Make Money

BUM Marketing Plan

2010-02-27T14:06:00.000-08:00

Critical to your long-term success is a non-patterned approach. Relevant content sites will NEVER go out of style, so make yours YOUnique. There is no reason to use a page generation software (unless you’re linking them to competitors website and driving down their relevancy – not that I’m recommending it!).

Why? Because being too lazy can get you caught!

Mass content generation sites – caught!
Mass blogs – caught!
Mass pings – caught!
Same I.P.s – caught!
Duplicate content – caught!
Auto-building – caught!

YOU need to use the original BUM Marketing system as a STARTING point. That’s the beginning The lace to grow from. Then make your own P.L.A.N. to ensure that you are slightly different from other bums.

Pass on Predictability & Patterns = create relevant processes.

DON’T do what everyone else does. Add elements. Add ideas. Take previous knowledge and apply it in the a new way to BM. Doing what everyone else is doing will get you… caught!

Use additional article directories.
Post in high page ranking forums in your niches.
Outsource to someone who does not know BM, but does know SEO.
Read every thread in the Warrior Forum and see if there is a pattern to avoid. See how you could tweak what is being said to your benefit.

Create a model of operations that is YOURS. It does not have to be difficult or time consuming. The more streamlined the better. The more intuitive, the better. The less predictable, the better.

What is a model of operations? It’s like a launch sequence.

Affiliate Product Research meeting certain criteria
Keyword research meeting certain criteria
Article Writing
Site development
Content Promotion
Repeat

You can stick with those steps while only changing the WAYS you go about it. The tools you use. The place you promote your content. Applying the mechanics to your steps becomes your mode of operation.

Why does BM work so well? It’s HUMAN. Stuff done my hand has a great chance of succeeding. It communicates, “I’m real and here to stay.”

Learn from victory = multiply the principle.

Know success. Be able to recognize it. Not just $, but Traffic. Conversion. Sign-ups. Emails.

Be able to recognize what a win is for you and repeat it. Tweak it. What will a win look like for you?

Getting ranked?
Getting published?
Completing the job?
Locating a converting affiliate product?
Traffic that is repeating?

Come to terms with what victory will be for YOU. Then begin to expand it.

There is too little celebration of success in Internet Marketing. Even if the project as a whole fails to meet expectation, determine what DID go right and learn from it.

FIRST: Capture the principle. A principle can be used across the board to build your business. The inability of people to recognize principles is the reason there are so many niches in the world.

I create and sell products for public speakers. The principles are the same across the board. The concepts and ideas are identical. But teachers want one resource, attorney’s another, and business owners another. They each THINK they have to have something with “their” name on it.

When we train ourselves to see principles instead of practices then we’ll stop saying “That wont work for me” to “I’m gonna be rich!!”

SECOND: Capture the plays. When Paul Bear Bryant, famed coach of Alabama, began his coaching career he went to a friend and said, “I ain’t got any good plays. I need your playbook.”

Take the Warrior Forum and WSOs for example. There are a LOT of principles you can play off of mentioned in the forum, or that are subtly there.

Don’t just read and post. Look for the principle within the play and USE IT!

Assess Regularly & Rapidly = cut losses.

Know your metrics…
Traffic
Conversion
Number of times an article is viewed
Number of views of a post
Profit per hour (so you know what you’re worth and if you are wasting time).
Time to completion of articles, sites, research, etc.

You do NOT have to spend hours pouring over the numbers.

For example:

I look for a “primary” number on each site: the page that gets the most traffic. Then I connect the next highest traffic page to that page. I also put my most responsive affiliate product on that page.

So a five second look at traffic stats can tell me where I need to fine-tune my site layout.

Do that with all your numbers. If you really want to do some crunching, set side an afternoon and dedicate time to it, but don’t get so busy counting beans that you forget to plant them.

Never Tell Unless You Sell = make money off the process.

Have you ever wondered WHY people sell their “secrets”?

It’s running out of time. Not as effective as it once was. They see the light at the end of the tunnel. Haven’t you noticed how quickly Adsense died once multiple page generation software hit the market? The guys using it KNEW it would be short lived.

Want the praise of discovery. Have you seen the FedEx commercial where the guy made ONE right decision in a meeting then used that as his life-anchor? Some want this. They want the praise that comes with sharing something new and being smart.

Nice. Believe it or not some guys. Some just want to help the “other team” out a bit. That’s what Travis has done with BM. Sure, he’s going to do some affiliate sales, but for the most part, he’s just a good guy looking to help.

Money. They know the idea is good and won’t lose effectiveness. Relationship forged with those helped may create income down the road.

If you have some secrets you feel like sharing here’s what I’ve noticed: People argue, critique, and whine when FREE tips are shared. They see no value.

If you have VALUABLE information, then sell it. I’ve ordered dozens of WSOs and will gladly continue to pay for great ideas and concepts.

The Key: The reason this is part of your P.L.A.N. is that you should be creating some valuable processes. WORTH selling even if you give them away.

viral eBooks

2009-10-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

Viral e-books are called "viral" because they can spread as quickly as a flesh eating virus. Of course, flesh eating viruses are bad...e-books are not ;-)

The concept of a viral E-book is quite simple:

Create a short e-book on a hot topic, make sure it has enough good content so that people will read it, load it with affiliate links or what ever it is that you want to promote and give away free resell and giveaway rights to everyone and anyone that wants it!

It works kinda like those free magazines. They don't make the money from magazine sales they make their money from advertising.

Do viral e-books actually work? Do they ever! Some of the biggest names in internet marketing have used viral e-books to get to where they are today.

Whether you like it or not, having your own product gives you more flexibility in your online advertising AND believe it or not, compiling an Ebook is no more then a weeks work part time if done correctly and IF you do it this way the profits will come in for life.

I have checks coming in still from work I did 2 years ago, thanks to the power of residual income affiliate programs and viral marketing Ebooks.

Ok, lets get down to the nitty gritty. What is a viral marketing Ebook and why should you create one?

A viral marketing Ebook is a book which sole purpose is to be spread around the Internet quickly, by any means possible. It's not meant to make you money on the front end. You want other people selling it and giving it away to as many people as possible.

Why?

Because the inside of that book is full of affiliate links to other peoples products and every time someone gives away your book or sells it, (depending on how you want to do it) more people will be seeing your affiliate links, and this is costing you what? NOTHING? Exactly!

The best examples I could give you of this process would be by Yanik Silver. He created 2 marketing books that spread over the Internet like wildfire. He gave everyone who purchased the book for $19 or $17 (depending on the book) the rights to sell it or give it away to their customers.

Needless to say, thousands of people starting selling it and promoting it all over the Internet. To this day, he is still earning good money from that book, plus he became one of the most well known Internet Marketers to date.

So how do you go about creating your own viral marketing Ebook?

Here are the steps.

1) Come up with a product idea based on your affiliate program you've already chosen and are already promoting.

Coming up with ideas isn't hard. For example, and I know I use this example a lot, BUT, If you are going to be promoting a sports betting affiliate program, why not create a book on becoming a successful punter. Then throughout the book, you can recommend your favorite sports betting affiliate program.

101 insider secrets to sports betting
How to bet with other peoples money

A good way to come up with ideas is to look at what others are already selling and mimic that. You dont need to recreate the wheel here, so PLEASE don't make things harder then they have to be.

2) Get the tools you need to succeed

You are going to need a few tools here.

A) A domain name
You want a fairly short domain name that describes the content of your book fairly well.

B) Webhosting
Let me say first, you get what you pay for. This has never been more true then with webhosting. YOU NEED a good reliable webhosting company with 24/7 technical support. If your site goes down and you can't contact anyone to help you get it back up, you will lose sales and a lot of them.

C) Autoresponder
You will need this so you can contact your prospects that don't purchase straight away. This is where you will give away your free course or someway to entice them to give you their email address so you can contact them periodically.

D) Credit card processor
Just use http://www.clickbank.com. This step is too easy. They will let you accept all major credit cards and start an affiliate program for a one time setup fee of under $50. They do take a percentage of every sale, but this is so much cheaper then getting your own merchant account.

Just about everyone selling Ebooks online is using Clickbank.

E) Ebook Software
You will more then likely want to create your book in PDF format so everyone can read it. Some Ebooks come in EXE format, but mac users can't read that format, so I find it best to use PDF.

F) Graphic Design Software
If you are anything like me, your artistic abilities peaked at age 7.

3) Outline your book chapters into articles

Writing a whole book in one sitting is hard, and trying to write a book without outlining the chapters is nearly impossible. My first book I ever wrote took me over 6 months but now most of my books take me less then a week to finish and that is with a sales letter and website up.

All you have to do is think up 12 to 15 article topics in sequence and write about them. Each page should be around 700 to 1000 words, full of useful information, not information people could get for free.

4) Write your content

Like I said just before, you need original content. There are too many books out there now where people are just regurgitating information others can get for free and this lowers the value of your book, which means less people will pass it around and even less will read it.

If you are really stuck with your writing, I suggest that you do the following.

The best way to get a good amount of original information without writing it yourself is to interview experts in the field. For instance, if you were writing a book about improving your golf handicap, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find some local experts who you could grill in person, over the phone or even via the Internet and you can then put all that information in the book. It's also a good selling point.

Also remember when your writing what the point of this book is. The point of the book is to earn you an on going commission with affiliate programs, so don't feel like you can't throw some affiliate links in, because you can, but make sure it's tactful and in
place.

Another good idea would be to put a "Subscribe to my newsletter" section in your book as well, so not only will you make commissions on sales, but also generate leads without doing any extra work.

Make sure you clearly state in the front of the book, that the buyer can sell this book as his own. State that he has Resell Rights to the product and can sell it or give it away if he chooses.

5) Create your sales letter

This is where you will be selling your book from and is critically crucial to your success. Creating a sales letter takes a lot of work, especially if your new to the whole thing. The best way and the way I use, is to mimic successful sales letters.

If for some reason you think you can't do this by yourself, you have 2 options.

1) Use software that helps put together your sales letter

and

2) Hire a copywriter

However, if you want to hire a professional copywriter, your looking at thousands of dollars, plus royalties from your book sales.

Remember that your selling this book with reprint rights, which means when they buy the book they can sell it as well. This is a huge selling point for you. You will also be giving them your Ebook cover, website graphics and sales letter to use to sell your product.

6) Plug in your free 5 day autoresponder series

The best way to write your free 5 day course that your prospect get via your pop up window is to take chapters out of your book and put them in as a free teaser.

Remember to emphasize an urgency. You want to make these prospects who don't buy straight away, feel like they are missing out on an opportunity of a life time and considering the low price of the book, if they don't buy, more then likely they weren't really interested or were freebie seekers from the start.

7) Advertise!

