Time To Budget » Making More Money

Ownership: let go of a lie and create a financial truth

Manda — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:02:57 +0000

I’ve cheated on Dave. I’ve seen Suze Orman on television while flipping channels, and finally watched last week. Admitedly, I don’t know much about her, but her financial advice seems sound. Her guest was a woman whose husband wanted to declare bankruptcy. Their income was 9k a month. Their outgo was 19k a month. You see the problem. Suze gave her advice, which meant letting go of her 6k a month mortgage by doing a short sale on her house. The woman was adamant that she didn’t need to do so. I shook my head, and wondered why Suze Orman was wasting her breath. I found myself wondering how Dave would handle the situation. I speculated that he wouldn’t waste his breath. He’s about helping people who WANT help. The first step to financial peace is to resolve to never borrow again. The guest on this show was holding on to her lie. She kept making excuses, they could get 2nd jobs, she didn’t want to sell her “stuff”. She was probably the most clueless woman I’ve seen. Finally Suze told her that she didn’t have any stuff. She didn’t own anything. She’d created this lie, and was working to maintain it. I jotted down this comment “you have to let go of the lie and create a financial truth”.

Dave says the same thing when he gives the advice to live your wage. J and I have worked over the last 5 months to create a financial truth. We’ve let go of the things we couldn’t afford. Some days I do miss my van, and I know he misses his truck, but, honestly, they were not ours. We let go of that lie, and created a financial truth. Instead of being behind in our utilities and juggling which to pay. Our utilities weren’t getting paid because we were spending money we didn’t have. We’re fortunate to not have credit card debt. We’re fortunate enough not to have a house that we can’t afford. We still have some decisions to make. My student loans are monstrous. Do I go back to work, or stay at home with my babies. With Dave’s help, we’ve let go of the lie and are living a financial truth. We have that truth to be able to make informed decisions. We’ll be able to consider the cost benefit. Only time will tell which way we’ll go, but as Dave says, prayer does work, and we’ll rely on it to assist us in making decisions. This is a stark contrast to the lies we were trying to perpetrate. It’s less stressful, and more peaceful.

Financial Peace Social Community

Mona — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:38:46 +0000

Are you interested in more discussion about financial peace? I decided to create a social community for Time to Budget readers. My hope is that this community can be a place for use to share our knowledge and encourage each other on our financial peace journey.

I think the topic of financial freedom is work discussing, don’t you? Stop by and contribute!

money.crowdvine.com (Financial Peace Community)

A Picture of Wealth – How Do You Define Wealth? How Does It Define You?

Mona — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:09:47 +0000

How do you define wealth?

Do you define wealth by the amount of money you have?

Do you define wealth by the amount of toys you have?

Do you define wealth by your status or power?

Or?

Do you define wealth by the love of your family?

By the safety and security of your family?

By a life fulfilled and loved?

The wealth you seek now defines how you will be remembered and whether your life was picture of true wealth.

True wealth has nothing to do with money, status or power.

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Very Busy Time Of Year

Mona — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:45:59 +0000

This time of year always seems to be a very busy time for me. I am not sure why but I always seem to have some kind of project just about to launch every spring. Right now the ProBlogHer.COM project is taking up a lot of my time. The problem with becoming busy is that my finances are often neglected.

I am trying really hard to find balance. Some days I feel as though I have a good handle on things and other days I feel very overwhelmed and disorganized. Today, I got a lot of things done around the house and working online but my budget and bills didn’t get much attention.

My hope for these new project like ProBlogHer.COM is that the income generated will relieve e some of our financial pressures. I am really excited about the fact that ProBlogHer.COM is already generating a buzz even though it’s still in pre-launch.

We will see if my online money making venture will pay off this year. So far my income has continued to increase every month. Like I said in a post I wrote earlier this year, I think this year for income earning.

Tags: debt+freedom, credit, make+money+online, make+money+blogging

A Year For Income Earning – A Prediction For 2008

Mona — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:00:24 +0000

I recently wrote a fifteen part series of articles on my other blog, iwebis, titled 15 Things I Learned In 2007 That Improved My Blogging and Increased My Income. In this series I wrote about the things I learned in 2007 and concluded the series by stating that 2007 was year of learning for me. I learned so much about marketing, blogging, income opps, search engine opp and social media that I think 2008 will be the year of earning.

I did earn a decent income blogging in 2007 but I the majority of the year was spent learning about how to be a profitable blogger. Now that I have the knowledge, a laptop (for more efficient working), and a number of really good ideas, I think this year will be one of very decent income earning. I am by no means a “name it and claim it” kind of person but I do have good feelings about this year. My hope is that in 2009 I can look back on this post and see if my prediction came true.

