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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.
How Much Should You Tip?
- Image by cemre via Flickr
This post from CNN Money has been making the rounds. I’m getting into the game today.
With the holiday season upon us, tipping the people you work with is a tradition in some cases and actually expected in others. Here’s what CNN came up with and my take:
- Housekeeper. We don’t have one. I’d think $75-100 would make a nice tip/Christmas bonus. I seem to be more generous than average with my imaginary maid. Maybe that’s because of the outfits she wears.
- Gardener. Once again, we don’t have one. Even if we did, I live in Minnesota and have close to a foot of snow over the patch of weeds I call my garden. If I did have a gardener, I wouldn’t have seen him for a few months by now, anyway. $0!
- Mail carrier. I’ve only met my mail man a dozen times and I’ve never considered giving him a Christmas present. Do people really do that?
- Barber. I don’t have one any more. My wife has started doing my hair for me. When I did, I tipped about 25%, but again, I wouldn’t think about a Christmas present. I only saw him quarterly. I don’t think my wife has a regular stylist either. She’s just got a shop she goes to and gets whoever is available. Is there holiday tipping protocol for that?
- Garbage collector. No way. Really? I don’t know that I’ve seen the same guy twice. Am I supposed to give a present to the anonymous, interchangeable union guy that drives past my house every Friday?
- Newspaper carrier. One night, twelve years ago, while my wife was still working graveyard shifts, she had a hard time sleeping on her nights off. That’s natural for 3rd shift workers. At about 4AM, she was watching TV and saw someone run past the window. Scared, she came to wake me up. I handed her the phone to call the police, while I grabbed the only thing I had for self-defense and went to investigate. I ran out on the front step–in my boxers, carrying a sword–and saw someone lurking in the neighbor’s yard across the street. I yelled, “Y0u don’t belong here!” only to hear “I’m delivering the paper!” That’s when I start tipping the newspaper carrier. I stopped when we canceled our subscription a few years later. Who needs a dead tree in the morning, when there are a million news sites on the internet?
If the majority of people are giving Christmas bonuses to that many people, and are as generous as the article suggests, then I fall far to the loutish end of the bell curve. I am planning to give my virtual assistant 1/12 of the pay he’s earned this year, so that should make up for some of it, but that is an ongoing business relationship.
How do you compare when it comes to holiday tipping?
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!
All About Tax-Sheltered Annuity Plans
This is a guest post.
If you’ve previously heard of tax-sheltered annuity plans but are unsure of what they are, let this guide help you. Here’s what you need to know about tax-sheltered annuity plans.
What is it?
First things first, what are tax-sheltered annuity plans? A tax-sheltered annuity plan, or a 403(b) plan, is a retirement plan for some employees of various institutions to participate. This plan allows employees to contribute a portion of their salary to the plan. The employer may also contribute to the employee’s plan.
Who is Eligible?
Eligible Code Section 501(c)(3) employees tax-exempt organizations may participate, an employee of a public school, a state college, or a university, and eligible employees of churches. Employees of public school systems organized by Indian tribal governments, Ministers employed by Code Section (501)(c)(3) organizations, and self-employed ministers may also participate. Ministers must be employed by organizations that are not Code Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations, and they must function as ministers in their day-to-day professional responsibilities with their employers.
What are the Benefits of a 403(b) plan?
In a 403(b) plan, contributions are tax deductible. Taxes are paid on distributions in retirement, which is when a lot of people are in a lower tax bracket. As mentioned earlier, employers can match 403(b) contributions on a pretax basis. Loans can be taken against a 403(b) plan, which will help in certain situations, like buying your first home.
What types of contributions can be made?
In a 403(b) plan, you can have several types of contributions:
- Elective Deferrals – These are contributions made by the employee under a salary reduction agreement. This allows an employer to withhold a certain amount of money from an employee’s salary to deposit it in their 403(b) account.
- Nonelective Employer Contributions – These are any contributions to the 403(b) plan that were not made under a salary reduction agreement, which include matching contributions, discretionary contributions, and certain mandatory contributions that were made by the employer. The employee will pay income tax on all of these contributions, but only when they’re withdrawn.
- After-Tax Contributions – These are contributions made by an employee, which are reported as compensation in the year they were contributed and are included in the employee’s gross income for income tax purposes.
- Designated Roth contributions – These are elective deferrals that the employees elects to include in their gross income. The plan must keep separate accounting records for all contributions and for all gains and losses in the designated Roth account.
Can Employees Exclude Employees From Contributing?
Absolutely. The 403(b) plan must allow allow employees to make elective deferrals under the plan, but under the universal availability rule, if the employer permits one employee to defer salary by contributing it to a 403(b) plan, they must extend the offer to all of their employees. The only exceptions are employees who would contribute less than $200 annually, those employees who work less than 20 hours a week, employees who participate in a 401(k) or 457(b) plan, or students performing services that are described in Code Section 3121(b)(10).
So When Can Employees Get the Dollars?
Employees may withdraw from the 403(b) plan when the reach the age of 59 and a half, have a severance from employment, have a financial hardship, or become disabled. Money can also be taken out if an employee passes away. The employee will have to pay taxes on the amount of the distribution that was not from designated Roth or after-tax contributions, and they may have to pay an additional ten percent early distribution tax.
