Jingit: Possible easy money maker

I'm always looking for ways to make a few extra cents in my spare time. I recently discovered this site where you can earn money and earn boxtops for your favorite school simply by watching short videos, taking surveys, or checking in on your smart phone. It's called Jingit and so far I have earned $3.40 in the past two days.

You can cash out your earnings from it by requesting a debit card, which will cost you $3 from your account balance once. There is a maximum weekly earning of $10 when you start, which you can increase to $15 by recruiting friends.

Happy earning!

Disclosure: This is an affiliate link

$20 Chili's GC for $10 when you join Mypoints

Right now, when you join Mypoints with my referral link (that's it, right over there, see?), you can buy a $20 Chili's gift card for only $10.

Mypoints is one of my favorite online rewards sites. Every few months, I earn a gift card just for clicking on links they send to my email. You can earn them faster by shopping through their links or signing up for email lists. Do use a spam email address if you sign up though because you'll probably get a lot of junk mail.

Disclaimer: This is my referral link. If you use it to sign up, I get 10% of all the points you earn. Cha-ching! Also, if 3 people sign up under me, I get the same Chili's gift card offer I just offered you. But no pressure. Really.

Making Money Online: Paid to Signup

Sites I used



(these are referral links)

How it works

You sign up for a variety of services, and you get paid commission for doing so. Some of the sites only require that you provide an email address and name, others require you to scroll through a series of offers. Of the latter group, some will pay only if you accept at least one or more of the offers.

My assessment

There was a time when I logged onto GPT sites and could find several offers to complete that would take me only a few minutes each and pay $1 or more. Gone are those days. Now it seems that more and more of the paying offers are the long ones, where you have to scroll through what seems to be an endless path of offers, and say yes to at least one of them. These offers can take up to 15 minutes and give you no indication of length or progress along the way, and the cold truth about these sites is that, even if you do them exactly right, some of them just won't ever credit. Plus, most of them now pay less than 50 cents each.

Are there people who make a lot of money on these sites? Yes. If you set up several different email addresses, clear your browser cookies after every completed offer, and have the patience to complete longer offers, you definitely have the potential to accrue some money while sitting and doing other things. The big payday, like so many of these things, comes from referrals, so if you have a knack for that you can make some extra money off of other people's time.

The reason I like Dollar click or signup is that they payout at only $1, and they do so almost daily. A lot of the other sites won't payout until you reach $20, an amount which is almost impossible to hit without a ton of referrals.

The Bottom Line

This is not so much for me. I spent an entire day logged onto the site (granted while I did other things), and only earned about $4. While I probably will continue to stop by once in a while and fill out a few easy offers just to add a few bucks to my coffers, this is certainly not a reasonable way to supplement my family's income.

BeRuby Superbowl contest

Do you have a Be Ruby account? If you do, go vote in the forum SuperBowl contest. The winner gets $10, and if at least 50 people post then everyone who entered gets $1 for free.

Be Ruby is a web portal where you can make money for doing things you already do on the web. Earn 1 cent a day just for visiting and half a cent each for clicking through to sites like gmail and twitter. I never say no to free money.

Making extra money in 2011

Making Money in 2011

One of my goals for the year is to make a little bit of extra money to help finally pay off our student loans and to save for some big purchases. I work a few hours a week outside the house, but I was hoping to squeeze out a few extra dollars from home. They have to be things I can do sitting on the couch with my husband after the baby is in bed, or in bits and pieces through the day while the baby is sleeping and after my house is clean. Here are the various venues I hope to explore:

• Blogging – As of right now, this blog earns me a few cents a month and I’ve always been pretty okay with that. I’m not interested in overly monetizing it. I know, though, that there are a lot of little changes I could make that would help to make the blog more user friendly and also make me a little bit of money. I have a lot to learn as I know the blog is kind of a mess right now, so besides writing, I’m going to invest a little time into researching good blogging practices.
  