Depending on your topic, you will want to target different people. However, no matter what topic your selling on, there is one market who will want your book for the sole purpose of selling it, and that's the Internet Marketing group.

Your book could be on Hippo's but all they care about is the fact they can sell it as their own. This is why this type of book always does well.

The key is to target people in your market and then the Internet Marketing crowd.

And that, in a nutshell is how you create your very own viral e-book!

Key Performance Indicators

2009-10-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the metrics that guide and measure your progress toward your business goals. KPIs support both the strategy and tactics for your business decisions. By knowing your KPIs, you’ll know how to manage your marketing campaigns for maximum profitability.

The most important KPIs for your business are average order value (AOV), customer lifetime value (CLV), project rate of return (PRR), cost-per-action (CPA), cost-per-lead (CPL), and close rate (CR). These numbers quantify your goals and provide guidelines for your marketing efforts.

Business is also a social activity. For your projects to be successful, you need cooperation and collaboration with your team. To win support for your project, you need to be able to show the value of marketing in a simple and powerful way. Communicating information is just as important as gathering and analyzing data. By clearly stating the KPIs, you can tell the story you
need to grow your business as well as your career.

There is often a conflict between the finance and marketing departments. The two camps don’t speak each other’s language. Marketing sees the accountants as bean counters who don’t understand that it takes money to make money, and finance thinks marketing is a black hole with no connection to the bottom line. With a set of simple metrics, both sides can understand each other. You don’t need more than third-grade math to calculate these numbers.

A KPI-Driven Business Process
KPIs inform and guide the business process. They give you a rational method, based on objective data and results, for making business decisions. You first set your goals and then you establish how to measure the progress toward those goals. Thus, you will be able to answer the questions What is working? and What needs to be changed?

The following process will help you make the most of KPIs:

1. Define your tactical goals. This comes down to a simple goal: You want to get more ________. This may be leads, sales, subscriptions, downloads, views of a video, and so on.

2. Establish the target KPIs. By knowing the KPIs, you’ll know how much you can spend and still make a profit.

3. Launch your marketing campaigns in SEO, PPC, radio, TV, print, and so on. Use the target KPIs to set the budgets.

4. Measure the actual KPIs. Collect the results and see the actual KPIs for each campaign.

5. Optimize your marketing channels. Improve the successful campaigns and reduce or close the unsuccessful campaigns.

6. Communicate the results to your team, including coworkers and upper management.

What is integrated marketing

2009-10-14T08:26:00.000-07:00

Integrated marketing is a process by which all communications and marketing programs
delivered to a customer or prospect are relevant and consistent. This applies whether the
communications are offline or online, inbound or outbound.

Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, e-mail, banner, to the latest web-related channels for webinar, blog, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV.

Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry analyst relations, billboard, radio, and television.
Enterprise marketing management (EMM) technology delivers a complete platform for integrated marketing. It is uniquely based on a system of record for marketing, which you can think of as institutional memory for the marketing organization. The system of record brings together marketing assets, such as creatives, reports, budgets, and business definitions (for example, customer segments and best practices) so that marketers can manage their creation and usage, rapidly assemble them to execute different programs, and measure performance.

This free flow of accurate, up-to-date information speeds marketing execution, reduces mistakes, boosts productivity through automation and reuse, and enables faster, better decisions.

It helps companies manage their marketing campaigns, programs, and activities across time and across channels. In that respect, all those pieces work together to help marketers better address the needs of the customer through whatever channel the customer wants, ensuring sensitivity to customer preferences and consistency of message delivery. This is what integrated marketing is all about.

Digital marketing strategies

2009-10-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

The goal for marketers is to optimize the customer’s experience. This means giving your customer what they want, when they want it, in the media form they want it in. This is the way for businesses to open the pocketbooks of their customers.

Digital marketing strategies may include the following tools:
●Analytics Software to track and analyze the results of marketing campaigns. It allows segmentation and profiling of customers. Companies include Omniture, Unica, Coremetrics, and Google Analytics.
●PPC (pay-per-click or paid search) Ad services by the major search engines that let you place ads on the search results pages.
● Multivariate testing (MTV) software that allows you to create and test permutations of your web pages to find the version that performs best. MVT is offered by companies such as Offermatica and Optimost.
● Targeted messaging Using databases, analytics, behavioral targeting, and customer profiles to send targeted messages.
● Business intelligence (BI) Software that collects and presents the company’s sales and financial activity.
● CRM Software to track customers, such as Salesforce and Sugar CRMMarketing can be digitized. This means it can be quantified and rationalized. New advertising, enabled by digitization and digital tools (analytics, multivariate testing, and so on), allows integrated marketing across multiple channels.

Previously a small marketing team could only carry out and manage several dozen ad campaigns. Now they can execute and manage several hundred campaigns simultaneously. The tools can collect and analyze massive amounts of data in multiple dimensions. You use analytics to study
the data. You use KPIs to guide your efforts. Digitized marketing can be tracked, so marketing is evolving into sales. Marketing channels are now turning into sales channels. With the ability to compare the various channels and by knowing the KPIs, a company can test channels to find the ones that produce profits. Once they know which ones work, they can turn up the volume by focusing more of their budget on the top-performing channels.

In online marketing, due to advancements in web analytics and BI technologies, we know about our visitors. We know where they come from (approximate or specific location as well as any referring sites or search engines such as Google), what they are looking for by the keywords they
type in, what they show interest in, and so on. We can add to a Claritas demographic profile which tells us about our market’s lifestyle and behaviors.

Because digital technology allows tracking, Directors, VPs, SVPs, and CMOs are expected to show and describe the results of their marketing efforts. They have to boil down many scenarios with many outcomes into clear wins and present this to upper management. Sales-marketing is about generating as well as increasing revenue for your company. Think about how to tell those stories around your big wins as well as incremental wins.

There are a couple of ways to increase revenue. You can market to your target audience or you can find new market opportunities. A number of tools enable this.
To reach customers in a highly fragmented world, marketers must learn how to deliver their messages across many channels. For example, a company selling koi fish can advertise through e-mail lists, radio, web banners, SEO, and paid search (PPC). This will generate the traffic to your business.

Applying an end-to-end strategic approach, coupled with business processing rules, to your prospects focuses your traffic to deliver meaningful and well-qualified prospects, leads, and customers. This method is also referred to as strategic marketing. Through this, you deliver value to your prospects and customers.

Because the majority of a business’s prospects prefer to visit the business’s website first before engaging in any purchases, it is critical to apply web analytics to help them solve for their needs. Furthermore, analytics can be applied to your current customer database or CRM system to identify new market opportunities and to sell more products and services to customers based on what they may need.

As a business marketer, it is your responsibility to develop a data mining and segmentation strategy. This helps your teams divide up the customer base into smaller, understandable categories. From this, your teams should be launching new campaigns based on the method of listening to and processing the messages your customers are sending. This cycle repeats over and over in a continuous fashion to improve the sales-marketing process.

The advertiser displays a message at the audience through multiple marketing channels. These channels can include search engines, radio, TV, and newspapers. Each of these channels points the viewer to a unique URL. The URLs have tracking code so the analytics can capture data on origin, location, keywords, and so on. Analytics tools can use rules to manage decisions. The
rules can use visitor ID, such as IP address, cookies, e-mail login ID, or loyalty card ID. For example, if the visitor came via TV, a video can be offered. Visitors who use their cell phones to visit the unique URL can be shown content that is formatted for mobile devices.

Active Brand Building

2009-09-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

Super affiliates do not remain anonymous. Instead, they work to build instant brand and name recognition. Branding is a proven trust-builder, as well as a publicity tool. The more brand-
awareness you build, the faster you acquire new customers.

It’s the same principle at work here as you see off-line with new product launches or even with celebrities. The more you see or hear a product or person's name mentioned, the more likely
you are to give them a chance.

It goes without saying that existing brands benefit from a market's automatic trust in established brands (with good reputations). This is just human nature.

If you were faced, for example, with the choice between a $5 off-brand radio versus a $15 Sony radio, you'd more than likely choose the latter, even though it is $10 higher in price.

Building your brand as a super affiliate means employing some key tactics, including:
1) Using your full name and personal picture on (some) opt-in pages, 'Thank You' pages, on your blog, etc.

2) Make sure any graphics you use as site headers, in special reports or products you've created, display your name and personal image.

3) Creating a recognizable personality, tone or 'performance' style. In other words, what is your image? What image do people associate with your name?

Let's say you want to go into the 'health niche'? Maybe your image is that of a 'rebel' who shares alternative health information the medical community doesn't want anyone to know?

Or, perhaps, you want to promote 'beauty products', and your is image is that of 'the girl next door' who discovered how to get super-model looks using inexpensive products?
You'll carry this across not just visually, but also in the way you speak and write.

4) Come up with a memorable 'tag line' or slogan.

5) Focus on creating a logo and color scheme for all sites, reports and bonus products.

The key is really in tailoring your image TO your market - determine how to best present 'your story' to them.

Understand how they respond to language:

Is it best to speak to them as casually as possible, or do they require a more formal, professional tone?

Use market-appropriate graphics and colors:

For example, if you are running an affiliate site targeted towards parents of newborns, you wouldn't want your site's color scheme to be gun-metal gray and red! Instead, you'd want to use softer, more neutral colors.

Finally, make sure you begin your branding work from the very beginning.

Even if you don't know what you want for a logo yet, you can still get the ball rolling by making sure to put your name and picture on things like your “Thank You” page, blog and in any freebie reports you give away.

Conversion

2009-08-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

As a super affiliate, you must focus on improving conversion at all levels.

Conversion, in essence, means how many people out of 100 take a given action.

For example, if 5 people out of 100 visitors to your web site decide to opt-in to your list, then your opt-in page has a 5% conversion rate.

Likewise, if your opt-in list has 500 subscribers and 200 of them respond (purchase a product) to an offer you send, then you have a 40% conversion rate. There are many factors which go into conversion. The only way to improve is to learn how to test and track your conversion rate.

This means testing out different 'tactics' while measuring the effects these changes have on your conversions.

Opt-In Pages for example, can be run through a series of tests on these factors:

Use of graphics versus text-only page
Headlines and sub-headlines (which ones capture your visitor's attention?)
Long versus short copy on opt-in page
The 'offer': or what you use to entice people to opt-in to your list.

Follow Up E-mail Conversion can be run through tests using factors such as:

Better e-mail subject lines (to improve e-mail 'open and read' rates)
Time sensitive offers
Bonuses
How you present an offer (the tone and language you use), which benefits
are emphasized, whether it helps to mention guarantees and refund policies, etc.
Directing subscribers to a blog or main web site to read reviews, watch video tutorials, etc.

This is just a short list of some of the most common things affiliates test and track in an effort to improve conversion rates across the board.

Follow Ups and List Relationships

2009-08-25T02:36:00.000-07:00

Super affiliates have a systematic way of following up with leads, and they focus on building a 'personal' relationship with list subscribers.

