I am starting a series of posts about small changes we can make it our life to make our daily living and health improve tenfold. If we try to make huge changes, it is often difficult sustaining it and we have sense of failure but small changes made slowly becomes habits if done over and over again for 21 days.
These are changes I have made or working on it. Would you like to join with me in this journey?
Having clutter around not only cost us our money but also our piece of mind and happiness with it. Your house might be filled with piles of books and magazines you mean to read it, the smaller size clothes in your closet when you get back to your college weight, every toys that kids got from family and friends, many bills are just a few of example of clutter that most of us go through in our lives. Kitchen, bathrooms and office are worst places in a house for clutter to pile up easily. Instead of you owning the stuff, your stuff ends up owning/controlling you. Here are few ways, clutter cost us more than we bargained for;
You misplace bills to pay or check to deposit in your huge piles of paper. By the time, you find anything, bill is past due and check is no longer cash-able (after 90 days). You have just lost money and added interest or fees on bills too.
You buy item, only to realize months later, that you had that same item in your storage pile somewhere in the house. It was hard to find and hence forgotten. Sometimes, you may buy same items a few times over the years, not remembering, costing you more money.
You panic when someone called for unannounced to visit, as it will be overwhelming to clean up clutter in such a short time. Either you are embarrassed when company comes or choose to do less social inviting on purpose, either way you are losing social life with friends and family because of your clutter.
You do not want to come home as cluttered and messy home does not make you feel better. So you tend to eat out more often and do more outside shopping to make yourself feel good, adding clutter to your already cluttered house.
You may think it is wise to put all extra storage in storage place, leaving your house cleaner. However, you may pay $50 a month for your junk and your house slowly begins to be cluttered again.
You may lose your valuable time finding things in the house. You may search every morning your car keys under the stuff pile, or you may find that food in your fridge has gone bad, wasting food and money both. Your self-esteem may take hit.
You are not living your true potential life, due to all clutter. You are waiting for some miracle to make it all better, clutter robs you from happiness. A happiness you get when your sink is empty and kitchen is clean and your bills are paid on time. You will get so much joy once work is done and you can truly relax and enjoy your home.
Is clutter costing you in some ways? In future we will look at a few ways to get started on path to simplifying and de-cluttering.
Many of us are working at a job for pay bills and save money for the retirement. However, after paying bills, insurance and daily spending very little is left for many people. Right now with economy being down, many people are laid off, or getting paid less in their current job.
Many of us are looking for ways to make money on side to boost our income a little or a lot. There are a few ways which are relatively easy for any of us to make extra money. Now, none of us will be able to retire with these ideas or be a millionaire, but it will sure increase a nice boost to your income. Check it out, many are easy to do for any of us.
Ways to Make Money In Hurry
50 Ways to Make Money
Here are 50 ways to make money and boost your earning income to comfortable level.
1 Do online surveys. Many online surveys pays as little as 10 cents to 5 dollars. There are many surveys are out there to try it out. Beware of the one that asks for fee, try only free surveys sites. You can do surveys online or via email.
2. Sell sometimes from home which are not using. You can sell your stuff on craigslist, ebay or amazon. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. You can make good amount depending on type of stuff you have. If you have any collectibles items, you can make good money. A friend of mine sold his baseball cards to make $950, not bad for something sitting in his closet. Sell only things you do not care for or not interested in.
Offer to drive someone around for little pay. Sometimes you can drop off people to airport, or pick up groceries for them and some of them will pay you $5-$20 for it.
3. Go around in neighborhood and ask them if the need lawn mowing done. You can go with a buddy and clean up yard for $20-$50 per yard.
4. Clean houses, sure it is not glamorous but cleaning house for a couple hours can make you $70-$150. Most of the area people need cleaned are bathroom and kitchen. If the house is super messy, you can ask for more money for it.
5. Give Blood, many blood banks are always looking for blood donation. It can be helpful to someone and you can make some money out of it. Check out everything before you donate your blood.
