We Were Dumb With Our Money After College

Posted on January 6, 2008 by Sam

Does the title of this post seem odd to you? I’m actually admitting that I make mistakes… but did I learn from them? Yes I have blemishes and I hope from my mistakes, you will learn.

Let me paint a picture of how this all happened. Both Melissa (my wife) and I graduated college and become officers in the U.S. Army. Starting out as Second Lieutenants wasn’t alot of money (it is now), but we had little bills and a steady income. About 18 to 24 months later we both became First Lieutenants with some nice pay jumps. Sounds good so far right?

Well we loved going out to eat, didn’t save a penny and then decided to buy a house. Not too bad, I’ll give you more details:

1. Going Out To Eat
We love food and going out to eat was easier than making it at home. No cleanup, no cooking and then enjoy the rest of the evening. We spent so much on our credit cards just for this it was amazing. If your credit card does the end of the year rollup by category on what you spent, get it. I don’t remember the dollar figure, but it was large. BUT, we could afford it. Yet it affected #2 below… Continue reading →

Posted in Advice, Finances | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

New Years Trial- Exercise More (Part 2)

Posted on January 5, 2008 by Sam

If you missed the previous about starting exercise you can see it at: New Years Trial- Exercise More or Move More

Our steps to success so far are:
1. Plan & Commit to Your Plan
2. Start Small

I talked about increasing the amount of steps you do on a daily basis, if you haven’t done that yet start now. To help grab a cheap step counter at Amazon (presently $2.75).
Step Counters

Step Three- Lunch Walk
Grab your comfortable sneakers and spend 15 to 20 minutes during lunch walking around. Not only is it good exercise, it can also:

  • Clear your mind from the mornings work.
  • Give an opportunity to enjoy your surroundings (after being cooped up in an office for how many years).
  • Allow time to talk with a friend outside of the office (invite them to come and walk).

Try doing this 2-3 times a week for 2-3 weeks. Then up the time to 25 to 30 minutes. Keep it up, it’s good for you. If you feel that you get bored, take along an MP3 player, CD or other music player. For a cheaper alternative to the Ipod, I got my wife a SanDisk Sansa (presently $44.95 at Amazon). Surprisingly the 2 GB version was less expensive than the 1 GB model. She loves that it can hold MP3s and also listen to FM stations (good for gym tv watching).
SanDisk Sansa

Work on Steps 1 to 3 and soon I’ll give you the next step.

Step To It,
Sam Carrara

Posted in Advice | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Plugin Trial- Stripe Ad and Subscribe Now

Posted on January 5, 2008 by Sam

I will be doing a series of trials to see what works best with this blog. As always it is good to test and track changes you make to:

  • Sales Price
  • Copy (text for ads and sales pages)
  • Advertising methods (PPC, articles, blog posting & comments, etc.)
  • Colors (does RED, BLUE or GREEN make you happy or sad)

So for this first public test I have an Ad at the top of the page that is a thin stripe. It rotates various ads that I setup and is very versatile. If you would like to try it on your blog go to: Stripe Ad MaxBlogPress has a few other plugins that I may try in the future for other trials.

If the plugin is still active it will show: Don’t miss a post, SUBSCRIBE NOW! So with that Subscribe Now to the Feed for Marketing Education and see what’s next.

Test and Track,
Sam Carrara

Posted in Trial | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

More Traffic- Download the Alexa Toolbar

Posted on January 3, 2008 by Sam

I’ve talked before about using Alexa to increase ad revenue. Well help me out with a little test on decreasing Alexa rank. As I write this post this blog’s Alexa rank is 662,151. You can download the Alexa Toolbar at: Alexa Toolbar download

The link will detect your browser and give you the appropriate download for Internet Explorer or FireFox. The Internet Explorer toolbar looks like:
Alexa Internet Explorer

And the FireFox plugin looks like:
Alexa Fire Fox

My present Alexa rank is:

To Do:

  1. Download the toolbar
  2. Come here and comment on the rank of your site
  3. Stay tuned for more about Alexa…

Decrease your Alexa rank,
Sam Carrara

Posted in Alexa, Traffic | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Taking Marketing Education Mobile

Posted on January 2, 2008 by Sam

In the continual growth of this Marketing Education space, I have decided to make the site viewable on mobile phones. So if your cell phone has a WAP browser, then you will automatically see these posts properly formatted for it.

Bob the Builder cell phone

Try the page out (on your Bob the Builder cell phone above) and let me know if you want anything added. Just post a comment and we’ll see what we can do…

Going Mobile,
Sam Carrara

Posted in Marketing | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments