Finding Ones That Consistently Work

In the past, I’ve had hit-and-miss luck with coupon codes. Sometimes, they’d already expired, and sometimes, they just didn’t work for no apparent reason. In the last few months, however, I’ve noticed some coupon codes that Andy of Comluv has been sharing from his friend Brian, and they always seem to work great. So when I noticed that his friend is a sponsor of the Famous Bloggers Comluv contest, I decided it was time to share this little money-saving gem with everyone.

Good for Renewals Too!

The really cool thing about these Godaddy coupon codes is that they work for both new domain registrations AND renewals. That’s hard to find, and it’s great to be able to get discounts on my domains when they come up for renewal. You can also get coupon codes for other Godaddy services there too, although I generally don’t recommend Godaddy for hosting. Besides the fact that their hosting isn’t the best, it’s really not a good idea to be completely dependent upon one company for both your domain name and your website. If that one company goes bellyup, or just decides they don’t like your site anymore, you’ve lost everything. If you get your domain name from Godaddy, and your hosting from someone else (I recommend Hostgator), then you’re unlikely to lose both the name and the site all at once.

Bookmark While You’re There

So, bookmark the Godaddy coupon codes page now while it’s on your mind. You don’t want to wonder where those coupon codes are the next time you have a “brilliant” idea for a new site!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Coupon, domain name, FBCLcontest, Go Daddy
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I discovered one today, in fact. Rankraiser has a free website tools section. Some of the interesting tools I found from there included a form style generator, a site usability checker, a background design tool, a broken link checker from W3C (I never realized they had one), and free icon sets. Speaking of free icon sets, I also recently discovered another source for that over at Icons, etc..

If someone will remind me once in a while, I’ll share more of the free and cheap resources I use all the time.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: free tools
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Unfortunately, saving money just sounds hard to do, and it sounds like punishment rather than reward. The key however, in turning that perception around is to be able to visualize the rewards gained by saving. Sure, we all know that if we pay more than the minimum payment on a credit card bill, for example, then we’ll pay off the balance sooner … blah, blah, blah. Sometimes, however, “knowing that”, and visualizing the end results are the difference between “knowing it” and “GETTING IT!”.

Let’s take a clear example. Let’s say you only have one credit card. The balance on it is $3900 with a high annual rate of 23.24% and a current monthly minimum payment amount of $115.

If you pay the minimum each month, you’ll have this balance paid off by April, 2014 – 4 1/2 years from now.

If you pay $320/month instead of $115/month, you’ll have this balance paid off by November, 2010 – a little more than a year from now.

That’s a significant difference. Sure, it may be tough to squeeze the extra $205/month into an already tight, tight budget, but if you can manage it, it will be well worth it.

If you have multiple credit cards, it can be difficult to know which ones you should pay off first – and how much extra to apply to each. I recommend using a spreadsheet calculator that handles all the math for you. I use Vertex’s free debt reduction spreadsheet. It comes with versions for both Excel and OpenOffice in the same download. (Also worth noting, the spreadsheet has no macros and no installation involved. Just straightforward math calculations).

This calculator lets you try out different debt reduction strategies, including the debt snowball effect (paying the lowest balance first) and the debt avalanche effect (highest interest first). All you do is enter the debt info (balance, rate, minimum payment) for each creditor, decide how much extra you can squeeze out of your budget each month, and then choose one of the reduction strategies to see which is best for you. If you use this calculator, make sure you enter the current date into the Balance Date cell at the top of the worksheet, or the dates will be skewed.

Here’s a screenshot as an example.

Now it’s time to extend the “vision”. Go download another of Vertex’s spreadsheet calculators – this time, the Simple Savings Interest Calculator. Let’s say you’ve finished paying off your debts, and now you have that extra $200/month with no bills to apply it to. What would happen if you were to put that $200/month into a savings plan? Here’s a sample output using the calculator of what would happen after 10 years using one example scenario.

$29 THOUSAND DOLLARS! Wow. Kinda leaves me speechless.

Ok, I’m not speechless for long. You see, it’s not that we don’t KNOW these things. It’s just that until we really SEE IT in black and white, right there in front of us, can we really GET IT.

I encourage you to download some of Vertex’s calculators and play around with different scenarios. They have tons of spreadsheets to choose from, so there should be some there for everyone’s personal situation. They are free, easy, work well, and can be real eye-openers.

So before you read another article or blog post on how to make more money online, I recommend you find ways to save money first. It may seem like punishment at first, but if you really SEE IT laid out in front of you, you can see the rewards as well.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bank account, Online Post You want
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A smart man, Ammon Johns, over on the forums I moderate said recently:

Many businesses have been awaiting this recession for a long time, with funds hoarded not to weather the storm, but to expand their market and make long-term aquisitions at rock-bottom prices.

