Business Ideas for Christmas 2011

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Christmas is a season of joy. But it is also a season of too much spending. So how can we solve the problem of going broke after the holidays? Think of money making ideas this Christmas season.

Here are some that you might want to try:

1. gift basket - Busy professionals does not have the time to go shopping for gifts. Take advantage of that and market this business to friends and family.

2. craft ornaments - Make unique crafts that can be used to decorate a home for a more Christmas-sy feel.

3. food catering services - Big families plan big parties. If you have the cooking skills and the ability to handle pressure, this business is for you.

4. car check-up - Families gather together during Christmas. Some people often travel long distance to be with their family. Car check-up and tune-up’s are necessary for this long travel. You can market your services to those on a tight budget.

5. freight forwarding - For the gifts to arrive at the right place, at the right time.

6. money lending - You can help, and earn a few, friends and family members who are on a tight budget.

7. event hosting - Not a shy person? Use that skill.

8. photo and video coverage - Have a high-end camera, offer to be the official photographer and videographer on family gatherings. You can partner this with #3 and #7 and earn more.

9. gift wrapping service - Give your services to people who doesn’t have the time to wrap their gifts.

10. venue leasing - Do you have a garden huge enough for family gathering, lease it this holiday season.

Happy Holidays and Good luck!

What is a transcriptionist

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My sister is a work-at-home mom. She is a business, sometimes medical, transcriptionist. Transcriptionists convert voice recorded reports to text formats. Sounds easy, right? Actually it’s not as easy as it sounds, especially if you’re listening to a person with a heavy accent.

You might have found your way to this post while searching for instructions on how to become a transcriptionist or you’re looking for transcription jobs. I can help you with the former.

1. You need a computer, headphones, a software called Express Scribe that you can download for free and a foot pedal.

2. Download some sample transcription reports and practice transcribing it.

3. Improve your typing speed.

4. Learn “how to read between the lines”, for speakers heavy accents you definitely need that skill.

5. Ready? Start applying for transcription jobs, many can be found online.

Good luck!

wanted (soon): dedicated server host

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Being a stay-at-home mom, for 10 years already, is not as easy as other people might think. It's the most hard but fulfilling job on earth, even Oprah believes so. Having no maid, nanny and driver didn't stop me from working during my spare time.

One of such work is blogging. I started to blog for a living 2 years ago. I was researching on how to earn money online when I came upon this mommy blog that has a post on how much she earns every month. If she can do it, I definitely can also.

I started blogging on a free blogging site. I researched online on how I can earn from my blog. I can proudly say I did it on my own without anybody spoon-feeding me along the way. When my two blogs were earning already, I bought it's own domains and had it hosted by a mommy blogger that I met on one of my blog hops. Installing it was easy peasy because I didn’t have to do it myself, it was already included in the hosting package that I availed.

I now have 10 blogs and I don't have any plans of stopping there. I'm planning to divide my blogs in two different servers with the same web host. I can't afford for them to be offline all at the same time during a server downtime. I hope my current host will offer a dedicated hosting service soon.

 my business card

In a few years my blogs might even balloon to twice more of what I have now. I might have my blogs hosted with a dedicated server at that time. As early as now, I'm already researching the pros and cons of a dedicated server as compared with a shared hosting. When the time comes for me to decide on what to choose, I'll definitely be ready.

Next on my to-do list: enroll in business school

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It was never a difficult decision to become a stay-at-home mom. Taking care of my baby, instead of focusing on my career, became my top priority when I first laid eyes on him. I was planning on going back to work when he's a few months older. But he started having asthma attacks when he turned one, so my career was further put on hold.

When my son was in preschool, I tutored a few students in our house. It was a fun and fulfilling way to spend my ME time. Not to say that I was also well compensated. I began selling airline tickets and tour packages to family, friends and friends of friends at that time also.

My small business ventures took a back seat when my son got accepted in his school's varsity team.  But at the back of my head, I now know what to do. I want to go back to school. Hopefully, I can squeeze in business school, in my hectic mommy schedule, next year.

There are lots of other business ideas on my head aside from those, the two mentioned earlier, that I’ve already tried out. I want to learn what to do with all the awesome ideas. I want to make my ideas into a reality.

My sacrifice to become a stay-at-home mom is the best decision that I’ve done in my whole life. I was able to take care of my son and was also able to find out a better career path for me.

finally! i can now relax

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Yes, I did it! I was able to beat the deadline.

ijustgotta

I can finally relax. I'll read RJ's Diary of a Wimpy Kid before going to bed. He already has the complete set, including the Wimpy Kid Movie book. I paid a good deal of money for that collection so I better enjoy the books as well.

who likes cramming?

