Friday I stopped into the StreeWise office to receive an extension on my temporary badge. During orientation, the group of potential StreetWise vendors I was in were told that we had to sell 120 papers in a two week period. I had only sold 40 papers. I sat down with Greg, Director of Distribution of StreetWise to receive my extension.

Greg first asked me if me if this was my first extension. It was. He then asked if I had sold any papers. I told him that I did. Greg went to check his computer that was running slow that day. He then stepped away from his computer to go to the cubical that was behind me because his computer was taking too long to log into his. “You’ve sold forty papers. Are you working a full-time job or in school?” he asked. I had told him that I was. Greg continued, “Well show me something that shows me you’re in school and I’ll lower your requirement.” I quickly pulled out my Harold Washington College school i.d. and handed it over to him. He examined it carefully I suppose to see if it was authentic. “Let me make a copy of this” he said.

Greg returned from the photocopier, handed me my i.d. and started printing out my new bright orange temporary badge. Greg told me that I only had to sell eighty papers in two weeks to receive my permanent StreetWise badge. I thanked him and went to the “cage” to purchase another twenty of this week papers.

Saturday I went out determined to earnestly sell the rest of my StreetWise papers. I had sixteen left. I started my day at 10:30 a.m. I took an hour break between 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. I had only 5 more papers to sell. It took another forty-five minutes to sell four more papers. I kept one for myself to read on the way home.

The StreetWise Challenge

On the way downtown, knowing that I would be out their for a long time, I started to toy with the question of paying for my entire rent in advance for a entire quarter (three months).  Could I possibly do it selling StreetWise. The amount would be $1,650.00. With today being the seventh day and not having any papers to sell would put me at having only twenty-three days to accomplish this task. That would require me to work twenty-three days straight and sell an average of 72 papers a day. It took including yesterday and Friday a total of 6.75 hours to sell twenty.

While I’m waiting for a job offer I thought I would entertain this idea. I’ll give myself even to October 5th as that is the last day I can pay without occurring a $25.00 late penalty from my landlord.

Health Log

Weight: 217 lbs.

Jog: 60:00 mins.

Jogging Trek

It’s been exactly 40 days since I started jogging on July 30th. Today I was able to run for an entire hour. I started out running for a total of three minutes. I will now try and work on my speed. I will give the place that I stopped today the name “Point A” as a reference in my health log. I will run to that place as my daily goal and record the time it takes to get to it.

Yesterday I tracked my entire day activities to see where my time goes. I didn’t do everything I wanted to do like play guitar, clean, practice my singing and learn to make money online. This is proof to me that a job takes up too much of my time.

Since I’ve started a new network marketing business I’m realizing that I need to allocate some time to it each day. So what I will start doing is blogging about building my new network marketing business. I’m going to start sharing how I build my business each day and the time I allocate to it to serve three purposes. One is to strengthen my writing. Two is to add another dimension to my blog. Lastly is to give exposure to building a home-based business.

Time Management 

Managing my life has become a full-time occupation. It’s no wonder how it can easily fall apart if you work a full-time job. Today I’m going to start tracking my time and what I do with it. I’ll be posting it tomorrow in another table I’m going to create.

Network Marketing Lead Generation Experiment

When I got up this morning I did some research on lead generation for network marketing and I watched a video created by Scott Rogers, network marketing consultant. I’m going to use his idea of utalizing Twitter for creating leads.

Health Log

Jog: 52:28 min.

Secret Information

Yesterday I took a trip to the unemployment office to ask a few questions about my benefits. I spent an hour waiting to speak to someone. When I finally did, the woman sitting behind the desk asked me a few questions about why I was here. Before I could get a word out, she decided that I had signed the wrong sign-in sheet and started pointing me to another direction. I had to ask her several times just to allow me to speak. Once she did I was able to explain briefly my circumstances. She offered me a book on unemployment benefits. I asked a few more questions and she said she couldn’t offer me any more information or explain anything else to me due to being under staffed. Then she made a comment about her not helping me “beat the system.” As I walked out I thought how many times people may have lost their benefits or become unqualified because they didn’t have all the information or wasn’t given enough information.

Later I went to the financial aid department at my school to turn in my scholarship paperwork. After standing in line for thirty minutes I sat down and pulled out my application and a copy of my G.E.D. scores and handed them to the financial aid advisor. She quickly started saying that I needed to provide more information. She flipped to the back of the application and showed me where I needed to also provide a letter of recommendation from someone that knows my academic potential and a copy of my birth certificate.

After leaving the financial aid office I still had time to walk over to City Hall to see if I could get my birth certificate. I walked to the information booth to find out where I can get my records. The woman behind the counter directed me down the escalator and told to go through the double door and the office would be on my left. I followed her instructions. I was greeted by a woman behind the glass door taping up a sign on the window. She spoke as if there wasn’t a door between us telling me that the office was closed and would reopen tomorrow. As I was ready to leave and return again tommorrow she opened the door and asked me if the records were for me or my child. I told her that they were for me. She told me there was another office for records over ten-years old that was still open. I still had time to get them. I’m so glad I asked.

I work up at 5:00 a.m. today. Quite early for me. This has happened quite a bit since I’ve left my job. Worry I suppose. Since I’m comfortable now with creating tables I decided to use the time to work on my spreadsheet again, refining it to include all my expenses and breaking it down into weeks rather than days. 

Facing the Dragon

In all my years on earth, I have never sat down and took a look at my monthly income and expenses. I was quite in shock once I learned what I have to make each week to sustain myself. It really has put things into perspective for me. I’m now motivated and focused how I’m going to use my time now. There really is no time to relax. I have to find out ways to creativly earn money while going to school. This could mean a part-time job over the weekends.

The Blog Novice’s

Blogger’s Income Report

August 2008

This month I’ve decided to make a comment on my blogger’s income report. As I read some of the blogs today I’ve been inspired. One new blogger to the list is The At Home Couple. What inspired me the most is how new income bloggers are earning more on Adsense than myself. Now that I have the time available (I quit my job) I’m going to dive in with both feet to learn more about making money online.

1. Busy Blogging – $4,343.75

2. Tyler Cruz - $3,830.15

3. Lazyman and Money – $2,246.60

4. Inspired Money Maker – $1,601.51

5. BlueVerse – $850.00

6. Duckle Danny – $583.63

7. Start Breaking Free – $420.92

8. Money & Web – $418.92

9. Atniz – $313.33

10. The Moneyac – $195.00

11. Chris Guthrie – $135.00

12. Norhafidz – $133.93

13. Teddy Money – $83.48

14. The Daily Dollar Report - $76.08

15. Greg Ellison – $61.82

16. Templates Treasure – $53.71

17. Goof Blogger - $20.32

18. The At Home Couple - $7.85

The Keys to the Kingdom

Yesterday I had a yard sale. I decided that I would liquidate most of my possessions.  While I was pondering the idea of selling my things I couldn’t help but think of the story about Jesus telling the rich man to sell his possessions if he wanted to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. I’m beginning to believe that having a lot of “stuff” ties us down. Within an hour I had sold seven DVD movies for $4.00 for a total of $28.00 That was more than I had made selling StreetWise the entire week.

Time and Money 

My income from yesterday got me to thinking about the value of time that is put into an hour and the compensation that is received. The choice is ours to how we use and invest the twenty-four hours that each one of us is given each day. I really believe I can earn a living without working a job. I just have to come up with the right combination of ideas, use of my time and my talents.

Health Log

Jog: 43:19  min.

Personal P/L