Earn a Penny: Free stuff, programs, and so forth (July 26, 2008)

Alright, it's time to go over the various things I'm doing to try to make money and garner free stuff, and to see how effective they are. First of all, here's my mail call from the past couple of days:

-- Free sample of NatureMade Liquid Softgels Multi Complete
-- Free copy of GD USA (Graphic Design USA)
-- MYMONEY personal finance toolkit
-- Free issue of MAD magazine
-- Free issue of Spin magazine
-- Free sample of Hyland's Leg Cramps with Quinine

Not bad. Not exactly checks and gift cards, but still not bad. Speaking of checks and gift cards, let's look at the websites I'm busy at:

-- Gather. Of course, how could I go without mentioning Gather? They're hosting this article, and I'm getting paid for the fact that you're reading it. $27 and rising, and I think I'll cash out at $50 again unless we need food before then. Since you're reading this, you're probably already a member!

-- Half.com. Yes, it's not your traditional 'make money' site, but I've made total sales of $38.90 in the past two weeks, which is pretty nifty. Of course, much of that is shipping costs, but you can't have everything...

-- Boomertowne. It's starting to get a little unreliable over there, but I'm at around 23,000 points (73,000 overall) and want to get my next gift card (cost: 25,125 points). I've gotten two from them already, after all. Still, the fact that it takes two months to deliver (and might be getting worse) means that I might be waiting a long time for this to pay out. At least my forgetfulness to drop in and visit means that I don't have to worry about losing my account like some of the more active folks have. If you're interested in joining and want to give me some credit for referring you, let me know what email address you want to use to sign up and I'll send you an invite.

-- Spotwinner. Spotwinner is one of those newer additions to my repertoire -- basically, you watch ads, you get entries in weekly sweepstakes for cash and prizes, and you also earn SpotCash, which you can trade in for gift cards and such as usual. You get ten points of SpotCash per ad watched, and something small like a $5 Amazon.com gift card costs 5000 SpotCash. (In short, each ad viewed is worth one cent.) Interesting, and doesn't use too much time.

-- MyCoolContests. At least with some programs you get a sense of progress. With MyCoolContests, everything is luck of the draw, and the only way to win is to check over one hundred pages every day to see if any of them are a win for you. The only way to win reliably is to refer others (every person you refer gives you one extra chance to win - which is a nice way of saying that every person someone else refers lowers your chances of winning). That said, if you're interested in joining and want to give me some credit for referring you, let me know what email address you want to use to sign up and I'll send you an invite, because I'd like to actually win something so I can see what their delivery time and performance is like.

-- Platinum Lounge. Platinum Lounge attempts to combine the basic concept of 'paid to post' with a lot of glitz and glamour, and doesn't always succeed. The upside is that your earnings can be loaded on a debit card and used immediately; the downside is that (as far as I can tell) unless you're one of the top earners on the site, you can't actually cash out, and 100 points is worth $0.18. Honestly, I can do better things with my time, but if you're interested in joining and want to give me some credit for referring you, let me know what email address you want to use to sign up and I'll send you an invite. (And if there's any Platinum Lounge users out there, someone explain to me and the users how this works, huh?)

-- Yuwie. Yuwie is, basically, a version of Myspace that you get paid for. You get paid for your pageviews, and for the pageviews others do on your site. The fact that you get paid very little per individual page view, well... so it goes. I've yet to hear anyone talk about Yuwie's social networking aspects -- the tools are there, but it's still up to the members to make use of them. You'd think that all it'd really take to do well is to get an active conversation going, you know? Still, considering you earn roughly four cents per thousand views, this is probably not going to make you rich, either.

-- MySearchBonus. So far I'm doing fairly well - I use this (and/or one of the other three search engines listed below) when I need to look for something, and I get one point for each search. I'm at 233 points at the moment, with 1000 points necessary to acquire a $10 gift card. (In short, each search is worth one cent.)

-- SwagBucks. This one's a little more random - you do a search, and you might receive one, two, or five SwagBucks. A $5 gift card costs only 50 SwagBucks (giving a SwagBuck an equivalent value of ten cents), but due to the random factor, it's hard to tell how long it'll take for you to get there. (I'm currently at 13 SwagBucks.)

-- Scour. Scour combines a few ideas into one - you get a point for searching, but you also get points for voting on or commenting on websites, building a feedback area for websites so that other users can see whether or not a site is worthwhile. You can cash out 6,500 points for $25 (sent via VISA card), and can earn up to four points per unique search per day through various actions (voting's worth two points; commenting's worth three), with repeats not counted. It also has a variety of plugins that let you use it as a toolbar in various browsers, should you be so inclined.

-- Ximmy. This one I'm not so sure about - I haven't done much with it just yet. Basically, you search for sites, you review them, you earn points, and you can discuss things with other members. You can redeem your points earned for cash at the rate of 1,000 for $10 (payment made via PayPal.)

-- MyPoints. You probably already know this one -- you do various things, like take surveys, visit sites, and buy stuff, and you earn points for it. Me, I take surveys and visit sites, but I can't afford to buy things. Still, I've got 1,945 points at the moment - enough to pick up the low-end $10 gift cards (roughly 1,500 points) if I were so inclined. If you're interested in joining and want to give me some credit for referring you, let me know what email address you want to use to sign up and I'll send you an invite.

-- Ipsos I-Say. You take surveys, you get points, you exchange them for gift certificates and chances to win fabulous prizes via sweepstakes. Nothing spectacularly new, although ten cents' value even if you aren't accepted for a survey is better than just a sweepstakes entry. (A ten-dollar gift certificate costs 100 points through Ipsos i-Say. You earn four points for most 15-minute surveys, or one point if you don't qualify for a particular survey.) If you're interested in joining and want to give me some credit for referring you, let me know what email address you want to use to sign up and I'll send you an invite.

-- GlobalTestMarket. Pays 5 points for surveys you aren't accepted for, and up to eighty for surveys you complete. You can redeem your MarketPoints for cash once you have at least 1,000 (at the rate of five cents per MarketPoint). It's not bad, but it does take a while to get to 1,000 - I'm currently at 505. If you're interested in joining and want to give me some credit for referring you, let me know what email address you want to use to sign up and I'll send you an invite.

-- Opinion Outpost. Stop me if you've heard this one -- you fill out surveys, you earn points for completing these surveys, and you can convert these points into cash. Only difference is, I'm actually expecting a check (for $8.90) from these guys. You have to earn at least 50 Opinion Points in order to cash them out, and each point is worth ten cents. However, you only get points if you are accepted into the survey. If you're interested in joining and want to give me some credit for referring you, let me know what email address you want to use to sign up and I'll send you an invite.

-- NPDOR. Honestly, not terribly impressive - you take surveys, you earn points that you can spend on chances in various sweepstakes. Obviously, this means your chances of winning anything are fairly low - I've never won anything - but the prizes would be good if I could win one. Still, if you're interested in joining and want to give me some credit for referring you, let me know what email address you want to use to sign up and I'll send you an invite.

So that's what I'm up to at the moment. Incidentally, if you're thinking of signing up for these or other services, and don't particularly want to receive tons of spam later, you might consider signing up for SneakEmail (http://sneakemail.com/). The basic premise? It's an email forwarding service that allows you to create a @sneakemail.com address to give out, receive emails at your normal email box, and delete the @sneakemail.com address when you notice it's being hit with spam. I'm trying it out to see how well it works, and you might want to give it a try too if you tend to find yourself required to fill in a lot of contact email forms (such as for free samples, in particular.)

Best of luck in all your endeavours!