THis blog is now closed...move along, there is nothing to see

Well despite my appeals Google have confirmed that my account is disabled. As this blog was an attempt at an experiment using adsense to see how to make money without scamming people, it is pointless me continuing it. I will keep up my other blog http://simonsayslivelife.blogspot.com/ on a less regular basis, feel free to drop by and say hello.

Have a read through some of the ideas here and if you try them out good luck, I hope you make money.

Meanwhile to paraphrase Douglas Adams......so long and thanks for all the fish. ;-)

Missing you already.

Oh woe is me....

Any of you that are regular readers of this blog, will see a small difference now compared to last week. No adverts! Well I could lie and tell you that it was because I didn't want to take advantage of you, but that wouldn't be true. I did! Sadly Google doesn't think I should as they have disabled my account due to invalid click activity.

Despite my requests to explain, they have not told me what that means, the point is I am now down $108 and my get rich quick scheme is in tatters.

Oh woe is me!

Update on earnings

So I have been writing this blog for just a little over a month now. I thought it would be only fair to update you on my earnings from the different schemes I have talked about.

In no particular order:
Mutual points: Not a great success, after my initial binge, I have had a problem getting back into my account so I was stuck on just over 500 points. Today though it let me in, no reason apparent as to why it did not before. I will stick with this site as I have used it before and made money but it can be a tedious process. There are many "free" points opportunities, but mostly limited to one offs. Today though I joined Photobox through the site earning me 60 points and 40 free photos. Photobox has prints from 5p which seems reasonable, but I am looking for a Photobook. I searched using Buy Compare for some electrical stuff (earning 35 points for five searches). If all I did was this to get 3000 points needed to claim my £20, I will have to do this every day for the best part of 3 months ;-)
The power of this site is it gives points if you purchase, from a wide range of other sites, (i.e. it is a shopping portal) you get cash back effectively for buying something (which you were going to buy anyway) so it's worth browing. Lastly you can register you credit card with them and they will give you points if you use it in any of the shops they promote, even if you buy direct. Not sure how that works but I'll keep you posted.
Valued Opinions/Opinion Worlds, I have cancelled. I was getting two or three emails a weeks, but never seemed to be "suitable" for the survey. I have always been of the opinion these sites are more about getting valuable marketing data from you than about giving you anything back.
Win 4 Now/My Offers: Two other primarily marketing site, you have to give them a fair amount of information to get anything. So far have won nothing. By a strange coincidence the "competitions" always seem to be about what products you are looking to buy. In a lot of cases they ask for a mobile number (to notify you if you win.) Curiously, the only calls I am getting are cold calls to sell me stuff. Hmmmm.......!! I think I'll be dropping those shortly!!
Car boot/Baby Sitting/Delivery etc. Honestly, zilch (be fair I could have lied!) But I do have a lot of potential in my garage for car boot stuff.
Ebay: A few DVD's and CD's, but mostly small amounts. Total: £18.27.

So what has been the biggest earner for me so far, well funnily enough Google AdSense. Those little sponsored links to the side. If someone clicks through on one of those adverts I get a small kick back. Earnings to date $108.

Oh and those get rich quick schemes. Well to be frank I still wouldn't touch them with a barge pole and NEVER give them you credit card details. Many of them will tell you you are paying for shipping, but in the small print it says you are agreeing to them taking a regular payment every month until you contact them. Try and contact them, it can prove impossible....!

If I were a betting man

The Avon lady - bing bong Avon calling

A bit more on multilevel marketing.
My daughter is an Avon lady, Avon are a well established company, whose model is to sell direct through a distribution chain of home workers. They don't have shops. Your Avon lady (or man gender is not important) leaves a catalogue with you to browse at your leisure. You fill out an order form, she takes it orders the goods, which you pay her for on delivery. Delivery is free. She receives a commission on every thing she sells, which makes her a little side line income.

The benefits of this type of income are:
You can work from home
You don't carry stock so no initial outlay
No experience is necessary
Training and support

Avon offer a full money back no quibble guarantee on all products so you can sleep safe knowing that if a customer is disattisfied you will have a fall back plan.

As a small business this will not make you rich, but you can make a nice side income. Be aware you have to pay Avon for catalogues, but they cover the cost of delivery and returns. You can check out Avon here.

When should you consider it:
Works best in places where you have access to a potential customer base, through work at the office, at clubs, University etc. You can do door to door (cold selling) but that requires a certain kind of attitude. When people see the catalogue it tends to sell itself.
When not to do it:
If you don't like rejection, spare time or a moderate number of contacts.

On a similar vein have a look at the following as alternatives:
Amway: Same principals but health, beauty, home cleaning products etc.
Kleeneze: Another cleaning products catalogue but this one sells stuff you didn't know you needed, an example Goo Gone, gets sticky stuff of anything (it's amazing!!!).