That is some good advice. I actually am going on an alcohol shop tonight at a theater so that saves us the price of a movie ticket. We tried doing 3 fee only shops last Friday and we both agreed it wasn't worth it (we ended up making less than $10/hr) after we got home and finished all the reports. We definitely are now looking for mostly reimbursement shops as we do enjoy going out to eat. How hard is it to find hotel/resort shops? I haven't even seen many of these listed on the multiple sites I have signed up for. I'm assuming its a small selection of MSC that do these?
Flash Wrote:
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> At 24 there are a whole lot of tobacco and casual
> dining with alcohol ordered and such to make
> certain that you get carded, so those shops can be
> really nice for you (even if you pitch the
> tobacco).
>
> If you are both working full time, your mystery
> shopping time is limited, so fee only shops or fee
> with small reimbursement are nice but probably not
> the best bang to your budget buck.
>
> As I see it, the best way to make mystery shopping
> work is to do shops where the reimbursement is for
> something you would need to pay for out of your
> regular household budget otherwise--groceries, oil
> changes, entertainment. The fees for these things
> may be small or none at all, but when you are
> replacing budget money, it saves the budget. So I
> normally would get a $20 oil change but the shop
> oil change is $35 and reimbursed with a $5 fee. I
> have just saved the budget $20 and the IRS mileage
> deduction will pretty much offset any fee
> vis-à-vis taxes. If I was not shopping we would
> go out to eat once a week for about $30 each time
> so the budget is $120 per month. Although we
> still will try a restaurant that looks interesting
> on our own dime, reimbursement only restaurant
> shops keep about $90 in the budget.