Surveys and Mystery Shopping

I've talked about this with a few people recently and I realized that maybe some of you are interested. For the past few years I've been taken surveys online and doing some mystery shopping when I had the time. I've joined LOTS of groups but now participate in only a few as I've weeded out the best ones. I don't buy those claims about making thousands of dollars from home, but I earn enough for a gift certificate or two a year and about $100 in my free time...not to mention all the product tests I get!

So, if you're at all interested, here are my recommendations and advice.

1. Surveyspot

This site is the best for getting paid outright. You receive email invitations for surveys that tell you outright how long it's expected to take and how much you will earn for completing it (usually 3-5 bucks per survey). There are a few catches: not all surveys are paid, though you know that upfront. You usually have to complete a few for free before you get paid invites, but trust me, i really do get paid from this site. You have to qualify for a survey to complete the whole thing, so if they're doing a survey on smokers and you answer "no" to first question of "do you currently smoke?" than you won't qualify and you won't get paid. Also, it takes a few weeks for the survey to show up in your account, and another month before you receive your requested check. Not for people in need of fast cash! Still, I consistently receive 3-5 paid survey invitations a week.

2. Synovate (if you want to join this one, let me know and I'll email you an invitation)

This is the best for product tests. Surveys are not paid, but you earn points for completing them which can then be redeemed for cash. For me, the occasional checks are just a perk, I really belong to this for the products. In the past year I have received a TON to evaluate: toilet paper, Nyquil, shaving cream, shampoo, mouse, gel, toothpaste, fruit juice, skin care, face wash, soap, candy, deodorant....an added bonus: the companies that invest in product testing aren't the Kroger kind--this is nice Neutrogena and Pantene stuff!

3. Certified Marketing (mystery shopping)

I see ads all the time, but I know this one is legit. You have to actually fill out information and fax in paperwork, but it has some great opportunities if you have the time (I haven't since I had Scotty). Mostly what I did was mystery shops at stores like Abercrombie and Hollister because I can pass for a teenager, but the movie jobs are amazing! They pay you to record which previews were shown before a film or count patrons at a specific showtime. I got paid to spend a day watching The Nativity Story when it came out to count patrons, and I also got reimbursed for two adult tickets for each showtime so Eric and I had a date that actually PAID us :o)

4. MyPoints (only if you get bored at home or shop online a lot)

This one I don't really recommend unless you shop online a lot or have lots of time on your hands. You earn points for clicking on ads (I click through 20 ads about once a week) and eventually redeem those points for gift cards. I don't shop online often, so I never spend money through this but it does take time. I spend a few minutes a week doing this to earn probably two $25 cards to Chili's a year. If you work a regular job your time is probably better spent there, but if you're a stay at home mom with a few random minutes a week, this might be a good perk for you. Let me know if you want an invite to this one (you get points for referring people and accepting an invitation).

My words of advice
1. NEVER pay to sign up for any survey club, group, site or shopping. They'll pay you if they're worth anything!
2. Use e-mail filtering or a separate email account because all survey invites and shopping assignments are sent through email.
3. You probably have to do some surveys that don't pay in order to qualify for those that do. In the beginning, I did almost all surveys that were sent. Now, I simply delete the ones that don't include a dollar sign in the subject line.

Tagged...

Ok Sam, here we go: 5 things (sorry I never did the picture one--i don't have any pics on my computer from more than a year ago...)

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago: let's see, i was fourteen, and a freshman in high school?
1. competitive gymnastics! last i checked i could still do a backflip but it's been a few years...
2. october means the AZ state fair; my mom and I used to always bake and create things and enter them in the fair...$5 per blue ribbon adds up! (and my mom paid my entry fees so it easy money for me!)
3. orchestra. i begged my mom to buy my violin for years and then only played for four years--just ran out of time! sorry mom!
4. the school musical "Damn Yankees" where i played a host of random characters, including the world's smallest and least mannish looking baseball player you can imagine
5. hoping to be taller than 5' when i grew up! i didn't break that mark until sophomore year.

