Showing posts with label free money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free money. Show all posts

Thursday, January 20, 2011

New Blog: The Broke Student's Guide

I have to admit something: I've been cheating on my blog with another blog. Ok, non-clever joking aside, I have a new blog. Not that I'm abandoning this one, because the two are totally different and unrelated. But the other one has certaintly been holding my attention lately! It's called The Broke Student's Guide to Stretching Your Dollar. It's aimed at college students, and focuses on all the ways that students can save money and get the most value for what little money they do spend. I focus a lot on getting things for free, earning money doing practically nothing (like paid-to sites) and taking advantage of all your campus has to offer, as well as tips and tricks on the things you do have to purchase whether you like it or not - like textbooks and groceries. Anyway, if any of thats useful to you, please follow! And then link all of your friends to it!

http://brokestudentguide.blogspot.com/

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Ways to Make Extra Money at College

I haven't updated much lately - I've been too busy moving into my swanky new one-person apartment at Indiana University for my (first) senior year! It's pretty freaking amazing, but unfortunately I'm finding myself quite broke. My dad has decided he can't spare me any more money than the cost of my books (roughly $400, ouch!) so I've been having to scrape together some pocket change on my own. Luckily, I'm fairly good at that. Aside from my 3 hours a week job at my dorm (literally, I have a 3 hours per week cap on what I can work. That's about $22 a week, tops, but I don't have enough time to get another part time job) I have a variety of ways to scrounge up pocket change. I've already shared a couple on my blog, but here's a refresher course:

1. Earning money online doing paid surveys, clicking on links in emails, and filling out offers (mostly signing up for newsletters and such, yay for spam filters!) If I spend a couple of hours a week doing this I can make about $30 a month. You can read my complete list of proven legit sites here. Right now my favorites are Treasure Trooper, SendEarnings, Inbox Dollars, and MyPoints (email me to get a referal link to the last one, it's invite-only). The last three I earn primarily through their paid emails, where you get about $.05 each for clicking on ad-supported emails. They send maybe 5-10 a day, so it actually adds up really quickly. Clicking through them all is my favorite mindless thing to do while watching TV or on the phone!

2. I have a few other suggestions in this post, explained in greater detail. In short they are donating plasma, selling extra stuff, advertising your skills on craigslist (math tutor? knitting lessons? strong guy available to lift stuff?), or creating a blog or website to sell advertising on or sell goods/services.

The other one I list is paid university studies. I'd like to go into more detail on that one because I've been looking at a lot more of them lately and they are perfect for college students in particular. If you're at a large research school, there is an excellent chance that there are some studies that will pay you to participate. These can be anything from sitting at a computer answering questions for an hour to participating in a group discussion. You can find Indiana University paid experiment at this website. To find some for your own university, just search "[Your College] Paid Psych Experiments" or similar. I also find a lot of them pasted up on flyers around major classroom buildings, especially the psych building, but even in the business school here. They say something like "18-24 YEAR OLD FEMALES, GOOD HEARING, HEAVY DRINKER, SMOKES LESS THAN 5 CIGS A DAY, $10/HR" with some pull-off contact sheets. They are looking for just about every type of person, and don't be afraid of participating in the ones with qualifications like "heavy drinker/drug user" because that's not a ploy for turning you into the police, it's just a qualifier for the study! (I'm assuming that fact, as I do not actually qualify as either a heavy drinker or drug user. But if I did, I would totally be using it to get more money. To support my habits. Or you know, whatever. In my actual case, it's more like a shoe habit).

Other college-specific things I'm doing right now are selling off my old appliances that freshman didn't know they need but now that they're at college they totally need (Like last year's window fan? My new apartment has Air Freaking Conditioning. I'm happy to provide the same luxury of cool air to dorm-dwellers at a fraction of the price of the same appliance at Target!) Also, now is the prime time to sell textbooks on places like Amazon. Students are still enrolling in classes, being accepted on waitlists, and switching into other classes, so textbooks are being purchased like crazy. I bought mine yesterday, and they were probably twice the price than if I'd bought them in the summer! They will also likely pay more for shipping right now. If you don't want to sell on Amazon, use Craigslist or a University supported forum (most colleges have one - Indiana's can be found on OneStart. )

Do you have any good ways to make extra money at college? Please tell me. I am so broke. And my readers probably want to know too! :) Happy earning!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Want to make some extra money?

Want To Make Some Extra Money?

As a full-time college student (click here to read more about me!) I am constantly bombarded with a need for more spending money. New books, new clothes, late night Starbucks... *ahem* you know how it is. Of course, I have very little time between studying and, uhhhh, partying studying more. So instead of getting a real job, I decided to take the true college way out and figure out how to make some money online. After I sold all my old clothes on ebay, I turned to surveys and paid-to sites in desperation. To my surprise, I found that some sites REALLY DO pay cash for little or NO work - and it's FREE! Here are my tips for making money online. All of these sites are 100% guaranteed by yours truly and are legitimate and, of course, free. Note: using my links not only helps you make free money, but also helps me earn referral rewards!

