Panic Attack- Dear Creditors, Talk to My Cat

My Happiness Depends on Getting Rid of ALL Debt

2011-06-22T22:57:00.003-04:00

It's been almost a year since I last wrote on this blog!! BF and I have moved into the house and we're still working on getting everything setup. Although we moved into our house in October, we're still getting everything organized. It's actually been a stressful experience for me. I earn about $24,000/year while BF earns a little over twice as much. I don't see my paycheck because it goes directly to paying off debt and my half of the mortgage. When expenses arise for the house, I feel like such a loser because I can't spare any money to help. In April, I had car trouble and later found out that my head gasket has to be replaced. BF has been taking me to and from work every day. We live an hour away from my work.

So, why the sudden interest in writing again? Well, last week a friend of mine was told through a text message that his wife wanted to divorce him. What?! So for several days she wouldn't even tell him why. As I think husbands should, he kept the details of their financial situation between them during the marriage. However, when this text message came about, he talked to my BF and I about his wife's financial burden. He literally was paying all the bills and anything left over went directly to credit cards that SHE maxed out. Without discussing it, she was taking out loans to pay off credit card balances and continuing to open new accounts. She was skipping around with payments.. paying some late.. some on time..etc. He tried several methods to keep her spending under control, but it basically got down to her not wanting to work within any budget.

So since learning all of this and seeing first hand how much it hurt their marriage, I've been pretty scared and depressed. I feel like I've been scrambling for years trying to fix my finances but can't keep up. I have to get my debt paid off. No question about it.

Earn Money Online with InfoBarrel

2010-07-26T08:15:00.002-04:00

Infobarrel is a website that allows you to post articles on hundreds of topics. You earn money online through Google Ads clicked on your articles. What many bloggers do is to connect articles to their blogs using links within the articles. Infobarrel doesn't want you to use their site only for this purpose. You're encouraged to write strong content articles and not go overboard with backlinking.

Earning money online using InfoBarrel is also possible because they have a referral system. You can earn 2% of the income from Google ads that are clicked on your referrals' articles.

Once you write more than 10 good articles, InfoBarrel will be more likely to automatically approve your articles. This means that you can write and post your articles within minutes. If you would like to signup for InfoBarrel so that you can earn more money through Google Adsense and increase traffic to your blog, click here.

I will post how joining InfoBarrel has impacted my Google Adsense earnings. I will not be able to post exact figures, however, due to the Google Adsense policy of not providing your income through adsense.

One Day I'll Be Debt Free

2010-07-20T23:04:00.002-04:00

The closing cost on the house will only be a couple hundred dollars. This is great news. We were expecting a couple thousand dollars. Everything is kind of feeling like a blur at the moment. One part of me is so excited about getting out of an apartment and moving into a house and the other part of me is scared. Maybe even a bit depressed. I should be excited and busy planning furniture arrangements and the paint color, but instead I'm constantly looking at the "what if" situations... I can't relax because I'm stressed about finances. I keep thinking about where I could be in my life if I didn't hold myself back financially. I guess one of the hardest things for me right now is that I'm trying to hide everything. It feels good to think about how it will feel to be debt free and be able to move on with things in my life--- starting a family.

Should I Change Jobs?

2010-07-19T00:33:00.005-04:00

So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, some friends came over to the apartment today. One of our friends has recently changed jobs and is earning about $10,000 more per year. I'm really excited for her. As I'm listening to her describe her new job and how she's working long hours and being treated unkindly by her new boss, it makes me even more eager to setup my life so I can work for myself. I'm currently not earning enough at my job but I'm trying to blog on the side so I can get some extra income. I have so many ideas and I unfortunately get started on things and never follow through...

Anyway, my friend has a new job and was talking about her finances and how she's ahead a couple of months with all her regular monthly payments (car, mortgage, etc.) Here I am living paycheck to paycheck and scrambling each month to make ends meet. I'm taking classes online again starting in August so changing jobs could negatively impact my school. I feel like I'm stuck working a retail job because that's all I've done. *retail management* My friends laugh and make comments about how I've had some really bad jobs.

Let's see... Job #1, started the week before I graduated high school. Ended up working my way into management at the age of 18 at a "big box" retailer. I was only earning $8.84/hour. However, I met my future husband at this job and made several close friends. Also, my Dear Boyfriend actually held the same position a year before me and earned a couple dollars more. I never knew until we started dating 6 years later.

