Waiting!

I’m waiting to become Uncle mark the 7th. My brother is waiting to be a daddy for the first time. His wife can’t wait to stop looking like a whale. The whole family is waiting to become new Auntie’s, Uncles, Cousins, Nans, Grandads, and everything else.

And Nothing’s happening!

I’m waiting to become Uncle Mark 7th.  The package was supposed to be delivered four days ago and hasn’t arrived yet. If it came three days ago it would’ve be cool because it was Star Wars Day (May 4th be with you) but that did’nt happen.

I really want to be Uncle Mark 7th. I know I’m a good Uncle and it’s just so much fun being around little people watching them grow up, and showing them how to play football. perhaps today’s the day!

I’m waiting to be Uncle Mark 7th. But the bun’s in the oven and is refusing to come out. perhaps it’s not such a bad idea staying inside anyway. The threat of Swine Flu, the Credit Crunch making it very hard for Mummy n Daddy to cope with an extra mouth, Add to that all the hassle of growing up, friends, relationships, illness,etc, etc.

Just take your time little one.

I can wait!

How I Make Money Using My Computer!

Notice I didn’t say blogging! This is because from my experience you won’t make any money from blogging!

I’ve been blogging on and off for about five years now. I tried using Adsense, Chitika, even Amazon Associates, but have got nowhere! There are a few reasons why I didn’t make any money from blogging and they are…….

1. In order to make money blogging you need to be popular! You need to attract thousands of people to your blog every day in the hope that some might click your ads.
2. You need to have a niche, a subject that people are interested in that has good paying ads.
3. You need to be an expert in your niche. Whether it’s stamp collecting or how to be thrifty you need to know your stuff. If you don’t know what you’re talking about people will soon let you know!
4. You need to be different, or look at a subject from a different angle which these days is very hard to do.
5. You need to be passionate about your subject, if not you will soon burnout and have nothing to write about.

I have none of those things!

But I still want to make money with my computer! I want to earn myself enough money using my computer to get myself a Macbook Pro with all the bells and whistles on. I think I’ve finally found a way of doing it and it’s not by blogging (although I could blog about it if I wanted) or using ads, or trying to be popular.

The other good thing is that it seems to be recession proof! People are supposed to not be spending anything and saving their hard earned pennies for when they lose their jobs, but I my sales seem to be getting better each month!

So what am I doing?

I’m buying books and other things in the sales and charity shops and selling them on Amazon!
Like blogging you need to find a niche or niches that are popular, but when you’ve done that it’s easy! I need to sell one more item (hopefully today) and I will have earned myself £100 in two weeks. It would take a year or so if I tried doing that with Adsense!

At least twice a week I visit my local W H Smith and look to see which books are on sale. If I see a new book I check the price in the shop and use my phone to see how much the same book is selling on Amazon.co.uk. If Amazon are selling it for more, I buy as many books as I can from W H Smith. Over the last couple of months I’ve made a lot of money selling certain Gordon Ramsay Cookbooks!

I’ve started doing the same kind of thing in charity shops, ( Dunstable has many charity shops) most books cost me 50p and i can sell them for at least £1.The biggest earner so far is Lego! I list a box of Lego on Amazon and two hours later it’s sold! I’ve only experienced selling things that quickly at Christmas on eBay, but this is the middle of February AND in a recession!

There are a few questions I would like to discover the answer to in the next few weeks.

What’s hot and what’s not in Lego!

Do mini figures sell for more than sets?

Is Duplo the way forward?

Is Star Wars Lego the most popular form of Lego?

If I lose my job due to the credit crunch, could I do this part time and live?

We shall see…….

Six days off!

So today is day one of my six day credit crunch holiday.  I went to Milton Keynes and spent some money that I raised from selling stuff on Amazon.  I bought some Lego to see if I can sell and some more books.

I also discovered something interesting about W H Smith. If you buy goods from the internet shop you can get them delivered to your local shop for pick up, and you don’t pay for postage!

I bought myself some jeans as well because I only have one pair, and promised myself I will use my Amazon money to buy the things I want instead of using my wages.

We shall see how I get on!

And on the 7th day he rested!

