MTurk Issues!

I woke up today thinking I got the shaft in a huge way from MTurk. Huge. BUT I found out one thing today, if you have a problem, start writing emails. I completed a very large batch of HITS yesterday for Smartsheet.com, and woke up today to find all of them rejected. I was positive I'd followed the directions to the letter, so needless to say I was very upset.

 

It wasn't just the money, which the amount for MTurk is kind of a lot. But my credibility rating fell through the floor, limiting what work I can do. I was furious, I felt scammed.

Here's what I learned today. Smartsheet.com has it's own clients, and the clients of them is who approves or rejects work. Thankfully, when made aware of a problem, Smartsheet.com DOES go above and beyond to rectify the issue. They worked with me and their client to come to a peaceful resolution, I am very impressed.

 

Although once work is rejected, it's stuck with no way to unreject, I was paid for my work with a nice bonus. All within a couple hours of firing off that first email. I'll say I was given enough of a bonus to keep me happy, as it will make up for the lost work for a little while. I have a large amount of HITS outstanding for another requestor I work with daily, so in time my rating will come back up to an acceptable level. I feel I've been compensated in the meantime.

So, in short, THANK YOU Smartsheet.com for taking the time to work this out. I was very impressed with the communication, and obviously happy with the end result. I'd be happier if my approval status was back up to par, but like I said, I think we came to a fair resolution. It's nice to find integrity on MTurk!

Cheap Christmas craft ideas

So I've been working on some Christmas crafts, and I found one that's not only cheap, but makes really cute Christmas ornaments. Best part is, you can recycle old sweatshirts for this!

Cut strips of fleece or old sweatshirts into one inch squares. I use my rotary cutter and it takes no time at all. They don't have to be perfectly square or exactly one inch, having a little variation actually makes these cuter!

Thread several onto a string, pushed close together and each one turned a slightly different direction. When you have enough to tie off into a circle in a nice wreath shape, sew the ends together and tie it off. I made mine wreath ornaments about four inches across.

Here's the fun part! Glue on beads and / or bows, tie a loop at the top and you have yourself some cheap homemade Christmas ornaments for pennies. It doesn't take much fabric at all to do these, and if you recycle old sweatshirts it's practically free! I'm making these in sets of six for presents. I've done sets in all white, dark green, and some in favorite football team colors. Each one has turned out fanastic!

Another cheap Christmas craft idea I'm working on this week is sewing gift bags. I used to spend around $20 to buy gift bags and wrapping paper each year. Well, I have a ton of fabric laying around, so I'm going to sew my own. Nothing really fancy, just a rectangular piece of fabric with the top folded over and hemmed, and sewn up the sides. Shouldn't take more than a couple minutes for each, and I already have the fabric. These are so simple you don't need a pattern an even a beginner can do wonderfully. I will tie off each with a ribbon, or possibly a drawstring. The bags can be reused by the gift recipient, too!

I still haven't started the full sized wreaths, but I'm thinking of carrying over the sports colors themes for those, too. I've seen a lot of cute patterns for wreaths online, but I think I'll stick to tying six inch long and one inch wide strips of fabric to a wire frame. I haven't seen any done with polar fleece, but going to give it a shot. I think the look will be super cute!

MTurk Money

I'm not quite sure what's up, but MTurk has tons of work posted!! The past few days it's been unreal, I saw as many as 853,000 HITS posted a couple days ago. It's like Santa Claus made an early arrival, yippee!!

I've been working on the Retail Data HITS a lot, that seems to be the bulk of what's posted. They're penny HITS, but they go quickly and are easy. I really liked working on the Baby products ones, but they're already gone. So, I've also been working on the Sports and Outdoor ones lately, too.

I found a real gem on there yesterday, I found 75 cent HITS that only took a few minutes to finish, and there was a big batch of them. If they all approve, I think I made $20 pretty quickly. I was in the middle of making dinner, or I would have stayed til the very end!

MTurk is really helping to make a little Christmas money, I've been averaging a little over $10 a day, with the occasional bonus day with a few more dollars. Not bad for an hour or two of easy work from home. If I just had a little more time to spend on it, it could add up even more.

Just a little update, back to the grind at MTurk. My favorite time to work there is late morning to early afternoon. It seems to be when I have the most time and can find the work I like to do.

Christmas on a Budget

This Christmas the budget is stretched pretty tight this year. I've done this before, but it's been awhile. So this year I'm going to be making many of our gifts. I've got tons of fabric, ribbon and beads around here, so I'm going to make some Christmas ornaments and wreaths. For both, I will take strips of fabric and tie around a wire frame. The ornaments will probably be mini-wreaths, and possibly some snowflakes and candycanes. 

Cookies and candies are always a great gift for Christmas, and the ingredients are cheap. Plus I love to cook, yay! I'll be picking up some cheapie tins at the dollar store today, along with chocolate and nuts. My favorite Chirstmas candy recipe is just a bag of dark chocolate chips and about an equal amount of nuts. Melt the chocolate in the microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring in between. Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper and voila! Great candy. Hazelnut is my favorite, but they're sometimes hard to find around here. Any nut will do for this recipe, though.

Otherwise, Christmas will be sale items and last minute impulse buys. I'll probably throw together a quilt or two, if time allows. Rag quilts are perfect for last minute gifts, as they are so quick to put together. Like I said, I have TONS of fabric left here! I think I have enough denim fabric left to make a nice lap throw. Hmm, who's going to be the lucky recipient this Christmas?

Been a Little Busy

I've been a little busy lately, and haven't had much time to update. I can't believe I ever found time to go to work before! Although it's looking like I'm going to have to go back to work, working online just isn't cutting it for me. Maybe if I had a little more time, or would get off my butt and write more eHow articles...

November earnings on eHow have been tallied, and it was my best month ever, by far. I made just shy of $150, and managed to write four more articles. Of course, I lost four in the latest sweep, so I'm still at 160 articles posted. 

Still chipping away at MTurk, and I made around $80 this month there. My earnings have totalled $616 there since starting. I have been trying some different techniques to make more money with MTurk--I filter the results to show most recently posted and just refresh away until something comes up. I check first off for my favorite requesters, of course. But if there's nothing else going on with them, the most recent is a decent way to add a few bucks here and there to the pot.

I'm kind of irritated that I'm going to have to go back to work. I really thought I could swing it, but it's just too soon. I've got to get a couple more bills paid down, and then it's SAHM time. Keeping up with cleaning and cooking, spending time with the family, etc, just doesn't leave any time. I don't know how I ever pulled it off before! But if I find a part time job in town, I think I'll be able to get ahead a little.

I'm still scouting around for different ways to make money online, but not finding a lot of luck just yet. I signed up with LiveWork, and applied for a couple jobs there, but didn't hear anything back. According to the WAHM.com forum, I need to fill out my profile there a little more. I scored great on all the job skills tests I took, so I'm hoping if I get that filled out it will lead to something. 

I tried shetoldme.com, using my Adsense ID and Chitika, and I'm just not seeing a whole lot of money come out of it at all. 

For now, I'm browsing the help wanted section in the local newspaper, and religiously reading WAHM.com forums to get that one lead that will make it all work out. I think my #1 enemy is TIME. There's just never enough of that when you're a SAHM!