Thursday, July 18, 2013

Making Money on the Internet

Life is hard - yes. What my salary could by last year, week, month  or even night for that matter, it cannot buy now. I was never really able to save much before so it is exponentially harder now. I do manage to save but those are as a result of compulsory savings attached to a loan I have running so I guess that's not half bad - guys, join a credit union somewhere. I am not talking the COKs or the big ones who are almost as terrible as the commercial banks. I am thinking of one that small and has a little niche thing going on. You will be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to deal with one of the smaller credit unions.

Anyway, to the matter at hand, making money online. Let me point out one thing before I go any further, please do not expect to make zillions of dollar or to see money rolling in overnight - unless you are very lucky or are among the first to be a part of the next big opportunity (or scam). All methods are some of what I have tried and have actually seen money coming in albeit slowly and unpredictably, but money comes in nonetheless and a little extra never kills.

I know you want to get the details but to be able to make money you will need somewhere to keep it - right? Since accepting payments online on your own is very hard I suggest getting one of two of the following:
  1. Paypal
  2. Moneybookers/Skrill
For me, I have both accounts and I will proceed to explain the pros and cons of each.

Paypal
This is pretty much the de facto paympent processing system on the internet. It is as ubiquitous as kitten memes, and that annoying Gangnam Style video. From my very very informal personal survey it is used by more than 75% of the sites I have shopped on and everybody and their dog has a Paypal account. Once you have access to email you can accept paypal payments. The fees to both sell and to receive money through it are fairly small that you should not complain about unless you are this woman.

So, if you have a website that sells rocks or people's toenails or whatever curio you may think is a sure-fire way to make a quick dollar, then you ought to go paypal.

Aah, but not everything in life is all about smooth-sailing right? Yeah, if you are lucky enough to have happened upon the next"new hype" that sells like Moringa leaves, pod, seeds, sap and pretty much every imaginable aspect of the tree on the streets of Kingston and Montego Bay, and you plan to peddle your wares on the good old "interweb" then a paypal account would serve you well but the one drawback I found is in order to take advantage of your new found wealth, you would have to request a cheque from paypal and wait for it to be mailed which is typically 2 weeks and then you have to wait a further 30days to have that cheque drawn on a US bank to clear. Well, if you are making money hand over fists then that shouldn't be much of a problem. There is fee for each withdrawal of US$5, this can be avoided however if you are lucky enough to have a US bank account to which you can have the money wired. There are also monthly spending limits and sending and receiving limits, these limits can be raised if you have a verified account, this can be done by inputting your credit card details. What's that, you don't have a credit you say, well, you can open an account at the Bank of Nova Scotia (I hate commercial banks like a strong dose of poison and politicians), they will give you a Visa debit card that acts as one once there is money in your account. If the little hurdle of getting a Scotia account is too hight to overcome then you are hopeless and should consider other methods of earning a living.

Then there is...

Moneybooker/Skrill
This happens to be my favourite, like Paypal, people can pay with their credit cards or Skrill/Moneybookers account through all the ways Paypal allows, they also apply fees per transaction much the same was as Paypal but they take it a bit further, they added the one thing Paypal overlooked which is allowing persons to wire money to their personal commercial bank accounts regardless of the country, this attracts a pretty standard US$30 fee per transaction and the money is usually in your account and clear within 24 hours - neat huh? That little extra thing is what makes me prefer this option. However if making a little extra online is on the books for you, and you don't already have accounts with them, then visit the sites and have a look around.

I notice that we are not particularly fond of reading so I will save the meat of the matter for my next post which will be available here.

Making Money on the Internet II

This is a continuation of my series on Making Money on the Internet. I know that you have sent the previous post to everybody in you address book who you care about and are aching to read on so let me not keep you waiting any longer.

Please bear in mind that these methods are in no way an exhaustive list and are just ways that I have used in the past to see a dollar or two pop up and if at least the same effort I put in is I did then you stand to make a couple extra dollars on the side like me.

