Investing in diamonds and gold, beware of fraud

A man recently purchased a diamond and gold bracelet for his wife at Macy's department store in the Pacific Northwest. The bracelet was selling for $2400 but was marked down to $700. The receipt plainly stated 3 carat weight diamonds. When the clasp broke on the bracelet the wife took the item back to Macy's to get it fixed or at least looked at. When Macy's told her that they were not diamonds and the gold was not even gold, and that they would not replace it, she got a little ticked off. She contacted KGW news channel 8 in Portland and they aired the news story. Macy's promptly replaced the bracelet with a "real" one. You can find out the whole story at kgw.com

That brings me to investing in jewelry and metals for the future. Can you really guarantee that the price of gold will always rise or that when the price of copper sinks you won't be left holding a bag of lead? If you do plan on investing in metals for your future, stay away from jewelery as an investment. As proof of the incident above, you can never be sure you are getting what you pay for, even from a reputable company like Macy's.

Do it yourself to save money

Remember the days when your dad would do his own oil changes to the family car? He did it to save money. I bet you take your car in to be serviced because it is quicker and you don't want to be bothered with it. So when will the price of having your car serviced be at the point that your might consider doing it yourself? Can you really save money by doing it yourself? Before you try the DIY route go do some comparison shopping. Look at the parts you will need to do the job. Will you need name brand Mopar parts, or will a regular Fram oil filter work? Next check the type of oil and it's cost. Lastly find out where you can take your used oil, you don't want to contaminate your own property by pouring the used oil in the ground or down a drain.......that's not cool.

What else can you DYI to save some cash? How about your own manicures? Shampooing your own carpets with either a rental machine or buy your own. If you can save just $30 a month with a DIY service that you would normally pay for, then you can start a small but growing savings account to which you could add $30 a month. That's $360 a year!! What can you save on?

Do energy efficient lights really save you money?

About 6 months ago I switched most of our light bulbs in the house to those new energy saving bulbs. It was not to save money at first but for some odd reason the regular light bulbs kept burning out after only a few months use. After the first month I noticed that our electric bill was lower than it normally was for that time of year. We had not stopped using any electric appliance or using less of any electric driven item that month so I thought it was a one time only deal. I waited to see what would show up in the next bill.

Sure enough, when the next electric bill came, the total amount was still about $20+ lower than it was normally. Switching to those new light bulbs was a great way to save money for us. It was a whole lot easier than shopping around for lower life insurance rates or clipping coupons everyday. At the rate of saving $20 a month for the last 6 months, those new light bulbs have saved us over $120.

I did find an added bonus to using those bulbs. I have several ceiling light fixtures that are not rated for bulbs over 60 watts. The light given off by a regular 60 watt light bulb does not give off enough light in those areas. By switching to the lower energy light bulbs I could easily use more wattage and still be well under the 60 watt limit and have all the light I needed.

I am really glad I made the switch over. We are saving money and have more light as well.

What is the difference between a person that is successful verus someone who is not

What makes a person more affluent or happy? Success does. You can be successful at making money or just being happy. What makes people successful? Perseverance does. You cannot just sit around and think yourself rich or successful, you have to make it happen. I can tell you right now that only a small percentage of the people reading this will ever follow through with any of the tips or guides I have on this blog - why? They are the type that just wish themselves successful but never work at it. Take for example the over 800 hits this blog has generated to the Sponsored Reviews website in just over 2 months. Of the 800 hits, only 3 signed up. Of those 3 only one person has completed a paid blog post. Now I know that those 800 people were interested in earning some extra money and 3 of them took the time to sign up, but out of the 800 people only one has bothered to follow through and earn actual cash for his/her efforts.

Now what does that tell me? It tells me that of all the income earning possibilities there are on the internet, only a few people are going to take a stab at it and start earning some money. That also means that about 99% of the people complaining that every income opportunity on the web is either a scam or not worth wasting their time has not even tried to earn money online.

The bottom line is...unless you try and try hard at making yourself a success you will always be in the crowd that wished you were a success. Wishing is fine but action is better.

By the way, if you are interested, I make about $60 a month from Sponsored Reviews. That's $60 in my pocket for bills, spending money or saving each and every month. That's an average of $720 a year. What could you have done with $720? That could go toward a nice Christmas celebration each year or even buy a new laptop or pay off that store credit card.

