Money Blue Book

The past few weeks have been tough on me as an aspiring full time blogger. After almost a full year of nearly regular blog posts and after months of practicing fairly consistent writing habits, I’ve finally been smitten with the ailment that inevitably afflicts all bloggers and online entrepreneurs at some point or another – blogger burn out. Blogger’s block, as the affliction is commonly called, is basically the lack of motivation and sudden depletion of new ideas found in those suffering from writer’s block, except it affects those who blog online for alternative side income or for amusement. However, in my case, it’s not the lack of new article writing ideas or lack of potential subjects to opine about, but rather the summer laziness feeling that has made it nearly impossible for me to stay self driven and self motivated. I actually have a spiral notebook that I keep around and regularly update. The notepad contains all my various scribbled down notes and ideas as they come to me. With hundreds of personal finance article writing topics and self jotted potential leads to inspire me, it’s rarely a matter of running out of ideas – I have plenty of them – it’s actually the drive and daily motivation to actually sit down and put fingers to keyboard that’s the feet dragging hurdle for myself at the moment. When it comes to running a side business in the nature of self employment, one must have a consistent way to stay focused and stay driven, working consistently despite personal and family issue disruptions. When motivation wanes or when concentration becomes too difficult, blog production and growth can quickly hit a snag.

Fortunately, a blog can still stay alive and remain healthy even without fresh updates for very long periods of time (weeks to months). One very unique aspect about blogs not found in most other industries is the ability to harness residual Internet traffic for long term growth despite lack of immediate content production. Oftentimes, it’s past blog posts that rank highly in Google keyword searches, which do the most to help sustain a blog’s successful traffic levels, and not posting frequency per se. Posting frequency is actually quite overrated, especially for mature sites that have at least a solid year’s worth of quality posts. Of course, in a perfect blogging world, the more posts that a site can accrue and index, the better, but offering a new post everyday is not necessarily a deal breaker. So long as the motivation to keep a blog alive is still there, a blog can still thrive, grow, become widely read, and become financially successful with proper monetization.

Even Formerly Consistent Bloggers Ultimately Get Bitten By Writer’s Block At Some Point Or Another

It’s been a year since I first started blogging for fun and transitioning my little hobby into a decent part time side job. I’ve had numerous ups and downs in terms of motivation and focus over the past few months – most of which I assumed I had permanently overcome. Much of the initial frustrations with running a fledgling personal finance blog happened early on when search traffic was non existent and lack of advertising success led me to question whether I could turn my hobby into a sustainable source of quasi-passive income. However, after 9 months in, the worries and gripes associated with the initial lack of blogging success faded away when my blogging efforts finally started to pay off and my efforts to convert organic search traffic into tangible pay per click and affiliate advertising income started to bear fruit en masse. Monetary success and upward trends in terms of website traffic have a way of greatly lifting one’s blogging spirits and sparking confidence to become more self motivated.

However, despite the steady traffic growth and monetization successes of my original personal finance blog and the newer health and fitness blog, persistent blogger’s block finally bit me again. For the last few weeks, I’ve struggled to motivate myself to update my blog posting and to adopt more sustainable entrepreneurial work habits. At first I tried cutting down my daily posting schedule to just a few personal finance and frugality articles a week, but ultimately even that proved difficult to sustain. I think after nearly a year of working continuously on my part time blogging business and putting time in at my full time job, I’ve finally burned out, at least for the moment. Thankfully, it’s happening during the annual summer slump, when most blogs and online websites see a noticeable decrease in search and referral traffic due to the cyclical and seasonal nature of Internet use. While certain niches such as college preparation and travel sites tend to enjoy an appreciable surge in traffic during the summer months, the vast majority of sites see a noticeable decline during the months of June, July, and August as prospective readers and viewers choose to spend their free time outdoors at amusement parks and take advantage of summer vacation traveling opportunities, putting off any significant financial moves or planning decisions until the fall.

As luck would have it, my sudden pangs of writer’s block couldn’t have come at a more fortunate time. The summer slump allows me to lesson the strain on my posting routine and take some time off to unwind and get away from the pressures of posting regularly. The urgency of needing to write regularly was starting to become a bit overwhelming. For those who wonder why I even bother stressing about the need to write regularly, or putting self imposed worries on myself, the answer is simple. I treat my network of blogs like a part time project that must be sustained consistently until the day they can completely overtake my full time job and allow me to become independently self employed and fully sustained financially. My dream and goal for myself has always been to become fully self employed, to become independent from the shackles of working for someone else (the Man if you will), and to find true financial freedom from the daily work grind. The fruits of success will be even sweeter when I can permanently escape the hassles and limitations of painfully long daily rush hour commutes and having to deal with high gas prices.

To reach this lofty but reachable goal of making money online through the monetization of my financial and health related blogs, I know I’ll need to get my blogging mojo back, so to speak. Unable to get out of this rut on my own, I’ve decided to take a little blogging break and go on vacation to momentarily escape my full time job and part time work responsibilities. I’m currently traveling overseas and will do so for the next few weeks. I plan to visit my parents and get my mind off the rigors of running a network of monetized blogs. It’s amazing how a little simple change of scenery and work space can refresh one’s motivation and perspective. I think it’s also the same reason why weeks ago I was trying to find public places outside of my home that provided complimentary free WiFi Internet access. It was probably in an attempt to escape the monotony and ho-hum sameness of working from home. Sometimes, a little healthy distraction is all we need to get our business minds back on track.

