The Switcheroo.  In this scam, you will be participating in a survey and then be directed to another website.  They will ask you to show an “interest” in obtaining more information from one of their marketing partners.  You will continue to answer “no” and keep getting more offers; the survey will never end until you answer “yes.”  Now this scam might not cost you any money, but it will cost you time.  Because when you say that you are interested in learning more about health insurance, expect to receive an average of 10 calls a week from telemarketers trying to sell you health insurance.  And the insurance they are trying to sell you is a lot more than you can expect to pay than if you contact an insurance agent in your area.  I know this for a fact as I’ve actually done price researching.  And the telemarketing company will ask you for both your social security number as well as your bank information (so they can send in a deposit with your application).  It’s dangerous to give out such information to anyone over the phone; legitimate companies will send you any information you require by mail.

Phone Bill Scam.  You’ll sign up for a survey company and provide your telephone number.  Then you’ll proceed in completing a survey and receive an offer for a free issue for a magazine.  You’ll think to yourself – what’s the harm?  You’ll give your name and address for the magazine and hardly notice when a fee for a year’s subscription shows up on your telephone bill,.  If you read the fine print, however, you will see that when you provided the company with your name and address to receive your “free” magazine, you authorized them to bill you via your telephone bill.  They figure that you won’t even notice the extra $12.95 attached to your phone bill.  And many people don’t.

These are just four of the scams that I’ve actually encountered during my foray into the world of online survey participation.  I consider myself a half-way intelligent person, but I got caught for $1.95 for the cell phone scam and $12.95 for the magazine subscription.  I’ve also been called about 20 times so far by different “health insurance” company representatives who requested my social security number and bank information over the telephone.  These companies have yet to send me anything by mail.  Luckily, I know better than to give such information over the telephone.

Online survey taking can be fun, but be careful.  Do not give out your cell phone number under any circumstances.  Do not give out your social security number or bank information.  Do not ever express any interest in receiving information from health insurance providers.  And avoid the “online education” inquiries as well.   Do some research prior to joining any company, do not pay a fee, and beware of anyone or any website that promises to make you rich.

Time really does equal money. You are an internet entrepreneur and you need to ask yourself what the best use of your time really is because it is YOUR time that equals money. The health of your bottom line is directly affected by the way that you choose to allot your working hours.

First let’s discuss what your job really is as an internet entrepreneur. Your job is to grow your business. Your job is to make those contacts that will make you money. Your job is to conceive ideas and bring them to fruition. Your job is to close that deal! You do agree with that description of your job duties as an internet entrepreneur, don’t you?

Okay! Now let’s discuss what your job as an internet entrepreneur is NOT. Being an internet entrepreneur does not qualify you as an accountant, an advertising guru or a writer. You aren’t qualified to be an event planner or a travel agent. When you decided to become an internet entrepreneur that did not automatically make you a ‘jack-of-all-trades’.

You can waste a lot of your valuable time on tasks that you just plain aren’t very good at. You are the idea man/woman. It IS your job to make your business grow and you’ll be good at that provided that is where you use your time and direct your energies.

If you insist upon doing everything yourself, whether you are good at it or not, you will use up all of your thought and energy and have nothing left to do the things that only YOU can do to make your business grow.

•    Hire an accountant or a bookkeeping service: Every business must keep a record of its day to day financial transactions and even the smallest of transactions add up to big tax deductions over the period of a year.

You can’t simply file everything under ‘miscellaneous’ and you can’t spend an hour or so every day taking care of just mundane bookkeeping duties either. Bookkeepers and accountants only charge for the time that they actually spend working for you. Usually they have many clients.

If they spend one hour working on your records then you will only be charged for that one hour. YOU aren’t a bookkeeper or an accountant and you would have likely spent three or four hours doing the same tasks and then with questionable results. Hire an accountant or a bookkeeping service!

•    Hire a VA (Virtual Assistant): A virtual assistant can save you hours and hours of time on the mundane tasks that are required to be accomplished in order to run a successful internet business.

A VA can check your email and send only the emails that you need to personally deal with to you. Internet entrepreneurs get more junk mail than anybody! A good VA can also act as a travel agent and make airline and hotel reservations for you. Hire a VA!

