Why do I like working at home?

There are some very good reasons why I like to work from home and be my own boss. As aggravating as it can be, there are some good points too. My best friend just commented to me in an instant message during her lunch break that she was not looking forward to going back to work since she was tired and did not feel like she should be driving. Still, if she wants to keep her job she better get back to the office and not take another 20 minutes or hour to nap now that she's eaten.

Another friend called me last night to let me know that she was not going to be on AIM because she had worked so hard on a project at work that her eyes were irritated and she was just going to go straight home and crawl in bed to try and stave off a headache.

By working for myself at home I can avoid such problems and don't have to commute or jump and work on someone else's schedule. I can take a fifteen minute break whenever I need to so I can get up and stretch. I'll make up that time at the end of the workday or over the weekend. I can also lay down for a hour and nap - or pause to go to a doctor's appointment for my dad without having to have prearranged time off to do that.

I can sleep in in the mornings. I can leave my desk comfortably cluttered. I can spill coffee on the keyboard. I can call in sick and not have someone tell me that I *HAVE* to show up. If I want to let my cat sit on my shoulder as I type, it's perfectly fine. He fell asleep there for half an hour the other night.

So, I like working at home, I just wish that I had a better income from it. I'm working toward that though, and will keep y'all appraised on what I can manage for reaching that and of anything I find of interest along the way.

Above Ground Stockpiles of Silver are Shrinking

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The preceeding Post is a paid advertisement

How To Evaluate Genuine Work From Home Opportunities

By Ove Nordkvist

Is it possible to filter all the scams and find a legitimate Internet business opportunity? When you start your investigation of Internet work from home possibilities, there are some things you can do to evaluate if the opportunity is genuine.

It's not always easy, but it's something you must do before investing any money. The fact that there are so many scams on the Net, makes it hard, especially if you're new to the Internet, to see the difference between a legitimate business opportunity and a fraud.

The number one thing you should look for is if they claim that you will make huge incomes in no time. Don't get me wrong, It's fully possible to make good money online, but not in a short period of time, without business experience. If the opportunity is genuine, it's possible to make a huge income after a couple of years.

You also need to keep in mind, the majority of all advertised opportunities show the income of their top earners, who have been in the game for a while. It's quite rare to see the income of people just started their Internet work from home business.

You need to be fully aware of the fact, that an Internet business is just like any business. You have to work hard, while your business is growing off the ground. Your income will be mirrored by your efforts.

Stay with your both feet at the ground, don't get carried away by the unrealistic income claims. The world wide web is not a magical place where money will fall from heaven at you.

It's so easy to get excited about the possibilities to make huge income with little or no effort. Be causes or you'll face great disappointment, as well as you end up wasting a lot of time and money. Look for the opportunities not promising you to get rich quick.

When you find something interesting, spend some time researching and evaluating. Don't jump in with your head first. Look for contact information, if there is a physical address and a contact phone number it will add to the credibility. Send a short message about your interest, see if you get any response.

Look for guarantees offered, such as a 30 day 100% money-back guarantee and or a 30 day free trial offer. Is there a business plan included. Do the company offer a proven step by step plan to follow? Does it include educational material? You must be able to educate yourself in order to succeed with your Internet business.

If there is an offer to sign up for a free newsletter, subscribe. It will not only give you the chance to learn from the newsletter. It will also give you the opportunity to evaluate if this is a genuine business.

Once you have done all the research and evaluating you can think of, if it still look like a genuine business opportunity. One that bring out your passion and excitement. Well, time to take the plunge.






Visit http://www.small-biz-ideas.net/Internet-work-from-home.html to learn more how to find the right Internet work from home business.
Sign up for Ove Nordkvist's free newsletter here, and get free bonus e-book =>http://www.small-biz-ideas.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ove_Nordkvist

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The preceding article has been reprinted here by permission of the author.

Cloisonne Balls - or, Mystic Chinese Chiming Balls

The Mystic Chinese Chiming Balls are a wonderful way to both relax the hands after typing and soothe frazzled nerves. I have a chrome set of chiming balls on my desk that I use to relax aching fingers after a long day of typing at the computer.

