Vacation highlights

For those of my loyal fans who have been eagerly awaiting my return, I am back. Here, in brief, is my vacation:

-We went "home" to the town where we grew up for a friend's wedding. It was beautiful.
-We stayed with family and hopped from house to house often enough that no one started driving us crazy and no one resented us or felt left out.
-We visited every relative and high school friend within a 100 mile radius. We ended up filling up gas tanks in borrowed cars three times in a week.
-We were in cars where the battery died and we had to wait for a jump. Twice. Yes, twice.
-We ate restaurant food for dinner every single night (somehow at little to no expense to us.)
-We spent 11 hours on a plane trying to get to Dallas Fort Worth airport to get home, then slept in chairs in the airport (because they ran out of cots) waiting for our morning connection.

I now need a vacation from my vacation, but I got back yesterday morning and had to do a super important presentation for work. Now I have to sort through a week's mail and unpack, mail two movies that sold while we were gone, and buy groceries. I also have to go by my "real" job this afternoon for an indeterminate amount of time to work stuf out for fall.

Uggggh. I'll try to post later with something more on topic and will get a challenge update in as soon as I get organized enough.

Break even week 2 update

So, it’s been another dismal week in the break even challenge. I’m just not making nearly as much money as I expected to be, and I once again way overspent on entertainment. We went to a local festival this Saturday, and had pre-ordered dinner plates for $12 each, so that the whole thing would fit into our local budget, but ended up spending another $25 while we were there on drinks and activities. Then, even though we were already $24 over our budget, we went out Monday to our favorite buffet on BOGO night and spent another $8.

Do I regret spending the money? It’s iffy. We had an amazing time at the festival, and it’s not the kind of thing that happens every day, but if we don’t have the money, we just don’t have the money. The thing is, this experiment is phony in its way because we really have a pretty significant cash cushion built up - hubby has no expectation of me breaking even this summer – so, in essence, we do have the money, I just don’t want to spend it all. The ideal thing would be if I was making enough money, and frugalling enough in places that don’t hurt, that I could afford to write in unexpected events like this when making our budget. It’s important to enjoy life, but I enjoy things a lot more when I can afford them. Maybe instead of having a weekly entertainment budget, I should have a monthly entertainment budget. That way if we want to spend an extra $25 at a festival, that’s just money we won’t be allowed to spend on entertainment for the rest of the month.

As for the earning, it’s been pretty weak. I decided to buckle down and grade essays because I needed cashflow more than I needed long term earnings, but then there weren’t any essays to grade. I have some big, high paying opportunities coming up in the next couple weeks for my job, and I have another 6 hours a week of tutoring work starting at the beginning of July, which will just about double what I’m making now in that area. I have a bunch of articles submitted to AC, and am just waiting for the offers, but who knows how long it will take them or what they will decide to offer. I also have some money in the works and awaiting payout from offers sites, and I have a lot of rebates out, but both of those things could take ages to get back. So right now, I’m just going to keep working as much as I can and keep writing and once again hope that by the end of the summer, it will all come out in the wash.

We’re going to visit family for a week, so we bought almost no groceries this week and worked on cleaning out or fridge. All we bought was a tomato and some peaches, so we are $45 under budget. I also got another free box of cereal from CVS, and am pretty psyched about the fact that I pretty much never have to buy cereal again.

Totals for the week:

Break even number $420
+32 over budget entertainment
-45 under budget groceries
-$120 tutoring
-$18 Essay Grading
-$8 Associated Content Payout
-$11.34 Survey payout
-$.94 rebate check
-$1.50 book sold on Amazon
237 deficit
Total for summer 532 deficit

Test Prep on the Cheap

I took a really ugly and painful test for teacher certification in my state this Saturday. I had forgotten about the test until about a month before, and then put off studying until about a week before. I didn't have any books, certainly didn't have time to take a prep class, and just needed to get a basic idea of what was going to be on the test and what my approach should be. My dirty little secret is that I teach and tutor test prep classes for a major company but have never used more than my Internet connection and free materials to study for any test I've taken (including the SAT, GRE, Praxis I and II, and various state tests).

The basic list of things I think it's important to know about a test before taking it includes:
1. The content range of the test
2. The structure, format, and length of the test
3. The position and any biases of the test makers
4. The way in which the test is scored
5. The approximate difficulty of the questions

With that in mind, here's how I prepped for the test I just took.