However, your communication with your list must be consistent, even somewhat methodical.

A successful affiliate will plan his communications in advance, with a specific objective in mind.

This doesn't mean you avoid spontaneity. Rather, it means that your follow ups and relationship-building efforts should be, in part, guided by your branding objectives.

Your subscriber will have already formed an initial impression about you based on what he or she saw on your opt-in page and 'thank you' page. Therefore, your follow ups must strive to build on this image, as well as reinforce its continuity.

Really, what you have in front of you is TWO objectives:

1) Follow up on the information and offer made on the opt-in page, and

2) Begin building a relationship with your subscribers that goes deeper than just trying to 'get the sale' from them.

Performing this job effectively requires skill and practice. You must learn when to push the focus of your follow ups more towards the product versus when to hold back and put the focus on pure, informational content.

The way a super affiliate does this is by making use of both an autoresponder and a blog to insert the right content at the right time.

You need to have an in-depth understanding of the products you're promoting
and how to present them. You also need to plan out in advance what type of information you want to feed to your list, and when – while keeping an eye on balancing your two main
objectives: Getting sales and building the trust relationship.

Lead Generation and List Building

2009-08-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

Super affiliates spend as much or more time working to get qualified leads onto their opt-in lists as they do converting those leads.

The money is in the list, but why?

The reason is that “selling” is really all about relationships.

Sales don't exist in a vacuum. There is always a seller and a customer in relationship with each other – whether they meet face-to-face at a physical store or conduct business miles apart from each other via the Internet.

Yes, you could just send traffic to a sales page and hope that some of the visitors actually purchase a product.

When you do this, you are gambling on the law of averages to create your income and, frankly, the odds are not in your favor. When you build your own leads list, however, you benefit from
the following 4 outcomes:

1) Potential customers interact with you (the affiliate) first, rather than going directly to the merchant.

2) You have more control over the customer's perceptions of the product because you can pre-sell or 'educate' them in ways the merchant does not. (This is especially important if you are promoting the product of a merchant who has a mediocre sales letter.)

3) You are able to generate repeat business from existing customers. As long as you've got someone on your list, you can promote multiple, market-specific products to him in one place.

4) Over time, the trust you establish with your list will generate more sales. You'll see a lot more returns for the work you've put in.

Also, when you build a list, your customers and subscribers benefit from:

The high-quality information you provide to them. You'll be able to help them find the solutions they need to improve their lives.

Better buying experiences. Your trusted recommendations also lead them to appropriate solutions, and this takes the stress out of buying products/services on-line.

So, the affiliate opt-in list is not just a powerful sales tool, but also a win-win method for everyone doing business on-line. It helps you streamline communication with prospects, as well as nurture the relationship you have with existing customers.

This is why super affiliates are constantly seeking new ways to add more subscribers to their lists.

Plus, the leads you generate, the more 'market share' and ‘mindshare’ you will claim.
You'll have competition no matter which market you go into, and many of your subscribers will also be on competitor's lists.

You must strive to grab as large of a share of the market as possible, and see to it that your list becomes the preferred source of information and recommendations.

Why Use Subdomains

2009-06-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

The enormously popular and colossal Google AdSense Heavyweight About.com is a fabulous example of an effective use of Subdomains.

About.com at its core is about stuff, that is all organized into subdomains. Although clicking on the topics on the home page take you to a subfolder – the actual contents are organized into subdomains.

This structure has proven very effective for About.com – just look at the number of pages in Google’s index to see how much they like this website. You can hardly swing a dead mouse on the world’s largest search engine without hitting an About.com page.

I’ve always felt that one of the reasons for About’s success is that since English is read from left to right – you see the subdomain words first in the search results – while a “duh” word like “about” is rendered basically invisible to the eye.

If you have seen those funny emails where every word is misspelled and discover that if you scan it quickly you can read every word – because adults don’t so much “read” every word but recognize word shapes.

Most people are all about on page factors, and knock themselves out to get their page in the search engine index – but studies show that what your search results looks like in the engine’s index is CRITICAL to your CTR.

This is one reason I think Yahoo Search is a piece of crap and never use it – the search results are so littered with ads and junk on top, on the side, on the bottom which have pushed organic results to the minimum.

Stastical data research studies have shown that using your keywords in your domain name increase your SEO success. Many SEO experts theorize that, beyond what seems obvious to me, that a site called RedBalloons.com is likely about Red Balloons, that
that the explanation for keywords in the domain is likely attributable to the fact that most of your inbound links use your domain in the anchor text.

This makes sense in that Google’s algorithm is admittedly about links if the anchor text, contains your keywords you get a certain boost. So it’s easy to see how using a subdomain with your keywords in a subdomain for linking purposes will help your overall SEO.

Social Networking Sites List

2009-04-21T13:19:00.001-07:00

http://360.yahoo.com

http://spaces.live.com

http://www.MySpace.com

http://www.orkut.com

http://www.facebook.com

http://www.hi5.com

http://www.friendster.com

http://www.fotolog.com

http://www.livejournal.com

http://www.bebo.com

http://www.xanga.com

http://www.multiply.com

http://www.linkedin.com

http://www.piczo.com

http://www.last.fm

http://www.stumbleupon.com

http://www.broadcaster.com

http://www.gaiaonline.com

http://www.mybloglog.com

http://www.squidoo.com

http://my.opera.com/community/

http://www.buzznet.com

http://www.imvu.com

http://www.twitter.com

http://www.slashdot.org

http://www.wayn.com

http://www.classmates.com

http://www.meetup.com

http://www.vox.com

http://www.blackplanet.com

http://www.faceparty.com

http://www.yelp.com

http://www.ning.com

http://www.secondlife.com

http://www.myyearbook.com

http://www.hubpages.com

http://www.43things.com

http://www.mog.com

http://www.reunion.com

http://www.xuqa.com

http://www.ecademy.com

http://uk.tribe.net

http://www.tribe.net

http://community.adlandpro.com

http://www.greatestjournal.com

http://www.nexopia.com

http://www.care2.com

http://www.mobango.com

http://www.couchsurfing.com

http://www.fanpop.com

http://www.gazzag.com

http://www.ryze.com

http://www.unyk.com

http://www.migente.com

http://www.downelink.com

http://www.bluedot.us

http://www.gather.com

Clean Up Your Blog

2009-03-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

It does not make sense to try getting lots of traffic to a poor blog. Your visitors will visit once and never return, wasting all your traffic-building efforts. Sometimes it just takes a few simple changes to make your blog outstanding, to make it something that people would want to link to and keep coming back to.

Here are some specific things you should check for:

Good Content
Are you providing valuable and unique content? Don’t just regurgitate what you see elsewhere. Provide your own unique ideas.

Update your blog daily. This is very important in the beginning. Later you can cut back to several times per week, but you need to post every day until your traffic snowball has started to build.

Clean and Easy-To-Read Design
Watch out for your colors. Make sure the text is easy to read. Black or dark text on a white or very light background is easiest to read.

The design should look attractive. It doesn’t have to be a custom design. There are a lot of free templates/themes available. Just pick one that looks nice and not too confusing.

No Ads
In the beginning, it is best not to have any ads on your blog. Wait until you have a good amount of traffic. If your traffic is low, you will not make money on ads anyway.

It is a lot easier for people to link to your blog when it is not covered in ads. Nobody wants to send their readers to a horrible ad-plastered blog, even if the content is good. They want to link to blogs that look nice too.

10 Sites You Should Know

2009-03-07T11:42:00.000-08:00

1. ScamBusters
The submitter of this SiteSighting claims that it's the #1 site on Internet fraud. Well after visiting the ScamBusters site and signing up for their newsletter,
I'm inclined to agree.
I think my favorite part of the site is the Urban Legends section. If you've ever received an email about anti-perspirant causing cancer or some kid who needs a kidney transplant,(which I think all of us have) then I'm sure you'll appreciate it as well.

2. Pay Per Click Analysts
Pay per clicks are a great way to bring targeted traffic to your site, because you only pay when someone actually visits your site. It's a great idea, but now it's been copied so many times that it's impossible to keep up with which ones are worth getting listed in, and which ones you should avoid.
That's what makes Pay Per Click Analyst such a useful site. They keep tabs on all the new PPCs and tell you which ones are the best. If you're serious about marketing

3. Translating the Internet
If you do a lot of business with people from other countries, or if you just have friends that speak another language, T-Mail could be just the thing for you. They give you a FREE email account and it translates your incoming foreign language email into English. It also allows you to surf the web in foreign countries in English. I realize this won't apply to everybody, but for those of you who do a lot of business outside of your native land, it could very well be a Godsend.

4. Free Email Directory
Want your business to go international? This is the best place I've found to get email addresses around the world. Think globaglobally, appear local. It has a few pop-ups, but hey, somebody has to pay the bills.

5. Yale's Web Style Guide
This is the definitive web style guide covering everything that has to do with site and page design. If you're new, this site can be a great place to learn the basics. And if you're an experienced designer, this site is a great place to review the basics and polish your skills.

6. Self Promotion.com
The World Wide Web is littered with sites that want to tell you the best way to get your site listed in the major search engines. Search engine auto-submitters are also a dime a dozen, so it may surprise you to know that that's exactly what this site is all about.
The thing that sets this site apart, however, is this sentence (which can be found on the site's homepage): "If you feel the site is useful, then pay me what YOU think the advice and service is worth!" That's right! The site owner actually offers access to his research, services, and programs for FREE! You only pay him what you think it's worth. A deal like that is certainly worth a look, wouldn't you agree?

7. Free Web Tools, Web Builder 101, and The Free Site
These sites are so closely related that I decided to just include them together. Each one of them offers free tools for webmasters and online business owners, so between the three you should be able to find something immediately useful to your business.

8. Setup Generator
Basically, Setup Generator is a simple freeware installer, designed to help you quickly and easily create installation setup files for your products. Not only does it make the installation process easier on your customers, it also adds a touch of professionalism to your product.

9. CJB.net
If you're using a long affiliate URL in your promotions, or have an email account that you'd like to get forwarded to your main one, then CJB.net may have just what you need. They offer free sub-domains, as well as URL and email forwarding, which makes it more than worthy enough to hold a space in my favorites bar. The only downside is that you have the cjb.net ending on your URL, but it's still shorter than some of the affiliate links out there.

10. Publicity Insider
Even though this site sells a product, it still has a whole lot of free info on how to get quality PR for your business. And as a person who recently benefited from an online news article, I can tell you that it's quite possibly the best form of advertising you'll ever see.

