Crazy and money making inventions

I think that almost everyone wants to be the inventor of the next "pet rock" and become rich and famous. The real fact is that the human race has new inventions everyday. Some are mundane, some lifesaving and others just plain useless and crazy.

We may laugh at the crazy inventions like chia pets, the clapper and the George Foreman grill but they have made millions for their promoters. Some of the best money making inventions have had something to do with exercise and fitness. You know about the Bowflex, the Total Gym and thigh master but what about Kettlebells and exer-rider? Will they ever be well known?

I was given a Healthrider years ago when it use to be "the" hot exercise piece of equipment to have. I soon found out why the Healthrider did not last as a long term piece of fitness equipment, it hurt your back. I talked to others that also had a Healthrider and they too developed back pain after using it for more than a week. It was one of those pieces of fitness equipment that was all hype and lacked proper research. They too gave up on those $400 Healthriders and soon I started seeing them at garage sales and fleas markets for less than $20.

A word to the wise, don't buy some new invention because of hype, wait a few months to see if the item will last and live up to it's claims.

Starting at the bottom as a paid blogger

When you start blogging for money you join one of the dozen getting paid for blogging companies there are online. I won't bother mentioning those company names because many of them last only a year or 2 then go under only to be replaced by another one.

Often those smaller companies cater to low budget advertisers that want bloggers to write about gambling, best weight loss supplements, payday loans and other not so glamorous companies and websites. If you are smart and are getting nothing but offers for gambling, diets or loans then just start a few blogs that are devoted to those subjects. Your readers will not get upset if you have a diet blog and do several blog posts dedicated to reviewing types of diet pills. Your readers would get upset if you have a mommy blog and you have blog posts about gambling or payday loans sprinkled in with day care dos and don'ts.

A successful money blogger will stay on subject with their blog and be picky about the subjects they are asked to write about. After awhile a successful blogger doesn't have work for those companies as Google Adsense will often pay more in the long run.

Saving energy

Struggling to pay even the monthly electric bill can be an ordeal when money is tight. If you can afford to change your incandescent light bulbs to the more energy efficient florescent bulbs you will notice a energy savings right away on your electric bill. We noticed a savings of $30 a month after switching just 8 bulbs in the house. The bulbs were switched from 75 watts to 13 watts.

So if you are looking to save money forget shopping for discount chandeliers and other cheap items and start looking for energy efficient ways to decrease your monthly electric bill.

Don't get something you can't maintain

Remember when you were a kid and wanted a puppy but your parents said you were too young to take care of it? That same reason should apply to adults who purchase something they can't maintain either from lack of funds or just plain ignorance. Take for example a house, everyone wants to own their own home and new buyers are often convinced by sellers and lenders that the monthly mortgage payment will be their only expense. Those new first time buyers fail to realize that home owners insurance will not cover everything. It often doesn't cover a roof leak or plumbing gone bad from deterioration over time. Some policies don't cover termites, insect damage, wood rot or worn carpet. You will be responsible for those items.

If you have some handy skills you can do much of the work yourself. Even something as simple as learning how to maintain a granite counter top or copper sinks without ruining them will help you out. Always set aside a monthly allowance for your home even if you don't use the money right away you will use it eventually.

Health insurance companies that get my goat

If you really want to push my buttons then just let me get a call from a doctor's office about an unpaid bill. We have health insurance that covers the bill but either the medical provider either billed it incorrectly or the insurance company claims the bill as "not covered". It just makes me mad enough to want to throw a piece of furniture through a wall.

I am sure that you have had the same thing happen to you on more than one occasion. I would love to hear your tales of injustice when it comes to medical insurance and their lack of quality when it comes time to pay.

Taking a time out

If you have your own business or just simply sell stuff on eBay, you should know when to take a time out from your work. Now I am not talking about taking a few hours off to use the pool floats lounges, no I am talking about taking a few days or a week off.