I have a little secret to share. Well it’s not really a secret so much as it’s a phobia that I’ve held since I was a little kid. Here’s the  secret – I am deathly afraid of household insects, but in particular – cockroaches. There, I’ve said it – the cat’s out of the bag – go ahead and laugh, but it’s not funny (maybe just a little bit). Funny or not, it’s something that makes my heart beat fast, makes my pupils dilate like saucers, and summons forth caveman like instincts to grab the nearest bunny slipper or rolled up U.S. News and World Report magazine for some self-preservation-inspired bug pounding.

The mere sight of the creepy crawly legs and wiggling antennas of the common household cockroach jetting out from dark corners and scampering across bathroom counters and kitchen floors utterly freaks me out. While I don’t instantly jump onto chairs, call my mommy, or scream at the top of my lungs like a little girl, I do become visibly startled and immediately shift into fight mode whenever I encounter a lost spider or resident evil roach in my apartment. I’m sure you PETA fanatics out there may be turned off by my disdain and opposition to the plight of roaches and other household vermin, but I don’t care. Roaches and insects have no place in my home and I’ll do whatever it takes to eradicate the pests. I’ve had too many unfortunate experiences and bad memories of living with roaches during my student years.

Fortunately, I’m currently at a place and time in my life where my financial means now permit me to live in a nicer home far away from roach, rat, and vermin infestation that used to plague the ghetto row houses and low cost apartment rentals where I used to live as a college and graduate student. It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with the nuisance of roaches or had to arm myself with high caliber anti-roach weaponry to fight off the onslaught of the mighty cockroach horde. But sometimes, scenes on TV and real life will remind me of how things used to be. Right now there’s a really fascinating but disgusting show on the Discovery Channel called the Verminators that I absolutely love to watch. The reality TV show follows a crack team of household pest exterminators as they go from problem home to another, wiping out severe rat, roach, ant, maggot, spider, and even pigeon infestations. The reason I love the show is the gleeful delight and absolute warlike approach the personalities on the show exhibit towards their determination to kill off all resident bugs that infest the homes of their desperate clients. The exterminator pros show no mercy and go full out with their armament of sprays, powders, and oxygen masks to combat the invaders. One time they even brought out an actual gun to take out a mega-rat that was hiding in someone’s attic. The show, while visually horrendous, brings me back to my graduate school days when I faced a massive roach infestation of my own.

My Failed Battle Against The Impressive Roach Army That Resulted In Eventual Retreat and Surrender

Until recently, I’ve always had a roach problem wherever I lived. Even though I consider myself relatively clean when it comes keeping my home tidy, roaches always seemed to invade my home. Probably the biggest reason for that was the fact that much of my early life was spent as a financially frugal student. As I was primarily supported by my overseas-living parents during my early years, I made a conscientious decision to live in apartments and neighborhoods that were affordable, to help lessen the financial burden on my parents who had several tuitions and living expenses to pay for. But as a result of my cost saving measures, every place I’ve lived at was infested with vermin of all types – from rats to roaches. As indicated above, it wasn’t until my recent later years in my late 20’s that I’ve been able to move on up the financial ladder to higher class, vermin-free housing.

Probably the absolute worst out-of-control infestation experience occurred during my post law school years when I was still struggling to settle down with my fledgling law career and build a sustainable living. To keep expenses low and save money, I decided to move into a quiet garden apartment community in a suburb of Maryland. The commute was great, proximity to grocery stores was excellent, and the price seemed too good to be true – it was. Months into my lease, the nightmare began. While I maintained a clean apartment, washing my dishes after every meal and storing away all food products into air tight containers, I kept noticing the appearance of roaches. At first it was just one or two encounters a week. I squished the roaches with my shoe and flushed them down the toilet each time and hoped they would go away, but they never did. They simply started appearing in greater and greater numbers. It got to the point where everytime I turned on my bathroom light, I would see two or three small roaches hanging around the ceiling area or visibly trying to scurry into a wall corner. Each time I got chills and sweated profusely at the sight of the nightmarish invaders. Eventually, their presence spread from the bathroom and into the kitchen, and eventually into the living room. In time I started seeing them during the day as well, a warning sign that I had a serious problem. Roaches are biologically night animals. If you see one during the day, it likely indicates that you have a serious infestation as overcrowding under cabinets and refrigerators probably has forced them out into the open. For each single roach you see in the open, it probably represents hundreds more hiding behind your drywall or between your floorboards.

At the time I was busy with work so I had little time to deal with my apartment management and forcefully compel them to eliminate the pests. But in response to a few calls and complaints, my apartment complex hired an exterminator, but the roach baits they set forth were ineffective. Eventually I simply went full out and took matters into my own hands. I headed to Home Depot to arm myself with all that consumer bug fighting technology had to offer. I purchased every single roach bait, egg stopper, roach gels, boric acid powder, and roach spray brand I could find – everything from MaxForce to Raid. I probably purchased more roach motel traps and roach gel bait devices than I needed, but I was determined to eliminate their presence from my home forever. All in all, I probably had more than 60 individual roach bait traps for a small apartment that was only about 700 square feet in all. I lined all corners and walls with multiple roach baits, and inserted gel bait poisons into all cabinet cracks and wall corners. I also dusted hard to reach areas with a layer of boric acid, a white powder that is not grossly toxic to humans or most pets like cats, dogs, and birds, but is supposedly deadly towards insects as it eats away their hard shell skin thereby dehydrating them to death. However, while I started seeing piles of upside down roaches everywhere, indications that my baits were working, the onslaught kept coming. Everyday I would see dead roaches everywhere, but new live ones seemed to keep taking their places, gnawing on the dead roach carcasses for nourishment.