Biggest money making day yet

I just had to boast about my biggest money making day online to date. Yesterday I opened up my email and got 3 offers to ghost write blog posts. Each one of them paid over $40 dollars. I did those 3 articles in under 2 hours and earned a total of $134.50 for those articles. I was so thrilled that not one of the articles had to be about diets, gambling or mesothelioma. Instead I wrote about seahorses, home decor and coupon clipping. My good fortune did not end there. My blogs also earned $12.13 in Google Adsense clicks, which is just above normal for one day. I also earned $34 in affiliate commissions.

That is a total of $180.63 for one day. Now if only everyday paid that well I would be earning $66K a year. Right now I would settle for half of that and still live very well. That comes from having paid off all of our credit cards and having no car payments. Come to think of it I could probably pay off our small mortgage in 3 years. Now there is a goal to look forward to having.

This is my 666th post on this blog

I am not superstitious but 666 is a milestone for this blog. Just over 2 years ago I got it in my head to start a blog about money and getting ahead in this tough as nails world. Scratching out a Living was born. Other blogs followed and 2 of them are far more successful than this one. This one does remain close to my heart as it was my very first domain name purchased for a blog.

Excuse me for reminiscing for just a bit. I have put heart and soul into this little blog. I have changed the layout numerous times, found and added many different "freebies" to the sidebars, then taken them down again when their offers expired. I have dealt with spammers and scammers along with rude people that just want a link back to their affiliate website. I have gone through bloggers writing block as well as burn out with a healthy dose of multiple daily posts for weeks on end. I have been blamed for voicing my opinion on my own blog that was not "politically correct" in the reader's mind. That is fine by me and I want people to leave comments about that. I have just started a newsletter and I have yet to send out the first official emailing! You see I don't believe in sending out emails just willy nilly, I want them to have some useful info in them. I have so many plans in the works like the biography of me and how I got started with blogging and where I am going with it. I am not complaining just reminiscing about the last 2 years.

You see, this blog does hold meaning for me. I am not a salesperson, I am merely a writer that has found an outlet for her writing energies. I am not getting rich doing this but I am getting by. My biggest wish is to someday have one of my blogs, ebooks or other of my writings, earn enough so I could just work on my writing for the day instead of marketing. Then I would know that what I write would have some meaning for someone, somewhere and make a difference for them.

Don't you just hate highly successful bloggers that never tell you how the really got successful?

Did the title of the blog post tell it all? I hope so because that is how I sometimes feel. When I am talking about successful bloggers I mean those that are earning in excess of $5K a month. They like to boast what they earn but never say exactly how they do it.

One blogger, Amy Bass claims that she makes $5K a month with niche blogging. Quite frankly the only money that gal is making is selling memberships in her how-to membership site on niche blogging. I got her "10 steps" to niche blogging via email and all they were, were hard sells on joining her membership forum. From other people that have used her system, it only takes you so far and then lets you fend for yourself. Sorry but I'll pass on her. She has even been called a scam artist on several forums.

The next really big name blogger at least answered my Tweets on Twitter and an email. That guy was John Chow and although he mentions what he is doing he is not specific enough to show others step by step on his marketing techniques. He admits that being a salesman comes natural to him and that his $40K a month blog is just a hobby.

I have learned a few tricks from Shoemoney, Problogger and Dosh Dosh but I have no idea how much each one makes per month but they are all in excess of $5K I am sure of that. Of course their blogs are not their main source of income, that comes from doing product reviews and commissions on their sales.

It boils down to the fact that successful bloggers have to be great salesmen or women. They have to get people to buy something so they can get paid. They either are great writers, photographers or entertainers in some way to keep readers coming back to their blog. They hope that people will either click on an ad or go out and buy that product that they just wrote about or will sign-up with that program they are writing about so they can earn a commission. They have to sell. The great sales people can sell without even trying, others just can't bring themselves to do it. They have to sell themselves to their readers. If they do a good enough job then they get more readers. The more readers they have then maybe, just maybe they will get big name companies to advertise on their blogs and pay them REAL money instead of commissions. That my friends, is how those bloggers really become successful.

How one family is saving money on their grocery bill

Reports that inflation has gone negative are not fooling us shoppers. Food prices have gone up...way UP. Here is a video news item about how a non-profit agency is helping out just us regular folks that need a break on our grocery bill. If you watch the video they claim that one of their "boxes" will feed a family of 4 for a week. I find that hard to believe. Watch the video and tell me what you think.

