by Hope
The first site I tried, well, not the first, but the first one that I seemed to be able to make some money, is FreeCash.com. (To date after just a couple of days, I have $1.51 available to withdrawal.
I’ve actually made a list of sites I am going to work through and see how the earnings go versus the effort and the cost. And this will be part of my series on finding legitimate side hustles that really do make sense to try out. This was just a quick and easy one to try out while my daughter was driving me on a four hour road trip.
Cost
FreeCash.com was just that to sign up FREE. It only took me a few minutes to get inside the site and earning money. And I did it all from my phone.
In fact, I spent about an hour on my phone to get to the point I’m at now. I completed a few “new user” offers and a couple of surveys. Then I chose one partner offer that will take 10 days to verify and is supposed to pay out $75. I’ve decided to hold off on completing any other offers until I confirm this comes through. I will report back.
Ways to Earn
They offer partner tasks which pay a set amount, disclosed up front. This includes playing games and making it to a certain level, signing up for investment accounts and more. And then there are surveys which don’t pay too much but also seem to be mindless and take a few minutes each.
The partner tasks seem like they might be a good way to earn some decent money if you are into online games and such.
I’ve been a bit frustrated with the surveys because despite haven’t taken the 3 “vetting” surveys, I get surveys that I attempt and them at not qualified for so waste my time. Seems like they should just show me ones that I do qualify for. But I’m going to try out some more survey only sites this weekend.
Withdrawal Options
It looks like there are a variety of ways that I can withdraw my money although I haven’t gotten to that yet. Hopefully, by the end of next week, I will know if I made $76 for my first hour on this site or $1.51. Depending on how that goes, I will decide if I want to spend more time here.
Rating
The verdict is still out of FreeCash.com, let me know in the comments if you have tried to make money on this site and how it’s worked out for you.
Also, let me know if you have personally tried out any survey sites that were actually worth your time. (And didn’t keep showing your surveys you didn’t qualify for even if they were for little money.)
Update Published 10/26/23 – I published an update on this review here.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
Oof, this post comes off as so spammy. I would love for this site to get back to following people determined to get out of debt. š
Hope, this is so embarrassing. You’re a midcareer professional. The best you can do “after a couple of days” is earn $1.51? I hope the company is giving you a kickback because otherwise this is so cringe.
Swagbucks back in the day was useful for scraping together Amazon gift cards, but Iām not sure if itās still useful today.
The Budgets Are Sexy blog had a long running side hustle series. Might find some inspiration over there in the archives.
Another blogger (one family one income) use to comment about making $ via MTurk. It was quick task and surveys. She had success. Also, I understand folks make money with YouTube channels. See Caleb Hammerās channel and clog āfat guys refuses to stop eating out.ā Specific $ arenāt discussed but the wealth is alluded to. Not sure if either of those work for you. Good luck!
I’ve been doing MTurk on and off for about 15 years, and have about 150K completed tasks. The thing with MTurk is that it is really hard to make any decent money just starting out. Most requester have specify a certain number of tasks completed, with <1-2% rejection rate before you can try their tasks. For someone just starting out, you're going to be stuck doing things like transcribing receipts for a couple pennies. In short you are going to be putting in a LOT of time with maybe a dollar or two to show for it at the end of the day. You pretty much have to do this to get to the tasks that most MTurkers consider worth their time, like academic or consumer surveys. The base rate myself and many Mturkers consider the lowest rate worth their time is $.10/min for answering bubble questions, more if there's writing involved.
The people you see advocating MTurk are usually established Turkers who have either been doing it a LONG and have a lot of completed tasks under their belt, or they've done so much work for a particular requester that they've basically become a subcontractor for them. The requester is paying them a (slightly) higher rate and is setting up tasks that only that one Turker can accept/complete.
Sites like this will payout very little with a lot of effort. I wouldn’t spend time on them to make any appreciable amount of money. I’ve always thought of them as a way to get fun money occasionally. Definitely wouldn’t even qualify as a side hustle since it is not reliable or sustainable. You are much better off spending your time looking for something else.
