Scratching out a living

Saving for the Thanksgiving Dinner

2009-11-11T13:57:00.000-08:00

Has the price of food got you worried about grocery shopping for this years' Thanksgiving dinner? Here is a short video showing you ways you can cut corners without starving yourself.

Some things a new blogger needs to know

2009-11-08T10:30:00.000-08:00

If you are new to blogging, or even it you have been at it for sometime, there are 2 major things you should know. If you re using Google's Blogger, you should be aware that, that format uses the "nofollow" attribute for comments. That means if you put a comment in a comment box with your URL linked to the comment, the search engines will follow the link but not give you any "link juice" for it.

Finance furniture scams

2009-11-07T22:43:00.000-08:00

If you are a regular reader then you would remember when I warned everyone about those 0% financing scams that some retail stores do to entice customers in. When will people learn to read the fine print on those contracts? To emphisise the importance of knowing what those so called "deals" are all about, here is a news video on that subject. The news reporters go undercover to expose this illegal

Websites for job searches

2009-11-03T19:55:00.000-08:00

I bet you have been trying to find websites that will list jobs and have been coming up with lots of scam ads like those "work from home" ones. First one to always look at, is your local state employment department website. Often all the jobs in your local area are listing right there. The best way to look is by location first. If you are looking for jobs in south jersey then look under the

Investing in diamonds and gold, beware of fraud

2009-10-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

A man recently purchased a diamond and gold bracelet for his wife at Macy's department store in the Pacific Northwest. The bracelet was selling for $2400 but was marked down to $700. The receipt plainly stated 3 carat weight diamonds. When the clasp broke on the bracelet the wife took the item back to Macy's to get it fixed or at least looked at. When Macy's told her that they were not diamonds

Do it yourself to save money

2009-10-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

Remember the days when your dad would do his own oil changes to the family car? He did it to save money. I bet you take your car in to be serviced because it is quicker and you don't want to be bothered with it. So when will the price of having your car serviced be at the point that your might consider doing it yourself? Can you really save money by doing it yourself? Before you try the DIY route

Do energy efficient lights really save you money?

2009-10-24T23:31:00.000-07:00

About 6 months ago I switched most of our light bulbs in the house to those new energy saving bulbs. It was not to save money at first but for some odd reason the regular light bulbs kept burning out after only a few months use. After the first month I noticed that our electric bill was lower than it normally was for that time of year. We had not stopped using any electric appliance or using less

What is the difference between a person that is successful verus someone who is not

2009-10-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

What makes a person more affluent or happy? Success does. You can be successful at making money or just being happy. What makes people successful? Perseverance does. You cannot just sit around and think yourself rich or successful, you have to make it happen. I can tell you right now that only a small percentage of the people reading this will ever follow through with any of the tips or guides I

Biggest money making day yet

2009-10-22T20:14:00.000-07:00

I just had to boast about my biggest money making day online to date. Yesterday I opened up my email and got 3 offers to ghost write blog posts. Each one of them paid over $40 dollars. I did those 3 articles in under 2 hours and earned a total of $134.50 for those articles. I was so thrilled that not one of the articles had to be about diets, gambling or mesothelioma. Instead I wrote about

This is my 666th post on this blog

2009-10-19T22:56:00.000-07:00

I am not superstitious but 666 is a milestone for this blog. Just over 2 years ago I got it in my head to start a blog about money and getting ahead in this tough as nails world. Scratching out a Living was born. Other blogs followed and 2 of them are far more successful than this one. This one does remain close to my heart as it was my very first domain name purchased for a blog.Excuse me for

Don't you just hate highly successful bloggers that never tell you how the really got successful?

2009-10-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

Did the title of the blog post tell it all? I hope so because that is how I sometimes feel. When I am talking about successful bloggers I mean those that are earning in excess of $5K a month. They like to boast what they earn but never say exactly how they do it.One blogger, Amy Bass claims that she makes $5K a month with niche blogging. Quite frankly the only money that gal is making is selling

How one family is saving money on their grocery bill

2009-10-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

Reports that inflation has gone negative are not fooling us shoppers. Food prices have gone up...way UP. Here is a video news item about how a non-profit agency is helping out just us regular folks that need a break on our grocery bill. If you watch the video they claim that one of their "boxes" will feed a family of 4 for a week. I find that hard to believe. Watch the video and tell me what you

Things that you shouldn't waste your money on

2009-10-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had second thoughts about buying something about a month after you bought it? The item or service never lived up to it's claims or you found out you just didn't need it as much as you thought you would. Some services have free trial periods and I really like the fact that most software has that option but often services are hard to cancel and some companies don't like to give

