Five more profitable things I could be doing than AdSense

Posted by stuart as , , ,

Looking at my AdSense stats this morning upon getting up at 4am to watch Australia whip Croatia (here’s hoping!) to move into the last 16 in the World Cup, a thought occured to me.

I love the internet, I love my PC, I love my G3 Powerbook, I love my HP IPAQ 1950 PDA, hell, I even love my old Mac Plus I’ve never quite got around to throwing out. But really, if you took away all these things, would I be better or worse off?

From a financial standpoint, obviously, if I hadn’t bought all these “toys”, I’d be much better off, but I have to ask myself why a dollar earned using these tools is so much more valuable than a dollar earned in the “real world”

For arguments sake, if I find a dollar under the cushions of the couch, I drop it in my pocket and forget about it, whereas if I get a dollar from four clicks on my AdSense ads, I’m just about ready to throw a party. I’m getting a bit tired of begging for pennies.
Taking things a step further, I thought I’d discuss the top five things you could be doing to make more money than I do with AdSense:

1) Visit all your cousins, aunts, uncles etc, and ask if you could borrow a dollar. The great thing about this is that the amount is small enough that they’re going to be too embarassed to ask you to re-pay the money: free money is good money!

2) Similar to the above; visit the local shopping mall, and ask strangers if they will give you a dollar for bus-fare home. This might be dangerous, but from a dignity standpoint, I believe it’s roughly on a par with begging for clicks on an AdSense site.

3) Visit friends and family, take a seat in the lounge-room, fake a coughing fit, and ask for a glass of water. When the friend or family member leaves the room, quickly check under the cushions of the lounge for small change. Just don’t get caught!

4) Go to work early, and check all your co-workers drawers before they arrive. Most people will have a few coins in their drawer, change from the Coke machine etc. Just don’t get greedy. Take a dollar or so, but not enough for them to notice.

5) Raid your kids money-box. Again, don’t get greedy, but kids usually have heaps of small coin. I know my three year old collects all the loose coin in the house, and most of it finds its way into his money-box. He must have about $50 in there by now. He’s not going to notice the odd dollar going missing.