Even my poor pet parrot was not immune to the onslaught. Even though he was never physically harmed, his cage was also slowly invaded by the swarming roaches. To protect my pet parrot to the best of my ability, I made sure to keep his cage clean at all times and placed his cage on a plastic lawn furniture table in my living room. I lined the bottom of the plastic table with a thick coat of boric acid powder to ensure that the only way that roaches could invade the cage was by walking through the white powder of insect death. However, day in and day out, I would look at my parrot’s bedding liner to find that the roaches had determinedly strolled through the boric acid powder and made their way into the bottom liner of his cage to seek out food products. When I pulled out the cage’s poop tray to clean it one time, I freaked out when more than 15 roaches scurried out from the plate and began crawling the walls, heading to the ceiling to escape like some horror movie. The nightmarish sight sent deathly chills down my back, made me sweat in horror, and even caused me to bleat out a few uncontrollable expletives. Although upon inspection, the bird cage invading roaches were covered with boric acid powder from head to toe, the resilient suckers simply refused to die. While most online commentators generally cheer the beneficial roach killing abilities of boric acid powder, I must point out that the effects are often slow and unpredictable.

Although I was incredibly busy with my job at the time, I eventually found time to storm into my apartment complex manager’s office to demand that they hire a competent exterminator to fix this emergency situation. Eventually the management relented and hired a more expensive crew to come in and flush the roaches out. The professionals came in with their roach pesticide sprays and laid down lines of defensive deadly roach pesticide trails designed to kill roaches on contact that trample onto them. Then they used a special roach flushing agent to spray into floorboard cracks and underneath appliances to flush out the roach colonies into the open so that they would walk onto the pesticide laden floors. It worked for a while – as there was a huge spike in dead roach bodies as the flushed out roach families were annihilated. But even with professional baits laid out to control the outbreak, the efforts were ultimately futile. The roaches continued to crawl around my dishes, hide in my television set, relax in my stove, and even find their way into my fridge of all places. The final straw was when friends came over to visit me and one of them sat down on my sofa only to stand up moments later with a squished roach on her butt.

Eventually, I shifted into lawyer mode and sent a very threatening legal letter to my landlord demanding that I be fully released from my apartment lease obligations, citing the management’s violation and breach of our contract to keep the premises a safe and reasonably livable place. There was simply nothing else I could do. After talking with the exterminator, I learned that I was fighting a losing cause. Because my discount apartment complex was so old and populated by lower income families that had a habit of illegally stuffing multiple families into one apartment meant for only one, sanitation and cleanliness were major problems. Even though I kept my own apartment clean, massive roach infestations in the adjacent apartments were causing them to spill over into my unit. At the end, I was released from my lease and left my ghetto apartment in a hurry. Ultimately, I had to pay substantially more in monthly rent to live at a new, clean, and higher class apartment complex free of roaches and vermin. My rent soared from $800 a month at my old place to more than $1475 for the new place. While it’s a lot more money, I don’t regret a single thing about my decision to pay more in rent. Freedom from roach infestations is definitely worth the heavier financial price. Saving money is great, but having that extra few hundred in my account isn’t worth the sheer torment of living with roaches invading your life completely and taking over your sanity.

Roach Infestations Are Bad For Your Health and Must Be Eliminated Quickly (Easier Said Than Done)

So other than the scare factor, why are cockroaches and the infestation that they bring to our homes so bad for you and I? First of all, it should be noted that not all insects are inherently bad. Some bugs like spiders and millipedes actually serve useful ecological purposes. Without their presence, our human existence would be inundated with out of control growth populations of pesky critters of all sorts. Most of these utilitarian insects help to control general insect population by building webs to trap, eat, and kill off other insects, helping to keep a lid on spiraling population growth. While I’m generally afraid of insects and roaches in particular, there are bugs that I have friendly, harmonious relationships with. When I see insects like lady bugs or even cicadas, I don’t mind picking them up with my bare fingers to inspect them. I see them as friendly insects that help the environment, so I’m not automatically afraid of them. Roaches of all breeds on the other hand are a different story – they are simply vile. While cockroaches live all around the world and come in all shapes and sizes, the breeds I’m most adverse to are the classic American and German cockroach. These two breeds are the most common roach pests found in American homes.

Roaches are the ultimate scavengers and harbingers of disease, germs, and insect fecal wastes. They have no qualms about walking through through poo or other disgusting solids and liquids. Their bodies frequently carry around all sorts of germs and potential infection spreading agents. One huge problem that they cause for inhabitants of homes that they infect is the creation of roach dust that they build up and leave behind. Roach dust is made up of decayed roach body parts and droppings that become airborne, infecting our breathing and embedding itself onto our hairs, clothes, and furniture. Roach dust is a powerful asthmatic agent that has the potential to trigger significant asthma attacks in sensitive people.

Cockroaches will consume almost anything organic and even somethings otherwise inorganic. They’ll chew threw paper, cloth, oils, bodily wastes, and any type of food or liquid product you leave behind. These little evil cannibals will even snack on the dead bodies of their fellow roach comrades they come across. Nothing is off limits when it comes to their diets. In their never ending pursuit for food, roaches often follow the footsteps of humans into homes and stay close to sources of water and food – which is why they are often found in bathrooms, kitchens, and places where food is plentiful (like near your dog or cat’s food bowl).