•    Use ghost writers and article submission services: Writing articles and E-books is always a big part of all internet marketing no matter what the niche might be. You will need to have website content and you will also need to submit articles and E-books to banks and repositories for others to use along with your resource box in order to build your online credibility.

Ghost writers will post to blogs and forums for you above your own signature file that includes your name and website. Some ghost writers will also submit articles and E-books to banks and repositories for you. If the ghost writer that you employ does not, then you can seek an articles submission company to do that time consuming task for you as well.

• Use an advertising agency: Now advertising agencies don’t work cheap so you will need to be very, very specific about what you want them to do for your business. You can likely get PPC advertisements written rather reasonably and even that will be a huge help to you time wise.

Life Outside of Business

There are only just so many hours in a day and you can only spend just so many of those hours working at making your online business successful. There IS still life outside of business.

You have friends and family that do require some measure of your time. That makes it even more vital that you use your time to make your business grow and not waste your time by spending doing the everyday tasks that can take so much of your valuable time.

Think outsourcing!

9am- After reviewing her phone statement, she realized the was being charged for two plans. A few months ago she switched long distance plans to save money, but coincidentally the phone provider never removed her previous plan. After disputing these charges, they removed them from her bill, which saved her $32 on her monthly bill, and credited her account for $90 for the previous month’s charges. Total Saved(32 + 90)= $122

10am- Feeling inspired, she checked her past 3 monthly statements of her cell phone statements. She realized that she had consistently exceeded her anytime minutes on her wireless phone plan. After calling the cell phone provider to discuss different plans, she was able to choose a plan that gave her more minutes, and $20 cheaper. Also, prior to accepting the new plan she asked if the new plan could be added retroactively, which would rescind her overages charges from previous 3 months….and they agreed!! The only caveat was that she had to sign an one year contract to get her current plan. Total Saved($20 + 120)= $140.

Noon- A few months ago my colleague had minor outpatient surgery. When she received her hospital bill from health insurance provider, she was charged $600. After reviewing her statement, she realized the insurance company charged her for a procedure that was not done on her. After disputing the bill, and a minor battle with her health insurance provider they amended the bill, and her the amount she owed decreased by $250. Note… When dealing with hospital bills always ask for itemized statement so you can verify every charge. Total Saved = $250.

So if you think reviewing your billing statements are not necessary, think again! Just allocate a few hours every month to review your bills, and you will certainly come out on top.

-Orison Swett Marden

When you were a child, there were many times when you wanted something, and you would just wish for it all day everyday until you got that basketball or atari game(I’m really showing my age here) that you wanted. However, as you get older you realize wishing can only take you so far, and what you want in life will sometimes come with obstacles. Yet, so many people today refuse to address these obstacles that occur in their financial lives.

Instead of tackling your finacial situation head on, they look for someone to blame, or worry about what will happen, or better yet act like an ostrich, and keep their head in the sand. You can do this, and many people do, but I can tell you through experience, when you finally rise your head up from the sand, your problems will still be there to smack you in the face!

None of the choices I have stated above will lead you to any growth. All it will lead you to is frustration, and lack of financial growth. The only choice that works is proper planning of the mind(how you think about money), and body(what steps are you going to take).

First, you have to start believing in yourself that changing your behavior and your view of money will change your condition and create prosperity and abudance in your life. Half the battle goes into getting up and doing something new or different from how you were doing things to this point of your life. One of my famous quotes is by Albert Einstein who said “Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.”

The financial choices you make in your life will always be base on the decisions you make, so you might as well properly plan, so you can handle anything that life throws at you.

Every week, they provide you with some of the the best weekly columists and information. The articles are also written for the true novice in personal finance and investing. The writers try to stay away from all the financial jargon that other newspaper money sections use.

If you can’t swing the $4.50 per week for the paper (I can’t see why not…) just try to pick up Friday’s edition. Each Friday, The “Money” section has a special column devoted to specific personal finance issues. The issues range from refinancing your mortgage, getting out credit card debt to great car tips on saving money on gas…

In my opinion, dollar for dollar it’s the best written financial newspaper in the country. Plus, if you’ re really hard up on paying for the paper, you can always wait for someone on a city street to pay the 75 cents at a vending machine, and then come right behind them and grab a free one…..( I think everyone has done that once in their lifetime…)