As I write this, gold is well over $1,700 an ounce and reasonably close to an all time high. This has prompted something I have never heard of before: gold parties. We all know what Tupperware parties and candle parties are but gold parties are new and they are a sign of the times with so many people wanting to exchange their gold for money.

Gold parties are often organized or initiated by a gold buyer (jeweler) as a way of getting more business for themselves. They work like this:

1) The jeweler finds someone they know who would be willing to host the “party” and invite people they know who want to sell their gold. Lots of women have gold jewelry tucked away at the back of their drawers that with the high prices of gold today, be turned into decent money. In exchange for organizing the party the host might receive 5% or 10% of the money exchanged and so he/she is quite happy.

2) The jeweler would pay out less than the going rate on gold but enough to make people happy and make sure he gets a profit as the middle man.

3) And of course the people invited to the party get to go home with some easy money in their hands for giving up their gold that they weren’t using anyway. All in all, everyone has fun and feels like they make a profit.

It sure doesn’t look like the economy is going to be getting much better anytime soon. 2012 is an election year and things are going to get super nasty in the Presidential race. I think this means that we will see more and more of these gold parties popping up all over the place. People need to have a little fun in their lives and if they can raid their drawers and come home with some extra money from their unused gold, these parties are going to increase in popularity.

1) First up is SquishyCash that pays you lots of different ways and I choose PayPal. You can make money with them by completing surveys, offers, shopping through their sites, and several other ways.You can see my PayPal payment below and they pay on time at the end of every month as long as you reach the payout amount of $20:

2) Second up is my PayPal payment from Treasure Trooper. They also have a payout amount of $20 and once you reach that a check or online payment (your choice) will automatically be sent out. Do a little every day and should be easy to get paid by them every month as well:

3) My third payment comes from a site called SwagBucks where I earn credits for using their search engine. I then redeem those credits for $15 iTunes gift cards of which I ordered and received two of them last month. You can earn credits (SwagBucks) lots of different ways but I get most of mine by simply using their search engine instead of going to Google or Yahoo. You can read more about the site and view a video I made about them here – SwagBucks review.

In the history of the world, it has always been very difficult to get published. Writers would have to convince publishers that their books were worth taking a risk on and that has always been extremely difficult. Many writers, having been unable to convince the big publishing companies to look at their works have spent their own money to get their books in print. But that is most often very expensive and results in few sales.

Now You Can Self Publish With Amazon & Kindle

Now that we have the Internet though, things have gotten better for writers and would be authors. Absolutely ANYONE  can actually put together an eBook and have it for sale online. This can be done through Amazon.com and a website called Smashwords.com where you can upload your PDF file eBook and have it listed for Kindle buyers.

To do it right you really need to be able to put some sort of a cover with graphics up and that could take some work figuring out how to do it. Additionally, there are all sorts of formatting issues that you will have to deal with as your books have to look right on the Kindle. Learning how to get everything set up at the start will probably take you a bit of time to learn but once you figure it all out you will be able to do it quicker the next time.

Pricing your eBook is something that careful thought should be put into. Many people are pricing their eBooks at 99 cents, $2.99, or $4.99 which is obviously not a lot. Remember, the goal here is to put something of quality up that people will want to buy and download for years. You will get between 30% and 70% of the price of the book with the rest going to Amazon or Smashwords. Never before has an opportunity to make money by writing your own

To learn more about self publishing on Amazon click the link.

You may also be interested in reading the book How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months which tells a very inspiring tale of how the most successful eBook writer got his start and what he did to sell all those books.

For a college student it might be an amount that is enough to pay for their schooling. For someone just out of college it might be a number in the $20,000 to $30,000 range. For someone just laid off a $50,000 job, it would be a number closer to that. Families who have 1 child would need less than families with 5 kids. Well, you can see the trend here and that is that a full time income is a different number for every person or family.

Add to that the international differences in costs, wages, and living expenses and you will also see that someone in the Philippines or any other number of countries might be able to live very comfortably on MUCH less than someone would in America. A full time income in some places might be as little as $300 or $400 a month! Definitely quite a different amount than is needed in the U.S.A..

If you want to learn how to make a full time income online, it will depend a lot on your determination to succeed, your ability to learn, and what dollar amount you need to make every month. For someone needing under $20,000 a year, it might be achievable in a year or two. For someone who wants to make $20,000 to $50,000, it might take a lot longer and might be a number so high that they never get there. Over $50,000 a year in online income is probably attainable for just a very few who have the natural skills needed to learn quickly and excel online.

Whatever amount you need to reach a full time income, the best place I know of to reach that goal is the Keyword Academy. This is an online program consisting of tutorial videos, audios, tools, and all the other things that you will need to understand how to make money online. You can read my Keyword Academy review and see a short video I made showing some of what you will get when you sign up. The first month is free (really free and not a scam like so many others) and during that time you will have access to everything just like you were a paying member. Please read my review and see if it my be right for you in your quest for an online full time income.

The difference between this rewards site and others is that you get paid to use their search engine which gives you most of the same results you would get if you use Google. Rather than go to Google for my surfing, I use the Swagbucks search engine that randomly rewards me with Swagbucks that I can then redeem for all sorts of things like iTunes gift cards, Amazon.com gift cards, cash and so much more. Everything is free so it really is a no brainer.

The things you can do for free include take surveys, watch ads, trade in electronics, play games, and of course surf the Web. All those things pay you in Swagbucks which you then take to the Swag Store to turn in for the things you really want. See the video I made below showing how it all works:

If you want you can earn even more Swagbucks by doing some of the paid offers such as Groupon, signing up for Netflix, and ordering other things that you would normally buy but that is TOTALLY OPTIONAL and you never have to do anything that costs money.

In return for the Swagbucks you earn you can cash them in for all sorts of goodies including digital goods, electronics, books, gift cards and lots more. As I say in the video, I almost always get the Amazon.com gift cards but I sometimes get an iTunes card when my iTunes account runs dry. It is a great way to get what amounts to free iTunes music downloads!

Doing all the free stuff (mainly just surfing) I easily earn a couple of Amazon cards a month. It’s not a lot but remember, I’m just making that for surfing on the Swagbucks engine instead of Google. I don’t do anything else so you could earn a lot more if you tried. For anyone looking for legitimate money making ideas online that are free, you should sign up for Swagbucks and give them a try.