Unroll Me App Review – The Best 5 Minutes for Your Email’s Inbox
This Unroll Me App Review is going to show you why you should spend 5 minutes every month using this tool to clean up your email inbox. At the end of each month, your inbox will be writing you a thank you letter.
I wonder if it will send the thank you via email or snail mail?
Well, today we will talk about Unroll Me and really just how easy it is to use!
What is the Unroll Me App
To start off this Unroll Me app review, let’s answer a couple of questions as to what the tool does and who the company behind the tool is.
Unroll Me is a free service that allows you to easily (an understatement) unsubscribe from all of those pesky email subscriptions.
After signing in, the algorithm scans your inbox looking for e-commerce emails. Once found, the application lists them out allowing you to decide what to do with the subscription.
Who Is Unroll Me
Slice Technologies is the parent company that owns Unroll Me. They are able to make Unroll Me a free service because they collect data on the e-commerce emails you get. They use this data to, “build an anonymized market research products that analyze and track consumer trends.”
Slice says they strip all of the personal information (name, email, address, or anything else that could identify you) from the data collected. The technology behind Unroll Me is designed to determine if the email is personal or e-commerce. The algorithm completely ignores the personal emails as it searches your inbox.
You can read their blog for more information to see what the data is used for. Some of the research they post is actually pretty fascinating but I am a nerd when it comes to data.
How to Use the Unroll Me App
It literally took me five steps and less than five minutes of my life to unsubscribe from 74 subscriptions. I really could not believe that I was done already!
Choose your email provider and click through the prompts.
The algorithm will run. It searches through your inbox for subscriptions and then spits out a list of them.
Click either ‘Keep in Inbox’, ‘Unsubscribe’, or ‘Add to Rollup’ (I’ll explain that later) for each subscription on the list.
Success!
Was that not super easy? I know! Right?!?!
Oh! I mentioned I would talk about what ‘Add to Rollup’ is. The Rollup is a single email that Unroll Me will send to you at the end of the day. This email will consist of all the content from every email that is a part of the Rollup from that day. I have not personally tried this yet but they say the Rollup email is very digestible and easy to read.
One final tip. If you would like, you can have Unroll Me notify you on a particular schedule to check for more subscriptions that were not in your inbox at the time. I decided to do the monthly reminder.
Why Unsubscribe?
We now live in a world where we are completely submerged by advertisements. The design of these advertisements is to tempt us to spend our hard-earned money on materialistic items.
These ads do not stop with commercials, billboards, or temporarily tattooed to the back of that guy’s head on the bus. Subscription emails also drown us every day with more temptation.
Using the ease of Unroll Me to unsubscribe from these emails trying to derail us from our financial goals allows us to stay focused. This is why you should unsubscribe to these emails.
Also, they are just annoying. Unsubscribing will also help keep your blood pressure down.
Final Take
To wrap up this Unroll Me app review I must say that I really enjoyed my experience with this tool to free me from those spammy email subscriptions.
Look, I understand if you are skeptical because of the data collection. You are entitled to have those feelings!
The algorithm design to strip out my personal information is what sold me to try out the Unroll Me app. I understand if you are still skeptical after hearing that. But hey! As a data guy myself, I do know this technology exists and it is pretty amazing.
Overall, this is a great free service. If you can get over the data collection thing, then I think you will enjoy it just like I did.
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!
We are regularly becoming a cashless society with credit cards and digital transactions becoming the primary forms of money transfer. Even mega-company Starbucks continues to play with the idea of a completely cashless store, only accepting credit cards and mobile apps.
More and more people don’t carry cash anymore. When going out, we take our phone, ID, and credit card. With those, you can pretty much pay for anything. Even then, credit cards are becoming obsolete as phones nowadays can handle most payments.
As people continue their unknowing war on cash. The biggest winners are the four major financial institutions MasterCard, Visa, PayPal and Square. I find myself regularly reminding friends to continue to at least keep some cash on them for the following reasons.
FYI – I keep about $100 in my wallet at all times for these reasons. Again, please don’t rob me. I usually have (3) Twenty Dollar Bills, (2) Ten Dollar Bills, (1) Five Dollar Bill and the rest One Dollar Bills. Always stacked in order so I can quickly grab what I need.
In a cashless society, here’s why you still need cash
1.A Minimum Purchase on Cards – This is probably one of the biggest reasons why everyone should keep some extra cash on them. Most stores require a “minimum credit card amount” usually set at $5 to $10. This is because stores are forced to pay a 1.6% + $0.10 fee to process your credit card. The lower the price, the more it cuts into their profit.
If your store doesn’t have a “minimum credit card amount” it likely means they’re afraid to scare you away and prefer to absorb those extra costs for the extra convenience of their customers. If you don’t have cash, you’ll be required to buy extra things to surpass their minimum $5 or $10 credit card amount, and that’s not frugal.
2. Parking – If you’re frugal, you’re likely willing to park miles away to avoid paying for a parking spot. However, there are times that’s not an option. You’ll need to pay for a spot or worse a valet. If you’re stuck in a situation where a valet is your best option, it’s always easier to have the cash to hand over quickly.
3. When in a rush – There have been a couple of times I’m at a restaurant with coworkers and the server is swamped. The server is trying their best, but everyone is attempting to fit lunch in a 1-hour period. Rather than waiting for the server to process your credit card and return. It’s easier to lay down the cash and return to the office.
4. Soda Machines – It’s impressive to see the number of soda machines that now accept credit cards. However, it’s not yet universal implemented and many machines still only accept cash. In these moments when you absolutely need caffeine, carrying cash is handy!
5. Tipping – I’ve shared my thoughts on tipping before, and I now tip 20% for everything I do. Yet there are many situations, other than restaurants, that tipping is standard and credit card payments may not be an option.
One example was a Bike Bar I recently celebrated with friends (photo below of our Bike Bar). We paid the $234 through their online portal weeks in advance but that didn’t include the tip for our host. After a great trip, we tipped our tour guide with $40 because he went above and beyond. No one had a credit card processing machine on hand, and we didn’t want the extra hassle of finding our host on Venmo or PayPal. So we handed over cash, it’s still the easiest way to transfer money in person.
6. Special Discounts – This relates to #1 with the “minimum credit card purchase”. Many stores offer special discounts to people who pay with cash. This saves the store from paying a credit card processing fee and eating into their profits. Plus you save a few dollars when those savings are passed onto you.
