How To Make $1000 in 30 days. Day 5

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Jim Fitzsimmons

Now we’re talking. $27.00 of new income today.

Yesterday: not so much. $1.10. But the best part of  this challenge is the weird  stuff you sell:

Sly and the family stone’s Greatest Hits.

Yup somehow, somehwere, somebody visited my site and clicked through to Amazon and  bought this MP3, which I made a buck.

But today was much better, and almost close to the average I need to make to make $1000 in 3o days. And for the most part the sales reflected what I was promoting, so that’s news.

But the funny part is I have had my first sales from Buy White Shirts, which I think is fun. Yes, it’s part of today’s income but I think it’s good karma too: If you search the make money sites at all everybody’s so reluctant to share anything for fear of getting  copied or have something  happen to their site. Everybody takes things so seriously some times and plays things so close to their chest. Or, they want to sell you the ebook on how to do it for $99.  (I think I’ve bought every one – all useless pretty much)

But then I say,  oh heck…If I’m going to show somebody they can make money online with hard work, I need an example site to show that this all takes time and if you pick some niche that gets less traffic and start small with say, long sleeve shirts to start or best ladies shirts and keep at it, you could make a couple of bucks

Well lo and behold I made not one but two sales with my site about shirts. The money won’t get me out of debt by any stretch,  but it all adds up over time and all I had  to do was share some info. Just lucky? probably, but you never know…

Here’s the two ladies ralph lauren v neck polo shirts I sold yesterday:

buy ralph lauren ladies polo shirtsbuy ladies ralph lauren shirts

To total things up: $28.85 as of day 3 + 1.50 + $26.67 =  Total income of $57.02. That’s an average of ten dollars a day so far. :)

Other news: Oh boy, it took all I could do today to get my five articles to promote my site today. Writer’s block, oh my. But I’m finding that these articles just have to be OK, not shakespeare so I find once I get a few paragraphs into it and find my writing mojo things hum along and I can knock out the five in about an hour.

Amazon has changed from updating their stats from morning to later afternoon it seems for me which is good. I won’t waste my mornings hitting reload looking for new stats. I’ll get the work done first and  then worry about income.

So today’s lessons are a few. Just do something. Create some websites, and just see what works.  I never would have picked shirts on my own but circumstances and a bit of luck make me wonder if I should put a bit of effort into this shirt site of mine?

I hadn’t thought much about the shirts, as they’re only priced at $20 tops and 4 percent of $20 isn’t enough for coffee.. But christmas is coming and clothing is a big holiday gift …slippers, bathrobes, shirts are all bought by you ladies… makes a fellow wonder. :)

Have a great weekend everybody. I think I’ll keep on keepin’ on over the weekend with this little project if you want to drop by.

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How to Make $1000 in 30 days. Day 4

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Jim Fitzsimmons

Not much to report today folks. In fact,  it looks as if my little test is stalled for today due to the fact that Amazon has yet to report on my earnings for Sept 1, which was yesterday.

This is new to me.  Usually whether you’ve had any sales or not, your earnings reports will get updated at some point the next morning, and even if you’ve had no sales for the day, which happens but I have learned that Amazon will at least update the date and report that you’ve made squat for the day yesterday. Even if it’s a zero balance for the day,  you’ll get an update.

But this is new:  My reports are still showing for Aug 31, which was really the first day of my challenge, so then this morning when I log in I should see that date change to Sept1 for yesterday and then a total of all my new sales for the day. (hey, a guy can dream).

Maybe its’ the end of the month  so it takes a day for the end of the month reporting to get done. It’s an odd system really  as the reporting is broken down to orders and earnings but the two don’t neccesarily match – I might have 100 items sold or ordered but 99 could not have shipped so my earnings would only be for that 1 sale.

But, I’ve got my five articles for the day which gets me more votes from other sites where I submit the articles too. As soon as I start making any money with this site, I might outsource the article writing, which will allow me research other products to sell. That’s he thing I love about Amazon. I sold both kids books and car parts from a page that wasn’t even remotely related to those topics.

So I guess tomorrow will tell what the earnings are. In  a way the fact that Amazon only updates the stats daily as opposed to real time is a blessing as I should be concentrating on working anyway.  Other sites, like google update almost real time so it’s a big temptation to constantly check if you made any more money online. The problem with doing this is you can waste a lot of time hitting reload.  With Amazon, if you’ve made nothing for the day.

