Whether it was in high school or in college most of us have had one or two flexible part-time jobs to earn some extra cash. For me, my first job was detasseling in the cornfields of Iowa. Then I moved onto being a lifeguard at the local water park for a couple summers.
The issue with most of these part-time jobs is they do not work out for us grownups to make some extra money to pay off debt. I wanted to pull in some easy to access part-time job that will work alongside your 9 to 5 full-time job.
My goal for this list is to tell you several flexible part-time jobs that are easy on your schedule and simple to jump right into.
Love to Interact With People? Work in Retail.
This might sound like a job for only those younger people but it is not. Sure there are a lot of teenagers and college students working in retail but there are plenty of grown adults as well. Personally, I have worked a lot of years in retail and it is a pretty good place to be for a part-time gig.
Back in college, I worked at a major department store where I actually met my wife. Later on, after college, I worked at a landscape materials company where I helped sell rock and design yards. The latest experience was because I was in transition between careers. I worked at a major sporting goods retailer here in Denver. This gave me the time to work on my master’s degree while providing for my family.
Working in retail is one of eight great flexible part-time jobs for anyone who is looking to earn more money.
Overall, I have just about seven years of retail experience. I found that the hours and time off needed were extremely flexible. The money is decent for what the job is. Working twenty hours a week might allow you to bring in an extra $800 a month.
Love Walking and Dogs? Try Dog Walking.
There are several apps out there that are basically the Uber for dog walking. You can pay someone to walk your dog OR you can get paid by some who will pay you! If you are like my wife and me, we enjoy going for a walk almost every day after work. So why not get paid for that walk? Hop on one of these apps, Wag! or Rover, to see if one of your neighbors needs help walking their dogs.
Bonus Points! Both of these apps are not just for dog walking. They allow you to pet sit as well!
Can you Write? Do Some Freelance Writing.
This is one that I do not have any personal experience with. My wife has been looking for some flexible part-time jobs for this coming summer. As an English teacher, I plan on recommending freelance writing to her. It will be great because freelance writing is easy to engage with once school is out and disengage once school is back in session. For me, I will hopefully get a good article out of her experience 🙂
Freelance writing is one of eight great flexible part-time jobs for anyone who is looking to earn more money.
Michelle from Making Sense of Cents recommends starting out slowly with one gig at a time. A slow start will ensure that you can focus on that article to make sure it is the highest quality. The higher the quality articles you write, the more likely people will hire you for more. It helps to find a niche you enjoy writing about. If you are having fun writing then it is likely that your writing will be even better.
So how do you find these gigs? Michelle recommends checking out the ProBlogger job boards to find freelance gigs.
Have a Computer? Fill Out Some Surveys.
Look you are not going to get rich by completing surveys, take a look at Andrew’s review of surveying, No more survey apps, they just don’t pay well. You can make some decent money for your savings account every month though. Using Michelle from Making Sense of Cents as an example again, she made around an extra $100 a month from surveys. I do not think this is bad since all you have to do is sit back on the couch with your computer to fill these out.
Uber and Lyft are the newish hip ways to catch a ride around your city. I really love these services as they provide a very easy and simple way to hale a ride. With a couple clicks on your phone and someone is on their way to pick you up.
These services have also become a great way to earn extra money with your own vehicle. With the extreme elasticity of setting your own hours, this is one of those flexible part-time jobs that can fit anyone’s needs. Since you set your own hours, you can make as little or as much as you would like being an Uber or Lyft driver.
Uber or Lyft are great ways to earn extra money on your own time.
I once took a ride from an Uber driver who use to drive a cab. She said that she loves working for the service. It provides her with a lot more flexibility. In turn, this allowed her to spend more time with her kids while making more money than she used to. I thought that was such an awesome statement for Uber.
Personally, I have never tried Lyft. Have you? If so, tell me about it in the comments section below. I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
Have a Pulse? Donate Plasma.
This was my part-time job back in college. Donating Plasma was one of my favorite flexible part-time jobs I have ever had. The hours were super flexible, the pay was great for what was entailed, and it was very easy. I donated plasma for over three years while in college. It provided just about $300 extra dollars for me a month while conforming to my crazy academic schedule as a landscape architecture student.
Etsy is one of those flexible part-time jobs that are easy to jump into but does take some time to get established. I have sold a few photographs on Esty but never put the time into really establishing my shop (that is what they call your personal page). I have read that this can take a little while but can be totally worth the effort that you put forward.
Etsy allows you to sell your own crafts as a part-time gig.
Similar to Uber or Lyft, you put time into Etsy whenever you can outside of your 9 to 5 job. The more you put into your shop, the more likely it will succeed. In the near future, I will be revisiting my Esty Shop trying to revive it and see what I can get out of it. It looks like I have some work to do as they reset my shop since I have last logged in. Stay tuned!
Good With a Camera? Sell Your Photography.
I absolutely love photography. Sadly, since moving to Colorado in 2011 my life has become WAY too busy to be able to put time into the craft. One way I have found to make a little money off of my photographs that are just sitting on an external hard drive is through stock photography.
Back in 2013, I decided to upload some random photos that I liked. Some were my favorite photographs of all time and some were just good. It turned out one of my random ‘just good’ photos that I took of the St. Louis Arch was really loved by people. This photograph has gone on to make me around $1,000! I only host this photograph on iStockPhoto and ShutterStock.
I have used stock photography to make true passive income for the past four years.
Stock photography is truly a passive income. I have not touched that photo on either service in that past four years. So fun!
Conclusion
If you are looking for some extra cash to help pay off debt then I recommend you try out any of these eight flexible part-time jobs. All in all these flexible part-time jobs are very easy to get started with. They will allow you to get started right away and earning more cash as soon as possible!
