Owner: Scratching out a living URL:http://scratching-out-a-living.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:12:08 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: One womans challenge to start her own business. Her struggle to make a living. Tips on how to save money and "make ends meet" Site statistics:Click here
I am a worry wart 2007-11-12 14:31:00 When it comes to paying bills and not having enough savings to cover them - I worry
A LOT!I don't think that I am that much different than most people when it comes to this subject. Worrying for me gives me that push to go out and make a difference in my life. I have had some worry free years but something has always come along to get me going again. With me it is always the unexpected that broadsides me, an illness in the family, a major job loss or natural disaster. It is all part of life. I have been lucky so far that my worrying has not caused me to have health problems - keeping my fingers crossed on that one.So what does one do? I plow ahead and hope for the best. My plans so far include getting my small jewelry business going, always looking for a great paying job, blogging in my spare time to make a few extra dollars, selling a few odds and ends on Amazon.com and eBay and above all else cutting back on various non-essentials. I know that I will succeed because I have a positiv
Penny pinching, or should I say dollar stretching 2007-11-12 10:59:00 Now days saving pennies is not going to do you much good. After all the ATM machine spits out 20 dollar bills not 1 dollar bills. Most people will go through a few 20 dollar bills as if they were 1 dollar bills though. If you are really trying to save up money to pay your bills here is just a few tips:Do away with unnecessary bills such as your cell phone, remember the days when you didn't need it? If you really have to have a cell phone then go with a pay as you go and buy the minutes cards.Get rid of all those extra channels on your cable TV bill, go bare bones for awhile. That could save you anywhere from $20 to $100 a month.Find ways to save on your electric/gas billGo bare bones on your land line phone service. Get rid of those extra items.Lower your auto insurance rate by shopping around or contacting your insurance agent to see if they are offering anything different. I lowered mine by having my payments pay direct from my bank account to the savings of $200.00 a year.Cut up th Read more:Penny
The "System" 2007-11-12 09:54:00 Being unemployed makes me more vulnerable to scam artists. I am always clicking on links that sound too good to be true - like "make a million dollars a year doing practically nothing". When I get to their "pitch" website and read it all the way to the bottom I still have no idea what their secret "system" is. I don't know if I am doing data entry or re-selling ebooks. I do know one thing, the person who put up the website and taking in $29.95 for info on the "system" is the only one getting rich.I have learned to stay away from unreal promises and websites that I can't figure out what they are selling. From my experience the only way you are going to get rich is by working hard, very hard at it or having a rich relative die and leave you all their money. Read more:System
I hate the word frugal 2007-11-11 19:31:00 The word frugal always seemed to me to be another way to say CHEAP but with a touch of nostalgia, something Jack Benny would say. I would prefer to phase it as “money wise”. Wisdom with money is something everyone should learn. Many parents of today’s youth are not educated enough to teach their children wisdom with money. After all it is today’s mid age parents that are drowning in debt and some are over their heads with their own mortgages. In general people under the age of 45 did not receive any advice or training from their parents when it came to money management. The people in the next age group from 45-55 probably only got the following advise from their parents “put your money away for a rainy day”.When I was growing up my parents emphasized saving and living on a very tight, extremely “frugal” budget. The only problem with that type of teaching is that they did not teach me to spend wisely or how to invest. My father did not believe in loans or credit of any t
More ways to make money from your blog 2007-11-11 13:39:00 Once you have established your blog and have at least a few readers a day then you can start to put some advertising on your blog. Yes you can get paid for putting those ads there yourself. There are at least 3 different types of advertising that you can get paid for on your blog. One is affiliate advertising, that type is when you put a banner ad or a clickable link that takes your reader to another site in order for that site to sell your reader something. You only get paid when the person that clicks through your ad actually buys something. You might get anything from a percent of the sale (often as low as 5 cents, to a high of several 100 dollars), so it varies and remember - no sale - no pay. I have a banner ad on this page to the right and it is something that I feel fits in with this blog and also with my personal feelings about the company. I am a member of shareasale.com and they are the ones I get my affiliate advertising offers from. It costs nothing to join any of the affil
I'm making money blogging!!! 2007-11-11 10:48:00 I just got a shocker. I just logged into my account at Google AdSense, since I had not logged in for about a week, and found out that there was $5.00 more in the account. I am actually making
