The easiest way to recognize a “stupid” debt repayment method is to think about whether the debt is actually paid off when the method’s complete. As you think about ways to get rid of your debt load, ask yourself, “Is this just a quick, easy solution to tide me over or will this really, once and for all, get rid of the debt?” Here are some of the worst (and most costly) ways to “pay off” your debt.
1. Borrow from your 401KYou shouldn’t borrow from your 401K period, much less to pay off your debt. Let’s talk about what happens when you borrow from your 401K. First, you can’t contribute to it anymore until you’ve repaid the loan. Second, your take home pay is less (because you have to pay back the loan) until the money’s paid back. Third, if you leave your job, you’ll have to pay the entire loan immediately or you’ll end up with early withdrawal fees and income taxes.
zSB(3,3)
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2. Refinance your mortgageAnother bad idea, especially if your debt was unsecured to begin with. Tying bad debt to your home’s equity isn’t smart. When you couldn’t pay your credit card debt, you ended up with a trashed credit rating. Securing your debt with your home means you lose your home and get a trashed credit rating when you can’t make payments.
3. Debt settlement Though they seem like refuge in a troubled situation, debt settlement companies tend to make the situation worse. For the scheme to work, you have to stop paying your creditors. When the payments stop, the phone calls start and so do the negative credit report entries. Thirty days late, sixty days late. Before long your account’s charged off and your credit score is trashed. In the end, the may not agree to a settlement proposed by your company. Imagine going through all that and still owing the money.
4. Consolidate with a high interest loanDebt consolidation may be a solution if you can get a loan at the right terms. If the only loan you can get has a higher interest rate than the average of your other debt, leave it alone. Your monthly payments may look lower, but that’s only because the loan is spread over a long repayment period. If you add up the interest you’d pay over the life of the loan, you’ll see that you’re spending more money that if you hadn’t consolidated with that loan.
5. Transfer your balances to other credit cardsTransferring balances to credit cards with those low introductory rates only makes sense when: you are financially able to pay off the balance before the introductory rate expires and you will not use the card to make purchases or take out cash advances. If you can’t transfer the balance under those conditions, it won’t work for you. And, forget about shuffling your balance to a new credit card with a new teaser rate, the balance transfer fees negate the interest savings.
This is a guest article by Jonathan, who writes the blog Master Your Card, a blog about getting out and staying out of debt, and mastering credit card use.
If you have debt then you probably also have the desire to eventually get it paid off. It’s one thing to have the desire to pay it all off, but it’s another thing to actually take action and aggressively pay everything off. After all, do you really want to spend the rest of your life in an eternal state of “paying off my debt?”
Too many people have the best intentions of paying off their debt but then never seem to get on the right track with it. Here are 10 ways to get your debt paid off faster:
1. Get serious! It isn’t going to do you any good to decide to pay off your debt if you aren’t serious about it. Think about various times in your life when you have decided to take on something hard. You probably succeeded only after you made the conscious decision to do so. You’ll pay off your debt faster when you’re serious about it.
2. Map out your plan of attack. Don’t just start throwing money at your debt without some plan of attack in place. What will you pay off first? How much money will you put toward your debt? Will you cut out other expenses while paying your debt down? A comprehensive plan of attack will help you get your debt paid off faster.
3. Stop spending money you don’t have to spend. Instead of eating out, pack your lunch. Instead of stopping for coffee, brew your own at home. Any money you save, put toward your debt. The more money you have to put toward your debt, the faster it will get paid off. In short, live within your means.
4. Use some of your savings. If you’re comfortable with this idea, take some money out of your savings account and put it toward your debt. Make sure you leave enough money in your savings account for an emergency, but you’ll probably save more money from debt interest you won’t have to pay than if you had left the money in savings and earned the meager interest on the balance.
5. Chop up your cards. You’re asking for trouble if you keep using your credit card while you’re actively trying to pay it off. It’s better to stop using the card for a couple of reasons: You won’t add more money to the debt, and you’ll actually witness your balance decreasing. Seeing the balance decrease can help you stay motivated. Be careful canceling credit cards because it can affect your credit score. You don’t need to cancel your cards to cut them up and stop using them.
6. Get another job. Find a way to bring in some extra money, and put all of that extra money straight to your debt. Make sure the extra job you find is worth the effort, because a long commute across town to work a minimum wage job may wind up costing you more than if you had never taken the job to begin with.
7. Make sure everyone is on board. If you share your finances with a spouse or someone else you have to make sure that everyone involved is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to get everything paid off. If everyone is on board then the debt will get paid off more quickly than if one person is dead set on getting the bills paid while the other person only wants to shop.
8. Consolidate. You might be able to save quite a bit of money in interest and get your debt paid off faster if you consolidate all your accounts into one low-interest account. Don’t consolidate if it’s not going to help you, though.
9. Sell some stuff. With online auctions and good old fashioned garage sales you can unload a bunch of stuff that you don’t need or want anymore. Take the profits from your sales and put it right to your debt. You’ll get debt paid off faster and you won’t have to deal with excess clutter in your house.
10. Periodically reevaluate. As your balances start to dwindle, periodically take a look at the bigger picture and see if there is something you should be going to get everything paid off even faster. If something isn’t working, change it.
Of all these items on the list, perhaps the most important is #1: Get Serious. Even if you’re willing to work extra hours and do whatever you can to get some extra money in your hands, without the true intent to put it toward your debt you’ll probably just wind up spending the money instead of putting it to your bills.
