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Saturday, May 16, 2009

A Little Money on the Side

I see a lot of mothers asking on message boards about working from home and I hear on the news of horror stories of people being scammed out of thousands of dollars by these "work from home" scams. I will reiterate what everyone should already know- if they want you to pay them so you can make money- DON'T DO IT! If you really have the time to do something from home and want to earn some extra "fun money" then there are a few ways you can do that. I have been earning some extra spending money over the last few years doing online surveys- no not the ones that ask you to complete a thousand steps and accept bogus deals to earn a $100 gift card or an Ipod or such. There are folks who do those and come out ahead and little to no out of pocket- but I am not doing that. I have a select group of survey groups that I provide feedback for and I don't get rich by any means, but have managed to earn enough to buy some Christmas presents and some other things I wanted. I also belong to a couple programs where you earn points and you can exchange the points for giftcards- which are nice as gifts and as a means to go out for that nice dinner without ruining your budget. I am going to summarize them for you and encourage you to sign up if it sounds like something you want to do and have the time. There is never a requirement to do a set number, but seemingly the more you do, the more you get asked to do.

Opinion Outpost: They send surveys regulary and you earn 10 cents per point- so if the survey is worth 50 points, you earn 5.00. Their totals add up quickly and you only need to earn $10 before you cash out. They payout quickly. They do have a referal program so if interested, let me know and I can send you one. They do limit it to one account per household.

Synovate/Global Opinion Polls: When they send surveys, they are usually nice paying ones, $3-5 per. Again this is a referal one, so if interested, let me know. This one is limited to one per household as well, but they often send surveys for other family members if you provide the information when setting up your account.

Pinecone Research: I do love Pinecone and they generally always pay $3 per survey and staright into a Paypal account, but will send a check if you so desire. They usually do a lot of surveys for new product concepts so often you end up getting paid the $3 for the initial survey, sent a full size product to test and keep(great ones at that), and then another $ 3 for a post survey. This is a hard program to get into and it either has to be by referal or find locating one of their well hidden banners that show up on some sites. If you are interested, let me know and when they send me an email asking for referals, I can send them your email.

MySurvey: You earn points and then can exchange them for cash or gift cards when you reach 1000 points. They generally add up quickly as you even earn 25 points if you don't qualify for the survey and if you do qualify, they often are high point surveys. Again, this is a referal one, so send me an email if interested. I've gotten some really nice gift cards from here.

Word of Mouth(WOM) Programs or Focal groups: These are companies who want you to talk about their products so will send you the product to test and keep and talk about with your friends and then they send high value coupons to share. You earn points and often times free products. The points can be exchanged for gift cards.

Vocalpoint- free and they send products and GREAT coupons- often times for a free product and then extra's to share with friends. They also sometimes have in person focal groups in different cities and will email you about it and ask if interested, if so, they set up an initial interview- via phone- then schedule a time for you to show up in person for a focus group- and they pay-cash- on the spot- varies from $60-$150! Can't beat that for an hour's time! Sign up now- it is free! www.vocalpoint.com

BzzAgent: BzzAgent is a WOM program where the "agents" are folks like you and me and we discover and check out new products, services, books, etc., and share our honest opinions with others. You are invited to different campaigns and then they send you a product to use and then share with others your opinions along with some high value coupons and then you go back to their site and share your "Bzz activities" how you shared with others. You earn "Mypoints"(I'll tell you about this next) for each Bzz. I've received some fantastic products- Glade Sense and Spray Air Freshener, Pledge Surface Cleaner, recently- L'Oreal Advanced Revitalift Deep Set Wrinkle Repair(no comments from anyone!), Neutrogrena Cosmetics(nice kit-mascara, foundation, eyeliner, eyeshadow quad), and so much more. Sign up, it's free- and you can have others in your household sign up too- my daughter qualified for a Clean and Clear Campaign.
www.BzzAgent.com

MyPoints: Ok this one is a bit different, you sign up using an email you use most often to shop online, etc. You set up your account and indicate how many emails per day you would be interested in receiving. They send you emails for companies that advertise with them and you basically read the email, click on the link at the bottom, which takes you to a new page and your account is credited 5 points. If you shop online ever, you can go through their site to see if the merchant is listed and earn points for each dollar spent as long as you click through the Mypoints site, so let's say I am going to buy something from Target online - I would go to Mypoints.com, login, search under Merchants- Target- and if it is one of their merchants it would pop up and tell me the deal- say 4 pts for each dollar spent. I would click on the link, which would take me to their website, as long as I completed my new transaction through that new page, my Mypoints account would be credited 4 points for each dollar I spent. Points add up fast, and the BzzAgent points help that total go higher. What I do it save all my points all year until about the end of October and then I cash them in for Gift Cards- last Christmas I had enough points for $300 in gift cards! If you are interested, I can send you a referral through a link they send me and they usually have special offers where you earn free points to start an account.

Next time I'll tell you all about my "coupon" escapades!

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