The one singular thing that makes them so terrible and deserving of a spot in the Bible as an Old Testament plague is the fact they breed insanely fast and are nearly impossible to get rid of. Female roaches can lay up to 40 eggs at a time, laying up to a 400 evil babies in a lifetime. Their lifespan is a year long and adult roaches can go for a month without food, and even up to an hour without oxygen. They can live off of virtually anything. Even the organic glue compound found on the back of stamps or the nourishment of your dead skin flakes can sustain them for weeks.

Cockroaches are also very difficult to kill. Not only do they run like Olympic track stars, their bodies are extremely well adapted to fend off damage. Because their breathing system is made up of tubes on their bodies called trachea, they can continue to live even after their heads or limbs are chopped off – talk about walking zombies. Also, have you tried to chase down a roach with your shoe before? It’s nearly impossible. It’s like playing whack a mole on steroids as they dart around so fast, it’s scary. They are able to quickly scurry into wall corners and flatten their bodies to avoid your newspaper punishment. They are also primarily nocturnal, preferring to come out at night. When they do, they are very stealthy and experts at staying hidden, invading your cabinets, sinks, toothbrushes, and your food stocks right under your nose. At the mere presence of light, they often smartly run for cover, unlike their more stupid cousin bugs that often sit there, succumbing to flattening attacks by humans.

How Do I Get Rid Of A Mild Cockroach Infestation, and Kill Roaches Using Roach Bait and Roach Traps?

The following words of advice are only suitable for those of you who have mild roach outbreaks in your home. If you only see a lone roach wandering around your home once every year, you probably don’t have an infestation as it probably piggybacked into your home via a plastic grocery bag or something like that. However, if you are seeing them every few days, particular during the daytime when they are supposed to be in hiding, you may have a serious problem. If professional treatment and baiting are powerless, your only recourse may be to move out of your home completely like I did and not look back (if that option is available to you). Some things in life are lost causes. In serious infestations, the roaches probably have spread throughout all apartment buildings or all parts of your house. They’ve probably inhabited your base walls and have set up massive colonies of roach eggs and roach nurseries that are nearly impossible to eliminate completely. Remember, a single female roach once impregnated can continue to lay eggs throughout her entire life, spawning hundreds of hatchlings from just a single individual.

If the roach outbreak is not so dire where moving out is demanded, hiring a professional exterminator might due the trick. Professional exterminators have legal access to much more powerful roach flushing agents and pesticides to kill those little critters. For those who have children and pets in the home and are leery about using toxic pesticides, professional exterminators also have access to potent roach baits and gels that are less toxic for humans and pets. They work by slowly poisoning roaches. Laced with attractive smells to entice a roach, the victim eats the bait and ingests the delayed action poison that will ultimately kill it. When it travels back into the wall boards, it brings some of the poisoned food with it to share with others. In time, roach baits can kill off entire roach populations if the problem has not completely spiraled out of control.

In my opinion, cockroach bombs and roach foggers should be avoided. Not only are they extremely toxic to humans and pets, but their limitations are very well documented and observed. The irritants do drive away roaches temporarily, but they are not effective in killing the populations completely. The roaches will simply run for cover and hide until the toxic plumes have faded. As soon as you move back into your home after the roach bomb has done its work, they will come back out to play. Also, don’t waste your money on those pointless electronic pest control repellent scams that you see on TV all the time. Supposedly, simply by plugging the electronic pest control repellent device into your electrical outlet and activating it, the system emits an ultra high frequency wave that irritates and drives away pests like roaches and rodents. These devices are supposed to be safe for both humans and pets. However, they’re pure junk and scams in my opinion. Both rats and roaches are extremely durable and hardy animals, conditioned to survive even nuclear devastations if it ever came down to it, so neither of them is likely going to be stopped by some pointless frequency wave. To get rid of them, you’re going to have to resort to good old fashioned roach food deprivation and chemical warfare. Ditch the expensive electronic pest control repellent devices and don’t waste your money.

For those of you with mild roach infestations, here are some home remedies and homemade solutions to help you kill them, exterminate their colonies, and keep your home free of pesky cockroaches. Much of your efforts will be spent targeting notorious problem areas like the kitchen and bathroom.

Household Solutions To Get Rid Of A Mild To Manageable Roach Problem:

1) Eliminate the Roaches’ Source Of Food, Water, Shelter, and Entry – Unless you live in a shared apartment complex that allows roaches to travel freely from one unit until into another, keeping your home clean is the most effective way to get rid of roaches. Cockroaches invade our homes usually to seek out food and water. Wash your dishes immediately after every meal and wipe down kitchen counters frequently, as roaches like to snack on greases and food oils. Vacuum your carpet and wipe down your hardwood floors and tiles as often as you can to ensure no food or liquid particles remain to feed the roaches. Fix leaky faucets as well as they offer roaches a free tasty source of water to drink from. If you have pets like cats, dogs, or even birds, clean the pet living areas frequently and make sure their food bowls are washed and cleaned after use. Dog food sacks are frequently targets of roaches – always seal them in special airtight containers. Also, make sure there are no open canisters of food or liquids anywhere in your home. Roaches can sniff them out and they will find them. Practice throwing out your trash bags on a daily basis. Trash cans contain all sorts of attractive aromas for roaches. Eliminate this prevalent food source if you can.

Finding out how they are getting into your home is easier said than done. Oftentimes roaches found their way into your home via air vents, front doors, or even cracks outside of your home. Oftentimes, telltale signs like roach droppings – tiny brown pellets of slime, indicate the presence of roaches. Frequently, professional help is needed to help you pinpoint the entry way. Finding out where they are living in your home exactly is also difficult without expert help. But once you locate how they enter your home and where they congregate, a liberal application of roach pesticide spray along the access points will provide long lasting walkways of doom for these roaches.

