December Digest

All right!  Here it comes, another monthly digest to show my progress with all the different sites I've signed up with.  I'm going to try and keep it shorter than normal which shouldn't be hard since this month kept me a bit to busy to give these sites as much attention as they deserve.

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~*~Gift Cards and Gift Sites~*~
These are the sites I've been working with that offer their rewards in gift cards and prizes.
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iRazoo

Review: iRazoo is a quick way to earn a $5 Amazon card every 10 days.  I have been slacking off a bit with them this past month, but they've been really great none the less.  I've made $20 in Amazon cards with them so far and am still waiting for more to post to my account.

December Goal Review

With the closing of December comes my monthly "Goal Review" where I take a look at the month and decide whether or not I have done the things I set out to do. This month, overall I am pretty thrilled with my results. I still need to do a bit of tweaking, but considering this is my 3rd month back in the working from home world and my second month really trying to do freelance work, I am really happy.

1. Earn $400 this month. Check! This was completely blown out of the water. While I don't have the breakdown created yet, I do have pending total for the month. I am still waiting on one payment that should come through today and this doesn't count the checks I received, but right now my earnings stand at $1,154.31 for December! So much for it being a slow month!

Another Year is Coming to a Close

I feel like 2009 can't possibly be over yet because it's gone so quickly, but clearly the calendar would be a better time keeper than I would. 

The next few days will be incredibly busy as I put together the following:

• December Digest
• December Earnings 
• December Goal Review

You can also expect to see new goals and game plans for January and 2010 as a whole within the next week.  I'm hoping to get a lot accomplished next year and can't wait to see how we all grow throughout the first year of the new decade.

Proof of Payment "Friday"

All right, the Proof of Payment Friday post was postponed for obvious reasons, and Saturday was spent recovering, so here it is a couple days late. Please note, that this won't include any of of the payments from my private clients, but that tally will be included at the end of the month.

• IMShopping: I received a payment from IMShopping on Monday as usual, although I won't be getting one this week since the holidays had me a bit tied up. This payment was for $30 which brings me up to $108.25 total with them. (Proof of Payment)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone!

The Thursday Tip Traid: 3rd Edition - Motivation

"How do you stay motivated" is something that a lot of you have asked me so this weeks tips for freelancing will revolve around that very topic! Keeping your motivation and momentum as a freelancing work at home mom, or just a freelancer in general, can be a really trying effort. While not every motivation suggestion will work for everyone across the board, I have gone ahead and assembled a set of 3 tips that have helped me out personally when it comes to keeping my motivation up while doing freelance work from home.

Wanelo Christmas Giveaway

Warning - Slightly out of character post:

All right I know this is late, but for those who have kept up with Wanelo (WAnt NEed LOve) you probably know about their Christmas giveaway. If you don't you can read about it here. If you haven't signed up with them yet you really should. I put off making my list because I was worried that it wouldn't be good enough, but I think it came out all right in the end haha

I decided to enter and am crossing my fingers that I win. Just to make it a little more fun, I decided to quickly explain why I want each item, so in no particular order here it is with explanations:

• Mattress Heating Pad: WAnt NEed (Hope to) LOve - It's cold up here in PA and it's terrible climbing into bed just to shiver because the blankets are icy

PineCone Research

All right! I know a lot of you have heard me talk about how great PineCone Research is but how annoying it is that they don't have open recruiting... Well, guess what I got in my email today?

PineCone Research Registration Link!

Now I'm not sure how long the link will work so you should sign up immediately with them if you have any interest in working with them.

Review: Each survey pays $3 and sometimes they send you samples of products as well. When you review the sample you get an additional $3. So far I have earned at least $20 with them and the pay is really prompt. Checks from PineCone Research generally arrive in around 3 business days and after a while you can use PayPal instead and most payments arrive within 24 hours.

(Proof of Payment)

What would you like to see?

I'm open to suggestions for new weekly columns. Now that I'm cleaning up my posting routine, I was thinking it would be fun to get everyone involved and see if there was anything that you guys were really interested in seeing here.

As we have it, here are the regular posts:

Weekly:

• Thursday - The Thursday Tip Triad (Tips for Freelancing)
• Friday - The Pay Day Post!

Monthly:

• Goals
• Goal Check
• Earnings Breakdowns
• The Monthly Digest
  

If there is something that you are really itching to see me talk about, leave a comment with your input!

Pay Day!

I now name today Proof of Payment Friday... even though this post is actually coming through on Saturday since it's now 12:10 on the East coast.

Since Friday is the most commonly accepted pay day, I've decided to make it my official proof of payment posting day. This means that every Friday I will post all my payment proof updates from the week before. I figure it will be a lot neater and more convenient for you to see all the different proof of payment updates at once instead of splattered throughout the week.

It's been a while since I've done my Proof of Payment update so this is a bit of a long one:

• YouData: I've received two payments from them since my last update, one on 12/11 for 5¢ and a second today for 21¢. (Proof of Payment)

The Thursday Tip Triad

Installment two in the new Thursday Tip column is a bit late again, in hindsight it also might have been better to dub it Freelance Friday - but I've already committed to making it a Thursday post!

Today's freelance job hunting tips will revolve around finding clients. I briefly touched on how to build a client base last week but this time I will focus fully on providing you with a few pieces of information that will help you build a freelance client base without any investment.

$500 Give Away!

I usually don't advertise giveaways that other people post but this one looked like something that anyone can benefit from especially this month so I thought I'd spread the word:

Visit Money Saving Mom's blog for a chance to win one of five $100 gift cards to the shop of your choice (from a list of over 100 stores).

Updates

Things have been oh so hectic. Apparently on top of the holidays, my SO's family has half their birthdays in December and I had forgotten about... plus the firehouse does a lot of charity work during December which leaves me and my 4 year old bundle of energy stuck indoors by ourselves a lot more than usual.

I did want to say that I took advantage of the gift card sale that Swagbucks was having and bought 4 discounted Amazon cards (saved 20 SBs which is almost 1/2 of another card) bringing my total with them up to $30 with over 100 SB left over.

My scheduling goal is chugging a long like the little engine that could but hasn't quite made it over the hill yet. I have been using a small notepad to schedule my tasks from 6am-6pm and I'm managing to finish most things in their allotted time slots, but not everything. I have been royally slacking on remembering to do iRazoo, TrekPay, NeoBux etc though so I think I need to actually schedule them in so I won't forget.

Coming Soon: More Proof of Payment for IMShopping and Pinecone Research.

Swagbucks Sale

For those who have been watching the gift card sale from Swagbucks, they have finally put up the $5 Amazon Card at a discount. It's very minor and only a 5 SB discount, but it's still not terrible.

You can only grab two cards per day so I just snatched my two and am hoping that the timer resets at midnight so I can grab two more!

Freelance Work

Freelance work might sound like something you are incapable of, but I promise you that it's not. If I had known how simple it was I would have started doing it much sooner than I did. It has really been a great source of income for my family and I'm only getting started. There's not a day that goes by where I don't regret how long it took me to take the plunge and seriously start hunting down freelance work.
I had a bit of an ordeal today (accidentally locked myself out of the apartment!) so this is up later than I'd intended but I wanted to get this post up before I go to sleep.

Tips for Freelancing (The new Thursday tradition!)

Finding Clients

I have had a lot of people ask me who my clients are and where they came from. I can't actually answer the first half of that question (privacy issues) but I can answer the second half...

I'll have a post up later today or tomorrow giving everyone a few pointers and I'll expand on my experiences some!

Wanelo!

I don't know if I ever announced it but I made the first string of Wanelo Super!moms, and the second set was just announced so congrats to you guys :)

On top of that I just won my second Wanelo contest! I haven't been rewarded yet, but I know they're good for it.

View my winning collection Here!

Proof of Payment

Here are a few payments that have already come in for December!

• YouData 12/4 - 39¢ (Proof of Payment)
• iRazoo 12/5 - $5 Amazon card which was requested on 11/10, bringing my total up to $15 out of $25 received (Proof of Payment)
  
• Greenfield Online 12/7 - $30.00 for my Interactive Survey on Nov. 18th (Proof of Payment)
  

A Quick Note

I am expecting to make a major layout change tomorrow that will move the earnings on the left sidebar to a nice little categorized box in the middle of the page. I'll be looking for feedback on this change, so don't be afraid to let me know what you think!

There will also be a Proof of Payment update and a few other updates tomorrow... this was just a super busy weekend with the holidays and a family member's birthday celebration as well. I haven't forgotten about you guys though so don't worry ;)

December Goals

All right I'm sorry these are up so late, but here they are! I decided to opt for fewer goals this month so that I can really focus on them and hopefully get into a good routine, so they are super basic.

