More Income Streams

Make Money Online with a Blog

2007-02-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was our second weekly meeting for our new Austin Cash Flow Team (ACFT). I will post details about the meeting here soon, but one thing we spent a little time on was making money with blogs.

I've been doing this myself for several months now. The income has not been anything too spectacular so far, but it is increasing a little bit each month, and I've not been marketing it (them) nearly as much as I could be.

I've posted about making money from blogs on this site before, and it might well be worth going back for a second look, but I thought I would post again after our talk last night, and a renewed interest.

It was also quite a coincidence (if you believe in those things) that Kim Komando had a few minutes of her radio show devoted to talking about a recent Wall Street Journal article about how many (more active) bloggers were making from $2,000 - $10,000 from their blogs.... PER MONTH !

Although that DOES seem to be a little high on the expectation chart for most bloggers around the world, I am still very aware of several bloggers I know who post their monthly earnings at quite substantial levels.

Another report Kim spoke about (I didn't catch the site or name) was reporting that 45% of all blogs made over $100/month, and 1/6 made over $1,000/month. Certainly not getting rich, but not a bad side income... working anywhere in the world.... at any hour... in your PJ's !

I decided to poke around VERY briefly and found these two articles:
Can Bloggers Make Money?
Consumer-Product Blogs Start a Web Empire

One of the most common ways these bloggers are doing it is by using some advertising campaign, such as Google Adsense. It's really very easy to get started.. and best yet... FREE !
Here is a little link to an easy to read site that can help you get going:
GoogleAdsenseTutorial.com

Enjoy !

Financial Stats for 2007-01

2007-02-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

Here is the monthly activity for January:

1) Google Adsense:
I did nothing with my Adsense campaign in January either, however, the revenue is back up over 13% from last month, and this next month I DO plan to work with another friend on taking more agressive action in this area! One thing to keep in mind with the rather wild percent changes from month to month, is that right now the total income is about $50/mo, so even small dollar amounts can affect the percentage quite a bit. Look forward to a bigger jump next month!

2) PayPal Money Market:
PayPal has lowered their annual rate to 5.02% which means about 0.409% gains for the month.

3) Stocks (three portfolios):
Personal picks: -28.26%, -4.21% (change during last month)
TurnerTrends ETF-10: -2.65% (change during last month)
A pretty sorry month here, but I know very well what I did wrong, and the big -28% loss should only be temporary since it's mostly a single stock that got away from me this last week, and I am still in... expecting that it will be coming back my way with in 1 more week (maybe two). Over all, I'm not worried about it.

4) Second Life:
Through January we are still at the 0.10% daily rate, about 3% gains per month and 43% annual. Besides a very healthy investment gain, I was able to add about L$12,000 (US$45) from camping alone.

5) BrownBagLaunch:
No income yet, but another friend and I are going to start pushing our new web site hosting biz a little further and hopefully we'll start seeing something by next month. I suppose I will have to make a separate post about this new stream soon.

Starting a Financial Group

2007-01-31T23:00:00.000-08:00

Tonight I met with a couple friends to discuss how we could firm up our financial goals, get more focused, collaborate on ideas, and keep motivated. I gave them quite a bit of info as to some things I'm currently doing, along with reasons why I thought these were good "next steps", and after hearing about where they are financially, it seems like we're all about the same place.... currently out of (bad) debt, and have our income exceeding our expenses on a monthly basis. We should all be moving ahead to contact financial planners this next week. We have set up a plan to try and meet once a week to go over ideas, report progress, etc. I doubt anyone will be able to actually get to an interview with a planner before then, but hopefully we will have at least made some calls!

Some other things we discussed where stocks. I mentioned ClearStation.com as a nice (free) site that has some good tools for analysing stocks, as well as providing a kind of social network for stock traders. I have found it can be a nice learning experience to read why others are buying and selling certain stocks at certain times, and what they are looking at to make their decissions. Prophet.net also has some nice charts that allow you to draw on them, and save your markings between each visit to the site. It might be nice to increase our education on how to pick better stocks (long term and short term), but my personal feeling right now is that I'd rather find an analyst who's been showing good returns, and follow them. I am counting on the fact that a GOOD one will be spending a lot of their own time to research the stocks, and that frees up my own time to pursue other avenues.