2) Use Non Toxic Boric Acid Or Diatomaceous Earth - While I’ve personally had limited success with using boric acid or even diatomaceous earth powder to control roach populations, perhaps you’ll have more success than I. Borate powders are generally non toxic to humans, pets, and children although you obviously shouldn’t intentionally ingest them. Despite prolonged exposure, my parrot, my friend’s cat, and myself managed to remain perfectly healthy in the presence of boric dusted rooms. However, these powders are supposedly toxic and deadly against insects. As insects like roaches come into contact with the powder, the powder sticks onto their outer shell, causing gradual roach death. The downside is that boric acid powder kills very slowly and sometimes it may take days before the acid takes effect. But the plus side is that the compound can remain effective for years if the powder remains dry. Boric acid powders also allow you to dust in areas where the roaches are likely to hide and where humans and pets are less likely to come in contact with – such as in the crevices behind your kitchen appliances and spaces underneath your refrigerator.

Boric acid can be purchased at local retail hardware stores and most drug stores. They usually come in a squeeze bottle with a narrow spout that allows easy dusting once cut. Retail boric acid powder is usually white although some brands color the product light blue so you can see the product better. The key is to dust in areas where roaches are likely to walk through. Roach behavior usually dictates that they prefer to walk along edges where their bodies are in constant contact with some type of wall. Thus, remember to dust the boric acid under your stove and refrigerator, along wall edges, around door frames and open spaces inside of cabinets, sinks, and shelves.

Another product that is used by some is a form of illegal insecticide commonly called “Chinese Chalk”, because of their sale in many Chinatown locations. However the sale and purchase of Chinese Chalk is illegal due to the many child related poisonings attributed to the product’s resemblance to common classroom chalk. Supposedly, one can use the chalk to draw lines of kill zones on the ground to poison any roach or ant that walks across it. It probably works the same way as boric acid, but with substantially greater toxicity and health danger to humans. I don’t recommend using it – it’s illegal anyway.

3) Use Roach Traps, Roach Bait, and Roach Gels – Roach baits in all forms contain a combination of poison chemical and attractive food lures to entice roaches to eat them. They are actually quite effective if used in large quantities in strategic indoor locations where it’s dark and moist. Like boric acid powder, they both kill slowly. However, this slow killing power is actually the most effective form of mild roach infestation control because it allows the poison to be ingested and taken by the roach into the roach lair to kill the population at its source.

The baits can come in the form of a little plastic roach bait station (roach motel) or they can come in gel syringe form. The plastic roach baits are easier to set and tend to last longer in duration, but I think they are slightly less effective than roach gel baits. Gel baits are very effective but they tend to dry out quicker, not to mention the gels are messier and harder to clean up. The gels also need to be re-applied every few weeks for maximum effect. Roach gels should be lightly applied in corners, on plumping fixtures, on interior cabinet edge corners, and under appliances where it’s usually dark. Remember not to combine roach bait and roach gels with instant killing pesticide sprays. The objective with baits is not to kill them instantly, but to allow one infected roach to spread the poison love to others. Popular retail roach bait brands include MaxForce, Combat, and Raid. I don’t have any preferences or recommendations because they’re all about the same in terms of effectiveness. Try buying all three and using them all simultaneously if you have the money to do so – their poison chemical compositions differ somewhat.

4) Use Roach Insecticide Sprays – These aerosol powered spray cans contain a lethal dose of bug killing liquids. By spraying the roach insecticide chemicals along hidden baseboard floors and on dark and hidden areas underneath and inside cabinets where roaches frequent, you provide tremendous roach killing power on contact. The insecticide sprays contain a chemical that instantly starts to kill the roaches on contact should one wander across a sprayed area. While it’s great to know that it’s lights out for any roach that crosses its path, the sprays do not provide much residual or long lasting roach control. Only roach baits can target the roach nests and hit the source of the spawning problem. However, back when I had a heavy roach problem, I always kept a few bottles around at the ready. Chasing a fast running roach is much easier with a roach spray. It beats having to swing wildly like a drunkard with a shoe or newspaper.

5) Use Water Jars (Vegas Roach Jars) - Another common household remedy to combat mild roach problems is the use of a so-called Las Vegas roach trap jar. It’s called that because the practice was recently popularized by a Las Vegas news report of its effectiveness in catching roaches. While I’ve never tried it out, the concept sounds rather interesting.  The Vegas  cockroach trap consists of a glass jar filled with coffee grounds (as bait), and a little bit of water that is placed against a wall. It is important that the roach jar trap is placed against a wall because roaches prefer to travel along edges where their bodies can maintain constant contact with a wall. Some people like to place Scotch masking tape on the outside of the jar to give the roach more traction. However, once they fall into the jar, the slippery glass surface prevents them from being able to climb out. Supposedly, cockroaches are attracted to these water jars. This type of homemade anti-roach remedy if effective, is a wonderful alternative to using toxic insecticides and baits. But frankly, I’m not fully convinced the technique actually works.

I’m sure everyone has their own secrets and methods to killing roaches. Feel free to share your ideas.

