Down On Our Luck

It has been a long time since I’ve written a blog post here at Down On Our Luck because I’ve had to devote my attention to things more profitable than this blog. Here’s my obligatory apology: “I’m Sorry”. I’ve decided that this blog will become a tool as part of my business as opposed to a business all in itself. Trying to stay on a regular posting schedule just won’t work for me. I’ll make sure to post more often, but I can’t tell you when and where. If you found me at one point through Entrecard, then you’ll have noticed that I am not the dropper that I used to be. Once again, I was devoting too much time to dropping and not enough time on the things that make me money to reach my goal.

Since my last post, I’ve decided to really focus on things that make money. I think the fact that I have a steady job has been more of a hindrance than a benefit when it comes to building my online business. There’s always that crutch that I can fall back on right now which isn’t really working for me when it comes to motivation. I haven’t done anything drastic, but I have been focusing on tools and things that bring in money.

Of course, I’ve been working on spreading the word about Big Crumbs. June 2008 has been the best ever when it comes to earning referrals for myself. So far, in June I have referred 12 people with 6 more days to go; my best month ever. My referral income for May was only $11.65, but it’s still $11.65 that I didn’t have to jump through hoops to earn. June is definitely looking up as I’m at $15.62 as of today. I have a long way to go for 1,000,000 direct referrals as I’m only at 91 right now, but if you’d like to help me out, feel free to stop by and sign up. Not only will you be helping me, but yourself as well.

Tomorrow or the next day, I’ll post about some of the new Squidoo lenses I have built over the last month. I’ve been trying some new techniques to bring more offerings to my shopping lenses. It’s taking more time for me, but I think they will pay off in the long run.

Ok, so I’m not rich from Big Crumbs yet, but I steadily get paid $12 - $25 every month. Not bad for writing a couple of blog posts and buying an ad or two on some key websites. Here is the referral breakdown for my April 2008 earnings:

If you have been following these posts, I hope you can see the potential here for some easy, passive, supplemental income for your eBay business or any other online business you may run.

I find it funny that the number one search that brings people to my Cash Back Squidoo Page is “Big Crumbs Scam”. I hope the visitor finds the page helpful enough to convince them that Big Crumbs is not a scam. It does sound too good to be true, but they really do pay and they pay when they say they do.

Watch my blog for details on a contest that I’ll be running for Big Crumbs real soon. It won’t take a ton of work to enter and I hope it will be fun for entrants as well as myself.

If you’ve been visiting my site for a while, you know that I am a big supporter of Big Crumbs and it’s one of the very few referral programs that I participate in. Now that it’s the 5th of April, I can be 99% confident that all of the March earnings are up to date and post about my results this month.

It’s not quite as good as February and no where near January, but it’s still extra money in my pocket. I think part of the drop could be due to the economy, but I still wish Big Crumbs would email it’s members a reminder to shop every 2 months. I think this would be unintrusive but yet enough to keep members coming back. This is about the same time-span that Ebates uses for reminding their customers as well.

My direct referrals have jumped by 10 this month so I’m now at 67 and starting to realize that 1,000,000 directs may be pushing the goal, but I’ll keep trying. I’ll be looking at smaller goals along the way as well so here’s to 100 in two months.

Feel free to let me know what you think.

I can’t believe February has come and gone already, but here we are in March again and it’s time to take a look at my earnings from Big Crumbs for February. This is one of the few referral programs that I participate in because it doesn’t take a lot of time and it ties hand in hand with selling on eBay. I always wait a couple of days before reviewing my results because they tend to back post earnings due to the commission reporting of some affiliate programs. Now, without further ado, here are my results that will be paid to me in April.

My results are a little worse than what January brought, but the total overall sales are more, which is a good thing; hopefully more people are remembering to click through before making their purchases. I’m sure the variance in earnings occurred from people shopping on different sites with smaller cash back percentages. Also, for the first time in my 15 months as a member, my 1st level referrals have the highest purchase total. This is a result of my direct referrals growing from 43 at the end of January to 57 at the end of February. I know, it’s still a long way to 1,000,000, but I’ll keep plugging. On top of the $23.55 from my referrals, I will also be paid $1.37 in cash back from my own purchases.

Please note that these results may not be typical earnings with Big Crumbs as I have been a member for just over 15 months now, but they don’t care if you’ve earned $1 or $10,000, you’ll be paid out what’s owed to you.

I have been in a debate with myself whether to post about my earnings with Big Crumbs here or not. I think I’m going to start a post monthly regarding this, I have seen other people do something similar with their Squidoo results for the month so I’m going to go for it. I would like to point out that my results may not be typical, but I do want to make sure that anyone interested in Big Crumbs knows that results like these are possible. You’ll see that I’m not filthy stinking rich from this, but extra cash that will be paid to me in March is always nice.

I really find it interesting that most of my referral commissions are coming from my 3rd and 4th level of referrals.

As far as working towards my goal of 1,000,000 people referred to this great shopping site, in January 2008 I had 13 different people sign up underneath me which brought me to a total of 43 direct referrals as of 1/31/2008. That leaves me with only 999,957 more to go. February is already off to a great start with 1 person signing up yesterday.

My goal is to become financially independent of my husband in terms of finances and these are the sites that I have been using to work towards my goals. All sites are listed in terms of my success with them and how easy it is to start earning money. Come back often, we’ll be updating this list as we find more sites that we like for their ease of use and time consumed.

In terms of success, ease of use and time spent, Big Crumbs is my favorite site overall. My goal is to get 1,000,000 direct referrals. I’m at 43 right now, but if you like to get cash back for your shopping, then I highly recommend that you sign up.

eBay is still a great way to clean out your closets and make some extra cash to help pay the bills. If Q can learn how to list stuff on eBay then you can too.

Amazon is a much better place to get rid of your used DVD’s, video games, and CD’s. It’s free to put up new listings, and if your items doesn’t sell, you’re not out any money.

Squidoo - Do you consider yourself an expert on a subject? Tell the world about it and maybe you can make a couple of extra dollars on the side. If you own a website, Squidoo is a great way to build back links to your site.

MyLot.com - I signed up for MyLot about a year ago and then totally forgot about it. Just recently they started sending out reminder digest emails so I started posting to the discussions there again. I don’t have a lot of time to spend there, but I respond to or start about two discussions a day.

The Up Down - I casually trade at theupdown.com when I think of it. You receive $1,000,000 in play money to start trading with. If you beat the S&P for the month you get paid. You can also make money by writing stock analyses and referring your friends. I haven’t made a ton there, but I have beat the S&P 3 months in a row so I have $1.15 waiting for me to claim as of 2/3/08.

Bux3.com - I know I usually don’t recommend pay per click, but I don’t mind this site because I’m not forced to view the ad the whole time. If they ever find a way to force this, I will definitely delete Bux3 from this page.

Bux.to Just like the site above, if they ever start forcing a person to actually look at that ad, I’ll probably stop using them. I just don’t have time for that. As long as I can just click and come back later, they’ll stay. Of course, if they stop paying, I’ll drop them faster than my cat runs up and down the stairs.