Out of Debt Blog

My article marketing service has been increasing steadily in members and income. Over $4,000 presently in monthly recurring membership income!

Problem is, I still need to manage my spending so that I actually use the surplus to pay off debt. There's currently $50,000 in credit card and home equity line of credit debt.

I purchased

Got Guts last night and will be working my numbers through it soon.

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I'd give an update.

I'm averaging $3,000-$5,000 per month on the side, which isn't yet enough to go full time -- so I'm still working my day job.

I've invested a lot of the money I've been making back into the business, but I've been wasting a lot of it too. I really need to learn better cashflow. Making more money doesn't help when I spend it as fast as I make it.

I launched a different product two days ago and made a little over $1,000. This was for a membership site, so most of the money will keep coming in each month until people cancel.

This whole Internet marketing thing can get very distracting. Not only distracting me often from what is important in life (NOT money), but also distracting in and of itself.... there are so many ways to make money online that it can be tempting to try a little of everything. But real progress is made in sticking to one thing and following through. I'm still learning that.

My goal had been to quit my job by May 1, but obviously I missed that goal. I keep thinking the next thing is going to take my income up enough to quit my job, but it hasn't happened yet. I'd like to be making at least 10K per month before I quit my day job.

I'll keep you posted.

I've really been gaining ground! I took the proceeds of my

Content Spooler software and paid a programmer to develop a network where websites can automatically trade articles with one another.

While he did the programming, I did the marketing and mailing list building.

Content Spooling Network launched yesterday to my list. I made $10,000 yesterday and another $7,000 today! I offered a one-time payment option of $299 or $450 for a higher plan and made about 50 sales.

Next week I'll officially launch the product and offer a monthly payment membership of about $30 per month.

My goal is to get $30,000 in the bank (6 months income) and get the monthly recurring revenue to exceed my current monthly income. Then I can quit my job!

This has been a great month!

I had some sad results to a promotion I did in mid-December that left me very discouraged.

Then just before Christmas, I created a new product called

Content Spooler. It was a HUGE success! (at least by my standards)

I made a few thousand dollars and it is a natural lead-in product to something I'm having developed right now. I should be able to say more next month.

It seems doable that this could really take off and I can have my own business and get out of debt!

The past 2 months I have been gaining some traction with my online income.

I made about $1,200 selling access to some statisticaly software examining how to rank high in the search engines. I've not taken it off the market so I can make it better.

This past week I made $500 selling access to some

search engine optimization videos I am making.

After I finish making them, I will sell resale rights to the videos to get some extra holiday cash.

I've also set up an online store selling jewelry. Actually 2 of them -- the second doesn't have any products yet.

1. sterling silver jewelry
2. fashion jewelry

So as you can see, I've been very busy! Too busy actually -- I should probably concentrate on 1 thing at a time. There are even another couple ecommerce sites I'm putting up related to the mineral makeup and a business opportunity called ITV Ventures. This company makes infomercials about natural products. They are starting to make their leads available through a network marketing structure. They'll start advertising this in the middle of next month, but I've got in early. It is a very good compensation plan and you don't have to do any nasty MLM sell to your friends stuff -- you just get leads they generate through infomercials.

Anyway, as you can see, my plate is full. I'm hoping to be making enough money online to quit my day job by mid March of next year.

I'll keep you posted.

My "Site Page Tracker" product was released this past Tuesday. I made $1,500 or so after paying out the affiliate commissions.

I've got a product I'm selling a subscription to as well, so I'm hoping to establish some recurring income. As of now, about $500 of my sales are set to be recurring each month!

If anyone wants to check it out, I've set up a 24 Hour Special for you to get it at half-price:

http://www.sitepagetracker.com/outofdebt-special.php

I posted last month about making some money selling a php website script I wrote. I have made about 50-60 sales in the past month resulting in over $1,000.

This is by far the most money I have made on the internet. I have invested all of it (and some more) into making the product better and providing a backend website which will encourage others to promote the product to make a commission.

I plan to release it in 2 weeks (on Sept 26). This could be the beginning of my financial freedom! I've already had a handful of people tell me they want to promote my product to their mailing list when it is released. I am now actively recruiting others as well.