Get serious! You’ll pay off your debt much faster if you’re serious about getting it done.
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9 Ways to Pay Off Debt
You can throw the reminders in the Cuisinart or chuck them into a garbage can, but that won't make the debt go away. Debt hovers like a carrion bird over a dying beast, with annual rates of 20% or more compounded monthly, month in and month out. You can't wish it away. But you can pay it down with determination, our free debt-fighting resources, and the good graces of a few wealthy relatives (see tip No. 5). Here are nine ways to get out of debt:
1. Pay more than the minimumFirst, break the habit of paying only the minimum required each month. Paying the minimum -- usually 2% to 3% of the outstanding balance -- only prolongs the agony. Besides, it's precisely what the banks want you to do. The longer you take to repay the charges, the more interest they make, and the less cash you have in your pocket. Don't play their selfish game.
Instead, bite the bullet and pay as much as you can each month. If your minimum payment is $100, double that to $200 or more. Examine your normal expenses -- you can find the money. (For a gazillion ideas, check out our Living Below Your Means discussion board.) Skip eating out at lunch, and bring it from home instead. Eliminate desserts. Give up happy hour. We all have "luxuries," and you know what yours are.
Make a few sacrifices, and you will find the extra dollars needed to increase your debt repayments dramatically. Those increased payments will save you hundreds, if not thousands, in interest payments. Plus, you will get out of the hole you've dug for yourself much more quickly. Is it fun? No. But it sure beats living a hand-to-mouth existence, fearing bills each month.
2. Snowball your debt paymentsTake a long, hard look at all your credit cards. Pay particular attention to the one with the lowest interest rate. Have you reached the maximum limit on that card? If not, consider transferring a higher-interest bill to that one. Many credit cards permit this, and it's positively Foolish to trade an 18% debt for one at 12%.
If your entire balance is too large to fit on one low-interest card, pay at least the minimum amounts due on all of your cards except one. Funnel the majority of your debt repayments into that one credit card, and pay it off as quickly as possible. When the balance on that card reaches zero, move on to the next with the same aggressive repayment plan.
Lather, rinse, and repeat. This method of repayment is aptly called "snowballing." As your debts decrease, the amount of money you have to attack them increases. Your payments snowball until all of your debt is pummeled. Pretty neat, eh?
Another way to transfer higher-interest debt to a lower-interest card is to take advantage of the promotional offers many banks use to entice you to their line of credit. You've seen the come-ons. "Transfer all your credit card balances to us, and pay just 5.9% until next January." It could be worth it. Moving to 5.9% from 18% interest could mean substantial dollars to you. And the money saved in interest could then be applied toward the principal each month, thus reducing your outstanding debt balance even further.
Take care, though, before you act. Examine the offer closely. Look for the hooks. Will the interest rate after the introductory period be higher than you're paying now? If so, you may have to switch again at that time. That, in turn, could give rise to another surprise. Banks have caught onto the charge card hoppers who switch from card to card to take advantage of the low introductory rates. Many of these offers now stipulate that if you transfer balances from the new card within a 12-month period, the normal interest rate will be applied to all outstanding balances retroactively. That proviso could be a bitter pill to swallow for someone short on cash, and it certainly doesn't help the debt repayment schedule. Read the fine print, Fool.
3. Cash out your savings accountYou could cash out your savings and investments and use the proceeds toward debt repayment. Yeah, no one wants to do that. But sometimes it's just Foolish to do so. Even when debt interest is at 12%, your investments would have to pay more than 18% before federal and state taxes to equal that outflow of dollars. We doubt the dollars in your savings account are earning anywhere near that rate of interest. Pay off the debt, and it's the same as getting that 18% return without any risk on your part. The higher the interest rate on your debt, the more attractive repayment versus investment becomes.
4. Borrow against your life insuranceDo you have life insurance with a cash value? If so, borrow against the policy. Yes, you're borrowing your own money. But the interest rate is typically well below commercial rates, and you can take your time repaying the loan. Do repay it, though. If you die before it's repaid, the outstanding balance plus interest will be deducted from the face value of the policy payable to the beneficiary. While that seems a small price to pay to get out of debt now, it could be burdensome to your loved ones should you sleep the eternal sleep before paying it back.
5. Finagle family and friendsPerhaps your family or friends could float you a loan. Who else knows, trusts, and loves you like they do? Unless you're really the black sheep of the flock, chances are you'll get a very favorable interest rate. They may even tolerate a late payment or two. But if you want to maintain the relationship, it's best to keep things on the straight and narrow by using a written agreement. You should clearly establish the interest and repayment schedule in writing to avoid misunderstandings and hard feelings. And it goes without saying that you must be scrupulous about adhering to that schedule. Otherwise, you can forget the family reunions and birthday presents.
6. Get a home equity loanDo you own your own home and have equity that's accumulated through the years as you've paid off the mortgage? If so, now's the time to consider a home equity loan (HEL) line of credit for the maximum amount possible.
A HEL gives you two ways to save. First, by using the loan proceeds to pay down your debt, you trade something like an 18% loan for a 6%-7% loan. Second, if you itemize deductions on your income tax returns, HEL interest is a deductible item under most circumstances. In a 25% marginal tax bracket, the 6% loan really has an effective rate of 4.5%, and that's probably the cheapest interest rate you'll see on personal indebtedness.
