Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New Year!

Best wishes for 2010, may it be better than the years that came before!

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Happy Holidaze & the Juggling Act that is my Life!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! Our Christmas budget was pretty low this year, but thanks to family Zak still had a great day with more toys now then we have bins for.



Life has been pretty hectic around here lately to say the least, and this past month has went by almost at the blink of an eye for me. I'm trying to figure out how to manage my 18 month old while nursing my 4week old and working on my laptop all at the same time. It's a real juggling act but it's my way of life now. I can't wait until my son learns to listen when I tell him "No, please leave Mommy's laptop alone". He broke my last laptop, and already managed to ding my new one up a couple times.

On top of all that, I've have a migraine since right after delivery as a result of spinal fluid leakage from the epidural - making concentrating a bit of a challenge as well. I've been hesitant to go back to the hospital for the blood patch to stop the leak with a baby who wants to nurse 24/7 so it's something I'm just trying to work through for now.

Hectic or not, life must go on and the bills must be paid. I somehow managed to complete training and start working for both ChaCha and kgb_. I can't write much about them, as I don't want to violate my contract in anyway so I will not be giving totals for these two. Both are hiring now however if anyone is interested in adding additional eggs to their baskets.

The Livework project is supposed to pick back up the beginning of January now, and this will be what I plan to put the majority of my free time (ha!) and effort into as it has the most earning potential. Now I just have to figure out how to get more computer time in!

November Summary ...

My November totals are pretty slim. I was really counting on the LiveWork team I was working on to pick back up, which it didn't. I did get accepted into a new team about a week ago, and work is supposed to pick back up the beginning of January. Otherwise, in November I was super busy getting ready for the baby and working for my web design clients trying to get all major projects done before I went into labor.

CloudCrowd:   $ 2.07
AroundMe:      $23.97

November Total: $26.04

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Thanksgiving Baby News!



I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I welcomed my baby girl into the world on Thanksgiving morning, 11/26/2009 at 7:13am - weighing 7lbs 3oz and 21.25" long. I just got back home from the hospital yesterday, and I am enjoying a babymoon at home now with my husband, son, and new baby girl.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Swagbucks, PeopleString & AroundMe

Happy Friday! It has been a busy week for me, spent mostly trying to tie up as many loose ends as possible before I go into labor. I caught up on all my business work for the week and managed to sneak a couple new side opportunities into the mix. Since I'm so close to my due date, I'm being careful to only take on projects I can take a break from when the baby comes so my side project earnings this month probably won't be too impressive. Every little bit counts though for my family right now as I'm sure it does for most others!

Swagbucks
I finally decided to try out Swagbucks after seeing it mentioned quite a bit. It's a search engine website that rewards you for using it for searches, online shopping, cellphone and video game trade ins, referrals, etc. Their rewards currency is called swag bucks, which you earn randomly from searches. You can cash them in for items in their rewards catalog and even for PayPal cash deposits. Once you get to 45 swag bucks you can get a $5 Amazon git card. This is what I'll be saving for unless they put some of the other rewards on sale. I installed their toolbar yesterday to remember to use them for more searches and have been getting more wins with swag bucks since doing that. I'm only a few days into it, but it seems to be an easy way to accumulate some gift certificates. I also went ahead and traded in 2 of my old cellphones that were headed for the Best Buy cell phone recycle bin, they paid postage and I'll be getting a couple swag bucks for it. I will post an update when I get my first Amazon gift card!

Search & Win

PeopleString
I signed up for PeopleString the beginning of the month to see what it's all about. They pay you to read mail. After signing up you complete a survey and then they mail you a post card to your home. Once you get the post card (it took a couple weeks for me to get mine), it will give you your code to use on the website. Just for entering the code in you get $1.50. After that you begin to get mail to your Cashbox, and you make money just for reading it! Pretty easy. The minimum payout is $25, and they pay every 2 weeks. You also get paid to receive postal mail (which I haven't gotten as of yet). I'm hoping the mail starts flowing soon so the money can add up to enough to cash out.  Be sure to keep the code they send in the mail, you will need to enter it to get money for reading the mail to your cashbox!




AroundMe.com
Aroundme.com is paying $25 for users to write 10 reviews for them on local businesses such as restaurants, doctors, salons, & banks. They want the reviews to be short, only 60-150 words total so it is a very quick and easy project. This is a one time thing, and only ongoing until November 24th. If you are interested, you will need to have a Facebook account. You have to apply through their Facebook page, here is the link to the job listing and instructions: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Around-Me/132806203731?v=app_4949752878&ref=ts

I did not hear back right away, as it seems it is a manual review process of applicants. I wanted to be sure to get this one done quick in case I went into labor early so I contacted them and heard back with further instructions fairly quickly. I don't want to post her direct email because of spammers, but they have a contact form on their site you can try if you don't hear back, http://aroundme.com/page/contact.

I got my $25 PayPal transfer earlier today. Here's my Payment Proof.

Monday, November 9, 2009

IMshopping and iRazoo

I'm 37 weeks pregnant now, and nesting has kicked into full force. I have not gotten as much work done as I should be doing, and trying to prepare for the baby's arrival is costing us more then we can afford. So of course, I had a reality check when I took a look at our budget! Yikes! End result - I kicked myself into gear to work more on building supplemental income. Here's what I'm working on ...

