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Free Online Retreat, MEconomy and a new product
I know it’s Monday and this post was scheduled for Tuesday but Angela has a midnight deadline for her new MEconomy program. I know lots of you are looking for ways to work online and make money so thought this might be valuable to you. Here’s the link, and the second link is for her create your online business blog post (and full disclosure these are my affiliate links) MEconomy: https://laptoplifestyleyouniversity.com/amember/aff/go/susiep?i=24 10 Steps to Create Your Online Business blog post: https://laptoplifestyleyouniversity.com/amember/aff/go/susiep?i=26 And something else I wanted to share with you, Beachpreneurs have cancelled their get together and are taking it online… and wait for this, it’s free. Here’s the link…
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Monday Motivation-Be Brave
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Friday Ramblings-One For the History Books
Hope you are all safe and well on this last Friday of March. It’s been quite a month, hasn’t it? I think it will definitely be one for the history books. So, craziness in our world aside, what did you achieve this March? I’ve been reading about people in my local area who have had to close their stores, calls from potential clients aren’t coming in like they’d hope, and lots of people wonder if they have enough savings to last until things go back to normal. These are all reminders that everyone needs a rainy day fund and something to fall back onto because we never know when something…
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Friday Ramblings-Hang In There
Last week seemed tough for everyone, but I think this week’s been even more of a challenge for just about everyone in the world. Health crisis, financial crisis, businesses being shut, and unfortunately, the list goes on. Lots of entrepreneurs have felt like they’ve been walking a fine line between offering their services more during these times but at the same time not wanting it to appear like they’re taking advantage of these tough times. I’m glad to see lots of people, sites, and companies have been offering what is usually paid for content for free. Everything from online cooking and art classes to online live concerts. It’s times like…
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Working From Home-Tips on Being Productive
Working from home…I know it’s sometimes a scary thought when you’ve been used to being in an office most of your life. Lots of people are now working from home this week, many not by choice, but it’s probably the new reality for a few weeks or maybe more, so I thought I’d put together some tips on ways I’ve found to be most productive over my 20 years of working from home. Plan Out Your Day There’s nothing worse than waking up, turning on the computer and then sitting wondering what to do next. Some of you might have work planned out by your company while others might be…
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Happy St. Patrick’s Day and Last Day to Grab a Great Deal
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of you, who like me, have Irish heritage…even if you don’t, hope it’s a great day for you. Just want to remind you that the Content Creator’s Collection Toolbox sale finishes today, Tuesday March 17th, at midnight (PST). If you haven’t already grabbed it, the clock is ticking down. Once again, here’s all the information. And in the coming months, I’ll be showing you how you can put all these goodies to good use and ways to turn the content into some money making opportunities. Grab the Toolbox For a Limited Time: https://nichestarterpacks.com/amember/aff/go/susiep?i=352 This toolbox was specifically themed to help you in the content creation…
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Monday Motivation-Showing Up
Sometimes it’s the getting started part that’s the hardest. We think about every excuse not to do something. Sometimes that’s due to lack of knowledge. Oftentimes, we’re afraid we might fail. Just like this quote reminds us, simply showing up is the first step to achieving your dream. This week, go for it!
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$2,178.95 Worth of Products For Only $27
When you’re in business creating content is one of the most important tasks that we do as business owners, but sometimes trying to think of ideas for blog posts, social media posts, products, emails and reports can be time consuming. But don’t worry I’ve got a solution for you. April Lemarr is hosting a HUGE bundle with over 40+ online business people collaborating with products that are going to help you create content quicker and easier than ever before with done-for-you content, templates, planners and training that is going to help you step up your game. All of these products are worth$2,178.95! Take a look at everything that is included:…
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What Teaching Platform Is Right For You?
