Online Income Statement - June, July, August/2016

It's a good thing I don't count on online income to pay the bills, because for the last three months it has been a constant zero!  And this isn't for lack of effort!  (A lack of intelligence perhaps, but I have worked at it.)

I sincerely hope I am the least successful internet affiliate in the world, because if other folks are doing as poorly as me, then there's a whole lot of effort being wasted online.

Well ...... maybe it's not a total catastrophe.  I do have some money queued up in my Amazon affiliate accounts, and once one of them breaks the $10.00 limit I should get a deposit in my Paypal account.  Still, $10.00 isn't exactly a huge amount of money.

Things got so bad I even go back to Clickworker from time to time.  And this is Clickworker WITHOUT access to UHRS, (which is where most of the money is made), because I refuse to back to working on a Windows PC.  (We use Apple PCs in our household.)  So I "earn" pennies a day.

Ugh ......

But the internet gods apparently haven't finished humiliating me, because just recently I updated the software on my tea store, ( tea-universe.com ), and now ...... the site doesn't work anymore!!

My store uses WooCommerce, the WooZone plugin, (to grab products off Amazon), and the Kingdom theme.  Two days ago I updated Kingdom to version 1.7, and everything went wonky.  This surprised me, as I thought all three pieces of software were written by the same group of folks, (AATeam, or something like that), and so would play well together.  Ha, ha .... jokes on me!

IMHO Kingdom is a hard theme to work with.  Or maybe the problem is WooCommerce?  At any rate, all this stuff combines into what ain't a normal straight-forward WordPress page.  But after fussing with it a bit I finally got the appearance of the store pretty well stabilized.  In fact, I kinda like how it looks now better than it looked on the older Kingdom theme:

The new appearance of tea-universe.com

The huge problem is that, once you attempt to checkout with items added to your cart, by the time you're redirected to Amazon the cart is somehow empty!

What happened to the items in my cart?

So what I have now is a nicer looking store that no one can order anything from.  Phooey!


I've paid $5.00 on Fiverr to some guy in India who claims he can debug WooCommerce problems.  We'll see if anything comes of that or not.

In the meantime ...... does anyone happen to know of a way to fix this problem?  

Earn money in your spare time on the internet, huh?  Nonsense, I say!

=================================================================

Update: the guy from India directed me to some documentation, which helped, and made some suggestions, which so for haven't worked.  So what I have done is disable the shopping cart altogether.  Now you simply click "buy product" and get redirected to Amazon to complete the order, (add it to your shopping cart, and check out).

If I have time I may fight with this crazy software some more, but in the meantime at least tea-universe.com is functional again.

Why We Will Never Be Rich - Part 02 of an Ongoing Series

One of the main reasons we will never be rich is Old Grump's continual careless, immature, and just plain STUPID behavior.

This idiocy has recently cost us nearly $500!!  Allow me to share with you the sorry details.

1. A few months ago Grump wrote a check, admittedly under duress, (it was for a product being sold through Kuya's school by a company* he doesn't like much), using the credit union account from his icky job at the Lizard Pit.  Soon thereafter he managed to get another job, enabling him to leave that miserable place.  (Hooray!!)  After waiting for all the checks from the Lizard Pit credit union to clear, he happily closed his account there.  And all was well in his world.

Except ...... he forgot to write down one or two checks, and one of these, (yep, you guessed it - to the company he dislikes anyway), got returned.  That was several months ago, and we knew nothing about it until early last week, when Grump got a letter from a collection agency** asking that payment be made for the original purchase, PLUS AN EXTRA THIRTY DOLLARS FOR BOUNCING THE CHECK.

2. As part of getting a new job, Grump got a new bank account to have his paycheck deposited into.  This new bank does some things a little differently than Grump is accustomed to.  For example, when making a payment online, this payment is not always immediately deducted from your account when sent.  Grump makes lots of payments online, and is used to checking his account online to reconcile how much money the bank says he has with how much he thinks he has, and then making any necessary adjustments in his records.

This past week, he screwed up and bounced an online payment.

What happened is that he made several online payments at once, then when he checked back a few days later saw that the bank said he had about $70 more dollars than his records indicated.  So he adjusted his balance up by $70, and went about happily spending, drawing his account down to the last penny right before his next paycheck, due on the 15th.

