All articles are written by me, writing about business and finance is a passion project for me. Please enjoy your stay and learn something new! – Scott Bates
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My 1950 Pebble Beach Racing Program Book
In early 2023 I found a pretty neat racing program book from 1950, it was for Pebble Beaches first ever annual race. I found this book in a stack of papers at the local flea market by my house. I was glad I could save it. After I kept it for a few months I…
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Cost of Ownership for Driving my 2001 Toyota Tacoma 4X4 for 275k Miles!
Below I’m going to briefly summarize the total costs of owning and maintaining a Toyota Tacoma 4X4 TRD from 2001. In the early years that I owned the truck, most work was performed at the dealer at an inflated cost. When the truck got older, I got it serviced at a smaller shop in town.…
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The Best Wall Street and Finance Movies From The Last 40 Years!
Below, I provide a list of my most favorite finance movies from the last 40 years! There’s a lot you can learn about business and finance from watching these types of movies, especially how to identify a Ponzi or Stock Trading scheme. 1) Wall Street – This one of my favorite movies about trading in…
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My Favorite YouTube Resellers, For eBay etc.
For me, eBay selling has always been a hobby because I enjoy collecting vintage items like video games, movies, and music. Once a year before the Christmas shopping season kicks off in November, I will list some items for sale that I no longer want to collect. It’s a lot of fun and forces you…
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Smog Checks Can Break The Bank When Owning an Old Car!
Having an old car in a state like California can be an absolute waste of time and money, because you most likely have to get it smogged. My last experience with my 2001 Toyota Tacoma 4X4 (with 275k miles), went something like this: 1) You don’t pass the initial smog check. 2) You pay for…
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My Top Blogging Tools & Resources for 2025 and Beyond!
If you are an active blogger, or interested in blogging for your business idea, I want to share my list of top blogging tools and resources with you below. If you’d like to suggest a blogging tool or resource for me to add to this list, send me a message and tell me about it.…
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Delivering Newspapers as a Youngster Taught Me a lot About Business!
Back in the early nineties as an early teen, I had my first job working for myself, it was a paper route. It was a small route, with only about 45 subscriptions of the local newspaper. The model for making money was pretty cool for the time, you bought the papers as a delivery person…
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New eBay Sellers: Be Careful Selling Modern or Vintage Electronics!
If you’re an eBay seller who sells any kind of electronic items you need to proceed with caution. There’s a high risk of scams and fraud associated with selling iPhones, Smartphones, Vintage Audio, Video Game Systems, and other miscellaneous electronic gadgets. We all know that eBay has a pretty generous buyer satisfaction and return policy.…
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A Simple Way To Calculate eBay Seller Fees (using a pocket calculator)
When you want to sell something on eBay, it’s important to make sure it’s worth your time and trouble. To help figure out how much money you’ll make, you need to know how to quickly calculate eBay selling fees. There are three types of fees with selling on eBay, they are: To learn more about…
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Getting Your New Car or Truck Fixed Properly After an Auto Accident
Back in 2018, my 2016 Ford Mustang GT was involved in a minor fender bender. Someone in an SUV backed up into the front right passenger side while it was parked. I was upset, to say the least, but I got the insurance information from the other driver and was lucky they had no problem…
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How Your Favorite Search Engine Might Replace Backlinks in the Future
As I’ve dived deeper into LLMO and GEO, I can’t help but think about how Google’s ranking factor called RankBrain might actually replace the importance of backlinks. Rank Brain became a ranking factor for Google back in 2015, and it’s been evolving ever since. Rank Brain works by automatically updating its own search algorithm so…
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Will Backlinks Matter For Your GEO Marketing Strategy?