The better I get at this, I realize one thing. It just takes lots of work. Just try stuff. Some will work and some won’t, but who cares? Tomorrow you do more what does work.

If there’s any good news, I’m now number 17 for the search term I’m aiming for for this little test which is about a ten spot jump. I could also  jump down again as I find it takes a while to figure out  where your  natural ranking is for the long term.

I can share some math: The site I’m using  has a few months head start… and prior to this month I had written 75 articles to promote it. For those 75 articles I have made about $250 a month on average for the past 2 months or so. That works out to about 3 bucks a month for every article I had written. So if I want to make $500 I have to write 75 more articles for new keywords and new pages I want to promote?

By this math, to make 3000 per month, I have to write 1000 articles – which works out to 5 a day = 200 days. Would you work for nothing for 200 days to make what could be considered a full time income?  I’m sure going to try. Once you have the quality content and the quality votes, they usually don’t go away and takes very little to maintain. 200 days is what – about Canada Day 2011 to get to 3000 a month in online income using the techiques I’m working on

I think it’s a reasonable goal. Worth a shot, if nothing else.

Until tomorrow…

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How to Make $1000 in 30 days. Day 3

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Jim Fitzsimmons

Why do I have a sneaky feeling that I’m still going to be writing the same title way past 30 days, and just changing the day number? :)

Actually, we’re off to a pretty good start with my wee little site and marketing efforts and I think it just takes on thing: hard work! Assuming we start counting the money today, ( I won’t count the LCD TV sale I had the other day) I made $28.85 today when I checked my earnings on Amazon. I sold 3 of the items I’m promoting and the best part about Amazon is that they are the kings of the upsell, so you usually get some sales for accesories or in the case of my LCD TV sale – the extended warranty too. :)

Today was a good start to this little make $1000 in 30 days challenge. What you can’t do though is bank on it or assume or rest on your laurels. Yes, I sold some stuff and made some commissions but to keep on earning you have to keep on promoting your site. Unless you’re lucky the “if you build it  and they will come” approach doesn’t work anymore and doesn’t apply. Believe me, I have tried – There’s millions and millions of pages all trying to get ranked for the same term. In my case, I’m shooting for number 1 out of 78 million possible websites that contain that term.  Do you think I’ve set the bar too high? :) Oh, probably. But I have had this site for a while and it does have a few articles already but they were not really salesy articles, they were news which is old news the next day, so yes there’s content on this site already but it’s useless. Since January I’ve made a few attempts at promotion but for the most part it’s half assed at best. But those days are over.. I managed to squeeze out almost $300 in commissions from my little site for August so I do realize I’m cheating. But I’m learning as we go here and that’s the real dollar value. Heck, I’d work for free for a year if I knew that in the future it would pay off. Oh wait, that’s what I’m doing now.

I’m going to hazard a guess that I’ll see the grand before the end of 60 days. But the important thing is I’m trying stuff – what works, what doesn’t and learning from my mistakes.

The next few days aren’t going to be all that exciting –  I write five articles and publish them on other sites that already ARE established and with two links back to my article per, that’s ten votes for my website per day and over time my website gets higher and higher in the search engines and I get found for more and more search terms. Over the thirty days that’s 150 different websites voting for my website and more specifically the article I want to promote.

But I am limiting myself to two hours per day to do this, as the goal is not to work on a job, but work a bit on a website that will  give you enough cash for your two hours a day. It’s not the four hour work week – yet. You can bet your bottom dollar that if this works I’m building more articles or more sites to promote – I might even try this system with this site just to see if I can move then needle past the 3 or so visitors I get (hi everybody!) :)

An example website:

I’m not going to share the site or term I’m trying  to make one thousand dollars with but I will share this one as an example of how a few hours of effort and some time can bring results:

Buy White Shirts

I created this site back in May and then added a few more articles in July and then do what  I do best – forgot about it.  I wrote a few posts, added some photos from Amazon and that’s it.

But look what happened: The search engines found me and started to send me traffic. Not a whole lot – about six people a day – and I’ve made zero sales yet but what if over the christmas shopping season I make a few bucks? I have to make $9 to break even and I’ve got an evening or two  in this, tops. I found some stuff to promote, wrote about how these are great shirts and then forgot about it, or realized that my efforts could be better spent elsewhere.

