For The Cash-Strapped Woman

Wikipedia defines “cash-strapped” as “without funds; low on or out of money.”

Any successful Internet-preneur will tell you that there are no get rich quick schemes online that will get you rich quick! Having said that though, there are still loads of people searching for that magic bullet; and there are also a lot of people marketing to them. Unabashedly, I must admit that I was one of those seekers. I saw the movie “The Secret,” and I wanted to manifest my treasures. Simply think it and it will appear. Okay, we now know something was left out; a crucial part of the equation.

Everyone is waiting to win the lottery. All you need is a dollar and a dream they tell us. Well, I may be strapped for cash, but I can scrounge up a dollar! And I have no shortage of dreams. Again, I sit and wait. Although the odds are like a ga-zillion to one, you still hang on to that glimmer of hope.

After sitting and waiting and waiting and sitting, I realized that nothing was happening. I was just getting more and more strapped. No matter how much comes in, it seems like more goes out. So by the month’s end, there is more month than money. Can anybody relate? If only the months were two weeks long, then I could probably squeeze by. I always loved February because even though it was only two to three days shorter than the other months, again there was that bit of hope. Listen, when you’re cash-strapped, you grab onto every bit of hope you can find, ‘cuz there ain’t no money to hold on to!

Then, I got the proverbial awakening. Yes, the angels singing, the harps, the bright lights, the whole bit. Here is the message I received from the ethers: Nothing is coming until you get off your butt and do something! Wait! What? Who was that? It sure wasn’t any of the folks from The Secret. They all said stuff like visualize… believe… receive…. No one said I had to DO anything! And this wasn’t the end of the messages. No, why would it be?

Ready? Change your mindset! Now, that was deep, but I had no idea what it meant. I was pretty good about changing my mind; but my mindset? What the heck is a mindset? I didn’t even know I had a mindset! After arguing with my divine spirits for some years, I got tired. I was just plain worn out! Now, I had gotten several messages from my divine guides before, and no, I didn’t listen then either. Then I got a clue. Maybe they know something I don’t. You think? I surrendered. What else could I do? I was becoming insane; you know doing the same thing again and again and again and expecting different outcomes. That makes me laugh; why do we do that? Because we’re insane!

I thought some more about this mindset stuff and made the decision to change my mindset. I still had no clue what that meant or how to change it, but I was determined to change it.

It was then the universe opened up and presented me with some tools to… drum roll please! Yes, change my mindset! Eerie! In my everyday, seemingly ordinary life, I received emails from this coach, that teacher, this guru, and that mentor; all talking about changing your mindset. This got my attention. It also explained that changing my mindset simply meant changing my thinking and my limiting beliefs. Okay, that was easy. But how? I not only wanted to know how, I wanted a personalized map – with color pictures.

Okay, by now you are asking what all this has to do with making money online. Everything! The majority of us women are still sitting around waiting and hoping and praying and wishing for our windfalls. Our lives are full of stinking thinking and we have not a clue how to take charge of our own lives. We get up every morning and drag ourselves into our J.O.B. – which stands for “just over broke.” Because when the J.O.B. is gone, we end up just over broke. Until we get the thinking straight, all the rest will fall in line.

When I got my mindset shifted, I had cash flow, instead of being cash-strapped; I lost weight, and I was more at peace than ever before. Imagine, all from a shift in mindset. So coming full circle – although there are no get rich quick schemes that actually work, there is no magic bullet, you can make a great living online.

© 2010 Carolyn Townes. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from the forthcoming book, “The Cash-Strapped Woman’s Guide to Making Money Online: For the Woman Who Has No Money, No Time, and No Patience!”

Free or Low-Cost Wealth Creation Strategies

Although there are literally a ba-jillion products online to use as resources, not all are created equal and not all are what they claim. Most I have found leave out crucial details, like some of the “how to” steps. If you are not as tech savvy, this is a real pain! So, that leaves you buying yet another product to fill in the blanks of the last product you purchased. This does not promise well when you are cash-strapped.

DISCLAIMER: I DON’T DO COMPLICATED! There, I said it! If it is complicated or technically involved, my eyes glaze over and my brain wafts down to the Theta level brain state. That’s near sleeping, in plain English!

Having said that, I want to share some of my favorites – they are simple, they speak the kind of English I understand and there are no hidden secrets or figure-it-out-yourself steps. They just keep it real and tell it like it is. I like that! I won’t say too much about each except to CHECK THEM OUT YOURSELF!

Affiliate Marketing

My favorite definition: A form of marketing where individuals promote a product or service in exchange for either a percentage of the sales they generate or a specified amount for each lead generated.

To learn about affiliate marketing – check out these resources:

Rosalind Gardner – Net Profit Today

A super affiliate, Rosalind has written the quintessential guide to affiliate marketing, “The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 In One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online.” Rosalind has a ton of information to help you get started and stay the course.

Lynn Terry – ClickNews

Another super affiliate, Lynn is also the facilitator of Self Starters Weekly Tips, where she sends out tools and tips and moderates a free weekly Internet Marketing Q&A webinar.

Associate Programs.com

Thousands of pages of affiliate programs, useful tips, money-making articles, researched recommendations, and a helpful affiliate forum all hosted by Allan Gardyne.

Affilorama

Affiliate Marketing lessons, news, tools & talk hosted by Mark Ling. Mark also has lots of cool videos for the technically-challenged beginner. Like, “what is the Internet?”

Affiliatenaire

Affiliatenaire(tm), hosted by super Internet marketer Jimmy D. Brown – helping people make money online selling other people’s stuff in 3 hours or less!

Now, each of these superstars will walk you through everything you need to become an affiliate marketer. I love them because they are so down-to-earth, easy to understand, and there is no pomp and no hype! Gotta love that!

Free and Low-Cost Tools for Affiliate Marketing

Domain Names: GoDaddy

Hosting Services: HostGator / Blue Host / 1 and 1 /

Email Marketing: Aweber

File Transfer Program: Filezilla

Website/Blog Platform: WordPress

Affiliate Marketplace: ClickBank

For more help with all the above-mentioned:

2CreateAWebsite.com

YouTube Video Tutorials

This list is by no means exhaustive, it worked and still works for me. Period!

But none of this works properly if you do not have a prosperity mindset about wealth creation and making money online.

Having the resources is one thing, but nothing comes together if your thinking is out of whack! I knew all the things to do, but still nothing was gelling. Not until I began to think a new way…

I have created this free mini-ecourse to help you to think about what you are thinking about! That’s the purpose of this site – to help you manifest prosperity! You cannot manifest prosperity with faulty thinking.

What do I mean by faulty thinking? Sign up for the ecourse and you’ll find out! Heck, it won’t cost you nothing! I know you’re cash-strapped!