6. Write for online places such as hubpages or squidoo. You can make some money while writing about things you know. You do not need to be a great writer, good enough writer will do. Click here to join HubPages and Squidoo here. It is free to join.
7. Baby sit your neighbor or relative’s kids. If you like kids that is the great job to do. If you get a babysitter license, you can watch kids at your home and make a good full time income from watching 2-5 kids at home at once. Not bad.
8. Pick up children from school service is great as many parents are still at work when kids gets off the school. Parents need someone to pick up kids from school, and drive them home and spend couple of hours with them until they get home. These kids are usually older and can take care of themselves so it is good potential of making extra money.
9. Start blogging, you will not make money right away as it takes sometimes but blogging can be a good income source for many if done right.
10. Rent a room in your house, if you have an extra room that you are not using. That is great way to have income coming in without doing much work. You can set some rules as you see fit for your lifestyle such as no smoking inside the house, no late parties and so on. You can rent room for $200 to $700 per month, depending on where you live.
11. Teach English to adults and kids. Many times people want to learn proper English and you can teach them and it is a good way to supplement your income.
12. Paint street and house numbers: These painters have a block to paint numbers for street or house number and you can make $10 or more for painting each house on curb side. I recently paid someone $15 for my place and found out this can be done by anyone.
13. Recycle metal, cans and make extra money. If you are using lot of cans and metals, you can take it to recycle and make some money by doing it.
14. Paint houses, lot of people are looking for someone to do the work of painting the house. Painting house is relatively easy once you move the furniture and have supply at hand. It can be a great boost for additional income when money is tight.
15. If you love taking pictures, put your pictures in photo sharing sites, some of them you can earn money if someone decides to download it and use it for their website or print media.
16. Write for others: Many people are not great writers and looking to buy articles they need in specific niche subject, you can earn money by writing for demand studios or about.com.
17. You can always look for odesk, freelancer sites to see what are people looking in services, if you can provide those services that is a great way to make easy cash money.
18. Sell your hair for cash. Many people need real human for making wigs. If you have a long hair you can sell it for money, and your hair eventually will grow again in no time.
19. Take dogs for walk services. Many people are too busy to take their dogs for walk, if you have time and like being with dogs, then this is a great way to get outdoor and make some money along with it.
20. Deliver newspaper: There are still many people who are getting newspaper delivered to their homes. You can do small or large route and make money delivering newspaper as an adult too.
21. Fix computers for others: If you are computer savvy and know lot of installing and fixing minor computer problems, this has a great potential as many people are looking for ways to get help for computer related problems.
22. Invest in stocks: If you know what you are doing and know your stuff well with help for right people, tools, you can make good money in stocks. I am still learning but I know a friend who has made a good profit playing the stock market wave.
23. Sell your gold. Many of us have gold stuff that we do not use or care for, selling it to a reputable company can bring some cash to you. Do research before sending your gold anywhere.
24. Land your voice: If you have a great radio voice, you can do voice over for many companies or individuals. Good and easy way to make extra income.
25. Odd jobs as needed: One can shovel the snow, washing a car, cleaning a rain gutter, small handyman type of job will help make extra income in short amount of time on side.
26. Help people move: If you have a van or truck, you can be hired locally to move stuff for people and you can charge people by mile or amount of stuff they have.
27. Become a mystery shopper: Mystery shopping can be fun, as you can shop or dine to check out the services and file a report. Generally you do not get paid for items unless they are food in restaurant. Generally you will get paid $10-$20 per project. Look for mystery shopping opportunity near you.
28. Deliver Phone Books: You can deliver phone books to various neighborhood to supplement your income.
29. Start a small business from home: If you have some ideas for a business, start one from home, alone or with a friend. There are many business ideas to choose from, go with what you know.
