Licking my professional wounds, if you will.

I figure it’s best not write anything rather than to just write crap just to fill a day’s post. So… I took a few days off from the online world – or at least this site to rethink things and do some reading and learning.

You see, I was starting to hum along with photodailynews and bring it back to life, and then thursday night I checked my stats and I was gone from google. I was about in the fifth or sixth position for keywords and traffic was starting to grow daily and I was starting to get some hits and add some content, and then fffft – it’s all gone. I have more traffic from this site today than the site I was actually working on as an income earner.

If there’s a lesson learned it’s not to trust google, or depend or bank on them for bringing traffic to your site, as they can turn off the tap on a moment’s notice. In hindsight, it was pretty full of ads so maybe it looked too spammy and not enough value so google deemed it unrelevant to their readers. Who knows. But I’m not going to put more effort into a one site. The future is to have a lot of sites and get a trickle of targeted traffic to each site.

I had thought about making one authority site and over time have it rank for pretty much every keyword. Who knows, this might be the site, as after so many days of writing here – even if I have missed a day or two, this site is starting to get some traffic from the search engines. And, I’ve rambled on with over 70 posts and this is super duper competitive niche this debt freedom niche, so the fact that I’m getting any traffic this early on is promising.

What now?

Well now that I’m pretty much back to square one with the new projects, I think a job hunt would be the fastest way to debt freedom. You apply, and they either call or don’t. Instead of working on sites that may or may work I might as well get a job and then I can still noodle around on my stuff on the side, but what I really need is a bigger shovel to dig out of my hole with. I have pretty much spent as little as I can possibly spend so making more money is the next step. At the end of the year, the goal is to make $100/day. I don’t really care how at this point. Whether I’m a barista at starbucks, or making my own – a $100 day is a reasonable goal. I’m watching the time fly as flit from one project to the next, and I don’t want to look back at the end of the year and think, damn, it’s another year pissed away. I’m OK with learning from my mistakes, but somewhere, somewhere along the lines there has to be some money made that I can toss towards the debt and keep paying the rent.

I’ve had a real hard time with the job thing, as I’ve translated job equals failure. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Sure, If I get a job emptying garbage cans that may very well be true, but I’m more interested in a career at this point, or a story to tell, as that really is where the money is. I wish I knew this 20+ years ago. If you’re younger and reading this if there’s one thing I can share is this: The DVD collection or the latest ipod, or iPad doesn’t mean squat. The experiences in life are where it’s at. It doesn’t have to be skydiving or white water rafting either. It can be a cup of coffee on a rainy tuesday with somebody you love. That’s the stuff money can’t buy.

I’ve been thinking about the future a lot this weekend. I sure hope this is a mid life crisis, but when I think about money today, there’s two things that rock my world:
1. success.
2. new experiences

By success, I don’t mean BMW’s and hugo boss suits. I mean the entrepreneurial spirit in me. It can be small too the success. I’m just as thrilled making two bucks from this site as I would be from landing a job that pays six figures.. In fact, the two bucks is more exciting, as there’s promise for more. Money and adventure, and a story to tell.

Success could mean a new job.
Success could mean one new visitor for this site.
Success could mean one dollar against the credit card debt.

All this to say, my needs have changed and come around full circle. Ten years ago, I would have had the fedex guy at my door every day with a new box of cd’s or some electronics. (and did), but the stuff actually starts to own you after a while. Your collection of CD’s requires storage. Your electronics need replaced as there’s always a new product out that is bigger better brighter faster. You’re chasing your tail. It’s an endless cycle. I read somewhere this weekend that said: The stuff doesn’t love you back. And it’s true. So true.

But if you start to collect experiences and life instead – these things never go away. Quick – think about the best moments in your life. They happend with two things I bet: First, and most important: I bet your loved ones were with you. Do you remember your first kiss? you wedding? your first car? or even the movies this weekend? I bet friends and family made those worth remembering. And how much money did you have in the bank? or how much debt did you have? I bet it doesn’t matter or you can even remember. In the end, it worked out. It always does. And you’ve got memories that are priceless. Having things working out doesn’t mean having everything work outs out without hiccups and it’s like the movies. Bankruptcy could mean having things work out. At the time it might not feel like it, but bankruptcy gives you a second chance. A fresh start.

The credit card companies try to pitch that the priceless stuff only happens when you use their card. But really it’s the responsible use of credit and freedom from debt and enough cash flow that allows you to have those days of golf with the golden sunlight and perfect scores that are really priceless. It’s not the card or the new lacoste golf shirt,or the pricey clubs. it’s the experience. and having zero debt, or at very least a positive cash flow that allows the priceless to happen. That’s where the money is.

