Career Decisions Related to Debt

Well, one of the reasons I got into my debt is a serious of foolish career decisions and spending on things I didn't need, like going out to dinner and takeout (not to mention this contributed to my weight problems). So, since I only make $10 an hour right now you may think I am nuts that I haven't been looking for a second job. Or another main job. I kind of think I am nuts too, which is why I periodically grapple with what to do. I like my current job, what I do all day long, which is a lot more than I can say for other jobs I have had. The time flies by. Unfortunately, my company cannot afford to pay me more right now. I am scared to get another job because I don't know what kind to get. All the admin jobs I have had have been so horrible, I felt really negative emotions all day long and would cry sitting at my desk at work. I am not qualified for anything else. Also, I worry cause my pets are getting older now and if they got sick I would need to be able to nurse them back to health. I don't think a boss would understand if I needed to take off for a week or more cause I need to feed my pet every 3 hours or something.

So this is where I am today. I have strongly considered filing bankruptcy. I need help. More than just financially.

My Only Great Credit Card Deal

Well last year I stumbled upon a really fantastic deal from Discover Card. As a matter of fact, it is such a good deal I will give them a shout-out in this entry, although I like to avoid mentioning names of financial institutions I belong to, as a general rule for this blog. Anyway, I received an offer in the mail for 0% interest for a year on transferred and regular balances, and after the year was up I would continue to receive 0% as long as my account stayed in good standing and I made 3 purchases a month on the card.

So it has been over a year now and I have continued to enjoy 0% interest on this card, which really helped because I had transferred $5,000 from my card that had 30% interest on it. What a godsend! The only problem now is I kind of haven't been diligent with this card and put more than 3 purchases, like McDonald's and a few iTunes song. I guess it was more than just a few things here and there cause I went over my balance last week! I really hope this won't make my interest rate start to kick in. I will cry. Seriously. I made a payment immediately so hopefully I should be okay. And the credit card has gone back into my filing cabinet, only to come out for my original plan which was to use it every Sunday to fill up my gas tank and thats it (to meet the 3 purchases requirement). Also I would pay more than what the gas cost every month so I could pay this debt down slowly. I am working on cards with higher interests at the moment.

Here is an interesting forum discussion on this offer.

In other news I have an interview to start substitute teaching next week at a local elementary school. I am going to probably do this sometimes during the day and come into my present job in the evenings, just for extra money. Hopefully I am getting there!

Pet-Sitting and Other Odd Jobs

I have been thinking about putting an ad on Craigslist offering to pet-sit for people while they are away. I have a lot of experience with different animals and I think I could take care of them pretty well. Also, I may put up some fliers offering to walk smaller dogs (I don't think I can control a big dog on a leash, I am too small). The only problem is that I am a little worried about going into people's homes. What if some creep just calls me to come over to get me into his house or something. Am I being paranoid? Also, what if I see a pet that is not being taken care of appropriately. How would I handle that I don't know. It would make me so extremely sad. I don't know if it is a good idea.

I have been tempted lately to just give up on all this and look for a higher paying job or maybe a second job. When I start to get serious about that I start getting anxiety and I talk myself out of it. I like the flexibility of my current job. I am afraid of hating what I do all day at a new job, and also of not being able to take off in case one of my pets gets sick or I get sick. I hate disappointing people or inconveniencing an employer so this really effects my motivation to get a better job. I feel like I am only screwing myself though, and I have the bad feeling I am not making the right choices.

Have you ever stayed in a job that you weren't sure was the right place for you, and it may have been affecting your life in a negative way? What made you stay? I would love to hear others' experiences with this sort of situation and any advice you might have. Please leave a comment!

Stick to your budget even on v-Day!

As the whole world knows tommorrow is Valentine's Day- how to keep V-Day simple and affordable? Please, listen to me cause I have the advice for you! Do not listen to Hallmark or Godiva or that stupid Teddy bear Company (although I have never gotten a Vermont Teddy Bear I would kind of like to if it was really personalized and thoughtful)!

For any guy or girl out there still lost as to what to get someone this year for Valentine's Day, you don't have to go out and spend a lot. Try making things! I can't tell you how many friends of mine say they wish their boyfriend or girlfriend would cook them a meal from start to finish for Valentine's Day. Make cookies, brownies, chocolate lollipops, chocolate-covered strawberries (or buy them hehe). It is so easy to make chocolate-dipped strawberries yourself!