money blogging. The account doesn't say what types of ads paid out but it does give a breakdown of how much I earned each day. I did notice that one day I had 1 click for 30 cents and the next day I had 1 click for $1.50 so I guess I am doing something right. If only I knew what types of ads were giving me the higher payouts I could use those "keywords" in my blog posts.When I was posting my blog at the now long gone Blogfeast there were a few people that would post tips and hints on the right words to use in your blog to get the higher paid advertisers there. If I remembered it correctly the higher paid words were financial types like, insurance, car insurance, loans, real estate loans, loans for education and stuff like that. My guess is that advertisers want people to either fear the unknown b
Getting ready for my first holiday bazaar 2007-11-11 01:30:00 Well I decided to go for it and signed up to take some of my Sterling silver jewelry to a church run bazaar. I have a few other items that I use to sell on eBay so I'll take them too. I have a card table that I will make a cover for and make some displays out of black felt to show off the jewelry. It will be for only 7 hours so I am hoping that I can sell at least $100.00 worth of items. The jewelry party is still on but I figure it wouldn't hurt to get out there and start selling.The bazaar is only next weekend and the jewelry party the following week. No news from any of the places I sent resumes and I got to pay my bills so selling I must do. Read more:ready
How the average person can save 2007-11-11 01:07:00 I am not going to tell you that if you put "X" amount of dollars into a certain account or investment you will make "X" amount of money - no I am going to tell you how you can save money everyday.#1 buy items that you need and use everyday at SALE prices only and stock up. For example if there is a big sale on toilet paper and you save $1.00 on each pack of 6 then stock up on as many as you can afford. You will always need and use the toilet paper so you will be saving money in the long run by buying at a lower price. The same is true for meat that can be frozen for 6 months. Shampoo, soap, laundry detergent and other essential non-perishable items can all be bought at bulk sale prices. Items to avoid are flour, wheat, cereals and other grains since they don't keep for over 9 months due to the weevil eggs in them.#2 use coupons whenever you can. Don't use coupons for something you don't normally buy unless it makes the item you normally buy more expensive and you think you might lik Read more:person
Penny pinching 2007-11-10 18:39:00 How to save money - let me count the ways......LOLI love watching Susie Orman and listening to her advise, but some how I just don't think she is in tune with the "real" America. Most of her advise is geared toward successful people that had real good jobs but don't know how to budget. She very rarely takes on those people that are unemployed, gone through all their savings and 401K's and still can't find work and are now looking for a way to get enough money just to get by.Well I'm gonna tell it like it is, you scrimp and scoot through every week with coupons clipped out of those free newspapers cuz you can't afford the real newspapers. You look for work literally everywhere and get turned down by Wally World because you have no experience in retail, or you are too young, too old or you are just one of the 30 other people that interviewed for the same job. Now with the gas price going so high you can't afford to drive around looking for work so you head to the library to use th Read more:Penny
The foreclosure crisis 2007-11-10 11:40:00 Many years ago I had the unhappy event of having my house in foreclosure. I was lucky that it happened during the boom years of the real estate market and was able to sell it and have a huge lump sum to buy another home outright. I cannot even fathom what sellers are even thinking right now with the falling real estate market. I have noticed one BIG difference in the market though. Most of the homes, in fact a great majority of the homes now in foreclosure were bought by speculators hoping to cash in on the housing boom. They in turn made many of those home that they bought into rentals with elevated rents to match. These homes are now in foreclosure. Housing markets such as California and Texas are the ones that had many of the speculators going belly up right now. I have no feelings for people that want to drive up the housing market for their own greed.Because of the housing market down turn there are now many affordable houses on the market in foreclosure. At one time I would have
Should I go back to school? 2007-11-10 11:22:00 I have often thought about going back to school to improve my skills in the work place. There are local colleges but mostly of a general education type. The major universities are geared toward more of the medical or attorney types of fields where you would have to go full time ...... for YEARS! If I was in California - where I grew up, there is Westwood College located in the southern part of the state. Another one is LA College in the Los Angeles area.If you are interested at all in attending a college to advance your work skills then by all means THINK about it. You can do some research on the 2 colleges mentioned above at California College a website that is geared in providing information on choosing the right college and classes for you.
