Last year, my lady friend and I supported the Walk for Hunger by not only raising the minimum amount for an individual but we also walked it. Though, we didn’t quite make the entire 20 mile walk, we did do 14 miles of it. But this time around, we will make it through the entire 20 miles and we’re looking for sponsors and if you are generous enough you could win advertising here as well as in front of 40,000+ people at the actual walk on May 3rd!

I’m pretty last minute when it comes to things like this and I remember last year I did basically the same thing. I waited until the last week to try to get sponsors and trust me, it’s sort of a pain but this year I wasn’t fully sure if I was going to walk it or not. But I’m giving you guys the opportunity to not only donate to a charitable cause (which is tax deductible by the way) but also win yourself some advertising as well!

If you would like to jump straight into making a donation, please visit our Walk for Hunger page.

Before I get into, let me tell you a little bit about the Walk for Hunger. It’s basically a program in which the state of Massachusetts gets 40,000+ together to walk 20 miles to help support hungry neighbors. Last year we helped raise 43.4 million meals to support the 400 emergency food programs in 128 communities. This helps support the 522,000 people struggling to put food on their tables.

I decided that I would do the walk again this year and this time, help give back to my personal supporters by giving them a chance for advertising either during the walk and or on DatMoney.

Now I have a few things in mind if you sponsor the Walk for Hunger:

1. We Will Wear Your T-Shirt at the Walk - For each $10 donation, we will wear your t-shirt with your company, website, product on it for one mile. That means, you have the opportunity to get your brand out in front of 40,000+ people. And yes, pictures will be taken at the mile marker points.

For instance, if you donate $50, we will wear your t-shirt for 5 miles.  Please, there’s a 5 mile max so others can get a chance for us to rock their shirts.  But you can donate as much as you want!

Of course, you would have to send your t-shirt to us before Satuday May 2nd because the walk is on the following day.

Since it’s only 20 miles, we can only wear a certain number of shirts so first come first serve. Though, I don’t foresee anyone sponsoring enough because this is last minute.

2. Win 125×125 Advertising Spots and Reviews - Not everyone has t-shirts to brand so I’m giving you guys a chance to win some advertising for your sponsorship. But I only have a certain amount of advertising to give away so this option is almost like a raffle.

For each $5 donation, you will receive an entry to win either:

1) a review of your product on DatMoney (worth $60)
2) one of three 125×125 ad spots for one month on DatMoney (worth $20 each)
3) one 468×60 spot for one month on DatMoney (worth $40)

The more you donate, the more chances you have to win. I know this isn’t much to give away but this is for a good cause to support the hungry. Plus, here’s a chance to get some advertising at a VERY reduced rate!

I may add additional things to win so who knows, you may potentially win other prizes.

You can either donate by going to our Walk for Hunger page or you can send the money through my Paypal and I will bring the money over. Whichever is easier for you guys.

Please contact me once you have done so or if you have any questions. Thanks! We appreciate your support!

I’ve been getting more and more proposals for joint ventures and possible challenges and I tend to turn most of them down. Don’t get me wrong, I like a challenge just like the next person, and if you know me, you know I’m extremely competitive. But there are plenty of reasons why I simply will reject your offer or even ignore it.

Some of you guys may remember when I wrote “5 Reasons Why I Won’t Sponsor Your Contest” and some of those reasons apply to these joint venture proposals or possible challenges or whatever.

Don’t get me wrong, I consider a lot of challenges and although I may contact some of you guys about it in the near future, currently it’s on hold for me.

Anyways, let’s go over some reasons why I will reject your potential challenge or joint venture proposals:

1. E-mail message is a generic one (not personal) - This is the same exact thing as the contest sponsoring, why would someone want to reply to you at all if you’re sending some generic message you probably sent to a bunch of other people? At the very least, you can find out who you’re writing to and address it to them.

If your e-mail begins with “To whom it may concern” or “Hello” or something equivalent then more than likely you won’t get a response. I mean, when you write a cover letter for a job and you’re writing to the hiring manager, you usually address it to them, right? Like “Mr. Somebody: I am writing to you because…”

2. Not Very Organized – I’m not saying I’m the most organized person but I know how to be. And if you’re really serious about a proposal or challenge, you should at the very least know what you’re going to do before you contact your challenger.

You don’t want to contact someone with a challenge and it’s half-assed and not even complete. It’s like “hey, I challenge YOU but, um, I’m not fully sure how this is going to work?”

