Counting your blessings

You have heard the old saying, "I was complaining about not having money to buy new shoes, until I met a person with no feet." It makes us think about what our lives have in it that make us feel great. It is not the big things but the little things. So here is a list of blessings that you might be able to identify with.

• Not having to sell a house in a down real estate market, because the house you have now is your final home.
• Having health insurance at work even if the pay is minimum wage.
• Not being scared of opening the mail, because all of your debts have been paid off.
• Not worrying about buying eye wrinkle cream because you no longer care what people think of you.
• Being able to plan your summer vacation, even if it is only an overnight stay at your favorite spot.
• Still moving ahead with that new baby, marriage, job, or other life changing plan because you realize that everything works out in the end.
• Finally being able not to stress out over everything, everyday

Is there one that you could identify with? If not, what would you list?

The job interview dilemma

The job interview has got to be the trickiest part about getting a new job. Many people obsess over the resume' but let me tell you that the resume' is only to get you in the door, it is the interview that gets you noticed.

I was talking on a message board to someone that was doing a Philadelphia job search. She had already had 3 in person interviews and all of them were failures. It was the last interview that she found out what had gone wrong. A friend of hers knew the person that interviewed her and the interviewer had confessed to her friend that he had just interviewed a top notch candidate but had to pass on her because she knew more than he did. He was afraid of losing any chances of a future promotion or losing his job to the woman who knew too much.

That incident brought up that old saying of not getting hired because you are "over qualified." What it really means is that you are a threat to the person interviewing you.

I wonder how many really good employees are being turned away from companies simply because they have only one or two people interviewing prospective employees?

Do you feel like you are getting no where?

With the economy not moving forward as fast as everyone had hoped, many people feel like they are living on one of those treadmills, doing lots of activity but getting no where. Even some of the people I talked to that have gone back to college have discovered that unless they want to devote the next 4 years to school work they are simply going to college until the economy picks up again. Sure they might improve their knowledge of math or writing but most of the time they told me that they were taking classes that sounded interesting just to pass the time. They are keeping active but are getting no where. Is that a bad thing? I think not. Some of those people are already highly educated and the jobs for them are just not out there .....yet. I met one women who is in her late 70's and she is taking classes just to pass the time while she is in between jobs. Yes she is still planing on working, she has to, no retirement fund now....it disappeared when the stock market went down.

A family of 3 living on $600 a week

Our family of 3 lives on $600 a week. That includes paying for a small mortgage, food, utilities, pet food, horse feed, clothing, property tax, health, house and car insurance. So how did we do it? We got rid of the credit cards (but I do have one with a small line of credit of just $300 for internet purchases only), we have no car payments and our mortgage is under $550 a month. I shop for groceries at the Grocery Outlet and look for sales on meat. Gasoline, we limit the amount we buy each week, that way we have to budget our trips to town.

In the past I always thought that we needed at least $1K a week to live and raise just one child but I found out that I was wrong. We had that kind of income and more about 2-3 years ago. Loss of jobs, a change in lifestyle and I learned not only how to make and stick to a very tight budget but I also learned we wasted money like crazy. Just a few years ago I had a regular paycheck of $400 a week and blogged for another extra $200 a week. Hubby also had an income and between the both of us we were bringing in just over $1K a week. So were was $400 a week disappearing to? Believe me, I could not tell you. I just knew we were wasting $400 a week on junk, either food or clothes and items that now have a permanent home in a back room closet.

Moral of my story - find out where you are wasting your money, you can live on less, we did and have no money worries.

I just had a really nice productive day

What a day. I was busy but I got a lot done. I had 11 last minute blog posts to compete and I managed to watch the Preakness on TV. I also went grocery shopping, a chore that I loath, and managed to get a few bargains on prices. I even had an hour to myself which I chose to go for a brisk walk with one of our dogs. That little walk turned out to be a fat burner for sure. I think I lost 4 pounds of sweat.

It is nice to have days like this. Tomorrow I can spend just enjoying life. I don't have to blog and I will probably take a break from the internet for a day.

