I’m helping a friend get his blog kicked off with a little extra traffic.
If you enjoy hot political debates and controversial topics, then head on
over to BubbaSoundsOff.com.
As an added bonus, if you post a link to his site from your own site, I will
do you an added bonus of posting a link from 3 of my own sites to yours,
as well as ask him to post a link back to you too! — that’s FOUR incoming links for you!
Happy surfing!
Another interesting idea is the NON RECIPROCAL Links Exchange System.
You might want to read more about it at the link above.
A friend of mine over at MyTVmusings.com recently introduced me to a new blog-based marketing scheme which seems to be working well for her over at Technorati.com. I’ve started doing a bit of a test at my “home” blog site rock808.com to see what I can make of it, and how some strategic timing can come in to play.
Part of the CURRENT problem I see is that you have to submit a post with hundreds of links, and personally I think that can turn off normal readers of any blog. Most people will probably view it as a spam post and so there is a potential for loss of readership.. or annoying your readers atleast.
I should have another post in a couple days with how this experiment has gone, and if it’s something we should be taking a closer look at.
Just a quick post about Second Life. I chatted with my father some today about how he is coming with his socializing and money making in Second life, and it turns out he says he’s making about US$100 / month … AND having a lot of fun at the same time. Besides the dancing and camping, he is now starting to rent out a little land, and has some ideas for starting a new club. $100 per month is not really a lot. You can’t live on $100 a month, and I do know a many people who are making quite a bit more, but still… for just goofing off in your lazy-chair all day.. meeting people and having fun… it’s not a bad way to get started. Since he IS just getting started, I certainly don’t see this as a “top”. I’ll keep you posted as I hear more from him.
For more info on the REAL business potential in (and of) Second Life, here is an awesome 45 minute video from ABC with in-depth looks in to virtual real estate, the adult “services” market, clothing/retail sales, tax and property rights laws, and much more.
If you would like a personal introduction in to Second Life, then sign up (for free) here: http://SecondLife.com
Be sure to put your reference as “Ashling Babka” (that’s me), and I will be notified when you first log in. From that point I can show you around, give you a ton of objects to use in-world, answer most questions you probably have, and can get you started off on the right foot no matter what your ideas and goals might be.
Second Life; money @ 21 Mar 2007 02:43 am by David
This weekend I helped a friend fix up her income producing blog which she has decided will about her favorite topic….. TV SHOWS! She has about 10 posts or so now, and is at that place where she’s ready to do more with it. I moved the blog to it’s own domain, tweaked the Adsense code for her a little. All together she has made a whopping $2.50 with her Adsense so far while hardly doing anything with the site.
Her site is: MyTVmusings.com
and I will try to keep you posted with how her Adsense campaign is coming along.
For myself, it will be interesting to see how well an Adsense blog does with television subject matter.
Finally, I’m sure she would appreciate you taking a moment to check out her new site, and perhaps leaving a comment with what you think of it so far. Some of you might even decide to subscribe!
Here is the monthly activity for February:
1) Google Adsense:
Bigger Indeed! As I said, last month a friend and I really started to hit the Adsense angle a bit harder. i ended up registering about 30 new domains for us to start putting content on, and working to drive traffic. It HAS been a bit of an effort, but hopefully will pay off soon. Actually, of the new sites we have started to work on, just one has brought any income, and that was only $1.78. However, it’s a start, and I expect it will continue to grow each month, without much more ongoing work. The BIG news, is that another website I started in November or December has REALLY started to catch on this last month, and it alone has $21 this month, where it only did $9 in January. Along with a few other minor increases, the Feb. total is $64.82, which is up over 29% from last month.
2) PayPal Money Market:
PayPal has raised their annual rate back to 5.04% (annual). Also, I moved a substantial amount of cash from my checking account (no interest) over to my PayPal account, so I should be looking at about $8/mo from that, but since it’s less than 1/2% per month gains, I’m fighting with what I should really do with that.