1. Earn $400 this month. This one was preset at the very beginning of the blog, so the amount is going to stay the same. I am going to try a lot harder to earn a lot more with my side eggs this month which leads me to goal two...


2. Manage and schedule my time better! If I can balance my time better then I can earn more.... it is as simple as that. Unfortunately, I am finding it a lot harder than expected to do that, but I know that it's a task that many of us have issues with. I hope to be able to find some good time management methods that can benefit me, and everyone else as well.

November Goal Review

Overall I did well for the month, but I don't feel that I met all of my goals. Two of them were met with no questions asked, but two were not up to par in my eyes. I'll have to try harder in December!

1. To earn $300 worth of spendable cash by the end of the month. That means that only money that makes it to my bank account or PayPal account will be included in the tally.
Check! I totaled $777.28 during the month of November, however I would have liked to have earned $300 from non private gigs.

November Earnings Breakdown

As usual, this post will consist of what I received during November that was actually spendable, not pending or accruing payments.

Paid through PayPal:
$565.64 minus $16.66 in fees nets $548.98 from PayPal.

Paid through eLance:
$250.20 minus $21.90 in fees nets $228.30 from eLance.
Total: $815.84 in earnings and $38.56 in fees for a total income of $777.28! Not bad for my second month, granted a LOT of the income came from private jobs I'm still really happy.
Here's the breakdown by program for deposits this month:

November Digest

Because of the length of the post, I have gone about listing in a special manner. To view the entire post, click the red link below:

Here we go again! The end of the month means another "digest" reviewing everything I've worked with so far, however my monthly earnings will be addressed separately...

Grab a drink and relax while you read about how things are panning out with each program.

Please note that some of the Proof of Payment links have not been updated yet, but will be today.

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~*~Gift Cards and Gift Sites~*~
These are the sites I've been working with that offer their rewards in gift cards and prizes.
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iRazoo

Review: iRazoo is a simple GPT site that rewards user that use their search engine. You can earn 300 points per day, and a $5 Amazon card only costs 3000 points. Without ever referring another person you can earn $15 a month which totals up to $180 a year which is a pretty hefty chunk of Amazon cash....

....see the full post here!

VistaPrint

Save 25-50% off on custom printed products at VistaPrint. Order today!

All right, so I've been hearing about VistaPrint for a really long time and I finally broke down and checked it out today... it's AWESOME.

Since I've been doing so much freelance and IC work I've been on the market for some basic mailing products (labels, stamps etc) and I decided to visit the Vista print site today to see what I could come up with.

I walked away with:
250 Business cards
280 Return address labels (two styles 140 of each)
A rubber return address stamp
A 50 page note pad
And a code for a free online Quickbooks accounts so I can track my income in a better manner (this could probably be found anywhere though)

My total? $10.43 for shipping, that's it!

I'm so hyped that I'm going to go order a set of things for my boyfriend now haha

Thank you iRazoo and SwagBucks

I finally used my iRazoo and SwagBucks Amazon gift cards for a bit of Christmas shopping. I ended up with a total of $20 off my order... If I had all my iRazoo cards, my order would have been almost free haha

Little T will be pleased to see that Santa brought him two Lego Indiana Jones playsets, and I'm pleased that it only cost Santa $14.99 thanks to iRazoo and SwagBucks!

I only wish that I had gotten involved with these sites earlier instead of snubbing SwagBucks for so long!

November Digest and December Goals coming today or tomorrow at the latest!

SeeHere Update

Well, I finally got around to taking advantage of those codes, and I realized that there is really no reason in the world for me to get 100 cards printed up...

In the end I used the 100 free prints code, but I did more than 100 prints so the extras were 12¢ each and I used one card code for 50 Christmas cards. My total for shipping and the excess prints was $15, less than $7 of that was actually shipping.

This certainly made Christmas a bit easier this year. Now I don't have to spend $50 on Santa pictures so everyone can have one!

LiveWork

For those who have followed the blog for a while, you know that I did the 64¢ LiveWork query questions and was paid for them roughly two months ago.

Since then I've been waiting for a new set to be posted, and it appears that new ones have. They are only hiring up to 1000 workers for the project so if you are interested in signing on with them, you should visit the LiveWork site, sign up and apply now!

Best of luck!

((Today the SwagBucks deal card is the $10 Barnes and Noble gift card, it's on sale for 99 SBs instead of 125.))

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

iRazoo, SwagBucks and TrekPay

I finally got the gift code for my second $5 Amazon card from iRazoo. They're a bit slow, but considering the minimal amount of effort it takes, I can't really complain. I had requested it on November 1st and I got it on the 24th so it took just under 3 weeks.

I still have two more on the way and another one 1/2 way completed. Over all I've earned $20 worth of cards with them since I signed up 5 weeks ago, although I haven't received them all yet ;) (Proof of Payment)

For those of you have joined up with SwagBucks, remember to keep your eyes peeled for the next few weeks. Starting on Black Friday, different gift cards will be on sale each day so you might be able to snatch up a good one at a discount.

Since I've been saving I have only cashed out $10 worth of Amazon cards with them instead of the $30 I could have, but I have over 175 SwagBucks stocked up and I'm crossing my fingers that I didn't save them up for no reason haha

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TrekPay also paid out today, an all time low for me personally... I only got 49¢ BUT it brought me up to $5.57 from $5.08 so I can now cash out if I choose to! It took about 7 weeks to get there, so it's definitely a bit slow going, but every little bit helps. If that pace is steady I can cash out 7 times a year and make around $40 from them annually.

It won't pay my bills but it'll buy a video game every Christmas!

Soap Box Post

If you're reading this blog, even as a day one new comer, and you are thinking about working from home to help supplement your family's income - start now.

I had this discussion with my significant other just the other day, and I felt like I should share it here as well in hopes of encouraging those who may scared or doubtful to jump in with both feet and get started.

I started this blog because our savings had been depleted and we were just barely making it from check to check on his income and I needed to figure out how to contribute, and I needed to do it quickly.

Now every time I think about our financial woes I kick myself for not taking action sooner. Here I am approaching the two month mark and I can see what a difference this is making in our lives. We don't have the same worries we had before, we're not stressing over money as much and we're talking about building up a savings again.

This month my focus has been a bit off target because I'm still getting a grip on freelancing, but I've made well over $300 from private clients alone this month...

Don't let fear or doubt hold you back. You CAN do it, even if you have small kids or a disability, it IS possible.

YouData, Trekpay and Wanelo...

...sent me payments this week. I received other payments as well, but those were all from private clients. I actually have a new goal for the month, to stop finding new clients! I'm addicted to looking for work though haha

I'm really enjoying it though. It feels good to not be unemployed anymore and if I had known it was this easy to work from home in this sort of manner before, I would have started sooner.

Anyways, on to the important stuff!

YouData sent me a payment for 16¢ which reminded me to check for new ads and I actually had some! This one definitely adds up slowly, but they pay promptly which is nice. (Proof of Payment)

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TrekPay updated on the 18th and I'm up to $5.08 with them so I should make the cash out next week! It was a really big leap from $3.74 to $5.08 so I'm not sure what happened, but I'm happy. That's $1.34 this week!

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And of course I got my $10 from Wanelo. I'm sad to see their paid reviews program go but I'm really crossing my fingers about the new Super!moms program. I think I've gotten a few nominations, and I've nominated people as well, so I'm crossing my fingers! (Proof of Payment)

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I also cashed out for my fourth iRazoo gift card yesterday which brings me up to $20 worth of gift cards from them... I could cash out for another $15 through SwagBucks as well, but I'm still crossing my fingers for some good sales through them so I'm stock piling my SwagBucks for now.

Holiday Pictures

All right, hopefully this will go better than the CSN fiasco did! SeeHere is a picture site that seems to be offering quite a few gifts at the moment. They've been all over the blogs I've seen today so I'm going to continue to spread the word in hopes of saving everyone a few this season.

1. 100 Free Prints for New Customers: As per p0ptarts blog, sign up through that link, select your prints and use the promo-code prints. Just pay S&H, roughly $5-6, which is like paying 5-6¢ per print! Expiration date unknown.

2. 50 Free 4x8 inch Photo Cards (with envelopes): Login and design your cards and use the code freebies4mom-1109 to drop your total to $0.00. Just pay S&H once again. Expires November 30th. If you have problems check out the FAQ here: Freebies 4 Mom

3. Another 50 Free 4x8 inch Photo Cards (with envelopes): Login and repeat #2 with the same or a new design using the code newbaby and watch your total drop again! Just pay S&H once again. Expires November 30th.

Now please note, I haven't tried all these codes out for myself yet, but I will be this weekend and I'll post as soon as I see what happens! I'm planning to have my mother in law take a few family pictures and then do some solo's of our son for the holidays.