We also talked some about real estate. Nothing too concrete at this time, but I do have my agent (Jessica Bruehl) sending me info on 4plex/8plex buildings. Another friend I'm talking to has made a comment about going in together on some larger real estate deal, and so that may be an option too. I don't think I want too large a slice of my pie tied up in one single investment. Since most of us are just starting out on this journey, maybe we ALL would feel better about being able to start by putting in less money, and accepting less return.

The first meeting went great!
I am eager for us all to get together again, talk about more ideas, and report the progress we will make over this next week.

Preparing for the Financial Planner

2007-01-25T15:11:00.000-08:00

For the past two weeks now, I've known my next step is talking to a financial planner, yet I keep putting this off. It IS something I want to do! -- so why am I putting it off?

I put some more thought in to that today and decided the main reason is probably because I don't think I am prepared. Managing paperwork, and details is just not something my personality type is good with, and so in many ways my life seems rather chaotic. (All the MORE reason for a financial planner to help get it organized, and draw out a PLAN.... I'm good at following step by step plans).

So, today I decided to do a little research and find out what I might need to interview a financial planner, and after reading a few pages (Prepare for the Financial Planner Interview, How To Choose a Financial Planner, 10 Questions To Ask) I decided to gather my best findings and present them here in this post.

Remember, a good financial planner will identify where you are at, find out where you want to be and then draw up a plan of action to get you there.

Financial Goals

The very first step you should take is to sit down and think about what your short-term and long-term financial goals are. A financial planner will have a hard time helping if they can't see where you are at now, and don't know where you want to be. You might come up with a few different ideas, and the financial planner can help determine which are good, and which can be worked in together, but you have to have SOME goal for them to work toward!

For myself, I have one fairly simple goal at the moment: Set up $1,500 in passive income by 2010. I already have about $500 or so set up, and that gives me 3 years to create the rest. I should be able to do much better than that, but once I achieve THAT goal, it's a downhill snowball!

Gather Financial Records

Next, you will need to gather your financial records. You (and the financial planner) will need to determine your current spending habits, assets, and liabilities. You should have a few things ready to take to the first meeting/interview:
*) Rough outline of your monthly budget
*) Estimate of monthly income (sources of present and future) and expenses
*) Recent tax returns
*) Social Security estimates
*) Recent account statements for retirement plans
*) Recent bank and brokerage statements for all accounts
*) List of major assets and estimated market value
*) Recent statement from all open credit card accounts
*) Copy of the latest declarations page from auto, home/renter’s, life, and disability insurance.

Gather a list of prospects

I would recommend asking family and friends if they are using any financial planners (or have in the past) and what they thought of the advice. These are the people who will probably give the most detailed account of their personal experience, although keep in mind they might have limited experience, and it will be highly bias toward their personal feelings as to how helpful they thought the advice was. The next group to ask for prospects would be other financial professionals such as accountants, your bank, etc. I have found that my real estate agent (also an investor) is a great source, since she does a LOT of networking in her position, knows a lot of people, and so should be picking the best of the crop for her personal "team" as well. I do not know if the phone book is a good place, but it is another option.

Preliminary Calls

After you have a few names/numbers, it's time to get a little more information and narrow things down.

Questions to ask:
1) What is your area of specialty? (some answers might be: cash flow, tax, investing, insurance and retirement planning)
2) Do you have any certifications?
Certified Financial Planner (CFP) -- about 55% pass the test on the first try
Personal Finance Specialist (CPA/PFS) -- Certified Public Accountant
Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) -- investments and wealth management
3) How are you compensated for advice? (salary? fees? commissions? other?)
4) What are your income and investment requirements? (make sure they are in your price range!)
5) Do you have a packet of information you can send me? Does it include your Form ADV? (read about Form ADV here)

Interviews

It's recommended to have at least 3-4 half-hour interviews lined up. These will probably be free, but be sure to ask! Also, make sure you will be meeting the person who will be advising you. :)

Take a checklist of questions for the interview:
1) What investment experience do you have?
2) What is your professional background? Education?
3) What strategies or principals are used to develop your financial plans? (conservative/aggressive)
4) What services do you offer?
5) Will YOU be carrying out the recommendations? or referring me to other professionals?
6) Do you have a copy of a typical plan you might recommend?
7) (if you have not gotten their Form ADV yet.. ask for it)
8) What do you typically charge?
9) Could you give me a list of any possible conflicts of interest? (other people/companies that might pay planner extra money for pointing you in their direction)
10) Can I have it in writing? (get them to give you a written record of what is agreed on, and keep it in your files)
11) Do you have a few references of current and former clients with financial goals similar to mine?