So I’m shooting for priceless. There will be more mistakes along the way for sure. Google will stop ranking my sites, clients might disappear. Jobs I apply for I might not get. But every thing that happens, good or bad is a story to tell, and that my friends, is priceless.

Thanks for reading.

No related posts.

And it’s all ready to go, but I have a few problems:

1. I’m no professional. I can research and gather and write about RRSP’s, or debt reduction but I’m no expert and I want to be sure that you, dear reader understand this. You mileage may vary, etc. If you are in debt, and reading this, please call a professional for advice for your particular situation. I’m writing and doing what works for me.
You might be able go completely cold turkey and give up starbucks. Me, not so much. Debt is personal, and everybody’s situation is different.

2. It’s like WORK! And, OMG researching it is oh so boring. If it were stereo’s, or photography, or some other topic that would be fun…maybe. I can ramble on here and bang out 1000 words in no time flat. But when I have to write something that actually requires research and effort and not just what comes off the top of my head or I have knowledge about without thinking, then I get frustrated. I’ve only got half a paragraph written, but it’s taken me an hours. I guess the upside of the work would be that I’d be actually producing content with some value rather than fluff like this.

Today’s fun item:
As I write this, I am rank number one for the search term I’m woth stupid. I’ve written about it so much I rank number one out of 48 million results. Of all the terms in the world I want to be an expert on, I’m thinking I could chose better than stupid.

Just a short one today, as there’s really not much news on my debt journey for today and I’m in no place to start giving out real advice yet.

Related posts:

1. Another Day, Another Two Dollars.
2. I Have Nothing To Hide. I Have Credit Card Debt. Day 26
3. The Best Part of My Day

But yesterday, oh yesterday, this happened:

Holy. I haven’t done much luck with adsense over the years as I never seemed to make any real money from it. I think I’ve had mostly clicks at 20 cents or nickels or dimes – never dollars.

So, of course this got me to thinking… What if instead of just navel gazing and blogging about me me me, I actually started to research and write about debt reduction. This would be beneficial to me as it would provide me with an education on the proper techniques and resources available about debt reduction and better money management

A few articles off the top of my head I could write:

RRSP’s explained.
How to compare credit cards
How to go bankrupt.
Local resources that are available for debt reduction.
Are all debt reduction companies the same?
and so on…

The information is already out there – I would just have to do the research, and write about it and post it. This might actually provide real value to somebody searching for that data, and I’ve found I do my best learning my writing. And I’d be writing about all these topics in more detail, Heck, over time I might actually learn something, or even be considered an expert.

Now this pie in the sky dreaming is one thing and it’s fun to see the two dollars in my income statements, but this won’t be any easy money. And it’s not going to be easy. One article on the value of RRSP’s or the benefits of hiring an accountant won’t change things too much but it would be an interesting case study to see what sticks and what doesn’t in the eyes of the search engines. I mean, who would have thought that I would rank in the search engines for “I’m woth stupid? . My point being that you never know what people search for, and find you, and if your content is relevant to what they’re searching for they might be more inclined to click which equals more income, which would mean I could pay my debt off faster. I think it would be a hoot to actually earn a living and pay off my debt with this site. Mostly, because it would be a great story to tell, which is what I value most, and if you think about it, why enjoy this blogging so much (even though twitter is the new darling) is that I get to tell my story.

The only problem with telling my story is…except for a few people that are important to me, or people searching for stupid people, nobody really cares about me. I have no unique experiences so far. I’m just another dummy who didn’t turn off the spending tap in time and now is carrying a credit card balance. This isn’t a poor me sentence, but if I really look at this site there’s not a lot here for you if you’re a stranger at this point in the game. But maybe if I started to write real content (read: hard work) than both reader and writer would come out ahead. Reader would find the information they were searching for, and writer would get rewarded with clicks on ads or sales of products maybe down the road.

So, we’re going to give this a whirl. Not tomorrow, but I would like to think by March 1 would be good a day as any to start. I’ve got a few other projects on the go and I don’t want to be distracted by yet another great idea, only to fizzle out after a few days.

Now, If I write it down – it will be true, so here goes:
I want aim to write 100 articles about debt and debt reduction in march. That’s 3 a day, and a manageable number and challenge I think. It will also be a good number to test with, so if a percentage are duds, that’s OK as I think SOME of the mud should stick.

This isn’t going to be an easy task. It’s not like I’ll be able to write and write and forget about it. I’ll also have to promote this site through various venues as debt reduction is a competitive niche and there’s lots of money in credit and debt, as I’ve found. I’ve sure picked a tough nut to try and crack. It would be easier if I wrote about smaller niches such as, I dunno a certain type of bonsai tree, but there’s no challenge in that. (and not much demand, I would think).