The danger here is falling into a common trap. Many get an HEL, pay off existing debt, and then ring up the charges on the credit cards all over again. Now they have the HEL to repay on top of the credit cards. The hole just got much deeper. Fools use the HEL to pay off the credit cards, and then keep them paid off until the HEL is repaid.
7. Borrow from your 401(k)Do you participate in a 401(k) qualified retirement plan at work? Most 401(k) plans have a feature that lets you borrow up to 50% of the account's value, or $50,000, whichever is smaller. Interest rates are usually a point or two above prime, which makes them cheaper than that found on credit cards. Thus, 401(k) plan loans may be a Foolish option to debt repayment. Not only is the interest typically much lower than that on credit cards, the best part is you pay it to yourself. That's right, every dime in interest paid on a 401(k) loan goes directly into the borrower's 401(k) account, not the lender's.
But there are drawbacks. First, the loan and interest will be repaid with after-tax dollars, but the interest will be taxed again when you withdraw money from the 401(k) years later. Additionally, you must repay this loan within five years. If you leave your employment prior to full repayment, the outstanding balance becomes due and payable immediately. If it's not repaid, that amount will be treated as a distribution to you. You'll be taxed on that amount at ordinary rates. And if you're under the age of 59 and one-half years, you will also be assessed an additional 10% excise tax as a penalty for an early withdrawal of retirement funds. Accordingly, ensure any 401(k) loan can be repaid before you leave your job.
8. Renegotiate terms with your creditorsOK, you've done all you can. Savings are gone; relatives have been tapped out; you don't have a home or 401(k) to borrow against. You feel like you're against that proverbial wall. The money just isn't there. Is bankruptcy the only way out? No way. Try pulling an ace out of your sleeve prior to taking that step. What ace? The threat of bankruptcy, of course.
Let your creditors know your situation. Tell them that if you are unable to renegotiate terms, you'll have no other recourse but to declare bankruptcy. Ask for a new and lower repayment schedule; request a lower interest rate; and appeal to their desire to receive payment. Faced with the prospect that you may resort to such a drastic step, creditors will do what they can to protect themselves against a total loss.
Indeed, many will negotiate away the farm before they'll write off your debt. As lawyers love to say, everything is negotiable. Therefore, what do you have to lose, except time? It's worth a try. And if you don't wish to do this yourself, organizations exist that can do it for you.
9. As a last resort, file bankruptcyWhat if you decide you can't pay down your debt using any of the methods listed above? What should you do? The absolute last resort is bankruptcy. Within Fooldom, we firmly believe everyone has a moral obligation to repay their debts to the utmost of their ability. There are times, though, when repayment may be impossible. In those cases, bankruptcy may be the only available course of action. Nevertheless, be aware of the significant drawbacks.
Your credit record will contain this information for 10 years, thus ensuring you will have a tough time obtaining credit you can afford during that period. Additionally, as odd as it seems, it costs money to file for bankruptcy. Attorney and court filing fees cost in the hundreds of dollars, and they must be paid to obtain the relief sought. Finally, bankruptcy laws have gotten a lot tougher in recent years, so you may not qualify for complete relief.
There are two types of personal bankruptcy relief: Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. Chapter 7 is straight bankruptcy that allows the discharge of almost all debts. Those that aren't discharged are alimony, child support, taxes, loans obtained through filing false financial statements, loans not listed in the bankruptcy petition, legal judgments against the petitioner, and student loans.
While Chapter 7 relieves you of the responsibility of repaying most creditors, you may have to surrender much of your property to help satisfy the debt. However, different states have different laws that grant you exemptions on certain types of property, such as a certain amount of equity in your home, a low-value vehicle, small amounts of jewelry and other personal property, and tools you use in your trade or business. These exemptions usually aren't huge, but they do mean you won't have to start over with absolutely nothing.
Chapter 13, sometimes called the "wage-earner plan," is different. You keep your property but surrender control of your finances to the bankruptcy court. The court approves a repayment plan based on your financial resources that provides for repayment of all or part of your debt over a three-to-five-year period. During that time, your creditors are not allowed to harass you for repayment. You also incur no interest charges on the indebtedness during the repayment period. When all conditions of the court-approved plan have been fulfilled, you emerge debt-free from the bankruptcy.
101 Ways to Make Money Online
(part time or full time, and working at home)
Disclaimers
There's no catch and I'm not trying to sell you an ebook. Or anything (read about conmen who do). I'm not even signing you up for a newsletter. This list was put together more as a laugh. It may change your life. Or it may annoy you enormously because of its er, brevity. I hope it does both.
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Some ideas here are nice and have halos, others smell of dog urine ... but all these methods allegedly generate lotso dosho, and every single one is legal at least somewhere. There's overlap in everything so some ideas may be repeated (and some may not be covered at all) but I'm still maintaining there are 101 ways to make money online, partly because it makes a good headline. No, solely because it makes a good headline. It sucked YOU in, didn't it?
No, you won't get anything for nothing but there are a lot of things you can get for nearly nothing. Like getting to pick holes in my list. Go ahead. Pick holes and then link back here to show people how stupid I am.
I've put together a lot of these ideas from thousands of hours discussing businesses for sale with their owners. They've shared with me how their businesses operate, how they make money online, how they built their businesses up etc. They've given me access to their traffic stats, their earnings and accounts and tax figures. Many even gave me access to their Adsense or other "main earner" accounts. Some of those businesses were so irresistible that I bought them. And sold them. And bought others. It's a game. I love it.
Most of these business ideas can be run from anywhere in the world, even the United States, Australia and other non-English speaking countries. For consistency sake all figures are quoted in US dollars.
Each method is summarised in a single small para so appreciate it's not the complete unabridged version. And, no, I haven't tried each one so out of the 101 business models to make money online 102 may be completely dud. But, I do intend expanding - in due course - on some of the money-making ideas that worked for me.
More disclaimers will come when people sue me (suing can make you money, see #66)
Finding business ideas:
1. Spend all day browsing Site For Sale forums (like the list we have here) for the myriad ways people earn money online. People looking to sell their sites actually tell you how they make money! Pick one that suits you. Research it a bit, and away and start your own business. Or use a search engine to find ways to make money online. It seems to be so easy that it's almost impossible to find someone who doesn't know how to do it. (But why stop at one search engine (SE)? Most people get to less than 1% of the top qualify info they're seeking because they use just one SE like Google, don't have the vaguest of ideas of the advanced search features available, and don't know the benefits to be had using specialised SEs, local SEs etc. )
2. Bundle the two above to tell other people how to make money online. They always want to know. It doesn't matter if you don't know yourself, you can still charge them for it. I obviously don't have a clue as I'm giving it all away. You can now ignore everything else I say. But don't go spending money on internet cons promising to make you a millionaire and here's how to spot them.
3. Be more inventive with your search. Look for small business franchise newsletters. Or for home jobs in your particular niche or hobby. (And check point #2 above for those specialised SEs). You can also go through the appropriate DMOZ categories (examples: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12)
But using "search" is just the start of the game. There are simply so, so many ways. We hope you hang around to find out.
4. Like the guy you can pay to stick a message in a bottle for you and throw it into the sea. He's made tens of thousands of dollars already. And there are several others like him in all parts of the world. Do you live near a sea or river? Or join the cleanup of those bottles and get your council to contribute.
Domains
5. The dot com gold rush made many millionaires but there's still plenty of money in domain real estate and still some good catches available. A good dot com may be difficult to find now. But there are a lot of gTLDs and ccTLDs from the .info to .eu to .tv to .co.in and they all present opportunities being discussed in several good forums. Put your thinking hat on, buy a famous word domain for a few dollars and put it up on the domain selling sites.
6. Lost your thinking hat? Hang out at SEDO. DNForurms, Afternics and other places where domains are bought and sold. Provided you learn enough about the market to recognise bargains you could make a living from just buying existing domains and reselling them.
7. If you're smart you'll run dictionary checks against available domain names and auto-check them against search volumes (using OST, Wordtracker etc.) for that term and Pay Per Click (PPC) rates in the major ad networks (example) to work out which ones are likely to be more profitable (how to make money with PPC). If you can pick up the domain for a profitable term that's searched for often you can use a domain parking program. Or post a little bit of relevant content and get a link or two ... and the search engines will start sending you traffic. If the phrase people are typing in coincides exactly with your domain name it gives you a great head start with SEs.8. If you're smart AND a linguist you'd be doing that in multiple languages. And not paying for any domain till you've tried it free for five days to see if it does indeed get any type-in traffic (and how well that traffic converts). After you've tried it for five days and dropped it there's nothing to stop you immediately picking it up again for another five day trial. Strange, but true. It's not kiting, it's legal.
9. Misspellings. Massive opportunities still exist in the misspelling/typo market. People trying to get elsewhere land on your site instead ... and you sell them stuff (or use the domain parking idea). Some even tempt fate by making PPC opportunties out of typosquatting on trademarks. Finding typos has never been easier. There are many tools that will find misspellings for you. How easy can it get?
10. Domain parking and type-in traffic: People sometimes guess at URLs. If they want a plumber they may try plumber.com though they've never used that site themselves. Find terms that people may be typing in (I will provide a detailed guide to this when I get a chance), buy the domain and populate it with ads. There are several ad programs to monetise your parked domains. Or combine this with the previous idea to buy plummer.com or similar typo domains to make money online.
11. Drop catches. People sometimes forget to renew their domains and these expire. Picking them up will give you some remnant traffic from sites that link to this domain/people who've bookmarked it etc. In some cases the traffic can be pretty high. Provided you're fast enough to replace the copyrighted content that was there with something else you can make quite a profitable business from doing nothing else but this.
12. A variation on the above. Sell the domain back to the previous owners. Note that you may want to tread carefully and get familiar with the rules for that TLD before you start sending off ransom notes. For example, with ICANN (domains that end in .com, for example) the moment you send the previous owners an email saying you've got their domain and you'll give it back for $10K... you've lost. It can't look like a ransom demand. Be reasonable and read the small print of the UDRP. No UDRP required if you're sitting hostage on myspace.com/theircompanyname or the equivalent at blogger, twitter or other big destination. LOL, watch them kick themselves and sack their web advisors who told them about taking the "dot info" but omitted to mention the importance of protecting the brand by owning the associated myspace directory (and others)! And it costs you nothing!
13. Run a domain management service. Hundreds of thousands of webmasters (or more) have a large portfolio of domains. A lot of them would like the boring bit taken out of their domain management. You can run their DNSes or just a service reminding them when each domain comes up for renewal. Or an automated monitoring service to tell them when one of their domains/sites is inaccessible.
