Section of FTO Pakistan website hacked - geo.tv

Section of FTO Pakistan website hacked - geo.tv

How to Save Money on Food: Great Tips from Three Years of Get Rich Slowly

This article is about Consumerism, Food, Frugality, Shopping

While driving to our monthly book group discussion on Saturday, Kris and I had a conversation with our friend Courtney. Courtney’s family is beginning to feel a financial squeeze. Her husband’s employer is cutting jobs. To keep working, he’ll have to take a pay cut and move back to the position he left a couple of years ago.

“I’ve started to read personal finance books,” Courtney told us. “We know we’re going to have to make do with less money, so I’m looking for advice. I’d really like to learn how to cut back on groceries, for example.”

“Oh, you should read Get Rich Slowly,” Kris said. “J.D. writes about that all the time.”

It’s true. I do share a lot of stories about how to save on food. It’s something we all struggle with. But I feel like I’ve almost written too much on the subject. “I don’t want to post another story about clipping coupons,” I said. “But, you know, maybe I could collect all of the stories about food that I’ve published in the past. I could post a compendium for you, Courtney.”

“That’d be great,” she said.

I’ve scoured three years of the GRS archives to find the best stories about saving money on food. First up is this survey: How much do you spend on food? There’s no info in the article itself, but there are over 180 comments that reveal families have radically different budgets for food. Some people are able to feed a family of six on $400 a month. But some single folks spend $400 a month just on themselves.

I divided the remaining articles into broad categories:

Specific strategies

• Once-a-month shopping: Save more by shopping less — Research indicates that the less often we shop, the less we spend. Here’s how one family makes this work.


• Once-a-month cooking: Cooking for the rushed — My brother is one of many who has found that “batch cooking” helps to save his family time and money.


• Keep track of food with a leftovers list — Americans waste too much food. Here’s a way to reduce waste.


• How to save hundreds by playing the drugstore game (a guest post from Cathy at Chief Family Officer)


• How to buy a side of beef — Buying meat in bulk can save money while providing better quality.


• How to eat vegetarian on the cheap (a guest post from GRS-reader Sally)


• Use a grocery price-book to slash your food spending — How to keep a log of what you spend on staples.


• Save on groceries with “strike-point shopping” — By knowing how much things normally cost, you can take advantage of sales.


• Unit pricing: Get more food for less money (a guest post from Charlie at PearBudget), and the follow-up: Buying cheap spices: Unit pricing in action

Lists of hints and tips

• Ask the readers: Tips and tricks to save on food?


• 17 ways to save big at the supermarket


• How to feed yourself for $15 a week (an extended reader comment turned into a blog entry)


• The lazy man’s guide to groceries on a budget (a guest post from Karl Katzke)


• Saving at the supermarket: 15 great grocery shopping tips


• How to save $100 (or more) at the grocery store this month (a guest post from Erin at $5 Dinners)


• How to eat at a swanky restaurant without blowing your monthly food budget


• Finding good wines at great prices


• Quick tips for eating organic


• Grocery store vs. farmers market: Which has the cheapest produce?

Frugal recipes

• Easy and cheap home-made bread — Kris and I love this bread.


• Simple home-made chicken stock using a supermarket rotisserie chicken


• Hearty baked potato soup — GRS readers love this recipe.


• Taco soup


• Confessions of a butcher: Eating steak on a hamburger budget


• Making the most of cheap cuts of beef

The psychology of shopping

• Are you a shopaholic? Six steps to curb compulsive spending


• How shopping momentum leads to more shopping


• Why we shop: Getting a grip on consumerism (by Betsy from Money Changes Things)


• The small bite: A sensible way to splurge


• Dangerous norms: When a treat becomes a routine matter (a guest post from Trent at The Simple Dollar)


• The power of attentive spending (a guest post from Kevin at No-Debt Plan)


• 10 questions to ask yourself when you’re tempted to buy

You can find many other similar articles in the food category of the Get Rich Slowly archives.

Though I generally frown on overt self-promotion in the comments, I’m making an exception for this post. If you have a favorite article about saving on food — from anywhere on the web, including your own site — feel free to share it with Courtney and other GRS readers!

