This is a guest post from Sunil. Sunil owns over a dozen profitable niche websites and is the author of “How to Go from $0 to $1,000 a month in Passive and Residual Income in Under 180 Days All in Your Spare Time”, a FREE report you can download instantly from his Extra Money Blog, where he discusses how to create multiple streams of passive and residual income, entrepreneurship, internet marketing, blogging and personal finance.

In 2007, he sold his ecommerce website for $250,000 to a top Ebay Power Seller and since then has sold several niche sites for five figures each. You can read more about him and his work on his blog.

Ebooks are a great source of “passive income”, at least they have been for me. I published my first ebook in 2008 which I have not had to update. The ebook still sells as strong …

This is a guest post by James McLaughlin. James is a New Jersey based ecommerce marketing expert that helps small businesses achieve big results online. James has worked at Fortune 500 companies developing ecommerce marketing strategies that drive well above average growth. You can contact James at James@SupremeROI.com or find him on Linkedin by clicking here.

One of the biggest challenges in starting your online store is advancing through the ever-evolving landscape of building a website that converts sales and attracts visitors to the site to purchase.

Knowledge is power in this sense, but testing your knowledge in the real world and learning from others who have done it are much more valuable. You need the mind-set to learn it, and follow through with blind enthusiasm.

Luckily we have resources like Steve at MyWifeQuitHerJob.com to share his experience and insight on how to create a profitable online store that supports a family …

Last week, I received an email from Amazon.com informing me that they just cancelled their affiliate program in California effective immediately. They provided very little notice and in just one day, my Amazon affiliate account became worthless. Now I make a decent amount money with affiliate marketing for various business services, but what if I relied entirely on Amazon.com as my primary income source? I’d be screwed.

After running MyWifeQuitHerJob.com for several years now, I’ve fielded many questions about how to open an online store and how to put up niche affiliate sites. And whenever someone asks me for advice, I almost always advocate creating an online store as opposed to going down the path of making a pure affiliate website.

The problem is that most people are attracted to the prospect of creating a niche affiliate site due to the passive nature of the …

Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in a 300 square foot house with his wife and 3 kids. Because he did not have a college degree, one of the few jobs he could get was a sales associate position at a local electronics store. While he felt lucky to have a job in a poor economy, the pay was not that great and the cost of living was so high where he lived that he had to work long hours and even on nights and weekends to make ends meet and provide for his family.

Photo by Clover_1

Because he was a hard worker and extremely focused, his discipline and dedication to his day job at the electronics store eventually paid off and he was promoted to manager of the car stereo installation department. While this promotion carried with it a decent raise, he still …

This is a guest post from Laura Roeder. Laura is a social media marketing expert who teaches small businesses how to create their own fame and claim their brand online. She is the creator of the Creating Fame Classroom, Your Backstage Pass to Twitter as well as other courses she offers online. Laura’s free program, The Dash, provides weekly actionable tips on how to leverage social media. To become a member, go to GetTheDash.com.

Not this again.

I found myself on another looong Chicago bus ride, on my way to present a proposal (AKA spend an hour of my time without getting paid) to yet another hesitant prospect. By all measures my web design business was doing incredibly well – I was 23 years old and had hit just over $60,000/year.

But I was already getting drained, frustrated and burned out.

Every time I wrapped up a project I was back at zero …

As most of you know, exactly one week ago I launched my course on how to create a profitable online store. Since it was my first product launch on MyWifeQuitHerJob.com, I thought that it would be interesting to talk about the chaos leading up to the launch and about what went right and what went wrong. While many people emailed to congratulate me on having such a nice, smooth launch telecast, let’s just say that from my perspective it was about as smooth as sandpaper.

Photo By DLR_de

Anyways, I first wanted to thank everyone who made it to the live telecast. Believe me, I was terrified that I was going to be broadcasting to no one. Actually, I can’t really say that. My mom was there and she wasn’t going to miss it so I was guaranteed at least one viewer.

But still, putting yourself out there …

Many personal finance and “get out of debt” blogs often advise their readers to avoid the use of credit cards at all costs. For some people, it’s all too tempting to buy more than you need and waste money on frivolous items when all you have to do is hand over a piece of plastic. By paying for everything in cash, you force yourself to correlate the cost of the items that you buy with actual dollar values which in theory helps curb your spending.