3) Stocks (three portfolios):
Personal picks: -4.65%, -0.09% (change during last month)
TurnerTrends ETF-10: -3.14% (change during last month)
WOW! What a crazy day Tuesday! I’ve heard they are calling it “Red Tuesday”. It’s suppose to be the 7th worst 1-day market drop ever and THE worst day since the attacks on 9/11/2001. Actually, it a little funny that it would happen 2 days before the end of the month. I was looking forward to some great gains this month in all three portfolios! Oh well, it should be fairly easy to pick up the pieces. I made some pretty good up/down plays on Google (GOOG) right after this, to try and take advantage of the chaos, and managed to already make back $700 of the $2000 lost.
4) Second Life:
This is the first month the daily rate has dropped to 0.09%. Which means about 2.735% monthly (down from 3%), and 38.8% annual (down from 43%). I did not do much camping this month, as I felt my time would be better spent on some of the other projects. I think for March I will again make a stronger effort for camping. It’s fairly easy money, but the biggest reason is to take better advantage of the investment return rates.
5) BrownBagLaunch:
The website is STILL not done (waiting on my friend to do that), but we do have biz cards… I can’t really hold it against her…. she’s been busy quiting her job, getting married and selling her house this month. Now with the extra time, she DOES plan on working the biz more. we already have two clients, and there is talk about getting more referrals, so things should be picking up in March!
Last Wednesday I (along with members from our Austin Cash Flow Team) attending the Creating Wealth Summit here in Austin, Texas. An all-day event with 5 speakers giving out some pretty good information…. for FREE, no less!
Here is what we were invited to:
Donald Trump’s story on wealth creation will be told to attendees by his close advisor George Ross.
At the wealth conference you will learn:
From a few other blogs I read it seems to have gotten a lot of bad press, but actually I got a lot out of it. I will break this down in to a 5 part report, and share my notes/thoughts from each speaker.
First speaker says:
The bottom line for stocks, is that people only think it’s “very risky” because they are not educated enough in that area to make good (low risk) choices when it comes to stocks.
I found this risk analysis chart, and thought I’d share:
|
Event |
Chance This Year |
| Car stolen | 1 in 100 |
| House catch fire | 1 in 200 |
| Die from Heart Disease | 1 in 280 |
| Die of Cancer | 1 in 500 |
| Die in Car wreck | 1 in 6,000 |
| Die by Homicide | 1 in 10,000 |
| Die of AIDS | 1 in 11,000 |
| Die of Tuberculosis | 1 in 200,000 |
| Win a state lottery | 1 in 1 million |
| Killed by lightning | 1 in 1.4 million |
| Killed by flood or tornado | 1 in 2 million |
| Killed in Hurricane | 1 in 6 million |
| Die in commercial plane crash | 1 in 1 million to 10 million (depends on airline) |
What you might want to take special note of, is that you are about 1,000 times more likely to be killed on the way to the airport than to die during the airplane flight, but the general population seems to think they are safer in their cars than on a plane. People act according to how they FEEL about something, not necessarily according to the factual data. Also, even though your risk of dieing in a car accident is RATHER HIGH, you still climb in to that car several times a day without a thought of the risk. Why?
Probably because you’ve done it so often, that you have a high level of confidence that everything will be okay, and you’ve gained some skill over the years at avoiding dangers (putting YOU at lower risk than others). Maybe you’ve chosen a vehicle that has been rated “safest in it’s class”. The list goes on.
This is the same with the stock market. Most people (the masses) don’t have much skill in picking good stocks, so when they “try”, they often fail, and then give up, telling everyone they know how risky it is!
Nothing beats a good education… well, except maybe using an exceptional tool, and of course, the first speaker says THE tool of choice for picking stocks is “Investools”. I had been using this some last year, and took a 2-day course on how to use it. It DID seem like a very good (and easy) tool. After this seminar I’ve decided to renew the subscription and spend more time with it again.
