frugal underground

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Blogging is one of the most trendy ways to make money online these days. The question is, though, is it effective? Meaning, for the time you put into it, are you getting as good of a return as you could somewhere else?

I’m not sure. That’s saying something considering that I’m a blog developer.

Don’t get me wrong; I believe that blogging is a tremendously useful marketing tool, but mostly for someone who already has something to sell. It could be a product, a book, or services, but blogging helps multiply efforts to get a reputation as an expert.

Similarly, I believe that blogging offers many benefits beyond money. One is the reality that blogging about something on a regular basis forces you to learn new things and process information in useful ways, and that’s a skill that can help anyone in any job. You could probably even argue that the benefits would be worth paying for.

It starts to get a little murky, though, when you look at blogging as a direct path to money. There are really only a few ways to make money directly from your blog (”monetize it”). There’s advertising (either working with advertisers or going through a service like AdSense). There’s affiliate programs (where you make a commission by encouraging your visitors to buy something). There’s sponsored posts (where you write about a product, service, or site in exchange for a fee). Or you can write for a network (they take care of monetizing the blog and you provide the content for a fee).

As far as I know, those are your options. So the question is, are they good options? Yes and no. Yes, because some people really do make good money with those options. No, because the vast majority of bloggers make an absolute pittance. When you consider the time put in for the money pulled out, it’s much less than minimum wage.

On the other hand, sometimes it’s worth making less than minimum wage if you get other benefits. Besides the afore-mentioned educational benefits, blogging is flexible and allows you to, say, write while staying home with the kids. Try doing that with a traditional job!

It’s really a question of comparisons: how does the effort required and money returned compare to other alternatives? If you’re single or don’t have kids, it’s probably going to make more sense to spend your time elsewhere. That doesn’t mean blogging isn’t a possibility, just that you should consider creating a full-fledged business and blogging to help promote it.

If you’re looking for a small supplementary income that can be made in short spurts of free time, blogging might be a good choice.

In closing, I’ll tell you that this isn’t just an academic question for me. I’m thinking of starting a new blog on Christian wifehood (but a little edgier than that might sound) and am having a hard time justifying the time it would take for the money it would make. That said, it’s something that I care about for reasons other than money, so I might just do it anyway. Would anyone want to write for such a blog?

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In addition to Amazon’s Black Friday sale, I’ve also come across a few more noteworthy online sales. (I’ll update this post as I come across other exceptional deals.)

If you need a new desktop computer, you’ll have a hard time beating this deal from PC Direct; I’m not going to list all the specs here, but in my semi-professional tech opinion, this is the best computer deal I’ve seen in a long time.

Knitters looking to round out their needle collections might want to consider Lion Brand’s great deal on a circular needle set. Less than $20 (plus shipping, I imagine) gets you seven 29″ circular needles from size 10.5 to 35!

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Here in the U.S., the day after Thanksgiving has picked up the moniker of “Black Friday.” Seems a little dismal, but it’s almost a holiday of its own—part frugality, part insanity. It’s a “competitive shopping” extravaganza of too many people clamoring for too little inventory.

Personally, I’m not a big Black Friday shopper. I’m usually too lazy to go buy a paper, find the good sales, and drive all over town. That said, I’ve gotten some great deals in the past, and if you have a list of Christmas present recipients but don’t know what you’re getting them, it can be a good strategy for frugal shopping.

This year, though, I was amused (and secretly delighted) to see that Amazon is doing a big Black Friday sale of their own. No doubt they’ve done this before and I just didn’t notice, but for a homebody like me, it’s good news.

They don’t have details on what’s going to be available, but they promise hourly deals from 6am to 6pm PST. It’s also worth checking out their creative “Customers Vote” deals—it’s the only place I’ve seen a chance of getting a Wii for $79.

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I’ve been reading with interest Millionaire Mommy Next Door’s recent posts on renting vs. owning. She makes some very good points that run counter to a lot of people’s emotional decisions, and honestly, if I wasn’t already committed to owning (we started buying our house before the bubble made things crazy and have an extremely low interest rate), I’d seriously consider renting instead of buying in order to make better use of the dollar difference. As it is I’m encouraging my sister and brother-in-law to think carefully about it.

Since I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic, a Springwise post this morning caught my eye; it’s about a site called Rentometer. It was originally created for property owners, to help them figure out what a reasonable rent rate is based on the basic characteristics (number of bedrooms) and neighborhood.

Naturally, the site has also found success with renters themselves who want to know if what they’re paying is reasonable. I ran it on my sister’s apartment and it said that their rent is comparable for the neighborhood.

I particularly like the visual aspects. The little gauge makes it easy to see the spread, and the Google map is specific enough that it could actually be helpful when apartment-shopping. One thing my sister and I noticed is that it doesn’t seem to take into account things like how new the rentals are or what specific features, so it’s really just a general tool, but it seems like a pretty helpful one.

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