I regularly comment on other blogs. I wanted to share why I do this, why others should do this and what I learned after commenting on 30 blogs in a week.
I’ll admit, I originally wanted to comment on 100 blogs in a week, but not only was that impossible with a full work schedule, I don’t know that many good blogs. Suggestions?
So Why Do I Comment On Other Blogs?
When I first started blogging. I searched specifically for personal finance blogs because that’s the niche I’m in. I wanted to learn what they were doing, what made their blogs “special” and better than mine?
I later expanded to travel and lifestyle blogs.
Blogs usually are the personal journeys, a combination of lessons learned and personal achievements that transcend their niches of “Finance”, “Fashion”, “lifestyle”, etc. When I find a story that resonates with me, I usually comment a similar struggle or congratulate them on their win. As a blogger, I know these words of encouragement help as much as an extra 1,000 page views.
When Do I Comment On Other Blogs?
Personally, I like to start after the end of each month. Many of the blogs I follow release Monthly Income Reports. These usually summarize their highlights on the month as well as their income from investments. It’s really cool to see their investments grow!
Wallet Squirrel is no exception. Our Income Reports continue to be our most popular post for commenting. I think most finance bloggers would agree with this.
The only exception is when bloggers publish a new post, there seems to always be a mad rush to be the first one to comment. I see this on popular blogs like Mr. Money Mustache. Some people set alerts for new blog posts because when they’re the first to comment, they’re higher up on the page for more backlink views. We’ll get to that in a sec.
What Blogs Do I Comment On?
I have a list of about 80 blogs (let me know if you want to be added in the comments below) that I keep in an excel sheet. It’s nice because all the blog names hyperlinked, so 1-click sends me to straight to their site. I also include their Twitter handle because it’s appreciated to send a tweet after every comment if it’s a good article.
Personally, I track each time I comment on each blog so I’m not leaving duplicate comments or ruining relationships with other bloggers because I haven’t been to their site in 4 months. I try to visit my top 30 blogs every month.
You’ll notice I also added Moz’s “Domain Authority” and SimilarWeb’s “6 Month Visitor Count” but this is more for me to track how these sites are growing and compare to Wallet Squirrel. You’ll see I don’t only comment on popular sites, I focus on the ones I enjoy!
My Excel List for Blogs I Follow
What Makes A Good Comment?
Honestly, I don’t know what makes a good comment. Usually they’re supportive, grammatically legible and entertaining. If you disagree with something, be respectful. There have been a couple times I learned from a mistake through comments pointing it out. I’m incredibly thankful someone took the time to point it out.
My favorite is when Adam wrote his Ask for Raise article “A lawyer could state that if they when a particular number of cases.” our friend Trist pointed this out “did you mean win?” (not in the comments). After 10 minutes of laughing, we appreciated the comment.
In my personal experience, bloggers love comments regardless of grammar. It’s a great way to show support without giving them money.
Where Did I Leave Comments Last Week?
This list is made up of some of my favorite blogs and a few blogs I’ve been wanting to check out for awhile. I’m glad I did. I hope my comments helped, they were genuine thoughtful comments totaling over 2,558 words or an average of 85 words per blog in a week.
Here are the 30 blogs I commented on this last week. All very awesome.
What I Learned After Commenting On 30 Blogs In A Week?
It’s important to look over an entire blog. I saw on one blog that they were featured on Rockstar Finance through their sidebar. I ended up reaching out to Rockstar Finance and they added me to their membership directory! Plus I’m currently working with them to feature a Wallet Squirrel Article. I didn’t even know about Rockstar Finance before finding it on a new blog I now follow.
Don’t comment only to create backlinks/traffic to your site, it not effective. I used to think this was a great way to create tons of traffic back to my website. It’s not. After commenting through the week on 30 blogs, I only received 30 new visitors from those backlinks. Commenting is great if you’re genuine, but if you’re only trying to create backlinks and traffic back to your site, there are better ways to do it.
Always subscribe to be notified of follow-up comments by email. Bloggers like myself leave REALLY good responses to good questions. We sometimes write paragraphs in a response to a good comment because we’re appreciative you read our article and left a good comment. Don’t miss out on a great follow up comment by not subscribing to follow up comments.
Read the whole article! Bloggers (and me) hate it when people leave comments that ask questions clearly answered in the article. It just shows you didn’t read the article and you’re only there to create backlinks.
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
Here is an example of a Cost Benefit Analysis I did regarding what I should do with my upcoming tax refund. I pay a ridiculous amount in student loans and to the government annually. So I can usually expect a sizable chunk back. Now I face the question of using my tax refund to either pay off my car or use it to invest.
Why Student Loans vs Car Loan?
I have $64,450 in Student Loans (5% interest) and a $10,132 Car Loan (2% interest). So you think I’d be paying WAY more on my student loans per month. Actually since it’s spread out over twenty years, I actually only play $487.06 in student loans a month. My car loan is $340 per month because it’s over five years (I’m on my third year now).
So if I pay off my car loan, that will free up an extra $340 a month I can use to invest, but is it worth it? To figure out if I should pay off my car or invest my tax refund, I’m doing a cost-benefit analysis!
Cost Benefit Analysis Definition
A cost benefit analysis is a financial model to compare two or more different “what if decisions” usually centered around how much it would cost. This is just like the pro/con list you’re used to making, but you’re analyzing the detailed cost factors of both decisions.
Cost Benefit Analysis Example Infographic
How to do a Cost Benefit Analysis? See my example
Question: I want to compare if I should use my tax refund combined with 3/4 of my stock portfolio to pay off my car loan or should I invest my tax refund. Which would be a wiser investment?
