The Raging Tech

Taxes Due Tomorrow & Jack Black on Piracy

Tomorrow is April 15th, the official deadline for us here in the United States of America to file our tax returns. If you haven’t filed them yet, you better get them postmarked by today. Also, don’t forget you can e-file, sometimes for free! Check out irs.gov for more information.

As a member of my state’s State Employee Credit Union, I had my taxes prepared and filed electronically for free because I make less than a certain amount per year - you might want to see if your financial institution provides a similar service. They also told me if I made more money I could always use their free online version of TurboTax in member services on the web site.

While we’re talking about money, I’d like for you to take a moment and watch a very special video presentation from the very conservative Jack Black on piracy. Remember, don’t be a douche.

Stay at Home Parents: Make Money with SocialSpark

A short while back, my blog’s Google Page Rank was “spanked” - zapped to zero. This totally ruined my ability to make money with my blog - one of my major sponsored dropped out. The company that was hooking me up with sponsors, Izea Inc., now has a new site called SocialSpark, a social network centered around bloggers and potential blog sponsors, and most importantly gives us freedom from Google’s Page Rank system.

That being said, I realized today it’s a wonderful opportunity for a stay-at-home parent or pregnant mothers, or elderly people who are confined to the home. You can literally work from home, be your own boss, and if you write well enough and drive enough traffic to your site, you can earn some decent extra income.

When I was participating in PayPerPost, I made upwards of $900 in two months time. For a parent, that could mean more money for diapers, doctors, and formula, or a babysitter. As long as you can type quietly, this is something you could easily do while the kids are napping - although you may be napping yourself when they quiet down! Check out SocialSpark - still in Alpha, but you may be able to get an alpha key from someone and sign up your blog today.

SocialSpark is a great way to hook up your existing blog to an additional income stream. If you blog for fun or are trying to make it professionally, be sure and check them out. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail their support team.

Entrepreneurs: Custom Plastic Shopping Bags

Is your new business some sort of retail store? Do you interact with customers directly and in person? Or maybe you do online or mail-order sales and you need plastic bags for wrapping up goods to mail to customers?

Any dime-store marketing, small business, or entrepreneurship book will tell you that brand awareness is the easiest way to supplant your company’s name in the customer’s mind in the category of product you sell. People can often be trained like animals - repetition is key. Why not, then, plaster your name all over your shipping materials, your shopping bags, your box liners, and Retail Trade Show Bags?

International Plastics is a company that specializes in making custom-ordered polyethylene film and bags for various companies and manufacturers. They offer all you could need in plastic bags for your business.

Imagine a customer walking into your store, purchasing their items, and upon checking out their merchandise is placed in a specially created plastic shopping bag. Instead of looking small-time with a generic plastic bag, you could look like a much larger business by having your business name and logo imprinted on every bag.

Then imagine at the same time, somewhere online a customer is placing an order, and you’re going to pack their order in your own custom-logo plastic packing materials. That’s the kind of professionalism that brings customers back for repeat business.

More on Loans and Finance

I’ve written previously about my experiences with credit cards and the like, but one facet of personal finance I have yet to experience is getting a mortgage loan. One thing that bothers me about mortgage loans is that the entire loan is centered around the house you’re buying.

Basically you either pay them back, or they take your house. The collateral for this particular loan, is the thing you’re buying with the loan. A house actually costs so much that you really couldn’t put something up against it for collateral, besides another house.

However, I can remember several times when I was a kid and my mom and dad would tell us they were getting the house appraised to see if they could easily refinance their credit cards and other debt and consolidate at a lower interest rate with a new mortgage. They always seemed optimistic about it, so I never really worried.

Now I understand things like interest rates and principle amounts and consolidation.

It still doesn’t scare me. It’s just a huge amount of debt to think about - but it doesn’t seem feasible to purchase a house at my age with just saved up money.

Marketing on MySpace

Lots of people have their own opinion on using social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook for marketing their own business or online affiliate marketing, but I’m not here to tell you what I think about it. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already made up your mind to use it or not.

What I do want to share with you is a convenient, non-invasive way to gather marketing and demographic data without pissing people off.

One of the things I notice about MySpace bulletins is that they are used almost every day by millions of people to fill out irrelevant surveys for fun. Why couldn’t you just as easily leverage the readiness of people to share information, to gather statistics on what people like - to most effectively direct and target your advertising campaign?

This doesn’t have to be just for a big corporation either - you can just as easily get free myspace surveys to use on your own MySpace profile to gather information about the people who have already expressed interest in your business by adding your profile as a friend. Just be careful and be aware of MySpace’s Terms of Use, so that you don’t violate them and get your account deleted.

Go Back to School with Scholarships, Not Loans

In an earlier post, I talked about how you could find some financing to go back to school and get more education. I focused primarily on getting different kinds of loans to pay for your education, but you may also qualify for a multitude of financial aid scholarships or Pell grants.

From even way back when I was applying to colleges, I remember taking a look at Scholarships.com and their collection of academic and other types of scholarships. Well, they’re still around and still up-to-date with the latest information on scores of scholarships to help you go back to school. Take a look at their site and you may just find a scholarship you didn’t even know you could qualify for.

Find Financial Aid and Go Back to School

Whether you’re fresh out of undergrad and find the current job market too daunting in your field, or you’re a seasoned professional looking for more on-paper credibility with a master’s or doctorate degree, it’s not easy to turn back to conventional education. It’s an especially difficult endeavor for the wallet, in most of our cases.

Personally, I’m still paying off my student loans from my undergraduate degree. But it is possible for just about anyone to go back to school, and depending on how well you did the first go-round and what you’re going back to study, you can fairly easily get financial aid to help you continue your education.

Whether attending night school, community college, online classes, or going full-time back to school, there’s a scholarship or loan fit for you. FAFSA is a government organization set aside to help you find that help you need. If it turns out a loan is what’s best for you, you might consider DirectStudentLoans.com for Federal Direct Loans or consolidating existing loans from the government. Loans are an easy way to make up the difference between your tuition costs and what your scholarship may cover, so that you don’t have to work your tail off to earn money while you study your tail off to make the grade.