Payments for May 2007

eBay	$111.03
PecoMail	$0.05
Total:	$111.08
Year-to-Date:	$860.60

A lower total this month, but only because I didn't have any income other than eBay sales. But the eBay money was fairly reasonable this month -- $111 in profit from $435 in sales. I can live with that.



And of course I shouldn't overlook the nickel I received from PecoMail, which was an unexpected payment after the owner of the site blew a gasket and deleted my account because I made critical comments about some changes she'd made to the PecoMail Terms of Service. And also because I'd pointed out that she'd broken those Terms herself. Some PTR owners really don't like it when people do that sort of thing. Oops! LOL! To be fair, at least she paid me my nickel before she deleted my account. A lot of PTR owners like to keep those nickels for themselves.



I think payments for June will be higher than they were in May. eBay sales have started off well (as a comparison, we've had six sales so far this month compared with 1 at the same point last month), and I should get some payments from PayPerPost and a couple of survey companies as well.



Technorati Tags: get paid, PTR, paid to read, eBay, make money online, PecoMail

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Payments for April 2007

eBay	$78.32
ReviewMe	$20.00
Blogitive	$5.00
PayPerPost	$20.00
ePoll	$30.00
Esearch surveys	$1.00
Lightspeed Panel surveys	$10.00
KRI Panel surveys	$15.00
Total:	$239.32
Year-to-Date:	$749.52

When I sat down to start this post, I was thinking it wasn't going to be a very good month. I knew the profits from eBay sales was going to be a lot lower than last month, and lower our average. But total income for the month turned out to be right about average, and came from a higher number of sources, which I'm happy about. After all, part of what I'm trying to do with this blog is show that there are lots of different ways to make money online. So I'm happy not to have all my eggs in one basket.

One reason for lower ebay profits this month is because we've just increased our prices, which was necessary due to increased import/shipping costs. Another is because we've launched some new advertising campaigns, which has resulted in quite a few new customers trying out our products. New customers usually make smaller purchases, especially the "trial pack" we offer, which only costs them a few dollars, and from which we make almost no profit. But we know that those low-cost trial packs are great for us in the longer term, so hopefully sales will pick up in the coming months. In any case, I'm definitely not complaining. Over $75 profit on around $275 in sales, and all I do is put up a few auction listings each week, answer a few inquiries, and a few trips a week to the Post Office or the nearest mailbox.

I'm also happy with the money I made from sponsored posts last month. $45 in total, with $20 from PayPerPost, $20 from ReviewMe, and $5 from Blogitive. I think that's probably about as much as I'll ever make in a month, unless I add sponsored posts to some other blogs. I really don't want to just start throwing up a bunch of sponsored posts that have nothing to do with the topics I normally blog about here at FCS, but I've been thinking that it might be a good idea to start a new blog, or re-purpose an old one, that's better suited to sponsored posts, affiliate sales, etc.

And the third way I made money in April was from online survey companies. $56 in total, with most of it paid in the form of Amazon gift certificates, which is just as good as cash in my particular case. I loooooove shopping at Amazon! That's more than I've earned from paid survey companies in a long time. What's changed? For one thing, I think many of the companies are sending out more surveys, so that helps. The only change I've made is that I've got all my survey invitations going to a single email address, and I'm trying to check that email account several times a day, and do the surveys ASAP. Some days I do the "screeners" and don't qualify for the full surveys, other days I do one or two surveys, so it probably averages out to be about 20 minutes of "work" a day.

So as it turns out, I'm quite happy with my earnings this month. Not only did I make over $200 that I wouldn't have otherwise made, but I did it doing stuff I enjoy anyway. Blogging, selling stuff on eBay, and sharing my opinions. Sweet!

Technorati Tags: make money online, PayPerPost, Blogitive, ReviewMe, eBay, paid surveys, ePoll, KRI Panel, LightSpeed Panel

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Doing More Paid Surveys

After reading a blog post about paid surveys (that I won't link to because it was basically trying to con people into paying to join a paid survey scam site), I've been making an effort to increase my survey participation. And in just a week or so, it's really starting to pay off.

I've joined a few new programs, updated my profiles at some older ones, and I've made sure when I got a survey invitation in my inbox that I took the survey as soon as possible.

The results? I've been paid around $55 in Amazon gift certificates so far this month. $30 from ePoll, $10 from LightSpeed, and $15 from KRI Panel. And I've nearly got enough points for another $10 AGC from LightSpeed, and $10 cash from NFOMySurvey.

My advice for making money from paid surveys includes:

• Use two dedicated email addresses -- sign up with one address, then when you've determined that a program is legit, move it to the other address
• check those email accounts every day, and respond to any survey invitations as quickly as possible
• fill out your profile as completely as possible
• never pay for access to a list of survey sites

The thing I like about surveys is that not only do you get paid for doing them, but some of them are a lot of fun. I enjoy finding out about new products before they're released, and I looooooove telling companies what I think they're doing right and wrong (especially telling them what they're doing wrong!). Some of the surveys can be tedious and boring, and it drives me nuts when I spend 10 minutes answering questions only to be told I don't qualify for the survey, but mostly doing paid surveys is an enjoyable and rewarding (financially speaking, that is) experience.

Tags: paid surveys, get paid, surveys

Payments for March 2007

eBay: $210.01

PecoMail: $0.29

PayPerPost: $5.50

Your2Cents: $15.00

NFO MySurvey $20.00

Total: $250.80


Year-to-date: $510.20

March was a good month in terms of eBay sales, and a few other payments came in here and there -- a bit from PayPerPost, the Your2Cents paid surveys, and even a little micro-payment from PecoMail (one of the few Paid to Read programs where I'm still a member).