Click to View Full SizeTreasure Trooper Paypal Payment

1. http://www.treasuretrooper.com/ Treasure trooper is my favorite - mostly because they've made me the most money! See those pictures? I've made almost $200 for fill
ing out some dumb surveys and doing free offeres! They mail checks or deposit in your paypal.
When Do They Pay? They pay out the 15th of every month as long as your earnings are over $20.
Favorite Feature: Fast paying! The offers are usually approved the same day you fill them out and it's easy to get the $20 needed to receive p
ayment.PRO TIP: search for keyword "email address" or "zip code" - all you have to do is enter your email/zip code! No forms! They're my faves. Open up a new email account to handle all the spam.
Bonus Features: a slot machine where you can win extra money, a $100 treasure hunt, a "trading hut" where you can trade the coins you also earn completing offers for prizes, and more fun stuff! Join Here

Treasure Trooper Payout To Date $249.35

2. http://www.sendearnings.com/ Sendearnings is good because it's super lazy. They send you emails, you click on them, they pay you. They give you $5 when you sign up, plus referrals, and if you're not lazy you can do the surveys and stuff too. I mostly just do the emails, it's a super easy way to add up money fast (each email is about .02, they send about 2-3 a day.) My first payment just arrived in the mail!
Best Feature: The "pay per click" emails. Super easy!
When Do They Pay? You can request payout when you get $30. It takes me about 3 months to earn the $30 JUST by answering the emails (but it's faster if you also do surveys and offers).
Bonus Features: SendEarnings has pay to play games, pay-to-shop on some great sites, surveys, and offers, plus a great referal program.
PRO TIP: save your daily emails up and then answer them all in a big bundle once a week - they're less annoying that way and you can see all at once how much your money jumps up from the emails!Join Here

Send Earnings Payout To Date $27.20

3. http://www.inboxdollars.com This site is essentially the exact same as Send Earnings. You get sent emails which are worth about .02 each - which really adds up! You can also do free offers and surveys for money. You get $5 free from signing up. Just think - if you do this along with Send Earnings, you'll be getting at least $60 just from clicking on emails!
Best Feature: The "pay per click" emails. Super easy!
When Do They Pay? You can request payout when you get $30. It takes me about 3 months to earn the $30 JUST by answering the emails (but it's faster if you also do surveys and offers).
Bonus Features: InboxDollars has pay to play games, pay-to-shop on some great sites, surveys, and offers, plus a great referral program.
PRO TIP: save your daily emails up and then answer them all in a big bundle once a week - they're less annoying that way and you can see all at once how much your money jumps up from the emails!
Join Here
InboxDollars Current Earnings: $2 to Payout!

4. http://www.cashcrate.com/ Crash Crate is similiar to Treasure Trooper. It has a long list of offers you can fill out for money (things like filling out forms, clicking on offers, etc). I'm new to CashCrate but from what I hear they're one of the best sites out there.
Read more about CashCrate here.
When Do They Pay? after you reach $20.
Bonus Features: They also have points and surveys, and some really good referral benefits!
PRO TIP: Click Here to read an excellent guide on making your first $100 on CashCrate.
Join Here

5. MyPoints no link for this one cuz it's invite-only, you have to give me your email address (email me at lia.saunders (at) gmail.com). It's another one that sends emails that you click on (plus surveys/offers, but I like to be lazy.)
When Do They Pay: You get points that you can then redeem for gift cards, and you can cash in your points as soon as you've earned enough for a reward. There are several different point-reward levels. The retailers you can redeem gift cards at vary from department stores to online retailers to resteraunts. My first reward was a $50 gift card to Macy's, and it hasn't taken me long at all to earn another $50 card.
Bonus Features: Gift cards to my favorite resteraunts/stores, and daily pay-per-click emails that usually contain excellent deals to shop at some of my favorite online sites. (I ACTUALLY use them for shopping. Now that's a good deal!)
PRO TIP: Their "Daily Spin and Win" feature is a quick and easy way to get a few extra points. You can spin once per day and win up to 10,000 points! Also, like the other paid-to email sited, MyPoints paid emails are best to do all at once in a group, and are good for mindless activities such as when you're on the phone or watching TV.


