Penny Seeds

I’ve been doing a little experimenting with writing lately. There’s lots of sites online that will pay you for your writing, and everyone has a different opinion on them.  The most popular of those sites are Associated Content, Helium, HubPages, Xomba, and Suite101.

Basically these sites act as a ‘host’ for your articles. They have different payment methods, but the general idea is to drive traffic to the host site. When you do, you’ll get a bit of cash for it. I’m using associated content right now, but other people swear by different sites.

Suite101 is the only one that really requires an application - not everyone will be accepted to this site, and I’m not for sure why. As I can tell nobody seems to report them paying any better than HubPages or Helium. All of the sites except Associated content work on an ad revenue sharing scheme. The sites share google adsense revenue with you; usually via a 50/50 split.

Associated Content is the most interesting to me, even though many people claim they don’t pay nearly enough. You can submit an article in multiple ways to Associated-Content. They pay you for page views - not clicks. Everyone knows it’s much easier to get somebody to view a page with content; then click an ad. It’s still only a small amount of money - you’ll only get $1.50 - $2.00 per 1000 page views.

*Performance Payments

This option will only give you performance payments. The good thing about choosing this option is that you can publish immediately. A manual review takes about a week to occur. When you first join they will manually review three of your articles - if you pass for those you can publish for performance payments with no review. This method will only pay you for page views you bring in.

*Upfront Payment Review

This is the most interesting option that the other sites do not have. AC claims payments anywhere from $1.50 - $25, but usually it’s about $3- $8 if you’re lucky. Still, if you knock out some very short, and keyword rich articles in a couple minutes this could be a good deal for you. You will also still get performance payments for this option.

The best part about it is they allow re-print articles.  Even for upfront payment. The trick is that if you want upfront payment then you have to publish on AC first, and then distribute to other venues. If you just want to instantly publish it for performance it can already be on other sites. I’ve re-purposed several of my older articles like this one. Some of the other sites allow re-prints too so if you really wanted you could post to all of them I suppose.

*Calls For Content

Calls for content is a special program at AC. They post ‘assignments’ that conform to content they want on the site. You are either offered an upfront payment or simply performance pay. Many of these are for holidays that are coming up. I did a couple poems for Christmas, and Thanksgiving that got decent page views with no promotion from me.  You’ll have to be quick about it, because the good projects go fast. Simply claim your assignment, write it up, and submit it.

There’s several other options to decide how you want your work to be used. You can choose usage only which will allow you to delete your work at any time. This will also only get you performance payments for page views. Giving exclusive rights to AC will give you a slightly higher upfront payment, but I have yet to find this worthwhile. Non-exclusive will leave the article rights to you - but if you opt for upfront payment you can not remove your content from their site if you want to later.

Many people will swear to you that they make a full time living on sites like this doing no work, but I wouldn’t expect more than pizza money. I’ve made under $20 to date - though I do not have very many articles. Most of my payments have been from calls for content or upfront payment. To date I have about 1300 page views, and  - so no big money for me. All of the high ranking people have 200 articles, and up - so I’m thinking that’s the magic number.

You will make residual income like everyone claims, because I get a piddly few pageviews every month. It will take work if you want to make anything major with a scheme like this. However, if you already write for other places, and have re-print rights for your articles you might ‘re-purpose’ them here.

Kill your land line phone (You’re paying for a cellphone anyway!) $40+/a month

Don’t need or want this service! My cell plan provides more than enough minutes (and they’re anytime! No crappy long distance service for me!), and half the calls on your land line will be telemarketers anyway.

Cut your cell minutes/texts (If you’re not using them - don’t pay for them!) $15+/a month

I cut my minutes down to the minimum plan ATT will offer for my phone (I wish they’d make a smaller plan!), and I still have full rollover minutes. If you have a spouse or children share minutes with them instead of adding more. Plus lots of carriers allow you to call anybody in your network for free anyway!