The big iPod Touch giveaway

Here's a great testosterone booster for all you technology junkies - Key Bank is giving iPod Touch to everyone that opens a new checking account. I saw that on the window of my local Key Bank as I drove by it last week. I don't have an iPod Touch so I thought I would check out the offer. Key Bank only has a few requirements to get the iPod and here they are:

• Must be a new checking account (don' t know if you have to be a new customer or not)
• Must sign up for the "points reward" on the ATM debit card ($20 a year with the first year free)
• Must make one debit card purchase using pin (withdrawals don't count)
• Must make 2 direct payments ($100 minimum) using the checking account number and not the debit card
• Account must remain open for at least 180 days

There is no minimum amount for the checking account and after you have completed the requirements you get the iPod Touch in 90 days. You have 180 days from the day you opened the account to do the required transactions.

I will be opening an account with them next Tuesday. I am going to open it with $25 and just make deposits to the account to cover the 2 direct payments. I can pay the electric bill and another bill. I'll decide after I get the iPod Touch if I want to keep the account or not.

How to make really BIG money blogging

Have you ever wondered how people can get paid up to $1K just to write a 300 word blog post? Yes some people can and do earn that kind of money. The key to getting that kind of money is visitors to your blog. If you have 30K visitors a month then yes you can earn that kind of money. That is 1,000 visitors a day. Can you do it? If you are curious about what company pays that kind of money just leave a comment on this post and I'll continue with the information in the comments section. No comments, then no info.

I have too much work!!!

You know how you always wished to make, say $150 a day online? Well I did and I think that my wish got granted. For the last 3 days I have been working my butt off just writing. I have 11 paid blog posts I need to finish by 10pm tonight and more for tomorrow. Most of them take only 10-15 minutes to put together but sometimes the wording they want it so outrageous it is not funny. Once I got three letters, yep just three so I entered those letters into Google to see if I could make up a word with them. The letters were "ent" and I just put them in the middle of the word "mention." It worked and I got $10 for my effort.

Now I am off to see how I can fit the word apidexin into a travel blog. I wonder if I can make another word out of that?

Selling stuff online

Everyone wants to make a living on the internet, whether it is selling stuff on eBay or just having a website that people buy ad space on it. The bottom line is that in order to make money online you have to sell something. But how do you get the money from the buyer to your bank account. One way is PayPal, another way is to have a merchant account. You can process credit card transactions with a sell merchant account but be warned that they have lots of fees: set-up fee, per transaction fee, monthly fee and limit fees. If you plan on going that route then do your homework on what fees they charge.

Of course I like selling ad space and they send me a check. Google Adsense is one of the best ones for that. If you don't sell your ad space directly then you can go through a third party website like AdBrite. They put the ads up on your widget and pay you per clicks.

Over the years I have gone from selling stuff on eBay to just writing articles for the internet. I prefer the article writing because I don't have to ship anything nor is there any transaction fees involved. The bottom line for me is 100% profit for my efforts.

The thrill of having a blog recognized by big name company

There is nothing more thrilling than being contacted by a brand name company directly for advertising on a blog you own. I have had that experience at least once every few months. I am not talking about writing a blog post for them or writing up anything in fact. I am talking about just straight advertising. Most of the time I get other bloggers and small websites want to purchase an advertising spot but when someone representing a large company it has a special feeling.

I remember the very first time someone emailed me via one of my other blogs and I thought it was a joke. It was a rep from an international pet product company. He wanted to know what I charged for an ad on my blog. At the time I had no clue what to charge and emailed him back $40 for a 125 X 125 block for 6 months. To my surprise he agreed! That was almost 2 years ago now and although I get offers more frequently now they are not steady enough to provide a reliable income. 

In the last 2 years I have advertised for Murray Feiss lighting, Petco, VistaPrint and even Toyota. I haven't had an offer in a few months so I am due to hear from someone soon.

The economy is getting better - so where are the jobs?

The TV news reports say that retail spending is up and that home sales are on the rise. What they don't say is that foreclosures are now hitting states that were almost unaffected last year. Of course I have not noticed an increase in job listings in the local newspaper either. I did an online job search to see if there is an increase of job openings but all I found were sales positions with commission only wages. That is not what I call real jobs. So where are the real jobs? Has there been a marked increase of job listings in your area?