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This is part two in my look back at my various efforts to make money online.

Amazon Affiliates – While this could have been a subset of blogging, I put it on its own.  It was a miserable failure for me.  I didn’t make one affiliate sale despite a handful of positive book reviews.  But now, that doesn’t matter anyway.

Past Web Sites- I started my first website in high school.  I will admit, it was a professional wrestling fan site.  I just deleted it from Yahoo! GeoCities a few months ago actually.  While a webmaster about ten years ago, I signed up for Yahoo’s pay per click advertising.  I made about $5 from that one.

Selling Rap CDs – I am a professional Jewish rapper.  I don’t mention that much on this site.  Maybe if I did, I would sell more CDs.  I have sold enough HWChet albums to pay for the costs, but those were all sold in person.  I have never made an online sale, but I do have PayPal on the site if you are interested.  A CD is just $5 plus shipping.

Paid Surveys- I used to try to fill out a lot of surveys online at Survey Savvy.  Over several years and many, many rejections from the screening process, I have earned about $60 on Survey Savvy.  If you are interested in signing up, please do so through my referral link.  Or, contact me for a referral e-mail.  I have referred two friends who have also been paid out for their surveys.

Honorable Mention – Swag Bucks

I have earned enough from Swagbucks to buy a season of one of my favorite shows on DVD for free.  Swagbucks is a hybrid Google search engine that rewards you in Swagbucks for searching.  For doing nothing more than I normally would, I have earned seven $5 gift cards for Amazon.com.  There are thousands of prizes.  You can also cash your bucks in for cash through PayPal.  If you want to take advantage of this one, sign up through my link to give matching Swagbucks for your first 1000 bucks earned from search.  I have had a friend sign up and she was thrilled with the site too.

Honorable Mentions – Free Stuff

I have earned lots of free stuff from e-Rewards.  To join the site, you need a referral from one of the sponsoring companies.  I got my invite through the Priority Club rewards program (Holiday Inn), though I have seen friends join up through the book store Borders as well.  You can cash out for miles, hotel reward points, free magazines, and gift cards.

Ideas – Freelancing and eBook

In the future, I am planning to do a little online freelancing.  I plan to do a combination of finance and writing projects.  Sites like Elance show opportunity.  I have also completed an eBook and I am in the final stages of editing and production.  Expect to see it on the site in the near future.

I was going to include the Amazon affiliate program with just a short blurb in my next post on how I make money online, but it is now in the list of how I don’t make money online in a big way.  My account was closed along with every other affiliate in Colorado.

I know of many bloggers, such as Darren at ProBlogger, who make a lot of money from Amazon referrals.  In my neck of the woods, that program is no more.  Here is the letter from Amazon:

Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate:
We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to “voluntarily” collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won’t take.
We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.
There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.
You may express your views of Colorado’s new law to members of the General Assembly and to Governor Ritter, who signed the bill.
Your Associates account has been closed as of March 8, 2010, and we will no longer pay advertising fees for customers you refer to Amazon.com after that date. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to March 8, 2010, will be processed and paid in accordance with our regular payment schedule. Based on your account closure date of March 8, any final payments will be paid by May 31, 2010.
We have enjoyed working with you and other Colorado-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.

Best Regards,
The Amazon Associates Team

To recap: “We don’t love you anymore because of something someone else did.  Now fuck off.”  My account has been closed.  While Amazon was not a big money maker for me, it was an option.  Now it is not.

Like many of you, I have tried my best at finding opportunities to make money online.  I have tried a handful of methods.  Some have worked out really well.  Some have not quite paid off.  I hope to continue to expand my online income streams, so please give your best ideas in the comments below.  The list is roughly in order from best to worst, but I did not use a scientific method to pick the order.

eHow Writer’s Compensation Program – eHow has been my biggest paying online money maker since I joined at the end of 2007.  Over the roughly two years I have been a member, I have earned well over $1,000.  Not a living by any means, but not too shabby either.  After being accepted for the program, I wrote a total of about 35 articles over my two years.  The best thing about eHow is that you make residual earnings on your articles.  I make about $30 a month these days for not doing anything.  For some reason, the earnings have fallen over time.  You can see my articles under my user page: Eric1985 at eHow.

Demand Studios – Demand Studios is a subsidiary of Demand Media.  Demand Media is the owner of eHow, so this overlaps a little bit.  At Demand Studios, I am paid a fixed rate (I only take $15) or a residual for writing articles for eHow or a list of other affiliated sites.  Something nice about Demand Studios, which requires a professional application, resume, and writing samples, is that the work is always there.  I could potentially earn a full time income from the site if I put in the time.  If has been my best success lately.