• Writing – At one point, there were a variety of websites I used to get paid to write articles and reviews. I haven’t done this in a while, but I’d like to get back into it.
  
• Squidoo – I have a few squidoo lenses that you earn me a couple of dollars every month. I am especially proud of the click to donate lens, as it’s something I get excited about and can do good while I earn some money (for myself and for charity). I could spend a little more time updating and promoting these, and probably make a few more as time allows.
  
• Surveys - No one ever got rich doing surveys, but if you’re looking for a few dollars to snowflake on your debt, this is a low impact, low commitment way to go about it. I always have an inbox full of surveys and end up deleting a lot of them because they have expired, so I could stand to stay on top of these more.
  
• Offers – Once upon a time, I used to make a good chunk of cash at GPT sites. My impression is that they are not nearly as impressive anymore, but I’m going to look into it and see what I can do.
  
• Sweeps – I really enjoy entering sweepstakes and instant win games. By picking good ones, I can usually win a few free item coupons or other small prizes a year. And who knows, if I kept at it, maybe I would eventually win a bit item or two. It’s not a priority, but I’m willing to spend a minute or two a day doing this.
  
• Blog Giveaways – Similar to the sweepstakes, I’m getting really excited about blog giveaways these days. If I’m willing to spend time on sweeps, I should spend time on these too. The odds are usually better and you get to check out and help support some really great bloggers while you enter.
  (PS – Did you know I’m giving away a coupon for Free formula? As of the writing of this, there’s only one entry!)
  

Easy way to earn some extra swagbucks

I recently discovered a way to earn some extra Swagbucks, in addition to doing regular web searches and taking the daily poll (you do have a Swagbucks account, right?)

If you click on "ways to earn" and then "special offers" at the top of the page, you'll be taken to a page with limited time offers. Many of these are email submits, sign ups, or other typical GPT type offers. However, if you flip through the offers, you'll find several that pay you swagbucks just to watch a 2 minute video. I found videos in the SuperRewards section and the OfferPal section, but there seem to be different ones every few days.

I typically earn enough SB for a $5 Amazon giftcard every three months or so just from my searches, so this will speed it up a bit!

Easy site to make money doing what you already do

If you haven't already heard about it, you should definitely check out Be Ruby. Be Ruby is an internet shopping portal where you earn money for clicking through their site to get to shopping sites. The more exciting part is, you can earn a few cents just by visiting the site and clicking through to popular sites like gmail and facebook. If you visit those sites anyway, you can earn some money just by starting at Be Ruby every day.

Me, us, the house, the money

Since this whole stay at home wife (maybe SAHM someday, but not yet, hold your horses people) is new to me, I've been fumbling a little as to what to do. Okay, so I'm not really a stay at home anything since I do work part time, but after working close to 55 hours a week at school, my current 7 hour a week schedule seems like a vacation.

And there's the rub. I can't get my mind around whether this home thing is a vacation or a career. Should I be working or playing? How much of my time is free time?

My house isn't a disaster anymore. Regardless of what you may have read in the Feminine Mystique, housework doesn't always expand to fill the available time. So that means I have time. Not however limitless time.

And so, despite the fact that it feels like I have all the time in the world, I find that I need to make choices. And I don't always make the right choices. I'm so used to trying to be "productive," which has so often meant money, that I found myself wasting all my time looking for something productive to do. That sounds silly, but it's where I am.

I don't want it to sound like I'm bound by any 1950's ideal of what a housewife should be. But in our current division of labor, my husband works full time. I work part time, enough to help pay the bills and have a little money left for savings and debt repayment, and the rest of the time I'm home. The equity of this situation does bear with it certain expectations. So when my husband comes home to find me on the couch with my computer, cranky and un-put-together, dishes in the sink, and dinner not made, something has gone awry.