Craigslist and eBay Marketing

2009-01-18T07:16:00.000-08:00

Craigslist is great for SEO purposes. The ads actually produce results too! Post a simple ad for your website, but avoid the “for sale” section. It is heavily policed and you’ll get caught very quickly. I post my ad in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Miami, and Dallas. These are the most populated Craigslist sites. I post every 7 days with an ad that includes my URL. It generates traffic and can get your site indexed by the search engines within a few days. The backlinks it creates are very powerful, as well.

Ebay is a link building tool that must be handled carefully. They do not want you linking to your websites in most spots. There are a few instances where you can get away with it. Your “ME” page is one spot you can use to link to your websites. Another method is to link to your website in an auction to a “non-sales” manner. For instance, you can post a link to a page of images for a product. You type – click
here for more images and make it link to the page on your site. I recommend setting up a store there, as auctions only last a week. Store listings last at least 30 days.
Ebay offers a bunch of features to direct traffic from within their site to your listings and profile. They have a wiki, blogs, forums, and chat rooms. Use these! Post articles to their wiki, blog using their service, chat in the forums and chat
rooms. Brand yourself on Ebay and your business will benefit greatly.

Article Directories

2009-01-09T07:36:00.000-08:00

Writing articles and submitting them to directories is one of the best methods for search engine optimization and driving traffic to your websites. There are some key tactics you must use to be most effective:
Vary your anchor text with the largest directories. I recommend changing the anchor text and layout of the links in your resource box for the top 4 article directories:
ezinearticles, goarticles, articlecity and articledashboard.

This will get you the best results as these are the sites that most people take articles from. Watch your conversion for which site directs the most traffic to you, and use that resource box for your widespread distribution.
Keep your articles between 400 and 600 words. Any shorter is not effective. Any longer can be OK in the right situation, but don’t write a book. Use words that are easy for everyone to understand.
Write about what you know. If you are in a niche that you don’t understand, outsource the writing of your articles. You can find freelance writers all over the internet.
Submit a few articles per week and you’ll find that your reputation will spread very quickly. I still receive phone calls regarding a niche that I conquered in the past. You’ll find that helping people will generate a level of trust that you can’t get elsewhere.

How To Find Awesome Niches

2008-12-07T14:03:00.000-08:00

I think your going to like this article because I go against everything that I have said on this site before. Finding niches is easy, finding hungry, profitable niches isn’t. Yep, it’s the first thing on the entire site that will take a little bit of work to get right.

Don’t worry though, you don’t need to find a winning niche every time, even I don’t do that. I only wish I could.

Spending weeks searching for the perfect niche isn’t going to help either because there isn’t any perfect niches out there. Each have there own advantages and disadvantages most of which you won’t find out about until you have a site in the niche and have done some promotion.

So let’s get started, I’m going to show you each of the steps I take before selecting a niche market.

Brainstorming – This is the first step that I take before proceeding any further. I brainstorm a range of things that I could create a content site on. I’m sat in my office now and I just by looking around I can see at least 20 potential niches.

Let me think… we need an example niche, don’t we? I think that a medical site would be a good example because they always sell really well. I think we should go with depression. Something I know nothing about because I’m a happy guy

Next we need to do a bit more digging into the niche, see if the depression niche has any smaller niches because I know that depression is going to be a big niche. We do this by using keyword tools.

Basic Keyword Research – This isn’t supposed to be in-depth research. Your simply finding some of the most searched keywords in the niche that may be considered as sub-niches. I’m going to do this for the niche I’m using as an example – depression.

I used the Wordtracker keyword tool to do this research. Some of the sub-niches that are in the depression niche are, teen depression, manic depression, postpartum depression and clinical depression. You could build a site around each of these sub-niches if you wanted to dominate the niche. I’m going to use teenage depression as the sub-niche that I’m going to look into further.

In Depth Keyword Research – This is usually the place where I have problems. I find some sub-niches that seem to be good niches to have sites but find at this stage there isn’t enough keywords in the sub-niche to target. Your main keyword should have at least 100 searches per day and there should be at least 10-15 keywords that get at least 15-30 searches per day depending on how big you want your content site to be.

My niche teenage depression isn’t a bad niche and it would be find to create a site in the niche but there isn’t as many searches for some of the keywords as I would have liked. The chances of me finding an awesome niche first time were low, I’m doing this research as I’m typing and I didn’t plan before. Maybe I should have… but either way I’m going to keep using this niche as an example.

Write down all the keywords because we’re going to be using them very soon to build the website.

Get To Know The Niche – You wouldn’t buy a house that you haven’t seen would you? So why should be virtual real estate be any different, you need to do your niche research first and find out everything you can about the niche.

I usually open a text file and include all of the research I do in this step in it. I do a few searches for some of my keywords and find the authority sites in the niche, find the top forums and products that are currently being sold. If you can’t find any authority sites or forums in your niche this should raise alarm bells and you should find out why.

That is basically everything that I do. I record everything that I have done so I can use this information again.

I think I’m going to go and create a site in the teenage depression niche now. Although it isn’t the best niche in the world it is good enough for a simple content site flip. Your not going to get it right every time.

Google Money

2008-05-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

Google published its earnings for the first quarter of 2008. Google-owned sites ( mainly the search results) generated revenues of $3.40 billion in the first quarter of 2008. That's about $37.7 million per day!

"Google's results for the quarter ended March 31, 2008, include the operations of DoubleClick Inc. from the date of acquisition, March 11, 2008, through the end of the quarter, and are compared to pre-acquisition results of prior periods.
Google reported revenues of $5.19 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2008, an increase of 42% compared to the first quarter of 2007 and an increase of 7% compared to the fourth quarter of 2007."

Home Refinance

2008-02-16T13:58:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for home refinance bad credit information you should visit Refinance.com. They have helped thousands of clients reach their home financing goals through its diverse range of mortgage and refinancing options. A privately held company, their officers and primary shareholders bring years of collective experience in a wide range of areas that help make them the best source for home financing needs. With backgrounds in mortgage banking, real estate, financing, capital markets and regulatory compliance and administration issues, the leaders at Refinance.com bring invaluable knowledge and expertise together to formulate the best financing options for our clients.
Refinance.com takes pride in providing affordable financing to borrowers of all incomes. By making loans direct to the consumer, they are able to eliminate expensive middleman and offer competitive rates for an array of loan programs, including Debt Consolidation loans,Home Improvement loans and Home Equity loans. If you have trouble paying your mortgage payment Refinance.com may be able to assist with a bad credit refinance.
With their free consultation service, they can match clients with the program best suited to their needs. The consultation process is quick and easy and ensures that the program ultimately chosen is exactly right for each individual. During the consultation, a Refinance.com certified loan consultant will identify the client's credit needs, analyze their finances and credit history, explain the various loan options available and then customize a loan for their needs.
The focus at Refinance.com is on service: they guide each client through the loan process, staying in close contact with them from the application stage of the process to closing, making sure that all questions are answered and that each client's individual needs are met, in order to ensure that all their clients are fully educated before making a home financing decision.
For over 16 years, they have been a leader in the home financing industry. Their many referrals from current and past consumers are also testaments to the value of their product offerings and the quality of their service. Refinance.com is your best choice in bad credit mortgage refinance and can start lowering your mortgage payment right away.

Send Me The Card

2008-01-09T17:12:00.000-08:00

If you're familiar with the website www.sendmethecard.com, you have probably received a "pre-approved" credit card application from Chase bank. However, "pre-approved" and approved are very different animals. Being pre-approved simply means you have met basic screening qualifitcations for a www.sendmethecard.com offer. You still must apply for a Chase credit card in order to actually get approved.
At SmartCreditChoices.com you will find detailed interest rate, 0% offers and rewards features of credit cards commonly offered via sendmethecard.com mail offers.
Chase Bank USA, N.A. offers a wide range of personal, business, and student credit cards from both the Visa and MasterCard networks. A main feature of Chase credit cards is the reward program. Through choosemyrewards.com, the Chase Flexible rewards program, and a wide range of airline credit cards, Chase provides consumers with a selection of credit cards that tailor to their lifestyles. SmartCreditChoices.com provide links to current Chase rewards credit card applications, most of which offer 0% introductory rates for 1 year on purchases and balance transfers.
SmartCreditChoices.com is more than just a directory of online credit card applications. At this website, you can compare current 0% APR credit card offers from every major card issuer, use their education center to learn how to choose the right credit card, and apply online for a new credit card via the secure SSL encrypted servers of the respective credit card issuers.

SmartCreditChoices.com features links to nearly 100 0% APR credit card offers from Citibank, Chase, American Express, Bank of America, Discover, Advanta, and HSBC categorized for easy comparison. Their mission is to simplify the process of choosing a credit card by providing you with the information you need to make a knowledgeable decision.

Top Online Casinos

2007-11-04T13:40:00.000-08:00

Do you like to gamble online? Interested in knowing some of the best online casinos available for US Players? Then I suggest you first check out TopUSAOnlineCasinos.com before heading out to any online casinos!
Top Usa Online Casinos offers guidance and assistance to US Players to find their perfect top usa online casinos. You can actually view their available top 10 list of the best online casino areas along with professional reviews to give people the better idea of what those casinos have to offer. The ranking also has additional of payout percentages and bonuses. The website is free and very user-friendly. The moment you visit the website, the first thing you see is the top ten rank for casinos thus allowing people to have immediate reference. Not to mention the whole works is very straightforward. Anything you need to know is very clear and precise. Even a computer illiterate person can easily browse around the website. You can directly access your favorite casino, download, register, make deposit and play, all with confidence, as these are the casinos which the pros visit. TopUSAOnLineCasinos.com put them all together.

Renton Real Estate

2007-10-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

Are you looking to buy or sell Rentom homes? Relocating to the Seattle area, or just moving locally? Don’t know much about the Seattle suburbs? Renton real estate is here to help you. They have real estate agents in the Renton, Fairwood, Newcastle areas. Just a short commute from downtown Seattle, Renton is strategically located near Bellevue, and short drive to Seattle Tacoma International Airport. Renton is close to major shopping centers at Bellevue Square, and Southcenter Mall. Recreational areas abound, Renton and Newcastle are located at the south end of Lake Washington. They specialize in finding, and selling homes in the Fairwood, Newcastle, and Renton Highlands area. They can assist you in buying your new home, or in selling your existing home, so don’t hesitate to contact hem. They are here to help with all your real estate needs in the Renton area.
This site is ideal for home buyers and sellers looking to purchase ar sell Renton real estate. They can help you locate Renton houses for rent, Renton homes for sale and even Renton foreclosures if you are looking for a real estate investment.