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I don't.

I'm not a fan, never will be, of cramming or being late. But there are times when these situations are inevitable. Like right now. The day is almost over, been online since I woke up this morning, but I'm just halfway through with everything that I was planning to finish at the end of the day.

No, I'm not stressed-out with payday loans payment. But I do have to write two articles that needs to be submitted at the end of the day. 

What have I been doing for the past few hours? I got busy inviting and re-inviting mommy bloggers to join my Mother's Day contest. There are already 15 entries as of this writing. I'm excited to see who'll get the highest vote this Sunday, Mother's Day.

I better start writing the articles. I still have a few hours before deadline. Nothing to stress much about, right?

how do i earn from adgitize

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How Do I Earn Click Points?

1.Make sure you are logged into the Adgitize Member Lounge.
2.Go to your own blog and click an ad in an Adgitize Ad Group on your blog.
3.Check the Reports to see if your click was counted.
4.Choose Reports
5.Choose the Publishers - Clicks Earned Today Report Link
6.Look at the Total Publisher Clicks Earned Today: - It should say 1 or more
7.If Your click was counted then continue clicking ads on all the member blogs you visit.
8.Choose the Blogs Not Clicked Today Link
9.Choose the first publisher link on that page.
10.Find the Adgitize Ad Group on that publisher's page
11.Click one of the ads in the Adgitize Ad Group.
12.Look for an Adgitize Ad Group on the new browser window that just opened.
13.Click one of the ads in the Adgitize Ad Group.
14.If you can't find an Adgitize Ad Group then Choose another link in the Blogs Not Clicked Today Section
15.You are limited to 100 clicks a day to earn points. (51 as an advertiser.)

How Do I Earn Page Views Points?

1.Make sure you have an Adgitize Ad Group on your blog. It should say, Adgitize Me at the bottom.
2.Every time some one views the page with the ad group you will earn a point.
3.Check the Reports to see if your page views are counted.
4.Choose Reports
5.Choose the Page Views Earned Today Report Link
6.Every time someone views that page or any page on your blog with the ad groups then your page views earned number should go up.
7.Your total views are translated into points.

How Do I Earn Ad Views Points?

1.Make sure you have an Adgitize Ad Group on your blog. It should say, Adgitize Me at the bottom.
2.Every time some one views the page with the ad group you will earn a view based on the number of ads you are displaying.
3.If you are only displaying one ad you will get one view. If you are displaying 4 ads you receive 4 views.
4.Check the Reports to see if your ad views are counted.
5.Choose Reports
6.Choose the Ad Views Earned Today Report Link
7.Every time someone views that page or any page on your blog with the ad groups then your ad views earned number should go up.
8.Your total views are translated into points each day.

How Do I Earn Advertisers Points?

1.Create an ad - either 125px X 125px or 468px X 60px.
2.Log in to reach the Member Lounge
3.Choose the Advertise Menu Item
4.Click the Add An Advertisement button.
5.The page will ask you for an Ad Name, Alt Tag, Image Size, the Landing Page URL for your blog and the image itself.
6.Ad Name is just a name for your own purposes to keep track of your ads.
7.The Alt tag is the text that is displayed if for some reason your image can't display.
8.Choose the proper image size.
9.The URL for the ad represents where you want the visitor that clicks your ad to land on your blog. It could be your home page or a special offer landing page.
10.You can browse for the image you created.
11.Click on the Save New Advertisement Button
12.There will be up to a 10 hour delay as I review all the ads before approving them.
13.Not all ads are approved as I review for content of ad and content of landing page.
14.Once your ad is approved you can earn up to 100 points each day.

texts lifted from Adgitize's Help page

occupation: blogger; positon: general manager

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I am a blogger. I am my own boss. I love working on my pajamas!

More people still think that blogging can never bring food on the table. Come on people, we're in the age of modern technology! Blogging is just like any "regular job" in a high-rise building. I urge you to try it, you might even like it more than your current job right now.

labnol.org

* Hopefully, I can promote myself to President of Journal of RJ's Mama, Inc in a few months. Yes, I have to power to promote myself. Can you do that in your current job?

queen of multitasking

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The picture below is yours truly everyday. I know most stay-at-home or work-at-home moms can relate with me. I don't have a helper or yaya in the house. I do everything.

plus blogging, eating, washing the dishes = ME!

