After last post it must have been something of a head-scratcher where I disappeared to.  There have been some illnesses in the family as well as some family events going on that brought out-of-state relatives visiting. With all that going on, I found it hard to get to the computer everyday.

On top of all that, it has been very hot in the North East. Normally this would mean I would stay inside in the comfort of my air conditioning but this year (due to my homesteading experiment) it means I was running around trying to keep everything watered and pest-free.

Finally, I had a problem of my own. This is a bit personal so if you are uncomfortable with personal information, you can stop reading now.

For those of you who are still here, I had suffered from depression for a long time but in the last couple of years it has gotten worse and worse. One doctor described it as a downward spiral. After a near total breakdown and scaring the hell out of my whole family, I was sent to a day treatment program at a local hospital.

Through talking and testing, it turns out that I have an unusual variant of bipolar called rapid-cycling unipolar depression. The reason my case is so unusual is that I would be fine for about nine days in a row and then on the tenth day I would be just about as depressed as a person can get. Normally unipolar depression works in longer cycles.

The good news is now I am getting treatment and taking care of myself and I truly believe it will help me to be a more productive Internet marketer and blogger. And that’s probably the last you will hear me talk about it on this blog although I am considering doing a blog devoted to unipolar depression which unfortunately is often confused with regular clinical depression even though it is somewhat different.

Thank you for listening (so to speak)

This post is going to be a bit different from the stuff I usually blog about but I have a lot weighing down my thoughts lately and I thought maybe you would be interested in some of it. I’m hoping that a dialogue can start on this blog about the ways America and the world in general is changing unfortunately not for the better in many ways.

I updated my monthly goals page today and felt it necessary to write a little bit about why my goals have become less ambitous and more focused. I get a lot of ideas and when I get a good one, I get really excited and want to fix all the problems of the world with my ideas. A couple of these ideas were a non-profit dedicated to providing tutoring for low-income children who couldn’t afford to go to places like Sylvan learning centers and yet need the extra help just as much if not more. I also was working on a online-based curriculum for children 12-18 to teach the skills I think are needed to really excel in life and not just get a job and get by. Both ideas are good ideas (in my opinion) and I would still like to do them but don’t have the excess time and resources to do it right now.

So I had to decide what I really want and would enjoy doing and focus on doing that and doing it right.

Even if you aren’t the type to watch the news (which I am) it is hard to not come across reports of the troubling economic conditions in our wonderful America. I think Bush has made a lot of mistakes and misjudgments in the past eight years and I think Clinton did a few things to hurt us in the eight years previous. I don’t think it’s really a matter of Republican versus Democrats. I think it’s a matter of things changing for the worse and the overwhelming denial that it’s happening or that’s it as bad as it is.

Not only do we need to change our President. Not only do we need to, in some cases, change our congress members and local political officials. We need to change our mindset. The way we look at and what we expect from the world around us.

Food prices are going up at an alarming rate. That’s one of the reasons my family is focusing so much on cutting the costs of our food bill. I have seen the price of bread go up 40 to 50 cents just within the last few months. The price of milk is also going through the roof…. I wonder how much a small goat would cost? 

Energy prices, especially in reference to gas prices, are the object of every news show around lately. Everyone is talking about it one way or another and no one is really sure where the prices are going to go. Some say prices will rise due to predictions of a nasty hurricane season while others think they will stabilize due to government interference and possible offshore drilling.

The mortgage crisis is worse than most people realize and I think it’s just getting started. I couldn’t believe CNN today when it reported that 250,000 homes went into foreclosure so far this year. A quarter of a million families in danger of losing their homes. And thanks to the big “FICO score” push, it’s nearly impossible to get a job or an apartment with a big black mark like a foreclosure on your credit report. Scary huh?

I know that a lot of people are thinking that the people whose houses are being foreclosed deserve it. That they decided they wanted a big beautiful house and didn’t care if they could afford it. I hope those same people are watching while the arrests continue of brokers and lenders that manipulated numbers and had appraisers in their pockets to overvalue homes so they could make extremely high and unfair fees while lying to people who these lenders knew would be in deep trouble in a few years. Watch as the arrests continue and banks fall to pieces due to the unscrupulous practices that are what really caused the mortgage crisis. As for the people who bought houses that they couldn’t afford, they were lied to and stupid enough to believe people who were “experts” who we assumed knew more about the real estate business than we did. The biggest fault of these people is trusting and not doing enough research.

The unemployment rate in the US is up to 5.5%with significantly higher rates in some states. My state’s unemployment is up to a full 6% as of the beginning of June. Personally I believe those numbers are lower than they should be. The reason is that those rates are calculated with data from the Labor Department based on the number of people applying for unemployment benefits. I’m sure you know plenty of people who have lost their job and, knowing that they didn’t qualify for benefits, never reported to the unemployment office.

Meanwhile many small businesses are being squeezed out of existence by the worsening economy so more people are losing their jobs. Big companies are still looking for ways to outsource more jobs to other countries and the government is still letting them. Unemployment is bad but in a year I believe we’re going to look back and think of today as only the beginning of the end.

And those are only some of the problems America is facing today, there are others. Some may get better but I think overall everything is going to get worse before it gets better…or even okay. A new president may help but with the ditch Bush and Big Business has dug us into, no one person is going to be able to reverse the effects in a short amount of time.

So why do I tell you this? Why did I feel all of this was important enough to put on my personal blog quite off topic from the other things I have posted about? Because I want you to be prepared. It isn’t even about debt-free or getting rich or financial freedom anymore. It is about plain and simple survival. Prepare for the bad times to come, save what you can - everything you can. Now. Consider growing your own food or learning a skill that can’t be outsourced. Resist the temptation to buy unnecessary items, commit to back to basics. Of course there are those who will say to cut consumer spending will make things worse but at this time, you have to consider your future and that of your family. The makers and sellers of consumer products haven’t done anything for us lately. They have hurt our economy and nation by taking away our jobs and finding ways around paying taxes on their profits. I’m not against making a profit, but the time has come to work together or break away.

Food, water, clothing, shelter….that’s about it.

Okay, so “tomorrow” took a little longer than expected. Here at the LMBD household, we’ve been spending a lot of time planning what we’re going to do and searching for the cheapest way possible to get supplies. Aside from that school is ending and my mother is vising from Florida so I guess I’ve been a bit preoccupied.

As I said in Part One, making your own food from scratch is a great way to save money and serve healthier food to your family. As the economy gets worse (and it will) saving money on food is one way to control your spending. Here are a few more (some simple, some not) ways to spend less at the market.

• Make A Monthly Menu Plan - Before the month begins, plan what you will have for each meal along with what you will need to make each meal. Dry, canned, and frozen foods can be bought in bulk (see next tip) and you’ll know what you can stock up on when you see a good sale. When my family was eating Hamburger Helper, I would never pay the $2.30 price, I would wait for the 10 for $10 sale and stock up. Granted it was hard to store 10 boxes at times, but we made do.
• Buy in Bulk - Most areas have a local food warehouse (Sam’s, BJ’s or Costco) and this can be a great place to do your monthly pantry shopping (dry,canned and frozen foods). I’ve also found my local Sam’s to have milk, cheese, and meats cheaper than my supermarket. A word of advice though, make sure that the unit price of the larger bulk item is in fact cheaper than the smaller packages. Most of the time they are but it’s always a good idea to check and be certain.
• Beware of coupons - I know there are people who swear by coupons for massive savings but I usually find them to be more trouble than they are worth. First you have to find coupons for stuff you actually buy and use. Too many times people will cut coupons for things they would like to try and justify it with the coupon. This does not save you money, unless you can get it for free. Then you have to make sure you get the right amount: quantity and size. By this point I have usually spent about five hours to save 2 bucks. And just lately the companies have been putting “not subject to doubling” on many coupons so you don’t even have that bonus to look forward to anymore. Buy generic when on sale and I’ll bet you’ll save more than coupons the majority of the time.
• Use “stretcher” ingredients - Most people know that the secret to meatloaf is bread crumbs, corn flakes or oatmeal. You can use this same “stretching” concept with other meals too. Not only does this save money but it also cuts down on meat consumption. Be creative and look at every meal with the question “How can I stretch this out a bit?” in your mind
• Avoid waste - Again creativity is key. Keep tabs on produce, and if you see something just starting to go bad make an impromptu recipe to use it up instead. Most vegetables can be thrown into a soup while fruits can be used for breads, cakes or sauces. The Internet is an invaluable resource for finding recipes for any ingredient.

