I’m a big fan of the saying “you make your own luck”, and today’s just a good as any day to start.

In the make more money department I have decided to resurrect photodailynews.com. When I started this site in the fall of 2008 I thought I’d scan the websites related to photography and link to news/stories and deals.All started OK, and by the end of 2008 I made over $1000 through affiliate commissions. But I got distracted with a few other projects and before you know it I haven’t updated the site. I tried some get rich quick stuff with it, and failed miserably.

The big reason for my failure with photodailynews was I tried to do it all. I tried to be a news site, and review site, and deals site. I found that I hated doing reviews as I don’t use half of the feature set on most cameras and could care less about a lot of the stuff available on today’s cameras. And, the shipping it back and forth was something I didnt’ enjoy either.

But I found I was pretty good at finding deals on camera gear, and I’m real good at comparing prices on memory, so for 2010 I’m taking the skills I have with comparing memory prices and applying it to phographic equipment. Why. I’m interested and passionate about photo gear. I’m sure I like the ‘gear’ part of photography just as much as the actual shooting part and I have the skills and tools to compare prices. The camera resellers pay about four percent on the camera gear. A point and shoot priced at $200, which earn me an $8 commission through Amazon and other resellers. A dslr or fancy lens can even earn a greater commission.

I’ve just changed the domain name over photodailynews.com and I have started to compare prices on a few digital cameras just to get started. It will take the search engines about a month to realize that photodailynews.com is all about photography and prices anyway, so this will give me time to work on comparing more prices. Amazon offers over 7000 different digital camera products on their site, and the prices change over time. New hot cameras are usually at list price, but the duds or discontinued cameras get priced at hefty discount.

It’s worth a shot. I’ll write about my failures with photodailynews here. I’ll share the good and the bad and the ugly, just as I have done with my ebay sales. The plan is take any earnings from commissions and put it back into the site by advertising. It’s a competitive niche, but it’s one I’m interested in and am compassionate about.The photo gear available and what it can do is quite amazing. Worse Case: it’s a story to tell. Best case, it’s a success, and a year from now I’m at my magical $100/day by working at home in my underwear. Probably the best part is that there’s always new products being released. If this is even remotely successful I can work on expanding and taking the profits and re-investing in the site. It really is just a numbers game. If I can figure out that I make, I dunno ten cents per visitor. I can pay up to nine cents to get that visitor and still be ahead of the game.

Another benefit of doing this is this will allow me to shop for photo gear, but not actually buy it. I get to scratch my shopping itch and I just might make a buck to boot. To me, more than half the fun is getting the deal in the first place. Anybody can pay MSRP, and with the internet there’s not much reason you should.

So for the first day of the new year, that’s the plan. Shop for camera gear, in the hopes of making a buck or two from commissions on sales. We’ll See..

Related posts:

1. How to save almost $500 a year by failing miserably.
2. I’m a Professional Photographer
3. Just Another Manic Monday. Day 48

My eBay Auction for my Blackberry Bold is up to $178.49 with 5 days to go yet on the auction. And to think I had this thing sitting in my closet unused for at least six months. It doesn’t matter what I paid for it, or what it’s ‘worth’. The fact is I can use the proceeds to knock down my debt, which the entire goal.

My VISA balance dropped to $21,840. That’s down from $22,041.96 that we started with. This is due to a very small payment of $250 I made which basically is the minimum payment at this point. I’m going to work on MasterCard as it’s both the lower amount and also the higher interest amount.

The bad news is my cellular phone/internet bill came in the mail and it’s over $300!. This is due to my move here to Toronto and hookup fees and the fact that Rogers bills you for the month prior too. Next month should get me closer to the $150 mark. I also plan on seeing if I can shrink the bill – do I really need $20/month for the “iPhone Value Pack”. Value for Rogers methinks. The sad part: I have NO idea what this is, or includes – but I’m paying for it.

Stupid Move of the Day
Oh here we go: this is a good one – Back in 2002/2003 I was living/eating/breathing Tennis. I played every day, made great friends and was having a blast. So..I thought I’d buy a Stringing Machine so I could string my own racquets and try out different strings (which,will soon be for sale). I think I used this machine about six times. I might have strung a dozen racquets – tops. The cost for this beauty: 454.36 add interest over six years and this silly stringing machine is now up to $845.00 – almost double! But wait, it gets better: I’ve moved more than once over the years and this stringing machine which weighs a ton and has been sitting in storage (which, I’ve also had to pay for) and during the last move, has lost some parts, so now I’ve got this thing sitting in storage and it’s worth nothing.

Sacrifice of the Day
Today it’s an Ortofon OMB-10 turntable cartridge.It’s been in my closet for years and I’m never going to use it – so it goes. This won’t get a whole bunch of dough for this but every little bit helps. This is really good cartridge that has excellent value as you can just slide a new stylus on the cartridge if you wish to upgrade. You don’t have to replace the cartridge – just the stylus.

If I had your money..
I’d buy a kindle.

If you do the math and say, read a book a week. The books l like are business/personal finance books or computer books and they average about $30 a pop. 52×30=1500ish on books per year. But, if you get a kindle and then buy books at about $10 each the kindle pays for itself. You spend $500 on digital books and $250 or so for the kindle. You save about $750 over the course of a year.

This is definitely on my wishlist.

Related posts:

1. 38000 Dollar Challenge. Day 1
2. The 38,000 Dollar Challenge. An introduction
3. BMO MasterCard Bill Edition. Day 9