SmartMoney recently ran an article about seven money mistakes to avoid:

1. Misidentified priorities. Clipping coupons to save a nickel while paying 15-20% interest on your American Express (NYSE: AXP) card.
2. Overly-cautious investing. The government appreciates you hoarding those 20-year old U.S. savings bonds.
3. Misunderstanding risk; e,g., buying asteroid insurance instead of long-term care.
4. Procrastination. Putting off funding that 401K, for example.
5. Throwing good money after bad. Perhaps the U.S. government should consider this one!
6. Letting your ego guide your decisions, e.g., "Who are you to tell me I should sell my Enron!"
7. Following the crowd, e.g. "I gotta get me some WorldCom."

I thought of a few money mistakes that I might add to such a list:

Are you an entertaining person? Are you a visual story teller? Can you capture an audiences attention and make them respond to you? If you think you have what it takes to create interest, incite and entertain, then there are options open to you. Don't just tell me you're an artist. Grab your video camera and prove it on Metacafe.

Metacafe is not just another video sharing website. Metacafe has something for you. Cold hard cash awaits the future producer of indie films. As of this writing, the top earning video on Metacafe has pulled $26,683. Note that it has taken about two and a half years to do that. Still though, that's not a bad return on less than four minutes of video. Other vid-clips on the site have generated between $3,000 and $8,000 for their creators. While not an amount that you could live on, it's still real money which could help pay the bills.

I myself have several ideas that I'd like to try in pursuit of Internet-based revenue generation. I do call myself an artist and I have the ability to make people sit up and take notice. What I don't have is a high-speed Internet connection...

I guess my gay version of Gumby will have to wait a while longer... and his pony pal Pokie will too.