7. When Your Credit Card Breaks – This is a thing. I’ve been at the grocery store many times with my credit card, and the “Chip” unexpectantly fails. Sometimes the card is dirty, sometimes the processing machine doesn’t like the angle of the card. Either way, it’s an embarrassing feeling to hold up a line while a tiny machine angrily honks at you. At times like these, having cash is a quick lifesaver and contingency plan to failing technology. It’s bound to happen, so being prepared helps!
Can you think of any other examples of when you might use cash over a credit card?
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!
This is a guest post by Clara Decker of CouponsMonk.com, a deals and discounts provider company. She is passionate about money savings, investment and finance industry. In addition, Clara also supports non-profit agencies that provide healthcare solutions to handicapped and disabled people.
Managing one’s finance, sticking to the budget, and handling investment decisions are easier than ever before now. All thanks go to the today’s crop of personal finance apps which are getting popular with each passing day.
They are effective enough to help you strategize and manage your finance in the best possible way. In fact, these apps are taking the world by storm. Especially, it is expected that millennials are going to get benefited with the largest amount of personal wealth of any generation through these apps.
Undoubtedly, there is happening an explosion of brand-new consumer finance brands which are certainly changing the way how people spend, save, and manage their money.
Howbeit, it is even true that not all such personal finance apps are worth downloading and using both. There is a myriad of options available out there which are not incorporated with enough smart technologies to help you plan your financial life in a better way. Hence it is always recommended to avoid them.
Which are the good ones then?
This piece of writing will actually help you out to get the right answer to this question.
It can be considered as one of the best apps to manage your precious bucks. It comes as a powerful all-in-one resource which is perfect for curating a budget and tracking the same. All that you need to do is just connect all your bank and credit card accounts, monthly bills and so on. Hence, you can be assured of all your finances to be in a convenient place. You don’t have to access multiple sites to access your financial data. You may notice that even Wallet Squirrel’s own Andrew uses this daily.
With the amazing perks like letting you know the due time for your bills, how much you owe etc., Mint has become immensely popular nowadays. Also, this app is technically sound enough to give you specific advice on budgeting. This is not the end! You can even enjoy the exhilarating feature of free credit score.
If you’re someone who believes in tracking your finance to attain the best results, this app is definitely your cup of tea. If you use this it, you don’t have to manually log-in to your expenses at the end of the day. This free app is such a user-friendly one which can even take a snap of your receipts. Above that, if you are someone who is using geo-location on your smartphone, this app can further help you in saving that information. In the end, the process will end up being pretty fast for you while saving the time for several steps.
Hence, if you want to have a clear insight of where your bucks are going, you can simply trust on Wally.
If you want to spend some money on trading, Acorns is the best way of doing that. It is such an interesting app that even if there is a spare change from any of your purchases, you can invest that into stocks and bonds. If you are new to the market and you want to figure out frugal ways to make an entry, this app can definitely help you out.
All that you need to do is just make a log-in to your bank account. You will be able to choose an account to make an investment. Next, it needs a little bit of more details like your employee status, net worth, annual income, and decision to invest. That’s it!
Acorns will automatically suggest you a portfolio of stocks and bonds which will match your investment goals rightly. With Acorns, you can choose to start at just $ 5 or in bulk, in the blink of an eye, you will become an investor.
If you want to excel in saving money, you can go for Digit. This app is able enough to analyze various information starting from your income to spending habits while syncing with your checking account. It smartly pulls out the money that seems to be extra in your bank account! Within a significant duration of time, you will end up saving huge. You can download Digit from both Android and iOS apps.
It’s true that we often earn enough but it doesn’t suffice our needs. There are many such big responsibilities like putting our kids through college or buying a house which seems to be quite scary! Isn’t it?
However, if you download the Rize app, it will create a specific roadmap for you to help you accomplish all the aforementioned objectives. You just have to enter your plans and the app will do the rest. It will help you to get ready for all such big plans while saving your bucks. Whether it is iOS or Android, you can download this app from anywhere.
Clarity can let you have your own personal financial advisor always with you. This app effectively monitors and analyses your income and spending. Also, it keeps a track of all the transactions which happen in your bank account. Further, Clarity can even alert you if it figures out that you’re spending over the budget. It will also suggest you enough ways to reduce your spending.
Also, Clarity often does some more essential tasks for you like canceling subscriptions, looking for discounts and so on.
How thrilling is this?
Just try their little AI from any one of the Android stores now!
Every one of you have some debt in some or other way. If you want to keep away some extra money for that but don’t have time to go for a part-time job, you can take help from Fivver. It is a global online marketplace based app which offers various tasks and services starting at the cost of $5 when you complete each gig.
Do you think the amount is too less?
Well, the upsell potency for each gig that you will deal with is really huge! There are even some of such expert Fivver sellers who charge almost $45 upcharge to deliver the gig within the duration of 24 hours. So, you can become one among them and earn huge to upgrade your personal finance.
Aren’t these personal finance apps seem to be worth enough? Don’t wait anymore! If you want to become financially stable in your personal life, try them soon. There can’t be any better way to manage your finance in the right way.
Getting paid to write articles is one of our favorite ways to earn extra money, so much so that we made a list of websites that will actually pay you to submit articles for their publications. This is a great way to earn extra money while building your writing brand. The more prestigious websites your articles are published on, the more you can charge per submission, but everyone has to start somewhere. Here is how to get paid to write articles: 20+ Websites that pay you for writing.
What To Write About: Anything with a Top 10 Tagline How Much Can You Make: $100 per 1,800 word article (via PayPal) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 8.02M monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Listverse is full of (you guessed it) lists! Top 10 lists and such are a great attention grabber for readers and Listverse pays for articles with at least 10 list points. They will easily shell out $100 for good quality list articles. If you have a great idea for an attention-grabbing list, submit your list idea to Listverse for consideration. It may be a quick way to get paid to write articles, making $100 per article on our list of websites that pay you for writing. Just make sure that you do your research on your lists, avoid easy grammar issues and create a really attention-grabbing headline.
What To Write About: History, Science, Innovation, Arts & Culture, etc. (Smithsonian stuff) How Much Can You Make: $1,000 per article Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 9.81M monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
How ambitious are you? The Smithsonian is a big deal and one of the more prestegious websites that pay you fro writing. So you may be surprised to hear they do accept submissions from freelance writers. Although you need to provide at least 3 links to previous writing examples, and if you don’t have good ones, you should move on. If you do have all of that, you should “pitch” an idea for an article you have. Don’t worry about having crazy good photographs, they’ll provide the photography your article needs, you just need to supply the 250-300 worded idea and eventually final article if approved.