Things that you shouldn't waste your money on

Have you ever had second thoughts about buying something about a month after you bought it? The item or service never lived up to it's claims or you found out you just didn't need it as much as you thought you would. Some services have free trial periods and I really like the fact that most software has that option but often services are hard to cancel and some companies don't like to give refunds. Here is a list of my personal suggestions of items or services that you would be better off renting or leasing for a short term rather than buying:

• Tuxedos
• Textbooks for college
• LSAT prep courses
• Most DVD movies
• Watercraft like boats and jet skis
• RV's unless you live in one full time

Then there are the items that you didn't even need to begin with. In that list goes almost every kitchen appliance that "takes the place" of another appliance. Lets face it, most people have a stove and oven so why do they need something that does what a stove and oven does? Some of the useless ones are steamers and counter top grills. I am guilty of owning a rice cooker, bread machine, deep fryer, crockpot and a George Foreman grill so I know from experience of buying something I don't really need.

All I can say is, before you buy something, ask yourself that one important question "do I really need it?"

My blogging career and who I am

So far I have been pretty secretive about my life and blogging past. I have hinted at my family life and what I have in the past. I have decided to come out of the closet, at least partially and share some of my life experiences with you, my readers. I don't think I would go as far as how much I hate treadmills or the names of all my pets, but then again I might surprise myself.

I have started up a blogspot blog just for the purpose of doing an "about me" page. It is there I will share how I got started in blogging. How much money I have made online and how long it took. I will also tell you how my family manages on less than $2K a month. There will be a link in the top of the side panel when I have finished it.

Shopping around for car brakes

I have always shopped around for automobile repair or maintenance work. The prices range so dramatically. I have a little Chevy Prizm. I call it my little gas sipper. The darn thing gets 30mpg so I make sure that car runs in tip top shape all the time. The brakes have started to squeak a bit so time for new brakes. I was calling around the various tire and repair places to see who charged what for front end brakes on my little car. The highest price was Sears at $375 and the lowest was The Canga Tire place at $139. Talk about a huge price range.

Thank goodness I made phone calls. I was going to go with Les Schwab for $214. I made an appointment with Canga and I'll get the brakes done on Monday.

PageRank to disappear?

It looks like Google will be slowly removing PageRank as part of their algorithm. This is from various forums, rumors and the fact that Google has just removed PageRank from it's webmaster tools. Another interesting item is the fact that Google has not updated the Google toolbar for PageRank in about 5 months. The normal time span until now had been 2-3 months.

I think that in reality that way too many blogs were selling link juice and Google was having a hard time fighting it. Even if Google delisted a blog that they suspected for selling links, the other search engines didn't and the blog would survive. Bing, Yahoo and others could not care less about PageRank and selling links because their search algorithm is different.

If PageRank goes bye-bye would those companies that unite bloggers and advertisers for link selling still stay in business? I wonder what the standard would be to set prices for links if link selling still went on? Would Alexa become the new standard? Interesting to say the least.

I for one will be glad to see it go. I have had blogs with a PR5 and maybe 2 visitors a week, while this blog has at least 50 visitors a day, not including my RSS feeds and followers with a PR that ranges from 0 to 1. My highest trafficked blog has a PR of 2 and has over 1500 visitors a day and 3000 page views each and every day. To me PageRank means nothing so maybe Google is starting to think that way too.

A better way to monetize your blog

I have been putting Google Adsense on my blogs for years now. Of course it is not the only way to monetize blog. Up until a few days ago I thought I was doing pretty good with Google but I found other way to make money by selling ads on my blogs. I signed up for AdBrite just a few days ago and placed their code on one of my hosted blogs and received .04 cents in less than 12 hours on views alone. To get .04 cents from Google ads they have to be clicked on, but not with AdBright. Here is there link if you want to check them out.

If I can earn a few pennies in just a few hours, I wonder what your blog can do. Only time will tell if AdBright will become a really good income earner for me. I learned of it from another blog owner that earns enough money from displaying AdBrite ads on her blog that her blog supports the whole family. They no longer have to hold jobs outside the home. She was a recent guest on Dr. Phil as a SAHM with a very profitable blog.

