Category: Money

As mentioned before in my post titled “Saving Money can be Easy Money“, a good way to make money is to save money.

A lot of people do their shopping online. This is good as it gives people choice. But here are a few guidelines on saving money:

1 – Look for sellers that are offering discounts. There is a lot of competition out there. Don’t go for the first deal you come across

2 – Some sites have discounts when you buy more than one item, or a specific set of items. Browse around on the site before purchasing

3 – There are sites on the internet where you can get coupons or codes for special deals at certain websites. For example, you might find a site offering a coupon for a discount at Dell’s website. Or even Folica.com coupons, if that’s what you’re shopping for…

But, at least take the following into account when you go bargain hunting:

Don’t buy something just because it’s cheaper!
If you feel like a coke, and it costs $1, but the shop keeper is offering you 3 cokes for $2.50, you have to think whether you’re saving $0.50, or spending an extra $1.00 that you don’t actually need to…

Another example: In South Africa, the Canon EOS 30D Digital SLR camera sells for about $2500. But, in America, it goes for around $1500. But, saving $1000 doesn’t sound as good as SPENDING $1500 of money I don’t have…

Your thoughts?

Ok, so making money reading sounds like a really easy way to make money. BUT, you probably landed on this page searching for a way to make money, and I say, read what you can on this site, and continue on your way…

I don’t mean that you won’t find a way to make money on this site, I just mean that you must read as much as you can as quickly as you can. There are a LOT of sites out there that deal with how to make money. For example, MSN Money is a good resource. They have interesting articles on saving money, and investing money, etc…

Then there are the sites out there that teach you how to start online businesses.

If you feel generous, please donate 30 seconds of your time and leave a comment about what you expected to find on this site. What I hoped to give was an alternative way of making money. I just hope it’s at least something new… If you’ve previously found an interesting way to make money, please let me know. I LOVE “useless knowledge”, because it never is…

Microsoft Money 2006 is a software package that I wish I could use. Here’s why:

1 – Track what money comes in and what goes out
2 – Charts to see what you are spending your money on
3 – Forecasting your cashflow

Not major features you’d think, but I TOTALLY believe that to make money you have to manange your money. And that means knowing what you have at all times.

Why can’t I use Microsoft Money 2006? Well, I could, but most of the cool features don’t apply exactly to a person in South Africa, like the tax features, and the integration into your bank accounts.

Oh, and the fact that Amazon doesn’t ship it to South Africa. (Of course, one of you kind readers would have bought it as a present, right…?)

Have you ANY idea what “Mesothelioma” means? As the post “Mesothelioma: the one word every AdSense publisher knows?” by Eric Giguere mentions, it is a dreadful disease shown to be caused by Asbestos dust. There is an article on the Globe and Mail site giving details of a case regarding someone dying from the disease.

WHY would I write about Mesothelioma on a site dedicated to Making Money (and easy money at that)??? Well, in my opinion, there are 2 people trying to make money from this word:

TORT LAWYERS:

In my opinion, these are the most evil of lawyers because they APPEAR to be helping people, but they actually don’t. If they represent you in a class action suit against a company, they need as many people as possible to join the class action. Reason: They get a percentage of the claim. 30% may not seem like a lot, but when you get a $10,000 payout from a company, you’re only getting $7,000, and the lawyer gets $3,000. Now, if there are 4,500 people making claims as I believe there are for Mesothelioma, you STILL only get $7,000, but the lawyer is getting $13,500,000… How nice of him.

ADSENSE PUBLISHERS:

Maybe not anymore, but it was thought that back in the day you could make $10 a click if you had Ads related to Mesothelioma. I HIGHLY doubt that’s the case now. I’m sure there are thousands of sites out there totally dedicated to the topic of Mesothelioma, and we all now what over-supply and low demand do to prices…

Gambling is DEFINITELY Easy Money. But is it always safe money?

