Maniac Gazette

HYIP Payment Proof

2009-07-27T08:39:00.003-06:00

Well, my HYIP through Onis Group matured, and I made back my initial $50 deposit, and am left with a balance of $24.84. I have re-invested this balance and am officially playing with house money. I also was able to get proof of payment when I requested a withdrawal of my initial $50 deposit. Have a look.

In addition, I should be receiving another $50 check for credit card rewards within the next few days. I have taken my current $50 balance and invested it in Genius Funds which is another HYIP I am investigating. We will compare the rate of return after another 30 days.

As for Lending Club, it appears the payout is broken up into payments strewn from now until June 2013. I currently have my money locked up there and cannot get it out very easily. This fact alone makes me want to not recommend this institution be used for investment potential.

Other than that, my finances are completely out of whack. I have no idea what has happened, but all in all I still have my head above water. I am nearly finished with the first draft of my book, and am ready to start seriously shopping it around. We will have to see how the rest of the year goes.

Quick Note

2009-07-22T11:43:00.001-06:00

My first investment with Lending club is going to mature tomorrow. As well, my investment in the HYIP offered by Onis Group will mature on the 24th. This far I have made 1.2% interest in 30 days through Lending Club, and a 50% return during the same timeframe on the HYIP. I will definitely be letting you see the results of the payout if and when it happens on both accounts.

In other news:

I am nearing the completion of the first draft of my book. I have perhaps two more chapters ago. Of course I said this two chapters ago, but this time I mean it. I am not sure what I am going to do once I have the first draft done. I may set it down and not mess with it too much, but there are some things I would like to flesh out, so I may just make some notes and take an assessment of how much more time I will need to get a version ready for submission to publishers.

What I am finding is that the royalties are not going to be great. 20% of the profit margin on a book selling for $15 comes to about $2.25 give or take. It all depends on the cost to print and a slew of other variables. With this parameter in mind, I will need to sell 500,000 copies to make my million. Of course at this point I would be willing to settle for selling 750 copies if I choose and assisted publisher. This way I at least break even.

Aside from that, I am counting the days until the new baby arrives. This likely will mean I will be on hiatus for a while. We will have to see how much time I have over the next few weeks.

Until then, stay upright.

Poor Man's Retirement Plan

2009-07-14T11:01:00.000-06:00

I bought a Powerball ticket for the drawing tomorrow. I generally only play when the jackpot is over $100,000,000 but I figure I am in no position to be choosy. I wouldn't go so far as to say I have an unhealthy relationship with the lottery, but I have given my share of money to that system and usually chalk it up to a benevolent donation to Parks and Recreational services. Still, I am always hopeful, and I could do a lot with a meager $49,000,000.

You hear time and time again about how unprepared people are to win tons of money. There is case after case of lottery winners becoming broke again in no time. With this potential looming, it is always good to think about how to go about using a windfall of cash. It is the dream you get to have for your $1 bet, and I have dreamt about the day I would win the big money. What would I do with it?

Taking into consideration the state and federal taxes for taking the cash jackpot, and assuming the cash payout is $24,700,000 for this drawing, I would be written a check for $17,290,000. To keep the numbers easy to work with, let's assume the take home is a cool 18 million. I choose this number as I have always said I would break up my winning into three equal parts.

The first third would be spent on land, a house, out buildings, and greenhouses. Built from the ground up with no chemical substances, it would be entirely self sustaining. This way I could avoid the future monthly bills as much as possible. All I would have to come up with to survive would be the property taxes and insurance costs. Of course there would likely be some maintenance costs, but for the bulk of that 6 million, I plan on building a life that is cheap to maintain.

The second third would be spent. Electronics, automobiles, furniture, art, clothes, dental work, you name it. Anything that costs money above the cost of the house would be taken out of the second 6 million. At the same time, I would like to be able to keep perspective on future spending. I already have expensive tastes, and I would hope to think I could keep these tastes in check considering the limited amount of money involved.

Lastly, I would invest the final third. You may think it is odd that I have not set aside any money to give to family, friends, or other charities, and the simple explanation is this. I know too many people who are deserving. I know too many people I would want to help. I know too many people to be fair about who gets money, and for this reason I have decided that no one get's a dime.

This may sound harsh, but there is a reason for it. I want to take the final 6 million and give people the opportunity to change their own lives. I cannot simply hand over money and expect people to do the right thing with it. I have to go into contract with people to allow them the freedom to explore their own way of building a life for themselves through doing what they love to do as opposed to doing what they have to do.

This way, I am not dictating to them how I want them to be in return for the money. They dictate to me how they want to change their lives, and I provide the means to do so. Instead of giving them a lump sum of cash that they have to pay taxes on, I simply gift them a lifestyle more conducive to them achieving their life dream. Whatever that may be. This way they are more appreciative of what they get. They don't just get money, they get something priceless.

This way, I can help out many people at the same time. I don't simply burn through my money by giving it away. I get to use my money in small increments to allow it to grow while at the same time building a future for the people I care about. Certainly my life would be fast forwarded much more, but at least with this plan I get to put many people on the fast track and leave it up to them to succeed.

It would basically work like a bank offering 0% interest. If you want money, I loan it to you at 0%, no fees, and allow you to pay it back on your terms. If you wanted to buy a house, I would buy it and hold the deed until the loan was paid off. If you wanted to go to school, I would pay with no collateral. I would basically be investing in people, and relying on the belief that I would make good decisions regarding who I would let borrow.

Of course there may be some who feel jilted by this plan. There may be some who feel they deserve to be handed money for nothing. To these people I would say good luck. I don't have room in my life for buskers who have no interest in bettering themselves. Of course there would be some gifting here and there, but rarely would I make it a direct contribution.

Then, when all was said and done, I would try to open an animal shelter and donate a tithe on the money I make to children’s programs. There are two entities here in the United Stated I feel deserve donation. Animal and children are innocent and helpless in the face of the adults who impose their will upon them. I would like to alleviate as much pain as possible for those who have no power to do it themselves.

All in all there is one thing keeping me grounded as I conjure up dreams of a multi million dollar lifestyle. I am not certain fate has a plan for me that involves an easy way out. No matter how much I desire a toxin free life for my children, no matter how much I want a self sustaining lifestyle for myself, and no matter how much I want to see my friends become free to do what they love to do, none of this will come easy. These are all things I will have to fight tooth and nail to achieve.

I suppose I better get started.

Hope and Patience? I Need a Drink

2009-07-10T13:15:00.002-06:00

It has been a rough couple of weeks in terms of inspiration. I have not had very much to talk about regarding my million dollar goal as I have been distracted by many other obligations. I apologize to my readership for the lack of material, so today I will try to put together at least a little something to get you through the weekend.

The main issue I have been dealing with is my budget. Somehow the numbers got away from me. I was under the impression that my mid-year balance sheet was close to zero, but after a few days and some recalculation, I somehow got behind to the tune of $600. This is not to say I am financially strapped, but it does mean that somehow I need to make up the $600 I am missing from my Million Dollar fund.

This kind of issue has happened once before. Somehow I let myself get lackadaisical about spending, and then the budget falls into the negative. Then the bank adds on fees and penalties, and I am left in a bigger hole than I should have been in. Luckily I have reached a point where I exist on credit cards, so the only issue I face is one of possibly having to pay interest. Luckier still, I ham more on top of things than I have ever been and have not had to pay a single dollar in interest to either of my credit cards.

Aside from that, I have been spending a great deal of time trying to figure out how to get my book published. I currently have a proposal with Ghost Road Press but I have not heard any conformation from them to say they even received the proposal, let alone have they taken he time to crack it open. It is my first shot at trying to get a publishing contract, so to think I am going to get a shot after the first swing of the bat is an exercise in self delusion. Even still, I am confident tin the material enough to think it could happen.

I found two or three other publishers online who have showed interest in my completed manuscript, however, I am far from completing my manuscript, so I cannot submit anything for review. Instead, I am self publishing my chapters as I get them done on Maniac Press while at the same time trying to go back through the first draft to add notes and changes I want to make before I call the thing a complete manuscript.

I did, however, submit a sample chapter to a couple of editors and am glad to see that I do not make very many blatant mistakes. If nothing else, the writing is accurate.

As a back up plan, I have been investigating other publishing options. First there is LuLu. LuLu allows you to self publish a manuscript for free, then you receive a percentage of eBook or the Print on Demand manuscript sales. This is a great option for someone writing a short piece, but for me, I need something more robust.

Lulu does offer package deals where you can get professional editing, ISBN numbers, Editor Analysis, and other options, but the cost for some of these services is difficult to justify. Certainly their editing packages are better than all the others I have found, but even their most robust package does not appear very attractive in the face of spending $4499. That is a lot of money for no real marketing or distribution.

Another "Assisted Publishing" firm I found, iUniverse, appears to have a much better set of options. They may not offer any free elements like LuLu does, but they do offer things like Non-exclusive contracts, Worldwide Book Distribution, and a more robust marketing and distribution program. All of this for less than half the cost of LuLu's best program.

With this research in mind, I am contemplating the benefit of investing $1549 to $2099 in a publishing package from iUniverse. I could easily scrape that money together if need be, but I have not yet convinced myself that is the best use of my money. I am still clinging to the hope that Ghost Road Press will get back to me with something. Whatever criticism, I am in agony over the waiting. I want to know the true potential here before I spend a dime on false promises.

In the meantime, I am going to continue writing as often as I can. My other responsibilities don't really allow me a great deal of time to sit and hack away, but I need to get the first draft finished before I can even consider doing anything with it. I need to have a product before I try to sell it, and no amount of hope or research is going to do a bit of good. The only thing I can do at this point is write my arse off, and quit wasting so much time on other things.

Of course the wife, child, and pending baby are not things I can set aside. I just hope they can forgive me while my attention is placed elsewhere.

Other than that, I have been considering scrapping the blogs and websites in favor of something else. It was a good practice run for sure, but I do not like the outcome as much as I thought I would. I do not have a good style for blogging, and I do nothing to market myself or my sites. I don't like feeling like a whore, so I don't whore myself out. Unfortunately, that is the only way to gain a readership online, so there's that.

For the two of you still accepting feeds for this site, I thank you. I doubt I will be revamping anything other than the book any time soon, so as much as I think about renovation, it is all dreams at this point. Although I may order up a domain name one of these days. That is a pretty easy thing to take care of, I have just been lazy about it.

To wrap this up, I would like to address the investments side of things. The HYIP is performing better than I had hoped. I still have a couple of weeks before I will know if they are actually going to give my money back, but at this point I have earned 20% on my money in less than a month. Pretty darn good if you ask me. FapTurbo is still on hiatus, though I will likely get back into that whole deal eventually. I suppose it all depends on Ghost River Press.