30. Put your saving goals in high interest yielding account to make easy passive money.
31. Create a CD ladder: Here is a idea on how to create a CD ladder to earn more money from your interest on your savings.
32. If you use credit card, use reward cards that gives back percentage of spent amount of mileage for traveling, it is a great way to earn money from something you use anyways.
33. Tutoring kids for various subject such as math, science, reading or something you know.
34. Teach music: if you know how to play piano or how to play guitar, giving lessons from home can boost earning for you.
35. Search for bonus and freebies for signing up. Many times, banks and other companies may offer some bonus or freebie to open up an account for you, some time as high as $100, look for these deals.
36.Write an ebook on subject your know well of and sell it online.
37. Look for missing money and where is my refund sites to check if you have any money in it that you can claim.
38. Deliver Pizza; Most people order pizzas Fridays and in weekend, so if you get a part time job during that time, you can earn some money plus make some extra on tips as well.
39. Do car valet services: you can offer to park cars for popular restaurants, hotels or resort and make good money on income and tips.
40. Sell bottled water and cookies during fair and cultural event for profit
41. Sell your nicer stuff on consignment stores; Nicer clothes or nice stuff can be sold for higher prices at consignment store.
42. Use cashCrate for making some extra money.
43. Get free or cheap stuff from friends and resell it at higher price, after repairing and updating the pieces.
44. House sitting: Taking care of house related stuff while owners are short or long term vacation can be a great boost of income as well it can be free rent for you.
45. Be a guinea pig: Many times when new drug or product comes out, the pharmaceutical companies need to test the outcome, so if you are brave enough you can check out these opportunities for easy money for a few hours or long term work.
46. Sewing and alterations services: If you know how to sew and have a sewing machine at home, you can do small to big job or sewing new clothes, pillow cases, curtains and so on and you can make money doing alterations for expensive clothing for many people.
47. Be a Nanny: Nanny job is different than babysitting, as you will be watching only one family kids either at their home or yours. Many times, these nanny job comes with free rent, food and income to stay with the family.
49. Adult Daycare services: Many times elderly people or people who are sick need looking after and there are many opportunity out there for adult day care service jobs.
50. Have a garage sale for unwanted items, specially in spring and summer month. You will get rid of clutter at home and make money at the same time.
Holiday season usually means several parties to celebrate, Thanksgiving feast, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New year among other celebrations! One of the great thing about holidays are get together, eating yummy food and being with family and friends: loved ones. However, I dread January as I tend to gain a bit weight somehow From Diwali, to Thanksgiving, to Christmas and New year eve party and party food. Are you like me? If you are then know what I am talking about. If you do not gain weight, then write quickly and tell us your secret!
There are so many parties during last few months of the year:
Office Christmas Party
Family gathering
Friends parties (Some of us have more than one different gatherings)
New year Celebrations
When we had Thanksgiving gathering, where we had so much food, and 5 types of pies, plus more desserts dishes. We shared and ate leftover for days! It sure was fun, but not for my body. I have already plan to make sure my end of year gatherings are fun and healthy both.
That means we will be eating, drinking and be merry! So no wonder when it comes January 1st, we all have new year resolution to lose weight and be fit.
Prevention is always better than a cure, if we are just bit careful on what we eat, we might be able to avoid weight gain that happens to most of good people. I admit it, it is hard for me as I love to cook, I am always cooking and sharing meals or eating out in those gourmet restaurant does not help.
However my biggest problem are my mom who think, that only way can show our love towards each other by finishing their food! And if you say” Mom, I am careful and eating healthy and I can not eat your fried dumpling”, oh the guilt trip she gives, oh my. No one can resist it, not me either, specially when my mom’s cooking is so yummy to me!.
Do you have mom or relative like that? Than you’ll know what I am talking about.
Here are my top ten ways, I am trying to keep my health, fitness and little sanity intact during this holidays. Hope this will help you celebrate meaningful holidays that are healthier.
