Announcements

Blogging by Phone?

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As many of you already know I plan to spend five months later this year doing a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail.  This means that I will only have internet access about once a week when I get into a town.  In order to keep this blog reasonably updated and stay on top of my other internet ventures I’ll be spending a lot of my town time on the internet.  I suppose I could just let my sites slide while I’m hiking but that option doesn’t appeal to me.  I’ve spent a lot of time building them up and I don’t want to start that process over.  Also my sites are generating a decent amount of income that might be enough to cover the cost of my hike.

One solution I’m considering is carrying a phone that I can use to blog.  I won’t always have service available but I should have sufficient coverage that I could update my blog most days I’m hiking and then wouldn’t have an overwhelming amount of stuff to do when I got to town.  I know there are phones that are capable of being used to blog but I don’t have personal experience with any of them.  If any of you have used a phone to blog I would like to hear about your experience and what phone you would recommend. Thanks.

Amazon and Book Giveaway Winners

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The winners of the giveways have been determined by using Random.org. The winner of the $5 Amazon e-gift card is Paid Twice.  The winner of the book Nine Steps to Financial Freedom is Start Up.  By coincidence they are both bloggers. That isn’t too big of a coincidence since a large percentage of my readers are also bloggers. I’ll be sending you emails shortly.

I haven’t heard back from the winner of Your Money or Your Life yet.  Sandra B. are you out there?  If I don’t hear from her in the next week I’ll give the book to someone else.

I’m going out of town this weekend and might not be able to get on the Internet.  If you don’t hear from me over the weekend I’m not ignoring you and I’ll get back to you on Monday.

Google Adsense Revenue Going Down?

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Since we have decided to do roundups for the Frugal Blog Network on a monthly basis now I am going to post on blogging related topics on Sundays now. I know many of my readers are bloggers and I hope these posts will be of at least some interest to the non-bloggers.

I have noticed the amount I receive per click from Adsense is way down this month. The amount I receive per click is a little less than half what I have been receiving. Maybe this is due to the economic downturn and advertisers are just bidding less on clicks. The big drop has been on one of my other blogs Bank Bonuses. Considering banks and financial institutions are struggling it would make sense that they are paying less for advertising. That site also went from PR2 to PR0 and I’m wondering if that had any effect.

I’m considering cutting down the number of ads I have on the site on the theory that only higher paying ads will be left and more people will click on higher paying ads. The other thing I’m considering is blocking the sites that I think are paying less per click through the competitive ad filter. Has anyone tried doing these things and what were your results? Is anyone else receiving much less per click than before?

I’d really like to know. Thanks.

FBN Roundup- Half Marathon Edition

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I ran a half marathon yesterday. My original plan was to run a full marathon in October but a lack of training made that unlikely.  I scheduled the half marathon this month instead.  I still didn’t do very much training but it was enough to finish although at a very slow pace.  Here are some of my favorite posts from the Frugal Blog Network and beyond this week.

Almost Frugal gives us childproofing your house – the frugal way.   I don’t think I’ll ever need to do this but these sound like some good tips.

Frugal Babe refinished a coffee table.  This is an interesting coffee table. I wonder how much it cost to make it.

Frugal Zeitgeist talks about frugality and simple living. This is an explanation of what frugal means to her.

Not Made of Money shares five personal finance gifts for under $25.  These gifts will continue to give.

The Frugal Duchess gives us some ways to winterize your home.  She probably doesn’t need to winterize her home too much since she lives in Miami.  This is solid advice though.

And from beyond the FBN I also liked Not the sort of person who… from Wisebread.  This is a great examination of why people choose not to adapt certain frugal behaviors.

Gas is Under $2 a Gallon

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It was only a couple weeks ago that I posted about gas being under $3 a gallon and now it is under $2 a gallon.  Most gas stations around here have it at $1.99 a gallon.  Since I don’t drive much now this doesn’t make much of a difference in my finances.  I thought I was going to be able to make it through this month with only one fill up.  I had to make a couple of extra drives though and had to get gas Monday.  Gas was just a smidgen over $2 a gallon then and it cost me under $20 to fill up my car.  It has been a while since I’ve been able to do that and it is a great improvement from the over $40 it was costing me this summer.  With my current driving habits the cheap gas is probably saving me $10-$20 a month.  That isn’t a lot but I’m still glad I have a fuel efficient car though.  These gas prices will eventually go back up.