Year of the Dragon Forever Stamp

I didn’t realize until today that the price of stamps increased this week. Apparently it now costs 45 cents instead of 44 cents to mail a letter. How is it that I missed this when I buy stamps about twice a month for my business?

I blame it on the Forever Stamps. Ever since the Post Office started selling those, I have lost track of the price of stamps because it no longer says how much they are on the front. I guess if I had been paying attention I would have stocked up on Forever Stamps last week.

It’s not like the USPS hid the fact that they were increasing prices. I found a press release right on their site from back in October. In addition to the price of regular stamps going up, postcards are now going to cost 32 cents rather than 29, letters to Canada or Mexico are increasing from 80 to 85 cents, and all other international letters are now $1.05 rather than .98. There are also increases to Standard Mail, Periodicals, Package Services, and Extra Services.

According to the press release, this was the first increase since May 2009.

Did you know that the cost of stamps went up? Am I the only one who someone missed this?

It seems like the need for Moms to squeeze more pennies out of every dollar becomes greater all the time. Budgets become more restricted and yet the needs are still the same. So what is a Mom to do?

The answer is to find new ways to save money. Most likely you have cut everything extra from your budget in order to make ends meet. A high ticket item that many think they have to give up is their smartphone. Honestly though mine is a lifesaver. It contains my calendar, a GPS enabled map that is searchable for directions, the ability to check on the weather in an instant, and so much more. I can’t imagine life without it.

In order to justify keeping it though, I went in search of some money saving smartphone apps. I want to share some of my favorite ones with you. Whether you are an iPhone user or have one of the HTC phones, like Tricia’s EVO, then I’ve got you covered.

The best way to save is with some coupon apps. Most of these apps use your smartphone’s built in GPS to locate deals that are close to your current location. Here are the details for some of them:

• Groupon – This daily deal site is a great way to save money on restaurants and services that you already use, plus find new places to try out. Their mobile app allows you to retrieve previously purchased Groupons as well as buy new ones and redeem them right from your phone. You can even search for deals that are located near you, which is helpful if you are traveling.
• Valpak – Move over blue envelope of coupons, this popular coupon company has gone digital. They now have a free app that allows you to search for coupons in your area for restaurants, health services, home repair services, and beauty salons.
• Cellfire – The most common way to save money on groceries is by clipping coupons and using a savings card at your local grocery store. This app combines the two by tying your savings card to available coupons. You search the app for available coupons and add the ones that you want to use. When you check out, the cashier scans your savings card, and the coupons are redeemed on your order. It is available at over 4,000 grocery stores around the country.

Speaking of savings and rewards cards, how many do you own? I’ve acquired quite a collection myself. I really dislike the amount of room they take up though. This is where the CardStar app comes in handy. Scan in all of your cards and it then stores the bar codes on your smartphone. When you are checking out, just let the cashier scan your phone and you are good to go.

Thank you for letting me share my favorite money saving smartphone apps for moms. I would love to know some of your favorites in the comments below.

Shannon Weidemann is a freelance writer for Prepaid Reviews, a site that provides information about prepaid cell phones coupled with over 17,000 consumer reviews of 30+ service providers such as Tracfone.

Next week I will be giving a free webinar for bloggers who would like to learn more about how affiliate marketing can benefit their sites. It’s always amazing to me how many great bloggers there are out there with major misconceptions about what affiliate marketing is. I can tell you for sure what is it NOT: it’s not MLM and it is not get rich quick. It’s a completely legitimate way to make money selling products that you would recommend anyway.

If you have any interest at all in hearing more, I encourage you to sign up for the webinar. It’s only an hour and you can mult-task the whole time if you want. I’m going to talk not only about how you can make money through affiliate marketing links on your blog but also things like how to get products to give away or do review of and how to build backlinks to your site through contests. I’m not trying to sell anything at all. It’s simply a presentation that I gave at Blog Indiana a couple of weeks ago and truly feel like more people need to hear it.

You can sign up through the Blogging ABCs website. The webinar will be held Thursday, September 8 from 1-2pm Eastern.

5 Affiliate Marketing Benefits for Bloggers

I love gift cards! I use them for so many things. I buy them as gifts, include them in cards, and add them to gift baskets. I buy them in advance to set aside for vacations. I especially love gift cards when I can get them at a discounted rate.

