Earning Money Online–May Earnings

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The first post of the month, as always deals with my monthly earnings. I’ve set a goal of earning $5,000 online via various methods this year. I think the goal is achievable with a little hard work. Through April, I had earned a total of $913.13, which was an average of over $200 per month. May was a better month in terms of online earnings.

In May, I had the following earnings via online methods:

Freelance Writing: $387.19

Hubpages: $77.41

CashCrate: $81.93

MTurk: $4.80

Total online earnings for May 2013: $551.33

After adding the $913.13 that I’ve earned prior to this month, my total earnings for the year are up to $1,464.46, just over $3,500 short of the ultimate goal.

This was a record for online earnings for a month. I am hoping to eclipse it over the next few months. The goal is to start out with small numbers and then have them snowball over time into some really serious money. The best way to make real money is through passive income. These sources would be sources that continue to pay out over time with minimal work. Of course, there is some hard work necessary in the initial days and months of earning money online.

The next monthly earning results will be posted in the first half of next month. Hopefully, these earnings can inspire others to earn some extra money on the web.

 

Earn Money from Home to Pay off Debt

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Debt is a serious problem in the United States. The national debt is over $16 trillion (that is 16 and 12 zeroes behind it). College students can borrow up to six figures to earn a degree. This is a very big deal for new college students, because they graduate with a ton of debt that hampers their ability to get ahead in life. Earning some extra money in spare time can help toward paying off debts and help debtors start to get ahead in their finances.

Some debt can be necessary or even advisable. Few people will be able to buy a house with cash, for example. Additionally, a home mortgage makes quite a bit of sense in many parts of the country because the monthly expense incurred in buying a decent starter home can cost much less than the monthly rent payment. Buyers can recoup much of the money pay into a mortgage, but they only enrich others by renting. Borrowing a little bit to get a degree in engineering or nursing might make sense because of the increased income possibilities that will be available after earning the degree.

There is debt that is pretty useless, however. Buying a Starbucks coffee on credit is not the best financial move by any stretch of the imagination. Rather than paying $5, the cost might wind up being double when the interest involved in paying off the card is added in. A $10 cup of coffee would have to be very, very good to justify the expense.

In thinking of biblical finances, the Scriptures talk about debt and the crippling effect that it his on the lives of those who owe. Proverbs 22:7 (ESV) notes:

7 The rich rules over the poor,
and the borrower is the slave of the lender.

While many people think that people are poor because of some fault of their own, this is not necessarily the case. However, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who is poor that has power over any government nationwide. Poor people don’t tend to run major companies. This is not saying anything against the poor, it is just saying that they have less control over their lives.

In the day that the proverb was written, the borrower could very well wind up a slave of the lender. Selling oneself into slavery to pay off a debt was fairly common in the ancient world. Debtor’s prisons were even common (for the poor) in early American history. Those who owed money traditionally had several negative consequences that could come about. Today, there is the possibility of negative aspects of  bankruptcy, and filing for bankruptcy hurts the ability to get certain jobs and definitely hampers the ability to get credit in the future.

For these reasons, debt should be kept to a minimum.  Teens as young as 13 can take some of the tips offered on this site to start making some additional money to get a good start. Adults can start making a few bucks a day to help with monthly finances. Both those who want to pay off debt and those who want to stay out of debt can benefit by trying to earn money in pajamas from home in their spare time.

Earn Money at Home with Treasure Trooper

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Earning money in pajamas frequently requires using a variety of earning streams. Some will be very similar in some ways. One of the ways that I’ve used to earn money without leaving home over the past few weeks is the site Treasure Trooper. Treasure Trooper is much like CashCrate, which I’ve already reviewed here.

Treasure Trooper is a Get Paid To (GPT) site on which users can complete a number of cash offers or surveys that pay. Many of these are the same options that are available on CashCrate. One of the biggest differences is the email notifications that Treasure Trooper offers for surveys and offers that might be beneficial to certain users. Treasure Trooper

The image above shows that I have gotten paid by Treasure Trooper. They initially pay users with a check, and these checks can actually be requested at any time that members request it after they have at least $20 in their account. There is a $0.50 fee for requesting the automatic payout. Otherwise, the check will be sent after the 15th of the month in which the member earns $20.