Today, I will try and answer the question about whether or not backlinks to your business’s website will help you rank higher with Generative AI Search. In my recent post about Generative Engine Optimization (GEO,) I linked to a white paper that talks in depth about how backlinks could influence GEO best practices, you can…
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How to Start Flipping Collectibles Online to Make Extra Money
About 12 years ago, I first started thinking about the idea of flipping some items that I enjoy collecting. So I could reinvest that money into buying more items I wanted to keep in my collection. At the time, it was video games, mostly Nintendo. After experimenting with flipping various collectibles and other valuable items…
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Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Will Eventually Replace SEO For Your Business
Many small businesses, bloggers, and news sites are using an SEO strategy for ranking their websites on Google and Bing. With generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) now heavily being integrated into the top of the search results, in the near future, your SEO strategy will not be as important for ranking at the top of page…
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How Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO) Can Boost Your Business Sales
As traditional search engines like Bing and Google become more powered with Large Language Models powered by artificial intelligence, the way your business will get found by new customers will be vastly different than it is today. For the past 15 years, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was the main marketing strategy implemented for business websites…
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Secrets I Use For Timing The Real Estate Market
Timing the real estate market perfectly to buy a house is mostly luck and speculation in my experience. I live in California and have owned several properties over the years. After buying and selling several properties of my own, and tracking the ups and downs of home prices on sites like Zillow, Redfin, and local…
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WordPress Plugins Every Blogger Needs To Succeed
If you are like me and love to use WordPress for hosting your blog or business website, you’ll want to check out the following plugins which I’ve been using over the years. Take a look below! Advanced Excerpt – Add an excerpt on each one of your posts. Akismet-AntiSpam – Control spam on your WordPress…
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As a Collector, Should You Feel Weird About Checking eBay Prices In Front of Others?
Some collectors might feel weird about checking prices on eBay in front of others at flea markets, garage / moving / estate sales, and the like. Is it considered rude behavior to make sure you’re getting a deal or not screwed over on prices? I don’t think it is, especially if there’s a price tag…
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My Favorite Computer Help Resources, Software, and Utilities
Below is a reference list of computer websites and utilities I’ve used over the years, enjoy! Bleepingcomputer.com – A great resource for help with computer viruses, ransomware, and other security threats. CC Cleaner – Is an excellent PC-computer tool that will help clean up your Windows operating system and make things run faster again. File Assasin – This…
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First Time Home Buyer Loan Programs You Should Know About
About 25 years ago, I remember buying my first place ever to live in. I thought at the time, I could never afford to buy a new home, the prices were so expensive. I was talking to someone a bit older than me at the time and they said “Yes, you can buy something, you…
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3 Easy Steps To Grow Your Net Worth To 100k and Beyond
Below, I’m going to provide you with a road-map to show you some examples of everything I’ve ever researched and practiced in my own financial life to grow my net worth. By the time I was 23 years old, I had built up a six figure net worth for the first time in my life.…
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Parents, Help Your Kids Learn About Money; They’ll Thank You For It!
Parents, I can’t emphasize enough about how important it is to teach your kids about money and personal finance. Especially, by the age of 14, when you have a teenager becoming a young adult. These days it seems like there’s little to no financial education in the traditional school system. This is setting up young…
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Don’t Ask Your Prospective Roommate Questions, Discuss Them!
When you meet a new potential roommate, it’s important that you screen them out to make sure that you are a fit for living together. If you want to avoid feeling awkward and nervous, like having a job interview, it’s best to mix in your questions with a casual conversation or discussion. This way you’re…
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Restricted Items You Cannot Resell on eBay
When you are new to selling items on eBay, you might think right away you can sell just about anything! I mean, it’s eBay after all! And, after I listed my first auction 25 years ago, for an old baseball card I had, I started thinking about what else I could sell. I quickly found…
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How To Remove a Bad Yelp Review For Your Business
There’s nothing worse than getting a bad Yelp review for your business. After working with many business clients over the years, let me share a few strategies below that might help you remove a bad Yelp review. First, accept and understand that you have no control over how Yelp’s Algorithm sorts good and bad reviews.…