Ways for teens to make money

State and federal laws often make it hard for a teenager to work at a regular paying job to earn some money for themselves or to help support the family. They can run out of lawns to mow or cars to wash and often those small jobs are limited to teens living in the city or suburbs.

Thank goodness for the internet. It opened up a whole new world for teenagers and even children to make money online. For the creative teen there is making items to sell on eBay, designing myspace pages for other myspace users (my daughter did that last year and wrote articles on how to do it), writing their own blog for money or designing avatars. They can even write and publish their own books for free at lulu.com The list can go on depending on the drive and intelligence of the teen.

For anything that the teen puts on the web to sell or promote will require typing, excellent grammar and spelling and an understanding of design appeal. I can often spot a web site done by a child since it will come with annoying music, lots of twinkles and jammed packed with photos that take too long to load. Come to think of it I know a few adults that have web pages that fit into that group too. Those people also never sell anything and wonder why.

Now the biggest obstacle you will find is that many places will not allow teens to get paid if they are under 18. Here is where the parent has to become the banker. For example you use your Google Adsense account and use the code on your teens' blog or website. When Google sends you a check you then pay your teen. You will also have to play banker if the company pays via PayPal. The earnings will have to be in your name for tax purposes but you can work that out with a tax adviser or just claim the income.

Coffee is a big seller

Proctor and Gamble show an income increase of over 50%!! What could they be selling that people are buying? The answer is coffee. My guess is that more people are going the home brew route rather than Starbucks. The video news is below:

Membership websites

One way to make money on the internet is to run a membership based website. If you have an idea for a community and how to profit from it but have no idea how to set up the website, I have found a solution for you. Here is a Membership Website Software that will do the trick for you.They even offer a free trial. It can also be used by clubs that want to restrict website access to members only or even small companies that do have the resources to set up their own intranet. It includes website hosting as well as lots of other goodies like newsletters and emails.

Niche blogging, what is it?

You have probably heard the term niche blogging, but what is niche blogging? A niche is a very small part of a larger subject. For example a blog about birds would be a general blog. Also a blog about parrots would be considered a general blog. A blog about parrot food would be a niche blog.

If you want to make a successful niche blog all you have to do is write 10 articles with very complete and concise information about your subject and put them up on a blog. Load the blog with your Google Adsense ads and let it go. Make sure your articles will not be outdated in a year or more and you are good to go on making money with it. The big plus here is that you don't have to keep writing more blog posts to it. It is like a mini website that is set up to give people information and you now have a little money maker.

Some people have done that with 100's of niche blogs and if each one of them had several clicks on their Google ads a day then they could be making at least $10 a day without doing anything more to the blogs - ever.

If you have a current blog that you want to turn into a niche blog go for it. An established blog that gets turned into a niche blog will be indexed faster by Google thus giving you more visitors faster.

Free tax software and filing from the IRS

Are you fed up with paying $49 plus filing fees to some of those software programs? I used Taxcut for the last 5 years or so and I was paying out at least $60 each year in software and filing fees. I didn't know that it was all free with the help of the IRS.

They have a page on their website which is here on how to get free tax software and file your federal taxes for FREE. No longer do you have to pay anything to electronically file your taxes and get a refund. Quit paying out money for some company to handle the "refund payments", it is a simple ripoff. The IRS does direct deposit and doesn't charge anything to do that but those companies make you believe that there is some fees involved that must be paid. Don't believe them anymore. Go to the IRS website and find out how you can save some money this year by using a free tax filing software.

Stealing from the internet

We all know by now that downloading music files from the internet is illegal in the USA if the music is copyrighted. The rule of the thumb is that "if you didn't pay for it you probably stole it" is often true. The same goes for downloading movies on line.

One of the newest types of websites to pop up all over the place are torrent websites. They are a file sharing type of website where a user can upload a file and download one too. Often the files are movies, music and software. The torrent programs is the software you need to download the files. Most of the time the software (the torrent) that you download and install is safe. The files that you download using the torrent are not. Those movie, music and other files are coming from other users like yourself. They could have viruses, Trojans or malware attached to the files. They are often corrupt files that don't quite work like they should. Until there is a standardized format for these types of websites and the legalities have been cleared up surrounding "free movie and music downloads" I would stay away from them for now.

