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Make Extra Money, Part 6: Setting Up a Site
In this installment of the Make Extra Money series, I’m going to show you how to set up a WordPress site. I’m going to show you exactly what settings, plugins, and themes I use. I’m not going to get into writing posts today. That will be next time.
I use WordPress because it makes it easy to develop good-looking sites quickly. You don’t have to know html or any programming. I will be walking through the exact process using Hostgator, but most hosting plans use CPanel, so the instructions will be close. If not, just follow WordPress’s 5 minute installation guide.
Installing WordPress
Assuming you can follow along with me, log in to your hosting account and find the section of your control panel labeled “Software/Service”. Click “Fantastico De Luxe”.
On the Fantastico screen, click WordPress, then “New Installation”.
On the next screen, select your domain name, then enter all of the details: admin username, password, site name, and site description. If you’ll remember, I bought the domain http://www.masterweddingplanning.net. I chose the site name of “Master Wedding Planning” and a description of “Everything You Need to Know to Plan Your Wedding”.
Click “install”, then “finish installation”. The final screen will contain a link to the admin page, in this case, masterweddingplanning.net/wp-admin. Go there and log in.
Configuring WordPress
After you log in, if there is a message at the top of the screen telling you to update, do so. Keeping your site updated is the best way to avoid getting hacked. Click “Please update now” then “Update automatically”. Don’t worry about backing up, yet. We haven’t done anything worth saving.
Next, click “Settings” on the left. Under General Settings, put the www in the WordPress and site URLs. Click save, then log back in.
Click Posts, then Categories. Under “Add New Category”, create one called “Misc” and click save.
Click Appearance. This brings you to the themes page. Click “Install Themes” and search for one you like. I normally use Headway, but before I bought that, I used SimpleX almost exclusively. Your goal is to have a simple theme that’s easy to maintain and easy to read. Bells and whistles are a distraction.
Click “Install”, “Install now”, and “Activate”. You now have a very basic WordPress site.
Plugins
A plugin is an independent piece of software to make independent bits of WordPress magic happen. To install the perfect set of plugins, click Plugins on the left. Delete “Hello Dolly”, then click “Add new”.
In the search box, enter “plugin central” and click “Search plugins”. Plugin Central should be the first plugin in the list, so click “install”, then “ok”, then “activate plugin”. Congratulations, you’ve just installed your first plugin.
Now, on the left, you’ll see “Plugin Central” under Plugins. Click it. In the Easy Plugin Installation box, copy and paste the following:
All in One SEO Pack Contact Form 7 WordPress Database Backup SEO SearchTerms Tagging 2 WP Super Cache Conditional CAPTCHA for WordPress date exclusion seo WP Policies Pretty Link Lite google xml sitemaps Jetpack by WordPress.com
Click “install”.
On the left, click “Installed Plugins”. On the next screen, click the box next to “Plugins”, then select “Activate” from the dropdown and click apply.
Still under Plugins, click “Akismet Configuration”. Enter your API key and hit “update options”. You probably don’t have one, so click “get your key”.
Tools
The only tool I worry about is the backup. It’s super-easy to set up. Click “Tools”, then “Backup”. 
Scroll down to “Schedule Backups”, select weekly, make sure it’s set to a good email address and click “Schedule Backup”. I only save weekly because we won’t be adding daily content. Weekly is safe enough, without filling up your email inbox.
Settings
There are a lot of settings we’re going to set. This is going to make the site more usable and help the search engines find your site. We’re going to go right down the list. If you see a section that I don’t mention, it’s because the defaults are good enough.
Writing
Set the Default Post Category to “Misc”.
Visit this page and copy the entire list into “Update Service” box. This will make the site ping a few dozen services every time you publish a post. It’s a fast way to get each post indexed by Google.
Click “Save Changes”.
Discussion
Uncheck everything under “Email me whenever…” and hit save. This lets people submit comments, without actually posting the comments or emailing me when they do so. Every once in a while, I go manually approve the comments, but I don’t make it a priority.
Permalinks
Select “Custom structure” and enter this: /%postname%/
Click save.
All in One SEO
Set the status to “Enabled”, then fill out the site title and description. Keep the description to about 160 characters. This is what builds the blurb that shows up by the link when you site shows up in Google’s results.
