I love shopping at Amazon. So I was thrilled when I learned about the Associates Program that allowed us bloggers to make some money from doing what we already do anyway, referring people to Amazon. This week however, I’m going through all my blogs to remove badges and links back to Amazon. Why? because I can’t be a part of the Amazon Associate’s Program anymore. They’ve closed down my account and I won’t be earning anymore money from them either.

The reason I’m no longer an Amazon Associate is because I live in North Carolina and North Carolina is about to pass a bill that will tax affiliate type companies like Amazon for doing business in the state. Amazon claims that this is unconstitutional and therefore decided to drop all their associates in NC. That means me among them.

From what I hear, NC is not the only state that has been dropped from the program because of their tax policy and with California being in the economic morass its in, I hear they are contemplating a similar tax scheme which means that the days of Amazon Associates in California may now be numbered.

I can of course understand the rationale behind these states wanting more revenue but it comes at my expense. Now I have to find another revenue stream. Got any good ideas?

I just happened to stumble across this photo on the internet today and somehow I felt like we are still here. What with the bail outs going on and all. Someone’s living it up, but it aint us ordinary folks.

As parents, we try to prepare our children for life. We teach them to take care of their mind, their body and soul but often we forget to teach them to take care of their money. I ran across this article from The Simple Dollar about the Ten Things Any College Student Can Do To Prepare for Success in Life. These are some things I wish I had been thinking of when I was eighteen. But really, how many eighteen year olds think about their finances enough to plan for the future? Well for one, they usually don’t have any money. At least I didn’t, so I figured, why bother planning? I’ll do that after I get out of school and get a job.

That strategy really didn’t work out so well for me. It seems I’ve been paying for my lack of financial planning since I got out of school. Well, it actually started even before I got out of school. So my husband and I plan to break that cycle for our daughters. I am hoping they will be more financially savvy than we were. So for a start, I am sharing some of these tips with them:
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