Mow your own lawn $20+/a month

If your lawn is a monster this will be much more for you. The cost of purchasing a mower will quickly be offset. My lawn is small so I purchased a reel mower recently! So, I don’t even pay for gas or electric to power it - plus you can cancel your gym membership cause it’s pretty good exercise.

Ditch rarely watched cable channels $20+/a month

How often do you use all those movie channels? How often is there even something on there you want to see! If you find yourself having to dust off the starz section before you can use it you should probably cancel it. Rent yourself a movie from Redbox instead!

Ditch cable altogether! $50+/a month

I did this last time I moved. Comcast wanted to charge me about $50 a month plus a hefty installation fee just for the privilege of paying for their service. No, thanks! I don’t watch TV much anyway.

Cancel magazine subscriptions $20+/a year

Every little bit helps! If you subscribe to magazines that you read once, and then toss.. don’t bother! What a waste of green for something that’s soon going to be used for bird cage liner.

Cancel your gym membership $30+/ a month

Alright, so you convinced yourself you’d exercise more if you got a gym membership. Have you? Instead of paying the big bucks for gym usage invest in something much cheaper like roller blades, or even go jogging or walking for free! Personally, I like biking or skateboarding, but the later is not for everybody. (Or mow your lawn! See above.)

Kill Satelite radio $12.95/ a month

Send it to heaven. Use your normal free radio, and save a lot of cash. It’s not something I want anyway - I’d much rather listen to the music I already have.

Buy Generic $?+/ a month

Most of the products you see on the shelves that are generic are really made by the same name brand companies. If you look at the packaging it will even tell you ‘manufactured by Betty Crocker, or Kraft, or ‘insert popular brand here’. You can potentially save a lot of money buying the store brand product that is often just as good as it’s big name counterpart. If you remember the peanut butter recall you’d notice they pulled both Peter Pan, and great value peanut butter. It’s because Peter Pan makes both brands - but sells under two names for Walmart stores inc.

Shop aroung for internet service $20+/a month

Internet service is not created equal. I currently pay about $60 a month for Comcrap cable.. ouch! I plan on moving soon to an area that has Verizon who offers their DSL service for mondo cheaper. Comcast may advertise their blazing speeds that makes lots of people think that it must be better since they’re paying more money. Not necessarily true - the average user won’t even use all of that. Plus, your hardware has to be up to par too - just because they offer you a certain degree of connection doesn’t mean you can get it with your equipment.

Raise your insurance deductable $?/a month

If you’re a horrible driver this may not be a good deal for you. Personally I have never been in an accident or even gotten a ticket before. Since the chances of having an accident are slim for me I raised my deductibles to save money. If you’re driving a car that has little value you can even choose to cut out replacement value for your vehicle. What this means is that in the event of an accident the insurance company won’t replace your car, but they will pay if you hurt somebody or they hurt you in an accident. If your vehicle is a piece of junk that’s not worth the month to month insurance you’re paying on it this may be an option for you. If you just bought a new car you can’t afford to replace I wouldn’t recommend cutting out replacement entirely! You can also raise deductables on your home.

Get wind mitigation $60+/a month

I’m sure there are similar programs in other states, but in Florida you can get a huge break on your home owner’s insurance by getting a wind mitigation inspection. The inspector comes to your property, and tells you what needs to be done to get a wind mitigation certification. Basically, this gives the insurance company a much better position in liability. They will check for things like roof soundness, hurricane shutters ect., and your insurer will give you a big cash break for their peace of mind.

Pack a lunch $20+/ a month

Having a sandwich from home could save you a lot of money in the long run. If you aren’t fond of ham and cheese try leftovers instead! Buy some divided tupperware containers. When you’re finished with dinner divy up the remainder and grab it before work tomorrow. You could even freeze them and keep them for later if you don’t feel like cooking that day. Depending on how often you eat out or by junk this could be a lot. I need to improve here unfortunately! I always forget my lunch, and end up buying expensive garbage at work when I could be having something much better, and cheaper brought from home.