How to Nail an Interview: 20 Job Interview Tips

A couple of readers pointed me to another job-related tool on the web. Steinar Skipsness has created a microsite called How to Nail an Interview. Here’s how he describes it:

What is it that certain people say or do during a job interview that makes them stand out? Why do some people struggle to find work, while others land a job in no time? I wanted to know, and the only way to find out was to experience the interview from the other side of the table. If I could be the one asking the interview questions, not answering, I could see first hand what made candidates stand out. I could then take that knowledge and cater my behavior in any future interview to give myself the best chance of getting hired.
To conduct his research, Skipsness rented office space in downtown Seattle, posted a “help wanted” ad on Craigslist, and then (legally) videotaped interviews with applicants. Skipsness received hundreds of resumes and conducted 28 interviews, from which he culled the following 20 tips:

1.Your resume has 10 seconds to sell.
2.Be on time.
3.Turn off your cell phone.
4.Know the company and why you want to work there.
5.Bring extra resumes.
6.Bring a notepad.
7.Dress conservatively.
8.Clean up your online presence.
9.Don’t make jokes.
10.Don’t babble.
11.Don’t badmouth a boss.
12.Don’t flirt with the interviewer.
13.Don’t play with your face or hair.
14.Some things are better left unsaid.
15.Have good eye contact.
16.Have goals.
17.Have accomplishments.
18.Have passion.
19.Ask questions.
20.Send a thank-you note.
For each item, Skipsness provides additional information (why should you send a thank-you note?), and for many of his recommendations, he includes video from the interviews that demonstrate what not to do. Would you hire this guy?

How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs

Advertising Programs - Perhaps the most obvious changes in the past few months have been with the addition of a variety of viable advertising options for bloggers looking to make money from their blogs. The most common way bloggers seem to earn money online is via the contextual ad program from Google - Adsense. A more recent addition that many are using successfully are Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks, Text Link Ads.

Azoogle Ads, Intelli Txt, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Adbrite, Clicksor, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, Pheedo, TextAds, Bidvertiser, Fastclick and Value Click (to name just some of the options) and there is a smorgasbord of options. Of course there is more to come with MSN Adcenter and YPN both in beta testing and with a variety of other advertising system currently in development (YPN is only available to US publishers).

Lastly there’s BlogAds - one of the first blog specific ad networks.

RSS Advertising - The past 12 months have seen some advances in RSS Advertising also. I’m yet to hear of any bloggers making big money blogging through it to this point - but as improvements are made to the ad programs exploring this I’m sure we’ll start to see examples of it being profitable.

Sponsorship - In addition to the array of advertising programs that are available to join there is a growing awareness in the business of the value and opportunity that exists for them to advertise directly on blogs. I’m hearing more and more examples of this and have been fortunately to have a couple of ad campaigns of my own in the past month - one with Adobe a couple of weeks ago and another just completed with Ricoh for a new digicam over at my Digital Camera Blog. These are not isolated cases - as I say I know of many blogs exploring sponsorship with advertisers at present and suspect we’ll see more of it in the year ahead. Sponsorship is also happening on a post by post basis with some bloggers being paid to write on certain topics by companies - either in one off or a regular fashion - and they are able to make big money from their blogs doing so.

Affiliate Programs - There are larger affiliate programs like Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction but also literally thousands of others from the large to the very small.

Digital Assets - Increasing numbers of bloggers have been developing other digital assets to support and add revenue streams to their blogs. By this I mean that I’m increasingly seeing e-books, courses and tele-seminars being run by bloggers. My recent foray into this with the first series of the six figure blogging course that Andy and I ran a few weeks ago and have just released the study version of. This type of activity will only increase in future - in fact this week I’ve seen numerous examples of bloggers running courses.

Blog Network Opportunities - with the rise in popularity of Blog Networks - bloggers are also being presented with more places to earn an income from their blogging - by writing for and with others. While it might be difficult to get a writing gig with one of the bigger networks - there are plenty who are always asking for new bloggers to join and who are willing to pay bloggers using a variety of payment models. While there are distinct advantages of blogging for yourself - blogging for an established network who will handle a lot of the set up/promotion/admin/SEO etc has it’s advantages also. More and more bloggers are combining writing for themselves on their own blogs with taking on blog network blogs as additional income streams.

Business Blog Writing Opportunities - as blogging has risen in it’s profile as a medium more and more businesses are starting blogs. Many of these companies have internal staff take on blogging duties - but an increasing number of them are hiring specialist bloggers to come on and run their blogs. I know of a number of bloggers who in the past month or two have been approached for such paid work. Check out Bloggers for Hire if you’re looking for this type of work.

