Almost two years ago, in November 2006, after reading plenty of How-To articles on making money with the internet (Shoemoney.com, Entrepreneurs-Journey.com, Problogger.net, StevePavlina.com)I got uber-motivated, set up FindFunding.net, and put some Google Ads on it. I figured it would only be a matter of months before I could retire early.

I quickly realized that make money quick schemes are just that – schemes. My first month I made a whopping $0.52. Still, I found I had a lot to write about grant writing, so I kept the site alive. It has brought me a lot of good things – some freelance jobs, students for my class, a few seminar/workshop invitations. Still, it wasn’t until yesterday that I finally surpassed the $100 mark of income with my Google Ads. ($100 is the minimum threshold for payment). I wish I was beyond counting pennies, but I have been watching the total rise, cent-by-cent, for the last month. I squealed this morning when I saw I had passed it.

So, if you want to become rich using the internet, I don’t recommend designing an amateurish website with content updated pretty infrequently and pasting Google Ads on it. However, if you think your time is worth about $0.18/day (or a depressing $.007/hour), give it a shot. Or move to the developing world and work in a sweatshop – either way.

I am grateful for the fact that it worked. Very, very, slowly. But it worked!