Car pool $20+/ a month

Depending on your vehicle size, and length of time it takes to get to work you could be spending mega bucks on this. If you live close to a co-worker ride together - you’re both going to the same place. You could also bike or walk for free, but I live a ways from my job so it’s out of the question for me.

Don’t overpay taxes $?+/a month

Something I still need to do. While it’s nice to get a fat check from Uncle Sam every year.. I don’t like that he’s holding my money hostage for 12 months with no interest for me! That’s money you could be saving, or if you’re having a hard time right now you could be using it to keep yourself out of debt! Still, many people pay out big bucks to tax places to get an ‘advance refund’ of money that’s theirs already, and they could have it  by filling out one piece of paper. Fill it out, and turn it into your employer! Bam! Instant money. You can use the IRS’ witholding calculator to figure out your allownaces.

Even if you’ve checked your credit, and ran the numbers you may still be under estimating the cost for getting your own home. Here’s a few things to look out for that may cost you a pretty penny.

The majority of the homes for sale right now are either bank owned foreclosures or short sales. A short sale is a house that is not quite foreclosed on yet. Typically the seller is making a deal with the bank that if they can sell their home, and recoup some amount of profit then the bank lets them out of their loan. With the great number of liability properties popping up this makes a good deal for the bank.

There’s nothing wrong with purchasing a short sale or foreclosure (I’m doing so right now!), as long as you’re aware of a few things.  Firstly, short sales are not usually quick dealings. You can offer anything you want, but the bank has to approve this offer before you can close. Depending on how picky the lender is this could take many months. If you’ve got time to wait like I do then this is no big deal for you. However, if you need to relocate sooner than later you may need to avoid this type of dealing, and search for regular listings that will close faster.

Secondly, you’ll want to be sure to thoroughly inspect a home before purchasing it. You should do this with any home you purchase, but certainly a foreclosure or short sale. When a person is losing their home it really gives them no reason to take care of it, and you can never be sure what type of damage or repairs the house has sustained in years past. If you’re working with a lender then you will most likely be required to hire a home inspector, but if you pay cash then it may be up to you. I would certainly recommend doing it even if you aren’t strong armed into it. As a side note if you’ve already signed a purchase contract, but the inspection reveals facts that could affect the value of the home that you were not previously aware of you can walk away.

Forgetting closing costs, and down payment here’s some other things you could be expected to pay for out of pocket. Depending on where you live all of these may not be the case, but it is in the state of Florida.

Home inspection $300

Home surveyed (Based on home square footage $80 - $200 a sq foot)

Property Appraisal ($250 -$400)

First year’s taxes (Varies depending on home value)

First year’s insurance premium (Varies by area and home value)

Escrow ($500 for your offer contract, and up to $2,000 after your offer is accepted)

Loan processing fee (I know Bank of America will charge you a pretty $400 to start working on your loan)

Mortgage points (If you mortgage requires points you could pay a couple extra hundred or thousands of dollars)

Private Mortgage Insurance $1,000 a year(If you don’t put enough money down your bank may make you get this to protect THEM.)

Some other factors you should be aware of that could save you big bucks are..

Buy outside the flood zone - Buying in the flood zone will make your insurance much higher. Not to mention you may actually flood!

Watch the property tax assesement - If you use a site like Zillow or even read the paper work that the realtor hands you then you can get an idea of the property taxes you’ll be paying. Similar homes can have very different taxes depending on what they’re assesed at. If your property taxes are $3,000 a year you’ll be paying about $250 a month, but if they’re $1200 a year you’ll make out at $100.

Check out the area - Buying in an undesirable area could affect you should you ever want to resell your home. Pay attention to your potential new neighbors - they’re property affects yours.

Wind mitigation - If you live in a high risk storm area like I do you may want to get wind mitigation. This is where an inspector comes to your property, and either gives you a passing grade or suggests repairs. If you get their seal of approval your insurance rates could drop dramatically. This could include things like a new roof or hurricane shutters.

Be aware of future repairs - If you buy a home that is hooked up to a well or septic system you could be spending a bundle to be hooked up to public utilities down the road. Sometimes the local government even makes it mandatory for you to do so! This can cost thousands of dollars.

