Original post by Alan View from Moneymakerinfo
If you enjoy making money online by promoting products or services, then the chances of you being in affiliate marketing are fairly high. You might have signed up as an affiliate with one or more online businesses, who then give you a specific affiliate ID. Many of the online businesses that are involved in affiliate marketing might have provided you with a simple marketing package like banner or text ads and your affiliate sales page link. The only thing you really need to do now is to use these great tools and drive traffic to your affiliate sales page.
This is the strategy almost all affiliate marketers follow, but there is a problem here. Though this is a good strategy, in order for you to make a decent amount of money, you will need to have thousands of people visiting your affiliate sales page before even one product/service is sold. That being the case, you can imagine how hard it can be to actually make a $10 commission. Even if you succeed in doing so, the amount of time and effort you would have spent in earning those $10 would be huge!
Not just this, there is another problem with earning these commissions too. If you look at the terms and conditions of your affiliate marketing program, maybe they don’t pay commissions till you have earned at least $30. That means another thousand or more visitors and then, you might just have a chance at looking at those $30.
But here is something you need to consider without getting discouraged. Internet marketing is an excellent way for you to make extra cash on the side, and it honestly does not need much of an investment.
Four Step Affiliate Marketing Process:
Instead of advertising your affiliate program directly, make use of this four step process.
1. Providing value-add: Before getting down to advertising, provide something valuable to your potential customers. The simplest ‘valuable’ thing that you can provide without much effort is free information. You can provide this free information in the form of a series of email courses, eBooks and so on.
2. Give when you get: Don’t give away your free information till you get the email addresses of your potential customers. It is vital to know the name and email address of all the prospective clients, so that you can move on to the other two steps in the affiliate marketing process.
3. Earn trust: The next step in this four step process is to earn the trust of people, due to the valuable information that you have provided.
Just as you would closely monitor information provided by someone who gives you good advice on managing money, time or effort; others will start trusting you, provided your information is trustworthy. Since you have the name and email addresses of the potential customers, you can send them occasional emails with valuable information. Remember, don’t spam their mailbox. Else, they may block you and you will lose sales.
4. The actual sale: If you have been providing the potential customers valuable information regularly, they will trust you enough to buy a product/service you recommend. The sale is easier, if you can somehow make them realize that what you are recommending is worth the amount they will be spending.
In affiliate marketing, try to sell products and services that have helped you personally. This way, it becomes easier for people to trust you and you can share your experiences with them too!
In light of the credit legislation that recently went into effect, card issuers have come up with new ways to make up revenue. Watch out ! Your card may suddenly sting you …
BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT SPENDING ENOUGH : 30 $ TO 90 $
Annual fee for some Citibank cardholders who spend less than 2 400 $ a year.
BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT SWIPPING ENOUGH : 19 $
Charge for Fifth Third Bank cardholders who do not use their card within one year.
JUST BECAUSE : 29 $ TO 99 $
Annual fee beign tested by Bank of America on a variety of new and existing cards.
Fifteen Ways to Slash Spending in Retirement
Retirees must adjust to new economic realities. Here, based on suggestions from financial advisers, are strategies to cut costs
By Ben Steverman from Businessweek
Workers approaching retirement are often told by experts that they will need only about 80% of their income after they stop working to maintain the same lifestyle.
After all, expenses fall when retirees don’t need to dry-clean their work wardrobe and commute every day. And they have more time to shop for deals and handle house and yard work themselves. Presumably, the children are out of the nest or have their own financial flight plan.
The problem is that many retirees soon discover the 80% rule of thumb doesn’t work. “I’m finding that to be unrealistic with today’s retirees,” says James R. Miller, president of Woodward Financial Advisors in Chapel Hill, N.C. “It is more like 100%.”
Expenses associated with work might fall, but early retirees face temptations everywhere, whether in the form of travel, golf, club memberships, or more socializing.
A regular paycheck—and the obligation to save much of it each month—often constrains budgets. By contrast, the newly retired can dip into a nest egg for the first time, and “for some, it’s akin to winning the lottery,” says Ken Eaton, a principal at financial planning firm Stepp & Rothwell in Overland Park, Kan. Without the “artificial boundary” of a paycheck, “they can easily spend a lot more than their portfolio can sustain,” he says.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek received tips from more than two dozen financial advisers on how to spend less in retirement.
