Down On Our Luck

I read A Reality Check over at Problogger.com the other day and totally thought of myself right away.

In the past I have have made the mistake that many of us make when trying to earn money online or offline; I thought all of the money would come INSTANTLY. I had the mentality of “If you build it they will come and then hopefully buy or signup” and that it won’t cost me any time or hard work. In most of those cases I sucked up my losses of either time or money, gave up for a while and then found something else to try later.

Instant success is a pitfall that many of us fall into and it can be similar to what a gambling addict is thinking; they want instant results. In this day and age if we don’t get something instantly then we think it’s a scam even if we didn’t spend any money to start our online venture.

I have definitely learned from my lessons in the past; building a business is difficult. Whether you’re trying to earn affiliate income from blogging and pay-per-click, selling items online, or get-paid-to refer programs they are all the same; they take HARD WORK. Instead of giving up, take a step back and change your attitude about making money online and start doing some research. You shouldn’t have to spend a lot of money on your research, there’s plenty of advice out there for free and it’s yours for the taking. Once I learned this lesson, I started having some success. Once I had just a taste of success, I wanted more and began to duplicate what earned me that first dollar.

I guess what I’m getting at here is don’t give up when the money doesn’t start rolling in overnight, but keep at it and keep working hard (or smart, whichever you prefer).

I know that it’s a little late to be setting resolutions for this year, but I’m not quite the conventional type. Besides, I don’t really believe in resolutions like loosing weight, quitting smoking, or getting to work by 8:00AM. These three things I am always trying to do so setting a resolution for them is pointless.

My resolutions for this year have to do with the income I make online. Q always accuses me of being married to the computer instead of him, but what he doesn’t understand is that the more he gambles the more I am compelled to sitting on the computer trying to make up for the money he has lost. One point that Q does have is that I spend all of this time on the computer, but our personal checkbook doesn’t see any of the money that I make because it all stays in the business. So my number one resolution for this year is to make sure that the money I make from Big Crumbs and affiliate marketing on Squidoo and make sure that I pull it out of the business to make sure our family is benefiting from my efforts. Half of this money will be put aside to save up for our remodeling project in the living room and the other half will go into our general checking account to help make it through the week and hopefully help pay for bills. Paying yourself is one of the number one rules of thumb for running a business and this really hasn’t been something I’ve been doing.

Making sure that I pull this money out of the business will also help me stick to another resolution that I have every year and never stick to; that is making sure that I keep up with reconciling my books for The Software Castle every month. If I don’t reconcile the books, I will never know how much money I really made in my affiliate efforts.

Feel free to let me know what you think.

It has been a long time since my last post, but I think I may have taken too much onto my plate over the holidays. Now that things have slowed down, I should be able to get back into a routine for myself again.

In several articles and in “Behind the 8 Ball” I have read many times that a person dealing with a problem gambler should not psychoanalyze their loved one with a gambling problem. I think the reasoning behind this is to keep yourself from going crazy due to the fact that you cannot figure out the triggers that make your loved one go to the casino. This has definitely been the situation behind my case. Q stopped recycling for a while and during that time proceeded to go to the casino so I thought that maybe the recycling was taking place of the gambling rush. Unfortunately, he just recently started recycling again, but then took the money he made to the casino. On the other hand, we have had a home improvement project recently rear its ugly head for this coming summer so maybe the costs behind that were the trigger?

See what I mean? Trying to figure out all of his triggers could land myself in the loony bin if I’m not careful. However, the accountant in me keeps saying this general ledger account is out of balance and I need to figure out the problem before I can sleep at night. I’m a problem solver by nature and I just cannot sit idly by and watch Q stay out of balance.

So, what’s my whole point here? Even though many of the books I read are correct and have been extremely helpful in getting myself back on track, I cannot listen to all of the advice that has been given by them. Not every person is a textbook case and we often need to do what we feel is best for ourselves to stay sane. What I have done is stop psychoanalyzing Q to his face in our conversations regarding the casino and I think this has helped.