Mini Income Streams

[kib]

I've decided to fiddle around with some mini online income streams - surveys, rebate programs and so on. Not exactly millionaire territory, but I'm setting a goal to earn a little pin money above and beyond my basic budget.

1. Do you have any favorite sites or other reward-type programs you use?

2. I have heard that Pinecone Research is a very good one, but they are not accepting members. Does anyone know if they will accept new members through referral - and if so, would anyone be willing to refer me? :thankyou:

[SteveinMN]

I've been responding to surveys through RewardSurvey; one of the rewards is miles for our preferred frequent-flyer program (that is, the program on which we have any miles at all). Most of the surveys come with qualification questions, but at least there's a token reward if you are not eligible for the survey. You also get an idea of how long the survey will take and there are questions you can answer to "find" more surveys. It's not an income stream as such but might add on to other benefits you have. And it has not been painful to take a number of surveys.

[iris lilies]

My friend made $250 for spending one long day being on a focus group to pick a jury.

We got a phne call this week for serving on a focus group for $175. But is on a day that both of us have other things going on so I didnt explore it in depth. Those seem like really good gigs.

[iris lilies]

Not that this would be somethng you would want to do necessarily, but I think it is absolutely brilliant, I guess because its simple and it appeals to me. I read about it on MMM:

Someone takes very old, out of copyright books, and digitizes them, turning them into Kindle compatible text and markets them on Amazon. He said he made (do I remember correctly?) $200 - $300 month on titles where the work was already complete.

In order to do this one would have to have at one's disposal a vast public or university collection of old books where the titles had some interest. I am sitting here thinking of the German engineering book about staircases, or the text about bricklaying from the 1930's that sits in closed stacks at my public library.

Someone doing this would have to have a sense of what would be popular, but I think old how-to works are very cool and potentially profitable.

DH looked at that book on staircases when he built our two staircases.

[jp1]

Not that this would be somethng you would want to do necessarily, but I think it is absolutely brilliant, I guess because its simple and it appeals to me. I read about it on MMM:

Someone takes very old, out of copyright books, and digitizes them, turning them into Kindle compatible text and markets them on Amazon. He said he made (do I remember correctly?) $200 - $300 month on titles where the work was already complete.

In order to do this one would have to have at one's disposal a vast public or university collection of old books where the titles had some interest. I am sitting here thinking of the German engineering book about staircases, or the text about bricklaying from the 1930's that sits in closed stacks at my public library.

Someone doing this would have to have a sense of what would be popular, but I think old how-to works are very cool and potentially profitable.

DH looked at that book on staircases when he built our two staircases.

What an interesting idea. And if one was good at picking 'lucrative' titles then they could wind up having a decent ongoing revenue stream after the work is done.

[mschrisgo2]

My daughter has done surveys for years, she initially found the companies on craigslist. She nets about $600/month.

And my grandson started out doing a focus group for a computer game when he was 14; 7 years later, he and 3 of his friends are still working for the company: they beta test games online. A couple of years ago, he said he was making $1K a week...and it's "way more!" now. He also has a full time day job, but as he says, "it's great to get paid to play every night!"

[rosarugosa]

Kib: I will let you know the next time Pinecone is adding members. They send an e-mail once or twice a year looking for new members. I make just as much if not more doing Bing searches, but it's in the form of Amazon gift cards. Here is a referral link:
https://www.bing.com/explore/rewards?PUBL=REFERAFRIEND&CREA=RAW&rrid=_6f5eada9-9681-5869-f75e-f23a081bfb9b

Swagbucks is another one, but I've never made much with them because I don't do the surveys & videos; I just answer the daily poll. I have started going through them when shopping online for some sites. You can get quite a few points that way for purchases made from LL Bean, Seabear, Barnes & Noble. But of course, that does involve shopping! Some folks are able to make quite a bit with Swagbucks though.
http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/rosarugosa

[kib]

Thanks for the suggestions, and thanks Rosarugosa for the pinecone offer. I've signed up for swagbucks, on the plus side it looks like $100 a month would be doable, on the minus it really slows down my computer and it's a lot of fiddling for the money. It is nice to have it up for online shopping, though, I just got an extra 5% off at a place I was planning to shop anyway. - eta, sorry about the referral but I already signed up a couple of days ago.

