Which cash back rewards credit cards are worth it?When I started my search for a cash back rewards credit card several months ago, there was a bevy of cards available, each seemingly offering something better than the next.

I ended up picking up a Chase Freedom rewards credit card, which offered 3% cash back in the 3 spending categories I used most, plus an additional $50 bonus cash back for every $200 in cash back earned. I paid off my credit card balance in full every month and benefited from thousands of dollars in rewards.

Now, due to the credit crunch, credit card companies have been tightening their purse strings. My Chase Freedom card is the latest victim. There are no more 3% bonus categories. Also, the $50 bonus when reaching $200 in cash back rewards is gone.

The bonus being nixed means my Chase Freedom card essentially becomes just like every other 1% cash back card out there. Thus, I set out on an adventure to find a new credit card that gave me better rewards. (more…)

How to choose a business.Ben writes in: “One of the issues I struggle with is focus. I have too many ideas and dilute my time pursuing several of them. What process do you use to choose which business idea you’ll run with?”

V also has a similar question: “I’d like to hear your thoughts about involving in many businesses at once. I’m mostly interested in web-based projects with a high requirement of up-front work (but not necessarily up-front money investment) and ‘passive-income’ potential.”

Instead of some boring stats and humdrum analysis, I thought the best way to show how I chose web hosting — and became successful in it — was to tell you my story.
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Frank Kern shows off his Porsche.I am at a conference called Mass Control, put on by the venerable Frank Kern. Frank is considered somewhat of a rock star in the Internet Marketing world. (If you’re not in Internet Marketing, when you think about your industry, just substitute some wiseass who has made tens of millions of dollars and thinks Ferraris are pieces of crap, and you get the idea.)

Frank, like many of the Internet marketing “gurus”, got his start in the old days of Internet marketing — which was actually something like 1998, or maybe 1999. Back when, as Frank and the other gurus will tell it, nobody thought it was possible to make more than $100,000 in a day. Now that record has been shattered, and Frank and many of the others who speak at these conferences have made $2 million, $3 million, or even $5 million in a single day from a product launch. Typically, they also all promote other gurus’ products to their huge mailing lists.

As you listen to Frank, or any of the other “gurus”, recount their stories, you can’t help but notice two things: All of the gurus seem to be male, and pretty much all of them are white. At Mass Control, for instance, there aren’t any female speakers, and probably 85% or 90% of the attendees are male.

Today, I was speaking to one of the attendees, and, in a moment of attempted bonding, he asked me the following question:

“Erica, don’t you think Internet marketing is just an old boys’ club?” (more…)

Sometimes, as entrepreneurs, we need to face up to reality and admit that we’re not where we want to be. This is that post for me. It’s mid-April and I am definitely not where I want to be this year.

Last year, when I stated my goal of making $10,000/month online via writing and creating my own products, I felt it would be a goal that I could accomplish by the end of 2008. When 2009 rolled around, I again felt confident that I would hit the goal quickly. It’s April, I still haven’t hit it, and here’s why: (more…)

During the real estate boom, many investors got caught up in the mania of buying real estate. In 2005, people I knew were going into the real estate industry left and right. Many seemed surprised that I elected not to buy any property.

Whenever someone asked me why I didn’t own real estate, I would simply point out that no properties near me cash flowed. I first started blogging about real estate in 2003, noting that a property in the same condo complex where I was renting was actually more money to own than to rent. I pointed out, correctly, that this meant I could not possibly cash flow on it as a rental with a 30-year fixed mortgage. (Those condos have already lost value, as I predicted, and are poised to drop further.)

Even though many looked at me like I was crazy for “throwing my money away”, I continued to rent. In August 2006, I predicted the real estate crash year by year, and also predicted that I would buy a house in late 2010. So far, my predictions have been eerily accurate; I predicted that Fannie and Freddie would crash, housing values would drop by at least 35%, and saw the recession coming.

I spent hundreds of hours accumulating data, confident that the coming crash would represent one of the biggest opportunities to buy property in our lifetimes. Here, I take my accumulated knowledge and answer your five most common questions about buying real estate. (more…)