Blogging – Blogging is not something I do for big profits by any means, but it does produce a small income stream.  I have made the $100 AdSense cutoff one time before, but it takes a long time to earn anything there.  I have also earned income from sponsored posts and direct advertising sales.  However, hosting and domain registration across my several domains makes blogging just a bit more than a wash.  The hourly rate is dismal.  I do it because I enjoy doing it.  If you want to “pay me” for what I do here, the best way today is to sign up for one of my affiliate sites.  I only choose affiliates that I really use in real life.  You can sign up for Lending Club and get a $25 bonus or high interest checking and/or savings at ING Direct and I get a little something.

Stay tuned for part 2 later this week.

This year I had an unexpected and pleasant surprise at work.  I was awarded stock options for 700 shares pricing in March.  The options vest 33.3% per year over the next three years.

It is exciting to be awarded options.  This ties my compensation to the company’s performance over the next three years.  From the company perspective, it is better to have employee compensation tied to company performance, as employees may work harder to ensure the company is successful.

Here is how employee stock options work, using my situation as an example:

• First, I am notified that I will receive options.  I was given the number of shares and the pricing date for the options.
• On the pricing date in March, my options are given a fixed value per share.  This is tied to the market price on that date.  The price is called a strike price.
• Every year for the next three years, a portion of those options become vested, or available for use.
• If the market value of my company stock is higher than the strike price on any date past the vesting date, I have the option to buy shares of the company stock at the strike price.  If the price is higher than the strike price, I can sell immediately for the market price and keep the profit.  If it is below the strike price, the option is “out of the money” and I will not exercise the option.

As you can see, the mechanics of options depend on the market price compared to the strike price.  No one would ever exercise options “out of the money,” because they would have to pay for the stock at a price higher than the market price.

While employee options have similar mechanics to buying and selling options on the market, there are many differences.  Do not use this as a guide to buy and sell options.

I found an interesting new website a few weeks back and have been impressed enough to pass it on to you.  The Residuals and Royalties blog keeps cranking out ideas on how to make money through unique opportunities.

The author, an LA based actor named Michael-John Wolfe, scours the web for ideas on turning income sources into long term income streams.

It is definitely worth a read.  I am an RSS subscriber so I don’t miss any new ideas.

I have taken Ramit Sethi’s thoughts on making an extra $1,000 per month to heart.  I am not there yet, and would like to figure out a better way to keep things balanced, but I have found a fun, income producing hobby that I want to share with you.

Last month, I was accepted as a writer at Demand Studios.  I went through an online application processwhere I was asked for a resume and two writing samples.  I heard back about two days later with an approval e-mail.  Demand Studios is held under the same parent company as popular sites like eHow, Livestrong.com, and Cracked.com.  The parent company is called Demand Media.

Demand Studios hires people on as freelance writers.  Your earnings are paid by PayPal and are reported to the IRS, so you do have to pay income taxes on the income.  Writers are paid on Wednesday and Friday for articles written before a specific cutoff time.

The earning structure is fairly straight forward.  There are articles with a set rate (most commonly $7.00 or $15.00) and there are articles under a revenue sharing program.  Those articles accumulate earnings over time and pay once they reach $10.00.

I have earned $240.20 so far, with two articles awaiting review (another $30) and $45.00 as my expected next payment.  Click to enlarge the summary below:

So, if you are interested in writing, this is a great opportunity to get paid for it.  I make a heck of a lot more at $15 per 400-500 word article than I do writing on this blog.  It is less rewarding, but a better financial gain.  I have found that writing an article or two while watching TV in an evening is easy and quick.

Have any of you given Demand Studios a try?  Have you had similar experiences?  Let us know in the comments.

I would like to take this opportunity to toot my own horn for a moment.  I got a promotion and a raise!  Yay!  More money, more to do.  Good times.

The question of what to do with a raise is often discussed in the personal finance world.  People can save more, they can raise their standard of living, they can do some combination of the two.  The answer for some is difficult.  While we all know that we should keep living just like we are and save our raise, we are not always that good.

I am a big fan of the percent contribution method of dealing with a raise.  If you make $40,000 per year and put 10% into retirement savings, you should stick with, at least, a 10% contribution if you get a raise to $45,000.  That way, your retirement contributions increase with your raise.  This is in contrast of putting in a fixed dollar amount, $4,000 per year at 10%, before and after the raise, because it would decrease to 8.8%.

Optimally, though, it might be even better to increase your contribution by a percent.  If you can get by living comfortably at $36,000 per year after retirement contributions before the raise, you can certainly continue to do so after the raise.  Why not split the difference?  Increase your contribution by half of your raise if you can, or something higher that what you are doing now.  It is easier to keep living the way you are today than to try to increase your contribution and adjust down later.

This time around, I am going to keep my retirement contributions the same by percentage, and will use the extra income to pay down student loans faster.  Hopefully I can put my next raise 50% to a house purchase fund and 50% to retirement.