Also, you can make a Valentine or at the very least, spend at least 30 minutes at the card store looking for a card that your beau would really enjoy. There a ton of do-it-yourself Valentine's Day gift ideas at this site.

In sum, please, please, please, don't break your budget on a Valentine's Day present for your partner. It is just not worth it, especially when a home made gift is more appreciated than a store-bought one anyway!

Monetizing my blog

Well I posted on the Digital Points forum on how to get money from blogging, because you know that would help with my debt. I have heard of bloggers making a lot of money from their blogs! I want to remain really useful for my readers, so I will never take it to the extreme, but an extra $100 a month would really help me right now.

Judging from my responses, there are a lot of conflicting opinions out there!

Here are some of the replies I received to my question of "Where to start for getting PR and money?"

"Start with claiming your blog in Technorati. That'll get them crawling it. Go ahead and ad adsense and any other ad stuff you want as most will tell you that doing it from the get go is better than dropping it in after you've been blogging for a year.
Try and get your site added to as many directories as you can. dmoz.org is the most popular, but be careful to not spam it and put your blog in a fitting category.
Use a service like pingoat.com to ping as many services as you can each time you do a post. If you are posting more than once a day, only use the service once per day, so use it after your last post of the day.
Most of all, be patient. Unless you're the next Mike Arrington, you probably will be a little guy for quite a while. Don't expect 1000's of visits anytime soon, but the more you post and the better you get at it, the more hits you will get and the more returning readers you will have." (link to his profile: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/member.php?u=54096)

"I have the opposite strategy. Don't monetize early on if you're seriously interested in making your blog popular and familiar with many. If you're getting less than 1000+ uniques a day, you won't make much from Adsense anyway.

Try buying links to build up your PR. Sell text links for money. I think sponsored posts won't look good on your blog if you're aiming for the very top too. Text link sales should be fine though." (link to their profile: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/member.php?u=48953)

"Just keep creating quality post, build links and don't worry about making money right away. Success will come as you page rank and popularity grow." (link to their profile: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=240400)

I hope maybe these responses will help you too, if you are trying to make your blog the best it can be in order to make a little extra money off of it.

I would like to ask for your tips, and also how you feel about making money off your blog, even if you feel negatively about it I would like to hear why! Thanks!

Weekend Update

Well I am really starting to get a hang of not using my credit cards. They have been in my filing cabinet all weekend, except for a little field trip this afternoon I have done a great job.

Here are some tips I have for not spending money on the weekends:
- have someone else treat!
- drink your alcohol at home by buying wine at Trader Joe's (Two-Buck Chuck for $2.99!!!) or by the case so you don't spend as much. Think about it, for one glass at a restaurant you can sometimes buy a whole bottle of something!
- go to restaurants that have a BYOB policy to save lots of money! Check out this BYOB Dining Guide.
- hang out at home and play board games, invite some friends over for a make-shift dance party or board game night with popcorn (Popcorn recipes)!
- split a meal with a friend (this will help your diet too!)

Do you have any other tips for saving money on the weekends? Please post them here so they can be useful to someone else!

Where to start with monetizing a blog?

This isn't exactly related to reducing my debt, but I am sure a lot of readers (and I, for that matter!) would like to feel less confused about all the things one can do with their blog to make money. I would like to keep my blog useful to many, many readers, but yes I would also like it to help me reduce my debt in any way. There are so many different things you can do with your blog, it can easily become overwhelming as to what will give you the best results all around.

Should I put Google Adsense on my blog(s)?

Should I concentrate on putting all the little buttons on each entry like "Digg this" and Technorati and Del.i.cious (or however its spelled)? And how do I do this anyway??

Should I just worry about readers?

Should I join all the paid for blogging sites like Blogsvertise (which I did join cause it accepts newer blogs) and ReviewMe (like a reader suggested)?

Should I buy my own domains?

I will probably eventually do all of these things in time but I wish I knew how to prioritize what to do.

I am going to be doing some research on what experts have to say about this topic and follow up with an update on this subject. If you are reading this and you have your own suggestions, please comment so I can include them in my article with a credit to you. Thanks!