My blogging career and who I am

2009-10-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

So far I have been pretty secretive about my life and blogging past. I have hinted at my family life and what I have in the past. I have decided to come out of the closet, at least partially and share some of my life experiences with you, my readers. I don't think I would go as far as how much I hate treadmills or the names of all my pets, but then again I might surprise myself.I have started up

Shopping around for car brakes

2009-10-16T12:24:00.000-07:00

I have always shopped around for automobile repair or maintenance work. The prices range so dramatically. I have a little Chevy Prizm. I call it my little gas sipper. The darn thing gets 30mpg so I make sure that car runs in tip top shape all the time. The brakes have started to squeak a bit so time for new brakes. I was calling around the various tire and repair places to see who charged what

PageRank to disappear?

2009-10-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

It looks like Google will be slowly removing PageRank as part of their algorithm. This is from various forums, rumors and the fact that Google has just removed PageRank from it's webmaster tools. Another interesting item is the fact that Google has not updated the Google toolbar for PageRank in about 5 months. The normal time span until now had been 2-3 months.I think that in reality that way too

A better way to monetize your blog

2009-10-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

I have been putting Google Adsense on my blogs for years now. Of course it is not the only way to monetize blog. Up until a few days ago I thought I was doing pretty good with Google but I found other way to make money by selling ads on my blogs. I signed up for AdBrite just a few days ago and placed their code on one of my hosted blogs and received .04 cents in less than 12 hours on views alone.

Warning - fraud website for unemployment claims

2009-10-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

The state of Oregon has issued a warning to steer clear of the website UnemploymentBenefits.us . It appears that the website is claiming to be an official government entity and they are NOT. They also charge a fee to people who are trying to sign up for unemployment benefits. Here is the link to the warning on the Oregon government website.Warning from Oregon.gov about fake scam websitesEven if

Switch your wordpress blog to blogger - the easy way

2009-10-09T10:04:00.001-07:00

I recently decided to not pay for hosting on an old wordpress.org blog but I wanted to leave it up because it has proved helpful for people looking for information. So I decided to switch it from wordpress to blogger. Blogger does not import wordpress blog files at all. I found a converter that will convert your wordpress blog file into a type of file that can be very easily imported into

A fast easy way to have a new blog indexed by the search engines

2009-10-04T10:40:00.000-07:00

There is a really easy way to have a new blog or website indexed pretty quickly by the major search engines. Say you have a blog or website that is over 6 months old and has some PageRank or has at least 20 back links pointing to it. It can be your personal blog that you started for fun or an old blog that you have not done anything with for months. As long as it can be found by the search

Mental issues and money

2009-10-04T08:50:00.000-07:00

Have you often wondered why you can't seem to get ahead financially? I know a few families that have incomes in excess of $100K a year and are on the verge of losing their homes to foreclosure. On the surface they seem to have everything under control but when visiting them you realize that there is tension in the home. So what seems to be the problem? One of the adults in each family suffers

Activia lawsuit

2009-10-03T08:47:00.000-07:00

No doubt you have heard or seen the yogurt commercial with Jamie Lee Curtis for Activia. Where the statement that "Activia, with Bifidus Regularis is scientifically proven to help with slow intestinal transit when eaten daily for two weeks." It seems that the statement is not quite true. Bifidus Regularis is a made up name that Dannon coined for the commercial. There were no "clinical" trials nor

Farewell to EntreCard

2009-09-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

I bid fare farewell to EntreCard. The system is broken.If you are unfamiliar with EntreCard, it is a system where bloggers could advertise on fellow bloggers' blogs. In the very beginning EntreCard worked out well and many blogs that did not have any traffic profited from using the EntreCard system. Unfortuantly the company changed hands. The new owners wanted to generate some cash from the

More people riding bicycles

2009-09-29T20:24:00.000-07:00

Last year when the price of gasoline shot up to the $4 mark it was expected that more people would be using peddle power to get around. Well, the price of oil came down but people are still saving money by using their bikes. Just yesterday morning I noticed that several people are biking to work even while it is still dark in the morning. Thank goodness they had red led taillights and reflector

Blog growth and higher income

2009-09-27T20:59:00.000-07:00

The last several weeks my small collection of blogs have experienced a significant rate of growth. The little blog over at Today use to earn a whole .o5 cents a day back in January when I started it, now 50 blog posts later and it gets .40 cents a day. I have not promoted the blog at all almost all of the traffic is from the search engines. That blog now seems to be thoroughly indexed. All I do