I noticed this site in one of the Adsense ads here on my site.  Of course, I did not click on it because you are not supposed to click on ads from your own site.  However, I went to the URL because it sounded interesting.  I signed up to make money blogging about certain products and services.  You don't even have to endorse the products, you just mention them. 

Specifically, here is what the FAQ says:

Do I have to endorse the product/service I am writing about ...?

No, you do not have to endorse the product/service that you are writing about. You can discuss it however you want, compliment it, review it, discuss how it relates to something going on recently or in the past in your life, or even complain about it. Your blog/entry should be at least 100 words and should contain at least 1 link to the advertisers' website. Endorsing the website product or service is not a requirement. Blogger has the option of either follow or nofollow links.

Here is how much they pay: 

How Much Will I Make?

You will make money for each task assigned to you that you have completed and submitted back for approval. The current payout rate for new accounts is $4 - $25 per entry. Most will fall into the $5-15 range. So if you are assigned 10 writing tasks and complete them and are approved you will earn $50-150 dollars. Note: Payout Rates will vary and are frequently based on popularity/traffic of blog as measured by independent third parties.

If you are interested, go their site and register.  I thought it sounded fun and simple and I wanted to share with my faithful readers because I knew some of you might enjoy it as well.

I will be posting about other work at home opportunities on my new blog at JoanVasquez.com

I have people email me all the time asking about how they can work from home. I am curious as to how many of my readers work from home? If you don't work from home, do you want to work from home? If you want to work from home, why would you like to work from home?

Have you ever heard the saying "When the going gets tough, the tough get going?" Times are hard, but there are things a person can do to "make it through". When times get hard, you basically have 3 choices: 1) You can bury yourself in self pity and give up and then just get swallowed up by it. 2) You can tread water and barely survive 3)You can be motivated to better things and get creative.

Here are some things we have done recently to combat the hard times: My husband started working from home again to save on gas and even if he gets another outside job, it will be right here in our small town, this cut our gas expenses down to about $60 a month. We quit smoking which saves us $150 a month. We cut our cable TV down and this saved us $110 a month-- yes you can live w/o 300 channels and DVRs!) We stopped eating out. We cut our food for a family of 8 (there are usually at least 6 of us here) down to $400 a month and started working toward getting health and beauty aids for free.

Here are some other things we have done to meet the current financial challenges in our society:

I make all of my own bread in the bread machine.

We limit milk to either in the cereal or an 8oz cup per day and we also limit juice to 8oz a day per person and buy frozen juice.

I get all the grocery flyers from about a 30 mile radius. I take them to Wal Mart with me and I get the price comparison sale price on things.

I clip coupons weekly. I print some coupons from the 'net. I try to combine coupons with sales.

I just started doing WalGreen's register rewards program. I know people who use CVS Cash Back and WG RR and they wind up getting all their health and beauty aids free and cleaning supplies free etc.

I buy whatever meat is on sale using the sale flyers I mentioned earlier and usually at WM. The thing is.. it has to be the same brand for WM to honor it so if something is a real good price and the other store is close enough to make it worth the gas, then I will still go to the other store and get the sale items w/m would not honor.

I make my own granola (cereal), own pizza dough, I even know how to make syrup. I try to keep everything on hand to make as much from scratch as possible.

I use these coin things at this one store here and I get good deals, like last week I got 10 cans of Hunt's spa. sauce for .90 and 10 rolls of paper towels for 1.00.

We have smoothies with omega 3 oil, plain yogurt, strawberries or blueberries for a healthy boost. I have a recipe for making my own yogurt and intend to try it soon, this will save more $$.

We eat a lot of stuff like chicken and dumplings, stir fry, pasta dishes, beef stew, bean patty burgers (that my kids thought I was tricking them cuz they thought they were meat.. they could not believe it was made from beans and no meat !LOL) beans, taters, cornbread, biscuits, vegetable soup, tuna sand., etc.

We buy large turkeys when they are on sale and we make that stretch for about 3 or 4 meals.

We eat pancakes, muffins, eggs and bacon and we buy the Bacon Ends and Pieces so we use it to eat alone and we use the fattier pieces for flavoring in things like beans.

We make a once a month trip to Aldi (which is about 20 miles away from our house) and we buy almost everything we need there for the month for about $250. We just started this one so now we now we will not be shopping at Wal Mart as much. I could not believe how much food I got at Aldi for that amount! If you go to Aldi, be sure you have a quarter to get a cart and take your own bags.

Related post with Black Bean Burger recipe:
Lean Grocery Week

I got a lot of great ideas from

Hillbilly Housewife and Money Saving Mom

OK... I have two questions for Xanga or Xangans.  I am learning how to monetize my blog.  I may have to move to monetize unless I can get a yes to a couple of the following questions:

Can a person buy their own domain name and be hosted with Xanga and still keep their current Xanga only with their own domain name?

Is it possible to post ads on Xanga blogs?

Have any of you guys monetized a Xanga blog?  If so, would you mind telling how you did it?