Like the Dude, my spouse and I found ourselves buried under debt and we, too, decided to blog about it.  We opted for what we called Commando Financial Warfare (CFW) – zero spending on anything not essential for our survival.  It has not been easy, but it has not been without its fair share of triumphs either. I am thrilled to say you can read all about it in my e-book called Get Out of Debt Now and How (!): One Debtor’s Very True Story ($2.99)!

Boy that sounds fancy shmancy, encouraging you to buy my book! Let me tell you how it happened. Over a year after starting my blog, I read an article in the Washington Post that referred to e-publishing as the next big gold rush (May 8, 2011,E-01). Add to that Amazon’s news that Kindle sales surpassed the sale of all print books combined and — you guessed it — I was seduced, lured, enticed, drawn, enraptured and captured (imagine hypnotic eyes swirling with dollar signs for pupils).

I’m gonna be rich!  “Well the first thing you know ol Jed’s a millionaire…”

In this article, I will provide all the information you need to publish you own e-book. In the Post story, author Neely Tucker highlights the story of Nyree Belleville, a romance novelist.  Before taking the e-book route, Belleville (whose pen name is Bella Andre) made a grand total of $21,000 on her twelve published novels. The ambitious young author decided to publish just one of her romance tales on Kindle. She found the process to be tedious and arduous. Knowing nothing about graphic art, she was intimidated by the task of having to design her own book cover. She also had to take on many of the other tasks normally left to editors and publishers such as writing the jacket copy, setting her own price point, and doing her own marketing.

Within a few weeks of selling on Amazon’s Kindle store, her book had sold over 161 copies, earning her $281. Encouraged, Belleville promptly set about getting all of her books on Kindle. She then branched out to include other e-readers such as the Nook, the Sony Reader, the iPad and Kobo.

Wanna know what her first quarter earnings were?  $116,264. That’s SIX figures for anyone who failed to notice, and in three months!

Show me the money!

The lure of e-publishing is that authors receive far greater royalties.  On Kindle, for instance, they receive 70% of all royalties as opposed to the 10 – 15% typical of traditional publishing.  As Tucker highlighted in the WP article, “It is possible for writers marketing a $4.99 self-published e-book to make more per copy than authors with a $24.95 hardcover.”

Thus, within moments of completing the article, I pulled up my 170+ pages of Word text and began to whittle, prune, spruce up and slim down my writing, turning it into a more concise and cohesive guide to not just getting out of debt, but learning how to live well while in debt. Visions of Pulitzer’s danced in my head.

I spent weeks editing, rewriting, rearranging and generally seeing less gold in the rush.  Dang it if this wasn’t hard work!  Every time I read what I had already “proofed,” I found more mistakes.  It was maddening. When I reached the point that I felt my text was passable, I decided to tackle the book cover.  I had read that, from a marketing perspective, one’s cover should be bright and eye-catching as so many of the readers allow color.  I designed a neon bright cover on PowerPoint:

I reached for the big guns, my tech savvy better half.  He told me that I would need to use Adobe InDesign and Photoshop to make a more professional cover.   Do Bees Inde-what?, and whosey-whatsy shop?  These were foreign names to me.  My exceptionally patient husband spent hours of his free time giving me the 101’s of each. We scrutinized the covers of the books stashed in our linen closet (you’ll have to read my book to learn why our books ended up there!). We realized that an eye-catching book cover needed an image, so I took a few pictures.  The cover still felt flat.  I had read that covers with white backgrounds are the worst as they fade into the background, so I actually dumped my jar of coins directly onto my scanner to make a backdrop of coins.  This is the final product:

I was wrong.

The next job was to write ‘jacket’ text – you know, the writing you’d find on the inside jacket of a ‘real’ book. Kindle allots authors a generous 4,000 characters. This is what I came up with:

This is the very true story of how one not-so-brave woman finally stood face-to-face with the fierce and steaming, snorting and slobbering Beast of Debt.  Over one year ago, author Allison Abel and her husband launched an all out offensive—Commando Financial Warfare (CFW)—on the soul-sucking reality of earning too little and owing too, too much.

In one hundred simple pages, Abel guides readers to:

• Start dramatically cutting all unnecessary expenditures
• Get out of credit card debt in three to five years
• Modify or refinance your mortgage to make monthly payments affordable
• Change the way you shop to get the very most out of each dollar
• To expect setbacks, and even some unforeseen achievements
• Learn that you will want to cry some but…
• To laugh more and find the ridiculous along the way

The author priced this book low, low, low so that anyone in a similar situation can gain control over their spending and develop sound stratagems for eliminating debt. Get Out of Debt Now, and How! chronicles the Abels first year of CFW as recorded in Allison’s get out of debt blog. Better yet, this book will not only help you save thousands of dollars a year (no exaggeration!), but it will also keep you laughing out loud, even through the toughest of times. Abel’s background in education is innately woven through her own personal tales in that she continues to teach, even when the lessons are the ones she learned the hard way.