The other day I shuffled past my pet parrot’s metal cage and casually glanced at him. He looked up at me and smiled. Well he didn’t actually smile – that would be weird, not to mention it would be an exceedingly remarkable feat for a bird to do – but he did seem to want to tell me something. I glanced down at the bottom of his cage and realized what he was so antsy about – it was time for me to clean his bird cage. The bird poo clumps and endless feather fluffs were starting to dirty up the bottom lining of his cage and it was time to replace his bird bedding. So before cleaning his bird cage, I went and did what I’ve been doing for the last 10 or so years – I went to the supermarket and bought a copy of the Sunday newspaper to use as bird cage lining. When I got home and proceeded to clean his cage, dumping out the old newspaper sheets that held his former poop droppings, an interesting thought occurred to me. Although I’ve been buying newspapers regularly and consistently for many years now, I haven’t once actually sat down to read one. It seems the only reason I even have them around in the first place is to use them to line my pet parrot’s bird cage. Over the years I’ve learned that newspaper print pages contain the perfect combination of non toxicity and biodegradable composition that is uniquely more absorbent than ordinary paper sheets when it comes to bird cage bedding purposes. But that’s pretty much the extent of my current newspaper usage.

Technology And The Internet Are Steadily Replacing The Out Dated Practice Of Getting News From A Traditional Newspaper

Does anybody actually read the newspaper anymore? I’m not talking about CNN.com, NewYorkTimes.com, or Washingtonpost.com – I’m talking about old fashioned plain paper print media. Most people I know who have had any exposure to computers and technology now get the bulk of their written news and entertainment updates from the Internet. Almost all major established newspaper publications nowadays operate their own websites filled with plenty of free content rich text to satisfy even the most information hungry and voracious of readers. With the heavy push towards Internet based news, it seems the traditional newspaper is slowly becoming a thing of the past due to its inability to keep up. Technology and the World Wide Web simply afford readers too many conveniently free reading options at their fingertips for present adopters and future generations to ever turn back to that age old print medium.

Even commercial advertisers are steadily following former newspaper readers out of the door and gradually putting their advertising dollars into online website banner and pay per click advertising solutions where online technology allows the ads to be strategically targeted to the exact demographic consumer the advertiser hopes to reach. Online free classified services like Craigslist have also struck huge blows against whatever remaining classified advertising potential that newspapers may have had left. It’s only a matter of time before the end of the newspaper as we know it.

I challenge you to find any one under the age of 35 these days who still enjoys reading from a traditional newspaper. The practice is simply boring and dry. In contrast, by going online, not only can I utilize news aggregation services like Google News and Yahoo News, and pull RSS news and blog feeds from hundred of respected news sources instantly, I can actively participate in online discussions by posting comments and offering my two cents about important issues I personally care about. Through the Internet, I can read all the primary points and counter points immediately to get the complete picture of what is going on in the world of current events. Who wants to get information from just a single slow moving and potentially biased newspaper publication source?

Unlike paper newspapers, the Internet also updates its archive and collection of news stories virtually instantaneously. Breaking news stories can be released to the reader as soon as they happen. When the Islamic terrorists hit the New York City World Trade Center on 9-11, internet news pages broke the announcement almost immediately. Traditional print newspapers simply can’t complete with that level of quickness and would not have been able to report on the story until at least the day after. Things have changed a lot since the baby boomer days. We are now living in a rapid fire instant news era. We want our news fast, and we want it free. Only the Internet can promise and deliver such instant informational gratification.

The Rise and Growth Of Bloggers and Blogging Will Only Further Change The Face of Journalism and Traditional Newspaper Reporting

The Internet age has also spurred on the growth and reach of the casual online blogger, and hastened the gradual decline of so-called legitimate press reporting media as we know it today. Legions of both amateur and professional bloggers, including personal finance bloggers such as myself, are doing our part to contribute to the whole information revolution comprised of all sorts of biased and unbiased viewpoints. As a whole, the ability of bloggers to reach a wide array of readers will only help spread the word of informational truth on a larger scale. Individually, we perhaps may be biased, uninformed, self-motivated, and personally skewed to our own predilections, but as a whole, citizen journalists help to positively expand the wealth of societal information available.

Of course there will always be anti-technology, Armageddon inspired naysayers that will want to cling on to print newspapers like a security blanket. The ridiculous argument of some that we still need to preserve the newspaper tradition because of what might happen if technology ever failed or satellites get blown out of the sky is just plain silly. That’s like saying we all should preserve the tradition of burning wooden logs at home because of what might happen if electricity ever permanently failed and we fell back into the stone age. It’s just not going to happen.

Despite The Growth Of The Internet, Newspapers Will Probably Not Disappear For A Few Decades, So Long As There Are Old Fashioned Folks Who Insist On Clinging Onto Their Old Ways Of Living

Since the rise of the Internet, even my own technologically clumsy parents have started to slowly embrace the Internet as a primary source for getting their daily dose of news, political commentary, and current event updates. However, like many of the baby boomer generation, they still prefer to resort to their old accustomed ways sometimes. While they’ve gradually started to use the Internet more and more in everyday life, my dad still goes out to the local convenience store every morning (as he’s done for decades) to buy his daily newspaper to take home to read. For him and those of the older generation, they probably get some semblance of habitual and familiar comfort by handling tangible things that they feel like they still understand – like paper newspapers. I think my dad still enjoys the timeless practice of reading the paper on his daily subway commute to the office instead of having to squint his eyes for hours at a time in front of a flickering computer screen.

But in the long run, the seemingly unstoppable reality is that as times passes, there will be less and less of individuals like my dad remaining to carry on the newspaper reading tradition. But at least for now, newspapers probably won’t disappear for years, so long as there are senior citizens, baby boomers, and stubborn technology Luddites who are not accustomed to the new technology of computers still around (is it really all that new anymore though?). While I see the newspaper form in inevitable decline in the future, perhaps the future isn’t now. It seems typical that futurists such as myself always seem to predict the future will arrive sooner than it actually does.

