Day 15.1: First Paycheck!

It is now official: I'm getting my first paycheck from Clixsense on Friday. I passed the minimum $8 today, so it's already guaranteed. Quite a fitting note for the halfway point of my project! Honestly, I wasn't expecting to cash out money this soon. What am I going to do with it? Reinvest it! There are actually several options. First, I plan on saving up for another week or two until I can upgrade my account--but if my sponsor upgrades me before then, my money will be mine to do with whatever I want. I've decided that I should put it into a downline builder or something, or possibly upgrade my account on a traffic exchange site. Actually, according to Free Internet Money (or Traffic Exchange Profits, sometimes I get the two mixed up), that's exactly what I should do. I forget which site is the most important that I upgrade, but it could double my traffic and explode my downline. And I already know that traffic exchanges can work if you put enough effort into it.

Clixsense has definitely proven to be a real money-maker for me, and I want to get an upgrade there as soon as I can. I'd be collecting profits from nine more people and I'd have a lower threshold for cashing out checks, so I'd get much more money faster. A no-brainer, if you ask me.

Eight dollars isn't much for two weeks of work. I admit that. Amazon Turk is faster and higher paying, so why don't I just focus on that instead? It's because Amazon Turk isn't going anywhere. There's no mode of advancement or downline profits. I earn what I make and no more. While that's better for the short run, I don't feel like it will be as profitable in the long run. Also, I might note that I haven't even earned a dollar on all of my other PTC sites combined!

I'm excited to see what will happen after I upgrade. Will the difference be noticeable or just a faint touch? Will I go from making money to making serious money? I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but my ultimate goal is to be able to generate $100-$150 per week by the time I get married in the beginning of August. While I think I could do that on Amazon Turk, I'd prefer to have at least some of that money come in more automated by other sites. Fortunately, it looks like it might be possible!

Stay tuned for updates! In the meantime, please follow me on Twitter for tips, or join me in Clixsense or Free Internet Money. I'm already proving that it works, so why not give it a try for yourself?

Day 13.2: Investing Time

In my last post I talked about investing money into my projects, but now it's occurred to me that I should probably look into time investments as well. If there's one thing about working online that's caught me off guard, it's how much time everything takes. I easily spend over twelve hours a day working on all of my projects, publicizing, writing these blog posts, running through my PTC sites. Even though I've done all I can to use my time efficiently, there seems to be no end to the amount of work I need to put into it.

Twelve hours a day is a lot. Even though I'm doing work that I like and I'm finding this study very interesting, it's also getting exhausting at this point and harder to keep up. I'll try to keep going through the month, but at that point some things will need to change. I have a life. I have a family that I like to spend time with and a wedding coming up in eighty days. Even though I am currently on a hiatus from my usual job at Comic Booked (which is how I can ever possibly afford to spend so much time on something like this), I do have other things to do.

How much time is the ideal amount to put into projects like this? I don't know. Part of the reason for that is that "this" is much more than one project. It was supposed to be just this blog, at first, but then I got involved in so many other things that it takes me all day to do them all. Perhaps I should cut down on the things that aren't working and keep at the things that are. So what has been working? Amazon Turk. Clixsense. Protypers.com, a data entry job that doesn't pay much, but does pay. What hasn't been working? ...Actually, the thing that hasn't been working the most is this blog. I started this with the strict goal of three posts a day for thirty days, after reading something that said that if I followed all the right steps I'd be sure to be generating an income by the end of the month. Technically it was right--I started this blog, followed all the steps, and am now generating a growing income online. But the income is not coming from here at all. What makes matters worse is that this is also by far the most time-consuming of my projects. Not only do I have to write three articles a day, but I have to format them and post them in all the right places to get views. It takes a long time.

I'm hesitant to give up on this blog. I keep feeling that if I can just keep it up for a couple more weeks, something will sell. Someone will click on something; someone will interact with me here or something! But it's eating up all of my time, every day. Is it really something I can afford, knowing that I'm making money doing other things?

