Fun4TheMoney

I've been writing DIY articles for publication and on some of my websites. I wanted to link to some real people's experiences, but an hour of Google searching turned up very little. If any of you have DIY websites, articles, hints, photos, links, or anything else to share on this topic, please let me know. What I'm most interested in right now are testimonials about sweat equity projects. Our own is dramatic, but too general to be of much help to others. We bought a fixer-upper for $90,000, put $30,000 into it, spent 3 years of hard labor on it, then when we refinanced, it appraised for $241,000. We now have 50% equity, no other debt, and a nice, juicy home equity line of credit for emergencies. The article I published was on the general benefits of sweat equity. I linked to a followup article about the best projects, but that's where I sorta crapped out. Here's a link to that folloup article so you can decide if you have something to contribute. It really needs a lot more resources. Best Sweat Equity Projects TIA for anything you can share.

Have you looked into Moneybookers.com? I've heard good things about them, but no personal experience yet. I think they're based in the UK.

Actually, I enjoy surfing. In fact, if things keep going this well, I plan on getting a faster connection and another computer, so I can surf more.

Terrific! Thank you. I've been piling up thousands of surf credits with no time to figure out what to do with them. Thanks to you I can learn all about PTP at one well-organized location. I've already put your site in my faves.

I do autosurf and I do get paid. I put about $1,000 in, got it all back, and now I have a little over $2,000 working for me. I'm getting back about $600 a month. It should go up at least $100 per month, if all goes well. Some people think autosurf is a no-brainer, but it takes a lot of time and brain power researching good programs and figuring out how to make money in each one (they're all a little diffeent). Some people think all autosurf programs are scams. That isn't true either, but there are definitely more scams and Ponzi schemes than legitimate programs, which makes this a real gamble. Also, there are more crooked members than crooked owners, so many good programs get hacked out of business. Then everybody loses. Most people can't figure out how these sites can afford to pay so much, but the honest ones invest in other even higher paying schemes so they can continue to pay members even if nobody new signs up. (The real money is in currency exchanges, but I haven't figured them out yet--LOL!) My advice to anyone who wants to play this dangerous game is to go through everything you don't need anymore, that still has value, sell it on eBay, then go looking for autosurf sites that take PayPal (they're safer). Use your eBay/PayPal money to gamble with (and this is definitely gambling) and see what happens. If you aren't into eBay, think of some other way to make some extra money, so you aren't using the rent or grocery money for this, or borrowing off a credit card. You want to use money that you can afford to lose, because none of these things lasts forever, so you could lose it all. I'd be glad to share everything I've learned and all the programs I'm in, but I don't fool with free stuff, so you'd have to be able to put about $10 in each one to make them pay or my programs won't help you much. I can still share some info, however. I've been working on a site for autosurf. It isn't finished, yet, but it can't hurt and I'm not selling anything, so you're welcome to check it out without getting spammed, scammed, or blasted with ads (except Google Adsense). Fun4TheMoney Autosurf Site If you have any questions about autosurf, I'd be happy to answer them.

July and august are the worst months of the year for making money online. If you know anyone who's getting discouraged by poor sales and poor traffic, please let them know that this is just a seasonal slump. It happens every year. In the US, the majority of Internet users are young. They're active singles, active marrieds, and active parents. During the summer months, with long days, beautiful weather, and the kids out of school, these millions of people leave their computers for the great outdoors. Almost all of their time and extra money go to vacations and home improvement projects.When the days get shorter, the weather gets colder, and the kids go back to school, these people will bring their money and come back to the Internet. Over the past several weeks, I've seen autosurfs struggle, a new marketing program put on hold, eBay sales drop, and message board postings drop off to almost nothing. Many of the people running these programs don't live in the U.S. Some of them are "down under" where it's winter right now. They might never consider this "summer slump" and think they're doing something wrong. Please spread the word. After Labor Day (the first Monday in September, when the kids are all back in school) business will start to improve, gradually. The shorter the days and the worse the weather gets over here, the better things will get for traffic and money online.Am I just guessing about this? No. I was an eBay Power Seller for 3 years. During the school year--September through May--our sales averaged $3,000-$5,000 per month. June, July, and August our sales dropped to just barely over $1,000 per month every year. Now, I don't even bother listing anything during these months. It's not worth it.That's all I have time for--gotta go outside and play. Notice from Klass: Everyone Please Read & Share is not a good topic description.

I found this while surfing, today. It looks interesting, but I can't find anybody who actually does it, and I'm past jumping into things without a personal recommendation from someone. Here's the link--NOT a referral link: All Solutions Network It looks pretty straight forward, but I don't want to waste my time promoting it if it's not worth it. Any opinions, ideas, experience with it?

