August, 2009

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Using ‘Animoto’ to drive traffic to your site

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

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My Other Half introduced me to this last week. He loves anything new and ‘gadgety’ on the ‘net and he’s always showing me stuff, most of which I only have a passing interest in, but I immediately liked the look of this.

I have a ‘Dream Builder’ application attached to my website www.beingamillionaire.com/dreambuilder , and it’s basically a series of pictures that subscribers can pick and choose to create a ‘Dream Album’.

I’ve got some great looking pictures on there and ‘Animoto‘ seemed like the ideal way to showcase some of them.

O.H uploaded a handful of pictures from the ‘Love’ category on dreambuilder, added some basic text, chose some music and Animoto does the rest. You can check out the results here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VycKk_tYBus

Once you’ve created the video, you can leave it on Animoto and direct people there, send it to YouTube or place it on your own site.

Considering that the basic package is free, you can create some fantastic and professional looking content for your site or to upload elsewhere.

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Snot and Sofas

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
A bit like my sofa, without green splodges!

Like my sofa but without green splodges.

Last year I bought a sofa from DFS.

I say bought, but I guess if I’m totally honest, I’ve actually borrowed it. You see I got it on one of their buy now and pay nothing for 12 months deal.

I thought this was the perfect way to get the sofa I wanted before Christmas and with a whole 12 months to save up I’d be able to pay it all off in one go.

My idea has almost worked, I did get the sofa I wanted but so far I’ve saved exactly £0.00 towards the cost. Hmmm…something’s gone wrong here.

Because I’ve got it in my head that it’s borrowed until I pay in October, I’m paranoid about the kids eating on it, sitting on it or even just being near it. Once it’s paid for, they can do what they like, but for the time being they have strict instructions to stay away with anything that resembles food or liquid.

Up until now it’s all gone to plan, until this morning. Sitting there on one of my luxurious chocolate brown, memory foam, chenille sofa cushions was a glistening, sticky trail of snot! And there was another on the arm, and another on the matching cushion. It looked like a family of slugs had broken in during the night and spent a few hours crawling over the settee. What was going on!!!!

It was then that I was aware of a very small person standing behind me. I looked down and recieved a big grin topped by a lurid green layer of thick mucus. ‘Ma!’ he shouted as he clambered up onto sofa using the most ingenious method of pressing his face into the sofa, swinging his body and legs up and then deftly wiping his snot encrusted nose all over the cushion cover as he bought himself upright.

And there he sat, not a drop of snot on his face because it was ALL OVER MY SOFA!

ARGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

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To go out or not to go out…that is the question!

Monday, August 24th, 2009

I love going out with my girlfriends and sometimes if the wind is blowing in the right direction, I also go out with my other half.

The problem I have is organising babysitters. I just hate having to ask people to babysit, I automatically think that I’m putting people out, that they would rather be doing anything than looking after my kids.

A typical babysitter.

A typical babysitter

Unless someone offers to babysit, I tend to avoid situations where we go out together.

My other half is going out with a friend for a meal this coming Wednesday. It just so happens that my two oldest kids are having sleep overs that night, so it will just be me and baby. Baby will be in bed for 7pm so I can have a whole evening to myself. I’d planned a long bath, chocolate, a DVD and anything else that I wouldn’t normally do with a house full of demanding males.

When O.H came home from work tonight, he told me he’d had an email from his friend saying that his wife was really keen to go out for Tapas too and that he’d booked a table for four, asking if I would like to come.

‘Oh God!’ I said in return. ‘That means getting a babysitter at less than two days notice. Well you’ll just have to arrange it!’ Knowing full well that he wouldn’t.

I can’t believe myself, I love going out, I love Tapas, I don’t really know O.H’s friends so this would be a great way to get to know them yet I can’t bear the thought of having to ring around asking a ‘favour’ and on a Wednesday for goodness sake. Who goes out on a Wednesday!!

After about half an hour of O.H saying nothing about him arranging a sitter I decide to broach the subject in as subtle way as I can manage whilst doing the washing up. ‘You’re not going to organise a baby sitter are you? Lets just face facts!’ Fully expecting him to say…’Yes, you’re right, I probably won’t', he instead threw a curve ball and said, ‘Well actually I’ve been thinking….’ Oh no, not thinking!! I don’t like thinking!! ‘They’ve got kids, they obviously have a baby sitter so lets take him over there, put him to bed and their sitter can look after him too!’ At this point I nearly hyper-ventilated.