The iron balls have been used by the Chinese for hundreds of years. Originally solid, the chime balls were later made hallow with a chime mechanism inserted into each. One being a high note, and the other a low note. According to Chinese medicine, the fingers are connected to the major organs, including the heart. Acupressure points in the hands are stimulated by proper use of the mystical Chime balls, thus promoting improved blood flow and relaxed muscles and joints.

The chime balls are held in one hand and slowly rotated in the palm, producing a pleasant chime sound as they slip past one another in a rhythmic pattern that gently stimulates the acupressure points of the palm.

Find a set of chime balls that will fit easily in your hand and can be smoothly rotated. They are inexpensive, ranging in price from $5 to $10 as a general rule, and can offer a relaxing focus when the day and work seems to be wearing you down.

Dedication and Commitment

Working at home is something that takes dedication and commitment. You have to be ready to work hard and put in whatever time is required to maintain an income, even if that means having to sacrifice some things that you wanted to be able to do in order to get work commitments completed in time.

I started working at home years ago when I became the part-time caregiver for my parents. The years passed and there was more and more for me to be doing around the house, making it more and more difficult to get out and work at even a part-time job.

Writing seemed like the best field for me to get into for working, unfortunately not long after I started writing fulltime my commitments as a family caregiver increased and I found myself with precious little time to work. I was also balanced precariously on the edge of depression, which left me in a poor state for thinking through what I wanted to be able to write about.

Words seemed to come more difficultly and I was having trouble threading together the plots that had, at the beginning of my efforts, led me through a mad dash to write an 80,000 word novel in under a month.

I now found myself struggling to focus on a few thousand words and unable to find the focus needed to draw a complete short story in that framework. Writing was beginning to slip away as a potential resource for making a living, something that made me feel a sense of loss.

I love words, I love to read them and immerse myself in stories. I get that from my father, who until his stroke was an avid reader.

Determination led me to never give up my desire to somehow make writing produce an income. I may not be making a survivable income, but through determination and efforts to locate resources online for writing ad copy and short articles I have found at least a way to earn enough to help keep heating fuel in the heater or maybe buy myself something nice every once in a while.

If there is something that I have learned about working from home, it is that no matter what you do, you should follow your heart and let yourself do what you love. There may not be as much skill or talent or focus as you would like behind your work, but if you truly enjoy it and want to produce something of value to others with it, then the desire and commitment will shine through and others will appreciate your hard work and dedication and from that begins the building blocks of a successful career.

Pick Pack Logistics

Do you have a business that requires the shipment of products? Would you be able to outsource that to someone else who can break down pallets of cases for shipment of individual cases? Someone that can pick individual items from cases for order fulfillment.

With Pick Pack Logistics, customers store their product in the fulfillment warehouse. Then when a customer places an order on a web site, that order is sent directly to the fulfillment house where the right products are picked, packed in a box and mailed to the customer. “The customer never knows that Pick Pack Logistics exists, and that’s the way we operate.” says owner and manager Jeff Pickett, “no matter how small a retailer is, with our services they can act just like the big guys.”

“Our motto is You Sell, We Ship!" says Pickett. "If you are an internet retailer, you should be spending as much time as possible on what really matters to your business, advertising, marketing, public relations and extending your product line. Everything else is a distraction.”

In addition to its pick/pack services, Nexus also offers a variety of other value added services in conjunction including:
Product Labeling
Kitting & Assembly
Polybagging & Shrinkwrapping
Co-packing

Pick Pack Logistics is headquartered at 14675 Titus St, Van Nuys, Ca 91402. Their new Bay Area Location is located at 2114 Adams Ave. San Leandro, CA 94577. They can be reached at 818 997-0866 or 510 562-6130.

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The preceding post is a paid advertisement

My new part-time home business

I have decided on a home business that I am going to try my hand at. I am going to work on making polymer clay dolls. I have made polymer clay dolls many times before, but I have never made them to sell. I make them for my mom or to keep or whatever, sometimes (a lot of the time) just making them to test out making a kind of face and then smushing it back into a small ball of clay and making something else.

I've decided to do this as a part time job now, though, and got a fresh box of clay and some wires and made up some clay working tools designed specifically for the task I want to use them for. I also invested in a clay cutting knife and some liquid polymer clay.