Check the boxes for “Use categories for META keywords” and “Use noindex for tag archives”.
Click “Update Options”.
Date Exlusion SEO
Check the boxes to remove each of the dates and set the alt text to “purpose” or something. This will suppress the date so your posts won’t look obsolete.
SEO Search Terms 2
This plugin reinforces the searches that bring people to your site. It’s kind of neat. Skip the registration, accept the defaults and hit save.
WP Policies
Scroll to the bottom and click import. We’ll come back to this.
WP Super Cache
Select “Caching On” and hit save.
JetPack
Across the top of the screen should be a giant banner telling you to connect to WordPress.com and set up Jetpack. You’ll need an account on WordPress.com, so go there and set one up. After authorizing the site, you’ll be brought back to the Jetpack configuration screen. Click “Configure” under “WordPress.com Stats”. Take the defaults and hit save.
Contact
On the contact configuration page, copy the code in the top section. You’ll need this in a moment.
Pages
Now, we going to create a couple of static pages. On the left, click “Pages”, then “Add new”.
Name the first page “Contact” and put the contact form code in the body of the page. Hit publish.
Menus
Under Appearance, click “Menu”. Enter a menu name and hit save.
Then, under “Pages”, click the box next to “Contact”, “Disclaimer”, and any other policies you’d like to display. Hit save.
Widgets
Also under Appearance, click “Widgets”. This is where you’ll select what will display in the sidebar. All you have to do is drag the boxes you want from the middle of the page to the widget bar on the right. I recommend Text, Search, Recent Posts, Popular Search Terms and Tag Cloud. In the text box, just put some placeholder text in it, like “Product will go here”. We’ll address this next time.
Posts
We’re not going to worry about getting posts in place, yet. That will be the next installment. However, the steps in the next installment could take 2 weeks to implement, and we want Google to start paying attention now. To make that happen, we need to get a little bit of content in place. This won’t be permanent content. It’s only there so Google has something to see when it comes crawling.
To get this temporary, yet legal content, I use eZineArticles. Just go search for something in your niche that doesn’t look too spammy.
Then, click “Posts”, then delete the “Hello World” post. Click “Add new”. Copy the eZine article, being sure to include the author box at the bottom, and hit publish.
To see your changes, you may have to go to Settings, then WP Cache and delete the cache so your site will refresh.
Congratulations! You now have a niche blog with content. It’s not ready to make you any money, yet, but it is ready for Google to start paying attention. In the next installment, I’ll show you how I get real unique content and set it up so Google keeps coming back to show me the love.
Sunday Roundup: It’s Push-Up Time
It’s the end of a month, so it’s time to announce my new 30 Day Project. Last February, in 22 days, I went from having my abs cramp after doing 15 push-ups to doing a set of 100. Yes, really.
The problem is that the push-ups weren’t perfect. Funny things happen to your body when you are doing 100 push-ups. It’s hard to tell what your body is doing. I had good form for the first 80, but after that, my body wasn’t perfectly straight. I looked like a typical second grader in gym class. But I did it. They were push-ups.
I haven’t done a push-up since.
In March, I am going to get myself back up to 100 push-ups, only this time, I will only be doing perfect push-ups.
Here’s the plan, based on what worked last year:
This weekend, I established my baseline. I did as many push-ups as I could, until the point of failure. Failure for this purpose is defined as either my form faltering or me collapsing. I went until I couldn’t hold my body straight.
Starting on the first, I will be doing 5 sets of push-ups, twice a day.
Set 1: One half of my baseline. Starting from 24 push-ups, this set will be 12 push-ups. As I progress, this set will never be more than 20 push-ups. It is the warm-up set, after all.
Sets 2-4: ¾ of my baseline, so 18 to start.
Set 5: Go to failure. Once again, failure is defined as faulty from. This will establish my baseline for the next session.
If I don’t progress for 3 days, I will take a day off to recover and–given previous experience–come back with some serious improvement.
This is a self-correcting progression. If I can’t meet the previous day’s baseline, my last set will be lower, which will lower the baseline for the following session.
