See ya, Pickjack...

img credit: L.M. Enrique

Quick Recap:

Pickjack is a site that pays you to create & answer multiple-choice questions. I joined it in early January, really enjoyed the Q & A thang and wrote a detailed review about it. Though I had my reservations about how they operated, I thought I'd see how the rest of the month went.


UPDATE...

I get bored of stuff easily. So, as much as I initially enjoyed creating and answering questions on Pickjack, my honeymoon period with it was over within a couple of weeks. I found that once I got over the euphoria of creating Q & A's, there was really nothing else to keep me there. Not even the money (of which there really wasn't much).

So, although I mentioned in my review that I'd wait 'til the end of January, I honestly couldn't wait for it to come round.


Ok, let's put the boredom part down to me and the way I'm built. However, there were aspects of Pickjack that didn't sit well with me. These were the same reservations I had about them when I first joined and, in my view, I don't think those reservations were cleared up while I was there.

1) Pickjack seemed to be into the habit of changing their payout dates at the very last minute (without an explanation).


2) On 3 separate occasions, I received emails from them confirming that I'd been paid and that the money was in my Paypal account. However, it would be hours and sometimes days before I actually saw the payment in Paypal. I didn't quite understand why PJ did that and why they didn't try to solve it (or give members some kind of explanation).


3) Earnings can be pretty erratic. They can go up or down - sometimes sharply - and sometimes it can be regardless of how active you've been on the site. There's really nothing on Pickjack's site explaining this activity.

Quite a few Pickjack members are also myLot members. I mentioned in my review that every payment period, PJ assigns a set pot of money so the more active you are, the more of a cut you get. However, this was actually an explanation I found on a myLot discussion, not on Pickjack's site. A myLot member had sent PJ an email and that was the reply he/she received from them.


4) I had at least one person who joined through my referral link. It didn't appear to show up in my PJ account though.


5) PJ don't appear to have a central way of updating its members when there are problems. Wouldn't it take a simple 'News' page on their site to do that?



CONCLUSION...

If I hadn't gotten bored with Pickjack, then the way they appear to do things would have put me right off and I would have moved on anyway.

Until they improve (for which I don't plan on sticking around to find out), I can't in all honesty recommend them - even if there can be a fun element to using it.


There are mixed views about Pickjack out there. Some love using it, some don't - and some are just downright confused by it. My personal opinion is I think PJ needs to get its act together so that all members have a pleasurable experience, not just some. (a part of me thinks they actually thrive on the confusion).




Mama says have a great weekend, y'all. That's an order.

2ThePoint.

Survey Earnings: December, January, February...

img credit: nyki_m

I generally find paid surveys easy to do, albeit sometimes long and boring. Doesn't take a lot of brain power, just a bit of patience and honesty (and a glass of wine or some munchies for the real tedious ones).

I was already making a bit of money from surveys (about $80 last year) - but towards the end of last year, I set my mind on making more money from them. My thinking was if there were other good dependable survey sites out there that pay, then why not take advantage of them?

Which is what I did.

So far, my survey earnings over the past few months have been as follows:

December '08 - $13.28
January '09 - $69.82
February '09 - $45.76

(p.s.: I actually received the above amounts in pounds. However, I'm so used to working online in dollars that it's easier for me to add everything in dollars.)


I earned it from the following sites:

- OpinionWorld - £5 ($7.36) - not a lot of paying surveys, but a few do pay.

- American Consumer Opinion Panel - £2 ($2.98)

- Pinecone Research - £15 ($22.00)

- LightSpeedPanel - £6 ($8.80)

- Saros Research - £35 ($51.96) - focus group research - few & far between, but pays really well.

- MySurvey UK - £5 ($7.10)

- MyVoice - £20 ($28.66) - the surveys are quite enjoyable, actually.


(p.s.: Those were the pound-to-dollar exchange rates at the time I received payment.)



OVER THE COMING WEEKS...

I'll be writing a review along with proof of earnings about each of them (apart from LightSpeedPanel and Acop which I've more or less written about).



A COUPLE OF SURVEY TIPS FOR YA...

- Research a survey site THOROUGHLY before joining. Surveypolice.com is pretty good for reading up on some of the survey sites out there. Comments are left by people who've tried them.

- Don't join every single survey site going. Cap it off at 10-12.