I personally have never been into holiday photo cards, but this is a bargain that I can't pass up, especially since I'm so far away from my family now!

One Time Opportunity for $25

Do 10 reviews and earn $25!

This was originally posted on the WAHM boards, I wanted to be sure it was legit before I posted it.

It was a bit of an ordeal for me to actually hear back from them because apparently they manually respond to people who fill out the job posting and they don't respond on weekends - so fill this one out ASAP and if you don't hear back from them visit AroundMe.com and email them through the contact link.

Once I actually got directions from them on what to do, the process was simple. Just write 10 original and detailed reviews on different types of places of 60+ words. Then follow the rest of the directions in the email they send you.

It's a quick $25, the only thing that I don't like is that the reviews actually show your FaceBook picture which makes me a little uncomfortable. I mean seriously... who wants to give a bad review (in a tiny town like mine) when their pic is attached to it? You can remedy this problem, by going to your Settings page and selecting not to show your picture though.

(Proof of Payment)

An Apology for my CSN Post

As it turns out this site isn't the saving grace that I thought it would be for our shopping needs this holiday, and I want to apologize for posting about it.

If ever I create a Blacklist on my blog, they'll be on the top of it.

I just received my email letting me know that my order had been canceled, as have others - because they are now saying that you have to spend $50 to use the credit and are claiming that it was in the "terms and conditions" that do not exist anywhere on the welcome emails that we all got. Even worse, they are still allowing members to refer people (thinking that they will get credit) and then the referrals are being informed that the program is no longer running.

I plan to fight them on a personal level to get my free gift, and I suggest that everyone else does that as well.

I also intend to lodge a complaint with the BBB because I really feel like the shady nature of this whole shenanigan should be brought to light. They currently have an A+ record, but I'm not seeing anything A+ about what they've done with this referral program.

Overall I'm very disappointed, and very sorry for the waste of everyone's time.

Greenfield Online and Pinecone Research

Two quick updates on these two fine companies:

I got a screener for another $30 Interactive survey from Greenfield online last night. They were a little later than usual to let me know that I made the cut since the survey is tonight at 8pm and I just found out, but woohoo none the less. This will be my 3rd $30 survey with them since October.

I also received a package from Pinecone Research. I was expecting a check, but it looks like I actually get to test the product that was associated with the last survey first and then I get paid! I'm not complaining at all, I actually think that's super awesome! I can't discuss it, but anything that is free is awesome to me haha

No sooner did I write than I got another check from them for another $3. After comparing the survey numbers, it seems that the product testing is a separate thing from the survey, and I actually get paid for both! Pretty awesome overall! $3 for the survey, some products to test, and then another $3 for that as well (I assume). (Proof of Payment)

If you haven't signed up with Greenfield and Pinecone, I'd highly recommend it.

Wanelo Super!moms

Consider this an out of the ordinary plea - but Wanelo recently announced that they are opening nominations for "Supermoms" and this is an honor that I would really love to have.

I've been with Wanelo since September when I first found out about the site through a craigslist job posting and I absolutely love it. I've put up over 130 reviews of products and I've pointed a lot of people towards the site for a little extra income :)

If any of you readers who are members there could nominate me, I'd really appreciate it. The more the better I'd assume. I'll also be sorting through folks to nominate people as well, so if you nominate me or if you are a member of Wanelo, leave a comment with your profile so I can check it out!

View my profile. Feel free to add me as a friend on there as well if you'd like.

To nominate someone you simply email stephanie @ wanelo.com (minus the spaces) with a link to your profile and a link to the profile of the mom you'd like to nominate.

Thank you so much, whether you do it or not!

PS: Be sure to get your paid reviews in by midnight on Thursday and email Reviews @ wanelo.com (minus the spaces). It looks like that project is coming to an end this week, so you better do it while you still can!

Recap of CSNStores.com

It seems like I may have over explained the CSNStores deal and scared a few people off so I decided that I'd readdress this deal in a simpler fashion instead of rambling on like last time ;)

Right now (I'm not sure how long it will last) they are offering new users who are referred to the site through special links a $15, no obligation, credit with their site. As soon as you sign up, the code loads up directly on the page after you register and it also gets emailed to you as well.

You can use this $15 for anything at all on the site and the variety is really impressive.

Carson Booklights: 3 styles available at $9.00 each
Wall art like Starry Night: They have tons of pieces for under $2 each
27 Piece Toy Dish Set: $9.95

There's a lot more than that as well.

With the economy still in shambles, and Christmas right around the corner, every little bit helps - even if you just grab a toy for one of the children on your shopping list it's well worth the couple of minutes you'll spend to sign up and get that $15 free gift credit!

If your friends or family join under your referral link, you can earn even more from CSNStores, up to an extra $150 to use on their site!

Proof of Payment Update

All right, I've had a lot of payments come through recently so bear with me while I get you all caught up!

Pinecone Research is a survey company that I haven't talked about here yet. They don't openly recruit, however p0ptart happened to have saved a registration link she'd gotten in her spam box from them! I'll include it on my side bar when I make my next update and add Pinecone, until then you can use the link here to sign up.

Either way, if you see their banner, sign up immediately! They pay $3 per survey or product review that they give you. The money is sent automatically upon completion by check. I did my first survey on 11/5 and received my check on 11/9! I'm expecting my second $3 any day now. (Proof of Payment)

Special thanks to p0ptart for the registration link!

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I also finally received my SurveyHead payment, $25.50 to my Pay Pal account. I had requested it on 10/21 and I got the payment on 11/11 so it took about 3 weeks. It definitely feels like it was a lot longer though lol As it happens, by the time it arrived I was practically ready to cash out again! I'm actually going to request another $20 cash out right now, which will leave me with $8.20 towards my next request. (Proof of Payment)

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I got my weekly $10 from Wanelo on Friday, right on time as usual. I'm up to $125 with them now I think. This is really a great program, if you haven't gotten involved yet you should do it. You can earn $40 a month off of reviews, and there are bonuses available as well. (Proof of Payment)

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I also got paid for the interactive survey I did with Greenfield Online on 10/20. I requested the pay out on Friday and got it today! I had also done a couple of $1 surveys so the total payout was $32 taking me up to $62 total with them. (Proof of Payment)

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My second gift card came in from SwagBucks today as well so now I've received $10 in Amazon cards from them total. I also have enough SwagBucks saved up to have requested two more, but I'm holding off in case a good card goes on sale during the end of the year sales. Even if they don't, no harm done, I'll just buy a bunch of them at once haha (Proof of Payment)

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Last but not least, is a peek at my eLance account. Naturally right after I finished editing the picture, I received an additional payment but since I'm stretched for time I didn't redo it. My total there is about $10 higher now than what it actually shows. (Proof of Payment)

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I've also had some deposits to my PayPal from my private clients this month on top of all that. Overall I'm really thrilled right now. If I can do it, you can do it too! Get out there and start earning!

$165 from CSN Stores

I got this lead from another blogger and I couldn't help but pass it on because it has such amazing potential at such a crucial time of the year... Christmas!

This isn't necessarily "earning" money but it is earning credit towards a site with some really great prices for Christmas gifts. Just for signing up with CSN Stores, you get a $15 credit to use on their site! If you refer people to their site, and they make a purchase, then you'll earn an additional $15 credit with bonus potential...

Here's a break down on the earnings:
$15 to sign up
$15 for each referral who signs up and makes a purchase (up to 5 people totaling $75)
$75 for reaching the goal of 5 referrals who make a purchase!
Total: $15 + $75 + $75 = $165

I don't know what you can do with $165 dollars but I can certainly do a lot through their site and I bet you can as well.

I snooped around on the site before signing up, just to make sure they had things worth buying and I found quite a few nice looking toys for my little one (and myself hehe).

Melissa and Doug wooden food play sets for $15.99
Wild Republic Toy Dogs set for $10.99
Wild Republic 33 Pc Zoo Bucket for $11.99
Proctor Silex Blender for $24.99

There are a ton of great things on the site so I think this a great opportunity for anyone with Christmas presents to buy, whether it's for children or adults.

My plan is to buy one of the inexpensive toy sets for my son so that my $15 sign up credit will cover most of the cost and shipping charges and the wonderful person who referred me to the site can get her $15 referral credit from me making a purchase :)

Then I'll let the rest accumulate so I can grab a whole load of gifts all at once with the extra earnings. It looks like their shipping fees are pretty reasonable and orders of $69 (such a random number) or greater seem to get free shipping according to the info.

Be sure to sign up through my link above though - the $15 automatic credit is by referral only. When you click the link, you can just close the two popup boxes that come up, they have nothing to do with the offer. If you want to be sure that you're getting credit, the "Your Friend's Email Address" box should pre-populate for you with Mod***Sur***der @ yahoo.com (asterisks are substituted here for privacy purposes).