Math: So I pulled all the info on my car loan and stock portfolio below. Using the Pay Off Date of my car loan as the end date, I can calculate two options. In both options I would continue to invest $120 per month in my stock portfolio.
Tax Refund
Tax Refund = $3,200
Extra Money = $500
Car Loan
Amount Left – $10,132
Monthly Payment – $340
Pay Off Date – October 2nd, 2019
Interest Rate – 2.89%
Stock Portfolio
Stock Portfolio – $8,548
Historical Stock Market Interest – 7%
Option 1 – Pay Off Car – If I pay off my car loan, that that would free up my car payment of $340 per month. So if I pay off my car loan in April, 2017 that would free up 29 payments of $340, adding to a total of $460 per month into my stock portfolio with my regular $120 monthly contributions ($340 + $120).
If I invested that $460 monthly, with compound interest onto the remaining $2,116 in my portfolio (tax refund + stock portfolio – car loan) , it’d equal $16,500 by October, 2019.
I even went so far as factoring in my new insurance rate because it would be lower with me owning the car. I actually called my Esurance agent and asked what my new insurance rate would be if I fully owned my car vs having a car loan. You should do this, it’s super helpful! The new insurance rate would be $336 per six months vs the current $588 per six months. So this would save around $500 a year.
I’d also recommend talking to your bank holding your car loan and asking them if there are any penalties for paying off your car early? Remember they make money off the interest and if you pay early, they are missing out on a few extra bucks. Luckily the credit union where my car loan was under had no penalties for paying off early. Again, it’s super helpful to find out all these little factors before you make a decision, these all factor into the cost benefit analysis.
Option 2– Invest My Tax Refund – If I continued to invest instead of paying off my car loan. I’d dump that $3,400 tax refund (plus $500 extra) into my investment portfolio for a total of $11,748. Then add $120 per month for 29 months till October, 2019. With compounding interest, I’d have $17,489 by October, 2019. That’s about $1,000 more than if I paid off my car.
Plus it could be even more since I used 7% stock market interest and last year it was more like 13%, but I wanted to use historic returns because past performance doesn’t mean future performance. 😉
There’s more to it
So if I continue to invest in my portfolio instead of paying off my car loan, I’ll have a little over $989 more by October 2nd, 2019. but that’s only the numbers.
There is a certain amount of freedom to having an additional $340 a month. If I have an unexpected expense, that’s $340 extra I have to cover it if needed. I’m not going to lie, it would be nice to have that extra cash each month. It’d solve a lot of nightmares in the middle of the night of not having enough money.
On the other hand, if I don’t have the extra money each month, I can’t waste it. See it’s a dilemma! At least I NOW know how much I’d have with both options because I did the Cost Benefit Analysis!
Cost Benefit Analysis Template
Here is the excel sheet I used to calculate my cost benefit analysis. It’s pretty simple, but you can see the formula I used for “Future Value” to calculate the final amounts. It was really cool tinkering with the different values to see how the two options compared. Try it for yourself by downloading the excel sheet I used.
I inputted in all the variables which you see above. Then broke down the new principal of my stock portfolio in each of the options. In Option 1 (Pay Off Car) it was $2,216 and Option 2 (Invest) the principal was $11,748. Then added the new monthly payments of both Options. Lastly I used the formula “Future Value” to break down both Options after 30 months.
Future Value Formula
The formula “Future Value” in excel was new to me, so let me break it down.
Cost Benefit Analysis Template
=FV (rate, nper, pmt, pv, type)
*note that the future value formula is in years, I had to adjust since I was using monthly deposits
Rate – The Interest Period (mine was 7%) Nper – The total number of payment periods (months divided by 12 for number of years) Pmt – The payment made each period (my monthly contributions times 12 for a year) PV – The present value (my starting portfolio amount) Type – When payments are due. 0=end of period, 1=1 beginning of period (most people I saw use 0)
How can you Apply this to your life?
When I first had the dilemma what to do with my efile tax return, my friend suggested a cost benefit analysis to analyze both options. While this was a good idea for my tax return, it’s a valuable tool for weighing pros and cons of any financial decision.
You can use this for compare cars when you’re buying new vs used, figuring out car loan costs. Or you figure out if you can buy a new house vs continuing renting. It’s a really a great tool to use!
What am I going to do?
Well that’s a good freaking question. What am I going to do? I need to do something because I have received my tax return and have $3,200 sitting in my savings account only earning 1% interest.
You’ve heard both options with the pros and cons of each. I have a logical decision which is to invest the cash right away in my stock portfolio to make more money or a financially freeing decision which would free up an extra $340 in month income. You’ll have to find what I’m going do in an upcoming post!
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
It is time to formalize Wallet Squirrel’s SEO Strategy for 2017. This strategy will help get the website to rank higher within Google and Bing. Over the next 12 months we will give you updates on how the process is going, where we rank, and where we still need improvement.
Andrew has done a nice job over the last couple of years by laying down a solid foundation for Wallet Squirrel and its SEO strategy. The most important thing he did is he built the website using a highly responsive Enfold WordPress theme. Google gives Wallet Squirrel a score of 99 out of 100 in their Website Mobility Testing Application. This is great news because if he did not do this, we would be redesigning the website to meet this criteria.
Google’s Mobile Friendly Tester helps our SEO Strategy for 2017 by ensuring our site is mobile friendly
Another nice thing Andrew has done is create some great backlinks. About 70 percent of the links he has created are dofollow links as well. This seems like a healthy balance between the two. A lot of the research I have found shows that you want a balance between Do Follow and nofollow links. In case you do not know what those two types of links are, I will explain.