I have put my million dollar fate in their hands.

Mid-Year Balance Sheet

2009-06-29T12:49:00.001-06:00

For most of my life I have broken even. No matter the trials and tribulations in any given year, when all is said and done I look at my bottom line, and it hovers near zero every time. Recently I have started to look at my spending and budgets whenever there is an upheaval, but I have also begun to look at things on a quarterly basis. We are one day away from half of the year being done, so last night I took a look at the 2009 balance sheet.

It appears I am actually a little behind, but not so much that I am stressing. The resulting calculation for the money I owe on credit cards versus the money I have liquid, I am behind by a little less than $25. I am pretty happy to say I can carry that debt into July without blinking an eye. Especially given the fact that my only outstanding loans are the mortgage and the car loan. Everything else is paid for, and I am ahead on most of my bills. Given my style of budgeting, I can make up $25 in no time at all.

Keep in mind, this is not counting the $1422.24 I have in the million dollar savings account. I am actually way ahead of the game in realistic terms. It also doesn't reflect the other monies I have coming in or have invested in my trial schemes. I should have another $150 or so coming from the cancellation of my old car insurance, and there should be an extra paycheck coming in October. Hopefully nothing crops up to bite me in the meantime, though I did a better job this year of preparing for the unexpected.

Good vibes.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see the HYIP I am invested in doing fairly well. It is averaging 1.22% return daily, which is 365 times more lucrative than my savings account. I am still not confident enough to throw a lot of money in that direction, but I do have a plan. Once I make back my initial investment, I am going to re-invest the money I made and let it ride for as long as I continue to feel all right about it. It is a gambling style. I will play with the house money indefinitely.

As for Lending Club, I am finally "in funding" for both $25 notes, which means I am making $0.02 per day. This percentage rate is still better than my savings account, but it is not nearly as good as the HYIP. It is impossible to calculate the risk involved for either investment, but they are both claiming high risk, though they are not equally presenting the same returns. I would imagine the risk involved is pretty similar, so the return should be.

I will have to see what transpires over the course of two or three investment cycles to gain a better idea of the actual risk to income ratio, but it doesn't look good for the Lending Club. I have a distinct feeling I will be transferring my funds out sooner than later to place it into a more lucrative endeavor. At any rate, I should have another $50 coming in from Credit Card Rewards to push into Genius Funds to see how that goes.

On a different tack, I looked into paid blogging sites. Paying Post denied my blog because it is a Blogger site and does not have its own DNS. Review Me denied my blog as I do not have enough subscribers. I am still pending a decision from Blogitive though I may have those last two switched. Once I get denied, I generally begin looking elsewhere for opportunities and don’t look back.

I also found a site called WBwso which I signed up for. Apparently they invest your money in websites and then promise to give you 0.63 percent return daily over the course of three years. It seems like a good idea when given the possibility to turn $100 into $100,000, but the caveat is that you have to leave the money alone for the entirety of the three year investment. Sounds good until you calculate what the same investment would make over the same timeframe through a HYIP. Try $62,800,000. Plus, with the HYIP, you get to take money out whenever you feel sketchy about it.

Still, putting $50 in that plan and letting it sit for three years doesn't seem like a horrible idea. It just doesn't seem like such a fantastic idea that I am going to go out and do it immediately. I suppose in the interest of diversifying my portfolio, I should look at all options, but as of today, no money is being set aside for that. With a little more research perhaps I will change my mind, or I may find something new.

All in all, I am excited to see what the remainder of 2009 will hold. If nothing else, I may not make my million dollars, but I am hopeful to have the plans and investments in place to see some serious changes in my financial future. I will continue to work hard at this every day, but most of all, I am having a lot of fun watching my money grow. I should have done this a long time ago.

HYIP HYOP HYOORAY

2009-06-24T13:40:00.005-06:00

I was finally able to get money transferred into AlertPay in order to invest in a HYIP program I found through HYIP explorer. I was looking for a few criteria in choosing a HYIP other than their acceptance of AlertPay. I needed them to accept US funds, have a decent rating, and show a historical return of better than 300%. I was torn between Onis Group and Genius Funds, and settled on Onis for no other reason than their rating was a tad higher.

I had initially tried to go with Major Barter as their daily return promise was the best I could find, but after registering I never received email verification, and have not been able to log in. Major Issues there, so I recommend staying away from them.

With that, I signed up with Onis in only a minute, and deposited $50 at the highest possible risk allowed. Apparently my deposit is backed by silver, and I could nearly double the deposit after the 30 day investment. Stay tuned here for the results, and if you are thinking of signing up, please use my referral link. I will post this again in an advertisement section if indeed the promises follow through with results.

I am considering putting another $50 into a Genius Funds account given that their return on investment is insanely high. I do have to wait for more reward points to accrue first, so perhaps in another couple of months I will be able to wrangle the funds.

On the other investment front, the $50 I have in Lending Club has generated $0.01 in interest thus far after one day of being "in funding". I should be paid out on this investment as of July 23, so again, stay tuned for the results there.

Aside from all of this, I got my computer back up and running, and should have Fap Turbo reinstalled this week. I likely will not attempt to do anything with that until late Sunday, so I will not have any sort of update until then. All in all, if the HYIP investments work out, I may prefer to go with their system more so than my own, and if that is the case, I may simply have to eat that $129. That is, unless someone out there wants to buy my copy from me. I will offer it up for $50.

Lastly, I have discovered that my options for investing my child’s money is very limited. I counted out her quarters last night, and she has just over $210 thus far. Ideally I want to be able to set aside $10 a month per child starting as soon as possible, but I am not sure where to put that money yet. I may have to lump it in with my current savings account, or else I will simply open up yet another account and go from there.

I only wish legislation in America would catch up. We are spending trillions of dollars a minute on so many other crappy things, why don't we spend a few billion more on the future of our children? I suppose there is no money to be made on children unless you are using them as slave labor, or harvesting their organs. Back to the traditional investment strategies for now.

On a final note, my personal finances which once were strewn about are now coming back into focus. I have just enough time to get things back together before the baby comes only to watch it all go haywire again I'm sure. Nonetheless, I should just about break even for the first half of 2009, and if I can break even again after the second half of the year then I know I am doing everything right. I say this only because breaking even for me means I still have my million dollar fund in tact and I am carrying no debt other than the house and the car.

We will see how that works out I'm sure. Of course if any of you out there want to donate to the cause, I am still very much accepting any amount with gratitude.

First Burn of Summer

2009-06-22T12:52:00.000-06:00

The obstacles have arrived in force. I have been a wee lackadaisical as of late, and in that trance of hope I failed to realize things do not always turn out the way you plan them. All of the goal setting, all of the positive energy, all of the tricks and schemes I know to do just aren't enough sometimes. To say it isn't depressing would be a fabrication, but I remain undaunted. All in all life is good. Actually life is pretty great if you let it be.

The most severe obstacle in my path has to do with my home PC. The virus I acquired simply will not go away. I was able to strip out all of my important files without too much agony, but there is going to be a long hard road ahead to get the system back up to a usable state. This has put all of my Forex testing on indefinite hold, and as of now I am stuck with having spent the money on Fap Turbo regardless of whether or not I pull the trigger to use it. I am unashamed as I have wasted more money on more useless things in my time on this planet.

Another hefty obstacle was brought about today when I failed to achieve the new position at work. It is not so troubling as I still have the same income, same benefits, and the same lack of prospects as before. I was really wanting to get some more money out of the deal, but most of all I was hopeful the change in shift would allow me to change my diet and exercise regimen in a huge way. This was supposed to be the catalyst which would bring about some real positive change, but instead I am left with everything remaining the same.

My final obstacle is myself. I have been spreading myself way too thin, and instead of making good use of my time, I have been wasting it. I have done nothing to better my situation over the past few weeks, and this is time I can never get back. I can't even say I had a lot of fun or did anything worthwhile. I simply waited for things to happen, and now that they haven't, I am left wondering where to go from here. I need a new set of plans, new goals, and new motivation to see them through.

I need some change.

On other fronts, I have not seen anything come to fruition through the website. I am tired of hacking away at the advertising, and I have no motivation to promote the site in any meaningful way. I am still waiting the verdict on my book proposal, and inasmuch as I am confident, events of late have definitely made me realize I could be in for more bad news. Rejection is imminent as I know I have a lot of work to do, and I am not confident what I have put forth is an accurate representation of my abilities.

I do think I have my truck sold, though I am going to be taking less than I feel it is worth. I really just want to get my garage space back, and some money for a truck I got for free is better then nothing at all. There is still a ton of work that needs to be done around the house, but I am taking that one day at a time. I can only do so much in the tiny wisps of good weather we have had when I am not at work.

I suppose this rambling tale is only being spun in order to force me to think about what to do next. I was banking on something that fell through, and instead of making arrangements for the scenario I find myself in, I have let my arrogance get the best of me. I could dwell on it, but instead I just need to get back up and look at what I have and what I can do with it.

With that I have looked at the money I have made so far. I transferred half of the money I was going to put into the brokerage account into savings so it can at least make a little interest until I can decide what to do. With the refinance of the house, the wife's vacation, car insurance, paying off the scooter loan, and paying to register the new car, I have had to borrow against the initial $1000 I set aside in order to keep my head above water.

I do not have to make a mortgage payment in July, so I should make back the $500 I have taken out of my brokerage account fund and have my budget all caught up to start again in August. I have amassed a great deal of pennies through cleaning the room I used to rent in my house which I will eventually cash in and add to my total, and the two credit card reward checks have been transferred. $50 is in a Lending Club account which has not made any money, and the other is still pending in AlertPay, but should clear by tomorrow.

Strangely enough, I have seen NeoBux actually make me a little bit of money. I have been trying to re-invest it in their system, and it is not going to make me rich, but after my short time there I may set aside $10 to send to them to see just how much money can be made. Actually I may wait until my next Credit Card Rewards check comes, though that could be a while.

I have some things I need to take care of, but as of today I really don't know where else to go from here. I simply have to take care of the things I have control over, and hope the universe is not simply a void of chaos. I want to believe there is a benevolent force in the universe, but as of today I am still unsure. As of today I feel alone and nervous to think what life will bring in the next 10 months. One million dollars is still so very far away.

Pound for Pound

2009-06-18T11:43:00.003-06:00

Whenever I have change in my pocket, I give my daughter the quarters to put in her bank. She screeches with glee when she hears the jingle of "monies" which will soon be in her tiny little hands. We then put them in the bank and do a little "money in the bank" dance. It is my attempt to get her excited about saving money, and it is my best effort to begin teaching her how to manage money. Why only the quarters? Well, I started with her so early that quarters were the only coin she could manipulate easily.

