Ways to Make Money with Ebay & Craigslist!

eBay & Craigslist continue to be two of the big online buying and selling sites. Craigslist is a great place to advertise not only items for sale, but also services (such as your blog). There's quite a few ways you can combine the eBay & Craigslist websites in order to generate income. Sometimes if I'm selling items I like to cross-promote them on eBay just by picking out random spots to advertise. Usually I like big cities like NYC and LA, but I've tried elsewhere. It's hard to say if it helps, but its a free form of advertising. Some eBay expert sellers like to go into the "Free" sections of Craigslist and grab anything they might be able to sell on eBay. Or, they look for items being sold on Craigslist locally that they can sell at a profit on eBay. Both are great ways to start a part-time eBay biz with little or no real start-up cost.

Craigslist also provides "Wanted" sections, where people can list off things they're looking to buy. For example, if you're currently selling items on eBay, you can do Google searches for the items you're selling as "wanted" items on Craigslist.

An example Google search: "craigslist wanted toddler Halloween costume"

Now it's not guaranteed, but you're likely to turn up at least a few results from around the United States of people looking for toddler Halloween costumes (or whatever items you're selling on item) on Craigslist. You can consider foreign Craigslist want ads such as UK/Canada, but only if you're offering sales and shipping to these on eBay. Once you find some want ads, check out the Craigslist want ad to get a feel for what they want, and reply to the email given. Make it simple, saying you noticed their ad, wanted to help and are selling an item they may be interested in. Provide them a link to the item auction and the eBay item number, but don't be overly agressive or pushy about it. Make it calm and simple because you don't want to get blacklisted as a spammer from the email.

Taking this concept a step further, you can become an eBay or Shopping Ads affiliate and start doing this for items you're not selling. You can go to the various Craigslist cities around the US and check the "Wanted" sections for items such as mp3 players or video game systems, or anything else that is hot on the market. Again, make the email calm and simple but not a pushy sales pitch. Write it simply as if you're just helping someone out by providing the item # of something they want to buy. eBay and Shopping Ads offer nice commissions for signups and sales on eBay, so check into their program details for more info.

My experience is generally that Craigslist buyers want even better deals than eBay has to offer so this may be tricky to pull off. Also many Craigslist buyers seem to prefer buying items in person, rather than paying the shipping charge. It's worth a shot though, and if you have your own domain/website you may also consider setting up a page full of listings for items such as the iPod or video game systems. With Shopping Ads you can set up ads to be PPC (pay per click). Provide a Craigslist buyer with a full web page of listings you've created, and profit from the clicks and buys!

If you've had experience making money with Craigslist and eBay combined, feel free to share your info and tips below!

Best Online Banking Deals Right Now!

They say money doesn't grow on trees, but it can grow online! A few days ago, The Monetizer gave you some suggested ways to get Cash fast during these trying economic times. Today I'd like to provide you with some of the best deals for online banks to stash that cash! These particular banks offer the highest interest rates going today for Savings accounts & CD's! Make sure to do your homework and see what other fees or rules may apply, but generally these are some great places to grow money.

Listed below you'll find savings accounts, certificates of deposit and Foreign currency CD's. If you currently make money online, you definitely want to consider allocating some of it to these spots!

If you have money just sitting in your Checking account, let it grow here.

If you are afraid interest rates may fall, it might be a good time to lock down with a CD.

Don't forget FDIC insures up to $250,000 until December 2009. We still recommend holding a max of $100,000 / bank.



Savings Accounts ( Can Pull Out Money Anytime )

- OneUnited - 3.75% APY ( min of $1000 )

- FNBO Direct - 3.50% ( no minimum )


- WT Direct - 3.31% ( min of $10000 )

- HSBC - 3.25% APY ( no minimum )

- Savings Square - 3.05% ( no minimum )

- Emigrant Direct - 3.00% APY ( no minimum )


- Citibank e-Savings - 3.00% APY ( no minimum )

- E-Loan - 2.76%+ APY ( no minimum )

- Bank of America - 0.20% ( don't consider )



Certificate of Deposit CD - ( Cannot Pull Out Anytime )


If you don't mind keeping your money in the bank for a certain time, CD (Certificate of Deposit) would give you a slightly better rate and rates will not change for that time period.

- 3 Months - Virtual Bank 3.51% APY ( min of $10000 )

- 3 Months - Eloan 3.41% APY ( min of $10000 )

- 6 Months - Imperial Bank 4.35% APY ( min of $1000 )


- 6 Months - Corus 4.25% APY ( min of $10000 )

- 9 Months - AmTrust 4.35% ( min of $1000 )

- 9 Months - Imperial 4.15% APY ( min of $2000 )

- 1.0 Year - Patelco 7.00% ( max of $1000 )


- 1.0 Year - Corus 4.65% APY ( min of $10000 )

- 1.0 Year - Flagstar 4.50% APY

- 1.5 Year - Advanta 4.50% APY ( min of $10000 )

- 1.5 Years - Capital One 4.46% APY ( min of $5000 )


- 2.0 Years - National City 4.75% APY ( min of $10000 )

