Getting Rich Slow: Citizen $tuart's Online Money Making Lens

I have certain rules that I stick to when I sign up for online services that pay.

1) I don't register with any site that wants an upfront payment from me. The idea's to make money, not lose it, and the internet's full of fly by night sharks.

2) I don't register with sites that want my bank or payment card details, for the same reason. Fortunately, all the online money making sites that I've encountered so far make their payments through secure payment processors like PayPal and AlertPay.

3) The amount of spare time and internet access I have varies drastically, as I tend to be in and out of work in the "real world", so I usually go for sites that pay for activities that are as quick and easy as possible - nothing massively time-consuming. If I can multi-task (and I usually can) then so much the better. I'm doing a PTC at the same time as I'm writing this, for instance.

4) I also steer clear of any site that promises that I'll be a millionaire overnight in return for a small initial investment. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. A small minority of people become overnight successes, but for most of us it will be a question of persistence and organisation over a period of time. We'd all like to get rich quick, but in practise you're more likely to get rich slow. It doesn't matter as long as you get there.

5) I try to generate multiple income steams, both active and passive. Most ways of making money online don't pay big bread, so the best way is to do several things at once - for instance, at the moment I'm logged onto SWATCash, making a move on the World Map every ten minutes, at the same time I'm editing this page (which earns me money through advertising), I've just finished doing my PTCs and when I've finished editing this site, I'll be doing a blog entry with advertising links on it.

6) I also keep a daily record of profits made from each site. That way I soon get an idea of the best sites, and those that aren't worth bothering with.

Right. Getting started. If you haven't got one already, I recommend setting up both a PayPal and an AlertPay account. A lot of sites use these to make their payments and they're quick, easy, reliable and secure. The advantage of it is that you only have to give your PayPal or AlertPay details to anyone you're doing business with, not your bank details. I occasionally buy stuff through Ebay, so I'd already had a PayPal account for years when I started making money online. If you haven't got a PayPal account already, I suggest you click on the link below and set one up. It's very easy to do.



I've found that a lot of PTC sites make payments through AlertPay, and don't yet offer a PayPal option. I've no idea why this is, but in the interests of maximising my earning potential, I've just registered with AlertPay. It literally only took me a few minutes.

Assuming you've now got your payment processors set up, you'll be wanting to get started making money. There are various ways of doing this online. I started about two or three months back by registering with some paid survey sites. The idea of these is that they send you email notifications of surveys (usually consumer surveys, sometimes political), which you can take part in. Usually the first few questions constitute a "screener" and if you fit the profile they're looking for, you go on to the main part of the survey. Once you've completed that, you get whatever reward is offered. Some survey sites reward people by entering them into prize draws. Others offer actual payments (generally on the order of a dollar or two). I haven't had a massive amount of luck with these kind of sites so far, I've only earned a few quid since I started, but then again it's money for old rope.

One of the better known paid survey sites is YouGov. They do surveys on different subjects, mostly commercial but also the occasional political one (which I assume is where the name comes from). You have to fill out a profile when you first register, and based on that they send surveys out. I don't get very many from them, so I assume I'm in the wrong demographic, but I have earned a bit of money from them. You may have better luck, so follow this link if you'd like to give it a try.

A much better survey site, at least for me, is Lightspeed. This is a really good survey site - I get a fairly regular supply of surveys from them, I qualify for a lot of them and I've earned a few quid since I joined them about 2 or 3 months ago. They pay in "Lightspeed Points" which you can redeem for various offers, including PayPal vouchers. It didn't take me long to build up enough points so I could afford a £1.50 PayPal voucher, so if you want to give paid surveys a try, I strongly recommend Lightspeed. I've been paid by them several times now - I usually wait till I've accumulated enough points to claim a £5 payment, but if you're impatient you can claim a lesser amount if you want.

