Unconventional Money Savers
Sometimes you can save where you least expect it.
If you are paying for a home phone, cable, or satellite TV and want to decrease your monthly payments read on. This may not work every time but it has worked for me more often than not. Home phones have become less used than in the past due to people using mobile phones more as their primary phone. The home phone is not worth what it used to be so why pay continue paying for what it use to be worth?
I had a home phone mainly for work purposes but through the years I found ways around the reasons I needed it. My bill was typically around $30-$40 dollars for everything including unlimited long distance. Since I had a mobile phone with unlimited long distance and could scan and email documents instead of faxing I decided to call up the phone company and cancel. These companies hate to lose customers and most of time are willing to throw all kinds of discounts and plans at you to keep you as a customers. Well I ended up keeping my phone after being offered a deal for $11 a month.
I have made similar calls to before to cancel with cable & satellite companies and ended up getting up to a 50% discount and kept the same level of service. I have also called my credit card companies in the past telling them I was leaving for a lower rate and they then offer me a lower rate. This might be a great time to do this!
Now this doesn’t work all the time so I wouldn’t recommend doing it unless you are prepared to follow through with leaving as a customer. Some of these discounts may be time limited to 6 months, 1 year, etc., but you can always call again if they go back up to the regular rate.
The main thing to remember is if you don’t ask for it you won’t get it. They are in the business to make money but they want to keep your business too. So pick up the phone and get to saving more money!
Make Money with your photos
Make your hobby pay!
Do you like to take pictures but you wouldn’t call yourself a professional photographer & your pictures aren’t being displayed in magazines? Do you like to dabble in photography taking pictures of landscapes, objects, & other artful things? Do friends & family complement you on your photography skills? You can turn this little hobby in to a part time money maker. People, websites, & companies are looking for stock photo’s to use just like the ones you may be taking.
There is a website called istockphoto that you can submit your photo’s and it’s customers can purchase them. Not only can you submit photos but illustrations, flash, & videos. The photos etc are bought with credits that can be purchased. For example you can buy 10 credits for $13 but the more credits you buy the cheaper they are. The photos are sold in different sizes and different resolutions with the larger or higher resolutions costing more, videos & illustrations are sold in the same way. You can browse the top photos to see what types of photos are selling best & submit similar ones. Right now the top photo has sold close to 10,000 times! That’s a lot of money made on that photo.
This is a great way to make some extra money with your hobby. It’s very simple to get started and doesn’t take a lot of time to either.
There’s no money in Following
Follow? No
You see some of these big name sites like johnchow.com & shoemoney.com making a lot of money through affiliates, ad sales, etc. The basic theme of their site is telling people how to do what they do. While I enjoy reading their sites and do sometimes pick up some basic tips from doing so they are not in the business of giving up their true secrets to making money. They give you just enough to keep you around. Most of what they give you is to help you a little and them a lot. People flock to their sites with dreams of making their money. I’m not saying to stay away from these sites because I still read them but just take everything you read with a grain of salt.
Be a Pioneer
If you find the proverbial “honey hole” why would you tell people? Telling people would create competitors and take away from your share? Would Chevrolet tell Ford about a successful campaign they were working on? If you have ever watch the movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley” or know the story you would know that Apple was working on the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and invited Bill Gates and his Microsoft team to help develop it. Well we know what happened there, Microsoft took off and built their own GUI and came out with Windows 1st. That could well be why they currently dominate the operating system market, not because their product is better. Which brings up a good point, if you follow you are late to the game, you have to get there 1st. Be a pioneer, do something that no one else is doing YET! Johnchow.com & Shoemoney.com didn’t get to where they are by following and neither should you.
Your Focus
Your focus should be on content! You will hear about website design, placement, etc. Just keep it simple and provide good content. I browse a lot of sites and while while I may stop a very nicely designed site to admire it for a second if it doesn’t have interesting content my stay is short. Say what you are really thinking! Write about your passions. I see too many blogs or websites that write about “making money” or something similar and last only a month or two. Their focus was on making money which they knew nothing about and they wasn’t making any so they gave up. I write because I enjoy giving people information that will help them. If you focus on content then the traffic will come. I look at it as if I was pushing a snowball up a giant hill. The snowball is getting bigger but it’s slow going. The top seems like a far way off. Then I think about when I get up there, that snowball will take off and it will all be downhill. At that point it will be almost effortless and that snowball will be getting bigger & bigger, faster & faster!
No Expert Here
I am definitely no expert when it comes to this, but I try things and eliminate what is not working. You don’t need to be a website designer, SEO expert, writer, etc., you just have to love what you do. If you love it you will be more likely to continue it. I have had success, it’s been slowly but surely just like the snowball going uphill. My traffic has slowly climbed and the site is a more than self sufficient money wise. I am not selling anything and I don’t expect you to buy anything, I do have ads and sponsored links and if you visit them then great if not that’s OK too. I just hope you continue to visit this site and get something out of it, whether it be a great deal, or a great idea, I hope it is of value to you because that’s who I write for.
Thanks for Reading,
thetechinside
The cutting edge of Tech
This is really funny and a great use of technology so I had to post it.
Watch Webcast Courses from Berkeley
You can watch webcast of courses on a variety of subjects from UC Berkeley.
Students pay money to take these course at UC Berkeley but you can watch them free HERE. Of course you don’t get any college credit for watching them but you just might learn something. Here are just a sample of some of the courses:
- Archaeology
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Computer programs
- Economics
- Physics
- Psychology
They have a lot more than I listed here. If you want to learn a little and can’t make it to college check out one of their webcast.
Want to get out of your Cell Phone Contract?
Ever become so fed up with your cell phone carrier that you want to switch to another?
Usually when you sign up they give you a great deal on a phone but you are locked into a 1 or 2 year contract. If 6 months down the line you try and cancel they hold a early termination fee over your head to keep you there. You are pretty much stuck with them or pay the fee like I did!
I wish I would have known about these 2 websites before I cancelled: Cellswapper & CellTradeUSA. The idea is pretty good and simple! They basically match up people wanting to trade, get in, or get out of their cellular contracts. For instance let’s say you have a contract with Sprint and want to switch to ATT Cingular, Verizon, etc, they would match you up with someone that has one of those carriers that wants to switch to Sprint.
I haven’t tried this yet but would have a couple of months ago and it seemed like a good idea to pass along. If you have tried it before let me know how you liked or disliked it.
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