Do you have a teaching platform in mind or do you need some help narrowing down the choices? When I began teaching online, the platforms were few so picking one wasn’t that hard. However, now it seems like everyone offers you the opportunity to share your skills with the world. Here are some tips that should help you narrow it down. What Are You Teaching? Do you already know what you’d like to teach? Is it English as a second language, graphic design or even cooking? Each platform has its niche (something we’ll be getting more into in the coming months). Check out the classes on the platform and see…
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Friday Ramblings-Hello March
One week into March. It’s been a busy one but there are signs of spring in the air. One thing I love to do is take my work outside on the first warm day. One of the perks of running your own business and living the life you desire. How about you? What is your favorite thing about spring? I mentioned I began looking at RVs, well, small motorhomes to be exact. I’ve visited lots of web sites and one thing that struck me is how great some are and some just don’t want you to stick around. I’m not talking about fancy graphics and sites that have been put…
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Don’t Panic-Have a Plan
Tired of hearing all the bad things that are happening in the world? Lots of people panic when stocks start to fall, interest rates take a nose dive and businesses report loses but if you’re prepared things like this should never scare you. Stocks will bounce back, interest rates will rise again but while we wait for that to happen here are some things we all need to do- Have a Road Map I’m not talking literally, but this weekend or this month, sit down and take note of where you want to be in a year, five years, ten years. Remember the popular interview question where do you see…
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Blogging-About Me Page
Did you know that the About Me page on sites and blogs is one of the most viewed? I said I’d be honest about my own struggles with keeping this site up to date. I’d hoped by the time I’d written this post I would have revamped my own about me page. What can I say, it’s the first week of the month which is usually the busiest for me and it didn’t get done. No excuses, I know. In the meantime, here are some things that I’ll be focusing on when I do get around to redoing that page and I hope these tips will help you. Set the…
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Monday Motivation-Take That First Step
Thinking about living your dream life is one thing, actually taking that first step to making it happen is another. It’s a new month. What’s the first step you need to take in order to live your dream life?
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Choosing Your Side Gig
Do you know which type of side gig is right for you? It’s the fourth Tuesday of the month, which means it’s side gig, side hustle time. Many of the other things we’ve already talked about like blogging, teaching or running an online store could be considered side gigs. It all depends on whether or not you’re doing it as a second job or if it’s your full time business and main focus. I remember when it used to be called Moonlighting and I’ve had lots of those jobs, especially when I had to quit my job…you can read about that in an previous post. The first thing to decide…
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Monday Motivation-Nothing Holding Me Back
This week remember that there’s nothing stopping you from realizing your dream. Whether it be starting a business, finally moving to your favorite destination, traveling…and the list goes on. Dream on and take that one important step, your first one to living the life you love.
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Friday Ramblings-New Product Release
This week, have you taken one more step toward living the life you love? Over at my writing blog, I write an article about living your dream and gave my readers a gentle nudge…you can also read about my lifelong desire to learn to play the piano at www.thiswriterslife.com This week, I finally finished, well 99% finished, the lessons and workbooks for the summer retreat I’m teaching in June, July and August. Remember me telling you about my new technique of block working…going all out on one project and not switching until it was done? I didn’t like it at first but I hate to admit it, but I’m getting…
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Make Money From Your Site…not someone else’s
Should you sell your products and services on someone else site? Less than a year ago, I would have told you, yes, but now I’m thinking the smartest entrepreneur puts their wares on their own site first, builds up traffic, grows the mailing list and then and only then, thinks about other people’s sites. Take e-books for example. Five years ago, I would never have thought about trying to sell any of my books on my own writing site. Okay, call me a lazy writer, but online stores like Amazon were bringing me in sales so I didn’t see the point of spending more time building a store. Even some…
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Monday Motivation-Build Your Dream
They say when you work for someone else you’re helping them live their dream and not your own. This week, think about what type of business you can launch. Could it be one that starts out as a side gig or something you do for a few hours every night when you come home from the job you’ll leave when you become your own boss? This week, let’s dream BIG.
