Day 28 - New Plan for a New Month

At this point, I think my best bet is to start preparing for my second go at $300 in 30 days for the month of February. (Although in reality the month only has 29, but we'll deal with that when we get to it!)

There have been a few signs of success.... a few clicks here and there as well as some Cafepress affiliate sales, but still a long way to go!!

Day 26 - What happened?

Well, things haven't gone exactly as planned this month, but that's OK. I still have a few more days to wrap up a few things and then I am set for February and we'll try this again! My goal at the beginning was to make $300 in the month of January, but as I thought about it, I realized my goal should be to make $300 each month (as a starting point), so this blog can serve as a tracking device for the next few months as I work towards making my goal sustainable.

Day 18 - More Mahalo and Squidoo

Today I plan to work on a few more search result pages for Mahalo, and this morning I updated a few of my Squidoo pages:

Counting Crows
Back to the Future

You can see a group of my sites here.

Day 17 - TurboTax

Ready to claim that refund you have been waiting for? Wait no longer!



TurboTax is the program I have used for the last 4 years, and have always been extremely pleased with the results. It also keeps track of your info from year to year, so you don't have to re-enter all sorts of information.

I won't count my tax refund as part of my goal, but it will be a nice addition to my monthly income!

Update - Week 2

Cafepress - $0.70 on a Referral sale
Squidoo - $5.09 from November, but I don't know that I'll count it toward my total this month. Also created a new page.
Mahalo - One result page submitted = $14
Hubpages - I have a few new hubs: Online Calendars and Groundhog Day, and have seen continued good traffic on my existing hubs. No sales, but maybe a few Adsense clicks
Amazon Associates - A few more clicks, but still no sales
Adsense - $0.78
MySurvey - Several online surveys and one by mail, so not enough points for payment
Amazon Mechanical Turk - $0.50

So my new total so far for the month = $15.98

Day 13 - Disney Movie Club

The Disney Movie Club is a great deal if you are looking to expand your collection of Disney DVDs.

Day 12 - Coupons

Today's idea is a bit different than the others so far, since it isn't necessarily a way to make money, but instead a way to save money. I have recently discovered the excitement of Double Coupons at Ralphs, and today I had my best day yet - I spent $37.33 on groceries, but between my Ralphs Club Card and Double Coupons, I saved $37.62 - more than %50 off of my bill!!

It started a few months ago when I subscribed to the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times, and realized that the paper included coupons. I have always used the club card at Ralphs (my local grocery store), but I hadn't used many coupons before. The paper cost $15 for 12-15 weeks (I don't remember exactly how long I subscribed!) and they gave me a $10 gas card for signing up. With the coupons being 'doubled' at Ralphs, I figure I am saving an average of $10 a week with the coupons, so $120-150 over the time of my subscription. I think that pretty much pays for the paper, and as of yesterday, has helped cut my grocery bill in half!

There are a few online grocery coupon sites, but I have had the most success from the Sunday paper. If I had a family (baby food, diapers, etc) there are lots of opportunities to save online, so that is something to keep in mind.

Day 11 - Mystery Shopping

Perhaps you have heard of secret shoppers or mystery shoppers, but didn't actually believe that people made money doing that sort of thing. I actually have made some money doing this in the past - not necessarily a large amount of money, but a few meals and gas money and such. So as part of my $300 in 30 days, I suppose it would be valid to include a mystery shop or two, since all of the paperwork is done online, along with signing up for the job in the first place.

I'll have to put together a list of some of the sites I have used in the past....

Day 10 - Zazzle

Another t-shirt design program I have used is Zazzle. I haven't had much success (only $0.36 as of Dec. 31st), but I also haven't put as much effort into Zazzle as I have at Cafepress. I do like the site itself, though, and it seems to offer many options that aren't found on Cafepress. If I had a better ability with design, I would probably be spending much more time there - it seems to be the place for artists.

A sample design:


Lots of original prints and pictures and t-shirts... the main reason my commission is so low is because I have only sold 2 cards with an image created by a friend. No one has bought the mousepad version:

Day 9 - Other Google Programs

There are several other types of Google affiliate programs - I haven't actually used any of them, and don't know much about them, so part of my learning process will be to figure out if they are at all useful and worth promoting.