14. Start a directory to list domains for sale. That's what people like SEDO do. You can get money just for allowing domains to be listed in your directory.
15. If you're running a service putting buyers and sellers of domains/sites in touch with one another you could get money for add on services (like providing escrow facilities). For ideas have a look at what existing domain intermediaries offer.
16. Run a domain research service. Wonder what happens when a manufacturer is looking to name a new model car? Or starting a new range of clothing? They need trademark and patent research but now they also need some domain research. Which of the literally thousands of combinations and misspellings (+ sucks.com) are taken and which do they need to buy? With a few of the free domain tools discussed on this page, here, and one or two more - like free DNS tools - and a little time you could provide them a service they'd pay a lot of money for.
17. Start your own country: Whoa! yes, you're reading it right. If you've heard of Sealand (what is Sealand) you'll know that starting your own country is not that far fetched. Once you have your own WhackyCountry you can apply for a .wc (yuk) TLD. Sell millions of domains. Keep some for yourself. Ever wanted a Google.___?
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18. Perform domain services for businesses and then send them a proforma (even if they've never heard of you). Explain that it's free this time but you'll gladly keep acting for them for a small fee. For example, there are thousands of big businesses whose half-wit webmasters/ developers didn't put in a redirect from the non-www to the www versions of their sites (or vice-versa). One entrepreneur made a few thousands just from pointing out to businesses how they were losing hundreds of customers every year who were landing on http://xxx-companyname.com and finding nothing there.
I'll talk about domain opportunities some more on this page when I get a chance.
Buying and selling internet businesses
19. Many sites runs on "auto-pilot". A common price these sell for in site-for-sale forums is 12-24 months' worth of net earnings (silly price, but it's true). Provided you don't mess the site up you can recover your capital in as little as 12 months and then ... sell the site to recover your capital again. Double your capital every year. 100% return. Sack your stockbrokers. It really is a crazy world!
20. Site flipping doesn't require as much capital and expertise as many people believe. Like property flipping, you buy one that needs a bit of TLC. Do it up, then sell it on for a whacking great profit. And, the beauty is you never have to deal with tenants!21. How about cornering a little market? There are DMOZ categories with grandfathered sites (sites that have been listed for many years) which aren't being updated. If you can pick up a few sites in the same category and merge their content suddenly you "own" that niche. That opens a lot of possibilities.
101 Ways to Make Money Online
(part time or full time, and working at home)
Disclaimers
There's no catch and I'm not trying to sell you an ebook. Or anything (read about conmen who do). I'm not even signing you up for a newsletter. This list was put together more as a laugh. It may change your life. Or it may annoy you enormously because of its er, brevity. I hope it does both.
window.google_render_ad();
Some ideas here are nice and have halos, others smell of dog urine ... but all these methods allegedly generate lotso dosho, and every single one is legal at least somewhere. There's overlap in everything so some ideas may be repeated (and some may not be covered at all) but I'm still maintaining there are 101 ways to make money online, partly because it makes a good headline. No, solely because it makes a good headline. It sucked YOU in, didn't it?
No, you won't get anything for nothing but there are a lot of things you can get for nearly nothing. Like getting to pick holes in my list. Go ahead. Pick holes and then link back here to show people how stupid I am.
I've put together a lot of these ideas from thousands of hours discussing businesses for sale with their owners. They've shared with me how their businesses operate, how they make money online, how they built their businesses up etc. They've given me access to their traffic stats, their earnings and accounts and tax figures. Many even gave me access to their Adsense or other "main earner" accounts. Some of those businesses were so irresistible that I bought them. And sold them. And bought others. It's a game. I love it.
Most of these business ideas can be run from anywhere in the world, even the United States, Australia and other non-English speaking countries. For consistency sake all figures are quoted in US dollars.
Each method is summarised in a single small para so appreciate it's not the complete unabridged version. And, no, I haven't tried each one so out of the 101 business models to make money online 102 may be completely dud. But, I do intend expanding - in due course - on some of the money-making ideas that worked for me.
More disclaimers will come when people sue me (suing can make you money, see #66)
Finding business ideas:
1. Spend all day browsing Site For Sale forums (like the list we have here) for the myriad ways people earn money online. People looking to sell their sites actually tell you how they make money! Pick one that suits you. Research it a bit, and away and start your own business. Or use a search engine to find ways to make money online. It seems to be so easy that it's almost impossible to find someone who doesn't know how to do it. (But why stop at one search engine (SE)? Most people get to less than 1% of the top qualify info they're seeking because they use just one SE like Google, don't have the vaguest of ideas of the advanced search features available, and don't know the benefits to be had using specialised SEs, local SEs etc. )
2. Bundle the two above to tell other people how to make money online. They always want to know. It doesn't matter if you don't know yourself, you can still charge them for it. I obviously don't have a clue as I'm giving it all away. You can now ignore everything else I say. But don't go spending money on internet cons promising to make you a millionaire and here's how to spot them.
3. Be more inventive with your search. Look for small business franchise newsletters. Or for home jobs in your particular niche or hobby. (And check point #2 above for those specialised SEs). You can also go through the appropriate DMOZ categories (examples: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12)
But using "search" is just the start of the game. There are simply so, so many ways. We hope you hang around to find out.