I thought it was middling to fair.  Maybe even good, and certainly good enough as this whole gold rush thing was beginning to dance on my last impatient nerve.  When my book was finally on sale through Amazon.com, I found my jacket had lost its formatting. No italics conveyed and, embarrassingly enough, the bullet points had all turned into question marks!  As in: ? does this author even have a clue?

It was through many (!)  failed attempts that I finally found the proper sites to publish directly on Kindle and Nook. I am more than happy to spare any of you who might be interested in self-publishing similar migraine-inducing internet wild goose chases!  Here are the how-to’s for each:

How To Get Your Book on Kindle:

1. First, visit the following site to learn exactly how to format your book: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A2RYO17TIRUIVI
2. Once you have your text painstakingly formatted and ready for press, visit https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin to register with Kindle.
3. There, you will be asked to upload your book cover and text.  You will also be asked to set your own price.  After this is all done, it takes 24 – 72 hours before your book is available for purchase.

How To Get Your Book on the Nook:

1. First, visit the following site to learn exactly how to format your book: https://simg1.imagesbn.com/pimages/pubit/support/pubit_epub_formatting_guide.pdf
2. Next, upload your book cover and text, and set your price at : http://pubit.barnesandnoble.com/pubit_app/bn?t=pi_reg_home
3. Wait.  I still am.  I must have done something wrong as my Kindle book went to market exactly in the time frame promised.  My Nook book is, apparently, still “processing”.  It’s been processing for about a week now.  I’m sure I’m to blame, but I have no idea what has caused the hold up.

In sum, I learned a tremendous amount on my race to the gold rush.  I now know what it takes to self-publish.  I also know that, if you can afford it, if pays to hire a copy editor as well as a graphic artist for your cover. I know tons more about graphic art then I used to, and I have learned that self-publishing is readily doable for those positively determined to get there.

——————
Guest Post by Allison Abel – a teacher who, when it came to personal debt, had to learn a lot of lessons the hard way. She is able to survive because she’s got a knack for celebrating the ridiculous in life.  Plus, she has a husband who cooks and cleans, and an amazing eight year old daughter who both keep her laughing (even while clipping coupons).  Her e-book can be found on Amazon for $2.99, or at Barnes & Noble for the Nook. She can also be reached at slogalongblog (at) gmail (dot) com.  

But now I’m in my early 30′s and I’ve had to interact with others in my job, church activities and general social activities. I wouldn’t call myself “outgoing”, but on a personality test, I’m slightly more extroverted (outgoing) than introverted, so that helps with the anxiety I feel in unfamiliar situations, especially conversations. But, there’s a few ways I’ve trained myself to be more socially engaging that I would like to pass along, as well as some “don’ts” that I’ve noticed from others:

DO: Keep up on a wide-variety of topics

I’ll compare myself and my wife. While my wife focuses most of her waking time on work, which happens to be pediatric nutrition at the time, I tend to make sure I catch up on the latest in technology, sports, pop culture, geek culture, history, world events and so on. While she also has difficulty as she is a major introvert, she also struggles with what to bring up in conversation. How am I able to do this and still maintain a day job? Easy:

I skim headlines

I use my phone (an Android device with Google Reader AND the built-in news app) to subscribe to a variety of automotive, celebrity, world, music and other news types, and I skim through the headlines and read just a bit about some of the interesting topics to stay up-to-date.

Now, this isn’t just so I can bring up something interesting in the elevator or at the water cooler; I do this because I love knowing a little bit about everything, and a good bit about just one or two topics (like cars). Here’s another import DO…

DO: Use this knowledge wisely

Don’t just sit in a dinner or hallway conversation waiting for a few keywords that you can pounce on to show off your new-found knowledge of spider testicles (do they actually have them? I just wanted to put that in an article). You need to gauge the appropriate time to insert your knowledge, whether it’s white space/lull in the conversation and it’s a good time to change topics, or you actually have something worthwhile to contribute. This leads me to a DON’T…

DO: Be prepared to speak more on a topic

Now, fair warning, if you only read a headline and it’s a controversial topic, like, say “President bans using the words ‘spider testicles’ in school“, you may be quizzed more about the topic and you don’t want to be standing there with mouth agape and nothing to add other than “I heard that…”. You need to pick and choose what you “deep-dive” into on your skimming.