I'm going to launch a couple of new blogs this month, and hopefully within a few months they'll be adding a bit to the monthly totals as well. Otherwise the plan is to continue to tweak the eBay thing and try to increase sales (we made half our profit in the first 9 days this month, then kinda fizzled out towards the end of the month.

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Updated on 8 April, 2007.

Tags: money, make money online, get paid

Payments for February 2007

This month, my online earnings were:

eBay: $137.44
PureProfile: $27.15
PayPerPost: $6.00
Total: $165.19

Year-to-date: $259.40

The eBay profits would've been higher, but we've had customers waiting since November for items on back-order, so we shipped their items free. We also had an item arrive damaged, so we sent a free replacement. All these things cut into profits in the short-term, but pays off nicely in the long-term, when happy buyers become repeat buyers.

The PureProfile payment took about a year to accumulate. I've been a member since 2002, and I've made over $100 from them. And I like the fact that they pay directly to my bank account, instead of mailing a check or paying via Paypal.

The PayPerPost payment was for a post about online coupons, sponsored by CouponChief.com. That's a total of $40 from PPP since I joined back in July 2006. They've expanded a lot since then, with an affiliate program (pays $15 when somebody signs up using your affiliate link, and then gets a post accepted), and the new "Review My Post" feature, where people can earn $7.50 from PayPerPost for writing a review of one of my blog posts. And even better, I get paid $7.50 as well!

'Get Paid' Goals for July

I think it's important to set goals, so I thought I'd post my 'Get Paid' Goals for July.

Earning over $30 from PTRs this month was one of my best ever. With most paid email ads only worth 1/4 to 1/2 cent, it takes a while for it to add up. Several of those payments were from programs that have taken months to earn the minimum request, and after getting paid, I quit several of them. So I don't think PTR payments for July will be as much. My goal for PTR payments is $7.50. I've checked my stats and I think that's entirely reachable.

I've got some content writing assignments that I'll finish next month, and I should get paid $70 for those, so I'll add that to the 'Get Paid' total. And I requested a payment from PureProfile, so that'll be another $25.00.

All together, that's a goal of $102.50 in payments.

My other 'Get Paid' goals for July include:

• Join 5 programs from my list of 'Search-Free PTRs' -- I'm getting really tired of ads for search portals.
  
• Write and post at least 2 new reviews at ePinions.
  
• Use $20 of my June earnings to buy ads -- and make a profit.
  
• Get at least 10 pages of the FreeCashSpace website online.

That ought to be enough to keep me busy!

More Payments This Week

Wow, it looks like this is a good week for payments. In addition to the earlier payments a few days ago, I also got these:

BeeHiveMail: $1.16
SendMeCash: $0.26
BeezyClickin: $6.09
Total: $7.51

Weekly Total: $11.29

Monthly Total: $32.18

It hasn't all been good news, though. I quit a couple of programs today including one because the owner hasn't been heard from in almost a month. No worries as far as that program was concerned, but she also owns one of my favorite programs, Disco-Dollars. For now, I'm removing Disco from my list of recommended PTRs.

Payments This Week

I think I'll try to make these payment updates a regularly weekly thing. This week, they included:

ItPaysToLearn: $0.26
ClassicalMail: $0.50
MailingMoney4U: $3.02
Total: $3.78

The payment from IPTL was for verifying my PayPal account. I sent them $0.01, they sent me back $0.26 -- and now they know I have a valid PayPal account, and that at least according to PayPal, I am who I say I am. Win-win.

The payment from ClassicalMail was for about 2 weeks 'work'. Most, if not all, of the ads they send are for fairly useless PPC search engines, and at one point there was talk that they wouldn't pay members who weren't doing enough valid searches. If I find out that's true, I'll quit, but so far they've paid me quickly, with no hassles.

And finally, the payment from MM4U has been a looooong time coming. I joined this program on 9 April, 2003 and finally earned enough to request payment this week. It took me 8 months to earn the last dollar I needed to request a $3 payment. I was paid quickly and courteously, and then I deleted my account. Nothing against MM4U or it's owner, but it just wasn't for me.

I've still go a few other payment requests pending, and hopefully I'll receive the payments in the next couple of weeks. I'm also only 10 cents short of the $25 minimum balance needed to request a payment from PureProfile, and I've been getting heaps of surveys from them, so it shouldn't take long before they deposit another payment into my bank account. They've really picked up lately, and for the last 4 months, I've been averaging earnings of around $5.50 for doing 3 or 4 surveys each month. Sweet!

More Payments

Just a quick update on payments:

• BeeHiveMails: $1.14
  
• HeavenlyEmail: $3.22
  
• Total: $4.36
  

Every little bit helps. Neither of those payments was requested, so I got a nice surprise when I checked the balance in my PayPal account.

More Payments!

I've just checked my PayPal account and I've gotten several more payments in the last week or so.

SendMeCash	$0.13
BannerFoxAds	$0.07
Avant-Cash	$2.18
Mesmerizing-Mails	$0.84
Total	$3.22

Not a lot, but keep in mind that some of those payments were for reading no more than 1 or 2 emails a week, so it's not exactly a lot of effort.

And it's also important to keep in mind that the earnings from reading the emails shouldn't be the only reason for joining and participating in PTRs. Hopefully the ads themselves provide value. Unfortunately at the moment a lot of the ads sent through PTRs are for low-quality search engines that don't provide much of value. But even with those, sometimes you find something worth looking into.

I Got Paid!

Wow, it's been a pretty good week online so far. I received a $30 check from EmailCash, as well as quite a few paid surveys (total value around $10-12), and a $50 payment for some short articles I wrote. Plus my wife has made quite a few eBay sales. And somewhere in there I think I received a payment from BeeHiveMail -- only $1 but hey, you got to start somewhere, right?