Psychological Advertising Part 4

Some advertisements are incredibly effective even though they have nothing to do with what they are selling. If you are repeatedly shown two items together you will start to pair them in your memory. Just think about Joe Camel or Geico's Gecko, amazing characters that are memorable. I am a fan of conversational commercials. These are the commercials that are contraversal or start up conversation. I particularly like the Geico Cavemen campaign that is currently running. Other favorites that come to mind are the Budweiser frogs and geckos. What are your favorite commericals?

Goals

We need to find a way to live off of one income. Our monthly expenses still exceed the amount I make a month and if and when my wife needs to take off of work to raise our children I want to be ready. I don't want to go through major lifestyle changes because we are downsizing to one salary. The way I think we can go about this is by gradually switching all of her earnings over to a savings account and go on a test run (living off my salary, one salary). I am going to go back to school (while working full-time) to increase my salary and earning potential. I will also be expanding my passive income by developing more websites. I hope to replicate the success of this site, which brings in a few dollars a month. In 5 years I want to be able to pay off the mortgage payment with passive income accumulated from websites. I feel this is an attainable goal. I will write able some of my other interests including: car, home improvements, lawn care, fitness, etc.

Save money on your high speed internet

This might be a bit much, but it will pay off in the long run. If you have Comcast buy your own cable modem. Every month you are charged $3.00 to rent their modem. You can purchase a refurbished modem for $1 from Ebay (that's where I got mine) the shipping is $10 for a total of $11. In four months this will pay off. As of today my cable bill will be $3 cheaper every month. It seems small now, but finding a few of these shortcuts can save you big money in the long run.

401K news

I recently increased my retirement contributions to my 401k at work from 10% to 12% after a small raise I received. Right now I have 25% going into FFFFX (a target date fund by Fidelity for 2040) and 50% going into FDVIX (diversified international - the best returning fund to date that I've invested in) and the other 25% into a Morgan Stanley Emerging Markets fund (the most risky and fun to watch). So far this year I have a 8.5% return. My goal is to have over $30,000 invested in my 401K by the time I'm 30, right now I'm 27 and I have over $10,000 saved up. The goal is attainable and I will continue to increase my contributions in small intervals until I reach 15%. I am disappointed that my company only matches 4% but it's better than nothing and I will not complain about free money. I'm trying to find ways to invest and tap into the Middle East and India two markets that I believe will have a lot of explosive growth with the building of infrastructure and attractions (ever hear of Dubai?)

I received a million dollars in the mail today

Today I received a letter in the mail containing a million dollars. Oddly enough it was from a dentist advertising his services and the bill was fake. I think this a way a God telling me "here's a million dollars, not focus on more important things." So I'll continue to post, but not as regularly and intensely. Right now I'm putting together a homemade concoction of fertilizer (I got the recipe from wisebread.com) My house is a mess. Got a marathon coming up next weekend. Finances are significantly better than last year, but I still haven't set up an automatic savings plan into the ING direct savings account from our checking account (I plan to do this before summertime hits) Still lamenting the costs of everything for the house (looks like we'll remodel the upstairs bathrooms) Need to get more education to increase my earning potential and further my career (deciding between nurse practitioner and nurse anesthesist) Still interested in investing but saving up until I have a few grand to work with (looking to invest for the long term in dividend stocks)

Don't keep up with the Jones

Be thankful for what you have and don't focus on what you don't have. There are many people who are less fortunate than you so be grateful and thankful.

One week hiatus

I'm going to Louisiana this week on a mission trip with my church. We will be rebuilding homes that were badly damaged in the flood waters from Hurricane Katrina. I'll be leaving tonight from Philadelphia airport and return next Sunday Night. Happy Easter!

Got a raise!

Yesterday I was awarded a 2% raise for completing the first step of the clinical ladder. Yes, 50 cents an hour doesn't sound huge, but it adds up and comes out to a few thousand dollars per year. I'll be increasing my 401K contributions by 2%. Right now I contribute 10%. My goal is to get to a point where I contribute 15% of my income within the next 3 years. I'll be increasing contributions every time I get a raise, so I don't miss the money.

