I can’t believe I went over a week without updating any of my sites. I did see some drops in traffic to all my sites during my absence and drops in revenue. I’m not too worried about it, because I plan to come into the new year revamped and ready to roll. Of course I am going out of town from January 3rd to January 7th, so my revamp might have to wait a few days.

Not Updating Sites

I did update MVP Flix today with 4-5 new videos. I also plan to update all my fan sites with new posts tonight or tomorrow depending on how things go. It’s Friday so I’ll probably be going out tonight to a movie or to hang out with some friends.

Philip Rivers has quickly become my most popular fan site. It brings in the most money (not even $1/day) and the most traffic. I think because it has such a powerful domain, that people are attracted to it when searching.

Adsense Updates

I finally received my Google Payment yesterday. It came just in time. Due to Christmas bills and random stuff, I probably won’t get to reinvest much of that money at all.

This month, I have brought in $318 so far. There are still a few days left, but odds are I’ll end up around $330 by the end. That’s a pretty good month for me from just Adsense earnings. I’ll also be bringing home around $20-30 from Adbrite.

Design Updates

The designer of my vbulletin forum sent me a first draft the other day. After asking for some changes, he resubmitted a second draft. It looked much better. I still saw a few minor adjustments. Hopefully he’ll resubmit a final draft tonight or tomorrow. I can’t wait to get the skin up on the site so I can officially start promoting it.

Well After a long hiatus from posting, I am back. I am actually still on holiday vacation until January 2nd though, so I won’t be postnig as much as I normally am when I am in my work weeks.

If anyone is wondernig, I had a great Christmas. My family was very generous this year. I got a new Xbox 360 with Oblivion and Gears of Wars, so as you can imagine I’ve been rather occupied with that lately. I also got a new black video Ipod. I had an Ipod before, but it was one of the original models and the battery had gone to hell. It only lasted for like 5 minutes before shutting down. Among those, I also got a lot of clothes and other small things.

Design Update

The design for my vbulletin skin is still under progress. The designer showed me a header so far, but I didn’t like it one bit and practically made him change the entire thing. Since he is from India and doesn’t know about American sports, I don’t think he quite got the concept of what I am trying to do with this site. I explained it some more, so hopefully he can give me a better design today.

Some Site News

I haven’t touched any of my websites in like 5 days, so there really isn’t much to report here.

Adsense Money

I am still waiting for my Google November Payment. It is very weird to be this late. Usually I get the ‘payment in progress’ around the 23rd or 24th of the month. I still don’t have the PIP showing today. They still have a few days till the end of the month, but I’m just a little worried it’s taking them so long. I need my $300 !!

I know my posts have been lacking this past week, it’s just been a very busy time of the year. Just getting all my shopping done and getting ready for the holidays. As a result, I’ve been ignoring my web sites. I have hardly done any updating or promoting this whole week.

After work today, I am going straight to south Florida to spend some time with my girlfriend’s family. I’ll be there until Christmas Eve, and then we will drive back up to Jacksonville and spend Christmas morning with my family. It’s a lot of traveling in just a few days, but it comes with the territory of having a long term relationship. I don’t mind traveling either. You can never have too many vacations.

Also, my work was generous enough to give their employees off the entire week of Christmas, so I won’t be going back to work until January 2nd. That’ s along time off! Hopefully during my week off I’ll be able to get some much needed work done on my websites.

I’ll try to get some posts done during the break, but I’m not making any guarentees. This will probably be my last post until atleast the 26th. The only exception is if I get my vbulletin design finished by Christmas, I’ll try and get on here to show you the first draft. I REALLY wanted to get this site launched and rolling by Christmas, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I wanted to cash in on the collwge bowl season coming up.

I’m probably going to see a movie tonight with my girlfriend when I get down to her parent’s house. She’s actually already down there, and has been for a few days. I want to see Pursuit of Happiness with Will Smith. I’ve heard nothing but great things about it. I really don’t know what else is playing now.

Well that’s it for now. But like I said, if I hear anyhting about my design, I’ll be sure to post about it. happy Holidays!