So my new set of priorities is this: Me then us then the house then money. If there's something I need to do to be a healthy, happy, positive human being, then I have to do it. That might mean exercising, writing, cooking myself a real lunch, or just scheduling in some quiet time. Then, I need to make sure I do anything for us, anything necessary to charge our relationship. So, meeting my husband for lunch once in a while trumps scrubbing floors. The next priority is to take care of the house. Generally 10 minutes a day is enough for cleaning, plus a little time to keep up with my laundry. The money comes last. While I'd like to make extra money, everything else has to be done first. If I'm not taking care of myself, my marriage, and my house, then the extra money isn't worth it.

Uncertainty and money

It's been a while since I've moved into a stage of my life categorized so completely by uncertainty. I remember a time when I reveled in it, when quitting my job and moving across the country felt like an adventure. I know that I had some money anxiety then, but it seemed to be par for the course, and so I just accepted it.

I don't feel that way now. My husband is graduating and we're moving to a new state (our third!). In a lot of ways that is very good for our financial state and our cash flow, and really I am so over this grad student's wife thing. On the other hand, there's a lot of uncertainty associated with it.

We're not sure exactly when we're moving. Since I already quit my job, this might be a bit of a problem. We've never gotten by on just hubby's stipend before, and even though it will be higher as a post-doc, it might get tighter than it's been in a long time.

We're not sure exactly where to move to. The city where we will be living is a rather large one, with a number of different neighborhoods, and as much as we're trying to do apartment research online, it's hard to tell what the right place to be looking is until we can actually get up there (and again, we don't know exactly when that will happen).

I don't know exactly what I'm going to do. I've been a teacher for so long, and we'll be getting up there after the school year starts, so I don't know whether to plan to just substitute, look for another job, or just stay home and "keep house."

We dont' know how much money we'll net. Hubby's salary is a whole new thing for us, and will put us in a tax bracket we've never dreamed of, so it's hard to tell how much of it we'll actually see.

We don't know how much things will cost. It seems likely that the cost of living will be higher, so it's hard to make budgets.


I know this is a good thing in my life, but I just feel so completely unsure of anything right now. I don't know where to begin.

5 ways to earn some green by being green

As most of you know, I'm a pretty firm believer in helping the environment while saving money, and I've written about plenty of ways to do that (buy less stuff, use all of what you have, drive less and drive smart, turn off the lights, etc). Since I am currently jobless with no prospects in sight, I thought I'd come up with a few ways to help the environment while making a little extra money.

1. Write about it. On a blog with ads, or on a site that pays for content like Associated Content or Squidoo get on your soapbox and shout to the world about your favorite environmental issues.

2. Earn some quick online money. My new favorite site Planetup lets you earn 1 penny, donate 1 penny to charity, and offset about 8 pounds of carbon through their partners for every short (less than one minute) video that you watch. Planetup also has a great link exchange program which just started so you can offset some carbon while promoting your favorite online projects. Also if you like taking surveys, Hotspex will plant a tree for every survey you take, while earning you points that can be exchanged for frequent flier miles or gift cards.

3. Sell your stuff. It's amazing what people will buy on craigslist, so before you throw something out, try listing it. If nothing else, someone will take it free to haul and you'll keep it out of a landfill. I also like to sell books to used bookstores. I know I could get more money selling them individually online, but sometimes it's not worth the extra hassle for a few paperbacks. Plus I like to support those stores, since their business model is very environmentally friendly. I recently even discovered that my local used bookstore would buy magazines, earning me a few cents for something I would definitely throw in the trash otherwise.

4. Recycle. I will be honest and say that I have never exchanged cans for cash, although my high school marching band and childhood girl scout troop both collected them as fund raisers. I have been led to believe it's fairly easy though. To make it even easier, my parents' hometown has decided to encourage recycling by giving out recycle cans with a microchip that calculates the weight of the products you're recycling and earns you CVS extracare bucks. Cool!

