How to make a little money with a little time and effort?

First off let me go ahead and cut through all of the BS and tell you that yes, I am going to try and get you to acquire a product or service from me at some point or another. I can't help it, it's just what I do.
If your already heading to your browser's address bar at this point I understand, I probably would be too. If not then congratulations, this may (or may not) be your first proverbial brick in the "business that JACK built" as they say.
Now, I don't consider myself the authority on internet marketing to any extent but what I do have is experience. And by experience I mean I've been ripped off and scammed by many unsavory marketers. Not to say that everything I've ever bought into was a scam, but most were lacking in some area or another. Many of the programs had no support and were too hard to figure out (I was a N00b), or they were just too costly and difficult to promote properly.
Despite being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of lies and misinformation I have managed, through trial and error, to find a few good things that have worked for me.
The best way to demonstrate this is by retelling you the story of my very first online experience. It was almost two years ago that I decided I was going to try and make a little money online. My wife was pregnant and was not working anymore so I needed to find a way for us to make some extra income to compensate. That's when I found a little program that you may have heard of or even bought yourself, I won't say exactly which one... actually I will. I don't even know if its around anymore but if it is, you should know what to look out for.
It was Angel Stevens process orders from home kit. She claimed on her sales page that you could make money easily by processing sales orders that companies needed completed for around $15-$30 a piece. The premise was made to sound like there was an actual employer that you would be doing business with and that they would supply the all customers you needed. The company only needed you because it was quote "too costly for them to process all of the orders themselves". Sounded great to me. SOLD. $250 total for the entire kit at a time when I really didn't have the money to spend in the first place.
What it essentially turned out to be was an over glorified affiliate program. Technically you were processing orders but they neglected to mention (until you buy it of course) that YOU would be responsible for ALL advertising and conversions before you to get paid your $15-$30 per order. Not so easy for someone who had absolutely no marketing experience whatsoever. I gave it my best shot but I was never able to get anything going. The ad also said that they offered a personal training coach, which they actually did, but after setting up the initial meeting I was never contacted again. Even when I tried to email and call them they never responded back. Luckily I was able to get a refund since the transaction was through Paydotcom and they have their own return policies.
My experience with the process orders program wasn't a complete loss however. Some of the information was actually very usefull and it introduced me to the whole concept of affiliate marketing. Which would eventually lead me to get burned a few more times but that's O.K. we all have to start somewhere.
Let me tell you from my heart that despite what all the advertisements say, making money online when you first start out is hard if you don't know what your doing.

"I made $20,000 last week in my SLEEP!!!"

"Make $100's a day doing absolutely NOTHING!!!"

"Get paid $1,000's on complete AUTOPILOT!!!"

Sure, It is theoretically possible to make $20,000 in your sleep. What they don't tell you however is that they invested a couple thousand dollars into the program themselves to get these type of results. I don't know about you but that's something I can't do on a shoestring budget nowadays.
Yes, making thousands of dollars a day on autopilot is possible. However, in order for a business to become completely automated, you generally have to outsource your projects to other people or firms to do them for you. That costs money that a lot of people don't have.
It takes effort and hard work if want REAL results. That goes for just about anything in life, there is simply no substitute for hard work. It will pay off eventually but the KEY to a successful business is making your work worth the effort. If you don't enjoy what your doing your probably not doing it well. I have to say that I enjoy doing this than any other J.O.B. that I've ever had in my life. I've worked in factories and warehouses before and this definitely beats the hell out of those jobs.
It's been over a year and a half since I began working online and it's been a huge learning experience. Everyday I learn something that helps me to sharpen my writing skills or make me think in new and creative ways. Even the endless amount of ads and junk I get in one of my email accounts are useful to some extent. I look at the ads that I receive and I try to sort the ones that stand out from the ones that don't. I do this to get an idea of what my competition is doing and what might appeal to the people I'm trying to market to. This helps me decide what kind of ad campaign to run and how to effectively market my product.
The best way to learn how to do something is by getting your hands dirty, by that I mean jumping in and trying different things. Pay attention to what your competition is doing. If they just ran a new ad on ebay and its converting sales then obviously they're doing something right. You just have take what they are doing and do it a little better. That's how you begin to succeed. Take it just a step further than the competition and customers are almost guaranteed.