For my birthday, one of the gifts my girlfriend got me was a book called The Millionaire Next Door. I asked for this book because I’ve heard so many good things about it, not to mention it’s been a New York Times best seller for years. I’m only about 2 chapters through it but already I have learned some amazing statistics about the make up and habits of todays American millionaires.

The book isn’t a tell-all book on how to get rich quick. It’s not a biography of celebrity millionaires. From what I’ve read so far, the stories are about self-made first generation millionaires…your mechanic shop owners, manufactured homes dealers, and other small business owners. It talks about the people you see on the street that you think are blue collar, but are actually worth $5 million. The book talks about people who are really wealthy, not the high income/high spenders that the media portrays as wealthy.

Just because someone makes $200,000 a year doesn’t make them wealthy. You have to know how to invest your money and put it to good use. If you make $200,000 a year as a lawyer, but have a high lifestyle ($80,000 Mercedes, $10,000 watch, $5,000 suits and so on) you make look like you’re extremely wealthy, but in reality when you’re spending $180,000 of that $200,000, you’re actually not worth that much.

The book just puts into perspective about who the true millionaires are. It’s not saying that professional athletes aren’t millionaires, it’s just saying that based on their age and annual income, they are not wealthy.

I can’t really get into much of the book because I’m only about 40 pages deep. I just have it finished in a week or so, and then I will give it a full review. If you want to read more, just check out the Amazon reviews provided in the link above.

A lot of web entrepreneurs are self employed and do not hold full-time jobs like I do. One of the overlooked benefits of working for a company is enrolling in the company’s 401k plan. I just recently became eligible for my company’s plan, and immediately signed up and started contributing money.

A 401k is a retirement plan. In simple terms, you put in a percent of your paycheck, and the company will match up to 3-5% of your paycheck. So if you get $2000 a paycheck, and you want to contribute $100 of that to your 401k, most companies will only match 3%, or in this case $60. It might not seem like a lot, but that’s free money that you can invest into mutual funds.

As you can see this can get very costly. That is why most small companies do not participate. I was reading a blog about business advice for small business owners, and they mention a study saying that only 14% of small business owners offer 401k’s to their employees. It a great blog really, and I’m glad I stumbled across it. They also have information on how to incorporate in Florida, where I live. This is a great way to help save yourself money when tax season comes along. I know a lot of web entrepreneurs also run LLCs… well they also go into the differences between an LLC and a INC. So if you’re looking at taking your online business to the next level, I definitely recommend giving Inc Paradise a look.

So anyways, I just wanted to talk about one of the differences in working for a company and being on your own. I’m not saying by working for yourself you can’t have a retirement plan… I’m just saying you don’t get a 3% match every paycheck plus a 100% payout every year

I have some sad news to report. My fantasy football season is officially over now. After going 10-4 in the regular season and making it to the playoffs, my team faced the division juggernaut U Seen My Football, anchored with record breaking running back Ladanian Tomlinson.

How can I compete against a team with Tomlinson? I was up by 3 points going into last nights Monday Night Football game. I had Shayne Graham left and he had Wayne and Vinetieri. The chances of me winning were very slim anyways. I ended up losing last night by about 10 points, thus concluding my season just 1 game shy of the Superbowl. But hey, there’s always next year…$5.99 .COMs at Godaddy

If anyone is looking to stock up on a few domains before the end of the year, Godaddy is having a $5.99 .com promotion (plus the .25 cent ICANN fee). Simply enter this code during checkout: gdh1217

Ebook Updates

I bet you thought I forgot about my ebook didn’t you? Well I haven’t. In fact, my book has been finished and has been in pdf format for a few weeks now. I just got sidetracked in creating the actual webpage to sell the book on. Well you know what… no more wating. I’m going to knock this thing out tonight and have my ebook online and ready for sale tomorrow!! I need to stock slacking and just get it done. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two to make a simply page and put a Paypal purchase button on it. Although, if my book gets accepted into Click Bank, I’ll probably use clickbank checkout (which allows paypal payments I think). Once this site is up tomorrow, I’ll be giving out a free copy to anyone here that wants it.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Has anyone seen this movie yet? I’ve only heard good things about it. I’ll probably have to wait till the week after Christmas to go see it because I simply don’t have time to go to the movies now.