I’ll be posting the results here, so keep a look out!
Here is the monthly activity for January:
1) Google Adsense:
I did nothing with my Adsense campaign in January either, however, the revenue is back up over 13% from last month, and this next month I DO plan to work with another friend on taking more agressive action in this area! One thing to keep in mind with the rather wild percent changes from month to month, is that right now the total income is about $50/mo, so even small dollar amounts can affect the percentage quite a bit. Look forward to a bigger jump next month!
2) PayPal Money Market:
PayPal has lowered their annual rate to 5.02% which means about 0.409% gains for the month.
3) Stocks (three portfolios):
Personal picks: -28.26%, -4.21% (change during last month)
TurnerTrends ETF-10: -2.65% (change during last month)
A pretty sorry month here, but I know very well what I did wrong, and the big -28% loss should only be temporary since it’s mostly a single stock that got away from me this last week, and I am still in… expecting that it will be coming back my way with in 1 more week (maybe two). Over all, I’m not worried about it.
4) Second Life:
Through January we are still at the 0.10% daily rate, about 3% gains per month and 43% annual. Besides a very healthy investment gain, I was able to add about L$12,000 (US$45) from camping alone.
5) BrownBagLaunch:
No income yet, but another friend and I are going to start pushing our new web site hosting biz a little further and hopefully we’ll start seeing something by next month. I suppose I will have to make a separate post about this new stream soon.
Tonight I met with a couple friends to discuss how we could firm up our financial goals, get more focused, collaborate on ideas, and keep motivated. I gave them quite a bit of info as to some things I’m currently doing, along with reasons why I thought these were good “next steps”, and after hearing about where they are financially, it seems like we’re all about the same place…. currently out of (bad) debt, and have our income exceeding our expenses on a monthly basis. We should all be moving ahead to contact financial planners this next week. We have set up a plan to try and meet once a week to go over ideas, report progress, etc. I doubt anyone will be able to actually get to an interview with a planner before then, but hopefully we will have at least made some calls!
Some other things we discussed where stocks. I mentioned ClearStation.com as a nice (free) site that has some good tools for analysing stocks, as well as providing a kind of social network for stock traders. I have found it can be a nice learning experience to read why others are buying and selling certain stocks at certain times, and what they are looking at to make their decissions. Prophet.net also has some nice charts that allow you to draw on them, and save your markings between each visit to the site. It might be nice to increase our education on how to pick better stocks (long term and short term), but my personal feeling right now is that I’d rather find an analyst who’s been showing good returns, and follow them. I am counting on the fact that a GOOD one will be spending a lot of their own time to research the stocks, and that frees up my own time to pursue other avenues.
We also talked some about real estate. Nothing too concrete at this time, but I do have my agent (Jessica Bruehl) sending me info on 4plex/8plex buildings. Another friend I’m talking to has made a comment about going in together on some larger real estate deal, and so that may be an option too. I don’t think I want too large a slice of my pie tied up in one single investment. Since most of us are just starting out on this journey, maybe we ALL would feel better about being able to start by putting in less money, and accepting less return.
The first meeting went great!
I am eager for us all to get together again, talk about more ideas, and report the progress we will make over this next week.
For the past two weeks now, I’ve known my next step is talking to a financial planner, yet I keep putting this off. It IS something I want to do! — so why am I putting it off?
I put some more thought in to that today and decided the main reason is probably because I don’t think I am prepared. Managing paperwork, and details is just not something my personality type is good with, and so in many ways my life seems rather chaotic. (All the MORE reason for a financial planner to help get it organized, and draw out a PLAN…. I’m good at following step by step plans).
So, today I decided to do a little research and find out what I might need to interview a financial planner, and after reading a few pages (Prepare for the Financial Planner Interview, How To Choose a Financial Planner, 10 Questions To Ask) I decided to gather my best findings and present them here in this post.
