Time, and lack thereof.

Now that I've been a SAHM for a year, I'm wondering how I ever had time to get out the door and get to work before. I have waivered back and forth between trying to make money online, and focusing on the house. It seems I can't find a happy medium.

I have really gotten out of the habit of checking out MTurk everyday. For a while I really got into a good groove with them, logging in at certain times of the day, searching out requesters whose work I enjoyed, and I was making around ten to fifteen dollars a day. Slacking off for several months, I'm finding it difficult to get my routine back.

One thing I haven't stopped doing was looking for the perfect work at home job, and I did stumble onto some opportunities on the WAHM.com forum. Because of a NDA agreement, I can't say a whole lot about it. But I passed all my required testing and am set to start working this week. I am so excited, but so worried that I'm not going to be able to juggle everything. Eh, I guess I don't know how it will work out until I try. :)

But becoming a WAHM vs just a SAHM, I'm just going to have to buckle down on scheduling. Work is work, and you get out of it what you put in. Maybe it will work out beautifully, maybe it won't. But if I don't take the chance I'll never know either way.

I am hoping once I get back into the routine of working at home that I can squeeze in an hour or so each day for MTurk. It's really nice to have that little bit of spare change for new books for the Kindle. 

When Good Requesters Go Bad on MTurk

Well Summer's here, and as usual not finding a whole lot of time to do MTurk work. But there's some valuable lessons I relearned this week when what was one of my favorite requesters posted a lot of work on MTurk.

It's really important to keep up with reviews on Turkopticon and Turker Nation. Even though I've previously done thousands of HITs for ProdUniverse without any problems, I noticed several forum posts about them rejecting tons of work. As in, the vast majority of work submitted. Most of the posters in the forum had sent emails to both ProdUniverse and MTurk and had heard nothing in return. Something is fishy with this. I did do 11 HITs to test the waters, so far all are still pending. I have enough HITs approved prior that it wouldn't put a ding in my approval rating.

It just goes to show how vigilant a Turker needs to be to protect their best interests. Why put in a bunch of time for nothing? And for those who don't have large amounts of HITs approved already, a big batch all rejected could wreak havoc on their approval rating, limiting what work they can do. I rebounded mostly from my big hit at Christmas, but it was a long hard road to do so. I'm not about to give ProdUniverse a chance to make me do that all over again.

All in all, I do enjoy their HITs. They won't make you rich, but they're easy time killers and the money isn't horribly bad. If ProdUniverse can fix whatever seems to be the problem, I'll be back. If they can't, I'll have to chalk them up to a good requester gone bad and stay away. Life's too short to play with scammers.  

***Edit: The eleven HITs I did yesterday did all approve today. I'm still not confident enough to jump in and do a bunch. Turker Nation is still showing several posters who are getting the vast majority of their work rejected from ProdUniverse. 

Summer Work

Summer is here, and I'm finding it much more difficult to buckle down and work at home. Between playing outside and tending the garden, I've slacked off on online work. However, I do still check in with MTurk early in the morning and late in the evening and still make a few dollars a day.

As with anything in life, you get out of it what you put into it with MTurk. The irregular checking in like I've done misses a lot of good HITs, but there's always transcription work to find. Which is good. Claritrans and Castingwords almost always have transcription work up to do around the clock.

Another thing I do try to do to add up a little here and there is just taking five minutes here and  there throughout the day to work a few HITs. Even if they're penny work. It does add up over time.

All in all, I still plug away with MTurk. So far it's been my favorite way to make money from home. I may not be getting rich from it, but it does give me money for gas and spending money. Plus, I know it pays out so I know it's worth my time. In about a year's time, I've made around $2100, and about half of that time I hardly logged on to work. 

MTurk Work

Well it seems working on MTurk is really going well lately. There seems to be tons of good stuff to work on! I'm having trouble working a lot of the Retail Data HITs, it seems there's some kind of glitch in their qualifications, maybe? It's really aggrivating to see all that work posted and no way to do it!