- 2.0 Years - Discover 4.5% APY ( min of $2500 )

- 3.0 Years - Pentagon 5.0% APY ( min $1000 )

- 4.0 Years - National 5.25% APY ( min of $10000 )


- 5.0 Years - Advanta 5.25% APY ( min $2500 )

- 5.0 Years - Discover 5.21% APY ( min of $2500 )



Foreign Currency CDs

With the government printing a lot of money lately, fear of inflation is roaming around. You can put money in foreign currency CDs to protect yourself

- EverBank.com Foreign CDs ( min $10000, protected by FDIC )

(Source: Spoofee.com)

Ways to Get Cash in Rough Financial Times

"Tough Times don't last, tough people do" is a very fitting statement right about now. The stock market has dipped to its lowest levels in about 5 years time. Gas prices have soared up over $4.00 a gallon, and luckily come back down a bit lately. Airfare travel has become even more expensive as the airlines are forced to add more and more charges so they can continue to operate. Grocery store and roadside stand prices have even been on the rise. With the way the economy has become a major issue in our lives as well as the upcoming 08' presidential election, it's time we adopted more of a deal-finding, opportunistic and saver's mentality!

The Roanoke Times has a recent article titled "How to Get Cash Fast" as part of its Good Housekeeping Reports. The article gives several tips on how to get money right now. Some may be obvious, others might be something new to consider.

1) Sell your unwanted gold jewelry - Gold is valued at over $900 per ounce right now so why not cash in? You've seen the ads all over TV. The article says to stay away from those places, but instead consult your yellow pages for jewelers who buy gold. Then begin the process of calling or going to each and finding out their commissions and offers. Draw up a list and find the best deal for your gold. Also, don't worry about workmanship of your gold pieces as the buyers will just be melting it down. Turnaround for this is about a day to sell your gold.

2) Borrow from peers - This doesn't mean your friends, because we all know if we're hurting financially, then so are they. Instead try out peer-to-peer lending at sites like prosper.com and lendingclub.com. You can usually borrow $1000 or more with an interest rate around 8% or so depending on credit. Good credit is vital to getting a loan this way. Turnaround for this is 1-2 weeks.

3) Tap home equity - As the article describes it, a home equity credit line is like a big credit card account with your home as the collateral. You can write checks against the credit line and interest is often tax-deductible. Use this in extreme desperation, because you'll be paying it back. Ask your bank or mortgage lender for their terms, as you may get a break as their customer. Turnaround for this method is about 2 weeks or so.

The Monetizer suggests IDEA #4, start your own home-based or internet-based business. Things like eBay sales, monetized blogging, paid article writing, affiliate marketing, survey sites and more can get you money without you even having to leave the house. You can consult the Monetizer's Moneymakers for a great list of sites to sign up for today!

And #5 is of course to play the lottery every week, but we all know about the chances associated with that!

Slate.com Looks at Blogging for Dollars

There's a fascinating 10/1/08 article over at Slate.com by Michael Agger entitled "Blogging for Dollars - How Do Bloggers Make Money?" The article takes a look at how blogging has exploded in size and continues to grow exponentially each day. According to the stats there are 900,000 blog posts created daily across the world. So this post is just a fraction of that!

Even more interesting, the article takes a look at the big money some people command from their blogs. Examples you may have heard of:

The LOLcat empire rakes in $5,600 per month;
Overheard in New York gets $8,100 per month;
Perez Hilton, gossip king, scoops up $111,000 per month.

(info source: Slate.com)

The article may state the obvious to us bloggers. That is in order to get the income you want from writing a blog regulalry, you need to have visitors and a high level of traffic. The example of 43f is given, which started out small then exploded and began to pay the bills.

Agger writes:

While monetizing your blog may be easier than ever, all of this comes with an ever-present hammer: the need to drive traffic. This month, the writer/blogger/productivity thinker Merlin Mann opened a window onto his angst with an anniversary post. Mann is best-known as the creator of the Hipster PDA (index cards clipped together by a binder clip)* and his Inbox Zero talk (turn your e-mail into actions). In a post titled "Four Years," Mann sketches out how his site, 43 Folders, grew from a personal dumping ground for his "mental sausage" into a full-featured destination for productivity nerds and life-hackers. In 2005, he experienced a key transition:

At some point that year, 43f became the surreal and unexpected circus tent under which my family began drawing an increasing amount of its income. This was weird, but it was also exactly as gratifying as it sounds. Which is to say, "very." But, my small measure of something like success did not go unnoticed. In fact, the popularity of small blogs like 43 Folders contributed to the arrival of a gentrifying wagon train of carpetbaggers, speculators, and confidence men, all eager to pan the web's glistening riverbed for easy gold. And, brother, did these guys love to post and post and post.

It is amazing the amount of money and traffic that some blogs generate. Shoutouts are given to Shoemoney and Problogger in the article, with link backs to their respective blogs. Both of their blogs command lots of visitors, subscribers and moolah. Yours can too if you follow in their footsteps, build something people return to and find often, monetize it properly, and you're well on your way...

Read the full artice here at Slate.com for inspiration and possibly some ideas on how to get your moneymaking blog into full gear!