But even a futurist, and an early eager technology adopter such as myself must acknowledge that newspapers will be missed. After all, without newspapers around, where else am I supposed to get my Sunday paper grocery store coupons? The ones I see in magazines and loose leaf advertisement mailers and flyers aren’t as good as the ones I often see in my Sunday paper coupon bundle. And yet more importantly, without newspapers, what will we use to line bird cages and train puppies on? What will we use to wrap fish, or crumple up to use as cushion for the insides of boxes during a move or use as stuffing for packages? Computers, monitors, and keyboards simply aren’t as absorbent or cushiony, not to mention as cheap or plentiful.

It’s not easy finding the right career path in life. Many of our own perceptions on what makes a good profession is shaped and sometimes even warped by the views of our family, friends, and perhaps most significantly, by the media’s relentless spin. There are many jobs out there that may look attractive and rewarding on TV, but reality often pours cold water over hyped up expectations.

It’s interesting to me how if you asked any little kid what they wanted to be when they grew up, almost all would respond with answers like doctor, lawyer, hip hop rapper, or even President of the United States. Unfortunately for those little kids, the great majority of them will never fulfill their childhood dreams or live up to the great but unrealistic expectations they envisioned due to their personal circumstances. People pick jobs and careers for many reasons, but their choices are often shaped by their own hyped views regarding what is hot and what is not, and frequently fraught with inaccuracies. Unfortunately, during the high school and college years, the media greatly reinforces the naive and misguided mystique that surrounds certain professions to the detriment of future entrants into the work force. Oftentimes the hype of certain careers tend to greatly exceed the lucrativeness and fulfillment potential of reality.

The job market and popular careers choices have changed greatly over the years and what was once perhaps lucrative no longer is. Here’s my list of what I believe are the top 5 most overrated careers and professions. I’m sure there are many people who are happy and content in the following careers and perhaps enjoy professional and personal success, but I think there are also many of those in the following fields that feel they have been misled down the primrose path to frustration and work dissatisfaction. These conclusions are based on my own personal views, and gleaned from views expressed in books, online articles, websites, blogs, and through my interactions with friends from all walks of life and professions. For more relevant input and insight, take a look at U.S. News and World Report’s own list of the most overrated careers. While their list is more comprehensive and generally applicable, mine is more focused on my own personal and unique experiences.

The Five Most Overrated Careers, Jobs, and Professions In My Opinion:

1) Attorney – Don’t get me started about lawyers, law school, and the legal profession. I don’t have too many good things to say about the whole business of becoming a lawyer and the realities of working as one. I’m an attorney myself, but I’m currently trying to get out of the profession completely and enter the work from home online business for myself. I find the whole legal career path to be an unforgiving and personally unfulfilling line of work.

Unfortunately for new legal field entrants, they don’t usually realize the market for lawyers is extremely saturated until it is too late, and are already in too deep. Currently, there are already too many lawyers everywhere and even more on the way. These days it is very, very, very easy to become an attorney. Saddled with poor grades or terrible LSAT standardized test scores? No problem. There are more than 4 whopping tiers of law schools that continue to expand in size every year. There’s a guaranteed spot on the student roster for every wannabe or lackluster student who wants to play the lawyer card. These days, anyone can apply to law school to become a lawyer because there are no strict educational prerequisites involved. As an insider, I can assure you – there is absolutely nothing special about lawyers and the skills and training they allegedly possess – they are a dime a dozen. Unless you graduated from a top ten ranking law school or entered a difficult legal niche field such as tax or patent law, you better get used to a meager and unrewarding professional life. My advice is to stay away from law school and to do anything else but that.

Like many who decided to enter law school, I originally applied out of mere default and lack of educational options at the time. After all, I wasn’t much of a math or science person, and studying business seemed to be too general and broad of a choice at the time. Why not attend law school and become a high priced lawyer and make millions of dollars a year by taking on high profile and exciting celebrity cases, I thought? Why not invest myself into a career that will allow me to not only become rich, but utilize my skills to help uphold justice and assist people who need legal representation? After all, lawyers spend their days honorably debating before judges in prestigious court room settings before trial juries and television crews right? Wrong!

The legal profession is the most grossly distorted career choice in the history of careers. Thanks to the overzealous and over-hyped glory and glitz of Hollywood media productions, most of the public’s view of the legal profession is framed and distorted by entertainment inspired sources such as TV shows of past and present like Ally McBeal, JAG, The Practice, and Law and Order, and popular court room drama filled movies like A Few Good Men. The truth and reality is that the vast majority of lawyers rarely ever see the inside of a court room, working as paper pushing transactional attorneys instead. The ones that do apply their craft in the court room, known as litigation work, still spend the vast bulk of their time and efforts stuffed in their offices before a computer screen, typing away and performing grueling and monotonous research and writing. The work is tedious, stressful, time consuming, and frequently unrewarding.

In the working arena, lawyers often have to deal with the frustrating aspects of working with ungrateful and belligerent clients who refuse to pay or ignore the advice and suggestions of their own counsel. For small law firm attorneys, the average salary almost always falls well short of media inspired dramatization. Most of my friends who graduated from top 50 law schools ended up with massive student loans of more than $100,000 and winded up in mere $50,000 a year lawyer jobs for many years. For those who find themselves working at higher paying big firm positions, the hours are insanely taxing and terribly destructive for those trying to balance a family and social life as well. Being forced to work 80-100 or more hours a week as a big firm associate is not unusual as many are pressed into strict billable hour requirements. The need to pay off massive student loans often force many new attorney recruits into lifelong professional servitude, whereby they are compelled to sacrifice their lives, their health, and their own happiness for an unattainable dream of work and play balance in the legal profession. For every Johnny Cochran, Mark Geragos, or Gloria Allred personalities on cable TV, there are thousands of struggling attorneys out there saddled with massive student loans, wondering why they chose to enter such a saturated and unhappy field to begin with. My advice – go be a dentist or something. There’s a lot of money in that racket and the barriers to entry are much higher, making the health care field a much more prestigious and balanced choice.

