Building Websites, Traffic, and Income
Blogs You May Need to Read in These Hard Times
- Image via Wikipedia
Making Money Online?
Maybe it is the economy. Maybe it is the fact that I took on too much work. Maybe it was because I had a system that made me money and when I started getting involved in blogging and social media more, I spent less time actually making money. Well, whatever the reason, I am feeling these hard times also. Last year I made $8000 in December from my efforts online. This year, about $2000.
Of course, keeping your head in a hole and not looking for other techniques is not an option either. The internet moves too fast for that. If you don’t change with it, it passes you by. And blogging is also more enjoyable than numbers, stats and data.
I do have the day job, but it only pays the bills that come in the mail. And things there may have to change. It may be time to move on. To a new job where the true value of my work shows in the paycheck. I will never forget the lesson I learned there.
If you get hired as a webmaster and you have no degree, watch who you work for. If one of your co-workers has worked there for 20 years and hasn’t had a raise in the last six, that is a big sign that there is a ceiling and you must move on when you hit it.
Making Money by Saving It
But there are two ways you can have more money: make more or spend less. And there are a lot of blogs out there that teach you how you can spend less:
- Get Rich Slowly
- Tim Ferris’s Blog
- My Open Wallet
- Frugal for Life
- Frugal Zeitgeist
- Free Money Finance
- My Money Blog
- No Credit Needed
- Consumerism Commentary
- Blueprint for Financial Prosperity
- The Digerati Life
- Savvy Saver
- Sitting Pretty
- The Dollar Stretcher
- Frugal Village
- Off Grid Living
- Poorer Than You
- Mighty Bargain Hunter
- Money Smart Life
- Stop Buying Crap
- Five Cent Nickel
- Personal Finance Advice
These are blogs that I am going to be reading more often.
The Results Thus Far
Me and my wife have never really had a “latte factor” because for the most part, I only travel to and from work and all of our shopping is done one day out of the week. So our options were lowering our bills and finding better prices on necessities.
- We refinanced the house in the one month window we had between the penalty for refinancing and our interest rate doubling. This dropped our house payment $100 from what it would have been and also our property tax and house insurance through escrow.
- We don’t pay full price, unless it is the only way. This laptop I am typing on was a scratch and dent which saved me about $1000. My wife’s was too and that saved about $300. We know were the thrift stores are in the better neighborhoods and my pair of Lucky and Guess jeans cost a total of $15. My wife also got a pair of brand new Juicy Couture jeans at the same store for $10.
- We used to have a Friday pizza night where we ordered out. Now we have a Friday pizza night where we make it from scratch together as a family.
- My wife is the biggest money saver. All of the presents we got this year could have easily cost us twice what we paid had we bought at the first place we found things. But she doesn’t rest until she is sure she has found the right price.
- I am currently going through all bills to see if there is a way to cut or remove them. I am shopping all of our insurances. Blue Cross and Blue Sheild has slowly increased our rates to the point they are getting damn close to our house payment, not acceptable.
And of course, there is the “making more money” part of the equation. And that is what this blog is about. I am going to focus on what I know works and do more of it.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Learn Here Useful Knowledge – Consumer’s Guide to Mortgage Refinancing
- Tips For Finding Loose Change
- When not to save
- Things You Must Do Before Getting a Layoff Notice
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2d41f882-4fb3-436f-8034-21aa3b808282)
25 Responses to Blogs You May Need to Read in These Hard Times
Leave a Reply
Wow! Hard times indeed. A huge drop in site revenue, yet, it appears that your actual site traffic has increased since last December…
As for cutting back, I fortunately have the latte factor as a nice little cushion. lol. …as well as a vacant room at the parents’ pad should I need to return to the nest.
This economy is crazy.
I learn quite a lot from reading lots of blogs as well. Everyone has their various ways of saving and I’ve found lots of inspiration from reading how others are surviving during the recession. Glad to know I made your list! I’ll be checking out your material as well.
$2k in a month? That’s good money in my opinion. How’d you do that? Thanks for an honest and thoughtful post. It struck a lot of chords in my life.