I’ve got a month to do some research and get things in order. In the meantime, you’re stuck with me and my navel gazing..

Related posts:

1. A change of plans
2. I’m not writing about debt, I’m in debt. Isn’t that enough?
3. The Cream of the Crop. Finding my Niche.

Where have I been? After a weekend of laziness as I hibernated and napped, yesterday I did not update this site due to the fact that I was neck deep in receipts, as I sorted through an entire years’s worth as I get ready for the taxman for yet another year. It’s Feb now, and I’ve been blowing off this little project for about a month now. In short, it was time to get rockin’

I read a book where there’s a principle where the more time you give a project, the bigger it will become mentally. But if you had a deadline, you have no choice but to do only what needs to be done and you still end up getting it done on time. I’m definitely following this procedure this year. I had been blowing off and blowing off this job for so long. It started to be one of my christmas holiday projects and then one of my new years projects and then finally here I am yesterday, about six weeks later finally getting around to completing the job.

And you know what? It wasn’t that bad, really.  The idea of the job was way worse than the reality of the job.  It took me 12 hours to enter every little withdrawl, and payment into my accounting system but now that I’m done, I don’t have to do it for another year. I used to enter the data weekly, and even daily sometimes, but over time my priorities have shifted and I only end up tackling the shoebox yearly.  I like the yearly better, I think.  You only have to  allocate one day to the job and you focus entirely  on that as your project for the day . No email, surfing, or other farting around. Just do it, and don’t come up for air until you’re done. This year, it was 13 hours. I started at 7am, and ended about 8pm.

The downside of this method is you can’t, or don’t – track your spending to see if there’s room for improvement over time. You haven’t really checked up on your financial health for an entire year. You don’t know what you’re spending or how much. The money just seems to come and go. You don’t have the data for a budget, or to make any adjustments.

And I’m paying for it. I’m in this mess due to the fact that I was spending more than I made. My income slowly dropped over time – a few percent here, and a few percent there, and yet I was still spending as if every day were my birthday. So what happens is you don’t pay off the credit cards monthly as you were, and you start carrying a bit of a balance, and then you pay off less each month, but still keep using the damn things. That’s, how it happened for me. I’d feel better if I had 30k of credit card debt and had a big honkin’ stereo system for it, but it’s the small little buys that end up biting you in the ass – the 36 steak dinners from two years ago, the fifty bucks for filling up the SUV. My 30k worth of credit card debt grew in little $40 increments for the most part. Over time it adds up, and I’m blogging about it.

Please, don’t be like me. Spend less, and make more. Start Today.

The numbers

One of the fun (well, if you can call it that) things to come about all this is you can see where the money went over the course of the year. I’ve done real well in spending in some ways, and others – not so much:

Auto: $5800.
This number seems spot on. I returned the Nissan Pathfinder on July 23rd, and I’ve been on foot ever since. This works out to about $1000/monthly for the payment, and gas and insurance. I don’t miss spending the $1000 a month on a car.

Banking Fees. $500. I need to find a better system for managing my finances (no shit, eh?). I end up using my business bank card for most purchases. And the bank loves me for it, and tags me about .50 each time I do. I’ve been with the same bank for 20 years now. When I was ‘rollin in the dough I didn’t care or notice $40 a month. Now I do.

Cellular Phone/Internet $3500
$3500! Gosh, that seems high, but for nine months I had cable tv/cellphone/internet/homephone all going to the one cable company. I’ve since killed the cable/homephone and I’ve minimized the services on the other two. I’m hoping next year this number is half this. Is your iPhone really worth $300 monthly? Yikes!

Clothing $500
The joys of working from home: A few new pair of jeans at the Gap, and you’re good to go. This number willb e higher this year, if I start to work outside. Which is a consideration: If I have to wear a monkey suit every day, and drive to the new job – how much am I really earning each week. It might be cheaper to not work, or work at McD’s where they supply the uniform and you can walk to work. Your take home pay might end up being the same.

Credit Card Interest $5800.
Just shoot me now. I have much, much nicer ways to spend $5k/year than give it to the banks. I should frame this number and hang it on the wall for inspiration. At first, when I saw this number,I thought: No way, it’s wrong. But then you do the math. two credit cards, at 200+ a month in interest = equals one big number.

Entertainment $2600 You know, this isn’t as bad as I thought. This is a pretty wide category. Every movie, dinner out, hotel stay in the summer when out on the motorbike, everything goes in here. This also includes a fair number of meals too. I’m single, and sometimes it’s just as cheap and easier to eat out, so I do. Still, I could probably cut back a bit, but this could be way worse.