Cash Advance

2007-09-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

Have you been looking for cash advance?Then you should keep reading. The loans do not require a credit check. The loan approval criteria is based on a few other factors that most employed people meet such as employment status, minimum income and an active checking or savings account. The minimum income threshold varies between lenders, but a person must usually make at least $1,000 per month. The loan term on payday loans typically ranges from 4 to 30 days, coinciding with the applicant’s next payday from his or her employer. Some lenders charge a flat fee regardless of the length of the payday loan, while some lenders vary the interest rate depending on how long the payday loan is left outstanding.
The majority of payday loans lenders and allow clients the option of “rolling over” a loan, meaning that the loan is extended to the next payday and the subsequent fees are doubled. Consumers may use payday loans to avoid late-payment penalties and negative marks on credit ratings. Many people have a need from time to time for short-term financial assistance and payday loans provide a viable solution. When used responsibly, payday loans can solve to these short-term cash needs effectively. Find more information at cashadvance1500.com.

Real Estate

2007-09-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for information about mortgages & loans you should visit nationalrelocation.com. Mortgages are a necessary part of home buying. With as many diverse types of mortgages as there are mortgage rates, finding what you need can be difficult. But on NationalRelocation.com, the different types of mortgages are laid out on their own pages so the task is easier. Whether you are buying your first home or looking for a mortgage refinance, you want to find the best mortgage rate possible. Mortgages will allow you to own a home, whether a starter home or the home of your dreams, without having to wait until you can pay for it outright. It is a good idea to get mortgage quotes for your home purchase so that you can choose the right type of mortgage for you and your family and get the best deal on a mortgage rate and an interest rate possible.But you shouldn't forget term life insurance.Life insurance is not the type of insurance that many people think about on a daily basis. Although your everyday activities may affect your life insurance, it is not required by law and many people don't think about obtaining it until they have married or have had children. Life insurance policies are for those that still live after someone has died. If you have a family and help to support them financially, obtaining life insurance is a good plan to have. If something happens to you, your loved ones will not be left without financial support.When relocating to a new state it is important to get insurance to protect you and your assets. You can receive quotes from multiple insurance companies and use our different insurance tools to determine what is good for you.Also,at their website you can find real estate agents.

Vacation Rentals

2007-09-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

At going2travel.com you will find vacation rentals to all over the world. Take for example Myrtle Beach vacation rentals .Myrtle Beach is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the continental United States. Myrtle Beach vacation homes and vacation condos are waiting to take you on a wild adventure or to a relaxing retreat. Located on the Grand Strand on the northern end of South Carolina’s Atlantic coast, the beach is a full 60 miles of sandy, relaxing fun.This city has everything you will need, with shopping, entertainment, dining, recreation, family-friendly activities, and private, romantic getaways. There is much more to Myrtle Beach than the beach. Indoor recreation is available, as are a myriad of entertainment possibilities. Staying in a Myrtle Beach vacation rental is a smart choice, as you can take in all the wonderful nature, sights, sounds, and experiences that surround you at your own pace.How about Lake Tahoe vacation homes?The California portion of Lake Tahoe offers a great deal of easily accessible attractions to vacation rental guests in the immediate vicinity and the surrounding region. Visitors can try their luck in the many casinos, explore the cultural legacy of Lake Tahoe, or survey the natural beauty of the area.
The Lake Tahoe area hosts an annual month long Shakespeare Festival as well as gondola rides and scenic hiking routes. The Ponderosa Ranch and Stables and the Zephyr Cove Stables offer horses for rent, a stunning lake view, and guided tours.Spooner Lake State Park offers guests of Lake Tahoe vacation cabins a scenic walking route, a wide assortment of wildlife, and crisp, clear blue water. Visitors should also stop by Sugar Pine Point State Park, Vikingsholm Castle, Bijou Community Park, and the unique Desolation Wilderness.Vacation rental by owner has never been more easy.

Credit Card Services

2007-08-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

Today is very easy to pay or get paid online.Most businesses depend on the ability to process credit card transactions in order to conveniently serve their customers. Whether you operate an online internet business, a retail shop, or a restaurant, need high risk offshore, or provide some kind of service within your community, allowing your customers to pay with Visa, Master Card, American Express, or Discover will earn you support from your clients and will ultimately benefit your bottom line.
msmerchantaccount.com offers banking solutions and works with all business sizes to secure the lowest rates possible for credit card processing. They have worked with plenty of small, start-up corporate officers who are signing up for their first merchant retail, offshore, or internet payment services, and are dedicated to answering their questions and helping them get off to a good start. They also have experience working with established businesses that have decided to switch service providers in search of a better transaction rate. Large or small, their processing solutions will be a partner in the success of your business.The company also works with a variety of industries, including both high and low risk merchants. Low risk businesses such as brick and mortar retail shops, grocery stores, restaurants, bars, in-person service providers, and others can expect to receive the best available rates for credit card processing.
Online payment processing affords many benefits for businesses. Processing credit cards through a secure server will give your customers confidence in your legitimacy. It will also allow you to trust that the card owner is the one making the purchase, and that fraud is unlikely. Modern credit verification systems are very reliable and do prevent charge-backs with a great degree of success.Apply for an account today, and see what a difference the ability to accept credit card payments makes in your business and your bottom line.

Online Option Trading

2007-08-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

If you are wondering why it is a good idea to get into day trading options rather than traditional stocks and mutual funds just keep reading. Although options trading comes with its fair share of stress and risk, it tends to involve less losses than other types of investments. Part of the reason for this is the risk in investing in options is known and limited, while stocks and mutual funds come with unlimited and unknown risk.What is now known as options trading began with the birth of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, in 1973. In the early years of the CBOE, investors were only allowed to place call options on 16 different stocks. Today, there are more than 2,500 different stock options available through the CBOE, and the number is growing every year.If you're like most options investors, you've decided to learn options trading as an alternative to more high-risk investment strategies. Options trading is quickly growing in popularity among investors of all backgrounds, partially due to its relatively low risk.
Options trading is unlike any other investment strategy. Just as the name implies, options give someone the right to buy or sell a stock at a specified strike price by a certain date in the future. To get started trading options, you need to purchase an options contract for a premium. The premium of an options contract will fluctuate, depending on the stock in question. In most circumstances, however, the contract you sign will be for 100 shares. If you want more than this, you'll need to take out multiple contracts. There are numerous strategies to learn in order to make a successful career out of options trading. To learn them all, subscribe to the options service at www.oexoptions.com. Their logical system makes sense out of confusing options strategies, terminology and trading techniques. They use a variety of technical indicators, such as ADX, DMI, Chaikins Money Flow, Wyckoff, candlestick charts, and we teach traders method, rules, and approach.Their approach is unique in that they don’t just provide a “signal”, but a full alert with detail that allows the trader to make their own decisions, learn to trade, and not just rely on a “signal”. They know online stock option trading , and teach momentum stock trading techniques.

Auto Insurance Quotes

2007-08-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for Auto Insurance you should visit advantageautoquotes.com.Advantage Insurance Quoting system allows insurance companies to compete to give you the best price on car, truck, and SUV insurance policies no matter what your driving record looks like.They offer the best rates and the cheapest most affordable auto insurance policies anywhere for all types of drivers including hard to place teenage drivers, and of course if you have a excellent driving record with no accidents or points, you will qualify for the lowest and most affordable plans. Costs of insurance will also vary depending on the amount of coverage you request and the deductibles you apply for on your policy.They offer insurance solutions for all makes and models of vehicles, including Ford, Chevrolet, BMW, Mercedes, Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, Mazda, Toyota , and Nissan. Whether you are driving a car, truck, or SUV, they can find you the best rates on auto insurance from a reputable and reliable insurer.
Selecting an automotive insurance company can be an overwhelming task, with hundreds of companies competing for your business. Advantage Auto Quotes can guide you through the process, helping you to select the type of coverage needed for your vehicle and putting you in touch with car insurance companies that will give you the most competitive rates available. Whether you are looking to cover a car, truck, SUV, or business vehicle, whether you are insuring a teen or senior driver, and whether you have an excellent driving history and qualify for the lowest rates or poor driving record,they will save you money on your auto insurance with our online quoting services.
By filling out one simple form, you can receive multiple quotes on all types of automotive insurance policies. They work closely with well-known companies like AIG, Allstate, Kaiser Permanente, and Liberty Mutual as well as smaller companies like Response Insurance, The Hartford, and Nationwide. Whether you are looking to insurance a new car or change insurance policies, their company can help you find the best rates available today. Remember,when insurers compete for your business, you save!

Gold Star Credit

2007-07-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

You want to get a new credit card but don't know which one is the right for you? GoldStarCredit is a central resource for credit and financial information. Goldstarcredit.net try to bring their visitors financial resources and information regardless of their credit history. They know that everyone has distinct credit concerns and our goal is to provide you with an easy to use site to answer all of your questions.
Their goal is to provide the resources and expertise to help you attain you financial goals. Whether it is improving your credit score to get better credit card offers, obtaining your first mortgage or dealing with identity theft,they want to provide their customers the information to address their issues and obtain their financial goals.In their credit report section you will find helpful tools and information on what a credit score is,how your credit score is created and maintained, ways of increasing your credit card score and the best resources on monitoring your credit report.

Save Money 101

2006-12-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

People are always trying to save money, especially with today’s economy. No matter what your reason for saving, through this e-book, you will discover ways never considered.

The price of everything has gone up, requiring people to be more conscientious about money. The problem is that by the time the mortgage, car, utilities, and credit cards are paid, there is little money to put aside. Saving money is not that hard, just a matter of learning all the different options and being creative.

In addition to the obvious of putting money into a retirement fund or savings account, there are hundreds of ways to save money. Although some ways of saving may not seem like much, once you add them up at the end of the year, you will see how substantial the savings really are. Keep in mind that saving is more than a single lump sum of money put aside. Saving is something found in your everyday life by the way you live and the choices you make.

Rome was not built in a day and neither will your bank account be. Each penny saved is one more penny than before. If you have the ability to save big, that is great. However, most people are not in that position, which is why this e-book will show you how little savings can add up quickly.

Be encouraged that it is never too late to start saving, regardless of your age. Set your mind that now is the time to start building your future.

Ready or not, here are 97 ways to begin saving a fortune!...

Holiday Gift Giving

This tip is especially helpful for large families. Although it is fun buying for and receiving from everyone, it can be very expensive. Make an agreement with your family that you will continue to buy for the children but that the adults will go with a name exchange. This way the children are not disappointed and you can spend a little more on one or two people rather than spreading your money thin. For the members that you did not pick to exchange with, bake a loaf of their favorite homemade bread or cookies.

Clearance

Always head straight for the clearance rack where you can find amazing bargains. Sometimes you may have to dig a little to find the right item but the savings will be well-worth your time. Most clearance racks offer variety, current trends, and great value. For example, Bed, Bath & Beyond has a clearance section where you can find all kinds of wonderful household items for a fraction of the original cost.