Now, because I love cars, I feel fairly confident and competent when someone brings up a car question or topic. I know a bit about history too, but only at-a-glance level, but I can contribute. Thanks to the wife, I can speak coherently on digestive disorders and other dietary issues, but I make sure I focus my attention on things that will stick…and how better for something to stick after reading about it than for it to be something you enjoy learning about?

DO: Enjoy something and make friends

Whether it’s cars, anime, dogs (not cats. No one wants to hear your cat stories), nutrition, history, celebrity gossip or whatever, enjoy something in life. That will lead you to finding like-minds who also enjoy talking about those topics and you’ll feel more at-ease in conversation and even make a few friends.

But getting back to the original concern, interactions with strangers/coworkers/etc. (aka those who you may not share a like-mind with), the key is to be knowledgeable, confident and assertive (not aggressive) to make yourself heard, understood and accepted into the social group.

I used to feel I was “forced” into social interactions. I moved out of my college apartment 10 years ago and to a whole new state with no friends or family around (although I did live with the cousin of my best friend, I still didn’t know her). I had a new roommate, new neighbors, dozens of new coworkers and bosses. Luckily many were also young like me, or at least very accommodating of new hires fresh out of college. I was introduced into a new world view because I worked with people from India, Pakistan, China, England, Germany, South Africa (and other parts of America) and I found one common interest we could all enjoy together…food!

DO: Learn and Talk about FOOD (and drink)!

From my first job through my current job, the major entry point to an easy conversation is food. In any size city or town or village, it’s the gateway to learning about people, their heritage, families, interests, dislikes and more. You learn about the history of nations and of families while educating yourself all at the same time. Whether you’re in an Iowan small-town or D.C. like me, you can learn about food, even if you think it’s the same as what you’ve grown up with.

I have the luxury of having pretty much any type of ethnic food around here in the D.C. area, and my experience with foods (because I’ll try anything once) has given me the opportunity to open conversations with so many people, whether they’re strangers at a work function or social gathering, my wife’s friends or colleagues, or sometimes the person at the table next to me (no, I don’t actively start conversations with people around me at restaurants. Sometimes talk just happens).

Lately, I’ve also gotten to know more about wines and beers (especially beers), and I’m not talking about Miller Lite and Bud. I’m talking micro-brews (and even “nano-brews”), and plan on starting some of my own home-brewing with a kit I received as a gift. It’s another hobby (like this site) that can help contribute to conversations. But…

DON’T: Be a snob

Whether they’re doing it intentionally or not, some people come across as a snob, even myself. Avoid putting someone down because they lack knowledge in something (verbally and non-verbally. Remember, your actions and posture speak louder than words), and don’t try to “show off” your knowledge of a topic.

What I’ve learned at my current job, which requires me to go in front of complete strangers, talk about my technical knowledge, then leave, is that I should only say enough to make someone ask more. And if they don’t ask more, don’t keep pushing the topic because they probably just don’t care to know more at that time (or, conversely, have no idea what I’m talking about). I sometimes (often) ramble on about a topic just to fill “dead air” when I’ve learned that silence is often your friend. It lets people catch up to what you were saying, consider a reply or question or decide to change the topic.

The classic topics that can sound snobby like wine or the arts are the types of topics to be careful around, but there’s even more dangerous topics…

DON’T: Talk religion, politics or money to anyone

ANYONE? Really?

Yes, ANYONE! You have no idea how many conflicts, even with family, you can start by stating something so innocent as “I think the Pope looks too much like the Emperor from Star Wars”. It may be true and you may just be cracking a joke, but your grandma may take severe offense to any cracks about her spiritual leader and then banish you to the kid’s table for every holiday henceforth. Even if you’re in a church group where you think  you’re all on the same page, be very careful.

I’m sure this isn’t an exhaustive list of DO’s and DON’Ts for social interactions, but it’s a good start, at least from my perspective. I still get nervous in new situations, but I don’t feel like I want to throw up. I used to get “butterflies” (aka vomit ready to blow at first sign of awkwardness), but I don’t recall the last time I had true butterflies. I’ve taken presentation courses in front of strangers AND my peers (and boss and boss’ boss) and I’ve been OK.

It takes time and practice to be comfortable in new, social situations (or even just new situations), but don’t let yourself be limited to one genre of friends and conversation. Branch out to topics and interests that you otherwise would think are boring or dumb because you’ll increase your network of friends (and job prospects as I found) and most likely find a new hobby. I never thought I would “be a writer” (although blogging is not quite writing), but as of now, I’ve written almost 1300 articles, almost all more than 500 words (this one is over 1500 words).

So get cracking and learn subscribe to new RSS feeds or tweeters outside of your comfort zone, listen to podcasts, watch TMZ and CNN (and maybe Fox News, but I don’t even watch that. Apparently people think it’s bad or something). You’ll expand your conversation abilities, grow your group of friends and associates and find out some new interests that you never thought you had!