I will add to my working tools and clay stash as the hobby turned part time job begins to pay for itself. We'll see how it goes from here. Next step is to make some figures to sell.

I'll keep you all posted on what happens and what my results are.

Wish me luck!

Work @ Home Newsletter Bookstore

Announcing the Work @ Home Newsletter Bookstore. This bookstore is just getting going, but I plan to offer books (via Amazon.com) on anything and everything one might want to know about home businesses. Check it out now to find information on everything from starting up a home based business raising birds to creating a wedding planner business.

I'll eventually sort things into categories based on businesses, but for now it's not very difficult to page through the listing of books for things such as how to make money scrapbooking, or quilting, or starting up a business online with eBay, and so much more - I kind'a went overboard at Amazon looking for anything I saw on starting a home based business so you're sure to find something that looks interesting.

There are also lists from others that have compiled lists on starting your own home based business.

Holiday shopping online for baby gifts

When you work at home it is sometimes necessary to do your holiday shopping online, if you need to buy baby gifts as part of your holiday gift shopping you should look at the gifts to be found for both babies and mothers at The Nest Baby Shop. Many items come with free personalization and they even have Keepsake Ornaments and Keepsake Baby's First Hanukkah cups.

Right now they have an adorable baby bath robe with free personalization on sale for $29.99, a great gift for baby's first Christmas.

Or maybe you are planning a baby shower? The Nest Baby Shop also all the shower supplies you need including favors, games and invitations, all at a price you’ll love

And, if you sign up for their special offers you will get a coupon for 10% off your order.

The preceding Post is a paid advertisement

When Your Office Is Home

While looking into the possibility of supplimenting my commentary on this blog with the experience of others I found the following article by Jenna Glatzer, author of Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer and several other books as well as the editor of www.absolutewrite.com.

I felt that it would probably be as valuable for anyone that works at home as it is for writers working from their home.

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When Your Office Is Home

By Jenna Glatzer

It's easy to get obsessed. Really, it is. With work, with the almighty dollar, with achieving and building your business.

When your office is home, there is no clock to punch, no rush hour drive to get as far away from the madness as possible. No, when you work from home, it's all up to you. You can work as little or as much as you like. Unfortunately, most home-workers fall into the two extremes: those who don't work enough, and those who work too much.

The ones who don't work enough get caught up in the "home" aspect of the home office. Something is always calling them away: a crying baby, the laundry, a trip to the convenience store, a pot on the stove, daytime TV shows. They give in to temptation and never truly put in an honest day's work. Then they come to me and ask how in the world I'm so productive.

It's because I fall into the other extreme category. I’m a full-time writer, and I get caught up in the "office" aspect of the home office. It gets simple to see each minute as a potential dollar, and each day as a new possibility to sell the novel, write the next bestseller, break into the almighty national magazine market.

Know that when you are self-employed, you won't have anyone looming over your desk to keep you on track. Sure, that may sound delicious, but do some real self-assessing: can you handle it?

If no one tells you when and how to work, will you have the discipline necessary to earn a living? Will you ever start your work? Will you ever stop?

When you get hooked into the cycle of never truly leaving office-mode, the point of working from home gets diminished. Sure, you may work in your pajamas, but you wind up putting in more hours than you would have at a day job, and you forget to enjoy the perks of being self-employed.

The single cure for either extreme mode is the same: set goals and meet them. If you're not getting enough work done, set an attainable goal (write a new press release before noon, or make five cold calls before the end of the day), and keep to it, no matter how you have to juggle your life around it. If you're working too much, set that same goal and then STOP. Write those releases, or make those calls, and then get up from that chair, stretch, and do something that doesn't involve work in any manner.

I once read something that has stuck with me (pardon me for not knowing the attribution): At the end of your life, will you regret not putting in more overtime?

As for me, I'll be embarrassed to die until I've achieved a lifestyle with a better balance: One that involves more family and fun time, and less time logged in my computer chair.

Sanity breaks are so important, and if you're going to freelance full-time, you have to set limits. You have to take days off, re-discover your significant other's birthmarks, and just plain enjoy life. Otherwise, why are you working? Remember what it is you’re working toward and why you chose to work at home.

If you're like me, you may work better with a written schedule. On this schedule, write down both your work responsibilities and your "play" responsibilities. Mine sometimes looks like this:

9:00-12:00: Work on new article for XYZ Magazine.