But look what happened over the past few days: People found me for these terms:

That’s not bad for a few hours work back in early May.  I wrote some articles and waited. I have not promoted this site at all and  as I type this I’m #3 for buy white shirts. It doesn’t get a lot of traffic but if you want to follow along this is  a great example. Pick something easy, create a blog or site and write some stuff.

Now we know what google thinks my site is about. somebody shopping for shirts – more than one person by the looks of it.

As you can see somebody searched for ‘buying white shirts’. Gee, what do you think they want to do?  Buy a white shirt or even more than one white shirt? Oh ya. So how could you help that person? You could make a top ten list of shirts for fall or back to school or halloween or chrismas. All of these seasons are upon us soon..create an authority about shirts and then work it hard until you’re the king of the shirt universe (or queen). :)

If I wrote articles about those terms and used the term  as the link or vote  and I did it ten times a day, how much work do you think it would take until you started to earn money with your efforts? Maybe it takes six months and hundreds of articles, but you’re just watching TV anyway, and how’s that working for you?

And that’s all I’m doing here with my 30 day experiment. I’m writing about stuff  I can get a commission on, and the options are limitless on what you can sell. Do you like to knit?  or curl? or golf? Play tennis? Do you know what the best tennis raquet is for 2010? Make a site and then write for other sites related to your site offering to submit an article in return for a link. You could even create a guide or book about your knowledge and sell it. I have paid for more than one book on how to get out of debt,I know.

Anway, that’s all I’m doing. I throw mud on the wall. When some of it sticks, I do more of the same…

Lastly…

I just want to report on a few things here as we start September:

My grocery challenge is over for now. I don’t know that I can eat cheaper than what I’m doing now – or want to. But it was a good experience and I saved at least a few hundred dollars on dining by just watching what’s on sale and making better use of my grocery dollar. A lesson learned for sure.

New income wise, for the month I did about $500  - so the same as last month . This is new income on projects over the summer. My little hubpages experiment was a bust but mostly due to the fact that I gave up too easy…but that said, I did make $50 with hubpage s last month and  I only wrote about ten articles a month. I might revisit hubpages a bit this month and see if I can double that number.

With all this writing, I’m getting faster. I much prefer to write about stuff I know about as I can pretty much rattle off from the top of my head. Researching really slows me down and getting going is still a chore for me.  I hope that part gets easier. Writers block is the worst, I tell you..

You don’t have to be shakespeare to write for the web. You do have to write something  that has value though. It could be photos of the kids so grandma can see or it could be a how to knit article or even a how to make  $1000 in 30 days experiment. :) As long as some value is created, you can monetize it.

To wrap this monster up, August wasn’t too too bad when it came to new income (and hopefully more to come) I learned how to shop smarter and save money on my grocery bills and I’m off to a great start in my make $1000 in 30 days challenge. :) September, here I come.

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How To Make $1000 in 30 days. Day 2

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Jim Fitzsimmons

We’re off to a great start with my make $1000 in 30 days challenge or case study  and I have to admit – so far so good. I ended up working my 2 hours a day in the evening and as tempting as it was to slowly wander over to the couch and surf the internet instead of oh, say working  - but I hung tight and continued to work on getting the day’s work done. I won’t count any income until tomorrow as there could be residual income and things don’t really work that fast anyway, but this internet stuff is pretty easy.. in  a way.  Write great content and then promote it until you’re the very first in the search engines for every word that’s even remotely close to to what you want to sell. What you’ll find is that if you work hard at this, people will find you for terms you never even dreamed of, ever.

I’m starting with a good baseline of quality web content  and not just promoting crap either. I’m writing real and  useful opinions about products that I would actually buy (assuming I had the dough) and then  I link to a trusted site (Amazon)  that happens to sell the stuff and I just happen to get a commission on..  I find the commission thing works for me as I it’s performance marketing. IF you find value in what I write you’ll click over to Amazon where there’s even more opinions  about the products and usually you can save money too as there’s at very least a few points knocked off. And I can sleep at night selling somebody a bbq,  as opposed to some shady ebook on how to lose weight fast.