If you have any problems and the full email doesn't populate when you click the link, just leave me a comment here and I'll get back to you to see if I can help :)

Once I reach the maximum payout with them, I will be changing this post to reflect someone else's referral link as well! Be sure to check back frequently and leave a comment below once you've used my link and purchased something with your $15 credit. I'll change the link on a first come first served basis and will respond to your comments with info on how to send me your link privately when I need it.

Warning: Their welcome mail may go to your spam box, so keep your eyes on your spam once you sign up. I received my welcome on my yahoo account spam box in less than 10 minutes.

Update

Hey guys! It's been another one of those types of weekends. My little one seems to have come down with a cold so I haven't been around as much this weekend as usual to update.

Tomorrow you can expect to see a proof of payment update that will include a previously unmentioned survey company, Wanelo and finally SurveyHead as well. I may also include a peek at my Elance profile and earnings page for the folks who are interested in checking out the freelance sites.

Friday the 13th

What a day! I don't know about you, but I've been experiencing issues all over the place today. I'm blaming it on the date even though I'm not superstitious... I can say though that the WAHM forums must be because they are definitely in hideout mode today!

I've been busily chugging along for all of my private clients this week which is taking up a pretty fair chunk of my time, but I don't mind because they pay is adding up decently. I've already accumulated about $82 in my Elance account this past week from two clients. I'm also finishing up another $50 worth of content work tonight that I'll be submitting. In total I've done $100 worth of work for one client in 4 days. I'll be sad to see this project end, whenever that day may come.

If you haven't checked out any of the many freelance sites available, I really do think that it's worth it. Sign up for a free account, fill out your profile information and add a picture (if possible) so they will think of you as a real person. Find something you really think you have a shot at and go for it! The worst that will happen is that you won't get it and will be out a bid for the month.

If you sign up for multiple freelance sites you can just start bidding on a new one when you run out of free bids on one for the month ;)

Don't get discouraged if you don't get selected. You'll have a lot of competition including some outsourced that works for well under standard prices, but with some dedication and effort there's a good chance that you'll find something and once you get a little good feed back under your belt everything will get easier.

I personally have also learned a lot from this client about SEO and content writing in general from this client which is giving me a boost in confidence overall. I'm pretty sure that with what he's shown me on this project I can start writing for Associated Content or any other free topic residual income site and do decent in terms of keywording.

My next step will be to find a higher paying content writing gig. This one is decent but it could be better. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of pay for a boatload of experience though!

Update on IMShopping

So yesterday I posted that I thought my pay amount from IMShopping was off by a couple of dollars right? Well, I wasn't overly concerned, but when I logged in yesterday I found that it had been corrected! Their community manager had actually gone in and updated the information so that I'll get it with my next deposit!

How great is that?

They really do go above and beyond to help their workers out and I'm looking forward to things settling down at home so that I can start doing more on their site.

What I really love are all the little bonuses that they offer, like $5 for the best answer in a certain time frame, or getting paid to ask questions etc... it's really great.

If you haven't signed up you should definitely do it now - the sooner you do, the sooner you'll have a chance to become a paid Guide. Remember to ask or answer a question after you register to get the ball rolling also :)

(Proof of Payment)

A few quick notes

I completely forgot to post on TrekPay last week! The conversion took place on Wednesday and I think around 250ish credits became 69¢ (bringing me to a total of $3.74) for me which is an all time low in terms of the weekly amount. I think I might have missed a day of credit collecting though. I also haven't been checking throughout the day as often as I was before for extra chances at credits.

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My first iRazoo $5 Amazon card arrived in my email this morning... just in time for me to request my third one haha (Proof of Payment)

I had ordered the card on the 10/24 which means it took about 17 days to arrive. I still don't understand why it's not instant since it's a gift card but at least now I know about how long they should take.

At this point I've earned $15 with iRazoo in less than a month.

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I also have enough points to request my 3rd $5 Amazon card from SwagBucks (which means they're just about neck and neck with iRazoo) however I'm holding off because of the supposed blowout sale that's going to be going on.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to find a good bargain on Amazon cards or Southwest Airlines cards (of course that would have to be a significant price cut for me to afford those). Only time will tell, either way it can't hurt to save them up for a few extra weeks.

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Wanelo also paid me my $10 right on time last Friday as usual. (Proof of Payment)

Please note, that you have to complete your reviews and send them an email with your profile linked by midnight on Thursday to get paid on Friday as of last week. All reviews have to been done in a full increment of 10 during that week to get paid as well.

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IMShopping paid me on Tuesday as well! I got a deposit of $34.85 in my paypal account (Proof of Payment) from them yesterday. Monday is usually the pay day, but the woman in charge of their payroll had a bit of an emergency so it was a little late.

I honestly don't think that the amount is correct though because they had a lot of issues with the new changes they did to the system, but I'm not going to argue it because I'm really impressed with this little egg. I had already mentioned it once in passing when we were starting to notice the issues from the site update, so I'll wait and see if things go smoothly this week or not. It would only have been a couple dollars more so I'm not stressing over it.

I've been super busy so I haven't been able to pay as much attention to IMShopping as I'd like, but I'm going to try and put more time into them this week and at least answer a handful of questions a day.

A quick note for Swaggers

If you don't read the SwagBucks blog, you may want to hop by their blog and check it out. To paraphrase the latest entry, starting on Nov. 27th (black Friday) through the end of the year they'll be picking random gift cards and slashing the prices.

It sounds like it will be one card, per day, and some cards may be discounted on multiple days and to different degrees. You can get a max of 5 at the discounted rate, I don't know if that's total, per type or per day.

If you're like me and do gift card prizes only, then I'd suggest holding onto those bucks until you see your favorite go on sale. I'm due for a cash out today, or tomorrow at the latest so I'm really glad I caught that post when I did!

See their blog post here.

((Edited - it's only been a few hours and they've already adjusted the max down to 2 instead of 5, still a nice deal, but less motivating to actually save up.))

Clients

I know that if I were reading my blog I'd be wondering where all those freelance clients came from. The answer is simple, freelance message boards and posting sites.

There are oodles of both out there and they are well worth sifting through on a regular basis.

Forums
I'm currently pretty cut and dry. I stick to Wahm, and that's more or less it. I do plan to branch off to other forums as well eventually - but I've been part of Wahm for a while now and no matter what some folks may say or think, I think it's a pretty top notch community.

Freelance Sites
This is a whole other world... I've signed up for so many that I don't even remember them all at this point. Most of them will offer a free version with a very limited number of bids available for jobs on a monthly basis. They also offer the ability to upgrade your account so that you can apply for more jobs, add more info to your profile, etc.

I honestly recommend sticking with the free versions of all of them until you feel like you absolutely must upgrade. Of course this means that you'll have to be very careful when bidding on jobs since your bids will be limited.

Here a few I'm fond of:
LiveWork - You've all seen me mention this site before, and it does fit into the Freelance posting category so I figured I'd add it here as well. The great thing about LiveWork is that there is no paid account option here and there is no limit to how many jobs you can apply for. However, there aren't many active jobs on this site at the moment either.

Guru - I signed up with them a week or so ago and went through several of their job pages. They seem like a decently set up site but I haven't really utilized them yet. None of the jobs really caught my eye the couple times I checked, but I plan to revisit them regularly anyways to see if I can dig up any good gems there.

ELance - This has proven to be my favorite so far. The site is really well designed and there is a certain degree of quality mandated from the moment you sign up. They actually test you on your comprehension of the site before you can begin bidding on jobs.

Their free version is significantly limited and only gives you 3 bidding credits (some high end jobs require more than 1 credit to bid) but if you're really careful with those three they can serve you well.

I will admit that I already upgraded my account with them... That was actually brought on by a job I was offered elsewhere that offered to pay me through paypal or Elance. I was interested in gaining the experience and feedback on Elance so I upgraded my account so that I could bid into multiple job categories. They do take a cut of the money you make (6.75-8.75%) but I'm generally all right with that at the moment.

Bukisa

I just signed up with Bukisa. I've heard a lot of positive things about them lately, and they seem like they could be a decent residual income source...

They don't offer any upfront payments which is a bit of a draw back, but they do pay your for page views and also for your referrals page views as well which is an interesting twist. They also don't require original content, you can use content you have posted on other sites with them as well. (Meaning you can republish your blog content there if you wanted to. I'm not sure if I'll do that, but it's an interesting idea.)

I'm planning to give it a good looking over in the morning, for now I'm just wrapping up a few of my night time projects!

Progress and my new signature!