1. Adjust your health insurance
Through the length of a retirement, out-of-pocket health-care expenses can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, health care can be the toughest kind of spending to do without.
Because most health-care spending happens later in retirement, one option is to start out with a cheaper health policy. “Healthy people can choose lower-premium comprehensive—but still reasonably good—coverage in their early years, saving health-care dollars for later years,” says David Armes of Dover Financial Planning in Long Beach, Calif.
Retirees should look at insurance options very carefully. Depending on your health problems and the medications you take, one policy could be much less expensive than the others, says Eve Kaplan, chief executive of Kaplan Financial Advisors in Berkeley Heights, N.J.
2. Flexible travel
Retirees have more time and a greater inclination to take trips. But they also can travel in the off-season or at odd times. “Flexibility might allow retirees to take advantage of more off-season specials or last-minute deals,” says Brenda Knox of Financial Elements in Rolling Meadows, Ill.
3. Cut the purse strings
Several financial planners noted how often their clients use precious retirement savings to help adult children. Without a paycheck coming in to their parents, sons and daughters may need to fend for themselves.
Kaplan advises charging adult children reasonable rent or board expenses if they’re living with you.
4. Curb your cars
Can your household manage sharing one automobile? One fewer car in the garage would slash payouts for insurance, car payments, and maintenance.
Without a daily commute, you’re likely to put less strain on your cars. So consider waiting longer before you buy a new set of wheels.
5. Use cash
Financial planners offer many tips for essentially tricking yourself into spending less. They include waiting periods for major purchases and automatically putting parts of your portfolio off limits for purchases. The idea is that, by artificially constraining your buying abilities, you are forced to spend only on your true priorities.
Another popular trick, planners say, is to use cash whenever possible. Buying with a credit card or debit card can often be too easy, says Paul A. LaViola of RTD Financial Advisors in Philadelphia. “It feels more real—even painful—when you use cash,” LaViola says.
6. Watch those investment fees
Investing is one area where customers get less by paying more.
High fund expenses and investment fees can eat into portfolios, but there is no evidence that higher costs translate into better performance.
Consider a typical managed mutual fund with an expense ratio of 1.4%, and compare it to an exchange-traded fund, or ETF, with an expense ratio of 0.09%, says Kevin Brosious, president of Wealth Management in Allentown, Pa. A $500,000 investment would save $6,550 per year in the lower-cost option.
7. Put food spending on a diet
There is a reason early-bird specials at restaurants are so popular with retirees: An early dinner can be a lot cheaper. Other strategies recommended for saving money on food include cooking at home more and going to nice restaurants for lunch rather than dinner.
8. Seek out freebies and discounts
Discounts for seniors abound, including reduced prices on club memberships and a variety of offers through organizations like AARP. Retirement may also allow more time for coupon-clipping. Public libraries are a good alternative to buying books or movies. In the Western U.S., national parks remain a cheap vacation option.
9. Adjust your insurance
Insurance needs can change dramatically for people moving from the workforce to retirement. For example, planners suggest renegotiating for lower car insurance rates if you’re driving much less without a daily commute.
Many retirees no longer need to pay for disability insurance, which is designed to replace income lost if you were to be injured. It might also make sense to reduce your life insurance coverage. The death of a major breadwinner won’t have the same impact when you’re retired. Also, “if life insurance is sufficient, then restructure your policy so that dividends pay future premiums,” says Grant W. Moore of Savant Capital Management in Rockford, Ill.
10. Downsize your home
Housing expenses are the largest item in most families’ budgets. So, moving to a smaller, cheaper home is a frequent suggestion for cutting costs.
Many clients who have mortgage debt do so because they own more than one home, says Michael Kalscheur of Castle Wealth Advisors in Indianapolis. “We encourage them to take a hard look at where they will actually spend the majority of their time,” he says. Retirees can sell one home and choose to rent or use time-shares in that location.
11. Move to a cheaper locale
Certain parts of the country are much less expensive than others. Relocating can lower both your cost of living and your tax bill, financial advisers say. If you’re splitting time between two states, consider switching your primary residence to the state where taxes are lower.