Eat a healthy snack before going to party. When I host a party, I try to keep some healthier but when I go to my relatives and friend’s party there may or may not be healthy or vegetarian choices so I usually eat a little before going to party and it helps me when I am not famished to choose better food.
Eat more vegetables: Being vegetarian it is easier for me to choose vegetables and fruits but even if you are not vegan or vegetarian, you can choose various vegetable choices with your meat and potatoes to balance out the nutrition and fat.
Skip gravy, cheesy and high fat choices: These gravys, cheese dips and friend snacks are high in fat and if we eat too much, it sure will add to our waist and other places on our bodies. If you can not resist and skip it like me, make sure you take little for taste only. Everything in moderation will be much better thing to do.
Drink more water: Sometimes we are thirsty, no other liquid quenches our thirst like cold glass of water, so drink it through out the day. 8-10 glasses is generally recommended for most people. Added benefit of drinking water is also, that it will keep us hydrated and it is calorie free.
Reduce Alcohol: For some people there can not be celebration without alcohol and that is fine. If you drink alcohol, do it in moderation and always munch some food with your wine or beer so to make sure you do not have hangover next morning.
Please your relative other ways: If you have relatives like mine who insist that if you loved them, you will finish their cheesy and fried dish, you have to be careful to stay healthy and not get fat. You can take little to show you love them and ask them that you loved the food so much you will get take out for home so you can eat it next day as well. They may just be happy enough to pack it for you, and not force you finish it right there. It may just work for you as well.
Less dessert: Not many can skip dessert and I am included in there. Our gathering have lot of sweet dishes such as pies, chocolates pudding, and more. Have little pieces of dessert instead of skipping it all together so you will not have deprived feeling of not having a sweet.
Exercise: Winter time is bad for going out and with many parties with food can be tough on staying healthy. So make an extra effort to exercise, dance and just do lot of walking when you can to keep fit during winter time.
Bring your healthy food to share: If you host a party, make sure you have plenty of healthy choices for you and others who might want to eat healthier along with traditional food choices. If you are going to friend’s party, offer to bring a potluck meal to share which is healthier so if there is nothing you can be sure to eat at least your own food you brought. This has helped me a lot, as a vegetarian I will always have a choice to vegetarian choices and host does not have to go out of her way to make a special meal for me.
Do not worry and enjoy it: Holidays comes once a year so take precautions but if you can not, just enjoy it and do not worry about it much. It is not fun to be party popper who does not join in fun, so do not make it obvious and go with flow.
We all deserve break once in awhile, so have little fun and eat food your aunt made specially for you. Wear that ugly christmas sweater that your mom bought you. Have a laugh and silly fun once in a while!
This is a edited re-post from my earlier blog post.
Have you set your goal? Once you have set the goal how do you achieve it? Finding ways to support your goals and making sure how do you stay on track to get to your desired road to your final goal destination.
Sometimes it is easy to get of the track and get of the path. Sometimes life comes in between, you know unexpected events or daily life things get in a way. I know I have been off goal track a few times, and I am sure I am not the only one who has gotten off the track. The key is to get back on track to your goal as soon as possible.
Having clear goals with set of steps to achieve them surely will help. It seems simple and easy. But it is true, if we want to take control of where our life is going, we have to stop doing what is not working and start doing things you have been postponing for some day later.
Take a look at your life right now. Is where you want it to be? Can you change, improve it? What is your true personal value and what you want to be and do in your life? Knowing what you want and your values is big step.
Easy Ways How to Stay On Track
1. Be clear and know your core personal values and prioritize them.
Doing this step is important so that you will not do things outside of core values or ethics.
2. Look at your life to see what is working and what can be changed.
3. Set Clear and measurable goals based on previous steps.
4. Make sure your goals are balanced in life. Such as, do not set only money related goal and forget health or relationships. Make sure you have health, wealth and relationship with your final goal.