We're a week into November and I'm chugging along to the best of my ability. Here's a summary of my non monetary goal progress (or lack of in the case of one of them):

1. Create (and consistently utilize) a daily schedule. I'm still trying to figure out a good way to schedule things for myself - but because so many of my eggs require random attention through out the day it's made it difficult to actually create a normal hour to hour schedule.

Instead I've decide to schedule a certain number of tasks per site to accomplish with those sorts of eggs and I'm working that out. My goal is to have a solid number for several sites set up by the time my head hits the pillow tonight.

2. Sign up with a freelance writing site and write at least 4 articles during the month to start getting my feet wet. Like I said when I posted this goal, I'm signed up with TextBroker which technically takes care of one part of it... so far I've written two articles with them totaling up to $6.60. I could do more, but I'm still trying to warm up to it all. It can be a lot of research for each topic, but it really can be a decent earning project if you put the work into it.

3. Find a new private contract freelance gig. I think I may have this one taken care of which is exciting. I miss counted earlier I'm actually up to 4 or 5 private contracts right now, not

• One ongoing forum oriented ($40-50 a week earning potential).
• One week to week VA position (earning potential kept private).
• One ongoing ad posting job ($15 a week earning potential).
• One trial content writer job... this one is a lot more work than the others and a low per word rate, but it has a higher overall earning potential which makes up for it. I'll be doing the trial this week to see if I can continue on. If so it will last 1-2 months minimum with $100+ weekly earning potential.
• I also need to touch base with a prior client that I never collected payment from because it was a very loose spare time job, it's similar to the first job on this list with the same earning potential.
  

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In other news, I've finally found a program that will let me tinker around with graphics, and so I used it to create a signature for my posts! I know, it's nothing major or amazing, but I'm really happy.

What's crazy to me is that there are people out there who charge $15-25 for a tiny little image like that they probably spend less than 5 minutes on - talk about overkill! I'll admit that it took me a little while to figure out how to get it to work, but that was because the program was brand new to me hehe

I'm considering offering a service like that as I figure things out, only I'd offer it at an affordable rate... Like $3 for a signature or something like that.

KGB, iRazoo, Shopping.com

I heard back from KGB, apparently because they felt two of the questions I answered "could have been answered better" I have to redo the simulation. It is good that they give you that option, and it didn't actually take me long to do the sim, but I'm still a bit annoyed haha

I'll redo it tomorrow most likely, and update on my status after that!

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Unfortunately I missed my first day ever on iRazoo on Friday! I realized it at half past midnight and I was so annoyed. I'm still just a couple of days away from another card - but I'm not pleased that I forgot to do my searches and set myself back a day. It's because I moved from a morning task to evening, and was still adjusting. Hopefully that won't happen again!

I'm still waiting on both of my gift cards from them as well.

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I came across a nice little egg on the WAHM forums the other day as well. It's another review writing project, but the pay is a little lower that I'd like. That's more so because I tend to be a bit wordy though, but I'm sure you all know that by now!

The site is Shopping.com and the general pay layout is below (the full information can be found here):

Reviews written between November 1, 2009 - November 30, 2009, will be deposited in your PayPal account on or before December 16, 2009.
Reviews written between December 1, 2009 - December 31, 2009, will be deposited in your PayPal account on or before January 16, 2009.
Payment Table for Reviews
First 5 Reviews will earn $5
No additional payments for 6-14 Reviews
15-29 Reviews for $10
30-44 Reviews for $20
45-59 Reviews for $30
60-74 Reviews for $40
75-89 Reviews for $50
90-104 Reviews for $60
105-119 Reviews for $70
120-134 Reviews for $80
135-149 Reviews for $90
150+ Reviews for $100
To qualify: Your Reviews must be submitted on a product or service in Shopping.com's database and comply with the Shopping.com User Agreement.

Overall, for $100 I'm willing to shell out 150 reviews, even if the per word rate will be poor for me personally I feel that overall it will be worth it since I do reviews really quickly.

As far as I've been able to tell there are no clear cut requirements for length on the site either, so for folks who don't have overactive, long winded fingers, the per word rate would probably end up much better ;)

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I've also decided to tinker with the layout here a bit (as previously mentioned) so I downloaded some free graphics software by the name of Gimp that I'm going to be testing out.
If you see images and posts popping up and disappearing, don't be alarmed, it's just me trying out different things!

PeopleString and SwagBucks (again)

Just a quick note to mention two things:

1. I got my first real mail from PeopleString! A 50¢ reward for receiving a postcard in the mail, viewing a website, and then typing in a code from the card. I can't wait for the next piece hehe

2. SwagBucks has a new page up offering SwagBucks in exchange for participation in different offers. Typically I'm not a fan of offers but HOLY COW they make it look so worth it that I'm really considering doing it.

Example: FreeCreditReport.com offer
CashCrate - $5.00
MyPoints - 250 points (which is roughly $1.69 worth of points to put towards an amazon card)

CreditReport.com offer
SwagBucks - 115 SB (which is enough for two $5 gift cards, and leaves you with 25 SB left over!)

Granted it's two different sites, it still seems clear that SB is paying heavily. They even have some that pay you just to download or sign up to play games.

If you do offers though, remember to cancel them before they charge to you! That is the key. It means you'd have to keep a super careful eye on the 7 day free trials and call up as soon as you get credit on SwagBucks to cancel. I'd also call again the next day just to be sure everything was properly canceled.

KGB, IMShopping, Maintenance

I did my KGB Simulation yesterday, a few of the questions came back with remarks that they could have been answered better, but most of them came back saying they were good.

I should hear back soon about whether or not I'll be accepted. I'll let everyone know as soon as I do.

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A lot of you know that I had IMShopping training earlier this week, I've accumulated some info so that I can spread the word for them in regards to being a Paid Guide with them.

Requirements:

• 16+ years old
• Answer 25 questions

Pay Information:

• 35¢ per Answer
• +65¢ for a Thumbs Up (=$1.00)
• +1.00 for a Best Answer (=$2.00)
• Cut off for pay roll is Monday 9AM, payments are processed around 6PM EST
• Lots of bonus contests as well!
  

They also have some merchants that they work for with higher pay scale and are making constant updates to make the site and work better for everyone. If you're interested in signing up with IMShopping, I'd say go for it! If you already have (because of something you've read here) please let me know here!

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Also, just as a side note, you may notice a few changes occurring on the blog over the next week or so. I'm going to be tinkering with the layout and hopefully my tinkering will be an improvement (lol).

If you see something you do (or don't) like, feel free to comment and let me know!

Swagbucks

Woohoo! I just requested my second $5 Amazon card from SwagBucks.

So far I've been using them since 9/17 and am up to $10 worth of cards with them once this one arrives. Not bad at all! If you haven't checked them out yet, you really should - especially if you've found that you enjoy iRazoo. The reverse applies as well haha

The two of them combined will double (or nearly double) your Amazon card earnings which can be handy for gifting occasions.

SurveyHead and Opinion Outpost

All right! Two quick notes -

First of all I had requested my payout with SurveyHead back on 10/21 I requested my first $25.50 payout from them (after being with them less than a month) and I just heard back today that my request has been approved! So that part took about 2 weeks.

Unfortunately, they said it can take up to 4 wks for the deposit to actually be made, but I'm assuming it will be quicker than that.

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The second note is about another survey site that I've come across. Opinion Outpost is a pretty good site, but I've found that I'm not really receiving a lot of surveys. I've been with them for about 3 weeks now and I've only earned $4.30, but their surveys are really enjoyable and different from those featured on other sites.

They also offer a referral bonus of $2.00 for each referral who completes a survey with them which is pretty great.

The other great thing about Opinion Outpost is that they only require a $5 minimum to cash out. I'm hoping that the longer I'm with them the better they'll get about sending surveys.

SwagBucks and IMShopping

Just a quick update I just received my first $5 Amazon gift card from SwagBucks! I had requested it on 10/28 and I got it last night (11/3) so it took about a week to get to me. The great part is that I'm already at 32/45 SwagBucks for my next one! Here's the Proof of Payment!

I had my very first 3 SB search reward earlier also and I thought I took a screen shot but apparently I hit the wrong button in my supreme state of sleepiness. Regardless, it was a good start to a very chilly morning!

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Also, I know this may be a bit intrusive, but if you've signed up with IMShopping because of what you've read in my blog, I'd really like to know (I understand if you're not interested in telling me of course).

I had my Guide training with them yesterday and I'd like to be able to show them who I've referred to the site. I also want to add you guys to my "Fans" list so I can check out your answers and give them a thumbs up here and there ;)

Starting on Friday they will be utilizing regular referral links (I think) so that the info will be tracked automatically and rewards can be given out to people who help increase the activity on the site by referring someone who signs up and asks a question.

I'll be doing a more detailed post on IMShopping (including pay info for Guides) sometime this weekend!