Dofollow links allow juice to travel from their site to your site giving Wallet Squirrel more power/authority. Nofollow links do not allow that juice to flow from site to site. Simply put, dofollow links allow humans and the search engine to travel to Wallet Squirrel through the link but nofollow links only allow humans to do so.
Nofollow links do not allow that juice to flow from site to site. Simply put, dofollow links allow humans and the search engine to travel to Wallet Squirrel through the link but nofollow links only allow humans to do so.
SEO Strategy Starting Point
Before we begin to dig into what our new SEO strategy for 2017 is I must disclose some information. Since neither Andrew nor I are SEO experts we have done a lot of research to come up with a plan. We chose the tips on this page because they were consistently talked about throughout our research. Also, Google and most other major search engines have never formally disclosed what makes a website rank higher. They have hinted at things but they like to keep this information a secrete just like the Coronal’s Famous Crispy Chicken Recipe. So everything below are educated guesses as to what makes for a great SEO Strategy.
Focus on topics for Wallet Squirrel’s audience
We need to find what our audience is really looking for. The main question we need to ask ourselves is, “What do you, the audience, want to read?” If we take Wallet Squirrel down a path of topics that people do not care about then we will not receive any interest. This simple question seems like common sense but it can be an easily overlooked part of SEO.
The process is fairly easy with a little bit of practice and increase of knowledge as to where to search. During this phase of our SEO Strategy we will look for five to seven broad topics to look at. These topics will not be our keywords, those come in the next step. They will be for defining the broad ideas we write about.
Defining Topics
To be able to define these topics we need to do a lot of research as to what current trends are. Our main goal during this research period is to find the readers pain points. What do they need to know about? For example, credit cards. Now a days pretty much everybody has one. These little pieces of plastic control the lives of many people. Within this topic there are dozens of articles that could be written about. Some include how to choose a credit card, how to properly manage payments, how to payoff that debt, tricks to earn more awards, and so on.
Flipboard Application helps us with our SEO Strategy for 2017 by finding trending topics
As I mentioned before, finding these pain points can be tricky. We will need to search around the web for trending topics as to what is being talked about. This can be on the news, demographic profiling tools, social media, or any other creative place you can find. I personally like searching through social media with hashtags because it is the most current. Another source I have been using is the application Flipboard. This news application allows you to customize content based on topics. It then pulls in trending articles. Looking through those articles I was able to find some patterns to help identify some broad topics.
Find Keywords Within those Topics
Now that we have found the topics that the audience is looking to read about, it is time to find keywords to create content around. This is where Google’s Keyword Planner comes into play. Here is how I gathered keywords for each topic.
To-Do:
Firstly, I opened up a new blank Excel document and named it “Topic Keywords”.
I created new tabs for each topic and named them accordingly.
Next I went over to Google’s Keyword Planner and signed in.
I opened the “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website, or category” section and typed in one of the topics to search for such as “Credit Card”.
After hitting search, Keyword Planner takes you to the next page to show you all of the keywords that would fit under that “Credit Card” topic.
Next, I selected the “Download” button and selected “Excel CSV” for my export.
In the new Excel CSV that I downloaded, I select everything in “Keyword” and “Avg. Monthly Searches” columns.
I copied and pasted those columns into my “Topic Keyword” Excel file under the “Credit Card” tab.
Now that I have retrieved all of the “Credit Card” topic’s keywords, it is time to grab to the rest of the keywords for the remaining keywords. To do this, I repeated steps four through eight.
After all of the topic tabs are filled out, the real fun can happen (sarcasm). It is time to clean up our new keywords list. This is done by deleting out irrelevant or poor keyword choices. Also, we will lay out a priority list by marking higher priority keywords with a certain color and lower ones with another color.
Credit Card Keyword Planner used in our SEO Strategy for 2017
Loose Guidelines
Phew, now we are done with finding keywords! We do not have to follow these keyword lists to the dot. There will be other topics that we will want to be write about. This list is a nice guidance to keep us focused on those broad topics but it is there to help with content ideas. It is time to move on to the next step in our SEO Strategy for 2017, creating lots and lots of content.
Create Lots of Excellent Content
Google’s Algorithms are said to rank good solid content higher than poor content. What does this mean? You should create content that is written to the highest standards. It should be highly readable and informative for the reader. The content should also have a lot of substance. The days of writing short 300 word articles are over. Any article should be 1,000 words or greater. So grab a cup of coffee, find a comfy seat, and start writing!
Our articles should be based on a keyword that is searched for monthly. It does not need to be a ground breaking keyword with 100,000 searches per month. Anything with 100 searches a month is a great place to start.
We also need to make sure to do internal linking. Creating deep links from the home page and throughout the website allows for the Google Bots to crawl throughout the website easier. This helps provide more page authority and domain authority to more fresh content.
Build strong Headlines and Titles
During my research I found that building strong headlines and titles for each article does help it rank better. For last week’s post, Way #73 – How to Earn More Money in 2017 – The Achievement App, I used an application I found off of Money Lab. The Headliner Analyzer Tool by CoSchedule analyzes the phrasing and word structure of the soon to be headline or title. It gives it a simple score between 1 and 100. The higher the score the better.
When reading, it sounds like a score around 75 is pretty darn awesome so I shoot to get something around there. I consider something below 60 as pretty low but what do I know. The application also gives you a breakdown of word types used within the headline. I try to get a healthy balance between all four of those types. This tool will be used when we go through to update older yet high performing posts (see last step below).
Define Our Competitors
Many of you reading this post are friends to Wallet Squirrel so do not be hurt by this headline. Defining our competitors is not us putting every financial blog in our cross hairs rather it is about something else.