Just this week while in New York I discovered Coupon Trade. I am amazed at the prices! They buy and sell gift cards at below face value. You think it must be too good to be true? The reality is that people do it all the time. Either they buy the cards in bulk directly from the companies and get a discount or they receive gift cards that they are not going to use anyway and figure that they might as well get something out of them.

Right now they have some terrific deals on cards, but the cards do change daily because they are in limited supply. They also have some “daily deals” from places like Groupon where people bought them at the discounted rate but then decided that they don’t want them. So if you missed a Groupon, you might want to check there.

What kinds of brands are we talking about? Places I shop on a monthly basis! Disney (good at the Disney parks and on the Disney resort as well), Home Depot, Starbucks, Best Buy, Amazon, iTunes, Macys, Subway, Tickemaster…I could go on and on. But you get my points.

One of the things that I love about Coupon Trade is that you have to verify your Paypal address to join. That cuts down on fraud and ensures that the site should be around for the long haul. If you want to get an even better deal, you can get cash back on Coupon Trade through Sunshine. But even without the cash back, Coupon Trade is still a great bargain!

As the owner of a cash back and rewards site, I am often asked by people how the whole shopping rebate thing works. It seems like it must be too good to be true. Alternatively, you must pay more for the items if you click through a cash back site, right? Wrong.

In its most simplistic terms, advertising on cash back sites is just one form of promotion for merchants. They pay for commercials, newspaper advertisements, radio ads, and website placement. They can pay a flat fee for those or pay on a commission basis. For rewards sites, they pay on a commission basis. If I put up an ad for Amazon and someone clicks through it and makes a purchase, I make a percentage of that purchase. Simple advertising.

The reward/rebate site model just takes that one step further and splits that commission with the person who made the purchase. With some cookie tracking on your computer, I can tell what link of mine you clicked on, when you clicked on it, and how much your total purchase was. I don’t look at what you bought or where you sent it or your credit card number. I just look at the total purchase price. I figure your portion of the commission and credit you for it.

Of course, there are a lot of things that can complicate the transaction. 1) You may use a coupon from another site or the merchant directly and because of that the merchant doesn’t owe me a commission, 2) you might not have your computer set up to accept the cookie that tracks the purchase, 3) you might have a toolbar that overrides the cookie, etc. Although these are not the norm, they do happen in a small percentage of transactions.

That’s the quick and dirty on how cash back sites work. There isn’t any kind of trick involved or increasing of prices. It’s simply another method of advertising that allows for purchasers to have an opportunity to get a little of their money back. You can check out Sunshine Rewards if you want to see it in action.

I’m at the time in my life where I don’t have to worry about college scholarships. My own college and law school days are behind me, and I don’t have to think about it for my kids for at least a few more years. However, I remember all too well the frantic search for scholarships that I went through from about 1992 until 1998. Back then the Internet was just taking off, and it was a lot harder to find scholarships than it is now. On the flip side, there was a lot less fraud in the scholarship search.

I happened to catch a segment on CNN this morning where they were recommending the FastWeb Scholarship Search website. Apparently it can be hard to figure out which scholarship search companies are legitimate and which are not. FastWeb is the one that they recommended far above the rest. It looks from the site that is is actually a Monster company (you know…Monster.com the job site).

It’s nice to get a good recommendation from a news source when there are a lot of sites out there asking you to put out money in order to get money in return. Are you in the scholarship search? Have you tried out FastWeb?

Although I do not do too many paid posts, every now and again I like to check out SocialSpark for some opportunities. They have some great name brand blogging opportunities that you will not find anywhere else (including through affiliate marketing).

The one thing that I hear most about SocialSpark is that they make the agreements between the advertiser, blogger, and consumer clear. There isn’t any attempt to “hide” that the posts are sponsored to defraud consumers. Instead, it’s a genuine opportunity for bloggers to make a little bit of extra money writing an honest review about a product or service.

If you are a blogger and haven’t signed up for SocialSpark, you should at least create an account and see what it is all about. Then you can decide if any of their opportunities are for you or not. (Yes! That’s my referral link!)