I'll post an update to this blog next month with the results.

The past few months I've been trying to make some money on the Internet. I haven't spent much more time on the timeshare book, instead I've been concentrating on Adsense and making a product to help people with websites.

In case you don't know, AdSense are those little "ads by google" that you see on many websites, including this one. The website owner makes between 5 cents and a few dollars each time someone clicks on ad.

I set up 20 or so websites on different topics and have been writing articles for them. In the past 2 weeks I have only made about $10 total from AdSense. I should make more once my sites get ranked in the search engines.

The real money has come in the past few days. I wrote a script to help website owners easily get the stats about how many pages from their website have been ranked in the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN). I then posted a link to buy my product on a website. This resulted in over 15 sales which brought in more than $400!

I can't quit my job with this money, but it is awfully nice to make some money for my efforts -- it took me about 15 hours to write this script.

If you want to read more about it, visit

Site Page Tracker.

It is now for sale to the general public. I priced it at $50 and offer a 51% commission through a marketplace called ClickBank.

I'm hoping to sell many more in the coming weeks and months as others promote the product to make commission. Anyone who uses a special link to direct people to my site will make about $25 each time someone buys.

I sold a few of my timeshare packages. I decided to make a video instead of finishing the book for the time being.

I am currently getting back to my programming roots and working on a web page creator which will help me set up web sites quickly on any given topic. I am planning to make money displaying ads on the sites. In any case, I am hopeful of making a profit within the next few months.

On other news, I have a job interview tomorrow for a company doing web development and tech support. I would enjoy this MUCH more than my current dull job. I wasn't even looking for a job, but a friend with an inside connection told me about the job. He also says I'm the most qualified of the candidates, so it is looking good!

Woohoo -- I made some money online. Setting up that taguchi website (

Taguchi Tools Review) has made me $450 over the past month!

I wrote an article on the subject and submitted it to a bunch of places. The bottom of the article contained a link to my website. This has resulted in 4 sales for taguchi software products I'm affiliated with at about $100 commission a piece.

My wife started a part-time job last week as an assistant at a small office which sells eyeglasses. She enjoys the job. The extra money will be very helpful.

I'm still working on my

timeshare resales book. It will probably be released next month. Most of my time lately has been spend on marketing-related activities (setting up the website, learning about marketing, finding a printer, etc.)

I am about 3/4 done writing my book. I still have some more expenses before I can hope to make any money on it -- these include book cover design (around $400), printing a few copies to send to potential affiliates (about $50). I also may need to prepay some of the book printing costs before I sell any -- this may be a couple hundred dollars.

I came across some info yesterday related to marketing. It dealt with a method of increasing conversions on your website. Typically marketers use "split testing." A much more accelerated method is called "The Taguchi Method."

I'll spare the details, but I ended up purchasing some software called

KaizenTrack for $197 to help me increase conversions on my website. It comes with a money-back guarantee, so I thought I would give it a shot.

Anyway, I was so impressed with the program, that I figured I could make some side income as an affiliate. I spent an hour or two last night setting up a Taguchi Method blog and then writing an article to direct traffic there. I also set up a google adwords campaign. The commission is 50%, so I'm hoping to make a few hundred dollars in the next month to help pay for the book publishing. We'll see.

My total business-related spending has reached $953 so far. $375 of this was related to a home-study course I bought through eBay on how to effectively launch new products.

My total is up almost $600 from when I last reported my business-related spending. Another big expense was a $99 for a merchant account for accepting credit card payments. (Let's hope people are using their debit cards!)

Now that we're living in our own home again (and actually paying for our lodging), I won't have much extra money to spend on business-related purchases.

Let's hope the book sells when I release it next month!

(Incidentally, I've been using a COOL web application called

Basecamp to manage my project. They have a free account available. Check it out if you need to manage any projects.)

As I indicated in a previous post (which had some great discussion -- thanks Jeffrey), I am writing a book on how to not get scammed when making a timeshare resale purchase.

I thought it was fitting to get out of debt the same way I got into debt -- timeshares.

