It may only be March but the warmer weather is already in the air and many are beginning to plan their spring and summer vacations. However, if you haven’t begun planning your yet, let me give you a bit of a heads up. The current dollar situation is making many oversees trips quite expensive this year. The problem isn’t necessarily higher prices of travel expenses, the problem is that our U.S. dollars are simply worth less these days. And when your money is worth less, you simply need more of it to get around.

Unfortunately, neither of us can do too much about the value of the dollar (unless you happen to be the head of The Federal Reserve). But I do have a few suggestions to help get you through the summer and manage to enjoy a nice vacation without burning a hole in your pocket. My first suggestion is to simply stay local. By staying in the U.S. you are ensuring that your dollar is worth just that – one dollar. Not 0.6 Euro’s or 0.5 British Pounds. Another suggestion is to try and compensate for the weaker dollar by looking for cheap deals online. There are many sites which you can compare to find the lowest price for almost any destination. These include well known names such as Travelocity, Hotwire and Orbitz as well as some smaller niche sites. But don’t worry about having to log onto each site separately and enter your travel itinerary over and over again. A better option is to go to lowfares.com. With lowfares.com you can enter your flight information (destination and dates) only once and find the utmost cheap flight which comparing any 3 of the top travel sites simultaneously. This makes the process a lot simpler and faster. Don’t forget to send us a quick update on how your vacation was.

Hot on the heels of my last post, I’d like to let you in on the secret that is Talk121, a free chat service.  Lame infomercial similarities aside, if you’re looking to dial up the chat lines and gab with some people who like the same stuff as you, why not do it?  A little phone chat could definitely kill some time, and it seems that Talk121 is presenting a pretty good product.  Check them out and let me know how it goes.

The world of the Internet is not stopping at regular websites but rather it is expanding to other types of sites with various types of features. One new type is a Wiki, which is a website that is extremely easy to use and update and is available to anybody. You can get a free wiki website from wetpaint.com. Wetpaint is a company that offers free wikis that are extremely easy to use. Starting your own wiki could not be easier thanks to Wetpaint. All you have to do to start is choose a topic which you would like your wiki to be about. Then you get to pick a style for your site from a variety of sites styles. You also have the option to make your wiki private or public. Lastly, you get to decide who can contribute to your wiki. It could be exclusively for you, your friends, or anyone.

Once your site has been built, editing it is a cinch. All you have to do is use the EasyEdit Toolbar and you can make the desired changes to your wiki. You can add photo, videos, and anything you would like. If you are hesitant about starting your own wiki you can view other people’s wikis and join in on the fun.

Sequels don’t usually do well, especially when they come out years after its predecessor. However, it is a different story with Indiana Jones. The movie which is said to come out in May is going to make a big comeback. The trailer has already wowed audiences in the movie theatres. The last movie was almost twenty years ago and it still has it.

People all around the country and around the globe as well have become seriously addicted to American Idol. Some people have become such devout fans that they feel this automatic connection with a contestant when they are from the same hometown. This is the case for Kristy Lee Cook who has her whole town rooting for her and watching her perform every week. They also send in as many votes as possible every week with hopes of keeping her in the game.

There are Nintendo Wii addicts all over the world, but now some of these devout players are actually being helped by these video games. Those in need of physical therapy find the exercises extremely painful. Playing these video games is a way of getting the physical therapy that they need and having fun at the same time.

What will they come up with next in the video game world? It is now all about fighting off dinosaurs on a foreign planet. Turok is the new Nintendo game whose hero is an American Indian soldier sporting a Mohawk. This game has all the action and adventure that most games have, with a twist of sci-fi.

For most college students, nothing tops getting money for free. Unfortunately, aside from cards in the mail or a few pennies on the ground, finding free money is difficult. Or is it? I’ll clue you in on a few services I’ve come across that let you make some cash for doing pretty much nothing. I’ll also point you in the direction of some paid blogging sites – if you blog anyway, why not get paid for it?

Get paid to…

“Get paid to” programs pay you to do fairly simple things like watch ads, take surveys and register on web sites. As far as surveys and site registrations go, there are two pretty popular sites for this.

CashCrate is one I’ve started using in the past few days. I’m already up to $20.15, just from taking a few surveys and registering on some web sites (such as eBay). CashCrate pays you via check, with their minimum payout set at $10. Most surveys and sites I saw hovered between the $0.85-$1.00 range, so reaching $10 is not hard at all.

TreasureTrooper is another one, though I don’t have much experience with it. It looks to have many of the same offers as CashCrate, but with a site design that screams Indiana Jones. From the reviews I’ve read online, the consensus is that it’s a good site. If you try out TreasureTrooper and like it, let me know in the comments.

You can also make some (but not alot of) money looking at ads. AdBux forces you to visit a site for either 3, 10 or 30 seconds and pays you in relation to the time. Three seconds nets you $0.0015 cents, ten gets you $0.005 and thirty gets you $0.01. In my opinion, AdBux isn’t really that worth it – working minimum wage at $7.25/hr, you would have made about $0.06 in a thirty second timespan. If you don’t want a job and have time to watch ads every once in awhile, who knows, it might eventually add up.

Blog for bucks

Thanks to a few companies, you can now say you are paid to blog. There is a snag to this, of course – you will be blogging about products, web sites, etc. and not choosing your own topics. Still, the potential is there to earn some money doing something you love to do anyway – blog!

Blogsvertise is one that I’m registered with. They offer you assignments that usually sit around the $5 mark – all you do is type up your post, publish it and send them the link. If they accept it, you just made some money! Note that some of the categories in Blogsvertise are a bit slim in offers, so you might have to make your money out of what they call “the grab bag”. These assignments are ones no one wanted or ones that expired.

PayPerPost seems to be immensely popular with blog owners. At my last check, there were 199 opportunities available on various topics, some paying over $200 a post. There are a few requirements on PayPerPost, mainly that your blog is at least three months old and has a decent PageRank.

And there you have it.

Using one or more of these sites, you can make a little money without getting an actual job. Will you make as much? Not unless you are extremely dedicated, but that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? I am not an advocate of working while in college, at least not for “the man”. Unless you have extremely convenient hours, all it will do is rob you of your social life. So sign up for these sites or start your own dorm room business, and have fun in college!

I know so many people who have put their life dream aside simply claiming it is not the time for it or that they don’t have the resources to put it to place. From my experience these are nothing more than excuses since if you are determined, there is always a way and often the solution is much simpler than you think. This is especially true for so many people who have dreamt of publishing their own book but simply don’t know where to start. Today it is easier than ever to Self Publish your own book through companies like Author House. Once you publish your book, you can promote it and then sell it. Your book does not have to remain unread when you can share it with the world. It’s your dream, don’t push it off. The time is now!

One of the best parts of winter is the winter sports. There is nothing like skiing and snowboarding. In order to make the most of the time that you have to ski or snowboard, you should have the best equipment. You can get terrific, quality snowboarding and skiing gear at store.christysports.com. This online sports store has everything you can possibly need for great prices. The site is easy to use and you can search for a particular product in a number of ways. You can search by brand, such as Burton snowboards, by item, like snowboards, or by category, such as apparel.