I have not kept up with working at home since before I had my son on 1/30/2008.  Being pregnant and tired took its toll and then when he was born he did not sleep at all.  He still doesn't.  No naps and doesn't sleep until I sleep with him.  So time to myself and time to work have been almost nonexistent.  I also, in September, decided to get back into school to finish my degree.  And my 4 year old is in preschool now, and soccer, and dance.  You parents out there probably know the drill.

So I have been keeping up the hosting as much as I can on untroddenroad just so that the information already on there (and there is a lot of it!) would stay available to everyone.  However, I lost my domain name.  I was a few days late in trying to renew it and Bravenet will not allow me to buy it back without a $75 fee on top of the regular price.  I simply don't have it.  (I told you working form home won't make you rich! lol) They offered to waive the fee if I paid for a year of hosting in full for $99 but if I don't have an extra $75, I certaily don't have an extra $99.  Times are tough all around so I don't blame them for trying.  I will try to snag my domain back as soon as it gets back on the market.  In the meantime I am going to try to move my site to untroddenroad.org so watch for that.  But it will take time to move all the pages.  I really did put a lot of information on that site and the amount of data is ridculous (in a good way)!  But it's a good resource for people wanting to work from home.  There is an option for everyone and there are plenty of employers and opportunities to choose from.  I find myself going back and using it myself when I need to find something to do to make me money and fit my schedule.

One good thing I have to share is that even though I have not had time to work at all for almost a year, I am still making residual income from a number of programs and ads placed on websites.  So if you put the work in it really does pay off for you in the long run.  It's not making me rich but when I need $20 or $50 i wind up getting it from some place!

For right now you can check out two of my blogs for information:

Making Ends Meet (from home) is a blog I created to share informaiton on saving money, obtaining free products, and working from home.  I am tranferring all the information and employer lists from untroddenroad to this blog.  Bravenet is touch and go with linking right now but the address is http://www.cashpad.blogspot.com

Making Money From Home- As I receive checks from different places or find new and different opportunities I post them on this blog.  There is some information overlap between the two blogs as you can imagine but not too much.  The address is http://www.christenwypy.blogspot.com

I am hopeful our economy is going to turn around.  And until then at least we have ways to earn some extra money (or a full time income) without leaving our families and homes.  For that, I feel very blessed.

Peace and Love!

(My babies Abby and Christopher)

If you think the work I have done in researching and typing up all the work at home info is worth anything please donate so I can get the site back up faster.  Thanks!

The site is back up!  Thank god because it would have been a lot of work to move all that information to a new site.  I hadn't realized before just how much I put on there but that site is huge.  Check it out.  It's everything you'll ever need to work from home!

http://www.untroddenroad.com

I've told you about making money from your blogs before but PayPerPost really does pay off!  It's easy to get started.  Just sign up.  To do so you'll need the URL of your blog and your tax ID or SS # (because you'll be getting paid).  If you don't have a blog take 2 minutes and sign up for one on Blogger, Myspace, Bravenet, or LiveJournal!

Advertisers create "Opportunities" for bloggers to write about their products, services and websites. They range from $5 to several thousands of dollars, depending on the criteria set by the advertiser. Bloggers with high amounts of traffic can expect to earn a significant amount of money for each post they create on behalf of an advertiser.

Advertisers will post all sorts of Opportunities, from simple buzz campaigns to product reviews with pictures or videos. It's up to you to pick the Opportunities that best suit you and your blog. If it doesn't feel right, if you don't own the product, or if you can't be honest they ask you to pass on the opportunity. Dishonest or completely off-topic posts can ultimately hurt your blog's credibility and traffic, dimishing your earning potential. They strongly encourage you to only take opportunities that relate to you and be judicious in your selections.

Don't worry too much about all the talk on traffic.  It takes a little time and effort but it's not too hard to drive a decent amount of traffic to your site or blog.  I have lots of tips on that that I will post in a future blog if anyone is interested.  Basically, just have your site listed on the major search engines, maybe put it in a couple of surf sites for a while to get your numbers up, and if it's on myspace add as many friends as you can and invite them to be readers of your blog.  Read and comment on their blogs as well just to be fair.  And have your blog listed on sites such as technorati.com  and blog top list.  That should be enough to get you started!