Are There Rules for In-Service Transfers or Exchanges?
Yes. Contract exchanges with a non-payroll slot vendor are permitted only if the plan permits it, the accumulated benefit after the exchange is, at the very least, the same as before the exchange, if the employer and the non-payroll slot vendor agree to share information regarding the plan’s terms, if any pre-exchange benefit restrictions are maintained after the exchange, and if the vendor complies with the terms outlined in the plan.
How Much Can be Contributed Annually? Does the Employee Have to be Current?
As of 2013, the maximum combined amount that an employer and an employee can contribute to a 403(b) plan is $51,000. That number may go up, depending on the annual cost-of-living.
If the plan allows, an employer can contribute up to the annual limits for an employee’s account for up to five years after the date of severance. No portion of the contributions can come from money that was due to be paid to the former employee, and these contributions must cease if the employee passes away.
There’s much more to learn about a 403(b) plan, but these are the basics. Does your company have a 403(b) plan?
Side Hustle: Garage Sale Management
Pre-sale preparation and marketing are important, but ultimately, the money comes from how you manage the sale.
How many people will you have staffing the sale? There are a few considerations here. How many people are involved in the sale? How many people can take the time off? It’s best to have three people at the sale at all times. Two people can manage the money while the third plays salesman and security. Staffer #3 is in charge of watching for price-tag swaps or other theft, answering questions, and trying to upsell. It also allows for breaks, which, if you’ve ever spent a day in a garage drinking coffee, is important.
When are you going to be open? You don’t want to open so early you don’t have time to wake up and get ready for the sale, but you don’t want to open so late the professional garage-salers drive past and forget about you. Plan to open sometime between 7 and 9. When will you close? Staying open until 6 will catch most of the after-work crowd, but it makes for a long day, but closing at four cuts out a lot of the late-day shoppers. Our hours were 8-5, which seemed to be a good compromise between a long day and the best sale.
[ad name=”inlineleft”]Don’t be afraid to shut down. The first day of our sale was cold, wet, and miserable. We had to canopies in the driveway, but everything was getting wet, anyway. Traffic was slow and we weren’t enjoying ourselves, so we shut down. Lunch and a nap improved our outlook considerably. At the end of the day, we start packing up, even if people were there. We tried to only pack what they had looked at, and we didn’t try to rush the potential customers, but we did let them know that the sale was ending for the day. The folks who came in half an hour after close on the last day seemed upset that we didn’t unpack everything for their amusement.
Our layout was designed to get everything easily visible while maximizing traffic. The first day, we were confined to the garage and tents, so space was limited. There were baskets under each of the tables. That forced people to crouch and block each other. The second day, we expanded to fill the driveway. Our tables were organized in 3 rows–a “U” shape with a double-wide row of tables in the middle. This allowed people to see everything in one pass. The middle row had periodic breaks so we could move around to help the customers. The pay table was in the middle of one of the outer rows, which let us monitor the entire sale.
Find someone to watch the kids and pets. If you have to keep an eye on your children, you aren’t watching the customers or giving them the attention they need. Your dog–no matter how well-behaved–is a liability. It will be stressed at the people. Some customers will be allergic or afraid. Just don’t do it.
Ideally, you will have someone who isn’t taking money, knows a little bit about most of the merchandise, and isn’t too shy to talk to strangers. His job is to wander around, answer questions, and help people decide if they want an item. He’s the sales-weasel. If he’s pushy, he’ll chase off the customers, but if he’s hiding, he isn’t making any money. Unusual items should have a sign attached explaining why they are special, so the sales-weasel doesn’t have to explain it to everyone.
Every single item should be priced, but not everything needs to be priced individually. We priced all of the movies in a group. “VHS: $0.50 or 5 for $2, DVD $3 or 4 for $10”. Nobody should have to ask what an item costs. If there are multiple people doing a sale together, make sure everyone is using colored price tags to identify who is selling what.
People come to garage sales expecting to find good deals. If they don’t, they’ll leave. Our rule of thumb for pricing was about 25% of retail, with wiggle-room for the item’s condition. New-in-the-box sometimes made it up to 50% of retail. Our goal was primarily to reduce clutter, so a lot of items were priced at 10%. You have to keep in mind that, if you price things too low, people will assume there is something wrong with it and not assign a value in their own minds. Price it at what you would be willing to pay in a garage sale, then mark it up–just a bit–to account for haggling.
People love to haggle at garage sales. It gives them an opportunity to brag about the great deal they fought for. Try to accommodate them. One of the people participating in our sale was selling antiques with a definite value. She didn’t want to haggle on any prices, so we simply hung up a sign that read “All white-tagged prices are firm.” Everyone else was willing to accept almost any reasonable offer. Our most important rule for accepting a price? If you pissed me off, I didn’t budge on price. Insult me, or offer 1/10 of the price, and my defenses go up, bringing your final price with it. Talk nice and use some common sense while haggling, and you got what you asked for.
[ad name=”inlineright”]Could we have maximized the sale more? Probably. I had intended to hang up a sign that simply said “$100” to set a high anchor-price on everything, but I forgot.
Note: The entire series is contained in the Garage Sale Manual on the sidebar.
Update: This post has been included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.
