This is a follow-up to Wednesday’s post, “If You’re Separating…Or Thinking About It.”
The answer is clear, in spite of today’s burgeoning divorce rate. A strong, solid marriage — and I am lucky to have spent 30-plus years with my spouse, the Brick —  is a great joy.

It makes you a better person collectively than you would have been alone. It gives comfort — someone to watch the latest movie together, or commiserate over political foolishness. (Just don’t expect that you’ll always agree…) On cold winter days, someone else is making coffee, or warming up the bed before you crawl in. (if you’re lucky, they’re making both!)

It gives stability. With bills to pay and kids to care for, there are two people, instead of just one, to bring in extra income, make a run to the grocery store, or pick up Junior after school.

Read more

Let’s talk about getting a divorce.

Lest you think that all is not well in the House of Brick, I need to emphasize this post is not for personal reasons. The Brick and I have been married 30-plus years, and in spite of the occasional riffle, things are going well. (Andy’s note. This post isn’t about my wife and I either. There will be a follow-up post on why you should stay married.)

The national marriage average, though, is not looking so good. Based on DivorceRate.org, the current divorce rate for first marriages in America is 41%, and second marriages 60%. Third marriages are a stunning 73%! And if you marry between ages 20-24, chances are better than 1 in 3 that your union will not last.

Ouch. It’s especially uneasy if your own marriage experience has been rocky. And other people’s opinions about your troubles will hit all over the map. (J.D. Roth, who announced his impending divorce on his blog, Get Rich Slowly, found this out the hard way.)

First and foremost, make a serious effort to save your marriage. (I encourage you to try — it’s worth it!) But if you’re thinking that divorce is looming on your personal horizon, here are some tips, from a single friend who has had time to think on it. (She was married for ten years, with a son, before she divorced back in the mid-1990s.)

Before you file divorce papers:

*Make sure you know your current net worth. That includes real estate, bank and retirement accounts, savings bonds, etc. Include future possibilities like pensions and Social Security. (Yes, you are often entitled to claim your soon-to-be-ex’s amount on these. Sometimes that eligibility hinges on how long you’ve been legally married. Check with them to be sure.)

*Make sure you know your liabilities. Who do you owe, and how much? It doesn’t matter whether you signed on the dotted line; if you’re married, you’re responsible for his or her debts.

*Are possessions in both your names? Or yours, at least. This is especially important for a vehicle you plan to keep on driving. Make copies of important paperwork for safekeeping. (My friend sent them to her sister to hold.)

*Open an account, just in your name. Hide some cash there. My source recommended $5000, but as little as $500 will give you some security.

After you file for divorce:

*Notify everyone you have joint accounts with that you are divorcing. Sure, they’ll be frozen — and that limits your access to needed funds. (Thus the importance of a separate account just in your name!) But, and this is especially important — they can’t be stripped by your ex, either.

*Get a good lawyer. (Ask for references, or get advice from people you trust.)

*If you have children together, get your temporary custody papers done as soon as possible — otherwise, the other person could take your child and head out of state. (Maybe you should get these done before you file.)

And finally:

*Shield your children as much as possible. “In other words,” my friend says, “Don’t talk negative about him — even if he is a royal jerk.” Your ex will already be angry and/or frustrated. Talking trash about them is insulting, and won’t encourage them to cooperate while you finalize the process.

*Don’t bore your friends, family and fellow workers with all the details. Conduct yourself with dignity and good sense, and you’ll come out of this difficult time looking like the classy person you are.

This post is by staff writer Cindy Brick. Cindy is a quilting expert with several published books on the subject and has also had many published articles on a variety of subjects. You can visit her business website at CindyBrick.com or visit her personal blog.

First, I’ll have to start off with a clarification. I report my affiliate earnings when they are paid out rather than when they are made. Therefore, most of the affiliate income I reported last month was actually earned in November and December. There also fluctuations when I barely miss an affiliate program’s payout threshold for the month and the earnings rollover to the next month.

My affiliate earnings pale in comparison to the $28,000 Pat at Smart Passive Income made last month but I do have several people every month asking how I make money from affiliate programs. That is probably because my earnings seem more attainable or my traffic is more in line with their level of traffic. I’m far from an expert on affiliate marketing but I’ll do my best to share what I do know.

Place Lots of Links

The main thing that helps me make affiliate income is having lots of affiliate links on my sites. If there isn’t a link for people to click then you can’t make any money. You don’t want people who visit your site to be turned off by the site being full of affiliate ads but you can get lots of links on your site without making it look too spammy. I’ve found that links in posts work much better than links in the sidebar. Anytime you write about something that has an affiliate program make sure you include a link. You will see a few links in this post.

An affiliate ad in your header is the next best placement. You can see that I have an ad for Mr. Rebates in my header. When you do place affiliate ads in your sidebar or header it helps to switch up the ads occasionally to reduce ad blindness. Something I do at Bank Bonuses is to place an affiliate ad at the end of a post that is not related to the post. Here is an example of a post with an extra affiliate ad. This wouldn’t work on every blog but it has worked well for me on Bank Bonuses.

Another thing you can do is have a resource page on your blog. The page would include resources that would be helpful to your blog readers and also include some affiliate links for the resources. This is something that I haven’t fully implemented myself but I do plan on adding a resource page.

Use the Right Program for Your Blog

Another thing that can help increase your affiliate earnings is to make sure the affiliate program you’re promoting is a good fit for your blog. Promoting credit cards doesn’t work too well here at Tight Fisted Miser but promoting credit cards does work well at Bank Bonuses. This makes sense because people come to TFM looking for ways to not spend money and a credit card seems detrimental to that goal. On the other hand people go to Bank Bonuses looking to make money which can be done for signing up for a credit card bonus offer. Programs like Swagbucks and Mr. Rebates that are more appealing to frugal types. If you’re not sure what programs are the best fit for your blog try a few different things until you find some that work.

Traffic

In order to make decent affiliate income you need to have a decent level of traffic to your site. If you only have a couple hundred visitors a month to your site then it will obviously be very difficult to make much affiliate income from the site. You don’t need a ton of traffic though if it is the right type of traffic. Bank Bonuses only gets about 3,000 visits a month but it makes decent affiliate income because the visitors are looking for banking and credit card deals and much more likely to open an account than a random visitor. It is beyond the scope of this post but if you want to build up your traffic you can do it with search engine optimization. I don’t do much SEO myself other than using the All-In-One SEO pack but I do get the majority of my traffic from search engines. You can also build up your traffic with social media but it isn’t the best way for increasing affiliate income. In general search engine traffic is a lot better than social media traffic because it is more targeted. There is tons of free information on the web on search engine optimization. With a little research you should be able to find a couple things you can do to increase your search engine traffic.

Conclusion

As I said before I’m far from an expert on earning affiliate income but I hope this post can be of help to at least some of you. I still have a lot to learn and need to do more to implement what I already know to increase my affiliate income. If you have any suggestions please feel free to share them in the comments.