I had an experience recently which made me realize how much the internet and internet marketing has changed and re-arranged my financial life: I refinanced my home.

When I first applied for a new mortgage, the broker asked me for my bank account and employment information. Uh oh. As a grad student in a PhD program, my employment income is rather low. In fact, my bills are nearly equal to my university income. I thought, “Regardless of how much my home has appreciated in the last five years, who in the hell is going to give me a loan?!”

But as I thought about my full financial picture, I realized how much of my income is accounted for, but never makes it into my bank account. For instance, I have a consulting client who pays me through a UK-based service called Neteller. I then use the Neteller account to pay some of my bills directly. Likewise, several other clients send me money through PayPal, which I can also use to pay bills and buy goods and services. And both Neteller and PayPal have interest earning options that are higher than local savings rates. Why bother transferring the money to my bank account?

So in order to give the broker a true accounting of my financial health, I sent him not only 3 months of my bank account statements, but also 3 months of my Neteller and PayPal statements. It took a bit longer to get my loan than I expected. But I still got it.

Next time I buy or refinance, I will probably also have to show statements from my Amazon affiliate account, my Google adsense account…Actually, no. I guess by April that will all be on my tax return and I can just email it on over.

cheers - Ryan