eHow Earnings Update for October

I have posted about my October eHow earnings at Write for eHow. I reached a new milestone this month!

How to Buy North Face Denali Jackets for Less

My kids, like all other teenagers I see, love the Denali jackets from North Face. That being the case, I was in the market for two new Denali jackets for them but I was balking at the $165 price tags. I did all the usual online shopping searches and couldn't find much of a break anywhere so I headed over to eBay. Here is the process I used to save big money on these jacket purchases.

1. First I had the kids go to a big sporting goods chain store near us to try on jackets. Since you can't return on eBay, I wanted to make sure we were getting the right size. (I discovered that my daughter can wear a youth size in these jackets, which saved us some money as well.)

2. I went to Mr. Rebates, searched for eBay and then clicked through to the eBay website through Mr. Rebates. Doing this earned me a 3% cash back rebate on my purchases just for about 30 extra seconds and a couple of mouse clicks.

3. Once at eBay I did a search for Denali North Face jacket in the size and colors I was looking for. I narrowed my search to only items that were offered using the 'buy it now' feature because I didn't want to mess with bidding. The buy it now prices were low enough I limited myself to those.

3. Keeping in mind shipping costs and seller ratings, I selected the lowest-priced jackets in my sizes/colors that were advertised as new with tags.

By using this method I was able to save almost 50% on these North Face jackets. Now that my purchase is complete, I can earn an extra 50 cent rebate by doing an eBay store review at Mr. Rebates. Hey, every little bit helps! ;-)

Here's Why It Pays to Learn to Sell on eBay

I loved this guest post at Man vs. Debt about paying off debt by selling on Ebay. The author paid off $15,000 in student loans in nine months by selling stuff she had laying around. I did something similar one year when I financed Christmas by selling on Ebay.

A lot is written about staring a part-time business by selling online. I dabbled in that at one point but ultimately chose to make money by writing online instead. Still I think knowing how to sell on Ebay is a good skill for every Family CEO to have. At some point we all end up with stuff that we don't need anymore and it's surprising what some of that will bring. If you've invested some time learning how to sell on Ebay, it's pretty easy to sell some items in a minimal amount of time. In fact, I don't think it's out of the question to set aside some time once a year to sell unwanted stuff on Ebay or Craigslist and earn a significant amount of money in the process.
 
Related Articles:

How to Make Money on eBay with Effective eBay Titles

How to Photograph Books for eBay

How to Save Money on Shipping as an eBay Seller


How to Make Money Selling Cookbooks on eBay

How to Make Money Online Selling Kids Clothing on eBay

How to Make Money by Decluttering Your House

How to Start an Online Business Selling Used Books

How to Find Out What Will Sell on eBay

Another Way to Make Money with Mr. Rebates

I am a fan - and regular user of - Mr. Rebates. Recently I discovered a new feature they have (well, new to me anyway), where they will pay you 50 cents for each short store review you do. It's called a Store Rating Bonus and here's how it works:

• You have to have shopped at the store through Mr. Rebates.
• Go to the very bottom of any page on the site and click on Store Ratings. (By the way, this feature is helpful to you as a shopper as you can see how others have rated the store.)
• Click on the name of the store where you have shopped and then click on Rate and Review Store on the review page that pops up.
  
• You'll be asked to enter a name and a nickname is fine.You'll then be asked to rate the store from 1-10 in five different categories. Finally you'll be asked to write at least a few sentences in the comments section about your experience with the store.

That's it! The whole thing takes maybe a minute and you can add 50 cents to whatever rebate you earned from shopping at the store. Store Rating Bonuses are added to your account and made available immediately.

Since discovering this feature, I've reviewed stores that I've shopped at up to three years ago. So if you've done shopping through Mr. Rebates, you could likely spend a few minutes on the site doing store reviews and earn some money for your trouble.

If you're new to Mr. Rebates, don't miss this opportunity to increase the amount of your rebate every time you shop!

