Day#18: Pick a hobby you can monetize.

This is Day #18 of “25 Days to Healthier Finances”, a series of blog posts where Frugal Pinoy readers and myself work on 1 task a day to make our financial lives better. Please stay tuned for the next installment of this series, which will be up tomorrow. Here’s today’s installment:

Let me start today’s task with some background information about my main source of income – writing. I started working as a writer when I was still in college. I needed money to support myself and pay for tuition, but also needed a flexible schedule so I could attend my classes. Writing was my favorite hobby, something I did non-stop since I learned how to do it. Ever since I was twelve I’ve been keeping journals and writing notebooks as a habit. This made me think that maybe I should start doing that for a living. Something I truly enjoy. Something I’m obsessed about. Something I was doing anyway.

So I started working as a freelance writer. This has been my major source of income and I’ve never had the need to apply for a regular office job because of it. It feeds and houses a family of four, keeps me debt free, and allows me to have a stable emergency fund. Plus, it’s personally fulfilling.

Not bad for something that was “just a hobby”.

Today’s Task: Pick a hobby you can monetize.

Hobbies. We all have them. They can provide relaxation and escape, or they can become a lifelong passion. If you plan it well enough, it can be a source of income too.

List your hobbies, every single one of them, no matter how trivial or insignificant some may seem. Cooking counts, even if most people can cook. Yes, riding a motorcycle counts too, so does drawing. If you’re obsessed with a certain genre of books/film/music, there might be opportunities there too. If you like to collect things such as stamps, dolls, etc., that counts as well.

Then, looking at your list of hobbies, pick two or three that you spend the most time on. Explore and jot down ideas on how you can possibly monetize them. Here are some examples:

• Sell products and services related to your hobby. If you like making jewelry, why not try to sell some of your work via eBay or Sulit? Alternatively you can supply materials related to your hobby if they are hard to buy locally. I have a friend who made thousands of pesos from just selling special  Magic: The Gathering cards.
• Write a blog about it. Many people are now monetizing their blogs. If done well, your blog can become a great source of additional income (see The Personal Blogging Degree for more information on making money from a blog.)
• Teach others how to do it. This can be in a form of a class, a book/ebook that people can pay for, or even just a lecture or speaking engagement.When I was young my mother made extra income by teaching a baking class from our home, and I once got paid to teach a summer art workshop for kids.

Your hobby doesn’t need to develop into a complete business, buy you need to entertain (and act on) any urge you may have of monetizing it. Even a few hundred pesos each month won’t hurt, especially if you’re doing something you love anyway. Not everything you start will be successful, but you can always do enough research/planning/practice/testing to minimize that risk.

Have you ever made money from a hobby? How did it turn out for you?

Image by lusi from sxc.hu

Money Myths: PTC or Paid-to-Click sites as a source of income

If you visit online message boards for Filipinos, you’ve probably seen at least two threads about paid-to-click sites. They have titles like “Make money online just by clicking!” or “Get paid to click on ads!”.

Sounds enticing, right? Especially since clicking is so easy. But there are more to paid-to-click (PTC) sites than meets the eye.

What are PTC sites?

Basically, paid-to-click (or PTC) sites are membership sites. You sign up with them and you will get paid to click on ads. Usually, members are paid for each ad they click.

What PTC users do to earn more money is join several paid-to-click services at the same time, as well as recruit others to the service. See, when PTC users refer new members, they get a percentage of what their referrals earn.

Do the math. Usually you get paid $0.01 per ad you click, and you have to stay on the web site you land on for 10 to 30 seconds, depending on what the program requires. There’s also a limit on the number of ads you can click each day. Let’s say the limit is 10 ads (but I’ve seen some sites that only have 4!). This means that you’ll earn $0.10 per day(Php 4.70) or $0.70 per week (Php 32.00), if you do it everyday. That’s around $2.8 per month (Php 131.60) for one program.

BUT – remember that you’ll have to accept your payment via PayPal or a similar service. After that, you have to send this money to your bank account. There are fees associated with these transactions, which you’ll have to deduct from your earnings. You may not notice it, but you’ll have to deduct the electricity and internet bills associated with your participation with PTC sites as well.

