Make extra money from passive blogs

It’s been a long time since I wrote an article about blogging. For your information, I already have four blogs which are http://i-want-to-be-a-millionaire.blogspot.com, http://adsense-help.blogspot.com, http://blogfix.blogspot.com and http://blogmoney.blogsome.com. Actually, not all of them are functioning as a blog, because for adsense help and blogmoney, they are more to ‘one off’ projects or passive blogs. It means I write the content once and then, just leave them. But, from time to time, I will add new content into them. So, for today, I will explain about these two blogs in detail. The questions like what, why and how will be answered in this post.

What is a ‘one off’ blog?

Actually, it is not the common name that people usually use for this kind of blog. I just give them a name myself. ‘One off’ blog is a blog that you write once in bulk, and then post all the contents at the same time. For my ‘one off’ projects, they are more like a web site than a blog.

Why I build them?

Honestly, the purposes of those blogs are just to add more revenue channel for my AdSense account. It is a common sense, right? More page impression means more click. At least, that is what I believe.

Another usage of these blogs is to bring more traffic to my main blog (http://i-want-to-be-a-millionaire.blogspot.com). Since different people will have different interest, so I cannot expect people to go straight here. Therefore, I put a link to this blog from my other blogs.

How to establish a passive blog?

Just follow this FREE turorial about how to make a blog that generates money by clicking here.

The difference is just the content. Your content must be about something that is relevant for a long period of time. So, you do not have to do updates regularly; maybe just once in 3 months time.

Don’t forget to place links to your main blog to grab more traffic. (Tip:- Place the link in the content to get higher click-through rate). If you can, try to avoid placing links to ‘outsiders’. This will prevent you from losing clicks on AdSense.

I think that should be enough for today. Remember to try this trick because it really works for me; some extra money for just a-day job! And if you have any suggestions or ideas, please leave them in the comments area.

Categories: Adsense, Blogging

Banking with National Bank? Read this

Today, I want to share with you about my terrible experience with my bank. Actually, I have mentioned the bank before quite a few times. The bank is National Bank. I have used this bank since last year and from that moment; I have faced lots of difficulties. I know that some of you do not ever hear about this bank. The National Bank is one of the banks that operate in New Zealand. It is one the main bank along the BNZ, ANZ, Westpac, and some other banks that I forget their name.

This evening, I went to a National Bank branch because I still haven’t received my bank statements for this month. Actually, I haven’t received it for 2 months and I have made a complain about it last month. They said that they have sent the statement to my old address although I have changed it before. I argued for that as I have changed my address 2 weeks before. “I’m sorry sir but different branch have different database,” that was what he saying to me. Wtf! Its not make sense as they should share the same database.

Anyway, when I asked about the statement today, again, they said that they have sent it. Since I don’t want to wait for too long, I asked the bank to print out a copy for me. Guess what? They charged me for that! It costs $4 for a single statement that I should receive for free.

At that moment, I know that I cannot put my trust on this bank anymore. So, at the same time, I asked them to close my saving account. I want to save my money somewhere else. I want a bank that I can put my trust on and I know that National Bank does not have that.

Actually, there are many other things that I’m not really satisfied with National Bank. One of that is, they charged me for online banking although they said that they will not do so as I am banking under a tertiary account. I’m really pissed off now. S#@t!

Therefore, I hope that you can learn from my mistakes. Search for the best bank which can give you the best customer service as I’m sure that you do not want to walk on my path. As for me, I have to retain my current account with the National Bank for some reasons. I don’t like to have any future business with National Bank but I have to. For your info, I am a sponsored student and my sponsor will deposit the money into my National Bank account every 3 months. If I want to change my current account, I have to deal with so many procedures and I don’t want to waste my time on that. So, what I can do is transferring my money into another bank when I receive my scholarship.

Please share with me if you have a better idea than this. Or if you want to share your difficulties with other banks, feel free to leave your comments here. Thanks.

Categories: Financial, planning

Should I use online banking?

Before, if you still remember, I have talked about online saving account. Today, I will discuss about a quite similar thing which is online banking. Actually, it is quite a common trend nowadays to do banking activities online but for some countries like Malaysia (my home country), online banking is not been used widely. Maybe, the banking system there is not strongly developed yet. But, I expect online banking to be widely used in Malaysia in maybe 5 years time.

Okay, enough with some background of online banking in Malaysia. Let us talk about why we should or should not use online banking.

Advantages

From online banking, almost every transaction can be done from home. This is good as it saves a lot of our time. Now, we do not have to go down to a bank to do a transaction like transferring money from current to saving account. Before, this transaction only can be done at the bank since ATM machine cannot handle this.

By having online banking, we can monitor our account balance easily. This gives us more control over our budgeting plan (see this post about controlling main expenses). For example, I can now how many should I spend for the rest of the month by looking at the online statement. So, I don’t have to wait for monthly bank statement which sometimes will not be posted at all (I am currently using National Bank as my primary bank and have not received my bank statements for the last 2 months).

Disadvantages

Some banks charge online banking under service charge. For my National Bank online banking, they charge me about $1.00 a month although they said that I will not be charged as I am an international student (Damn! I hate National Bank).

And the biggest issue about online banking is security of your account. Since you are doing your transactions online, you information may be traced by other unwanted people. And by using your information like your online banking username and password, your money can be transferred away from your account in just a few seconds!

So, what am I trying to say here?

Basically, online banking is really useful in many ways but at the same time, the risk is sometimes quite high. So, do some research about your bank. You must know the level of security they offer for online banking. Ask your friends about their experience with the particular bank. And consider looking for other’s review online. For the New Zealand online banking system, I would say that Raboplus (operates under the Rabobank) and ASB are still the best. So, after all, the choice is yours. Make it wisely.

P.S. If you would like to share your experience about online banking, please leave it in the comments area. Cheers

Categories: Financial, planning