How To Start A $5K Blog Free Email Course
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Join us to get wonderful blogging tips and access to this amazing course!
I will guard your email with my life. Check your inbox. =)
What To Write About: Anything How Much Can You Make: Pennies Per Page View (via ads) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 3.18M monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
HubPages is an online community that writes about anything and everything. Once you sign up for free, you can write about whatever your passionate about. Your article will have ads on them and you’ll receive a portion of that revenue while you get paid to write articles. The more popular your articles are, the more money you’ll make. This is similar to having your own blog, but HubPages host your articles for you in return for a small portion of the ad revenue your articles produce.
What To Write About: Topics They Ask For How Much Can You Make: Up to $40 for a 500 word article (depending on writing level) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 591.52K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
How iWriter works is that people pay iWriter to write articles for them. So a client will pay iWriter to write an article on “Baking Bread”, for example. Then iWriter will send the request to its army of writers (you) and you’ll take the job. The client will pay iWriter and iWriter will pay you in return. The more great articles you write, the more you’ll earn from iWriter based on their 4 tier (Standard, Premium, Elite & Elite Plus) writer levels. Once you receive Elite Plus level, you’ll be paid $40 for a 500-word article. You’ll pay will depend on the level of writer you are and the number of articles you write. What’s nice is you can accept/decline as many articles as you can write from the comfort of your own home. This is nice because the email request will come in with different topics where you can get paid to write articles.
What To Write About: How To Articles for coding, web design, Adobe Products, anything graphic How Much Can You Make: $200 per tutorial (increases the more you submit) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 19.74M monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Tuts+ is a site I used to visit all the time when learning Photoshop. They have some great tutorials by some awesome teachers, so this probably isn’t for new writers, but people who can prove they’ve written similar tutorials for well-known websites. This makes them one of the top websites that pay you for writing, paying around $200 (starting out) for How-To’s. There are opportunities to create written and video how-to-tutorials. Just make sure you have the depth of experience to back up what you’re teaching. Here is a list of tutorials they’re looking for people to teach.
What To Write About: Tips to help out bloggers (blogs, social media, making money online) How Much Can You Make: $100 – $200 per article Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 303.49K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
The Income Diary is a website focused on helping new bloggers to set up their site, write content and monetize it for future revenue. Since this is a specific niche, there is much similar content that currently exists on the site. While you may be able to earn $200, it is a very difficult way to get paid to write articles and get your content accepted. However if you have an idea that you think fits well with their audience, submit your idea and they’ll tell you if it’s worthy. Otherwise don’t bother writing an entire article until your idea is accepted. If you do get your article idea accepted, you should jump for joy because they are one of the top paying websites that pay you for writing.
What To Write About: Trip Ideas, Destinations, Hotels (travel stuff) How Much Can You Make: $1 a word (articles range from 400 – 2,000 words) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 6.03M monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
With an audience of 1 million viewers per month, Travel + Leisure receives many writer submissions so they’re looking for high-quality articles from writers with previous writing experience. If you’re interested in writing for them, go over their website and understand what type of articles are published. Then go over to their contact page and email them a short email with your “pitch”, don’t bother writing your full article. If they like your idea, they’ll email you back with the guidelines they want. About 95% of the articles on their site are from freelance writers so you may have a shot. They’re one of the few proven websites that pay you for writing.
What To Write About: Volunteering, Work, Living and Studying Abroad How Much Can You Make: $50 – $150 (for a 1,250-2,000 word article) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 422.94K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
While not the most aesthetically pleasing website, these guys have tons of articles submitted by people around the world relating to volunteering, working and living abroad. So much so that their “Travel Writer Guidelines for Submissions” page is heavily detailed on what they’re looking from their writers. Overall this is a great place to share that amazing study abroad adventure you had in college and share all those little secrets you learned along the way like don’t buy cheap outlet plug converts or how to use hotel key cards as knives for your PBJ sandwiches. If you have any of those wacky travel stories, consider this one of the first websites that pay you for writing that you try.
What To Write About: Things important to adults going back to college How Much Can You Make: $55+ (for a 1,000-1,500 word article) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 386.82k monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is an old-school website but maintains high popularity for people interested in going back to college later in life. This site makes money by ads and selling leads to college recruiters. So articles about sharing your personal story about going back to college or how your thinking about going back to college may be ideal. This may be a great place to get paid to write articles if you’ve ever considered going back to school.
What To Write About: Getting paid to travel whether it’s writing, photography, tours, etc. How Much Can You Make: $50 – $200 (for a 300-600 word article) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): less than 10K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is an interesting writing topic because The Travel Writers Life showcases popular ways people are making money while traveling. So you won’t find any fluffy travel stories here. It’s more about how you paid for your study abroad apartment by working at your landlords banana stand. If you have any stories where you made a little money while traveling, this is a great place to share your story on one of the few websites that pay yforfro writing.
What To Write About: Wide range of topics from life style, culture to family and night-life How Much Can You Make: $20 – $60 Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 3.35M monthly visitors
Since this is such a popular website they receive numerous writing solicitations and thus don’t have to offer much money for people looking to get paid to write articles. While they don’t pay much, this may be a good place to start if you’re a beginner writer. If you’re looking to try it out, you’ll have to create a profile on their contributor page and send them your article idea. It’ll take them a month or two to review it and if you don’t hear back, don’t take it personally they get a lot of ideas. Try submiting another idea. When it comes to larger websites like this, it’s a numbers game. Luckily you have the option to write about a wide range of topics on their websites that pay you for writing.
What To Write About: Web development related to code, content, design, process, business, etc. How Much Can You Make: $50 – $200 (1,500 word articles avg.) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 543.71K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is a very niche website related to website development. If this topic interests you, send their team your pitch idea (ideally in a Google Doc) for review. They review all ideas once a week and rarely accept pitches on the first draft. However they’ll likely help you develop your idea further making it worthy of their website. They’re currently looking for new writers so if you have a story to share regarding web development or user experience, shoot them an email.
What To Write About: All things WordPress Website related How Much Can You Make: $50 (They give you a list of topics with prices) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 712.64K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
These guys have one of the most efficient ways to get new writers. Beyond their super easy sign-up page where you submit your credentials, they give you a list of topics to write about and how much they’ll pay for each one. It looks like someone on their team realized keywords they want to rank for and added that list for potential writers to write about. Most of the articles they currently have posted only pay $50 per article, but they claim up to $150. Keep in mind, most of the articles they are looking for are related to how to code WordPress websites, so it may be a little niche for most people. If you have the WordPress knowlege though, it’s one of first websites that pay you for writing you should consider.
