Affiliates vs Adsense. and a confession.

Which is better? This month it looks like money made from affiliates will surpass money made from Adsense for this particular blog. I started tracking profit this month just out of curiosity. I am not really an advertiser, but I'm interested in marketing and the psychology of advertising. If you are focused on making the most profit from your site, then you are doomed to fail, I feel that money should not be your ultimate motivation. I feel like a hypocrite because I've become focused on the bottom line from time to time. The joy of activity is the best motivation in my experience, when it starts to be about just making money then the passion wains, greed grows, and the real creativity is swallowed by meritocracy. I have wavered between writing for fun and just posting for financial gain. When you accept assignments for cash then you are hiring out your writing ability to help someone else. My wife says that I'm "pimping myself out to the computer". I got so caught up in making a little cash that I lost the true enjoyment of writing. If you want to something special, always look to create value first, don't worry about profiting. If you have something of value that is useful to others the profit will come. It is easy to get caught up in statistics and rankings and popularity, but somethings recognition can hurt you more than it helps. My original goal with this site was to chronicle my path to 1 million (which is selfish and greedy, and useless) and share the knowledge I learned along the way with others that have a similar goal. I am consumed by this imaginary internet world sometimes and find myself obsessively checking stats and comments. I go to get back to my roots and focus on providing quality for the readers that subscribe and get them the info they need to help their own financial situations. I want this site to have an overall positive effect on those who read it and participate in discussions. If I become a millionaire by selling other peoples' products, I will become something that I despise. The most important things in life are God, family and friends. Everything else is just baggage which we can't take will us when we die. Other than making life less stressful and more comfortable having money is not that great. In fact many of the poorest people I know are perfectly happy, while those who are much better off find themselves unsatisfied and empty. I digress.

Psychological Advertising Part 3: We like people like us

You may have noticed the new advertising campaign for the Mac. It is pretty funny, one guy is "PC" older gentleman, with glasses, dorkier, stiff; the other character is "Mac" he's young, hip, and witty. Here is a great example of advertising that focuses on a certain market. The Mac appeals to college aged kids that look, talk, and act like him. We generally identify and trust those people who resemble us. While the PC is an older dude, more like a father figure, who just doesn't get it. The ad campaign is very clever.

My credit blunder - Sponsored by CreditLoan.com

I went for the carrot. One day while I was innocently shopping at The Express, I purchased a few things (a shirt, pants, and a slick pair of sunglasses) for a total of $165. When I went to the cashier they offered me a 15% discount if I signed-up for an Express credit card, I agreed and then I was done. Got the credit card bill later that month and paid it off in full. Then the card sat in my drawer for 3 years. It also sat on my credit report, I didn't realize that the account was still active until I saw the Express Card on my credit report. I immediately closed it out. That was a stupid mistake, never open up a line of credit that you will not use, and never sign up for a cheap discount. Don't make the same mistake and dirty up your credit rating. If you want any information about credit, what it is, how to use it, and how to fix your score up check out Bad Credit Repair. It's a decent site packed full of information.

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How NOT to spend your money.

Trying to live the lifestyles of the rich and famous on TV will send you straight to the poor house. Once you have a career and make a decent salary, avoid luxuries and extravagance whenever possible. As you get raises, put more money into your retirement funds, and invest. Do NOT emulate rappers on MTV and buy a diamond encrusted grill and a new whip with 20 inch rims. Be wise and prosper. Look at those who were wildly rich and successful who ended up broke and bankrupt. Exhibit 1 MC Hammer claim to fame, he made two hit albums in the early 90's, wrote "Can't Touch This" and followed up with another successful album "2 Legit 2 Quit". He was blowing up everywhere and his pants were enormous. Unfortunately he was not financially sound. He hired everyone he knew and brought them along on tours, he spent and spent, until he had no more money and no more hit records. I admire his generosity, but am disappointed that he let himself get into major debt. Now he shows up every once in a while on VH1 True Hollywood Story, or a reality show for washed up celebs. Exhibit #2 Mike Tyson, fame and fortune at a young age, champion heavyweight boxer, amazing personality, expensive tastes. He didn't have any longterm plans, he consumed and consumed, concerned only with instant gratification. He eventually crashed and lost his fortune quickly. Now he is fighting to pay off his large debts. Next time you see 50 cent spinning his G-Unit chain and riding around in his Escalade with Lamborghini doors, remember you don't have that kind of money, it's better to think you are poor and be rich than to think you're rich and really be poor.

Who is Juan Million?