I asked the question because I do a lot with deep links. I thought that having people link back to any of my pages would help my overall ranking in Google. When I thought about it, since the term is PAGE Rank, not "overall site rank" I started thinking that maybe I wasn't doing myself any good by spreading myself out like that, so I asked the question. I said "dilute" because it appears that 10 links back to my home page are worth far more than 10 links spread out among my various other pages. If that's true, then we should be having people link only to our home page, then direct them to our other pages. That's a pain for visitors, however, making them do all that clicking when we could send them straight to what they want. OTOH, Google finds all those other pages, too, during a search, so maybe it just doesn't matter. If you have a popular page, promote it and be happy. Who cares if it's not your home page? Hint: I've also been told that part of Google's ranking scheme is how many links you have on a page. If you have a nice description of each of your links, Google will rate it higher than if it's just a page of links. You don't want Google to think you're just a "link farm." The problem with all this is that nobody really knows for sure how Google "thinks" so this is all just conjecture anyway.

Sorry, I don't play games, so I'm not sure how they work, but I think it's just forum stuff--no graphics or live action or anything like that. Telling you how much I got paid wouldn't help you for 2 reasons: 1) I put a lot of money in, and 2) they had a 3 for 2 upgrade offer going, so that inflated my account level. They pay 2% with no payout fees (Studio Traffic pays 1% and charges you 2% to get paid). You only need $15 to get paid at MH ($25 on free accounts). Studio Traffic makes you get $100 in there before you can take any out. Payout at MH was right after the month ended. (I got paid on August 2 for July.) I'm not sure how long it takes at ST, but I don't think it's that fast. I'm in Studio Traffic, too, but it will be a year before I'll see any money, and then it will only be $5 with a free account. If you play free at MH, you'd get $24 when the upgrade expires after 120 days. That's a dollar short of payout, but if you watch when you surf, you get a few 2-cent bonuses every day, so that would get you to payout without ever putting a penny in, and in less than half the time it would take to get less money at ST. Surfing there is more fun than ST, too. You don't have to sit through all those ads for their own products. Naturally, you'll see a lot of the same stuff day after day, but not nearly as bad as ST. I also like the bonuses. Even though they're only 2-cents, it's fun to win something. AT ST, you just sit there until your eyes glaze over.

Don't ask! I fell in love with the thing and put in money I couldn't afford to lose, but they do have a free program. They start you with $10. Upgrades last 120 days. It's a really fun place to hang out even if you don't put any money in. What I like is that admin is smart and responsive. I really think this is an honest setup. OTOH, I thought Netbux and Greenzap were, cool, too. Hint for anyone thinking about autosurfs: Check out their forums. That's the best way to learn and find out about the best programs and offers. Before you put any money in any of them, check out places like GetPaidForum and make sure they're paying on time and nobody has any complaints. There are also rating sites that will tell you which ones have good reputations. Bad things still happen to even the best of them, but it's amazing how many that are known scams still show up in rotation on even the good sites. Autosurfing is fun, but you do have to be very careful which ones you put money into.

I haven't been here for a while, but it looks like we can't post referral links anymore. Mission Hits is worth talking about even if you can't sign up under me. It's a very nice autosurf with no payout fee, responsive admin, really fun, friendly forum, and they take PayPal, which is really rare in autosurfs. I just got paid, today, for July. That's FAST. Here's a link to their forum, which also has topics for other money-making opportunities. MissionHits Forum You can get to the main site by clicking on "Go MissionHits Surfing" near the top of the page.

Thanks so much for the info. Your timing was perfect. I decided to write an article about DXInOne for my online mag this month, but I got in way over my head. Thanks to another friend who belongs to DXInOne, and now you, I have enough links to give my readers someplace to go after exhausting my very limited knowledge of the subject. Here's a link to the article, with your link included: DXInOne Brief Introduction Thanks again for the helpful info.

This looks interesting and very complex. Anybody have any experience with this one or any other currency exchange programs? Are they goofy like autosurf or are they safe and sensible?

eBay has something along these lines, but not just for programmers. It's called "Want It Now" where the buyers advertise what they're looking for. It could be anything from merchandise to custom knitting or web design. As with everything at dBay, it changes constantly, so you need to check it often. On the Payment thing, have you checked out StormPay? I have an affiliate link, somewhere, if you want to send me a PM. They seem the most like PayPal, but I don't know which countries they support. Their fees are higher than PayPal too--I think. I'm not sure because I get one of the best deals at PayPal from my days as an eBay Power Seller. On just the regular consumer level, the fees might be about the same. Also, StormPay has a better affiliate program than PayPal and they offer free auctions--no listing fees--no final value fees. I haven't listed anything there, yet, but I think I might try it. BTW, anybody interested in starting anything online right now should be aware that July and August are the worst months of the year for doing just about anything online with money. eBay is really dead in the summer.}}

I agree. Google, eBay, and Amazon are my foundation programs. They're honest and steady.