Why My February Gets Two Thumbs Down

So many things went poorly in February, that I don't even know where to start... I hate making excuses, but I feel like I should explain why I didn't meet my monetary goals (for the first time since I started this blog) to all of you.

There are, quite honestly, a laundry list of reasons - some that are my fault and others that are not... Here it goes:

1. Bad weather (4+ feet of snow) and that meant four snow days with the man of the house home.  In other words there was too much noise, chaos and requests for attention to work effectively.
2. I had my second death in the family this year, both of which were unexpected and it threw me for an emotional loop.
   

Newest iRazoo Updates - Better Than Before?

This is exactly why I chose to stick it out with iRazoo and didn't instantly write off their changes, while they are not amazing, they're making improvements and going by the numbers I would have to admit that NOW is the time to jump on board with iRazoo.  You can easily start earning a $5 gift card every week ($260 a year) or even every 2-3 days... 

As I'm sure you all know, they recently went from the guaranteed 300 points earned per day to a search and win system similar to SwagBucks (who also went through a makeover recently).  Each time you win with iRazoo now, you get 75 points with the possibility of winning multiple times daily.  You can also refer people to increase your earnings.

Pay Day (2/20 - 2/26)

Slow week in terms of payments, just a couple to report...

• Cloud Crowd:  81¢, $44.99 total since start (Proof of Payment)
• PineCone Research: $3.00, $33.00+ total since start (Proof of Payment)

Right now I'm going to estimate that my earnings from the month are somewhere around $600... The actual total will be up in early March with an explanation of why it was so low.  I'm hoping that the 4 invoices that I have out totaling up to over $200 will make it in before the end of the month although I'm not holding my breath the way this month has gone.

On the plus side, I should have an amazing jump start on March if they don't come in by the 28th.

What. A. Day.

Today has been "something else" to put it mildly.  I have had nothing but complication, after complication, after complication for absolutely no reason.

From misinterpretations and miss communication to invoices getting over looked, it has just been non stop issues today - and none of them SHOULD exist is what makes it worse.  I feel like banging my head against a wall right now, but I guess that's one of the risks of any job, let alone where you deal with people solely over the internet.

SwagBucks Birthday Celebration

I logged into SwagBucks this morning and thought I'd hit the jackpot, until I looked closer.  I had 2700 SB's on my account and was actually afraid something might have gone wrong haha

What actually happened is that the SwagBucks Birthday Celebration began and ushered in a new point system... 

Right now I'm a little concerned about the fact that our SwagBucks have been multiplied by 10, and the cost of prizes has been multiplied by 10, but TSG says that search prizes will be worth "1-20" or more... I'm hoping the 1 is just a typo and is supposed to be 10 otherwise they're blinding us with big numbers just to shaft us in a way that we won't notice.


I'm crossing my fingers for some awesome stuff today though!

VistaPrint Blow Out Sale

I just got an email from VistaPrint with a list of over 2 dozen freebies for the home and office, and it also stated that shipping is free on orders of over $30...

Items include:
Shirts
Stamps
Posters
Rackcards/Brochures
Business cards
and much more...

These things are great for business and for personalized family gifts as well, so grab them while you can!

R.I.P. IMReportCard

Yesterday brought along an announcement from IMReportCard that deserves to be noted here.  Yesterday they sent out an email announcing that they were no longer honoring their cash payments system.  Although they have been over a year, they've (suddenly) decided that there was too much scamming involved once real money was introduced into the picture and are now saying that you will "earn status icons based on your credits earned".  Woop dee doo!

How Much Does Your Blog Earn?

"How much does your blog earn," is one of the questions that I get asked most often, and the answer might be shocking.

A lot of people message me here, email me or contact me on the WAHM forums to ask me how much money I make off my blog, and honestly, the answer is that I earn just about nothing through my blog - but that's because this blog wasn't created to be monetized, it was created to help myself and help others learn how to successfully find legitimate work from home jobs.

Pay Day (2/13 - 2/19)

This week's payments:

• Cloud Crowd:  $1.81, $44.18 total since start (Proof of Payment)
• YouData:  21¢, $5.29 total since start (Proof of Payment)

So far I'm only at $563.45 at the moment which is a bit disappointing, but I've really been bogged down with a lot of non work related things this month.  Between blizzards, illness, my toddler wrecking the house, more family members in the hospital and obligations that I have to friends, I've been incredibly busy and burnt out.  There is still a slim possibility that I'll meet my goal, but February may be the first time that I have ever fallen short...