Juan Million is one of the creators of Millionster.coman extremely hip financial website with news and the info you need to make it big. Recently Millionster added a bankroll (blogroll) which is off the hook, smart, crisp and clean. His bankroll is made of chicklet, small buttons with links to others in the realm of personal finance. Do yourself a favor and check out Millionster today.

Pay off all your student loans

To minimize debts, pay off loans with the highest interest rates first. Pay off credit card debts first, followed by any car loans, but make sure to pay off all your student loans as well. Pay off the loans with the highest interest rates first. If you need help consider getting all your student loans, car loans, and credit car debt consolidated into one payment. Many reputable companies will help you, just be careful of shady deals. If it sounds too sweet to be true, then stay away and make sure you read all the fine print.

Organization is key

Organization is another skill that is required to succeed. Many large companies waste millions due to lack of organization. Know where things are, and set up systems to help you save time and decrease waste. Keep your work area clear and make sure you have all the things you need within an arm's reach.

Time management is a must for success

In order to succeed in something that requires a lot of skill, effort and work like making a million dollars, you need to be able to manage you time wisely. I have yet to master this quality, but I find that if you write down a list and stick to a particular schedule it is quite helpful. Allot different time limits to different tasks and figure out when you are most efficient. Minimize distractions, work in 20min segments and take a 5 min break when your concentration is waning.

How NOT to spend your money.

Trying to live the lifestyles of the rich and famous on TV will send you straight to the poor house. Once you have a career and make a decent salary, avoid luxuries and extravagance whenever possible. As you get raises, put more money into your retirement funds, and invest. Do NOT emulate rappers on MTV and buy a diamond encrusted grill and a new whip with 20 inch rims. Be wise and prosper. Look at those who were wildly rich and successful who ended up broke and bankrupt. Exhibit 1 MC Hammer claim to fame, he made two hit albums in the early 90's, wrote "Can't Touch This" and followed up with another successful album "2 Legit 2 Quit". He was blowing up everywhere and his pants were enormous. Unfortunately he was not financially sound. He hired everyone he knew and brought them along on tours, he spent and spent, until he had no more money and no more hit records. I admire his generosity, but am disappointed that he let himself get into major debt. Now he shows up every once in a while on VH1 True Hollywood Story, or a reality show for washed up celebs. Exhibit #2 Mike Tyson, fame and fortune at a young age, champion heavyweight boxer, amazing personality, expensive tastes. He didn't have any longterm plans, he consumed and consumed, concerned only with instant gratification. He eventually crashed and lost his fortune quickly. Now he is fighting to pay off his large debts. Next time you see 50 cent spinning his G-Unit chain and riding around in his Escalade with Lamborghini doors, remember you don't have that kind of money, it's better to think you are poor and be rich than to think you're rich and really be poor.

Aiming too low?

According to Fidelity I'll need to save $295,888,750 for retirement. That's a bit more than my original one million dollar goal.

High Search rankings

It seems that my little blog has been working it's way into three major search engines. Marshall Brain still has the top stop in all three with his nice powerpoint presentation entitled "How to Make a Million Dollars" but I run a close second. Here's how I currently stack up (not too stable for someone who is not a SEO webmaster genius)

Search: How to make a million dollars

Google #7
MSN #5
Yahoo #2

I will soon be looking to move to a new server and buy my own domain, because I'm getting to the edge of outgrowing Blogger. I like it, it's simple, workable, but from what I read WordPress is the place to be for more control. We'll see what happens in the upcoming months. I also apologize for the shameless paid advertising that I've been doing a lot of lately. I really struggle whether or not to do them at all. I'll warn readers with a Paid Advertisement tag in the header for now on. I know how Flexo is strictly against these paid posts, and if you're good you don't need them. I'm sure some smaller blogs can relate, when you're scrapping together whatever survey and money making opportunity you can get your hands on. Like any other squirrel I'm just storing up nuts for retirement. I have to find out from someone about creating my own free-lance review writing business and contract out the work. Also I wonder if anyone with tax knowledge would know this. If I donate half of what I earn on the site, with it cancel out of my gross income, and not increase my taxes?