Groceries $8000
Holy. I swear, I’m stapling my stomach shut. I don’t like cooking much, or eating, really. It would be cheaper and easier. This number should be smaller for this year. There were lots of $300 Costco runs with this number. Now that I’m car-less, I can only buy what I can carry, so no Costco, or grocery runs where the cart overfills. This works out to $666/month, about – which, sad to say, I don’t know how you could do much better: Groceries are expensive. Plain pasta every night, here I come.

Rent $14,000
You have to live somewhere. $1,000 a month, give or take. You have to live somewhere, and that’s what it costs. It’s a bummer to add it all up, but I doubt this number’s changing much in the next few years.

Starbucks $1,380 I saved the best for the last. You know, considering that this number includes coffee for home in this too, and it’s my only vice. I don’t drink, or smoke, this number could be worse. This works out to be about $100/monthly. If you factor in the pound or two of coffee, this really isn’t too, too bad. I wonder though: could I do better next year? Do I want to? The latte run keeps me sane some days, in more ways than one. I’d rather have the $1000/year in debt, than to be caffeine free. There’s a limit to how far I’ll go.

Related posts:

1. December 2009. Where I spent my money. Day 46
2. The 38,000 Dollar Challenge. An introduction

No word, BTW from our friends at Ganz but getting the job wasn’t really the point anyway. As I wrote about yesterday, the goal was to just get the resume written in the first place, so if I did see a job listing that tickled my fancy I would have a resume in hand to send.

And for that goal, mission accomplished.

Now on the make money online front: I haven’t been doing so well. For new income, anyway. Thankfully, ramseeker’s still humming away. If you recall, I went and coughed up $79 and bought a hundred domain names and was going to make a bunch of mini sites:

Well, I’ve kindof had  three steps foward and four steps back with that little project, I’ve got four built so far, and have had ZERO traffic to date. I mean, not even a mistake somebody visiting. At least this little debt freedom site of mine gets a trickle of visitors (well under 100/day so far. I’m definitely not doing this for the money  - at least yet. It’s still early days.

Anyway, what I’ve had good luck with is researching and reading, but enough paralysis by analysis. These mini sites take too long to set up, get the content written,  make sure all the setting are up right and tweaked. The setup takes just as long as the content writing.

So. I’ve been thinking. I’ve had  photodailynews.com for some time, and it’s already  in the search engines and starting to see some traffic again after being dormant for so long. So here’s the latest plan: I can write 250 words or so pretty quickly on the main features of a digital cameras. So I think what I’ll do is make a list and write about each and every camera. Each article only takes me 15 minutes or so and I can concentrate on content not setup. Setup is kindof fun, if you’re doing one site – you get to pick the design, figure out the links, etc. But for more than that, it’s a headache.

So here’s my one month late new year’s resolution: I’m going to work on photodailynews.com for the month of Feb at full blast and just see what happens. worse case: It’s a month down the crapper. But I guarantee, I’ll be learning as I go. Action really is the best . It’s fun to read and dream and  I’m real good at dreaming the dream but sometimes you have to work. Worse case, is a month from now I’ll be a walking encyclopedia on digital camera models. It’s a topic that interests me, so it’s easy to write about shutter speeds and flashes and ISO settings.

What I have learned is this: You can have the coolest design, the best content but if you’re not being found in the search engines, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not the amount of traffic that you get . You can have a celebrity site and not make a penny because it’s entertainment and what’s to sell? But if you solve a problem for people like, oh, I dunno – finding the best deal on ram, then you have targeted traffic from visitors interested in your site before they even get there. What matters in the online world is the number of links from different, but related sites that matters most.  You still have to have compelling  content but if nobody knows about  you – nobody finds your site. I was searching google last night researching the competition, and I found a new site  -  a year old, tops. And it’s ranking  in the search engines above and beyond more established sites. How? They had the most links that were relevant. Forget money.

Money pays the rent, but links are where it’s at online. Relevant links from other sites and great content = you’ll never have to worry about the money. If you do good work, the money (and the links) just happens.

Think about it:  Let’s say it’s a snowstorm  and you’re on the corner  and your neighbour is stuck . You push him out. There’s a good chance they might offer you money as payment for your help. But the kicker is you weren’t expecting it – you just liked to shovel snow. Now depending on your neighbour, this may or may not happen but the moral of the story here is to create value. By pushing your neighbour out of the snow, you’ve created value.  Not every guy that turns the corner and gets stuck and you help will pay you but I can bet that over time you’ll reap the rewards somehow. And, you probably enjoy the shoveling and pushin anyway, but you’ve created value with your efforts.

That’s really what the online world is like:  You’re interested in I dunno, ram prices, or maybe cookbooks, or knitting or fast cars.  Maybe you write about Mary’s wool store up the street. She has a website and all of sudden sees traffic from your site to hers. Mary emails you and wants to know if you’d let your visitors know about her sale? Sure you say. But this time you work out an arrangement where Mary pays you per click, or per sale, or for every lead that you send. You’ve just turned your value (targeted visitors)  into cash for you (or barter).