Watch for association fees - Some communities may have fees you’re required to pay to live there. These could be anywhere from $50 a month to a couple hundred dollars a month, and aren’t always voluntary. These might be for lawn care, grounds maintenence, club houses, community pools, ect.

Make sure a “TLC home” is really for you - As hard as a real estate agent may try to convince you that a home only needs minor repairs make sure that it’s true! You don’t want to move into your home, and find out that “TLC” costs a lot more than you can afford or it’s work you can’t do. Make sure you have them elaborate on damages - if you don’t think you can handle more than small cosmetic details like paint, and carpet then keep looking.

Do a walkthrough before closing - In this long drawn out process you’ll want to make sure you walk the home again before you close to make sure nothing has changed. If you buy a home with no warranty (most foreclosures and short sales are) you’ll be stuck with repairs.

Be present for your inspection - You’ll want to know everything that the home inspector finds. Make sure you walk with him, and that you really learn about what you’re purchasing.

I’ve never been a fan of traditional charities, because you can never be sure where the money is going. Kiva is an organization working with micro lenders world wide to help people better themselves. All of these hopeful business people are quite inspiring, and may have you wondering what’s keeping you from doing the same?

First of all you might be wondering what a ‘micro lender’ is. Micro lenders are organizations that distribute small business loans to aspiring entrepreneurs whom the banks won’t have the time of day for. Typically this occurs in poor countries where many people can’t get credit. Amazingly these loans have about a 95% repayment rate - many loan distributors even report 100% repayment from all their clients.

It’s amazing what some people can do with so little. Sometimes it skips your mind that other people do not live in lands of opportunity. Many of these individuals or families have no money, no formal education, and there are no banks willing to cater to them. It’s incredibly difficult to get credit or loans in some countries unless you already have money. Even those who are not poor, or uneducated have a hard time with it. I used to talk to a guy who lived in the Philippines a few years ago who wanted to start his own internet cafe.

Even though he had a steady job, and was well educated in his field he just could not get credit. I didn’t understand at the time, because I had a line of credit. Capital One asked me about five questions before handing over a card to me. I flat out told them I was 18 years old, had no previous credit history, no job, and within the week I had a shiny new piece of Visa plastic.

I’ve come a cross Kiva a good few times in the past, but never really took the time to see what it was about. However, I took the time to do some reading, and help sponsor someone who needed a little boost. The thing that really was interesting was that most of these people have already started establishing businesses. They’re seeking loans to expand on what they’ve already built themselves. That weighed on me a bit when I realized that somebody with no money, and no credit started their own business while I’m still working my 9 to 5 job day dreaming about it.

I have credit, I have savings, but what am I waiting for? I keep telling myself the right opportunity, but maybe I’m just procrastinating out of the fear of failure. It’s more secure to let somebody else worry about whether the business will go under. You still get paid at the end of the week no matter what your profits look like. Some people argue that the United States has too many rules, and regulations governing business that make it impossible for people to just up and start. I don’t believe that either, because license fees for my state start at about $65. Even people who make minimum wage can save up that kind of money.

People keep telling me I should start a computer repair shop, but I keep insisting the market is too saturated, and nobody wants to pay for it. Even though I can take apart, reconstruct, troubleshoot, and custom build a variety of systems in different price ranges. None of the business owners at Kiva are doing anything groundbreaking. They’re opening staples like restaurants, corner stores, and farms. Things that people always need to have, and will pay for.

By the time I was done perusing I decided to sponsor a business myself. I gave a $25 loan to a 72 year old woman in Accara, Ghana which is a small country in the western portion of Africa. She operates a hardware store that sells building materials such as roofing sheets, nails, paint, ect. She applied to Kiva for a $675 loan in order to be able to purchase more products to sell, and expand her store. She is also a member of a group in her community that guarantees repayment for each other, and help in handling their loans. As I watch Mary repay her loan, and build on her dreams it will be a constant reminder to me about what I’m not doing. Even though I have a wealth of knowledge at my finger tips, and all the tools available to me.