6. ChaCha ChaCha is essentially google from your phone: you text 242-242 (CHACHA) a question, and somebody online looks up the answer for you and texts you back. When you work for them, you are the one answering questions, and they pay you about .10/question. It is a really legit company - you have to fill out a W9 online, and they have about an hour's worth of training material for you to read before you can even be TESTED to become a guide. It's really quite fun and addicting! You can make about $5/hr on average answering questions.
When Do They Pay? You can get money sent to your bank account after you reach $100, or you can sign up for a debit card with them. There are tutorials explaining payout on the ite.
Bonus Features: Answering strange questions is extremely interesting. I have learned so many strange and unusual things that I never thought I wanted to know! Plus, you can select which categories you'd like to answer questions for, to keep it interesting for you. There is also a quality team which pays extra for good answers. NOTE: ChaCha is not always hiring.



7. https://www.mturk.com This is a really awesome Amazon site that is essentially a marketplace for online labor. A company who has a task to complete - something you can do at a computer, like check links to see if they are still up, check if photos are blurry or grainy, taking a survey, proof-reading, etc - lists it as a "HIT" on Mturk, and then users can choose to complete it if they qualify and earn money for each HIT that is accepted. It's great for the company because they can get a lot of different people doing the same tasks - less margin for error that way - without needing to hire someone to do something unskilled and mind-numbingly boring like checking photos for blurriness. Although I just started out on the site (check out my whopping $.70 haha) I found it through a friend who assures me that it is indeed too legit to quit. Score! Amazon is so awesome.

8. Twitter. Yeah, you probably have a twitter already (Follow Me!!) Well, so does everyone else- which some have realized is a great potential market for paid advertising! How can twitter users cash in on this? A variety of sites offer programs where they tweet advertisements under your name and pay per click, referall, or post. The more twitter followers you have, the more your account is worth to advertisers. I'm new to this so no payouts yet - let me know your experiences! Here are some legit, review-backed sites I've found:

So. I've made over $300 on the survey sites I listed, money that I can promise you I have actually received, no scam, into my bank account and straight to my wallet. Think of all the luxuries you could afford to buy! Seriously, sign up, and share your referral links if you've got any.
In addition to this article, check out these awesome posts as well:
*Supplement Your Income With Sweepstakes
*Ten creative ways to earn extra money

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

NOMNOMNOM: Delicious food that is also easy to make and cheap as hell. EPIC WIN

If you've read my blog for more than a minute you may have noticed that I enjoy money. I've made a few posts about how much I enjoy money, like my hobby of spending hours doing silly things to earn money online, or my other schemes to obtain pocket change. Oh my word, I've just discovered my new favorite cheap ~fancy~ dish to make. I was pretty hooked on my bok choy/chicken/rice creation (SO CHEAP, SO EASY) but this one is a twinge fancier, and definetly on par in terms of taste and ability to make me feel extremely full, and - dare I say it - EVEN CHEAPER. The dish in question is called "Shakshuka," an African/Isreali dish, which essentially consists of eggs poached in a spiced tomato sauce. I used Ragu. Here's the recipe I made up as I went along, along with the prices (using approximated grocery store prices for in-season goods). Note: although I happened to have these ingredients on hand, you'd probably do just fine without fresh herbs or even the cheese- just heat up your favorite pasta sauce, add an onion (it helps make it more hearty so you're not just eating soupy sauce) and sprinkle some parmesan or whatever on top if you like.

3 Eggs $.45
3/4 cup of pasta sauce $.45
1/2 of an onion $.16
A few cilantro and parsley leaves $.10
1 clove of garlic .01
1 tablespoon crumbled feta cheese $.10

INSTRUCTIONS: Heat the pasta sauce in a saucepan on about a 7 or 8 level of heat. Add chopped onion, crushed garlic clove, and cilantro leaves. When sauce is bubbling and hot, drop in the eggs. Allow to cook. Stare dubiously at dissappearing eggs and wonder how on earth you will know when they are cooked. Wait 6-8 minutes, assume they MUST be cooked, poke around in the sauce a bit, pour saucepan out into a bowl and find 3 perfectly poached eggs hiding underneath the sauce. Decide to use less sauce next time. Sprinkle with crumbled feta cheese and parsley leaves. Inhale the aroma of your simmering, delicious creation, dig in while it is still too hot and burn your tongue. Make green tea and wait for dish to cool somewhat. Enjoy.

Total price: $1.27
Under $1.50!!! For a delicious, filling, and extremely healthy meal. SCORE. And the best part? My dish actually looked how it was supposed to! Seriously exciting. The only downside is that my tongue is now quite burned. Ow.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

5 Easy Ways to Earn Extra Money

So, times are hard, bla bla bla. You need extra money for gas, for your kid, for those shoes, whatever. Doesn't really matter to me, I'll take extra money whenever, bad economy or not! As such, I've become an expert at figuring out ways to sneak extra cash into my wallet. Every little bit helps and it all adds up over time. However I do remind you know that the tips I'm sharing are NOT a substitute for real, substantial income. Its more like some extra pocket cash. Second, I have already written a review of ways to make money via paid-to and survey sites, which brings in about $30-$60 a month extra for me! You can see that information here: http://omglia.com/makemoneyonline . But here are even MORE good ways to make extra money!