Non Blogging Writing Opportunities - Also becoming more common are bloggers being hired to write in non blogging mediums. Manolo’s recent coup of a column in the Washington Post is just one example of this as bloggers are increasingly being approached to write for newspapers, magazines and other non blog websites. Along side this is the rise of bloggers as published book authors - this is to the extent that one blogger I spoke with this week complained to me that they were one of the few bloggers than they knew who didn’t have a book deal!

Donations - Tip Jars and donation buttons have been a part of blogging for years now but this last year saw a number of bloggers go full time after fund raising drives. Perhaps the most high profile of these was Jason Kottke of kottke.org who through the generosity of his readership was able to quit his job and become a full time blogger.

Flipping Blogs - Also more common in 2005 was the practice of ‘Blog Flipping’ - or selling of blogs. This has happened both on an individual blog level (I can think of about 20 blogs that sold this year) but also on a network level (the most obvious of these being the 8 figure sale of Weblogs Inc to AOL).

Merchandising - My recent attempt to sell ProBlogger.net T-shirts wasn’t a raging success, but it is an example of how an increasing number of bloggers are attempting to make a few extra dollars from their blogs by selling branded products through programs like Cafepress. While I didn’t have a lot of success with merchandising - quite a few larger blogs are seeing significant sales - especially blogs with a cult following. I’m not at liberty to discuss details - but I know of one largish blog which will see sales over $20,000 in merchandise for the calendar year of 2005.

Consulting and Speaking - While it has been popular for established consultants to add blogs to their businesses we’re also starting to see bloggers with no consulting background able to make money by charging readers for their time in consulting scenarios BECAUSE of the profile that their blogs have built them. Blogging has the ability to establish people as experts on niche topics and we all know the value of being perceived as an expert. I spoke to one blogger last month who charges himself out at over $200 an hour for speaking and consulting work - his area of expertise was something that he knew little about 18 months ago - but through his blog he’s become a leader in his field and a minor celebrity in his industry.

As time rolls on there are more and more ways that bloggers make money from their blogs opening up. Feel free to suggest your own ideas and experiences in comments below.

Update: Looking for more information on how to make money blogging? Here’s a post I wrote talking about my own experience - particularly looking at the top ways that I make money from blogs.

Also check out these resources on how to set up a profitable blog:

• ProBlogger the Book - where I and Chris Garrett sum up all of the basic tips about starting up a blog in the one volume.


• Blog Mastermind Blog Mentoring Program - one of the best coaching and training course going around on blogging.


• Become a Blogger Videos - a free series of videos that talks new bloggers through how to set up a blog. Easy to understand and best of all, free.


• Blog Profits Blueprint - a free report on how to build profitable blogs.

Trace a Gmail Email Account

When Gmail first threw its hat into the email ring a few years ago, its service was open only to those who had received an invitation. Now, however, it's free and has exploded into one of the most popular email services available - thanks to Google's trusted brand name, its simplicity, the huge amount of storage space available for absolutely free, extra features (such as POP3 access), embedded web and video chat, and so many more! Is it any question, then, that millions of people are already using Gmail - even though it's a relative newcomer on the email scene?And though Gmail's spam filters are among the best available, there is a chance that, at some point, you'll receive unwanted email - and it might even be from a Gmail address. In such an instance, your best bet is to use Gmail's own reverse email search; it's easier for Gmail, after all, to search its own records than to have an outside source looking in. See what you're able to discover about the sender. (Gmail is especially attractive to those wishing to remain very much anonymous, because the headers in any given piece of mail are stripped of any and all IP information. Thus, the stalker or hacker believes himself or herself to be secure.)Even if you don't have much luck, or any at all, you are far from out of options. In fact, now would be a good time to check out one of the many free independent reverse email search engines available online. When using these sites, the key is to remain tenacious - because it may take a good while before you produce results. Giving up is the last thing that you want to do; after all, even if the reverse email search engine you are using isn't having any success at all, bear in mind that there are those services which, for whatever reason (and there exist a few possibilities), have more success than others!If you are still having little to no success, or if the email received was of a particular harmful or malicious nature, you might want to consider contacting a third party for some needed extra help. I am referring to professional investigators who specialize in online matters, since they have tools at their disposal not necessarily available to you. Every step taken online leaves a 'footprint' - data that can be tracked and which will inevitably lead to the person who has been taking the steps all along. This is true even if the person in question is using dial-up or a handful of proxies; while these factors could slow down a search, they are never able to stop a search in its tracks altogether!Private investigators often have access to what is known as the "deep web" - information not available through conventional means such as, say, a simple Google search. So always remember that the only way to ensure your subject gets away is for you to run out of steam and simply give up. Otherwise, you should inevitably be able to find the information that you are looking for! Best of luck!