5 years later, I can say without any doubt that I cannot run with my wife It’s simply that she’s a talker and I focus solely on running. Running isn’t a social activity for me, although walking is, so we’ve decided that we will now run separately. I’m happy to say that after years of inactivity, we’ve joined some local friends for runs at least once a week, and I’ve even gone out on my own a few times and done quite well. We even, as a group, ran the local “Warrior’s Dash” 5k, which was pretty much knee-high mud for the first mile, then 12 obstacles including rope mazes, barbed wire, walls, cargo nets, tires, jumping fire, and crawling through muddy, gravel-filled water. Fun!

Anywho, happy belated birthday to Clever Dude!

Catching up on the last year

There’s a few things that have happened in the past year that I never wrote about:

1. We took a road trip with my grandma and great aunt to Texas in April 2010. It was a gift to my gram (we brought her sister for conversation) for all she’s done for me throughout my life and the end of the trip was for them to see their cousin in middle-of-nowhere Texas. We had sunny weather the whole trip, but in front of us, sometimes just a few hours, were the Gulf rig explosion, tornadoes in Arkansas and flooding in Tennessee. We almost ran out of gas in the city of Nashville, but luckily a local report knew where to get some before we had to sit for hours in traffic on flooded roads to get to Kentucky! We got to experience dining and lodging in the New Orleans French Quarter, saw 10 states in 10 days (that corner of Georgia counts!) and 4 state capitols, and just had an amazing time. I even got my great aunt to try gator! The beignets at Cafe Du Monde and the oysters at Wintzell’s Oyster House in Mobile, AL were the culinary highlights of the trip and we all recommend going there if you pass through!

2. We took a road trip to a Disney wedding in Orlando, FL this past April. My cousin (groom) got married in the Wedding Pavilion near the Grand Floridian and I was in the wedding party (only 18 guests), and I felt honored. It was my first trip (Stacie’s first since high school band) to Disney,and I thought it would be a stressful event. In reality, I was the most relaxed I’ve been in the last 10 years because we stayed on property (a Value resort, the All-Star Music Resort…recommended) and got shuttle service anywhere we wanted as a result. We got extra time in mornings and nights at the parks, and even though it was the 2nd busiest time of year (and costliest), I didn’t feel ripped off. I would definitely go back, although I would love to take my older nieces when we do. It’s not the same without having kids with you (but it’s nice when it’s just you and your wife!).

3. I’ve taken a lesser role in managing the site and really just write for it now. I have someone else managing all my emails (he filters appropriate ones to me) and fills in with guest posts when I don’t think I can write for a while. When I started the site over 5 years ago, it was a hobby which was fun and exciting. A year or so later, it turned into a business and got more stressful and less fun. After 4 years, I was almost ready to give up and let the site rot away like another blogger who I won’t name (but still collect ad dollars). Luckily a friend stepped in and talked me back into writing while he does the tough work. Thanks!

4. Late last year, I took a new job. I won’t say what or where, but it was a major change from what I’ve been doing the last 10 years, and it’s outside of my comfort zone. I wasn’t on the market, but some connections I built talked me into testing the waters with this new position and then I decided to dive in. Nothing was pushing me to leave the university except the promise of the new opportunity allowing me to gain much more knowledge much faster, make tons more connections in the industry and be able to advance further in my career. Where I was, I pretty much could only be a system administrator or a manager, and the manager wasn’t leaving anytime soon. I miss the old place, the old team, and being able to say exactly what I accomplished each day, but I keep telling myself how much I’m gaining in knowledge, experience, connections (and a bump in pay I guess).

5. Still no plans for kids. With all the talk over the years of adoption and kids, nothing has panned out and both my wife and I are relatively happy just being with each other and enjoying our siblings’ and friends’ kids. However, I would like a dog, but can’t talk the wife into getting one (it would be from a rescue shelter). You can say “You’re not getting any younger…you need to have kids ASAP”, but we’re both pretty decided we’d rather adopt if anything, but ultimately it’s what God wants.

6. I’ve been very active in our church, and have been managing and coordinating activities for nearly 100 men, their families and the parish, when called upon, for the last year, and I’m renewing that commitment for the next year starting on July 1. It takes a lot of my time, but I love to see the happiness on the faces of those we help in the community, parish or within our group.