5. Adopt a highway. This one is mostly for groups looking for a fundraiser, but many communities will pay groups to clean a stretch of highway. It's like a service project and fundraiser in one!


Anyone have any other ways to earn green will being green?

New Year, new goals

I know I'm a little late to the party with the goal setting for 2009, but I thought it a worthwhile endeavor anyway. 2009 is going to be a very strange year for me. My husband will (will!) be finishing grad school this year, which means we will be moving and will both be changing jobs some time mid-year. This affects my goals a lot. Our income will definitely increase a lot, but there is a chance I will be without a job temporarily (although his new income may be higher than our current combined income). I also have to consider short term cash flow issues involved with moving and save accordingly. With all that in mind, in 2009 I hope to:

1. Increase my savings to cover 3-6 months of expenses, plus an extra cushion for moving expenses.

2. Pay off at least one of hubby's smaller student loans. While it may not be our highest interest loan, it will make a much more immediate difference when his loans finally go into repayment and we get those first few bills.

3. Cook more from my stockpile. Since we'll be moving in six months or so, I need to start using things up and stop buying more.

4. Find new ways to generate passive income.

5. Continue to find at least one new way every week to help charities that fit into my time and budget.


Please feel free to share your own goals!

Break Even 2008 Week 4 Update

Okay, here goes:

On the food budget, still $10 overbudget on groceries, ARGH. I say, "Really this week, let's not buy too much," and it never seems to work. I'm going to need to convince hubby to have a "pantry challenge" for at least one week this summer just to get to where I can find all my food again.

On the eating out budget, $5 under! Yay! We only ate out once, and we had a really great time. It's such a relief to me since this is the first week we've stayed within our budget on this.

On the income front, still working a lot. That's going to end soon, though, as this was the last week of my 8 hour a week class. Have to find more ways to earn money.

And since it's the end of the month: overbudget on gasoline (as expected), underbudget on electricity (yay!), so I'm doing pretty okay.

So, here goes,

Break even number = 245
Overbudget on food = +10
Overbudget on gasoline (for month)= +12

Underbudget on electricity (for month) = -10
Underbudget on restaurants = -5
Income (Part time job) = -580
Savings account interest = -8

Making my expenses -336 for the week and putting me $512 ahead for the summer! That means that I could theoretically not work at all for 2 weeks and, as long as I stay on budget, still be coming out even. Woo Hoo!

Make $1 for eliminating junk mail!

Right now, Green Dimes, a service which helps remove you from junk mail lists, will pay YOU a dollar if you sign up for their new basic "do-it-yourself" program. You can get that dollar through a check in the mail, use it to donate a tree through their programs, or get a free issue of their green magazine. There are a lot of free programs out there that help you lower your environmental impact by cutting out your junk mail, but this is the only one I've ever seen that pays you! And of course the only thing more frugal than free is getting paid to do something you ought to do anyway.

Break even 2008 week 3 check in

Just a Break even quick check in this week:

I was $20 overbudget on restaurants again this week, partly from the last day of the adventure and of having company, partly because I have a problem.

I was $12 overbudget on groceries. For all that I preach grocery savings strategies, I can't seem to make it in and out of a grocery store for underbudget lately. My pantry and freezer are nearly overflowing and yet I just can't seem to help myself. Argh!

I had some rare ebay earnings too. We bought an extra copy of Wii Fit, knowing there would be a shortage, and sold it on ebay. After shipping and fees, we made about $25 profit. ::Shrug:: I'm kind of an amateur.

And I worked. A lot. By a lot, I mean 4 hours most days. It doesn't sound like a whole lot when I say that, lol, but hey this is my summer vacation.

Break even # $245
Overbudget groceries $12
Overbudget restaurants $20
Ebay earnings -$25
Part time work earnings -$490

Net expenses -$238

Since I was $62 behind last week, that puts me $176 ahead for the summer so far. Woo hoo!

This is the last week of the month though, which means that on next weeks' check in I have to settle up for my projected versus actual spending on gasoline. Trust me, I'm not looking forward to that.