Job #2, I worked at Michael's in the framing department PT while I was working at job #1. I quit after 3 weeks because my boss was never around and the other staff felt it wasn't necessary to show up to work. I was never given an associate ID/password for the framing software so I couldn't help customers when I was left alone for several hours at a time. When my coworkers were there, they were dangerous. Really. I wrote my resignation letter the day that my coworker took a sheet of glass the size of me and threw it across the room. I was earning $6.00/hour.

Job #3 replaced job #2. I worked at a home decor company. I ended up leaving job #1 after some major internal issues. I worked for the home decor company for 5 years. I bumped my store up from being on a list for a likely closure to being in the top 10 in the company. I was recognized by higher ups and got to travel. I was offered my own store (a couple of times) but decided I really needed to return to school. In my last year with the company, my Regional Manager quit and a new one was hired. At this time, my district manager was relocated and the store manager from the worst performing store in our district was promoted to be my new district manager. Before my regional manager quit, we had worked out dropping me from salaried to hourly without a pay decrease. I would no longer bonus every quarter, but would still almost break even with the established hourly rate. In addition, we had an agreement that I would no longer have to travel. When my new district manager was placed, she contacted payroll and had my pay rate reduced from 11.00 to 9.00/hour. I didn't even know until my first paycheck arrived. I had nothing in writing because my former regional manager was someone I trusted. Anyway, I basically said I was turning in my keys and after a month, my payrate was bumped up to 12.00/hour. I said, "Long story short..." so let me just say that I quit because the new district manager had actually gotten my regional manager setup to be fired so he ended up quitting. She had issues with him and issues with anyone that ran a store like him. I had a store in the top 10 and she'd come rip through my store trying to do things her way and we crossed... I was on a list of managers to be fired.. She became buddies with the regional manager and together they started firing managers left and right. So much, in fact, that the regional manager's former employer wrote a formal letter to my company stating that they'd take legal action if she kept stealing high level employees from their company. An email accidentally got forwarded to everyone in my district about a conversation between my district manager and one of the executives about some of these plans to change out all the manager that followed the old regional manager's style. This particular executive was someone that I had met in person and that was pretty much the last straw.
Job #4, I was offered a job to work for my former regional manager at another company. Yay! They kind of created a position for me in the store in my area. This did not go over well with the staff that had been there for several years. We eventually got along (I think?) but the customers were just too much. Shoplifting. Threats. I was just waiting to get robbed. A few months after I left, I heard that the manager was almost attacked. One of my former coworkers contacted me and told me that a customer had spit in her face in front of police. The police ended up arresting the lady because she had a warrant on her already.

Job #5, grocery store. I was working full-time and juggling a demanding course schedule at a major university. Most days I went to class from 8am to 3pm. I worked from 4pm to 12am, and sometimes 1am or 2am. I couldn't keep up with school so I had to leave.

Job #6, working at our local mall in customer service. I was offered a management job at a store within the mall and quit. (Would have stayed at both, but it was considered a conflict of interest)

Job #7, Boss from hell. He literally had temper tantrums like a 3 year old. No kidding. I walked off the job the night before inventory. After I left, his entire staff quit. The store closed down about six months later. Who knows where he is now.

Job #6 again... I was offered a position as an assistant marketing director at the mall. However, I was then told that they needed me to wait a month before finalizing their decision on making me a manager even though my pay rate had already been approved and I'd been offered the job. I was asked to come in for a second interview... which I did. Long story short, the boss hired her own daughter. I strongly suspected some money issues were occurring and they knew I was questioning things... I ended up quitting because I had enough of their power trips and unprofessional management style, plus I was concerned that they'd try to make it look like I was responsible for the money issues. A few months after I left, the mall manager and the bosses' daughter were fired. Her daughter was fired for theft of the deposit bag.

Job #8 (Current Job), selling on commission. Do you know what it feels like to be talked down to and yelled at? I've got to say that in my first week at this job, I encountered more angry, demanding, and spoiled people than I had encountered in all of my previous years in retail experience combined. I've reached the inability to be patient with people. The way our store is setup, you end up juggling all the customers even if you weren't the one that originally sold them stuff. My customers are usually really happy with me, but if something goes wrong with the actual product (out of my hands), wow.. Even people that have never even bought stuff from us will come in with something broken and they'll start getting pushy and upset. It just drains me.

So, after reading this, you can see that I'm done with retail. I want to be done with retail.

Win Gift Cards and Cash Online: I need gift cards for the new house

2010-07-18T18:08:00.004-04:00

So, Dear Boyfriend and I had some friends over to the apartment today. We were discussing all the things that we'd need to do for the house. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. In addition to earning money online, I'd like to find some sites that offer gift cards that I can use towards all these extra expenses for the house.

Through Swagbucks, I can get gift cards for Amazon. This will be helpful for miscellaneous items throughout the house.