Are you an aspiring webmaster, but the economic downturn is leaving you a little pressed for cash? If you refer yourself to a company’s affiliate program you can save a nice chunk of money.

If you want to operate a website then you need hosting - bottom line. There’s a plethora of hosting companies out there, but some are a much better deal than others. This website is hosted with Awardspace - I’ve been very happy with them. Good up time, good prices, and.. well, I can’t really comment on customer service. I’ve never actually had to use it! There has not been a problem that I needed tech support to resolve.

Their affiliate program offers you a 50% payment for each sale you refer. So, essentially this means you’ll get 50% off of your hosting package that you choose. You can also pile coupon codes on top of that if they’re available. For example - Right now they’re also offering a 20% off coupon code ‘Winter’. This brings a one year basic hosting plan to $24 for the year for you! This would originally cost you about $48 to purchase.

The basic plan includes 60GB of disk space, 100 GB of traffic, a free domain name, and 20 MySQL databases with 50MB of storage for anybody who’s interested in knowing the statistics. There are of course bigger plans if you think you’re going to need them.

If you want to give it a test run you can also sign up for a totally free account! Their freebie service contains no ads, or hinderances. You’ll just get a much smaller chunk of server access, and you’ll be denied all the tools that paid account get (such as the one click script installer for Wordpress, Joomla, Agora Cart, ect.).

The best part is you can do this whenever you want. My hosting account expires in about four days, and will revert to a free account. I’m planning on just upgrading the account afterwards to get the $24 hosting. They ‘offer’ to upgrade my account for free, but it will still cost me about $60. They’re offering, because they know I won’t be using all the space their giving me - which translates into free money for them.

If you’re feeling a little bad, and like you’re taking advantage of the company - don’t. They even tell you about this option on their front page. It’s part of their marketing strategy; I’m just passing it a long. : )

I was originally very critical of the new ‘tax credit’, because of the wording which lead people to believe it was free money. While I am in the market for a new home in the time period where it’s claimable - I’d thought about NOT doing so just, because it’s a loan, and not really a ‘credit’. I’ve been thinking about it more, and I’ve come up with this list of things you could use a $7,500 interest free loan for!

The first thing you should know about this credit is that it is not free money. You have to pay it back to the government over the course of 15 years. This is a little ‘bonus’ for first time home buyers. While it seems less appealing that you don’t get to keep it; the small fact of ‘interest free’ is still tasty for your wallet. Here’s a list of some things I came up with that you could use that credit for.

Home Improvements

You got a new home for a steal, but it needs some fixing up. By claiming your credit you can purchase any materials, labor, ect. you need to fix up your new digs. Replace the carpeting, fix up the cabinets, or even buy some paint!

Payoff Credit Cards/loans

Since this is an interest free loan you could also use it to pay off some of that pesky credit card debt you might be carrying. You’ll get through it much faster without the interest piling up on top of you, and save a lot of money in the long run. Assuming you have a fairly standard 18% interest rate you’ll save $1,620 a year in accruing interest! The payment for your interest free loan will be about $42 a month (paid yearly at $500) - So that gives you $1,120 to invest in something better than eternal debt! Even if you can’t pay ALL your debt with the credit; it will still help you out to relieve some of the burden.

Down Payment On A Car

If your vehicle barely gets you to work, but you didn’t have the green to buy a car you could cash in on your credit, and use it for some new wheels. If you buy a less expensive used car your vehicle could be totally paid for by your ‘tax credit loan’ for that same $42 a month.

Small business loan

If you’d been wanting to start up a business, but are short on funds you could use your credit to give you a kick start on some of your materials. ie. equipment to start your own lawn business, rent, advertising, ect.

School loan

The cost of higher education is getting more expensive by the day, but you could use your credit to get in on the act. If you’re looking to take some technical courses or even some college classes this could be a more affordable way for you to at least partially finance your academic  tuition, books, supplies, and anything else you need.