Thrift / Surplus Stores

Unfortunately, thrift and surplus stores have been given a bad rap. Many of these stores are filled with hundreds of top quality items. Name brand merchandise is easy to find but just like clearance racks, it takes some time to find. Find a thrift or surplus store close to where you live and then plan spending some time to find those outstanding bargains. One woman in Kansas City, Missouri located such a store about 20 minutes from her home. After shopping through every isle over the period of two hours, she walked out of the store with eight huge garbage bags filled to the brim with designer clothes for her and her children, many with the original tags still attached. She even found a couple of Liz Claiborne suits for herself at $5.99 each and a Dooney & Burke purse normally valued at $225 for $19.95. Her children had an entire season of school clothes and best of all, she paid less than $200.

Wrapping Paper and Bows

Create your own wrapping paper, which is not only unique, but also fun. Use plain brown grocery bags and craft-like paints to make your design. After wrapping the gift, let your creative juices flow. For example, using black and yellow craft paint, create a miniature road. Then dipping toy truck tires into red paint roll them along the paper making tire tracks. You can then draw free hand a stop sign, yield sign, or stop light. Next, using a hot glue gun, glue a couple of the miniature trucks to the paper. This is perfect for a young boy. He will be just as thrilled with the wrapping as the actual gift. For a girl, you can simply create miniature bows from existing fabric or lace and glue them on brown paper then free hand draw colorful flowers. Just use your creativity and look around for items you already have on hand to use.

Reuse

When you shop, look for items that can be reused. Rechargeable batteries are a perfect example. Even though the initial purchase may be more than non-rechargeable batteries, there is a definite savings over a long period. Another option would be to purchase a nice artificial Christmas tree. Many of the current artificial trees look amazingly real and with the right lights and ornaments, you can change the look from year to year.

Landscaping

If you are considering creating a nice flower garden area, shopping for plants even on sale, can be expensive. Before you go out and start spending, look around to see if you have other plants that can be split from your existing flowers. Additionally, if you have a good relationship with any of your neighbors, you might ask them if they have any plants you could use as a starter. Another great idea is the next time you are in the market to buy a lawnmower, purchase one that mulches leaves. This way, rather than buy mulch for your flowerbeds every year, you can simply use the mulch you make.

Budget

Everyone should create a budget. If you are not sure how or just not good with money, many businesses such as H&R Block, offer free financial consulting to help you put a budget together. Knowing where you are spending your money is by far the best way to save. In most cases, people have no idea where their money is really going and once they see it on paper, not only are they surprised but eager to change their spending habits.

Plan

Planning is a great way to save. Before you go to the grocery store, make a list and stick with it. If considering a vacation, plan everything. Heading out with no set direction will certainly lead you to impulsive spending.

Buy in Bulk

It is true that warehouse shopping can save a lot of money. Even if you have a small family, you can always split large quantities. The price of items in bulk is generally a great bargain. If you are single, you might go in with friends or family on bulk items.

Allowance

Do not forget to give yourself an allowance for things you enjoy. Even if on a tight budget, buy something that you enjoy, which could be as simple as buying a new shirt or grabbing lunch at your favorite café. If you do not allow yourself this small “splurge”, you could find yourself in the same position as if dieting. Total deprivation leads to overindulgence.

What Matters to You

Make a list of the 10 most important things in your life. Next to each item, rank them in order of importance using numbers 1 through 10. The purpose of this exercise is to help you see the things you consider the most and least important and to provide you with a visual of why you need to save. Some examples of things that a person might put on their list include new home, car, special trip, artwork, starting a business, or pay off debts.

Setting Goals

Break your goals into short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term. Being able to see your accomplishments is a great motivator for you to work hard at saving. If you set a short-term goal of saving for tickets to the symphony and reach that goal, you will be encouraged to keep saving for the intermediate and long-term goals.

Be Realistic

When it comes to saving money, make sure the goals you set for yourself are realistic. If you earn $50,000 a year, saving $20,000 would be nice but it is very unrealistic. Make your goals attainable or you will never save.

Flexibility

Once you have set your goal for saving, realize that things can and will change. The secret is learning ways to be flexible. If you normally save $150 a month, when something unexpected happens, you may only be able to save $50 that month. This is fine as long as you focus on getting back on track.

Insurance

Shop around for insurance and work with a good agent that can provide information on discounts such as good student, multi-car discount, etc. Some people think the price of insurance is the same from one company to the next. However, prices can vary dramatically and to ensure you get the best deal, you need to consider all your options.

Coupons

Okay, maybe you used to laugh as you watched people pull out their coupons at stores but the truth is that using coupons can save you hundreds of dollars every year. Coupons can be used at grocery stores, retail chains, any store where the item is sold. Some stores offer double coupon days, which is an extra bonus. On average, you could easily save from 5% to 15% on a bill for $100 simply by presenting a coupon. Coupons are not just for food items and by scouring your local newspaper you can find coupons for all sorts of merchandise.

Credit Cards

Use credit cards only for emergency. Although convenient, credit cards are dangerous and damaging. In addition, if you have a credit card that has a $1,000 balance and you pay only the minimum payment each month, it will take you between 20 and 30 years to pay off that $1,000 balance since the majority of money is going strictly toward the interest and not the principal amount.

Mortgage Payment

Paying one additional mortgage payment each year, whether in a lump sum or monthly increments, can lower a 30-year loan down to 18 years. If you pay more than one extra payment, the number of years will decrease even more. Since this additional payment will be applied only to the principal and not the interest, you end up saving thousands and thousands of dollars once the home is paid off.

Credit Card Interest

If you have credit cards and your credit is in good standing, call your credit card company, and ask for your interest rate to be lowered. It is truly that simple. Unfortunately, most people do not even realize this is an option so they never make the call. Just tell the representative that you want a better rate on your credit card and they will take care of your request.

Patience

Be patient when it comes to saving. This means that you need to accept that it will take time to save and good planning. Be patient and remember that just because you want something, do not rush to buy just to satisfy your urge. Instead, wait for sales in order to get the best price, which in turn will save you money.

Financial Consulting

Many financial companies and even churches offer outstanding classes on how to manage money. While some of these programs are free, others may have a nominal fee of around $35 to attend but the money is well spent. Another great option is consumer-counseling services. This is a great option for people in over their head with debt. The counselors will work directly with your creditors to lower your balances, interest rate, and establish workable payments that you can afford.

Break old Habits

Take time to learn the various things that “trigger” your spending. When you are depressed, lonely, sad, anxious, excited, whatever it may be, do you spend more? Once you can identify these triggers then you can learn how to control them. As an example, if you were just laid off from your job, although money is tight, you may have an overwhelming “need” to spend money. Perhaps you notice that when you are bored, you head for the shops. Knowing what affects you will help you to discipline yourself to find other ways of comfort.

Avoid Temptations

If you have a particular weakness, stay away from it. If you love to gamble, stay out of the casinos. If you have a weakness for shoes, drive past your favorite shoe store. While avoiding temptation is hard, it is also necessary in order to save money. When you want to give into your temptation, this is the time to use your “allowance”.

The Right Time to Shop

Studies have proven that when shopping while hungry, depressed, tired, and stressed, you buy more. Before you head to the grocery store, eat something. If you are upset or feeling a little blue, calm yourself down or wait until you feel better before you head out to shop. As funny as it may sound, having a clear mind is important when it comes to shopping and spending money.

Make your Own Gifts

If you ask people if they prefer a store bought or handmade gift, the majority would choose the latter. Handmade gifts are individualized and come from the heart. When you have a birthday, anniversary, baby shower, wedding, or Christmas gift to give, make the gift. For Christmas, you could make a beautiful ornament or door wreath, for a baby shower you could purchase an inexpensive bib pattern and make special bibs, or for a wedding, you could create a wonderful album of photos showing the couples dating life. Other great options include making homemade hot chocolate, soaps, candles, or lotions and placing them in inexpensive glass containers or baskets purchased at a thrift shop. If you use a mason jar, add foam and fabric under the lid for added color, use a label to write the contents and a message of endearment, and wrap a nice piece of ribbon around the ridge. The options are endless, so get creative.

Matinee

Do you love the movies but hate the prices? Switch your nighttime show to the late afternoon or early evening matinee. The price is about 50% less and when taking an entire family, that is a nice savings. Pop your own popcorn, put in a plastic bag, and place in a large purse and make or buy your own candy, leaving only drinks to buy. Food at the theater is outrageously priced. The next time that you head to the movies, hit the matinee, stuff those jellybeans and licorice sticks in your purse, and enjoy the savings. Also, check for movie tickets online, which can be discounted.

Comparison Shop

Comparison-shopping can make a big difference in the price you pay. You might be looking at a barbecue grill at one place for $350.00 and by making two more stops, find the exact grill or one comparable for $300. In addition, consider the price of items assembled versus unassembled. For example, you might find the barbecue grill unassembled for $250. A couple of hours of “fun” assembling the grill is certainly worth a $100 saving.

Stop Competing with the Jones’

You do not have to compete with anyone. Be proud of what you have and who you are. If you can only afford an inexpensive sofa from a thrift store, find a nice throw, make a few pillows, and be proud and thankful. Competitiveness is a part of nature and to a degree, healthy. However, when competition creates a buying war to see who can have the “best” when they have no business buying at all, then it becomes damaging. Stick to what you can afford regardless of what anyone else has or pressure you might be feeling.

Incentives – Reward Plan

To help you and your family spend more wisely, set up a system where rewards are given when the rules set forth are followed. For example, if a family decision was made to start making lunch and brown bagging it to work and school instead of paying each day, the incentive might be that if this is followed strictly for one month, the entire family can spend a Saturday at the Zoo or favorite theme park.

Dollar Stores

Many years ago, dollar stores offered only off brand products or poorly made merchandise. However, that has completely changed. Now you can walk into a dollar store and find the same name brand laundry soap, cleaning supplies, clothing, school supplies, everything for a fraction of the cost. Where a store name brand bottle of laundry detergent might cost $6.50 at a grocery store, you can find the identical product and size at the dollar store for $2.50. Check out your local dollar store and enjoy the mountains of savings.

Don’t Give up the Good Stuff

A misconception is that while trying to save money you have to deal with sub-par merchandise, which is untrue. If you love fresh breads and pastries, visit a bakery thrift store. For your fresh fruits and vegetables, visit your local farmer’s market. Try eBay or other auction sites to buy top quality merchandise for a huge discount. Watch for neighborhood garage sales or estate sales and auctions to find items you need. Just because you are looking for bargains as a way of saving money does not mean you have to skimp on quality.

Utilities

Set up some rules in your home such as turning lights off when leaving the room, having only a parent adjust the air or heat, leaving the doors or windows open when letting either cold or hot air into the house. Utilities are expensive and a great money saver is to monitor how they are used in your home. Another great idea is the investment of buying an energy-efficient hot water heater. If you cannot afford one, lower the setting so you are not heating water so hot. The hotter the setting, the more energy used.