12:00-1:00 Lunch break.

1:00-5:00 Write query and send it to 5 new markets.

5:00-6:00: Cook dinner.

6:00-7:00 Dinner.

7:00-8:00 Exercise.

...and so on.

I keep a daily schedule book that has room for me to write down all of my "to do" list each day. If you lose track of time, you may want to set an alarm clock to remind you when it's time to quit, or you may try setting your computer to "defragmentation mode" at a particular time each day (your "quitting time").

Commit to becoming less extreme. Working from home is a wonderful thing... in moderation.

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JENNA GLATZER is the author of Make a Real Living as a Freelance Writer and several other books. Visit her at www.jennaglatzer.com and pick up a free editors' cheat sheet! She is also the editor of www.absolutewrite.com, the most popular online magazine for writers.

Where to Market Your Santa Letters

In the spirit of the holiday season I have found the following article by Nicole Dean on marketing for a home based business writing Santa letters. Thank you to her for allowing the reprinting of the article.

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Where to Market Your Santa Letters
By Nicole Dean

So, you’ve decided to start a Santa Letter Business. You’ve got your kit, ink, stationery and some little goodies for the envelopes.

You’re ready to start processing orders. But, before you get too excited, you still have some marketing to do. Even though there is a demand for Santa Letters, you still have to make it easy for people to find you by marketing about your service.

You have three basic options for selling your letters.

Sell the Letters offline via Order Forms
This is a great alternative to those who are not interested in working online. Create order forms and deliver them to local preschools and daycares. If you’re business-savvy you may consider marketing your offer as a fundraiser to encourage the preschools to recommend the Santa Letters to family and friends. Turn your customers into your sales force.

Sell them on auction sites like eBay
This time of year many people are shopping at eBay. Not only that, but they are searching for words like “Santa” and “Holidays” so your letter offer stands a good chance of getting viewers. Of course, you’ll want to position yourself to get as many visitors as possible to your letter auction.

Create a website where you can sell your letters year-round
This is, of course, another option for selling your Santa Letters. If this is too intimidating to you, there are easy site builder options that you can utilize that make creating a website as easy as creating a Word Document.

Each of these methods has benefits, and they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. You can do all three – set up an online store, sell the letters on eBay, and do a fundraiser at your child’s daycare by sending home order forms! Why not? Have a wonderful, and profitable Holiday Season!

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Nicole Dean is the Publisher of several e-guides online, including the Santa Letter Kit. Stop by www.SantaLetterBusiness.com to learn how you can start a Santa Letter Business and make extra money this holiday season.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nicole_Dean

Lovers Planet - Russian dating and personals agency

This post is a paid advertisement. Money made from this post goes directly toward the purchase of a powered wheel chair for my father who is a retired veteran that spent over 20 years in the Army.

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Working at home can often mean dating online as well. If you're going to be dating from home why focus only on the local opportunities for love?

Lovers Planet is a Russian dating and personals agency that focuses on single russian women
seeking men for marriage and romance. For most of these women dating implies marriage and family. Therefore, a relationship with a Russian bride (AKA "mail order brides") is likely to be different from any other relationship you have had before. According to Lovers Planet the divorce rate in marriages with Russian women tends to be much lower than with marriages in America, UK and Australia.

Lovers Planet says that they understand it takes time for a relationship to grow into marriage. Their dating service offers profiles and photos of single Russian and Ukraine women, as well as ladies from other countries of Eastern Europe. Most Russian brides prefer to get to know a person before creating a more serious bond or marriage since they are looking for a life partner on this site.

Lovers Planet claims that each year millions of men from US, Canada and Australia meet, marry and admire brides from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other countries of Eastern Europe. They also state that many couples eventually create successful families and raise beautiful and intelligent children, and that marriages to Russian brides have a proven track record of success. I don't know if that is true or not, but you can find out if you want to by browsing Russian women profiles or posting your own ad for free.

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The preceding post was a paid advertisement. Money made from this post goes directly toward the purchase of a powered wheel chair for my father.

