hard part, but if you want to see immediate results, it is the only way. Extra income from investments and bonuses has been put to good use reducing this debt and in less than a year, the debt has halved. My strategy will be to pay off what I can and then transfer to another 0% deal when this one expires – watching the debt drop month by month is very encouraging and has given me quite a buzz. So how do you survive without using a credit card? That my friends, will be unfolded here in subsequent posts over the next few days….

The month of May

This month, with the schemes that I already am signed up to, I will be aiming to maximise income from paid posts. My tactics will be as far as possible to intersperse each paid post with my own posts – and I will try to post every day until opportunities dry up. I am now enrolled in the following schemes:
Blogsvertise
Creamaid
Payperpost
Bloggerwave
These may not be sufficient to give me an opportunity every day, so I may soon be looking for new schemes – earnings updates will be more frequent this month as long as I can keep the ball rolling…

AIMing for the top..

Every business needs to manage it’s customer relations and most modern companies use Customer Relationship Management software from a simple database of contacts and correspondence, right through to a lead-tracking, fully-reporting, fully-evolved innovative CRM package such as AIM promote.
Software and hardware development moves at an alarming pace and the most forward-looking businesses will employ the most advanced technology to manage their customer base.
AIM promote. offers a package which not only manages contacts, tracks leads and opportunities, reports on campaign performance and return on advertising revenue spent, but will also collate data from your website offering web analytics and visitor tracking as standard features. If this sounds like an unwieldy tool, the plan is this: You allocate access to the parts of the system that the individual employee needs. Your sales people have their sales tools, the marketing people have their marketing tools and nobody has to wade through the whole system to find the tools they need.
On top of all these features of what seems to be a very reasonably-priced package with no hidden extras, Aim promote will let you trial the package for 14 days free of charge.

Keywords and hyperlinks for cash...

I guess, some visitors to this site may reasonably ask: What constitutes a good paid to blog entry?
My own strategy tip is to research to subject of the post as thoroughly as possible in about 5 or 10 minutes, copying relevant paragraphs from the subject website and pasting them into a single WORD document. I then print off the page and paraphrase the main points and look for an ‘angle’ (ie. work out the tone and direction of the post). I ‘compose’ my post in another WORD document where I can make use of the ‘word count’ feature (I like to post at least 100 words). I usually try to get at least three links in and I try to include a picture or logo, just to give it a finishing touch. I make sure every post contains good grammar and spelling, but is that important?
The short answer is NO. I have seen accepted posts which have bad grammar, bad spelling and sometimes barely making sense.
So what is important? Put simply. Keywords and hyperlinks will probably get you an accepted post almost regardless of the actual content.
So why make the effort? Well, all your posts say something about you, and I would rather my posts made me look like someone who takes care over their ‘work’.Don’t get me wrong, this is not a rant against badly written posts, just the opposite. What I am saying is that despite the fact that I have a bit of pride in my work, you don’t NEED to. Maybe there are some advertisers who will favour good style, but so far I think Keywords and Hyperlinks are what pays the bills.

Artificial Intelligence for your PC

Artificial Intelligence creating a personality for your PC is just something seen in science fiction films isn’t it?
Well hang on a minute, because right now you can get hold of software which will do exactly that! Ultra Hal Assistant is software that combines voice recognition, artificial intelligence and real-time animation to create your own Personal Assistant right there on your PC…You can ask Hal about weather forecasts on the internet, get him (or her) to load up any software in your START menu or do an internet search for you. Hal will chat back to you and learn from your ‘conversations’. You can tell Hal your dates and appointments so that alarms can be generated. Hal is animated on your screen, can talk to you via your soundcard and can be configured as male or female in a number of different characters. Why not download and try out Ultra Hal Assistant v6.1, this new ‘chatterbot’ software free from Zabaware today.