4. Like the guy you can pay to stick a message in a bottle for you and throw it into the sea. He's made tens of thousands of dollars already. And there are several others like him in all parts of the world. Do you live near a sea or river? Or join the cleanup of those bottles and get your council to contribute.
Domains
5. The dot com gold rush made many millionaires but there's still plenty of money in domain real estate and still some good catches available. A good dot com may be difficult to find now. But there are a lot of gTLDs and ccTLDs from the .info to .eu to .tv to .co.in and they all present opportunities being discussed in several good forums. Put your thinking hat on, buy a famous word domain for a few dollars and put it up on the domain selling sites.
6. Lost your thinking hat? Hang out at SEDO. DNForurms, Afternics and other places where domains are bought and sold. Provided you learn enough about the market to recognise bargains you could make a living from just buying existing domains and reselling them.
7. If you're smart you'll run dictionary checks against available domain names and auto-check them against search volumes (using OST, Wordtracker etc.) for that term and Pay Per Click (PPC) rates in the major ad networks (example) to work out which ones are likely to be more profitable (how to make money with PPC). If you can pick up the domain for a profitable term that's searched for often you can use a domain parking program. Or post a little bit of relevant content and get a link or two ... and the search engines will start sending you traffic. If the phrase people are typing in coincides exactly with your domain name it gives you a great head start with SEs.8. If you're smart AND a linguist you'd be doing that in multiple languages. And not paying for any domain till you've tried it free for five days to see if it does indeed get any type-in traffic (and how well that traffic converts). After you've tried it for five days and dropped it there's nothing to stop you immediately picking it up again for another five day trial. Strange, but true. It's not kiting, it's legal.
9. Misspellings. Massive opportunities still exist in the misspelling/typo market. People trying to get elsewhere land on your site instead ... and you sell them stuff (or use the domain parking idea). Some even tempt fate by making PPC opportunties out of typosquatting on trademarks. Finding typos has never been easier. There are many tools that will find misspellings for you. How easy can it get?
10. Domain parking and type-in traffic: People sometimes guess at URLs. If they want a plumber they may try plumber.com though they've never used that site themselves. Find terms that people may be typing in (I will provide a detailed guide to this when I get a chance), buy the domain and populate it with ads. There are several ad programs to monetise your parked domains. Or combine this with the previous idea to buy plummer.com or similar typo domains to make money online.
11. Drop catches. People sometimes forget to renew their domains and these expire. Picking them up will give you some remnant traffic from sites that link to this domain/people who've bookmarked it etc. In some cases the traffic can be pretty high. Provided you're fast enough to replace the copyrighted content that was there with something else you can make quite a profitable business from doing nothing else but this.
12. A variation on the above. Sell the domain back to the previous owners. Note that you may want to tread carefully and get familiar with the rules for that TLD before you start sending off ransom notes. For example, with ICANN (domains that end in .com, for example) the moment you send the previous owners an email saying you've got their domain and you'll give it back for $10K... you've lost. It can't look like a ransom demand. Be reasonable and read the small print of the UDRP. No UDRP required if you're sitting hostage on myspace.com/theircompanyname or the equivalent at blogger, twitter or other big destination. LOL, watch them kick themselves and sack their web advisors who told them about taking the "dot info" but omitted to mention the importance of protecting the brand by owning the associated myspace directory (and others)! And it costs you nothing!
13. Run a domain management service. Hundreds of thousands of webmasters (or more) have a large portfolio of domains. A lot of them would like the boring bit taken out of their domain management. You can run their DNSes or just a service reminding them when each domain comes up for renewal. Or an automated monitoring service to tell them when one of their domains/sites is inaccessible.
14. Start a directory to list domains for sale. That's what people like SEDO do. You can get money just for allowing domains to be listed in your directory.
15. If you're running a service putting buyers and sellers of domains/sites in touch with one another you could get money for add on services (like providing escrow facilities). For ideas have a look at what existing domain intermediaries offer.
16. Run a domain research service. Wonder what happens when a manufacturer is looking to name a new model car? Or starting a new range of clothing? They need trademark and patent research but now they also need some domain research. Which of the literally thousands of combinations and misspellings (+ sucks.com) are taken and which do they need to buy? With a few of the free domain tools discussed on this page, here, and one or two more - like free DNS tools - and a little time you could provide them a service they'd pay a lot of money for.
17. Start your own country: Whoa! yes, you're reading it right. If you've heard of Sealand (what is Sealand) you'll know that starting your own country is not that far fetched. Once you have your own WhackyCountry you can apply for a .wc (yuk) TLD. Sell millions of domains. Keep some for yourself. Ever wanted a Google.___?
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18. Perform domain services for businesses and then send them a proforma (even if they've never heard of you). Explain that it's free this time but you'll gladly keep acting for them for a small fee. For example, there are thousands of big businesses whose half-wit webmasters/ developers didn't put in a redirect from the non-www to the www versions of their sites (or vice-versa). One entrepreneur made a few thousands just from pointing out to businesses how they were losing hundreds of customers every year who were landing on http://xxx-companyname.com and finding nothing there.
I'll talk about domain opportunities some more on this page when I get a chance.
Buying and selling internet businesses
19. Many sites runs on "auto-pilot". A common price these sell for in site-for-sale forums is 12-24 months' worth of net earnings (silly price, but it's true). Provided you don't mess the site up you can recover your capital in as little as 12 months and then ... sell the site to recover your capital again. Double your capital every year. 100% return. Sack your stockbrokers. It really is a crazy world!