I am glad I don't sell real diamonds 2007-11-10 10:20:00 I watched in horror last night as the Discovery Channel aired the mini series "Diamond Road". I was thoroughly dismayed at the treatment of the people that mine the diamonds. If you have not seen the series I encourage you to do so especially if you own or wear diamonds.I for one will not be part of that greedy and horrific abuse that goes on in the diamond industry. I am so glad that many of the gemstones can be manufactured in the lab nowadays. After all why do we put so much emphasis on the word "genuine" when it comes to gemstones. All their function is - is to look pretty. I can see the diamond industry going the same way of the old fur industry. When fake furs were introduced there was no more reason to trap and kill animals for their fur anymore. Now with lab produced diamonds that are made of carbon just like the nature made ones - why do we need to destroy the land and abuse people to mine diamonds?In my opinion they should have named that series "Road of Despair" but would th Read more:sell real
Doing OK at blogging 2007-11-09 14:00:00 I guess I am doing OK with my new blog so far. I get about 20 readers a day so I think that is pretty good. It helps me keep my sanity while looking for work and trying to set up my business.Business wise I am actually doing not bad. I received my jewelry catalog and price list and I was showing the catalog to a few friends when one of them told me she was the buyer for a local boutique. She is going to ask the owner of the store if they want to carry a line of a higher quality jewelry, right now they just do the cheap costume stuff. She said that the owner might go for it since she was very impressed at the product line. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.I am learning to sell anything you need to get out and talk to people - the internet can only do so much for you. You need to get off your butt and get away from the computer to make a real difference in your life.Well I am right now getting off my butt and getting away from the computer...........
Message board blaster is a piece of S*** 2007-11-08 11:16:00 In my quest to publicize my personal website in the past I have used a program called "Message
Board Blaster". It is free to download and use 3 times. After those 3 times they want to charge you to use it. I just used it one time and that was enough for me. Here is what happens:You download the software and put in all the info you want to see on the message including the website or blog you want the reader to visit and hit go. The trial version will only send it out to 10 message boards but if you pay them it will send it out to 5000 message boards. I opted for the free 10 message boards. Before I hit "go" I took down the names of the message boards so I could look them up later. On my website and this blog I have an invisible counter that I can look up who visits and where they are coming from. So with that in place I can see if I do get any visitors from those message boards. So I then waited a week and still no visitors from any message boards. I finally looked up some of the messag Read more:piece
Ways to make money while waiting for your unemployment check 2007-11-08 10:22:00 While searching for job openings online I am often finding other ways to make money rather than a 9-5 job. I don't know how lucrative they are but I do try to look into them.Taking online surveys are one online venture that I have looked into. There is a lot of hype about how you can make a decent living of $400+ a week doing these things but I have found out differently. I joined 2 of them about 2 months ago. One is Lightspeed and the other is Survey S. Both of them are free to join, in fact don't ever pay anyone for information on how to get paid to take surveys, that part is a scam. Lightspeed sends me offers to take a survey about every other day but when I start the survey I am some how disqualified after the first 2 questions or so. This happens about 2 out of every 5 survey invitations sent to me. So I end up taking maybe one or 2 surveys a week. Lightspeed pays you in points. After you get so many points you can cash them in for cash or merchandise. I always cash mine out. So
I do believe that China is declaring war 2007-11-08 01:27:00 The latest recall from China
is the toy "Aqua Dots". This toy has a chemical that when ingested can cause children to go into a coma and die. So far there are 3 cases of young children in comas. I have not heard of any deaths - yet.This is just the latest in a long string of recalled toys and other items made in China. I do know that with all the recalled toys many small toy making companies in the USA are having booming sales right now and they deserve it. If this keeps up maybe the US companies that sent their manufacturing to China will bring it back to the USA where it belongs. That will only happen if the buying public refuse to buy anymore items made in China and I do believe