- After a while, you'll notice the ones that are really working for you. Concentrate more on those. Get rid of the ones that are extremely inactive (decide whether it's worth holding on to them 'til you reach payout and then cutting them loose – or whether it's not worth waiting).

- Commit to spending up to an hour a weekday doing surveys. No more than that. Ok, 2 hours tops. Point is, don’t spend all your time online doing surveys.

- In my opinion, weekends and surveys tend not to mix. I don't get that many surveys at the weekends, so don't worry if you don't either.

- A lot of survey sites will notify you as soon as there's a survey available. But some won't. In the case of the latter, it's up to you to log on to their site to see if there are any surveys available.



Ok, that's me done.

Have a great weekend, y'all.


2ThePoint.

The Credit Crunch, the Manic-Depressive Media. A Match Made in Hell.

img credit: Kessiye

I'm a tuna person.

Canned tuna, to be precise.

I don't love tuna. Don't hate it either.

But it's the cheapest meat-substitute to buy on my budget.

Or rather, it WAS the cheapest.


A tin of tuna that I used to buy for approx £0.32 is now double that and up.

Other foods that I normally buy have gone up somewhat and I'm thinking of making my own toilet roll or opting out of shitting altogether. :-)


I know Britain's economy is kinda topsy-turvy at the mo'. Same goes for other economies around the world.

I get that.


But what I can't stand is being constantly bombarded with news about it.

I really don't think the media's helping with their non-stop reportage about the economy. It's almost as if, everyday, they're hoping another company will go under, that unemployment figures will go up further, that share prices will drop again.


I promised myself, when all the news first kicked off about the economy, that I wouldn't listen to it after a while - because I knew the media would get all obsessively gloomy about it - it's what they do - and I didn't want my psyche to be affected by it, I didn't want to absorb the fear, the doom-and-gloomism they were projecting.


And I guess what's pissing me off a bit is as much as I've flicked channels to avoid yet another dose of fear-laden journalism, I've still absorbed their 'oh shit, we're all fucked' mentality to some extent.



I'm gonna keep on shimmying forward though....inspite of it.




Have a grrrrrreat week, y'all.

2ThePoint.

The Wind's Changing Direction...Finally...

img credit: roctopus

Hey, people! How you doing? Do tell. I'm all ears (and fingers and stubby toes).


How've I been? Weeeell, it's been hard (cue the violin).


Looking back, things started going downhill from the time I quit my office job in November. Not that I regret it, but it's like when I chucked it in, December and January said 'Oh yeah?'


Those 2 months were VERY dry months for me, both online and offline.

But, thank God, it looks like things are set to change. I'm still broke but things have been happening of late that'll massage my cashflow fairly soon.


Soooo, this is how it's looking this month:

1) Freelance Web Writing: One of my clients who I've been working with for a while has increased the amount of blog posts I'll be writing. There were a couple of time-hiccups where I wasn't really writing that consistently for him, but I took the New Year as an opportunity for both of us to reflect on and re-establish our working relationship.

Whereas I was previously writing b/w 1 & 3 blog posts every one or two weeks (and at times, less frequently), he now wants 5 of those a week.


2) Workshops: I'll be running poetry & performance workshops from this month 'til June as part of a multi-school project. I was on the project some years back, but stepped down from it. Last week, I was asked if I wanted to jump onboard this year. Strange thing is I was thinking about the project the day before I got the call. I'm quite apprehensive about it as I know just how challenging and involved it is and I've been out of the loop for a bit, but I'm telling myself that there are reasons why I've been presented with the opportunity (again).


3) My Frikkin £500 Cheque: Still waiting on that. Yep. It's been almost 2 months now since I ran that workshop in the school and big momma's still waiting. Rather than go into the ins and outs of what's been going on with that, let's just say that school finance departments come in all shapes and sizes and some are laws unto their own. I'll leave it at that, shall I?


4) My Rent: My rent officer's been really cool. I was assuming the worst 'cos I'm quite behind on it, but she's been very understanding and has given me a bit of time to get my act together.



My morale was just about starting to lap up the mud in terms of my financial situation so I'm relieved things are stirring. I don't have to go back to a 9-5 which is great, and though juggling the web writing with the workshops won't be plain sailing, you can give me those over a 9-5 ANY DAY :-)



Have a good week, people. Sugared hope in your pocket.


2ThePoint.