We are in a farming area with a 12 month growing season.  We have strawberries growing all winter long.  That said, the weather is turning colder - for our area.  We had a slight amount of frost on top of our car a couple mornings ago.  YES, I know, it is a hard life in this type of cold but someone has to do it. 

WOW! I knew it but I was not paying attention. Today is December 1.  We only have a month left in this year.  How time flies! 

The cold also means that the gas and electric bills are going to go up as we use more for electric heaters and turn on the gas wall heater for most of the day.

Luckily our utilities are include in our $800 rent.  We get water, power and basic cable TV for free at home.  This sure helps. 

I understand why RV full timers become snow-birds and "fly south" for the winter.  Staying in places like Arizona or even Mexico are a lot more appealing than three feet of snow, especially for someone living in an RV.

Our goal is to increase our internet marketing income.  A website is not required for some ways to earn money online, but most require a website.  Many ISPs like Earthlink, Verizon or your home town ISP (internet service provider) offer you email and webspace to create your presence on the internet.  You can create a website with this "free" space you get just for having an internet connection.

DO NOT use this webspace to create a website! The problem with using their space, it is a temporary website.  If you cancel your service, you website disappears.  If you move and have to use a different ISP, you website disappears. 

Can you imagine spending the next six months or a year building a website and have it disappear forever INSTANTLY the moment you discontinue service with your ISP?  You could have a site that is becoming popular and making you a decent amount of money every month and WHAM! it is gone.

This would be especially true if you goal is to go full timing in a RV.  Let’s say you build a website on your home town ISP.  You are preparing to go full timing and the day you do, you disconnect your internet service at home.  All of your work just disappeared.

Of course there is an answer.  Get your own domain name, just as I have for this site.  RV-LIVING-MAGAZINE.COM is my own site.  I can move and it will still be there. I can change ISPs and it does not affect the website, it is still there.  If the company I use to host my website disappears tomorrow, I still own the website name. It would be inconvenient, but I would simple have to get a new hosting company and they would accept my site name, RV-LIVING-MAGAZINE.COM, and have me back in business in a few days at the most.  Some hosts would be very fast to get my site reactivated.

With my own domain name, I own the domain name.  I have control over it.  I could move to Japan and get a Japanese company to host my site and it would still be the same as it ever was.  Of course if I moved to Japan, I could just leave the site with the hosting company I am currently using.  It does not matter what I do  if  I own my own domain.

I will talk more about this on Monday.