Posted on December 15, 2009 by Jim Fitzsimmons

It’s said the key to reducing your debt, is spend less than you make.

Well, I think I’ve got that pretty much under control. Sure, I still waffle a bit and before you know it the invisible force field in front of the starbucks pulls me in and I’m handing over all of my money to the baristas and their green little aprons. But for the most part, I’ve got the spend less part pretty much down pat. I’m cooking at home, reducing my starbucks intake, and just generally being happy with the now, and what’ I’ve got, rather than chasing the next purchase or BMW, or fancy house. If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that money doesn’t really buy happiness. Enough money does. There’s the differnce. If you have enough money for your needs, not wants, the rest is gravy.

So, this leads me to the next part of the equation: How to make more money? There’s a myriad of ways to do this, but when it comes down to it there’s really only two ways:

1. Do it yourself. Work for yourself.
2. work for the man.

As my income is created from online ventures, I’ll talk about the the online methods today. I haven’t had a job in some time but it might be an avenue to explore.

How to Make Money Online By Working For Yourself.

The first thing you really need to do is just create value. That really is key. There’s no easy pill or ebook, or 12-step course that will provide you with the magic bullet. Believe me, I’ve tried. And with internet, and free tools from the web there’s no reason why you can’t create value too. Everybody is an expert at something, and you are too. Maybe it’s a website about all the different types of cables for your TV, or your gardening. What do you like to do? Can you write about it? Can’t write? Can you talk? Can you record a video of yourself? I worked with a sports editor who could rhyme off stats non stop about sports. If he started to share his knowledge online, over time the search engines and more importantly, other people would notice and he would be creating more value every day, with every little sports tidbit he knew.

Take ramseeker.com for example: I started ramseeker because I read somewhere online once that memory for a particular mac was hard to find. At the time, the only other site that listed memory prices, only listed the high/low/averages of computer memory but not the memory prices that the different vendors charge. And I thought that was kindof silly. That site was obviously tracking the prices anyway, so why not go the extra mile and list the prices? So I made a list. And value was created. People visited ramseeker.com because I had done the legwork. It wasn’t rocket science. I visited the online stores, checked out their prices and made a list of what I found.

Over time, the memory vendors that I listed for free started to notice that the traffic was coming from ramseeker.com. They started to write and ask how they could make their listing stand out? That was easy, I replied. Get your checkbook out and there’s a world of possibilities.
And, they did. And a few years later, I quit a perfectly good day job due to the fact that I created the value of listing and tracking the memory prices online.

Once you’ve got the value created, the rest just kindof takes care of itself. If you can create something that’s unique to you, and distribute it, then you can create value and profit from it. It’s that simple.

So the question I’m asking myself right now is how can I create more value? I’m doing it with this site. Now it’s only 28days old and truth be told there’s not a lot of value created. Yet. I’ve got 972 days to go to keep on writing, to keep on sharing you with my successes and failures and my ebay sales, and any other income I’m making.

In essence I’m telling a story. It’s unique to me. There’s no other Jim Fitzsimmons’s out there (Well, there are, but no sad sacks like me that are 28k behind the 8 ball). And it’s my story.

Tomorrow, I’ll explore how to make money from telling my story.

Sacrifice of the day

Three quesses what it is! That’s right, you win! More cables. I’m still sorting box after box of these things so we’ll be here a while doing this. I have some other more pricier things I can sell but this is a good way to test the ebay waters without losing my shirt. It’s a generic s-video cable today – 9 feet in length. The auction on eBay starts at $1 on this.

Updates

Not much to report today, except that I made somebody’s day. A buyer of my tennis string wrote to say I’m the best ebay seller he’s come across and he’s pleased as punch to get the tennis string and how happy he was with the purchase. This is something you can’t put a price on. Tecnically, I probably lost money if I researched how much I spent, and then what I spent to ship and what the auction ended at. But you know what? who cares? I’ve got a bit more cash flow, don’t have to deal with the string, and made somebody in the world a bit happier today. It’s been a good day.

More Bad News

1. How to Make More Money Creating Value
2. A year from today. Day 45
3. Ways to Make More Money With Your Blog. Day 29
4. All My Money Problems are Solved.
5. The Job Hunt Begins