Yes, I Am Cheap - Make Money

How to Make $50 With Cash Crate Right Now

nospam@example.com (Cheapskate Sandy) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:00:00 -0700

I've already told you that you can make money with Cash Crate but to be honest, many of the offers are for under $1.00. I don't waste my time with those since it takes too much time to make too little money. Cash Crate can be a decent way to add some extra money into your wallet every week if you use it correctly.

The fastest way to get to the $20 payout threshold is really by filling out trial offers. They are usually for $5.00 or more but you have to be diligent in remembering to cancel the trial offers. Most trials are for 7 days but some trial offers go for as long as 30 days. What I do when I sign up for these offers is set up a reminder on my calendar to cancel the trial offer at the same time that I am signing up. I usually let the service run for 4 days before canceling.

So now we're on to how you can make $50 with less than an hour's worth of effort.

Equifax
Sign-up for a 7 day free trial ($12)

You're getting to check out your FICO score for free here. That's always a nice thing to know.

Zendough
Sign-up for a 7 day free trial ($12)

You can check out your credit report for free. I know that you can do that on annualcreditreport.com but they're going to pay you to do it here. In order to cancel you have to call them, but they do it right away.

GameFly
Sign-up for a 1 month free trial ($12)

If you have a video game console, you might even like testing out this service. I don't have one so I could care less, but BF might enjoy testing out the games on his console for a bit. Just make sure you pry them out of his hands in time to cancel trial. BUT you don't have to even request a game to get the credit. Just sign up, let it marinate for a day or so, then cancel.

Identity Lookout
Sign-up for a 30 day free trial ($10)

This is for credit monitor and your credit report from Experian this time. Technically they charge you $1 to verify that you are who you are so really you end up with $9 but I'm calling it $10.

GameHouse
Sign-up for a 7 day free trial ($4)

I might not play video games on a console, but I am a computer game freak and I love these kiddie games, so I absolutely loved this one. You get access to play a bunch of games like Diner Dash, Farm Mania, Sherlock Holmes etc. Loved it.

In order to see these offers click on "Complete Offers"---->Select "Trail Offers"---->Click "Go".

Don't have a Cash Crate account? When signing up for Cash Crate I suggest that you use an e-mail address where you just expect to receive SPAM. When filling out offers from Cash Crate use the same SPAM address that you signed up for Cash Crate with. If an offer requires a phone number I typically use my Google Voice number. It's free and I can screen calls, block a particular number, or just forward everything directly to voicemail. Now that it's open to the public you should consider getting one too.

Also, I suggest that once you have signed up for the service you should take the tutorial.

Please click the link below! I get referral credit if you join up using my link and if you join and send others your link, you can referral credit too.

I'm Not That Kind of Girl, But I Should Be

nospam@example.com (Cheapskate Sandy) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:00:00 -0700

I dislike reality shows. No, dislike is to mild of a word - I hate them. I absolutely hate reality shows. These shows have a way of find the bottom of the pond, scum feeding, classless dregs of humanity that are absolutely willing to auction off their dignity to win. How I envy them.

I don't envy the skanky girls, or the egghead men. What I envy is their willingness to go -pardon the expression- balls out to get what they want. Yes, it typically amounts to 10 seconds of fame and a few thousand dollars, but how satisfied and fulfilled they must feel to have tried. How much farther in life could women be if we all did the same?

Statistics from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research say that women are paid $0.77 for every full dollar that a man is paid. That number is even worse for women in minority groups. For African-American women the number falls to $0.68 and to $0.58 for Latinas. Why are the numbers so crappy? Much of the time, it's because we're not aggressive enough with our careers, and it robs us of the equal footing that we should share with our male counterparts.

What's the Cause?
To be sure there are some factors that contribute to a woman's total wage being less than a man's. Women are often the primary caregivers for children, so they may opt for less advanced careers in order to rear children. They may also decide to take extended years off to care for young children and then return to the workforce, thus losing a few years' worth of promotions and advancements. But what about us single ladies without children? Don't we make the same?

No, we don't. There are arguments as to whether women make less due to historical contexts (men were traditional breadwinners of the family), the types of jobs that the most educated women choose, our ability to negotiate salaries, and the big D word: discrimination. It may possibly be a combination of all those. Sadly, we are not as aggressive as we should be, and when we are, the word "bitch" comes knocking.

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Making Your Hobby Pay Off

nospam@example.com (Cheapskate Sandy) — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:10:20 -0700

I've been doing a decent job of evaluating secondary income streams since overtime at work is non-existent. I've sort of stumbled into a good one - building websites for people. Let me give you some background on this.

I first started building websites like everyone else - just tinkering here and there with no real plan. I really just wanted to learn about this whole internet thing. I built a website that was called the Premedical Student Guide which at one point ranked #1 in Google searched for the search term premed . I had NO clue what I was doing but I was getting lots of traffic and questions from people who visited my site. I wish I knew the potential gold mine that I was sitting on. That site went away when Geocities folded into Yahoo. I was too busy with school anyway.

Next I started a forum on MSN Groups called Dieting Women. It was just about me trying to lose some weight and all the information that I found along the way. We had weekly weigh-ins, recipes, chats, etc. By the time MSN Groups closed last year I had over 600 members. Once again, no clue what I was doing really and how I could have monetized the website.

At that point I was about to open my boutique and needed a website. I just refused to pay someone to build it so I built it myself and kept on improving it as I learned. Once the boutique closed and I moved everything to just online, I think I had built up a website that looked really professional. I built 2 websites for my brother as well.

Occasionally people ask me to build websites for them but I typically turn them down because I am not professionally trained and really just stumble along until I learn how to do what I need to do. My brother and my boyfriend are really the ones who opened my eyes to the fact that I have a talent - and I could make money from it. What I lacked was the confidence to really hang out my sign to say hey, I really can do this and people like what I do.

So far I've completed two e-commerce websites for actual paying customers and have another one lined up but I'm too busy to do it. Who knew?! I have an aunt who says, "never give away your talent". It just took me some time to realize that this isn't just a simple hobby. I've really developed a talent for it and now it's paying me back. How awesome is that?

Check your hobbies to see if you can make some money. Perhaps you sew or take photographs or cook really well. My aunt has turned her cake baking skills into pocket money by baking cakes for friends and their families. It only cost her the money for one cake decorating class. Dig deep and find out how your hobby can pay you back.

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Crazy Things That Make People Rich

nospam@example.com (Cheapskate Sandy) — Thu, 14 May 2009 07:22:59 -0700

Okay, I'm back and fully recovered. Let's get back to the business of reducing my debt and chatting about the little green men we all love - money. I'm always talking about different ways to make money, but even I didn't come up some of the outrageous ones where people actually make millions of dollars.

Maybe all that tinkering that you do in the garage can pay off some day. Now, if I can only come up with some product for $19.99 I'd be laying on the beach in Bora Bora sipping on a Mai Tai while getting a massage. Hey, a girl can dream.

Antenna Balls
You've seen them; maybe you even sport one on your car. Those ubiquitous, yellow smiley-faced balls perched atop antennas in parking lots nationwide have made Jason Wall a very wealthy man. Inspired in 1997 by a commercial for the fast food chain Jack in the Box, Wall created some antenna ball designs and began selling them locally through auto stores in California in 1998. Within a year, he had earned more than $1.15 million in sales and quickly won major accounts to sell his product through national chains, including Wal-Mart

Santa Mail
Every year, millions of children around the globe pen letters to Santa and hope for a response. Byron Reese realized the potential in this market. In 2002, he launched "Santa Mail," a service that allows kids to send letters to the North Pole. Parents enclose a small fee of just $9.95, and little Johnny or Jane receives a personalized letter back from the "big man" himself. By 2009, Santa Mail had responded to nearly 300,000 children. At close to $10 a letter, well, you can do the math - needless to say, it was a little idea that has earned Reese a big return.

Million Dollar Home Page
In 2005, while brainstorming ideas on how to make money to pay his way through university, British youngster Alex Tew came up with the idea of creating a web page with a million pixels and charging a dollar a pixel to advertise on it. He called it the "million dollar homepage". It’s an idea so simple that many might have thought of it but so successful many more now wish they had.

Pet Rock (WTF?!)
Anyone who was into the whole Pet Rocks fad in the 1970s fad will know just how crazy this one was. Conceived by Californian advertising executive Gary Dahl, the first Pet Rocks were ordinary grey stones bought at a builder's yard and marketed as if they were live pets. The pet rocks "craze" only lasted about six months, but that was enough to make Dahl a millionaire.

Content Courtesy of MSN Money UK and Investopia .

Would You Pay For Work?

nospam@example.com (Cheapskate Sandy) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:48:21 -0700

I just joined Guru.com. If you haven't been following me for long, I'm trying to both reduce my consumption and increase my income. Increasing my income at my current job is impossible since overtime has been eliminated and there is a salary and bonus freeze. So no luck there. Anyway so I am trying to earn money elsewhere. I've earned a whole dollar through ads on this blog since January (argh) but Guru.com seems to have some potential for me. The drawback? You have to pay for a quarterly membership plus a percentage of fees.

So you're curious about what it is. Guru matches freelancers (and people like me) with companies looking for short term employees or virtual jobs. I just don't know if I want to pay to play. I know you can't get anyway of quality for free (or can you?) but paying for the potential to possibly land a short term assignment just seems a little like too much hedging to me. There is absolutely no guarantee that you will have a job or assignment after you pay. So would you do it? Would you pay for the possibility of landing an assignment? Pop on over the see for yourself. I am sitting on this one. I'd rather use the money for a snowflake payment but I can be wrong.

I did invest $1,500 in some new cell phones that I plan on reselling on Craig's List. Funny how I'm willing to spend that much of my emergency money (yikes) in the phones but I won't spend $30 on
Guru.com. I need to get my priorities straight. Anyway, I'll let you know how the phones go.

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Is A Savings Account Worth It?

nospam@example.com (Cheapskate Sandy) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:36:04 -0700

I received my statement from my savings account on Thursday. I opened said statement and saw that the interest rate on my balance was 0.01%. I promise you that I thought there was something of a mistake. Let me preface this by saving that I've never really paid attention to the savings account since I've never really had anything to save. Now that I have the emergency fund thing going I am paying attention. So I called them. Yep, they verified that it's 0.01% interest. Looking back over my account I see that they charged me a $4 service fee since my balance was below $1,000. So trying to save money actually COST ME more money in one month than they will pay me on my money over the course of many months.

Zipping on over to ING I see that they're down to 1.85% APY. That sounds much better but I'm still shocked at the low interest rates that bank everywhere are offering. I'm not the only one either. Debt Kid thinks that high yield saving is dead. I'm not ready to declare it totally gone though. The guys over at Get Rich Slowly evaluated a bunch of accounts but the blogger over at Her Every Cent Counts found account that are still paying over 5% interest. If you're willing to do business with a small FDIC insured bank (and I have) then they're willing to pay you some serious interest. Why? Chances are that smaller banks didn't do much high risk lending so it's still business as usual for them.

Whatever you choose I am closing my saving account on Monday. I'd rather earn nothing in my checking account than pay a fee if my balance drops too low.

More Ways To Make Money

nospam@example.com (Cheapskate Sandy) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:19:45 -0700

The post about making some money on the web has attracted some e-mails. I've decided to continue adding some more opportunities as I bump into them. I'm trying to post as many legitimate sources of secondary income as is possible. If you try something out and they're no longer or if their terms have changed please let me know. These shouldn't cost you anything.

Amazon Associate Central. Sell their stuff online.
Cafe Press. Design something. They're slap it on everything
eBay. Sell your stuff online.
eHow. Write and article and drive traffic to it for $$.
Rent-A-Coder. Can you code? Build websites? Make logos? They'll pay you!

I'll keep adding new things every week so that you too can try to make some extra money online. So far I've cashed a check from Cash Crate for $14.00.

Making Money on the Web

nospam@example.com (Cheapskate Sandy) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:45:52 -0700

So I've been diligently trying to save money but I know that if I really want to get out of debt at a faster rate I really should try to make some extra income that will be 100% devoted to my debt servicing. The internet is full of every scam that you can dream of. Are you still getting those messages in your inbox about the rich diplomat who died and now his relatives need your help in claiming the millions that he left behind if only you would just sent them $1,000 as a good faith deposit? If you haven't fallen for that scam but want to make some legitimate money on the internet I've got a list for you. Disclaimer: I earn referral fees from some of these places if you sign up and do stuff.

Cash Crate

You basically decide which surveys and services you want to sign up for and then they pay you once a month for what you've done. Simple. If you refer people and they sign up you earn 20% of what your referrals make. So technically if you have lots of referrals who are active then you can make money from just what they are doing. I have to post a scan of my first check from them but yes, it works. I recommend signing up for a new free e-mail service and using that one exclusively as the address you will use when completing the offers. You will be spammed and your address sold so I am warning you first!
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