Break Even 2008 Week 2

So, this week was not the most stellar week of the break even challenge. Because of the Adventure, and because we had company for the whole week, we were a full $50 overbudget on eating out for the week. (Yup, that means we spent 3 times what we were supposed to spend. Oops.) We also had to give a wedding present, which was not prebudgeted (double ooops). Plus, I'm sure we are already overbudget for the month on gas, and I think our electric bill is likely to be higher because, with company here, I couldn't turn the air off during the day or leave all the lights and fans off. But, as the rules state, those will get settled up at the end of the month.

Also, with company here, and with several days out of town, I wasn't able to work much on generating any online or alternative income, so most of my income came from work. Since the hours I'm working now are temporary, I'm going to need to make more of an effort to get some other income streams started before they end, or this project will definitely sink.

There are benefits though. I worked quite a bit, so that makes up for some of the additional spending. Also, because we ate out so much, we were able to save some money on our grocery budget: I just had to make a quick stop for some cereal and fresh fruit.

Settling up:

Break even number $245
Over budget restaurants +$5
Unplanned spending +$150 (wedding present)
Underbudget groceries -$35

Part time earnings $260

$105 short

Last week, I was $43 ahead, which puts me a total of $62 behind for the summer. Yuck. Guess it's time to start working harder.

Break even challenge 2008

Just like last summer, I decided that one of my goals for this summer was to break even. Essentially, what this means is that I intend to make at least as much money as I spend, even without my full time job.

Last summer, I didn't make it. I got behind, and even though I broke even by the seek for most of the second half of the summer, I could never catch back up. Somehow, through magic, the money all worked, and we made it through the summer just fine on what we had in the checking account.

This summer is a little different. This year, I consciously saved money every month in my ING account, so that my savings are equal to my share of the expenses for two months. In short, I don't need to make any money this summer, so it's almost entirely a game. Also, because my car is paid off this month (Yay!) my break even number is a little lower this year at only $35 a day or $245 a week.

Other than that, the rules they remain the same:

1. Anything I spend over my budgeted amounts for groceries, eating out, or personal spending gets added to my break even number for the week.
2. Anything I earn or any money I save gets subtracted from my break even number.
3. Money I earn from my part time job is counted the day I earn it. Money I earn online or from other ventures is counted the day it pays out (because the lag time is usually so long, and sometimes the returns are questionable). Savings interest is counted at the end of each month, as are spending on household bills and gasoline.
4. Gift cards count as neither earning nor spending.
5. Money spent earning rebates, mystery shopping, etc, must be counted as spending, and fit in the actual budget. When the reimbursement comes, that counts as earning.

The biggest lesson I learned last year was that I have to work. I had some idea in my head that I would be able to make it primarily from online earnings (GPT offers and some article submissions), and so spent the first couple weeks lounging, and getting further and further behind, confident that when things came through, I'd be okay. This year, I'm working right from the start, and if more money comes in later, all for the better, but it's easier to keep up than to catch up.

Week 1:

Break even number $245

Over budget groceries +$35 (We have company this week)
Over budget eating out +$12
Unplanned entertainment+$42 (We went to a museum)

Part time earnings -$290
Revolution Money exchange check -$42.50
Deal Barbie Payout -$45

Which puts me $43.50 ahead so far. Don't know if that rate is sustainable, but I feel pretty good about it right now.

Balance

It's very popular in the personal finance community to ask the question "Which is more important, making more money or spending less money?" I've also heard the delineation as "Spending less than you earn" vs. "Making more than you spend."

I've said before that I think the answer requires a little commonsense. I'm not going to work for 80 hours a week to buy a BMW, nor can I get my spending down to zero or pay my rent by clipping coupons and unplugging appliances. I need a more balanced approach. I need something that works for me.

But still. But still.