Attention PF Bloggers with goal of saving 1million dollars

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If you are a PF Blogger with the goal of saving one million dollars, or have already achieved a net worth of one million or more, join me in creating the PF Overachievers blogroll. Much like the under 30 honor roll, but with a twist. I'm looking for people with a common goal, not a common age. If this applies to you contact me to be added to the PFO. I hope that this community will become more close-knit and people can encourage and inspire each other along the way. Contact me howtomakeamilliondollars@walla.com if you're interest. I hope that many join, and I encourage those who are older and wiser to lend your knowledge to those of us who are starting out. This is sort of a cross-section of the Personal Finance bloggers. I also would like to announce PFO bookclub, which reads books (finance books) and reviews them as a group, good books will be passed on, bad books will be destroyed. Questions? Comments? I hope to bring more people together in active participation in the blogosphere

Psychological Advertising Part 3: Create a need, draw on emotion

Psychological Advertising Part 3:

Humans have basic needs. Let's go back to some basic Psychology and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. After the basic needs are fullfilled, food, water, shelter etc. you are able to concentrate on higher level things. Next we have the need for safety. A lot of times advertisements can play on our fears. Fear is one of our strongest emotions. You may see an advertisement for a security system that shows a burglar breaking into a house and causing harm to a family. Insurance is a big player in the area of fear and safety. Basically you are paying someone to feel safe and they will offer insurance against just about anything these days if you're will to pay for it. You may receive a long term illness insurance. These things are not likely to happen to you, but if you are afraid they will, or if you are convinced to live in fear, you'll buy them for peace of mind. All to feel safe. This plays upon the need for safety. Right now EHarmony is playing upon the need for intimacy. Really people got together before the internet and people when out on dates and talked and found compatable mates. I'm sure of this. People were dating long before the internet was invented. But if someone is feeling down because of failure, and this service promises happiness, and shows pictures of happy couples, what do you think will happen. The person's need for intimacy will be strong enough motivation to try this service.

Who wants to be a Millionaire? 6 Figures in 6 Steps

This is an outline of what I plan to write about in the future. "6 Figures in 6 Steps" (don't steal this) is based on the idea of breaking a large task into many smaller easier to complete tasks, at the end you still arrive at the same goal, but you don't lose heart or motivation because you are constantly making progress, you constantly build upon small victories. I predict that if I break down the monumental goal of making a million dollars (which is shared by many people as evidenced by the high amount of search traffic this site receives from Google in it's relatively short existence) into 6 easy to follow steps and develop an action plan more people will be able to benefit. This is a group project that anyone can join for free (right now, I encourage you to sign up) I will participate in the program while simultaneously creating it. Your feedback will help to tweak it and improve it. Again this program it open to anyone who is interested, I would recommend it to high school students, college students, professionals who are unhappy in their jobs, and entrepenuers who want to start their own business. I'm not sure of the timeline, but this is definately classified as a get rich slow program. If you're looking to make a million by next month try The Rick Jerk, or some other wealth building program. I want this site to do good and not do evil. Half of the money made from this site will be donated to charity.

6 Figures in 6 Steps
1. Find you Passion
2. Get Educated
3. Get a Job
4. Save More, Spend Less
5. Invest
6. Accelerate Success

Step 1. What's Your Passion?

There is no such thing as magic. If you wish for a million dollars and Whoop! There it is. No, I don't think so. It does not go {POOF} an appear as a cloud of smoke dissapates. If you can do this today then that's pretty incredible, but it's also impossible. Don't pray to win in the lottery, instead TAKE ACTION! Use your intense desire and drive to lead you to the elusive million dollar goal. How do I make a million dollars you ask? Anyway you want to. What does that mean? I suggest using your talents (things you are good at). If you don't know what your strengths are give yourself some time for self assessment or ask a trusted friend who will be honest with you. Once you know what your are good at, make sure you enjoy doing it. If you are a talented athlete but have a passion for fishing, you will inevitabily be unhappy. When your are playing in the Superbowl you will be sad because you'd rather be on your fishing. Find your passion (something that you love, that makes you excited, motivated, gives you energy, and satisfies your soul). Finding your passion may not be easy, especially if you're young and have not had a lot of life experience. I'm talking about passion for a subject or activity, not lust or love of a person. Steve Pavlina has some articles on passion. Do you have to limit yourself to one passion? No, you may have many passions, but when you are starting out try to focus on one or two to make a career out of drop the others down into the hobby category. I'll talk about balance later, and why it is importance.

Discussion questions:

What do you like? What do you love? What is your Passion? Do you love your job? Are you passionate about what you do? If you could have any job what would it be and why? Are you jaded, or frustrated with "the system" or organization that you work for?

Is the internet like revenge of the nerds?

Yes. Remember the movie, all the jocks were jerks and in the end the nerds were on top, due to their superior intellect and creativity. It reminds me of the internet. Most people do not have a clue about code, SEO, or how the internet works. The people who know the most are the nerds and geeks. Who's laughing now.