Taking time off is vital to your success. I have spent many late night hours just working on blogging and networking my blog to make it a success. I know first hand that not taking time off will burn you out fast on any new venture. Taking time off away from your business venture will give you a fresh new outlook on life and give you new ideas for furthering your venture.

Typing your way to a better job?

Increasing your typing speed will increase your chances of a better job - or will it? Today's admin careers require much more than just being a typist. Nowadays most positions require a working knowledge of office software programs as well as fundamental computer filing systems. Just a pretty face behind the front desk with a nice phone voice will no longer get the job.

If you do type, increase your speed and accuracy. Practice your grammar too since spellchecker will not catch everything. Use your own personal blog as a way to practice your skills. Learn about those other programs that came with your computer.

Saving for that rainy day

Whether we like it or not, bad things happen in life. Being financially prepared for those times is what is going to make the difference between surviving the worse or becoming it's victim. The best thing you can do is start up a savings account that you regularly contribute to every week. Even if it is just $10 a week that means you'll have $520 at the end of the year that you would not have if you didn't set anything aside.

When you set up that rainy day savings account there is one thing you MUST do, do NOT have an ATM or debit card linked to the account. You want to make that account hard to withdraw money from. You will have to go into the bank to make withdrawals and deposits. If you add those extra steps to the access of the account the money will be safe from your purchasing whims.

You can also use that account to save up for large expenses like new home or office furniture. Just make sure that you have plenty of money left in that account after your purchase to cover items like fixing your car or replacing a major appliance should they break down.

Having a rainy day fund that is hard to get to will take a load or worry off of your mind when you need to have the cash.

Internet and computer fun

As you know I signed up on Twitter just over 48 hours ago. That place is so crazy with people trying to sell you something, collecting "followers" and just regular folks trying to figure why they started to write tweets to begin with. So far I seem to be gathering followers at an alarming rate of almost 20 an hour. I have no clue why. It might be that I don't try and sell anybody anything.

The whole internet has been kinda hard on me this past week because I am still waiting for my regular laptop to come back from having yet another mother board replaced. Yes it is the second mother board to go south on that one in 2 years. Thank goodness for warranties. The one computer I am using is so slow I even bought more computer memory for it so it is now up to 200MG from 128MG - Whoopie! It has the old Windows ME OS and it is not compatible with our printers or even with the newer Firefox. I can't even think about watching videos because the pluggins for them are too new and ME will not support it.

My regular laptop is in transit so I should get it back any day now. I just hope the mother board holds out for longer then a year this time. By the way it is an HP Presario.

I just joined Twitter

I know I am behind the rest of the crowd in joining Twitter but I finally did it. I have even added a widget to the side bar of this blog. It is at the top of the blog side bar right now, but I might change it in the future. Come on over to Twitter and follow me. Since I am always on eBay either selling something or looking for something I always run into some great bargains. I thought that Twitter would be a great way to let people know about bargains on eBay.

If you follow me on Twitter you can direct message me and let me know if you are looking for anything special on eBay. If I find it, I'll let you know.

How to comment on a blog and get your comment published

Commenting on blogs is one very good way to increase your backlinks to your own blog or website. Unfortunately too many people don't know how to comment correctly or fail to say something meaningful to the blog post which in turn causes their comment not to be published at all. I know that many blog owners put their comments to be approved automatically but most of those blogs are not that popular and will not get useful backlinks to your own blog. You need to search out and find blogs that only have moderated comments.

Now for the tricky part. You must find a blog that is relevant to your own blog or website to comment on. Just because the blog post mentions sexy nightgowns in the blog post is not an open invitation for every porn site owner to comment the blog. In fact I had that happen recently on another one of my blogs. Did the guy who posted the comment "I find your blog a great read and have bookmarked it" with the website URL as greatsextoy.com (or something like that) really think I was going to approve a comment with a link to his site? Come on now, find a relevant blog to post your URL on. Use the same idea for your blog. If you have a technology blog make comments on other technology blogs. Now you may find that there are a few blog owners that will not publish comments from websites or blogs that they perceive as competion but they are the ones losing out on that since they eventually lose savvy readers that catch on to that fact.

