Ok.. I caved. I swore that my blog would be ad free and not public. Then life came screaming in my face. My huband's health has been getting progressively worse and his ability to put in a full day's work is hit and miss. Paying just to survive from one month to the next is very stressful most of the time. I want to help out.. I've taken on small jobs from time to time that I could do from home. Why don't I "just go get a real job" you ask? I've taken all this into consideration: The age of my kids, the number of children, cost of day-care, the fact that I would rather be the one to teach my kids about life and morals and religion than some stranger, fact that my husband shouldn't be alone when he's at his worst, and any job I would get would be at a "newbie" pay scale rather than the "experienced" pay scale that my husband gets for all his years of working. All these and more add up to the fact that we're better off if I stay home and help my husband be as stable as he can be and assist him in getting his work done as quickly as possible. I save us thousands of dollars by raising our kids myself.
So..... I had to start getting even more creative in attempting to bring in more cash - or saving even more. I find coupons online and in mailers to my house when and where I can. I've saved $11 in the past 2 weeks with coupons for items we use normally. I wish I could find more for the items we use. There are TONS of coupons for products that I could never bring into this house (wrong ingredients etc...). My husband's health prevents a lot of the junkier ingredients most people have no problems digesting.
About 2 months ago I joined
Swagbucks and I now have $15 sitting in my Amazon account and I have enough earned Swagbucks to get another $10 in gift cards to apply to my Amazon account. I'm saving up for a rather expensive luxury Christmas gift for the family. At the rate I'm earning points... I think it will have to wait until Christmas 2011 rather than 2010 though. Unless I get more recruits to join through
my link. I'm grateful for what I have so far. It's money that doesn't have to come out of my pocket.
I'm not sure how long ago I brought advertising to this site but I have now acquired 1,011 page impressions since installing the adservice. That means my blog has been looked at 1,011 times since then. 10 times ads have been clicked on (that's where the REAL money is) and I have earned a whopping $4.22! It might be another 3 or 4 years at this rate before I get a check but we'll get there. Just know this... if you come to my site and see ads you are helping me out financially. Might only be a tiny fraction of a penny but each fraction turns into something eventually.
I also opened a "stuff" site on Zazzle.com (
myth's conceptions). I noticed that someone has OFFICALLY purchased 2 small items off my site. I am in total AWE! I have TONS of ideas for more products and a reorganization of what is where. I need to get back on that site and get busy.
Until being a tall, qwerky, slightly nerdy, good hearted woman gets the bills paid I will have to resort to creative methods to save as well as aquire money. I'm not sure if what I've listed here can help anyone else. Just in case it can I decided to write about it. It's not much of an income right now but I know it will pay off in the future. I'll keep you posted if I figure out how to do things better or if I find something even more helpful for a stay at home mom.