Check the Garbage

One woman had her teenage daughter clean her room. The daughter proudly did just that, filling two huge trash bags of things she no longer wanted. Out of curiosity, the mother peeked into one of the bags to see what was being thrown away. In shock, she found a new tube of suntan lotion, two perfectly good sweaters, makeup, lotion, a picture frame, hair curlers, all good things. The daughter did not realize that just because the items were of no interest to her, they might be to someone else. After talking to her daughter, the mom turned around and listed the items on eBay, making a $35 profit on her daughter’s “junk.”

Written Plan

When a person goes into business, they create a Business Plan, which becomes the blueprint of their business. The same should apply if you are trying to save money. Create a master plan that the entire family can get involved with and learn their role. When you start to spend too much, go back and look at your plan to see where you are messing up and how you can fix it.

Attitude

Good money management is an acquired skill. As you go forward with the process of saving money, you need to have a good, positive attitude, which is often what will keep you and your family heading in the right direction. If you think you cannot save, then you probably will not. Be determined and stay positive about saving.

Unsecured Creditors

Make a list of all your unsecured debts along with creditor contact information and payoff amount so you can have an accurate record of how much you owe. Choose one creditor, possibly a credit card, and focus on paying off that bill. Once you have achieved that goal, choose another. Start with the debt that has the highest interest rate since it is the one costing you the most money.

Off-Season

The next time you plan a vacation, consider off-season. Generally, the prices for airfare, hotel, and cars are substantially lower than traveling during peak time. If you look at all your options, you will find that in many cases, you can come close to the date you would like to travel. As an example, flying to Hawaii through June 8 is considered off-season while June 9 is peak. One day makes a huge difference in price.

Buy versus Rent or Lease

When looking at homes or automobiles check the rent and lease options. Depending on your particular situation, renting or leasing may be a better financial decision. Weigh all your options and see which choice makes the best sense from a financial standpoint.

Buffet Meals

When taking the family out to dinner, consider restaurants that have buffets. In many cases, the prices are outstanding and a parent can share with a small child. In addition, many buffets are “all you can eat” and of course, there is something for everyone.

Cable Networking

If you have a computer upstairs and another downstairs and you use high-speed data, have one of the computers be the primary computer and the other be the backup. This way, you are only charged once for Internet access and a small fee of $10 to $15 a month for the second computer. This is a great bargain!

Proper Maintenance

Purchase an annual home warranty policy. These policies can run from $350 to $500 a year and offer extremely valuable options. The way most of these policies work is that if you have something break, such as your garage door, dishwasher, air conditioner, etc., for a minimal fee, usually $50 to $100, a serviceperson will come to your home to fix the item. Best of all, if you have five things broken and the same serviceperson is qualified to fix all of them, you are still charged the $50 to $100 fee once, not five times. For your automobile, you might look into purchasing an extended warranty. If you ever need either one of these policies, they will save you tremendous value.

Company Stock / 401K

Contributing to employee stock options or a 401K plan is a wonderful opportunity to save. Most companies will match your contribution, sometimes dollar for dollar, up to a maximum, generally 6%. From each paycheck, you can have a small amount of money deducted (1%) and up. Over time, that money grows and since the business is providing a match, you get free money.

Family Haircuts

Look for hair styling shops that offer family deals or learn how to cut hair yourself. Many families take care of their own haircuts and put the money they would have spent aside as a vacation fund. This system works out perfectly.

Wants versus Needs

Make sure the thing you want to spend your money on is a “need” and not a “want.” Sometimes this can seem like a fine gray line but if you stick to the need list, you will spend less.

Refinance

With interest rates being so low, consider refinancing your home and/or securing a debt consolidation loan. You might have to come up with a new closing cost but once paid, you will have lower payments, better terms, and save thousands of dollars over the years.

Go Generic

When buying food, try some of the generic items. Unless you or your guests are connoisseurs of fine dining, they will not know if the green beans were generic or a top name brand. Once you add some butter, salt, and pepper, no one will know the difference except you - $79 per can versus $33 per can! People do not realize that many generic brands are actually manufactured by name brand companies, just branded with a different name. In fact, companies such as those that make snack foods will have conveyor belts that run side-by-side – one for the name brand and one for the generic brand. This is quite common and the only difference is the label and price.

Stock Up

As you shop, if you notice that a brand you and your family use on a consistent basis is on sale for a great bargain, stock up. As an example, if you use a particular type of shampoo costing $4.50 per bottle and you find it on sale for $2.50, go ahead and buy two bottles. You should only do this on items you know will be used.

Shopping for Clothes

There are many secrets relating to saving money on clothing. As a perfect example, rather than buy a matched suit for $450, buy the pieces separate. This will save you about $100 to $150. Additionally, buy several pieces that can be mixed and matched, giving you six outfits out of four pieces.

Carpool

In some larger cities, carpooling is required in order to reduce smog. However, regardless of where you live, carpooling can also be a big money saver. Check with co-workers and determine who lives close enough to share a ride. By the end of the year, you will have saved several hundreds of dollars.

Trendy Fashion

Most people love to dress in the most up-to-date fashion but for those fashions, you pay big bucks. Consider dressing with basics and then emphasis them with trendy accessories. This will save you money on the clothing that is less expensive while allowing you to dress it up.

Free Entertainment

If you are tired of being bored, you will be pleased to learn that there are hundreds of things to do that do not cost a dime. For example, if you want a little Friday or Saturday night excitement, sign up at your local police department for a “ride-a-long” where you can go on duty with an officer as they respond to real calls. Community colleges are always offering free exercise classes, or coffee shops have poetry readings. Entertainment and having fun does not have to cost anything. Some cities have special areas that are popular on the weekends where you can find free concerts. Check your local paper and college to get a list for your area.

Telephone / Mobile Phone

First, shop around for the best deals. Second, stay away from all the fun bells and whistles and just stick with the basic plan. Some people have turned to shutting down their home telephone and are now using their mobile phones in place. Since most wireless carriers offer free long-distance, call waiting, call forwarding, caller ID, voicemail, and more, it can do the same as a regular phone but for less. Why have two phones when you can have just one?

Home Remedies

Before rushing off to see the doctor for a sore throat, try some home remedies or over the counter drugs instead. For a sore throat, butter mixed with ginger and sugar makes a soothing healing pate. A hot toddy before bed is great for a cold. Simply ask your family for their home remedies and try it. Sometimes a simple over the counter medication or herb will do the trick without costing you an expensive doctor’s office visit.

Pay on Time

For every payment you pay late, you are charged a late fee, which can range from $25 to $50 or more depending on the company. Therefore, if you just made a $50 payment but it was paid late, nothing was paid toward the debt. Instead, the entire $50 went toward an unnecessary fee. To avoid spending unnecessary money, be sure you mail your check in time to avoid these fees.

Insulation

Hundreds of dollars are wasted every year from the average home due to improper insulation. Make sure there are no drafts coming from your window, door, or fireplace. Ensure your home has the appropriate level of insulation, which will make a HUGE difference in your utility bill.

Consolidate your Errands

To save gas, organize your day of errands so you get as much done in an organized manner as possible. Stay in the same geographical area and hit as many of your errands in that area as possible to avoid excessive driving.

Sell your Stuff

Go through your house and pull together all the items you no longer use. These can include small or large appliances, gardening tools, clothing, makeup, and sporting equipment, whatever you have, and then list them on eBay.com or Halfoff.com. Take the money earned from these sales and put it in your savings account not to be touched.

Turn your Hobby into Money

Everyone has a skill – find yours and turn it into money. For example, if you have a skill for woodworking, start creating children’s toys, or curio cabinets to sell. Perhaps you are computer savvy and could teach a class at your local community college. Find something you enjoy and sell it.

Recycle

Try a different type of recycling that will save you money. Have you ever received a nice gift that you like from someone but will never use? Rather than take it back to the store for an exchange, consider keeping it to give as a gift to someone else. Another way to recycle is to look around your home. There are always things right in your home that can be used to make nice gift baskets – things you never use. For example, the next time you purchase shower gel where you buy one and get one free, keep one for yourself and set the other one aside for future gift giving. You will find hundreds of ideas so be creative and consider things you purchased but have never used.

Heating and Cooling

Make sure vents in rooms not being used or the garage are closed. Many people tend to try to heat and cool the entire home. Instead, take the time to close off areas that you are not using. You will save substantial money on your utilities.

Shop Online

Many online businesses offer great bargains and in some cases, free shipping. Since the Internet is such a competitive market, you can usually find fantastic deals. In addition, many of your favorite businesses where you shop in person have websites that offer even greater savings. Bookstores such as Amazon.com will sell books up to 70% off the original price. Overstock.com is another online business that sells closeout items for fantastic bargains.

Consignment Shops

Rather than throw out or sell slightly worn clothing or other household items in a garage sale, consider selling them through a consignment shop. You will get a better price for your items and consignment shops are always looking for quality merchandise. Check out Half.com, which is an online consignment shop offering books, movies, computer software, and much more in either new or used condition.

Selling your Home

If considering putting your home on the market, make sure you work with a reputable realtor. A good realtor versus one that is not as experienced can be the difference of thousands of dollars. A good realtor will know exactly what you need to do to your home to get it in the best selling condition, which in turn will get you more money. In addition, experienced realtors know all the best methods for advertising and selling your home while saving you the most money.

Stay out of the Malls

If possible, stay away from shopping malls. High-dollar shopping malls have expensive overhead and are designed to sell, sell, sell. Prices are generally higher and in most cases, people walk out with more than they anticipated buying. It is better to shop at stand-alone shops or on the Internet.

Car Shopping

Shop around for the best price. While you may have your eye on that “perfect” car and want it now, by waiting and looking around, you could be saving yourself a lot of money. In addition, check out other states. If you live within a few hours drive from other cities, check out the price difference. The five hours it takes to drive may be worth the money saved.

Check Receipts and Statements

If you were to check your grocery or store receipt, approximately 50% of the time you would find an overcharge. This happens all the time and in some cases, the charge can be substantial. The same is true for credit card statements, bank statements, phone bills, etc. Check the detail because it is quite common to find errors. These mistakes can easily be corrected simply by asking and providing a copy of the receipt or statement.

Challenge the Doctor/Hospital

If you have stayed in the hospital recently, you know the outrageous charges associated with every thing used. While you could buy a box of bandages for a small cut in the drug store for $5.00, at the hospital, they will charge you $10 for one bandage. While the government and insurance companies are cracking down on these charges, you should check things closely and challenge anything that is ridiculously priced. The same is true for your doctor. One woman having a hysterectomy was asked by her doctor if she wanted her appendix removed at the same time. The patient thought it was a good idea and agreed. However, after the surgery when the bill came, there was an additional $1,200 for the removal of the appendix although the doctor never mentioned an extra charge. The woman called her doctor to discuss and the doctor removed the charge. If something seems way out of balance, question it. Something else that most people do not know about is what is called “professional courtesy.” If you are having financial difficulties, you can ask your doctor if they will write off any balance owed as a professional courtesy. Many will and if not the full amount, at least some.