5. Follow or get mentor. Having a couch or mentor can help you clear your doubts and helps you keep in direction you supposed to go. Mentor can be a expert, a friend, a relative or hired expert. One does not have to spend lot of money to get right mentor.
6. Be with people who have similar goals. It has been said, we do get influenced by friends and family we usually hang out with, so be with right kind of people and with positive attitude. If you can not find right people to hang out, join a community, organization or forum of similar minded people to reinforce the goal and its road to get there.
7. Tell other people about your goal, write it down to make sure you are held accountable for your actions. It will keep you on track.
8. When things are getting off the track, ask yourself what is working and what is going right and do not focus on negatives. Making small changes towards goals will have gain you self esteem and motivation to keep going until you get to your goal.
Conclusion:
Sometimes life happens, we may get off the track of our goal. Having clear goals, mentor, a friend who held you accountable will steer you back to your road to your goals and back to track.
I wrote this article originally when I was blogging for less than a year, a few years ago. I believe in slow blogging movement then and I still do now. I blog for passion and not as a business, so it makes it easier for me to do that. As a mother for 2 young kids, my priorities are different. I rather write when I have time and something worth while to say. Read on and I feel it is still relevant as it was then.
I have been blogging at Heart and Mind at snail’s pace. Recently someone asked, how come I do not post every day. I said I am into “slow blogging” jokingly, not knowing how much time we can spend doing blog related activities. Here are a few things that are in blog time black hole.
Many of us are busy bloggers and also blog readers. Blogs are now easy to set up for free and for a few lucky ones have became very famous and made some money in the process. With social network sites such as twitter, facebook, digg, stumble upon and many other social media out there, many bloggers are working crazy hours on internet. Starting a blog is easy but Being a successful blogger is not, as one needs to be out there to market themselves and their blog. A few bloggers have quit their 9-to-5 job and make enough money to survive just from blogging. Good for them but are they burned out? Can they relax for a few weeks without posting on a vacation or take care of Family in time of need.
Here are a few ways we blogger can spend long and crazy hours on our blog and blog related work; If we are not careful, we can easily spend over 60 hours in a week, that is more than a full time job!
1. Many blogger post article once a day, and some other hard working people like Trent at Simple dollar posts articles twice a day, including weekends and Trent does long posting and great quality content posting. That is lot of writing time! I am always impressed by sheer quantity and quality posts on his site. And there are many good blogs are like that, who are posting good quality content regularly.
2. Many blogger write original content, that requires a some research, typing up and proof reading and editing each post before it goes live. It generally takes about 1 hour to 5 hour for each post as I read it somewhere over the net. (I am unable to find original link, so can not give credit, if you know it, let me know)
3. Many blogger, often write guest posts for other popular and similar niche subject blogs. Generally Guest posts are the best of best stuff and requires great research and time. Also, asking and getting approval of guest posts takes some time.
4. One way we keep in touch and market our blogs is to comment on other blogs, in similar niche subject. That means, really going through RSS or feed burner feed, or actually going on the website to read and leave, thoughtful, maybe helpful and relevant comment on the blogs you read. If you are like me, you read lot of blogs, commenting on each one can take lot of time. Some time I see many commenter leaving generic comments, and one can tell who really read your post and who browsed through it 🙂
5. Many bloggers are on social media, I am told it is part of necessary evil of blogging world. Many times we follow people, read and comment and reply to tweet and face-book fan. It is very easy to spend hours a day on it, if one is not careful. That is one of the reason, I am not on ANY social media for now.
6. Maintaining your own comments, spams, emails takes time each day and must in your blogging-to-do list.
7. Adding new plug-ins and features and looks on your site can take up lot of time. For example, my website, even though Zenguy and web designer did most of the work, I had to supply and give ideas on what I wanted. That meant, I needed to know what features and plug-ins and features are available.