I can definitely say, based on experience, that working at home is much harder than working in a regular working environment. Especially with no maid! But the former is definitely more fulfilling than the latter.

this might help you

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Are you bored with whatever it is that you do day in, day out? Here's a poem that might help you. I found this poem in my son's Language folder from school. The teacher might have noticed how the kids hate studying and doing seatworks in class.

I should put this in the laundry room, I wonder if it will help me smile while I'm washing my son's dirty socks. I ought to put one near the kitchen sink also. And yes, in the bathroom, I want to enjoy scrubbing the tiles!

Girl Talk # 9

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I love this week's topic for girl talk. I am amazed, actually, when I checked the topic for today

                Work Resolution

                                 exactly what I was pondering about for a few days already.

I blog and I consider blogging my work. I was thinking about changing the layout of my four blogs, but I'm no layout artist. So I have to allot some of my free time (oh no, my nap time!) to learn about HTML among other things. That's first on my list of my work resolution

I so wanted to buy muck boots last month but ended up with nothing for me because of too much people to give gifts to last Christmas. So my other resolution, I hope it works, is to update my blog and visit my online friends everyday. Everyday from now on, not once in a blue moon but E-V-E-R-Y-D-A-Y! More blog visit means more you-know-what-friend$$ means buy-something-for-me-this-time!

So those are my blogging resolution, what's yours?

lazy me on weekends

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I would love to do nothing else, except to just stay in bed reading a good book, on weekends. But my laundry day is scheduled every Saturday and church on Sundays, so I can't be lazy and not get out of bed during weekends.

                                                            apieceintime

Speaking of laundry day, I need to buy a laundry line as strong as pull up bars. Laundry shops here can't be trusted to wash clothes thoroughly.

do you love shopping online?

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I will be launching an online shopping website in a few weeks, I hope. The problem is, I haven't started comparing the web hosting sites that I found online. Some we're recommended by other blogger friends. Some web hosting providers, on my list of prospects, I found while searching online.

A free webhost is a no-no to an ecommerce website. There are a lot of "online thieves" lurking, not safe for an ecommerce business that has a shopping cart and online payment system. And customers won't trust an online shopping site that is using a free hosting service.

What I need is a hosting provider that has a dedicated server. A dedicated server is the solution to make an ecommerce website secure. Yes, it is more expensive but dedicated servers provide numerous benefits to an online business.

I have seen a lot of hosting providers that has unlimited-everything. unlimited webspace, unlimited transfer, unlimited domain hosting, unlimited email accounts, unlimited MySQL databases, unlimited etceteras. Could that be true? Need to find out if those webhosts are for real!

It would be an advantage if the hosting provider also provide a free website builder. Because I don't know how to create or set-up a website. I need a webhost that is reliable and will help me in everything that I will need to make my ecommerce business successful.

Would need more recommendations. Just leave a comment if you can recommend one.

how to get client's from all over the globe

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I put up a homebased travel agency due to boredom when my son became a preschooler. I started by attending seminars and researching online tutorials about putting up a travel agency. I offer my services to family, friends and friends of friends. I am planning on marketing the many wonderful sights of the Philippines to people from all over the world.

There is one problem though that might become a problem to this plan. I can only speak two languages: English and Filipino. People from other countries doesn't speak my language, Filipino, and some can't even speak English. There is only one solution to this problem that I can think of - a translator. I'm planning to put up a website that has pages in English but has a translation, in one click of a button, to the users desired language.

I am sure that a lot of people have heard of beaches (with fine white sand and crystal clear water) and wonderful sceneries here in the Philippines. Most travel websites though are in English and non-English speaking tourists need to have someone translate it for them first. I'm sure my website will help them learn more about my country in their own language.

how does one become a real estate agent?

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I have been working at home for a few years already, actually before RJ was even born. I currently have a few work-at-home jobs and I am eyeing another one right now. I want to try real estate brokering. Why add another job? I think being a real estate agent can be a rewarding career choice. You get to meet and mingle with different kinds of people. Not to mention the commission that you will get when you make a sale, isn't that rewarding enough?

How does one become a real estate agent anyway? I have been researching about that for a few weeks already. First, browse real estate ads and make a list of agencies you want to talk with. Start with the agencies near your place. If you live in Ontario for example you should search for ads available around the area. Make an appointment with the recruiting managers on your list. If you're new in this career (like me) don't forget to ask questions.

Once you're hired you need to obtain a real estate broker license. In Canada, to become a licensed real estate agent, one must complete a course of study as required under the Real Estate Act of one's resident province. The Real Estate Agents governing body of your province will provide the licensing requirements.

The next step: look for potential clients.