Circuit City liquidation

I got a chance to stop in a Circuit City store yesterday. Since they just started their liquidation process I was hoping to see some bargains. I went to look at the digital cameras since my daughter needs one for school. I was shocked to see all the signs say "take 10% off of original price", 10%!!!, WFT! Since when is 10% a bargain? Taking 10% off of their original prices made the cameras just a tad more expensive than Walmart prices.

I know that Circuit City had to have a liquidation company come in and they are the ones running the sale but does the liquidation company have a clue to prices or do they plan on doing something with the merchandise should it not sell. This liquidation sale smells fishy to me.

Email spam

I thought there was some sort of law in place that was suppose to eliminate email spam. I can fully understand if the email I was getting was from a company that I bought something from or signed up for something but I get loads of "you have won this" or just plain "drugs at a discount" types of emails. Now I am not talking about 1 or 2 but sometimes 50 or 60 in one day. I use a hotmail account for all the memberships and sign-ups that some websites force you to do when you want to view something. It is that account that is probably on a shared mailing list and the mail box gets swamped everyday.

Not all the email is junk. I have gotten some pretty good money saving ideas from them. I also learn new words and terms. For example the word Decaslim kept showing up in the subject box of a few emails and curiosity got the better of me. I found out it was yet another one of those non FDA approved weight loss drugs. I wish those companies would get a clue and quit drug pushing like the local gangs.

The problem with those types of emails is the fact that they are not coming from the companies that sell them but people that get paid a commission should you buy the item from the link they provided in the email. I do have an email blocker setting on my hotmail address and I have started to use it. I type in the email addy of the sender I no longer wish to get emails from and Ta-Da, no more emails from them. I am now down to only 10-12 a day of spam emails rather than 50 a day.

Prices are down, but where?

The prices of homes have dropped, gasoline has gone down from it's all time high of over $4.00 a gallon last year but what else has gone down? Where and what is a best buy today? I can tell you that when I was shopping at my local Walmart that the prices of clothing is coming down but food prices keep going up. The price of dry cat food and dog food has gone up dramatically over the past several months.

What I have been doing is food shopping at the discount food places like Shop and Kart, Grocery Outlet and others like those types of stores. For mouthwash, shampoos, batteries I go to the Dollar Tree store. I have been doing that type of shopping for the past 6 months and I have noticed a dramatic savings in our family's grocery bill. I use to pay around $100 to $120 a week for food at the local super Walmart but when I switched to shopping at the Grocery Outlet for the weeks food shopping I saved almost $60 for the same amount of food.

If more people shopped like I do then the major grocery chains would have to drop their prices to lure us back.

Offering my SEO services for hire

After looking more and more into how companies have been advertising in the last few months with paid blog posts, affiliate links and companies like click bank I have decided to see if there is a market for me to be hired as a part time SEO person.

Paid blogging companies are approached by companies that have something to sell or need links into their websites. Those blogging brokers like Pay Per Post, Blog to Profit, Smorty and others then turn around and offer bloggers $5-15 to write a blog post with a link to the customers website. What the blogging brokers don't tell the bloggers is that the big companies are paying them $50 or more per blog post.

What the usual result is a poorly written product or website review or even a blog post that just mentions a word with a link to the customers website. Sure the company get some link juice from a blog with Page Rank but what happens to that Page Rank in 3-6 months when the blog looses their own Page Rank?

I have a better idea for SEO for companies with products. I can write a product review and have it listed on a major article website, not a blog. I can also find blog posts on at least 10 blogs that their subjects are almost identical to the customers product or website and write a comment with their website and email listed in the comment form. All that would probably take 2-3 hours and I could charge the company wanting the SEO a flat charge of say $60. For that $60 the company would get 10 links pointing towards their website and an product or service review with a link to their website.

Any takers? You can contact me at theknowledgelady AT gmail.com

Tips for selling on eBay

I hear people all the time complaining about eBay, calling it FEE-Bay. Those people are not taking advantage of the fee based structure of eBay at all. Here is a run down of how I sell items on eBay:

First I list everything as a 7 day auction. I sometimes add a "buy it now" option if I think people will snap up the item for the "buy it now" price. After the 7 day auction ends and the item still has not sold I will look to see if the item got any hits (visitors) to the item. If it did and it had some watchers but no buyers then I re-list the item as a 30 day "buy it now", but I lower the price a little to under my previous "buy it now" price.