I take all the other change and convert it to quarters to give to her. Now her bank is nearly full, and I am wondering what to do next. With another child on the way, I plan to keep up the process with both of them, though now the money is going to be split between them. In a way, this didn't seem fair, so I was thinking of setting up some kind of savings account or trust for my children where I would put a set amount in for each of them on their birthdays.

I came to the conclusion that starting with $100 for every birth day would be easily accomplished, with the caveat that I would increase this amount depending on how my finances look in the future. As for the quarters, they will simply have to remain a fun game until the kids get old enough to understand exactly what is happening with their money. Hopefully they can go through their entire life with a better attitude about money than I have.

First things first, I emailed my bank to see what my options were. The response was that I could open separate accounts in my name and assign them as beneficiaries. While this is adequate, it doesn't seem like the best plan. Sure a savings account is stable and liquid, but will it really compound interest the way I would like? Of this I am not certain. I was also hoping they would have access to their accounts on a limited basis before the age of 18, but this is not possible through my current partners.

With that, I hit Google for some answers. I was rather shocked by what I found. In doing a search for savings for children and trust funds, I found something interesting. The sites and reviews I found were all for institutions in England, and their rates of return put US banks to shame. I also found out that England has set up a Child Trust Fund (CTF) initiative which gives every child born after September 1, 2002, a £250 voucher which is turned into cash when invested in a CTF.

Unfortunately I am not a citizen of Great Britain, so I cannot participate. Unfortunately my options are limited to a faltering banking system where I have no assurance my money will retain its value. Unfortunately I am skeptical of funds that could possible lose money, so right now I am left with a severe conundrum. Not to say I would have a problem with a standard savings account, I just want to see the money do better than 1% over the course of 18 years.

As it stands, $100 every year from birth generates $19,000 of principal. At a hopeful 1.5% APY, this translates into a little over $22,000. Sure the $3000 is nice, but take into consideration how far $22,000 will go in the year 2016. That money will barely buy a car in today’s money. By then you may be lucky to buy a set of seat covers. Of course I shouldn't complain. My parents didn't save a dime for me, so at least it will be something.

The problem here is the current banking system in the United States. A child’s bank account is not altogether profitable as the activity on the account is generally minimal. As well, most banks will not grant access to anyone under the age of 18. I am also finding that relatives and friends cannot add funds to most accounts as deposits have to happen through the account holder. It is basically a nightmare of research failure. I suppose I should just keep the coins in the piggy bank.

My main issue with the entire scenario is how tight lipped people are when it comes to money. I have many friends who have children, and some of these friends are financially savvy. Still, never once have we had a serious discussion about how to manage money. We can talk about anything in the universe, but when it comes to personal finance, it all turns taboo.

It is the same with the general public. Not many people are very forthcoming about how much they make, what they spend it on, and how they manage to live their lifestyle. They give clues and hints, but they never come right out and show you the numbers. They would rather show you their genitals than show you last years tax documents. Not that I really want to see either, but I would like to at least get an idea of what is really going on out there.

I don't want to get political here, but there are some things which we all should stand for. As for a CTF, America needs to catch up to the rest of the world. Please take some time to look at The America Saving for Personal Investment, Retirement, and Education (ASPIRE) Act and notify your representatives that you believe this is good for the future of our nation.

Random Annoyances

2009-06-16T15:00:00.001-06:00

So there was an issue with my brokerage account through Alpari, where the software was saying I had an invalid account. Through their website, I found that they will randomly disable demo accounts after a "period of inactivity". Granted I can accept this business philosophy as they are allowing people to use their servers for free to dabble in Forex trading, but there are some things I take issue with.

One, they do not provide any sort of notification that the account is going to be deleted. I just looked one day and saw that I had no connection. After about 20 minutes of fiddling with it, I finally found that I have to open a new account and redo everything from scratch once again. Kind of a hassle, but I chalked it up to being a learning experience. At the very least they could have given me a pop up window or something letting me know I was about to get jacked.

They also do not give you any idea as the actual timeframe of inactivity required to have the account deleted. As far as I know the timeframe is arbitrary. Apparently it is only a day or so which is rather asinine. Trading cannot take place on the weekends or holidays, so you are basically screwed no matter what you do. Seeing as how I have had this happen to me twice now, I am under the assumption I will have to create an account every Monday morning in order to keep playing in the demo arena.

What bothers me most about this situation is that every time I have to set up a new account, I lose all the account activity I had. My first account grew from $3000 to over $4000, and I was anxious to see how much more it would grow or fall with Fap Turbo in control. My second account started at $3000, grew to $3300, then dropped to $2900 and then *POOF* gone. Back to square one.

I don't want to drop the entire idea as I have already invested $129, but I struggle with the issues the demo account is giving me. I suppose I could look into getting another demo account through another company, but if I plan to use Alpari as my broker, the experience I have with another institution is not going to be altogether accurate or helpful. I am pretty much at a loss.

I did find some other "tweaked" settings for Fap Turbo which I can plug in on the third demo account to see how they do. I suppose I will give it one more show to see how things transpire, but if my account gets deleted a third time I may have to revisit the whole thing from the beginning. The entire plan was to set it and forget it, but I am discovering this whole system needs constant attention. It is as if I have adopted an ill mannered child.

On other fronts, I have invested $50 in two Lending Club notes which supposedly average 13% interest. I believe the interest is accrued over 120 days, but I am not entirely certain how that works. At this point I am merely curious to see how fast my money disappears, though I maintain high hopes that it is legitimate. What can I say, I am trying to maintain my optimism.

I also broke down and opened an account through AlertPay so I could transfer $50 to them to try investing in a HYIP I found. It is basically a Forex trading scheme where they do the investing for you. One step further away from using Fap Turbo to trade by letting someone else use their trading robot to trade your money in a lump with others. Again, my optimism remains high.

I am also hoping to sell my truck this weekend. I have one guy looking at it who keeps flip flopping back and forth about whether he wants to buy it or not. I hate to part with it, but I could use the money and the garage space more than I can use the sentimental attachment I have to an aging pile of gas guzzling steel. I also am hoping to part with a television and another car I have which are both merely collecting dust.

Last thing on the plate is my possible job change. I heard through the grapevine they have started letting people know that they did not get the job. Thus far I have not been told one way or another, and despite the fact that I know a lot of people here, I don't have any inside scoop. Apparently the Director is keeping her decision close to the vest. Either that or people are afraid to give me bad news.

Well, I am off to fax paperwork to my insurance company who has been steadily testing my nerves these past few days. They refuse to cancel my policy without my signature on any random slip of paper. Every day that goes by means more money leaking out of my pocket, and it makes absolutely no sense that I would have to jump through this many hoops just to tell someone to take a flying leap.

I really need to take the high road on this one. I have too many pending life requests to foil them through poor actions. A positive attitude will bring positive results. I believe that, and I have to practice that philosophy. Even when I am thoroughly annoyed, I have to be the better person. Ok. I think I'm convinced.

Until next time.

Branching out

2009-06-15T10:10:00.000-06:00

I have been looking into High Yield Investment Programs (HYIP) to see what is actually available in terms of short term investing. Certainly this has an odor of Ponzi scheme, but the only way you get scammed is if you are blindly handing over your money without any sort of plan in mind. You cannot simply hand over all of your money to one institution or individual for an indefinite period of time. Invest with a plan, and you can take advantage of what may or may not be legitimate.

With that in mind, I was puttering around the internet and found reviews for high yield accounts, one of which caught my eye. With a minimum of $25, I could open an account and supposedly see a near 10% return. Not a lot of money, but I did have an extra $50 in yet another credit card reward check lying around. So I threw my $50 into an account at Lending Club in the hopes of seeing what the true returns will be. Luckily they take PayPal, so there is no direct tie to my bank accounts.

I also tracked down a couple of investment firms offering promised of insane returns through their trading of Forex. Some of these organizations allow you to invest with as little as $10. Unfortunately I had to open an AlertPay account in order to transfer funds to one of these HYIP companies I plan to test out. Genius Funds seems to be an apropos name for something I will throw another $50 at. The original $50 I got from my first credit card reward.

That is my plan. To take every $50 check I get from credit card rewards and invest it somewhere. Eventually I hope to be able to take out the $50 principal and re-invest the remainder, though I am not certain just how that will work out. If I only make $4 a year, then perhaps that particular investment is not lucrative enough to keep messing with. I need something more in the neighborhood of doubling my money every few months. Still, $50 is not a lot to risk, so whatever happens is all right by me.

On another vein, I am trying to sell my truck, and have gotten one solid lead. I will likely not come out with the kind of money I want to see from it, but some money is better than none. Now I just have to find a buyer for the VW I have stored, scrap the remainder of all the metal and the other VW I have in my garage, and sell a television. I suppose eventually I will get around to doing that.

As well, I have not heard back on my book proposal at all. It would be nice to get some kind of feedback, even if it is a rejection. It's the waiting that I am not a big fan of. It reminds me of the old school days of telling a girl that I liked her, then waiting for her to make a decision on what to do with that information. Waiting waiting waiting, banking my entire future on one response. Of course I am not banking my future anymore, but it still feels that way sometimes.

There is also the pending job change I interviewed for nearly two weeks ago. This would be a perfect scenario for me as it will mean a shift change to something more palatable as well as the potential for more money. I am becoming stagnant in my current position, and this will at least shake things up for me in a good way. Hopefully this will mean a change in diet as well as the chance to quit smoking.

Finally, as for Fap Turbo, I experienced a trade which set me back nearly $400 on my demo account. The jury is still out on what I am going to do with that whole deal. The vacation my wife took has set me back a little funds wise, so my liquidity is not stable enough to throw $1000 out on a maybe. I still plan to use that money solely for investing, but the vacation coupled with the home refinance and issues I have had with my insurance company has caused me to use that money to settle other obligations.

I do not have a mortgage payment until August, and my baby is due around the same time. I have no idea what the cost will be to register the car, so I have to keep my funds as liquid as possible. Hopefully the time off from work along with a regular payment schedule will allow me to figure out exactly how the finances look moving forward. As of today the situation is a mess, but all in all I believe life will work itself out. It always does.

Back to Business

2009-06-09T11:42:00.002-06:00

Well, I am getting back into the routine of things after the hiatus, and I apologize for not being as active here as I wanted to be. It is the nature of my life, however. I have so many projects going on that I make progress in spurts. I also find some things become stalled indefinitely as I while away doing things I shouldn't be doing. I simply have the poorest time management skills imaginable, and I really have no desire to improve on that. Still, deciding to take a hard look at my personal finances has been the best thing I could have done for myself.