When we write a brand new blog post, we choose a keyword for that post. For example, this keyword could be puppies. Who doesn’t love puppies, right? After publishing this new article about puppies over on the blogroll we will go see who the article’s competitors are. Within Google’s search bar, or any other search engine preferred, I type in the articles keyword, puppies. Every website that pulls here are our competitors for the blog post on puppies. Next, we will look into how we can copy the backlinks they are getting as well.
Puppies search in Google to find competition.
Spying on Our Competitors
After defining the competitors, we need to spy on our competitors to see what they are doing. Chances are they have a lot of referring links coming in from people who wrote about their article. Here might be an opportunity to see if those people will want to link to our article as well, especially if it has better content. Here is what we need to do.
After defining our competitors we need to go to Backlink Watch and enter in the exact URL of your competitors page. This is the exact URL that competes with your keyword.
Backlink Watch will bring up a list of referring sites pointing to the competitors page.
Click on each link and contact the site owner/author about the new blog post we just posted that focuses around the keyword.
Backlink Watch helps us find who is linking to our competition.
Backlinks
During my research I keep reading that backlinks are not as important as they use to be for ranking. I personally do not think you should take backlinks lightly for several reasons. Firstly, as we compete against several other blogs out there, these backlinks might just be enough to take Wallet Squirrel above and beyond. Secondly, Wallet Squirrel has been around for a couple of years now so it is not exactly young in the internet world. It is very immature with its reach though. These backlinks can help with exposure to the site as we try to broaden our reach around the internet.
We will make sure to post to credible websites that provide backlinks to each new article. These can vary from other blogs, social platforms such as StumbleUpon, social media, and others. There will not be a set list of sites to post on for each post. This is because each article will be about something different and the previous backlink sites might not fit properly.
In the past, on a previous website, we have paid for backlinks. My research has consistently told me that this might be a waste of money now. We will try not do this and see where it takes us in 2017. What do you think of purchasing backlinks?
SEO Strategy Extra Points!
After completing all of the above steps we still need to use the little remaining time we have on these remaining SEO Strategies for 2017. These are more advanced SEO Strategies that will take a lot more time (not sure where that is going to come from). It will be interesting to see how we can fit these techniques within the overall strategy.
Infographics
Infographics are becoming more and more popular. Luckily we have an immensely talented guy on our team to make gorgeous infographics, Andrew. If you have not seen his What Happens To Debt When You Die – Infographic, you need to head over there next. Plus, the other dude on the team, Adam, wrote his Master’s thesis on Data Visualization. So we should have no excuse to make amazing infographics for Wallet Squirrel’s audience. They have a great potential to bring in a lot of traffic to Wallet Squirrel.
We want to make sure our infographics can be found. Submitting to infographic directories will help gain more exposure for each one. Though this will be time consuming, it should be worth it in the long run. The article by Modern Marketing Partners provides twenty sites that we can submit too.
On top of this we want to make it easier to share the infographics from Wallet Squirrel. Making information easy to share for our readers will increase the likelihood of it being spread across to broader audiences. We have not figured out this method yet but once we do, I am sure we will keep you posted. Ideas?
Guest Posting
We will continue to jump on any guest post opportunity that comes our way. Some people are nervous about doing guest posts because you are creating other content for your “Competition”. Then your “competition” gets all of the viewership and affiliate links. I will be challenging us, Team Squirrel, to not think this way. Other financial blogs are not our “competition” but rather friends and colleagues who are also reaching for financial freedom.
I personally think guest posts can work be very effective! They help spread our voice across the internet to other audiences. Essentially, I see it as putting in a little work for some easy advertisement to the blog. We will want to be somewhat picky as to who we guest post for. It will be important to make sure that the other blogging website has a similar vision and morals. It would not be good to guest post for a website that could bring negative feedback to ours.
Story Time
Trey Ratcliff, who is the photographer that inspired me to get into photography. About five to seven years ago he was doing something most other photographers were not doing on the internet. He was uploading high resolution photographs without a watermark to a downloadable site, SmugMug. He would put his content under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial license. Everyone was saying he was crazy to do this. People kept saying “bad” people could take his work and use it illegally. He thought so what, at least my photography is getting out there and viewed. Trey is now one of the world’s most popular photographers. He even has work in the Smithsonian! I believe he made it to where he is today because he let the leash loose on his photographs allowing his viewership to expand even more rapidly.
SSL Certification
Google helps promote websites with the newish SSL certificate. I have read in several locations, including Moz, that this certificate is really important now. You can tell if a website has the SSL certificate when its URL starts with https://. Wallet Squirrel does not have this certificate…yet. Adding the SSL certificate should be a fairly easy item to check off our SEO strategy for 2017 list.
The SSL Certificate should be apart of anyone’s SEO Strategy.
Slow Website Speeds
Research tells us that Google will ding websites with slow loading speeds. When running tests on the Wallet Squirrel, the site fails miserably. I will work on trying to figure out what is causing this slow down. Firstly, I will check with our web hosting provider Bluehost about what might be going on. They have amazing customer service so I am sure we can get to the bottom of the issue.
There are several other ideas that could be slowing the site down. The first item I will explorer is checking to see if the images are too large. Secondly there is a possibility that there is too much JavaScript and CSS code. This code could be imbedded into the WordPress theme that we use. I really hope Bluehost is able to help us because I do not want to go digging through code.
Let me know in the comment section if you have any other ideas?
Index the pages
We need to make sure that our pages are being indexed on Google and Bing. This can be done on Google Webmaster Tools as well as Bing’s Webmaster. This is a very easy process of making sure Google or Bing Fetches the website or blog post.
Another tool recommended by Neil Patel Is the Ping-o-Matic. The application will allow us to ping high authority search SEO service directories. According to Neil, this allows Google’s bots to crawl the website a lot quicker and easier.