The cost of the 7 day auctions typically run me about .40 to .45 cents. The listings for 30 days as a "buy it now" costs .35 cents. I figure it will cost me $20 to list 50 items on eBay. If I sell most of them in the course of a month then I could at least make a few hundred dollars.

I also use the free eBay tools from Auctiva. It took me awhile to get use to them but they offer the perfect cross promoting tool you can get on eBay. Auctiva is the one that provides the pictures to your other items listed on eBay on each one of your auctions and listings. The advantage to that is each time someone looks at one of your items they can see photos of what else you have.

I have sold old magazines for $40 and up on eBay as well as vintage clothing. I have not had much luck with books or software on there. At one point I did have an eBay store a few years back but eBay started to exclude eBay store items in their searches so I dropped the store.

To find out the latest news and goings on, on eBay, you will want to visit the eBay message boards where you can read what the eBay sellers are complaining about or what the next new developments are over on eBay.

Cheap is not always so cheap

My daughter started her new class elective yesterday. She is so glad to be learning digital photography at school. Of course she has to provide her own camera. She is borrowing mine for the days she has photography class. She is of course saving up for her own camera. She has some definite requirements for it. It has to have a decent mega pixel of 5M or more. She wants it to be able to take video as well.

Today we went to Walmart to take a look at the cameras. You would have thought that with the economy being down that there would be a huge reduction in prices but they were not evident at our Walmart. The name brand cameras were still in the $120+ range. They did have some cheaper ones in plastic packages hanging next to the brand name ones but upon further investigation I found out why they were so cheap. The did not include any video cards or memory cards. Those cards cost at least $20 more and the brand name cameras include them with the camera.

I think we are going to wait until those prices come down some more.

Wholesale products to sell

If you are thinking about starting up a small retail business but need something to sell here is a link to a Free copy of Retailers Forum Magazine. It is an online magazine that has ads and links to wholesalers. I actually get the printed version sent to my home and the information is outstanding. They also have lots of tips on marketing your business as well as online selling help. I found out some tips for selling on eBay there.

I found another place to get paid blogging

I was doing a search on blogging employment, yes you can become a freelance blogger and write blog posts on other people's blogs for money, and I ran across an opportunity that sounded interesting.

The website is called Today and is looking for bloggers that have good writing skills. You will need to apply to them just like you are looking for a job. I submitted my application yesterday and got approved within 2 hours. I didn't know if that was normal or not so I did some checking around. It does look like they reject quite a few people because of the blog posts I have read about others getting rejected or ignored.

Right now they only have 167 bloggers working for them. They start you out with your own blog which you set up the theme and lay out. They put their own ads in the sidebar and you write blog posts. You will be paid per post at a rate of $1 a post for the first 30 days. It can go up to $5 a post plus views of $2 a thousand. That is actually a higher rate of pay than AC (Associated Content) which only pays $1.50 per thousand views.

Here is the big plus about having a blog over there at Today, you can put links in the blog posts that direct your readers to your other blogs or websites. They don't allow affiliate links but do allow links to other websites as long as they are not paid ads or links.

Car insurance

I just got my car insurance statement for the next 6 months and it has gone up. Why is that no surprise. I pay by the month and the amount has gone up by $20 a month. I have 2 vehicles listed on the policy at full coverage. I think it is now time to take one of the cars off of the full coverage and have only liability for it. After all, the car in question has 153K miles on it and is a 1998 Chevy Prism. I don't think I would get much back from the insurance company if the car was stolen but who is going to steal a 1998 Prism? The one reason I hang on to that little car is the fact it runs like a champ and gets 32 miles per gallon.

I am going to have to give my insurance agent a call today and see what kind of auto insurance quotes she can come up with. It's time I looked into our house insurance policy too. I might be over charged for that as well.

Cutting back on non essentials

Unfortunately for many of us we have to look for ways to cut back on our monthly bills just to pay utilities and food. One of the best ways to check to see if you are making monthly payments to companies you don't remember doing so is to check your checking account statement thoroughly each and every month. Don't ignore it. I once had a monthly charge of $19.95 for a company that I did not recognize. I called the bank and they looked into it for me and gave me the contact information for the place. It seemed that I had purchased an item online but I was not aware that the purchase also included a monthly membership to their site. I not only complained but my bank also got back all of my past charges from them.