That’s just my two cents.  What have you done with raises in the past?  Do you just keep it, keep contribution percentage the same and keep the difference, or raise your contribution?  Please say in the comments.

A few months back I wrote a post on what I like to call eBaytrage.  I just had a fun eBaytrage experience over the weekend that I thought I would share with you.

eBaytrage is buying something cheap or finding something for free and selling it online for a quick profit.  You can find cheap stuff by trolling the free stuff pages or for sale pages on Craigslist, garage sales, or eBay.  You can also follow discount sites like SlickDeals or the Amazon Gold Box.  My favorite, due to its freeness, is Craigslist.

The idea is that you buy something that is undervalued and sell it at its real value.  I found a free wood desk on Craigslist in my neighborhood, brought it home, cleaned it, listed it on Cragslist, and sold it for $40.  The whole thing probably took an hour or so of my time.  $40 for an hour’s work that I would have probably wasted watching TV is not bad if you ask me.

In the past I have turned around a camera for a $30 profit from SlickDeals and the desk.  My total eBaytrage earnings are at $70 for very little work.  I have two encyclopedias at home that I got for free that I am trying to sell for $100 or more each, but I am being patient as I have not had any good offers yet.

The trick is to keep re-listing items and make them look valuable.  Put up pictures and use key words and caps to bring in clicks and offers.  Just be careful that you don’t spend money on something and get stuck with it.  Only buy something that another person would really want to pay for.

Have any of you ever played the online eBaytrage game and done well, or not?  Please let us know in the comments.

On July 24, 2009 (that’s less than two weeks), the United States minimum wage will increase from $6.55 per hour to $7.25 per hour.  That is a difference of $1456 per year for impacted minimum wage employees.  That might not sound like a lot to some of us, but it will bring people a roughly 10% raise.  In the UK the minimum wage is set to increase 3.8% (SPONSORED LINK)

This increase is not necessarily coming at a great time for employers, but it is great timing for employees and the economy as a whole.  As each struggling employee, as most minimum wage earners are, gets a 10% raise, those people will (hopefully) be able to live in better conditions.  Those extra funds will also likely be coupled with an increase in total consumer spending.  As spending increases, the economy benefits.

If I were going to give advice to struggling minimum wage earners about to get a raise, I would tell them not to blow through the increase in pay as quickly as it comes in.  Like anyone who gets a pay increase, these people should try to keep their standard of living the same (or increase modestly) while increasing their saving for the future.

Unemployment continues to be a big issue, however, that will not be impacted by an increase in minimum wage.  In fact, the opposite might occur.  As businesses struggling to remain profitable will endure increased labor expenses, they might decide to lay off more employees.

Do you think the increase in minimum wage is a good thing?  Do you think more people will benefit than be harmed.  I believe, in the long run, it is a good step.  The government needs to ensure every full time worker is earning a livable wage.  The current minimum wage full time annual earnings are $13,624 per year.  The new annual earnings will be $15,080 per year.  I think most of us would hardly call that a livable wage.

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Imagine if you only had one more paycheck on the way.  What would you do?  Could you keep your house?  Could you keep your car?  Could you feed your family?  Could you maintain your lifestyle?

If the answer to any of those, aside from the last one, is no, you have some planning and work to do.  Everyone sh0uld have an emergency fund that can cover at least three to six month’s expenses.  If you were laid off today, it would probably take you a few months to get into a new job.  With the current job market, you probably would not make as much as you did in your prior job.

Many people are struggling with bills and debt today.  If they lose their income source, they go from struggling to non-payment to foreclosure in many circumstances.  The key is to act today to deal with the situation.  You can use a debt management plan or come up with your own system to stay afloat in troubled times.

Here is a step by step plan to evaluate your financial situation.  Think back to the personal balance sheet as a litmus test for your ability to stay current on your debt and keep a positive net worth.

1. List out all of your debt and minimum monthly payments.

2. List out all monthly expenses including rent, food, utilities, and other needs.

3. List out all monthly income from all sources.

Subtract your monthly payments from your monthly income.  If you expenses are higher than your income, adjust your budget now.  If it is close, try to cut expenses or increase your income to create a bit more wiggle room.

Next, just take your expenses and multiply by 3, 6, and 12.  That is how much you need in an emergency fund to continue at your current lifestyle for 3 months, 6 months, and a year.  Do your savings allow you to keep at your lifestyle for as long as you would realistically need to find a new job?

Take a second look at your expenses.  What can you cut?  What do you really need to get by for 3-6 months when looking for a job?

These are serious questions that you should be asking yourself even if you love your job and you think you job is secure.  You never know what is going to come up.  If you support a family, you have even more of a responsibility to keep on top of your finances.

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