At any rate, being able to document my thoughts and experiments here has been far too valuable to stop altogether. Maybe I should just move it down to one or two posts a day instead. I don't know. Maybe I should just hold out until the thirty days are over.

That said, I still advise you to follow my Twitter feed (@onlineincome19) for updates and tips. I haven't posted it in a while on account of a lost password, but hopefully tonight or tomorrow it will be up and running!

Day 13.1: Investments: When Spending Earns

One of my unofficial rules for this 30-day experiment was to come into the game without a cent. The only money I was allowed to spend on advertising or optimization was money that I'd already earned. Fortunately, I've been able to keep that rule with little discomfort, using only free program to help me out. But what if I decided to break that rule?

I've had many options over the past 13 days to spend money as an investment to do better than I have been. Looking back, I'm glad I stuck to my rule, because there are so many things out there that I wouldn't have any funds left at this point, and most would have been spent on products I would later find were total ripoffs! But I've also begun to develop a strategy for when I do get enough money to invest (probably in a week or so, at the rate I'm currently taking it). How should I go about it? How can I know for sure something is worth it? I put together a bit of a list to help figure it all out:

1. Can I get a refund? Is there a money-back guarantee, and can I be sure to return the product/service if it doesn't pay for itself in the specified length of time?
2. Is it credible? Who is using this, and what success have they had? Can I find any dissatisfied customers on the Internet?
3. Is there a free alternative? I've been surprised at all the times I've found completely free alternatives to services that were charging an annoying amount of money.
4. Is this something I'd really use? There are some tools that I've gotten that, in the end, didn't do a thing for me. They did everything they were guaranteed to do very well, but it wasn't something that helped me. This goes back the the notion that you shouldn't go into online business unless you have a defined strategy to begin with. Does this service fit my strategy perfectly?
5. Is it a one-time payment or a subscription? Depending on the price and service, either one might be better than another. But frankly I don't want the horrible surprise of finding $20 taken out of my bank account every month for something that only gives me $5 in return.

There's my list so far, and I'll try to work on it more as the week progresses. I do think I could make a lot more with the right investment, but I don't want to be spending my money willy-nilly. Please follow me on Twitter (@onlineincome) for updates and tips, or join me in my Free Internet Money endeavor!

Day 10.2: Is It Time to Invest?

Earlier I broke to you the thrilling news that I got my first referral on Clixsense. Well, now she has two referrals of her own. Yeah, all in one day, and my downline is building seriously! Unfortunately, when I read the fine print, I noticed something. I can get as much as I want through my referrals just fine... but that's where it ends. It doesn't matter that my referral has two referrals of her own now, I'm only profiting through her. Hmm. Well, the Premium membership would help fix that so I could profit through eight levels. Seeing how well things are growing, I'm starting to think it would be a decent investment, and it is a great price (seventeen dollars for the whole year). However, I've decided to invest only my own earnings, so... at this rate it could well be a couple months before I could afford that. On the other hand, my sponsor says he rewards active members with premium memberships. That would be awesome. Maybe I should ask him? I don't know.

At any rate, Clixsense is turning out to be an awesome investment. I mean, it was always good, but now it's awesome! And at this point I'm thinking that if I got it, it would pay itself off pretty quick. And that would be sweet. Oh well, we'll see where this goes.

I don't want to lose money in this venture. I've come across so many disappointing scams and "free" things that cost money that I don't want it to happen again. I set aside twenty-odd dollars to spend on things, but I'm trying to get by without losing my shirt.

At least I have a good plan now. Free Internet Money has been a fabulous way to manage my accounts, and if I can keep up steadily building profits, I don't think I have anything to worry about!

In the meantime, though, seriously. Give Clixsense a try. There's a lot to do there, and it's fun. And free. And easy. And... there's no reason not to. And that's it for my lame salesman pitch.

Please follow me on Twitter for more tips and updates, and check out my working strategy at freeinternetmoney.biz!