What To Write About: Trip Ideas, Destinations, Travel Adventures (travel stuff) How Much Can You Make: $50 per article (articles range from 1,200 – 2,000 words) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 160.98K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is a site I really enjoyed right after researching. It’s a very indie type travel site where it encourages really exploring your travel destinations over high-end resorts. If you have a travel story/idea that you want to pitch, send it to them after you check out their article guidelines to get paid to write articles. Most of is it pretty basic, but something to keep in mind. If you’re not sure your work is good enough to submit, try their “Guest Post” guide where your article won’t be paid for, but you can submit it in front of their audience. It’s a great way to gain travel writing exposure without much pressure on our list of websites that pay you for writing.
What To Write About: All things related to retiring overseas (cost, living, places, etc.) How Much Can You Make: $75 – $400 Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 712.64K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
International Living has both a blog/newsletter (they call it a Postcard) and monthly magazine that they’re looking for contributing writers to get paid to write articles. If your article gets accepted to the Postcard, it’s worth around $75 while the monthly magazine is worth $250 for 840 words and $400 for 1,400 words. If you’re curious what to write about, they love inspirational stories about retiring abroad in your dream location (use SEMrush for popular keyword ideas). They want to know how your money will stretch longer in other countries and how that affects healthcare and other lifestyles. If you’ve ever been thinking about retiring in a small tropical country or somewhere cooler, maybe this is one of the websites that pay you for writing for you.
What To Write About: Anything Pop Culture with a funny twist How Much Can You Make: $100 – $200 Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 19.24M monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
While most websites actively look for experienced writers, Cracked is all about encouraging new writers to submit ideas with lots of different ways to contribute and get paid to write articles. You can write the long lists they’re known for like “26 Sexy Halloween Costumes That Shouldn’t Exist” or creating funny graphics they can use on their social media accounts. They are heavily reliant on content writers like you can contribute to their online publication. If you think you have a sarcastic or satire writing personality, definitely register as a writer for them and jump into the hilarious world of Cracked. This is one of the most popular websites that pay you for writing on our list.
What To Write About: Articles About Great Photography How Much Can You Make: Likely Around $50, not listed Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 151.96K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
This is a really open category, photography. Everyone has tried photography at some point in their life. It’s pretty easy to point and click to great a great image. Either to sell via stock photography, share with your friends or hang up in a gallery. The point is, most people have a photography lesson learned or story to share and Photodoto is the perfect place for topics such as Photography Inspiration, Tips, Gear or post-production. Take a shot at this website to write a guest post, they seem to be very excited to hear about pitch ideas.
What To Write About: Anything to help people save time and money (stretch your dollar) How Much Can You Make: $0.10 per word (Most articles 500-700 words) Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 151.96K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Now, this is a site we can get behind, another personal finance website! If you have some great ways to save money/time this is the place but keep in mind, The Dollar Stretcher has been in circulation since January 1998. They have TONS of articles on how to save money so if you’re going to pitch them you need to be creative, inventive and very specific. They ask you don’t pitch them “7 ways to save on groceries“, but rather “7 ways to save money on ground beef”. If you email them your pitch and don’t hear anything, they likely already have similar content and didn’t bother responding. Try pitching again being more creative, everyone does something cool to save money. It’s a great way to get paid to write articles if you’re able to niche down into specific money saving ideas.
What To Write About: DIY Home Improvement / Interior Design Projects How Much Can You Make: Likely Around $50, you set your price. Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): 271.60K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Yay I’ve been looking for a good DIY site where I can get paid to write articles. Curby started as one man’s journey doing home improvement projects and grew into a vibrate community of 271 thousand visits a month focusing on cool home improvement and interior design projects inspiring people. Now they’re one of the top websites that pay you for writing about home improvement projects. If you have a home improvement project that all your friends just rave about, consider pitching Curby to see if it’s a good idea for their site and get paid!
What To Write About: Life of a Pet Owner (tips, hacks, pet stories, etc.) How Much Can You Make: $75 per article Monthly Visitors (SimilarWeb): less than 10K monthly visitors How To Become A Writer: Sign Up Here
Many websites that pay writers are related to web development or travel so it’s great to see sites like this that pay for articles that most people have experience with, like pets. This site focuses on connecting pet owners through their site and social media. More importantly, they help animal shelters and rescues connect with a wide range of pet owners for possible adoption. Blog Paws really tries to capture the reality of life with pets and can use writers that can help others navigate that world. If you’re a pet owner that can’t stop talking about how great it is to be a pet owner, this may be a perfect place to get paid to write articles on our list of websites that pay you for writing in 2018.
Consider Writing For Your Own Blog
Writing for others is a quick way to get paid writing and build up your own portfolio. However, you’re working for other people and making THEM money. Consider using our guide to Starting Your Own Blog That Makes Money on Day 1! This is a nice alternative utilizing your writing creativity. Having your own website allows you to display a portfolio of your writing work and earn money for yourself from the awesome content you create!
Get Paid To Write Articles – Our Thoughts
Hope you like our blueprint for starting to get paid to write articles! We absolutely love websites that pay you for writing, helping fellow freelance writers and side-hustlers. While writing this and looking at the criteria these websites are looking for in contributing writers, it’s actually a really easy way to earn extra money. Most of these websites paying between $50 – $150 per article even for beginners, you could write an article every day for a month (30 days) and make $3,000.
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!
We’re all about trying new ways to save money (and time) on Wallet Squirrel. Here is one of my latest attempts to save both during my regular lunchtime meals. In short, this my story on how I replaced my lunches with a $2.36 Huel meal replacement shake for a week for a Huel Review.
First – What Is A Meal Replacement Shake?
These are shakes that contain all the nutrients you need in a meal. Everything we’re supposed to eat as humans to be healthy, but all contained in a shake. No more worrying if your meal is healthy or balanced, you have scientifically measured powder you mix with water and that is the meal of the future.
These really started to become more and more popular lately thanks to Gamers who didn’t want to waste time cooking. They wanted a fast and easy method to eat so they could get back to gaming with little effort. Plus if it was healthy, they would have more mental capacity and energy to continue gaming.
This movement resonated with a lot of people of today’s generation that also wanted an easy, ready-to-go meal replacement shake so they could continue their busy lives.
Are Meal Replacement Shakes Good?