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Friday Ramblings-Happy Valentine’s Day
Wishing you all a Happy Valentine’s Day. How was your week? What plans have you put in place to start a business or take your current one to the next level? I’ve been working on upcoming classes I’ll be teaching this summer and also my first digital product for you, the Budget Smart Girl audience. I hope to launch it next Thursday. It will also be part of a bundle sale that April Lemarr (hope you checked out her interview with me), is hosting in March. In fact, knowing I wanted to be part of it, gave me the kick up the you know what to actually get something created.…
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Passive Income-Everybody’s Dream
Imagine if you could put earning money on some sort of cruise control… You’ve probably seen no end of books, YouTube videos, podcasts, well, you name it on the topic of passive income. We’re going to explore the topic here at BSG continually. Lots of side gigs and many business pursuits involve passive income, so let’s talk about what it is and what it’s not. Passive income, as I mentioned in my intro is sort of like putting your car on cruise control. You do the work of starting the car, driving it onto the freeway and then getting it up to freeway speed, and then you press a button,…
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Wednesday Interview with April Lemarr
This week’s guest is April Lemarr. I’m on April’s mailing list and I’ve bought products from her and I strongly encourage you to sign up to her mailing list and check out all the wonderful products she provides content creators. We’re going to talk more about PLR and how you can use it to add content to your site but for now, enjoy my interview with April. Tell us about yourself and your business. Hi my name is April Lemarr and I own Niche Starter Packs. My business provides done-for-you content to small business, bloggers, entrepreneuers and coaches. There are three easy steps — Download. Personalize. Use as your own.…
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Making Money by Sharing Your Skills
Teaching, coaching, tutoring, so many names for the ways you share your skill with others. One thing they all have in common is it’s a great way to make some extra money or even turn it into your full time business. I turned to tutoring during the Great Recession when more freelance assignments were far and few between, and more work was getting outsourced. I enjoyed it so much that I actually started to drop some of my freelance writing gigs and switched more to teaching others how to write. I began teaching classes through some of the chapters of the Romance Writers of America. About four years ago, I…
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Monday Motivation-Be Happy
I saw this quote by John Lennon and thought it would be perfect for this week’s Monday Motivation. Pursue things that make you happy and surround yourself with people that make you smile.
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Friday Ramblings-Tackling the To Do List
February is under way and how are you doing with your to do list? This week I finished creating lessons for a promotion boot camp I’ll be teaching next month. I’d been working on them and the workbook for about two or three weeks so I was happy to have that project completed. I thought about switching to something completely different but then decided I might as well stick with lessons and workbooks. I’ve opted to get started on creating the lessons for the upcoming summer writing retreat. For the last month or so, (if you add up the lessons, the blog posts, my other writing projects), I’m probably averaging…
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Domain Name and Hosting
Domain name, hosting WordPress.com versus WordPress.org….. Lots of people have their own views on web sites, platforms to use, where to register domains, but as promised, I’ll share with you, what’s worked, and what’s not worked for me. I’ve always been loyal to WordPress and I should add initially I used their .com version. Anything too technical isn’t for me. In fact, ask anyone who know me and they’ll tell you, I get into a panic! Someone suggested WordPress and it’s the only platform I’ve ever used because even for someone like me, it’s easy to use and enables you to use have a site up and running in no…
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Monday Motivation-
I love this quote because it reminds us that no matter what we’ve done in the past, businesses that didn’t take off as planned, savings that got drained, a project that got sidelined, none of that matters. What lies ahead is what counts. This week, put away all negative thoughts, moments when you dwell on the past and those times when you catch yourself saying if I’d only you’d done this or not. Let it go and look to the future. It’s there where you success awaits you.
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An Entrepreneur’s Journey
This week, I’ve been creating the lessons for the how to promote your book boot camp I’m teaching in March. Today, I worked on a lesson on social media and realized that I hadn’t worked in public relations for twenty years. Twenty years, I thought, had it been that long? It’s what actually gave me the topic idea for this post. It was back in 2000, yes, the beginning of the new century that I decided to venture out on my own. It wasn’t something I’d intended to do. I’d been working for a publishing company as a publicist. During my third year there, I got a sense that things…
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Monday Motivation-Keep Your Dream
Each of us has a dream that’s unique. What’s yours? Think about it often. Don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be achieved. The one and only thing that can prevent you from living your dream is you.