Here is a GREAT checklist you should print out and take with you:
Checklist For Interviewing a Financial Planner

Make a choice

After all the interviews, TAKE YOUR TIME with making a final decision. You will probably be paying several hundred dollars a year for a good financial plan, and it's worth the extra time up front to make sure you get started on the right foot, where the plan can more than make up for it's cost. Check references. Look up Form ADV information. Who are you most comfortable sharing your financial information with?

Take Action

Finally, remember... even the best financial plan is worthless if YOU do not take action!

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

2007-01-21T12:47:00.000-08:00

I've been getting a LOT of financial education over the last month or so, and I want to pass all this on to my readers!

I'm not a big reader and certainly prefer "How-To" manuals over fiction for my digest of print media. However, I'm also a big believer in repetition as a means of learning, as well as the power of our subconsciousness. This has lead me to prefer audio books which I can listen to again and again, even during sleep, and this is what I've been doing for the last month.

I started with Robert Kiyosaki's book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", and found it a great inspiration, with some great general ideas for getting my finanical life more in order. It did lack some critical detail, but I was hungry for more, and so went searching for my next few financial lessions.

Over the next few weeks I was turned on to other audio books like Napoleon Hill's book "Think and Grow Rich", which gave more great nuggets of information and clarification, as well as a good dose more of "cheerleading". Some concepts in this book also helped reenforce by growing belief in the power of our thoughts determining our reality. I would highly recommend this book along with movies such as "The Secret" and "What the Bleep Do We Know", and other resources on Quantum Physics (for those truely interested).

I ended up listening to many more of Kiyosaki's audio books, such as "Cashflow Quadrant", "Rich Dad's Guide To Investing", "Rich Kid, Smart Kid", and "Retire Young, Retire Rich". During all this learning and researching, I came across a few websites presenting some negative Kiyosaki viewpoints. I suppose on some level there were a few valid points... perhaps Kiyosaki does more generalized cheerleading than giving solid next-steps to take, but in the end I HAD to come to the conclution that his audio books series has been MONUMENTAL in helping me change my attitude, get more focused, and has provided enough detail to get me started on the right foot.

Some other audio books I've been filling my ears with are "Why We Want You To Be Rich" (with Donald Trump). I thought a large part of it was quite boring and did not advance my financial education much, however, I do still feel it was worth the time spent. I did pick up on a couple nuggets.

And right now I'm a finishing up Steve Scott's "Mentored By a Millionaire", which does have lots of great information, and I will certainly be listening to it many more times to absorb as much as possible.

For you:
... and so you might be asking "How can this post help me?"
Well, here is a short list of things YOU can do to get started:
1) Realize you NEED more financial education. Determine how you are currently spending your time, and find a way to include 4-8 hours a week for your financial education.
2) With the time you find (or make) in step 1, you can start to fill it by reading some books, or listening to some audio books, that will help to increase your financial intelligence. The more you learn, the more you will see there is to be learned, and the importance of more education, as well as starting to learn the actual steps to take next.
3) Put your current financial sitution in to a spread sheet, where you can look at your monthly income and expenses for the last 1-2 year period (at least). You cannot make any specific plans on HOW to get to any destination if you don't know where your current starting place is!
4) Once you can SEE what your current financial sitution is, then you can take some action to adjust your spending (and/or income) so that you free up an extra $100-$200 per month. Put that money in to a SEPERATE account each month/week! If you have NO clue how to do this, then leave a comment to this post and I will reply.

At this point, you will be starting the baby steps of your journey of a thousand miles. No journey can be completed for sure until you take the FIRST step!

5) Now you should have a small amount "extra" and you might (strongly) consider using the first bit to take your financial spreadsheet to a Financial Planner who can draw up a much more professional guide for getting you to your financial goals.