So.  That’s what Day 1 brought. Oh man, I’m getting confused already as technically it’s day 2 but I’ve only got 1 days of effort to show so far and that effort is this:

I created the landing page yesterday which is nothing really but a bunch of reviews about products that are sold on Amazon that I want to sell and promote.

Let’s say it’s about the best credit cards (it’s not). I wrote 1000 words about credit cards and how great credit cards and visa vs mastercard: which credit card is better. Or what credit card has the very best rate or  the longest term. Because I picked a pretty generic term,  I’ll start by getting traffic for the ‘long tail’ searches and hopefully shorter tail ‘credit cards’  searches will follow.

(If you’re actually following along – do not pick credit cards, or diet pills or some term where you’ll never see the light of day – choose something that is much easier but won’t bring as much traffic at first –  like pink kitty litter boxes for example: your page could be all about litter boxes. you could review pink ones, electric ones, red ones you name it – what the best litter box is overall – the top rated litter boxes – and shoot to rank number 1 for ‘litter box’. I’m going to guess a lot of cat lovers search for litter boxes and are looking about information about litter boxes. But shoot for something a little less competitive. With credit cards, you’re competing against everybody and their brother as credit cards pay up to $150 for an approved application so it would only take 6 or so to get to your required $1000 in 30 days of  online income. But  you’ll wait a long time and work real hard for those first sales if you ever ever see them. Pick something easier that you can grow.. and then expand that site at a later date. Go for the lower hanging fruit. Pick oil filters, or blue pens…or.

Back to my litter box example: write ten articles about litter boxes and then wait for two weeks or more…this doesn’t happen overnight but you’ll get an idea of what works, and what people are searching for and  then you write more articles about that specific article.  You’ve had your kitty litter boxes site up for a few weeks and  a few people found you for these terms:

what is the best litter box

best litter box you can buy

how to make a litter box

Google has just told you what your next articles should be. You just have to write more quality articles about those topics… and then all you have to do is to get other websites to link to your litter box articles. The web is just like high school, and the site or article with the most votes wins. Relevant votes, I might add. 1 vote from a popular site like the new york times is worth a million votes from say personal blogs, like this one.

So if I had a friend with a site about dogs, all I would have to do is to offer to him to write about the best litter box and have him link to me like this :

<a href=”http://www.mysiteaboutlitterboxes.com”> litter box </a>, which would show up like this on his site: litter box

You have one vote for your litter box site that you didn’t have before. This is why I get very little traffic  to this  site as I have very few votes and the ‘get out of debt’ niche is very competitive and I’m just doing this for fun really.. it would take a whole lot of work to get to the front page of google for anything related to debt or finance or diet pills.

This is getting long enough and I’m far from an expert  on making money online so take all you read with a grain of salt but that’s all you do  - make a great site and then get other great sites in your topic or niche to link to you  - preferably, with the search term you’re targeting. Essentially this is all I will be doing – writing articles for other sites that are related to my site. They get free content for their site and I get a link, or vote back for my site which in turn means my site (or in this case, just one page) will show up  for the search term I’m targeting eventually and I don’t stop doing this for the entire 30 days or at least that’s the plan. I’ve got 30 days or $100o to prove my theory  - whichever ends up happening first, I guess we’ll see. :)

I’ve got a site I’ll share tomorrow as a real life example of how it doesn’t really take much to get found in the search engines if you pick the right topics :) (read: easy non competitve stuff) You won’t get rich off of sites like these, but if you had 100 you might.

Oh, the possibilities….

In the meantime, I’ve got some writing to get done…I have to make $1000 in 30 days.

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Grocery Shopping Challenge – An Update

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Jim Fitzsimmons

This is just a quickie post but I just wanted to get all 3 or so of my readers up to speed on my grocery savings and really I just want to update the totals before I forget, more than anything of some weekend shopping..

$34 or so at the grocery store on Sat for that pesky need called FOOD and then off to the drug store and dropped way too much an allergy pills as ’tis the season.  Boy those puppies are expensive. Add some toothpaste and magic erasers on sale (are these the greatest invention to mankind or what?) and we’re at $59 without too much trouble at all which brings our monthly grocery spend to $477.00 for the month. Still too much, I think… I’d love to get it down to $10/day and maybe by the new year I can. I’m pretty much starting from scratch here so what I’m finding is that once you kindof have the basics already and a few recipes under your belt this whole cooking at home gets cheaper. As as example, due to my excellent shopping skills(ha!) I now have surplus food that is either frozen or the expiry on it is so far in the future I had better be out of debt by the time that date rolls around (or dear god: please at least let me have hair).