Photo By Andres Rueda

While these mind games work for the average individual, when it comes to running a small business, credit cards are an absolute must. My personal opinion is that if you lack the self control to watch your spending, then you have no business becoming an entrepreneur either. When running a small business, it’s important to watch what you …

In order to build wealth effectively, we all have to be frugal to a certain extent. We have to watch our spending. We have to analyze our expenditures and cut back on the fat. We have to make sacrifices to make sure that we can save enough money for college and retirement.

Photo By Edward Kimuk

Fortunately, my wife and I both share the same principles when it comes to spending money (ie. we don’t spend frivolously). Otherwise, we would be seriously screwed. But after analyzing last year’s expenses using Quicken, I feel all frugalled out. We have pretty much cut back as much as we possibly can without drastically affecting our lifestyle.

If we look closely at last years expenses, we cut spending by another 4% over the year before. We are going out to eat less thanks to my wife’s desire to …

Many would be entrepreneurs hesitate to start their own business because they think it is too risky from a monetary perspective. In fact, most people don’t think starting a business is even worth trying unless they can come up with a grand slam profitable idea. Of course profitability is an extremely important factor with any business, but what if I were to tell you that you could save a decent amount of money every year with your business while only making a small profit or none at all?

Photo by Chasing Fun

That’s right! Most people don’t consider the tax savings involved in running a business. Most people don’t realize that having a day job is one of the worst ways to save on taxes because Uncle Sam takes a huge chunk out of your paycheck BEFORE you pay for anything. On the …

When most people think about starting a company or business, they think of the Microsofts, the Googles and the YouTubes of the world. They tend to think big because the media focuses on these multi-million dollar success stories and over glamorizes the risks and rewards.

Photo by MarkyBon

In fact, the media tends to portray entrepreneurs like lottery winners because that’s what makes the news. Because the chances of creating a company like You Tube or Facebook are so slim, most people shy away from starting their own business because they think it’s just way too risky with very little chance of success.

Just the other day, I had one of my readers email me that they were afraid to go out on their own because they didn’t want to risk everything for a measly 1% chance at success. A 1% chance at success? Where the hell did he …

My wife and I are currently on the verge of coming to an agreement on a house purchase and we’re excited and terrified at the same time. In just a few short months, we’ll be running an online store, maintaining a small business blog, and taking care of a second child as well. Besides the need for an extra bedroom for our new little one and a nice backyard to play in, our business has required the use of more and more room as we continue to expand. In a nutshell, we are in desperate need of some extra space and this house fits the bill.

Photo by Rev Dan Catt

The problem for me when it comes to home buying though is that I hate carrying a large mortgage. I was always brought up to pay my debts in their entirety and to not have any …

I never understood how the phrase “Time is money” could ever apply to my life. After all, no one was paying me 24 hours a day so how could my free time possibly translate to money? How could wasting time watching television or playing video games cost me anything when no one was paying me anything anyways?

It took me quite a while to comprehend the true meaning behind this statement. And after 10+ years of frittering away countless hours and taking my free time for granted, my business and my child finally made me realize how badly I was selling myself short.

Photo by tlindenbaum

For example, I used to always try to save money whenever I could by doing things myself. I would try and save a couple of bucks by changing my own oil even if it took me twice as long as going …

This article is the start of a 5 part series on how to create a profitable online store. If you’re tired of devoting the majority of your time to your day job and you’d rather set your own hours and be your own boss, the best way to escape from the rat race is to start your own business online.

When my wife became pregnant with our child and decided that she was quitting her job, we managed to create a profitable online store that generated 100k in profits in just over a year. Today, my wife stays at home with the kids and works just several hours a day on our online business from home!

5 Easy Steps To Follow

Introduction
Part 1: Find A Webhost And Domain
Part 2: Find Goods To Sell Online
Part 3: Select A Free Shopping Cart
Part 4: Select A Payment Processor
Part 5: Get A Great Design
More …

I admit it. I used to be ashamed of telling other people about our wedding linens business. When we first opened our online store, not only did we not receive many orders in the first 4-6 months, but the idea of opening an online wedding linens store seemed almost silly compared to what my other entrepreneurial friends were up to.