Here’s one such deal I was made aware of recently. Not long ago, I had the opportunity to get a new website design created for me by the Wildfire Marketing Group. I haven’t yet finished the site, so it isn’t live and I can’t show you the design just yet, but you’ll just have to take my word for it that it looks great! I was super pleased with it.

Of course, getting top notch design work done isn’t cheap, especially during these hard times, but that same company is trying something new – website financing – with 0% interest! Sweet! When I saw that opportunity, I thought it was exactly the kind of thing I should check into and tell you about.

Well, once I spoke with them about it, they agreed that those of you that follow me deserved an extra bonus on top of the financing with 0% interest deal. Here’s how it works:

If you decide to get a site designed by Wildfire Marketing Group now or any time in the future, use this discount code – DAZZ3825 – during checkout to get $100 off the price of the design. You can read more about this special discount here. That’s $100 off the price PLUS you can still apply for the 0% financing deal.

After I heard about the financing deal, I searched online and while there are a few people on the net offering design financing, it’s apparently fairly rare (and some of them had sites that looked like they’d been designed in the early ’90s. ew…). So if you’re considering a new site design but would like to spread the payments out without paying more in interest, I can easily recommend the design skills of Wildfire – they know how to create current, attractive sites.

Since we’re on the subject of financing services, I was wondering what other web services or products (shopping carts, content management systems, etc.) have you found that are being offered with zero or low financing available? If you know of some, let us know about them too! Also, if you come across ANY really good deals that our little microbusinesses could use, feel free to tell us about them. We need to band together during these tough times and help each other make it through to the other side. I have complete faith that we will all see brighter days ahead, but we have to stay in the game long enough to see those days. Cutting costs, finding good deals, and stretching payments out are all viable methods of keeping afloat. Let’s use as many as we can.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ammon Johns, content management, content management systems, web services, WildFire Marketing Group
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But for today only, Monday, December 22, 2009, Intuit is giving away a free copy of QuickBooks Pro (although that actually involves an instant rebate plus a mail-in rebate, so you do have to cough up some cash up front, and then get it all back later). Still, that’s a deal, since you normally have to pay the full $199 to get it.

You can only get it at Staples (either in-store or online), and only today. The regular price is $199.99, and today, you’ll get instant savings of $40, and a $159.99 mail-in rebate. So I just wanted to make sure all of you were alerted to this so you didn’t miss out if you wanted to grab it while you can. Also, it’s hard to read in the image below, but the deal is for sku# 758686 only so make sure you get the right one.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cough, Intuit, Staples
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With the economy tanking like it is, you may find it to be a little more difficult to add new income, or perhaps you have clients that are cutting back on their expenses, and you became part of that cut. Whatever the case may be, if you need to have a little more cash, you may be able to obtain it just by cutting some current unnecessary costs.

At least once a year, I run through a list of all my expenses to see what can be cut. Doing so is, in effect, giving myself a raise. I remember when I used to work out there in the “real world”, usually in an office cubicle, I’d get all excited when my boss would give me a raise. In most cases, that was usually a twenty-five cent per hour raise, and I’d actually be happy about that. Fifty cents deserved a full-blown celebration, and a dollar raise made me feel wealthy! In reality, though, let’s calculate what I was getting all excited about.

A 25 cent raise, based on a 40-hour week (or 2,080 hours per year), amounts to $520 extra per YEAR, which when broken down per month, is a mere $43 extra per month.

A 50 cent raise would be an extra $86 per month and a 1.00 raise would be an extra $173 per month.

So, using those figures as a guideline, how hard would it be to cut a few expenses so that we could give ourselves a raise between 25 cents and 1 dollar per hour?

I went through my normal living expenses (non-work related) to see what I could do to shave that down. Here’s what I’ve accomplished with that. (All savings calculated as a monthly figure).

Netflix – I’ve been subscribed to the level which allows me to have 3 movies out at one time. Since we only watch one or so a week, I’ve been paying for something I’m really not using. So, I’ve moved down one level, giving us 1 movie out at a time, but still having the ability to rent as many as we can over a month’s time. Savings: $8

Gamefly – Like Netflix (but for games), I’ve been subscribed to the level that gives us the ability to have 2 games out at one time. We only ever play one at a time, so the extra was wasted. Moved down to the lower level. Savings: $7

AT&T Long Distance – I’ve been paying $29.11 extra per month for unlimited long distance. I originally chose this plan back when the kids were living with us and they’d talk for hours to their friends far away. Now there’s just no need for it. We use our cell phones for long distance calls, so I’ve dumped the long distance portion of my landline phone. Savings: $29

Satellite TV NFL package – We like football, so it seemed like a cool thing to have, but we don’t watch all those games even though we could if we wanted to. In reality, we only watch our team play, and maybe one or two that happen to be playing on one of the non-package stations, so I dropped this package from the TV bill. Savings: $13