My points earned on SurveySpot can be cashed out using PayPal once I reach 1000 points. This is the same as $10 cash. Most 10 to 25 minute surveys are worth 50 to 100 points.

I just joined CashCrate on July 10, 2010. You can cash out when you reach $20. You can also apply points towards gift cards for the following merchants:

itunes

Target

Walmart

Home Depot

Starbucks

Best Buy

Staples

American Eagle

One reason I like CashCrate is because they list everything up front for you to earn money quickly rather than giving you a few opportunities here and there. They also have a good referral program. You can earn 20% of what your referrals make and 10% of what their referrals make. You'll also receive a $3.00 bonus for each referral who earns their first $10.00.

I'm also a member of RewardTV. Twice a week you can redeem points in exchange for a giftcard from 3 of the following merchants:

BLOCKBUSTER®
ARCO®
Amazon.com
American Airlines®
American Eagle Outfitters
Applebee's®
BP
Barnes & Noble
Bath & Body Works
Bed Bath & Beyond®
Best Buy
Borders®
Burger King®
Buy.com™
Cable Cash™
Chevron
Chili's®
Coleman®
Concession Cash™
DVD Cash®
Delta SkyMiles®

Denny's®
Dinner & A Movie™
Exxon
FootLocker®
Game & Software Cash™
JCPenney®
K-B Toys™
KFC®
Kmart®
Krispy Kreme
Marriott®
McDonald's®
Movie Cash™
Netflix®
Northwest Airlines®
Old Navy
Olive Garden
Omaha Steaks
Payless ShoeSource®
Pier 1 Imports®

Pizza Cash™
Pizza Hut®
Pizzeria Uno®
Quiznos®
RadioShack®
Red Lobster®
Shell
Speedway
Sports Authority
Staples®
Starbucks
Sunoco
T.G.I. Friday's®
T.J. Maxx®
TACO BELL®
Target®
The Home Depot®
Toys"R"Us
U.S. Long Distance Phone Cards
Wal-Mart®

I'll keep all my readers posted on my gift card search. If you have any suggestions, please let me know! :)

Connect with People Using Twitter and Increase Traffic to Your Blog

2010-07-17T02:42:00.004-04:00

1. Pick your twitter account name.
You should consider picking a name that will be connected to your blog title or a keyword.Google search results will use your account name.

2. Create a good Twitter profile.
Include keywords within your profile 'bio'. Google will use your public profile information just like a meta description of a web page.

Include the URL to your blog.

Increase your profile page rank by including links to your profile page within blog posts. You should include your link within a sidebar and footer section of your blog.

Seek out Twitter followers.

3. Follow Twitter users that have a similar theme.

4. Shorten the URL of link posts.
TinyURL, bit.ly, tr.im allow you to shorten the length of URLs you post in your twitter updates. You are limited to 140 characters so shortening links will allow you to use more keywords in your tweets.

5. Tweet often and include content keywords.
You will be limited to 140 characters and the first 27 characters are the most important. The first 27 characters will appear as part of the summary or title of your tweet.

6. Use keyword tags
Hashtags can be used to assist followers with finding you. A hastag is where you add a # symbol in front of a
keyword. For example, #hashtag. Visit #hastags.org or Twemes to find hastags.

7. Retweet posts
Retweeting is how you can share tweets from other people. You copy and paste the original tweet and give credit to the original author by using RT and the username of the original author.

An example of a retweet:

RT@cvillevisitor 10 Top Coupon Websites http://bit.ly/V4F22

You can use the following sites to track retweets.

Retweetradar
Retweetist
Tweetmeme

Read the article "15 Fascinating Ways to Track Twitter Trends" for more ideas for understanding how your tweets are working for you.

Build a Blog and Earn Money Online

2010-07-15T22:37:00.004-04:00

Before creating a blog, consider what topics interest you the most. Creating a blog is easy, but maintaining it on a frequent basis is hard work. Plan out your blog on paper first. Decide what kind of audience you expect to have and determine what features you'd like to offer on your blog. One of the most difficult things I found was that I kept changing my blog template because I hadn't thought out the layout carefully in advance.

FREE BLOG TEMPLATES

Two of the popular free blogging hosts are WordPress and Blogger. Here are a few of the sites I've used to find free templates for my blogs.

Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates

B Templates

TECHNICAL CODING HELP FOR BLOGS

If you need assistance with adding extra features that require more detailed coding knowledge, I recommend these sites.