Another way to make money from home and online is through affiliate programs.  Max Bounty is one such program.  Basically, if you do not have a product of your own to sell, you can sign up with a company such as this that sells other people's products.  You then make a commission from every product you sell or lead you generate for the client(s).  There are hundreds of offers and companies to choose from! If you saw ads on the Untrodden Road site, some of them are affiliate ads meaning I only got paid for the advertising when someone either signed up or purchased from the client. 

You don't have to have a website to promote products.  You can also blog about them or post about them on message boards relating to the product.  You can even email great offers to friends who you know would be interested! 

Best of all, with Max Bounty, many of the offers allow you to offer incentives.  That means you can do what the GPT Sites do.  You can share your profit with the person making the purchase or completing the offer.  So say a company is going to pay you $5 for every lead they get, which means for every person who submits their email addres to them for more information, you can then offer to your readers or friends that you will pay them, say $2.50, once they complete the offer and you receive the $5.  Next thing you know, you could have your own GPT Site!!

Just make sure to read all the terms and conditions on each offer as some allow you to offer incentives and others do not!!

If there is an interest I will post links to  more great companies like Max Bounty in the future!

 I just found a cool new website called Guess Now that awards you points if you guess correctly on such things as the weather, world and country events, and celebrity gossip.  For example, I just answered whether I thought J Lo would admit she is pregnant by the end of October (I think she will).  For every question you get right, you get points.  For every point, you get paid money!  I thought it was pretty neat and fun!  You also get a percentage of the all the points of the people you refer to the site.  (So refer good guessers!) Check it out!
Click Here for Guess Now!

Take care!
Christen

Many people have asked me how they can earn money with their blogs.  There are several sites that will pay you to do this and they are listed on the site here.  I'll focus on Blogger.com for this entry.

Blogger allows you to sign in with your google account which makes it easy to add adsense to your blogs.  To sign on for a Google Adsense account click here.  It is free to sign on.

In order to earn money you should choose a topic that is popular and that many people are searching for.  To see a list of the top blog searches you can check Technorati.com.  On the home page it lists the top ten searches.  Basically, current news stories get a lot of hits as well as Myspace, Youtube, celebrities, and how to guides. 

Try and add photos and video to your blog and write in short paragraphs.  Do what you can to make your blog interactive such as allowing people to leave comments to your blog and to subscribe to your blog feeds.  Don't forget to go into the Layout section and add Google Adsense to your blog!

Once you have written your blog submit the url to google, yahoo, and any other submission sites you can find so that your blog will come up in searches.  Also submit it to blog listing sites such as Technorati, Blog Top List, and Blogwise. 

Link to your blog from other sites by leaving comments on other people's blogs, linking to your blogs from your other blog sites, and even by writing articles on similar topics and then providing a link to your blog for further information.  (You can submit articles to Associated Content and be paid for your article).   If you have a Myspace, Friendster page, or something similar add links to your blogs there as well.  Don't forget you can also provide links to your blogs on message boards.  So, if your blog was about making money, you can locate message boards on this topic.  If your blog was about say, Anna Nicole Smith, list it on message boards for her fan sites.  The more places that contain a link to your blog, the higher ranked your blog be.  

It takes time to build a successful blog but if you put the work in early on it will not take as long as you think.  Remember to stick with it.  You have to keep posting to keep your readers.  Soon you will see your Google Adsense money adding up!

Here are two of the blogs I am keeping for this purpose that can serve as an example.  I have a lot of fun doing this!

I Remember Dunkleman: An American Idol Blog

Ramblings From the TV Junkie

On a personal note, I apologize for thelack of newsletters and blogs as of late.  I have received all of your e-mails and am trying to answer them all.  If you do not get a response feel free to e-mail me again.  I had two surgeries which kept me from my work for some time.  I am now back and you can expect to start hearing from me again with more great ideas to earn a legitimate living from home!!

All the best,

Christen

Although my husband is doing pretty well at his job and I am succeeding in my home ventures, we still ran into some hurdles when it came to holiday shopping.  It seemed we got hit with one unexpected expense after another from multiple vehicle repairs, to medical bills, to a mysterious mix up with our energy company.  In any event, we knew we were going to have to do something if we were to buy all the gifts we wanted to buy this holiday season.  Here are some companies that really pulled through for us at the last minute!  (Things we did in addition to our "regular work.")

