I really do because they always break down when you can least afford it, and then banks throw extortionate charges at you to make bad things worse.
We knew that September was going to be a tough month financially, tough but managaable. I closed a couple of hosting accounts at the beggining of month as they were really surplus to requirements and so I had to ensure they where all paid up to date. Great I knew what I had coming in over the month, I knew what I had going out so no problem.
Well we had managed to get through the month without much stress until the washing machine decided it was in need of medical attention. Now I don’t beleive in these ‘extended warrenties’ etc, I do beleive they are extortionate, but it means that we either have to replace the machine or pay for someone to look at it.
We looked at the prices of new machines and thought that they had gone up quite drastically since we purchased our current machine, and as it is just over 2 years old it would be worth getting it looked at. Well we did, and we had to pay £150 for the repair.
That left us without any ’spare’ cash if you like, it also left us with virtually nothing in the bank, and our account is a ‘no overdraft facility’ account. And yep, last week of September all your bills start coming out and money coming in always seems to come in a day later than money going out.
We had £5 (about $7USD) in the account when a direct debit for £7.40 (about $10) was due to come out of our account, so the bank returned the direct debit unpaid and charged me £35 instantly. So rather than being £2.4o over drawn we ended up £30 overdrawn, I wouldn’t mind but the money and more was in there the next day to cover it.
The problem is that although money has since gone in and clears my debt, I know I have two direct debits coming out tomorow and due to the previous charge, means I do not have enough money in there to cover them both, yet on Friday there will be.
I have tried speaking to the bank about an overdraft facility today but no one could see me and an appointment is booked for tomorow.
Last week I decided I would try adding an EC widget to my new blog, so last Sunday I submitted it to Entrcard for approval. This was before their announcement about re-introducing paid ads.
By Thursday the new blog was still awaiting approval from a moderator so I sent a message using their feedback form on their site. Now I assumed that as I was logged in they would be able to see my details and the details of the blog awaiting approval. Aparently not, I received an email back later asking me what was the URL of the blog awaiting approval?
I emailed back the url and within an our or so they had approved the blog.
So I would like to congratulate them on the speed that they processed the blog once I had emailed them but wonder why I actually needed to in the first place.
Before I start I must stress this is NOT a paid blog post. While away over the weekend I was watching a TV show that contains a website review section.
A couple of sites that where reviewed cought my eye, unfortunately I had to wait until I got home before I could access them. Take a look at http://www.yearbookyourself.com/ and see how you may have looked in the past.
Is that really me
This was what they think I would look like in 1968 fashion, the year I was born.
Another site I thought was funny was http://www.extremeskipping.com/ , this is all about the latest sports craze of the same name:
I do hope you enjoyed these two sites as much as I did.
I don’t know what they are like in other places but I think the ‘Energy Efficient’ lightbulbs that we are being forced into buying these days are an eyesore. In the UK now it is illegal to sell the tradition light bulbs:
I beleive halogen spots etc are still legal but I am sure these too will be banned in the near future.
In both our Kitchen and Living room we have ceiling lights that take 4xGU10 halogen bulbs, these last about 1000 hours, 35watts each bulb and cost about £3 ($5 USD) a pair.
GU10 Halogen bulb
When one blew in our living room we looked at the ‘energy efficient’ equivilent.
These cost anything between £5 and £10 each (about $8-$15USD), they are meant to last 10 times longer and a 7 watt is said to give same light as a normal 20 or 35 watt halogen bulb and lasts for about 10 times longer. Our concern with this is the size of the bulb.
7w energy saving lamp
Then we came accross an LED equivelant. To look at these are similar to the standard halogen bulb, the ones we purchased used just 1 watt, have life span of about 30,000 hours and cost £5 (about $8 USD) each.
We installed these bulbs when we got home and found them to be a lot dimmer, after a bit or research we found their output to be equivalent to a 5-10w halogen bulb at the most.
I do like the idea of LED’s though and we have kept them in for the time being as we do not use much but now for the kitchen we are looking at LED units with more LED’s in, which consume about 4-5w of power each, and are equivalent to a 40w halogen bulb. These are more pricey, ranging from £10 to £20 each but have a lifespan of 50,000 hours, thats about 45 years if the light is on for 3 hours a day.
Do you use LED bulbs around the house? what are your experiences?
I have decided to keep a seperate blog about my experiences in our Motor home. It will not be updated all the time, obviously just on the occassions when we go away or something happens.
I am still considering whether or not to add an EC widget to the blog, especially as during the winter months there are likely to be less posts.
