How to spot a scam

Spotting scams is a difficult thing to do even when you've been identifying them for years!
I just ran into another one of those "This is a scam, mine is not. Go to this website, my web site!
Let me explain: This is for those of us who research a website we find. We go looking for other peoples reviews of that website. We see one that says it's a scam so we open it to find out why. It will usually say only that what you're researching is a scam and that you should go to another site that is not a scam. Sorry but this is a no sell for me! Even though  it might not be a scam, I would not do business with anyone who advertises like that!
Remember when junk mail came in an unmarked envelopes that had a red stripe across the front? I opened these just so I would know who not to give my business too!

Candle making

Candle making takes patients. Of course the first thing I did was research the art of candle making. I would really like to make them with either renewable or reusable resources. I've read a lot about candle making and I love some of the products I found. Bees wax is a renewable resource but my favorite so far is paraffin! Yes it is a petroleum product but it is a by product of refining petroleum. After making crude oil into fuel and oil for our machinery the only thing left is this glob of stuff that is unusable to sell the world to make energy and keep our machinery operating properly. So what do they do with this stuff? Nothing. Paraffin just sits there, like tin or anything else that can't be turned into a reusable resource. So what can you do with it? Use it and hopefully deplete the product from the earths surface. I decided to exclusively use paraffin in the beginning at least. I'll use glass, not plastic containers but one thing I cannot mess with is the wick! It has to be the highest quality to burn correctly. I want candles people can depend on.
One of the really cool things about candle making is how you insert the wicks! You use the barrel of an old, broken, or used up old fashioned barrel pen. You insert the wick inside the barrel to keep it straight and slowly pull the barrel while filling the container with material!
So my candle making will be performed by recycle and reuse. Talk about greener!

Retirement income

My husband and I have a few years to go before we actually retire. In the mean time we are thinking of everything we can to make our retirement as enjoyable as possible. We know we are both very visual and enjoy a "hands on" experience rather than sitting in front of a computer. However having internet access is still a wonderful tool to communicate and keep track of our income and expenses. So while he polishes agates I pour candles and together we find these activities fun!
Because we run these enterprises and have fun doing it I know we have "overhead". Buying and replacing the material and tools to do this is pretty much all of our overhead. We spend about $100 a year in advertising looking for the most inexpensive ways to do it.
If nothing else, we have fun experimenting with ideas for our future. I don't know that we will need the income but we will have something fun to retire to. We know retirement is unpredictable. No one can agree on how much money we need to retire. Some are suggesting a million dollars may not be enough money to retire on. People have lost or have had their retirement savings or greatly reduced by the "Great Recession". Who's to say it won't happen again!
We know for sure we won't have a mortgage. We have other property to live in and is more fun than keeping a house we bought to raise our children in. We don't and will never have credit card debt. After the house is sold we will have only association dues and a couple hundred dollars in property taxes. At the most we will have a car loan.
We just know we won't be content just sitting around reading books and watching TV. We will have to do something to stay interested in life. We love making something from nothing, so we are researching more than anything else right now!

web site scams and reviews

It’s official! I’m getting enough traffic to my site that I am now getting hate mail! Apoximately 1% of the people viewing my site hates it! In the online world that only means one thing! People are interested in what I have to say! Positive or negative about what I say, people are reading the site!

I welcome all opinions and leave them on this site for your information. Leaving anything out would be nothing less than lying. Everything here is up to your own decision and experience! However I am concerned about one thing; making it clear what my intensions are in this site, so I am going to say again the value I place on each of the websites I review:

I’ve placed a value for each being:

1.  A full tilt scam, backed with the facts I used to judge that. Just because I say an online opportunity is a scam doesn’t necessarily mean it is! All opinions here come from someone in the human race. All I can say is my personal take on something or my own success or failure with an online opportunity. So with that said we go to:

2. Not sure which way an opportunity should be labeled. In these cases I haven’t even tried to join. I list the reasons why I didn’t just so you get the understanding how I based my decision not to try it out. I tell you what I learned and list the facts that supported my decision. Again, I may be right or I may be wrong. I welcome the input of any kind that either supports or disagrees with my decision which leads me to:

3. I make money from a website opportunity; I’ll tell you what it takes to be part of their program. I’ll tell you how much I earned. However, just because it works for me doesn’t guarantee it will work for you!

Why do I make so many disclaimers you ask? I do this because I’m the mother of three grown boys. If anyone will make a liar out of you, it’s your children! I don’t know how many times my oldest told me I was wrong and backed it up with facts! By the way he got that from me. I always told my children if you know for a fact you are right, back it up with facts. I also told my children not to give me half stories. Half stories are so close to lying they might as well be a lie. But more importantly giving me a problem to solve with only half truths gives me nothing to stand on!