You see at the time, a good number of my friends and acquaintances were starting their own businesses and they were all quite impressive. One of my friends started his own cellphone gaming company. Another friend started his own web development software company. And a third friend started a small consulting firm. Whenever we saw each other, we would ask each other how things were going with our respective companies.

Photo by Nina Frazier

Friend: So Steve, how’s the linens business? Is it fun?
Me: Linens …

I received a surprisingly large number of emails after writing my last article entitled Housing Has Dropped And Rates Are Low – Should I Buy A House? so I thought I’d devote a blog post to addressing some of these mails.

I was kind of shocked because the majority of emails that I received were in favor of purchasing a house right now despite the mathematical analysis that I performed in my last article.

So I went ahead and picked some of the strongest arguments from these emails to address below. Most of these points may be valid for some people but I don’t feel that they apply to me directly. In any case, here are some of the arguments in favor of purchasing a house right now and why I personally disagree.
Argument 1:Interests Rates Are Low And They’ll Never Be This Low Again
One of my readers strongly urged me …

Home prices have dropped 10-20%. Interest rates are at historic lows. So does it make financial sense to buy a house right now? I’ve been asking myself this question for the past few months but can’t seem to find a compelling reason to do so. The numbers just don’t quite stack up.

Since I have a child and a business, my parents are also pushing me to buy a house. Even my accountant is advising me to purchase a home in order to provide a tax shelter. Do I listen to my parents and my accountant? Is it worth sitting down and running the numbers? In general, I don’t take anyone’s advice blindly unless I have a chance to do my own math. Here’s why I’m holding off on buying a house and a breakdown of my analysis.

Calculating The Monthly Mortgage Payment

Photo By Fotographix

The …

I am proud to present a guest post from Julie Broad, author of www.revnyou.com. 8 years ago, Julie and her husband set out to free themselves from their J-O-B’s. Starting with just $16,000, they bought their first investment property. Today, they are real estate millionaires and Julie officially retired from work at age 31. They now own a small business around helping other people achieve their real estate investment goals.

Martin, our money man and main investing partner, emailed us last night and said simply “I’ve pretty much lost it all”. We’d been shopping for a commercial property to buy to diversify our investments. Martin has partnered with us on four different residential properties, and had agreed to once again partner with us on this commercial property.

But, that was before. It was before the markets crashed and Martin lost his six figure down payment! Now, sitting on …

I don’t know why but I always get a little pensive during the holiday season. This is the time when I like to lie down, stare at the ceiling in total silence and reflect on my life for the past year. Holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving tend to amplify my mood. If I’m depressed, then I get more depressed, but if I’m happy, then I’m absolutely beaming with joy. This year, I’m fortunate to have many things to be thankful for. In just the span of 9 months, I feel like my life has finally come together.

For starters, I have become extremely wealthy. No, I didn’t suddenly get rich and I don’t have a huge amount of money. I don’t have a house yet nor do I drive a fancy car. But this is what I do have and why I consider my …

Last Friday, an engineer in the office complex where I work brutally gunned down the CEO, VP of Operations, and the Head of Human Resources of his company before fleeing the premises. This engineer, named Jing Wu, had recently gotten laid off from his job and decided to take revenge on the executives who were responsible.

Because this tragic triple homicide literally happened within 50 feet of my office, I’ve been thinking a lot these past few days about all of the things that I’ve been taking for granted. I’ve also been trying to place myself in the same situation as Jing Wu to figure out his frame of mind. What possessed him to follow through with such a heinous act? What caused him to become so desperate to think that losing his job meant the end of his life?

Photo By B Hernandez

While I’ll never know the …

Everyone knows that starting and running a small business is glamorous. In the past few weeks alone, I’ve read at least a half a dozen stories ranging from “How I made $1027.53 in a single day!” to “How you can work 4 hours a day and be rich with a small business!”.

Clearly, these guys are living the good life. What’s funny is that these business owners never mention how glamorous their lifestyle really is. They don’t mention the power, the freedom and the luxury that comes along with owning a small business. On second thought, it’s probably because they don’t want to make their readers jealous.

Photo By Ginsnob

Fortunately, I don’t care if I make you envious. I’m going to tell you about all of the “bling bling” that I experience on a day to day basis. For all of you who are new to …