As I’ve said before, getting out of debt and achieving financial freedom is about more than just earning more money. It’s about saving money and spending money responsibly according to a carefully created budget. I’ve been talking a lot about the ways I’m making money online and the career goals I have for the future. Now I want to talk about some of the things my family is doing to cut back and save money.

Making Homemade Instead of Buying Store-Bought

1. Making My Own Bread: I have started making my own bread. We were going through about 4 loaves a week and at $1.20 - $1.30 a loaf (Store brand) I knew I could save a good deal of money baking my own. How much could I save? Let’s see…

4 loaves/week avg $1.25 = $5/week = $20/month

4 homemade loaves/week = $2.68/week = $10.72/month - That’s almost half what store bought costs!

This does not take into account that a homemade loaf is larger and more dense so tends to last a bit longer. In fact, we only eat about 3 loaves a week of the homemade stuff. Prep time is only about fifteen minutes or so although you do have to let the dough rise for a couple of hours. Additionally, homemade bread is healthier for you and tastes great! Here’s the ridiculously easy recipe I use.

2. Making My Own Pasta Sauce: Not only is the store-bought pasta sauce expensive, it’s full of unhealthy ingredients. I was actually shocked at how easy and cheap it is to make sauce. I use this recipe that I found on the Internet. So, how cheap is cheap?

Store-bought pasta sauce - $1.99/jar I usually buy 2 per week = $3.98/week

Homemade pasta sauce - One batch makes 2 jars worth = $2.79/batch - Saves me $1.19 a week or $4.76/month

3. Making My Own Soup (are you starting to see a pattern here?) - I’ve actually been making my own soup for quite a while because it is healthier and much lower in sodium than the store-bought soup. Here’s the very simple recipe I usually use:

1 cooked boneless chicken breast (about 4oz) pulled apart

1 1/2 cup peeled baby carrots (you can save money by peeling and cutting up your own)

1 can of beans (whatever I have on hand, usually red or white)

2 cups each of frozen broccoli and green peas (sometimes pearl onions too)

1 can (28oz) diced tomatoes ( I get the ones with the Italian seasonings included)

2 bay leaves (a must-have for any soup)

salt and pepper to taste

This soup makes about 6 servings the way my husband and I eat it and costs about $3.50 - $4.00 to make depending on where and when you buy the vegetables, beans and tomatoes. If you get sales prices for everything you could even make this for less than $3.00! So the cost analysis goes something like this….

Store bought canned soup: $2.99 - $3.49/can with 2 servings (although most people eat it in one, right?) = $8.97 - $10.47 for 6 servings

Homemade soup: $3.00 -$4.00 per 6 servings. A savings of about one dollar per serving!! Since we go through a batch of soup a week, we’re saving roughly $24 a month. And that’s not even including the added health benefits of not eating all that salt and other additives.

4. Making My Own Frozen Pancakes (last one I promise)- my kids love eggo frozen pancakes. Unfortunately a box only lasts a couple of days in my house. So I decided to buy Bisquik (or you can get the store-brand for even more savings if Bisquik is on sale), cook and freeze my own pancakes. Let’s crunch those numbers.

Box of 12 Eggo pancakes (on sale) = $2.50

12 homemade pancakes using Bisquik from a 60oz box = $1.21 That’s less than half what the Eggo ones cost. And the homemade taste much better in my opinion. Since my family eats two batches of these a week, that’s a savings of $2.42 a week or $9.68 per month.

Just by making these four things at home my family saves more than $49 a month off our grocery bill. Tomorrow I will tell you about the other things we are doing to cut down on our food costs.

I sort of fell into the niche marketing biz. About a year ago, my small business went belly up and I had to find a quick way to make money. I happened across a freelance writing job site and decided to apply for a few jobs. If you have basic english language and grammar skills, you can freelance write online.

Although the jobs are easy to find, they pay practically nothing. I was working from twelve to fifteen hours a day and only making about three hundred a month. After hitting almost total burnout, I started thinking there must be a better way. Since I was writing articles mostly for article marketing and I had created websites before - I looked into internet marketing.

It was Amy Bass and the 30 day challenge (Run by Ed Dale and Dan Raine) that showed me how to create a niche marketing site and make money from it. They all offered tons of free and helpful information that convinced me that I could really do it and achieve financial freedom from it.