Monetize Your Site or Blog by Connecting to Advertisers

Monetize Your Site or Blog by Connecting to Advertisers With so many social networking websites like StumbleUpon, Digg & Reddit and other microblogging services like Twitter, Tumblr & FriendFeed and of course not to forget the traffic exchange sites like BlogExplosion and EntreCard, there are lots of ways to bring traffic to a blog or site these days. But as any expert, or even a newbie blogger may know, the real question is: is that traffic getting converted into earnings? If you're thinking 'no', this article is meant to help you change that to a 'yes'. The problem: Although you're getting thousands or maybe millions of page views and visitors every month, nobody knows exactly how much traffic you're getting. Thus no advertiser contacts you despite those clusters of 125x125 "Advertise Here" banners already placed on your blog. Reason behind it: People know the value of blogs/websites which receive huge traffic every month. However, they seldom care to download the entire list of the top 100K websites from Alexa for example and check which ones allow for advertising, nevermind contacting them to check their 'real' traffic statistics and finally placing their ads. It's the natural tendency of all humans to get things done the easy way. Instead they usually try to look for simpler methods of filtering these websites according to their requirements. Finally the Solution: As hinted in the reason above, we need a solution which brings your blog/site to the attention of advertisers in an 'easy' manner. The solution is actually a list of websites, which are the meeting places for publishers (bloggers/webmasters) and advertisers. Here goes: BuySellAds.com (recommended) TechnoratiMedia.com AdEngage.com DigitalPoint Forums Sites like these have always been around, so what's so special about the above? For advertisers: It simplifies the the selection process by categorizing all member blogs/sites according to different criteria like Impressions/month, CTR (click through rate), CPM, Alexa ranking, etc. So advertisers can easily select where to advertise their products. For publishers: As a publisher (specially true to BuySellAds.com) you are given total control to set specs such as the advertising dimensions, number of banners on your blog/website, etc. You can also set different prices for different ad zones (remember that a 25% commission is charged by BSA and around 40% by Technorati Media & AdEngage, so you may want to make your prices slightly higher than usual) Moreover these ads will be banners and NOT text-link-ads so there's no risk of getting penalized by Google. Also the banners appearing on your site/blog are all controlled by JavaScript which further avoids any SEO issues. With AdEngage and TechnoratiMedia (relatively new), the choice of ad sizes are quite limited, but of course the most famous 125x125 ad size is present. TechnoratiMedia, being new, doesn't have many advertiser accounts right now, and the response time taken by AdEngage is much more than that of BuySellAds. In the DigitalPoint forums , as other forums you can only place your ad as a thread which may/may not come in to the notice of advertisers. If your thread doesn't get frequent replies it will easily get lost in the ever-coming stream of new threads. Digital Point is being referred in this post as it is one of the most famous forums among webmasters. NOTE: As of now there are no 'exclusive' restrictions from any of these sites. Hence you are free to use several advertising networks on your site/blog at the same time and diversify yourself between these advertising programs. V.Divya Sai is a Scientist and Biotechnologist with a keen interest in Blogging. He has founded the blogs Bikers Blog and Blogger Templates & Widgets with the main aim of helping other bloggers to uplift and optimize their blogs. BloggerStop.Net is mainly beneficial for people who blog on Google's Blogger platform. A list of important tutorials can be seen here: Blogger Help.

Two Easy Ways to Get Traffic and make Instant Money!

I came across two easy ways to get any website indexed by Google within days. Google of course leads to huge traffic.First Site Builder Elite makes the simple easy to use website with Google ads, Amazon ads, and whatever affiliate ads you want to put on there. The best part is it is a page builder which means it makes these sites automatically. You put in your affiliate ID hit a few buttons and you can make a 200 page site within 5 minutes...all with your Adsense ads embedded automatically. No more copy and pasting.Then after you get your site up and running, you use Blogger Generator to make tons of automatic blogs in which you put your Site Builder website's link on. Google will crawl the blogs and see your link over and over and give it high credibility and you will get listed lightning fast! You can also put your link to any other websites you own on the blogs.