An interesting question I have is how it will affect my diet. I haven’t been exercising at all, to see how well the slow carb diet does on it’s own. Now, I’m going to be adding an aggressive exercise plan on top of it. A plan that involves a bit of muscle bulking. I’m guessing that my weight loss will slow down a lot, but I will shed inches like mad. I will be tracking my progression, and my weight and measurements. The graphs should be fun.
30 Day Project Update
I am on the Slow Carb Diet. At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing. For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms. My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils). There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism. The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind. There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.
I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my waist , hips, biceps, and thighs. Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.
Weight: I have lost 33 pounds since January 2nd! That’s 3 pounds since last week. Only 9 more to meet my goal for February. Oh wait. I won’t be hitting it this month.
Total Inches: I have lost 17 inches in the same time frame, down half an inch since last week.
Giveaway
I’ve got some codes for H&R Block Premium Online. It’s federal only and the state return costs an extra $35, but that’s still a screaming deal. Premium handles small business and investment tax issues. If you want to get it, leave a comment saying so. First come, first serve, until I’m out of codes.
Best Posts
Yes, I Am Cheap has a post about growing up poor.
Public Service Announcement: Liquidation sales are rarely good deals. When one store in a chain closes, the profitable merchandise always gets shipped to another store. The rest of it will often get marked up, in anticipation of people shutting off their critical thinking skills in the face of big “On Sale” signs.
I’ve found a new life goal: underground glowworm cave tubing. Wow.
OpenLibrary is offering up 80,000 ebooks to borrow, for free. 10,000 of them are still in copyright. I need a kindle.
LRN Timewarp
This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago. Did you miss them then?
A few years ago, I sold a truck(on payments) to a friend, who promptly quit paying me and disappeared. I ended up playing repossessing the truck.
There was also a story about how I convinced two big companies that collecting on me for a bill of more than $800 wasn’t worth the effort. It was good, because I didn’t make the call.
Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled
Slow Carb Diet: How to Avoid Going Bat-**** Crazy was included in the Festival of Frugality.
Three Alternatives to a Budget was included in the Totally Money Carnival.
Protect your home was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.
Budgets Are Sexy ran my post, Side Hustle Series: I’m a Gun Permit Instructor. I forgot to link back to this, last week.
Prairie EcoThrifter ran my post, The Luxury of Vacation for the Yakezie Blog Swap.
Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.
Yakezie Blog Swap
Eric hosted the Yakezie Blog Swap, which is a bunch of bloggers writing on the same topic and sharing the posts with each other. Here is his list of the participants this round.
I wrote about my journey to become a DJ at Beating Broke.
Beating Broke wrote about shoe shopping at Narrow Bridge.
Barbara Friedberg got a really nice couch and shared the experience at Wealth Informatics.
Suba doesn’t think the rent is too damn high, in fact, Suba thinks it is worth it and shares at Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance.
Mr. and Mrs. BP spent a lot when they got a dog. Read about it at 101 Centavos.
101 Centavos went nuts on an anniversary, but you know what that can get you… Read about it at Broke Professionals.
Latisha Styles’ post at Bucksome Boomer is I Spent How Much?! My Birthday Trip to the Bahamas.
Kay Lynn spent her heart out on a new car with all the bells and whistles and you can read about it at Financial Success for Young Adults.
Derek got a sweet new digital camera and tells us about it at My Personal Finance Journey.
Jacob has splurged a couple of times on travel and outdoor gear and has no regrets and shares the experiences at My Life and Finances.
Miss T. likes to splurge on travel. We have something in common. The difference? She wrote about it at Live Real Now.
Jason is a fan of the luxury of vacation. You can read about it at the Prairie EcoThrifter.
Squirrelers went to Europe for three weeks. Totally worth it! Read about it at Money Sanity.
Money Sanity likes good champagne. I can’t judge, I like good Scotch. Read about why at Squirrelers.
Melissa took 10 days and took the trip of a lifetime to visit a friend in China. Read about it at The Saved Quarter.
The Saved Quarter bought a Blendtec blender. Yes, the blender from “will it blend.” The story is at Mom’s Plan. (In case you were wondering, this blender can blend anything. Well, anything but Chuck Norris.)
Get More Out of Live Real, Now
There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.
You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader. I prefer Google Reader.
You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.
You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook. Facebook gets more use than Google. It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.