that is what will happen.I imagine many handy type parents might even be making their children toys this Christmas like a toy working backhoe , stuffed animals or a wooden rocking horse. The older children would be getting the electronic type toy but it is the younger kids that are being affected by the reca
What would you do with a million dollars? 2007-11-07 16:40:00 A girl friend of mine just dropped by and we sat down to talk for just a bit. The conversation went from what was going on in our lives to winning the lottery. That last part got us both thinking. What would we do with a milliondollars
?I think that most of us would pay off our current bills, buy a nice car or house but then the great majority of us would end up blowing the rest. Why do I say that? Simply because many people in this world can make a living and end up with a successful business out of practically nothing. I am talking about those on welfare with no car and living in low income rent areas that manage to become successful. They have the knowledge and experience on how to survive on very little. The rest of us have never gone thru those types of hard times to learn from. Those people that know how to budget for hard times will end up making that million dollars stretch and will probably end up making more money from it. The key word here is "budget". Learn how to make what
The Sterling silver jewelry catalog came - yeah!!! 2007-11-07 15:09:00 It finally arrived! Now I can get busy with which items I can point out to my friends. I had no idea that they had such a large selection. I also noticed that their website had lots of stuff on sale for much lower than the catalog
price. I guess that is why they don't list everything - just the sale stuff. I don't have to worry about competing with them because most of my friends still don't shop online, they just don't trust the internet yet with their credit cards. That is still the big advantage to NOT having a website store, too many people are still NOT shipping online. I can fully understand it though, I would not like to buy a pair of shoes from the web - I need to try them on first! The same thing with clothes and yes even jewelry. Us girls still want to see stuff in person before we buy it. Also there is the whole social thing. I like to get out of the house and go to the store and shop - why? To meet and talk to people, even if it is just the cashier in the store.Now I ca Read more:Sterling
Watch out for scams 2007-11-07 14:29:00 When you become unemployed or you are just trying to get ahead in life financially you can become victim of many, many frauds and scams that are on the internet. One of the quickest ways to check out a company is to do a quick search on google, dogpile, MSN or most of the other major search engines. This is how you do your search:Type the name of the company in the search window than add the word "scam" or "fraud" after it. You should come up with lots of info. You best source is going to be message board postings and personal blogs for the real inside info on these companies. People love to talk about getting ripped off so you should get a good idea about which companies to stay away from.
Another Wednesday 2007-11-07 13:25:00 Wednesdays at my house mean that my unemployment check comes and I get to go grocery shopping. Things have been getting tight at our house with the bills piling up just a tad. What I have found out is the fact that our food bill is the largest monthly expense other than the mortgage. That means if I can save money on the food bill I'll be able to get ahead on the other bills. So I began search around for coupons to clip. I didn't find that many so I went online to search. I found a few but not enough to really save a bunch. During my search I found this place:It was free to join and so I signed up. They have lots of free samples and COUPONS you can print out and take to the store with you.Now off to the grocery store! Read more:Wednesday
Another day of waiting 2007-11-06 22:29:00 I tracked my package and it seems to be in limbo about 40 miles north of me. I guess things never move fast when you want them to. Just like watching a pot of water boil - takes forever it you watch it.I have been busy making up cute little business cards to hand out at my jewelry parties. I also ordered a few sets of Sterling silver earrings to hand out as prizes. So far I have 5 friends coming and some of them are going to be bringing a relative or neighbor. The party is scheduled to run for about 2 hours. I know from experience that you should always have a set end time if the party is at your own place otherwise people never want to leave, which is OK if they are close friends but not if they are the neighbor you never met before!I hope to sign-up a few of my friends as future party hosts so I can sell at their parties too. I have been debating with myself whether to pay them cash or in jewelry.Well back to party preparation's.