Finances

We’re still in the same house, but only have 1 mortgage left. Over less than a decade (more like 6-7 years), we’ve paid down over $200,000 in debt from credit cards, 2nd mortgage, student loans, and car loans. Now we’re just saving up and spending wisely. It’s tough to write about money when it’s not on your mind 24/7, but it’s true that I don’t think about our finances nearly as much because I don’t have that day-to-day worry. We’re not living paycheck-to-paycheck anymore and we can relax, although stay vigilant that we don’t grow into our old ways. It took just a few years to change habits I’ve had for decades, and I want to keep and foster my good habits.

I’d like to thank all my readers, whether daily subscribers or one-timers, for all the comments (good and bad), loyalty and love over the years, and vow to keep on writing as long as I have something to say.

Exactly 4 years ago (as I write this), I published the article “How I get laptops and plasma TVs for free“, wherein I detail my method for scoring free stuff from those spammy/scammy looking emails we all get.

Well, here’s your chance to win a free Dell Vostro V130 laptop from me (via Dell)!

That’s right, one of my readers is going to get a laptop valued at about $800 just for commenting (see rules below, after my review). Why am I doing this? Well, Dell gave me my own Vostro V130 to review and keep, and offered another one just like it to one of my readers as part of their PR campaign to highlight one of the newest models in their stable of small business laptops.

But first, my unbiased review:

Dell Vostro V130: A good buy?

First, I’ll reiterate that this is meant as a “small business laptop” and isn’t one of your cheapy netbooks. Why should I care about small businesses? Because I’m a small business owner myself! My portfolio of websites don’t manage themselves you know!

While I have a day job at a large company, I also work for hours at night on a laptop. In fact, I have 2 Sony Vaio, 1 Asus EEE PC Netbook, and 1 Dell supercomputer (it’s what I call my day job laptop) at home now, and until recently a business HP laptop as well, so I’m familiar with a range of laptop brands and styles (except a Mac because I have no need for one as long as I have PCs provided to me!).

I was actually surprised with the specs of the Vostro that Dell sent to me. In fact, I didn’t even know they had a range of laptops specifically for the small business market as I’ve mostly been familiar with their home and large business models. Here’s some specs os my specific laptop (and I believe the one you can win too):

• Intel® CoreTM i3 380UM (1.33GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache)
• Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (versus the 32-bit version. Big difference!)
• 13.3 inch HD WLED Display (1366×768) with Anti-Glare
• 4GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz
• 320GB SATA hard drive (RPM) (7200RPM)
• Anodized Aluminum shell in Lucerne Red (sexy!). Also available in gray (see image at top of article)
• 2.0 megapixel webcam
• Wireless-N capable card (also supports B and G routers)
• HDMI, VGA, 2 USB, 1 eSATA and 1 SD ports and standard Bluetooth
• 6-cell integrated battery (see complaints section below though)

What I like about the V130:

When I unboxed the laptop, I was surprised at how thin it was. It’s no Macbook Air, but it’s thin and light, yet has a sturdy feel to it thanks to the aluminum casing. As a guy, I’ll be honest I was disappointed to get a red one, but I’ll say it’s grown on me, and I don’t see the color when I’m using it anyway.

Next, as I’ve recently been upgraded to a Windows 7 Pro 64-bit laptop for work, I can appreciate the reason for having the more powerful operating system for a small business. My line of work requires the use of VMWare for testing software and running demonstrations, and the 64-bit OS is the way to go. Granted, Microsoft and PC hardware providers should have moved platforms YEARS ago and 32-bit shouldn’t even be an option anymore.

The display is excellent, even though it has just a standard graphics card, and the sound is surprisingly good too, considering it only has one mono speaker. I watched some Netflix HD video, and while it looks better on my “super-Dell” from work, it was perfectly adequate on this laptop. Remember, though, this is not an entertainment or gaming laptop. but rather one for doing small business work. Also, if you’re doing graphics or video work, you’d probably own a Mac already. I won’t argue that one.

It’s not a supercomputer with its processor, but I experience no lag in the bit of time I’ve been working on it. I haven’t loaded up VMWare (as I don’t have a license), but I suspect it would have no problem keeping up with my work Dell unless I had to run 2-3 VM images at once (in other words, have multiple virtual servers all using the resources off of my one laptop).

The design is perfect for travelers, as it is lightweight yet powerful. The question is, though, where does it fail as a small business laptop…

What I dislike about the V130:

As a blogger, I can use, and have been using, a much cheaper and weaker PC for my work. However, as a professional who travels to trade shows, conferences, customer sites, etc. to show product demonstrations and presentations, if I were to be an independent consultant who buys my own hardware, the Vostro would be in my target zone. Therefore, I can’t knock it for its pricing because I can appreciate the target audience.

