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Roadie: Make that holiday trip pay for itself.

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thPlanning to visit family and/or friends later this month? An app-based “shipping community” called Roadie could help you make the trip more profitable, or at least help pay for gas and tolls.

This app-based “shipping community” currently has more than 25,000 drivers in all 50 states. The premise is pretty simple: You sign up as a driver and wait to see if anybody wants you to deliver something to where you’re going.

Kind of like Uber or Lyft, except that drivers are transporting cargo rather than people.

How much can you earn? A surprising amount, actually.

 

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Online surveys: An update.

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thI’ve written before about why online surveys can be worth the time. Making money by sharing your opinion sounds pretty good – especially compared to the times you shared your opinion and then had friends stop inviting you to parties.

In my upcoming book I note that while you won’t earn a full-time wage doing this, you’ll at least bring in some extra money and/or gift cards, and maybe even get some new products to test.

For example, I was paid to cook a taco dinner, try a new shampoo, use a new kind of mop, eat a new variety of chocolate chip cookie and join a focus group about doughnuts that earned me $60 for less than three hours’ worth of work (but which, unfortunately, left me obsessing about crullers).

 

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The bottle blonde at the DMV.

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th(Recently a reader wrote to ask me to re-run this post. So I did. And a happy Throwback Thursday to you all.)

Yesterday I had the use of a car so I stopped at the Division of Motor Vehicles to get my driver’s license switched over. The clerk asked if I’d been licensed in Alaska previously, and was in fact able to find me in the system. Fill in form ABCXYZ, take the written test and you’re good to go.

Written test? Really? Couldn’t I be grandmothered in, based on the fact that I was once a licensed Alaska driver?

Nope. Moments later questions like “How much liability insurance is an Alaska driver required to carry?” were flashing before my eyes.

The answer is “$50,000/$100,000/$25,000.” Who knew? Not me, apparently, because I got four questions wrong and the testing system kicked me out.

I’ve been driving for 38 years and I flunked the blankety-blank written test. Still can’t quite believe that. The real surprise of the day, however, came from filling out the form.

 

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Giveaway: “The Thriver’s Edge.”

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thSpring means rebirth, transformation and beauty. How about translating that kind of positive energy to your professional and/or personal life?

“The Thriver’s Edge: Seven Keys to Transform the Way You Live, Love and Lead,” by Dr. Donna Stoneham, might be just what you need to make this year your best ever.

Stoneham is a “transformational leadership expert” who’s spent three decades helping individuals, teams and entire organizations to “unleash their power to thrive.” She’s worked with non-profits and Fortune 1000 leaders alike to get to the bottom of the fears, negative beliefs or self-denigrating ideas that keep them from realizing their full potential.

That potential, by the way, can be happiness and peace — and you don’t have to be a captain of industry to take to heart the lessons from this book.

 

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Why I hate self-promotion. (And here’s a coupon!)

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StartbloggingI subscribe to several writing-focused newsletters whose authors sell courses, books and other products. Sometimes the newsletters include educational or thought-provoking facts, or links to free videos or webinars.

Mostly, though, they sell. Oh, do they sell.

A subject line like “three simple steps that helped John change his life” or “she halved her work hours and quadrupled her income” might lead you to think the newsletter contains valuable advice.

Sometimes it does. Generally speaking, though, the advice is “if you buy my product you can change your life, too.”

This is all smart marketing. I understand that. I just don’t know how/don’t much care to do it myself. My background in print journalism taught me to keep myself strictly out of the story. The new paradigm, however, is to promote one’s “brand,” if not one’s products.

Which brings me to last week’s giveaway.


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Greetings from Contractor Land.

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thI’ve taken a two-month contract job and my head, she is spinning. At 8 a.m. Monday I had my first conference with the editor and by 9 a.m. I had four assignments, all due within one week.

The articles are all based on insurance, a topic about which I know as much as any other freelance personal finance writer. Translation: I’ve spent a lot of time researching this week.

By the end of the first day I was utterly wrung out and wondering just what I’d done. The only thing that kept me going was the memories of my first day at The Chicago Tribune and the first few weeks at MSN Money. In both cases I felt completely at sea but I managed to survive, and to thrive.

 

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Not dead, just busy.

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th-1This morning I realized it’s been nine days since I posted. That’s not good, but it’s sometimes inevitable. Times are I get too bound-up in real life and can’t find time first to come up with a topic and then to write it.

Unfortunately, I may maintain radio silence for another week or so. Blame a combination of visiting relatives (they get here Sunday and will stay for a week), everyday deadlines, some fill-in child care for two families and a couple of special projects.

And, of course, the tail-end of a particularly amazing Alaska summer.

None of those things is particularly onerous (especially the summer part). Taken together, they’ve usurped all my waking hours. Occasionally they follow me into my dreams, e.g., waking up with a start and thinking, “Is that piece due today or tomorrow? Do I have enough research to finish it? Did I ever get in touch with that specialist?”

 

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Taking a (careful) leap of faith.

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thAlaska is full of kick-ass women, and I was privileged to meet a bunch of them during my 17 years of working for the Anchorage Daily News. That’s because I wrote for the features section, which meant getting sent out to interview women who’d either suffered great losses or done something intriguing. Sometimes both.

I learned something from all of them, and was fortunate enough to get to know some of them better. When I met Dana Stabenow she was at the tail-end of a carefully chosen yet potentially disastrous decision: to quit her lucrative job, get a master’s degree in creative writing and become an author.

She went broke in the attempt, but that’s not the end of her story.

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Thank goodness it’s payday.

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thToday I got my first paycheck since Nov. 29. At times this self-employment thing is for the birds.

My tax guy suggested I pay myself four times a year instead of monthly. It makes the paperwork easier, but part of me believes the quarterly system stinks.

That would be the part that’s been monitoring the checkbook balance – and suffering periodic panic attacks – since Thanksgiving.

Yet another part of me is glad that I’m not collecting 12 paychecks a year. The quarterly payouts help me keep my frugal edge.

 

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Some people REALLY want to work.

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thLady Liberty is back. Or, rather, some dude wearing a Statue of Liberty costume is back, and standing outside a local tax-prep place. Instead of lifting a lamp beside the golden door, he’s waving a get-your-taxes-done-here sign at the passing traffic.

I’ve seen at least two dudes dressed this way lately, greenish robes bulging over winter wear and spiky crowns sitting uneasily atop messy mops. The facial hair is a bit jarring, since the real Lady Liberty is clean-shaven.

Being willing to don a silly costume and stand outdoors in the cold tells me something about these guys: They want to work.

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