Our goal will be to create a document on each site that can push more visitors to Wallet Squirrel. This is obviously easier said than done but is not out of the question. First we will want to pick one of the social platforms to create a new document such as Slideshare. We will want to pick a trending topics that relate to Wallet Squirrel. We can use GrowHackers.com or Google Trends to help us search for those trending topics.
After finding an awesome topic to create a slideshow about it will be best to do research on how to make it spectacular. Luckily, we can look at the what other slide shows are doing themselves. Looking at what those authors did we can figure out what works and what does not work to create something jaw dropping. Creating well written content within the slide share will help engage the reader but more importantly we will want to add images. Adding a visual dynamic will create a more well-rounded presentation to keep our audience roped in.
Return to Old Blog Posts
We do not want older but popular articles to go stale. Google does not like stale content and will lower its ranking within search results. So every three to six months we need to examine older articles to refresh them a bit. First it is best to find what the best performing articles from that time frame are. One example for Wallet Squirrel would be Andrew’s Review of the Robinhood App.
First we went to Google Analytics
Under the Behaviors Tab I found what the top posts were three to six months ago.
After finding the top three or so posts are we can go ahead and update them.
Updating old but high performing posts every three to six months is an extra point item to our SEO Strategy for 2017
There are several ideas as to what to update. One thought is to update the headline or title of the article. This would be another great opportunity for us to use the Headline Analyzer talked about earlier. Also, as time progresses we usually learn more about that particular subject. We can update the article to include this new information.
Measuring Progress
So I have decided on a few metrics that we will use to measure the progress of our new SEO Strategy for 2017. All numbers are current as of March 16, 2017. We will update them as the year progresses.
Alexa Ranking – 3,609,825
Sites Linking Into Wallet Squirrel (by Alexa) – 30
Moz Domain Authority – 18
Avg. Weekly Views – 329
The goal to our SEO Strategy for 2017 is to climb the ranks with Alexa
SEO Strategy Resources
To put this SEO Strategy together, I looked all around the internet for consistent recommendations from credible sources. I must give credit to the sites that gave me each idea first. I wish I could name all of the sites that confirmed these ideas but that would be too long of a list!
Believe it not, but registering Wallet Squirrel as an LLC was pretty freaking easy.
Personal Goal – I’ve always wanted to be a business owner and now is the moment. Wallet Squirrel is legit!
My fear – I was always terrified that registering a company would put a spotlight on me by the IRS to rummage through everything I’ve ever done and hunt me down like a hawk. Perhaps that’s a little extreme, but it’s something that kept me up at night. I’ve finally got over that fear because of two reasons. First, I just have to register it if I expect to earn any income from Wallet Squirrel I need to have it separate from my personal assets. Second, I’ve finally become comfortable knowing that Wallet Squirrel doesn’t make a lot of money, it’s not going to be a ridiculous tax bill.
Why now? – Mainly because Wallet Squirrel continues to see more and more growth. So if Wallet Squirrel plans on making money, I should really file that separately from my own tax documents. PLUS as Wallet Squirrel continues to make a name for itself, I need to have that name protected. Look forward to my trademark post coming up.
How to Set up an LLC in Colorado?
I will breeze through this part because it’s pretty simple.
Check to see if your company name (name + LLC) is available in the naming database. Check here.
If your name is available. Start here to enter the name you want to use.
Fill out your address like 4 times and the rest of the form.
Pay $50 and you’re done.
That’s basically it. I received an email notifying me that Wallet Squirrel is registered as an LLC in Colorado.
Conclusion
I’m super excited to be a legit business owner now, but still have some details to finalize like obtaining an EIN (Employer Identification Number) so I can set up a business bank account for Wallet Squirrel. That’s about it though, I just wanted to share with everyone how EASY it is to set up an LLC and say that Wallet Squirrel is officially legit!
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
Is it possible to love good grammar but be awful at it? YES, absolutely. Story of my life.
Now, while I am a stickler for good grammar, I’m not a jerk and anticipates calling people out on the wrong use of effect vs affect. It’s a pretty common mistake, but here’s the thing. It doesn’t have to be. Here is my Grammarly review.
For the last 8 months or so, I’ve been using a Google Chrome Extension called “Grammarly“. It’s been a huge life saver for me and it can absolutely work for you too. Specifically, I’m addressing other Bloggers and Website Commenters. You’re like 90% of my audience.
You can bully on YouTube comments all you want, but let’s use good grammar people.
Grammarly Review: What does Grammarly do?
Grammarly in essence is an online grammar checker. There are two ways to use Grammarly:
1. As you type within comment boxes online on any site, you’ll see a solid red underline as Microsoft Word but it’s Grammarly checking both for spelling and correct uses of words, commas, sentence structure, etc. You’ll see a nice little Grammarly logo, so you’ll know it’s working.
Here is the comment form I recently left on Dividend Diplomats blog, awesome blog check it out.
2. You can also open up to the actual https://app.grammarly.com website and create a blank document so you can either type your documents there and copy and paste into your actual web form or document. OR you can copy and paste your document into the Grammarly website and it’ll auto identify any mistakes. This is what I do.
Here is the App view, it opens Grammarly in a new tab via your web browser and identifies all the mistakes on the side.
Did I mention Grammarly is free? Well, it has both a free version and paid version.
Free Version
I used the free version for the first 2 months, switched to the paid version for 2 months and now back to the free again. It’s fantastic. The free version is exactly the same as the paid version but I believe it only catches the obvious mistakes. By obvious mistakes, I mean 90% of the errors you make. This is still pretty significant. In my experience for this Grammarly review, the free version is the best for the value.