The biggest problem I would have with the Vostro is battery life. I saw online it has a 4-cell option, but I got the 6-cell in my configuration. I’ve had 6-cell batteries before in my HP and Dells, and both of those gave about 3-4 hours of life, while the Vostro’s battery only gives about 2-2.5 hours of life. That’s unacceptable from a mobility point-of-view. In addition, because of its sleek design, the battery is embedded, which means you can’t swap it out for a bigger/better battery with more juice. Therefore, you always have to be close to a power plug when you’re on the go.

Other than the battery, I only have minor complaints, like the menu key next to the cursor keys on the keyboard. I keep hitting it instead of the left arrow, and I don’t see the point of it being there. Also, the touchpad scrolling needs to be smoother, but I found settings to at least slow it down. I also found that it allows pinch-zoom (like iPhones and Droids) as it has multi-touch capability, so that’s a cool feature at least.

The Final Verdict:

So would I buy one? Well, if I keep getting free laptops… But really, as a blogger, no. But if I have a crew of travelers working for me, and they need the processing power, I would consider the Vostro, but there’s some other very competitive alternatives on the market, each with their own pros and cons (check out CNET’s review of the Vostro for more information). I think the battery life is the deal-breaker for me because it’s meant for mobility, and I need something that lasts at least half a workday before a charge. The 6-cell battery in the Vostro wouldn’t even last for half a flight from NY to San Francisco. Otherwise, it’s the first sexy Dell I’ve seen and has a lot going for it, but it needs a better battery! C’mon Dell! For more info on the V130, check out theVostro V130 microsite and Dell’s Trade Secrets Facebook.

Now, for the good stuff.

How to Enter to Win a Dell Vostro V130

I’m going to do something similar to J. Money at BudgetsAreSexy.com (you can enter his contest too!) and ask you 2 questions. You have to make an attempt to answer them or else I’ll toss out your entry. I won’t judge content, but I’ll judge effort.

First, some rules and such:

• You have to be 18
• You have to be in the U.S. (sorry rest of the world)
• Only 1 entry per person
• You have until midnight Eastern this Thursday, March 10, 2011 to enter
• You’ll have to be willing to fill out a W-9 tax form (and pay taxes) on the prize. I had to do it to receive my free laptop, so you have to also
• I’ll draw the winner Friday using a random number generator to pick the winning comment. If you don’t reply within 48 hours of contact, or if you won’t submit your W-9 (to Dell, not to me), I’ll draw a new winner.

Alright, now to the 2 questions! I’m really looking forward to your responses, so get commenting!

1) What small business do you own/would you own (if you don’t own one)? 2) What do you think your biggest challenge is/would be as a small business owner?

Come back on Friday to find out the winner!

I started college as a declared Accounting major, but in my senior year, decided that Accounting wasn’t for me. Thanks goodness. So I switched to a new degree (that only lasted a few years at my college) called Operations and Information Systems Management. The degree mainly focused on project management, inventory management, logistics and some computer stuff like database design and unix system administration.

Since I went to a state school, and paid in-state tuition (and lived off-campus), I estimate my degree cost me about $24,000 in tuition, and probably another $15k-20k in housing, food, etc. While my parents took out loans for the housing, and helped me buy food until I got on my feet with my first college job (at a computer lab), I paid for my own tuition and most of my non-rent bills. I will admit my parents had to pay out of pocket for my final class since I didn’t meet requirements to get a loan.

I’ll also admit that I promised my mom that I would pay back as much of the loans they took out for me as I could, and I’ve knocked a small dent in that loan my parents are carrying for me, but I still have a ways to go.

How my degree paid itself back within 5 years

I honestly don’t know what the normal degree payoff period is, but here’s how I did my math. I started at salary “X” out of college. Granted, that salary was double (or more) what people who stayed in my home town got, and I got excellent benefits with it. I could say that my degree paid off in year one, but that’s too easy.

So I started with X. After four years at my job, I had earned enough raises to be at X+$10,000, which we’ll call “Y”. I was almost halfway to payback! (although the loan itself was definitely not getting paid off yet). But it was time for me to leave, and I found a new job about 90 miles away. Unfortunately, I had to commute to this new job, but it garnered a nice boost of Y+$14,000, which we’ll call “Z”. If you’re keeping track, that’s a gain of $24,000 over 4 years, which is what I paid in tuition. However, I only stayed at that job for 5 months, so I didn’t get the full $14k. Surprisingly, though, in my next job change, I got Z+$10,000.

So in about 5 full years, I had gotten enough pay increases to virtually pay back my degree and then some. And in the last 4 years, the job market has been kind to me and I’ve gotten more and more increases; each normally coming at a job change, but sometimes with a nice internal raise.

More proof that college degrees pay

I think I’ve mentioned this before on this site, but I’ll say the story again. I started my first job at just shy of 23 years old. A coworker, 9 years my senior (making him 32), quickly became a trusted friend and we openly shared salaries with each other. We found that he was making about 20% more than me, but he had almost a decade of experience in IT, while I had none. You would think the gap would be much larger.