If you have any suggestions for the blog please let me know
It appears that comments on IMReportCard must be second to none.
I read through existing comments when I first joined the site and then commented on 5 items that I had experiences of, 2 services and 3 Biz Ops. I then contacted them querying if there was any way of seeing what comments I had posted without actually searching the whole database as I had been awarded comment credits for just 4 items, yet grading credits for 5 so things didn’t add up.
They then emailed me later saying’
While your comment was approved, it really didn't contain much specific
or detailed information based on your experience with the item reviewed.
I wondered now how the rest of my comments would fair, I thought they explained my opinions and experience although brief but they, in my opinion was like other comments left by others.
I looked at the site and the comments where gradually being processed and appearing on the site, great all is OK. Then 18 hours after the first email I received another saying :
Unfortunately, after reviewing your comments we've determined that the
kind of content you're submitting is not appropriate for our community
and we ask that you please don't post any more comments.
This decision may have been based on several factors, but the primary
reason is listed below for your reference:
*** No specific helpful info based on personal experience
I find this strange, they must surely be able to see that the comments where all posted around the same time, so before their first email, surely a ‘warning’ would have been sufficient, removing my comments and advising they should be reposted more specifically. I have emailed them asking this and also if I can’t comment but still earn credits from my referals how can I cash out as 25% of credits must be from comments. Does this mean I have referred people to them and will get nothing in return?
I will update when I get a reply to my email. In the meantime I think the site looks good and the idea is great, I just think they need to look into their methods of banning people.
Yesterday I was reading a blog, sorry I can’t remember which one it was but as soon as I find it I will add to this post, it refered to a site called IMReportCard which reviews Products, Services, People and Biz Ops.
Members can then add their own comment to the review. You earn credits for each comment you post that is accepted by the admin. You can earn credits in other ways aswell as listed below:
Rate a Review or another users’ comment 1 Credit
Grade a Product, Service, Person or Biz-Opp 10 Credits
Add your own comment to any review 50/100/150 Credits + *Bonus*
Suggest a new product, service, etc. for review 75 CreditsRefer another user to IM Report Card Whatever THEY earn!
If you leave a comment and another user rates it then you also receive 1 credit.
Basically each credit is worth 1 US cent, once you hit 2000 credits you can then request a paypal payment of $20.
There are currently more than 2000 items that have been reviewed and for which you can comment on, and more than 150 currently being reviewed.
Take a look, IMReportCard, it does cost nothing and it lets you earn a few dollars from leaving genuine comments about your experiences.
About 5 years ago Alex Tew came up with the idea of generating money by selling advertising by pixels on a web page “Million Dollar Homepage“, i am sure many of you remember it. He was selling advertising for $1 per pixel, the idea was to raise enough money to pay his way through University.
He had a million pixels on the page, and to be honest I don’t think many thought it would work nor expected him to sell many ‘pixels’, as happens on the internet, once he started selling pixels copycat sites appeared. I wrote a script back then that automated the whole process, knowing that more and more people would want to copy the site and hence buy my script so they could set it up and leave it.
Alex Tew filled his web page and sold the One million pixels, others didn’t but once the hype died down so did the idea of pixel advertising.
I was thinking about it yesterday so decided to bring back the pixel ads on my blog, in the side bar on the left you can see a 160×200 pixel section of the grid taken randomly from http://5centpixels.com. These grids are currently displayed on this blog and some of the pages of my script site. They will once again be added to other sites of mine as time goes on.
The site does not charge the $1 per pixel that Alex Tew charged but just $0.05 per pixel. What Alex acheived will never be repeated but it’s fun trying LOL
Over the past few days I have seen more and more ads for ‘drop lists’ and ‘earn 300 credits in minutes’ etc. Sorry but these are not good for the community. Think about it, you utilize these lists and drop on 300 blogs in minutes, it’s obvious that you are not reading the blogs.
Now reverse it and consider the fact that visitors to your blog are doing the same, they are not reading your blog, they are just dropping and run, you will always get ‘drop and runners’ but these lists are just attracting more and more. If people aren’t reading your blog, are they likely to say click on your ‘payperpost’ links if you use payperpost, or are they likely to comment on your posts or click on ads, , whatever you want them to do.
There are other things you can do, use your inbox, make a lists of favorites, if your blog is being monitored by DropaHolics you can get the feed of the top droppers on your blog, and a feed of blogs that you are a topdropper on. (if those blogs are in the database).
You may find that dropping less but reading and commenting more has better results.