Of course, when the one online payment that had never posted, (for about $70!), finally showed up, (two days before he got paid, of course!), he didn't have enough money in his account to cover it, so he got whacked an extra $35 for an overdraft.

Grrr .......

3. The final act of stupidity was a whopper!  After driving home from his job on the other side of the state, and being tired and grumpy from a persistent head cold, Grump drove out with Sweetie to get some pizza for dinner.  What happened next is so stupid you probably won't believe it: Grump got mad at his car, and broke off the turn signal / headlights lever!

Grump holding the fruits of his labor

What a fool, huh?

As they say, as fool and his money soon go separate ways.  This little temper tantrum cost Grump $418.36!!  

The newly installed turn signal / headlights lever

The bill!!

So in less than two weeks, a pathetic Old Grump has managed to waste nearly $500 .

It's not like we have a ton of extra cash to burn either.  We just recently had to take $2,500 out of retirement savings to help pay down some credit card bills.  Flushing another $500 down the toilet of childish behavior isn't going to help us at all.

Financial responsibility requires mature behavior.  If you want to remain an irresponsible teenager your entire life you may do so.  Just don't act surprised when you wind up broke.

* - if you really want to know, the company is Scholastic Books, who in his opinion sell a mediocre, over-priced product under the pretense of "helping your school".

** - this is the first time any of us have ever been contacted by a collection agency over an old debt.  The original check was for a grand sum of $21.00 !!

Our "Net Worth" - an Update (July/2016)

About a year and a half ago we posted an entry about our "net worth", ( http://owlsandcuckoos.blogspot.com/2015/02/our-net-worth.html ).  Rather than write another blah post about our meager online "earnings", (earnings?  hah!!), for the month, I figured now would be a good time to update those old figures.

1. Assets:  $640,000.00

I wish we could take credit for socking away an additional $40,000 in 18 months, but the truth is that our increase here is mostly due to the performance of our investments, and less cautious accounting on my part when determining account value.  But that's okay; and extra $40,000 is great regardless of its origin.

2. Liabilities:  $140,000.00

Well phooey!  I was hoping we had paid off more on the condo, (still owe about $47,000), and the car, (still owe about $10,000), but those debts are still huge.  And of course the never ending revolving consumer debt continues to hobble us, which wasn't helped in the least by BOTH of our boys, (Kuya and Dodong), being rushed to the emergency room recently.  But you know, it just costs money to live.  All things considered, I don't think we're doing too bad considering that we're supporting five of us.


$640,000  -  $140,000  =   $500,000, which is our net worth.  Half a million!  Woo hoo!!


Unfortunately, all the comments from our prior net worth post still apply.

1.  We are spending more money than we are earring.  We still cash in non-IRA savings to help pay the bills.  (Just yesterday Old Grump cashed in $2,400 to help cover a bloated Amex card bill.)

2.  The increase in our net worth seemingly occurs DESPITE our behavior, due to interest and dividends, I suppose.

This is a financially reckless way to live, as sooner or later the market will crash again, and then our redemptions will harm our principal, (or is it "principle"  -  stupid English language!), balance.


Live frugally, and may your pennies become dimes, and your dimes become dollars!


P.S.  -  I forgot to include a link to the net worth page!  Here it is:  http://rockstarfinance.com/blogger-net-worths/ .

Online Income Statement - May/2016

Well let's see ...... if the coins in the pic above are mostly pennies, then that may accurately reflect what we made online last month, namely $5.48.  This was entirely from Clickworker, and represents stuff mostly done last month, as I have been ignoring Clickworker in favor of promoting my Amazon store.

So how much money did we rake in from our Amazon store in May 2016?  A big, fat, stinky NUTHIN!!

Yuck!  Goose eggs for our efforts.

I think the big trick to getting sales from the "Tumblr promotion technique", (
http://www.onlinedimes.com/how-make-money-on-tumblr/), is to have LOTS AND LOTS of followers.  Thousand at least; tens of thousands if you want to make the big bucks.  I spent most of the last few weeks of May, (and the first few weeks of this month), trying to build up our followers on our Tumblr accounts, arph001.tumblr.com and tea-frenzy.tumblr.com .  It looks like this may, (or may not - stay tuned!), pay off, as sales have begun to trickle in again.

The huge liability to this technique is should anything happen to our Tumblr accounts, we lose all our publicity.   :-(

In the meantime, I suppose I should go back to Clickworker every now and then, just to get some money coming in?  (Who knows - Clickworker does get tedious after a while, and the money earned isn't anything to really brag about.)