The reason the gap was so tight: My friend and colleague had no college education.

Fast forward to today. I’m now coworkers again with this friend as he helped get me my latest job (and got me out of federal contracting!). We still share salaries, but times have changed. We’ve both jumped around jobs, but we stayed in the same field, working on the same software.

I now have a Masters Degree. He still has no college degree.

Our salaries are currently less than 3% apart. And the thing is, while I was doing nothing and learning little in federal contracting, he was busting his butt and gaining skills in the real world.

After almost 10 years of work for me, 20 for him, only 3% separates our salaries.

Call it luck? Good fortune? Hard work? Skill? Call it what you will, but I truly believe that my B.S. and M.S. have helped catapult me 10 years ahead so that I’m on par with (and I’ll say even advanced beyond) my peer. We both started on the same project on the same software at the same time, yet I have virtually caught up to his salary in less than 10 years (really, we’ve been pretty close for years, but this is the closest).

Why do I tell you this? Because there’s so much more to a college degree than what you learn in the classroom. I’ve been lucky that SOME of my classes can be used in my field of work, but really it was the “learning how to learn”, discipline and motivation that college gave me that helped propel me to where I am today.

I’ll end with this, though. I will definitely say I am not excited to be working in IT. It has its rewards (mostly money and a cushy office job) and some little wins, but in the end, I’m not directly impacting lives. Now that we’ve gotten comfortable on my salary, I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to find my true calling, but I do many extracurricular charitable activities to keep me connected and down to earth, and maybe I’ll just have to live with that type of lifestyle.

So don’t let the naysayers tell you that college isn’t worth it. It all depends on where you go, what you major in, how much you spend and then what you do with that momentum you’ve built through your college years.

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PS: Everest University has some online classes that may help if anyone’s interested.  Make sure to do your research though as I haven’t vetted any online places myself…

I started this site in June 2006 (over 4 years ago), but the first 6 months had almost no traffic. I hit it big in February 2007 with a few articles on The Consumerist and Lifehacker and I’ve been going strong ever since. I just wonder, if I hadn’t dropped down from 30-40 articles/month, how much faster would I have gotten to a million?

Next up, 100 million visitors!!!

We’re going to give away Two $50 gift cards to Sports Authority!

State Farm has teamed up with MLB to give people a chance to attend the 2010 World Series, while at the same time making a difference for their favorite charity by “going to bat” for them.

All you have to do is visit www.statefarm.com/gotobat, play the online Home Run Derby game for the charity you’d like to “go to bat” for and once a week, for ten weeks, State Farm will select a winner and their charity. The winner’s charity will receive a weekly donation ($100 for every home run hit that week in MLB) and the winner themselves will receive a trip for two to the 2010 World Series!

This “Go to Bat” program is void in Quebec & where prohibited. Participants must be a legal resident of the U.S. or Canadian provinces of Alberta, New Brunswick or Ontario, and must be 18+ at time of entry.

So to help spread the word for them, we were given TWO $50 gift cards to give out to our readers! (You’re very lucky too, I don’t get anything myself )

You have 3 options to win one of these $50 cards:

1. Follow our RSS feed and stay in the loop!
2. Or, if you’re a tweeter, tweet: “State Farm Go To Bat: Support the charity of ur choice & u could win a Trip for 2 to World Series! http://tinyurl.com/25hxwku”. (Just let me know that you did this in the comments for tracking reasons)
3. Or, tell us in the comments what you’d buy with this $50 if you won!

I will be using Random.org to choose the 2 winners next Monday, August 9th, so make sure you’re entered by that Sunday @ Midnight.  Good luck everyone!

Hi. My name’s Henri. I’m not a personal finance blogger, but I have discovered the power of blogging in the last few months that I’ve been doing it seriously. In this article you’ll learn why I think everyone should blog.

We all have something to share. If you don’t have a blog or have just started, I know it can feel like you don’t have anything to say, but that may just be because you’re focusing on the wrong topic. Before I go into the blogging part, let me share my own story.

My Story

Before we start though, let me share my story. From an early age, I learned that saving and investing your money was important from my father. When I was 16 I became fascinated by stocks and investing.

The only problem was that I didn’t have any money. Naturally, I had to solve that problem, which is about the time poker came into my life, online poker to be specific. I started playing at the age of 18. My goal was to make $10,000 so I could invest it in stocks.

Six months later I’d made more than my goal and forgotten all about stocks. Why did I abandon my original plan? Because I felt like playing online poker would give me the money I needed without investing in anything or diluting my focus.

