A few months ago, mystery shopping had became my sole source of income after a layoff. I was getting pretty good at it too as far as scheduling and earning money. At the very last of it, I was making as much as 5k in a month. The trouble is, I was spending 8am to 8pm on the road, getting home to do more reports until 1am, and not seeing my spouse very much at all. I was worried about saving up if I decided to attend Grad School. The long days and hours actually caused my spouse to leave for a few weeks and the two of us to reevaluate what was going on in our lives. That might be oversharing on that part, but I quit shopping for about three months and found a part time job on an organic farm.
While working at my new job, I kept receiving emails. It was so tempting to snag up shops, especially when I would see them at $150 bonus! But I resisted temptation... and the offers and emails declined. I guess someone started shopping in the area or was swinging through for summer. I hadn't paid much attention, but then offers and emails started up again. I decided to start shopping again a few weeks ago in conjunction with my part time job. I only take on one shop per day-- 2 at the most and only on days I work. The locations must be near my work or convenient to get to. Here's what has happened... in 3 weeks I've made almost $1500 in shops because the bonus money is so high. I stick to my principles of only doing 1-2 per day during work days only and it has benefited me greatly. I get a paid lunch break of 1-hour so I can often get paid while I'm getting paid. Plus, I don't have to stress about shopping all the time and earning so much money.
I've also learned to ask for more money. A shop offer was sent to me basically begging at $18 and I told the scheduler that I honestly wouldn't want to do any shopping that day for less than $75. A couple of minutes later, I received an email telling me I was all set to go at $75?!? A similar thing happened with a cell phone shop where I was offered (after several declines) $150 bonus to get it done that day. My area is tough to shop and I was picking up everything around. I bet the companies were glad when I came along snagging up every $10-$25 shop they could throw at me. One day I did something like 24 shops at the highest. Now, I'm just doing one or two. Live and learn. Oh, and the honey and I have pretty much adjusted to each others schedules and are now able to get up at 5 AM for sunrise, large cups of organic coffee, and growing our houseplant collection.
I'm also able to spend much more time crocheting and on macrame :-)
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2017 09:22PM by MountainCacher88.