3. No Benefits at All - What’s the point of a challenge or proposal to someone if their are absolutely no benefits? I mean, a competition or a contest usually follows with a reward, right? Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to have a physical prize or anything but there should be some sort of benefit like links, publicity, money, possible networking partners, etc.

Any type of benefit should be included.

4. You Have a Bad Reputation - Believe it or not, but you can actually look people up on the internet. If you’re a somewhat reputable online entrepreneur, then you are definitely searchable online. And if you are or were a previous spammer, no thanks! I don’t think I would consider spammers that went through rehabilitation either because I think it would lead to something that may potentially hurt my own reputation.

5. Other Reasons (no time, not worth it to me, etc) - Lastly, and hopefully this is the only reason why I reject your proposal or challenge: because its my fault.

I’m hoping this will be the main reason why I reject your offer, its because I don’t have time to commit to another project. And although, I love working with other people, most of my online partnerships usually end in some sort of break and doesn’t work out fully.

Anyways, I hope it helps clear some things and hopefully it doesn’t scare people away from proposing!

Now there are more and more people who make money online for a living. And honestly, it seems as though the more people work online for a living, the more they tend to get that extra weight from being in the house all day. Or who knows, maybe they’re enjoying themselves a little too much with vacations, extra delicious foods and making all that money… and unfortunately, no time to work out.

Now there are only a few people (well, maybe a lot more but I can’t think of too many examples) you can really compare this theory of working as an online entrepreneur for a living and gaining weight. The reason why I say this is the fact that you can just compare the pictures they have of themselves from when they started the blog to now.

And yes, there could be a big coincidence that they gained weight and it had nothing to do with working at home but come on, seriously. When you are a successful online entrepreneur making a pretty good living then you start to enjoy things more and get caught up in working a little more too.

I mean, you get caught up enjoying things, especially the money, that you don’t want to work out. I mean, who does? Working out isn’t really an enjoyment lol.

Anyways, besides this theory that of you working online for a living and gaining weight, I’m actually going to point out two examples which leads to the other reason why I’m posting about it:

The Tyler Cruz vs. Jonathan Volk Blogging Weight Loss Challenge.

I’m sure if you’re reading my blog, you should know both of these online entrepreneurs. Both of them make a living online – one from various sites and the other as a super affiliate marketer.

It looks like they have a challenge to see who could lose 10 pounds within 10 weeks and they decided to put some money on the line for it. The loser essentially would pay up. But the best part is the fact that they’d be paying us, the bloggers who posted about it and chose who we thought would lose.

Personally, I think both of them are going to lose the 10 pounds because it shouldn’t be too hard to do that in 10 weeks. And honestly, I think they both will because if they do, they don’t have to pay anyone anything.

But definitely a good marketing technique.

Though, since it’d be boring picking both of them (and the fact that I’m forced to choose only one person), I think Jonathan Volk is going to lose. (Sorry man!)

I’m not just randomly picking, though. I actually have a theory and some valid points on it.

I was checking the weight of both of the contenders and found that Tyler actually weighed more than Jonathan (I think it was like 206 to 189 or something?)

So, what does that mean exactly? Well, right off the bat Tyler has a slight advantage. The reason is the fact that you would burn more calories if you weighed more.

Let me give you an example: Say Tyler and Jonathan did the same exact exercises for the next 10 weeks for the same amount time and so on, Tyler could actually burn more calories because he weighs more.

Of course, I know they aren’t going to do the same routine, excerises, stretching, eating, etc but lets just say they just keep doing what they are doing then I think Tyler has a slight edge.

In addition, I take it Tyler really hates losing so he has an extra competitive edge. Now I’m not saying Jonathan isn’t competitive because no one likes losing, you know? But based on the history of his competitions (and losses to Gyutae Park previously), he obviously doesn’t want to lose this time around.

So, who do you think will win? Check out Tyler’s Post or Jonathan’s post to show your support.

Very simple and very easy question: Would you prefer password protected posts or eBooks?

Now I know which one I would prefer on different occasions and instances but I’m just wondering what you guys would prefer.

I prefer password protected posts because it is easier for me. All I have to do is essentially write a post like I normally do and put a password on it and send it out to my e-mail subscribers. In addition to that, having people come back to my site also helps with traffic and daily visitors. Basically, it still makes my site stats look good and if you ever want to read the post, you’ll have to come back.

See?