November Goals

Phew, what a day! I haven't even made my goals post yet, and I've already accomplished some of them - that's what I call a good start to the month. This month my goals are more multifaceted than they were for October since I was just starting out at the time. I'm still taking baby steps though to make sure I don't bite off more than I can chew.

So here they are, my goals for the month of November:

1. This is the obvious one, predetermined at the birth of this blog - to earn $300 worth of spendable cash by the end of the month. That means that only money that makes it to my bank account or PayPal account will be included in the tally.

2. Create (and consistently utilize) a daily schedule. I've taken on a lot of little eggs, and now it's time for me to focus more on nurturing them while still adding a couple to the stash. Each egg requires a certain amount of attention and it's time to find out how much so I can maximize my earnings.

3. Sign up with a freelance writing site and write at least 4 articles during the month to start getting my feet wet. Technically I've already started working on this one with Textbroker - I signed up and was accepted yesterday and I submitted my first article. I'm waiting to see if it makes the cut or not. I'm toying with the idea of setting up with a residual income sight like Associated Content as well though.

(Oh! They accepted my article - the acceptance email mentioned something about revising and rating the article in 2-7 days, but they seem much quicker than the estimates they give from what I've seen. Regardless, I've gotten $4 in my account for my 400 word article, which is great since they allow you to request payouts at as little as $10.)

4. Find a new private contract freelance gig. Technically I've accomplished this as well and am doing a trial run today, but I don't think I want to count it for this goal because even though it was already on my mental goal list, the job came into existence before I officially made this post.

All right, I think that was all of my goals for the month, or at least I hope it was! Time to get busy working on that schedule - too bad I'm better at making them than I am at sticking to them hehe

What are your goals for November?

TextBroker

TextBroker is one of the sites that I've seen that comes highly recommended to new writers. As part of my goals for the month (coming later) I decided to go ahead and apply with them yesterday to see what would happen.

I applied in the late afternoon, was accepted and told to write a sample for them. I did that and figured it would take 3-4 days to hear back but I actually heard back from them within a few hours which was a nice surprise.

Their pay varies by the ranking they give you as follows:
2 Stars = .7¢ per word (yes .7¢ which means less than 1¢)
3 Stars = 1¢ per word (this is where I got rated)
4 Stars = 1.4¢ per word
5 Stars = 5¢ per word

Clearly, unless you're ranked at 5 stars, the money is minimal, but I'm ok with starting out at 1¢ a word to get some experience under my belt.

I will warn anyone who is considering signing up now though, that there really don't seem to be a lot of 3 or 5 star articles. As a matter of fact I'm going to have to stalk the page to even find a subject that I'm comfortable writing on at the 3 star level. (Right now the only articles up are about rifles!)

I was really excited but now I'm a little iffy.

More feedback coming as I have it!

Thank You!

I wanted to say thank you all (again) for sticking by me and keeping me encouraged on my journey. Not a day has gone by this month where I haven't gotten at least one message telling me that my site has helped someone in one way or another and it's a really great feeling to know that I'm capable of doing that.

The November Goals post will be up tomorrow most likely, it will be a bit more detailed than October's was since the goals are going to include more than just monetary metrics. Now that we've gathered our eggs we need to learn to nurture them properly while still adding more, and that will be the tricky part.

I also wanted to mention that I requested my second $5 Amazon Card from iRazoo (still waiting on the first to arrive) so that puts me at $10 in 17 days which is pretty great!

I'm also half way to my next Amazon card from Swagbucks and I just requested my first one 5 days ago, so that seems to be going pretty smoothly now as well.

KGB sent me information to access the simulation portion of training so as long as I do well there I should be earning with them and passing on some words of wisdom on that little egg.

IMShopping training is tomorrow afternoon as well (busy busy) and I'm really excited about it. The community manager has asked us to spread a bit of info around so I'll be writing up a post on that tomorrow including the hiring metrics and pay rate.

If you are interested in getting started with them, I've linked my profile so that you can get a look at my answers that have won "Best Answer" and see what folks like to see in a response. My understanding of it is that as a paid guide you get paid per answer, and you get a bonus if you get a thumbs up or best answer so there are plenty of ways to increase your earnings!

(Also remember, if you've requested an invite to Lockerz and haven't gotten it yet, double check in your spam folder. They say they're a bit backed up in the system so it can take a few hours to get sent out, and I've had reports of it going to spam folders especially on Gmail. If you don't see it within 5 hours let me know and I'll resend it!)

October Round Up

Well, October has come and gone, and boy was it busy - especially there at the end! Everything started to blur together for me, hopefully it will slow down a bit now.

Time to add up my earnings and show you all the proof!

When it's all said and done, in October I earned $239.23 worth of PayPal deposits from the sites that I've been working with. Previously I had calculated it to be $241.52, but there was a a $2.29 fee that had been deducted from one of my payments that I forgot to figure in.

Still that's not a bad overall total considering that it only takes into account the money that made it to my paypal account, not pending payments, checks in the mail, gift cards, or cash that is still accruing on my accounts. (I did also get $50 worth of gift certificates, with another $10 on it's way.)

Here's a link to October's over all proof of payment total.

And here's the earning breakdown:
Wanelo $105 Proof of Payment
Livework $66.19 Proof of Payment
CloudCrowd $35.49 Proof of Payment
Greenfield Online $30 Proof of Payment
YouData $2.55 Proof of Payment

Did you meet your goal for October? I certainly hope that you did, but if you didn't don't give up - every little bit counts!

Next month this list will be much much longer and will include SurveyHead, LightSpeed Panel, KGB (hopefully), IMShopping and more!

Happy Halloween!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloween!

I've been running around like crazy to get ready for Trick or Treating this evening, but tomorrow I'll be finishing up my KGB training and posting my final tally for my October earnings!

Remember, I only count deposits that are spendable in my earnings, not payments that are still building up or are in route to me :)

I'm doing two things to celebrate here on my blog:
1. I'm reminding everyone that I'm still giving away Lockerz codes, to get yours fill out this form.
2. I'm sharing a tip that was given to me about Club Bing. Since so many of the games are based off scrambled letters, find a free Anagram site and use it to help you find those words that elude you on their scrambled letter games!

Have a safe evening everyone!

October "Digest"

All right folks here it goes... the Reader's Digest Version of October. The good and the bad, the GPT and the Surveys, etc. It's not particularly short either, but it is a compilation of everything!

I'm a bit jaded, I feel like I should jazz this post up with some buttons instead of the regular hyperlinks but I don't know. I don't want this to feel like an ad post - but I don't want it to be bland either.

Feel free to leave feedback on what you think of the posting format (or anything at all) after you read it!

PS: Sorry it's up so late, it took a LOT more time than I realized and came out a lot less condensed than I'd hoped hehe

Also, a few of the payment totals and Proof of Payment links may not match up yet either (off by a few dollars, or $10 in the case of Wanelo) this is because I was so busy creating this post today, that I didn't have time to update my picture files.

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~*~Gift Cards and Gift Sites~*~
These are the sites I've been working with that offer their rewards in gift cards and prizes.
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iRazoo

I am really glad that I took the time to check out iRazoo. The site is simple, easy to use, and everyone can easily earn 3 cards totally $15 a month from them without ever referring a single person to the site. Remember $15 a month is $180 a year! I personally plan to save these cards up (and those from SwagBucks) for gift occasions like birthdays and Christmas, or use them for emergency purchases.

How it Works: Each day you can earn 300 points using the search function on their site and visiting the results that pop up. 8 points are awarded for answering yes or no to "would you recommend this site" and 8 points are awarded for leaving a comment about the site. You have to remain on the site for 30 seconds before you can vote, but you can do things on other tabs on your browser during that time so it's not a big deal. It's really a pretty quick process and every 10 days you'll reach the 3000 points required for a $5 Amazon card.

Referral Bonus: 50 points per referral!

Earnings: Since I signed up on 10/16 I've earned one $5 Amazon card and am at 2048/3000 for another $5 Amazon card. I requested my card on 10/24 and as soon as I get it I'll post the proof!

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SwagBucks

Even though I hit a little bump in the road with Swagbucks (they accused me of "over clicking" because I was supposedly looking at too many of the sites pull up in my search) I would still recommend them. I signed up with them on 10/16/09 but I didn't actually start utilizing the service until the next day but I still managed to request my first $5 Amazon card from them on 10/28.

While I prefer the sure fire earning from iRazoo, I would still suggest Swagbucks as well. With Amazon cards priced at 45 Swagbucks earning two a month should be pretty easy, even without referrals. I feel that between the two of them, I should be pretty well set for Christmas and birthdays all throughout 2010.

