Talked with DR Counselor
I was able to talk with a Dave Ramsey counselor today. We discussed my income and the level of my debts and how fast they’re growing. I’ve been working the plan just as prescribed and I’m on the right track. I just need to keep working on getting my income up as much as I can, which I’m doing.
My counselor suggested paying $10 or so each month to the creditors I can’t make a real dent with right now and focusing what money I do have on the next debt in line in the snowball and get it paid off. That will put more money toward paying the debt, and less maintaining a relationship with the other debt collectors. Basically, I stop paying on a pro rata basis and start paying a flat rate. That will leave twice as much money to pay on the lowest debt than I had on the pro rata plan. That will make a big difference in making the money I have work harder for me.
I am making progress. I’ve paid off 6 debts. I’m just discouraged because I’m not making any headway on the back end of my snowball. I’ve got to keep plugging along and work toward getting a bigger shovel (more income, a lot more).
I’m going to try this over the summer and work on increasing my online income while I’m delivery pizzas and tutoring. We’ll see where I’m at in August.
If it gets too tough to handle or I’m not making progress, I can always file for bankruptcy at any time. I found my pre-bankruptcy counseling certificate and I have all my paperwork in order. All I have to do is take it to my attorney. I’m going to keep it ready to go and that is my fall-back position for now.
Need to Get Medical Insurance
This is one of the “inside your own 4 walls” issues I haven’t taken care of. Before I put more on the debt I need to get with the local health insurance ELP about what coverage I could at least get for myself. I need something to cover me if I get really sick and need to go to the hospital. As far as I know, if I needed a hospital stay I could go to the public hospital (Earl K. Long Hospital) and my costs would be waived for lack of ability to pay.
My son is on Medicaid, but I only use it when it’s something bigger than I can handle. I pay cash for his routine doctor visits or when he needs to see his pediatrician when he’s sick. Medicaid pays for his prescriptions because they are really expensive but vital to his survival. They would reimburse me for my expenses, but I don’t do that because I can manage my costs okay on my own so far.
I don’t want to stay in this position any longer than we have to, so I’m seeking reasonable coverage for both of us that won’t break us financially. It may require that I keep searching for a solution for awhile. I have been searching for 2 years now, but things are changing and more products are becoming available in a more competitive marketplace.
The only reason we don’t qualify for food stamps is I have an IRA. The state considers that a usable asset and won’t award food stamps to anyone who has any usable assets, no matter what the tax consequences or how that asset is viewed by any other law, like the bankruptcy law.
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April 30th, 2008
Posted by
joubess |
Debt Reports, Goals, Legal Issues |
4 comments
This post is a short report of what I accomplished in November compared to October 2007.
Earnings:
- Adsense: Nov. $9.86; Oct. $0.56 % increase: 1761%
- Amazon Associates: Nov. $0.40; Oct. 0.58 % decrease: 31%
- Commission Junction: none both months
- Clickbank: none both months
- Associated Content: none both months
Subscribers (November only):
Number of Site Visitors (November only):
Right now I’m using the number of site visitors to measure activity. I’m not sure if I should be using that number or page views. I also want to get my sites’ stickiness up to at least 2 minutes on average. If you are interested in the site’s content you will stay around longer to read or view what’s there.
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December 3rd, 2007
Posted by
joubess |
Career, Goals |
no comments
I finally sat down and wrote out my internet marketing goals. This is the first time I’ve written them down. Some are earnings goals and some are non-financial goals that will lead to greater income later. I’m putting them into a post because it will help me be more accountable to make these goals reality.
Blog Subscriptions and Traffic
Double the average number of subscribers over the month to each of my blogs as measured by Feedburner (the number listed is the goal. Divide by 2 and you know how many current subscribers I have).
Increase blog traffic by 50% each. The numbers given are the average total number of visitors I want to have over this month based on Google Analytics.
How am I going to increase traffic and subscribers?
- Please visit each of the blogs above and please leave comments and subscribe if you like what you read!
- Finish moving my blogs to HostGator and setting them up with WordPress. I have 7 blogs currently. Three are completely moved, up, and monetized. Four have all the posts moved, but I still need to customize the sites with new templates, widgets, and they need to be monetized.
- Write a minimum of 1 post twice per month worth reading for each blog (14 posts/month).
- Choose one blog (of the other 6) and dedicate 2-3 months on making it the best it can be. Write great anchor articles for it, write promotional articles to promote them, and research the subject to provide the best content possible, on-topic, of course.
- Set up a BlogRush filter to keep the lesser posts off of syndication through them.
- Submit the best posts to the social sites through Socialposter to get the word out.
- Have the WordPress subscribe_remind widget installed on each blog to increase the number of subscribers. This widget asks the reader to subscribe at the bottom of each post. If they enjoyed it and want to subscribe, all they have to do is click on the link.
- Continue working on Wealthy Affiliate training. Use the knowledge to improve my affiliate program income.
- Continue working on The Immediate Edge training.
- Continue reviewing the new Thirty Day Challenge content if it changed since August.
Online Income
- Adsense: $80
- Amazon Associates: $10
- Clickbank: $10
- Commission Junction: $25
- Associated Content: $4 (publish one article)
Total: $129
That equals $4.16/day everyday this month.
My first goal is supposed to be $10/day per month. I joined Amy Bass’s facebook group in September with that goal being the first goal. But, I need to at least make payout on each affiliate account before I work towards $10/day.
How am I going to increase my earnings?
- By completing the above tasks to increase traffic and subscribers.
- Hopefully, more traffic will lead to more clicks and more sales.
- Pick better affiliate products to promote (I’m learning that through WA).
- Research other affiliate programs like, TextLinkAds.com and Yahoo Affiliates.
I would love it if you would leave comments and let me know what you think of these goals.
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December 3rd, 2007
Posted by
joubess |
Goals |
no comments
I’m joining Amy Bass’s $10/day and increasing by $10/day each month earnings model starting after I make my first $10 on the 30DC. This means earning $300 in month one, $600 in month two, $900 in month three, etc. It’s a step-wise linear growth curve.
The earnings goals I posted a few weeks ago are not realistic given my current internet marketing skill level. I also can’t meet those weekly goals every week, even with my three off-line jobs. As I’ve said before, I only have so much time to work, and three jobs (one full-time, 2 part-time) are the maximum I can handle, and still have some time to do some online earning.
Here are some more realistic goals based on starting out earning a minimum of just $10 in August on the thirty day challenge:
Given my amount of debt, I won’t have it paid off in two years with this rate of earning, but if it continues for another year with a linear model, I’ll have earned $203,110. That amount should pretty well knock out most of my debt.
This value is also just based on earnings and not based on the debt snowball that will apply more and more money to each debt as another debt is paid off.
With the two working together, I may be able to set a debt-free goal date of September 15, 2010. But I’m still going to give myself until mid-September 2007 to decide on the actual date for my debt-free goal.
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August 11th, 2007
Posted by
joubess |
Goals |
2 comments
First on my to-do list for my business was:
Design my ad for the BR Parents Magazine classified section, submit it and pay for it so it will appear in the August issue. Their classifieds are business card sized and in color - a big plus.
That’s been completed and submitted.
I’ve submitted a similar ad in a new magazine, Southern Families, that will be distributed throughout Louisiana, southern Mississippi and Alabama.
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July 30th, 2007
Posted by
joubess |
Goals |
no comments