Investing/saving

Since the loan is interest free then any gain you make over the $7,500 capital in 15 years is yours to keep. You could drop the money into an interest bearing account, stocks, bonds, ect. Simply pay the $500 a year you owe, and keep anything else you make as profit for yourself. At a 5% interest rate over 15 years your investment will grow to $15, 591.96 with no additional money from you. That means you made over $8,000 in profit from the loan after paying back what you owe Uncle Sam. If you contribute your own money to that compounding amount of just $50 a month then you’ll end up with $29,186.46 in 15 years minus your $7,500 that leaves you $21,686.46 for whatever!

Furniture

While buying new furniture is not the most economical option on the list; if you’re currently using a tide box coffee table it might be a good idea anyway! If you spent all your extra cash on closing costs then you could use some of your credit to furnish your new house. If you need furniture, but still don’t want to spend a fortune try places like craigslist or consignment shops.

Repairs

If your home, car, air conditioner or other important item is in need of some costly repairs you could use this money to get the job done. If the check engine light is on it might be a good idea to take care of it before it gets very costly. Problems tend to not go away when ignored.

There are rules for claiming this incentive. You have to be a first time home buyer, but their definition is that you must not have owned a primary residence in the past three years. So, even if you’ve owned before, and you’ve been renting for the three year period you can claim it on a new home. Likewise if you are renting, and own a vacation or a rental property you can still claim it as well. I’m thinking I’ll claim it, and either invest it in something or maybe spend it on some improvements to my new house.

I like to read other personal finance finance blogs; because.. well I that’s one of the things I like to learn about! I recently was reading The Wild Investor, and came across a nifty little post that introduced me to Stock Twits

I’ve never been a fan of Twitter, because it just seems.. useless to me. I’ve never seen the point to alerting people to everything I’m doing during the day, and honestly wouldn’t remember to update my page anyway! Stock Twits is a site that uses an existing Twitter account, but collects only stock related messages.

People are discussing their buys, sells, ect. in real time, and you can be update on their happenings. Looks like a great way to watch how other investors operator. When they buy, when they sell, and what they like to hold.

I’ve been wanting to try some small scale day trading for a while now. Mostly just for fun; as I wouldn’t plan on investing the amount of money needed to actually make any cash off of the idea. I’m interested in seeing how accurately one can time their purchases, and cash ins.

If you’ve heard the term before, but aren’t quite sure what it is.. day trading is the act of buying a stock, and then selling it that same day -  Hopefully for a profit. Why would people do this? Well, lots of stocks have a high volatility level; which means they bounce all over the charts during the day until the market finally closes.

So, say for example you bought 500 shares of AMZN (Amazon.com) for $50 a share at $11am. Then later in the day at say 3pm you sold those shares for $55 each - This is the basic idea of day trading. If you don’t know what you’re doing it’s an easy way to lose a lot of money though. The stock you chose might take a tumble, and the money invested may not be recouped if you get antsy, and sell to fast. If you sit on it you may equally lose out if the value does not return.

For the adventurous trader the rewards can be nice. The purchase scenario up top would’ve played out like this.

Buy: 500 Shares of AMZN ($25,000)

Sell: 500 Shared of AMZN ($27,500)

Profit: $2,500

So, that means you made $2,500 in about four hours. Increasing the amount invested will of course increase the reward, but with that comes more risk that the every day person is not willing to take most of the time. If you’re more of a ’sidelines’ trader then Stock Twits could be your new passtime sport.

I plan to make some small day trading investments in the next few days when I have time to be glued to my stock ticker. I’ll make another post about how it went for me, and how accurate I was with my picks. I’m still hunting for some good stocks with high fluctuation - that seems the most fun!

How to make money online is always a hot subject with search engines. There’s a million get rich quick schemes on the internet that leave many people feeling frustrated, and down. While, it may seem like the only people making a buck are the no good scammers there are a good few who make a living in this business!

Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective forms of advertising simply for its success rate for both parties. When a sale is made both parties win. The advertiser gets paid, and so do you. A multitude of business have made their name by creating an army of representatives to sell their products. Take for example Mary Kay Cosmetics who took this plan to the max. They are world famous for recruiting amateur sales people to move their product.

If you told somebody your business plan was to have an army of housewives and single mothers with zero sales experience promote your product people would look at you like you were retarded. But you know what? It worked; on a massive level, and it works for millions of other businesses world wide too!

If cosmetics is not your cup of tea there are plenty of other affiliate programs out there for you to join. Comission Junction, AdBrite, Adsense, and Cafe Press to name a few. Insurance companies are notorious for recruiting door to door representatives too.

Keep in mind that if you plan to make this a full time job it’s going to be hard work. It’s not like a normal job where in you get a regular salary every week. If your ‘employer’ does not make money; then neither do you. Your sales are a direct reflection of your paycheck; but those who are good at it can really shine.

Commission junction is one of the (if not the) largest affiliate program managers in the world. They have such high value clients as Ebay, Hewett Packard, Discover, and thousands more companies. You can see my partner links from them to the right. I’m fond of this type of advertising - offering helpful links that don’t interfere with the user experience.

Right now, I’m also experimenting with another affiliate marketing campaign from a company called Spreadshirt. They offer customized merchandise that you can sell on your website. I’ve made a few sales with them, and even ordered a product of my own. You can either upload your own designs or just sell pre-made images or create sayings. Plain text tees are the cheapest to print, and are pretty popular.

You can link to your store or with some fandangling seamlessly integrated it into your existing site with iframes. While frames are not the best you can use tables to lay out information that would be relevant key words to the product such as subject, colors, sizes, organics, ect. Here’s an example of using iframes to integrate the store, but using tables to give some content to the page. This site has the products, but it needs more content, and advertising to get visitors.

If you prefer to work locally you could even offer customization services to baseball teams, businesses, clubs, bowling teams, ect. just figure out what the cost per shirt would be - take their order, place the order with spreadshirt, and have the product delievered to either their address or you, and give it to them in person.

The only problem I have with Spreadshirt is that their shipping prices are high for one item I think - especially for international. I recently sold a shirt to a buyer from Australia, and I had to charge them $12.99 in shipping fees when the shirt only cost them $14!  Your customers *can* purchase additional merchandise for no shipping cost up to $50 of product though.

It’s always a cat and mouse game to get the best interest rates. Don’t just believe whatever your local banker tells you. They’re getting paid to secure your investment! Just because they say that’s the best rate available doesn’t mean it is.

I surprised a bank employee who was trying to get me to get into an investment account when I told her how I’d calculated out how breaking a CD, taking a penalty, and moving to another bank would actually save me money. Since I was infact paying off a car loan, and investing in a new CD that would be several points higher than what they were offering. It pays to do your home work.

Sometimes you may have to go beyond your home town to get the best rates though! My local bank of choice has been Sun Trust partly because of the abundence of free ATMs, but mostly because at the time they were offering me a very attractive CD rate. Since then their numbers have reached almost painful lows. They were offering my something in the 2% range some months ago, and I told them no thanks.

I moved my cash investment to Capital One, and got a much more attractive 5.50% - since I’ve locked in my rate their tiers have dropped significantly too. I also had a nice High Yield Savings for 4% that has since took a tumble.

I still believe the best deals are online, and I’m even pondering an elaborate strategy of bouncing money from one account to the other when the return gets too low to bare it anymore.

The amount of time you plan to invest, and the amount of money you have typically effect the outcome of your interest rate. Gmac is looking promising, but no clue how long they’ll hold that position. I’m looking into an account with them as I’m no longer impressed with Capital One.

Savings Accounts

Capital One - 3 % * On balances over $10k (I’d just invest that amount in a CD for higher return..)

GMAC - 3.20 % (Starting at $500)

At first glance it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but if you read the fine print you’ll see that any investment under $10,000 will only garner you a 1.5% interest rate.. ouch.