15 Things I Learned in 2007

Mona — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:50:34 +0000

I in the process of counting down 15 things that I learned in 2007 that improved my blogging and increased my income. I want to be sure the readers of Time To Budget know about this list since most my readers are follow bloggers. Today I posted the #11 “thing” so there are a full 10 days left of the count down.

Check out the posts I have so far.

15 Things I Learned In 2007 That Improved My Blogging and Increased My Income

#15 – Not all monetizing options are best for you blog.
#14 - Don’t be afraid to set goals and don’t be afraid to fail.
#13- Strive to become an authority.
#12 – Contribute quality content to other blogs and networks.
#11 – Write down your ideas.

ScratchBack Top Spots Widget Now On Time To Budget

Mona — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 14:00:48 +0000

ScratchBack Top Stops was doing so well on iwebis that I decided to include the widget on Time To Budget. The ScratchBack widget offers visitors, advertisers, readers the opportunity to include a link to their website for a very low price. Many ScratchBack publishers are setting the link price at only $1.00.

I wrote a short view of this widget on my other blog iwebis (ScratchBack Top Spots Widget). I am really excited about this widget because it offers affordable advertising for my readers as well as a little bit of extra cash for toward paying off debt.

Generating An Income Online Can Happen – With The Right Knowledge

Mona — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 07:56:55 +0000

Almost two years ago I set out to try and make money online. Being a stay-at-home home schooling mom I had to find something I could do from how. I would have to say the first 6 months of researching online income sources brought me not very much hope. The reason was because I was looking in the wrong place.
My first attempt at making money online is where a lot of people start. It seems people trying to make money online often start with trying to make money off people who are in similar situations as us. Since I wanted to be a work-at-home mom I decided the best place to start was trying to make money off of other work-at-home moms, through affiliate marketing and Adsense. Mind you there is nothing wrong with trying to generate an income by offering information to others that are in a similar situation but it seems that many of us try to start this way which means we are trying to get water from a tapped out well.

This also happens a lot in the “Make Money Online” scene that is sweeping the web. Many people who discover they can make money online start a make money online blog. I am one of those people. Time To Budget started out being a personal finance and make money online blog. Once I figured out that the “make money online” part of this blog was not helping market a specific niche, which is personal finance, I decided to stop writing posts about making money online.

I did still think that the discoveries I made about online income sources needed to be shared with others so I created another blog for my other interests, which includes social media, blogging, and making money online. The goal for iwebis is to follow changes happening with in the net so I still think the “make money online” article stick to the niche.

So what is my point anyway? Since I started blogging about a little over a year ago I have discovered a ton of ways to make money online. Most having to do with blogging but not all. The truth is making money online is not hard to do but the amount of money you earn is a different story. Going from making a few dollars a month to hundreds of dollars a month is not simple but it is doable.

I would recommend to anyone researching ways to make money online to first consider your interests outside of making money and outside of ideas that include making money off of people who are in need of money. Consider what things make you tic and that you are passionate about and start there. Not all interests are great money makers but most are. If you are trying to make money through blogging remember to have your own voice. Don’t try to recreate what someone else has already created, especially a popular blog.

Since I started taking blogging to a higher level I have not become a millionaire but I have made a decent amount of money. Within the last three months I have made about $600 between both Time To Budget and iwebis. No where near people like John Chow and Problogger but it’s still an income. A much needed income that is helping our family gain steps closer to the other side of the financial freedom fence.

If you are looking to find legitimate ways to make money online visit my other blog iwebis as well as DoshDosh and Problogger.

Make Money Blogging – Can It Really Be Done?

Mona — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:39:55 +0000

Can you really make a decent living blogging? The more I work with blogging, the more I am convinced that you can make a living blogging. I have been working with blogs for about a year now and have come along way in my understanding of how blogging income works and how to best go about it.

If you are looking to make money blogging check out my new blog iwebis. I used to write more about making money online on this blog but decided to create a new blog that follows the changes in online income sources as well as social media, web 2.o and blogging.

Now that I am making passive income blogging it’s been a lot easier to make money. Your goal should be to make a passive income.

Income Report for iwebis – Not Much to Report

Mona — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 02:36:53 +0000

As I mention on my other blog iwebis I plan to include a month income report on this blog. I chose to post about money on this site since it is all about money and finances. It’s also a great way to cross-blog promote.
Ok, I am almost embarrassed to do this report because it’s such a low amount of money. On the other hand I didn’t really expect to make any money with my new blog the first month. The first month’s goal was to start of with a great launch which is what happened so I guess I should be happy about that ( and I am).

Income Sources (I use and plan to use):

Google Adsense – $2.13

Text-Link-Ads – Blog no yet accepted.

Sponsored Reviews – No offers taken yet.

Kontera – Didn’t end up using this month and probably won’t end up using this income source.

Affiliate Links – No money earned.

So there you have it. iwebis made $2.13 it’s first month. At least it made some money, right .