Actually, this is the step I am at now. I have asked a few friends and business networking associates about who they recommend for a Financial Planner. I've got 3 names and will be interviewing each of them this next week.

Tune in again soon for an update !

Financial stats for 2006-12

2007-01-10T12:49:00.000-08:00

Here is the monthly activity for December

1) Google Adsense:
Again, not been doing anything more with Adsense lately. The income dropped another 16% back down to what it was in October, but still better than nothing, and has not been taking any more of my time.

2) PayPal Money Market:
The Account gained another 0.448% this month (5.03% annual).

3) Stocks (three portfolios):
Personal picks: +26.52%, -1.59% (gains THIS month)
TurnerTrends ETF-5: +11.08% (THIS month)

4) Second Life:
Gains: ?? (see below) - this month I added another $8,000 to the overall investment, and the normal gains have not been calculated separately, but at this point the gains should start looking really good.
The daily interest here is .1% compounded daily, which is about 3% gains per month (43% annual). Additional gains from other fairly passive in-world means.

Financial stats for 2006-11

2006-12-03T12:09:00.000-08:00

Here is the monthly activity for November

1) Google Adsense -
This last month I have not been taking much more action on the blogs... just letting them bring in whatever they do... residually. It is obvious that the pages I have are not self-suportive at this point, as Adsense income dropped back down 26% this last month, but again, I am so happy I DID at least get things started, because the income was still enough to pay half of my electric bill for the month! -- and no extra work.

2) PayPal Money Market -
The Account is still set up to gain 5.03% annual, which means 0.448% monthly gain.... better than the 0% interest from a checking account. I don't have a lot in Paypal, but it's easy to transfer to and from my checking account for paying bills.

3) Stocks -
The three portfolios did: +1.53%, +8.08%, +5.80 (gains THIS month)
Again, the first and last accounts are my personal picks. The middle account is the Turner Trends auto-trade account. It's totally hassle-free and they are boasting 20% annual returns. Keep an eye out on it to see if something like that can help you.

4) Second Life -
The daily interest here is .1% compounded daily, which is about 3% gains per month (43% annual). There are some fairly easy ways to earn/win extra money, and so my investment has grown 3.38% this last month alone.

Overdue Update

2006-11-04T17:38:00.000-08:00

Wow! It's been 2 months since my last post to this blog!

Certainly NOT the right way to keep things healthy and fresh.... and even worse for a blog about how to generate more income online!

However, I've not been wasting away my time. Most of it has been spent actively applying several techniques I've been talking about to do exactly that... Generate More Income!

It's the beginning of a new month, and the first week of each month I have set aside to do financial "stuff", like pay bills, monitor income streams, etc. Along with that, I've decided to add "update this blog" so that it contains more stats gathered from the last month.

I DO plan on updating this blog more regularly than once a month, but during the first week is when I plan on having a special post directly related to new income stats for the last month.

And so... here they are:

1) Google Adsense -
I've been tweaking pages, adding ads to pages, working hard on other blogs and have increased my Adsense income by almost 90% over what it was the month before! Well, to be honest... the amount is still rather small, and so a 90% increase was not terribly hard to achieve, but, it IS still exciting to see it going up every month for the past 4 months. One thing I can't stress enough is that until you get started with Adsense, you're additional earnings will be $0! So, stop procrastinating and at least GET STARTED!

2) PayPal has a Money Market account which earned a measly 5.03% last month. Not a rate I can retire on, but I look it as one diversification which can easily pass money between my bank, Second Life, friends & family, etc. Rather than have something sitting in 0% checking, this is a nice place.

3) My stocks did pretty well this last month. The percentages for each account are: +21.69%, -0.43%, +9.96%. The first and last accounts are my personal picks, and not much I can do to help out there. The middle account is an auto-trade account I have set up with Turner Trends. It's totally hassle-free and usually does pretty good. We'll keep a watch out for it here, and something like that might be an easily solution for you too. I'm sure you'll feel better about it after you see a few months of good, positive growth.