A small disclaimer: poker is by no means an easy way to make money. It took me a whole summer of reading, discussing and talking to real poker players until I started making a few dollars. I ultimately quit because it was psychologically taxing and my passion was elsewhere.

By now you’re probably asking yourself “what does this have to do with blogging and how will it benefit me?”

I hear you, but hear me out. By playing poker I learned proper money management, discipline, awareness, emotional control and without knowing it, I learned entrepreneurship.

In the beginning of 2009 I stopped playing poker, because it was slowly making me miserable. The ups and downs were hard and my heart wasn’t in it anymore. That’s when I started building websites and discovered how to make money online.

It wasn’t until in December 2009 that I created what is now my baby, which is my blog, the Wake Up Cloud. And this is where the awesomeness begins…

Why You Should Blog

Our stories and experiences make us unique. The story I just told you above makes no sense, until you see that it is what shapes me. I learned a lot about life through poker. You on the other hand have lived a completely different life, which gives you a completely different skillset.

Even if you’re a completely beginner at something, but love doing it, there are people behind you that will benefit from you sharing your story.

Before I started my blog I was making money online without really putting my face or personality out there. I was afraid that no one would like what I had to say. I was afraid that my blog would stand empty and deserted.

And you can make this a reality if you fail to follow your passion and write about what you truly love. It can also come true if you hold yourself back and don’t market your blog, but that is another story for another time. Let’s focus on blogging for now.

You see, there are always people that find your story fascinating. There is something you have to share. There is something you feel inspired to share. You just have to find it within you.

My Experiences with Blogging

As I said above, I’ve just been blogging for a few months, but during this time I’ve connected with like-minded people, started working on projects and learned a lot about myself.

This is apparently what happens when you do what you love and share your knowledge. There are laws in the universe that cannot be broken. One such law is the law of cause and effect. What you put out will come back to you.

What you sow, so shall you reap. There are probably thousands of different ways of putting it. As I started helping more and more people improve their lives, I also started getting more opportunities to make money and connect with others.

How to Eliminate the Confusion

Most people that I talk to and help want to start a blog, but they don’t know the how, what, when and where. And if they’ve already started, they have equally as many confusions still in their head.

In my mind it all comes down to beginning. I originally started my blog for people that wanted to read about self improvement, but just a few weeks ago I asked my readers what they wanted and I discovered that they wanted to know how I made money online and how they could do it as well.

This prompted me to change the direction of my blog. I would never have realized that this was what I really wanted to do if I hadn’t started blogging. It’s okay to be confused and even a little bit scared. I certainly was both in the beginning.

It all comes down to listening to your heart. What are you deeply passionate about that you can share with others? Do you know something about a topic that others would benefit from?

Start and see where it takes you. There are plenty of resources on how to start a blog out there. Google will teach you everything you need to know for free, and if you’re lazy you can always take a course or even get someone to do it for you!

Just put your mouse on a city anywhere in the world and the newspaper headlines pop up.  There are links in the top right to create a PDF of the front page or to browse through to the newspaper’s website. Pretty neat.

Actually, if you’re in D.C., go visit the Newseum and you’ll see many of the actual front pages displayed (and updated daily) outside of the building.

Well, in reality, the final presentation didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Although I had been working on the project since April, I didn’t seem to get all the pieces together. I had a mentor on the project and was passing everything through him, but he didn’t catch them either before I presented to the head of the program. I got a C.

While I can still graduate with a C and get this all over with, I have never received less than a B in any college-level class. I currently have a 4.0, and since this project is the culmination of all my prior classes, it’s very strange and/or disheartening. Did I not really learn anything? Honestly, I was pretty lazy and unmotivated, so I had to roll over from the summer into the fall and pay $60. It happens to most people in my program since it’s a self-paced project and no one is yelling at you to keep on schedule.

But getting to the point, I have 3 options:

1. Take the C and finish. Only I, and now my anonymous audience (and all my friends, family and coworkers who I’ve told) will be the wiser.

2. Spend about 2 months redoing the project, resubmit to my mentor and get a B. My mentor is the one who gives me the grade, but the head of the program can override him and is the final approval.

3. Work about 4 months AND present to the head of the program again and maybe get an A.

I decided to go for the B. I’d like to get this all over with, and have seriously thought about just taking the C. I know I would never put my GPA on my resume even if I got a 4.0, but I just can’t live with a C. I don’t know what it is. If I would have to start from scratch to get a B, I would take the C, but I just have to do a little more work, so I’m going for it.

But I’ve decided to take the rest of this year off and start on it in 2010. I need a break and I want to enjoy the holidays. I have to pay another $60 for my personal satisfaction (to roll into next semester), but I feel it’s worth it.