Another type of site which is popular is what's known as Paid To Click (PTC) sites. The idea of these is that you log on and click onto whatever adverts they have at the time. The advert opens in a separate tab, and as long as you leave the tab open for a specified time (usually about 30 seconds) your account gets credited. The payment for clicking on ads doesn't tend to be brilliant (between a quarter of a cent and two cents seems to be normal) but then again it's basically money for nothing - and if you register with a few sites and click on as many ads as you can, the money should mount up over time - at least in theory.

Sounds OK, doesn't it? One problem, a lot of these sites are scams and will never pay you. Others will go bust (especially in the present economic climate) before you reach payout. I spent several months trying these out (at one point I was doing about 20 PTCs at a time) and I never got a penny from any of them. That's not to say that no PTC in the world is ever going to pay you, you might be lucky, but I really don't believe it's worth the expenditure of time to try and find a good one, especially when there are other ways of making money with definitely will pay.

Most people who run online earning sites are probably honest, but there is always a minority who are just out to scam people. In addition, even websites that are run by honest people can fail to pay out, do to incompetent management and the general economic situation. This seems to be a particular problem in the PTC industry at the moment. Therefore it pays to keep your eyes and mind open when deciding whether or not to sign up with a particular site. Keep your brain engaged. I cannot over-emphasise the importance of sticking to the following rules:

1) Don't join any sites that want a payment upfront before they pay you for work done.

2) If a website's claims about your potential earnings seem too good to be true, they probably are. "Get rich quick" schemes are more likely to make you poor quick if anything.

3) Diversity is strength. Don't just try one method of making money, work on several at a time. That way if one site doesn't pay out you won't lose heart and give up. Some of the others will pay.

4) Seek as much information as you can about any sites you may be interested in joining. Elsewhere on this site, I mention MyLot, which I've found to be an extremely useful source of information, not only about sites which turn out to be scams but also about the good sites. Another site worth looking at is GPT Boycott, which specialises in naming and shaming the sites which turn out to be dodgy.

In short, use your common sense, seek advice and don't take risks with your money - but above all, never be afraid to try new ways of making money. The more GPT sites you try, the better you will get at spotting which ones are scams and which can be relied on to pay you.

I'm trying out a service I registered with a few days ago, called Linkbucks. This is a company which monatises your links. Let's say you have a blog or other kind of website with links on it. You register with Linkbucks and submit the code for each link to the website there. The Linkbucks website gives you a code back which you put in place of your link. Then, when someone clicks on that link, they are exposed to one of three different types of ad (your choice) - a popup, a banner or an ad that comes up for 30 seconds then sends the user on to wherever the link goes to. Every time that happens, you get a bit of money - not much, but it adds up. You don't even need your own website for this, if you make a habit of posting links on public forums, you could monatise them using Linkbucks. For most people, it probably wouldn't be a way of making big bread fast, but once a link's up, it's basically there for keeps and people could still be clicking on them months from now while you're asleep, so it seems to me worth doing, considering it's hardly any work at all. And if you've got a website with loads of links that attracts a high volume of traffic, it could well be a nice little earner. I don't have such a website yet, but I'm looking into the possibilities of setting one up. In the meanwhile, I've started giving most of my new links the Linkbucks treatment. In addition to my other money-making online activities, I think it's got good long-term potential.



UPDATE 11/6/09 I've been using LinkBucks for several months now, and so far I've made over $20. It turns out it is an honest site, and you can reach payout (minimum $5) at least every month with only moderate effort (one month I got paid twice, if I'd worked harder I could have made that every week). Some people make a lot more than that, getting paid every day. You do need to put the time in, and you do need to be organised. Once you've joined LinkBucks, you'll find there's a forum on the site where people swap advice on making money. Most of the methods revolve around things like posting porn, "warez", music links and suchlike - the best thing is to decide which particular method suites you best and have a good go at it. Earnings may build up slowly, but you will be paid.