How to make a million dollars blogging. Part 2

Before you can even think about make a bundle of money blogging you need to be able to write. Your writing should focus on a area which you are familiar with. Try to be informative and interesting. Bonus points if you can break a story. Once you have a large collection of articles and rank well in search engines for your niche (may take time to build links) then and only then should you try to monetize. Use advertising embedded in your content within the context of what you're writing about. You can sell ad-space.

Link Building, Get your linkbait here!

Get more traffic, get some link love. Leave a comment with a link to your site and post a link to this site. Build your reader base and get more traffic by increasing your link power.

Richard Branson will pay you $32 million dollars to fix global warming

The billionaire of Virgin fame, Richard Branson, is offering any scientist or inventory or company a prize of $32 million dollars to find a solution to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Full story here

Feng Shui your way to wealth?

My brother recently has gotten into Feng Shui - the art of arranging objects in space to create harmony. One area that can be influenced is your wealth and prosperity. My brother tried this out and coincidently one of his books sold on half.com. It is an interesting idea and worth a try. The area of the house devoted to wealth and abundance is located in the rear left or (southeast corner of the dwelling). Check out this great Feng Shui website to increase your Wealth and Abundance. I do believe that having things organized and reducing clutter can make your home more efficient and relaxing. I let you know how Feng Shui works in my home. I'm currently redecorating and repainting one room at a time.

How to Make a Million Dollars in the Top 100 Financial Blogs

Ads or no ads? That's the question.

I have a sinking feeling that I am getting a bit greedy and short sighted trying to make a bunch of money from ads on this site, instead writing good quality content for the readers. What would I want from a how to site where I am looking for information about how to make a million dollars? Certainly not a bunch of junkie get rich quick schemes in the advertising sections all around the site, especially if I'm interested in making real money. True wealth takes time to acquire their is no real shortcuts without taking extreme risks. While I do believe I'll reach my million dollar goal quicker by taking risks, I feel that the amount of ads I've placed up here mayu be distracting and discouraging to visitors. Instead of putting others' first and providing value, I'm selling myself short by trying to get rich quick, which will fail everyone including you and myself. Although the ads do bring in some money, I do believe they may be leading some readers astray from their ultimate goal. The last thing I want to do is send more customers to the scam artists that sell crap, but with the things that I talk about I see a lot of advertising that is not going to get anyone rich except the vendor. My true goal here is to help you learn and become enriched, learn from my success and failure and avoid pitfalls along the way. I want this to be a forum for those who have already made it to wealth and independence to share their secrets, (without selling them a must have system}. What do you think, ads or no ads? That is the question. CrispAds Blog Ads

Ethics and Money

I received a check from my place of employment for $2,500 today. My employer made a mistake and paid me two bonuses instead of one. Now I am faced with the problem of whether or not I should return the check. I will return the check because I am honest. Even though it is tempting to put it in the bank, they'd eventually catch on and I don't want to live with the guilt.






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My fourth business

My fourth business is this website. I am in the business of sharing information about how to make money, save money, and invest for retirement. I share personal stories and experiences, and money making ideas to help enrich the readers of this site. My goal is to reach one million dollars for retirement and I'm well on my way. My goal for this website is to provide excellent information which will help readers make good decisions. The way I make money from this blog is through advertising and sponsored posts. So far this site has been successful and is continuing to get better. The layout has been improved. I have yet to invest any money into the site, but I have invested a lot of time and effort writing articles and responding to comments and questions.

My third business

My third business was probably my most successful business. Again this was a joint venture in which I partnered with a friend. It was actually his idea. Our junior year of high school we decided to cut lawns for the summer. We made flyers for Guyswhocutgrass. We made tee-shirts with a logo and our phone number on the back as a uniform. We went door to door to almost every house in the town. We ended up getting a good number of clients and we were mowing about 20 lawns a week. A lot of people liked the fact that we were kids from the town who were saving up money for college (and other things). We charged by the job, our most expensive was $50, and did edging as well. We made a good team and were able to mow lawns very quickly. We used our own (family's) lawnmowers and my parents van was our transportation. We ended up getting more clients through customer referrals. We made roughly $300 a week each, cash, and over $3000 for the summer. We also did some landscaping, and other odd jobs. Then we left for college and gave most of our lawns to some younger friends. What we should have done was to hire on some younger workers and pay them by the hour while we still collected the money, but we didn't. So if you're in high school and want to be the CEO of your own company, start a lawn mowing business and make some money.