At first I thought I would create a bunch of little niche sites like they recommend in the 30dc and if each of them brought in a few bucks a day, eventually I would be making a decent income. I learned how to research keywords and research topics and set up a trial site to see if people were interested…but I didn’t like it. I was dreading everyday when I would sit down to write and the traffic wasn’t coming in because I was spending so much time finding good niches and writing quicky articles to put on the sites, plus articles for article marketing….back to working all day and heading towards burnout. Only now I was making only ten or twenty bucks a month.

So the heck with it! I have decided to focus on about a dozen niche blogs involving topics I enjoy, know something about already and am passionate about. Living My Big Dream will be one of them, involving blogging and financial freedom. Other topics I’ll be blogging about are living a green lifestyle, video games (a blog my whole family is going to be involved with), cleaning with all-natural items, politics, and a new passion of mine - urban homesteading.  Keep an eye on my blogroll because as I get my various blogs up and running, I will be posting their links.

Moral of this story….Do what you love first and the money will come second.

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. I’ve been spring cleaning my house, my computer and, in a way, my entire business. Anyway, I thought it only right to post about our plans for the stimulus check.

First of all, although I’m not complaining about extra money, I don’t think this money is going to do nearly as much good as Bush tried to make up think it would. Of course that’s politicians for you. Secondly, I’m not entirely sure how much we can expect since I had to file an amended return to add my son and I’m not sure we’ll get the 300 for him. If not, we can expect $1800 according to the stimulus calaculator on the irs site.

The Breakdown:

$1000 - savings

$350 - bills

$300 - dumpster to get rid of old stuff

$150 - gifts for my son’s birthday and my nephew’s graduation

It probably won’t work out exactly like that. Hopefully the dumpster won’t cost that much and we’ll be able to put more on bills. We also plan on having a yard sale the beginning of next month, so hopefully that will bring in some money.

What are you planning on using your stimulus payment for?

Last month I was disappointed when Google in it’s infinite wisdom (sarcasm) chose to ban their ads on Whypark created sites. Although I never found out exactly why this happened, I took quick action to transfer my domains over to Hostgator and begin creating full-fledged niche blogs. I had hoped that by using Whypark I wouldn’t have been so rushed and as it turns out the first blog I created was banned by Adsense as well (still no clue as to why that happened - I only hope it isn’t because they had the domain name on the radar and was being stubborn about it) I’m almost done with my second transferred domain on Hostgator and I can only hope it qualifies for Adsense since I’m about halfway to payout and would really like to get that $100 at some point.

Last month WhyPark also introduced a beta test of their own content-based advertising network. Although I haven’t made much money (only a nickel so far) I do like the set up. The ads blend nicely with the articles on the page while still be clearly marked as advertising.  I don’t plan on transferring more domains until I give this new system a chance.

I will keep you all up to date on the news from WhyPark. I was ready to drop them last month due to the Adsense problem but now it seems they are redeeming themselves nicely. I wish Google would take a cue from a company that obviously knows what customer service means.

(This is an affiliate link. If you believe you can make money with this program, I would appreciate if you would use my link. Thank you.)

 I’m always looking for more ways to make money from home. Today I came across a site where you can sell your books for cold hard cash. The best thing is that unlike eBay, Half.com or Amazon, you don’t have to wait until someone else wants to buy your books. Cash4Books.net buys the books directly from you. If they accept your books, you can expect to get paid within days of their receiving your shipment.

How it works:

Right on the home page of Cash4Books.net there is a place to type in the ISBN number from your books. The ISBN number is usually located on the back of the book along with the barcode although sometimes it is on the inside as part of the title page.  Once you enter the ISBN of your book, the site will offer a price that they are willing to pay for that title. It will also let you know if they are not buying that title at the time.

If you are offered a price, your book will be automatically added to your “seller’s cart”. Once you have entered all your books, simply go to your cart and provide your contact information. This is kinda like buying something online - only instead of spending money, you are making it! Cash4Books.net pays for shipping and you only have to mail the books to them. Within three days of them receiving your shipment, they will pay you. You have your choice of being paid through paypal or check.

Cash4Books.net accepts all sorts of books, even textbooks. Prices are updated hourly so you can rest assured that you will be offered a fair price. Best of all they also offer “price matching”. This means that if you find another site offering more for your book, just send an email to Cash4Books.net with all the necessary information and they will let you know if they are willing to match the price.