Otherwise, ClariTrans has been posting a lot of work, and as I've said before, I really like their stuff. I can crank it out fairly quickly and haven't had a rejection from them yet. The pay is fairly decent, and they seem to post work quite frequently.

I tried a requester I hadn't seen post work before, Jason Davis. It was to figure out why tags were used for descriptions on a craft website. I did more than I was comfortable with, and a few of them have approved. I was leery to do more until I could see how they were going to approve. I have had six of them approve from the past three days, but many more are just sitting. Kind of makes me nervous, but they were quick and paid well, so we shall see.

I'm still doing some CastingWords transcription work, but not as often as ClariTrans. I like CTs shorter transcription snippets, I never know when the kiddo is going to wake up from a nap or when the phone is going to ring, so I like to zip through and be done with it. Both have posted a lot of transcription work lately, though, so it's easy to switch back and forth between the two.

There's been other odds and ends, but nothing all that notable. I'm hoping Retail Data qualifications get straightened out soon, I'm so picky when doing the HITs I'm fairly confident that I'm doing them correctly. So to then get an email of a qualification revoked is a little irritating.

I'm still not getting rich overnight, haha. But for the ease and comfort of working at home MTurk is working out well for me. 

A thousand bucks on MTurk!

I finally did it! I hit the one thousand dollar mark on MTurk, woohoo! I won't lie, it took a LONG time to do it, but it was worth it, yay for free money!

Crowdsourcing isn't for everyone, but I have tried to make the most of it. Sure, it doesn't pay that great. But there's no rushour traffic jam, no annoying co-workers, and no paying for a babysitter. Those are the things that keep me pushing on working on MTurk to earn extra money.

Lately, I've been averaging about $12 per day, and that's not too awful bad for my needs. I spend the latter part of the morning, and a couple hours late evening making money online. Those are the times that seem to work best for me. Plus, the work I really like on MTurk is usually posted in those times and gets taken rather quickly.

I have searched around online for other Crowdsourcing sites, and have not had much luck at all outside of MTurk. I registered and took several qualification tests at LiveWork.com, and applied for several jobs on there. I didn't hear squat. I was doing a little work for CrowdCloud, and only made a couple of dollars, plus they had SO many glitches it just wasn't worth it.

I'm still always keeping an eye out for more work, but for now am happy to stick with MTurk. It's definitely not a get rich quick thing, but it does add up here and there for some spending money.

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!

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.

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!

 

Bargain Shopping

It's getting close to the holidays, and time to start Christmas shopping. It's no secret that I use a lot of my MTurk earnings to buy things right off Amazon.com, and I have found some really good deals there over the years. Whether you use your own cash, or money you've earned from MTurk, shopping there couldn't be easier. Check out the Gold Box deals every day to get the best specials for your Christmas presents!

Another MTurk update

Now that I'm a full time stay at home mom, I'm focusing a lot more time on working with MTurk. I'm up about $510 earned through MTurk! The work has seemed to dry up a tad bit, but there's still plenty of stuff for stay at home moms to piddle around on and make a little cash.

I haven't done much more work with CastingWords transcription through MTurk yet, but my first two assignments I did with them got good reviews and I liked the work. I need just a little more quiet time around here to do that. My plan is once a week or so to take Gracie to her aunt's house and spend the day on those jobs. The rest I can do when she's here, as they're shorter and don't require as much hands-on work. It would be easier, sure, but I can still definitely find enough time and attention to do the work on MTurk with Gracie here.

My goal is to make $80 per week with MTurk, and that is definitely reachable. I have to focus my time on this for now, as I'm still getting the hang of being a stay at home mom! One of my biggest time drainers if my favorite Mom message board. Now that I have the time, it's hard to peel myself away from there and get to work! 

I'm hoping to find a perfect balance between stay at home work, housework, and a little bit of me time. I'm sure that will come in time. But for the time being, MTurk is where much of my focus is going to be. 

Starting with Castingwords on MTurk

After much debate and research, I finally accepted and completed my first HIT with Castingwords on MTurk. Whew! 