How it Works: Use their search function for the chance to win Swagbucks. You won't always win them, but if you do a few searches in the morning, afternoon, and evening, you'll probably get 2-3 wins in that time. They also have contests, reward codes, and other ways to earn. I typically just search and enter the special codes from Twitter or their blog when I find one though.

Referrals: They have two ways to earn through referrals. You can become an affiliate and earn $1 per referral or you can just refer members to the site and earn Swagbucks every time they earn Swagbucks - up to 100 from each referral. Overall that's a far better reward, but that's only true if your referals stick with the site long enough to earn more than 9 Swagbucks (equal to $1 worth of a $5 Amazon card.)

Even though it's risky I prefer to just go for straight referrals instead of doing the affiliate thing.

Earnings: Since 10/17 I've earned $5 Amazon card and 7/45 for another $5 Amazon card. I requested my first gift card on 10/28 and as soon as I get it, I'll be sure to post the proof!

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Lockerz.com

I personally enjoy this site because it takes me longer to log in than it does to earn my points. You get two points for logging in each day, 2 points for answering the daily survey question, and 2 points for each person you refer to the site. Another thing to note is that the day you join you get to play a one time only game to catch bonus points! I caught around 30 hehe

You cash in your points for a variety of prizes (although since they're in their early stages many prizes are not yet available) such as Ipods (200+ points), video games (100+ points), gift certificates (250+ points), sporting goods (varies widely) or you can even use your points to donate to several different charities (5+ points)!

Even though most of the better prizes aren't up for grabs yet, I like the idea of being ahead of the curve so that when they are available I'll be closer to getting them than newer folks will.

The downside to Lockerz.com is that you have to be invited through their website by a current member so if you'd like an invite please request one from me here.

Referrals: 2 points per referral, once you refer 20 members you get double points for a year!

Earnings: 120 Points since 10/7

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ClubBing

ClubBing.com sounded like a really great site to me initially, but after tinkering with it for a few days I found the point earning to be really monotonous. I was really excited because they offer some really great prizes like Microsoft Office, video games and more. The initial earning was simple, but as it went on and I completed some of the easier games I found that they don't seem to reset leaving you with games that aren't worth the time for the amount of tickets you earn.

They do have "double ticket" days, so I'm planning to stick around and use those days to continue earning. If worse comes to worst I'll just donate my earned tickets to a charity on their.

How it Works: Play games, earn points, trade them in for prizes!

Earnings: 1,979 tickets

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~*~GPT Sites~*~
GPT sites require patience! The money adds up, but it adds up slowly. I operate under the fact that every little bit helps, because quite honestly, every little bit does help.
These sites will also offer quicker turn around times if you are able to round up a few referals through message boards or websites that you're part of.
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TrekPay

TrekPay is an interesting twist on most PTC (Paid To Click) sites. Instead of being awarded for each click, they award you credits and convert a portion of those credits into cash once a week. While the credit to cent ratio seems a bit low, I really feel that you make more in a week with TrekPay than you do with any other PTC.

I like them because unlike every other PTC Site, there is NO timer on how long you have to look at the site to get credit. They do expect you to look at it briefly though to make sure that if their symbol appears on the page you click it... but the symbol is rarely there and all you really have to do is scroll up and down once to check then move on to the next link.

Referrals: You get credit for advertising purchases made by your referrals (10%) and you also get extra credits when they sign up. As far as I can tell it's just 15 credits per referral once, but I could be wrong - the site doesn't really disclose it either.

Earnings: $3.05 since 10/1/09 in the following breakdown (70¢, 70¢, 71¢, 94¢)

Cash out Req: $5

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CashCrate

I really haven't but an adequate amount of time into CashCrate, so I haven't cashed out yet, but I did once back in 2008 with them so I know they're legit. I'm actually adding them to my list to focus on more from now on. Last month I only did a few offers and one survey so I didn't take advantage of CashCrate's full earning potential. Purely based off their surveys you can earn up to $1.60 a day, or $48 in a 30 day month without any referrals which is pretty impressive. Time to stop slacking on this one!

If you do choose to do offers, I would suggest using an alternate email when you sign up with CashCrate and do the offers (not your usual one) because I usually see an influx of spam once I start doing the offers. This is easily solved by having a secondary email though!

How it Works: They have hundreds of "offers" available on their site and pay you varying amounts to complete them. They also offer two surveys paying 80¢ each daily and have a referral program as well.

Referrals: They pay you 20% of your level one referral earnings and 10% of your level two earnings. On top of that, when your direct referrals reach $10 you earn $3! It's a pretty great referral set up over all if you can get folks to sign up.

Earnings: $7.23 since 9/24 but I didn't put any real time into earning with them this month

Cash out Req: $20

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NeoBux

NeoBux has been a pretty good experience for me. It fits the standard PTC model, you earn up to 1¢ per ad that you view for 30 seconds. Some ads pay less for shorter views and some pay more for longer views, although I've never seen one for more than 30 seconds.

Since I signed up on 9/21/09 I've earned a total of $3.56, but I invested $1.50 of that back into "renting referrals" to increase my earnings. They don't offer a lot of ads, usually 5-8 a day if you check back often so it is a slow earning process. Referrals are definitely the way to go with a site like this since they speed the process up tremendously although it still takes a bit of patience. Remember, every penny counts!

Referrals: As a regular member you get a 1/2¢ per referral click, but this quickly adds up and multiplies. If you choose to become a paying member (which I have not, and probably will not) you earn 1¢ per click.

Earnings: $3.56 earned since 9/21 (I reinvested $1.50 for additional referrals though.)

Cash Out Req: $2 (I have reached this amount, but am waiting to cash out until I've earned a bit more.)

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SuperNovaBux

SuperNovaBux is a newer PTC that is pretty much set up exactly like NeoBux in terms of the basics. However, the ads are a lot less frequent. I only get two a day to be quite honest, but I expect that to go up as they age.

How it Works: Sign up, click ads, wait 30 seconds then click the matching numbers at the top of he ad and earn 1¢.

Referrals: Earn 1¢ per referral click, and 1/2¢ for each click their referrals make.

Earnings: $1.025 since 9/28

Cash Out Req: $2

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ClixSense

ClixSense is also a very standard PTC program, but I actually like it a bit more than NeoBux style programs because it seems to offer more clicks through out the day. They claim that you can find ads for more than just 1¢ but so far that's all I've come across - and quite honestly because there are so many I'm quite fine with it.

In two days with ClixSense I've earned 40¢ just by checking in and clicking periodically.

How it Works: Sign up, click ads, wait 30 seconds and move to the next ad. You can also pay $10 to upgrade and get more ads but I don't intend to do this. I may however earn the $10 then use it to upgrade if I feel that it's worth it to do so after that long.

Referrals: You don't really earn for your referrals as a regular member (you get 1¢ when they sign up). You do however get $2 if your referrals upgrade their account. If you upgrade your account then you receive 10¢ for each referral, $2 if they upgrade, $1 if their referral upgrades, commisions on clicks made by your referrals, and so on.

$10 for all those benefits may be worth it in the long run, but only if your referrals invest also... I'm jaded but unwilling to donate right now since this blog is aimed at earning without paying for a turn around.

Earnings: 40¢ since 10/28

Cash Out Req: $10 by check only, however when you cash out they charge a $3 processing fee so I suggest waiting until you've accumulated much more than $10.

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YouData

YouData is what I consider, the highest quality PTC out there. You get paid to look at the list of ads available, and you get paid to actually follow through and click the ads, which is really innovative. They pay every week no matter how small your balance is, directly to your paypal.

There are two downsides to YouData that I've come across so far though. To start with there aren't very many ads at all, I usually only see one every other week or so for a total of 10¢. Second, they pay every week no matter what your balance is, but they deduct a few cents for paypal processing. I rather let it add up to something more than 20¢ and then cash it out, but maybe that's just me.

Referrals: You can earn up to $1.00 per referral. This is similar to how Swagbucks is set up, you get 1¢ per ad that your referrals view, until you've earned $1.00.

Earnings: $2.24 earned since 9/21 (I've already deducted the processing fees.) YouData Proof of Payment

Cash Out Req: None, sent automatically each week.

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~*~Misc Programs~*~
This includes review sites, snail mail sites, and much more.
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CloudCrowd

CloudCrowd is a new up and coming program that is accessed through FaceBook (don't worry it doesn't actually show anything on your FaceBook page). They pay you the next day for all work completed by 5pm Pacific the prior day. They're currently experiencing a lot of growing pains though that are upsetting some of the early users. I personally haven't experienced anything negative though, and I feel that they should be given some slack since they're only a month old.

I still consider this one a good egg and I'm looking forward to seeing them get the bugs worked out so that work will be up 24/7 again.