Next you want to write a comment that adds to the blog post, not just simply "great post" or "nice blog". Yes us blog owners want to hear comments like that but not from the same URL on every blog post. Blog owners catch on very fast to what you are up to and won't publish your comments or may even seek out old comments from you and delete them. I also had one blog commenter that constantly posted I have subscribed to your feed. Since that blog had only 2 subscribers most of the time I knew he was lying. I still get that guy trying to place a comment on that blog to this day.

As a blog owner you will find that you will get more and more spam like comments as your PageRank increases. The commenter's are not interested in your blog as much as they want some of your link juice. The type of comments you don't like are the type of comments you shouldn't be leaving on other blogs.

Are people really cutting back on their expenses?

Depending on who you talk to not everyone is cutting back on expenses. Those that have a stable income and have always been able to stash money away for a rainy day are still buying and spending the same way they always did. Those that are facing unemployment or went from a 2 income household down to 1 are defiantly cutting back. Young, single and employed seem to going on with what the rest of us call frivolous spending and that maybe the cause of the economy getting stronger again.

If it was not for the fact that someone somewhere still spent money like water and thus providing the rest of us an income where would we be? Thankfully people are still buying diamond engagement rings, new cars, expensive vacations and dining out.

I use to think of people that spent money like water as crazy, but now those crazy people are what the rest of us need right now. Unfortunately I normally say save, save, save but if you have money you can spend without hurting your bank account then spend a little. It will help out those that are unemployed. I will say one thing though - BUY SOMETHING THAT WAS MADE CLOSE TO WHERE YOU LIVE. You want to boost your own local economy first rather than some giant manufacturing plant overseas.

Laptop problems

I am currently going through a type of computer withdrawals. My own laptop had to be sent out to be repaired. Thank goodness it is under warranty and I had the forethought of backing up all my vital files before the computer decided not to turn on last week. I am now using a much older laptop that I up graded slightly last month by adding notebook computer memory but it is using the old Windows ME OS and many online applications will not work. Watching videos are a pain with it. One thing I was very thankful for is the fact I backed up all my bookmarks so I could find my way around to my favorite sites and member sites. Without those bookmarks I am sure that I would not remember many of the URLs of the sites I visit.

My own laptop should be back to me in 10 days. It has been 5 days already so I might be getting it back soon - I hope.

A warning for GE Money Bank customers

If you have a credit card serviced by GE Money Bank here is a heads up for you. I have a small store credit card that is serviced by GE Money Bank and this happened to me.

My credit card due date is the 30th of each month. I usually pay at least 5 days before the due date and online at that. I was running a little late and went online 3 DAYS before the due date and paid liked I always do. For some odd reason I decided to check my account activity (something I have never done because I am paying off one purchase made a few months back) and there on the activity list was a $39 late payment post dated for the 30th of the month and it was only the 27th. I thought that the late payment would disappear once I made my payment. It didn't. I received my "Thank you for your payment" email and it was dated the 27th.

On the 31st of May I decided to check my GE Money Bank online statement again and sure enough they charged me for the late payment and the payment I made was credited on the 31st, not on the 27th when I paid it. It looks like GE is playing games so I gave them a call and after I told them I had an email dated on the 27th that they had received my payment the reversed the late fee. Of course the foreign speaking man on the other end of the phone did argue with me that I had not paid until after the due date but I did have proof otherwise. Now I am waiting for the paper statement to see if they up my interest rate due to the late fee that was charged in "error".

If you have access to your online statement at GE Money Bank go and check out your activity to see if GE Money Bank is post dating fees to your account. Unless you call and dispute them they will charge you those fees.

GO CHECK YOUR ACCOUNT NOW!