Magazine Subscriptions – I’ve cut out two subscriptions that no longer really interest any of us. Savings: $6

Groceries – This one is difficult to quantify. I’ve just been making a concerted effort to save at the grocery store as much as possible. I’ll give just one example, but there are many others as well. I used to buy little breakfast burritos from the grocery store and I’d eat them every day for breakfast. They were fast, easy, and tasty. They were also expensive. Now, I’ve switched to mini-bagels w/cream cheese, and I’m saving about eight dollars per month just from this one change. Cutting grocery costs in other ways adds up to quite a bit, but since I don’t have exact figures, let’s just use the breakfast tally for this exercise. Savings: $8

Total Savings Each Month: $71

My Raise – 40 cents per hour – Not too shabby!

Now it’s your turn. Look around and see what you can cut without really sacrificing anything really important to you, and then slash those items from your bills. Give yourself a raise! Then come back here and share with us what you’ve cut and how much of a raise you gave yourself. Who knows…maybe you’ll spark some ideas for us so that we can give ourselves even bigger raises!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: AT&T, bills, cell phones, cent, expenses, football, National Football League, Satellite TV, save
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You can have the use of their shopping cart for a year FREE, with no obligation whatsoever. Simply make a copy or a scan of your termination notice and send that to them via their contact form to get a free subscription to the E-junkie shopping cart service for one year, at the basic $10 per month level. That level allows you to configure up to 20 different products and up to 100 MB of download storage space.

That is an amazingly generous thing for them to do. I already recommend using their service, as I use it myself, but after seeing this gesture, my respect for them grows even more. If you haven’t been laid off, but are looking for a reasonably-priced service, check out E-junkie. But if you’ve been given the boot from your job for any reason, now is a great time to put your own business plan into action – and E-junkie will be there to help you implement it – for free! That rocks.

*

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Manitoba, Shopping cart, Termination of employment
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That’s it! You now have your own ebook that you can distribute for free or sell. I’ll be discussing lots more about this in the future, including showing other ways to create eBooks, and what to actually DO with eBooks. But for now, you’ve got the quickest, easiest way I know to pump out an eBook without having to pay a dime to do so.

Starting an Online Business to Make Money?

An easy way to make money online is by writing and selling ebooks. In the old days, that meant purchasing expensive ebook making software, but those days are long gone. People want ebooks in a format that’s familiar to them, and pdf fits the bill perfectly. Highly recommended.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: create ebooks, free ebook template, openoffice, OpenOffice Writer, Writer
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When you work from home, you no longer have an entire company filled with people with varying skills. Instead, you generally only have yourself. While some of us may be able to consider ourselves jacks or jills of all trades, most of us are skilled in fewer areas. Of course, you can always outsource projects to others for pay, but I believe shelling out money should be the last resort…not the first.

The best way to get things done is to barter or trade for the services. While there are bartering services available, that requires utilizing strangers for the work. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does involve an element of trust in someone you’ve never dealt with before. You may need to blindly trust a few strangers, especially in the beginning, but the sooner you start building up a list of bartering partners, the better off you’ll be in the future.

Start with the people you know in the offline world. Maybe your friend or neighbor speaks another language fluently. If you are looking for someone to translate your site, talk to that person. Find out if you have some talent or skill that your friend could use in return for the translation. Even something as simple as teaching someone more about using the Internet may be all it takes to successfully trade services.

If you don’t know anyone in the real world that possesses the skills you need, it’s time to turn to the virtual world. This is one of the reasons it is always good to participate in online forums. Being a regular in a forum ensures that you meet various people who may have just the skills you need. Sometimes, asking for help in your favorite forum will enable you to get that help absolutely free. This is one of those “you generally get what you give” scenarios. If you’ve given freely of your help, others will likely do the same. If you don’t get the help for free, you can simply let the forum members know that you are looking to trade services. If you belong to several forums or other types of online communities, chances are good that you’ll find just what you need.

Here are some other ideas for finding bartering partners.

Use Craigslist if you live in the U.S. You’ll find Bartering under For Sale in the city nearest you.

Use a barter service such as U-Exchange. You can find a list of services at Gigafree.

You do still have to be concerned with taxes when bartering. If you receive $500 worth of services in a barter, that’s the same as if someone gave you $500. Of course, if you gave them $500 worth of services in return, it’s a wash, but you’ll need to keep records for tax purposes. I suggest you read the IRS information on how bartering is taxed for more information.

Over time, you’ll develop an extensive network of people you can call upon when you need services. Make sure to keep your partners list current so you can easily get in touch when needed. And one last piece of advice…be sure to give as much as you get. Don’t abuse others’ generosity. If you get great service, give great service in return.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Internal Revenue Service, online communities, online forums
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