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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You probably have some old things that you don’t need or want anymore. You might be able to sell the items and make some money.

The older the item is, the more valuable it may be. Certain limited edition toys, for example, could be worth hundred or thousands if they are still in the packaging. Old video games, out of print books, and other discontinued items might be worth quite a bit to an eager seeker. Comic books, collectible sports cards, made special addition magazines could get you some money. Sign up for an ebay account if you have something that might be valuable.

Photo by lynnieb

You can also have a good old fashioned yard sale. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. As long as it can still be used or fixed, you can sell it. Not only will you free up some space in your closet, but you will make some extra money, too.

When you make a sale, put the money into an interest-bearing account and reap the benefits every month.

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A very short post to tell you that I’m going to a Trendwest sales presentation on Wednesday, and if you’d like to go to one, email me at bookchiq@gmail.com with “TrendWest” in the subject and your address and phone number in the message.

What is Trendwest? A timeshare-esque company that wants you to buy into their program.

Why would you want to go? They give you free stuff. The standard offer is a trip, but we didn’t want the trip (based on the unlikeliness of our actually taking it) so we asked about gift certificates—turns out they negotiate: we will be receiving a $50 gift certificate to the Home Depot and $20 at Olive Garden.

I’m going to try out a couple of strategies for dealing with the high-pressure sales tactics (we’ve been three times already, and flat out told the scheduler that we’re not interested in buying in, but they still want us, so what the heck, we’ll take their incentives…). I’ll report back and tell you which strategies were most effective later this week. In the meantime, email me if you want me to “refer” you.

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Some research says it can.

I just read an interesting article on the topic called “C’mon, get happy. Seriously, it pays.” According to the article,

“[researchers] found that those with a song in their hearts are more likely to, among other things:

• Get a job interview
• Be employed
• Perform well at work
• Get higher evaluations from bosses
• Make more money
• Have jobs with more autonomy, meaning and variety
• Avoid job burnout

Sounds like quite the deal, huh? And the important take-away from this info is that the research suggest that some people are successful because they’re happy, rather than happy because they’re successful (which seems like the order what most of us would expect).

They also found that how often you’re happy matters more than how happy you are when you’re happiest. (It’s more a question of your general disposition.)

Of course, happiness isn’t everything—other qualities (like talent, perserverance, etc.) can make you successful even if you’re a sourpuss. But I’d suggest that happier people can also get by with less, so aside from doing better at work, they also can save more money.

What would make you a happier person? Can you do it right now? Or do you even go for this idea?

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Woohoo!  Just got an email from HSBC saying the interest rate has just been raised to 4.65% APY.  We just plunked some more savings in there a week ago, so good timing.  We’re planning on keeping half of our savings in there, and also a chunk of money (don’t have it yet) that will be in reserve for the day our Mazda dies.  I am so pleased to live at a time where I am regularly just given free money!

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I just signed up for Blingo on the recommendation of a friend. It is an interesting idea. Basically, it’s a search engine built on top of Google (it provides Google results) that gives away prizes (hence the “Bling” part of their brilliant name). I’m assuming that they use Google to supply the results but put their own ads in there, which is how they make money and can afford to give some away. Doesn’t much matter to me if I see Google’s ads or Blingo’s ads.

The prizes vary somewhat but my friend has won a gift card to the iTunes store, which sounds good to me. Blingo’s made it even easier for me by letting me use the search feature that’s already built into Firefox, so I don’t even have to go to their site to use them. On top of that, if someone you refer to the site wins a prize, so do you (so use my referral link, hint hint!).

In case you can’t tell, I think this is a cool gimmick. I don’t really see a downside: quality search results; ease of use; free stuff. I like it.

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I read somewhere (I think in the Early to Rise newsletter, which I heartily recommend despite the myriad ads) that it’s a good idea to write down your personal (or household) revenue targets for the next 7 years. I don’t remember the specific logic, but I imagine it follows the standard pattern: goals that are written down are more likely to be acheived; if you don’t know what you’re shooting for, you won’t know whether you’re hitting it; if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Okay, yes, I’m slightly mocking, but that’s not to say I don’t believe in it. I’ve had the item “Figure out revenue targets for next 7 years” sitting on my to-do list for an embarrassingly long time, because it seemed daunting. I just did it in 5 minutes (which makes the to-do list residency even more ridiculous).

