My Points @ MyPoints

The postman delivered an envelope from MyPoints today – inside was a $10 gift card for Bath and Body Works. A couple of weeks ago, I had redeemed 1400 points for this gift card, and I must say that it has arrived sooner than I expected. And it comes at a good time too – I have a coupon from B&BW for a free $12 product with any purchase of $10 or more that expires in another week. So I’ll be out shopping for some fragrant goodies come this Saturday. I briefly considered redeeming a Wal-Mart gift card because groceries and food is where I could use a few more dollars, but I figured that I’d cherish some my MyPoints pillow mist or body lotion more than some MyPoints tomatoes or eggplants. And it’ll last longer too.

I am quite excited about online surveys and rewards programs. Since the beginning of June I have received $64.60 in checks and gift cards from my participation in them. Long live the internet!!!

P.S. Should I snowflake my $10 earnings from MyPoints? Since I received a gift card that cannot be redeemed for cash, I will have to use it and spend the $10. Since I was not planning on actually making any purchases, I am not really technically “saving” any money that I can snowflake either. Hmm… What do you think? Should I snowflake this amount or not?

Random Thought: Online Surveys

Although I was initially skeptical about them, I find that the online surveys are quite an interesting and easy way to make some extra money. At first I thought it was too much work for too little money, but I have discovered that you just need to find the right survey companies. In the past two months I have made $43.40. Of this, I have $17.50 are locked in as points at GlobalTestMarket since you have to have a minimum of $50 with them in order to be able to cash out. But I still did get checks for the other $25.90.

Online Survey Cash

I got paid for taking online surveys. I never thought I'd actually get to
cash out, but today I received two checks - $10 from Opinion Outpost, and $3 from Pinecone Research. $13 more dollars to go towards my first Monthly Challenge. I find that I spend a lot more time trying to qualify for online surveys that actually taking ones I qualify for. However, getting paid is wonderful. I probably spent way too much time for a $13 compensation, but getting this money was wonderfully sweet! In addition to the ones I already mentioned, other online survey sites that I recommend are: MyPoints and Global Test Market. I haven't tried too many others, but I believe that there are some really good options out there. I love making money like this - if only I got paid all the time for my opinions!

Get Paid for Online Surveys

I think online surveys are a brilliant idea. I am a student psychologist - and I know how important self-reported surveys can be in psychological research. I imagine that this is even more so the case with market research. When I collect data, I would gladly offer people money to take the survey if I had the funding for it, but unfortunately I don't. But the huge companies do - and they pay good money to people who will tell them how to make their product better and more marketable. Yesterday I signed on at four different online survey websites:

* American Consumer Opinion
* Global Test Market
* MySurvey, and
* Opinion Outpost

So far, I've been offered two surveys. I finished one, but while taking the other, I hit the back browser button and messed the survey up and so was unable to finish it. But the one survey has earned me $10. It took me about a quarter of an hour to complete. If only I got paid at work at such a rate!! I also have a few random points on the websites for taking profile surveys. Technically, on most sites I can cash out once I earn $5. However, I think I will wait till the end of the month - $10 in a day. I wonder how many I'll get this month. Four sounds like a good number. I hope I earn at least $40/-.

I'm going on vacation for a week. Not sure how this will affect my budget, money-tracking or money-making, but hopefully it will all turn out to be okay.