Money Saving Tip #9

Cable and Internet providers always seem to be raising their rates, there are ways you can fight  them. Check out Part 2 of Digital Landings Money Saving Articles:

Fight Rate Increases

Be sure to check out my other blogs;
The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

 

Money Saving Tip #8

Times are tough and you needs to save money, but you don't want to remove every luxury in your life. This is part 1 of a 5 part series on how to save money. The first step is:

Lowering your Cable Bill

NPD Online Research

There are a lot of survey sites out there, but most of them send you the wringer to get any form of payment. There are a few sites that I participate it, I won't say that they pay great but I do get the occasional free product, or $5 cheque from them.

NPD Online Research is a site I have used for a while.You get entered in their monthly drawing for $1000 with every completed survey, plus you earn points you can enter into drawings for various prizes. Occasionally they have specialized surveys that pay you cash or send you products to test. I just finished a week long survey on food for points, sweepstakes entries and a $25 gift card.

Yes, that is my referral link, but it doesn't really get me anything except an entry in a quarterly drawing. Their referral program is not much to write home about.

Make Money Writing

If you are the type of person that reads some of the news articles on Yahoo and flinches, then you are probably aware of some of the basic rules of grammar and punctuation. It also means that you know how to use spell check and maybe even how to do some research to verify facts. It that is the case then one way for you to make money is by writing.

Start off with a basic blog so you can build your skills and your portfolio then apply to a few writing sites like Helium.com and zerys.com. These places let you write for money, frequently they are small 'fluff' type articles, but they still provide cash and cash is good. I've been writing for a few years now and have advanced beyond those sites, but I still occasionally return to them when I need to supplement my income.

Once you get into it you can stick your name on the articles and you not only get paid for writing the articles, but you also get paid for traffic generated to the articles.

Check out a few of my earlier articles and I will admit that they aren't spectacular, but they are decent and had earned me some money;

Which Satellite TV provider is right for you: Dish Network or DirecTV?

Dish Hopper: Is it as great as they say?

What is a Reverse Phone Lookup?

Setting up a Home Network

4G CONFUSION: What is 4G?

Reuse cardboard instead of Landscaping Cloth

Aged mulch of coarse home compost Category:Compost (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last week I told you about using plastic bags as a landscaping cloth.

There is a better alternative that will save you money and in the end is better for the environment and your garden.

It's commonly referred to as the lasagna method. Cover the ground with carboard, preferably the single layer stuff like a cereal box then cover the cardboard with 2 or 3 inches coarse organic mulch such as wood chips or bark. Layers of newspaper will also work. This will last about a year. To continue, simply add another layer of cardboard and another 2" coarse mulch. The organic materials will gradually decompose and enrich the soil while feeding your plants. A good mulch will let water percolate down, slowly decompose to improve the soil, and prevent weeds from sprouting.

The point of mulch is to prevent light from reaching the soil -- light activates the weed growth. That's why you lay a solid mass of paper or cardboardover the soil. Bark and wood chips are slow to decompose, thus lasting for about a year. Shredded dry leaves will usually decompose in 6 to 9 months.

The occasional wind-blown seed will take root on top of the mulch but young weeds are easy to pull up.

Related articles

• 7 No-Cost Ways to Grow More Food From Your Garden
• Mulch in Milwaukee | How And Why do trees like Mulch
• Staying Weed Free with Newspaper  

Re-Use Old Grocery Bags #2

Mulch Ado About Nothing (Photo credit: t0msk)

I am not a fan of landscaping cloth, but does occasionally have some uses. We have very invasive deep root weeds that like to crop up everywhere, so I use it one some of my smaller vegetable beds.

Landscaping cloth is black plastic that you put underneath mulch and garden beds to try and keep weeds from sprouting up. It typically costs about $0.50 per square foot, which can add up if doing a large bed and if you are only doing a small bed you end up buying way more fabric than what you needed.

I've been making some new raised vegetable beds and instead of putting down landscaping cloth I put down plastic bags. I found some large bags from Target and JC Penney and I slit them open then I laid them down in the bottom of the beds and put the dirt over top of them. They will serve the same purpose by effectively acting as a barrier, they will also be a lot easier to pick up in five or ten years because roots won't weave their way into them like it does with the fabric.

Next week I will tell you about a more environmentally friendly option

Be sure to check out my other blogs;
The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio

Related articles

• BagSavr+ Makes Use of Excessive Grocery Bags
• DIY: 10 Things To Make From Plastic Bags
• DIY: 10 Things To Make From Plastic Bags

Paid to Blog - Don't do these sites

Well it has been over a week and I am pretty sure that those websites on getting paid to blog are scams.

I got their automated responses on signing up, but no further emails after that and I have checked my spam folders. The only one that actually responded to me was blogdistributor.com which rejected me stating that my blog was not in English and I wasn't in a country that spoke English as a primary language.

Thank you for your interest in submitting your blog to Blog Distributor. Unfortunately, we can only accept blogs that are from bloggers that live in countries where English is the primary language. The reason that we do this is that we have found that there are subtleties in English, that are important to our clients, that are not noticeable to bloggers that are from countries where English is not the primary language. Therefore, we cannot accept any of your blogs. Thank you for your time. 

I guess this means that Spanish is now the official language of the USA?


I guess these will be the first three listed on my 'avoid them' page.

The Great Spam Project - A blog all about Spam (the email type, not the edible)
Ghost of a Writer - My Personal Blog
Killer Teacup - My Online Portfolio