Payperpost - a review

Payperpost is a scheme that you can only take part in when your blog is at least 90days old. There are various opportunities open to blogs that meet certain criteria, the highest paying ones being those with the tightest requirements. For example, you will only be able to take part in some of the really high paying opportunities (some of them amounting to hundreds of dollars) if you have a Page Rank of 6, and many advertisers specify domains that they won’t accept such as ‘blogspot’ or ‘myspace’. That said, the lower end of the market (if I can call it that) offers at least $5 and it’s not unusual to see $12 or $15 opportunities on offer to those with a PR of 2, hosted on blogspot (that’s me!).
My first venture was a $7 offer, which was accepted about 5 days after being submitted, some offers require a declaration that the post is a paid one – I always state that anyhow, so that’s not a problem for me. Accepted offers are paid out a month later. Payperpost also offers a widget that you can put on any of your posts that offers visitors the opportunity to ‘get paid to review my post’ (see below). I believe that both reviewer and the reviewed author can both be paid $7.50 to do this but I will try it out and let you know what happens. Of course, you could take up the offer and find out for yourself…

Creamaid - update

On one of my visits to the Creamaid homepage, I noticed that there was an option to have notification of new ‘conversations’ (creamaid’s name for paid to blog opportunities) emailed in. I entered my email address and nothing happened for a while – Just recently activity seems to have increased and emails have been popping in regularly.
One advert in particular was quite well-paid at $10 with $2 per referral (bloggers entering the ‘conversation’ via your post). I got in early on this one, in fact I think I was even the first accepted post. This means of course that you have a much better chance of getting referrals. This proved to be the case with three referrals coming from this one post. When you add the ‘royalty’ and the ‘referrals’ together, I made a total of $16 from just that one post – a combination of finding a well-paid opportunity and getting in early enough to maximise earnings. If you are going to go the creamaid route, getting in early is the secret to maximising revenue.
This experience also highlighted that although most of the creamaid opportunities are not paticularly well paid, it is worth taking a look at what is on offer. There has been a flurry of activity and I think there are some open ‘conversations’ going now – I can’t take them all up otherwise my blog is going to look like a tribute to creamaid, but I will certainly be checking what they have on offer in the future.
If this review seems enthusiastic, then it is to balance out my less-than-enthusiastic feelings I have had about Creamaid up to now – I don’t earn anything from referring their service to you (unless you participate in a ‘conversation’ via a paid to blog post), so the links in this post are not crafty referrals.
One last thing, the great attraction of Creamaid is instant payment – the referral fees are only paid when an advert has ended (and they can stay open for months), but the royalty is generally ready for payment within a few days – this beats every other paid to blog service I have seen fair and square..

April 2007 - earnings

The graphic is getting more difficult to read and I am going to have to come up with a simpler representation...

In short, April has generated $26.41 in opportunities, and a total of $30.55 has been cashed out (a combination of last months earnings and some of this months 'instant' payouts).

Total 'earnings' are now at $54.45, and the amount actually received (paid into paypal) is $32.55.

There has been a period during April during which opportunities dried up, otherwise I am sure earnings would have been substantially better.. I am confident of better earnings in May and have started on the right track already. My first Payperpost entry has been accepted, and I have had much better results with Creamaid recently. I have had an email from Reviewme which I will need to look into, so that will give me a couple more schemes that I can investigate and report on. watch this space for a new updated report on Creamaid, and my first experiences with Payperpost. I will attempt to update the 'earnings' graphic in the sidebar on a more regular basis - this will indicate the Total amount earned and cashed out rather than the earnings for just the current month.

Person.com

Dating sites are not a new concept, so the new ones have to be better than what’s already available.. Check out 'Person.com' – a new concept where you can make a ‘live show’ with your webcam and have prospective dates to view online. Hundreds of webcams are online (nearly 400 when I viewed the site), and thousands of viewers are watching – the most popular ‘show’ had 125 viewers. You don’t need a webcam to take part, but it sounds like a lot of fun for people who want to get noticed! This site is feature-packed with interactive games like ‘hot or not’, ‘play and flirt’ and chat rooms (97 of them when I visited). Check it out to see why so many people are using this site.

Person.com - webcams, chat, personals

Update

Good News today! Not only did I get a referral for a conversation in Creamaid, but I got TWO referrals... More about this when I post earnings for this month. On top of this I have been accepted for PayPerPost, which is great news - I have yet to find a suitable offer, but I hope to get more active with PPP soon. As you will be aware from the buzz, Page Ranks have been allocated - I have a PR of 2 on this and my other blog, and the rank on my website has gone from 2 to 3. Overall, I was not disappointed until I realised how many more opportunities I could have blogged for in PPP if I had one more Page Rank point...
I have spent the last weekend devising a new heading banner for Munny4Hunny (hope you like it!), adding a search list at the top of the sidebar, a new time-widget, and general tidying up - I also did a quick mini-banner, but it really needs some work...
Next post will be earnings, then the quest to make May profitable begins in earnest...

On a different tack, if you need a laugh today......take a look at this (If only all mankind could have as much fun today as this little fellah is having!)