Treasure Trooper also has a number of games that people can play. Therefore, users will earn Dragon Scales, Arrowheads, or other “Treasure” to finish these games. People can get dragon eggs and then hatch them, raise the dragons to maturity, and sell them for amounts that start around $5. I’ve not done much with these games, but I do have a dragon that needs touches.

Treasure Trooper is a fun site in some ways with the games and such, but I’ve been much more active on CashCrate because of the much better referral program. CashCrate offers users a greater percentage of their referrals’ earnings after certain levels are met. The games are more entertaining on Treasure Trooper, but it seems like more time is spent to earn money, in my opinion. I’ve used both and gotten paid by both, so they are definitely not scams. I can say without reservation that Treasure Trooper is not a scam, but rather a legitimate way to earn a few extra dollars from home.

Earning Money from Home–April Earnings Report

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Back in January, as noted on this site, I set a goal to earn $5,000 via various online means without leaving home during 2013. We are now done with four months of the year. As of the end of March, I reported a total of $638 and some change for the first three months of the year. I actually understated this amount, because I forgot to include the money that I earned from HubPages during the month. These earnings will be included below.

I did pretty well on some accounts during the month of April, considering that I was finishing up a major project for grad school. My goal is to get passive income that starts to snowball over time. I seem to be making close a buck a day from work I’ve already done. The goal is to turn that into $2, then into $5, then into…you get the idea. Passive income is the best kind of income. But, I digress. Without further ado, this is what I was able to make over the course of April (please note that these earnings do not include accrued earnings that will be paid out later):

HubPages: $70.77

Squidoo: $1.43

Freelance Writing: $127.91

Swagbucks: $50

Treasure Trooper: $20.71

MTurk: $4.03

My total earnings for the month totaled $274.85. This brings my total earnings for the year up to $913.13. With what I have already earned this month, I’m already over $1,000. What kind of earnings goals have you set this year?

 

Swagbucks Pays Off

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A few months ago, I posted a review of the site Swagbucks. I also posted that Swagbucks is a great option for teenagers to earn a bit of extra money. American teens who are at least 13 can sign up at any time. The site only works in the US, the UK, and Canada. I just wanted to verify my earlier assessment of this site. Those living in one of the countries listed above can sign up for Swagbucks here.

I spend about five minutes (if that) on the site on most days. The site offers random amounts of digital currency for searches. It is possible to get 20-30 Swagbucks per day just by searching the web. Each Swagbuck is worth about a cent. A cent might not seem like much (and it isn’t), but when cents are added up, they make up dollars.

I won over 20 Swagbucks with one search.

I won over 20 Swagbucks with one search. They add up to get gift cards quickly.

I have been saving up the Swagbucks for a bit. It is possible to cash in on e-gift cards for between 450 (Amazon.com) and 500 Swagbucks (just about everything else).  I decided to cash in at 5,000 Swagbucks. I was able to snag a $50 Walmart gift card. I chose Walmart because they actually allow you to use the certificate in the store. Target and most other retailers require you to use the e-gift card on online purchases.

Those who want straight up cash can sign up for a PayPal account and deposit the funds directly. They can then be transferred into a bank account. The cash can then be spent or saved in any manner that is desired. Swagbucks definitely pays off for those who want to make money in pajamas. Sign up for Swagbucks today by following this link.

Earning Money in Pajamas with MTurk

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I will not earn a commission or referral fee if you sign up for MTurk.

In my series on making money online via various sites, I read about several people earning money through Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk website, more commonly known as MTurk.

MTurk is effectively a site on which people all around the world can get paid to do certain tasks that people need done. These tasks are known as Human Intelligence Tasks, or HITs.

It is necessary for those wanting to use the site to first sign up for MTurk. The process is fairly short and simple. After signing up and getting account approval, you can then start working on tasks. There are usually somewhere between 150,000 and 400,000 tasks that can be chosen at any given time. Fork example, as I am writing this, there were 225,099 HITs available for site users.