Warning - fraud website for unemployment claims

The state of Oregon has issued a warning to steer clear of the website UnemploymentBenefits.us . It appears that the website is claiming to be an official government entity and they are NOT. They also charge a fee to people who are trying to sign up for unemployment benefits. Here is the link to the warning on the Oregon government website.

Warning from Oregon.gov about fake scam websites

Even if you don't live in Oregon, that fake website is ripping people off all over the USA. Spread the word. I did, on Twitter.

Switch your wordpress blog to blogger - the easy way

I recently decided to not pay for hosting on an old wordpress.org blog but I wanted to leave it up because it has proved helpful for people looking for information. So I decided to switch it from wordpress to blogger. Blogger does not import wordpress blog files at all. I found a converter that will convert your wordpress blog file into a type of file that can be very easily imported into blogger.

Here is the web page of the blog converter - Wordpress2Blogger

A fast easy way to have a new blog indexed by the search engines

There is a really easy way to have a new blog or website indexed pretty quickly by the major search engines. Say you have a blog or website that is over 6 months old and has some PageRank or has at least 20 back links pointing to it. It can be your personal blog that you started for fun or an old blog that you have not done anything with for months. As long as it can be found by the search engines you are good to go.

Say you have a old blog that you started just to ramble on about your day to day life. You got tired of writing in that blog and stopped adding anymore blog posts a few months back. You now have started up 2 new blogs that are about your hobbies. You have confidence that you can make money with those blogs but you have only had them for 2 weeks. You want the search engine bots to visit and index your site.

What you will need to do next is find keywords on that older website or blog that you want your new blog to be linked to. Find those words on your old blog and use them to link to your new blogs. If your new blog is about cooking then find all the words in your older blog that have anything to do with cooking or food. Link those words to either the main page of your new blog or website or link them to deeper pages. Don't forget to add your new blog or website to the blog roll of your old blog. Even if your old non-used blog has no PageRank it will still provide another inbound link to your new blog or website. That is also another reason you must never delete old blogs. If you have any links to your other blogs or websites you will lose them when you delete the blog. Old non-used blogs do come in handy.

Mental issues and money

Have you often wondered why you can't seem to get ahead financially? I know a few families that have incomes in excess of $100K a year and are on the verge of losing their homes to foreclosure. On the surface they seem to have everything under control but when visiting them you realize that there is tension in the home. So what seems to be the problem? One of the adults in each family suffers from ADHD but what is adhd? ADHD is a problem with inattentiveness, over-activity, impulsivity, or a combination of the two.

The problem with the money stems from the fact that each adult in each family has access to large amounts of credit. The adult suffering from ADHD is often the one left at home during the day and is bored. From boredom stems the impulse buying and the cleanest home I have ever seen. That one adult shops online and I just found out recently plays poker online too - for money. I don't think their spouse knows about the gambling.

It use to be, years ago, that when lots of money was available for those with addictive personalities, drugs were the choice of recreation. Now it seems that the internet is playing a part in those people who would not think about becoming addicted to drugs. Those people become addicted to online gambling, paid online games, become paying members of gaming communities or porn sites.

To get a handle on the family finances you and your spouse need to know where every penny goes. If a child or adult is spending money online and is secretive about it then someone needs to make some calls to the credit card companies for complete detailed activity report and a call to the banks that have the debit cards for the same thing.

Don't be blind sighted by a spouse or child that is spending all of the family income.

Activia lawsuit

No doubt you have heard or seen the yogurt commercial with Jamie Lee Curtis for Activia. Where the statement that "Activia, with Bifidus Regularis is scientifically proven to help with slow intestinal transit when eaten daily for two weeks." It seems that the statement is not quite true. Bifidus Regularis is a made up name that Dannon coined for the commercial. There were no "clinical" trials nor any scientific studies, Dannon just plain lied. Of course they got sued to the tune of $35M and Dannon lost the case.

That brings up an important fact that us consumers can be lied to and misled for the sake of selling bogus claims. One of the tops on my list is colon cleansing. With names like cleansonix and bowtrol. The advertisements that those companies come up with are so misleading. Your colon does not need to be "cleansed" it needs to do it's job of digesting food. The only time it needs to be totally empty is when you go in for a colonoscopy. By the way the only way those products work is to give you some nasty diarrhea. Not only will you be regular again but regular every 15 minutes.

Next time you see a bogus claim like "60% of the world human population has worms" dig up the real facts before buying their chemical concoction that could kill you or damage your internal organs.