Going Overboard – Borrowing Too Much Money
I went out for coffee yesterday with one of my good friends, Jill. We have been friends since high school and we get together quite often to talk. We use this opportunity to talk about life, work, our spouses and money. She looked a little frazzled - she had something to say.
Now, she was just about crying when I met up with her - I had to ask what was wrong. She told me that her husband had a problem with payday loans and gambling. She told me that he was spending more money than they had coming in and they were on the verge of losing everything.
A few year ago, they had taken out a home equity loan to renovate their home - but her husband spent all the money. They ended up getting behind on their payments, so they enrolled in a debt consolidation program to try and get their finances under control. It worked well for some time, but her husband's problem put them back in the red with no way out.
I asked her if her husband knew he had a problem and would go get himself some help. All she would say is that he would get mad if she said anything. She had been looking into going bankrupt, but she was worried that her husband would still use payday loans to pay for his gambling.
I told her that she needed to go talk to someone before the situation became any worse than it already was. She also needed to confront him, make him see he had a problem, and get him help. It was either that or get a divorce - if things continued on how it had been, they would always have money problems. I felt really bad for her - but in the end, there was nothing that I could really do for her.
No Travel Agent Required
My future husband and I are planning our honeymoon in Spain. This is special for me because my grandparents came here from Spain and I have never been there yet. We are not using a travel agent because we want the experience to be all our own and I wanted to visit the area in which my grandparents grew up.
Part of our trip is going to entail driving. Rather than stopping at a hotel every night, we booked with Motorhome Rentals Spain. That way we are not hauling our luggage around for the whole trip. It will also gives us more freedom to take the trip at our own pace.
We found some lovely villa rentals in Spain, so we could see the architecture and enjoy the romantic aspects of the trip. I am especially excited for this. We actually found that holiday rentals in Spain are not that hard to plan yourself and I think we will be planning all future vacations without the help of a travel agent.
A Year of Change
Over the past year, our little company has become larger. It has been interesting dealing with our growth problems and implementing the changes we needed in order to grow.
Some of our more notable accomplishments that have made the past year have been small, while others have been larger. For example, the hiring of our IT manager Tom, was one of our bigger accomplishments. Instead of relying on me to solve all our IT problems and be the "go-to" guy, Tom has taken that role and allowed me to focus on the larger picture. We found him through a professional recruitment firm and he has been a valuable addition to our team.
It was Tom's expertise that advised us to switch hosting companies to a larger, and more reliable e-commerce web hosting company. Our sales have increased due to better reliability and we have had very good feedback from our customers.
We have also increased our focus on management training this past year, and the results speak for themselves. Our management has been very effective at mobilizing our workforce to work at peak efficiency, and increase our bottom line. We will continue the training into 2008 as it has been a big benefit for us.
So what will the next year hold? I don't know. But I predict that our earnings will be better and that we will make some changes to tweak our organization. I know that next year will be great!
Categories: Business Tags:
Directory Submission Service Gave Me Time
Well, fortunately (or unfortunately) I woke up early this morning and I needed something to do. Of course I had to eat some breakfast, but after that, I decided that I could do a little work to pass the time.
You see, I have been working for some time on promoting this site on some free directories. In fact, I have been doing it a lot. I have been trying to get an hour or so in each day, but it is getting a little too tedious for me, so I decided that I could maybe find a directory submission service to do it for me.
So, I decided to look on some of my favorite forums and do a search for people that offered a blog directory submission service. To my delight there are many people and companies that do, now all I have to do is decide which one to go with. Price wise, they are all very reasonable and time wise, their services are invaluable as it would free up my time.
Well, I'll have to quit blogging here and decided which service to use - we'll look at this later on to gauge the effectiveness of my efforts - and the amount of time I saved.
Categories: Web Directories, Website Promotion Tags:
Types of Link Directories
For those of you who own websites, chances are that you either have, or will submit your site to many different link directories. Let me just explain the broad types for you, and we will maybe get into details in later articles here.
Perhaps the most dominant and common type of link directory is a general directory. Basically this type of directory has everything in it - from art to computers, to online pharmacies. You can think of these as a phonebook - they cover a broad number of subjects.
