My Experience With Writing Online, So Far...

I am a stay at home mom of five children. Although the money my husband brings home is enough to pay our bills and a few extras each month, we do not have any wiggle room to save money for some of the "big" things we want to do like purchase a larger home, go to Disney World, or begin saving for our children's college educations. With these realizations that even though we were "making it" we would never get anywhere because the money just wasn't there.

I began to feel guilty because he is doing the very best he could to provide for our family financially, and I could be no help. Of course I could go and find a job for myself, but by the time we paid between $100 and $250 per child per week for a decent day care or preschool, my attempts to work outside the house would be in vain. So, I decided that if I was going to make any money, I would have to do it from home.

Its been a very long time since I have edited this Hub, and my model for making money from home has changed completely. I no longer solely utilize any one site, but I have set my sights on trying to build my total rev-share profits. So, I have created goals for myself. I would like to top 100 articles by the end of the year at all of the sites that I earn money from rev-share. The list includes Hubpages, Squidoo, Helium, Listmy5, Infobarrel, Factoidz, and Wikio Experts.

So, like so many people who decide to work from home, I have virtually tries everything imaginable to try to produce significant income, all to no avail. I tried surveys, an online store, blogging, and the "get paid to click" offers, all of which earned me a few pennies a month, none of which would provide a stable income on my part.

What I was doing was not working so, eventually after searching for hours and hours one day, I found out that there were many people out there making legitimate income writing to different websites. This was something that really piqued my interest because I have always loved writing, and in fact had begun writing a novel, so I felt like I had found my niche' and this was right up my alley. After getting the names of a few different "get paid to write sites" i was conviced that I had found the one for me. So, I settled on Review Stream.

I came across Review Stream in February 2010 and really thought I had found a gem. They would pay either $2.50 or $.50 for every review submitted that was at least 200 words. The reviews could be about anything ranging from people, hotels, service, cars. virtually anything. My thought process banked on only getting $.50 per review, so anything more than that would be a bonus. That means to make an extra $500 a month, all I would have to do was write 1000 articles a month or 33 articles a day.

Believe it or not, I was extremely optimistic about doing this and I really went for it... for about a day. I realized that I could not spend my every hour in front of the computer writing about cable television and the Bad Girls Club. It just wasn't logical. On top of that, the minimum payout was $50, so at the rate I was going, Review Stream would be holding my money forever, and I just couldn't have that.

Although I can not sit here and say that Review Stream is a bad get paid to write site, it just didn't work for what I was trying to accomplish so, I began looking for another opportunity. This came in the form of Helium.

If my initial thoughts of Review Stream was great, then Helium really hit the Jackpot. Not only did thet pay their writers upfront payments ranging from $.50 to $3.50, writers also would receive residual income as well. There literally was so much potential to make money and continue to earn money for many years to come.

After a few months writing with Helium, I was able to earn $2.50 per article that fell under the criteria for upfront and bonus payments, so if I at least tried to write 5 articles a day (which was substantially less that 33), I feasibly could earn between $500 to $1000 a month. I knew to do this, I would have to work hard, and I understood that. However, most times, my laziness got the best of me and I took advantage of the fact that the potential was there. I say I took advantage of it because as of the beginning of December 2010, Helium changed its upfront payment policy, so getting that guaranteed extra $.50 to $3.50 no longer existed. Therefore my game plan had to change.

As I browsed through message board after message board of the reactions of current Helium members, I realized that many were just as upset as I was about the changes, and what it could do the them financially. I also realized that many of these "Helium" writers didn't just write for Helium, so this would only be a minor dent in their pockets where as for me, it was detrimental as I had put all of my eggs in the Helium basket.

As I began researching, it seemed that most of the other writers also wrote for Associated Content, Squidoo, or Hub Pages. The way I looked at it, it couldn't hurt to try these sites out, so I decided to try my hand at them too in addition to Helium, and see where I would end up.

I have only joined Hubpages, Associated Content, and Squidoo a few days ago, which is not nearly enough time to give my own assessment of how good or bad each site is in my opinion. As of now, I have not written any articles for Associated Content, only because I liked the format of both Hubpages and Squidoo better, but I will begin contributing once I get the hang of those two sites.

In the four days, of being on Hubpages and Squidoo, I have written 3 articles on both sites. My page views for Hubpages is about 40, while Squidoo is just 4. But, I will be updating this Hub at the end of the month when I have better statistics and have familiarized myself with each site a little more.