If so I'll just have to make up for it in March!

Thursday Tip Triad #10: Keeping Your Sanity

As we all know, everyone needs a break sometime, and those of us in the legitimate work from home jobs world are no different from those who have brick and mortar occupations.  Sometimes you have to ease up or take a complete "vacation" to keep from going off the deep end.  Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you get close to the breaking point:

1.  Keep doing your easy and quick tasks if possible.  Unless you need a complete and total vacation from your work at home obligations, try to keep your simplest and quickest tasks going while easing up on the more stressful projects.  While a 100% work free week might completely refresh you, it also might put you in a situation where you find it hard to get started back up again when the work comes rolling in, especially if you haven't been working from home very long and enjoyed a long period of unemployment before that.

No More Snow!

Holy cow, I am a true Texas girl and if I see one more news alert about snow I may jump off my balcony.

We had over 4 feet of snow last week, and saw some flurries this week as well.  Not only did a lot of us lose power, but it was so bad that our Wal-Mart closed down because they thought the roof was going to collapse! Luckily though I think things are calming down so I can get back to working on my February goals. 

I actually got pelted with that giant snowball right after I took this picture.  For some reason it seemed to be "get Mommy" day, probably because I was the one who had to put him in all those layers of clothes that he hates.

The weather threw me of schedule with blogging and working, it also threw some of my clients on the east coast off as well, but I think that I may still be able to reach my goals or at least come close.  Has this nutty weather effected you at all?

Pay Day (2/6 - 2/12)

Recent payments:

• Cloud Crowd:  17¢, $42.37 total since start (Proof of Payment)
• YouData:  49¢, $5.08 total since start (Proof of Payment)

My total for the month is around $371.68 at the moment.  I have one invoice out that is worth about another $80... I also had one client who didn't send me anything at all to do last week which is a bit of a downer, but hopefully they'll be back in commission this week.

Super Sale at VistaPrint (2 Day Sale)

There's a huge sale going on at VistaPrint right now for those who like freebies of the mailing or picture nature ;)  I personally am addicted to this kind of thing and could probably spend my whole day filling my cart with freebies from VistaPrint.  Right now I have a set of business cards made up and 100 post cards with a family picture on them in my cart (way more than I need, but my little one can use the others for drawing on).  Now I'm working on a free 2010 wall calendar with family pictures from '09 on it.

Here are a few highlights:

• 250 Free Business Cards
• 50-100 Free Postcards (depending on size)
• 140 Free Address Labels
• A Free Calendar (several different sizes and types to choose from)
• Free rubber stamp, pen, t shirt, window decal, magnet and even a lawn sign

I love freebies, especially things I can use for mailing out to family members or for the kids.  Over the past couple months I've gotten a set of business cards for the family (to give to friends and family when they need our contact info), a set for business and a set for my toddler to play with.  I've also gotten two rubber stamps, 3 sets of return address labels, a couple note pads and some other odds and ends.

I'm debating getting one of everything with this current sale, just because I could use some shopping therapy, and the best kind of shopping therapy is the free kind hehe

Check it out and let me know what goodies you pick up!

Thursday Tip Triad #9: Simple Organization Tips

After you get started in the legitimate work from home world one of the hardest things to master is organization.  I for one, have never been very organized... My desk is usually a pile of papers, notepads, writing utensils and so much more.  Luckily, there are a few simple things that can be done to help you keep organized and on top of your game without really requiring any sort of heavy time commitment or any sort of investment either.

1.  Make a special Gmail account.  I know this sounds annoying and silly, but honestly it's one of the best things you can do.  There have been one or two times where I've lost responses from legitimate work from home sites because they've gotten lost in the shuffle of my primary inbox.  Just last week I was trying to find my letter from a web site rating company that invited me to test with them, and couldn't.

Greenfield Online/Toluna vs SurveyHead

I've worked with a few different survey sites over the past few months and for those who have been reading from the start, you'll probably remember me raving about both Greenfield Online and SurveyHead... That's no longer quite as true though.  One of the two has gone completely down the tubes leaving the other in the top slot, without any competition.

Greenfield Online becomes "Toluna":
To date I've made over $90 with Greenfield, but in all honesty I haven't done anything with them in several months.  All those earnings were from in October and November of 2009... Since then, they started their merge with Toluna and went downhill from my perspective. (Proof of Payment)

iRazoo, Why did you do it?