Knowledge is power

In my opinion if you are new to online marketing, or starting out with any kind of product, you should try online auction sites like ebay, ioffer, or ebid.com. This way you can relate, buy, and sell to many other people in an environment that is generally friendly and SCAM FREE. They have many policies in place to protect buyers and sellers alike from malicious people. It just takes a little time to set up a paypal account to send and receive payments and to make an ad for what your selling.
You also might want to try taking paid surveys for some extra cash. I have done this before and you can make a couple hundred bucks in a fairly short amount of time if you really get into this. I have to warn you though you usually have to spend some money on trial offers or paying shipping and handling fees for you to qualify to receive payment. Nevertheless, it does work and pays fairly well for the amount of time it takes.
Multi Level Marketing can be daunting for beginners. Learning to find the ones that have the best product and the best pay out can be a little overwhelming for someone who doesn't know what to look for. That's why it may be easier to just sell your own stuff on ebay or craigslist. You can earn plenty of money with the right MLM program but you have to know how to market them effectively or you could end up spending more money in the long run.
Have you noticed that I use the word product a lot? It's because the goods and products you sell are very important to how your business will shape and grow. YOUR stuff is the only thing connecting you to the other person, it is what will represent YOU. That means you should market quality products that have genuine value. It's easy to make a quick buck on a cheap and trendy product, but if you have a product of lasting value people will remember that. And THAT is what will get you happy customers, and happy customers are repeat customers.
O.K. now the part I talked about in the beginning, enticing you to acquire a product or service from me. Seriously though, the two links links below are affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you join, but it is my opinion that these programs are the cheapest and easiest ways to make some nice extra money to get you started. I'm talking $50 - $100 a day with a few hours work and even more if you put the time into it. No matter what you do, don't just do sit there and do nothing. I did that myself for a long time and you know what it got me? NOTHING!
With the way the economy is going today everyone should be trying to make money on the internet in some way, shape, or form. Even if it's just to cover your cable bill, that would be one less bill you have to pay and more money for you to spend on the stuff you love.
Good luck! (links below)

LINK # 1

LINK # 2

LINK # 3

BTW, xbox live gamertag: Element H
Hit me up if you ever want to play.

"Holy Gears of War Batman"

As many of you know the new update is available for Gears of War 2. This is a quick patch for the game that addresses many issues people had with the game and fixes some (but not all) of the bugs in the game.
After some time with the game and the improvements I have to say I'm pretty satisfied overall. The balance is back in the game and it's no longer easy for you to advance on someone when your being shot. The update did introduce a few bugs that I hadn't encountered before however. Sometimes it would not allow me to revive a fallen teammate or allow me to pick up a weapon or ammo even though I needed it. I also got stuck on some corners or on top of an object when I tried to mantle over them.
Still the updates breath new life into Gears of War 2, which I think was really necessary. I just wish they would speed up matchmaking.
Here is a list of the improvements so far, this list is from the official Gears of War website:

The following fixes and improvements are included in Title Update 3.

Improvements
Title Update 3 makes these new improvements:

• Adds 100 levels of player experience that you can gain based on your score in Public matches. The game still uses Trueskill for matchmaking to find the most competitive matches, but the skill rank is now hidden. The new level of experience appears next to your gamertag, with levels 1 through 99 displayed as numbers and level 100 displayed as an icon. The game normalizes experience based on match type so that players earn an equivalent amount of experience across all modes.
• Adds an experience penalty for players quitting before a match is complete.
• Adds bots automatically to a Public Match if players quit and cause unbalanced teams. This ability has always existed in Private Matches if the bot count is set higher than zero.
• Optimizes playlists to only have two modes per playlist. Ties are decided by random selection.
• Adds the ability for teams to talk to each other between rounds in a Private Match.
• Adds the ability to save Public and Private Horde high scores after each complete wave, in case the host loses connection before failing or completing all fifty waves.
• Makes minor changes to general bandwidth usage.
• Adds region preference to matchmaking.
• Improves standby detection.
• Adds nine new achievements worth 250 points. Progress toward them starts after Title Update 3 is applied. Six of the new achievements require the Snowblind Map Pack, a set of four new maps to be released soon. The nine new achievements:

  o "Rookie Gear" (10 points): Earn enough multiplayer experience to reach level 5 (Public only).
  o "Seasoned Gear" (20 points): Earn enough multiplayer experience to reach level 15 (Public only).
  o "Battle-Tested Gear" (30 points): Earn enough multiplayer experience to reach level 25 (Public only).
  o "Battle-Hardened Gear" (50 points): Reach level 50 and play a match on each of the four Snowblind Map Pack maps (Public only).
  o "Veteran Gear" (75 points): Reach level 100 and win a match on each of the four Snowblind Map Pack maps (Public only).
  o "Never Eat Red Snow" (20 points): Complete waves 1 through 10 on all Snowblind Map Pack maps in Horde (any difficulty).
  o "Icy Dead People" (25 points): Complete waves 1 through 50 on any Snowblind Map Pack map in Horde (any difficulty).
  o "Frigid Body Dynamics" (5 points): Play a multiplayer match on each of the four Snowblind Map Pack maps (any mode).
  o "The Weather Outside Is Lethal" (15 points): Win a multiplayer match on each of the four Snowblind Map Pack maps (any mode).

