Die of envy or make your own money online

I am not a person driven by money. I am just not a materialistic person. Don’t get me wrong. I like nice things, but all in all, I live a modest life style. I am, however, a person who is driven by wanting to travel and to offer my family exciting opportunities that will educate them in the ways of the world. There are so many wonderful people around the world that have interesting customs and cultural traditions that I wish to meet and to learn about. I want my children to have those same opportunities. Thus, the necessary evil is that it requires money to do so. Oh, you can travel on a budget but regardless of how you slice it, you are going to have to dole out some cash. Also, I am busy doing and being what I love to be, a teacher and a mom. I need to find venues that create some extra income without being a terrible time drain. Thus, I am constantly seek ways to make money online.

Here are some folks to envy or to emulate or both

Mark Zuckerberg, in his early twenties, began Facebook with only a concept, some computer knowledge and his time. He showed up in Palo Alto about three years ago with no car, no home, and no job. Mark Zuckerberg is now at the helm of a mult-million dollar a year organization, Facebook. It was purported that Yahoo had offered to purchase the company for a purported 1 billion dollars that Zuckerberg turned down.

Zuckerberg lives modestly even by my standards. He still rents an apartment and sleeps on a mattress on the floor. He has only two chairs and a table for furniture. He is committed to keeping Facebook as an independent although many have doubted his decision. It would seem that a young man who is satisfied with his lifestyle as it is will not make his decisions based on the almighty dollar. I say good for him and he proved to have made a good decision as it has recently been reported that Microsoft just invested 15 billion dollars into his creative online social network. Yet, he still maintains ownership.

A single mom and Army veteran, Brandi Ramos of Springfield made a success of herself as well. She needed extra cash and began an online business on ebay focusing on the “big and tall” market for men.

She did so utilizing 600 square feet of her basement. She filled baker’s racks, filled Tupperware containers with belts and underwear and created displays in order to take photos to market her wares in attractive ways online. Ramos offered quick service diligently responding to emails within hours and nets $25,000 to $100,000 per year. She says she makes a few dollars on shipping and handling as well.

I have mentioned in other blogs how I buy and sell vintage and used books on Amazon.com. If packing and shipping items is not your thing, have you ever thought about becoming a virtual landlord on Amazon.com and for a fee, market products for others? This is actually the premise for Amazon.com. They take about 25 percent of each sale. You do all of the work for them. Now take this one step further and become the middle man. Locate a local product from a reputable local shop and offer to sell some of their items for them for a fee. You will be placing all of the burdens on them to package and ship the orders that you obtain for them. You must factor in the twenty-five percent take from Amazon.com and your mark up. Many products have a 100 percent mark up or more on them. Thus, a retailer may frequently offer a twenty-five percent discount on their items or better anyway and would love some extra business and some extra income that you could offer to them.

I think most everyone is at least aware of Google Adsense, but were you aware that you can sell ads on your own on your site. If you have a following and can prove the numbers to your sites, offer to place an ad on your site and earn income directly. You will not attract the larger companies unless you have a half million viewers per month. Most of us cannot even fathom such numbers. However, some of the smaller companies would be happy to pay you a few dollars per blog per month to place an advertisement. If you have a number of blogs, this may create some nice pocket money per month.

You may run your own virtual marketplace. This can be in the form of a dating site, a social network site or an affiliate site. For example, GoDaddy.com sells unused domains for a few dollars each.

There is a fairly new online site called Yoonew.com. It sells future contracts on tickets to various sports event. There is some risk with this business. Basically it operates on the premise that fans will gamble on the fact that a certain team will make it to the playoffs. You, the purchaser, take a chance on a team. Should the team go to the playoffs, you have the rights to tickets and a cheap seat. However, if you are in the market to make a profit, you may sell your ticket at a premium.

So, fellow hubbies, we can either die of envy or find our own venue for making money online.