The Ultimate Money Blog

One of the things that I started doing this month to supplement the money I make online is becoming a ChaCha Guide! This is how it works: people text questions to ChaCha, a real live person (a Guide) searches the internet for an answer, and then replies with the correct answer! It is a great service and fun to do.

It is a human powered search engine. Sometimes I’ll get off the wall questions, sometimes I’ll get someone looking for directions, and sometimes I’ll just get someone goofing off. I think it’s very easy to do, and I have fun doing it.

If you are interested in becoming a guide, go to ChaCha’s website, go to the bottom right where it says: get started, become a guide and click.  Follow the link from there!  Please put my email as your referral (ultimatemoneyblogATgmail.com) so I can be your sponsor and add you as a friend when you get on board.  It is pretty simple to sign up.  If you have any questions, please comment here or email me!

June was a little bit better than May! Here’s the break down of where I made money online:

Cash Crate: $13.39

Pinecone Research surveys: $20

Associated Content: $2 (This is just from residual income from articles I posted previously)

Expo Tv: $5.27 (This is just from residual income from videos I posted previously)

Miscellaneous: $12

Total: $52.66

I am expecting a check from my National City Everyday Rewards Visa sometime this month for over $100! I am excited about that.  I am glad that I did better this month than last.  I’ll keep working hard for July and hopefully double my “extra money” this month!

With the horrible price of gas ($4.29 a gallon where I live), I’ve decided to start carpooling with a few people from work.  Luckily there are three of us that live in the same area (or close) so that we are able to do this.  This morning, one of the ladies from work picked me up, and then we headed over to another co-worker’s house and picked him up.  Tomorrow it’s my turn to drive everyone!  I think it’s a great idea for many reasons: we’re saving money on gas obviously, we’re doing a good thing for the environment, and now we’ve got someone to talk to during the ride to and from work!  I know at first, I was worried about what we would be talking about during the ride, but it seems like we’ve taken to the idea pretty naturally.  Here are a few things we do to make carpooling more fun:

• We learn more about each other’s personal lives.  We talk about our spouses, kids, dogs, how we met our spouses, etc.  It’s pretty neat to learn more about my co-workers as people. Sometimes at work we get so wrapped up in doing our jobs we forget that we are people too!
• We’ve talked about getting books on tape to listen to together.  It is a fun activity that will pass the time!
• We’ve also talked about hand held games.  Remember those from when you were a kid?  How fun would that be to play as an adult?
• Reading.  Obviously the driver is not engaging in this activity!  It is a nice chance to catch up on some reading, especially if you have a long commute.
• Knitting! Of course, we only have one knitter, but I am sure that there will be at least one more before it’s all done and over with!

Do you have any ideas on fun things to do while carpooling? 

Of course as soon as I let everyone know that we got our stimulus money, one of our cars has a problem. This morning I went out to start my car, and after I got it started, I put my foot on the brake to put it into reverse, and the car won’t go anywhere. The brake is stuck. I turn the car off, restart it, and now it doesn’t want to turn over this time. I try a third time, and luckily the third time’s a charm. I move the car out of the way and pull out the Isuzu Trooper that got hit by the tree back in January. I drove to my carpool buddy’s house and left it there. Of course now I am in a panic that we are going to have to buy a new car and I just don’t want to!

I’ve been brainstorming what we should do. I am hoping that tomorrow my car is going to turn over fine and purr like a kitten. Maybe it is just needing some transmission fluid. That could be a valid point. I’m hoping that’s the case. But if it’s not, we’re going to have to buy a new car. And that stinks!! I have a few scenarios in my head if that’s the case.

I’d like to sell the 1996 Isuzu Trooper and the 1994 Oldsmobile Achieva, use the cash we get from those, put it towards the car, and use our stimulus money and/or savings to make up the difference. I’m hoping it’s not much more than that. I don’t want to have to take a bunch of money out of our emergency fund!  BUT it’s better than paying loan origination fees and then paying that back early.  I’ve thought about taking out a loan and then paying it off early, but then we have to run our credit and pay fees and such.  It just makes sense to “borrow the money from ourselves”.  I’ll just end up putting the money back into our savings account and paying us back.

We’ve been discussing what kind of vehicle we will buy next.  Mr. Money originally wanted to get an SUV, but I talked him out of it.  I think we’re going to look for a used Ford Focus wagon instead.  Good for gas mileage, good for the dogs, good for kids! It should last us a few years.  I definitely don’t want to buy a brand new car because of the depreciation once you drive the car off the lot.

I’m hoping that nothing is really wrong with my car and I can continue to drive it like I have been.  It’s good to know that I’ve got options though!  Thank goodness for our emergency fund!

At the beginning of this month, I posted my earnings for May. I had decided that this month I was going to try and make more money this month. I started doing more Cash Crate offers to bump up my earnings. The reason I picked Cash Crate is because I think they are one of the best GPT sites out there.

How does it work? You sign up, fill out surveys, click to tell them that you’ve completed the survey, and after they confirm that you have completed it, you get paid! I notice with Cash Crate the approvals are a lot quicker than other GPT sites. I think this is such an easy way to make money! Of course, you aren’t going to get filthy rich doing this, but it will supplement your income a little. I enjoy it because I do see that they approve the offers quickly.

There is a $10 minimum payout, which is not too bad. You can easily achieve $10 by spending probably less than an hour completing offers. I like doing the 100% free ones because I don’t like giving my credit card number out over the internet to a bunch of different companies.

Do you do GPT sites? You should sign up for Cash Crate!