Does it matter? If you’re drinking a nutritionally complete meal and for far cheaper ($2.36 per meal with Huel) than a regular meal. Does taste matter?
For most people, it’s still an issue. To these people, no it does not taste good! These meal replacement shakes are far from tasting good. At best you get bland and yes, that is best!
What Type Of Meal Replacement Shakes Are Available?
For this, I had to do some research. Normally I’m all about Hot Pockets, Pizza Rolls, and Ramen Noodles, so basically anything else on the planet is more nutritious for me than these. However, if I was going to go all in with a meal replacement shake, I wanted the best. During my research, I looked at 2 different meal replacement shakes that came highly recommended.
Each of them had a loyal fan base and both fairly nutritional shakes, but I leaned towards Huel because it had a bit more protein per meal. Here is my one week Huel Review.
Huel Review: Here’s My Story Trying It For A Week
Pre-Huel Review – I spent about a week and a half researching Huel, reading reviews and listening to YouTube testimonials. I finally decided on Huel (located in the UK) and ordered off their website. I ordered 2 bags (28 meals) of their vanilla flavor. This is their recommended amount to buy your first time. Since it was my first time ordering, they gave me a free shaker and t-shirt. In total, it was $66.00.
I receive them in the mail about 2-3 days later, it was really fast delivery! I assume they have a distribution center in the US somewhere, otherwise, that was very quickly delivered from the UK.
I read on many of the reviews that people went to the extreme and replaced all of their meals with Huel for a week. That’s intense! In doing this, it took some time for their body to adjust to the alternate food source. They described some very embarassing gassy situations.
Sorry guys, I’m not doing that. I’m only replacing my lunches. I walk home for lunch every day with limited time to eat. I thought I’d substitute my lunches for this meal replacement shake to save both money and importantly time (also dishes).
Day 1 (it was rough) – It was the weekend so I tried I decided to try Huel early. I read the brochure that says 3 scoops is equal to 1 meal. So I throw 3 scoops into one of the shaker containers I already have and fill it with water. I didn’t think it mattered. The shakers I’m talking about have a metal wire ball that sits in the bottom and bounces around when shaken to additionally stir more of the protein mix in the water. I shake for about 2 minutes and take a drink.
AHHHHHHH, it was the weirdest taste of my life!
My face scrunched into a ball, shrinking as small as possible to hid from the strange taste of the Huel. I sat there motionless hoping it would all go away. In doing so, I tried to realize what was so off about it.
It didn’t have ANY flavor, it was the blandest thing I ever tasted! However it was the chunks of congealed powder that was the grossest thing ever. The powder clumped together in the water forming dry chunks of grit that caused my throat to revolt.
I just couldn’t deal with the chunks. It was the texture that got to me, texture wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I was determined to finish it though, it was only Day 1. I kept taking drink after drink while working on something else to take my mind off it. In the end, it took me 4 hours to finish my first shake because my sub conscience wanted to delay the inevitable as long as possible. I seriously considered quitting this entire Huel review.
Day 2 – (it got better) – The next day was a Monday, so I came home from work and knew I had to try again. This time I had to do something about the chunks, I couldn’t take them anymore (YUCK)! So I threw the 3 scoops of powder, added water and dumped ice into a blender. I read ice helped in some other reviews. Then I let that concoction blend for a full minute. I’m sure 15 seconds would have been fine, but I wanted revenge at this point.
I poured the blended goo into the shaker they gave me. This shaker didn’t have a metal mixing ball like my others, but it did have a plastic mesh to help capture the large chunks of the powder from being drank. I appreciated this….
It actually wasn’t bad at this point. There wasn’t much favor but a complete lack of chunks really won me over. At this point, I realized maybe I could make it.
Day 3-7 (easy peezy) – The following days were easy and time-saving. I came home, set up the blender, added ice/water/powder, and poured it into my Huel shaker to drink. I began to finish the drink under 30 minutes (while doing something else). It wasn’t too bad and I eventually got used to the odd taste.
It’s not the worst thing in the world.
Moving Forward
I will probably continue to use Huel as my backup lunch option, like Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches, when I have nothing else in my fridge after this Huel review, but it’s such a good option that’s quick and cheap. My only hang up is I regularly have to wash the blender and single Huel shaker after every use. My goal was to have zero dishes for the ultimate meal replacement.
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!
I get the simple reason why we work, we want to make money to do the things we want to do. We trade time and energy for money. Then spend money on things to make us we need/want. This I totally get.
However, most of us are trading time and energy for money and still unhappy.
In fact, over 52.3% of Americans are unhappy at work.
This is crazy! In most cases if something makes you unhappy. You quit doing it! Yet most of us go to work every day at places we don’t want to be.
Are we idiots?
Are You Unhappy With Your Job?
I was recently asked if I was unhappy with my job? I was a little surprised a co-worker asked me this. Their reasoning was that I USED to be extremely happy and excited about everything, now I was more monotone or lacked the excitement I used to have.
Honestly, I was a little pissed. No one wants to be told that they lack anything. Yet in reality, I was madder at myself that I let it show that I was unhappy. I’m part Irish, I’m used to bottling up my feelings and not tell anyone that anything is wrong.
It made me ask myself if I was unhappy with my job? It was pretty scary.
What Does Unhappiness at Work Look Like?
If you ask yourself “Are You Unhappy At Work?” it’s not an easy answer. So I started to create a list of signs that would force me to see the truth.
Do I hate waking up in the mornings and coming in for work?
Do I feel I have no future at the company I’m at?
Does the day fly by or drag on?
Do I get excited about new projects or is it dread?
Am I doing the same thing over and over or is it new and exciting?
How do I describe my job to new people?
Does Jenny in Accounting ask if you’re unhappy at work? WTF
Dang, I totally answered yes for quite a few of these. So do I quit my job now or start looking for a new one? I freaked out just writing this list.
Does it even matter though if I hate my job? Whether I hate it or love it, I still NEED it. I have bills to pay and the money I make can buy things that make me happy. Should something I do 40 hours a week need to make me happy?
Well, yes….. Your job should totally make you happy. It absolutely should. However, before you quit you should answer the same question I’m now asking.
What Would Make You Happy At Your Current Job?
The other day I pulled a senior co-worker aside and asked them “What do you think I should do in 2018 to improve the company, goals, vision, etc?” I was expecting some generic answer like things to help the bottom line. However, he surprised me entirely.
One of the best questions I’ve ever been asked was “What do you want to do that makes you happy?”.