Exploit Fixes
Title Update 3 fixes these possible exploits, where under certain circumstances:

• A player could swap from a pistol to a two-handed weapon during a cover slide and then mantle greater distances.
• Players could kill themselves in Wingman to avoid giving their opponents more points. Now, suicides and team killing will reduce team score.
• A player holding a meatshield could melee through some walls.
• A player could equip a two-handed weapon with a shield using either the Boltok or the Gorgon pistol.
• A player could equip a two-handed weapon with a meatshield using either the Boltok or the Gorgon pistol.
• A player could prevent planted shields from being picked up by other players.
• Players could launch themselves into the air with a smoke grenade while mantling.

General Fixes
Title Update 3 fixes these other issues as well:

• An issue that caused chainsaw interruption when a player is shot to be less reliable in some body positions than in others.
• An issue where a third player could join a Public Wingman party lobby and remove another player from the game.
• An issue in Submission games where occasionally the meatflag would immediately run back to the spawn point after being dropped.
• An issue where players that were knocked down but not out (DBNO) while planting the Boomshield would appear to be standing.
• An elevation-based issue where the detection for a headshot might not align properly with certain character model heads.
• An issue that could cause Wingman teammates to have different character models.
• Additional miscellaneous bug fixes.

Balancing
Title Update 3 makes these balancing changes:

• Reduces stun duration of smoke grenades. Currently, characters always start to get up after 2 seconds.
• Gives melee the same delay after roadie running that shooting received in Title Update 2.
• Removes spawn protection from the Horde in Horde mode.
• Increased the forward angle that triggers chainsaw duels so that players with Lancers equipped won't be sawn from the side without a duel.
• Reduces the delay before a player can climb up after entering low cover.
• Makes minor changes to weapon spawns on the Subway map to provide greater balance.

Making Sense of Things

Hello everyone and thank you if your actually going to spend your next few minutes reading this. I don't usually write on any blog sites and I don't have a My Space or Face Book account. I really just wanted to have a place to write down some of my thoughts and experiences.
This will be my first real blog. I've actually written one other blog but it was over a year ago and it was more of an attempt to sell something than an actual meaningful post. Last year I was trying to do the whole MLM thing and it never really took off for me. That doesn't mean I've given up, I just don't pursue the MLM side of marketing as much anymore.
Anyway...
That was a year ago and this is now, and boy have things changed. If you've seen the picture on my profile you will see that I'm holding my youngest son in my arms, he was only a few months old in that picture but now he's turned into a little boy. He just started walking not to long ago and is just now starting to be able to feed himself. He must be a fast learner (gets that after me) because it only took him a couple of tries for him to manage keeping the spaghetti on his toddler spork. They grow up too fast sometimes, my oldest is now eight years old and he's just as rambunctious as ever.
Until just recently I was working at a factory doing a Data Entry job and everything was going as well as it could until (you guessed it) they laid me off. For two years I had been the sole provider for my family and suddenly I was out of a job. So like many other people today I spend every other week in the unemployment line. I am still unemployed and my wife has taken on a part time job but its not all bad.
I've been able to spend a whole lot more time with my kids and I've been able to be there when my youngest hit a few of his recent milestones. Now I know why my wife didn't want to go back to work after such a long hiatus.
That's what has gotten me thinking, I don't want to have to go back to work and I don't want my wife to work. I want my family to have and enjoy all the things that I never had. So now I'm on a mission to make my home business work. It's the only thing that I can think of that will allow me to have the lifestyle I want and the income I deserve. I've tried (and failed) many things in the past so I have a much better sense of how things work this time around.
So wish me luck if you will and I will do you the same, we all deserve to be unburdened by financial setbacks and I hope to do just that.

BTW, If you happen to play X-Box Live you should check me out sometime and well play some games. My gamertag is Element H and I usually play Halo Wars, Call of Duty 4, Gears of War 2, and all of the Guitar Hero Games (my wife likes GH too). I usually play later in the evening and at night, during the day I'm doing the whole daddy daycare thing and working on my business.

Thanks again for reading.