I’ll do a roundup state of the union post later this month, (that’s Wed! – goodbye summer) and will report my findings and what I found to be hard or easy along the way, but I think I’ve got some more work to do on the grocery challenge. Still, I managed to cut $250 of spending this month. Not too shabby. :)

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How to Make $1000 in 30 days. Day 1

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Jim Fitzsimmons

Okey, dokey.

A false start to this little make a grand project of mine as I’ve had a few things come up since I announced to the world my goal to make $1000 in 30 days. A warm nice weekend, and some server issues have left me with little time for my pie-in-the-sky projects like making a grand in a month.

But first some questions…

What to do about weekends? I’m finding that weekends can go either way for me… I’m out and about as I was this weekend and it was full with bike rides and cool drinks and plenty of sunshine  - the perfect summer weekend, even.  So do I start the 30 days and go go go including weekends …or because this is web stuff and I’m learning that the stuff you write sometimes takes a while to get found anyway should I just stick to a 9-5ish schedule and have weekends off? I think what I’ll do – and I’ve thought about this a lot  - is to wing it. If the sun’s shining  and I have an opportunity to go out and spend some good times with friends and family then I’m taking  it. Life’s too short.  But, if it’s pouring rain and I’m not doing anything anyway,  I’ll plug  away on my little project .  All this to say it might not be 30 days ..maybe it’s 45, or 60 or 90, or 365.. But this project only requires about 2-3 hours a day. Sadly, I watched the Emmy’s last night and have nothing to show for  it. At least with this project there’s a chance of a passive recurring income.

Which brings me to the next point: I think I’ll keep plugging away at this project until one of two things happen:

1. I’m number 1 on google for the search term I’m shooting for. If I’m number 1 and there’s still no way I’m making my grand a month, I’ll stop working on the one page and start another page.  (I’ve got a few ideas….sigh. So many ideas…so little time). It could be number 1 for one term just doesn’t make any money no matter what I do  - so no sense flogging away at it. I’ll find something else.

2. But, if I’m not number 1 for that term, I’ll keep plugging away  at it until I am.  I’m doing that with this site and hoo boy, if the day comes I’m actually number 1 for the term I’m shooting for,  I should be able to buy myself an island and a personal chef, forget about this get out of debt stuff.  And If I have to write another thousand articles here for that to happen, then so be it.  I think a lot of this website stuff is just keep plunking away at it…slow and steady wins the race. (besides, it’s fun) :)

So let’s begin shall we? I’ve got my topic picked and for today, I have to create the page. In this case it’s products from Amazon that earn me a commission.  Amazon doesn’t pay much compared to some other vendors but the stuff converts pretty well  and by convert, I mean if I can get somebody to click a link from my site and  I drop ‘em off at Amazon, there’s a good chance something will catch their eye that they will buy that I get a commission on.  The other reason I’m picking Amazon is you get credit for whatever the person buys at Amazon. If I link to say…dave ramsey’s book for an example  and with that link they end up buying a bbq, I get the commission on the BBQ. it doesn’t matter that I just referred the book and not the bbq, I still get credit for the BBQ.

The reason I stay up doing this when a day job would be the easier way is for days like today: While I was out in the sunshine riding my motorbike yesterday somebody visited one of my sites, clicked a link and  bought  a 50 inch LCD TV. I made a pretty good commission on a $1500 item  and then (this is where it gets good) they also bought the extended warranty, which I also get a commission on.

To date, big screen TV sales have been few and far between but when you consider the few hours I have in the site and the domain cost me $9 a year, that’s a pretty good bet to make. But I’m not banking on the LCD TV sales… they’re not my main focus and some of my commissions from Amazon only make pennies each, but they all add up and you only need so many pennies to get to a steady $30 a day to get you making a thousand dollars a month which – while not a whole lot is enough to make a difference in a lot of people’s lives. As I mentioned before, if you can average $30 a day every day, that’s twelve grand a year, which is worth getting up for I’d say.

