Thrift Schooling

  When I signed up for my first free Blogger.com account in 2010, I was eager to start monetizing. Since I was going to be online, I might as well make an extra buck or two to buy that curriculum I had been eying. That was my mindset back in the day. The first order of business was picking out my URL. The second order of business was organizing the settings. Did I want to have Google Ads popping up on my site? Did I want to have an extra source of passive income dropping into my account? Of course! I began placing the ads in my sidebar, at the end of each post, and even within posts. This was going to be great—or so I thought.  Even though there were some settings that I could fine tune—I did not understand the moral cost—which would become more evident over the years . If you look at my sidebar currently, you will see ads, but they are not created by Google. These have been placed there intentionally by yours truly. ( Even the Quick Spot ad. It says something about Google ads...

  Our first year selling at the local farmer's market was brutal. Customers would come in, walk right past us, and go to another vendor with the exact same products for a higher price. We were scratching our heads for weeks. Sure, we understood that some customers prefer to stay loyal to vendors that they have seen year after year yet we saw the same trend at different farmer's markets that first year and we were puzzled. Then, move on into year two and our sales began to pick up. After speaking with other vendors we realized that some people just want to know that you are serious. They prefer a familiar face. They might visit several markets in the area and if they see you around—you are legit. So that is what we did. We signed up for several in the area plus a craft show here or there. We figured if we got our name out there that it would help.  What didn't help though was our conviction against having a Facebook account—for business or even ourselves. People are online a...