Let's put an end to credit checks for employment

I want to start a revolution. It ought to be against the law to do a credit check on someone applying for a job. 15 years ago having someone do a credit check on an applicant for a job was a rarity. Now it is almost mandatory. When did companies get the idea that a poor credit score was equal to a bad employee? A poor credit score could be the result of identity theft, a divorce, medical bills of a child or parent, a death in the family, an injury or any number of other causes that the person could not control. How about people that don't even have credit scores because they don't believe in buying on credit? My parents were like that. They never had a credit card, car loan or mortgage. They had no credit scores at all. It didn't stop them from getting a job. Nowadays it would.

I want to start the revolution that bans credit checks on people applying for jobs and even after they get the job. The last thing that someone needs when looking for a job is a company kicking him/her further down the path of debit because they can't pay their bills, because they don't have a job....so they can't pay their bills, because they don't have a job....so they can't pay their bills, because they don't have a job.......

Help me spread the word and start a revolution .....stop the credit checks - NOW

Twitter it, blog about it, talk about it to friends and family, let the media know how we feel.

Residual income

I love residual income, the type of income that I get without doing anything other than setting up how to earn it. I have 3 sources of residual income. The first one is affiliate advertising but that one is also my lowest earner. Google is the main one of the affiliates with eBay a close second. Clickbank use to be a regular earner but that one dropped off the charts several months back.

My next biggest residual earner that brings in at least $25 a month are my articles at Associated Content.

For each article I write I normally get a minimum of $5 and I get paid each time someone reads them. Lately I have only written about 1 or 2 articles a month and the monthly commissions have been slowly increasing. Several people actually earn $800 a month in residual income there. They also have contests that they award $500 a month for the best article in a subject group. The key to earning money there is in volume. The more articles you write and submit the higher your monthly earnings. I normally get about .50 cents worth of views each month for each article. That is including the articles that get zero views to articles that get 8,000 views (yep I do get that many on one article) per month. You can submit articles you have already written for your blog and publish them right away without them having to be approved for payment. You'll only earn monthly views on them but monthly views actually pays more in the long run.

My next monthly residual income producer is the blog I started up over at Today.

At first I was only earning .05 a day so I thought that it was a real joke. I wrote blog posts on there everyday for a month. Soon I was writing a blog post only twice a week because I was getting discouraged. After the 3rd month I was getting a following! I was now earning .10 a day. I am now only adding a blog post once a week or once every 2 weeks and now my earnings are up to .25 a day. Now you might laugh at those earnings but when I was first starting out as a blogger it took a week to earn .25 from Google Adsense, so .25 a day for a small blog with only 45 posts on it is great.

Residual income for the most part will start out as small income, but over time will grow. My husband use to laugh at my zeal when I told him I had earned $5 a day with my blogging about a year ago. Now that has grown 10 times and he no longer laughs at my blogging. In fact he proudly tells his friends that I get paid to blog and write articles.

You will never have residual income to brag about if you don't start. My advice to you is once you start you MUST keep on going. It will often take a year or more for you to receive any real monthly income that will help with your household bills but if you don't try it you'll never succeed.

The layoffs are hitting closer to home now

Almost every family I know now has someone that has been laid off. One family I know has 2 young children. The mother was laid off late last year and is now working as a temp on and off and the father who worked in a high tech job (he is an engineer) just got his 2 week notice. They don't know what is going to happen to them. They own their own home but it has a mortgage.

My daughter's best friend's mother just got laid off from a job that she thought she would have forever. She worked for the school system. I told her that I had 2 jobs like that, one lasted 9 years and the other one 12 years. Both of them ended when the owners of those companies sold them to another bigger company and they sent the jobs overseas. One sent the work to Mexico and the other one to Singapore.

I am thankful that I started blogging as a part time hobby several years ago and it turned into a part time job with a nice little wage for me. The blogging is slowly turning into a real honest to goodness career and living wage. One of my blogs regularly earns me $100 a week. Another blog pulls in at least $30 a week and yet another one $20 a week. I have 6 active blogs right now. I use to have at least 12 of them but after 6 months of lackluster earnings for 6 of them I just don't actively post on them anymore. I have not shut them down but with no regularly added posts they will die on their own and Google will ignore them.

At least blogging and getting paid for blogging at that has kept my family going though this recession.

Never under estimate the power of a press release

If you have a business, are a writer, or need to promote a product you should NEVER under estimate using a press release. First let me explain what a press release is for those of you who have never heard of it. A press release is an article written by you and submitted to a local newspaper or magazine. It usually details some sort of human interest and is not an advertisement. Press releases are chosen by the publisher and are published based on if it is of interest to their readers or if it is of interest to them. For example a press release could be about an up coming event at your place of business like free flu shots or a book signing. It could also be about someone in your organization winning an award or getting a promotion.

Some newspapers and magazines thrive on press releases for much of their content. In fact some press releases can become front page articles if the press release is interesting enough for the newspaper to send out a reporter. I know that to be a fact. The school my daughter attends regularly sends out press releases about up coming events. Several of them had the local newspaper send reporters and photographers to cover the event. It boosted attendance for the events every time.

So why are you not writing and sending out press releases? Press releases are known to generate more interest in what you are promoting than just plain advertising. Readers put more value into the article if they think that the newspaper or magazine also values the information. Don't forget to add your contact information in your press release such as your website or business phone number. You want to generate people talking about your company, website or product.

Going back to school

As the job market continues to shrink more and more people are now going back to college to get an edge over their peers in the work force. Nothing looks better on a resume' than lots of degrees that a company would want to see.