The amount of money that each task pays out varies by quite a bit. Many will pay a cent or two, others will pay several dollars. The types of tasks that people can complete are as widely varied as taking surveys, recording information based upon Google searches, writing short articles or blog posts, or transcribing audio files. Most of the more lucrative options are of the transcription variety.

I decided to try out MTurk for a bit, doing a HIT here and there. Most were around $0.10 or $0.20. I earned $6.61, and decided to cash out. It is possible for users to cash out at any time after getting $1.00 in their account. The earnings can then be posted to either an Amazon.com gift card account or a bank account. I opted for depositing the funds into my Amazon account. They showed up immediately.

Is MTurking a great way to make a full-time income from home? Nope. The per hour pay is pretty low, and the marketplace is nearly global in scope because of the Internet. It is possible to do a hit during each commercial break or between pitches, however. These dollars can add up over time and help with bills or Christmas or birthday presents. I have seen some stories that show people making thousands on the MTurk site. I probably won’t, but, apparently, it is possible to do so.

MTurk is another in the plethora of possibilities when it comes to making money online. Those who want to earn money in pajamas without leaving the house are sure to find plenty of opportunity if they are willing to look for it and then work.

Earning Money in Pajamas–March Earnings

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I’m doing a yearlong experiment in trying to make money in pajamas without leaving home. (I do have a more “regular” job, so this is not all of my income.) I’ve been making updates to my monthly online earnings for the past couple of months. As stated earlier in the year, I am attempting to earn $5,000 online this year. That adds up to just a little over $400 per month. Through February, I had earned $442.70. Here is a link to my last report.

I continued working toward my goal during March and did a bit better than January.

I did more work as a freelance writer and earned a total of $156.10 on the freelancing site I use.

I also did a bit of work at Amazon’s MTurk at cashed out $6.61. You can sign up at Amazon.com for MTurk to do micro work. (I do not get a referral credit if you do.)

Finally, I received a check from CashCrate for $32.87. (I get referral credit if you sign up using the link. If you do, I thank you.)

This brings my total online earnings for the month to a total of $195.58. My total online earnings for the year are now up to $638.28. Just over $4,300 to go to make my goal.

Is CashCrate a Scam? I Got Paid by CashCrate

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Many people wonder if the online site CashCrate is a scam in which users get absolutely no money whatsoever after spending tons of time. I personally spend very little time on the site, but I got paid. Here is a picture of an actual check:

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA

My latest payment was actually over $32 for very little in the way of work. I do an occasional offer or survey and get paid. Some people who spend lots of time on the site make well over $200 each month. For stay-at-home moms or college students, this can be a big boost to income that can be done in very small chunks.

The first thing to do to make money with the site is to actually sign up with CashCrate. The site has one of the better referral programs on the web, and I’ve actually started to see a little bit trickle in via this method. I’ve read a couple of blogs that show proof that people have made well over $100,000 via this method.  banner

HubPages Review

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This month’s review is of the online writing platform HubPages. I have actually done quite a bit of work on this site over the past year or so. I’ve also earned a bit of money (some of it while sleeping–the definition of passive income) in the process.  This article will explain 1) what HubPages is, 2) how to write an article (Hub) on HubPages, 3) how to make money on the site, and 4) the benefits of the HubPages Apprenticeship program. 

What Is HubPages?

HubPages is a great site for aspiring writers to get their feet wet in the world of online writing. The barrier to entry is quite low, but those Hubs (webpages) that are poorly written or on a topic that is not of interest to anyone will not do well because it will get no traffic from the HubPages community or from Google and the other search engines.

Hubpages

It is easy to make an attractive webpage with no html or other coding experience, as the tools utilized by HubPages make it easy to set up a page by using a variety of modules. To avoid having a substandard hub, the site recommends that users post articles that are at least 500 words. It actually seems that articles of 1,500 words do best, but my best article has around 900 words (and over 6,000 page views).