12. Refinance your mortgage
Many retirement experts suggest reducing your debt load as much as possible while you’re still working. But, if you’ve retired and you still hold a mortgage, it might make sense to refinance it, especially with interest rates remaining near historic lows. By pushing your home debt out over a longer loan, you can lower your monthly payment. “This will decrease your cash outflow during your lifetime,” Moore says. “After all, what’s the point in paying off your house just in time to die?”
13. Don’t wait to sell your house
Many retirees are choosing to wait out the downturn in the housing market. Rather than downsizing or moving now, they’re hoping to wait a few years and sell when home prices bounce back.
That might be a costly mistake. There is no guarantee the housing market will bounce back quickly. In the meantime, retirees often must pay higher maintenance and property taxes on their existing homes. Finally, don’t forget that you can also take advantage of the depressed market when you buy your next home.
“If you are a buyer, your new home will also be less expensive,” says Tom Fredrickson, of Altfest Personal Wealth Management in New York. “And the overhead of the more expensive home will continue every year, even as the real estate market may take years to mend while you wait for a ‘better’ time to sell.”
14. Do a dry run on your new spending plan
A new monthly budget can take a while to adjust to, so several financial advisers tell their clients to adopt a new spending regimen as soon as possible.
David H. Lamp, of BBJS Financial Advisors in Seattle, tells clients to live on their “hypothetical retirement spending plan” for a year before retiring. “If they can’t live on the plan while earning a living, what makes them think they can live on it with no income?” he says. If clients can’t adjust, they may need to delay retirement in order to save more.
15. Get a handle on monthly expenses
If you’re trying to save money, it’s important to carefully track your monthly expenses. You may be surprised by where the money is going: Oft-cited cash guzzlers include cell-phone plans, cable and Internet bills, club memberships, and landscaping and cleaning costs. All can be adjusted if necessary.
Steps
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1
Set savings goals. For short-term goals, this is easy. If you want to buy a video game, find out how much it costs; if you want to buy a house, determine how much of a down payment you’ll need. For long-term goals, such as retirement, you’ll need to do a lot more planning (figuring out how much money you’ll need to live comfortably for 20 or 30 years after you stop working), and you’ll also need to figure out how investments will help you achieve your goals.
- Kill your debt first. Simply calculating how much you spend each month on your debts will illustrate that eliminating debt is the fastest way to free up money. Once the money is freed from debt payment, it can easily be re-purposed to savings.
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2
Establish a time-frame. For example: “I want to be able to buy a house two years from today.” Set a particular date for accomplishing shorter-term goals, and make sure the goal is attainable within that time period. If it’s not attainable, you’ll just get discouraged.
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3
Figure out how much you’ll have to save per week, per month, or per paycheck to attain each of your savings goals. Take each thing you want to save for and figure out how much you need to start saving now. For most savings goals, it’s best to save the same amount each period. For example, if you want to put a $20,000 down payment on a home in 36 months (three years), you’ll need to save about $550 per month every month. But if your paychecks amount to $1000, it might not be a realistic goal, so adjust your time-frame until you come up with an approachable amount.
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4
Keep a record of your expenses. What you save falls between two activities and their difference: how much you make and how much you spend. Since you have more control over how much you spend, it’s wise to take a critical look at your expenses. Write down everything you spend your money on for a couple weeks or a month. Be as detailed as possible, and try not to leave out small purchases. Assign each purchase or expenditure a category such as: Rent, Car insurance, Car payments, Phone Bill, Cable Bill, Utilities, Gas, Food, Entertainment, etc.
- Keep a small notebook with you at all times. Get in the habit of recording every expense and saving the receipts.
- Sit down once a week with your small notebook and receipts. Record your expenses in a larger notebook or a spreadsheet program.
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5
Trim your expenses. Take a good, hard look at your spending records after a month or two have passed. You’ll probably be surprised when you look back at your record of expenses: $300 on ice cream, $100 on parking tickets? You’ll likely see some obvious cuts you can make. Depending on how much you need to save, however, you may need to make some difficult decisions. Think about your priorities, and make cuts you can live with. Calculate how much those cuts will save you per year, and you’ll be much more motivated to pinch pennies.