You can follow LRN on Twitter. This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.
You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of. I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.
Have a great week!
New Debt
For the first time in 2 years(almost to the day), I am acquiring new debt that I can’t afford to pay off immediately. On a credit card.
Last Thursday, my son entered vision therapy. He has what is commonly known as a “lazy eye”, but is more properly called a “wandering eye”. His eyes don’t always lock on to whatever he is looking at. Instead, one of his eyes will (occasionally, but not always) drift to the side and shut off. His brain doesn’t interpret the signals from that eye.
We had two sessions of tests to diagnose the specific problems: $350.
We will have 28 weekly sessions of therapy @ $140 per session: $3920
There is an equipment fee: $85
That’s a total of $4355 over the next 7 months.
Insurance covers some of it, but the therapist is out-of-network, so it’s “pay first, get reimbursed later from the insurance company”. If we pay up front, we get 1 session free, bringing the price to $4215, minus insurance.
I have a health savings account that I have been trying to max out to cover this, to make my payments all pre-tax. I haven’t been able to get enough in there, yet. In fact, since I don’t have my kids on my insurance, my maximum HSA contribution is $3050.
Since finding out that vision therapy was going to be necessary, I have managed to save $1000 in cash, and about $1500 in my HSA. That’s $2500 of a $4215 bill, leaving $1715 that I still need to be able to cover.
Here is my plan:
We’re charging the entire $4215 at 11.9% interest on a card with a 2% travel rewards program. This will give me $84.30 worth of travel rewards good for reimbursing any travel expenses.
I will immediately pay off $1000 from cash savings.
I will also immediately file for an insurance reimbursement, which will cover 80% – $500, or $2972 minus a bit. Our insurance got a waiver on the pseudo-wonderful healthcare fraud act on the grounds that the plan sucks so bad that it would cost too much to comply with the law. No joke. I’m expecting about a $2500 reimbursement, and I have no idea how long that takes.
In 6 weeks, when I have maxed out my HSA contributions for the year, I will file for an HSA reimbursement for about $2500, leaving about $500 to cover some medical costs for the rest of the year. Vision therapy doesn’t count against my deductible, since my kids are on my wife’s insurance plan.
Starting in June, my debt snowball will no longer be going to max out my HSA and will instead go straight to this card, to finish paying it off as quickly as possible. That’s $750 per month.
Any money from any side work will also go towards this bill, but I don’t budget for that, because it isn’t reliable money.
The projected results:
$3215 on the credit card for 6 weeks @ 11.9% = $50 in interest payments.
After the HSA reimbursement, there will be $715 left to pay, which will be paid off in June for another $10 in interest.
When we get the insurance reimbursement, we’ll replenish the medical bill account, to start getting ready for the kid’s braces next year. We’ll drop $1500 into that account and use the remaining $1000 as a debt snowball payment.
We’ll end up paying $60 in interest to save $140 in therapy costs, so it’s good math, but I hate the idea of racking up another credit card bill. I could drop the interest costs a bit by raiding my emergency fund, but that still wouldn’t cover it all, and it would leave me with very little left for an actual emergency. I could raid the emergency fund for half of its value($700), and reduce the initial interest paid to $25 and the total interest paid to about $40, then use the $1000 leftover from the insurance reimbursement to replace my emergency fund.
Sunday Roundup: Home Depot and Your Kids
Yesterday, I took my girls to Home Depot. On the first Saturday of every month, Home Depot has a workshop for kids that gives kids a chance to make a small craft project with a parent. For free. This month was race cars. My girls look forward to it all month.
30 Day Project Update
This month, I am trying to do 100 perfect push-ups in a single set. I’m recording each session in a spreadsheet. As of this writing, I am up to 26 in a set, doing about 90 per twice-daily session. I’m expecting to do more tonight(Saturday) as I’m currently taking a 24 hour break to let my muscles heal a bit. By previous experience, I’m guessing I’ll hit 30-35 in the morning.
Weight Loss Update
I am on the Slow Carb Diet. At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing. For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms. My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils). There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism. The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind. There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.
I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my waist , hips, biceps, and thighs. Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.