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

For the past few days, I've been trying out a website I've come across called Ximmy, which describes itself as a "social search engine". The backend of this is powered by Google and Yahoo, but what makes it different is that they pay people to write short reviews of websites. The amount you're paid seems to vary for some reason (between 2-4 points, each point being equivalent to a cent), but it's easy "work". Just dash off three or four lines and you're done. I don't think it'll take me long to reach payout ($10) - I just keep Ximmy open in a separate tab while I'm doing other things, and whenever I want to search for something, I do it through Ximmy, then do a quick review (I'm actually doing a search while I write this). Two things bother me about this site. One, I don't know why the number of points you get for posting reviews vary. Two, I don't see where they're making their money, since the site carries no advertising. Still, I'll continue with it till I reach the payout limit, then post my proof of earnings here - if any. If they don't pay me, I'll amend this article accordingly to warn people off. I think it's worth the small effort of reviewing a few websites to see if the site's genuine or not.



UPDATE 10/9/08

For the past few weeks, there's been a notice on the Ximmy website saying that they've suspended payments due to a "bug" in their points system. If they were a serious company, I think they would have had this problem fixed long since, so my advice now is not to bother with it. I never did understand where they were supposed to be making their money from anyway. I'll update again if there's any change.

I'm now going to tell you about my absolute favourite money making website.

The name of the site is MyLot, which describes itself as a social networking site. I've never been attracted to these kind of sites in the past, but what's good about this one is that you get paid to post. If you post good quality replies to other people's discussions, you'll get paid. If you start your own discussions, you'll also get paid depending on how many replies you get. They don't spell out exactly how the payment structure works - apparently because they don't want people working the system - but the going rate seems to be something like a cent per post. It happens that I'm the sort of bloke who likes debating with people, sharing knowledge etc, so I'm making a steady income out of it. I've been on MyLot for months and I have been paid once so far at time of writing, for doing something I enjoy anyway. I make a bit of money every single day on this site, the only real limitation being how much of a mood for writing I'm in. Minimum payout is $10 and plenty of people on MyLot seem to make the minimum payout every month, so if this is the kind of thing you enjoy doing anyway, and you want some easy money, then I strongly recommend that you follow this link and give it a try. MyLot is also a useful resource if you're looking for advice on making money on the internet, I've found a lot of information there and some good links, plus it's a good place to get referrals.

Calling all make extra money fans!

Join me on myLot! Discuss make extra money and make a little money while you're at it.

One final bit of advice for now. Most of the services listed above run referral schemes, where you earn extra money by recruiting new members. For example, if someone signs up under you at MyLot and they earn $10, MyLot will bay you $2.50, so everyone's a winner. Get as many referrals as you can, and watch your earnings grow. Good luck. And remember, it is easier for a rich man to enter the eye of a needle than it is for a camel to. Although why either should want to try this is beyond my ken.

I finally got around to putting proofs of payment up for those sites which have paid me so far. Unfortunately, my knowledge of html coding is a bit basic, and I have yet to figure out how to add thumbnails of my payment proofs to this lens, so as a temporary I've put them on another website that I've set up to use for teaching myself html. It's not pretty, but at least you can see the proofs of payment if you want by clicking on the links below.

Click here to see a screenshot of my first PayPal payments from MyLot and Lightspeed.

Click here to see a scan of the first cheque I received from SWATCash (normally they pay by PayPal, but the first time they pay you they do it by cheque.

SWATCash was a site that seemed to be doing really well for a while, but suddenly went bust not long ago - apparently because their advertisers were delaying payment on one pretext or another. Just another victim of the recession, I suppose. It just goes to show the value of having multiple income streams, in case some fail. At least I got paid by them once.
More payment proofs will be added as they come in.

As already noted, most of the sites mentioned on this page have referral schemes. This is definitely something you want to take advantage of. Certainly if you put the time in you can reach payout on all of them by yourself, but it's a lot quicker if you've got an active referral downline. Besides which, I find I get a little morale boost when I log on to one of my PTCs and find a bit more money in my account than there was the previous night, because my referrals have been active.

It can take a while to build up a referral downline, but it's worth putting the effort into it. There are many ways of getting referrals, the three I use are listed here.