But one of the downfalls to this is the fact that a lot of people continue to subscribe via e-mail so they constantly ask for the password. I know I could make my life easier by setting up an automated responder but there’s a slight downfall to that too. Of course, a lot of people tend to unsubscribe soon after they have received the password and read the post.

I guess that’s a given, huh? Once people receive their prize, they have no incentive to come back.

As for the eBook, it’s a little more work. Now it’s basically converting everything over to .pdf format but then again, I still have to get this eBook out to my e-mail subscribers. And again, I don’t have an automated responder.

If I did, I could just put a download link somewhere on my site and that way I could continue to get the traffic needed. Matter of fact, I may potentially get more traffic if the eBook is just that good and rumors pass through forums and blogs.

Also, the main reason why I would prefer eBooks in general is when I’m selling them as a product. In this instance, I’m not selling anything so I’m not in need for a “product.”

Now I know readers, subscribers, etc would probably prefer eBooks because it becomes theirs once they get it. They aren’t forced to come back here whenever they want to read it because they’ll have it downloaded already.

The reason why I ask is simply the fact that I was going to have a password protected post on a slight case study on a small site I sold for a couple hundred dollars. In that, I would include step by step on what I did and the example site and URL.

When I’m exposing URLs, I would prefer my loyal subscribers to get a hold of that precious information rather than someone that just randomly stopped by, you know?

Anyways, on this particular example, would you guys prefer a password protected post or an eBook? Or maybe neither? Let me know!

If you make money online whether it’s being a blogger, webmaster, online entrepreneur or whatever, today is the last day to file your taxes for the past year!

Honestly, I’m hoping you guys have already filed your taxes instead of waiting for the last day. So, let’s assume you guys already did but got a headache running around trying to scramble to do so; let’s go over a few points for next year so you guys are a little more prepared for it.

Document Everything!

Personally, I didn’t do a great job in documenting for this past year so don’t be like me. The main thing I didn’t keep track of like I should have were the expenses I could have deducted. And this means keeping receipts, tracking them on spreadsheets, keeping them all organized in a folder, etc.

I wrote a post on “Tax Deductible Expenses for Self-Employed Online Entrepreneur” a little while ago that should help. But essentially, anything and everything you think could be deducted, more than likely it can.

So, keep track, save receipts and pay less on your taxes!

Keeping track of the income coming in was a little easier because I usually get paid two ways: through Paypal or via check in the mail. Once I officially get paid, I save the paystubs for the checks and I document how much I got paid on a spreadsheet.

Don’t Wait Until the Last Minute!

When I say “don’t wait until the last minute” waiting until the last month to get all your stuff ready is just about the same thing.

Each month you should essentially keep track of your income and expenses and a simple spreadsheet and foldder could do wonders for you. This way when you do taxes next year, you’re not running around scrambling once again making sure you didn’t miss something. You should have everything ready from the get go.

And yes, I was one of the many who was scrambling around making sure I had everything all set.

Be As Accurate As You Possibly Can or You Might Be Audited

You want to file your taxes to the best of your ability because if you don’t report everything, there is a chance you’ll be audited. And no, that’s not a good thing when you are being audited for money issues.

Now, it’s hard being completely accurate when you scramble at the last minute but you want to report as much as you possibly can. I heard if you report your income and next year you happen to pull in like 10 times more than the previous year, then that might throw up a red flag.

Although, that is extremely possible in some cases, you want to be safe and have everything ready. Some people tell me they track back up to 10 years when doing audits. So, if you’ve been doing this online entrepreneur stuff to make money online for the last five years, make sure you have all your taxes intact for the last five years.

Put Money Aside to Pay Taxes

If working for yourself is the only income you have, make sure you put enough money aside to actually pay for the taxes you owe. Every area is different so I’m not sure how it is but generally I would save up to 35 percent.

For instance, if you made $10,000 last year, make sure you save $3,500 because that’s what you would be potentially paying back in taxes.

Tip: What I would do is create a savings account (there are plenty of online savings account like ingdirect) and each time you make a transaction, calculate 35 percent of that and just deposit it into your savings. This way you’ll be making money in interest while you save to pay back in taxes.

Luckily for me, I also have a day job so instead of paying back taxes out of my own pockets, they basically took it out on what was owed to me from my day job.

Conclusion

Don’t wait for the last minute and try to be prepared. Working for yourself has its benefits but it is also hard work as well.

Also, if you guys file for taxes in different countries outside of the states, please let me know. I’m a bit curious and I’d like to compare.

Any questions? Feel free to ask!