Over the last 6 days I’ve been on my Wii Fit for at least an hour a day.  Now my body is beggining to suffer from jogging on the spot for twenty minutes at a time. So yesterday I decided not to do anything on the machine and cycle to work instead.  I somehow managed to lose 3lbs yesterday which was probably due to me not eating anything during my lunchbreak at work.

I still need to lose 1 stone 3lbs to reach my target of a BMI of 28.8 but if i lose 3lbs a week I should reach the target by April which can’t be bad!

My Wii Fit Adventures!

So I’ve had a Wii fit for 4 days now and in this is what I’ve learned.

1. Warm up before you start!    The muscle workouts give you a good workout and on Saturday I ached because I didn’t stretch properly beforehand.
2. Draw the curtains and close the door!  It can be quite embarrassing if the neighbours or the postman spot you while doing the Hula Hoop. After three minutes you get tired and end up doing pelvic thrusts in front of the TV instead of a nice circular movement. Not a pretty sight!
3. If you are going to do the jogging put your Wiimote in a pocket. Don’t hold it in your hand because the Wiimote acts like a pedometer. If you wave your arms whilst holding the Wiimote your character runs extremely fast and falls over a lot, but is also very inaccurate! I jogged for 10 minutes this morning holding the Wiimote and I managed 20 minutes this afternoon with the Wiimote in my pocket and only ran 1000 meters further in the space of 10 minutes!

Starting from tomorrow I will concentrate on just one set of games a day.  So Tuesday will be the Aerobic games, Wednesday will be Yoga, Thursday will be Muscle Groups, and I shall play three different balance games every day, just to see if this helps or not.

My Fitness coach looks good as well! I might try and get it on Friday and compare the two games.

Hit the Target!

I hit my target of selling 5 items on Amazon in January!  Now I will see how much i can sell for the rest of the month and then try and beat it in February.  I think the key at the moment during the ecconomic downturn is to sell small books for under £5.

I had been selling books for about £15 but nobody has bought any expensive books all month.  So the moral of the story seems to be sell lots  second hand books and sell them cheaply.  A trip to the charity shops in Dunstable seems to be the thing to do on monday!

Amazon is like a bucket….

Amazon is like a bucket, the more you put in, the more you get out!

I set myself a goal of selling 5 items on Amazon despite the credit crunch. Even though  it’s January and hardly anyone buys in the first two months of the year (from eBay experience) Iv’e just sold my 4th item!  If I achieve my goal of 5 i will just see how many items i sell, and try to beat that number in February!

I may try looking at books in the local charity shops to see if there is anything worth selling on Amazon. Also in the summer I may try looking for books at car boot sales. I still have about 150 Beanie Babies to get rid of as well.

We shall see!

Wii Fit!

I bought myself a Wii Fit today and I’m pooped and hooked!  I know I’m unfit and obese (but not too bad) but I was a bit shocked to find that my Wii fit age is 47, five years older than me!

My posture is all wrong! Apparently I lean too much on my right leg, and when it comes to the strength exercises, I’m useless!  I was quite surprised really as I walk to work which is 2km away in just over 20 minutes (which is a fast pace) every day.

I thought the games would be fun and not too much hard work, but i was wrong. My biggest challenge will be the strength exercises. At the moment I’m struggling to do just 6 press ups and side stretches, and because i with thinking it was a game i didn’t warm up first.  Bad idea! I nearly pulled a muscle jogging on the spot chasing a Mii.

The machine tells me I need to lose 3lbs every week if I want to get my BMI down to 28 and so i shall see if I can achieve this.  This may be the thing that actually gets me motivated to do something about my fitness and hopefully on April 16th I will be 10% less of the man I am now.

I hope so!

Will Young Coming to Dunstable!

Jeremy Clarkson and others will be pleased to know that Will young will be taking part in Question Time in Dunstable, February 5th. He was invited on the show by Question Time editor Gill Penlington after she heard him on the radio speaking passionately about politics, and saying how much he enjoyed watching Question Time

You can read all about it here, here and here!

Oh! Christmas Tree!

Christmas Tree or giant glowing Smurfs Hat?

This sorry sight is the Christmas Tree in Ashton Square, Dunstable last night! It had been quite windy on Saturday and it looks like the star is too heavy for the top of the tree. This makes it look like a giant glowing Smurfs Hat. I’m not sure that I want to be around when the giant glowing Smurf wants it back again!

But it does look quite good though!