All I needed was a place to host my swidget...

But I sign up here and learn there's such a thing as Amazon Associates! YAY! One more way to get a few pennies here and there, which really do add up in the end. So far I'm up to $185 using Amazon Mechanical Turk and $10 on Swagbucks. Not too shabby for a month's work!

I was skeptical about MTurk after reading reviews, but their gloomy predictions have not turned out to be very accurate. Maybe those reviewers didn't realize they can sort HITS or search by type? I have my MTurk page set to show highest paying first, use Turkopticon to sort out the bad requesters and always search for and do any academic surveys first things in the morning. I've done surveys paying up to $4 but those are snapped up quickly, so you always have to check early. I will do a writing job if it pays adequately or is painfully easy and worth at least $1. It only takes me ten minutes to bang out a quick 150 word article on some basic topic and even the larger ones (such as 600 word) only take half an hour or so. I double-check my articles through a spelling and grammar tool online to make sure they're not rejected. Prior to learning about Turkopticon I did get burned by a few ruthless requesters, but since then it's all been good. I'm working on bringing my percent of approval back up to 99% and am over 500 hits already.

As far as Swagbucks goes, I've seen friends post about it on Facebook for a while now but was reluctant to try until recently. Since our budget took a massive hit with my van dying, I no longer have the luxury of waiting around for things to improve. Upon biting the bullet and signing up I learned it was not really all that hard and only takes about five to ten minutes a day to complete. I earn a $5 Amazon.com gift card every week and a half at this point, though having signed up people under me as referrals that may speed up.

Since I needed a place to host Swagbuck's Swidget I started this blog and in so doing learned about the Amazon Associates program for bloggers. The purchases that anyone makes through the Amazon portals on my blog will provide a cash kickback to me. Another way to earn and save!