The easiest of the opportunities from the making money online section of that post are:

• Get paid to complete offers at CashCrate.com
• Get paid to take surveys at OpinionOutpost.com
• Get paid to search at Scour.com
• Review products and take online surveys at Vindale Research to earn money

Out of these, I am most familiar with CashCrate so I want to spotlight using it in this post.

Overview of CashCrate

Maybe they added more offers recently or maybe I just missed the good stuff earlier, but now there seems to be some worthwhile offers on the site.  When I first signed up for CashCrate, I poked around the site a little bit and tried out a small offer just to check it out.  I have to be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed by the opportunities presented by CashCrate at that time. The offers available today are much better, however.

CashCrate offers cash awards as well as points.  You simply complete the offers as specified, click on the Submit button back on the CashCrate site, and your account will be updated with "Pending earnings."  When CashCrate has confirmed that you fulfilled the offer, the money will be moved over to your Earnings column.  They have a very low payout threshold – you only have to earn $10 to get a check from them the following month.

Focus on the significant offers

There are a number of small offers of below $1.00 – basically you sign up to be on various email mailing lists and CashCrate will give you a small amount of money.  If you do this, I’d recommend that you create a separate email address.  That way you can keep track of the offers without inundating your standard email address.

To find the highest payout opportunities, sort the offers by "Payout." There are some significant payout options here.  As of this writing, the largest is $125 to sign up for DirectTV.  That’s right, if you sign up for DirectTV, CashCrate will give you $125.  Of course, signing up for DirectTV service is a significant commitment.

Where I think the most value is in the large payout offers (not as large as the DirectTV) that don’t require long-term commitments.  The two categories I look at first are the free product/service trials and the shopping offers.

Earn Money by Signing up for Product and Service Trials

For instance, there are currently a number of product and service trials available for which CashCrate will pay you for signing up for the trial.  Some of the trials do cost a little bit of money, but a number are free.  I’m not suggesting signing up for a bunch of stuff that you have no interest in just to get a few dollars.  If you are interested in trying a service like NetFlix or Blockbuster, however, I think it makes sense to do it through CashCrate and earn a little money for your efforts.

Get Cash back while Shopping

Similarly, if you are planning on doing some internet shopping, I think it makes sense to check out CashCrate on your way to see if there are any offers to get a little money back while shopping.  Just tonight I purchased an item and got $10 back from CashCrate for doing so.  There are some offers for cash back in the offers section (like my $10 offer) and there is also an entire section on shopping (this provides a percentage of the purchase price back).  It isn’t a huge section, but it does have some big names there like ITunes, Office Depot, and Wal-Mart among others.

A word of caution, please do not go around buying stuff you don’t want or don’t need just to "earn" some money.  You’re not really earning anything – you’re just "spending" money.  But, if you are doing some shopping anyway, then you might as well reduce your overall cost by using a service like CashCrate.  [Another similar service that is geared strictly toward shopping is Ebates.com - I think they have more shopping options.  Again, shopping is spending money, NOT making money.  If you spend $50 you weren't planning to spend to make $10, you've just wasted $40!]

Make Money through Referrals

Another method to make some money is to refer others to CashCrate.  For each person you refer, CashCrate gives you a percentage of what they earn and also a bonus when they make some money.  If some of your friends sign up through your affiliate program, then both of you will make some extra money.

My Summary of using CashCrate

So far, I have been pleasantly surprised with my CashCrate experience. I have made some money while exerting very little effort.  And I was really excited to see that I could get $10 back from a $23 purchase that I was going to buy anyway!  Certainly I’m not expecting to replace my current salary with my CashCrate earnings but every little bit helps.  If you complete some higher payout offers (without spending too much money in the process) and have some of your friends sign up through your referral link, you’ll be able to make some extra spending money each month.

Signing up for CashCrate is free so my suggestion to you would be to sign up and check it out .  Check out the FAQs on the lower left corner on the front page for more info.  Look through the cash payouts focusing on the higher payout values first.  I think you will probably see some that are interesting to you.  If not, then you can just leave the site and never return again.  But please, do not waste a bunch of money just to get a little bit back.  Also, and this is very important, if you sign up for the free trials, do not forget to cancel them before the "free" part ends if you aren’t satisfied with the value provided.

If you have any bad experiences with CashCrate, I would really like to hear about them.  I have had a good experience so far, but I don’t want to be endorsing a service with which others are having problems.  Please leave a comment or contact me directly.

