Today I've been thinking about New Year's Resolutions.
I'm not going to make any.
Rather, I'd prefer to view my life as something I can start afresh whenever I like. Instead of resolutions, I'll be setting goals.
My main goal is to be debt-free by December 2007 (excluding my student loan).
This is going to be an interesting one because I love shopping and, currently, saving is hardly amongst my favourite activities. However, financial independence is something I dream about and is the one thing that would make the most positive difference to my life.
So, here are some ideas I've got for achieving financial independence:
Hmm, shockingly ground-breaking…(!)
I'll be able to do this, so long as I focus on the fact that I want to do this, rather than seeing it as an imposition on how I'd rather live my life. Yes, choices, not restrictions.
Another reason for making sure Ethical Beads is a runaway success.
I was planning to write an insightful article about money, financial management and such the like.
However, I'm feeling distinctly unqualified to do so, due to one of my banks 'robbing' me of £60 today. It's partly their fault (unreasonable charges, unclear policies, senseless bureaucracy) and partly mine (stupidly forgetting dates, spending too much, opening a savings account when I'm too poor to do so, being a stereotypical student).
Anyway, as incapable as I am of giving and following good advice, I can still recognise it when I see it. So I'm pointing you towards some excellent articles in the hope that they can help you too.
- Financial Teaching Kids About Money, Forbes
Stuff you should know but may not have learnt yet.
- The Daddy Model of Wealth, Paul Graham
Maybe immature opinions about money are colouring your attitude to welfare and money generally.
- Why Giving Will Always Lead to Receiving; Even When It Comes to Money, Brian Kim
One really positive model to help you re-think your attitudes to money, with practical guidance for your life.
- Making Money Consciously, Steve Pavlina
One realistic model to help you get more balanced ideas about money.
- Five Fantastic Frugal Tips for Christmas, Get Rich Slowly
How to survive what is a really expensive period for many people.
Good luck and let me know how you get on.
Posted on 21 December '06 by Kathleen Bright, under Money, Speedlinks. 1 Comment.
1 August 2006 – 1 August 2007 : I am buying no clothes for a year.
Since I graduated, I've been enjoying earning more money than ever before in my life and a significant part of that was buying new clothes. In returning to student life, I return to frugal & thrifty living.
Of course, there are some small exceptions (for example, I'm obliged to buy uniform twice a year for work), but, in the main, no retail therapy!
There are numerous excellent reasons for this:
- Being rich is not only about making money, it's also about saving it
- Balance is an important aspect of life – having splurged, I'm now er… de-splurging
- I'm re-aligning my actions with my aims; I will still be spending money, but instead of spending it on liabiities & other products that depreciate, I'm investing in myself & spending on other assets. For example, spending money on books, thus contributing to my knowledge & personal development
Worth doing? Not? Let me know what you think, along with any additional reasons for doing this – it won't be easy, so all varieties of motivational support very welcome!
Posted on 25 August '06 by Kathleen Bright, under Money, Pledges. No Comments.
On 9 August 2006, in Don't settle for Google AdSense, Erik of ProductWiki stated, "While I believe that AdSense is a great source of potential revenue, it is by no means perfect and, in my opinion, needs to be updated to meet the demands of its users… Shopping.com outperforms AdSense by a factor of 4.6!".
A few days before Erik, I published my experiences with Google AdSense: On 4 August 2006, I stated, "I'm doing a lot of research on different ways of making money online. Many rave about AdSense, but I've found that other programs work better for me. (Which is a shame really, as AdSense is by far the easiest & simplest to set up)."
Furthermore, on 13 August 2006 – before I found Erik's post – I wrote about my objective preferences for alternatives to AdSense, "On the advertising front, I've cut down on AdSense and am focusing on eBay & Amazon UK – as these seem to be more profitable for me."
Marketing genius, Seth Godin (author of Purple Cow & many other books) has also written about his AdSense observations, stating, "the eye is looking for anamolies (sic)". I think banner blindness particularly affects Google ads: Google AdSense is very popular, so visitors are more used to seeing these type of ads and are therefore more likely to ignore them than they are other ads.
Alternatives to Google AdSense
eBay & Amazon are the main contenders. Yahoo! has entered the fray too. However, its emphasis on showing ads only to US visitors means extra work for site owners and has resulted in many of us opting for other alternatives, at least for the present. (I would have liked to test it myself, but being in the UK I'm ineligible to apply).
eBay
According to Michael D. Pollock, eBay Editor Kit is 'too easy' – that's why there's no WordPress plugin. Brilliant. I tried it myself and he's right.
I'm so grateful to Michael for sharing the link to eBay's Editor Kit, as all I knew about was the Commission Junction site (it seems eBay outsource their affiliate programme to a few 'tracking providers') and that one is really quite confusing. In fact, if I weren't so determined, I would have given up on eBay before, purely because of the Commission Junction interface.
Try eBay Affiliates
Amazon Associates
One of the problems I have with Amazon, is how separate Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk are. It's not like with eBay, where '.com' represents international; rather, '.com' means US – being in the UK, that's not helpful for me and yet the US is a big market. Consequently, I have both Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk affiliate accounts – which means I work twice as hard for half the results.
On the plus side, Amazon's affliate program rewards much better than AdSense. In my experience, affiliate programmes reward more highly because in order for the site owner to get paid, visitors must actually spend money. Whereas with pay-per-click advertising, they only need to click, which (theoretically) indicates interest in possibly making a purchase in the future.
Try Amazon Associates
Chitika
Chitika is popular with many bloggers. However, it has some bad press for being complicated to set-up and it also recommends quite high level of traffic as a minimum before applying, which is why I haven't tried it yet.
Try Chitika
Next steps – development of All Things Bright
- Removing some of the AdSense ads and replacing with Amazon & eBay ones.
Have you tried any of these methods? What are your experiences?
Posted on 17 August '06 by Kathleen Bright, under Blogging, Money. 1 Comment.
Revver is a company that allows people to upload & store videos of their original content for free & get paid by advertisers if/when viewers click ads at the end of the video. "The income from RevTags is always split 50-50 between Revver and the creator." There's even an affiliate program too.
Revolutionary!
Strangely enough, the staff members didn't seem to know what they were doing at first, but they soon figured it out… Watch What is Revver? by the Revver team to see what I mean.
I have a few ideas of my own about the videos I plan to produce; I'll be sharing these with you in due course. In the meantime, email me or comment to let me know what you think I should be doing and what you'd like to see. I welcome all feedback!
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