4) My Second Life account holds the most promise currently. I have about $3,200 invested right now, after adding another $400 this month. The interest gains and "income earned from work" totalled almost $300 in new money. I'm also getting a friend started in cloth designing. I'm expecting to see that really help their income quite a bit as well, and when I have more data I'll report that as well. If you do not have a Second Life account yet, I'd recommend getting set up! (It's FREE) .... When you sign up, be sure to give "Ashling Babka" as your reference.. I'll be notified when you get in-world, and can help you get started in any number of different areas... including just giving you 6,000 new items to help fill up your beginning "inventory". And, I'll explain more about how to make money in this Virtual World in upcoming posts.

Making Money Requires Driving Blog Traffic

2006-09-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

Today I ran across a bit more good reading about how to increase traffic to your blog. I thought it could help a few people out, INCLUDING myself!

Here is a good list (Tactics to increase blog traffic ):

Write Title Tags with Two Audiences in Mind
Short & catchy for human readers, good keywords for web spiders
One post that has some good recommendations for titles is here.
Participate at Related Forums & Blogs
Name recognition, others may get an interested in what else you have to say
Tag Your Content
Another great plug for technorati, flickr, del.icio.us, etc.
Invite Guest Bloggers
Bring name recognition, trust
Go Beyond Text in Your Posts
Text-only can get boring, add pics, multimedia
Use a Human Voice
Be honest, compassionate, authoritative
Reveal as Much as Possible
Give inside / private information, your own PERSONAL insight
Only One Post in Twenty Can Be Linkbait
Don't submit EVERY story to digg, reddit, boing boing, or other social news sites.
Here is a link describing one such effort, and what happened when they posted a story to digg.com
Make Effective Use of High Traffic Days
Follow up high traffic days with more / quicker posts
Create Expectations and Fulfill Them
Keep of a regular posting schedule.
Build a Brand
Insider jokes, email with regulars

There are a ton of great pages all over the web that describe ways to help drive traffic and raise revenue. I think one of the biggest issues is driving traffic. Of course, you need quality content to keep that traffic coming back, but even with quality, it doesn't mean much if you're only getting a couple visitors a day.

Needs Work

2006-08-20T06:12:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I was very hyped up on what I saw/read from other people where they are generating very good income from blogs. I talked with several friends about it (most my friends would enjoy another stream of income) and gave them a very detailed email on the steps needed to get started. The two people I work with and actually hand-held through the process did create blogs:

My father did nothing, although he continues to say he IS really interested. My mother DID get signed up for both Adsense and Blogger, but is delayed due to not knowing what to write about. My sister signed up for both and has fairly certainly decided to blog about losing weight... perhaps not a bad topic, but she is also really in to gaming (World of Warcraft, and EverQuest), which I think would probably be a much more popular blog topic. A couple other friends are also stuck at various stages of "starting".

I don't really want to slam my family and friends... that's not the purpose of this blog entry, but I DO want to use this information to help them, and others (you) to realize that putting up a blog is not a free ride to riches. It DOES take some work!

As I sit here right now, I'm glancing over to see two friends. Each of them are playing some form of solitaire/freecell type games. One has not written a blog entry in 18 days. The other has not written an entry in a bit over 3 weeks! I also know my father has been spending countless hours at some space strategy game. Of course, I respect their obvious priorities... not everyone is truly motivated to take the effort required to make extra money. I think for most of us... it's the point where we have no other income, and in danger of loosing our house that we REALLY get in gear to take action. It sure would be nice to see them making an extra $1,000/month, though!

I'm sure blogging is not for everyone (thank goodness).... but, it really does work for many people. I got inspired today -- due to their LACK of inspiration, and decided to go research some successful blogs. Here's what I found:

StevePavlina.com - one of my favorites, is (has been) listed by technorati as being in the top 100 favorited blogs. His blog is now (as of 7/31/06) bringing in over $300/day, as he describes in a post "How To Make Money From Your Blog" which I mention in my first post "Starting Off - Blog for Cash".
Darren Rowse manages 20 blogs and has a recent post in which he talks about his six figure blog income... giving people inspiration to work on their blogs too.
Jacob has a couple blogs which are finally totalling $100/day with Adsense. He talk about it here.
I'm finding MANY more blogs that easily make over $100/day, and will post more here as I find time. But, actually, I'd rather just get this post finished and move on to other posts for my other blogs. If you don't want to believe me that there are several thousands of people making decent money from there blogs, then wasting my time with more examples is not going to help you.
Check out technorati.com which is a great site (search engine) for blogs.