Tips o Tricks

JQuery

FREE/OPENSOURCE GRAPHICS SOFTWARE

Six Revisions (Article Link)

CUSTOM FONTS

Font Squirrel

PHOTOSHOP BRUSHES

Free Brushes

Mel's Brushes

Brush King

JOIN BLOG COMMUNITIES

MyBlogLog

SpicyPage

BlogCatalog

You may also want to consider joining social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Moving into a house

2010-07-13T21:43:00.003-04:00

Dear Boyfriend and I will be moving into a house in September. We'll need to buy new kitchen appliances, a washer and dryer, and a lawnmower. In addition, the house will need to be be cleaned up and repainted before we move into it. The lease at my apartment is up in October so I expect to have the mortgage, rent, and electric to pay at two places for one month. I'm very excited about moving into a house. I've been living in an apartment since 2005. However, all the extra expenses are not at all want I need right now! I'm considering getting a second job, but I'm also in school right now. In addition, the new house is an hour away from my current full-time job. I know myself well enough that I'll put school on the side in order to get a paycheck. I'm desperately trying to get an income online, but so far there's not much money accumulating. Right now I'm only averaging about $11/hour at my job. (I'm on commission.)

Earning Money on EHow: One article at a time and hope of earning $1000 a month

2010-04-12T21:32:00.005-04:00

I recently joined Ehow.com which is a community that allows members to contribute articles in the format of how to steps. You can write about anything. Basically each article has ads on it and you get a % of the money earned from ads clicked. It's a supportive community of all kinds of writers. As of April 12, 2010, I have 14 articles that have been viewed a total of 95 times. I've only earned $0.18. There are ebooks floating around about how to earn more, but I don't want to put down $25. My plan is to learn as much as I can about keywords to increase my earnings and to write several articles a week.

My user ID is cvillelady if you'd like to read any of my articles.

There are people out there earning $1000 a month from their articles once they've written hundreds of them. Basically it's considered a mostly passive income because once you've written many good ones that attract visitors and have reached an audience with an interest in clicking on your ads, you don't really have to keep writing as frequently. The articles should be a minimum of a couple of steps and most writers report taking about an hour to write an article if it's something they have to research about first.

Check out Ehow.com to see for yourself.

Paid Off A Credit Card and Other Updates

2010-04-09T08:40:00.004-04:00

I'm really excited because I paid off one of my credit cards. I have a $1000 in my savings for an emergency. This will allow me to pull money from my savings in case I have a medical or car related emergency. I also expect that I might have something come up with my 12 year old cat so I'm considering getting pet insurance.

So things aren't going too well at my job. I'm in college right now and I'm working full-time at a retailer. I'm paid on commission and I'm only averaging about $10 to $11 per hour. My job is paying slightly more than a management job I had this time last year with the boss from hell. That company ended up going under in January so it worked out that I quit. Where I'm working now is fun because of my coworkers but the customers are irritating. I've just reached the point where I'm sick of retail, I guess. I feel obligated to stay because my boyfriend's best friend hired me. It will be one year in August so my plan is to consider doing something else and trying to work out a part-time position there. Things will also depend on where I'm living by this summer. My lease is up in July.

DealBarbiePays.com

2010-03-03T21:45:00.009-05:00

Date Joined: March 3, 2010

Get paid to click on ads and to complete offers.

Types:

PTC: Get paid to click on links.
Daily Surveys - Usually $0.50
Offer of the Week - Usually requires some kind of registrations or $
Freebies and Trials
Cashback on purchases from selected companies

Referrals:

You will earn 15% of your level 1 referrals earnings
You will earn 3% of your level 2 referrals earnings
You will earn 2% of your level 3 referrals earnings

Payment Methods:

Amazon Virtual Gift Card when you reach $20
Check when you reach $22
Direct Deposit when you reach $20
Paypal when you reach $20

If you're interested in joining, please use my ID pd6914 or use this link.

Get Paid For Your Opinion Using Vindale Research

2010-03-03T08:05:00.001-05:00

Date I Joined: March 3, 2010

Earn Money Online with FusionCash

2010-03-03T00:24:00.004-05:00

FusionCash

Complete surveys and refer others for quick online money!

-$3.00 a month for posting on their forum.
-$1.00 for joining their Facebook fan page.
-$1.00 for posting a screen shot of something you purchased with your payment.
-$1.00 for every person your refer.
-$2.00 when your referral completes their first offer.
-$5.00 EVERY TIME your referral cashes out!!!
Plus you can earn money for taking surveys.

Payment: Direct Deposit or PayPal after $25.00 (with at least $15 from offers you've completed. Payments are processed on the 20th each month.

