ALT-3 Are there any Real Online Jobs out there
I quit my job as an Executive Assistant last week. Am I crazy? No, I had just had enough stress. I missed my two daughters (who are six and seven years old) and really wanted to be able to stay home with them. I had lost my sitter for the third time this year and was growing increasingly frustrated with the quality of care that a flaky college student can provide. I didn't want to put my kids in a daycare facility because they are expensive and the quality of care isn't much better, especially when there is one "teacher" and forty kids. My house was a disaster! I hadn't really cleaned in months because I had no time. And, my health was suffering too. I went to the doctor and she told me that the cause was stress. The diagnosis didn't surprise me. I have been going in overdrive non-stop for over a year.
On a usual weekday morning, I woke at 5:00am and collapsed around 9:30pm at night.I followed a crazy and hectic routine for over a year until two weeks ago, when I woke up and decided I didn't want to do it anymore. My husband was ecstatic! He missed me and was sick of pawning our kids off on other people for the whole day too. Nine hours is an awfully long time to be gone from your children all day. I called my boss and told him that I quit. Immediately, I felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted. I was free. Free to do whatever I wanted to do. I could read again, write, watch movies, listen to music, play with my kids and not have to worry about rushing around and being someplace at a certain time. Most of all I could relax and heal myself physically as well as mentally. Of course, my place of employment didn't want me to go and said I could have a week off in order to find a proper sitter for my kids. I was flattered but, I passed on their offer. I felt that my state of mind and body, and the welfare of my daughters and husband were more important at this point in my life than money and a steady paycheck. Besides, my husband and I have done it before on one income when the kids were babies. We could do it again, somehow.
So the first week, we were all a lot happier. The kids were happy that their mommy was home with them. The husband was happy that the wife was home, the house was clean, laundry was done, and dinner was on the table every night. I was happy and more relaxed because I had managed to remove almost all of the stress from my life. Although taking care of the house and the kids is a full time job, I decided to try to find some type of work that I could do from home also.
I valiantly searched the internet for work at home opportunities. There are a lot of scams out there and I ran into every single one of them! The search was increasingly frustrating, but I am a determined individual so I am hopeful that something will come up eventually. The most important thing is to stay positive and don't fall into a trap where you will wind up spending your own money in order to work. Below are some examples and my opinions about whether or not they could be fruitful and actually lead to some income.
Surveys:Online surveys are one option to try to make money. I signed up on one of these sites and successfully filled out two surveys. There are lots of sites you can join for free, but most offer an upgrade for a fee, so you can get access to more surveys. I made $1.50, but it took me three hours to fill out these two surveys! The sites are not very user friendly and it is hard to get full credit because one survey might lead you to a completely different link. It is hard to know when or if the process is ever complete, plus you are linked to a bunch of offers which you are required to sign up for, which leads to a bunch of spam email. The survey sites pay out monthly and only if you get to a certain amount of money, so I'll probably never see my $1.50. I found the whole process frustrating.
Click on Ads:Most of these sites are also free to join, but offer you an upgrade for access to more ads. The general idea is you click on ads that are sent to you and earn one cent or two cents per ad and are required to keep the window open for a specific amount of time. You can also make money by referring others to their sites, so I posted their links on my My Space Page. Most of the ads to click are "get rich" quick schemes. I belong to two of these sites (Clixsense and Hits4Pay). I have made $6.00 on one and $12.00 on the other. Constantly clicking on ads is probably not good for your computer and the hope of eventual payout is probably slim.
Mystery Shopping:I was skeptical about this and signed up for two sites. I love to shop and figured this is something I can do during the day and even take the kids with me if I need to. The first site sent me a bunch of emails, but you couldn't view or apply for the jobs unless you paid additional money. I did find one site (aboutfacecorp.com) which was free to join and I actually received a job from them. They also provide lots of helpful information and tips for writing your shopping report. I am doing my first secret shop next week at an Audi dealership. I must ask to test drive a specific model and get the business card of the salesperson that helps me. I'm not a big fan of shopping for cars, but the job pays $20.00. The report can be submitted online, I enjoy writing and am a stickler for details. I hope that after this first job I will receive more. We'll see.
Project Payday:This is an income opportunity that involves filling out "free" offers for other people so they can qualify to get free stuff. There are a ton of freebie sites that are giving away I Pods, XBOX 360's or Cash. The catch is that you have to sign up for the site and complete a certain amount of "free" offers. Then you need to get a certain amount of referrals from other people. There are three ways to make money with this plan.
The first way is you can become a referral for someone else and fill out the "free" offers. They will usually pay you $20.00 - $50.00 per referral. Remember, they are usually trying to get a product or cash equaling $500, so paying you a minimum amount in order to get $500 is a good deal for them too. You can go to Freelunchroom.com for more information. The problem is that the offers are not free. Most times you need to pay between $1.00 - $20.00 to complete an offer. A lot of times you are required to sign up for a free trial. If you forget to cancel the free trial, then your credit card will get charged an undetermined amount.
I made $50.00 doing this. As promised, I filled out the offers and the other members put the money directly in my Pay pal Account. However, now I am getting tons of spam email and have a lot of free trials to cancel. I actually cancelled the credit card I was using just to be safe.
The second way to make money is to try to get people to fill out offers for you. Then you could get the big prize of cash yourself. You will more than likely have to pay them a minimal amount of the payout. $200.00 requires at least three referrals. $500.00 requires five and so on.
The third way to make money would be to fill the requirements for the stuff, like a big screen TV, or IPOD, and then sell the merchandise on EBay.
