Kids, work and blogging update!

10. July 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Family, Make Money Online, work

It’s been a busy few weeks around here!  DD decided to postpone her trip to the UK so she’ll be here for another 2 months now. Our weekends have been spent sorting through her things, deciding what to sell, what to donate and what to pack away. We’ve got four boxes of books and dvds to go to fishpond to be sold and we’ve had a few trips to the op shop.

DS, who has been very unwell, is improving. He found out on Sunday night that he had passed his first semester and so he meets prerequisites for his last semester at university. If he had failed he would have had to wait six months as the courses don’t run all the time. So it’s been a tense few weeks worrying about him. I felt like we’d one the lottery when he called with his results!

In amongst all that I had two weeks off in bed very sick,which really put me behind with everything. I’m on the mend now though thank goodnes.

Work. well it’s difficult. Anyone living in NSW or Victoria would be aware of the massive public service and education cuts we are facing. Thousands of people will be laid off over the next year or so, many already have. Of our team of 9 people, I have been told by 5 of them that they will be leaving for other jobs within six months. One leaves next week, another in six weeks. The other three are hoping to last till Christmas.

It’s sad watching a team that really does make a difference get broken down like this.But fortunately all of us are highly employable and each of those people that are leaving have already started moonlighting jobs that they will be moving into. All of us have discussed frankly what our plans are and all but one person ( who is ready to retire)  in the team is now building up an income outside of the job.

Me? Well I’m committed to staying for as long as possible and making the most of the good income to get this house done. I have also decided to get back to internet marketing work, so I’ve been busy with that. I love doing it and this time round it’s a business.  I’m creating sites to sell down the track. So far they are ranking nicely. I find it very relaxing work and I have to say it’s been a great stress reliever.

I’ve also decided to monetize this site. The vast majority of traffic here is from the search engines and I turn down offers for ad placements regularly. Expect some changes, I’ll still be blogging about all kinds of things, will do more finance posts as well the personal ones and see how it all goes!

Cashing out rewards at Australian Survey Sites

24. May 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Earn Money, Make Money Online

I cashed out some of my earnings from survey sites this week and I’ll be using that money towards our stockpiling. I got two $20 Woolworths vouchers and $44 cash paid into my bank account. $84 to put towards groceries is pretty good for answering surveys! And because I’ll only be buying items on special it will be worth even more.

The best Australian sites for paid surveys are:

Pure Profile- my absolute favourite! I get a lot of surveys from them and they pay well, I’ve had payments of $4.50 & $6 in the last few weeks.I love the way thier site is set up, very easy to use.

Valued Opinions – This was the first survey site I joined. They give fair compensation and pretty frequent surveys.

What Do You Think? This site is a regular earner for me. You get surveys, offers to sign up for quotes and email lists and points for page views. You can also earn points for clicking on banners on the home page when they are on offer. They used to offer these each hour when they first started, now the banner points are few and far between.

Other sites I use, but they are not as good as those three, are:

Rewards Central

My Opinions

My View

and one I wouldn’t recommend:

Live Tribe – you earn very little for doing surveys here, not worth the time it takes in my opinion. Once I cash out my voucher I will not be using this site anymore.

I have a separate email address set up just for surveys and i check this each evening. I usually do the surveys in the evenings while I’m watching TV. It’s not going to make you a fortune, but it’s an easy way to earn a bit extra.

Do you use survey sites? Which ones are the best for you?

Just working, driving & sleeping…

17. June 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: emergency fund, Family, Frugal, frugal food, Internet marketing, Make Money Online

Not a lot happening here except travelling, working and sleeping! :)  

DS is in the process of moving out of home for good in the next month. He will be living about 4 hours away so we’ve had a trip to check out accommodation. Twice now we thought we had a little unit for him and each time it’s fallen through as the person we’ve spoken to didn’t know someone signed a contract with another agent. We had a call last night that one of the tenants has changed his mind, we’ve told them we want to take it and now we just need to get the paperwork approved so fingers crossed!! But it will probably mean another trip down later this week.

I am so sick of driving!  I close my eyes and I see the road.

On the financial front… well I know I need to update all my numbers here and at my snowball so I’ll try and do that over the weekend. I have just over $3000 in the emergency fund now and it does make me feel a bit more secure.

I also had an unexpected bonus this week when a client paid a $700+ bill that I had given up on collecting on!  Probably because it’s almost tax time and someones flagged it as outstanding. So I put $200 in the emergency fund and I decided to keep $500 for myself to set aside for setting up to do an online business again. I’ve really spent nothing on myself in the last year so I this can be my splurge money all at once!

I have previously had some success with affiliate marketing and in my best month was making $600 a month a few years ago. I’m going to do a bit of work on a site I own and see if I can get it back earning again so I can get this debt gone faster. I decided to add a few ads and offers to this site. I’m not doing any paid advertising, only some affiliate and CPA offers. Hopefully they won’t annoy too many of you but I get a couple of hundred visitors a day aside from my bloggy friends so we’ll see what comes of it! I’ll update my earnings on my extra income page.

Frugal update…. well I’ve been too tired to go shopping… LOL.. and that makes a difference!
I bought two huge pumpkins from a farmer who had his veggies for sale in a trailer… thats one thing I DO like about driving around all week… seeing the roadside stalls.  They cost $2 each and I just left my money in the tin. I used one to make pumpkin soup last week. Thats kept me fed all week and some is in the freezer. I’ll make more soup again this weekend with other one and freeze it.

I also  have been buying some of those buckets of fruit at some stalls, it’s a little bruised but I just stew them up and it makes a lovely hot breakfast. Stewed apples with a sprinkling of LSA ( ground linseed, sesame seeds, almonds) and cinnamon. Beautiful way to warm up in this freezing cold weather!

I also decided to take a week off next month. I really need the break. I will probably just go down and spend some time with Dad, go to beach and catch up on sleep. I’m really looking forward to it!

So it might be that I’m not posting as much till work settles down a bit. I’m still reading your blogs and My aim to post at least every weekend for the moment.

Just scored a big fat regular snowflake job!

10. April 2011 · 13 comments · Categories: credit cards, Dave Ramsay, debt, How to Eliminate Debt, Make Money Online

I’ve just scored a long term writing job that will see me earn up to $200 per week in my spare time!! YeeHah!!  After listening to more debt free stories I decided that I’d like to really mow down this debt even faster if possible. I used to do writing work in the past on elance so I went on and made a few bids and after a little bit of negotiation I’ve scored a long term writing job that suits me down to the ground. It’s work that I find easy, I know the subject inside out and I’ll bang out a few articles each morning before work.

Writing is the fastest, easiest way that I know to make extra money from home. Just before I got sick I scored a big contract for over $7000, unfortunately I had to cancel it. But I have found it one way to get money quickly and I find it easy to do.

So, its less time online surfing the net for me and more money for snowflakes!  I worry sometimes how I’ll adjust when this debt is gone. I think about it all the time and count the days till the next payday, or the next snowflake. I look at my debt snowball every day and play around with the numbers. I think it will take a lot for me to really feel secure again financially after all that’s happened.

Do you do extra work to earn money outside your regular job to help pay off debt?

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