Affiliate Program

Cash4Books.net offers an affiliate program as well. This is really just a bonus, I would promote this site for free. Each affiliate gets $4 for each new customer that actually sends books to Cash4Books.net. They provide banner links (like the one above) and text links to help you promote the program. Affiliates are paid twice a month. There is no minimum requirements for payment.

 In summary, Cash4Books.net seems like a convenient way to make money from the piles of unwanted books cluttering up your home (doesn’t everyone have these?). While this won’t make you rich by itself, it is a good way to get a little extra money to put towards those debts or your emergency fund.

Good Luck and Take Care!

First off, I want to apologize for taking so long to update my stats and for posting again. I’ve been working hard for the last few months but just wasn’t seeing the results that I wanted. So as any good businessperson knows - When it’s broke, fix it.

So I poured over my business plan and took a full account of my interests and abilities. While I would like to create a networking site or a full-fledged membership site - I find my abilities not up to the challenge at the moment. And while I could learn, I have to admit that I’m just not motivated enough to do so.

All my life I have loved children and wanted to help them in some way. It seems that only when my purpose is motivated by something concerning children (either my own or in general) do I really take off. Years ago I went to school for early childhood development but while “serving time” in my field experience I discovered I was not cut out for playing with children all day.

I have huge respect for people in the early childhood field - it just wasn’t for me.

Back to my point - focus. I revised my business plan and have decided to focus on a few projects that I really care about as well as creating niche blogs. As my projects come to fruit I will share them with you but for now I’ll tell you that they all involve helping children learn the things they need to know to grow up to be productive and successful citizens and to express themselves openly and honestly. I’m very excited about the things I am doing now and while I hope they turn out to be financially lucrative - that’s not the main point for me.

To work towards my goal of financial freedom I am still creating niche sites. This last week has been something of a mess since I find myself in a position to have to hurry and turn all of my sites into Wordpress blogs due to the fact that I can’t advertise with any success on WhyPark at the moment. I hope this changes in the future but for now I can’t afford to lose out on the Adsense revenue.

Thank you all for your patience with me as I find my way through this Internet Marketing lifestyle.

I love Wordpress now that I’ve gotten over my initial fear of it. I’ll admit that the variety of options can seem daunting to someone who is new at the game of blogging. To help all those out there a little lost when it comes to Wordpress, here’s a short tutorial list. This isn’t an organized thing so if I’ve left something out that you would like to see included, let me know.

1. There are actually two ways to use Wordpress - hosted on Wordpress.com, which is the free way but which does not allow advertising placement and with your own web hosting which allows you to do pretty much whatever you want. I use my own domain names and web hosting with the Wordpress application (found on www.wordpress.org). Currently I purchase my domains from 1&1 and my webhosting from Hostgator. Hostgator allows you to add as many domains as you want for the same monthly price (about $10) so you can have as many wordpress blogs as you want.
2. You can customize your Wordpress blog with themes, plug-ins and widgets. Many varieties are available through Wordpress.org for free so check there first. I got the nifty X-spot theme that I use for this blog there and have had no problems with it. Before you pay for anything Wordpress related, look around online first. There are plenty of people trying to sell the “Adsense” wordpress theme but I found a free download for it by typing “adsense theme” into Google.
3. You will need a FTP program to upload themes and plugins. There are a couple of free ones available on the web - search for “free FTP”. I use SmartFTP which can be upgraded but is offered with a free-forever license. It takes some practice to figure out how to use FTP but there are very helpful tutorials that come with most programs. Don’t be afraid to contact the companies if you are having an issue - the only stupid question is the one that isn’t asked.
4. A quick list of some of the most useful plugins that I have found (all for free) - Adman, which instantly puts adsense at the top, bottom and in between paragraphs of your posts; All in One SEO pack, which offers an easy way to create search engine friendly details for each page and post; and GosPress which installs spellcheck into the post editor. With my spelling - spellcheck is a necessity.

A final note about Wordpress - there are tons of help on their website. Not only will you find thorough tutorials, there is also a very helpful community of users who can answer almost any question you have. I’m also willing to offer advice or answers if I can. Just leave a comment or email me at writermom(at)livingmybigdream.com