Why are people giving away free stuff and cash? It's because so many people are willing to fill out these offers and paying money to do so. They are probably more than making a profit in advertising. According to the bulletin boards there are a lot of people involved in this "scam". I think it could be a quick way to make some money, but don't believe it will be available forever and the cons of canceling the offers and frustration of qualifying for them in the first place is not worth it to me.
EBay:EBay can be a fun and exciting venture. I actually had my own website last year. I sold everything in my house that I could think of. Then I ran out of stuff to sell, so I bought a whole bunch of picture frames and sold those. The problem is finding a product that you love and have the money to invest in. I thought about selling lingerie, but it cost $700.00 to purchase a stock of items and I couldn't find a company willing to drop ship for me. The last couple of years EBay has not been as fun because when you list an auction people don't bid until the last minute, so your profits are not as high as they used to be. You are forced to list items at a higher price or fixed price in order to make a profit. Plus it is very difficult to maintain a good feed-back rating and keep up with the shipping. Packaging items is time consuming and materials can be pricey. I was constantly going to the post office and Office Max. I am however still a fan of EBay. Once in a while I'll list a big ticket item just for fun, but finding a steady supply of inventory has been a definite challenge.
Phone Actress Jobs:Yes, you too can apply to become a phone actress for a 900 line! I know you've stayed up late at night and watched the commercials with the sexy girls with big breasts begging men to call and share their fantasies. I received an email with the offer of a job to be one of those sexy girls. All you have to do is talk on the phone to make money. I love to talk on the phone! The catch is that most of the guys that you talk to want to talk dirty and some of them have really screwed up versions of dirty! The nice thing about the company I work for is I can log in or out anytime of the day or night. There are calls all the time and they even call me to tell me when it's busy. All the calls are routed through my home phone, but no callers have access to my real information. They send out checks weekly, every Friday. Below is the pay scale:
If you have 60 calls or more and your average hold time on all calls is:
10 minute or higher.40 cents a minute
9 minute or higher.30 cents a minute
8 minute or higher.17 cents a minute
7 minute or higher.12 cents a minute
Regardless of number of calls
Less than 6 minute hold time.07 cents a minute
6 minute hold time or greater.10 cents a minute
The first week I took way less than 60 calls and got a check for $17.00. The second week I took sixty calls exactly and made $50.00. This week I took over 100 calls and made $250.00. The longer you keep people on the phone, the more money you make. It is difficult to keep a horny guy on the line for ten minutes. Let's face it, most guys only need five minutes. It does take a while to get used to the kind of calls that come in, plus it is hard to keep the conversation going at first. A lot of guys will hang up on you if they're not interested, so it's frustrating. The most important thing is to remember that you are an actress and none of it is real, however, you do have to have an open mind, especially when you are talking to cross dressers or men who like to be dominated. I have made some money and don't know if I could do this forever. I didn't have to pay anything, and I am an independent contractor so taxes would have to be paid at the end of the year. I have seen some other companies that will pay hourly ($5.00 $6.00) and offer a bonus if your average talk time is longer. I considered switching, but it would be difficult for me to set up a definite schedule. I like the flexibility of being able to work whenever I want (early in the morning before the kids are up, or later at night when they are in bed. My husband is extremely turned on that I am a phone sex operator and has said that no matter how much money I make or do not make, it has enhanced our sex life! Below is a referral to the site I work for if you are interested:
http://www.FantasyChatRecruiting.com
Customer Service Work at Home:Does it exist? I hope so. I have an invaluable amount of customer service experience. I worked in a busy call center for a travel agency for over six years. A lot of the sites offering customer service jobs that I've applied for have told me they are not accepting applications in my area. I did find one company (AlpineAccess.com) that sounds promising, but they only hire 2-3% of applicants. This company works with a lot of big name clients, like 1-800 FLOWERS, or J Crew. The calls are routed directly to your home phone and they even pay for training. You are not a contractor, so they take out taxes, and you are paid bi-weekly, and they even offer benefits. You must have a high speed internet connection and a corded phone with a headset so you can work hands free. There is an application process, as well as a skills test and a phone interview. The pay starts at $9.00 per hour and they require you work at least 25 hours per week. I have filled out the beginning stages of the application and skills test. I am hoping that they call me back this week and offer me a job!
Typing at Home:This is a total scam so beware! I have filled out several forms online for jobs to type at home. They have all emailed me back that you have to pay $19.95 39.95 to get access to the jobs. I do know several people that have paid and received a lot of paperwork including lists of companies in their area that may be offering contract work typing for them. So, you would have better luck getting out the phone book and cold calling companies in the area to offer your services.
Write at Home:I have found a lot of sites where you can write articles to get paid. I think the key is that you have to love to write first of all, and second be persistent and passionate in your writing. Beware that there are a lot of sites that require a joining fee. Don't ever pay money! Helium.com is by far the best site for potential writers that I have found. You are not limited to writing for one category. You can write about anything, even novel excerpts. Plus you have joined a community of other aspiring writers, which is bound to be an inspiration. I have not been paid yet, but the prospect of potential publishers reading my work and being published on the Internet provides me with a wealth of personal satisfaction that I am doing what I love to do and will perhaps someday get recognized for it.
So, is there any real work at home opportunities out there? Sure, there are but they are hard to find. Most of the opportunities available online are scams. The most important thing is to remember not pay any of your own money to work. If a company wants you, they will pay for your talents and capabilities. I am hopeful that through a variety of different opportunities, I will find work to do at home that I really enjoy. For the time being, I am just happy to be at home taking care of my family. That is my first priority and should have always been.
