Pin Money (Online Perks in general)

Member Name: MagdaDH

Product:	Online Perks in general
Date:	19/06/09 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: extra pennies and pounds

Disadvantages: hardly a living wage

I will only very briefly concern myself here with anything that requires setting up your own "proper" website, writing html code or actively selling any products. I will summarise the way to earn some pin money on-line, most of which I either do now or was doing at some point in my life. I will also point to some ways you can save money on your normal spending rather than actually earn it as such. But let's start with earning.

=== EARN ===

1) Writing reviews

I have to include this one, don't I? This is pretty obvious, as this is what we are all doing here on dooyoo. However, the key to making the process worthwhile is to basically write once and post many times. There are several review sites that are at least worth a try out-there, and a few others which are conditionally worth checking depending on what your pet subject might be.

Dooyoo, obviously, takes the prize for being the best, what with 50p per review of at least 150 words and additional 1.5p for each member read. But you can generate a bit more money from your reviews by reposting them on Ciao (which doesn't technically pay per review, but has a Premium Fund that gets mysteriously but - at least in recent months - quite nicely - distributed among the reviewers).

All or most of your reviews can be also reposted on other sites that are not completely review -orientated but accept reviews as well, the prime one as for now being Helium which has a nice upfront payment system, but requires a bit of activity on site. You can also repost your reviews on other paying sites that don't require exclusive content - for example Associated Content.

There are also more specialised sites, which offer payment in some form for reviews or other content/activities - a good example is the travel site Trivago.

2) Writing other articles

You can also get paid for other kinds of texts online. Helium is a prime example of such a site: their upfront payments (conditional on some activity on the site) apply not only to reviews but also to information articles on a variety of subjects.

Helium also has a revenue share programme, which allows you to benefit from non-member reads. This depends entirely on the subjects of your articles, and without big efforts will amount to pennies, but they all add up.

I joined Associated Content when they had a promotion which 10USD paid for submitting five articles last year and to be honest didn't bother to repost much of my other stuff, but theoretically it's possible and it's another avenue to earn those pennies. Other sites like that include Bukisa and Xomba (both with slight differences in PPV and the way they operate), which I have not personally tested yet, so can't really comment on - but the point is, nice you have a piece of content, you can post it in many places and once you have 200 of them, all the pennies might add up to a few dollars (as most of these sites are US based and pay in US money).

There are several other sites that operate on a revenue-share basis, but many of them actually demand either exclusive (original and not re-postable) content, for example suite101.com which demands exclusive rights for a year, or Triond which demands exclusive rights for ever; others have a specific format to follow - eg squido or eHow, or are limited in what type of text you can submit (eg shvoong which wants synopses of books and crib sheets).


3) Selling your photos

Some of the sites mentioned above also accept video and photo content, but there is a number of sites dedicated specifically to pictures which potentially allow you to make some money from your images. A few include: istockphoto.com, dreamstime.com, 123rf.com, freedigitalphotos.net and quite a few more. I have not used any of these sites myself, so don't know how many and how unique photos you need to contribute to see any earnings, but I know people who do get a bit.

4) Survey filling

Among dooyoo users, survey filling is one of the better known pursuits and it's certainly a way to make a few quid a month if you are diligent and not easily bored.

5) Ads and affiliate links

If you have a blog or a website of your own with a reasonable number of visitors, you can make some money by enrolling in an advertising programme like Google AdSense as well as by using affiliate links appropriate to the content of your site or blog which pay you commission if visitors from your site sign up to a service or purchase a particular product.

Amazon Associate programme is very easy to use and has no risk involved in it (if you don't sell, you don't earn).

=== SAVE ===


6) Search for best prices

This can be done using price comparison engines (dooyoo offers one, but perhaps not a greatest one; kelkoo and pricerunner are also quite good, depending on a product, as is simply googling it). Savings can be quite big, especially on higher-ticket prices - as much as 30% of a price is routine.

7) Use cashback sites

There is a raft of sites that pay you some money if you shop using their links, and quite a few pay a bit even for just performing certain actions or signing up to free trials. My favourite ones are Cashbackkings and its mother site Rpoints, but depending on your spending patterns others (Quidco, Topcashback, Mutual, Pigsback) might suit you better. If you never used any of the cashback sites, do - even just to do all the free trials and pocket fairly easy money pretty quickly.

In some cases you can actually get stuff for free - I routinely order masses of stuff from online catalogue shops to try on and compare (I am fat and tall and big chested, so I need to) and then usually just keep a few items - if you do that using cashback links, you might find out that the cashback actually pays for the item(s) you keep. Theoretically they could reduce the cashback according to what you actually end up buying, but it almost never happens with my orders.

The cashback sites can and should be used in combination with price comparison sites to find the best deals for bank accounts, utility providers, telecoms, insurance and similar services. For insurance, some cashback sites offer a (small) payment just for obtaining a quote. Financial products have lots of dedicated sites, I often use moneysupermarket. Skyscanner is great for cheap flights.

8) Search for discount codes

Depending on what site you are buying from, sometimes it's better to find a discount voucher code than use a cashback site (occasionally you can even combine both, but cashback sites with the best rewards don't track if you use discount codes). It's very worth looking for those, as often you can save the delivery cost or anything between 5% and 20% of your order value.

9) Use financial advice sites for deals and perks

The best of these in the UK is probably themoneysavingexpert, although it's a bit heavy on the eye.

10) Get freebies

There are quite a few freebie sites out there, by far the best in my opinion is the "Freebies" forum on Rpoints (it's worth becoming a member of Rpoints just for that and the voucher code table). Many of these are quite paltry: samples and useless little bits of rubbish; but some are quite good and I can't image ever learning about them otherwise, from a two months' free Railcard to decently sized samples of cosmetics.

11) Freecycle and swap

Freecycle.org offers great opportunity for picking up some second hand stuff for free (I have recently given away a Chicco stroller and an ELC pink wooden palace), while sites like ReadItSwapIt and BookMooch allow you to get books for the cost of postage.

*****************

A lot of the above does take a bit of time, and to be honest if you can earn anything close to minimum wage when and where you want to it's probably not worthwhile just for the sake of it.

However, some are so easy it would be silly not to (for example using cashback sites for actual purchases) and some are fun (dooyooing).

Summary: make some money online