Stop Milking Me! - Cow’s Journey To Financial Freedom

I am finally making some money with Google Adsense. I started experimenting with Adsense since this March. Everyday, I would check my report for about 15 times hoping that “Today’s Earning $0.00” can show me some non-zero numbers. Many days, I ended up with disappointment. On some lucky days when I made about a dollar, I would proudly announce my significant earnings. “I MADE A DOLLAR TODAY!”

I don’t know if you feel the same way, but this side gig income really excites me so I decide to boost my occastional one-dollar income to maybe.. one-dollar-everyday?
So I made the following changes with my friend Cyco Miko who’s a PHP expert:

1. Look through my stats and find out what pages are the highest hits from the search engine. I found out that my PhotoBlog is the most popuplar one. Especially this photo and this photo.
2. I decided to change the Ads location just on my PhotoBlog and Gallery to bring the Ads closer to the top of the pictures. According to Google Guide, that’s the “Hot Spot”.
3. I created channels to track the performances of each placement
4. I edited each photo in the hardest hit albums to include keywords and added poems to some photos to attract relevant Ads. This is hard work and I am no where near to be done. But the problem was that due to popularity of the photos, people started to leave lots and lots of comments. That sort of kind of distracted the converntration of the keywords and the relavant Ads always go away. But, as long as the readers are having fun, I am OK with less dollars.

I am making more than a dollar every day now. I sometimes bring in more than 3 dollars a day. Although it varies from day to day, but I am pretty happy that I can drink Starbucks for free and ocassionally buy my friends a few “FourBucks” coffee as well.

My goal right now is to increase the traffic to my blog sites, which are lot harder to do than images. But again, I believe in the “Turtle Theory”. As long as I make changes and improvements everyday, I will get there somehow.. But a project plan will help though… That’s next step after I am done with my house purchase in July.

I met a guy who self claims as a “Cardboard Holder” working in downtown Denver last year when I was pretty active participating the events organized by Denver’s meetin.org, a website allows people to make friends through small group events,. If you have never been to Denver, let me tell ya, we have lots and lots of “Cardboard Holders” on almost every major intersection in the center part of the city. Kyle (alias used), a cardboard holder is also an enthusiastic rock climber like me. I spent about 300 bucks on my top roper equipment. He is an expert lead climber so he’s probably got more gear than I do. This past winter, I saw him a couple of times at the ski resort in the High Country too. Our Five-Mountain ski pass isn’t exactly cheap. It’s a one time fee of $369! Well, I guess Kyle’s downtown cardboard holding business must be pretty lucrative so he can afford his active outdoorsy lifestyle. According to the rumors, if you are good at “people skills”, you can bring in about 20 bucks an hour. It’s definitely a hard work considering the bitter winter weather. I think these so called “bums” still beat those people who are sitting at home all day long and collect food stamps.

So if you ever want to give it a try, here is a pretty good guide about “How To Ask For Money On The Street” on wikiHow, a cardboard is highly recommended:

STEPS:

1. What you may read will be brash, and at times distasteful to the average bum. Hence, although blasphemous, you must realize that you are the vagabond of every city in the world, with the exception of maybe Washington D.C., where you may be praised as a Lobbyist.
2. Any sound plan begins with an initial investment of effort. Before we begin, make an effort to not reek of urine and make an effort to not alarm people with your depraved and desperate appearance/behavior

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We always hear people talking about how other people living above their means. So exactly, how to define “Middle Class’s Extravagant Life Style”? What is “extravagant” to the middle class that we should really stay away?

Every middle-class person probably has different opinions as what “extravagance” should be. So, here is my list:

1. Big Screen TV – I was house shopping lately and had perfect excuses to tour about 50 homes in the range of $300K - $390K in Denver area. Ironically, I have only found one 60 inch Plasma TV and another 60 inch DLP TV, Both families who own these large screen TVs are from the lower end Duplex homes. None of the single family home owners had those TVs. Plasma has become such a trendy thing that a lot of us, especially the young GenXers label the P-TV as a must have item. I think it is too extravagant for the middle class who makes about $60,000 a year to spend 3000 bucks on a TV. I once dropped $2400 on a 52 inch TV. To be honest, I think the flat screen big tube that costs 500 bucks works just fine.
2. Buying a house that is 4 times of our annual household income. We Americans want everything big! Big car, big hamburger and big house! In my mother’s little friend circle, everybody wants a 4000 sqft all brick home in the Brentwood neighborhood, which is the richest town in Nashville, TN. And most of them did buy these big houses. My jaw was dropping when I visited their homes this past Christmas. I don’t think any of us should go beyond the magic number of 3. If the house costs 3 times more than your household income, then let it go. Otherwise, you will be stretched so thin and your saving power will just disappear in the thin air if any unexpected events happen. And forget about saving for both kids’s college funds and retirement if you have a large house bill to pay.
3. Cars. Yeah, that sweet BMW coupe with the M-3 engine! A couple I know probably makes a combined income of 100K, yet they own $80K worth of cars. It’s a bit too much for car loans. As of me, I dream of having a Lexus 330 for some years! I almost bought one this year after wrecking my Honda. I make good salary and I thought I deserve it. But I only had $27K cash at that time; I had to let my Lexus go and bought a Toyota instead. I am happy that I don’t have any car loan and I intend to keep it that way. I will buy my dream Lexus one day if I can pay for it with cash.

So what is your thought on the “extravagant list”? Let’s hear it…

Have you ever wanted to tell your younger self about the tings you know now, with insights you wished you had when you were younger?

Laura Rowley, author of Money & Happiness wrote a letter to her younger self about what she wished she had known when she bought her first primary residence. Here are a few tips that I find quite insightful:

1. No need to feel bad to drag your agent to show you 100 houses for 3 months. It’s his/her job. And ask for Comp Data – what are the selling prices of the comparable homes in your area in the last 18 months.
2. Look at the bone structure of the place, rather the depressing decors or the faded wallpaper, because the wall color can be changed easily, but not the guts and bones of the house. Well, unless you are in the fixing and flipping business
3. Live in a home for at least one year before doing major renovations. You need to have a better idea of how the space is utilized to better understand what are the critical changes will be.
4. Convince your spouse or partner to use professional services to get the paining and the flooring job done all at once, rather than targeting room by room for the next 10 years.
5. Save every receipt from your renovation. When you sell, the IRS will allow you to include these renovation costs in calculating what you paid for your home.
6. Try your best to take a 15-year mortgage rather than 30. The amount of interest you will save is phenomenal. Use a calculator like the one on bankrates.com to see an amortized table. You will be amazed by the 6 digit saving.
7. Don’t be so quick to tear out the former owner’s quirky additions. That weird foam padding on the back of the attic door might have some practical use you don’t know about until you settle in for a while.
8. Do a little more research on the schools before you buy. You may not have or want kids, but it doesn’t mean your future homebuyers won’t either.

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