I hope this clarifies what I’m trying to do here. It’s up to you to use your own judgement.

Running a business online

I've written a column in Expertscolumn.com. Now if anyone asks me anything about starting up a business online I can point them to my column and hopefully give them enough detail to make a good decision. I've always had a tough time telling people I can't answer their question in a matter of even a day. It's certainly too comprehensive to include here so I thought I'd show you where the column is and hopefully it will help you too! All you have to do is google the words-or you can go to Expertscolumn.com and put the words in the search box on the upper right!

So you want to be an Online Business Owner

Choosing the business you want to own

Running a business either online or off is pretty much the same just without the overhead. Once you’ve done enough research to learn the IRS, and both State and Federal laws don’t care whether you have a brick and mortar business or work out of your house you are ready for the next step; do you really have what it takes to run one.

I’ve spoke to enough people about starting an online business to know many just don’t have what it takes to do it. Sorry but the first red lights that usually go up are the people who throw up their own road blocks. They listen to their friends and neighbors and believe there are too many draw backs to even start looking for opportunity. I would never depend on my friends for advice. It’s like going to your priest for legal advice!

Secondly I hear people say “The IRS doesn’t have anything about running your own business”. Or, “I need a school that will teach me how to run my own business”. Or they will ask, “Can you teach me how to run my own business”.

Anyone running their own business, except for a family owned business, or start working for a company, saving up the money and buying the business, does not ask anyone how to do this! Business owners look for their own answers, go to the right people to ask questions, but they never go to another person who runs a similar business and ask them how they do it! Business owners are far too busy running their own business to spend any time telling others how they do it.

People tend to throw up their own nonexistent road blocks. Once I hear someone doing this it doesn’t pay to waste my breath telling them how. There are never road blocks, only hurtles in business ownership. People are rarely held back for long by a hurtle if they’ve taken on the challenge to do anything they have a passion for.

A perfect example of this is online hackers. They love the road blocks set up to stop unauthorized access to, well, anything you can think of. Hackers love the challenge. Successful business’ look at hackers as people who do them the favor of showing where their weak points are and they in turn come up with safe guards against their weakness’.

No matter what business you run, on line or off, its not easy. If it were easy everyone would be running their own business. So every time you see an advertisement on an infomercial, online or on a telephone pole about the “Perfect business that’s easy and will give you an income you can live on”, you’ve got to ask yourself is; Why are these people trying to bring people to them? If they are that good they wouldn’t have to try getting members?

Once you think you can overcome these challenges without the help of others you will be well on your way to finding the right at home business that fits you.

Home staging to sell!

With the real estate market becoming so unstable it's schizophrenic over the last few years everyone is scared to death of their future in their home. Frankly, I've become very aware of the possibilities with my own home and so has my husband.
We've become faithful watchers of HGTV. We have learned a lot; If you're going to paint your walls, do it in a neutral color. Think of your home as a blank canvass that can become whatever a buyer in the future may want. I know it sounds boring but the rule is: if you're going to add color and show off your personality, do it with decorating! Even then I'm thinking in terms of a future buyer! My home will be staged.
Trying to find someone who stages homes is hard to find. So thrift shops and dollar stores see me frequently looking for ideas. We have no family pictures on the walls. $1 photo books at the dollar store that accommodates 4X6 pictures are very useful. College students love jean pillows in their living space. If you sow look for jeans, flannel and fleece at the thrift shop. Stuff the pillows made from $2 jeans with the flannel etc. Cheap, fluffy fabric makes an excellent substitute for batting.
Go to both types of stores with a plan of action! Coming home with a little of this and a little of that is counter productive.
Be organized. Start a website with a blog. Show before and after pictures. Advertise. Do not be afraid of the customer who asks you to stage a house. The picky customer must also have a plan of action. What do they like? What do they not like? Have them provide pictures for you as a reference. It's amazing the number of picky people who really don't have a clue of what they really like! They sometimes aren't picky at all, they just don't have an idea of what they like. Without a destination you can't plan a path there!

For instance, I love maroon. So the table cloth, vases, bathroom towels, quilts and even the candle sticks are chosen for the destination and path. Any color that compliments maroon will work too. With a neutral background my favorite color will stand out, creating my personality!
I found a pair of old, not antique, wooden candle sticks. $2 for the candle sticks and one can of maroon spray paint later I had a $20 pair of maroon candlesticks. The list goes on!
True, you have to have a work space and you have to have storage space. But for many this would work out fantastically. Next comes links and talking with people. I'd approach Habitat For Humanity and real estate companies.