My revenue targets
2006: $20k
2007: $28k
2008: $39k
2009: $55k
2010: $77k
2011: $108k
2012: $150k

My logic
Some advice that I know came from Early to Rise regarding goal setting is this:

Make your goal specific. If possible, make it quantifiable.
Make your goal realistic. Then cut it in half.
Break it down into pieces.
Establish a timeline.
Allow room for setbacks and distractions.
Identify your support team.
Seek a mentor.
Make your goal (at least a little) public.
Establish a way to reward yourself at the end and on the way.

My first years are pretty conservative. This is for two reasons: first, I’ve only been full-time in business for myself since October. It’s kind of feast-or-famine at the moment, and realistically, it’ll probably be that way for a while. I am trying to establish multiple streams of income and make at least some of them passive, but until they’re really firmly planted, that means a fair amount of time up front, without a lot of money. I’m also trying to be realistic, a la the ETR advice, by cutting in half the amount I think I could make if I work hard.

This year’s amount is also not a matter of whim. I hold back half of what I make to cover taxes, social security, etc. (it’s a little excessive, perhaps, but I don’t like nasty surprises come tax time; besides, it’s in an Emigrant Direct account). $20k is slightly more than $1400 gross income each month. We’ve figured out that if I can consistently contribute $700/month towards the mortgage, we’ll meet our goal of paying off the house by my 30th birthday. So I’m figuring about $800/month post tax, most of which will go to debt.

For the rate of increase, I’m figuring about 40% revenue increase a year. I’m not sure if that’s overly optimistic but I think it’s reasonable, particularly considering the intentional investment of time now to make money later.

I haven’t taken all of the ETR advice yet, but I’ve just accomplished another piece: making it public.

Consider doing this exercise yourself (if you post it on a blog, by all means, trackback or leave a comment linking to your post).

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As I mentioned on my Ten Dollar Verdict post, I’m launching a new blog. I’ve decided to focus it on the generic topic of crafts, and since I’m a geek, here it is: Crafty Geek. It’s very much still in launch stage, as it only has one post, but that will be increasing shortly.

I was going to make it just be about knitting, but I realized that, given my gnat-like attention span, I’d be better off going with something that will be relevant when I hop to stenciling or beading or whatever random crafty thing will come next (actually, it will probably be crocheting). The individual posts will focus on specific projects, products, craft disciplines, etc., so the ads will still be targetted and relevant, and the back posts will come up in Google for specific searches.

With my first $30 in revenue specifically from Crafty Geek, I’m going to launch the review site I mentioned.

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You may remember that I wanted to participate in the Ten Dollar Challenge. I actually haven’t forgotten about it; I’ve been trying to come up with a brilliant idea. Of course, as Ramit points out eloquently, that’s not really a great plan. So I’ve decided to stop pondering and start acting.

Initially, I thought of doing a site I’ve had in mind for a while. It’s a review site of sorts, and I’m not going to go into too much detail since I’m still thinking to do it and you’ll be able to see it in action shortly. However, it isn’t well-suited by itself to the $10 project because it will cost me $10 to set the site up right (domain + hosting) which leaves me with $0 for buying the products to review (before people start sending them to me for free, you know, begging me to say nice things to my millions of readers…). So here’s the modified mediocre idea I’m going to work with.

I’ve recently started a new hobby (knitting) which is actually a fairly expensive hobby (of course I find ways to work around that). But the fact that there are many accessories and necessarily the need to frequently buy yarn makes it a great potential moneymaker for a blog (blogs that feature purchasable topics get ads that pay). The main thing is that it’s something I’m interested in and will enjoy writing, because without the writing, it’s dumb to even think of ads. So my $10 will go to set up that blog.

Phase 2 happens when I see ad revenue. With that ad revenue, I’ll set up the review site and fund the initial product purchases (well, at least that’s the idea). So I’ll let you know when I have the first site up and keep you updated on the progress. I’m curious about whether this is a viable plan. I guess we’ll see!

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