While Jeffrey makes some great points about how it is almost ALWAYS better to rent, I still feel the market needs some unbiased information on how to purchase a timeshare on the resale market for those who choose to make that decision. The only other book on the market (a "for dummies" book) was written by a former timeshare salesperson who justifies financing a timeshare by saying you should use your first paid hour of every day toward your timeshare purchase as a vacation investment.

Well, anyways, here is my free

Timeshare Resales Mini-Course. There are 5 or 6 emails given out over the course of a week or so.

A little over a year ago we left NC and rented out of our house to take a job in DC. We moved back 3 months ago and just moved back into our house this past Thursday. Our renter kept the place pretty clean. The only issue we had is she used toothpaste to fill in some nail holes in the walls.

Gone are the days of free rent at my in-laws we have been enjoying these last 3 months. We had been planning to stay there until the summer (and just rent out our house again), but privacy & space is worth $1000 a month. My wife is planning to get a job so we can keep accelerating our debt payoff. (We don't have any kids yet.)

As you can read from my previous post, I have been working on an "information product" (book). A big part of why we are in debt is a BAD decision we made to purchase a timeshare a few years ago. We learned a lot about how to get scammed and how to avoid getting scammed when buying a timeshare. I'm writing my book about this. It should be ready in a month or two.

We also learned how you can take vacations at luxury resorts and pay the same or less than you would to stay in an average hotel.

If you want this free report about how to stay in luxury resorts for cheap, visit my new website,

www.ResortVacationing.com.

(Yes, that's me and my wife in the picture at the top!)

I may be crazy, but I'm trying to develop an "information product" (ebook) to make some extra money to pay off debt. I've been working on it for a couple weeks. Actually, I haven't actually begun writing it -- I've been too busy making a couple related websites and writing/distributing free articles & reports to build up a list of people to market this ebook to. I'll let you all know my progress.

It has eaten a bit into my savings, however -- to the tune of about $400. I am a bit ashamed of this (which is what kept me from posting for a couple weeks) because I had previously determined that I wouldn't try to start up any side business until I was out of debt.

A friend of mine challenged me not to limit myself from developing some side income which could pay off some debt. The wisdom of this advice is yet to be determined. I am having a load of fun, however!

I just signed up on

iFreelance.com to get freelance web development projects. It costs $5 a month to be listed on their site. I figure I can do this for a month or two and see if I get any bites.

I started using a budgeting system called

The B Word. With this system, you recognize your income and pay all your bills on the 1st and the 15th of every month -- no matter when the bills are actually do or you actually get your paycheck. I got paid this past Friday and I'm now waiting until Wednesday (the 15th) to pay the rest of the month's bills and take cash out of the bank for our spending money.

I've only begun using this system in the last month or so. I was a bit confused by it at first, but now I think it will be much simpler than having a full fledged budget. You manage your cash flow instead of managing actual purchases. And since we will be spending all discretionary money with cash (in "envelopes"), I'm not as concerned about tracking each purchase.

I really think I'm catching the vision about not spending and instead saving & paying off debt. I actually chose not to get fast-food type of things a few times this week and instead save the money. I cancelled some unneeded $14.95 monthly charge and felt GREAT -- like I'm actually making an extra $14.95 every month now!

I was going to use the $300 I made on eBay to buy a piano keyboard that I've always wanted to learn, but instead I am realizing that the purpose of extra money now is to pay off debt. Then later I can buy a few things for myself.

I know there will be many more decision ahead, but it is encouraging to see real progress in my financial decisions.

I was brainstorming the other day and I thought of a way to make some side income. I am an application developer with Lotus Notes/Domino skills. These types of jobs are sometimes posted on

rentacoder.com.

I bid $200 on a project where the bidding ends today. I'll find out shortly if he picked me. The project may take up to 20 hours. I had not wanted to use my $30/hr skills for $10/hr, but this beats bagging groceries!

The only problem is that I'm usually competing with bids from Indian programmers who are able to bid ultra competitively.