Let’s take this little lesson further. You make a deal with Mary where she’ll sponsor a contest on your site for free wool or knitting needles or… You’ve now got a way  to entice your readers to signup for your email list and Mary sponsors the contest. A month or two down the road you’ve got hundreds or even thousand of entries from giving away wool.  You now have the email addresses of people that are interested in your site and what mary sells. Sure some will just enter for the chance for free stuff, but the some will actually want to return to your site again due to your content, due to the fact that you give away free stuff, due to the fact that you now have a relationship with your readers. You’ve built trust. You’re now the expert on knitting needles and wool. All because you created value. After  a while, the value can turn into money.

The trick is to keep your eye on the real prize which is creating value, and not get distracted by the dough. The money will only get bigger and better if the value is created.

Do you change your hairstylist every time you need a haircut? I sure don’t. Once I find somebody that does what I like, they’ve cut my hair to my specifications they’ve created the value. Am I going to go back? Yup. Will I happily pay them a few dollars more, rather than go to the supercuts up the street where the hairstylist graduated on this past tuesday? You bet. There’s no value at supercuts. It might be cheap, but all I end up with is a crappy haircut.

I’m off to create value.

See you next week.

Jim

Related posts:

1. How to Make More Money. Day 28
2. Ways to Make More Money With Your Blog. Day 29
3. All My Money Problems are Solved.

Yes. I. Did.

The job is for a contract position as a photographer to photograph products for webkinz. You know, those little stuffed animals that all the kids are on?  From what I can tell from the description, they’re looking for somebody that can photograph the stuffed animals, sort and color correct and file accordingly for use on the website. Not the most glamorous, but it would be a start. It’s also a contract position with a a start and end – so I could try out this whole working for a living thing again.

I saw the ad this morning, and thought: Heck, I could probably do that. Only one problem. I have no resume.

And, the no resume thing was really my stumbling block. I don’t think the LAST day job I applied for, I used a resume for . I sent an email, before email was everywhere and standard. Before the internet, or at very last on the leading edge. Anyway, the resume was my stumbling block

But, I managed to face my fears and I found a template with a word processing program that has the resume format down, I just needed to  fill in the particulars. And the cover letter is no biggie for me. I write it pretty much as I’m writing here. Hi, I’m Jim and and my skillset is this. Call Me. If they don’t, their loss.

That’s the big news of the day round here.I applied for a j-j-job.

It doesn’t matter even if I get this one. I have solved the resume problem. There will be other jobs.. that’s not the worry.  I now have a resume I can fire off at will.

After that news: really – what news could top that?

And, murphy’s law being what it is:  As soon as I hit send on the whole get a job thing,  I check my stats and note that a few projects I’ve been working on are starting to show some promise, so I’ll still stick with those some more.  I also have a few other ideas I’m going to implement and see if any of the mud sticks.

I’m happy to report that I’m up .76 as I write this. Quit laughing. Yesterday, and the day after and the day after have all been at $0.00 so I’ll take the .75 and run.

I really don’t know how I  can beat today’s post. Maybe my $10,000 blog post earlier came close but this is definitely up there since I’ve started this site.

I guess if there’s a lesson learned today: And, really that’s the goal – learn from your mistakes, debt or otherwise: is that I was making the whole resume ‘problem’ bigger than it needed to be. It really wasn’t much of a problem in hindsight,but I was letting the problem become  a problem instead of just applying myself to overcome said problem. (I just used the word ‘problem’  3 times in one sentence).

I read something somewhere that your fear is far far greater than the worst result, in most cases. My fear was I didn’t know how to write a resume, any more than I knew how to  knit a sweater. But in reality,  I found a solution, and the fear goes away. The worse case: My resume isn’t as neatly polished as somebody else’s. But i sent it. They have it, and the ball is in their court. They’re not hiring me for my resume writing skills anyway. I’m still here to tell about it my resume writing, so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

The biggest hurdle in success sometimes is you.

Jim applies for a day job.

News at 11.

I don’t know how I can beat this one.

Win the lottery, maybe. Or, wait, I do know. Get the Job. That would be the story to tell.

‘Til tomorrow.

PS. For those keeping score: It’s Day 72 of the debt freedom plan.

Related posts:

1. The Job Hunt Begins

Today, Apple released the iPad.  Today for those of us that are paying attention – the notebook computer is dead. Maybe not tomorrow, and I could be wrong due to the fact that there’s something to be said for a physical tactile keyboard – but here’s Jim’s predicition: At the end of this decade all computers will be like this – no keyboard, just a touch screen like the iphone or the ipod touch. the keyboard is dead, I think.