Work: Workers do random tasks that are posted for the payment listed. It's similar to Mturk but on a much smaller scale and the work only comes from CloudCrowd, it is not posted by external providers.

Referrals: The referral system has some great potential. It goes three levels deep and you earn a percentage of what your Crowd does on each level. Level one is 10.1%, level two is 3.2% and level three is 1.5%.

Earnings: $35.49 earned since 10/6 Cloud Crowd Proof of Payment

Cash Out Req: None, sent automatically, the next day.

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PeopleString

Do you get paid to read the junk mail that comes to you door each day? I do! PeopleString has proven to be a pretty impressive setup, although it's a bit slow to start. Once you sign up you are sent a postcard in the mail to validate your address. This took about 3 weeks to reach me and I was losing hope.

About a week after I got it though, I found out that I had 9 more pieces of paying mail headed my way! That's an exciting thought for me. You can earn 25¢ or more per piece depending on what it is... one of the pieces coming to me pays 50¢!

How it works: Sign up, answer a few questions, then enter the confirmation number that you get on your postcard. Each piece of mail from them will include a code that you enter on their site to get credit.

Referrals: As a standard member you get 50¢ per referral plus 5% of their earnings. You also get 2% of the earnings from folks on the 2nd-6th levels of your down line. This is another one of those programs where you can pay to upgrade your status and earn more, but it's rather costly so I won't ever do it.

Earnings: $11.10 earned since 9/29 (not including the mail that's on it's way to me)

Cash Out Req: $25, sent automatically once a month for standard members.

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IMReportCard

IMReportCard has great earning potential, but honestly it can be a bit of a rough start. The site is all about rating online marketing sites and programs, and things of that nature so that users can utilize the information to make decisions about whether or not they should get involved in a program.

How it Works: You get paid for doing different things on the site such as commenting on programs, grading sites, and reviewing other comments. The hard part is that you can't do anything until you've had one of your own comments posted and approved. You have to have first hand experience with one of the programs, and most of the easy ones like TrekPay are closed for commentary.

Once you get a comment approved though, you can take advantage of all the other ways to earn on the site and it really adds up quickly - plus it's a really informative site.

Referrals: Their referral program is great (if your referrals get a comment posted) because you earn 100% of what they do. That means if they leave a comment and earn 50¢ so do you!

Earnings: $4.01 earned since 10/3. I didn't invest as much time in the site this month as I meant to. I was doing some comment reviewing everyday, but I started slacking - I plan to spend a few minutes there every day next month though.

Cash Out Req: $20.00

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LiveWork

LiveOps launched a freelance Independent Contractor site recently called LiveWork. I really profited from this site last month, but unfortunately they ran into a few of the same problems that Cloud Crowd did. People were taking advantage of the system so now they're having to rework all of their applications and it's taking a while for new projects to come up.

How it Works: Sign up, create a profile, and start applying. Keep in mind that the older jobs probably aren't active anymore. If you apply and don't hear back, send a mail to the provider who posted the job.

I worked on the query projects writing 5-7 sentence answers in response to search queries. Each answer was paid 64¢ and once I got the hang of it I was able to do 12+ an hour giving a decent $7 or more an hour.

Earnings: $68.48 earned since 9/24 LiveWork Proof of Payment

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IMShopping

IMShopping is a site that allows you to ask and answer questions about shopping suggestions, pricing, product quality and much more.

How it Works: The standard user has the ability to earn money by answering questions that have a green tip box on them. So long as these questions get more than one answer, the winner of the "Best Answer" title is awarded the tip!

I personally made $24 in tips doing this because almost half of my answers won which is pretty great.

On top of that, IMShopping periodically hires regular users to become Shopping Assistants which means that you then get paid for every answer you give, whether it wins "Best Answer" or not! I just got offered this position last Wednesday and I have a training session this coming Tuesday so I'll have more updates then.

Earnings: $24.00 earned since 10/3

Cash Out Req: $40

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Wanelo

Wanelo was a huuuuge part of my earnings last month, primarily because I put the most amount of time into it though. They've since put limits on the earning potential but you can still earn $40 a month from them which is pretty nice overall. The site itself is wonderful and I'd recommend it to any parent out there. You'll get tons of great info on what items to buy and avoid for your little ones and yourself!

How it works: For the details please view this post. With the new restrictions, you can basically do 10 reviews per week, and every Friday you'll receive a $10 deposit from them via paypal. They only pay in full 10s though, so if you do 9 you'll have to do another and wait for the following week to earn your $10.

They also have special contests that allow you to earn more, and surprise rewards in different categories as well. I won a $5 award from them for "Favorite Collection" once!

Earnings: $105 earned since 10/15 Wanelo Proof of Payment

Cash Out Req: None, automatically sent weekly as long as you've completed 10 reviews that meet the requirements.

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~*~Surveys~*~
Surveys can take a bit of patience and a lot of dedication. The key is to not give up on them... it's like a seed - you have to plant it and nurture it and then it will give you fruit, shade, and happiness as it grows!
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Survey Spot

SurveySpot has proven to be my worst experience so far. First of all, they send you tons of surveys, but only a small percentage of them are paying. On top of that I've found that a lot of the time I get 15 minutes into a survey before they tell me that "You don't qualify" for the survey. They also don't even keep an accessible record of your completed surveys on your account. This means that you have to keep your own record, and by the time you realize that - it's probably too late for you to do so accurately.

They also have the longest turn around time of any site I've come across saying that it can take "up to 8 weeks" for a survey to post to your account as completed.

This is the one site that I've come across so far, that I definitely do not recommend to anyone. I've heard claims that if you do the free surveys they send you more paying surveys, but I haven't been able to see that proven. I've even done a few free ones and I still rarely get paying surveys.

This one is a no go for me. I signed up on 9/26 and I'll admit that I haven't canceled my account, but that's really only because I want to see if anything ever posts to it as completed.

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SurveyHead

I personally have gotten the most action from SurveyHead. I get a decent number of surveys from them and I've earned a fair amount of money from completing them.

The downside to SurveyHead is that your earnings don't immediately post to your account and can take up to 6 weeks to process. I've seen much faster results though which several posting in 3-4 weeks, enough so that I could cash out after I'd been with them for less than a month which is a great sign to me. This tells me that my earnings with them will only increase over time because old surveys will begin to continuously validate and post to my available funds.

How it Works: Sign up, take surveys, earn $1-$5 for each completed survey. They may take up to 6 weeks to post, but all completed surveys are clearly listed on the site for you.

Earnings: Since 9/26/09 I've had $35.50 Post to my account with another $45.70 Pending - I requested my first payment of $25.50 on 10/21/09 and am still waiting for it to come through to my paypal, once it does I'll post the proof!

Cash Out Req: $25

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Greenfield Online

Greenfield Online is one that I considered giving up on but they redeemed themselves in a big way. In a little over a month with them I've only qualified for one $1 survey of all the ones they've sent me BUT I have qualified for two $30 Interactive Surveys (they take around 90 minutes) in that time frame as well.

Aside from the obvious downside of having issues qualifying for their surveys, it can take a while for the Interactive Surveys to post to your account... up to 6 weeks to be exact. That made a me a little uncomfortable with the first one, but it showed up on my account with in a week, and when I cashed out it was in my paypal a few days later. I had taken the survey on 10/5, requested the cash out on 10/14 and had the money in my account on 10/19.

The second one has taken a bit longer though, and I'm afraid I may not get credit because my computer got turned off during it causing me to miss a few questions. I had called the survey's support number and they said everything should be fine though - so I'm doing my best to wait patiently. It's only been 10 days, so I'm holding tight. Even if it doesn't come through, I can't really blame them since I missed about 5-7 minutes of the 90 minute session.

How it Works: Sign up, take surveys, earn cash!

Earnings: Since 9/26/09 I've earned $31.00 and cashed out $30. Greenfield Online Proof of Payment

Cash Out Req: None

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LightSpeed Panel

LightSpeed Panel has proven to be a great company as well. The concept is the same as the others but they reward you in points that you can convert to cash on paypal, Amazon gift cards, and more.

I don't see as many surveys from them as I'd like, they're not as plentiful as SurveyHead but I still get a decent amount. They also don't pay quite as much as some other sites do but I've managed to earn almost enough for a $20 cash out in about a month which is pretty good.

The great part of their site that makes up for the lower number of surveys is that when you finish a survey, you earn your reward immediately with no waiting at all. You can also cash out in smaller $5 increments, but I'm holding out for the $20 even though the pricing works out the same.

How it Works: Sign up, complete surveys, instantly earn your reward points, cash them out for whatever you'd like.

Earnings: Since 9/30/09 I've earned 2100/2300 points required for a $20 PayPal deposit.

Cash Out Req: None, just accumulate enough points for the prize you want!