Blog Money Whore

May was an interesting month with much of it taken up by travel. (In fact, I’m currently writing this from a bus headed from New York City to Philadelphia.) Nevertheless, the website chugged along without much effort going into it and raked in a few bucks. May saw only three posts with a measly 952 pageviews. AdSense brought in $14.29, AdBrite brought in $0.15, and Revolution MoneyExchange brought in $20.00. Overall, this was a disappointing month with a large drop in revenue. Hopefully, June will be better.

As always, this data is in the Earnings, Pageviews & Posts table along with historical data since the start of this blog.

BzzAgent has an uncanny ability to pick out really relevant campaigns for me. The previous one I wrote about, the Claritin RediTabs BzzCampaign, was perfect for me, considering I already used them! Now, they’ve given me another really good one: The Plum Card(SM) by American Express OPEN. I finally formed my LLC this January and was in need of a business credit card. It was time to get those business purchases off of my personal credit cards! And just in the nick of time, BzzAgent signed me up for this campaign! I’ve already applied for and received a Plum Card and am racking up the purchases on it. The best part?

Apply for the new Plum card using this link and get $100 back when you spend $1000 by September 4, 2008!

Additionally, enjoy these benefits:

• Early Pay Discount: Get 2% cashback on >$5000 or get 1% cashback on ≤$5000 by paying your balance in full within 10 days of your statement.
• Defer Pay Option: Pay 10% of your balance and defer your payment without interest or finance charges for two months.
• Crazy Discounts: Some big names with great discounts like 5% off Courtyard, 3% off Delta, 5% off Fairfield Inn, 5% off FedEx and Kinko’s, 5% off Hertz, 3% off Hyatt, 3% off JetBlue, 5% off Springhill Suites, and more!
• No Pre-Set Limit: Seriously!
• First Year Fee-Free: After that, it’s $185/year

So far, I really like my new credit card and might even keep it after the first year. I really like how I can even donate to Kiva using the card via PayPal. The future annual fee kind of annoys me, but the benefits more than make up for it. Then again, I’m hoping I can convert it to a fee-free OPEN card once my first year’s up. I used to have another one that had pretty decent benefits, though it didn’t have the lovely plum color.

BTW, if you want to join BzzAgent, then just leave me a comment with your email address! Don’t worry. Your email address will be used only to invite you to BzzAgent and won’t ever be published, sold, etc.

• Earnings: BzzPoints, which convert to MyPoints points that can be redeemed for stuff

I have really severe allergies and hay fever, rendering me very unhappy in the spring and fall. I used to get desensitization shots, but they’re expensive and a real pain (both literally and figuratively). I’d much rather pop a pill.

As a result, I was really excited when I was invited for BzzAgent’s new campaign for Claritin RediTabs! I’ve already relied on Claritin products for a while now to keep my allergies in check and was really happy to get a free sample and a stack of coupons from them.

What really differentiates RediTabs from other allergy medications aside from the Claritin brand name, which I’ve come to trust, is that RediTabs don’t require water. All you do is stick the pill on your tongue, and it melts. This proves extremely convenient, because water isn’t always readily available, especially if you’re traveling or out in the middle of nowhere when your allergies start acting up.

Anyway, do yourself a favor and visit Claritin’s website to learn more and to get a bunch of coupons!

On a related note, you should also add my iGoogle gadget Local Pollen Count. It reports the latest tree, weed, grass, and mold data in your area along with air quality and pollutants. That way, you always know if you need to take a Claritin RediTab before you go outside—not after you’ve already started suffering.

• Earnings: BzzPoints, which convert to points at MyPoints

Sorry for the late update! I was traveling abroad for a month and just didn’t have the patience to try to do much work in internet cafes. Anyway, April was an interesting month, especially since much of the activity happened while I was away! With three posts, my pageviews went up a bit to 1,248 from 1,102. The earnings from AdSense happily went up from $23.22 to $25.42 while the earnings from AdBrite went down from $0.14 to $0.11.

More significantly, I added three new columns to the earnings, pageviews, and posts table. The first column is referrals, which will include all earnings from referrals that I can trace directly back to this blog. In April, I earned a whopping $50.00 from referrals from Revolution Money Exchange (you can still get $25 for just signing up!). The second column is ads, which will include all earnings from advertising I sell directly myself. In April, I earned $72.52 from selling sponsored ads for some of my old posts. The third column is total, which will simply be a sum of all earnings for that row.

Earnings grew tremendously last month—more than six-fold! I don’t expect this trend to continue, but it is indicative of the growing clout this blog has. I’m still not rich, but $148.05 is certainly not insignificant, especially considering the minimal amount of time I put into this blog last month!

Something else I should note is that all amounts in the table are after fees but before taxes. Nearly 50% of all earnings will likely go towards taxes due to running my own company.

If you read my other blogs, then by now, you know that I’m currently backpacking through Europe. I’m currently sitting in the bar at my hostel in Rome using the free wireless, so thoughts about exchange rates and budget travel are high on my mind. As a result, I’d like to share some tips for how to travel cheaply while not skimping on enjoying your trip. If you have any tips on how to travel cheaply, particularly in more expensive locations like Europe, then please please please leave a comment! I’d love to hear them!

1. Use ATMs to get cash. Do not exchange currency at hotels, at the numerous change bureaus, banks, etc. Simply go to any ATM, stick in your American ATM card, and get whatever the local currency is. It’s the absolute best rate, and many banks don’t even charge fees! I have a Schwab investor checking account, and that works perfectly for getting cash at the best possible rate with no fees. In fact, they even refund ATM fees paid to other banks! It’s really quite incredible.
2. Stay at hostels. Before last year, I’d never actually stayed at a hostel before. Now, this is pretty much all I’ll stay at. Why? Well, it’s dirt cheap compared to a hotel room! The lack of privacy can be annoying at times, but the fact that you get to meet all sorts of people and the price more than make up for the minor headaches. I’ve also found that many hostels are cleaner and better maintained than most one or two-star hotels in Europe. And if you really desire privacy, you can usually get a private room at a hostel for more money. Hostels are also fine for more than just college students and the such! You just have to be young at heart. I’ve met plenty of older people and families at hostels, though they tend to be rarer. To find a good hostel (or even inexpensive hotel, apartment, pension, etc.), then try out Hostel World.
3. Buy food at grocery stores. It’s significantly cheaper than eating out, and most grocery stores have some sort of prepared food for sale that’s decently tasty and usually of some local flavor. Plus, there’s nothing quite like browsing through a grocery store where everything is in a foreign language and that is full of products you can’t buy at home. For example, one of my favorite things about Europe is blood orange juice is readily available. I very, very rarely see it for sale in the USA, and it’s never fresh and usually not 100% juice when it is for sale.
4. Use public transportation. This is probably obvious to those of us who live in big cities, but public transportation is key. In fact, renting a car just seems utterly stupid in many cities due to the serious congestion, high cost of gas, and lack of parking spaces. Public transportation generally takes you to all the sites you’d like to see and tends to be quite reliable in Western and Central Europe. Look out for special all-day, multi-day, or multi-ticket fares rather than individual tickets to save even more money.
5. Don’t use the internet. Internet access is oftentimes really expensive! In Zurich, I paid close to ten dollars per hour to check my email. Did I really need to check my email? Of course not. Use travel to unplug from the internet and to unwind. If you absolutely do need to check your email, though, then do yourself a favor and lug around a laptop. Free internet access is oftentimes available. You just have to search around for it. Otherwise, you can usually find something fairly cheap by walking a little off the main tourist paths.