ABCs for the Work at Home Mom

I normally dislike Dr. Laura - particularly when her advice yesterday to a girl wanting to know if she should raise her baby alone or keep trying to get the father to straighten up was "place it up for adoption" - she was WRONG to tell that girl that, the girl obviously loved her child and wanted what was best for it, but Dr. Laura made it seem like the only way to do what was best for the baby was to give the baby away to strangers. That is NOT right - a single parent can be just as wonderful and loving as a couple can and there are too many bitches out there killing their kids to judge a young girl that wants to love her baby and give it what's best by saying "put it out for adoption. What about the people that pen children in animal cages as a couple did to a whole group of adopted kids here in Alaska ???

Okay, I'll shut up - obviously could go on about that, but the point is not that topic, it's that Dr. Laura has a article on her site about the ABCs for the Work at Home Mom - an excerpt:

"O = Office - As Work at Home Moms, we usually put ourselves last on the list. However, when we're in business it's important to have some room (even a corner) that is set aside strictly for business.

P = Priorities - It's hard to keep your priorities straight when raising a family and building a business. Take some time each week/month to sit down and evaluate your priorities and cut out things in your schedule that don't fit in.

Q = Quiet Time - It may seem impossible to find a time to sit, relax and be quiet when you have so many demands on your time. However, it's more important than ever that you take a little time for yourself to rejuvenate and renew when you grow weary."

Author Jill Hart is the founder of Christian Work at Home Moms.

Home-Based Working Moms™

Home-Based Working Moms™

The Founder & President of HBWM says about it:
"Home-Based Working Moms™ is a professional association and online community of parents who work at home and those who would like to. My name is Lesley Spencer Pyle, and I am the Founder & President of HBWM. I started HBWM in 1995 out of my deep desire to spend more time with my two children. My passion and the goal of HBWM is to help other parents reach that same goal. Join HBWM today and start taking advantage of the MANY benefits HBWM Membership offers."

The site says about itself:
"What We Offer

* HBWM Membership
* eDirectory of Home Based Careers
* Mom's Work-at-Home Kit
* Mom's Work-at-Home Site
* HBWM Canada

Home-Based Working Moms (HBWM) is a professional association and online community founded in 1995. HBWM provides its members with support, networking, free advertising options, information, a monthly (print) newsletter, email discussion list, searchable member directory, member spotlights and corporate discounts on various products and services. See why hundreds of parents are joining HBWM!"

Marketing your website on blogs

You're setting up a home office, you're also more than likely setting up a website. While you are trying to make your home business take off how do you get the word out about that site? Getting a high ranking in search engines certainly helps - but how do you do that?

The algorithm of Google, and the other search engines, sorts out websites and drives traffic to the ones that rank at the top of their organic results. Roughly 35 to 45% of the importance to Google’s algorithm is off-site factors - links pointing to your website from many different sources on the internet.

There is a lot to be said about receiving 1,000 links from different websites as opposed to receiving 100 links from different websites with a good Page Rank. Nobody can tell you the exact difference in the quality of one over the other but in the experience of US Web 1,000 links from different websites with low levels of Page Rank work better in increasing your rankings within the organic results of Google.

Blogs are filled with content that the search engines crave and are a great place to build link popularity. If you had a page on your website about roses and you received a link from a Blog post about roses with the anchor text of the link pointing to your website saying “roses”; you have now received a great quality link. This works for any keyword phrase you might be targeting but the more popular the phrase is the more links from different Blogs you will need.

Blog marketing sites such as Blogitive were created for this very purpose. Through these blog marketing sites you can submit a web release (mini press release) to Bloggers and they will write about your release and link to your website

The preceding Post is a paid advertisement

USA TODAY article on work-at-home moms - 7/19/2005

The following is an excerpt from a article I found on work-at-home moms on the USA TODAY website:


Job opening? Work-at-home moms fill bill
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY

Like many stay-at-home moms, Christie Thomas spends much of the day doting on her daughter, reading her stories, making her lunch and putting her down for afternoon naps.

But Thomas is among a new generation of moms who have chosen to stay at home but earn an income, too. She's a loan officer and independent contractor for Pacific West Financial, doing loan work and research while Carlyjo, age 2, sleeps or watches TV. She also gets some work done after her husband, a teacher, gets home from work. (read more)

BBB on Work-at-Home Schemes

The BBB has a listing of the most common work at home scams so that you can protect yourself and learn to recognize the scams.