Certificate Of Deposits

Again the differences aren’t apparent until you read the fine print, and compare the amount of time you have to invest, and amount of cash you have to put in to the rate you’ll be getting.

Capital One - 4.00% (Minimum $5,000 deposit, and a term of 5 years)

GMAC - 4.00% (Minimum of $500, and a term of 5 years)

Capital One’s highest rate is actually 4.75%, but you’ll have to invest for an additional 5 years to get that extra bit! Gmac has much better deals for shorter term CDs or people without a lot to invest.

12 months - 3.75%

18 months - 3.50%

2 years - 3.65%

If you noticed the fee tiers shrink a bit when you get into certain date ranges. I would presume that’s supposed to make you hand over your money for the longest amount of time since it offers the most attractive rate.

I will say Capital One has an interesting account that I haven’t tried yet. It offers a lower interest rate than their main account, but also gives you rewards for savings instead of spending. Though, since I never got anything in the way of rewards from their credit cards I asssumed their saving account would be the same way, and took a higher interest rate instead. If anybody has tried this account I’d love to hear how it went for you though!

Banks are being stingy with their interest rates, and you’re going to have to bum around for the deal that works best for you. If all of this seems like too much work you might want to go with a longer CD term if you don’t need your money for too long. Be careful in calculating though or you’ll have to pay a fee to get your funds. I think CDs are a good balance of stablity, and liquid funds personally. Some people need that lingering ‘penalty’ to keep them from spending up their savings on every whim! My Uncle comes to mind - He told his family they’d be having a cheap Christmas, and then he bought a boat.

While it seems like a good deal you really might be doing yourself more harm than good to get a lower rate. A high interest rate can cost you lots of cash every month, but a lower one might cost you more in the long term.

Credit card companies are getting all kinds of hell rained down on them for their recent rate hiking actions. People are furious that they’re rates are being  jacked up sometimes three times what they were for no reason. Guess what! They don’t need a reason to raise your rate.

If you’re constantly late, over limit, ect. that might give them the heads up that they need to raise your rate to get rid of you or suck out some more cash because you’re a ‘higher liability’, but they can do it anytime!

Many people are calling their issuer to get a lower rate, and I thought about that for a few minutes before I decided it was pointless! If I was guaranteed that lower rate for any amount of time; then yes it would be a great plan for me! If I had thousands upon thousands of dollars of debt I could potentially save a lot of money.

However, the fact is they could raise it double next month if they wanted to do so. That doesn’t seem very secure to me, and it could be very dangerous for you. The less something has a financial impact on you the more trivial it becomes in your mind, but imagine this scenario.

Let’s say you have an unattractive rate of 18% on your current card. You call up your credit card company, and spend a good hour complaining until they knock you down to a 12% rate to get you off the phone. Great! You think to yourself, and proceed to hand out your plastic to ever retailer in town.

A couple months later your card issuers sees that you have acquired a good amount of debt thanks to your lower rate, and decide to put you up in to a 25% interest rate. This number sounds unreasonable, but it’s not an exaggeration. I recently went to a rate comparison site, and one of the ‘comparable’ rates was a card with a whopping 39% interest rate on it! That’s the ‘low’ one they were advertising - So imagine what they charge some people!

I decided that having a lower interest rate would just encourage me to keep money on my cards, and that’s not what they’re for! I keep credit cards around to boost my rating, and for emergencies. (Car repairs, ect.)

Ultimately you want zero dollars on your credit card. That means no interest money for greedy creditors; so who cares if they up my rate to 75%? I just won’t give them any money.

Instead of a getting a better rate to keep yourself in debt - Spend that time shopping around for bigger returns on your savings, CDs, stocks,  retirement fund, ect.

If you owe a lot of money already go ahead, and get the best rate you can, but don’t slack! Pay that balance off as fast as you can. Spending money that isn’t yours is dangerous - And millions of people are in trouble because of it. Keep your cards to..

*Raise your credit score.

*For emergencies

*Rewards programs (But pay it off before you owe more than you bought!)