401K growth

Finally broke the $10,000 mark for my 401K. This years growth has been 4.8% not bad considering the correction in the stock market.

How much does it cost to paint your house?

We are thinking about getting the house painted by professionals. We saw an interesting product called text-coat at a home show and signed up for an estimate. Last night a sales rep came to our house and gave us a 3 hour demonstration. She told us the history of the product, the advantages, and all the reasons we should buy it. She even had a test kit, and pulled out a few gadgets to show the product's effectiveness. Basically text-coat is a special coating that makes wood stucco or cement water repellent. It is backed by a lifetime guarantee. I felt like I was on an infomercial. Apparently this coating is used by many corporations like Home Depot, McDonald's and even the Hollywood sign because of it's high quality. We didn't get to the price of the product until last. She quoted us $23,000 after measuring our house. Of course there was a special 10% discount if we signed the contract the same day. I was amazed. $23,000 is a lot of money to me to spend on the exterior of the house. Am I out of touch? She said that a professional paint job would run about $4,000-$8,000 and would need to be repeated every 5-10years. My wife and I took some time to talk about it. Then we decided that we have only $10,000 that we could commit to this project because we don't want to finance it and be paying it off for the next 20years at a high interest rate. It puts things in perspective when you think about other things that you are saving for especially a family. We told the sales rep we got $10,000 to spend. She immediately dropped the price to $19,000, then she called her boss to find out about advertising dollars (they would pay us to use before and after pictures as well as putting a sign in our yard for 60 days, we got a bonus because our house is located on a historic street). That brought the price down to $16,500. It was tempting but after talking it over again we stuck to our guns and said $10,000. She wanted us to sign a contract to "hold the price" we refused, and she said to call back by Friday either way. So we spent 3 hours of time listening to this pitch and it was a very impressive product. Unfortunately it costs as much as a car. Maybe in the future when we have more money saved we will go with this option since it has a lifetime guarantee against chipping, fading, or peeling.

SlashMySearch = Cash In Pocket

I just learned about a new search engine SlashMySearch which uses Snap "preview pictures of websites" and also pays you money will you search. I've already made 4 cents and I just signed up. You can sign up here if you want to make money too. It doesn't cost anything to sign up and is good for those who search the net for different things. The goal of this site is to make web searches more effective by having users rank the results - what a novel idea. Paying the users to improve the system, not bad. Add SlashMySearch as another form of passive income and get paid for what you are already doing.

How to post a trackback

For a while I did not know how to trackback (leaving a link to another blog so that the author knows you referenced them) Finally Barbara put together a simple easy to follow post about how to trackback here http://www.homebusinesswiz.com/2007/03/how_to_make_a_trackback_on_a_b.html Now this is how you do it. Copy the link from your browser after clicking on the post title that you want to trackback. Paste the link in your post entry and your blogging software should automatically ping the other blog. This is a test, hopefully it works. Thanks Barbara

3 Simple steps to accelerate your wealth

1. Buy a house - real assest can be a great asset (build equity, instead of renting)
2. Make saving a priority - commit to saving a certain amount each month or week and put it in a high yield savings account. Don't take this money out.
3. Invest in the stock market - pick dividend paying companies for the long term.

I'll admit I haven't done step 3 yet because I've been a little scared of losing money. One of my goals this month is to use the money generated from this blog to start an investment account with Sharebuilder.

If you build it they will come...

If you create something interesting and original people will come from miles around to see it. I predict that the Apple iPhone will do very well. Basically it's an iPod, with the capabilities of a blackberry and a computer. This thing is going to be huge. They already have a ton of free advertising and hype. I'm curious how it's going to play out. I think that more mobility is the future of computers. If they can make palm held devices easier to use (with the development of mobile applications by MSN and Google) there are no limits. People will be using their cell phones more than they home computers. The trend with electronic devices - smaller, faster, more memory, more versatile.