But still I find myself on this treadmill. I have a tendency to hyperfocus on things, to discover something and become completely obsessed with it. I consume information like crazy, like I'm starving for it, like it's going to solve some problem I didn't know I had or fill some whole that I can't quite name. And then I run out of information on this very specific topic, I start to encounter repeats, and I get frustrated. Why doesn't anyone have anything new to say??

My latest obsession, it seems, has been with the concept of passive income. I've been searching and reading, watching videos, signing up for email lists. I've glutted myself on information. I wondered if it would be the solution to all of my problems, if it would make my life suddenly better, solve my finances, pay off my debt, and allow me to quit my job, have tons of babies, and read ever novel in the world.

Hrmm...

It's time for me to regain a sense of perspective. I need to regain my balance, to fit more time for me and what I love back into my life, and to get back to hanging laundry, cooking fresh food, and reading and writing. There is room in my life for a bit more income, and for learning a few new skills, and once I find that space, I would love to share that information with you. But the truth is, until it's real for me, until I'm writing from a place of strength and truth, it's not going to mean anything to anyone else either. We need time to process quality information, and I've bombarded myself with so much information (quality or otherwise), that I haven't had the proper time.

Will you get a tax rebate?

Just thought I'd post this calculator for you all so you can figure out if you have a rebate coming to you. Commentary to follow.

DealBarbie stuff

In the past 3 days, I've completed three Deal Barbie trial offers for a total of over $60, bringing my total so far for August to over $90. I used to be pretty timid about doing trial offers, but I've had great success with these on Deal Barbie so far this summer, so I went all out. I always read the terms and conditions and copy and paste the instructions on how to cancel an offer into a notepad file on my desktop, then mark it with the last date I can cancel without being charged anything. For a few about which I was nervous, I even called the cancellation number before signing up, just to make sure I could get someone on the line.

I noticed that I have 5 referrals on Deal Barbie, none of whom have earned anything. If any of you signed up from here and still read (a tall order indeed), I'm just wondering why you haven't completed any offers. Were you confused about what to do, afraid to fill out trials, or did you have offers that you signed up for not qualify or reverse? I'm going to be honest, I'd make more money if my referrals were doing offers, but mostly I'm just worried about ruining my cred by recommending something to my readers that ends up causing them problems.

If you have any experiences with Deal Barbie, good or bad, please share.

What ever happened to the break even challenge?

Some of you who have been around my blog a little while may remember that at the beginning of the summer, I set a Break Even Challenge for myself. Then at some point, I just stopped.

The truth is, I really just got too lazy to keep tracking it. At the point where I left off, I was making enough money from my part time job to break even on a week to week basis, but I was so far behind from the first three or so weeks of not working outside my home at all, that I was not likely to ever catch up. So I kind of just stopped.

What I realized is that, yes, I can break just about even by working about 20 hours a week at my tutoring job, even without doing anything else, as long as I stick to my budget. This proved to be a somewhat useless piece of information. "Breaking even" didn't leave any extra money for Retirement, Investing, or paying off debt. The budget I had made was also a stranglehold kind of a budget, without a whole lot of room for play, and one to which my husband never agreed. So every week I would consistently go over budget, make no progress on my financial goals, and be extremely frustrated.

The other thing I realized was that some of the "make money fast" internet stuff I had been counting on to supplement the part time income during slow periods just didn't cut it. While it is some nice extra pocket money that I can use to play, it takes up a lot of time that I should probably be spending thinking about the future instead of the present. If I spent more time doing tasks that would, in the long term, improve my career or my husband's career or generate a long term stream of passive income, I would be much better off than grabbing a dollar here and a dollar there.

So, no, I didn't break even for the summer, but I really did learn a lot from the challenge. I know that if I keep working at the long term stuff, investing wisely, and paying down my debt, there will be a time when my part time income exceeds me outgo. Until then, though, it's back to work for me.

See all the challenge posts:

The challenge
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5 - Success