First, you can set up a Squidoo website similar to this (there's a link at the top of the screen), and use it to promote your moneymaking sites. Most PTCs and other moneymaking sites have banner codes available for you to copy and paste (just make sure your referral link is included in the code). An advantage with Squidoo is that they share advertising revenue with their members, so if you manage to put together a site with a good amount of traffic you might also make a bit of money there.

Second, if you haven't already done so, register with MyLot and get posting. You're not allowed to post referral links in discussions, but you can put up banners in your profile. This is a good way to promote and doesn't cost more than a few minutes of your time.

Calling all make extra money fans!

Join me on myLot! Discuss make extra money and make a little money while you're at it.

Third, there are a lot of people on MyLot who are also into online moneymaking, and people are always offering referral trades. The idea of this is that you sign up as their referral on one of their PTC sites, and they sign up as your referral on one of your sites. That way you help each other while helping yourselves, which is what any honest business deal is about. Make sure you keep your end of the bargain - not only will you be lining your own pockets, but if the other party see that your an honest persistent clicker, then they may well be willing to do other referral trades with you later on. One word of advice here, steer clear of people who overhype their websites - if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. You want to be doing business with people who'll give you the straight facts. After a while on MyLot, you'll develop a feel for who you can rely on and who to disregard.

Calling all make extra money fans!

Join me on myLot! Discuss make extra money and make a little money while you're at it.

I can't overemphasise the importance of MyLot. This is my primary source of information on moneymaking sites, and it's a great place to advertise your moneymaking sites and get referral trades (as well as being a good website for passing the time generally). If I hadn't found MyLot, my online moneymaking efforts would probably still be confined to doing the occasional survey.

There are a couple of other ways to get referrals. Most PTCs allow their members to buy referrals. The idea of this is that some people join without being referred by anyone. If you buy a package of referrals, it means that some of these accounts are added to your referral downline, as if they signed up under you, and you get a referral commission. I'm not keen on this option, as it means paying money up front, and you might get stuck with inactive referrals (some people join PTCs, get bored and give up after a day or two). It seems too much like gambling to me. Having said that, some PTC sites now offer to replace inactive referrals for free, so that might be worth considering. SWATCash allows you to buy referrals using their own SWATCash currency, which you earn in the game. I did buy four referrals this way, half of them are inactive, but the other two have earned me some money.
There are also websites known as referral exchanges, where people trade referrals. I have yet to check any of these out though, so I'll reserve judgement until I find the time to do so.

Once you've got a few referrals, don't get lazy and stop clicking. Some fools think that once they've got a few referrals in their downline, they can sit back and let them do all the work. But you can't really depend on other people to earn for you indefinitely, and you'll reach your financial goals faster if you carry on with what you've been doing. Referrals are a bonus - a very pleasant and useful bonus - but don't rely on them.

I've established a daily routine to maximise my online earnings. It's based on multi-tasking, so I can get all the essentials done as quickly as possible, since I don't always have that much spare time.

The first thing I do when I log onto the internet is open a Word file I'm keeping to record my daily earnings. Then I go to SWATCash, log into my account there and go to the World Map, where I make my first move. Moves on the World Map are 10 minutes apart, so once I've made my first move, I go to the Account page and update my Word file with my earnings (and those of my referrals). Then I go to the "Earn" page and do the PTCs. There are always at least six of these, sometimes twice as many. Each one takes 30 seconds to complete. I keep two tabs open, one for the World Map and one for the PTCs. Once all the PTCs on SWATCash are done, I go back to the Account page and update my earnings on the Word file. Then I open another Word file I have, which has the links for all the other PTC sites I do. I link to two different sites at a time, going through the ads and clicking them, while I still have the SWATCash World Map open on the original tab - so I'm doing three productive things at once. Sometimes I have another tab open to do something else at the same time - like now, while I'm typing this, for instance. As I finish all the ads on each PTC site, I take note of my earnings, close down that tab and open up a new one for the next site. Proceeding like this, I can get all my PTCs done within an hour without knocking myself out, in addition to making several moves on SWATCash. Each PTC site only pays pennies a day, but counting all of them together, I probably earn between 50c and $1 per day, just doing that - and an average month has 30 days in it, and a year has 365 days.

