! how to make money through alternative means

(Nearly) Free Stuff!: Paperbackswap

2011-05-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

So Paperbackswap ISN'T completely free but it is pretty neat and it's almost free. The basic idea is you list up all the books you own and and want to get rid of (any book, unlike the title suggests it doesn't have to be paperback), and then users can request books from you. You send the book (note: you DO pay shipping, but it's media mail so fairly cheap) and when they get the book, you get a "Credit" that you can use to get a book "FOR FREE" (minus what you paid in shipping of course).

It seems pretty neat, and they also have a feature where if you buy & print shipping off their site you get Instant Credit towards a book. The majority of people who use the site seem to be those into the cheap Harelquin romance novels, but there's all kinds of books.

They use a FIFO (first in first out) system to determine who gets a book once it's listed. Basically you put books on your wishlist, and you enter a queue for that book. When you're at the head of the line and someone posts the book, you get it! You can bypass this system by requesting a book directly from another user, and there's forums for book exchanges and stuff like that.

Check it out, let me know what you think!

EDIT: 50 followers! Wow, thanks you guys XD

Mini-rant: Extreme Couponing

2011-05-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

In my search to find the best ways to make AND save money via the internets, I of course investigated coupons. Early on, much to my dismay, I realized that I live in a state where stores DO NOT double coupons. What is coupon doubling, you say? It's when stores have special sales (usually once a week) where they double the value of ALL your coupons! So say you had a coupon for $0.75 off X. Super Awesome Grocery Store is running a sale on X - each X is only $1.50. You go to the store on Thursday, which is Double Coupon day.

1.50 X sale price
-0.75 coupon X2
= you are getting X for free. Seriously.

This stuff works. If you're questioning it, watch the show Extreme Couponing (on TLC maybe? not sure). However, if you're like me and no stores near you double coupons, and you also don't want to spend hours a day scouring local sales ads and matching them up with coupons, well, you're out of luck. Frankly, for me, couponing is just not worth the time and effort. If you find a coupon for something you already buy, use it. But otherwise, it's not something I'd recommend.

If you do live in a state where coupon doubling happens, or you're interested in couponing in general, here's some links that may help you.

For printable coupons:
coupons.com
http://coupons.smartsource.com/
http://www.redplum.com/

For coupon matchups, local deals, and more:
http://thekrazycouponlady.com/
http://moneysavingmom.com/

Microworkers: First Impressions

2011-05-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

Okay so thanks to one of you I've found a new website like mTurk and oDesk that allows you to complete assigned tasks and (hopefully) get paid. The website is called Microworkers.

My first impression, as usual, was that the site looks a little dodgy. One thing that you really MUST be on the lookout for is potential scams. There are a lot of websites out there that promise payment for completing surveys or tasks and they actually require YOU to pay to complete offers. So not worth it. Remember, time is money. My golden rule when deciding on whether or not to use a site like this:

Rules of the Road #1 -- Never spend a lot of time and/or effort on a website if you aren't sure it will pay!

Likewise, be wary of offers that promise a lot of money for minimal effort! But more on that later.

So I signed up on Microworkers and picked a task called "Vitamin Product: Review." The task was to write a 50-word (positive) review of a given product. Easy enough, right? Here is a screenshot of the task page:

So, as you can see, pretty straightforward. The task pages lists the "employer"'s requirements, how much it pays, and exactly what you have to do. Typing up the review took me about 30 seconds, copy&pasting it with the required information took another 30. Pretty easy. After you submit the task, you get this screen:

And then if you follow the link to "See tasks you finished" you get this:

Of note here: the employer has to review the work before you get paid. Cool. Secondly, tasks are reviewed in 7 days. Which I suppose isn't that long of a time, but it means I personally won't be doing anymore tasks on this website for a week, until I "get paid."

And that's the other thing. They have a wonky pay system:

(The $1.00 on my account is a "sign-up" bonus. I guess it's supposed to give you incentive to keep working there.) The minimum withdrawal request is $9 + fee. They pay out to PayPal, Moneybook, and AlertPay. Which is okay, and I can sort of dig the withdrawal minimum. I'm just not sure why they would need to confirm mailing address with a PIN. Oh well.

So that's a quick run down of my first impressions of Microworkers. I won't do anything else with the site until a week has passed and the money from the first task gets put in my account. If you are going to sign up for Microworkers and you don't already have an account, please use my referral code: http://microworkers.com/?Id=60147c7f

That's that. Anybody have any experiences with Microworkers you wanna share? I'm very interested.

2011-05-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

Okay so this is it. The Blog. And my introduction to the world, as it were. Here is what I'm blogging about:

~ Making Money at Home!
Or, alternative methods of acquiring currency while being a total recluse. From personal experience.

Basically I will look into/talk about a bunch of different methods of making money that aren't "traditional jobs" like eCommerce, freelancing, etc. Some of the stuff I'll talk about are:

sites like Amazon Turk and oDesk
making money buying and selling on eBay and Amazon
blogging
working for a service such as ChaCha or kgb

and more! misadventures, daily anecdotes and reviews of all different kinds of "work at home" models. including scams, which I have definitely fallen victim to. the only thing I will not be talking about is anything illegal (petty theft, forgery, misrepresentation, prostitution, etc.)

also probably some ramblings, musings, or other stuff that I feel like talking about.

so yay.