MoneyOnMyMind

NeoBux Review

2012-03-09T07:40:00.000-08:00

NeoBux is a trusted Paid-to-Click (PTC) website that has already distributed well over $66 million to its members since April 2008. With that in mind, I am keep faith that I can in time accumulate a good earning but it will be quite some time until I start seeing a decent profit without spending a dime out of pocket...until I eventually break down and start pouring money in.

It seems the best strategy is to rent referrals until you hit the maximum number with a Standard (free) account, then upgrade to a Golden membership ($90/yr). I believe the max number of rental referrals available to a Standard member is 300, but that number increases with each upgrade purchased - the highest membership is the Ultimate, which is over $900/yr. If all 300 rental referrals are active every day, that's $6 a day for a Standard member. That will greatly increase with each membership upgrade, mind you.

There are 3 or 4 categories of advertisements, which pay differently per click. The range of pay for a Standard member is $0.001 - $0.015, but for each ad viewed, they award 3 AdPrize clicks. These AdPrize clicks can be used to win $0.25, $0.50, NeoPoints, and even a FREE Golden upgrade ($90 savings)! Honestly, winning anything through the AdPrize is a needle in a massive haystack.

However, there is a caveat. For the first 15 days of membership, you cannot rent referrals, and you cannot directly refer anyone for the first 30 days. If you DO refer anyone directly before then, they will not make you any money. Thankfully, NeoBux will keep you updated on this. Yep, so that means that I've had to wait to write this review for a whole stinkin' month. When you do hit day 15 and start renting referrals, they are $0.20 each, for the first 30 days, with the lowest package available at 3 referrals but then the sky's the limit. You can rent referrals, or extend them at a discount, with the money made through your clicking, PayPal, AlertPay, or NetTeller. If you're not happy with the referrals rented (ie: they are non-existent, aren't making you a profit), you can recycle them for only $0.07.

I have a good deal of faith in this website, as it's ranked one of the highest in the PTC universe. If you want to give it a go, my referral link can be found up top.

mTurk Review

2012-02-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

For those who aren't familiar with mTurking, it is a service hosted by Amazon that allows entities to post odd jobs or tasks they need done on the cheap. During the initial set up of an account, you can choose between being one of those entities or completing the tasks. These tasks are called HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks). Examples of these HITs include transferring information on various business cards to text boxes, transcribing audio files into text, filling out surveys..the list goes on. It's important to note that HITs equate to various amounts of money. The business card example pays out $0.02 per HIT at first, then you can move up to $0.05 tasks. However, surveys can dole out at least $0.50 per HIT. Conveniently, there is the option to search for HITs by criteria, one being by the amount you can make per each. I won't go through which ones I recommend on a daily basis, because I'm sure there are plenty of blogs or lists in circulation. :-)

When you select a HIT you're interested in completing, it's imperative that you read the instructions in the HIT summary and click the [Accept HIT] button, which then starts a timer. The timer is set by the posting entity so it varies. For surveys, the HIT will ask you to open a link to the actual task and when you're finished, they'll usually give you a completion code to enter in the mTurk page so it's a good idea to open the survey link in a separate tab.

These HITs usually won't credit to your account instantaneously, the posting entity will first check your work then either accept or reject it. Just do the task to the best of your ability and you should be fine. Some HITs will take a few minutes to be accepted while some can take days, you just got to be patient.

Overall, I really enjoy mTurking. There are always HITs to be completed, and each HIT seems to be plentiful, so you don't have to worry about fighting for them. This is where I've had the best luck and I feel is the best bang-for-the-buck. Have fun!

Blessing In Disguise?

2012-02-06T07:13:00.000-08:00

My coworkers and I were informed last Wednesday that our department is being sold from the State University to a private company. No one knows what that means to us as employees. I would like to stay positive and say that we will all still have jobs but it doesn't seem many others share the sentiment. My plan was to stick with the university and take advantage of the tuition reimbursement, but in a few months that will no longer be the case. I assume with the Health Care Reform, notoriously deemed "ObamaCare," health insurance companies are reimbursing clinical labs less money to cut their losses. Just this morning, it was brought to our attention that our hospital was brought down a tier by a major insurance company. This means that the hospital will receive even less money for patient testing, if that's even possible at this point. It appears that the way to prosper in the healthcare field is to not work in one of the labs.

With the future unknown, I suppose now is the best time to get the wheels turning on learning a new field - computer science. After talking to some friends in the industry, they said it's best to start with C++ and Java, so I've been planning on taking free courses online through MIT and Stanford, then move on to free lance work online to build a portfolio to show potential employers. In addition to free courses, frugality will be monumental here.

Lately I've been doing much better on not eating away from home, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. I've been told the best way to save money is to impose an artificial environment of scarcity, so with this paradigm, I made a couple batches of chili this past weekend, which will last until well into next week for lunches. Making chili is enjoyable because it helps practice cooking, which I could definitely use plenty of, and smells great during the day. If anyone knows of any other foods that can be made with a crock pot, please let me know!

JingIt Review

2012-02-02T07:32:00.000-08:00

I'd say it was in December that I came to the idea of joining GPT (get-paid-to) websites to hopefully earn a few bucks on the side. My first venture was in the website JingIt, a company which pays you to watch ads either on your computer or your smartphone. They pay pretty well despite still being in Beta (it's hard to give you a pay range since they don't yet have sizable contracts with advertisers). In order to sign up for JingIt, you must have a Facebook account and a phone that accepts text messages. To be verified, they will send you a text on your cell phone.

You receive an updated list of video ads to watch every day, but you might not necessarily receive the same number of videos. You're more on a day-by-day basis because it's up to the advertisers how often JingIt allows their videos to be viewed. I think the one thing that is annoying with JingIt is that if you click on anything besides your browser with JingIt up, the video pauses until you click Resume.

When it comes time to get paid, JingIt has two options. The first is a Visa debit card, which you are charged a one-time fee of $2.00 for a Visa debit card and all your current and future earnings will be on it, or you can spend the money on a music website fee-free, I think. They claim the Visa card is one of the most responsible cards out there, so that seems pretty decent enough. When you first start the service, JingIt sets a cap on your weekly earnings at $5.00 but with each referral you bring in, that cap increases by $0.25, but you do not receive any trickle-up earnings from them.

I've received my Visa card with no hassles, and the folks behind JingIt keep their users in the loop by putting up short videos of updates. Once they're set with the Beta testing and start putting out more ads to watch, I'd recommend this one.

First thoughts

2012-01-31T11:33:00.000-08:00

Hi there,

Welcome to my writing space in the blag-o-sphere, and I hope it will be an inspiring journey from broke to retired!

A little about myself: I am entering my mid 20s and have a full-time job working in a clinical laboratory for a major area hospital. However, though it is worth-while work, getting results to doctors to start treatment on patients ASAP, I want more financial security. This is my journey to do just that.