The SEC has filed against 12DailyPro, shutting them down. While this is not a final court decision, it’s certainly not good news for those who have been members of 12DailyPro and similar autosurf schemes.

The filing revealed that most of the money people earned from 12DailyPro came from membership fees – a classic sign of a Ponzi scheme.

I really feel for the people who were sucked into this and now have to worry about what will happen to them. Obviously, any money that was coming to them from autosurfing is probably lost, and I’m not sure if they’re allowed to keep such earnings from the past. Seems to me that I’ve heard such earnings can be used to pay back investors. This could get ugly for a lot of folks.

I’ve added links on what’s happening to the autosurf page of my work at home scams section. These things can take a very long time (years?) to make their way through the court system, so I don’t know how long it will be before this is resolved.

Gage turned 1 year old yesterday. He also had his 1-year checkup. He’s doing great on his height – around the 50th percentile, but he’s just beneath the chart on weight, at 18 lb, 4 oz. This means the doctor wants to see him again in 3 months to see if it has improved. No word on what we do if it hasn’t.

I’m not as worried as I might be. Gage had quite the growth spurt over the last 2 months (his 9 month checkup had to be delayed, and so was at 10 months), as he went from being in the 10-15th percentile in height then to 50th now. I think I know where all the food he eats went!

But we told my mother-in-law to give in to all her Italian grandmother tendencies and feed him up whenever he comes over. That won’t make much of a difference, as he’s at her house maybe once a week. She’s delighted by the prospect, of course.

The hard part is that I’ve been trying to cook low fat for my husband, since he tested high on cholesterol a year or so ago. It’s not going to be easy to increase calories for Gage while keeping them down for those of us who don’t need extra. I’ll probably focus on what I can get Gage to eat during the day when Daddy’s at work, so I can at least minimize the temptation.

I’m pleased to say I have my unresearched work at home job leads section now up and running. I’ve posted the first set of job leads from Craigslist and I’ll be figuring out the best way to find job leads on other sites.

This is something new for me, and it will probably take a while to work out the most efficient way to run this. I can’t spend all day on this one free service, after all, although I do expect to spend a good bit of time puzzling out the best resources and the best search methods.

I’ve added a few more links to articles on how things are progressing with the investigation into autosurfs. I’m withholding my own opinion while waiting to see what the FBI thinks – after all, their opinion is the one that will have the final say on whether not these are nothing more than Ponzi schemes or if they are acceptable business models.

It won’t surprise me to see it take several months for a final answer to come about. There are a lot of details to look into, and quite a number of companies, probably all with slightly different income sources (aside from what members pay in, that is). While I understand one company in particular appears to be the main focus in the media reports, I would be surprised if other companies are not also being checked out.

Just read a very interesting report from MarketingSherpa.com. One of the biggest challenges for a business is getting your name remembered. They did a study on what made a business most memorable.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear that promotional items work best. 76.1% of people could remember the name of a business that gave them a promotional item, while only 53% remembered TV commercials, and online ads scored worst at 27%.

Of course, promotional items get expensive fast, and you need to make sure the item is appropriate and memorable. People get a LOT of pens, after all. They’re pretty effective, but something more creative may work better.

Promo products are also a great way to have something to hand people you meet when you’re out and about. A business card is good, but there are things that are less likely to be thrown away.

I strongly recommend reading this report and thinking about ways to promote your business.

I have added a quick look at autosurfs in my work at home scams section. Why? They are at high risk of being shown to be a scam. It’s not proven yet, but several are under investigation, so it is time to make sure you know what puts them at risk.

What will be the result of the investigation? I don’t know. My gut feeling is that at least some of them will be shut down as Ponzi schemes, but it is not impossible that a few will have business models that hold up, I suppose. Only time will tell. I’m monitoring results carefully to see where the investigation takes this.

Much to my complete lack of surprise, the poll I’ve been running shows people want more access to work at home jobs. Of course, that’s the most challenging one, but even so, I do have some ideas on how to include some more. I’ll be labeling them as unscreened, however, and including reminders on what to look out for.

So now I’ve changed the poll. I’m asking for the second choice. There’s a lot more I can do with this site than just add more work at home information, and I’d love to know what other areas are of interest.

It’s going to take a bit of time to add to the work at home section. I’m still deciding on the best way to implement it. I’m leaning toward a blog style so that it can easily be seen when the jobs were listed, making it easier to avoid out of date listings. Then again, I could do much the same simply as a section in the forums, which would make it easier for other people to post job leads.

Eeny, meeny, meiny, mo….

No one who has really worked at a home business thinks it’s easy. Saying a home business is easy is reserved for those who picture it as sitting on the couch watching tv and somehow generating a small amount of money without working. Real business just isn’t like that, especially if you have kids.

One of my biggest challenges right now is that my kids are on rather difficult schedules. Gage currently prefers to nap about the time Ariel wants her lunch. Naptime and lunchtime are often my best working times, but when they intersect it isn’t so easy. First I have to get Gage to sleep, then make Ariel’s lunch and my own. By the time I’m done eating, he’s often awake. Little rascal’s been taking short naps lately!

The trick to coping with times like this is finding things they’ll do without me. This is more easily done with Ariel than with Gage, as he is in one of those clingy phases. For Ariel, I can pull out play dough and she’ll be happy for a time or I can let her play on the old computer. I have yet to find a toy that will keep Gage busy for more than a few minutes on a regular basis. Fortunately, he’s getting more interested in what his sister does now that he can walk a little, so I expect all this to improve soon.

After they go to bed is another great time for me to work, but I have to balance that with spending time with my husband. Can’t neglect him! Now that I’m over my most recent cold I’m hoping to have the energy to stay up a little late one night a week to get work done with no interference from anyone. Stuff like that really helps me accomplish my goals.

We also try to remember to take at least one full day a week for family activities. We spent Saturday at the zoo, which was a lot of fun. The weather has been ridiculously warm (mid 80s!), so hiking is on the list sometime soon too.

The balance between home business and family is often a precarious one, as it is all to easy to work too much or not enough. I can always think of things I’d like to be doing on either side of that equation.

What a shock! So far on my poll, most people want more work at home job listings. I’m surprised, really (ok, maybe not). Of course, that’s the most difficult one to improve, since finding legit work at home jobs isn’t easy. But I’m thinking of ways that might help. The hard part is going to be balancing finding more work at home job possibilities with my own sort of time management.

I think I’m going to do a little work and reposition the poll so it’s a little more visible, just to see if I get more answers. I only have about 30 or so at this point, and obviously I’d like to hear from more people so I know what else is of interest. It’s a bit more work to put it other places on the site, but I think it will be worth the effort.

In a week or two I’ll be adding fun polls as well as other serious ones, just because it’s something fun to do.

I’ve added a poll to the main pages of this website asking what I should do more of here. It can be a bit of a tricky question, and some things are more easily done than others. But I figure it’s time to see what people want here.

This poll is serious, but now that I have the software installed to add polls, I’ll probably do some fun ones later. Shouldn’t have to be serious all the time, right?