Related posts:

1. Weekly Bible Verse – Co-Signing Leads to Suffering He who puts up security for another will surely suffer,...
2. Guest Post: How to Search for Money-Saving Opportunities on Google and Twitter Today’s guest post is provided by Ann Smarty. Ann Smarty...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The point of the list is to be comprehensive but not detailed. I will go into more detail on some of the ideas in the future as needed. You can search other blogs or the web to find out more information on the ones that strike your fancy. My hope is that reading through the list will pique your interest in one or more of these ideas or it will get your creative juices flowing and trigger some great ideas of your own (if you have any, leave a comment for others to see too and I’ll put it in a future list).

1. Make Money online

There are numerous opportunities online to make some money as well. Some (like creating an affiliate marketing site) require some skill, time, and/or money but others (like filling our surveys) require none of that. If you decide to pursue some of these opportunities, I would strongly suggest that you do some searches and find reviews from bloggers that have actually done them. You’re trying to make money so you definitely don’t want to fall into a scam – and there seem to be a number of those out there so please be careful. Here are some links to get reviews and information on CashCrate here . at biblemoneymatters , at ChristianPF , and a bunch of stuff at SpillingBuckets.

1. Fill out surveys – look into cashcrate.com and opinionoutpost.com
2. Use Scour.com for your internet searches
3. Review products – check out vindale.com
4. Create an affiliate marketing site (or put links on your blog – for instance, the cashcrate, opinion outpost, and scour links above are affiliate links)
5. Fashion design at cafepress.com
6. Self-publish and sell books at lulu.com
7. Write and sell an e-book
8. Create and post videos to Revver.com
9. Put ads on a website or blog (I’ve made more than 2 whole dollars doing this – ok, so maybe not the best example but rumor has it that some people actually make money blogging)

2. Sell some of your stuff

What could be better than de-cluttering your home and making money at the same time? It’s a win-win-win! (the third "win" is for the person who gets your stuff for a good price)

1. Have a garage sale
2. Sell stuff on ebay.com
3. Sell stuff on craigslist.org
4. Sell stuff to a consignment shop or a used kids clothing shop (well, sell your kids’s clothes there)
5. Sell DVDs, CDs, and games locally or to secondspin.com

3. Become a "chicken" entrepreneur

Undoubtedly, you have skills that someone else needs. So tap your network and see who will pay you a few dollars to help them out. The list here could go on and on – limited only by your imagination. Most of these you can start part-time (hence the "chicken" adjective as in "too chicken to leave your job and be a full-time entrepreneur") and you never know – it just might lead to a new career. And if you fill a big need or invent a new market, it might become a huge income source.

1. Install software
2. Troubleshoot computers or networks
3. Design websites
4. Graphic design
5. Internet marketing consulting
6. Search engine optimization consulting
7. Copy-editing
8. Organize closets
9. Organize garages
10. Interior decorating
11. Power wash houses or decks
12. Mow lawns/yard-work
13. Become a handy-person
14. Become a personal assistant or virtual personal assistant
15. Become a personal shopper
16. Become a personal chef
17. Walk dogs
18. Clean up after dogs
19. Clean houses
20. House-sitting
21. Baby-sitting
22. Photography
23. Convert home movies to DVDs

4. Get a part-time job in the evenings and/or weekends

A part-time job is typically fairly easy to get and the hours can be quite flexible. This is a good opportunity to earn some money while getting involved with something you find interesting (all the better if you then get an employee discount)

1. Deliver pizzas (you need a car for this)
2. Work at Fed-Ex/UPS late at night (money & exercise at the same time!)
3. Work as a waiter or waitress
4. Work in retail at any local store or the local mall (these jobs are exceptionally plentiful around Christmas)

5. Other

I’m not really sure into which category these fall, so I’ve grouped them here under this incredibly imaginative section name.

1. Participate in medical research – surveys and actual research (my wife and I once made $475 in one afternoon by donating a little bone marrow to a research effort)
2. Sell plasma
3. Participate in marketing research/focus groups (I once made $125 for 3 hours that included some snacks and driving around checking out Home Depot stores)
4. Mystery shopping – check out ICCDS.com and checkmarkinc.com

So, I’m stopping here for this first post. The list is fairly extensive but I’m sure I haven’t even scratched the surface. Hopefully you’ve found some ideas you’re interested in pursuing or, even better, reading the list has triggered some great ideas of your own. If you have any other ideas you’d like to share, please leave a comment or send an email and I’ll include it in the next post. If you’ve tried any of these, please let us know how well it worked out.

More detailed information on Making Money Online

As a continuation of this series, I have started provided more indepth information on the Making Money Online section.  Check out this post to get a more comprehensive look into how you can make some extra money using CashCrate.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.