So that’s the state of the union so far with this small little make money online case study for today. As I mentioned before, I’m starting with a site I haven’t paid much attention to but it does have a bit of a head start so I’ll start with it and work forward. If this works I’ve got a whole whack of half-baked sites to work with.. I could do this ad nausem.. get one site to a grand a month and then rinse, lather and repeat.

With the holidays sooner than we think, this is the perfect time for this little project to start. The fourth quarter is the  ultimate buying season.

A grand a month would be an excellent  way to ring in the new year and a reasonable goal to shoot for I think.

Until tomorrow…I’m off to make $1000 in 30 days.

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How To Make $1000 in 30 days

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Jim Fitzsimmons

First let’s get this out of the way: I have no idea how to make $1000 out of thin air in 3o days.

But, I’m sure going to try…

One of the efforts I’m trying to make is to take more action and actually see results – good or bad. I’ve been a great thinker and learner this past little while but I’m starting to realize that by doing is where the rubber hits the road and the real learning happens, so I’m trying to apply myself more, and think less. Because thinking and dreaming is all fine and dandy but I’m learning that the real value comes from doing and failing and then dusting yourself off and failing again. Along the way some of the mud has to stick, right? If nothing else, you know what doesn’t work so you can try try again.

Here’s the plan: I’m going to make a grand in a month (ok, it might make two or so, but still) I have a site that’s doing just OK. not great, not bad but with zero effort on my part it sees a bit of income already – enough to pay for my internet if nothing else. And with the holiday season upon us things should pick up after a slower summer.

Essentially all that’s required is working a system which really only requires  one thing: a bit of effort with the hardest part and most boring writing article after article about this product until it’s number 1 for every search term possible that could relate to that product. I could farm out the writing at about $500 and I’m tempted but it’s money I don’t have really so I’ll have to do the work myself dammit and we’ll see how things go later when it comes to having somebody else do the heavy lifting.

I’m quite familiar with the topic so it shouldn’t be too hard to do – all it takes is time, about two hours a day for 30 days – write write write write, will all I’ll be doing and I figured a fun thing to do would be to report on my little project over the month. Even if I only make $100 a month, that’s a minimum payment on something so there’ only one way to go and that’s up.

I’m optimistic and realistic too. This is only $30 a day and I’m already at about ten bucks most days already with this site so all I’m really doing is polishing things up a bit. If this works, I can run the project again and  again. If I could get this rockin  even at an extra grand a month I just might get out of debt by the end of the thousand days.

I have nothing to lose but time, so I might as well give this a shot. I’m cheating a bit because I am starting with a website I have that does have some traction and income already, so all I’m doing is turning up the heat a bit to get it to a grand a month. (I doubt this site will ever make me rich, but we’ll see..)

30 days x 2 hours  = 60 hours for $1000 which works out to $16 an hour, which is like a part time job I don’t have to get. :)  And…if this does work even remotely, it’s pretty much timeless.. you do the work once and then forget about it but the money just keeps coming from your past efforts. If this works and stays at $1000 for  12 months, that’s a $200 per hour I made while you were watching TV.  If I squeeze two years at a grand a month that’s $400 an hour and I didn’t even have to go to law school. It’s possible. It just takes hard work and here’s the kicker for me to get my mind wrapped around; consistency. You have to work when you don’t want to. You have to work when you’d rather read about others making money as that’s more fun and you don’t have to do the hard work yourself.

Here goes. Day 1. Write a page about the product and how great it is blah blah blah, and oh, by the way you can buy it here – just click here – for the lowest price from the best store.

If I make any money with this little challenge, I’ll report along the way. If nothing else – this will be fun. :)

Grocery Shopping Challenge

On the grocery front: Tide on sale today for half price so I picked up two and a few other things and I’ll grab some more Tide tomorrow. You know, I think I turned a corner in this grocery stuff. I have an idea of prices now and I keep an eye out for what’s on sale and buy lots of it when it is on sale. I found BOGO sandwich meat yesterday and bacon on sale too and I didn’t have to clip coupons – all I had to do was to use my noggin and pay attention to prices and shop for stuff when it’s on sale.  And I’ll probably end up knocking off $25o off my monthly grocery bill with little effort other than waking up and paying for stuff when it’s on sale, and not full price.

This shopping technique can be applied to anything too. Don’t buy a new bike – hop on to craigslist or kijiji and wait and when the right bike/furniture/whatever comes up either used online or on sale at a store then and  only then do you buy it. Why pay full price? for anything?