10,000 visitors in 5 days

Yes you read that title correctly, this blog has had 10,000 since the beginning of June. Most of them came from Stumble but a growing percentage is coming from searches. It is a sign of the times that being frugal and "Scratching out a Living" is becoming popular. The blog is getting lots of hits on searches for "how-to's" on many subjects. The blog post about the swine flu is also getting mega hits.

At one point the amount of subscribers to this blog's feed shot up to almost 50 and then settled back down again.

At the rate of growth that this blog is experiencing I was thinking about having another giveaway. If you were around about 6 months ago you would remember the Sterling Silver cat earrings I gave away to a lucky email subscriber. The reader was thrilled and HE, yes he, gave them to his wife. I would have put a link to his website or blog on here but he doesn't have either.

What do you think? Should I have another giveaway?

I hate computers

That is a strange statement to make from someone who makes a good part time income from using one. It is because the last 2 laptops I have had only lasted 3 years or less before they had some major problems. I am typing this blog post out on an older laptop (born in the year 2000) that my husband use to have. We keep it as a back-up unit. Struggling with Windows ME and having to find a compatible browser for it is pure hell. My HP laptop refused to turn on this morning. Not even a light on or a flickering screen. The mother board failed on it during the first 6 months I had it. Now it is just barely 2 years old and it went belly up again. Thank goodness I bought the 3 year warranty on it.

Since owning so many computers that I just plain wear out I have become very fond of flash drives to back everything up.I have an old desk top computer sitting in the corner of my office that is has Windows 95 on it and it doesn't have the capacity to use DSL. I might gut the thing and update it - one day. I also have an Averatec that was a great little laptop for all of 4 years. Now it just turns on, boots up and reboots again. I can't to read what the blue warning screen says. I figure it might cost at least $200 for someone to look at it so it would probably be cheaper to get a netbook since they cost under $199 right now.

I wonder if that is what everyone else is doing, getting those cheap netbooks. I will wait until they have a bigger memory and have Windows Vista on them. I really can't stand all the problems with the old XP operating system that comes installed on them.

Don't remodel - declutter instead

I have a contractor friend that told me once that he gets lots of requests for additions to homes for storage areas. He then goes to do the estimate for the job and finds the homeowner has plenty of room in the home but it is filled with junk. He actually told one home owner that he could add an extra room just for storage for $20K or the homeowner could rent a dumpster for $100 and accomplish the same thing.

I know for a fact that most of us have "junk" laying around - stuff we have not used in at least 2 or more years and probably won't use again, but some of us are pack rats. We hate to part with anything. The ones that are not pack rats are the procrastinators of which I am ashamed to fall under that category. I come from a family of pack rats of which my father was the king. That man never threw anything out. Because of coming from a family of pack rats I was determined not to follow in their ways. I procrastinate instead.

To battle my procrastination I have developed my "3 bags full" way to de-clutter a room, closet or whole house. This is how my system works:

I find a closet or room that needs clearing out and I put 3 empty plastic grocery bags in there. Once a day I go into that closet or room and fill those 3 grocery bags with items. Each bag contains either items to be thrown out, given away or destroyed. The throw out bag contains items to be thrown in the garbage and usually they are broken or missing parts. The give away bag is full of stuff that can be given to Goodwill or friends. The destruction bag has papers in it with personal info and has to be burned or shredded. I spend no more than 2 hours filling those bags. Once they are filled they are removed and 3 more bags are placed in the room or closet for the next day. You can also add a large cardboard box to the room and mark it "for eBay" or "for yard sale" and fill it up as you go along. Put dollar signs all over it to encourage you to fill it up.

If you do the 3 bags full system you should have a room cleared in about 3 weeks or less. If the room is still cluttered and you just can't seem to fit any more items into those bags then you need to move out larger items. Once you see you are making progress it will give you the will to go on.

After you have used that system a few times it becomes easier to throw things out and not be a pack rat. Your home will also have more room to do other things in besides just used as storage. You can have that home office or workout room. You can actually have a guest room or a hobby room. The kids can have their own playroom. The possibilities are endless.