These include:

"Assembly work at home! Easy money assembling craft items. No experience necessary."

"Make copies of this letter and send them to people whose names we will provide. All you have to do is send us ten dollars for our mailing list and labels. Look at the chart below and see how you will automatically receive thousands in cash return!!!"

"$350 Weekly Guaran- teed! Work two hours daily at home stuffing envelopes."

The Internet and e-mail have made it easy for scammers to get their ads out to a vast audience for very little cost or effort.

I myself have been being plauged by such scams being posted to my blogs the past few days - forcing me to enable word verification on all my blogs to stop what seems to have been a bot posting:

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Anonymous said...

Hey,nice blog!!! I found a place where you can make an extra $800 or more a month. I do it part time and make a lot more than that. It is definitely worth a visit! You can do it in your spare time and make good cash. Make Extra Cash
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Do not fall for these scams. You will lose time and money to them. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Product placement in DVDs

The HD DVD discs issued by Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers and the rival Blu-ray format by Disney, Fox and other studios, have about six times as much data capacity as standard DVDs. This extra space gives the studios room for not only high-definition video and enhanced audio, but also a bevy of interactive features, including games, picture-in-picture commentaries and Web links.

This opens up as well a new source of revenue for the studios: Product placement.

It had once been that if a product did not fit into the script, such as star drinking brand a soda or driving a specific car, then the product could not be used for product placement advertising. However, the new forms of CD allow for additional features, such as the "Progressive Direct: Insurance Damage Estimates" calculator. A

At least initially, turning the extra capacity into cash will be difficult. Since viewers must choose to turn the calculator on, the number who actually see it could be small.

While these kinds of experiments may take time to bear financial fruit, studios and advertisers said they believed they had to find new ways to reach consumers in an age when the entertainment audience was increasingly fragmented. In return for having its name plastered on the crash calculator, Progressive created a Web site, www.progressivefastandfurious.com, and developed contests to promote the movie and the disc.

This post has been sponsored by CarInsurance.com - where you can get a cheap car insurance quote from many insurance companies any time online. CarInsurance.com's online insurance marketplace gives an opportunity to consumers and to insurance companies. We offer the ability to shop for car insurance online.

The preceding Post is a paid advertisement

Finding the time to work

I find that it is much easier to get things done if I lock myself away in my bedroom and put out a "please do not disturb" sign, unfortunately that is impossible most of the time since I am a full time family care giver. that means that I have to find other ways to find the time to work.

I have taken to getting up at 5 a.m. when I can so I can get things done in the wee hours of the morning while my parents are still asleep. It's working great so far - when I can get to sleep early enough that I can wake up that early.

Life has been a bitch

I know that I have not been exactly speedy in my upkeep of this site, and my appologies to the readers for that. I have started reorganizing things in my office and should be able to get things caught up on my blogs and make at least weekly posts to them.

You may also have noticed that I have started updating some of my blogs from the standard "blog" templates and linking them onto the websites that they pertain to.

I hope by the end of the month to get this finished. I also hope to have my blogs all being updated at least weekly and ::drumroll:: to still pull off a 50,000 word novel for NaNoWriMo.

I'm insane.

Attention Comment SPAMmers

I have gone through my blogs and checked all of them for SPAM posts in the comments. I have also set them all to require word verification.

I prefer to leave them set for anyone to be able to comment on them, however, if I continue to be SPAMed by people posting anonymous posts for get rich quick sites I will be forced to restrict comments to registered users only.

Comments such as the following will be unmercifully removed from my blogs:

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Anonymous said...

Hey,nice blog!!! I found a place where you can make an extra $800 or more a month. I do it part time and make a lot more than that. It is definitely worth a visit! You can do it in your spare time and make good cash. Make Extra Cash
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I am not opposed to your purchasing a brief post that is very clearly marked as an advertisement if you wish for me to post a link to a get rich quick site - this would be as follows:

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PAID ADVERTISEMENT
I found a place where you can make an extra $800 or more a month. I do it part time and make a lot more than that. It is definitely worth a visit! You can do it in your spare time and make good cash. Make Extra Cash

__________________________________

The preceding post is a paid advertisement - the owner of this blog has been paid for this space by the person posting this information. The blog owner does not endorse or support the information or websites presented in this post.