By the way, they are giving away a trip to Hawaii as a part of their new referral challenge. The person who gets the most valid referrals between now and March 16 wins. I would love to have you sign up under me if you are so inclined. And if I don’t win, I hope that you do!

Group buying and daily deals are all the rage now. One of the newest is Mamapedia, a site dedicated to finding family-friendly deals from restaurants to children’s museums to spa days. Their list of cities is growing, and it is free to sign up for their updates. My city actually has four deals today. It also appears that a number of the deals are “national deals” so even if your city is not listed, you can take advantage of the online specials.

I plan on signing up for my own city as well as a few others that are within driving distance. It’s the perfect way to save money on mini vacations for long weekends like President’s Day or school breaks where we can’t afford a big vacation.

Check out Mamapedia and sign up for their list so you won’t miss any of their “Sweet Deals.”

Once upon a time, I worked a corporate job and Helping Moms Connect was my hobby. Fast forward a year (along with the launch of Sunshine Rewards) and I was attending my first Affiliate Summit in Orlando. I only went for one day, but that one day was enough to change my life. Effective that month, I became a full-time affiliate marketer. That was over 4 years ago and I have never looked back.

How could one conference make that much of a difference? If you have to ask that, you haven’t been to Affiliate Summit. It’s the gold standard affiliate marketing conference. You’ll meet more people and learn more about the business in 3 days than you will even have time to follow up on in 3 weeks. Whether you are getting ideas from other affiliates, brushing up on SEO tactics in a session, or working deals with merchants, there is so much to take away from Affiliate Summit that I haven’t missed a single one since my initial adventure in 2006.

I know that conferences can be hard to attend when you are a parent. Not only are you missing work time, but you are probably shuffling home responsibilities. Then there are the conference fees and the travel expenses. And yet, you cannot afford to NOT attend at least once if you are serious about turning your blog or website into a profitable business.

I am lucky enough to be giving away a Gold Pass to Affiliate Summit (a big thanks to them!!). The Gold Pass entitles you to admission to the Meet Market and Exhibit Hall, the Keynotes, Sunday educational sessions, recorded session videos, PowerPoint Presentations for the sessions, and the Affiliate Summit Social Network. Entry instructions are below and there is one caveat. If you win, you must register using the code before the conference sells out—and it will. Affiliate Summit West will be held at the Wynn in Vegas (they have a great negotiated hotel rate right now) from January 9-11, 2011. You don’t need to be a mom to enter my contest, but I do hope that a lot of moms will enter because I see so many of you working hard on your blogs who could use that last boost to really take it to another level.

To Enter:

1) Leave a comment below telling me why you deserve a free Gold Pass to Affiliate Summit. Feel free to leave your blog URL so I can check it out (one entry).

2) Twitter about the contest and leave a comment below with your Tweet (one entry).

3) Sign up for our newsletter on the right and leave a comment below (e-mail will be verified) (one entry).

4) Blog about this contest or post the contest in your giveaway section and leave your link to the post below (two entries).

Drawing will take place October 5 at noon Eastern. Must be a US Resident, age 18 or older to enter. Winner will be notified via e-mail and have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be selected.

You can read about all of my Affiliate Summit adventures on my personal blog.

A long time ago, I started my websites as a hobby. Over time, they grew into a business. That jump from hobby to business was a scary one for many reasons including income, the time it was taking away from my family, and the legal ramifications. Although I am an attorney, I did not specialize in business law and it took me a lot of time and money to figure out everything that I needed to do to start my business. Because of my journey, I can say that I wish that I had a company like CorpNet to help me.

CorpNet provides business filing services for many different types of businesses including Corporations and Limited Liability Companies (LLCs), which is what I ended up setting up. They also help with DBA/Fictitious Business Names (of which I have a couple!), Registered Agent Services, and other documents that vary from state to state. In short, they help moms take care of the formal/legal sides of their business quickly so that we have more time to spend on the creative end. They even have a Free Corporate Name Search.

I had an opportunity to meet with the owner of CorpNet, Nellie Akalp, when I was in New York last month. What struck me most was that she was a mom just like me. Her intent with her company is really to help other people. Check out the short video of her below and then click through to learn more about how CorpNet can help you with your business.  You can also use coupon code HELPINGMOMS-20D to save $20 off of any service on the CorpNet site.