How they hooked me into the paid version (for a few months)
Like I said, the free version will catch 90% of your mistakes. The other 10% are usually just commas in certain locations that perhaps an English professor would pick up on.
As Grammarly is reviewing your document/web form/text. It’ll identify all your mistakes and give you suggestions on how to correct this. HOWEVER, it’ll also identify 3-9 errors that it won’t highlight and tells you that you need to buy the paid version to see these. At first, I freaked out. WTF am I missing here. They hooked me, I paid for the free version.
Once I had the free version, those 3-9 errors it suggested were just commas. SERIOUSLY! I didn’t gain much value out of paying the extra $30 monthly for it to tell me I had additional comma options and perhaps a few synonyms it suggested. This is why after the 2 months of trying it, I went back to the free version. Usually, people are forgiving if you miss a comma in the wrong location, spelling and sentence structure is just stupid. Grammarly will correct these in the free version.
How do I use Grammarly?
If I didn’t establish this already, I use this program and no they are not paying me to write this Grammarly review. Do people actually get paid to write reviews? If so, it doesn’t happen to me.
My process usually involves writing my blog posts in Microsoft OneNote first (awesome program). After the post is finished, I usually create pretty pictures or an infographic in collaboration. Why, because they’re cool. =)
Then I paste the text into Wallet Squirrel, which is WordPress platform. As soon as I paste the text into WordPress, Grammarly automatically starts reviewing my text and doing the solid red underline thing for any grammar issues. For spelling mistakes, it gives me multiple correction options and same for grammar mistakes and the use of wrong words like effect vs affect. Grammarly is especially good at helping with the right word choices. Using this process gives me double the grammar checking of both Microsoft and Grammarly. In my opinion, they are very similar.
After though, I love Grammarly for when I post on social media and comment on other bloggers, the Grammarly Chrome Extension constantly works to correct any issues on all of these platforms. So I don’t have to copy and paste my comments, I can type directly into these web forms and Grammarly picks up on the text and provides corrections if needed. It’s really a bloggers best friend.
Grammarly Competitors
This is by no means the only grammar checking software out there. It’s just the one I use and keep in mind you can use multiple apps here to create exceptional text if you’re paranoid, but I personally only use Grammarly though I may include Hemingway in the future. Here are the few others out there:
Hemingway – Best for overall readability of your text. It’s great for helping you write better.
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
Early last year, following the January 17th post season game of Broncos vs Steelers, I recall reading Dave Ramsey’s “Total Money Makeover”. Yes, I was desperate.
In one of the first chapters, he goes on and on (he literally can not shut up about it) about having an Emergency Fund. Yes, others have mentioned it, but for me, Dave Ramsey was the first to tell me I need to get on this. He was my first.
Here’s the thing with Emergency Funds. Everyone seems to have a different way they set these up. Davvy-Poo Ramsey talks about putting money in an envelope under your bed for safe keeping to pull out in dire emergencies. His believes that if people have an emergency fund easily accessible, they will spend it. Apparently he believes his audience has no self-control, maybe they don’t, but I went a different direction. I will always love Davvy-Poo for starting on my Emergency Fund journey, but here’s where I deviate.
My Emergency Fund
I have everything electronic. I keep $2,000 in my checking account as my “Emergency Fund” where it’s readily available. I don’t have cash hidden under my bed like National Geographic’s Doomsday Preppers (how the mighty National Geographic has fallen).
My active checking account fluctuates between $2,000 and $4,000 each month to cover my monthly expenses. At the end of the month, anything over $4,000 goes toward my savings account and that into my dividend portfolio. Here’s what I mean (infographic below):
Why I set up my Emergency Fund like this?
I have a method to my madness. Two reasons why I set up my Emergency Fund like this:
My checking account is immediately accessible for debit withdraw if needed. PLUS my checking account gains interest (albeit a small amount) my emergency fund is large enough I make about $0.20 each month. I couldn’t do that hiding cash under my bed like a caveman.
The biggest reason is fees. Overdraft fees are ridiculous and I’ve done that a couple times when I kept extra cash in savings. Since my Emergency Fund is the base of my checking account, if I go over my monthly expenses, it just pulls cash from my Emergency Fund which is the foundation for my checking account. No OVERDRAFT FEES EVER.
How much do you need in an Emergency Fund?
This is where a lot of people differ on how much they should have saved in an emergency fund. For me, I try to have $2,000 in my immediate emergency fund. This will cover about 1 month’s expenses for me. My emergency fund essentially gives me enough time to access my stock portfolio if needed.
In case of a legit emergency, here’s what I’d actually do
I’ve never had a legit emergency that’s affected my income (I’m young and invincible), but if I ever did, I have a plan.
I would have immediate access to $2,000 in my checking account
I would have immediate access to my emergency fund of $2,000 also in my checking account
I would have semi-immediate access to my saving account which usually holds $4,000. It’s a semi-secondary emergency fund. This also makes interest =)
That would give me time if needed to sell stocks and access my portfolio currently made up of $7,000.
With my average monthly expense of 2,000. My emergency process would cover me for 7.5 months if I could make no money what so ever. That’s pretty cool! Yes, I have friends and family that would be willing to help, but it’s important to me that I could support myself.
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
Here is a quick story of how I made $21.80 by offering to pick up the bill for other people. This might work for you too.
Last Thanksgiving before leaving Denver and heading home to visit my parents in Iowa. My father asked me to pick up a few things that he couldn’t find back in Iowa. With Denver being a major metropolitan area, he figured it would be here, as well as some other errands since I would be out.