Someone else has mentioned it before, have you looked into online tutoring? There are sites that pay well and are reliable for tutoring kids and the only real gotcha is that it is usually in very late or early hours of the day. I think it targets kids in Asia. It could be a good match with your homeschooling background.
Most of these other ways on tiktok or whatever that claim to make thousands a month are really just selling $7 “how to courses” to suckers.
Agreed, I also wonder about something like Outschool? I’m not sure how it would be as a teacher but we have used it for my daughter for various online classes.
I hope you can find another job to supplement your income. I know it is hard, keep trying.
I don’t understand why you aren’t showing up in person at Walmart and getting a job in any dept you can. It doesn’t have to be long term but is consistent money and hours when you need it most. All these scammy efforts to make negligible money are a waste of time. Those are the kind of things you should be doing as extra outside of having a set pay job (ANY job) right now. Housesitting, dog walking, house cleaning, elder companionship type care, etc. Looking for quick easy minuscule bits of money is not going to get you out of this.
The job market is tough everywhere. Showing up and dropping off a resume is an outdaed method of job hunting – regardless of how desperate one is for a job. She is in a small town, jobs are limited. She has pretty much said this over and over again.
The job market is not rough everywhere. Unemployment is very low and it’s easy to find a $15 an hour job, even in and around a tiny town. Hope is making excuses, as usual.
I am glad you are not in the situation I am in. It takes a quick look on LinkedIn to see the hundreds of professionals frantically looking for work, losing their homes, etc. I am not alone in the challenge of finding a job believe me.
As usual, Hope, you miss the point. It may be hard for you to get a professional job. But it would not be hard for you to get a menial job at Walmart to help pay the bills.
Why won’t you do that?
You’ve obviously missed the comments (not sure I’ve put it in posts) that I have been applying everywhere…and that includes Home Depot, Walmart and Walgreens.
I am applying for any and everything. I don’t want my utilities cut off, I don’t want to lose my house.
There are no excuses, just no jobs.
I don’t know what the problem is, Hope, but there is definitely a problem. Why not figure out what it is instead of throwing your hands up? There is absolutely no reason you can’t get a job at a chain store. And also, you’re full of it. I googled on jobs in your location and there are plenty at all those stores. Again–reach out to someone and find out what you’re doing wrong because there are jobs out there, both professional and retail. Stop making excuses to give up.
It IS rough everywhere!! I don’t know where you get your news but it is difficult to get a job these days.
yes! I have repeatedly mentioned it. My store has walk-in interviews regularly! Also, in my area it pays more than most places, has insurance for full-time associates, and they match the 401k upto 6%.
I will say in my area many places such as home Depot and Lowe’s wants you to do online applications but Hope could do that.
I have applied at our local Walgreens, Walmart and Home Depot. And yes, they only take online applications.
But no response.
No walk in interviews around here.
Have you thought about substitute teaching or a support position at a school? What about the school that Princess went to? I bet they pay well
I thought of this too. I know in some states you don’t need to do any formal teacher’s college to be a teacher. I hope she looks into this!
Housesitting makes no sense for Hope unless itās paid; many housesitting gigs just give you a free place to live, not money. I think sheās just trying out the surveys and I also think sheās doing the best she can in a bad situation. Hang in there, Hope!
PS the tutoring and the Budgets are Sexy list of side hustles are worth looking into!,
What about nursing home/ senior care facilities? They may have positions that donāt require certifications, like housekeeping or serving meals. In my area (northeast) it is very different ā EVERYONE is hiring.
If it is really true that nowhere near you is hiring for any entry level of job then I think your best bet might be to sell your home before you lose it and relocate to a different area, because everywhere I go places are hiring. I have property in multiple states and it is the same everywhere – part time jobs are literally begging for people to work and stores are having to close early due to lack of staff. Also, professional-level jobs that don’t require at least some in-person presence are getting less and less, which might be another reason relocating might make sense for you as it will be hard to find a professional-level job in your town.
Finally, please don’t insult our intelligence by posting a spammy post. If you are posting referral links where you benefit financially for getting people to follow them you need to disclose it in the post. Not doing so could get this site punished by Google.