I have been even offered the opportunity to go back to college and take up a career in the medical field. I was involved in medicine but that was 7 years ago now and I have to go back for refresher courses as well as new training.

I had been debating with myself over 2 career routes, one in computer and the other in health care. If I had chosen the computer field it would have been computer forensics and I would be working toward a Master of Science in Information Security. The Master's Degree is not all that frightening since most of it would be an online study course. In fact for most masters information security type courses they are often online. I really like working with computers and digging around inside them - software wise. The main reason I chose not to go that route was the fact that where I live there are more computer people out of work and a shortage of health professionals.

It has been a slow week

As a professional blogger I am use to getting at least $200 or more a week for my efforts. This past week has been a slow one with only $150 to show for my writing. The surprise is that I am getting more money from affiliate advertising than I have gotten in the past. Last month I earned just over $50 in affiliate advertising that gets paid to me at the end of this month. Most of my advertising payments in the past came around Christmas time when people were shopping more. Maybe people are loosening up on their purse strings and are now buying again.

I have been getting a boost from doing my online surveys and will receive yet another $50 check in the mail in 10 days. I did one survey a few weeks ago that paid me $50 for one survey. At first I thought it was a scam but the check arrived within 5 days.

I have noticed that those paid to blog websites are getting very picky on the blogs they approve. You not only need a good Page Rank but your Alexa number needs to be lower than 500K for them to even look at you. I have also noticed that more and more blogs are becoming "abandoned" by their blog owners (not being updated in months). I know several people that advocate niche blogs that you set up and forget but in the world of Google and the search engines that method does not work for a blog. You need to update your blog at least once a week for the search engines to notice you and index your blog again.

Why most people can't make a living by just blogging

The great majority of of people that start blogging for money usually give up long before they are likely to receive the fruits of their writing. My personal estimate is that most bloggers that start off with great enthusiasm have their drive wind down after 3-6 months. After about 6 months I notice that bloggers that use to write several blog posts a day now only write 1 or less blog post a day. After those 6 months have passed and they don't manage to gather a following or have many visitors a day. Now their blog is only posted to about once a week or less - they are almost to the point of giving up on their money making blog venture.

What they don't realize is the fact that the more often you write in your blog the better the chance that your blog is indexed by the search engines. That along increases your chances people doing searches finding your blog. It also takes more than a year for a blog to gain enough posts and information for it to become interesting enough for advertisers to take notice and want to put ads on your blog.

Famous, money making blogs did not become that way over night. Often it took a year or more for a blog to get a following and regular readers.

My simple advice to you is:

• If you plan on blogging for a living, make sure you are in it for the long haul. Think more in terms of at least 9 months before you will see any income from your efforts. Once you see that you CAN make money by blogging you will continue - but it takes time.
  

Foreclosures in big cities

It certainly looks like the foreclosure situation in the USA is continuing it's downward spiral. Some people that have money are snapping up some great bargains in areas of the country were they believe are at or near the bottom of the real estate market. Florida in one state that is claiming to be at the bottom right now. Oregon on the other hand is worried that it has not found their bottom market and still has a way to go.

Many large cities that were founded on money and real estate prices are having a hard time rebounding. Las Vegas was really hard hit by the down turn. Here is more information about the Las Vegas Foreclosures.

Buying a foreclosed property is not all fun and roses. You need to do some homework on the property you are thinking about buying. If the house was foreclosed because of a second mortgage then you must be aware that the first mortgage on the property is still in force and will have to be paid.

What do you need to survive today?

Take a good hard look at your weekly expenses and figure out how much you need just to get by. If you already make that amount then you can skip this post and read another one. If you are not making enough to get by then how much more each day do you need to make?

Our family has a fixed monthly income and we just barely get by on it. On the rare occasion we might go in the red. It is by no means an amount that will allow us to save for a rainy day or even for the once a year property tax. In order for us to live with some sort of a bumper zone I make money by blogging and writing for the internet. All I need to make is $20 a day in order to save and have money for a few extras like going out to the movies once a month. Most of the time I make just over $20 a day but there are times when I make just $5.

I really enjoy writing articles for the internet and I write about what interests me the most. I don't tend to write diet pill reviews or technical articles about cars but I have had offers to do both. I feel that my articles are better received by my readers when I stick to subjects I am passionate about. Most of my articles are 200-500 words and fetch $5-$20 an article. I usually write a few of them a day. I also blog and now I am Twittering on Twitter. The blogs fetch another few dollars a day in advertising as well as income from Google Adsense.

I guess my next step is to up my daily goal to maybe $30 a day and see when I will achieve that.

Lessons learned about frugal living

If I had practiced my purchasing habits that I now have just 3 years ago I would have paid off all of my medical bills, a store credit card and had a substantial savings account. Even when I was earning a low wage I could have done all of that. So now I kick myself for not living more frugally way back then. If I go back even 10 years when our family's income was over $60K a year I now wonder what we wasted the money on.

The plain and simple truth is that we purchased things, lots of things. Many of those things are now broken, forgotten or have worn out. A few of those electronic things are now outdated and are no longer used.

I have learned not to purchase on a whim. Never go food shopping when you are hungry. Make a weekly budget and stick to it no matter what. Only pay for something in cash. If you don't have the money for it, it doesn't get bought. Stay away from fast food purchases. Make only 1-2 trips to the grocery store a week. Know the prices of food, clothing and gas so you can spot a good deal when you see one.

It takes a change in your lifestyle as well. If one member of the family does not like the cheaper brand of something rather than the expensive brand then tell them they just have to live with it or do without it. Many items were removed from our diets because they were just too expensive. We survived and so can anyone else that does the same thing.