Heck you could even apply this to car or even house shopping: figure out what you want and how much you want to pay for it or are willing.. and then wait for the sales or buy it used. Especially stuff like technology or cars where the depreciation happens so fast but there’s lots of good value left and the other guy paid through the nose. I bought a used camera that retailed for about $4000, but after about two years it was worth about six hundred dollars. I bought it, played with it and then sold it for the $600. It cost me nothing ..well OK, maybe some shipping costs.. to use that camera. It made great photos.

In fact, I SOLD a photo today as a stock photo with I made with  that camera that I got to use for essentially free, all because I watched my prices figured out what I wanted to pay and saved up until I had the money. By the time you have the dough the stuff has depreciated so much  you do have the money to use it and appreciate it even more.

Today’s grocery spend: 22.46

Total grocery spend: 384.12

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Grocery Challenge Update: The End Is Near

Posted on August 25, 2010 by Jim Fitzsimmons

Is it me, or is this a long month?

Keeping track of your spending sure can be a bit of a trouble it seems…I’m definitely not going to do this come September – at least on a daily basis. I guess, if it makes you uncomfortable that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as that means you are aware of what you’re spending and that like any new experience, it’s usually uncomfortable the first few times…so who knows. It also takes a bit to get a system that works for you and I’ll tell you this: blogging about what I spend on groceries every day is not my system for a few reasons

1.  who cares?

2. if I go shopping  and load up on whack of stuff one day, then what else do I have to write about? not a whole lot, right?

3. see number 1. I don’t think this could get any more boring. for both of us.

What’s the system then? You tell me. I think due to the fact that I grocery shop entirely with my debit card it might be better to set an average budget and shoot for that.  If you’re under or over it doesn’t matter. This is also food we’re talking here. I could live pretty cheap on white bread and bologna sandwiches but what price paradise?

It’s summer time and cherries are still in season, and peaches are here too as well as melons and berries and that’s some tasty eating that there’s no way I’m missing out on.  I have no desire to eat on a dollar a day I don’t think. I miss the good stuff.

Now if I could get somebody to sponsor my grocery bill….NOW we’re talking. Heh, I should try. I wonder how I could approach or pitch that idea…. hmm.  Oh wait I guess that’s called a j.o.b. ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. :) nevermind.

Anyway I don’t have the perfect grocery shopping system yet and there’s probably a better way but I haven’t quite found it yet, but there’s still time. And as much as I complain about this little project it’s been educational and I have saved money on groceries by paying attention to prices and even using a coupon or two when I have to.

If you’re wondering how to save money on groceries I do recommend this:  Track what you spend for a month. The number you get at the end of the month is the worst it gets From there you then make a conscious effort to try and reduce that number for the next month. Rinse, lather, repeat.

What you’ll find is that you can eat just as well – and  healthier – for less. You don’t need Dr. Pepper to survive, or ten dollar ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s. That’s not food and it’s also not good for you.

I don’t think I’ve had a latte in a month if not longer. For those that read this that know me this is hard to believe but it’s true. You get used to spending money but you can also get used to not spending and saving and paying down the debt too.

Think about it: ten bucks for ben and jerry x 52 = 520.00. On ice cream. If you could get your ice cream budget down to once a month instead that’s about a four hundred dollar savings. How hard do you have to work for $400? If you make  ten dollars an hour (that’s pre-tax too) you would have to work a week for your ice cream fix. I can tell you right now that I would much rather have the week off and have ice cream once in a while… or even not at all.  I value my time more than any ice cream. I much prefer the taste of freedom and last I checked, ben and jerry didn’t make that flavor.

Food for thought, indeedy.

Now, the update for my August grocery shopping challenge:

I’ve got two grocery runs to report : $26.54 and $22.36 over the past few days  so that gets my total grocery store spending for August up to $361.66 to date. I’m going to guess I’ll come in about $500 for the month, which is way better than $750 or so. I’d be happy with that – that’s a 33 percent reduction in grocery spending just by watching for the deals and buying them when they happen and the odd coupon use..  I will have saved over $25o for the month. Multiply it by twelve and that’s about $2500 saved.

It’s a pain getting into the groove  of spending less but I have to say, the rewards are pretty sweet. :)

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Would You Pay For Debt Freedom?