I know I’ve got to get over this problem. I rarely ask for babysitters so I’m sure that people don’t mind and they’re not just any ‘people’ they are usually my family and love my kids, well they’ve never said anything to the contrary.

I guess I’ve got a couple of days to work something out and who knows, a Wednesday night out might do me some good.

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Pensions can be interesting…really!

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Ok…this is just getting plain spooky now!

You remember the Prosperity Game that we have been doing every day (Thanks to Esther and Jerry Hicks and the Teachings of Abraham ‘Ask and it is given’)…well….one of the things we keep ‘buying’ each day is property, mainly holiday home/ rental property.

We’ve had great fun finding holiday homes both here in the UK and abroad, however the reality is that our cashflow wouldn’t allow us to buy one right now.

So…where is this going….Ok I’ll tell you!

A couple of weeks ago, O.H had a letter regarding his pension and had a brain wave about cashing it in to use as a deposit on a property…oh…except you can’t do that until you retire at 65! 25 years from now…’But I need the money now!’ I heard him telling his Financial Advisor to no avail.

So there was only one thing he could do in a situation like that…search the Internet for some information.

After a bit of ‘googling’ he came up with SIPPS…I won’t bore you with what a SIPP is (Self Invested Personal Pension) partly because I don’t quite understand, but you can read about it at Money Saving Expert.

I’m going to cut a very long story short now.

After doing some sums we realised we had £27,000 in pensions between us which we could then invest in some overseas property.

To cut the story even shorter we met up with a friend of my O.H and in less that an hour and a half we had put our pension into a property in Cape Verde and not a penny down!!

Not only that, but the rental we will earn each year, will be put straight back into the pension, giving us a far better return on our money and, if our calculations are correct, the chance to retire at 55!

How exciting!!! And what had we been asking the Universe over and over for…an overseas property and now we have one with the least amount of effort ever!

What a brilliant day!

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We are Macmillan Cancer support.

Monday, August 17th, 2009

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It’s official, BeingaMillionaire.com is now a corporate partner of Macmillan Cancer Support!

‘What does that mean?’ I hear you say. Well, it means that for each product that we sell, we will donate a minimum of 10p to Macmillan Cancer Support.

In case you were wondering exactly what Macmillan does, here’s a quote from the Macmillan website that describes in a nutshell, some of their work.

“We rely on our supporters for 99% of our income. Without you we couldn’t provide any of our services for people living with cancer.

Force for change
We are a force for change, listening to people affected by cancer and working together to improve cancer care. People who live with cancer are experts by experience. Together we use this knowledge to make a positive difference to the lives of people affected by cancer.

When you have cancer you want high quality services, and want to be involved as equal and active partners in decisions about your treatment and care. Often this doesn’t happen. Many people also want to play an active part in improving cancer services in the future.

Campaigning and influencing
We work with people affected by cancer and other organisations to raise awareness of the issues that really matter. We influence all governments and the people who make decisions at both a regional and national level.

Cancer care research
We want to ensure cancer care is given the same priority as research into treatments and ‘cures’. To us, improving quality of life matters as much as quantity of life.

Cancer Voices
We support people affected by cancer to voice their views and shape the future of cancer care.”

We are very proud to be part of such a fantastic charity that touches the lives of so many people.

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The start of our new Empire!

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

On Monday we delivered our biggest order yet to Tobar in Suffolk.

For those of you who don’t know, and that includes me up until a few months ago, Tobar are the parent company of Hawkins Bazaar.

Outside the warehouse

Outside the warehouse

It was a mad rush to get the £1Million notes delivered as the truck carrying 1500 of them crashed the Friday before delivery!!! Argh!! We then 72hrs to source them from another printer and pack them ready for delivery at midday on Monday.

Needless to say we had a busy old weekend getting them all ready and believe me if child labour was legal, even the baby would have been sticking bar codes on!

But we did it in the end and by Monday afternoon we had safely delivered 4000 £1Million notes, which are due to go into Hawkins shops around September time.

Hawkins/ Tobars head office. Fab clock!!

Hawkins/ Tobars head office. Fab clock!!

We then spent a lovely day in Lowestoft and Southwold which is one of my most favourite places, especially the pier. I can definately recommend the ‘Under the pier show’ which puts a new spin on coin operated machines.

All in all it was a brilliant day, the sun shone, the kids didn’t moan (much) and we went home very happy.

P.S

Talking of happy, have a go at this: http://www.scienceofhappiness.co.uk/

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