Holy Cow! It’s a simple question, but one I’ve never been asked before. I couldn’t actually answer right there and there though. I told them I had to think about it and I’m still thinking about it.
What would make you happy at your current job?
Most people say better pay, but that’s a reward, not necessarily something that affects your everyday duties. What would you change in your day-to-day duties that would make you happier?
That’s currently what I’m thinking about. What would you say?
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!
If you recall from my June Income Report, my July goal is to build a social media calendar to help grow our Social Media audiences. Currently, Social Media produces only 17% of our traffic, so I wanted to tap into that potential. A social media calendar would regularly/consistently stay in contact with those audiences. So I compared 3 different social media tools for this CoSchedule Review to do just that, manage Wallet Squirrel’s social media.
Obviously, from the title, I choose CoSchedule for Wallet Squirrel, but anyone wanting to dramatically improve their Social Media game should look this over.
The Three Different Social Media Tools I Tested:
MeetEdgar – This tool allows you to automate your social media messages. You can write a Tweet/Facebook Post/LinkedIn Message and have it automatically repost every month, 3 months or year so that you’re never running out of content. While this is a great tool, the interface was a bit clunky for me in the 14-day trial and for the price of $45 per month, I wanted a bit more than just a backlog of messages automatically posting.
Buffer – This allows you to set up a queue of social media messages on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn where you can write messages beforehand, and Buffer will publish them based on timeslots you decide. Think of writing one message then selecting all the different social media platforms you want to send it out to. This eliminates going into each social media account and copy/ pasting your message each time. You can also schedule retweets so you don’t have a bunch of messages going out at once.
I actually use Buffer at work and love it. The biggest downfall is that once you send a message, you can’t automatically reschedule it to be sent again. Since Tweeting only hits 10% of your audience at a time. You’d manually have to add the same tweet over and over and over. It’s just a giant waste of time.
CoSchedule – This is really a combination of the two. CoSchedule allows you to see a full calendar of messages going out and automatically ReQueue them to go out again if they’re popular. I’ve done the 14-day trial and now I’m a paid subscriber. I’m a bit of a fan. Let me dive a bit more into CoSchedule.
I chose CoSchedule, but what is it?
Because CoSchedule loves demonstration videos, here is a brief CoSchedule Review Video of their software.
To me, CoSchedule is a visual calendar that you can see when your different social media posts are going out. You can schedule a post in advance and automatically repost (they call it ReQueuing) popular content so your audience doesn’t miss great content. Here is a screenshot of what Wallet Squirrel’s calendar looks like after using it for two weeks during the CoSchedule Review.
How I use CoSchedule for my Social Media Calendar
Not going to lie, it’s a bit intimidating at first, as is any software. It integrates into a number of social media platforms and WordPress, it took a bit to get my head around it. However starting off, I primary use it for my social media accounts.
(they also do LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram and Tumbler, but I don’t use those yet)
How I Setup Social Media Campaigns
This is a term I’ve heard as a buzz word, but I never really knew what it meant until this CoSchedule Review. I’ve come to learn that a social media campaign is a series of social media messages posted at different times, with all the same purpose. Like the 1,000 tweets you read when Lady Gaga launches a new album. Those set of tweets, collectively are a social media campaign.
For me personally, I use their social media campaign to promote new blog content. I click their campaign button and I set up a template for my new Income Reports. To describe the screenshot below, I add the URL of the post I want to promote and it automatically inserts that hyperlink into a series of messages scheduled to go out that day, the next day, a week later and a month later. All the times are completely customizable. Each message has a default basic message like “check this out”, but I tweak these each time. This is one of my favorite features because it provides a carpet bombing of social media messages for new content over an entire month, created in seconds.
How I Automatically Repost Popular Content
CoSchedule has a popular feature called “ReQueue” which creates a cache of messages that will automatically be published if you have a gap in your social media calendar. Let’s say I want to post 3 tweets each day. If I don’t have a social media posts going out on Friday. CoSchedule can pull an old social media post from my library of social media messages to fill that gap.
Oh my goodness it’s so nice to automatically repost evergreen content
For example last Sunday while writing this CoSchedule Review, I filled my ReQueue library with fun social media messages promoting old content. That way, I will always have at least 3 tweets going out a day. You can even set categories for your ReQueue library such as “Evergreen Content”, “Promotional Content” like a referral link to Bluehost website services or any categories you can think of. Here are the categories I’ve created so far.
Quick CoSchedule Review Pros/Cons
Pros
The software allows you to create an entire social media campaign, aka numerous social media messages on different platforms, in seconds
CoSchedule allows you to automatically “ReQueue” popular content so that it never disappears in the social media abyss. It automatically posts old content whenever you have gaps in your social media calendar.
It has the pros of both Buffer and MeetEdgar.
The really clean design makes looking over your calendar very easy.
Cons
It’s pretty pricey, it says $39 per month for their solo blogger plan, but it doesn’t include the ReQueue feature which everyone wants. I especially wanted. If you want ReQueue, you need to pay another $30. So in reality, it cost $79 per month. WTF! This is one of the most expenseive social media calendars I’ve found.
The Social Media Analytics isn’t included in the base $79 per month I’m currently paying. If you want analytics, you need to pay more. Yuk, at least Buffer had at least basic analytics in their $10 per month plan.
Why I chose CoSchedule over Buffer and MeetEdgar
As a current user of Buffer, it is great but there are days that I don’t have time to post a new message to social media and my Buffer queue ran out. I needed something with Buffer’s queue feature, but also automatically posted content like MeetEdgar. I considered getting both of these since combined they’re cheaper than CoSchedule, but I prefer to use one piece software that incorporates the best of both.
Plus there are other benefits of CoSchedule that I haven’t touched on during this CoSchedule Review. Mainly because these features are singularly what I wanted the software for. It’s currently a must if I want to grow our Wallet Squirrel social media presence. Not just rapid firing social media messages, but creating conversations and dialogue while reminding our audience of older content. Those combined features won me over.
Conclusion
I’m willing to try CoSchedule out for a couple months to see how this goes, use my referral code for 14 DAYS FREE if you’re interested in trying it too. So far I’ve been impressed with the power this software provides during my CoSchedule Review. Plus their blog has so many great tips on social media you don’t need to pay for. In 6 months I’ll do an ROI “Return on Investment” Analysis to follow up on my progress.
So far, I’d honestly recommend it to any blogger who can afford to spend a ridiculous $79 per month (save 50% if you write a review). It’s a great tool to visualize a social media calendar that’s smart enough to fill in the gaps. Like a Social Media Manager would. Follow us on Wallet Squirrel’s Facebook and Twitter page to see it in action.