Double check your statements if you have anything like a wine of the month type of membership or any monthly membership that gets taken out each month. I once had a membership that was taken out twice in error.

In these times it pays to be a hawk to your savings and checking accounts.

The Beaverton email scam

If you have received any emails with the following address in the email - beware. The emails are probably scams.
14525 SW Millikan #11450
Beaverton, Oregon 97005-2343

The address is a mail drop operated by a Seattle company. They offer mail boxes and electronic mail forwarding to companies that are typically outside of the USA.

There is currently a law enforcement investigation going on and has been for almost 2 years now. Here is the link to the news story that appeared in the Beaverton Valley News in Aug. 2007. What prompted this blog post was the fact that I received an email this morning stating I have a check waiting for me with no information except the address. Here is the email -

You may have a check pending.

Please check your status,

http://hg4rhh4.com/sorys?e=92eN2DKw5I9jK2ssejY9bIM2we7.bM&m=360531&l=0&email=XXXXXXXX
Thank you,
Check Notice

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==
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You can leave here,
http://hg4rhh4.com/unsub.php?e=XXXXXXXXXXXX&m=360531

Or send us a letter,
Silver Cloud GRP
14525 SW Millikan #11450
Beaverton, Oregon 97005-2343

<1;1lynl0hd6bcfhl99yfjcrbuldy4zru;360531>

Me back now. If you don't know the sender then just Google the email address or any information in the email first. Don't become a victim.

What toys have you given up on?

The results are in for the past holiday shopping season and people are giving up some of their toys. Large flat screen TV sales were down dramatically while video games and gaming systems were still selling strong. That is not hard to imagine if you take into account that most video gaming systems will be under $400 while most large flat screen TV’s will be a minimum of $800 and up. It is just a matter of what people can afford and the lower prices are becoming king. Pet supplies were also selling well this past holiday season but human clothing sales were down.

Digital TV to be delayed?

You have heard by now that elected President Obama will be trying to delay the transition from analog to digital TV transmission. The transition is scheduled to take place in February 2009. The federal government ran out of money to cover the $40 coupons they were issuing. As a result about 19 million households would not be able to receive the new digital TV signal. Obama has said that the transition would be a hardship on the poor and elderly. I can see where many people are confused about the transition. A few people I have talked to about the subject have DTV (digital TV) confused with HDTV (high definition TV) which has nothing to do with each other.

I personally would like to see a delay because of the excuse “if ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Technology is fine if you don’t force it on people. By making it a mandatory change from analog to digital they are forcing down people’s throats.

Making money with your blog

If you missed my series on how to start a blog from scratch to make money with here are the links to the series.

Making money with your blog -

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5

So how have I been doing with the blog The Playful Pup? Well I have made a few dollars on the Google ads and I have achieved a Page Rank of 1 for the blog. With the Page Rank alone I could submit the blog to several of the paid to blog websites and do paid blog posts with it. For now I will just use it to show you, my reader how to develop your own blog for income.

For more information just read my blog posts listed under "blogging" (the categories are listed on the left hand column near the bottom). Read and learn.

Watch out for medical claims

As times get tougher I have noticed an increase in rip-off consumer items. The main one that comes to mind is the soft plastic piece you put in your mouth to keep you from snoring. They claim it is great for those people suffering from sleep apnea. This cannot be further from the truth if you pushed it there. My husband suffers from sleep apnea and needs a cpap machine to keep him alive while he sleeps. If he relied on a piece of plastic in his mouth at night it would have more than likely have fallen out of his mouth only an hour or 2 into his sleep.

There are other items that make medical claims for Plantar Fasciitis, night sweats, stomach cramps and even irregularity. The claim by one yogurt maker that eating their product will help your digestion is a bit far fetched. If you are having digestion problems and it is really bothering you - go to a doctor! You might have something a tad more serious than an upset tummy.

Do yourself a favor and research thoroughly any medical claim by any product you are considering to purchase.

