Make Money from Home with CashCrate

After doing a bit of research, I've found that CashCrate works, and its not a scam.

I know this is the kind of post you'd find somewhere else, but I am pretty impressed with the CashCrate system. I had heard about it in the comments to a post on Problogger. But after reading a couple of other sites, I decided to give it a try. I have been interested in trying out a pay-per-post or online survey system, but I found evidence that CashCrate was effective and not a fraud so I checked it out.

My account became registered at about 3:47pm (as noted by the email in my inbox) and by 4:13pm I was notified that I had made $10.75 in payments! All I did was fill out a survey and sign up for one product. Now, I admit that it is not a product I would probably use but at least I have learned a bit about the system. One of the survey's happened to be for IPSOS Canada, and I firmly believe that its important to take part in certain kinds of surveys that provide demographic information when its used in a meaningful way. I had filled out a $10 payout survey, and a $0.75 payout survey.

The program includes a very high rate for referrals on a two tier system. The different offers include filling out surveys or signing up for some sites or products. Many are free, but there are some really high payout offers that require you to either provide credit card payment or make a purchase. If you are only looking to make money and not spend it, I recommend only signing up for programs you are TRULY interested in... or at least remember to cancel a membership before you start getting billed. Just a friendly tip there. :)

I think CashCrate is the perfect solution to people working from home especially if you are a student, looking after children at home or just plain have lots of time on your hands!

Now, I wonder if they really will send me that $100 gift certificate for RockStar? :)
I'll post when they send me a cheque around the 20th of next month. Perhaps by then it will be higher than $10.75!

A day in the life of a blogger: What's it like?

I was fiddling around on the web today during some down time at work when I came across a blog by skinnyjeans who had written about how her obsessive blogging had caused her insomnia. She writes about other great things too. Mainly I was drawn to the article because I have been thinking about how to monetize my blog and wondering how much money can really be made, regardless of what web-gurus try and tell you about problogging.

Her comments don't make it sound like the prospects are good.

She seems to have an interesting site, with lots of ads, and targetted content that appeals to niche markets (female bloggers). She has multiple blogs, but she doesn't appear to making all the money that the web-gurus state is out there.

What I did find useful (possibly in another article) is her description of "the Big 4": the four biggest topics of blogs are technology, politics, celebrity gossip and business. Unfortunately lifestyle blogs are not in the top 4, and what you are reading right now happens to be mainly a lifestyle blog, but hey, now it has a term associated with it!

It does appear however that I'm lucking out due to my situation in terms of blogging, though not necessarily for reasons that I'm altogether happy about:

• I'm male (actually I have no complaints that I'm male)
  
• I'm a geek (or more specifically, technically oriented)

According to skinnyjeans, men have it easy when it comes to getting traffic (although I have read some of her other posts that deal with the total assholes that seem to live on the net and I try not to be one of them).

The other benefit is one I never really considered until the past few weeks. I have been hoping that one day I too will not work with computers or technology, but I happen to very good at it, and I should learn to take my skills as the gifts that they are. Since technology is a market that lends itself very well to blogging, I think I do have skills that can be shared with others, be of use, and possibly lead to passive income!

And since I actually do enjoy playing with new technologies and writing about how to use them so that everyone can understand it (which is in fact, what I get paid to do on a daily basis in a sense) than I really could get paid for doing what I enjoy, which is really what I was looking for in the first place.