5 Things on my "To Do" list today:
1. get fingerprints for my AZ background check so I can complete my teacher certification process! (didn't happen, boo BYU!)
2. clean the house
3. take Scotty for a walk
4. make yummy/healthy dinner out of random food found in cupboards
5. go to the BYU women's soccer game with the fam

5 Snacks i love (i only get to pick five?!)
1. junior mints
2. peanut m&m's
3. ice cream, especially anything that has more than three words in the title and contains fudge and or marshmallows
4. grapes. (gotta have something healthy!)
5. chips and salsa, but i'm a weeny about hot and spicy, so i dip my chip in just a little bit for the flavor instead of scooping a bunch of salsa into my mouth

5 Things i would do if I were a millionaire
1. buy our little cottage, tear the thing down, and make it NICE!
2. pay for my school loans outright
3. take a year off to travel (and get Eric off the North American Continent!)
4. buy a beautiful grand piano and set up a recording studio in my house
5. have a house with doors and closets!

5 Places i've lived
1. the avenues in salt lake (as a baby!)
2. ohio
3. arizona
4. BYU dorms
5. our cozy cottage by the library

5 Jobs i've had
1. piano teacher (from 8th grade to senior year--anyone in Provo interested in lessons?)
2. movie theater usher/ticket taker. yeah. great perks though!
3. cold stone creamery--i also got to decorate ice cream cakes
4. chemistry instructor (yay!) and graduate student (...)
5. MOM! best mom ever!

I tag my mom (the other best mom ever ;o), Janae, Martha Harmon (thanks for finally updating your blog!), and my old roomie Liz. Have fun!

Halloween Antics

Ok, so it's not Halloween yet, but we had a group party tonight and the pictures are too funny not to share! The kids were so cute in their little costumes--I only wish I had gotten a picture of everyone...

This cuddly (but sad) lioness is our next door neighbor Callie. The pumpkin girls also live on the same block.

Instead of cute and cuddly, we opted for the shrunken skeleton. And yes, it glows in the dark! Rad, I know.

As for me...well, I took my parents up on their suggestion.

What do you think?

I tried to get Eric to dress as Obama but he didn't go for it. At least he was the donut eating race champion! No pictures of that hilarity and I had my hands in pumpkin guts at the time.

There were also some totally awesome pumpkins. This was my favorite, but I was also partial to Matt's temple pumpkin and I made the Cheshire Cat one....

Happy Halloween!

Happy Mole Day!

So the chemist in me comes out: it's mole day! A mole is essentially a really really big number, and a convenient way of counting atoms (which after all are really really small). Since a mole is 6.022 x 10^23, Mole Day starts at 6:02 am on October 23rd.


How big is a mole? I'm glad you asked!

• If there were a mole of rice grains, all the land area in the whole world would be covered with rice to a depth of about 75 meters.
• One mole of rice grains is more grains than all the grain that has been grown since the beginning of time.
• A mole of marshmallows would cover the United States to a depth of 600 miles
• A mole of hockey pucks would be equal to the mass of the Moon.

• Assuming that each human being has 60 trillion body cells (6.0 x 10¹³) and the Earth's population is 6 billion (6 x 10⁹), the total number of living human body cells on the Earth at the present time is 3.6 x 10²³or a little over half of a mole.
• If one mole of pennies were divided up among the Earth's population, each person would receive 1 x 10¹⁴ pennies. Personal spending at the rate of one million dollars a day would use up each persons wealth in about three thousand years. Life would not be comfortable because the surface of the Earth would be covered in copper coins to a depth of at least 400 meters.
• If you had a mole of pennies and wanted to buy kite string at the rate of a million dollars per inch, you would get your money's worth. After stretching your string around the Earth one million times, and to the Moon and back twenty-five times, you would have enough string left over to sell back at a dollar an inch (a decided loss) to gain enough money to buy every man, woman and child in the US a $50,000 automobile and enough gasoline to run it at 55 mph for a year. After those purchases, you would still have enough money left over to give every man, woman, and child in the whole world about $5000.

Basis for calculations:

Earth's circumference = 25,000 miles
Distance to moon = 240,000 miles
Cost of gasoline = $2.50 per gallon
Gasoline mileage = 20 miles per gallon
U.S. population = 220,000,000
World population = 6,000,000,000

Another chemistry funny:

My Hood-lums

I love these boys.