Here is where the story gets interesting, at Target while picking up these specialty things. Target had their Black Friday deal of buying $20 worth of merchandise, you get a $5 gift card for your next purchase. I didn’t know about this or think about it till checking out when the cashier handed me four $5 gift cards. Not sure why she didn’t put them all on one card, but that’s beside the point. It was pretty cool. Later I added another $10 at IKEA and spent a total of $90. Keep in mind, the entire time, I used my 2% cash back credit card so my credit card company paid me $1.80 just for using my card.
Now when I got home, I handed my dad the receipts for $90 and he promptly paid $90. So I was returned my original $90 and had an additional $21.80 from Target’s promotion and my cashback card.
My Dilemma:
Give Money Back – Do I give my father back $21.80 since that was earned through his errands?
Keep the Money – I paid $90 for the items he asked for and he paid me $90 back. That should be the end of story, right?
Photo Credit: Pixabay
What happened – I offered the gift cards to my father since they were received when I was acting on his behalf picking up his errands. He informed me to keep them to help pay for the gas running around town. While the $20 was more than what gas was, he’s just that kind of generous guy. As for the 2% cash back from the credit card. I have no reservations about keeping that. It was my choice to pay with a credit card rather than cash.
Lesson Learned:
After that, I learned the benefits of picking up the check. Now when eating out with friends and the waiter won’t split the check, I now always offer to pick it up and people can pay me via Cash, Pay Pal or Venmo. Usually, it’s easier for the waiter and my friends thank me for taking care of it. I have yet had anyone not pay me back and I love the cash back. A meal with 12 people that cost $250 generates $5 from my 2% cash back credit card. That’s $5 I didn’t have before.
Wallet Squirrel is a personal finance blog by best friends Andrew & Adam on how money works, building side-hustles, and the benefits of cleverly investing the profits. Featured on MSN Money, AOL Finance, and more!
Here’s the thing, I started this post reviewing Swagbucks. Swagbucks is one of the most popular survey sites out there and I just wrapped up the last three hours building wealth. OK, it was more like brain melting surveys that made less than $1. That is when I just said forget survey apps.
Yes, I have only tested three survey apps ever. Those were “Swagbucks”, “Toluna” and a while ago I did “Survey On The Go”. All three times I spent hours answering such riveting questions such as “What is your age?”, “What is your occupation?” and “What is your medium income?”. 70% of the time I was told that I was not what they were looking for and the other 30% I earned a few pennies. In the case of Swagbucks, after 3 hours I made 28 points and it takes 2,500 to make $25. That’s roughly $0.28 or $0.09 an hour.
Disclaimer: There are other ways to make money on Swagbucks like signing up for free offers and downloading countless apps you don’t need that will take up all your phone’s memory. Obviously from my tone, I think these are all dumb ideas and we shouldn’t
So that’s it for me. Wallet Squirrel and I are officially done with Survey Apps. To give you an idea this is what I was making an hour on the different sites. Keep in mind, I did these while watching a movie, it was the only way I could get through these.
Swagbucks: $0.09 per hour Toluna: $0.66 per hour Survey on the Go: $0.20 per hour
I’ve started with survey apps because they are one of the most common ways people usually say they can make money online. I thought it would an ideal way to start. I’m glad I did, now I can cross it off and focus on some better ways to earn money…..
I first thought I’d create a WordPress site and sound like an expert in dividend investing. I set it up in a week and when I laid down my finger tips to the keyboard to type the first post “What is Dividend Investing” I froze like a deer in headlights. Why would I assume to know more than you about dividend investing? That was stupid.
Scratch that and let’s be real, legit or whatever the kids are saying today. I love to receive money (notice I didn’t say earn) and who wouldn’t? Money is awesome. It won’t BUY happiness but it’ll buy you a boat and people with boats are happy, right? I’m pretty sure Chris Janson (country singer) wrote a song about that.
How I view Investing
Have you ever played a video game where you’re economy relies on you building refineries that constantly produce resources for you? You wait long enough, or build enough refineries, you will have enough money to build a giant army and crush/destroy/annihilate your foes. That’s how I see dividend investing, but instead of winning the game, you can retire early.
Personally I hate the “R” word, retire. It’s so far away. The idea that you have to have less money now when you’re young and able to spend it, to then save it so you can use it when you’re old. Yay, you can play more golf…… That is a sarcastically view, but I do realize it’s importance.
Yet, the idea of saving or throwing money into a big pot (401k) and hoping that it won’t run out when you actually retire sounds ridiculous. People are living longer than ever and $1,000,000 spread over 10 years is REALLY different spread across 40 years.
With dividend investing (not a new concept) I would love to have $1,000,000 all invested in dividend producing stocks generating 4% a year for me. I can totally live on $40,000 a year while I STILL having my $1,000,000 in the bank growing. Plus how cool would it be to pass it on to your kids (I currently have none) so that they would have $40,000 a year for the rest of their lives and their kid’s lives? Can anyone say college?
I still have college loans I’m paying off and I wish someone in my family did this for me. I’m hoping one my grandchildren (again, still no kids yet) reflect upon the night sky while he contemplates his zero debt and say “Man, Grandpa Andrew was pretty awesome”. I can dream.
How to pay for investing
Now I pretty much make peanuts now, which like most people do, sucks. How the hell can I get to $1,000,000 saving peanuts? What about that gigantic, whimsical, time sucking internet? You can’t throw a rock without someone saying they have made money online. So why can’t I?
While I have started my own list of how to make money online. I plan to test each of these. If it works, then I’ll add that revenue to my dividend portfolio. It’s the best way to use free money. I’ll still share the results here because I don’t want you to waste your time either. Let’s face it, I like you alone for the fact you’re reading this. So yes, I’ll share what works and doesn’t for my portfolio.