Weight: I have lost 35 pounds since January 2nd. That’s 2 pounds since last week, meaning I missed my February goal by 7 pounds. I added some cheese back into my diet, to see if it hurt. It did. Research showed that dairy inhibits the insulin response, make dairy a bad thing for a diet entirely out of proportion to its glycemic index.
Total Inches: I have lost 19.5 inches in the same time frame, down 2.5 inches since last week.
Best Posts
Lifehacker ran a post on simple ways to make money online. They may not all pay well, but the poorly-paid tasks are something you can do while watching TV.
Finally! A post explaining the exact connection between autism and vaccinations.
I’d love to see free-market healthcare given a chance, just once. We’d never go back.
Going to college, try some of these scholarships.
Most observant people realize that TSA is a joke. For those who didn’t realize that, TSA admitted it, too.
LRN Timewarp
This is where I review the posts I wrote a year ago. Did you miss them then?
This week last year, I wrote a post about doing 100 push-ups in a single set. Is it a coincidence that I’m trying again a year later?
Carnivals I’ve Rocked and Guest Posts I’ve Rolled
Money Problems – Day 3: What’s Coming In? was included in the Festival of Frugality.
5 Reasons Why I Splurge On Travel was included in the Totally Money Carnival.
Ignore Your Budget was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.
Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.
Get More Out of Live Real, Now
There are so many ways you can read and interact with this site.
You can subscribe by RSS and get the posts in your favorite news reader. I prefer Google Reader.
You can subscribe by email and get, not only the posts delivered to your inbox, but occasional giveaways and tidbits not available elsewhere.
You can ‘Like’ LRN on Facebook. Facebook gets more use than Google. It can’t hurt to see what you want where you want.
You can follow LRN on Twitter. This comes with some nearly-instant interaction.
You can send me an email, telling me what you liked, what you didn’t like, or what you’d like to see more(or less) of. I promise to reply to any email that isn’t purely spam.
Have a great week!
John Kerry’s Wife Hospitalized: Can You Afford Health Insurance?
Even as a growing number of analysts are questioning the details of Obamacare, the sudden hospitalization of Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of former senator and current U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, provides additional fodder to the ongoing healthcare debate.
Heinz, who is 74 years old, is the heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune. She is the widow of former Senator John Heinz, who was killed in 1991 in an aviation accident. Her marriage to Kerry in 1995 occurred when he was the senator from Massachusetts. Heinz was hospitalized on Sunday and is reported to be in critical condition after being flown to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Heinz was treated for breast cancer in December 2009 and went through two operations for lumpectomies. It is not known what specific health issues resulted in the current hospitalization. However, sources indicated that there was concern over the return of the cancer.
Regardless of the source of the current illness, it is taken for granted that Heinz will receive the very best of medical care, with cost being of no concern to treatments pursued. In the earlier process of treating her cancer, numerous doctors at the nation’s finest medical facilities were consulted. The issue of Heinz not having to worry about the costs of her care is the central theme of many who criticize our nation’s health care system.
For the millions of Americans who live daily without health insurance or any form of coverage, there is a constant concern over how they would deal with a medical emergency. These individuals know that they are one accident or serious illness away from devastating financial hardship. In fact, the single biggest reason for bankruptcy in the U.S. today is medical bills. According to the latest studies, the average hospital stay billed out at $15, 700, with an average daily cost of nearly $4,000.
These costs are onerous because so many people today find health insurance increasingly unaffordable. While the political debate over the current healthcare reform continues, there is one simple fact. That reality is that the annual cost of private health insurance, already out of the reach of many, has risen by as much as 50 percent in the last two years. Many plans for a family of four are now over $15,000 and it is predicted that a bronze plan under the implemented Obamacare will exceed $20,000 for that same family.
All of this brings us back to the hospitalization of Heinz. The reality we live in today means that many people diagnosed with cancer or other similar diseases have little hope of receiving the treatment or care that the wealthy can afford. Even with quality health care insurance, the co-pays and other costs create burdens that many cannot carry.
There are no simple or ready solutions to this situation. The morality of one patient dying because chemotherapy is too expensive while one with a large bank account survives is an issue that will see intensified debate in the coming months and years. Regardless of what caused the current hospitalization, Heinz is one of the lucky ones who will have superb medical care without financial considerations.