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Business Talk Thursday-Let’s Focus On Why
The difference between success and failure is often due to lack of motivation. When things get hard like when you’re freelancing, running a business, or just simply trying to make some extra money, it’s often lack of knowing your true why that puts an end to your plan. Get a sheet of paper and write down why you want to pursue whatever it is you dream about. Are you saving to buy your first home? A comfortable retirement? An early retirement? The once in a lifetime trip around the world? Living the life you love is different for each of us so simply writing down I want to make more…
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Thursday-Business Talk
It’s Thursday and beginning next week, that’s the day we talk business here at Budget Smart Girl. Some weeks the focus will be on promotion and marketing you and your business. Other weeks, growing an e-mail list and getting people to buy whatever it is your selling. We’ll also focus on money, how to run your business the budget smart way, and how to manage it once you’ve made it. We’ll even talk about things like passive income and maybe even a review of products and apps that are supposed to help us run our business and manage our time more effectively. Is there anything you’d like to see discussed…
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Blogging Tuesday
This week I’m giving you a preview of what each Tuesday will feature here at BSG. The first Tuesday in each month will focus on blogs and blogging. It’s a popular way for people to make money, promote a business, or even set up a web site if you freelance or sell products. I thought I’d kick things off with my own blogging story and how Budget Smart Girl actually came to be. I was writing for a site called Hearth and Home and had a column there called Eating Well on a Budget and then had a second column called The Budget Smart Girl’s Guide to the Universe. I…
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Monday Motivation-Keep Your Vision
Happy 2020. Welcome to the first Monday Motivation. Each week I’ll post an image with a quote that I hope will guide you through the week. A motivating thought that will help you when you feel like giving up your dream of making money or just simply living the live you love. Let’s begin this debut post with this quote about sticking to your vision. And if you’d like to see another Monday Motivation quote or have an interest in writing, check out my other site at www.thiswriterslife.com Enjoy your week and remember to live the life you love.
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What’s Ahead in 2020?
As 2019 slowly draws to a close, it’s time to begin thinking about 2020. Do you already know what’s on your to do list, or what goals you’re going to tackle? As you know, I’m giving Budget Smart Girl a makeover. I’ve been brainstorming things I’d like to feature on the site and what sort of content I’d like to provide. I can’t promise that we’ll have the full week’s line up straight away but here’s what I’d eventually like to feature each week. Monday-it’s all about getting motivated. Lots of us have ideas for earning money and launching a business but what separates the just thinking about it from…
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E-Book Giveaways
2020 is just around the corner. BSG going in a new direction, and maybe you are too. I’m giving away a copy of each of my new planners (you’ll get the e-book versions). The first one is the goal planner perfect for writing down everything you plan to do (and get done!) in 2020. If you have a blog or starting a blog is on your list then you might like to win the blog planner. I’m eager to get working on filling in mine so I can plan out great content for this site…more about that next week. One person will win the goal planner, one, the blog planner.…
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Two New Planners for the Entrepreneur
I have two new planners I created with the budding or established entrepreneur in mind. One is a blog planner and the other a goal planner. The print versions are available at Amazon and cost $5.99 each. The digital versions are on my Etsy store and are $4.99 each but I’m running a Thanksgiving sale with 20% off which makes them $3.99. Here are the links to both sites. I got my print copies of these two planners and have to say I’m pleased with the product and I’ll be putting them to good use in 2020. If you’ve signed up for the free mini-retreat, ‘see’ you on Monday. Have…
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Free Mini-Retreat
Many of you know that I’m an author and also teach and tutor aspiring writers. I’ve been teaching for various chapters of the Romance Writers of America for a decade. Together we’re always trying to come up with something new and we decided in 2020, I’d teach an online summer writing retreat. We also came up with the idea to offer a free mini-retreat next month to give prospective students a glimpse into what the main event will be like…it’s going to be fun! Some of you might be aspiring authors so I thought I’d share this information with the BSG community. In the holiday spirit, I’m going to give…
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Do You Know How You’re Going to Make Money?