(Note: Mr. Rebates also offers a referral program where you earn money for referring others to the site. This comes at no cost to those you refer - their rebates are the same - so it's truly win/win for both of you. By far the most amount of money that I've earned from Mr. Rebates has come through the referral program. I mean there's only so much shopping one can do! :-) The links in this post are referral links to Mr. Rebates. I say that in the interest of full disclosure because I am happy to recommend this site.)



Related info: Mr. Rebates Review

eHow Earnings for September

I've posted my September eHow earnings at my blog Write for eHow.

Price of Nintendo Wii Dropped to $199.99

Does someone you buy for have a Nintendo Wii video game console on his or her Christmas list this year? If so, you're in luck! Just in time for Christmas, the price of the Wii has been dropped from $249.99 to $199.99.

And Amazon is sweetening the deal. Not only do you get free shipping from Amazon but if you order between now and October 3 you'll get a $25 gift card as well. That's $25 you can spend on Wii games or accessories, other Christmas gifts, or even something for yourself.

Now might be a great time to get a jump on your holiday shopping!

Upromise = Completely Passive Income

The last time I wrote about Upromise was to tell you how I requested a check from them. Upromise is promoted as a way to save for college, but in reality, the money that accrues in your account can be used for any purchase you want.

Upromise has made it much easier to withdraw money since the last time I did it. Back then the instructions on how to do it were hidden on the site and it was kind of a secret that the money could be withdrawn at all. Now, when you visit the Upromise site, you can click on a 'Use Your Earnings' link and four choices come up:

1. Pay Down a (Sallie Mae Student) Loan
2. Invest in a 529
3. Give to Others (your family or friends)
4. Collect a Check

When you choose option #4, it opens up a form that you can print off and mail or fax to Upromise. I just requsted my second check in the amount of $63.06. I'll update you when I receive it.

Now onto the topic of this post. Upromise is a legitimate form of passive or residual income. Once you've signed up and registered your grocery store reward cards and credit/debit cards with them, the rest of the savings will happen completely automatically.

For instance: our favorite pizza place, which happens to be about a mile from our home, is one of the Upromise restaurants. So every time we pay for our pizza there with a registered credit or debit card, we get a little rebate in our Upromise account. I don't even have to remember to do it. The last credit to our account was 55 cents for pizza we were buying anyway.

The same thing happens at the grocery store when I buy an eligible product from Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, or Del Monte. I don't adjust my shopping habits one bit but because my grocery rewards card is registered with Upromise, I get the rebates.

So while I've only earned a little over $200 from Upromise, the only time I've spent is registering for the site and requesting and cashing my checks. Not a bad deal at all.




Related info:

My other favorite Online Savings Site

Save Big Money by Doing Your Christmas Shopping Online

There are many great reasons for doing your Christmas shopping online. Among them:

• No crowds to fight
• No mall or store hours to worry about
• No money spent on gas or other transportation costs
• Great deals - often available to online shoppers only

But there's something else to make online Christmas shopping even more appealing - online cash back or rebate sites. Just a few extra clicks of the mouse will allow you to earn rebates of up to 25% on all your online Christmas shopping. And I'm talking about thousands of stores, including those where you already shop like Target, Walmart, and Best Buy.

What follows is my how-to for saving the most amount of money when doing your Christmas shopping online:

1. Sign up for the major rebate sites like Mr. Rebates, Ebates, Big Crumbs, and Cashbaq. They are all free to join and Mr. Rebates, Ebates, and Cashbaq will put $5 in your account just for joining. 
2. When you're ready to do any online shopping, visit Evreward.com and enter the name of the store. Evereward will tell you which cash back site has the best rebate. Some stores offer rebates up to 30%! You can even click through to the cash back site from Evreward. 
3. Once at the cash back site, click through to the store you want to shop at. The rest of your shopping experience will be exactly the same as if you had visited the store directly. 
4. At the end of the Christmas shopping season you should have some nice little rebates coming from one or more of the sites. All for just a few extra clicks each time you shop. Use your rebates to pay some Christmas bills or buy something special for yourself.