First off, switching to a bank offering a decent rate on savings has already made me more money than sticking with a bank merely for the convenience. Of course there are detriments in that it takes three days or more for money to be transferred from one place to another, so the interest on the money takes a hit. Still, the idea here is to leave the money alone in an account I don't use as a reference to my total worth, so having money socked away that I have limited access to is a good thing.

Second, looking into Forex trading has been an awesome experience. I still have not learned as much as I want in regard to the details surrounding this forum, but I have seen the money making potential, and given the brief exposure I have had with it, I think it could be a life altering experience. In 21 days, I turned $3000 into $4002.17. That is almost $50 a day which is almost like making an extra $4 an hour. Not great, but definitely more than any other investment opportunity I have found.

Lastly, I have been made aware of the ways in which money tends to leak out of my pocket. I have had to pay close attention to interest rates on loans, insurance premiums, and all manner of annoying duties required of you when you borrow money. Our economy may be struggling, but this in one of the best times to borrow money if you can find a lender who is willing. We may never see opportunities like this again in our lifetime, and I am happy to see that I am able to take advantage of it.

All in all, I have come a long way in the short two months I have been working this idea. I have a long hard road ahead of me, but I am confident in how things are turning out thus far. We are closing in on the end of the first half of the year, and the major things I wanted to accomplish for this time frame have been successful. I have refinanced my home at a low fixed rate. I have found a way to pay for a brand new car. I have limited my outstanding debts, and have budgeted for a comfortable lifestyle that allows me to save money every month.

In addition, I am finally making strides toward developing a professional writing career. I am making progress toward my end goal for my family, and I am taking this positivity and using it for even more positive results. I am noticing the nature of abundance, and I am willingly accepting that life truly can be a fountain of wonderful. Heck, I even found two more pennies lying on the ground the other day. One million dollars, here I come!

On that note, I suppose I should get back to trying to find a new insurance company. I also need to research the minimum deposit for Forex brokers. I need to sell or scrap three vehicles I own, and I need to sell some other objects I have no use for. All in all, I am hoping to turn my $1000 seed investment into $3000 before I actually start trading on a live account.

There it is Universe. I want at least $3000 in my brokerage account before the end of June. As always, thank you for everything you have provided to me thus far on my journey. I truly am grateful for every scrap.

Random Update

2009-06-02T11:23:00.001-06:00

My apologies for not being on the ball these past few weeks, but life has presented with many opportunities and life altering conditions. With the wife away, I was able to take care of a lot of other business which has allowed me to fast forward some of my plans. In particular, my plan of trying to become a published writer has leapt forward to the point where I have submitted my first book proposal.

I have wanted to become a paid writer for most of my adult life, but I never took the leap to actually go out and seek representation. I currently have a good portion of a rough draft novella which I started a couple of months ago. Initially I had no intention of doing anything but writing it and posting it on the Press, but now I am realizing I have to do something more. I have to see if my skills are on par with some of the other writers making money out there.

Unfortunately my style does not fit the blog format very well. I tend to be quite verbose, and most people do not want to sit and read for very long. Especially when the material is not altogether entertaining. Still, I am willing to have confidence in my skills to turn phrases, and I think with the proper people involved, I could have a career writing. I will never know until I try, and today I sent off my first ever book proposal to a publishing house.

Stay tuned for the verdict.

In addition, I have had some tie to play around with Fap Turbo. The settings I was able to find through searching online are actually quite lucrative. Last night alone I made $300 on my $3000 account on one trade. I cannot say for sure what the yield will be over the course of a year, but I know that this does work, and with enough patience and research it can easily yield 10% per month. I have had a 20% return in two weeks with most of this week still to go.

Conservatively, with these numbers, One year of trading will triple my investment. To make one million dollars, it would take over 8 years. This certainly isn't going to make me rich beyond my wildest dreams, but it certainly has the potential to make more money than other traditional investments. I am sold on it, and I will be attempting a live trading account before the end of June.

What I have found, is that you have to have a gamblers mentality when working with a trading robot. You have to allow it to spend your money in the hopes of returning big gains. Sure you can sit and wait for the risk free trade, but I have seen that software sit idle for weeks without doing anything. If it doesn't find a match for what you want, it doesn't do a thing. If you crank up your risk, you get more trades, and in the end you get more money.

For example, last night the software bought in and instantly my account was in the negative by $118. Now a lot of people would say that is bad. Losing $100 in a second is not fun. Then, after a while, the negative balance grew to nearly $200. At one point it was over a $250 loss and there was nothing I could do about it short of stopping the bleeding entirely.

Instead, I had faith and I went to bed. When I woke up this morning, the account was $300 in the positive which meant the trade recovered nearly $600. I earned good money by not panicking, and trusting that the software will do its job. I am amazed at how this thing works, and anyone who doubts the software is either jealous, or nervous about the potential here. I have heard all the dings against Fap Turbo, but I have witnessed it working like magic. It just takes some effort and a lot of patience.

All total, I have earned $658.43 of fake money. Can I say that I am absolutely secure in playing around with real money? I am not. I am nervous as hell about it. At the same time, I am not putting myself in a position where I will lose everything I have. I see this as a game, and I am merely buying some chips in the hopes of cashing in at the tournament. Nothing worthwhile comes easy, but there is no use sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else play.

It is time to get in the game.

Hiatus (kinda)

2009-05-26T11:42:00.003-06:00

Well, the wife decided to take an emergency trip and took the baby with her. I was not able to procure the time off, and on such short notice, could not make all the necessary arrangements to go with her. Luckily she has made it to her destination safely, and this newfound bachelorhood has allowed me time to get some things taken care of. Specifically, I painted the living room. It looks great by the way.

As for the Fap Turbo experiment, I had switched up some of the settings that were supposedly going to increase my APY to astronomical heights. Then I found myself losing out on every trade, so I shut it down and went back to square one. Before I was able to reset the software to the base settings, I came across another gentleman who shared his settings with me, so I decided to give them a try.

After some immediate and drastic failure, I had given up on the idea of ever finding the settings necessary to make a ton of cash just by sleeping. It seems the product is not all it is cracked up to be. I had even been trolling some forums where the entire idea of automated trading robots was getting a bad rap. My excitement had officially waned, and I was letting the naysayers influence my experience.

Then I thought about it. Forex is a trillion dollar industry, and there are easily 25 different robots out there trying to give access to the newbie. Even if the robots tend to not make the kind of money the publisher claims, I seriously down the money exchanging hands through these robots is really affecting the market very much. Out of trillions of dollars, I can't imagine the fraction of money being exchanged though Fap Turbo, no matter how much people want to bag on the software.

I also still honestly believe that the software is merely there to give you a method of developing your own trading system. Sure I could hack and slash at the system and try to figure it out on my own, or I could pay the money for the hard work of someone else, and hope their core engine is decent enough to keep me breaking even until I can figure all this out.

I still have some time left on my money back guarantee, so if in the end I fail to see true potential with this whole idea, I can just get my money back and call it a learning experience. Still, in the grand scheme of things, $129 just isn't breaking my back. I can spend that money on software that may or may not work, but what I cannot do is go into a live trading endeavor without the proper knowledge of what will be happening with my money.

Then I log in today to find that not only did I recoup the initial money I lost through tweaking the settings, I am actually $153.63 in the positive. I have not looked at my actual trades to see what has happened within the past 24 hours, but I am very excited to think that my positive attitude and overall hope that this will work is having an effect. I am a big proponent of hard work, but I always leave a little room in there for luck.

Other than that, I have not really been attacking my goals all that much. I have been writing quite a bit to catch up on the Maniac Press project, and I have been working around the house quite a bit. I also found some time to watch a little hockey, and see the new Terminator movie, so it hasn't been all work and no play. Still, I have a ton more to get to, so this week is going to be a session of serious nosing the grindstone.

I definitely will be updating more often this week as I experiment further with Fap Turbo. Unfortunately time is of the essence, and I am not sure how long I should let it play on the demo account before I pull the trigger on my refund. At this point, I am not interested in getting my money back because at the very least that $129 investment has given me a lot of education as well as the knowledge that I will someday be as wealthy as I can possibly be.

On that note, I do have one goal for the next few weeks. I want to procure a literary agent to see the reality of getting a book published. At the very least it would be nice to get some contacts in the industry as my current career path is definitely leaving me unsatisfied as a whole. Sure the money is good, but in reality I spend way too much time doing things that are opposite to my desire. I want to write and tend my garden, but I spend most of my time fighting deadlines and poorly programmed computers.

Of course, if you are feeling generous and want to help me change the world, there is a way you can help. You can find me some Fap Turbo experts to work with, you can find me a literary agent, or you could just donate some cash to the cause. Either way I will be eternally grateful, and will return the favor twofold once my means catch up to my desire for philanthropy. Until then, thanks for reading.

Fap Turbo Works! (kinda)

2009-05-15T11:40:00.000-06:00

So I finally got around to setting up a demo brokerage account through Alpari which took all of 5 minutes. I downloaded their MetaTrader4 software, and then downloaded my Fap Turbo client. Within a few minutes I was watching the video tutorial on how to get Fap Turbo working within MetaTrader4, and then I went to sleep. I figured it would be a few days before I got a decent amount of data to se just how effective this robot is. When I arrived at work this morning I got an email from my wife who shared the results.

The demo account was set up with the lowest amount of capital allowed, $3000.00. In the 9 plus hours it had been running, I had made $5.40 profit while I slept. Unfortunately less than half an hour later the total earnings had dropped to $2.50 and apparently it had been going up and down quite a bit. All in all, this isn't terribly concerning for a couple of reasons.

First, you have to pay the brokerage fee for the trade regardless if you earn or lose, so in reality the software was making positive trades more often than not. At the very least it was making enough to cover the brokerage fees as well as providing me with a decent amount of profit. If I were to look at the profit margin on a large scale, this could mean an average Annual Percentage Return of 60%. That is a much better prospect than most other investments out there.

Second, this software is running on the default settings. The purpose of using a demo account is to get the trial and error tweaks out of the way by using fake money. Once I am confident in how the software is performing, I can then go live and play the game with real funds. There are a lot of resources out there to find tweaks and tricks for this software, so with a little research should provide quite fruitful. Still, given that I only have half a days worth of data to project with, I cannot be sure what the true returns can be on the default settings.

I am probably going to let it run all day today and take a look at things tomorrow when I have some more time to dedicate to it. Depending on what the returns are, I have some "premium" settings which I will then try to plug in. Unfortunately a lot of the material on the Fap Turbo website is a bit outdated, and I am fairly certain my "premium" settings are out of date as well.