Update - Week 1

I guess the first week is over, and not too much to show for it:

Cafepress - No sales or affiliate sales
Squidoo - A few visits, but no sales that have shown up so far
Mahalo - One result page submitted = $14
Hubpages - I have one new hub, and have seen good traffic on my existing hubs, but no sales
Amazon Associates - A few clicks, but no sales
Adsense - $0.26
MySurvey - One online survey and one by mail, so not enough points for payment
Amazon Mechanical Turk - $0.46

So my total for the month = $14.72

Day 8 - Amazon Mechanical Turk

Kind of a strange name, and not exactly the greatest money-making site out there, but hey - if you can have fun making that $0.40 (yes, forty cents) a day, they why not?

Amazon's Mechanical Turk program allows users to submit 'tasks' that are then completed by other users, who are paid for their work. The downside here is that most tasks pay less than $0.07, so it takes some time to build up a respectable sum, but I do have to admit, by spending 5 minutes every so often on the site, I have earned $10 without much effort.

Don't expect to be making that $300 from this site alone, unless you are excellent at transcribing and can build up a reputation in that area, but it is a nice break, and kind of fun to watch your pennies add up!

Day 7 - MySurvey

Mysurvey.com is one of many (probably hundreds) of survey sites online, but it is different from the others in that I have actually made money with this one. They payout level is $10, and I probably hit that every two months or so, making $50-60 a year, which isn't a ton, but it certainly is a few free lunches. :) And I rarely spend more than 5-10 minutes on a survey, so it doesn't take much time at all.

If anyone has had any luck with other survey sites, let me know, but for now, this is the only one I can vouch for!

Day 6 - Adsense

Google Adsense is a fairly basic advertising program for your website or blog. It shows relevant Google ads inside of a box the size and shape of your choosing, and when visitors to your site click on the ads, you receive a small commission. I haven't had great success with it yet, but I haven't been entirely unsuccessful. (If a few cents each week can be counted as success!) My goal this month is to figure out how to use Adsense more effectively, to the point it helps people out in their web browsing, and maybe brings in a few more cents each week! :)

Day 5 - Amazon Associates

One of the affiliate programs I have found some success with is Amazon Associates. I have sold a few items, although most of them have been through Squidoo, rather than direct posts on my other blogs. I'm sure that with a bit more focus, I could increase my sales, particularly since Amazon seems to sell anything and everything under the sun. It is just a matter of finding the right products for your audience.

The link below is an example of one of the widgets you can create. This particular one lists the deals of the day and other discount items.

Day 4 - Hubpages

After spending some time on Squidoo, I decided to look around for some other sites that are similar, and found HubPages. It is somewhat different from Squidoo in that it is much simpler, and tends to have a bit more focus in the content.

For example, the hub Off-the-Wall Holidays: January 2008. The author has put some time into creating the hub, and it is mostly text, but it does include a few ads. The profit is shared between the hub creator and Hubpages, but unlike Squidoo, your account (Amazon, Adsense, etc.) is credited immediately. I like the fact that the content is more user generated, and it also has the added feature of creating "requests", which are then answered by other hubbers. The only downside I have seen (and maybe I just don't know how to do this) is that the pages aren't as easily 'linked' by subject or topic as they are on Squidoo, but the quality when you find a topic is generally high. Of course, there are always the poorly created pages!

To see some of the hubs I've created, click here.

Day 3 - Mahalo

Mahalo is something that would be a part of Web 2.0 - and possibly pushing it a bit further. It is a collection of user-generated search results, with the intent of eliminating the "keyword" abuse and clutter that fills up the search result pages of regular search engines. Users put together collections of links in various categories related to a topic, and visitors can then search for a page that covers the topic they are interested in.

It isn't an affiliate or sales program - it is more like a part-time job. You can sign up here to be a member of the Greenhouse, where you are paid for creating search result pages.

Day 2 - Squidoo

If you are reading this post, you are probably well aware of Web 2.0, and user-generated content that is becoming more and more the focus of the internet. And if you are interested in making money with user generated content, you probably realize there are plenty of ways to go about that. One site that I have found useful is Squidoo. I have been able to create a series of pages related to various topics that are of interest to me, and then I share in revenues from Adsense, as well as being able to make money from Amazon and eBay sales.

The payout is monthly, with about a one month delay, although your stats are updated daily so you can see any revenue from product sales. It is very simple to get started with a few pages, and then get involved in groups and linking your pages together to create even more useful content.

Check it out here:

Day 1 - Cafepress

So to begin, I figured I would mention my most successful program to date - Cafepress. I have made money both by selling products I have designed and promoting products designed by others.