One of the advantages of writing for a living

Besides having the freedom of picking what and when I choose to write about the greatest advantage of being a free lance writer is not having to worry about deadlines when I am sick. I am getting over a nasty bout of the stomach flu and not having to worry about calling into work or having to hurry up and get well is not on my mind. I have the freedom of letting my body recover without any mental stress added to the equation. I know full well that money still keeps coming in and a few days trapped in the bathroom will not devastate my lively hood.

Jazzing up your blog

One of the most fundamental parts of attracting readers to your blog is with what you write about. That is because your words are searchable by the search engines. What keeps your audience there on your blog is how looks. Is it nothing but words, ads or links? The growing majority of successful blogs have either videos or pictures that stay in tune with what their blog is about.

Often those images are who the blogger is. For example Dosh Dosh is a very well known blogger that has pictures of anime characters on his blog. The pictures have nothing to do with what the blog is about but it has become part of his "style". Dosh Dosh writes about technology and blogging.

As you can see in this blog post I am experimenting with photos to see if I want to have a "style" of my own. The 3 photos in this blog post are being hosted by Acrobox.com and I have a free account there. What they do is host thousands of public domain copyright photos so you don't have to steal other people's photos off the web (which is a big no-no in my book). You just have to join their consumer network and register the domain name you plan on using the photos on. They host the photos and you just copy and paste the code into your blog. The photos are free to use with no strings attached. It sure does beat looking for photos to right click, copy and steal from someone else's site.

I am going to keep looking around for my "style" of photo since I currently don't have a set one for this blog. I don't want to keep showing photos of money or people worried about debt so I'll keep looking.

This is the 509th post on this blog!

I can't believe that I have written that many posts in just over a year. It just goes to show how passionate I am about blogging. Writing posts for this blog has become almost second nature now. I even think up blog posts while in the shower. I have not gotten to the point of carrying a notepad with me everywhere to jot down ideas for this blog but I might start doing that for my articles at AC. You see I am now a "planet 8" over at AC, which means that my articles get higher pay.

I am also finding out that my articles are being reviewed fast than before. At the current rate that I am earning money over there I could earn at least $150 a week part time. If you want to join me come on over. There is plenty of room for good writers that have something to say.

2009 a new beginning?

So how is 2009 treating you so far? The stock market went up in it's first day of trading so maybe the attitude of people in general is more of a positive note. I have been experiencing an unusually high activity on the few eBay auctions I have been listing. So far in the last week, everything I have listed has sold at a slightly higher amount than I expected. I have also increased the number of articles that I have submitted to AC (Associated Content) and their payment offers have gone up for me.

So far for me, 2009 is looking good.

Your website

One of the most frustrating parts about selling anything on the internet is actually trying to find good but cheap web hosting. Where do you start? You might try this link, "A Beginner's Guide to Web Hosting",for some guidance. You could always try one of the free web hosting companies first with a free website then upgrade if you like their service. There are just a multitude to choose from.

To find out the ones to stay away from might be a tad bit easier than finding a good one. Just type in the words "best web hosting company" and you'll get pages upon pages of results. It will be hard to choose one that way. Now type in the words "web hosting ripoffs" or "web hosting scams" and you should come up with the ones to stay away from.

On the internet it is often hard to find what you are looking for so I have found by doing this type of "reverse" search it gets me better results. I now know the companies to stay away from. You can use this same type of logic to find not only web hosting but what company to use for your email newsletters or to handle your online purchase transactions.

The winter is the best time to start an internet based business

If you wanted to start an internet based business, when would be the best time? Winter is the best time of course. You potential customers are usually stuck inside and surfing the internet is a form of diversion for them. You thus have a captive customer base ready for you to tap into.

Having an online business cuts down vastly on overhead costs. You don't have to shop around for costly commercial real estate, have liability insurance for people that walk into your store or pay employees to mind the store and serve the customers. What you do have is a limited type of stock that will successfully sell online.

What does not sell well online is items that have to be tried on for fit. I for one won't buy shoes online since I always have problems with them fitting me just right. What does sell well are replacement parts for appliances and cars and hard to find items. Electronics has been pretty much covered by the large stores with internet sites so getting into that market will be tough. If you design software then you'll do great with selling your own programs as direct downloads.

It's the new year so start it off right by getting that online business you always wanted.