Earning money online takes time and lots of effort, and anyone who says or implies otherwise is a liar.  I wish it were as easy as sitting in your underwear looking at porn, but - alas! - it is not.  Then again, the older I get, the more I realize that all worthy endeavors take time and lots of effort.  There are no shortcuts.

Online Income Statement - April/2016

CHARGE!!

First the good news: after a long, lonely lonely time, (yeah, it's a GREAT SONG!), we finally made some money on an affiliate sale.  Money was actually deposited by Amazon into our bank account.  Woo hoo!

How much?  Well ..... (cough, cough) ..... the whopping sum of 88¢.

There are more commissions queued up, (adding up to dollars even!), but until they clear they don't count.

Now the bad news: I had noticed that sales at our online tea store, ( http://tea-universe.com ), had dropped off in April.  Wondering why, I logged on and discovered that most of our products had been "disabled".  Grrr!!  What apparently happened is that the software, (Woo Zone, WooCommerce, and the Kingdom theme), had flipped out during a product update and moved nearly all the products into the trash category.  Because of my, uh, "inattentiveness", they had probably been sitting there for weeks.  Good grief!

If, like me, you are following the advice on www.onlinedimes.com, ( http://www.onlinedimes.com/how-make-money-on-tumblr/ is the exact link), and trying to make money with an Amazon store via Tumblr, note that folks have complained about the Woo software, and that he now gives an alternative, ReHub Amazon, or something like that.  I bought the Woo software, so I'm trying to make the best of it, and honestly I don't know if that latest problem was a software bug or a stupid user trick.  Someday when I'm more successful I'll try some other software, and see which I like better.

And I'm still trying to figure out the best way to stock and market our store.  Should I offer many variations of the same product, like our morning thunder page?

We've got a long, lonely lonely way to go before we even break even, but unlike some of our other online ventures this tea store is fun.  Wish us better luck next month, and we hope you too have a profitable month online.

Why We Will Never Be Rich - An Ongoing Series!

When I read the blogs of financially successful folks such as J. Money, ( http://www.budgetsaresexy.com ), Mr. Money Mustache, ( http://www.mrmoneymustache.com ), James Collins, ( http://jlcollinsnh.com  -  you GOTTA read this: http://jlcollinsnh.com/2011/06/06/why-you-need-f-you-money/ ), Jeremy and Winnie, ( http://www.gocurrycracker.com ), and lots and lots of other money savvy folks, I get a little jealous.  They have money, enough money for financial independence, and the FREEDOM that this money buys them.  I, on the other hand, have bills and debt.

Money, Money, Who's Got the Money??

It ain't fair!

Well, no ..... that is absolutely wrong.  It is TOTALLY fair, because we all have a CHOICE in how we can live, and what we will spend money on.*  My wife and I CHOOSE to spend our money, rather than save it.  Here are a few examples from just this weekend, (rounded off for ease of addition!).

1. Saturday

Admission to the Atlanta Zoo, and snacks while we were there:  $130.00

Goodie from the Buford Highway Farmers Market:  $80.00 (at least - my wife paid this)

Dinner at the fantastic Grits Cafe in Forsyth, GA:  $140.00

2. Sunday

Admission to a movie for me and my older son, popcorn, and a soda:  $30.00

A new MacBook Pro laptop for me to use while I am working out of town:  $1,200.00


That's a total of at least $1,580 USD for just this past weekend alone!!

Okay, now I admit that we won't be buying a new laptop every weekend, (we couldn't if we wanted to!), but it seems that every other week we have some new fantastic expense to attempt to pay off.  And except for our older son's unfortunate emergency medical expenses, these are all purchases we voluntarily make.

Saving money really is simple.  It's the discipline NOT to spend that is the sand in lotion!


* - Okay, this assumes you are of sound mind and body, which MOST of us are.  (No whining please!!)

Online Income Statement - March/2016

No income this month, just expenses!  $60.00 for internet access, and some miscellaneous stuff, which means I'll round our monthly expenses up to $70.00.  So for the year, we're about -$300.00 .

If you're trying to make some money online, I hope you're doing better than we are!

One final thing: I've learned the hard way not to count online income until it's actually in your bank account.  There are LOTS of rip-off "money-making" sites out there: be careful!!  And until you actually have the cash in hand, don't assume you'll ever get it!