This isn’t a post about the iPad. This really a post about me,  and my income, or lack thereof. I think it’s just a matter of time that all personal computers will be like this iPad. It’ll get bigger and like the ipods now – they’re all run on flash memory. Normal RAM is dead me thinks. Prices have been dropping for years, and I’ve had a good time tracking and monitoring those prices but I need to change soon. The iPad today doesn’t take memory at all. It comes with enough, and it’s priced low enough that future models will just have more and more – just like the ipods do now.

Which brings me to today. Today, I’ve started to look for work. Really look. It’s great that I can try to make money online outside of what I make now, but the honest truth is: I’m not. $1 here, and six bucks here, does not pay the rent. It’s fun but I need to do more, and make more and a job just might do it for the short term, if nothing else. It will remove a WHOLE LOT of stress about money as at least there’s a stable income.

So today, I spent too much of my morning surfing job sites and I’ve found one or two that I may be able to do, so the next step is to get a resume. This has been a challenge for me as I have NO idea where to start with resume writing, but I found on my word processing program a few templates so I can use so that’s another problem solved. It was the formatting of the resume that was scaring me. Sadly, you have to play the game and send in a resume in the ‘proper’ format so that’s tomorrows project. I’d love to make it again online and maybe one day I will, or I will continue to  in some fashion at a later date, but for now I just want to get that damn visa balance knocked down

Speaking of VISA, I tossed a few hundred their way today which does nothing really –  this time next month I’ll have to do it all over again but for now that’s how the ball bounces for the time being.

I do have a story for today: I got an inquiry on somebody wanting to buy ramseeker: the bad news is after a few back and forth’s the offer was $500. I don’t have ‘pie in the sky’ dreams of millions, but there is a rule of thumb to determine the value of a site and $500 was a wee less than street price.  It’s a good story to tell though, so here I am.

And, that’s when it hit me today: Its’ not the money. I don’t care about the money past living expenses… I really don’t. But what really rocks my world is adventure. If you know me, not bungie jumping from some mountain top, but to be able to tell an interesting story -every day if possible.

Success, or failiure:  the content of the story doesn’t really matter. What matters is to have one. And with the job hunt, I can guarantee that I’ll have one to tell.

The popular saying was: “the one with the most toys , wins”. The popular saying should be “The one with the most stories wins”.

And that is my story for today.

Thanks for reading.

Related posts:

1. The Job Application

Oh, before we get ahead of ourselves: It’s day 70 of my debt freedom plan for those that are keeping score.

I can be 100% myself with this thing because nobody, and I mean nobody reads this thing. I know  - I’ve installed stats, and can tell where you all come from.

I’ve spent a good part of the day writing about digital cameras in hopes to make my millions, and I dunno,  but I think I’ve picked a pretty competitive niche to start with. There’s a couple things wrong with this niche to begin with that wants me to rethink things.  Because it’s a competive niche it’s hard get placed on the search engines as other more established sites have more links to them, thus they rank higher in the search engines for the competitive terms. I’m getting a smattering of traffic but nothing really to write home about. It’s increasing slowly but I have no idea whether today’s efforts are all for nothing and I should just go  and make more money at McDonald’s. I read something the other day – and it’s true to a point. Anybody can make a little money online by lucking out, but it takes a lot of work and knowledge to make an income online consistently and successfully. There’s no easy way, at least that I’ve found.

So. I’m thinking maybe a less competitive niche? Memory is/was a good one, but I’ve done it. Apparently that’s the hardest part of selling online – trying to determine what sells, what could sell, and to whom… They say follow your passion, but if your passsion is teeth whitening or dating or weight loss, you’d better have pretty deep pockets to compete. I’d be better off selling I dunno, little booties for dogs so their little toes don’t get cold. (which, I have seen on  dogs here, BTW – such a thing exists – which means there’s a market for them).

So….. we’re doing our best here. It’s cold and grey here and I’ll be honest it’s real hard to stay motivated with weather like this.But I’ve got a new post up at on the best selling digital cameras (which, is already in google, btw) on photo daily, and I’m doing an experiment  on where you post an article on another article site, which issn’t your own  - but it get’s in google faster  and ranks higher, so it’s a trade off. We’ll see. I can bang out an article in about 15 minutes or so and don’t have the need to make a mini site based around each article. The downside is your content is on somebody else’s computer and they’re profiting from your work to a point.

Oh, and I registered a domain name today: Camera Price. For the time being, it’s pointed at photo daily.

On the debt front, there’s not much to tell. I haven’t made any new income today but save for a latte, I haven’t really spent anything today either too, so it’s a wash and I guess I’m going to have to call today an effort made if nothing else at this point. Tomorrow’s a new day and all that.