Overdraft Protection

Almost everyone has at one point or another had an insufficient check. Most banks charge $20 per returned check, which if not careful with your account, can quickly add up to a lot of money. If you have a savings account, consider adding overdraft protection onto your checking account so if you ever go into a negative balance, the money would automatically be covered by your savings. Most banks offer this service free.

Bank Accounts

Make sure you work with a qualified banker that can set up the “right” kind of account for your type of spending. There are numerous options specifically designed for people that write a good number of checks versus those who do not. Check with your existing bank to ensure you have what you really need and if they are not willing to work with you, change banks. In general, credit unions are good options. Their rates are typically lower and because they are employee owned, you can find better options.

Organization

You may be wondering what being organized has to do with saving money but in reality, it has a lot to do with it. For example, if you miss a credit card due date by one day, you will be charged anywhere from a 15% to 25% penalty. The same would be true for taxes. Missing one simple date can cost thousands. You need to be organized so you know the exact dates your bills are due as well as keep all receipts, contracts, etc. in an orderly manner.

Good Health

You need to make sure you take care of yourself physically. Missed dental cleanings (every six months) can lead to gum disease or tooth decay that can cost thousands to fix. The same is true for your health. After trying home remedies or over the counter medications, if you still do not feel well, see a doctor. It is far better to pay the doctor visit than to let your simple summer cold turn into pneumonia.

Automobile Care

Keep your car oil changed, tires rotated, and overall care up-to-date. First, the $30 for your oil change will save wear and tear on your car, which could result in significant money. Second, you need your car to get to and from work. By not having your car in top working condition could put you in a bad position when it comes to required transportation.

Vacations

While Paris, England, or Germany offers excitement, they also cost money to visit. Unfortunately, people on a regular basis forget about the United States and even the very state in which they live. One man had lived in Arizona his entire life. At age 50, when asked by a friend what the Grand Canyon was like, he was unable to answer because he had never been there. The next time you get ready to plan your family vacation, look around where you live and consider an exciting road trip that will not only be educating but cost effective. A vacation does not have to be expensive to be fun and memorable.

Annual Maintenance

Make a list of all annual maintenance items for your home such as air conditioner, heater, hot water heater, etc. Once again, being prepared and working in a proactive manner can save you unnecessary expenses. If you take care of your air conditioner by getting an annual tune up then you lower the risk of something going wrong during the hot summer months when it will be quite costly to repair.

Borrowing Money

Unless you have an emergency, avoid those enticing advertisements to lend you money at incredible rates. Banks and lending institutions make it much too easy to borrow money and especially during the holidays, they flash all their great advertisements drawing people in. Afterwards, you have borrowed money that you could have done without and now you are locked into a five-year repayment contract. If you want a new car or boat, it is better to save. If you do need a new car, avoid brand new cars, which lose massive amounts of appreciation the minute you drive off the lot. Instead, look for something a year or two old where you will still have a nice car but much more in line with an appropriate cost.

Repair versus Replace

Instead of spending $1,000 on that beautiful new couch, you might consider one of two options. If your couch frame is still good, you might spend $300 to have it recovered or purchase a quality slipcover for $100. Your couch will look brand new for much less, than it would to replace. Another example would be if you have a lamp that you want to replace. Consider painting it and adding a new shade rather than spending money to buy a brand new one. Perhaps you have a washer, dryer, or refrigerator that is running a little sluggish. Find out the cost of repair over that of purchasing a new one. Even if you have an appliance with the wrong color, businesses offer fantastic paint jobs. With a little creativity, you will be amazed at how much can be repaired, thus saving you money.

Dining Out

Eating out can be expensive. Rather than stop eating out, simply cut back and look for options of two-for-one. Restaurants of all calibers offer weekly specials and if you check in your Sunday paper, you can often find special bargains. You might even think about signing up as a Mystery Shopper on the Internet where you can eat at fine restaurants free or at a huge discount just for writing a report on the food, service, and cleanliness.

Plan Menus

Although it will take some time initially, after you have planned a week’s menu once, it will become much easier and best of all, it will save you money. Knowing exactly what you will be making helps you to shop for foods that can be used more than once. As an example, if you are going to have spaghetti on Tuesday, you could buy bulk ground beef at a better price and then use the other half for tacos on Saturday. Another option would be buying round steak where one night you fix Salisbury steak and then a few days later, you use the leftovers for breakfast hash. This will help you stretch meals and avoid last minute or impulse buying.

Computer Software

In order to keep on track with your debts and credits, you need to use some type of software such as Quicken or Quick Books. This will keep you focused on your goals and tasks while you strive to achieve them. Additionally, rather than buy software programs to download, first check Download.com or Freeware.com to see if there are free versions to download.

Life Satisfaction

Learn how to enjoy life and nature rather than possessions. The next time you feel like spending money, head to your local park where you can enjoy the warm sun, green grass, and towering trees without spending a dime. Being happy in life is far better than buying item after item. Having an inner peace is better than having a house filled with “things.” That does not mean you cannot enjoy some of the finer things in life it just means learning how to be happy with yourself and not “things.”

Live Within your Means

The quickest way to get in debt is to live beyond your means. Sure, most people want more than they have but life is not all about spending money. Be thankful for what you do have and learn how to enjoy the financial position you are in. This is where your budget will help identify the amount of money coming in against the amount of debt going out.

Appropriate Deductions

Rather than spending money just for the sake of spending, change the amount of deductions you have taken from your paycheck for your 401K or stock options. This is especially great if your company offers a competitive matching program. Increasing the amount you have deducted can quickly add up to a nice savings and is especially nice for retirement.

Christmas Fund

Many banks and financial institutions offer a Christmas Fund program. This is an excellent way to put aside some money for your holiday shopping so you do not end up with a ton of spending. With these programs, you do not even miss the money and better yet, less stress around the holidays.

Previously Viewed

Home videos and DVDs are hot items and perfect for any family entertainment. Now you can visit the major video chains and purchase previously viewed videos and DVDs for about half the cost. For example, at Blockbuster, you can purchase either one and get a 30-day warranty. This is still a wonderful way to have quality entertainment for a terrific savings. Another great option is to record your own movies either from TV or any of the popular cable channels such as HBO, Showtime or Disney. Rather than hitting the theater every weekend, make it a special occasion. Instead, pop your popcorn, grab a soda, spread out a blanket, and create your own theater-type atmosphere.

Dinner Guests

Invite friends over for dinner as a potluck. People love sharing their favorite recipe and by splitting dinner, everyone enjoys variety while saving money. In fact, make this a tradition amongst your friends.

Instant Messaging / Microphone

Rather than spend a small fortune in long distance, contact friends and family via instant messaging on the Internet. In addition, you can download a program that will allow you to connect a microphone and actually have a voice conversation free. All you pay for is the normal price of your Internet connection, which generally runs from $9.95 to $21.95 a month. Either option allows you to have real-time conversations for no extra money.

Long Distance Calling

If you do plan to use long-distance calling, shop around for the right carrier and be sure to read the small print. Even if you like your current carrier, you might be able to find an equally liked carrier for less money. Long distance is a very competitive market so deals are easy to find. The same would be true for your wireless carrier. The plans range vastly from one carrier to another so check out all your options for the best one. Do not forget to look at the coverage area. If you choose a carrier that does not have the right coverage for your area, even if the price is better, there is no savings if you cannot send or receive calls.

Freeze Foods

When you grocery shop, look for bargains on items that can be frozen. Most people do not even think about shredding block cheese and freezing it. Did you know that you could even freeze eggs? You can as long as you give them a little room to expand. When ready to use, simply set them out at room temperature. If you find apples on sale, make your own apple pies and freeze them or make applesauce. Many food items can be frozen with no problem. Therefore, the next time you see a great bargain think about freezing. (Dairy products other than cheese do not generally freeze well).

Ball Games

Instead of spending your money on overpriced items at the ballgame, take your own cooler of food. Some professional stadiums no longer allow this so check before going. If you have a son or daughter that plays little league or soccer, this is a great way to save money over paying high concession stand prices.

Discount Books

Purchase a discount coupon book, which generally costs around $25. As long as you use it faithfully and base your choices on options featured in the book, you can save hundreds of dollars. These books are great for restaurants, hotels, car rentals, and tons of entertainment and provide great variety and even better discounts.

Baby Food

Instead of buying expensive baby food, make your own. You can use fresh vegetables such as peas, green beans, or corn, run it through the blender, and then freeze individual servings in ice cube trays. When it comes time to feed the baby, simply pop out a cube of food, defrost, and you have instant food. This is a real time and money saver. Most foods can be frozen. In fact, if you make family foods like spaghetti or soups simply make a smaller portion with less salt and spice, puree, freeze just like the vegetables.

Squelch the Smoking

This is probably the hardest habit to break but in addition to saving your health, you will also save money. Cigarettes have become quite expensive and if you can quit smoking, you will enjoy breathing easier and having more to put away for a rainy day.

Rebate Programs

When you shop, always keep your eyes open for rebate programs. Although filling out the forms and clipping the UPC codes from a box is a hassle, the money you save is worth it. Some rebate items are not listed as offering a rebate. Check out AsmartShop.com or Rebateplace.com to see if any of your recent purchases offer a rebate.

Seasonal Buys

One to three days after a holiday, stores mark their holiday items from 50% to 75% off. This is an ideal way to stock up on next year’s Christmas or Halloween decorations. This is true for stores that sell seasonal clothing as well. Shopping for jackets or sweaters in the summer will provide you with great deals.

Pocket Change

Keep a jar or some type of container handy and each time you come home, drop in your change. Every time you break a bill, put the change in your container. You will be amazed how quickly your money will build.

Freebies

Check out freebie sites such as TotallyFreebies.com or SassySue.com where you will find all types of sample items ranging from cosmetics to books to clothing. Most have no shipping charges and the ones that do are minimal. By filling out a few forms, you will receive sample size soaps, lotions, shampoos and conditioners, etc., which are ideal for the traveler.

See your Successes

It is important to have an understanding of money. Keep a journal where you can see your successes when it comes to saving money. This is a difficult task and takes time to learn but worth it. By keeping a list of the situations or ways you have saved money in front of you, you will be encouraged to keep going. These successes can be small or large. For example, if you normally buy your lunch, costing you from $5.00 to $7.00 per day and one week straight you packed your own lunch for $3.00 per day that is a success. If you wanted to buy a new dress but held off until it went on sale, saving 50%, that is another success.

Saving money requires some investigative skills, desire, determination, and creativity. Once you get in the habit of saving money, you will feel better about yourself and enjoy life much more without debt hanging over your head!