I remain unfazed, though. Both software’s appear to be complex and daunting, but the set up and implementation really was very easy. There are a lot of people using Fap Turbo, and though they may not be fully forthcoming with how they are utilizing it, I am excited to see the possibilities, especially when facing a 60% return. Not taking account the tax burden of making this kind of money, I could turn $1000 into $100,000 in ten years at %60 return. That's a long way from my million dollar goal, but it's also not too shabby.

With that in mind, how much return would I need to turn $1000 into $1,000,000 in the span of one year? That would require less than a 2% return per day. Now, a daily return is nearly impossible to believe, but given that I made $5.40 on $3000 leads me to believe that with the proper tweaks, I should be able to get close enough to make some seriously life changing money. If I can't get the 2% daily on my $1000, then I simply have to find a way to get more initial investment money.

Given all of this, I will post my results tonight after a full 24 hour data window, and keep an up to date tally on the blog of what is happening with the account. Just keep in mind, this is all very real, and I am in no way being compensated by the makers of Fap Turbo or anyone else for that matter. These are all real world results with real world information coming straight from a regular guy just trying to make some money.

Free Money

2009-05-11T11:01:00.001-06:00

Recently I had an issue with PayPal which required me to ask my bank to reverse a charge made. In doing so, I effectively locked my PayPal account, and had to jump through a few hoops to regain access to their service. Part of that gauntlet of tasks was a repeat of their verification system where they make small deposits into a bank account for verification purposes. Not a lot of free money, but for my trouble, I was given a total of $0.11 for doing basically nothing.

As well, I opened an electronic bank account through HSBC as they have the best savings account interest rate available for deposits under $1000. In opening that account they too have a verification process where they make small deposits into another account. In what has proven to be a very generous gesture, they deposited a total of $0.73 into my account. For that reward I basically did nothing as well.

Finally, I was taking my trash out this weekend, and happened upon a penny lying in the alley. I have always been one to pick up any money I find as I am always grateful for a gift no matter how small. I also looked at my point rewards for my credit card, and I have achieved enough points to redeem them for a $50 check. I don't know when this money will arrive, but I didn't have to do anything outside of my normal day to day doings in order to get that money.

With that, I have brought my earnings total to $1550.90, and I am ecstatic that I have been so successful. I think about my decision to finally go out and make the kind of money I need to change my life, and I am fully confident that I will achieve my goal. I honestly have no doubts.

With that, I am going to start breaking down my earnings to show how they are being used. I don't have $1550.90 in cash sitting under the mattress at home, I am using every penny I make to attract more pennies. It is the old adage that you have to let your money work for you, and believe me, I am putting my money to work. I am also keeping my eyes peeled for any and all opportunities to make more money, so if anyone has suggestions, please let me know.

One last thing, there is a rewards program at work for referring a new employee. I have made a recommendation, and I am confident this person could be hired if given an interview. As of now, I am expending much energy in trying to make this situation come to fruition as I will be rewarded handsomely for the referral. Even more money for very little effort on my part.

Slacker Extraordinaire

2009-05-08T11:52:00.004-06:00

Well, it is that time of the week again. Time to reflect on what it is I planned to accomplish and face just how lazy I have been over the course of the week. In reality I shouldn't too hard on myself. I did accomplish a good deal of random tasks, but what I see when looking back over my goals for the week, I am a little shocked at how fast the time went.

Goal Summary

Goals From Two Weeks Ago

The Refinance

I sent in the paperwork only to find I was missing one crucial document. I attempted to get a copy of this document from the band, and they referred me to the title company. The title company could not find record of me or the residence, so now I am a bit stuck. I will try my darndest tonight to find the paperwork and get it to the new lender ASAP. I need this refinance to be completed this month no matter what.

Smoking

I still have not quit smoking, but I have been riding the scooter to offset the cost through savings on gasoline. Plus the scooter is too much fun to ride. Such a better way to commute in my opinion.

Budget

I still need to pay off the remainder of the insurance, but I am going to try to hold off until after my second paycheck this month. I have just enough to cover it now, but I want to try to pay the scooter off entirely and get the refund of its insurance.

Learning Forex

I have somewhat set this aside for now. I have established an all new set of goals regarding my Forex trading future, so we will wrap this up in a neat little package and deal with it later.

This Weeks Goals

The Invention

The people showing interest in helping me build a prototype for my invention have all officially become very flaky. It is the nature of trying to collaborate. People have their own lives and their own priorities, so this is not something I have much control over. Plus it is a holiday weekend, so scheduling is not going to be very conducive to goal setting. I think I will scrap this plan entirely and move it from the ToDo list to the Wish List and leave it at that.

Smoking

I am seriously going to make an effort to put the butts down this weekend. I have been mentally preparing myself, but instead of making strides forward, I have been taking steps backward. I know it is the right thing to do, but it really is the only vice I have left, and I really do enjoy it on some levels. Of course that is just the addiction talking. In all earnest I have been waiting for my schedule to mesh so I run out of smokes early in the morning so I can quit for the day. Hopefully if I smoke enough today I can get myself on that kind of smoking schedule.

The Assets

I have failed to get pictures and descriptions of everything, but I am going to get that taken care of this weekend in preparation of posting next week. This is a pretty low priority, but as my need for more garage space increases, this will quickly move up the list of needs.

Forex

I finally pulled the trigger and bought a robot, and investigated a broker. I have also pinned down a server which I will set up and run in my house to have a dedicated space and ultra secure connection for running the bot. I got the server for a steal so now all I need is for one of my friends to come assist me in getting it up and running.

Painting

I wanted to finish up the hallway paint, but I simply never got around to it. This weekend is supposed to be relatively poor weather, so it will be excellent for completing some indoor maintenance. I did get some gardening done, though so at least some of that is taken care of. I also got all the houseplants cleaned up and watered, so that is one less thing I have to do.

Goals for Next Week

I think at this point I need to take a different tack at managing all the stuff I want to get done. Instead of looking at things as individual, I need to get back to my old way of tackling things. I need to set up categories of tasks which range from easily accomplished, slightly complex to accomplish, to very complex. It is the old mantra of short term, medium term and long term goals, except these are not goals based on timeframe but on level of difficulty.

Not only will this system allow me to address things better, it should allow for recap blogs to be more concise. I am sure you are tired of reading these lengthy posts and want to get back to your own lives.

With that in mind, here are my goals for the next week and beyond.

Easy Goals

Clean the fish tank
Take books back to the Library
Finish painting the hallway
Begin painting another room
Take pictures of the things I want to sell
Write descriptions for the things I want to sell
Post classified ads for the items I want to sell
Fertilize the houseplants
Request vacation time
Pay the car insurance or scooter loan
Take possession of the server
Finish one chapter of the book for Maniac Press
Find some additional content for Maniac Press
Clean the swamp cooler

Medium Goals

Get the paperwork for the Refinance
Quit smoking
Create a hard copy list of open accounts
Plant seeds and trees

Difficult Goals

Repair the VW
Switch Internet Service
Get the server up and running
Open a demo account with the broker
Get Fap Turbo configured and running
Assess the performance of Fap Turbo on a Demo account for 4-6 weeks

Wish List

Get a deck built
Get a prototype built
Finish the landscaping

Fap Turbo for Dummies

2009-05-07T14:45:00.003-06:00

As a part of purchasing Fap Turbo, the decision must now be made as to what broker to use. At first I was nearly lured in by the recommended broker and their promise of a $500 bonus for trading with them. Then I realized that I am not one to just swallow what I am told without doing any kind of legwork, so I investigated a bit further. I wasn’t really surprised by what I found, though it did give me more hope about my decision to go with this product above others.

Fap Turbo really does get great reviews, and I see time and time again how it is making money for people. The hardship comes in the myriad of settings you can give it which is tantamount to a degree in rocket surgery. I suppose to begin with I will simply hack away at it and hope for the best, though again, I will likely do at least a little research before hand so I don't lose my money within the first couple of weeks.

As for a broker, people have claimed to have little to no success with some, and glaring improvements with others. I am fully willing to follow in the tracks of someone else’s success, so I am taking a look at the one broker I have found to be recommended time and time again. Alpari accepts Fap Turbo trading, and it appears they perform quite well for people using this particular robot. I was a little concerned about them being based in Russia, but that is only because I have a history of "Russian women" trying to get me to pay for them to come over here.

Luckily I am happily married, so I no long troll the Russian Bride sites. Regardless, it appears they have both a UK and a US division, so it should be a legitimate way to invest my funds. They are even offering a 5% bonus for new accounts *stipulations do apply, which on my $1000 deposit should be a whopping $50. Woo Hoo! I suppose in Russia, that is enough to buy a car or something, but here, that is barely enough to cover dinner for two. Still, I am not trying to be negative. I will take all the money I can get.

This takes care of the first requirement for this endeavor, now I merely have to address the second. It is recommended that you install the Fap Turbo software on a third party server so you can ensure uptime and stability. A home computer is prone to all manner of hiccups and issues, so using a third party mitigates some of the risk. The issue is, paying for the hosting for such a service can be a bit crippling for someone on a tight budget such as myself.

I may be able to find someone somewhere that has something that I can piggyback on for an indefinite period of time. Everyone I know is in the computer field, and I am certain there are a few that have systems in their house that would boggle your senses. I will simply put it on the ToDo list to beg for some server space and see who comes through. Then I will consider other options if that fails.

Last is the installation and activation of all the pieces. This is the troublesome area. I don't have a relationship with the money I am investing, but I do have trepidation about what I am actually doing. I am still falling into the premise of this whole thing being too good to be true. If it really is this easy, I will have to completely rethink my understanding of the makeup of the universe.

At the same time, my intention is to bring happiness and infinite wealth into my life. I am planting the seeds of change, and I will harvest the result with as much gratitude as I can muster. Even if I fail, I will know at least I tried to do something to change my situation, and this time I am trying to do it in a legitimate fashion. Certainly I am taking shortcuts now, but in the long run I intend to improve my trading abilities as much as possible. I merely need a jumpstart, and this seems like the best way.

Again, time will tell. I can always change things around as the situation morphs. I am as a reed in the wind, and I am going with the flow. I am also ready to brag about how I achieved my goal of making one million dollars.

A Leap of Faith

2009-05-05T14:02:00.001-06:00

I mentioned earlier how I was investigating the purchase and use of a Forex trading robot, and after a lot of investigation, I have decided on one product. FAP Turbo claims to be able to double your investment every month, with some returns promising a 492% return. I am a skeptic to the bone, and believe that this is too good to be true, and I am certain those kinds of numbers are a marketing ploy. Still, I am willing to take a chance on Forex despite the promises as I believe it is a legitimate venture.