Remember, a good financial planner will identify where you are at, find out where you want to be and then draw up a plan of action to get you there.
Financial Goals
The very first step you should take is to sit down and think about what your short-term and long-term financial goals are. A financial planner will have a hard time helping if they can’t see where you are at now, and don’t know where you want to be. You might come up with a few different ideas, and the financial planner can help determine which are good, and which can be worked in together, but you have to have SOME goal for them to work toward!
For myself, I have one fairly simple goal at the moment: Set up $1,500 in passive income by 2010. I already have about $500 or so set up, and that gives me 3 years to create the rest. I should be able to do much better than that, but once I achieve THAT goal, it’s a downhill snowball!
Gather Financial Records
Next, you will need to gather your financial records. You (and the financial planner) will need to determine your current spending habits, assets, and liabilities. You should have a few things ready to take to the first meeting/interview:
*) Rough outline of your monthly budget
*) Estimate of monthly income (sources of present and future) and expenses
*) Recent tax returns
*) Social Security estimates
*) Recent account statements for retirement plans
*) Recent bank and brokerage statements for all accounts
*) List of major assets and estimated market value
*) Recent statement from all open credit card accounts
*) Copy of the latest declarations page from auto, home/renter’s, life, and disability insurance.
Gather a list of prospects
I would recommend asking family and friends if they are using any financial planners (or have in the past) and what they thought of the advice. These are the people who will probably give the most detailed account of their personal experience, although keep in mind they might have limited experience, and it will be highly bias toward their personal feelings as to how helpful they thought the advice was. The next group to ask for prospects would be other financial professionals such as accountants, your bank, etc. I have found that my real estate agent (also an investor) is a great source, since she does a LOT of networking in her position, knows a lot of people, and so should be picking the best of the crop for her personal “team” as well. I do not know if the phone book is a good place, but it is another option.
Preliminary Calls
After you have a few names/numbers, it’s time to get a little more information and narrow things down.
Questions to ask:
1) What is your area of specialty? (some answers might be: cash flow, tax, investing, insurance and retirement planning)
2) Do you have any certifications?
Certified Financial Planner (CFP) — about 55% pass the test on the first try
Personal Finance Specialist (CPA/PFS) — Certified Public Accountant
Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) — investments and wealth management
3) How are you compensated for advice? (salary? fees? commissions? other?)
4) What are your income and investment requirements? (make sure they are in your price range!)
5) Do you have a packet of information you can send me? Does it include your Form ADV? (read about Form ADV here)
Interviews
It’s recommended to have at least 3-4 half-hour interviews lined up. These will probably be free, but be sure to ask! Also, make sure you will be meeting the person who will be advising you. 
Take a checklist of questions for the interview:
1) What investment experience do you have?
2) What is your professional background? Education?
3) What strategies or principals are used to develop your financial plans? (conservative/aggressive)
4) What services do you offer?
5) Will YOU be carrying out the recommendations? or referring me to other professionals?
6) Do you have a copy of a typical plan you might recommend?
7) (if you have not gotten their Form ADV yet.. ask for it)
What do you typically charge?
9) Could you give me a list of any possible conflicts of interest? (other people/companies that might pay planner extra money for pointing you in their direction)
10) Can I have it in writing? (get them to give you a written record of what is agreed on, and keep it in your files)
11) Do you have a few references of current and former clients with financial goals similar to mine?
Here is a GREAT checklist you should print out and take with you:
Checklist For Interviewing a Financial Planner
Make a choice
After all the interviews, TAKE YOUR TIME with making a final decision. You will probably be paying several hundred dollars a year for a good financial plan, and it’s worth the extra time up front to make sure you get started on the right foot, where the plan can more than make up for it’s cost. Check references. Look up Form ADV information. Who are you most comfortable sharing your financial information with?
Take Action
Finally, remember… even the best financial plan is worthless if YOU do not take action!