SO, assuming you are still reading, and eager to get past the challenges of being lazy or procrastinating, here are some steps to take right now. YES! RIGHT NOW!

Pick a topic to write about. Right now you should not care so much WHAT that topic is. The point is to start getting in the habit of doing some writing about something. ANYTHING!
Yes, you need to actually take the time to sign up to these sites:
Blogger.com - free, quick, easy blog setup
Adsense - income from targeted ads
Write your first post. Write your second post tomorrow. Write every day for a week, even if it's just one or two short paragraphs.
Come back here and post your blog URL in a comment. I WILL check it out and give feedback!

I think the hardest thing about this, for most people, is just making the effort to get started. No one can MAKE you do that. You have to want to do it for yourself.

Your Second Life is Ready

2006-08-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

There's a very interesting new story over at Popular Science which talks about how more and more real life companies are looking at, and coming in to virtual worlds as a place to do business.

I predict that in the next 5 years, there will be an enormous blur between what we might call the "real" world and virtual worlds. Current technology is able to place your 3-D avatar in a virtual world, and let you interact with other people using not only sight, but with the help of a mic and speakers you can TALK to and HEAR the other people also. But wait! There's already more! Engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan are building an odour recorder capable of recording and playing back smell. When these devices are hooked up to your virtual world environment, that will bring a WHOLE new level of interaction!

So, here in Second Life, we already see big institutions like Wells Fargo Bank, Walmart, American Express, Intel, and others either already getting actively involved in Second Life, starting to provide corporate training through the virtual world, or testing out ways to "set up shop".

Why NOT run a bank outlet in a virtual world? People could log in from anywhere, "teleport" to the place of business, speak with (and hear) a real person (bank teller) who might actually be employed from anywhere on the planet, and maybe even in their pajamas!

Bands are already starting to sell their music through virtual jukeboxes in-world, people are selling virtual hair, clothes, houses, cars for the enjoyment of other avatars, people are meeting and socializing in virtual space before meeting in person.... "this is what MySpace WANTS to be". There are even companies like Electric Sheep who are in the business of setting up other companies with what they need to get going in these virtual worlds.

With the move toward more outsourcing, and third world countries getting online, you should expect to see more and more of them "going to work" by hopping online and teleporting to their jobs. Perhaps with in the year, it may be you!

For the full story in Popular Science, click here.

If you want to check out SecondLife, use this link.

If you sign up, and give the name Ashling Babka (that's me) as your "reference", then I will be notified when you log in, and can help you get started with your Second Life, and get you making some real cash! :)

Starting Off - Blog For Cash

2006-08-05T12:41:00.000-07:00

This is a new blog I've decided to set up because I seem to continuously come up with new and interesting ideas for more income streams!

For MANY years now I've always seemed to think up more new ways to generate income. Most the ideas COULD have become very big hitters and launched me in to retirement well before now, but I seem to lack the follow through to push them much past the "get in the front door" stage.

Hopefully this blog will help others to pick up on some very cool ideas, or things you hadn't thought of before. One of my biggest pleasures is to help friends start new businesses, and what better way to gather all my thoughts and ideas in one place.

To start things off....
One of the hottest new things to get you going right now is probably a blog!
Yes... Whatever you can write about... whatever you have an interest in or enjoy doing could be a good topic. If YOU enjoy it, then probably others do too! After a few posts, and a little effort in marketing, you could start to grow a loyal reader base, and then provide targeted advertising that would be a value-add for your blog. Google's own Adsense is providing an EXTREMELY easy way to get started in this, and since they now own this Blogger.com website, they've set things up so that monetizing your blog is just a few clicks away.

Sign up for a blog at Blogger.com. (or any place, really.)
Sign up with Google Adsense. (You need at least ONE webpage/blog that you are allowed to edit before you can get started.)
Use the Blogger tools (or manually) add your Adsense code to your blog and other web pages. Here is one very nice tip to Optimize Ads On Your Blog. And another to have Blogger automatically update remote blog polling sites when you have a new post.
While I'm giving out links... Steve Pavlina has a great blog, and a couple posts about making money from a blog.

It should be just THAT easy!
But, if you have any specific questions or get lost somewhere along the line, feel free to shoot me an email and I will help get you fixed right up!