I’ve actually been surfing workopolis looking for a j-j-job and I’ve found one I could do, but it’s in missisauga and would need the purchase of a car – and then there’s parking and gas and the it’s just about the same as I’m making now, which is nothing.  I don’t want to be in a position where I have a job so that I can pay for a car so that I can get to the job, so I can pay for the car….

I have no problem with the job idea to knock down the debt, and get on my feet again but I don’t  ever want the job to own me. I don’t want to have the job just so I can pay for my crap. There has to be more to life than that. I don’t want to be the person that lives for the weekend and the 2 weeks holidays so they can go to the mall and buy more crap they don’t need. I’ve done that. The next chapter involves travel when this debt is gone.

So, that’s enough navel gazing for one day, no?

If you’ve come here thinking you would actually find advice on how to get out of debt, aren’t you disappointed?

‘Till tomorrow. Be Good.

Related posts:

1. Another Day, Another Two Dollars.
2. The Cream of the Crop. Finding my Niche.
3. All My Money Problems are Solved.

Beloved Friend,

I am writing this mail to you with heavy tears In my eyes and great sorrow in my
heart because my Doctor told me that I will die in a months time. Base on this
development I want to will my money which is deposited in a security company.
I am in search of a reliable person who will use the Money to build charity organization
for the saints and the person will take 30% of the total sum. While 70% of the money will
go to charity organization and helping the orphanage. I grew up as an Orphan here
In Sarawak Malaysia and i don’t have anybody/family member to take care of my wealth.
The total money in question is $3.5million dollars. I will provide you with other
information’s once you indicate your willingness.

Yours sincerely.
Ms Fadiza Nurideen

See?  I get 30% of 3.5 million. Problem Solved  I wonder if anybody acatually falls for these scams? Somebody must, otherwise the spammers and scammers wouldn’t send these emails.

So. It’s Monday and welcome to Day 69 of the debt freedom plan.

Today, I’ve been slowly working on my 100 sites.  (I’m at number 4 so far) I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew though. These are competitive terms I am trying to rank for in the search engines so we’ll see.  This could be a whole bunch of wasted time and effort, but at least I’ll better understand  what works and what doesn’t  I can also use these sites to link to other sites. I’m only out $87.

Heck, I can rank for “I’m woth stupid” here for this website. ( I should design a tshirt with that on it and sell it.) so hoping I can find something somebody’s searching for and help them solve a problem. Which is really

I’m finally beginning to understand that links to your site is the best payment you can be paid when building websites: Forget the money from adsense or banner ads, the biggest payment somebody can make is to pay you with a link from their site to yours. With the advent and popularity of blogs, everybody can have a website in under an hour. There really is no excuse these days not to have a website. Blogger.com even will allow you to start a website without  much effort whatsoever. fill in your name, and a few other login questions, and ta-da! You’re blogging.

I don’t use blogger.com, but I could. I use wordpress for this site as it’s all about the control. I am the master of my domain (bad joke, bob hope) and I control the content, and save for the nine bucks a year to host this site it costs me nothing to run but time.  Blogger is owned by google so you’re at the mercy of the mighty G. I don’t want to wake up one day and find all my work gone. You guys (all 3 or so) mean something to me and I want to keep on a bloggin’ without worry that it’ll  be pulled becuase I used the word stupid or some other arbitrary rule.

There’s two schools of thought to make money online: Have hundreds of small websites that cater every topic imaginable, or have one authority or larger website that caters to a specific niche or topic. It’s been said it’s easier to earn from the small ones: You toss a bunch up, see what happens and if some start to show results, you just make more and expand.

Or, the other method is to just start a big site with a major topic and work on it. The arguement here is you’re focusing on one thing rather than chasing a million different topics all at once. It could be said that ramseeker is an authority  site. It’s main topic is ram prices, but I cover ram prices for all apple computer models as well as all PC systems too. If I were to have a bunch of smaller niche sites, I would make one on just memory for the iMac, another site for just MacBooks, and so on.

So. I’ve already got the authority,or big site that the search engines trust and now I’m working on the smaller ones.  The trouble I’m finding with the smaller sites is that there’s lots of technical terms to write about and it slows me down considerably. While here,  I’m just rambling away on the end of  the couch. I can type fast, and not a whole lot of editing goes into these. I write what I think about.

On the actual trip to debt freedom, not a whole lot has changed. I’m all paid up with everybody pretty much (current, not paid off) . I’ve been good with the credit cards. No lattes, or any discretionary spending of any type, but I’ve also kindof dropped the ball on the the ebay sales. I have some stuff ready to go, I just need to find the inclination to sell it . There’s always tomorrow.