So ... 1. how does one become a member of a focus group? and 2. how does on "digitize" an old book? Is that software, entering text by hand, or some sort of scanning hardware? It does sound like a neat idea.

[iris lilies]

...2. how does on "digitize" an old book? Is that software, entering text by hand, or some sort of scanning hardware? It does sound like a neat idea.

Scan the pages. Then software to manipulate it into Kindle format.

[Teacher Terry]

WE did the mock jury thing one weekend and it was fun and paid well. We signed up to do more but have not gotten any in a few years. The rest of our income streams are related to our professions.

[Rogar]

At one time I looked into medical and physiological test subjects that universities use. I don't recall the specifics other than some seemed harmless and others had a little risk, but they seemed to pay well and could be interesting?

[pinkytoe]

Our university has ongoing research studies offering either cash or other incentives. I am trying to talk DH into one for long-married couples - 2 hr interview for $150 but he doesn't want to go. Another option might be taskrabbit for admin or shopping type chores. I did one where I got a complete cardio workup and bone density scan for no cost - studying the effect of eating dairy on those systems. I recall I had to stick my bare foot in a bucket for as long as I could.

[rosarugosa]

Hey Kib: I'm curious to know how you would go about making $100 per month from SW. My current take is about 30 cents per month . :)

[kib]

I've gotten a $25 amazon card about five days in. Surveys, playing video clips on my laptop and a few special offers for things I was buying anyway, like taxcut. I don't know if I can keep that up, but it's amusing to see how far I can push it.

[rosarugosa]

Thanks, Kib. I'll have to play around with it a bit more. I need to find the sweet spot where I'm maximizing the potential for the site to give value without eating up too much of my precious "free" time.

[kib]

We have a second laptop computer and I've been playing videos on it so I don't slow down my main device. I have no problem with that, it's just background unless it's something interesting, but I could see burning out on the surveys pretty quickly, it's a big dose of mainstream, time consuming and boring. Remembering to go through the website to buy stuff is easy, but I've considered a few purchases I might not have otherwise, I can see that getting out of hand too. As you say, balance.

[shadowmoss]

I've been responding to surveys through RewardSurvey; one of the rewards is miles for our preferred frequent-flyer program (that is, the program on which we have any miles at all). Most of the surveys come with qualification questions, but at least there's a token reward if you are not eligible for the survey. You also get an idea of how long the survey will take and there are questions you can answer to "find" more surveys. It's not an income stream as such but might add on to other benefits you have. And it has not been painful to take a number of surveys.

How do you get rewards miles. I want to do that, but all I'm offered is magazines when I just went and signed up. One of them I'm interested in (work related) but I don't really read any magazines.

[SteveinMN]

Paula, I suspect the option came because I signed up through our preferred frequent-flyer partner (American Airlines AAdvantage) -- a link in an email they sent us or maybe checking out their Web site. I don't know if other FF plans are covered, either.

[rosarugosa]

I found a better site for online shopping rewards, TopCashBack. It appears to pay twice what Swagbucks pays for some of the merchants I use, and includes merchants I like that are not included on SB. I learned about the site from Kristen the Frugal Girl's blog, and I have a lot of trust in her recommendations. Here is an affiliate link if you want to sign up: http://www.topcashback.com/ref/Member36279224438, or go to Kristen's blog and use her affiliate link: http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2015/06/free-10-at-topcashback-a-reader-review-of-99-cent-razors-and-more/
Kristen's blog is one of my daily frugal reads and I really enjoy her.
Shopping is not necessarily frugal, but sometimes it is unavoidable, so I'm always happy if I can incorporate a frugal hack here and there.