I’ve been putting together ideas for the direction of this site and where I want to take it in 2020 and who my target audience will be. I want to help people make money, help people with businesses and side gigs make more money. I also want to help people find their passion, find their calling, and make money doing what they love. I’ve got a long list of ideas for posts, people I want to interview, people just like you who now run a business and it all started one day when they simply had a dream about making more money. There are classes I want to teach…well, the…
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Multiple Streams of Income
I’ve been working for myself for twenty years, dappling in some sort of work that brings in extra income for close 25 years. One thing I’ve learned from fellow entrepreneurs is you need to have multiple streams of income for those just in case times. Trends come and go, businesses take off then fail, recession hits and all three can take their toll on your bottom line. I’ve always followed the multiple income stream theory and I think it has kept me afloat many times. However, recently I’ve been wondering if it’s such a great thing. Besides my writing, teaching and coaching, I have t-shirts I sell on Merch by…
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Making Money Has Never Been Easier…
Selling on Etsy, running a store on Shopify, eBay, Amazon, creating t-shirts, offering gigs on Fiverr, teaching on Udemy… The list could go on and while making money has never been easier, that’s what’s making it so hard. The ease at which anyone, anywhere in the world can make earn income has actually made it harder to make money. Taking blogging for example, ten years ago a handful of people were running blogs and now it seems just about everyone has one that flash ads galore, selling this and selling that in order to earn themselves some commission. Do you know anyone who doesn’t have an Etsy store? Resells stuff…
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Catching Up…
I know I said I was going to start posting to the site on a regular basis again, but as you guessed, it didn’t happen. I’ve been thinking about the direction I want to take this site. When I started it back in 2005, there were only a handful of other money minded blogs. These days just about everyone has a money blog. I’d like to do something completely different. Over the summer, I even thought about selling the domain name and site but something deep in my heart couldn’t let it go. Budgetsmartgirl will always be my baby. With that in mind, I’m going to keep it up and…
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Opportunities to Work At Home and Make Money
Next week, we’ll be diving into the topic of affiliate marketing. It’s something I want to focus on for all my sites and blogs. Most of you already know that I’m an affiliate for Laptop University and other great programs put together by Angela Wills. Here are all the current programs you might want to check out. It’s a great time to think about ways to work online, at home, or simply supplement your income etc. As we move through April and May, I’ll let you know how my affiliate marketing effort is going and if I actually made any money. MEconomy – https://laptoplifestyleyouniversity.com/amember/aff/go/susiep?i=24 New Blog Post: 10 Steps to Create…
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Future Thinking Entrepreneurs
What will the world look like in six months, one year, two years? What will people be doing, what will they be needing? It’s during uncertain times that we all need to think ahead and plan for your financial future. I’ve always said smart people don’t think about today, they think way into the future and prepare for the what ifs life always throws at us. As we head into April, let’s sit and think about what’s going to change. Here are a few things I came up with- Digital Future I’m seeing lots of articles about people not wanting to handle things like cash and paper. I think that…
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Five Side Gigs You Can Do At Home
Stuck at home and need some extra cash or even to take the edge off the boredom? Side gigs are everywhere but not all of them can be done from home so I did a quick online search to find five that are completely homebased. Whether you were intending to get a side gig this year or the recent events have forced you into taking one, here’s what I found. I’ve no experience with any of them, good or bad so be sure to read the small print and make sure it’s a good fit for your needs, skills, and time commitment. If Researching Interests You Then this first one…
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Monday Motivation-Let’s Get Focused
What will you focus on this week? Setting up your web site? Brainstorming ideas for new products? Looking into what skill you can share with others? Opening a savings account and begin your emergency fund?
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Angela Wills-Founder of Laptop University
I’m really excited to share this interview with Angela Wills with you today. Some of you might already know about her but in case you don’t, she’s the founder of Laptop University. I can’t remember exactly how I heard about it but I’m happy that I did. I joined as a member late last year and although, I have to admit. I’ve not dived into all the goodies membership has to offer, I’ve taken some of the member only classes and it gave me the incentive and kick up the you know what to re-brand this site, try to grow a list, and make things happen so I have another…