I sold the websites on eBay and made $350. ($50 of it is yet to be paid). I also got some great news from a stupid fee I'd been paying on one of my credit cards. I pay $25 a month for a "credit protection" fee on a citibank card with a $10,000 balance. By paying this fee, they will make it so I don't have to make payments if I lose my job. I tried cancelling this service the other day and was told that if I have moved in the past year they would pay my minimum payment. I moved twice in the past year. They are paying $500 toward my card!! I will cancel the service after receiving this benefit.

I'm planning to put the eBay auction earnings directly toward my emergency fund.

I got through to the

Dave Ramsey show today! I asked him about selling our house or moving back into it -- we're staying with my wife's parents now and renting out our house. He suggested staying put until staying with the in-laws becomes an issue. He also said I should get a second job to pay off debt.

Well, the recent press release related to www.firstbidbonus.com did not produce any noticable results. I told myself that I would get rid of it if my final effort produced no fruit. So... it is now being auctioned off on eBay as well.

Here is the eBay link.

While I am in debt I don't have much capital to spend on marketing efforts or the time to spend and not make any money. I'm gonna try to get a second job. Once I am out of debt, that will be the time to kick back up my entrepreneurial interests.

I ended up adding another $40 to increase distribution potential for my press release regarding my

www.firstbidbonus.com website.

I found a good angle which I'm hoping attracts some press and links to my site.

Here is the release.

I have 2 websites I made last year:

www.desktop-plugins.com
www.firstbidbonus.com

The first I'm auctioning off on eBay (see post below for listing). There are no bids yet . Someone told me they would give me $300 for it if it doesn't sell on eBay. I'm sure I'll get at least one bid -- I hope I get 2 and that it ends up at least at $300.

The second site I was going to just shut down. I've made $50 or so in the past month with it, but it was just consuming so much of my heart that I decided to shut it down. I put up a large red "discontinued until further notice" sign on the top of every page. That same night I had 2 more requests. I thought maybe I should give it another chance.

I wrote a press release about the site yesterday which will be released tomorrow. I'll see how the press release does and if it generates some more revenue. I paid $40 for the press release distribution, so I hope I'm not just back to my old ways.

I just posted an eBay auction for

one of the sites I developed this past year. Since I'm trying to spend more time with God and family -- and I'm trying to save money for an emergency fund -- I decided to sell my website.

Here's the ebay auction if you're interested in checking it out. It is actually something that could earn someone some money, if they have a little money to put into it. I'm hoping to get $250-$500 for it, but we'll see what the market determines.

It took me about 3 hours to post it on eBay (and email people I thought would be interested), so it better make me some money!

I went out on a date with my wife last night. We went to

Moe's restaurant for dinner and then rented a movie at blockbuster (transporter 2). The food wasn't bad nor was the movie, but we spent $27. This also includes $3.50 for some girl scout cookes -- they were stationed at the entrance to blockbuster.

I'd like to be able to take my wife out 2-3 times a month, but I don't want to $30-$50 each time. This money actually came from my wife's babysitting -- she made $50 the night before. I need to come up with some dates which don't cost much money but are still fun.

I just got my first full paycheck at my new job. After taxes and everything it was $1,488. This should be my paycheck every 2 weeks. Knowing this amount will make it much easier to budget. We should have around $700 extra each month to put toward emergency fund and then debt.

We only have the extra amount because we're living with my wife's parents basically for free. If we were paying rent, we would still be in deficit mode.

I am excited about the change God is bringing to my life. For the past 9 months or so -- actually the past 2 years -- I have been very interested in "starting a side business." There is nothing wrong with this, the entrepreneurial spirit drives america. But my entrepreneurial spirit was more motivated by a desire to get rich quick and consumed my free time and my heart. I have made about $60 and lost about $1,000. Not that the money was that big a deal -- it stole far more from my heart and love for God and family than $1,000.

I have a couple side websites which have consumed a lot of my time. God is leading me to give them up for now and I'm EXCITED about doing this. I felt I should give them up 4 months ago, but I didn't want to. I'm so happy that God is changing my heart so that I "steady plodding" instead of "get rich quick" excites me. Jesus is capturing my heart.