20. Site flipping doesn't require as much capital and expertise as many people believe. Like property flipping, you buy one that needs a bit of TLC. Do it up, then sell it on for a whacking great profit. And, the beauty is you never have to deal with tenants!21. How about cornering a little market? There are DMOZ categories with grandfathered sites (sites that have been listed for many years) which aren't being updated. If you can pick up a few sites in the same category and merge their content suddenly you "own" that niche. That opens a lot of possibilities.
Ways to make money on the Internet.I'm talking small, but real money to start with - not the ' $1000+ in a week ' scams.This site is simple to load quickly. No fancy graphics, just the honest facts.
First, you need some 'tools'.
A dedicated credit card for the Internet. more...Open FREE Internet banking accounts to receive payment. more...Disposable email addresses. more... An 'always online' connection to the Internet. more...
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Second, programs where you need to invest some money.The risk is greater but the rewards can be huge!
High yield investment programs (HYIP) return high yields on your investment but are also high risk and of limited duration. Get in early with a sum you can afford to loose and earn 20% daily for a few days or 2% daily for a few weeks/months. Most use 'e-currency' so you will need to open free accounts here... To help in deciding which programs to invest in and when to pull out I have kept the statistics of several current sites and also of sites that have closed. This is a very volatile market but can be very profitable and exciting.
No HYIP sites to recommend at present.
Playing the Foreign Exchange markets. A very volatile area where returns can be huge. More details on another page here ...
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Third, programs where you earn money but are free to join.Trickle income, like these sites below, build up a bank balance, give you confidence and earn you some funds to invest in HYIP or other programs that require you to deposit money first.
Clixn'Cash has a payout as low as $0.25 and you can earn about 4c the first visit!. (you must have a free AlertPay or PayPal account to join) so get paid quickly to see how the Bux PTC (pay to click) programs work. Look here for proof that Clixn'Cash has paid me again and again.Bookmark your log-in page and check your account several times daily for ads to click on. You can upgrade your account by purchasing referrals. Wait for the ad to load and then watch the 10 second timer count down. If you open two ads at the same time you will be paid for none of them. Be fair to the advertisers. You can earn about 5c to 20c daily from one Bux site - if you join 10 similar Bux sites you can earn $1 a day in 30 minutes even without buying referrals!The following Bux sites follow the same theme but have $2 to $10 minimum payouts:- Neobux (proof), BuxP (proof) . Remember to bookmark this page and all the sites you join to make it easier to return daily.
MyLot is a great program for people who like to chat and earn a few cents a day at the same time! The range of subjects is enormous and from all over the world. Upload pictures from your computer, list your passions and other features. But beware - this program can become infectious!! Payment is by PayPal so you will need to get a free PayPal account . I have been paid 18 times by MyLot - here is June and July
MakeMoneyKingdom is a forum dealing with the subject of earning online. You earn the equivalent of $0.0075 a post (one gold coin = a quarter cent) with a maximum of 20 posts a day. But the real reason for joining is for the wealth of information and support to be had from other people. When you join, read the four 'sticky' topics in the Help & Support section which will explain the rules and how to earn. After that try the Pay to Click section to make a post yourself and earn up to 15 cents today. There are very popular threads on Neobux and Mylot to join in. This site is for serious earners who will use the forum and not for spammers. Pays over $10 minimum to PayPal and easily reached each month if active. Proof of payment.... .
Bukisa will pay you for submitting short articles on a wide variety of subjects. This site is aimed at the more knowledgeable surfer who has the expertise to pass on their experience in good English. Pay is based on 1000 views of your articles at a rate that varies with the site income. At the moment this is between $3 and $4 CPM. Payout minimum is $50. Here is a tutorial on how to submit content and here is an example of an article on web site stats.
GetPaidTo join programs! Sign up for any of the 1550 free cash offers available and get paid instantly through Paypal. For instance, join Ebay and get $7 (so long as you are not already a member). Low minimum payout of $0.50 which you can earn in minutes with a daily survey. Free to join. Open only to USA, Canada and UK residents, like a lot of these GPT programs. Most offers are free but some require a purchase which are clearly marked. Please be truthful when joining and giving information and best to use a dedicated email address as you will get many replies.Go here to see the payment process and proof of payment to my PayPal accountAnd here are some tips on how to do offers and set up your PC to earn with GPT programs.
PayByOffers is a new site from the same stable as GetPaidTo above but is open to members from many more countries and they are adding new countries all the time. You can earn money and win prizes here very quickly as well. Screengrab of my requst for payment - 37 minutes later it is in my Paypal account!
BlueBayptr is a great PTS ( paid to search ), PTC ( paid to click ) PTJ (paid to join or sign up) and PTR ( paid to read ) program and, unlike some, has a low payout threshold of $2. This amount can be quickly reached by joining other programs from the Paid to Signup section, searching on links in your Inbox and clicking on banners in the Paid to Click area. I earn about $7 a month on my own searches. Payment is by PayPal so you will need to get a free PayPal account. If you don't do proper searches (see below) then you will not be sent many paid links.
Here is a tutorial on how to make a valid search . It will take longer than the 40 seconds shown to finish loading three pages but if the advertiser doesn't get paid, you wont get the links in the future.