Are there any other tools you use I didn’t mention?
*Disclaimer I wasn’t paid for this review, but CoSchedule does offer a 50% discount if you write a review. Since I love saving money, we did this review but maintained our honest opinion and user experience.
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!
Growing Twitter followers organically is NOT easy. It is a hard, grueling process, where we just reached 500 Twitter Followers but we could have done it so much easier and faster. Here is how we reached 500 twitter followers and lessons learned for the next 500.
First, 500 Followers isn’t THAT impressive
I’m not saying reaching 500 twitter followers is the best you can ever do. It’s just a nice milestone I would like to highlight as I tweak my Twitter strategy. Some of the top Twitter stars have MILLIONS of followers on Twitter.
For example, some of the top Twitter Influencers like Katy Perry has some 99.5 million, Justin Bieber at 96 million and Barack Obama closes in on third at 89 million (source).
Obviously, I am not an ex-president or pop singer, so I’ll stay within the Personal Finance world. Which among them, most Personal Finance Bloggers I’ve seen on average have around 1,500 Twitter Followers. Wallet Squirrel is 1/3 way there!
What I learned getting to 500 Twitter Followers
I am still fairly new to Twitter, so I did a lot of research to understand what Twitter was about and how people are gaining mass followings. Here are the top 20 things I learned from research and experience.
1. Get a Schedule Tool like Buffer or HootSuite to schedule tweets when you’re not around. Tweeting consistently will tell your audience that you’re engaged and visible. I use Buffer and love it.
2. Start following other people in your niche, or who you’re interested in. People feel obligated to follow you if you follow them. Following someone is providing value to them, and people typically want return that value to you. However if you’re following someone Katy Perry, she’ll likely not follow you back. I’m still waiting on Taylor Swift…
3. Regularly Retweet others content. For the same reason as above, people typically feel appreciative when you Retweet their content and will likely follow you since you have similar tastes.
4. ALWAYS add photos in your tweets, it’s regularly proven that tweets with photos are engaged by more readers than plain text. People like photos, use a gif and get even more engagement. I personally don’t always use gifs, I’ve learned photos work just as well. I just make sure to use some type of graphic.
5. Use the Hashtags! That’s the point of Twitter, people can follow certain keywords and your tweet may be among them. Twitter shows you the popular keywords if you want to hop on a current event, otherwise sometimes making up funny hashtags reaches a more engaged audience.
6. Sometimes just ask for a Retweet, it seems silly but people who enjoy your content are happy to help you out if you ask.
7. Don’t use a logo as your profile image. Twitter is a conversation platform, people engage more with people’s faces as profile photos rather than faceless logos. I just updated my Twitter Profile Pic.
8. Promote your Twitter account on your other social media platforms and blog. While Wallet Squirrel’s Twitter is 500 Followers, Facebook actually brings in the most traffic for us monthly. So we can ask our Facebook users to follow us on Twitter every once in awhile.
9. Reference people/companies from your blog posts in your Tweets. We get way more engagement when we specifically reference people in our Tweets. Usually when I comment on other people’s blogs, I’ll send out a Tweet referencing them saying nice article. I did this in “What I Learned from Commenting on 30 Blogs in a Week“.
10. Use Follow Buttons on your website so people can share your content. So far NO ONE has done this through our page buttons, but maybe in the future. I’m on the fence about this one, but maybe when we get more traffic.
11. Tweet Inspirational Quotes from Warren Buffett or your favorite philosophers. It seems silly, but sometimes it hits someone right when they’re feeling down. I need to do this more.
12. Pin your best tweets to the top of your Twitter Profile. When new users look at your Twitter Profile, they’re going to look at your top tweets to see what kind of personal tone you use. Pin your best tweets up top to give the best impression. I’m going to try to pin my monthly Income Reports up top.
13. Ask your email list to follow you on Twitter. This can be a simple “PS please follow me on Twitter so I can have more follower than my mother” comment.
14. Tweet the same content multiple times. Each Tweet last 15 seconds on average and then disappears forever. What if your perfect audience wasn’t reading at that time? Retweet messages that you think are beneficial. Some of the top Twitter influences do this all the time.
15. Always reply to tweets that reference your or direct messages. If someone takes the time to mention you then you should give them some kind of thank you or recognition. It’s polite and really well received in the community. I try to thank everyone publically who retweets my tweets.
16. Always thank users for Retweeting your content. I mentioned it above, but it deserves its own line item.
17. Don’t send a massive amount of tweets in a short period. If your tweets are filling up people’s entire screens over and over, they’ll get aggravated and unfollow you. You should constantly be tweeting but spread them out.
18. Don’t stop Tweeting. People who regularly tweet are considered to be more engaged and get more followers than those who tweet once every two weeks.
19. Tweet snippets of your articles. Instead of tweeting “5 Ways Millennials Waste Money”, you should break it into 5 different tweets each sharing 1 of the reasons. Giving value in your tweets is better than taglines any day.
20. Be a real person. Don’t spam your Twitter account with “READ THIS” and all of your stuff to read/sell. Remember that you’re talking to real people. Use words and tones as if you were talking to a group of your friends. People WILL notice.
My Short Failed Twitter Experiment
In February I told myself that I would tweet 16 tweets a day for a month to see what would happen. In February I had previously sent 111 tweets, had 338 Twitter Followers and was following only 29 people.
I did 2 weeks of it until I was exhausted. I only sent out my own tweets and it was all promotions garbage. I hated every second of it. So I cut back to 5ish tweets a day and started a mixture of retweets, some promotional content and new content. I told myself I would do this until I got to 500 Twitter Followers and reevaluate if Twitter is worth it.
It took 4 months, ugh. Growing Twitter Followers is hella hard.
Today I’m at 513 Twitter Followers (151% increase) having sent 646 Tweets (581% increase) and now following 184 Twitter Followers (634% increase). Calculating the math to it, it seems like the increase in people who I follow had a significant impact, related to lesson #2.
Conclusion
While I originally went into this experiment hating Twitter, I’ll admit it’s grown on me. It’s an effective communication tool for short concise messages. I can’t knock that.
During the last 4 months of focusing on Twitter, I’ve learned a lot. So I’m daring myself to get to 1,000 followers in the next 4 months. Think it’s possible?
Lol Not with my current stats. I’ll have to up my game and stick to these 20 lessons learned. Any additional suggestions?
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!