With the PTCs out of the way, and depending how much time I have left for internet activity that evening, I normally make a post or several on MyLot (starting popular discussions seems to earn more than just replying to other people's discussions, but it all makes money). Other things I may do include writing reviews for Ximmy, completing offers on SWATCash, doing an online survey or two, or making a post either to my political blog or to one of several online forums I'm on (and if the post includes a link, make sure to give it the Linkbucks treatment). All or most of that activity is going to make me a profit - each individual thing is only likely to make me pennies at a time, but pennies make pounds.

The keys to success in this area are organisation and perseverence. I keep track of my profits so I know which sites are most worth concentrating on, and I try to at least do the PTCs every single day. I know I won't get rich quick, but it's all easy money, and it will accumulate.

It's easy to make a small amount of money from PTCs, survey sites and sites like MyLot and SWATCash.

But you don't just want to make a small amount of money, do you? You want to make a worthwhile second income - that's certainly my objective.

If you want to make a decent amount of bread on the internet, then you have to think of it as a business - and that means working to a plan.

I've had a few ideas for making money in the past. Some of these ideas have been good, and some have been stupid. But I've never got anywhere with them because I've always had a bad plan - it's always depended on investing money I can't afford to lose, or doing something else drastic like giving up my regular job to concentrate full-time on the business. What I like about earning online is that I can make a start in my spare time and without any investment. All that's needed to make a start is a computer with an internet connection. You do still need a plan if you're going to get anywhere, so here's mine. It has the virtues of requiring no money and only a moderate amount of time, as well as being flexible.

1 - As I said, you have to think of it as a business, so keep some kind of financial records. This has two purposes. First, it will show you which sites are giving you the best return on your time and work. Second, it will come in handy if (when) you start earning enough to come to the attention of the taxman.

2 - Set objectives. Resolve to make £X a month (keeping it realistic) and make sure you do what you need to do to meet that objective. And set a slightly higher goal for each successive month.

3 - Don't be tempted to spend your money once you've started earning. Save it. You'll need it later on.

4 - The reason for saving the money. Once you've got enough saved, re-invest it. In the short term, that would probably mean upgrading your membership in the best two or three PTC sites that you're registered with. That way you'll get paid a bit more for your clicks (and probably for your referral clicks too), you may get more ads, and some sites even throw in a couple of free referrals with the package. That way you'll be earning faster. You do need to carefully work out how quickly you're likely to recover your investment. In the longer run, when you've earned a decent amount of bread, you can consider investing in things like shares, forex and sports arbitrage trading, but you will need to study up on those first.

Big breadwinners like Bill Gates and the guys on Dragons' Den don't just stuff their money under their beds or put it in the bank - they use the money they've earned to make more money. You can do the same on a smaller scale, but you have to proceed cautiously as you learn what works for you - and don't put all your eggs in one basket. You can't completely eliminate risk from investment, but you should do what you can to minimise it. Fools gamble, winners invest wisely.

Even after you've started investing your earnings, you should carry on with at least some of your basic earning activities so that you've at least got something coming in if one of more of your investments goes wrong. Also keep an eye out for new opportunities.

If you're willing to put in the time and effort, you can make money online. If you're willing to use your brain, I'm convinced that you can make a serious amount of money. So do the work, put the time in, learn as you go along, and you will profit - maybe to the extent of being a big breadwinner. You won't get rich overnight (and steer clear of websites that make such empty promises) but maybe you really will get rich slow. It's what I plan to do.

If you want to have more money in your pocket, one way is to earn more money, but the other way is to spend less in the first place. If you can manage both sides of the equation (earn more and spend less) you'll be laughing. In aid of this, I've set up another Squidoo lens entitled How to be a Skinflint, which has advice on various ways of saving money. It might be worth your while having a look, hopefully you'll find some thing of use to your particular situation.