8. For people who have advertisements on their blog, will have to maintain in that area as well.
9. One of my blogger friend is obsessed with Google analytic and keyword search and other site statistics, he is always tweaking and seeing stats, that can hinder creativity and put focus on wrong thing such as traffic, ad revenues and Alexa ranks, instead of following creative writing juices.
10. Some people also attend blog conventions, get together and social in-person meeting, that can be fun to really meet people only you know through their blog only but requires time. If you are doing only as strict business sense, you may miss out on true friendship.
11. Many blogger can create e-books or other valuable content to sell, which requires either time or money to get it written by someone else.
12. Reading and browsing through many blogs, this is my biggest weakness. There are so many wonderful blogs out there, and I have interest not only on personal development, self improvement but also food/cooking, parenting, crafts, news, finance, blogging itself and much more. I may not comment on each blog I read, but I spend lot of time reading cool blogs out there. I am always learning something from everything I read, and there is so much to learn.
As we can see, there is many ways to spend so much time on the blog or blogging related activities. I blog about once or twice a week at Heart and Mind , not because I am not serious about my blogging but I do not want to make blogging a chore, it should be fun or something you value. No, I am not telling others to stop writing everyday, I enjoy all these posts, but if you think, you are being burned out, you can choose to slow down. I am sure, many loyal readers will stick by you, if your blog content is good enough.
There is also slow blogging movement going on that I was not aware of, read the New york times Article Slow Blog here. Apparently I am not the only one who feels this way. Do what works for you but give a slow blogging a try, you may like it, or at least get some much needed rest.
How do you blog, if you have one? If you are reader, how many blogs do you read and how often? I am curious to others point of view on this. Are you in to slow blogging movement like slow food movement? I am doing it since I started about 9 months ago, so far I am satisfied but am I am successful? Only time will tell. But, I am enjoying the pace and liking it so far.
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——————————————————————————————————————- How to Organize: I would not be able to survive without my to-do list and planner. I have taken Franklin Covey Seminar and since then I use for organizing my life with it.
I use it for my family organization planning, but you could use it for work/job or business
It comes with quick start guide, 52 weekly compass cards and pouch page finder plus more
Being minimalist is “IN” things to do right now and seems to be around everywhere in past few months on blogosphere and news. Are you a minimalist or want be one? Everyone’s definition of minimalist is different and sure thing as minimalist can come in various colors, shapes and sizes. For example, one well known blogger claims to write minimalist blog, where one can clearly see, she is in to shopping, fashion, jewelry and pushing minimalist products, other famous blogger wants everyone to change to his way of minimalism and asked non-believers to unsubscribe his blog! Are they minimalist or not?, that I will let you decide. However, I will tell you one thing there is NO one size fit all solution for minimalism, we all can be minimalist in our own ways without judgment from others.
Many of our lives are intermingled with internet and everything that comes with it such as blogs, information sites and emails. Imagining life without emails seem impossible. How did people communicated without emails before? Many of us have more than one email accounts (as many of them are free to get) and they are all filled out millions of emails with blog feeds, work related emails, jokes, chain emails, to-do-lists, invitations and of course lot of spam emails too!
Many of us, do not have enough savings, and sometimes, we have too many accounts, banks, credit cards, it gets overwhelming and confusing, not to mention hard to keep track of it. How to get a sanity? We can start by starting a process of simplifying financial life.
You can not focus on other aspects of your life, if your financial life is not in balance. Many of us are living, doing okay surviving, paying bills, adjusting here and there however, if we lost one or both jobs, most of us are just month away from losing it all. Americans are worst in terms of saving rate compare to any other nation.
Money is not more important than health or family in our life, but we let it get out of control, it can cause a problems in other aspects of our lives, such as health, family, social and worse our self worth. Here are a few ways to get handle on it.
![The South Beach Diet Parties and Holidays Cookbook: Healthy Recipes for Entertaining Family and Friends [Paperback]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21AeU4FA-8L._SL75_.jpg)