IMshopping
Not too long ago, on the wahm forums, I saw an opportunity from IMshopping. I finally made the time to look into it this weekend, and it is actually a great website! You can post your shopping questions, and guides will do the footwork for you to find the answers to your questions. I am an avid product researcher - ALWAYS - in search of the best products and deals that can be had, and I love to help people out as well, so I look forward to the opportunity to become a shopping guide with them. Anyone who signs up can answer and ask questions. And even if you are not hired on as guide, you get paid for answers that are selected as the best answer! Best Answers pay $2, and the cash out minimum with them is $40, payable through PayPal or gift card. Minimum cash out goes down to $20 for paid guides, and they get paid for every question answered plus bonus for Best Answers! A great little opportunity.

You have to answer 25 questions to qualify for the chance to become a guide. I have 5 down so far and really hope I will get the opportunity to become a paid guide once I make it up to 25. In the meantime I am hoping some of my answers will get "Best Answer".

They are also running a weekly contest currently, if you ask at least 10 questions a day you are entered to win $50. With a baby on the way and Christmas so near I have plenty of shopping questions on my mind to post!

Other details I was given:
  • Minimum Age Requirement: 16 years old
  • Must be active once a week for four weeks
  • Must ask 2 questions minimum (no max)
If you decide to sign up, which I really recommend you give it a try to ask your shopping questions if nothing else, please consider using my invite link by clicking here.

iRazoo
I read about iRazoo from a fellow wahm mom, and it sounds like a great opportunity to rake in some gift certificates. If you search the web daily anyhow like I do, it's not much of a job at all, just a matter of remembering to use the iRazoo website to perform your searches. You get points for every search you do, and more points if you rate and comment on the webpages you pull up in the searches. They cap the points at 300 a day, and it takes 3,000 to turn them into $5 Amazon gift certificates. They have a rewards catalog with other cash out options if you rather save your points up for larger rewards. You also can get more points for referrals and by completing merchant partner offers. Plus they enter you to win a $500 Amazon gift certificate just for using their search. Today's my first day, and I got my maximum points in. I look forward to seeing them add up daily now so I can claim some rewards!

If you decide to try iRazoo out, please consider using my sign up link so I can get credit!



That's it for now, I have to get ready for my weekly doctors appointment now! I will work on IMshopping more later today as well as some nesting around the house! :grin:

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Summary of my October Adventures ...

The following is a summary of what I worked on last month. I'm only listing side work from home projects that I am working on to build into supplemental income for my family. I also run a business from home, offering web related services such as domain name registrations, hosting, email, SSL certificates, Fax-through-email and more through Planetmono.com. If you are looking for affordable web services or domain registrations please consider checking out my website! I also do website design and maintenance through my other website, WebMono.com.

LiveWork
LiveWork is a website run by LiveOps where you can apply to work on virtual teams to work on outsourced projects for companies. The website appears to be relatively new, but seems to have potential. I applied for a job last month working on answering queries for dictionary.com, and it paid out as promised (although there was a slight delay). That particular project is temporarily on hold, they are streamlining the process, but should be back up and running again soon. I've applied for a couple other projects on LiveWork, but still awaiting replies from the project leaders. I'm looking forward to starting back up on the query project when it picks back up, and hoping some of the other projects on here pan out as well! Here is my payment proof from the Compose Query Answers Project!

CashCrate
I have heard good things about CashCrate so I decided to give it a go. It's a pay-per survey/offer website. In addition to getting paid to complete surveys and offers, they also give cash back for online shopping. They have a related program through Facebook as well, so you can also earn from referrals you have sign up and complete offers through the Facebook app! I recommend you create an email address just for using for their surveys and offers as I did notice an increase in spam from some of them. I haven't made enough yet here for payment proof cash outs - but I really haven't spent much time on it as of yet. Just with the couple surveys I did, I have $3.90 in my account with them so far though. If you sign up, please consider using my referral link so I can get credit for it, I made sure to sign up under another work at home mom as well, here is my CashCrate Refferal Link: http://www.cashcrate.com/1631461

CloudCrowd
CloudCrowd is a pay per task type opportunity that you can work on through a Facebook application. It is a new company, and the amount of work available has been low since there are more people working on the tasks then there is work to be done at the moment. The thing I like about this opportunity is that it pays out the next business day to Paypal. For October, I did only a few tasks and I got a PayPal payment for $0.21 (Payment Proof). They have also been working on streamlining things and getting more tasks up so hopefully this will develop into a more profitable egg as some point. They added a feature now that emails you an alert when work becomes available, and today I was able to jump on it and earn a little in a short time frame. If you sign up, again, please consider using my referral link so I can get credit for it, here is my CloudCrowd Referral link: http://apps.facebook.com/cloudcrowd/invite/1a29b6

In addition to these, I have been applying to other opportunities as well. So far I haven't heard back from any - but I will continue try at it! That's it for my work at home adventures for October. It might not be much, but it's a start!

October Totals:
LiveWork: $41.96 (Payment Proof)
CloudCrowd: $ 0.21 (Payment Proof)
-----------------------------------------------
Total: $42.17

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Work at Home Mom - bringing in money from home!

I'm a work at home mom and small business owner. I have a 16 month old baby boy, and am currently 35 weeks pregnant with baby number two. My husband works a 8-5 job, and I stay home with the baby and do whatever I can from home to bring in additional income to help pay the bills and support the family. I'm always on the look out for opportunities to supplement our income, and decided to start this blog to share my WAHM adventures! Stay tuned, I will post as I find new work at home opportunities and I will follow up occasionally with how they pan out for me.