My second business

My second business was a tee-shirt company. We bought supplies from an art store - silk screen, tee-shirts, paint, etc. I used to be really into rollerblading in high school, doing jumps and tricks and grinding. We wanted to make some shirts they were "cool" we came up with the name Hybrid. We made some prototypes and one of my friends was sponsored. We figured since he was appearing in skate shows wearing our shirts would give us some free press. Our first and only real customer was my friends' dad. He ordered 25 shirts for his painting company. We designed a logo and printed it on the shirts and made the sale. We made a few different designs and printed a few shirts but we really never sold them and soon our interest wained. It was nice to have a few custom made shirts though.

Snow shovelling - hard work, easy money

If you live in a cold area of the country and not everyone in your town owns a snowblower. Go out with a shovel and make some money. It is very easy to do, get out early, especially if you're off from school. Charge by the job, offer to do driveways, find potential clients by finding snow covered sideways. If you've never done this, you should try it. It is easy. I did it when I was a kid and ended up making more than a hundred dollars on multiple occasions. People are afraid of being trapped and they will pay you to dig them out.

My first business

I started my first business in high school. Some of my friends and I got together and decided to make some necklaces with clay beads (they were a fad at the time). We went to Ben Franklin (a local craft store) and bought some supplies. The total cost was less than twenty dollars for clay, rope, and metal clip ends. We assembled them and ended up with about thirty necklaces. After we started wearing them at school other people asked us where we got them. We told them that we made them and had a bunch more. We ended up selling about ten to other classmates for $5 a piece. Then we decided to try to make a nicer product. We put some of the money back into buying plastic beads, some white with etching and some turquoise in color. We wrote down some different combinations and took to the streets. Going door to door. One of my friends was very good at this and he became our salesman. We had been selling them for $5 a piece and doing well. He upped the price to $7 and did just as well. Things were going great. We had made over $100 in cash and had an inventory of about 20 necklaces. We didn't do any advertising (except wearing the necklaces ourselves) and did well by word of mouth. Then we were robbed by one of my friends' older brothers. The older brother and his friend raided our workshop (located in his basement) stole many of the necklaces and the money we had made. We kind of lost interest after we were unable to recover the stolen merchandise. The older brother gave away a bunch of necklaces to his friends thus flooding the market and decreasing the demand. The fad was gone soon after that and that was the end of my first business. Have you ever started your own business? What worked and what didn't? What can you learn from your experience?

Psychological Advertising Part II: Appeal to their desires

What do people want? What do you want? Money, power, pleasure, happiness. Humans naturally are attracted to things that bring them pleasure and will repeat actions that bring them pleasure. Humans also try to avoid things that bring them pain, so they will avoid situations that bring pain. So we seek pleasure and avoid pain, pretty simple. You want to associate your products with pleasure or happiness.

Start young

The younger you start your journey to a million dollars the easier it is to accomplish. The easier way to a million dollars is through saving and investing regularly. For those who are a little more adventurous try starting your own business. There is a lot of risk with starting your own business, but the payoff of a successful business is unmatched (unless you win the lottery, which is unlikely). If you have trouble coming up with an idea for a business you could always try running a franchise (a business which is already established such as Subway or Dunkin Donuts)

Psychological Advertising Part I: Be sexy. Be interesting.

Psychological Advertising Part 1
We all know that sex sells. It is a primal force of nature that will be reckoned with. Many famous advertising campaigns depict picture perfect people (guys getting a hot girl because of a beer, or a women attracted to an underwear model because of his aftershave). Sex is interesting to us because it is hardwired into our system as a base desire. If the advertiser can get you to associate their product with sex, then they have been successful.

New site design

Did some moving around to make the site easier to use. I'll be sorting the archives into different sections. Any suggestions? I finally got the 3 columns to work, and upgraded to the new blogger. There are many places to get free blogger templates and with a little html code know-how you'll be able to have a crisp clean functional site. Did I leave anything out?

Keep it simple

Don't make things more complicated than they need to be. You don't need to waste your time and energy that way. Set attainable goals, be accountable, and be honest. If you are starting a business, write a business plan (what service or product will your company provide, who makes up your customer base, how do you beat out the competition, what sets you apart from others). A nun told me once that nothing of value is achieved without hard work, and I've found this to be true in my experience.

New site design

I am working on a new site design. I hope to utilize the 3 column template to streamline and clean up the page. I'm not a coding wizard, but I do know a thing or two about css. They are a lot of free blogger templates available as well.

Fame or Fortune?

Would you rather be famous or an unknown millionaire. I'd rather live below my means and save until I reach that million dollar barrier. It seems like fame can make a lot of people lose their minds. Just look at Tom Cruise and Brittany Spears exhibits A and B.