Are they scams?

Well, I’d guess around 95% of paid-to-click companies are scams. If they are not scams, many of them are ticking time bombs that are ready to explode or cease operations any minute – leaving your hard-earned dollars unclaimed.

There are many ways that PTC sites earn money. They could be using just one method below, just two, or a combination of all three.

• Actual profit. This means that the company gets paid more per click, and you just get a small fee. For example, they could be paid $0.02, while you are paid $0.01. This means that they too earn $0.01 each time you click. Actual profit only goes so far because the PTC sites have to pay referral fees and larger rates to premium members.
• Premium memberships and referral packages. Many PTC sites sell premium accounts where you can get paid more per click. They also sell referral packages, which allow you to purchase unreferred accounts and receive a percentage of the profits made by the referrals you bought.
• Deserters. Not everyone who joins a PTC site stays active. Many of them, after getting frustrated with the low pay, will quit before cashing out. Their unclaimed cash stays with the PTC company.
• The Ponzi Effect. Some people who join PTC sites are encouraged by the payment proofs from premium members. But down the road, they wonder why two or three months have passed and they still haven’t gotten their payout. In these cases, they aren’t scamming you – they just can’t afford to pay you.

The risk.

Remember when I said ticking time bombs? That’s because PTC sites are a goldmine for hackers and attackers. It’s fairly easy to do this, even YouTube tutorial videos on how to do it. Trying to improve and maintain their security and keep up with the attacks can be costly for PTC sites, forcing many of them to close.

Also, there are very few reliable advertisers who buy ads from PTC sites. This is because they know that the people clicking on their ads are getting paid to do so – they’re not really interested in the product or the ad they are looking at.

What are you doing with your time?

Think about this for a few minutes: are paid-to-click services really the best use of both your time and your skills? While many people say that PTC sites only take a few minutes of your time, that’s still time you can never get back. If, say, you spend 5 minutes a day on PTC sites (more diligent clickers will spend more time because they join many sites), you’ll be spending 2.5 hours each month on them, earning less than a $3 total for those hours. That is, if you even get paid at all.

It’s okay to try PTC sites if you’re curious, but don’t depend on them for your income. There are more profitable and more rewarding ways out there to earn money online. Even if you’re a freelance writer who charges $5.00 per hour (lower than industry standards), or a beginning designer who can churn out a $100 logo (lower than industry standards) in three hours, you’ll still come out ahead. Plus, you’ve created something meaningful, something you can be proud of.

Sources:

PTC Sites, The Dreaded “Ponzi Effect”

The Sad Truth About PTC Sites

Paid to Click (Wikipedia Entry)

Image by hberends from sxc.hu

Online Money-Making Opportunities: January 1 to 7, 2009

Here is a list of online job opportunities this week.  Please click on the links that interest you to learn more details about each job.

Note: I try to list legitimate job opportunities as much as possible, but some illegitimate ones might fall through the cracks.  Please use your best judgment when communicating with prospective clients, and make sure you get a signed contract before doing any work.

Good luck and happy job hunting!

Blogging and Online Writing:

• Experienced Bloggers Needed (Topic: entertainment industry)
• Freelance Switch contributors wanted ($60/article)
• Instant Messaging Blogger
• Architecture/ Home design blogger
• Blog, Forum, and Article Writing
• Car website bloggers
• MatadorAbroad.com: Article on Areas Where You Won’t Hear English ($25)
• MatadorPulse.com: Article on the World’s Largest Landfills ($25)
• MatadorNights.com: 8 Cities that Burn Through Your Money ($25)
• Brave New Traveler Call for Submissions (Travel articles, $25 each)

Design & Development:

• Web Designer with Analytics and Adsense Experience
• Blog creation and development
• Web Designer and Programmer Needed (dating site)

Miscellaneous:

• Assistant Needed ($12 to $16 per hour, plus benefits)
• Link Builder Required

Next Page »