Rpoints is aimed at UK/Euro surfers comparing prices of goods.An example of how Rpoints worked to save me 36% off my UK car insurance is here... This shows that you can save money and make money using Rpoints. I also received £20 (2,000 points) cashback for opening an Egg credit card. It really works!.You can buy almost anything at the best retail price and then get an added discount with Rpoints. Go to 'easy money' then 'recurring' where comparing prices with Kelkoo and others earns about 2p to 6p a click up to a max of about £1 a day. Rpoints are ultra-cautious about awarding points. They take days to check, then credit, your points and then a month or more to validate them before you can cash in. A good forum explains all this. But, once the ball is rolling and you're clicking every day, the cash rolls into PayPal at £5 minimum a time and in £sterling too so you can have dollar and sterling PayPal accounts to save on exchange rates.
Higher Payouts from 'free to join' programs.
Normally I avoid very high payout programs where it sometimes takes a year to reach the minimum by which time the site may have vanished!
You WILL get paid with these programs; about $35 to $50 a month for just these programs and there are dozens more to choose from. Join up, add to your favourites or put an icon on your desktop by dragging on a links page for each program and visit the sites at intervals through the day and earn a bit each time. It soon adds up.
I can get you referrals. Contact me for details on how its done.
TIPS - 1. Right click on the log-in page for each program and save a shortcut link to your desktop, or, Add to your Favourites in a new folder, named Daily, for instance. Much easier to remember your daily earning sites by double clicking on the icons or links.2. Write the address and log-in details for each site in the back of your diary. It is easy to forget your user name and password and you can continue to earn money on another pc when away from home.3. Get into the habit of regular visits. Most sites will cancel your account if you don't make use of it and any money earned will be lost.4. Contact me if you need help or advice.
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Fourth, make a web site of your own and get advertisers on it.The final group of earning programs can be placed on your own web site. First you need a website with content interesting enough to attract visitors. Think of a subject that you know a lot about - you, your family, your job, your hobby - whatever it is, focus on it and provide detailed information; facts, figures. Try to make your web site the definitive source of information on your chosen subject.
With a web site designed you need a domain name and a hosting service. It is like an address to the house where your web site lives. I use Easily to buy my domain names and Cirtex to host them, both companies give excellent service and support.
Promote your website using the points earned from working the PTS, PTR and PTC you joined above in section three and to get referrals to sign up under you.
Once you have a web site with solid content you have a 'product' to sell. Many of the top programs will not accept you as an affiliate unless you have a web site of substance.
The star payer is Google AdSense. They pay for clicks and pay very well and cleverly match their ads to the content of your page. Minimum payout is $100 by cheque. Chitika also pay you for clicks on their targeted ads on your web site but have a minimum payout of only $10 to Paypal. At the moment, only clicks from US and Canada visitors count for payment but more countries are to be added later.
A good affiliate scheme is
var uri = 'http://impgb.tradedoubler.com/imp/js/1447/232351?' + new String (Math.random()).substring (2, 11);
document.write('');
TradeDoubler . where you can join up for free to any of dozens of schemes under one 'roof' . All affiliate schemes have a minimum payout limit of around $50 so grouping schemes together as with
var uri = 'http://impgb.tradedoubler.com/imp/js/1447/232351?' + new String (Math.random()).substring (2, 11);
document.write('');
TradeDoubler . [aimed at European web sites] and Commission Junction [aimed at North America but covering the world] means that you can get a cheque earlier.
Lots of companies would love you to join them as an affiliate and will pay you a commission when your visitors buy some of their products. It makes sense to join up with companies compatible with your site. Amazon sell a lot more than just books now and pay 5% to 7.5% commission by targeting specific goods with a link from your site.Bravenet has a lot of free goodies to add to your web site to attract more visitors and can help in setting up and hosting a web site with a free domain name. They also offer 50mb of free space on their servers to store your password protected back-up files and sensitive data. A well respected site of long standing.. Banner advertisements, love 'em or hate 'em, are part of the Net. Place these standard sized banners from AdBrite on your page and earn up to $1/1000 impressions depending on validity of visitor. Note that these are impressions or CPM rates, your visitor just has to see them, they do not have to click on the ads or buy anything. That is why the rates are lower than ' pay per click ' banners. AdBrite pay out monthly by cheque for earnings over $50 and pay me regularly.Another site paying $1 to $2/1000 banner impressions is Bux-O-Rama.
A large variety of banner and button sizes are available from Oxado and they pay well for clicks. Join up, get your site approved and then get your banner code to put on your web site to start earning. Depending where you live in the world you will be paid by wire, cheque or Paypal.
Pop-under windows are better selling tools than banners and PopupTraffic.com will pay you up to $1.80/1000 impressions. This is the best you will get on the net and they pay monthly without fail. Popup killer browsers have changed the market so they only supply pop-unders but with anti-killer code that works with the major browsers. A busy site will still earn more than the $25 minimum for a cheque to be sent each month. They are now open to international affilliates and pop-under earnings.
Remember, these are all free to join; you have no outgoings other than your normal internet connection which you have anyway. To be perfectly frank, the only downside to these deals is that it takes up your time to organise the links, and your browser and/or web site will run a bit slower while advertising banners load.The Internet is fast changing - please let us know if a good deal comes along or if you find a crooked deal; contact simetric.co.uk and we will check it out and give it an unbiased opinion.