It’s great if all I wanted was to add a bit of income. But I want this to replace my day job eventually. Not a good sign for that goal. But in the last four years, there have been a few dips like this and each time, I build everything back and much stronger. This has just been the biggest one I have had since beginning this that couldn’t be explained by a technical issue or something similar. It can’t even be explained by a drop in traffic. It is a drop in the conversion rate.
I have made about 95% through affiliate programs.
This is my shot at a better life for my family. As far as day jobs go, I have no degree and there have been no jobs in my past where my lack of a degree has more than devalued my experience and the results I have shown. So I am never putting my eggs in that basket.
I too think that $2k a month is already great. I also agree that you need more than that if you want to replace your day job. It is also true that you have to adapt to what is going on in the wired world and you have done that in the past.
Taking all these into consideration, I believe that you can again surpass this challenge of dropping conversion rate. You’ve made it this far and there’s no reason you cannot come up with a workaround for this.
with this hard times, I am afraid to quit my day job. If I could still get myself to work properly in the morning with the very demanding “night-net jobs” well I might stay like this until I reach a certain margin that I could quit my job (maybe the same $2k/mo. will do for me). What I could add with this tips, I guess is we should learn to manage our expenses properly. Spending too much and unplanned will not do any good to your budget.
Stephan
Hey bro, I hope you bounce back stronger than ever. I recently discovered Tim’s blog, neat stuff. I’ll have to check out the others, maybe after finals week.
Thanks for sharing.
-Mig
Thanks everyone. Yeah, it will bounce back. I just have to pick another focus for a while and stop getting caught up in new things until it is back on track.
Thank you so much for the sites, at times like this everybuck and penny counts. If you have a website i recommend you guys trying to add absence get some cash end of each month.
Thanks for including my site in the list! I think a combination of earning more money and saving money is they key to making it in tough times.
Hard times sometimes come as a boon. For me (India is yet to see the real hard times) there has been a slump in work and that has allowed me to free up time and learning something new, reading blogs and helpful websites, working on my own website and generally work on increasing my value so that when the hard times end I have some new things to offer to my client.
Thanks for the blog lists and happy holidays!
Its a time to find out what the basics are again. Not bad. A learning experience.
I too think that $2k a month is already great. I also agree that you need more than that if you want to replace your day job. It is also true that you have to adapt to what is going on in the wired world and you have done that in the past.
Taking all these into consideration, I believe that you can again surpass this challenge of dropping conversion rate. You’ve made it this far and there’s no reason you cannot come up with a workaround for this.
Some good advice here, Its a shame about your loss of online earnings, its true what you say, making money online requires a lot of hard work and many methods will soon ‘dry up’ so to speak.
There is sticking to outdated methods and then there is turning your back on methods that work to try new things when the timing is not right. Both are mistakes and both I have made.
$2000 from your blogging efforts is still very respectable given the current financial climate. The personal finance blogs that you listed are very very good especially get rich slowly. Any help that you can get from other bloggers about how to save money is always welcome
Its hard to make judge weather or not something is going to take over you day job in this economy. Keep working away at it and when the economy bounces back, you’ll see conversion rise. For now, just keep you visitors interested enough in coming back.
If you stick with it, your business will be able to support your family soon.
Wow,i just did $500 last December.I will try it more… thanks for your post
zens last blog post..http://www.fiacardservices.com
$2k is a decent amount mate. Can you share how you manage to achieve it since I am not even able to make $100 with my blogging efforts. With chances of job getting lost I would like to develop an alternate source of income. Can you help me with it?
bens last blog post..Want a kiss from Kate moss? Get it only for £5000!!!
Well Written!nice piece of work with lot of useful information…it helps thank
sarahs last blog post..uboc.com
Making money online is definitely not as easy as it sounds. It doesn’t do much for you in terms of really making you money. You need to be very skilled to start making a living on the internet.
Debt Consolidation Advices last blog post..Use Caution when Choosing a Lender for your Bad Credit Debt Consolidation Loan
Thank you so much for the sites
The personal finance blogs that you listed are very very good especially get rich slowly
I too think that $2k a month is already great.
I also agree that you need more than that if you want to replace your day job.
And thanks for such great and useful informations
Good list, i will check one by one.
David
I’m also curious about this list, I’m sure it contain a lots of infos…how to make money on web “slowly”
I agree that it is hard to make money. Keep working hard at it and when the economy gets better, you’ll see the conversion rise.