- Can you move to a less expensive apartment or house? Can you refinance your mortgage?
- Can you consolidate your debts so that you’re not paying as much interest?
- Can you save money on gas, or give up a car altogether? If your family has multiple cars, can you bring it down to one?
- Can you get a better price on insurance? Call around and make sure you are getting the best price you can. Consider taking a higher deductible, too.
- Can you drop a land line and either only use your cell phone or save money by calling over the internet for free with services such as Skype?
- Can you live without cable or satellite TV?
- Can you cut down on your utility bills?
- Can you restrict eating out? Buy food in bulk? Start using coupons? Cook more at home? You might be able to save a lot of money on food.
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6
Reassess your savings goals. Subtract your expenses (the ones you can’t live without) from your take-home income (i.e. after taxes have been taken out). What is the difference? And does it match up with your savings goals? Let’s say you’ve decided you can definitely get by on $1500 per month, and your paychecks amount to $2300 per month. That leaves you with $800 to save. If there’s absolutely no way you can fit all your savings goals into your budget, take a look at what you’re saving for and cut the less important things or adjust the time-frame. Maybe you need to put off buying a new car for another year, or maybe you don’t really need a big-screen TV that badly.
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7
Make a budget. Once you’ve managed to balance your earnings with your savings goals and spending, write down a budget so you’ll know each month or each paycheck how much you can spend on any given thing or category of things. This is especially important for expenses which tend to fluctuate, or which you know you’re going to have a particularly hard time restricting. (E.g. “I will only spend $30 a month on movies/chocolate/coffee/etc.”)
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8
Stop using credit cards. Pay for everything with cash or money orders. Don’t even use checks. It’s easier to overspend when you’re pulling from a bank or credit account because you don’t know exactly how much is in there. If you have cash, you can see your supply running low. You can even bundle up the predetermined amount of cash allocated for each expense with a label or keep separate jars for each expense (e.g. a bundle/jar for coffee, another for gas, another for miscellaneous). As you pull money from a jar for that particular expense, you’ll see how much remains and you’ll also be reminded of your limit.
- If you need to have credit cards but you don’t want the temptation of having them available to use day-to-day, restrict that section of your wallet with a note or picture reminding you of your savings goals.
- Credit cards are not inherently evil; it’s all about your self control. If you use them responsibly (i.e. completely pay them off every month), you can benefit from them. But the reason most credit card companies make money, however, is because people end up spending money that they don’t have. Unless you are one of the people who can religiously pay off the balance in full every month, you’re better off foregoing the promotions that credit card companies use to lure you in (cash back, introductory APR, airline miles, and so on).
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9
Open an interest-bearing savings account. It’s a lot easier to keep track of your savings if you have them separate from your spending money. You can also usually get better interest on savings accounts than on checking accounts (if you get interest on your checking account at all). Consider higher-interest options such as CDs or money-market accounts for longer savings goals.
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10
Know where your money is. And how much of it, too. If you accidentally overdraw your bank account, you will incur hefty bank fees; worse yet, the place you paid with that check may slap a bounced check fee on top of that, and send the check in again, resulting in a second overdraft fee from the bank! So just a few cents missing to cover that check could result in over $100 in fees. To avoid that, you should always know how much money you’ve got in your account(s), so you never cut a check for more than what you have.
- Look into checking and savings accounts that pay interest. Also, consider CDs (certificates of deposit) for longer-term savings with low risk.
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11
Pay yourself first. Savings should be your priority, so don’t just say that you’ll save whatever is left over at the end of the month. Deposit savings into an account (or your piggy-bank) as soon as you get paid. An easy, effective way to start saving is to simply deposit 10% of every check in a savings account. If you get a check or sum of cash, say 710.68, move the decimal point one place to the left and deposit that amount: 71.07. This works well and requires little thought; over several years, you’ve a tidy sum in savings. Over decades, you’ll be a millionaire.
- You can set up an automatic transfer from your checking account to your savings account.
- Many employers allow you to deduct savings from your paycheck. The money is directly deposited in your savings account so you never even see it on your paycheck.
- You can also have investments for retirement taken directly out of your pay, and the taxes may be deferred with this option.
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