Earn On The SideCash In Your Spare Time

The focus I have always wanted for this site is to show the average person how to make money in their spare time without falling for a scam.  Recently the Better Business Bureau listed 7 red flags to avoid when searching for a job online, so I thought it would be helpful if I listed them here.  While the article seems to be written more specifically for people looking for a traditional job online, the red flags also make a lot of sense for people looking to find an online job.  Most of these are pretty much common sense, but it can never hurt to reinforce common sense.

1. Employer e-mails are rife with grammatical and spelling errors
2. E-mails purporting to be from job posting Web sites claiming there’s a problem with a job hunter’s account
3. An employer asks for extensive personal information such as social security or bank account numbers
4. An employer offers the opportunity to become rich without leaving home
5. An employer asks for money upfront
6. The salary and benefits offered seem too-good-to-be-true
7. The job requires the employee to wire money through Western Union or MoneyGram

Head on over to the BBB website to read the full article, it is a good read and worth the time.
Does anyone else have any tips for avoiding scammers? Anyone been scammed and wouldn’t mind sharing? Leave a comment or hit the contact page to send me an email.

BBB Advice: Look for Seven Red Flags when Searching for Jobs Online via The Consumerist

(This page includes tips and trick on how to win more Swagbucks. To find out more about Swagbucks, visit this page first.)

I’ve been using Swagbucks for a few months now and really love the program.  In the last 2 months I have cashed out $60 worth of Amazon Gift Certificates from Swagbucks alone! Since I’ve been using Swagbucks, I believe I’ve found some tips and tricks that can make it easier to win so I figured I would share them with everyone.

Before we get to some of the more advanced tips I’ve been using, lets start with the basics.

Basic Tips

• Use Swagbucks to Vist your Favorite Sites - Instead of going to your bookmarks or typing in the address of your favorite site, why not go through Swagbucks?  It takes about 2 seconds longer and will help you win more.
• Don’t Oversearch - Swagbucks will only let you win about 3-4 times a day, and will very rarely let you win twice in the same hour. I would suggest trying to win in the morning, it usually doesn’t take too many searches to win your first Swagbuck, then switching to another paid search program like Homepages Friends for a few hours. Later in the day, you can come back to Swagbucks and will have a better chance of winning. According to the Swagbucks website, only your first 20 searches give you a chance to win, after that you are just wasting your time. While I do feel like I may have won after my 20th search, I do know that constantly searching over and over again will not help you win more.
• You Can Almost Always Win at Least Once a Day - I don’t remember the last time I didn’t win at least one Swagbuck in a day, and it usually happens within the first 5 searches. Additional wins are very possible, but get more and more unlikely as you continue to win. The most I have won in a single day is 4 times.
• Sign Up Your Friends and Family! - This is the easiest way to win lots of Swagbucks. You may only win 1-5 Swagbucks a day by yourself, but with just 5 friends earning on average 2 Swagbucks a day you would earn 360 Swagbucks a month! Just think of what you could do with 50 friends signed up! I am currently earning about 25 Swagbucks a day!

I’m going to try to start updating this blog a little more often. To start with, I’m going to be giving more regualar reviews of some of the money making sites and opportunities out there, starting today with Trendsource.

TrendSource is basically a mystery shopping firm.  However, I have found that the majority of thieir assignments tend to be “revealed shops”, meaning that you actually have to reveal your identity to the owner or manager and do a short interview with them.

To become a TrendSource field agent all you need is to live in the United States or Canada and head over to

www.trendsource.com

At the top of the page click “Become a Field Agent”, then read over the application process decide if you want to continue.

From the TrendSource website:

Positives of Being a Field Agent

(1) Get free goods
(2) You get paid to do something you already do
(3) You get to work when you want (i.e., flexible schedule within reason)
(4) You get to see the results of the feedback you provide
(5) Contributes to training development and reward of employee
(6) May be tax benefits with being self-employed
(7) Can have a positive impact on customer service for everybody

Negatives of Being a Field Agent

(1) A good amount of time extended given the pay
(2) A good amount of required reading
(3) Zero tolerance for errors
(4) Store occasionally will try to discredit your score (despite its accuracy)
(5) Amount of work is not consistent
(6) Actual work is not all fun and games; takes effort and responsibility

After you apply to become a Field Agent you will receive periodic emails with job opportunities.  You can read them over and choose to apply for the job or ignore them based on the location, pay and type of job.  Payment for jobs is usually in the $10-$25 range and will require about 30-60 minutes of your time. TrendSource will sometimes even pay for your gas if you have to drive far.

I’ve been receiving TrendSource emails for some time now and have never found any jobs that I think are absolutely worth my time.  Since I work full time, I don’t get a lot of time to drive to different parts of the city and do extra work like this.  However, for someone that works from home or doesn’t have a full time job, this could be a great way to earn some extra cash for shopping at store that you would anyway.

One of the most important ways to start making a decent side income is to be creative and start looking outside the box for ways to earn on the side.

A good friend of mine put herself through college by babysitting…  yes, babysitting.  I realize that when most people think of babysitting they think of making $10 bucks an hour to watch bratty kids for a night.  My friend Katie on the other hand made fistfuls of money doing it.  Keep Reading:

I am 28 years old and I am a babysitter.

I get paid $10-15 an hour and around $150-200 per night if I watch the kids overnight. I have a full time job and a Masters degree so I don’t do this for the money now, but many years ago I did this as my only source of income. Now let me rewind and tell you how this all started.

When I was in college, many of my friends had the typical waitress or sales associate job.  I on the other hand didn’t want to do that so I started babysitting and house sitting.   I had grown up around kids and enjoyed being around them enough to know that I make some easy cash while the parents went out for a relaxing night with no kids to worry about.   I started with family friends and at one point made a flyer about house sitting and babysitting and posted them around upper class areas.

My friend and I did this as a team and we immediately started receiving many phone calls. We would go meet with the parents and let them get to know us a little, and would provide excellent references that they could call to learn more about us as well.

As I got older and graduated college, I continued babysitting but was selective on who I would watch and how often.   Its amazing how many jobs you will be offered if you show the parents that you are caring, responsible, and enjoy being with their kids. After all, children are their parents’ biggest responsibility.

I now work a full time job and continue to watch a few of the families that I have grown up with. Some of the families I have been with for almost 10 years now.  At this point, because the parents know and trust me so much, they would rather pay me double what they could pay someone else because they know they can trust me.