Ebay
Yes, everybody knows about Ebay - "if its on your mind its on Ebay" is quite possibly the truest statement I have ever heard. Go ahead, test my little claim, think of something this minute, go over to there and do a search for it and see if I was wrong, you will be surprised. That said, there is great potential to make tonnes off this site selling pretty much literally anything from used underwear to old horseshoes. Do a search, so if you can look around and see anything that may be worth a couple small ones then go ahead, get an Ebay account if you don't already have one and get it listed. There are various types of listings on Ebay, you can "auction" or or offer the option to "buy now" and so on. I prefer the buy now option as you have immediate control over your price. "What about shipping" you ask, well you will have to use your head on that one. Find out which is the most feasible method of shipment and don't forget to charge the buyer what it will cost you, some people use this as a means to make some more money but I think that is robbery. If you really look into it your Post Office has very reasonable rates to ship to various parts of the world, they are far more reasonable than the DHLs, and FedEx, takes a bit longer but it is a lot cheaper and all parcels are shipped through registered mail and I am yet to have any issues shipping.

That's it for me with today's posting, the next in my series will be put up as soon as I am finished writing, you can follow me on and Twitter to see when they go up, you will be the first to know.

Planning a Trip or Vacation to Jamaica?

Aah, the world knows about us, beaches, sand, sun etc. We are well-known for our Cruise ships that come here, our world-famous coffee from the Blue Mountains and our rum, the T-Shirts, the Music. The potential for weddings that are breath-taking and an equally wonderful honeymoon and the people, that is a lot of the positive stuff for which we are known. I deliberately left out the athletics, due mainly to the negative publicity we have received recently and no, Marijuana (weed) is not positive if you ask me. Anyway, since Jamaica is so renowned worldwide, I figure many people plan trips to travel to Jamaica. The North Coast is by far the most beautiful portion of the island in my opinion. I love especially the portion that stretches from Portland in the north-east to roughly about Discovery Bay in St. Ann., Ocho Rios being my most favourite part of the country.

I'm pretty much an average Jamaican person, I have stayed in a little more than my fair share of hotels on the island and after every single stay I wonder if I am the only Jamaican that has had less than fantastic stays there. I hear tourists go on and on about how wonderful Jamaica and Jamaicans are but I can't help but concluding that especially in the hotels, staff are wonderful to you if you are not black and if you are black you need to meet two criteria to be treated at least like you are spending money, these are: you have to have an accent from a North American or European country (or anywhere the staff will feel as if you are a big spender) and the other is you will have to be a big spender.

Jamaica (in my estimation at least) is no longer the destination of choice for the world's wealthy, all-inclusive hotels don't help. We are like the crack-whore of the tourism world. We don't partial any visitor neither do we direct our advances to any specific group, we target any and all foreigner with a dollar to spend. That waters down your product offering and though these offerings were once great and are in fact still great, the beauty and appeal is lost on those who don't care about it, they only care for the weed and the liquor and the sex. That is a sad state of affairs that unfortunately we have found ourselves in and that does not add to the value of our tourism product.

I have had my fair share of profiling visiting these hotels, I am not scared to relate on very terrible experience I had at the Iberostar Hotel in Rose Hall, St. James. I stayed there on two occasions and both occasions were terribly horrible! The first, my daughter was a few months old, my wife and I after checking in requested a crib for her at about 4:00pm, we were assured that we were getting it in a couple of minutes - 20 minutes to be exact. Suffice it to say, their 20 minutes turned out run from that time until 11:30pm or thereabouts, all this not before it took nearly 3 hours for us to get our room. When we go to the room, it wreaked of tobacco, and was hardly prepared. By this time I was just so tired of waiting for the room that I figured I would just go to sleep. In the middle of the night there was a knock on the, there was a young man holding the crib I had requested six hours prior, I felt like asking if it took them so long to make the crib but upon inspecting it I found that it was a dirty old crib that probably was borrowed from a nearby home in the adjoining community. In an effort not to be rude or disrespectful, I took it and went to bed, my daughter was already asleep on the bed so the need for the crib was no longer there. The next morning I went on the balcony to just sit and what I saw was the most disturbing site, on the edge of the balcony there was dried, what was obviously vomit. I went straight to the front-desk to register my disgust, I was sent to who was apparently the manager of something or the other. I explained the situation to "Miss" Manager and was told to write an email and send it to some person or the other, that I did and since 2010, I am awaiting a response.

Point: don't waste your money at Iberostar!

I guess they would have treated us with a bit more respect had I been either:
1. White
2. Black but obviously a big spender or
3 Black with a non-caribbean accent.

Stay tuned, I have the story of my subsequent stay at the same hotel as part of a conference that was held there.

One question I have before I go, isn't a dollar in the hands of a black Jamaican worth the same as that in the hands of a white foreigner?