PAID ADVERTISEMENT

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Rates for such advertisements start at $20 for a post and go up based on what you desire to have in the posting and if there is more work than simply posting it on the site involved for me.

Q. Why such blatant markings that it is a paid advertisement?

A. Quite simple really - I screen advertising on this site based on if my readership might be interested. I'm willing to accept advertisements for postings that may not meet my standards, but my readership will know which advertisements I have not hand selected as being of interest to them.

Q. What is the price for getting a post that is not marked as an advertisement?

A. You can't pay me enough to pass a paid post off as being endorsed by me. And, indeed, it is against FTC regulations. When someone is indicating their individual preference there is no requirement for disclosure of either the amount or existence of compensation - when that person is asked to provide a favorable view, or the impression of such, then the FTC guidelines for print media (which covers Internet advertising) specify that there should be disclosure of the information as being an advertisement.

Put simply - if I am being honest I don't have to tell you I was paid, if I am asked to be favorable it effects my ability to be honest so your advertisement will be marked as being an advertisement. If I can not present a favorable post without lying through my teeth then your advertisement will most definitely be marked very clearly as being a PAID ADVERTISEMENT.

Q. Can I pay you after posting?

A. No. Payment will be made before I post the advertisement. I accept PayPal and any PayPal accepted credit cards.

Q. But my site is not a get rich quick site, does it still have to be marked as an advertisement?

A. That depends on the site and rather I am allowed to be honest about endorsing it to my readership or not. Honesty is very important to me. For more information see the question above titled: What is the price for getting a post that is not marked as an advertisement?

Q. How do I ask a question not covered here?

A. Make a comment to this post - if I think others might be interested in the answer I will add it to the above Q&A segment.

If, after having my advertising policies made clear, you would like such a posting please post a comment with a request to this post. If you would not like such a posting, then I politely ask that you please do not post such advertisements in the comments sections of any of my blogs - particularly not posts flanked by my complaints about comment SPAMmers. Thank you.

All proceeds from such advertising goes to pay hosting costs for my Family C.A.R.E. website and to assist in the purchase of my father's powered wheelchair.

Sandra
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The preceding post is a paid advertisement for Capella University.

WHAM

WHAM is the Online Magazine for Work-at-Home Moms, it was founded by Cheryl Demas and offers information not just to work-at-home moms, but work-at-home dads and anyone else that is looking for a way to work around the Legos and stuffed animals.

Their website states:

"Be careful out there ... you should NEVER have to pay someone to work for them! There shouldn't be any fees associated with the jobs listed here. Watch out for scams. If an employers asks for money, it's a red flag. They're supposed to pay you.

We try to screen jobs here, but we get fooled too. So do your homework, come to the boards, ask questions, be careful."

Good advice to anyone looking to find work they can complete from their home. I did find it difficult to locate their About page (found it under Contact Information for WHAM). On that page they state: "The online magazine was first published in 1995, and moved to its own domain in 1996."

Work-at-Home Schemes

You've seen them before, maybe even fallen for a few of them. Work-at-home schemes are those wonderful looking opportunities that claim you can earn X amount of money working in the comfort of your own home.

I fell for one years ago, a scheme where I was asked to send in $35 for information on how I could make money stuffing envelopes from home. What I got back was information on various newspapers to run ads in and how to find other newspapers and magazines and instructions to run the exact same add I had read in those papers with my information, then send the people the same kind of package I got when they sent me my $35.

In more recent years a friend reported falling for a offer to earn money from home where the information she got after payment was to buy Google ads telling others that they could work from home for just X dollars.

Neither me or my friend did the advertising or managed to get our money back. The people that scammed me had apparently moved from the address I had fallen for the scheme at and my friend was told she had to run ads for something like 90 days and show proof she had not earned any money at all at it before she could even request a refund. She chalked it up, like I had, to lessons learned.

There are hundreds if not millions of these scams out there, promising everything from easy money through medical billing to working at home assembling products or doing craft work. The FTC works for the consumer to prevent such fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices. They offer information to help the consumer spot, stop and avoid work at home schemes.

For more information visit the Work-at-Home schemes page on the FTC website.