And speaking of tomrorow, I hope you’ve had a good Monday and we’ll see you then.

Jim

Related posts:

1. Ways to Make More Money With Your Blog. Day 29
2. How to Make More Money Creating Value
3. The Cream of the Crop. Finding my Niche.

I can no officially call myself a professional photographer. Yup, it’s true.

Yesterday I sold a photo online with an online stock photo agency. The payout: 25 cents
About a year back, I was hot into photography and selling stock photos was the way to go I thought with making money online. I mean, how easy can it be right? Take some photos of your mouse, your keyboard, your toaster, your friends on the beach and you’re rich right?

Well…not exactly. It takes a lot of dedication, hard work and skill to pull off a decent full time income from selling stock photos. What I found was the the shooting part was the easiest. You then had to sort/archive/tag each and every photo, upload it to a stock agency, wait a week or more, only to find out that the photo has been rejected for any number of reasons. As a test, I uploaded 56 photos to this one agency, waited a week and at the end of the day’s efforts only 3 different photos were accepted for possible sale.

Oh, one other thing: it took me a year to make the sale. I uploaded that photo on Jan 13/2009 and it sold almost a year to the day. I’ve made .25 this year selling photos. I suppose that if you dedicate years and years to shooting stick photos you can make a good income and some do. If you end up with a popular photo and it sells over and over again the incremental income could be huge I suppose.

The photo I took was nothing special either, but was accepted and sold. It was of a hydro tower with some clouds in the background. I was on a walk with my camera and was bored, so took a photo. I never in a million years thought I would actually sell it.

I doubt I will actually see that .25 as I’m sure there’s a minimum payout with the stock photo company too. Most companies won’t send you a cheque until you’ve got _$100 or so of earnings. So, I guess I should say I’ve made some corporation .25 richer with my efforts.

Debt Freedom News

On the news front, I have setup and registered 89 domain names at .79 each ( a great deal) and am now getting down to the hard work of creating the sites. These are small mini sites with about five articles all written by yours truly about specific niches or products. For an example: http://www.getoutofdebtfast.com might be one with five articles on how to get out of debt: make more money, sell your stuff on ebay, etc, etc.

This is early days so the trick at this point in the game is just to get the sites made and hope to see about 20 visitors per day from each. That’s 2000 visitors per day and I think with a bit of tweaking I can get $50 to $100 per day out of these. If nothing else, this will allow me to test some niches and see what’s popular and what’s not. remember: I’ve seen a visit to this site due to the search term I’m woth stupid. And, I know why: When I started this blog I had stupid purchase as one category and term I used a lot, so the search engines – having no othe r relevant sites for that search term, chose to display this one. Stupid is, as stupid does. : )

So that’s the plan. I’ve got a year to make my $87 or so I’ve spent on domain names back. I hope to write later this spring that these sites are averaging .50 per day. Doesn’t sound like a lot right? But if you multiply that by 100, that’s fifty bucks/day. 1000 is $500/day and NO day job I could ever get could pay that and this little project might with a LOT of typing and effort and hard work.

Income wise, this site has made very little money so far and I doubt it will ever and I’m OK with that. I did have a few good days with commissions though from some other stuff I’m doing and I’m starting to get traffic and sales again from my digital camera deals site and sold a $150 camera yesterday. That’s about a $7 income that I made in my sleep and it’s a start.

I just realized I’ve made 28x more money yesterday writing about digital photography and cameras, than actually taking photos and selling them. The longer I live, the more I realize that one should never say never. 20 years ago when I was in photo school I never thought I’d make any income writing and spend most of my days stuck behind a screen and using a computer mouse. I thought I’d be out there shooting, changing the world. I only tolerated the writing part and in hindsight, now that the internet is largely text-based and the keyboard is the most profitable tool of this past decade. Search engines and and the internet have changed everybody’s lives in so many different ways.

I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff to sell on ebay still and big whack of connectors and cables to go but I’ve yet to find the time, or moreso – the inclination. it’s tedious job listing every little item, photographing it, and packing it up to sell. It’s not one of my most favorite things to do but i must keep at it for a number of reasons, mainly it’s the most profitable of my little projects right now. I’ve really fallen off the wagon with this. I’m going to try and get more stuff listed tomorrow I think.

Another realization: I’ve probably made the MOST money with my camera selling my stuff on eBay. 2 years of college, and the only time I end up shooting is to take pictures of my stuff to sell on ebay. Mind you they’re well lit ebay photos and I think I can credit a few higher bids to the better photos.

So at 1005 words, I’ll end this and wish all seven or so of my readers a great weekend. Have fun and enjoy.

Related posts:

1. How to Make Better Photos For Your Ebay Auctions. Day 31