2) Real Estate Agent – Thanks to the array of house flipping shows on television that suddenly sprouted in the last few years, everyone and their uncle now thinks they can and should become a real estate agent. During the last few years, I’ve seen nearly all of my friends in some fashion or another try to dabble in the real estate market and try their luck in helping others buy and sell homes. Many went on to take the easy breezy real estate exam and obtain their real estate license.

Unfortunately the ease and simplicity of entering the real estate field is one of the key causes of the real estate profession’s current decline (that, and the real estate housing bubble). Because it’s so easy to become a certified real estate agent, the barriers to entry are very low. As a result, real estate agents are everywhere and there is not enough real estate business to go around. Especially in this real estate downturn, agents are finding themselves faced with dwindling business opportunities and diminishing commission fees. Furthermore, with the growth of online housing listing sites like Zillow and Yahoo Real Estate, and the surging popularity of do it yourself resources, the importance of having a real estate agent will continue to decline and gradually phase out. With the growth of online real estate blogs and finance sites, it’s getting much easier for ordinary people to buy and sell their own house or property without the assistance of a professional real estate agent.

3) Chef – Here’s another overrated career field that has fallen prey to the reckless glamorization committed by television media. Thanks to foreign import culinary shows like Iron Chef, American cooking related programs on the Food Network like Rachel Ray, and the popularity of reality competition shows like Bravo channel’s America’s Top Chef, every aspiring amateur chef out there thinks he or she can strike it big as a future professional chef to the rich and famous.

I used to date this girl who was a pharmacy student. She had a passion for food and was on the verge of dumping her pharmacy school studies to pursue her lofty dream of becoming a famous television cooking personality or working as a future top chef at a five star restaurant somewhere. Fortunately for her, she discovered early on how little entry level chefs really made and abandoned her unrealistic pursuits for a more stable career as a pharmacist. The reality is that most chefs are mere assembly line cooks, churning out the same concoctions over and over, chopping and dicing away in a hot and sweaty kitchen in the back of some restaurant for hours and hours. Frequently, the work hours extend into the weekends and late evenings, depriving them of much of their extracurricular quality of life.

4) Full Time Blogger Or Online Entrepreneur – This is one hits close to home for me, but I have mixed feelings on those that choose to blog as a full time profession. While I personally receive a decent amount of passive income from my finance blog and do pretty well for myself through my efforts to make money online blogging, the vast majority of bloggers out there will probably never fulfill their full time blogging income aspirations. While it’s good to pursue one’s dream of working from home and never having to put on that suit and tie and “work for the man” any longer, the reality is that blogging full time is difficult, time consuming and requires substantial discipline, especially in the early stages when online advertisement and affiliate income motivation are hard to come by. The lack of commentary participation and the lack of traffic and feedback by readers can quickly cause the average aspiring blogger to lose hope early on. It takes a certain focused and dedicated individual to successfully develop his or her web based pipe dream into a full fledged online Internet marketing empire.

The path to future passive income riches definitely crosses through the Internet and through search engines like Google, but the path is fraught with competition and lonely times. It is possible to make some decent side income on the web, but the vast majority will never reach the online income needed to sustain a full time blogging position. That’s just reality. For the masses who think it’s easy to slap up a simple make money online Wordpress blog and generate millions of hits instantly, resulting in substantial Google Adsense revenue, they are wrong. It easy to start out as a part time blogger as the barriers to entry are very low, but it’s hard to make a true full time living out of it.

5) Teacher – Working as a teacher is one of the noblest and most honorable jobs out there, but in terms of financial and perhaps even personal rewards, it is sorely lacking. Like stay at home moms, teachers are grossly underpaid for their efforts and the invaluable influence and steerage they have on the next generation of children and students. The thought of being allowed to take entire summers off as a teacher may be tempting, but the reality is that most teachers work during the off season as well – performing summer school work, tutoring, or volunteering their time for education related endeavors. For those that wind up teaching toddlers or grade school students, working as a teacher is akin to working as a full time babysitter. Not only do you have to teach the students something productive, but you also have to deal with their crazy behaviors, emotional outbursts, rebellious attitudes, and sometimes even violent propensities.

I have quite a few female friends who work as junior high and public high school teachers and they frequently seem worn out and utterly exhausted due to their jobs. While most enjoy their work somewhat, many are frustrated at the bureaucracy and the governmental policies that hinder their ability to truly make a difference in the lives of students as a whole. Many of my female teacher friends frequently gripe and complain about the inefficient aftermath of the No Child Left Behind Act and how the governmental policy has forced many of them to waste their time and limited efforts and resources on so-called “hopeless students”. These teachers want to make a difference and help promising students grow to their full potentials, but many of them find their hands hopelessly bound by standardized guideline requirements and expectations. Instead of being able to help gifted and talented students grow to the best of their abilities by giving them the educational attention they need to advance, much of the No Child Left Behind Act efforts are spent trying to discipline and reform issue prone students who refuse to learn at the same speed and pace as classmates in the same age group. Clearly, it’s a broken policy that demands major reform.