Initially I wanted to steer clear of the hollow promises of the internet. There are so many scams, and so many false promises, I wanted to avoid the whole thing and commit myself to Forex through hard work and dedication. Then I remembered I am not dedicated to anything outside of my family and my friends, and I wanted a simpler solution. I don't have the time to invest in learning the industry, and I certainly don't have the energy.

My life is merely a series of priorities, and money is pretty low on the list. Sure I have dedicated this year to making one million dollars, but in reality that goal is much less important then spending time with the people I love. I wanted to believe I could give someone my money and they would do the right things with it. I wanted to believe it is as easy as they say. I wanted to believe the hype, so I decided to give it one last shot.

My decision to purchase FAP Turbo was based on many things, none of them being the marketing scheme. First, I found many sites claiming to have run tests with several software systems, and this one always ranked the highest. A lot of what you will find are people giving reviews for software they receive a commission on sales for, but there are several sites which offer an "unbiased" opinion on the matter.

Second, I was able to find an offer with a severe discount compared to the advertised price. Initially the software is offered at $399, with the FAP Turbo homepage offering their package for $149. This is a much easier lump to swallow, but I then found other sites offering bonuses and other deals for the $149 price. Eventually I cam across a site offering the package for $129 with the addition of two bonus packages for custom settings with the promise of a $500 account deposit for using a recommended broker.

I am all about a free $500, though there are stipulations that I must make 160 trades within 60 days of opening an account with them, which according to the site is manageable through the software. An average of 2.7 trades a day should be easily accomplished, and with a few click of my mouse, I became the newest investor using FAP Turbo. Unfortunately I am still awaiting my bonus materials.

My plan was to take the $1500 I have made thus far and find a way to invest it. I have taken $250 of it and placed it into the highest earning savings account available. I took another $129 and invested it in a Forex trading software, and I will take $1000 of it and invest it in the brokerage account once I am able. Then I will plug in my laptop and see exactly what transpires.

If the hype is true, and taking a conservative estimate into account, $1000 invested will generate the following:

2 Months $2000
4 Months $4000
6 Months $8000
8 Months $16000
10 Months $32000
12 Months $64000

In a year I could make over $50,000 which is a small step toward my one million, however the second year of trading could come out as follows:

14 Months $128000
16 Months $256000
18 Months $512000
20 Months $1024000
22 Months $2048000
24 Months $4096000

In two years, I could be sitting on over four million dollars. Of course I can't imagine what the taxes would be. I am sure there will be a stiff penalty for making that kind of money in two years.

I am hopeful, though. More hopeful than I have ever been about something I found on the internet. First and foremost, I am aware that I cannot let me attitude hinge on the success of this product or the market itself, but I am a believer in positive thinking, and I think I will do just great.

Stay tuned for the results as I imagine I will have much to say over the next few weeks.

As a Reed in the Wind

2009-05-04T10:37:00.003-06:00

Monday again already. Not only are there rarely enough hours in the day, apparently there are definitely not enough days in the weekend. I have so many projects going on it seems as if I need a clone or three to get it all taken care of. I was able to complete some goals, so that is always a good start.

Goal Summary

Paying for the new car.

The paperwork for the house refinance came through, and I have completed the documents. I still need to make some copies and send it all off, but it looks as if the deal is solid and will save me money in the short and long term. This is a good thing all around.

I have not yet paid off my scooter loan, but I am paying off the Midwife today, so that is one expense that is leaving the budget. With another child on the way, I am wary there will be additional expense for the birthing process, but above all I am focusing on the positive for all aspects of the birth and recovery.

I have not completely quit smoking, but I did refrain from buying coffee today, and I am preparing myself for the big quit. Really all I have to do is decide to not smoke anymore, but something keeps me tied in to the excuses. One day at a time.

I did get the paperwork from my insurance company, and as expected, the insurance is going to be a pain. I may be able to pay off the entire six month coverage cost, but I have not convinced myself that this is the wisest use of my money. I will have to take some time this week to run the numbers again.

Alternate Goals

I was not able to glean much from the Forex book I received from the library, so I broke down and purchased one from the bookstore. I started reading it, but I have not gotten very far. I also did not make many strides toward selling my assets. I will likely work on that this week in preparation for the big weekend push. I was able to find a couple of people who seemed interested in collaborating on my invention idea, but so far it is more flaky than it is promising.

New Goals

My main goal is to set up a face to face meeting with one of the people who responded as willing to help with my invention. I find that a face to face meeting accomplishes a lot more than telephone or email, and I want to get a feel for these people. There is no better way than to meet them and see how they react to me as a person.

I am trying to keep the idea as close to the vest as possible for two reasons. One, I cannot believe no one has thought of this before, and two, I don't want anyone to run with my idea and make it their own. On that note, I need to check the patents office to see if there is an already existing idea out there.

Officially quit smoking.

I have nicotine replacement aids, homeopathic remedies, vitamins, and access to a ton of clean water. I have the desire to quit, all I am lacking is the willpower. I have cut back some, but until I can finally say that this is my last cigarette, I will continue to play a losing game with addiction. I did quit for a month one this year, so I am confident I can do it again. It's just a matter of making the decision.

Get pictures and descriptions of my assets.

I need to get good pictures of all the things I am willing to sell, and create descriptions which will sell them. I also need to research reasonable process for the items so I can get rid of them quickly. I am not trying to take advantage of anyone by selling them crap for gold, but I also don't want to give this stuff away for free either. I will post what I have on Friday and see how the weekend falls out. It is Mothers Day, so it may get messy in a hurry.

Update Maniac Press.

I have been writing a book, and the writing has stalled as of late. I have about half of Chapter 9 written, but it may need to be redone quite a bit because I am finding it does not match the chronological layout I need to tell the story accurately. I also need to get Chapter 8 edited and published on Maniac Press which I hope to do tomorrow. I also need to update Maniac Press with at least some new content this week.

Forex.

I want to continue learning Forex, and perhaps research finding a mentor. I am learning that this is not going to be an endeavor that is achieved through a software robot. I am also learning that this is an endeavor that is a long term commitment, so even if it does not allow me to achieve my goal within a year, perhaps it is a tool I can use for a lifetime to try to change my income in a positive way.

Budget.

I need to take a much harder look at the money I have coming in this month. This is one of those magical months where I get three paychecks instead of two, so this is the month where I need to satisfy as much debt as possible. I need to find the most effective use for the money, and put myself in a position to ride easily through the second half of the year. I will see another bonus month in October, so in reality, I merely have to find a way to make it 4 months.

Finish the hallway paint.

I also need to paint the trim in my hallway, and touch up the wall color. I painted the wall almost two weeks ago, and it is high time I actually finish the job.

Unfortunately, it appears my plan to get a deck built may not happen this year. I simply gave myself too much to do, and outsourcing that job is going to cost way too much to make it a reasonable option. I also will not be getting my bathroom done this year either, but I have never been one to be devastated when my plans don't work out. I have to mix things up to deal with current circumstances, and buying the new car became a necessity much earlier than I anticipated. It became top priority, and everything else had to shift because of it.

I suppose that is my advice for the week. No matter what you are trying to accomplish in life, the best way to approach it is with as much flexibility as possible. You can be rigid in your desire, but the execution should always have a bit of wiggle room. Try to remain agile, and flowing like water.

Try to Maintain

2009-05-01T11:38:00.002-06:00

Well, the week itself has been uneventful. I have not make any real ground toward advancing my goals, though most of them are going to take more than a day or two to see through to the end. The crazy thing is, the more I hear about how bad things are with the economy, I am actually more financially secure than I have ever been. It really is a great time to spend money.

Still, I need to be making money as well, and though I had thought I had exhausted every avenue available, I happened upon a site which offers to pay you to think up domain names for people having difficulty finding a creative solution on their own. Picky Domains is free to join, and you get a share of the money paid to register the domain if yours is the one picked. It seemed like a good outlet for my creativity, and if it means a little cash on the side, all the better.

What I have not yet understood is how the honor system applies. Who is to say that a domain name I suggest will not be taken out of this realm and used through another service to be registered more cheaply, and without my commission? The site is so basic it teeters on the edge of being developed by a grade school class. There is no information on how you get paid, how the system works, or even who is in control of what. There is only a link to a review of the supposed moderator which then links back to his marketing site.

Aside from that, I spent a great deal of time trying to find unique domain names for organizations looking for help. It is a lot harder than you can imagine, especially when the focus can be so narrow that it makes it virtually impossible to find a fresh look at old, tired ideas. And this site is full of them. There is not one single fresh idea out of the 60+ people trying to register a domain.

It is reflective of the bulk of internet endeavors. Everyone is trying to make money on the internet, and no one is really pushing the envelope of innovation. They are all trying to simulate other proven systems in the hopes that their cookie cutter method is going to make them rich. Most of them are people trying to compete in a market where the big dogs are so massive they aren't even going to be a scale on the flea on the rump of one of these big dogs' puppies.

Although in reality, the internet is merely an exercise in incest. If you sign up for a site where you can make money clicking on ads, that site usually sells ads to other sites promising you big money for clicking on ads. It is the same with money making blogs. Let me show you how you can make money blogging by selling information on how to make money blogging. The whole system is one big copy and past nightmare.

It makes me sad. The internet used to be a place for the free exchange of information, and it has been reduced to a whore for people to pimp out indefinitely. There is so much money exchanging hands, and a good portion of it is wasted on these circular advertisement schemes. There is a lot of good information out there, but it has since been buried under an avalanche of tripe.

Listen to me people. You CANNOT get rich through a system promising a no effort solution. There is NOTHING available for any amount of money which will allow you to plug it in and leave it while it automatically makes you millions of dollars. There is NO super robot artificial intelligence gizmo that has found some secret the experts don't want you to know about. It is all advertising, and it is all lies.

I don't click advertisements. It's a complete waste of time to do so. It's the same reason I avoid commercials when watching television. I don't need to be sold. If I need something, I go out and get it. I do my own research, I do my own price comparisons, and I ignore all the hype from people who absolutely do not have my best interests at heart. There are enough suckers out there to keep the system running, but you have to understand that all of it is nonsense.

The reason it works is that it is easy to prey on the desperate. If you have a need, you will do all kinds of things that are not normally a part of your rational behavior in order to achieve it. Common sense goes out the window in favor of a sales pitch. The adages which have been around for centuries are ignored in favor of newer, flashier ways to sell product. A salesman has no interest in you as a person. You are a mark, and all that matters is whether or not you are buying.