If you do a search on the internet, you’ll find a lot of sites talking about how playing poker online, and, generally ANY online gambling, is illegal. It does seem that this only affects residents of the USA, so, the rest of us can carry on with our online poker games, winning millions and millions of… Sorry, getting ahead of myself here.

USA Today has an article titled “Online poker games deal illegal hands” which says:

You’re playing with real money. You’ve paid for virtual betting chips via an escrow service. And, if you’re lucky enough to win, your account will be credited with money.

What’s wrong with this picture? It’s illegal, according to the Department of Justice.

Thousands of gambling Web sites operate offshore, conveniently beyond the grasp of U.S. regulation

Ok, so now we have off-shore gambling websites, allowing you to play your strip poker online. But why would it be illegal to PLAY poker with real money on the internet? Well, in 1961, an Act was written stating that it was illegal to accept bets over a “wire communication facility”, this being the telephone back then. But now, it means practically all methods of our modern day communication, including the internet.

Oh well, Easy Money can be hard to come by, sometimes…

My brother came to me the other day about a plan he had of buying Iraqi Dinar. When I asked him why he wanted to buy Iraqi Dinar, he gave me the whole sales talk on how buying the “NEW Iraqi Dinar” at the current exchange rate will make him a millionaire once the Iraqi Dinar hit the open market.

Do I think he should have bought them? Not really. My motto is: If something sounds to easy to be true, it usually is.

But I did do some research on this, and found quite a few sites that were offering to sell me the New Iraqi Dinar. For example, one site could sell me 1,000,000 Iraqi Dinar for $700. And that it was so low due to the Iraqi wars. Some sites have evidence showing how war-torn countries’ currencies go up in value almost exponentially in peace time.

I guess I’m just a chicken when it comes to something SO risky. If you’ve had any experience buying Iraqi Dinar (or some other foreign currency) ovr the internet, please let me know.

Some people seem to have forgotten all about saving money. In my parents’ day, it was always a case of putting 10% of your earnings aside every month. My parents tried to teach that to me, but saving money isn’t always that easy.
For example, an article in a recent “Fortune Magazine” (end of March 2006) talks about how the rate of household saving in the U.S. has dipped to -0.4%. That is SHOCKING. (A side note of depression: China has an average household saving rate of 30%, also bad in it’s own way, though).

An article on MSN Money called “Leave your ATM card at home” talks about how paying with cash helped save a person money because it made her stop and think if she really needed the item.

The article does mention a few reasons why Credit Cards are helpful, such as:

• They’re easier to track. With debit and credit cards, you know exactly what you’ve spent where…
• They offer some protection. Credit cards, and debit cards with MasterCard or Visa logos, promise “zero liability” for consumers if the cards are lost or stolen…
• They give you rewards. Many credit cards and even some debit cards offer reward points, frequent-flier miles, cash back or other fringe benefits. The more you use them, the more rewards you pile up.

But overall, they talk about how using cash is better than credit because you can’t spend what you don’t have. If you have put cash away for such things as entertainment, and you have run out, it isn’t as easy to just go out and spend.

Definitely an interesting read, along with the Fortune Magazine.

As illegal as this post’s title sounds, it’s not actually that bad. 😉 It’s actually related to an article I read a couple of months back on MSN Money called “4 real jobs you can do from home“.

I really enjoyed this article and thought you might as well. It highlights 4 ways you could work from home and make money. The 4 jobs the writer mentions are:

1 – A call center in your home:

This talks about how companies are “outsourcing” their sales and problem-solving call centers to home-based workers, thanks to the internet and improved call-routing capabilities.

2 – Start a Web Business:

This section talks about how you can start a profitable online business using skills you might already have…

3 – Mystery shopping and survey taking:

An interesting thought, being paid to go and shop, and then write reviews on your experience. (I wonder if you get to keep your purchases…)

4 – Online auctions:

And, finally, I’m sure we’ve all heard about how you can make money trading with online auctions like eBay.

It all sounds so easy to make money online these days. But it’s still hard work. Remember though, it can be hard work, but if it’s fun, it kind of makes it Easy Money. 🙂