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Jim Fitzsimmons

Would you pay for debt freedom? I know it’s a silly question in a lot of ways but hear me out.. I guess you would if what you paid to get out of debt is less than what debt you have. There’s companies that pay big bucks so you can fill out a form in hopes of a lead so they can contact you and try to sell you their own version of a debt fredom plan to help you get out of debt.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: You don’t need to pay to get out of debt. Do it yourself. Granted, you might have to pay a bankruptcy lawyer or bankruptcy trustee if you go that way but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about getting out of debt on your own. You can do it. You need to start today.

Ask yourself a few questions: Do you have stuff you could get rid of or downsize? I do. I’m seriously temted to sell it all and start again. If the selling weren’t such a pain then  I’d do it. I might still. sorry, this is about you, not me -sell some of your stuff. you don’t need half of it.

Can you be more frugal? There’s two camps here: One that saves on everything and one that’s more centered on big wins. If you could move for example, and live in a cheaper town, that might be one way to improve your cash flow seriously. And with increased cash flow comes more and more money you can put towards your debt.

Take my  little grocery challenge as a real world example. I cut my grocery costs by half by shopping smarter and buying when on sale as opposed to when I need it (bacon on sale today!!). I still get to eat the same and with a few small changes it won’t be hard for me to cut my grocery bill in half . So I take the ‘savings’ and put it towards the debt.

Here’s an extra bonus point: if you spend the savings on a new xbox or tickets to the ballet, then you haven’t saved. If you put the money in a savings account or reduced your debts – that’s savings.

What I like about doing the debt freedom plan by yourself is control: I’m working on a debt snowstorm and soon enough I’ll just carve a cheque for the entire amount of one debt, and it’ll be gone. completely. That debt is done.

Then I do the same for the next biggest debt. You rarely need to buy a book even to get out of debt. Spend half an hour browsing a few titles and they all offer the same advice as I have here: spend less and make more. reams and reams of books say pretty much that.

I sure wouldn’t pay for debt freedom – even if  I could. I could take the easy way out now and walk down the  street to a bankruptcy trustee and  let the fun begin,  but that’s not a challenge. That’s the easy way out. The hard way and the best way to get out of debt is to do it yourself. It’s worth the effort to get out debt on your own without any help needed and I sure wouldn’t pay any debt consolidation firm for the trouble.

I would, and will get out of debt by my own devices. No payment required.

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In a month, it’s over

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Jim Fitzsimmons

Summer 2010 that is.  I glanced at the date on my computer here and I realized that a month from now summer’s over and we’ll be into the fall weather.

What does this have to do with debt? Not a lot really but I want to share that I’ve started to run again this summer. I’m only on day 3 and I’ve had more than one false start this summer. (stretching is kindof important – who knew?) but I was thinking today that running is a lot like getting your finances in order in the fact that it’s just one day at a time so in the meantime you can enjoy the scenery, but there’s going to be days where it hurts or you trip and fall.

What does apply to both exercise and debt reduction is this: just start.

You don’t get anywhere thinking about doing. You have to do the doing.

I started when I realized my new credit card expiry was four years away. I vowed then to have it paid off by the time the renewal came around. Even if I fail (which is quite possible) I’ll still win because in the past six months I’ve been much much more aware of my spending (as per my grocery challenge) But it all comes with day 1. You have to start.

To put it simply – get off the couch, put on your shoes and get out the door. This applies to anything you want to do in life, and in recent years I’m the first to admit I could do a bit less thinking and a bit more doing. :) I love to waffle. (I love waffles too)

Take this site for example: It’s been all over the map in the almost year I’ve had this thing up and running. But at least I’m still here, plunking away on the keys entertaining my friends and family or at very least embarrassing myself  publicly. Too late now I say. :)

I started.

At very least I’m recording my debt free adventure. It’s so easy when working on being debt free to look ahead to the the finish line  and make charts and budgets and graphs and net worth statements and the only thing that matters is that day when you’ll be debt free – and the get out of debt books all preach that you should focus focus focus on the finish line, and I agree, to a point. But don’t forget to enjoy the days as they are too. Summer’s almost over and then there’s lots of time for spreadsheets and income statements.

But today, I’m smelling the roses.  They don’t care that I’m in debt.

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