Treasure Trooper:  You all probably get sick of hearing me sing TT's priases, but it cannot be helped.  They are a great GPT and always come through when I am in a bind.  I've been consistently making about $100 from them each month by simply doing free offers whenever the mood strikes me.  This past month, I also did some of their new offers for silver coins which buy you Visa gift cards, X-Box 360's, i-pods, and more.  You can get 50 silver coins without paying a dime which will get you a $50 gift card.  The X-box will end up costing you about $100 in offers (paying for shipping and handling and such) and the i-pod less than that.  The Visa gift cards are good anywhere and there is no limit on how many you can get.  You can even pay bills with them!  If one were to really set their mind to Treasure Trooper and do the offers that do require a dollar here or there for shipping or require you to cancel unwanted offers, $500-$600 could easily be earned monthly before whatever referral money you bring in.

Readers Paid: Again I made over $100 with them in 5 minutes per day or less spending nothing.  They have some great free offers that pay up to $10 or so just for getting free quotes or requesting information. 

It Pays to Learn: They do not have many offers, but if you are in a jam financially they are a great program because they pay you daily right into your paypal.  You can also take Quizzes to earn points and cash.  When you have enough points, you can use them to advertise on the site.  You can advertise your more profitable programs and thus earn twice!

Associated Content: If you write (and I find myself writing a lot), Associated Content brings in some good money quickly.  They pay anywhere from $3-$50 per article or story (and I've heard sometimes even more) and they pay three times per week directly into your paypal account.

Ebay- My husband went through some of his clutter in the basement and found some great items he was willing to part with.  This brought in some much needed income.

My Kids' Closet: If you want to avoid ebay's fees and you have children's items to sell, this is the place to do it!  Right before or right after the holidays is a good time to clear out the old to make way for all the new"stuff" that comes into your home and clutters up your playroom!  I placed a few items on there and they sold quickly and locally.  Because they were local I did not have to worry about shipping them.  You also have the option to have someone who works for Kids Closet buy the item from you or help you to sell it (for a percentage of the sale) if you are in a hurry.  You yourself can even work for them promoting the site or assisting sellers!

Live Ops: They get so busy during the holidays (and generous too!).  Working as a call center agent for Live Ops from October until February is like swimming in a pool of money.  The calls are endless and the bonuses are many.  They pay every two weeks and the potential to earn feels limitless!

Google Adsense: On my various websites and blogs I place Adsense and I make some extra cash from it monthly.

So these were our main lifesavers for the past two months and I am so grateful to have opportunites like these to dig my family out of the financial holes that we sometimes fall into.  In the days before the internet, the opportunities were fewer and most of them required you leave the house.  Don't get me wrong, leaving the house is nice but with gas prices and the issue of childcare I'd just as soon stay home to work and go out for pleasure!  Also, from home I can often work two or three gigs at one time.  I plan to pursue a higher degree next semester and I'll be able to study and work at the same time.  Most importantly to me, I can keep my daughter with me and not have to worry about what type of care she is getting from someone else.  Soon enough she'll be in school and I'll have the opportunity to return to work outside the home if I choose.

But will I choose this??  Lately, I think about all the money I could make if I had more hours to work from home uninterupted and still save on the gas, clothing, etc.  Also, I shudder when I remember some of the jobs I worked in the past and how stressed of a person I was.  The weekends were never enough time for me to recover.  Instead, the weekends were full of catching up on housework and running errands.  I never stopped and I never fully relaxed.  I was a much different person then.  I like the looser, work at home me much better!  I also like controlling my own destiny and having my own businesses.  I know that when I work harder I'll earn more.  This was not necessarily the case in my other positions.  I'd love to return to counseling again and if this is where fate takes me I am okay with that.  However, I do not think I'd be interested in joining the corporate world ever again.  It's just not my cup of tea and the money increase was really not worth all the tension! I love having money and not having to worry about it, however, there are more important things in life to me.  Plus the rush I get from knowing I have helped someone is a far greater high to me than shopping!  But that is just me...to each their own.  Right now I am quite happy working from home.  It agrees with me and I get to be a mom, pursue my ambitions, and care for my family.  I wouldn't trade it for the world!