Self Improvement – Get Rid of Your Distractions Right Now – Part 1/4
I am going to try something new for a self improvement article that has not been done here on Wallet Squirrel yet. Starting this week I am going to do a little mini series about getting rid of distractions within my own personal life. This series will go for the next 3 months with an article being released at the beginning of each month. It will be during the same week when Andrew releases one of his awesome income reports.
This will not be one of your typical self improvement articles where I list off a bunch of things for you to try. No, this is a list of items for me to go out to personally experience it for you! Over the years I have been reading article over article about self improvement, and do not get me wrong, there are some good tips out there. The issue is most of the writers have never tried these “self improvement” tips themselves so how do we know if they work?
Getting rid of distractions is key to self improvement. Without those distractions you can work on what you truly love.
One of my favorite writers about self improvement is Z from Zero to Skill. He often writes about his own personal experiences on becoming a better and more productive person. One article I loved was his Ultimate Guide For Waking Up Early. He walks through what helps him and what did not work out to help him get up in the morning after years of trial and error.
This personal touch is what I want to bring to this mini-series. My goal is to give you several ideas throughout the series on decluttering your life to for self improvement and increase your productivity.
The Beginning – Part 1 of 4
Today we will talk about the foundation as to why and what I plan on doing over the next three months. Today we will talk why we should all get rid of distractions in our lives. Then I will lay out some goals that I want to accomplish. Then I will set out for a month using several techniques I have researched about over the years. Part 2 of the mini-series will talk more about those techniques and what did or did not work out.
Let us begin!
Why Getting Rid of Distractions is Beneficial to Self Improvement?
Just this past weekend my pastor at church talked about work during his sermon. One thing he mentioned really resonated with me. He talked about what if everyone would cut back on all extra clutter in life (ie. Playing on the Xbox, watching Netflix, looking at Facebook, etc)? Then he asked, what if everyone took that time/energy and put it into their passions instead? Think about how much more productive and successful those individuals would be.
Now this is not the first time I have heard these questions about people spending more energy on their passion rather than only being consumers of unhealthy distractions. Sadly, I cannot remember those other examples but this is my most recent encounter with the thought.
The Fear
The thought of removing all of this extra clutter in my life seems really scary at first. I think, “What if a better video game such as COD: WWII comes out?” Or, “What if I miss some big important message or video of a cat saving a dog’s life on my Facebook feed?” This fear is FOMO, the fear of missing out. Just recently, I have only begun to understand that this stuff does not really matter in life. What I should be worrying about is my family, my friends, hiking in the Colorado mountains, along with other passions such as working on websites.
After coming to this realization I was able to clearly see that there are so many materialistic items in my house that I really did not use anymore. The only reason I am holding on to them is because of that “What if” moment. For the first time, I was free to let go of those items.
Question: Go ahead, take a look around your house. Do you have any of these items in your house? What is your goal by getting rid of distractions for self-improvement?
For me, it is all about getting rid or minimizing these distractions so I can become more financially free from debt. This will be accomplished by replacing Facebook, the Xbox, as well as reducing Netflix to spend more time on Wallet Squirrel, Adam Olson Photography, and other side hustles. This will all lend me to enjoy my family and friends more.
Ugh! Facebook…..
My Story
Getting distracted is very easy for me. Especially when I have something in front of me such as an Xbox, Netflix, or Facebook to distract me.
There is something that Marc from Surviving Prepper said that really caught my attention.
“If you eliminate items in your life that are not needed, you have room for items that are needed”
For me, I see this as I need to remove the distractions in my life so I can really focus on what is important to me (God, family, friends, fitness, and yes…Wallet Squirrel).
I tend to be a very materialistic person. These fun but worthless items keep me distracted on what really matters, my family, life goals, health, and so on. It is time to make the sacrifice by selling a bunch of items in our house that seem to add more value to my life but really do not. Some of these items include an extra 42 inch TV, an Xbox, a couple old laptops, an old camera, and whatever else I find.
I also like to watch a lot of Netflix on my own while working on tasks. It really slows down my productivity. Netflix will not get canceled because I also enjoy sitting down with my wife to watch a show or movie. Instead, I will set a rule that Netflix watching is only when I am with her.
Social media and Netflix are major distractions for me.
The biggest step self improvement will be dropping social media sites such as Facebook. I have tried many ways to avoid this evil distraction but I cannot get away from it. Because I use Facebook messenger to communicate with my best friends and some are too stubborn to switch services **Cough**Cough** Andrew **Cough**Cough** I cannot get rid of Facebook altogether. So I will use Cold Turkey to block the site on my personal and Home computers as well as my phone.
Side Note: If you do not know what Cold Turkey is, I highly recommend you check it out. It allows you to block any distracting website on your computer or application on your phone. You can set up custom schedules to when and when you cannot access these websites or applications. It is really helpful!
Self Improvement Goals in the Next Four Weeks
I have a lot to accomplish in the next four weeks till the June follow up article comes out. Below is a set of goals I plan on accomplishing before the next follow up.
Sell extra items that can be a distraction. I will sell the items just like Andrew did in his article How to Sell Something on Craigslist and Make Money. This extra money will go towards paying off our car loan quicker.
Finish our backyard renovation. This project has been a HUGE distraction the past couple of weeks. We completely tore up the backyard and are starting all over with a blank slate. In a future article, I will write about this experience and save over $4,000 in costs! Stay tuned!
Start waking up earlier, 5:00 AM, to work out. Using Z’s method, mentioned above, I will try to wake up earlier to work out on a consistent basis. It is well known that people who work out in the morning tend to be more productive during the day. My wants are there but the will is not so this is going to be a challenge.
Stay focused on achieving my goals one percent at a time. There is nothing wrong with having big goals but trying to accomplish them all in one big chunk is setting yourself for failure. Instead, it is better to divide those large goals into smaller goals and accomplish those. I will focus on to only complete smaller tasks each day that get me one percent closer to completing my overall goals.
Set up my next day the day before. Each night before bed I want to layout my plan of attack for the next day. This will not require much time, maybe 10 to 15 min. Here I will plan out the smaller tasks that I want to conquer.
Wakey! Wakey! Time for eggs and bakey!
What to Expect in the Follow Up
I will go over if I accomplish these goals or not and the techniques/tips used for each goal. There will be a detailed review of what I did to accomplish each one and what you can do for yourself. If I fail, I will go over what did not work and adjustments to be made.
Stay tuned for the remainder of this raw adventure giving yourself real life tips and tricks to getting rid of distractions for self improvement.
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