If you're interested, please use my link to sign up. :)

Since March 2, 2010, I've earned:

How to Earn Money Online- Passive Income to Reach Better Financial Security

2010-03-02T06:49:00.006-05:00

There are many ways that you can potentially earn money from home. One of the first steps is to create a blog or website so that you can place links on it. If you own a Twitter or Facebook account, get some followers so you can drive traffic to your site!

Sell Textbooks and Other Books

There are several online stores that will allow you to enter an ISBN of a book and instantly will inform you of their ability to accept it for resale. Many will even pay for the shipping cost for you to send them the books. This is especially convenient if you don't want to be caught by surprise with a sale you make on Ebay, Amazon, or Half.com. I'm not the most organized person when it comes to shipping books at the Post Office when things get hectic.

In addition to selling books you own, many will offer you PayPal credit or direct deposit if you refer new members.

Cash4Books.net Get about $5 for every person you refer that becomes a member and mails in books. (I've made $40 through referrals since October 2009.)

AbeBooks.com Buyback Once you've joined the Google Affiliate Network and are approved by AbeBooks, you can get 5% commission on sales from people you refer.

Barnes & Noble Buyback Join the Google Affiliate Network first, then earn 6% commission on sales from people you refer.

Textbooks.com Also through the Google Affiliate Network, get 6% commission.

Join Affiliate Networks

Once you join an affiliate network, you can pick from many types of companies that match your website content. Some will pay you for a commission for sales that are generated from someone that has been referred by you and others will pay you a flat dollar amount per click or new member.

LinkShare Referral Program
Earn $1.50 for every valid referral that registers as a LinkShare Publisher and generates a click-through within 30 days. They have over 500 merchants.

Amazon
Add product slideshows or directly link to products or pages on Amazon. Click on the Associates tab on the left.

Banner and Link Programs

Chitika
Earn 10% of everything your referral earns for the first 15 months after they've enrolled.

Search the Web and Get Paid

SwagBucks
Get giftcards for points you've earned from using their toolbar or search site. Once you become a member, read Tattoo Astronomy's blog to get tips on winning SwagBucks. You can get gift cards from Amazon, Paypal, and many other companies! A lot of users use this program to collect gift cards for Christmas shopping.

Paid Surveys and Email

Vindale Research Get $5 for referrals

DealBarbiePays

Earn A Full-Time Income on Zazzle

2010-01-18T08:07:00.004-05:00

I recently discovered a company called Zazzle. Did you know that you can earn a full-time income by designing graphics for stamps, t-shirts, tote bags, shoes, and even more without any start up cost? You can setup your own store for free and earn commission on anything you sell. In addition, you get money for referring others to their site.

Getting started earning money with Zazzle

There's no need to purchase an expensive graphic editing software such as Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. If you have Windows, I recommend a free program called GIMP.

Familiarize yourself with the policies of Zazzle and make sure you understand copyright policies. If you are designing from scratch, this shouldn't be a problem. Setup a list of links and terms of use policies for anything you're planning to use (free fonts, free graphic accessories, etc.) You want to make sure that you are keeping up with this so that you don't find yourself in a position of a copyright violation later.

Browse the online stores of ProSellers. This will help you get an idea of how to setup the categories of your store and help you decide if you want to have a wide variety of themes or want to keep it more specific to a small niche.

Invest in a flashdrive to backup your graphics or back them up on CD periodically.

Next, take a look at the following sections of Zazzle:

Zazzle Store Builder

Zazzle RSS and Google Base Feeds

zBar-Maximize Your Branding

Zazzle Bulk Image Uploader- The lifesaver!

Tips for Earning Money Online with Zazzle

Understand how referrals and royalty works on your products.

With Zazzle, you can set the royalty rate anywhere from 10% to 99%. Whenever you increase the royalty rate, the customer pays the price increase. However, keep in mind that anything over 20% will cause a 5% transaction fee with Zazzle that comes out of your earnings. Zazzle does have promotions and discounts that may decrease your overall earnings.

Refer to the Zazzle Associate Referral Program for details on making money by referring others to the site.

Post on your website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, and other sites that you sell on Zazzle. Follow the referral program guide to learn how to use proper linking techniques so you get credit. Make business cards with your link and tell people about your products and encourage them to become a member.

Don't Give Up

Some people get lucky and will find that perfect niche. Earning with Zazzle will take time because you will need to build your product line. Consider this a part-time job and put in at least 15 hours per week designing products. I've browsed posts by ProSellers that have commented that in their first month they didn't even earn anything. It may only take a few months to establish good sales that are enough to pay bills with but it could take a year. Set goals to create X number of products per day or week.

Visit CvilleLady's Zazzle Store
Of course, I'd like you visit my store. :)