If you want to look at the other extreme, then you need to look at niche directories. Basically this type of directory only covers one topic - for example a niche blog directory only has links to blogs. The traffic that you do receive from your listings on niche directories tends to me a little more targeted - they were looking for your type of website in the first place.
One type of links directory is not necessarily better than the other, but they both serve their purposes. You should make a point of submitting your sites to many link directories to maximize your promotion efforts. A good place to start marketing your site would be to use these 8000 web directory listings - that should keep you busy for awhile.
Categories: Web Directories, Webmastering, Website Promotion Tags:
Protecting My Truck
I just recently bought a new truck and it is great. This is the first new vehicle that I have ever bought, and it it the best smelling thing I have ever smelled. I mean, the new truck smell is amazing.
But I want to protect my truck, so that it is in good shape for years to come. That is why I have scheduled an appointment to get a truck bed liner installed in the truck. This way, it will stop the load from sliding around as well as extend the life of the truck. Price wise, it is very inexpensive, so I think it is worth the investment.
Mechanic Exchange Program
I am sure that you are familiar with exchange programs in schools - a child goes to school in another state or country for a set period of time, they come back, and then a child from the place they were at comes to stay with them. I don't mean for this to sound confusing, but this lays out the groundwork for the story I am about to tell.
You see, I do some consulting work for a local mechanic shop in town. Now, the one thing that stands out about their business is that they have a unique mechanic exchange program that they do twice per year. The mechanics in the shop sign up for this event and are trained about aircraft parts and aircraft repair. What? Yes I typed it right. You see the shop has an exchange program with an aircraft service center.
The owner devised this program years ago, when he had the opportunity to work side by side with an aircraft mechanic. Since then, he has had his mechanics and air craft mechanics switch jobs for a week, twice per year. There is a lot of training that goes along with this including avionics and proper use of fasteners before the automotive mechanics go work at the other shop. And don't worry - the automotive mechanics are supervised while they are doing the work by a certified aircraft mechanic.
The staff welcomes this time of year, as it gives them new challenges and opportunities to learn new skills. It is also a break from the daily routine of fixing cars. I believe other mechanic shops should follow his lead - he has the happiest mechanics I have ever seen.
Setting Up a Home Network
We have three computers in our house and I thought it was time to setup a home network. Up to this point, we have only had one computer hooked up to the Internet, but my wife and son have been nagging me to hook theirs up as well.
Conveniently for us, all the computers are all in one room, so I have decided to setup a wired network. I went to price out the network cable that I would need to setup the network and I found that the cheapest solution would be to buy bulk cable and cut the length I need myself.
So, I am going to buy the cable on Friday and setup the network on the weekend when I have time. It will be nice not to be nagged anymore.
Categories: Around the House, Technology Tags:
The First Money I Made Online
As quite a few of you know, I recently quit my day job to work at home online full time. This has been something that I have wanted to do for a long time, and thankfully that dream has come true for me. But I just wanted to talk a little bit about how I was able to make money online years ago.
Some of you may remember the high yield investment program (HYIP) and autosurf program CasHits.com. Now, this program has long since folded, but for the year and a half that it was running it did extremely well. The premise of this program was that you would make an investment and you would earn 1% interest each day for 365 days. All the "work" you had to do was login and surf for about ten minutes each day. I would have to say that it was the easiest money that I have ever made.
But I would like to caution you from investing in the first HYIP you come across. There have been quite a few of them that start and go belly up quickly, so it is worth doing your due diligence before investing your money. But there are still quite a few gems out there - you just have to look a little harder.
Stopping Weight Gain
Well, it is official - I have gained weight over the past three months. When I checked my weight on the scale at home, I couldn't believe that I gained 25 pounds in the past three months, so I needed to double check. While at a friend's house yesterday, I stood on their scale and confirmed the bad news. I need to get the weight off.
I woke up this morning and decided to take a look online for something I could use to exercise and lose the weight. I do have limited space in my place, and I would rather have something that is low impact that I could put out of the way.
Though there were quite a few options to choose from, I ended up deciding that treadmills would be the best choice for me - I could watch the business news and lose weight at the same time.
I placed an order and I am waiting patiently. But, in the meantime I have decided to reduce the amount I eat out - I think that is a big part of my problem.
Categories: Around the House, Health Tags: