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March 12, 2010
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Columnist, The Friday Flyer
Many of my friends are stay-at-home moms who are feeling a financial squeeze lately. Their husbands value their work at home (who doesn’t love clean laundry?) but wish there were some options available for them to bring in a little cash every so often. Work-at-home scams are aplenty, and I get e-mailed daily with offers to make thousands just by clicking on a suspicious link. No, thanks.
There actually are a few legitimate options out there for drumming up a little cash. Once you know how to be safe and spot a scam, you really can make some cold hard cash without leaving home.
First of all, none of the money-making opportunities I am going to share here will ever require you to provide your social security number or any other private information. Do not accept any offers to deposit a check into your personal checking account and mail back half of it to your “employer.” That’s not a job; that’s a scam.
Remind yourself that if it seems to be too good to be true, it probably is, and that probably goes for most jobs that involve stuffing envelopes or stringing necklace beads at home, though I am sure there are legitimate options out there. Just be careful!
I have tried these ideas myself, and if there were such a thing as a Best Bets Guarantee, I would slap one on these tried-and-true, safe, at-home moneymakers:
• Take surveys at home – It doesn’t pay big money, but participating in online surveys with reputable survey sites is a safe way to rake in a few bucks. Before you get started, set up a separate e-mail account on a free provider like Gmail or Hotmail so that survey invitations don’t flood your regular inbox.
Then register with sites that are approved by the Better Business Bureau: SurveySavvy.com, OpinionOutpost.com, SurveyHead.com, MySurvey.com and American Consumer Opinion (ACOP.com) are safe bets. Stay safe by never registering with survey companies that charge you to participate or ask you for credit card information or your social security number.
To receive the most survey invites, take the time to complete your profiles at each site. Doing so tells manufacturers and entertainment companies more about you and makes you qualify for a variety of surveys. Surveys pay as little as a dollar and up to $15 for your participation. Some sites pay in points that are redeemable for gift cards or cash.
Once you are registered, check your inbox regularly for survey opportunities. I find that SurveyHead often has open surveys listed on the homepage and they will not always notify you of every new opportunity. Surveys generally take 10 to 20 minutes and subjects vary.
I have watched movie trailers and rated the likelihood that I will go to see the movies in the theatre, my son and I answered questions about his favorite video games, and my peanut butter buying habits were closely analyzed in a recent survey I took. Sometimes they are boring, but sometimes you find out about new products or movies and it is exciting to put in your two cents!
• Hit Craig’s List’s Secret Hotspot – We all know that www.craigslist.org attracts all kinds, so tread carefully on this free community online bulletin board. The average person looking to make money might browse the job listings, but there is a seldom-noticed moneymaking part of Craig’s List you may have never visited.
Under the Jobs heading, go to the very bottom until you see “ETC.” Under this heading, people recruit subjects for focus groups and advertise for help with odd jobs. I know of someone who found a job there selling dresses on an auction site for a woman who couldn’t wear the same thing twice and she pays $5 per listing. It is a great place to find a temporary job during the holidays, too.
• Sell on eBay and Craig’s List – If you are afraid that creating an online auction is too difficult, think again. Sites like eBay offer step-by-step instructions for selling, and if I can do it, anyone can! Put together a wardrobe of children’s clothes that no longer fit your kids and sell them as a lot. The books you’ve already read, the computer and video games that are gathering dust on a shelf and your collection of salt and pepper shakers shaped like farm animals need to go anyway, so why not clear your house of clutter and put some cash in your pocket? Simply create an eBay account, click the “Sell” button and you are on your way!
Craig’s List is the perfect place to sell larger, big-ticket items that would be too pricy to ship, like baby strollers and furniture. It is also a great place to get rid of things that simply can’t be shipped, like the 10 bags of potting soil I had to get rid of before we moved.
Also, Craig’s List is my favorite way to get rid of unwanted stuff that just won’t sell and Salvation Army doesn’t want. Several times, my son and I have gathered up some things we no longer needed, set them at the end of the driveway and posted a Craig’s List “Curb Alert.” We sat back and clocked how long it took before the stuff was gone and it happened fast!
Should you decide to attempt a Curb Alert yourself (tough to do here in Canyon Lake, but you might try it at a friend’s house outside the gates), be sure, for your own safety, to post a request in your message that shoppers do not come to the door. As a courtesy to those who drop everything and race to Curb Alerts, remove your listing as soon as the junk has been hauled off.
What to do with the cash that comes your way? My rule is to earmark it for a special occasion. All of the money I make from surveys goes into a savings account that is just for holiday expenses. My goal is to pay for Christmas this year with survey money. I have a friend who buys gift cards to her favorite stores with her auction money and another who saves every penny from online transactions in a PayPal account. Of course, we all realize that half those Christmas gifts and the majority of the knick-knacks will end up on eBay in six months, but someone has to keep the economy going, right?
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