Checkbook Cover by bagladiesinpa


1. Donate plasma. Every decent sized town should have a plasma donation center. Donating plasma is fairly easy and you can do it up to twice a week after you pass a screening and fitness exam which takes about 2 hours - additional visits take much less time. You can make roughly $200 or so extra a month donating plasma. For more information and to find a donation center near you visit this site: http://www.bloodbanker.com/plasma/

2. Sell any extra stuff you might have lying around in your house on Ebay, Craigslist or Livejournal. Some things you might sell include clothing, CDs, video games, DVDs, action figures, keychains, old jewelry, unused makeup, purses, shoes, or craft supplies. If you're absolutely desperate and have low standards, people will also buy your used underwear. (I've never tried this, but apparently you can get $30 for a pair of your panties. Hey, if the demand is there, why question it? Or even think about it and wonder what kind of people would ever want to buy a pair of used panties? .... exactly, let's not.) Livejournal has loads of awesome selling communities, though you'll need to know a bit of HTML and join lots of communities to get your items out there for people to see. Ebay is great too, but once you add your items, they can tend to get lost in the fray. To boost visibility of your stuff, advertise the items with an image or two on livejournal! There are communities just for that sort of thing - if you want some help finding them, just check out my profile.



Earrings by hollee


3. If you have a marketable skill, put up an ad on your local craigstlist offering your services. Marketable skills can be anything from cleaning houses, to walking dogs, babysitting, making websites, creating artwork, whatever. Charge on a sliding scale to attract more business - remember, every little bit helps!

4. If there is a university where you live, check out whether they have a research program that offers paid studies. For example the psych department at my university offers up to $10/hr for certain studies, and they are always looking for demographics like people who smoke pot, drink often, don't drink at all, have good hearing, etc. It's similiar to the "paid surveys" that are on the make money online tutorial, only its for academic research, not market research.



Cash Ledger by orangebeautiful


5. If there is something you know a lot about that other people are interested in - for example, social networking and marketing, cooking, MMORPGs, anything -- make a blog about it. Once you get a lot of entries and a decent amount of readers, charge money to advertise on your blog with Google Adsense, Project Wonderful or private advertising. This idea is definitely more long-term and takes a lot of work. To me it's one step below opening up a handmade store in terms of the amount of work it takes compared to the profit margins - but if you've got time, you've got a computer, and you've got something to say, go for it! For an idea of how to maximize profit potential on this particular idea, here's an awesome example of how to make $2500 in a month.

If there's anything you know is a surefire way bring in extra cash, let me know and I'll add it here! I'm always open to new ideas!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Free Money

So most of you have probably heard by now of my love for paid-to sites (aka free money). Well my dirt poor boyfriend just signed up for 2 of them and he's working on saving up for college classes this summer so I'm trying to help him out by whoring his referal links around! If you want to read more about the paid-to sites that I love, click here to visit my blog entry with proof pictures and then come back and use these links to sign up!!

Treasure Trooper
Treasure Trooper is my favorite - mostly because they've made me the most money! See those pictures? I made almost $150 for filling out some dumb surveys and doing offeres! They mail checks or deposit in your paypal. TIP: search for keyword "email address" or "zip code" - all you have to do is enter your email/zip code! No forms! They're my faves. Open up a new email account to handle all the spam.

Send Earnings
Send Earnings is good because it's super lazy. They send you emails, you click on them, they pay you. You can receive money when you get $25. They give you $5 when you sign up, plus referrals, and if you're not lazy you can do the surveys and stuff too. I mostly just do the emails, it's a super easy way to add up money fast (each email is about .02, they send about 2-3 a day.) My first payment just arrived in the mail! It takes me about 2 months to earn the $30 just by answering the emails. TIP: save 'em up and then answer them all in a big bundle once a week - they're less annoying that way and you can see how much your money jumps up!

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Interview with me on a Market Research Blog

A few weeks ago I won a sweepstakes and got a $200 gift certificate. The man who sent me the certificate noticed that I have my own blog/website and asked to interview me for his blog about market research! I happily agreed and the result of that interview is here: Face to Face With Gen Y.

Aside from an awesome interview, I also was able to buy a whole bunch of beauty products, christmas presents, and clothes, soooooo I'm going to call this entire episode a huge WIN in my book.

How are everyone's Christmas sales doing? Mine are going so well, they're actually interfering with studying for finals. I'm not at all upset about that.