I suppose I have gotten a bit sidetracked, but I really am sincere about this. I do not profess to care about you as an individual. I merely care about the world I see unfolding in front of me. I have children, and though I am going to do all I can to educate them about the techniques and psychology behind advertising, I would much prefer the industry as a whole stop manipulating humanity at every turn. I am tired of all the propaganda.

I want to make money in an honest endeavor. I want to make money through a solution for a legitimate need, not to satisfy some artificial want conjured up by a crafty marketing team. I want to put in an honest days labor, and get an honest days pay for it, but above all, I want my children to be proud of how I handled myself in an ever corrupting world. I have to be the role model our current society lacks.

On that note, this is a blog about making money, so let me pimp my whore a little before I go. Don't forget to stop by daily to increase my traffic. Take some time to randomly click links so I can get the impressions I need for the scraps they pay. Or if you are feeling very generous, bypass the hype and make a donation directly to my PayPal account. Have no fear. I take pennies.

Goals for April

2009-04-30T15:39:00.003-06:00

Initially I had stated that I was going to set goals on Monday, review them on Wednesday, and give status on those goals on Friday. As I am a bit behind this week, today I will state those goals and give a status of how far along I am in one tidy little entry. Of course some of these goals do not directly reflect my overall goal of saving one million dollars, but they do all have a financial base.

Primary Goal

To find a way to pay for the purchase of a new car.

My current transportation solutions were simply not sustainable. My daily driver is a 1974 VW Beetle which if falling apart faster than I can fix it. I do love the car, and they really are cheap to maintain, but on the flipside they require constant maintenance.

My other mode of transportation is a scooter I bought last year to combat the rising gas prices. At 95+ miles per gallon, I enjoyed every week I went only spending $1 to get to and from work. I put 1000 miles on it last year, and I plan on putting more than that on it this year. The thing is, I still owe roughly $900 on the loan. It is financed, so I pay $100 a month plus $100 a year in insurance costs.

My third vehicle was a four wheel drive SUV which was starting to have engine trouble. Inasmuch as I or my father would be able to repair anything, the kind of repair was looking to be both expensive and time consuming. I decided to use it as a trade in on a new car to both get some money out of it, and rid myself of the potential headache.

To be able to pay for a new car, I would have to come up with not only the money for the car payment, but also the money for an increase in insurance costs. As it stands, my budget is too tight for me to swing money one way or another. Still, a new car is something my family absolutely has to have for me to feel secure in knowing we will have reliable and long lasting transportation.

When all was said and done, I drive away in a brand new car on Monday. Before the end of May, I will have to figure out how to budget $250 for the car payment, and an additional $700-$800 for six months of insurance. I purchase my insurance whole as it saves money, even though coming up with the lump sum is not always easy.

Secondary Goal

To pay off my scooter loan.

This is the first step to freeing up money for the car. If I am able to pay off the scooter loan in May, then I will have $100 toward the other car loan starting in June. I will also be able to cancel the insurance and regain most of the $100 I have paid to cover it from May until December. I have $900 in the bank in an emergency fund so paying off the scooter is viable, though it will leave me strapped for cash.

Secondary Goal

To reduce my monthly obligations.

My only real monthly expense is my mortgage. I have only been in the house for two years, so I have not gained much ground on the principal I still owe on the loan. As well, the housing market had not done much to improve my homes value, or the value of the surrounding properties. Both times I attempted to refinance my mortgage, I was told it was either not a viable option, or I would have to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket to get the deal made.

After looking at yet another piece of mail promising to refinance my house with no costs, I decided to call. I was not hopeful they would be able to do what the others could not, but I had it set in my mind that I had to get the new car paid for somehow. I had already signed the papers, so there was no turning back at this point.

This company was able to reduce my interest rate to under 5%, restructure the loan so I would not have to make a June mortgage payment, and there would be no money coming out of my pocket to make the transfer. It is exactly what I had been looking for, and if the deal comes out how it was promised to me in good faith, I should see a reduction in my mortgage payment of over $150. That coupled with the scooter loan money comes to the $250 a month I need to afford the new car.

Secondary Goal

I still need to come up with what I believe will be $150 a month for the insurance on the new car. I will not know the exact amount until my insurance company gets back with me with a total. I already made the switch to my policy in order to drive the car home, so I assume I will be receiving some mail very soon.

The only other expense I can cut into is the food budget. If you remember, my food budget consists of a variety of expenses from household supplies to diapers. The main portion of this budgetary entity I am concerned with is coffee and cigarettes. With the increase in the tax on cigarettes, I now spend an average of $4.50 a day to smoke. In addition, I spend $2 a day average on coffee.

All total, with an average 30 day month, I spend almost $200 just on coffee and cigarettes. Both of these habits need to go, and at this point I have no choice but to cut them out of my life. If I choose to selfishly indulge in vice, I am literally taking food out of the mouths of my family.

Alternate Goals

Aside from all of the personal finance wizardry, I am still trying to find a way to save one million dollars. I have spent some time investigating "Paid to Click" opportunities which have turned out to be too incestual to be profitable. I am going to continue with Neobux for the entire year, just so I can show what is feasible to make in these kinds of systems.

I also have a Forex book waiting to be read at home. I still have not cracked into it, but I will definitely get started on that tomorrow, and should have it completed by Monday. At the very least, I will have a better idea of what it all entails and whether or not it is a viable tack.

Lastly, I need to try to sell some of my remaining assets. Not only do I want the money, but I need to get rid of things in my life that are merely taking up space. There is no reason to hold on to things that I am not utilizing when they could be worth at least a little money. That is my goal for the weekend, and I hope to have them all bought before Monday.

On a completely different note, I also want to try to get into a partnership with a bicycle shop guru to discuss and entrepreneurial idea I have toyed with for many years. Hopefully I can find someone interested in changing the world for the better because I don't see myself making money with the idea. I merely see a need in the world, and I firmly believe my idea could fill that need nicely.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Sowing the Seed

2009-04-29T10:44:00.005-06:00

A slight interruption in Internet access caused a bit of a delay in getting this post out, but here is an outline of how I was able to secure $1500 in one day to start off my million dollar project. I understand most people are not able to acquire this kind of money through the same means, but it does show that if you are willing to make some sacrifices, you can build a starting point.

First, I took advantage of a bank offering my $125 to open a checking account with direct deposit. It was nothing for me to fill out some paperwork to earn an almost instantaneous $125. It's a reputable bank with what I consider to be a secure future, so the decision there was easy.

Next, I gathered up all the scrap copper I could find and took it to the recycler. After about 30 minutes I walked out with $145 and some change for my efforts. I did have the benefit of having a large spool of copper wire dumped on my porch, but even the other scrap was worth about $6, so there is something to be said about recycling.

My initial estimate for the copper was $100, so I made out better than expected.

I then gathered up all my precious metal bullion as well as some other random coins I have collected over the years. There was a time when I was unsure about the fate of the American dollar, so I started investing in precious metals. When I was investing in Gold, the price was under $500 an ounce, and today it is close to $900 so I basically doubled my money.

I found a shop willing to take all the silver and gold I had, along with all the coins for $966. My initial estimate was closer to $800 so that made me quite happy indeed.

After that, I took my jar of pennies to a bank to have them turned into paper. I had counted them at one time, and estimated the value at close to $100, so I was expecting to get at least $97 after the 3% processing fee. I am fully confident I got screwed over, because they took the jar to the back room and came out later with a total I was disappointed with.

$87.04 for my pennies, which is a lot of money considering, but certainly skewed from my initial estimate of $100.

After all was said and done, I collected all the cash I had and went to the bank to deposit it. In total I had made $1362 while my goal for all of these endeavors was $1300. I spent about $5 in gas to travel to all the places I needed to go, and it took me a little over 3 hours to get it all done.

I decided to use some of my bonus money from work to flesh out the total to a clean $1500, though I add in the 4 pennies as they will hang around only long enough to get rolled into a 50 count and turned in that way. No more collecting several pounds of the stuff.

Lastly, I went to the public library to find some information on Forex. They had one book, and luckily it was in stock, so I took that one along with two books about investing, and the book Freakonomics which is a statistical look at sociology. Interesting reading, and I recommend it to everyone with even a slight interest in how things work.

I have not carved enough time to begin researching Forex, but I did grind through the investment books pretty quickly as they had nothing new to tell me. I am most of the way through Freakonomics, and should start the Forex book this weekend.

Aside from all of this, I purchased a new car. I had to resolve issues with the car I was driving, and even though this wasn't the best financial decision to make, it does relieve a lot of stress in regard to transportation. I bought the cheapest car I could buy with the best warranty, and now have a worry free vehicle for the next 100,000 miles.

I also started the process of refinancing my mortgage. This will serve two purposes. One, it will give me an immediate break from making my mortgage payment which will allow me to satisfy some debt. It will also free up more month to month money so I can better afford the new car. When all is said and done, with only a minimal lifestyle change, the new car should not affect my monthly finances at all.

I suppose my only advice to people trying to manage their finances is this. If you have the will, there is a way. You simply have to be realistic in your goals, and take the necessary steps to not get too far behind. You can go through life in debt so long as you are able to manage it properly. It's when you live beyond your means that you start to get into serious trouble, and that trouble can snowball in a hurry.

Three Methods To Make Quick Cash

2009-04-24T14:49:00.003-06:00

I wanted to take some time to investigate possible ways to make money with little to no effort. I will look at the pros and cons of each method, and try to find as much about the possible income as I can. What I have discovered is, there are basically three available methods you can use to make money, and I have categorized them as follows:

1. Selling Yourself

Your body as it sits is worth money. If you are okay with the idea, you can sell off the things your body produces naturally.

Sell Your Hair

Pros:

Wig makers are always looking for good hair to use for their wigs. The longer and healthier your hair, the more money you can make, and some people make really good money for cutting off their locks. Take a look at some examples.

Cons:

It takes a long time to grow hair, and it takes some effort to keep it in great condition. If you are fond of your long hair, you have to lose all of it to be able to sell it, and you have to find a willing buyer. Not all hair types and colors are as valuable as others.

Sell your Blood or Plasma

Pros:

If you are drug and disease free, and have no severe fear of needles, you can donate your blood or plasma. There is a heavy need for blood in all markets, and at all times. You can donate twice a week, and can make up to $30-$35 per donation depending on your blood type.

Cons:

You rarely get an expert in blood drawing when giving blood, and you can incur some serious damage if the process is not done correctly. You are basically puncturing a vein in your arm which will heal but will definitely alter you permanently.

Sell your Eggs or Sperm

Pros:

For women, there is a heavy demand and thus a good price for selling Ova. One donation can earn you $7000.