Users can also insert pictures, videos, charts, maps, and polls that can help users interact even more. The site is a web 2.0 site, so it encourages interaction between both site users and visitors. There is a pretty active community that is quick to help in most instances.

How Do You Write a Hub?

The first thing that a person needs to do to write on HubPages is actually sign up on HubPages. After getting an account, it’s easy to start writing by clicking the link to “Start a New Hub” on the top right corner of the page. From there, users can go in and choose a title, set it within a set topic that will let HubPages users who are interested in the topic know that a new article is posted, and then move to the actual writing stage.

It is best to break up the actual Hub into several different modules for ease of reading. Also, it is good to use a variety of modules to make the Hub visually appealing. It is recommended that users place images in each Hub, preferably pictures taken personally.

How Do You Make Money on HubPages?

Making money on HubPages will probably not start immediately. Users will first have to get a Google AdSense account. While people used to be able to get one of these without any writing experience, now Google has clamped down a bit. It does seem that most people can get approved after writing a few articles, however.

HubPages splits revenue 60/40 with their users. 60 percent of all page impressions from a Hub sees the revenue go to the user. 40 percent goes to HubPages. Therefore, if Adsense is paying $0.10 per 1000 impressions, the user would likely get around $0.06 of that.

Do not rely only on AdSense, though. HubPages has their own ad program. Most users are able to do much better by using the HubPages ad program. I personally saw more money in one month after signing up for the ad program than I did in three months using only AdSense. The payout per impression is way higher with the ad program for most people.

Additionally, users can use modules that sell items from Amazon.com or eBay. Amazon users should first sign up for the Amazon Associates program so that they can get paid in this manner. Those who write product reviews will probably do better on selling Amazon products than someone writing on Jain philosophy or Aboriginal history. eBay pays out per click on their links. The amount varies based upon the product for sale. Users can use the Amazon modules without an AdSense account, while the eBay program requires signing up for Adsense.

Use the Apprenticeship Program to Maximize Earnings

One of the best ways to earn money on HubPages is through the Apprenticeship program. This program only takes people who have shown promise on the site or on their own blog or website. It actually goes through the process of what it takes to make a good hub by using keyword research and SEO methods. It also pays $6.09 per hub as long as the hub meets the requirements of the program.

The program lasts six months, and apprentices can get paid for up to 15 hubs per month, which is a payment of around $90. The minimum amount needed for payout is $50, so those who meet the minimum requirement of 8 hubs per month can get really close, even without much initial traffic. Additionally, the program allows graduates to continue getting the $6.09 bonus for six additional months as long as they write at least four hubs per month. Those who write the maximum each month will make around $1,000 in a year.

Additionally, some of those hubs will get page views. A few might even get quite a few page views. These views will earn money for the writer, so this program is a great way to make some money. As long as the site remains in business, the hubs will continue to make money for the author. Theoretically, an evergreen article (something that doesn’t need constant updating, yet remains relevant) will be able to make money 10 years into the future. This is a good example of passive income–the best kind of income.

Those who want to get started on this wonderful writing platform should sign up for HubPages today. Of course, earnings and success will vary. I will disclose that I will get a referral benefit should you choose to use my link (10% of the page impressions, which does not come out of your income). I thank you if you choose to do so.

Earning Money in Pajamas–February Earnings

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I continued in my goal of earning money in pajamas during the month of February. As I noted previously, it is important to set goals when trying to earn funds online. As noted in the previous article, I’ve set a goal of making $5,000 from my online activities during 2013.

Here is the latest earnings report for the month of February. Please note that I have also have additional money that I earned during the month that should come in at a later date. Again, I earned the most money from freelancing.

My earnings from freelancing came to $184.62 for the month.I also earned a total of $70.77 from HubPages.

The total for the month was $255.39.

When the earnings for January are added to this total, I have earned a total of $442.70. The money is starting to add up, and I’m trying to diversify my earning streams. Hopefully, I’ll be able to reach my overall goals. Do you have an earning goal for this year? How is it going? I’d be interested to know.