As most of you have probably noticed by now, iRazoo is working on a complete and total overhaul of it's previous self and is converting into something more SwagBucks-ish.  Since they started their remodel, there have been a lot of iRazoo complaints and rightfully so, but I'm not quite ready to cut ties yet...

I will admit that when they initially implemented the changes, I was ready to jump ship instantly, but since then my annoyance has subsided partially and I've decided to stick it out and see what iRazoo turns into.  Here's a recap of the changes for those who haven't been with them very long.

Pay Day (1/30 - 2/5)

Here are my most recent payments from various places:

• Cloud Crowd:  1¢ for $42.10 total (Proof of Payment)
• PineCone Research:  $3 for $30+ total (Proof of Payment)
• IMshopping:  $21.00 for $149.25 total (Proof of Payment)

I also had $15 worth of cards come in from SwagBucks!  The longer I'm with them, the more I dig them even though I'm not searching as much as I should be. (Proof of Payment)

So far for February I'm sitting at $198.01 which is pretty good.  I have one client that said they'll be away this month and another who said they may not need any services for a while, so I'm hoping to round up a few new clients to fill their gaps and keep my income steady.

Thursday Tip Triad #8: The More the Merrier

When it comes to freelancing and finding legitimate work from home jobs, the only way to get them, is to throw yourselves at them mercilessly.  A lot of people still want to believe that work from home jobs should fall out of the sky into their lap immediately, but that is not the case.  Finding a job that is legit, and can be done from home around your own schedule, takes time, patience and dedication.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you're looking for legitimate work from home jobs...

1. Jump at every opportunity.  The more jobs you apply to and inquire about, the more chances you will have to be accepted... of course the opposite applies as well so you need to keep up a tough shell and remember that you won't always get hired.  If you do get offered the position and it turns out that the job isn't something you are interested in, or the pay is less than you want, you can always turn it down.

February Goals

I'm going to keep my goals for the month short and simple because I feel like I really need to focus on one thing at a time until I can get back into a heavily motivated and productive state of mind.  So without further ado, here are my goals for February!

1. Earn $1000 in spendable cash, after fees.
2. Launch my business site.  I already have the domain, all I need to do is figure out what sort of graphics I want and how I want to design it.  I'm a little jaded at the moment and can't figure out what sort of images (if any) would be best...

Hopefully by narrowing down my goals to two I will be able to put some serious time in on my business site and get it fully operational this month.

January Goal Check

It's time to take a look at January and see how I did... We already know that I met my monetary legitimate work from home goals, but how did I do with everything else?  Honestly, not so hot, but I'm determined to make sure that February is better!

1. Earn at least $1000.  Check!  Earning $1043.78 definitely means that I met this goal.
2. Keep working on organization and time management.  Yes and No - This is still a work in progress... I'm improving, but I still have a long way to go.
3. Get in gear on my residual income goals since I haven't yet started and hopefully get the blog up and running for it as well.  Not even a little - This one got pushed completely onto the back burner.  I haven't put any work into residuals, or the blog... Although I'm avoiding creating the blog until I have a name for it.

Clearly I still have a lot of work to do before I can say that I'm clearing all my goals, but at least I'm willing to admit my failures.   I'm happy that I met my income goal since that is the one with the most immediate importance, but I still need to put some significant work into the others as well.

January Earnings Breakdown

January is officially over and I for one, am quite glad.  Hopefully the rest of the year will be calmer than this past month has been.  I am happy to say that I did indeed meet my goal of earning $1000 last month.  While I was skeptical about my earnings, I managed to net $1043.78 after fees from my legitimate work from home jobs and adventures.  Here's the official breakdown...

Motivational Monday: Time Management Tips for the Work at Home Mom

Here we are, one month down and 11 more to go!  It's the first Monday of February and I'm ushering it in with a great guest post from Theody - you've probably seen her around here.

We all know that maintaining motivation can be a tough thing to do, so Theody has created a great set of tips to help keep the spring in your step.  These are things that she has implemented to keep herself on track while balancing a family that is fully equipped with three kids, a blossoming work at home freelance writing career and her very own business as well!  If she can do all this with 3 kids, what can you get done?

Working at home requires a whole lot of discipline. It is very easy to become so busy with other chores that are not related to working at home. Chores like; folding the laundry, ironing, dusting furniture and so many others.  While for some, it may not be chores;  it could be that friends and family do not seriously consider what  you do at home as “work” and honestly can’t understand why you,” simply won’t answer the phone?” The list goes on and on.