For men, well, you get to masturbate for money, and donations could gain you $100 or more.

Cons:

There is an age stipulation for potential donors, and you have to be drug and disease free. If you fail the medical screening or are not 21-to-35 years old, you will not qualify for egg donation. As well women are allowed to donate a set amount of times which is usually no more than 6. Not to mention you are placed on fertility drugs which have a multitude of side effects.

For men, again, you have to be drug and disease free. You also have to meet the sperm count motility and morphology requirements and your sperm must be able to survive the cryogenic process. Upwards of 95 percent of donors are disqualified. There is also a heavy dependence on medical history in regard to your whole family. It can also take up to three months for your sperm analysis to be completed for you to become a certified donor.

Sell Yourself for Medical Research

Pros:

With little to no effort at all, you can make anywhere from $40 to $800 by offering yourself up as a human test subject for medical research projects. There are always studies going on, and the medical community is always looking for volunteers for studies of all types.

Cons:

You have to accept the risk of any and all side effects for whatever you are being tested with. Whether they are testing a product, a drug, or a method, all of them come with at least some risk to you, and because this is all new research, the risks cannot be adequately disclosed. This means, you could suffer severe damage and even death.

Other Methods:

There is also the option of surrogacy and selling your vital organs, but not only are these time intensive, but also way too invasive for people who are not absolutely desperate. In my opinion, the money earned is no where near adequate compensation for the sacrifice involved.

2. Offering your Labor

You can always find an odd job here or there, and you can even make money doing something simple. There are issues to consider whenever you are providing a service such as contracts, liabilities, and sometimes insurance, so remember. Always watch your back because people will take advantage of you.

Offer House or Pet sitting Services

Pros:

People are always looking for someone to manage their affairs whenever they leave for an extended period. Not everyone has the luxury of family and friends to take care of things while they're gone. Offering to watch someone's house, water the plants, take in the mail, tend to pets is a viable business model and can be done in your spare time.

Cons:

There is plenty of competition for this service, and because of this the money you can make is minimal in comparison to the time involved. You will likely have to have transportation and references to gain the trust of people willing to let a stranger camp out in their house.

Offer Dog Walking Services

Pros:

If you can walk, and you are not deathly allergic to dogs, you can make a good bit of money taking dogs for a walk. There is likely already competition for this service in your area, but if you are motivated, reliable, and are able to present yourself as a non-threatening individual, you can certainly make money this way with little to no effort.

Cons:

Competition again makes this a service you may not make much money with in terms of the time invested. You may also have to travel and prove that you have a love for dogs, and you have to scoop poop.

Offer to Clean

Pros:

Cleaning is not fun, but it is also not necessarily difficult either. Offering to wash a car, or a house, or a pet, or anything else that gets dirty is a good way to make some cash with relatively little effort.

Cons:

Competition makes for low wages, and you may have to clean some seriously nasty stuff which may make you rethink if there is any amount of money to compensate for it.

Beg or should I say Panhandle

Pros:

All you have to do is sit there and ask people for spare change.

Cons:

You may have to suffer the wrath of people not too keen on your choice to beg for money. It is illegal in some areas.

Other Services You Can Offer

In the interest of space, here is a list of other services you can offer for money. They all come with their own stipulations, but they are all viable ways to make money.

Babysitting
Lawn Mowing/ aeration/ weeding
Garbage Hauling
Raking leaves
Snow Shoveling
Errand Runner
Strip Tease Dancer (both sexes)

As well, if you have space, you can rent a parking spot or a room for a fee.

3. The Online Game

There are just about as many methods touted to make money online as there are websites. It seems life is all about how to make the quick and easy buck, and people fall for this scam every second of every day. I have seen a few legitimate ways to make money, but none of them will generate the thousands of dollars they claim. You are looking at making maybe $10 a month.

I am not going to go through all of them, but I will give you some tips. Always sign up for a site that has the lowest payout option available. If you are not going to get paid until you reach a total of $50, you are going to be spending an inordinate amount of your time trying to get there and likely will give up before you get even close. Go for a site that pays out at $5 or less so at least if you change your mind about how much effort you are putting in you can reap some of the reward at least.

NEVER EVER PAY FOR ACCESS TO ANYTHING!!! The purpose of the Internet is the free exchange of information. If someone is asking you to give them money, they are not providing you with a legitimate service. If you are not getting something tangible for your money then it is a scam, and that is guaranteed. Usually you can find the information they are selling you for free if you are willing to search around long enough for it.

If you want to look into these options further, I have provided links for research.

Surveys
Paid to Click / Surf
Amazon Mechanical Turk
Become a Mock Juror

You can also get paid to Blog and submit product reviews at any number of sites. Of course there is always the lottery, and Sweepstakes.

I can't say I will be using all of these methods, but I am investigating Paid to Click, and I have signed up to be a Mock Juror. I will keep you up to date if anything decent transpires.

If there are any other methods I have missed, please feel free to add them to the comments.

And So It Begins

2009-04-24T12:59:00.001-06:00

With the date of my little adventure fast approaching, I need to assess my plan for making money. A goal always needs to have some sort of process attached to it, and the finer the process, the more refined my actions will become. In order to achieve such a glorified goal in such a short period of time, my process must be virtually flawless.

To begin, I am planning to part with my gold bullion which at market price should bring in about $500. I also have some silver bullion and silver coins which I expect to be worth about $300.

In addition, I have a jar of pennies which when last counted was close to $100. I imagine it will be slightly over that amount, so with the counting fee I am expecting to have another bill ready for the coffers.

I am also taking all of my scrap copper to the recycler, and I should get a fair amount of scratch for it. I was blessed with a "worthless" thimble of wire which weighs in the neighborhood of 80 pounds, so I expect somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 to $100 depending on the quality.

I have accrued some random money here and there through the sale of a small television, change I have found while working throughout my house, in found in the cars I recently cleaned out which comes to a total of about $33. I also have that $5 "gift" from the Credit Union for taking out a loan with them.

I was also able to secure $125 through opening a new checking account with Direct Deposit. This money was deposited yesterday and will be used for this goal. As well, I have an old bank account which I am planning to close which will bring in an additional $100 to $200 depending on how things transpire with a dispute over a rogue charge made to that account.

To keep the math simple, all total I am looking at starting with approximately $1300. On top of this, I am going to try to sell an old project truck that has been sitting in my garage for a year. I may also try to sell my collection of Garbage Pail Kids, both of which have minimal value, but may bring anywhere from $300-$700 if I am able to set an effective price. I also have another television I have been trying to part with which may bring in another $80.

All things considered, my immediate goal is to deposit $1300 into a savings account on Monday, April 27th. I am hopeful this amount will be more, but at the very least I want to be able to deposit that amount of money as the starting seed for my million dollar year long goal. It will be the culmination of all I can do immediately to make money, and will put me in a position where all remaining funds will have to come from sources outside of myself and my current assets.

This, unfortunately, is the point where the plan begins to lose focus. I have considered the Forex market, and continue to feel as if that will have the best investment to return ratio in regard to the time and effort required. This having been said, I will have to spend some time at the local library to see what material is available to me for free so I can begin to learn as much as possible.

I will also be changing the format here on the blog to more accurately address project markers, with breakdowns occurring three times a week. Monday will consist of my goals for the week. Wednesday will consist of a progress report as well as an outline of any adjustments that need to be made to the goals. Friday will be an assessment of how well I have done in accomplishing my goals. This will hopefully outline and breakdown my process enough so others can attempt to recreate it.

With that in mind, I understand that most people cannot quickly amass even a couple of hundred dollars let alone the $1300 I am expecting as a starter seed for this project. All I can say is, if you are serious about making money, then you have to make the necessary sacrifices and change your attitude about what money is. You will need money to make money, and there is no denying that fact. Decide what it is you can sacrifice, and save like hell to get to a point where you have at least a little money to start with that you can set aside and absolutely ignore.

You have to believe that money is already spent and that you have no access to it. You cannot keep that money in the back of your mind as a source for emergencies, or for times when you really want a new pair of shoes. Lock the money away, and DO NOT TOUCH IT! It's the only way you are going to be able to change your situation enough to make the trip worthwhile.

This having been said, I can make no guarantees. I don't even know if anything I try to accomplish will be the least bit effective. All I know is that if I maintain the right attitude, and work as hard as I can, I will make money. How much money I will make is entirely up to time. You may take guidance from me and not make one penny. At the same time, you could use my guidance and make a million dollars a day.

On that note, I want to look at possible ways to make a little money so those of you who do not have any capital at all can get a seed started. These methods may or may not work, and some of them may or not be an option for you, but we all have to start somewhere, and all I ask is that you set your prejudices aside and consider that sometimes to make money you have to find a creative solution to the problem.

The Forex Future

2009-04-20T12:37:00.002-06:00

I mentioned last that I was going to be investing in the Forex market, specifically those softwared propored to make you millions every minute. After looking into things a bit more, I have discovered there is no real reason to leap without looking around first. That is, unless I simply want to give my money away.

It is recommended that people interested in trading in Forex open a mock account and play around with fake money for about 6 months before using actual funds. This seems like a good plan, however I don't really have the time to invest in a 6 month crash course on how to lose money. My learning curve has to be much smoother than 6 months.

This is not to say I believe I am smarter than the experts. I do not claim to have some inate ability to trade forex that developed within me at birth. What this means is, I have to find a way to get myself up to speed faster than the experts recommend. I believe the experts, and I am more than willing to put the work in. I simply do not want to wait for my skills to mature all on their own.

Luckily there are options. First, I am going to do some hardcore offline research. I need to familiarize myself with the terminology and the mechanics of what is happening. Without being fluent in the Forex slang, I have no hope of finding good tips or help when I fond myself betwixt the rock and proverbial hard place.

Second, I an going to try to find a mentor who is willing to teach me the tricks of the trade. If I can find someone who has been through the ups and downs and knows ways to avoid the pitfalls, then at least I don't have to learn through experience. I can glean this knowledge through someone elses trial and error.

Last, I am going to purchase one of the many automatic softwares so I can set it up with what I hope will be a good money making schema, and let it do the work while I tend the the other thousand tasks I have to accomplish on a daily basis. Hopefully if I have done my homework, and learned all there is to know I will be able to utilize an automated system more effectively than those trying to plug it in out of the box.

In the meantime, I have begun promotion of my website, and will continue to try to earn as many pennies per day as humanly possible. I am not one to put all my eggs in the Forex basket, but I am going to push hard for this scenario as I firmly believe it can work. Though I always tend to keep in mind the wise words of Chuck D.

"Don't believe the hype!"