CDL Career Coach takes the HubChallenge

Okay, so the long story that goes with the caption, because I think people will ask.

I didn't actually lose my job. I quit my job. I didn't quit my job because I was over-weight. I quit my job to take another job (which I thought was going to be a better job). It wasn't better. So I quit it too. Meanwhile, the old company has started a BMI requirement for hiring which I don't meet. I have to lose about 100 pounts to get my old job back. (As of this morning's weigh in, maybe only 70 pounds.)

Call it Hedging my Bets...

I'm not really sure I can lose that much weight.  Most people don't realize I'm as heavy as I am and guess my weight 100 pounds lighter to begin with.  I've never managed to lose more than 25-30 pounds before and generally gain it back, plus some (hence the current weight problem which did not exist when I first started dieting, but as a teenage girl, it's hard to understand that boobs are normal and being a girls size 14s doesn't really qualify as fat.).

So I am looking for ways to create an income, or strech my current savings, just in case I can't go back to driving a truck.  Then againk, working from home doesn't really sound that bad if one could make a decent living at it.  But I fiture the only way to do any of that is to throw myself in 100% right from the beginning and that's what this challgenge is for me, encouragement to start out big.

And besides, it's hard to eat and type at the same time.

Oops... gonna have to write harder. Didn't get a hub done today. (Two days... really lost track of time here!)

The topic for the personal finance contest was car loans. I had a couple car loans a long time ago. The first one was when I was 18 from a credit union. I remember asking them about why the payment was lower than the interest per month. My dad and the credit union rep both told me I was just an ignorant kid. I tried to sell the car a year later when I lost my job. It was very difficult since I owed more than I originally borrowed. And my dad had co-signed the loan with me so I really needed to make things good, you know?

The second car I bought on my own credit through GMAC and paid the 5 year loan off early at about 3 years. I owned that car for 12 years and the last 9 were great. The best option you can get with a car is one that has no payment book attatched. Didn't think that would make a great hub for the contest though.

Now I'm car-less by choice and learning to get around a new town by foot and bus. There are lots of advantages to a car-less lifestyle. That I may write a hub about sometime.

More excuses? I seem to be falling behind and losing track of time.  I don't know if I can catch up, but I am excited to be getting close to that 10 hub mark...

I'm relieved to be back on track.  The first day I missed I thought I could catch up... the second day (or was that a whole weekend?) I missed I thought was the end of my chances with this challenge.

One of the things that helped me catch up was that I had started a couple hubs on the days I didn't publish and so they were there waiting for me, with just a little bit of a start to get me going.  Writing went faster on the hubs that I came back to than on the ones I start and finish the same day... usually.  I think the quality suffers a little on those that write themselves really fast.  But it feels good to have something fall in place like that.

I got an honorable mention in the Money Grows on Hubs contest for "4 Easy Steps Anyone Can Follow to Create a Financial Plan".  I was so happy!! Even though I didn't win any money, it really helps me feel like I'm on the right track with the quality of my hubs.

Just when I thought it would be okay to take day off and do something else.  Let's see...

If Day 10 was January 12 and now it's the 16th?

Day 11 = January 13

Day 12 = January 14

Day 13 = January 15

Then today is day 14.  Okay, so 2 hubs a day for the rest of the week and I can catch up.  This challenge is turning out to be harder than I thought.  It's really not that hard to write one hub, but that everyday thing is not so easy for me.

Three days and no hubs. (Make that 4 days...I read an interesting hub by Hub Llama about writing 30 hubs in 30 hours. Maybe it's not too late to give up hope.)

It's only 9:15, I could stay up a while longer... but I probably won't. I've got a bunch of hubs started, but the mental clarity to fix 'em up so they can be published is probably not going to happen between now and midnight.

I'm still counting on myself to get around to finishing them soon though. I've been away working on a monster website. I'm pleased with the results of the last 24 hours or so. It's a heck of a lot better than 2 days ago, but still not good enough to want to share a link. It is also over 200 new pages ... however short and unfinished ... that is my reason for not hubbing. This challenge may have been a mistake. At this point I'm wondering why I got myelf into this, and why do I feel like I need to finish.

It's not a mistake though. I came to HubPages hoping to break through a case of writer's block and really worried that I had lost my ability to write at all. I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad for the hubs I've written and the way it has helped me to write off this site as well. Especially that. And I think this challenge and the HubMob and Money Grows on Hubs have all helped me to get past that fear. It's a good thing. Even if I don't get all 30 hubs done in 30 days.

Then again, I have 10 days left. You never know.

I'm glad it's over!

I'm just a little suprised that I'm more relieved the 30 days is over than I am disappointed that I only wrote 22 hubs. That's actually not bad. (And I wrote a few hubs on my other accounts too, so 30 is do-able, but maybe not if you have a split personality and other websties you are working on at the same time.)

This week has been especially bad. I tried to upgrade some software on one of my websites and it went wrong... crashing ALL of the websites. I'm rebuilding and just don't have time to do hubs AND try to get these websites back up and running.

Life does get in the way sometimes.

Overall, I'm glad I took the challenge. I'm sure I have more hubs today than I would have without the challenge to kind of push me along. At least twice as many, maybe 3 times.

I've been looking at that 60-day challenge and think that next month I will be trying to put some effort into SEO and backlinks to build traffic. Not to mention improve some of the hubs that I wrote "fast". I would expect to round out the 30 hubs, maybe even hit 40 next month. I'm still thiking about a strategy for linking to my websites and back to my hubs from my websites so that they all work together better. I want to have the RIGHT hubs for that project and not all of the ones I've written work for that. I also suspect I will have a few other topics I need but don't have yet.

Oh, and traffic and adsense earnings... I suppose some people might be wondering.

My best hub so far appears to be the "How the Standard Meal Deduction and Per Diem Works for Truck Drivers".  It's had 174 visits, 119 of them from Google.  It's that time of year, and the information is not always easy to find online. I should know, I have to search for it every year when I get ready to do my taxes.  I suspect this hub will continue to do well until mid-April. It's the only one I've spent any time on "fixing up" as it had so much traffic and started out pretty plain.  I'd still like to find a good photo for it so it isn't just showing the "Money Grows on Hubs" logo.

I'm up to $7.12 from adsense. I've had this adsense account for several years, and it was around $4.83 or maybe $4.38 when I started the challenge. I have 3 hub pages accounts and 16 websites so I can't be sure all the clicks came from the 30 hubs in 30 days, but I'm impressed that my earnings have almost doubled over the last month. I've only been on HubPages 5 weeks and it seems that's early for any clicks. But due to the dismal click-thru rate on my other websites I'm going to give credit for the whole $3 to being on HubPages.

As for traffic, Google says I have gotten over 752 visits this month between my 3 HubPage accounts. My next best website had 198 visits and most of them were spammers or me visiting to clean up after them. I thought it would be fun to compare stats between my 3 accounts to see how the HubChallenge might have played a part.

Anyway, thanks for reading!! Leave a comment if you are in the 30 Day Challenge and I'll come visit some of your hubs!

(2/28/11 Update)

I earned $2.38 from Adsense in January and have been suprised and thrilled to see another $8.95 in February!  I may have to do the challenge again... but maybe not for March, maybe April.