Blogging my way to millions 2007-11-06 11:05:00 The title could mean two things, either blogging to earn a million dollars or having a million readers. Both would be nice, but I am realistic. Since I am still waiting for the mail to show up with my catalog I figure I would share a few blogging tips I have learned.If you plan on making any money off of your blog stay away from most "free" blog hosting forums. Wordpress.com doesn't allow advertising or links in your articles that maybe even considered advertising. They don't allow you to write your post even if it is to promote your OWN business! Even this blog at blogger.com might be removed for "inappropriate" content. Why? because people are allowed to "flag" blogs they don't like!! Say I write my opinion on an issue coming up in the coming election. Someone that doesn't agree with it could flag it. Since I have had no experience with blogger.com on this I can't say what if anything would happen. Wordpress.com on the other hand could remove it without batting an eye! What peop Read more:Blogging
, millions
I'm disappointed 2007-11-05 15:43:00 The mail came today and my jewelry catalog was not among the other few pieces of junk mail. The woman I spoke to at Hy Ho Silver did send me a tracking number for the package and I looked it up. It seems it is still about a 60 miles away. Hopefully tomorrow it will be here.In the mean time I have also been looking into local church fairs and craft shows. There seems to be lots of them here every weekend. I also have some other items that I make so I might just go to one and see how it works out.I just emailed off 3 more resumes so I am keeping all my avenues open. Read more:disappointed
Another Sunday 2007-11-04 11:28:00 Sunday to me means countless hours on the internet looking for work and emailing resumes. This Sunday is just a tad different since I am also calling a few close friends to see if they are will to come to my first jewelry party. I am planning on having it at my house in 2 weeks. Poor BF doesn't know a thing about it yet. I was married when I use to do the party thing years ago so the boyfriend doesn't know he will be out of the house that evening. I am hoping to be the "host" at one of my friend's parties should one of them decide to hold one. Ah, the life of the single working girl.2 weeks should give me enough time to order a few jewelry samples to show off and have all my order forms and catalogs ready. I'll try to order the Sterling silver jewelry pieces to entice my friends to buy. I know all of their favorite hobbies and likes so it should be easy. I know that Jill likes animals and Evona likes Celtic items. This jewelry supplier has all that and much more. What I don't orde Read more:Sunday
Good news - bad news 2007-11-03 22:45:00 I have some interesting news for myself. First the bad news, my old jewelry supplier is no more! Seems they bit the dust about 3 years ago. It was mostly costume stuff but they did have a really nice line of gold plated silver jewelry which I sold at very nice profits. After that news I had to get away from the computer and went into town.In town today there were several early Holiday craft fairs and I went to 2 of them. I was talking to several people about me looking for something to get involved in to make a living. Several of them started out just like me and now they are doing very well. It got my confidence up again.I got back home and went straight to the internet to find a supplier of a product that I could sell at the local Holiday Bazaars. I found an ad on craigslist.com and ended up talking to the owner of a Sterling silver jewelry distribution company. She was really nice and very helpful. It turns out she supplies several of the local florists and bridal boutiques in the l
To be a successful blogger...... 2007-11-16 15:17:00 To be a successful blogger -you can't do it by yourself. You have to have readers and lots of them. How do you get those readers? By reading and commenting on other people's blogs! Don't just say, nice blog, go into some detail in your comment about the post, make your comment worth reading. Those blog owners will then have to approve your comment and usually take a look at your blog to see if you are the type of person and blog they themselves would like to read. Not only are you finding out the types of blogs you find interesting but they in turn are finding you.I go one step further and add a link to their blog right here on my links section for the ones I really like. I hope they link back to me but if they don't I don't sweat it.
Find out how much your website is worth 2007-11-16 02:34:00 Here is a little handy tool I found on the internet, it checks backlinks and calculates how much in dollars your website
is worth. I ran a few websites and blogs through the checker and got quite a surprise on one of them. I did find out that you can get 3 different values based on how you entered your URL. if you just enter the straight forward domain name such as "mydomain.com" you will get a different result than "http://mydomain.com" also adding the "www" to the domain will get another value. I found that just the straight domain name without the www or the http will yield the higher value. Have fun with it. Website value checker
What every blogger should know 2007-11-15 16:18:00 Do you know that there are US Federal laws that cover blogging? I bet you didn't know that. I think we are all familiar with copyright laws but there are fair trade laws and truth in advertising laws too. Did you know that if you wrote a blog post that endorsed a product or service and you were paid to write or publish that post you HAVE to mention it is a paid or sponsored post? Or else you would be breaking the law? Interesting isn't it? I ran across a very detailed article by a fellow blogger that covers the subject very well. If you are thinking even remotely about blogging for money then his article is a must read.Blogging Laws Read more:every
Desperate times call for desperate measures 2007-11-15 11:32:00 Let me make a prediction. With the failing housing market, rising unemployment the following industries will be booming - churches, TV Evangelists, religious jewelry makers, astrology, tarot card reader and manufactures. Why? Because we fear the unknown and our uncertain futures. We tend to turn to a higher power or a mystical venue in times of trouble. But you say that you don't believe all that garbage. I say you do. When was the last time you got an email that said wonderful things and to spread the good will you should pass it on to all your good friends? That is a type of superstition that I am talking about.Now I am not saying that you should stay away from prayer or church or whatever makes you feel good but I am saying don't get suckered in on a false promise that will only get your hopes up then let you down - fast.Stay happy, healthy and believe in yourself.
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