On the Money, Credit Cards and Insurance page of my website (did you know I have a website? It’s pretty informative. Have a look!) a company wants to pay me $120 just to insert some of their text in the middle of my text.
     The second paragraph begins:

     “Approximating travel costs and formulating a budget isn’t hard to figure out. Hostel and transport websites show how much sleeping and buses/trains cost, or check a guidebook and factor in that prices have risen a bit. Don’t forget you’ll be spending on tours, boat trips, scuba dives or big tattoos of TheDromomaniac.com across your chest. The variable that might be hardest to pin down is drinking. If you’re a party animal, the money can fly no matter where you are, and then late nights beget taxis and so on.”

     and then the company proposes to add this text:

     “All those little expenses add up! You could be putting that money towards something more important, from airplane tickets to health or life insurance (INSURANCE COMPANY LINK INSERTED HERE). It is always intelligent to have some savings set aside too! Spend wisely.”

     Nobody needs $120 more than I do, trust me, and it’s just a few short sentences, so what’s the problem?
     One is an integrity issue. (Did you know I have integrity? Send me $50 and I will tell you all about it!) Mainly, my website suddenly isn’t my own words, and once that happens, it’s a slippery slope where people can’t trust that I believe what I say. Plus, I go on to say in the last section that I am anti-insurance.
     On the other hand, I wouldn’t object to a travel insurance ad in the right column as plenty of people think I am crazy for not having it and this is how lots of bloggers make decent money.
     Why wouldn’t a company prefer to have a flashy ad on the side instead of a link buried in some text? Because it sounds better if I am shilling it and I think Google looks at it more favorably for them in search results (and unfavorably for me.)
     Another company this week wrote to offer me 30 British pounds (US$50) for a similar arrangement. I’ve received a few of these emails. They don’t feel right. Maybe I am being hypocritical and need to be more flexible. $120 would buy a lot of watermelon juices. What do you think?

     I'm almost too big for this old t-shirt, but it kills me to part with it. You'll never eat alone, ya Scouser!