1. I started with the webpage belonging to the company giving my test (in this case, as in most, ETS). Generally, they will provide some of the most basic information, such as how many questions and how long. This gives you a starting point for generating a strategy.
2. I took the practice questions given on ETS's site. This gave me a general idea of what questions looked like and how hard they were.
3. I checked my answers to ETS's test. I used that, and the bibliography offered, to get an idea of what they were looking for. (For example, I saw Nancie Atwell in the list of suggested readings, so I know that they prefer a writing workshop constructivist approach to writing. Good news for me.)
4. I made notes on areas of weakness or confusion and kept that list on a notepad next to my desk.
5. I searched for the name of my test on google. Several sites came up, mostly belonging to colleges, with general tips for test day. A few offered syllabi of the covered material. I made notes on topics I didn't know on my notepad.
6. I went to Amazon and searched for my test type. My Internet research had given me the names of a few books and I started with those. I used the search within this book feature and read as much as I could until Amazon cut me off.
7. I used my notes on topics of weakness to do further Internet reading into genres, time periods, and theories I needed to review.
8. I doublechecked my admission ticket, sharpened some pencils, and went to bed.

That's it, that's all I did. Now, if I'd been a little more dedicated, I could have spent some time in the library, but for an hour a day for 5 days, this provided a pretty good background.

When I took the GRE, I spent more time but not any more money. Fortunately for you if this is what you're doing, there are a lot more online materials available. Do similar research, and you will find interactive vocab flashcards, math reviews, and about 10 full length practice tests you can take.

I'd be out of a part time job if I talked everyone out of test prep classes, but unless you have trouble self-motivating or have a serious weakness in a major area covered by the test, you can do most of your test prep without the major expense.

Brainless and Painless ways I earn extra money online

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the vast majority of money I earn this summer for my Break even challenge is going to be from doing actual work, whether it’s tutoring, grading essays or writing. Still, it’s good to have a few ways that I can earn some extra money without having to put in any brainpower. When I was teaching all day, these extra money makers were about all I could handle, and now these are what I like to do at night while watching TV, or in the morning while I’m eating breakfast. They won’t bring in a fortune, but they bring in a little extra money. While the time input can be significant, the mental input is minimal, which makes it sound like a pretty good deal to me.

Disclaimer: Many of the links below are referral links, which means I make money if you sign up through them. Feel free to delete the referral stuff from the end of the URL and refresh before signing up if you would prefer not to use my info.

Paid to complete offers

This is probably the most lucrative of the brainless money makers bunch, for me at least. You sign up for offers, usually either free sites or trial offers of sites, and money credits to your account. The free offers are no brainers, and the trial offers can net you even more money, as long as you keep careful records and remember to cancel. To be honest, once I went a day over with a trial offer, and though I was initially charged for a month’s service it was credited back to my card within a week. That may not, however, be the norm, so try not to make that kind of mistake. The monthly fees can quickly outweigh whatever you may earn.

I started out using Instant Profitz, who at the time (and may still) had the highest payouts for individual offers. I got frustrated, though, with many offers not crediting. Now I primarily use Deal Barbie Pays. Deal Barbie is much more reliable, and when something doesn’t credit, you can always get in touch with someone personally to find out why. From Deal Barbie, I make about $1 for most free signups, and as much as $20 for most standard trials. Higher risk, or higher initial investment, yields higher returns, but I don’t usually go that far.

I’ve recently also signed up with Cash Crate, and will let you know how that goes.

Surveys

Surveys are pretty average online money makers. They can range from less than $1 to about $20 per survey - with the higher end being extremely rare. It's important to evaluate a survey's compensation policy before you spend a lot of time taking surveys. Some companies don't pay you money at all but simply give you entries into sweepstakes.

My survey is the company I’ve been with the longest. They give a reasonable number of surveys and have, on occasion sent products. The best thing about them is that they pay for screeners even if you don’t qualify for the full survey. I get the $10 payout a couple of times a year.

MyView sends me the most surveys per month, and pays out pretty regularly, but I can’t find on their website how to sign up. You can go to their site and see if you can figure it out.

I’ve also been paid by Your2Cents, Viewpoint forum, and by Lightspeed Panel.

Paid to click

These are at the bottom of the totem pole as far as money making is concerned, but I still enjoy them because they are JUST SO EASY. Many of these require you to view an ad for at least 15 seconds before they give you credit. My trick is that I use tabbed browsing to do other things while clicking. That way I can get paid to click while reading blogs, taking surveys, or writing.

Awesome Emails 4 U has been around long enough to be trustworthy, and it has a really great webmistress who likes to give early payouts and bonuses.

Classical Mail has a much lower payout which is easy to reach (only 50 cents), but recently they’ve had some trouble and significantly decreased the number of ads they offer. I still make about 2 cents a day for 3 ads, so I reach the payout amount every month with little effort.

Inbox Dollars, Send Earnings, and Snap Dollars are a little different in that they don’t require you to stay on a site for any amount of time. They pay just for a click through from your email, and also pay for offers you complete or actions that you take.

2nd anniversary Carnival of Personal Finance at Get Rich Slowly

It's hard to believe the Carnival has been around for two years, but the 2nd anniversary carnival is up at Get Rich Slowly today.

The Carnival is a greatest hits carnival with some of the best articles of all time from PF bloggers around the web. I'm just honored to be in the presence of some of these writers. Go check it out, there's some great stuff!