I had downloaded the Express Scribe software, but was having tons of trouble figuring out how to actually download the MP3 file to work on it. I finally figured out to right click the link, click "Save As," saved it to My Documents, and then I could easily load it into the Express Scribe software to transcribe it. Originally, when I clicked the link, it would open in a separate page in QuickTime, and it would not have been easy to transcribe it that way!

It was relatively painless once I figured that part out! I did a transcription that was a little over two and a half minutes, and it did take me a while to do it. Most of the transcription work on Castingwords is in small snippets like that, so I purposely found a short one to get my feet wet. 

The transcription software has hot keys to make it easier to transcribe, and once I get a real feel for it I feel I can zip through this work MUCH faster than I did today. I do like the whole idea of Castingwords, and I already love MTurk! I think once I learn the ropes a little more I'll be ready to dig into the bigger, and much better paying, jobs Castingwords has to offer. Who knows? It might even lead to bigger and better stay at home mom work!

All in all, I'd say my first experience with Castingwords was a good one. It took about 45 minutes, but again, I was checking and rechecking the style guide to ensure my first submission was excellent quality. 

I'm definitely a fan of the Express Scribe software. You can slow down the speed of playback, which made it incredibly easy to understand when the speaker was talking too fast, or to decipher hard to understand words. I only marked one place with a question mark, I could figure out the rest.

I will keep updating my experiences with Castingwords. This is a great opportunity for stay at home moms to earn a little extra money. Anybody can sign up and give it a shot!

Taking a Leap of Faith

Yesterday, I had enough. I couldn't balance working outside the home and all the work in the home any longer. I turned in my two week notice! It's a giant leap of faith, I would have rather paid down my bills a little more before becoming a stay at home mom. But no more talking, it's time to just do it.

This will force me to start treating working at home as a real job. A "work" schedule will become very necessary in this quest. I think it is within reach, I just have to get off my tooshie and make it happen!

The plan for now is to work 10am to 2pm, about half of that time Gracie naps. The rest she's winding down for her nap and it should be easy enough to work from home during that time. Housework can come afterward. Then once Gracie is in bed at night, I can probably crank out another hour or two. Doing this five days a week should give about 15 hours per week.

The first month I will need to step up the residual income work, mostly eHow and Infobarrel. I still don't have my first article up at IB yet, but there's no time like the present! I need to clean up the two I wrote for my Suite 101 application and submit them. I hope to write more during the day, and use MTurk and CloudCrowd at night.

It's a huge relief to quit that job. HUGE!

CloudCrowd update

So one day into CloudCrowd my work, all three jobs, was approved and paid. Yay! I checked into the work available section several times throughout the day and night, and work was spotty. Keeping in mind, they DID say work would be light as they were rolling out new features and guidelines. So I wasn't too disappointed, but would have rather had more opportunity to earn from home.

I think as CloudCrowd grows a little more, there will be more work available. I do know now, from first hand experience, that they DO pay, they do NOT spam your Facebook profile, and the work is easy to do from home. These are always my biggest three concerns for work from home jobs. 

I was a little busy yesterday, so I probably didn't check the CloudCrowd site as much as I'd have liked, but there was bits of work here and there. To be fair, about three quarters of the time I looked, there was no work available. You did have the option of clicking the type of work and seeing if it is something that would interest you or not, and the instructions on how to do that type of job. I liked having the option of a sneak preview of the work, so to speak. On MTurk, you don't necessarily have the option unless the job is actively open.

All in all, I think CloudCrowd will be a great tool to use in the journey to become a stay at home mom.  I especially like that you can work on it as you please, for as long as you like, when you like. When chasing a busy toddler around the house, having the option of stopping work when needed is extremely important! 

Each task can be completed fairly quickly, and is easy work. As far as I could tell, there was no time limit for the jobs. On MTurk, each task is alloted a certain amount of time after you accept the job, and if not completed by that limit it counts as an abandoned hit, which hurts your score. Some jobs have to have a certain approval rating, often very high, and that could hinder future work. There is a rating system at CloudCrowd along the same premise, but without time limits, it shouldn't be hard to keep the rating high. I've had to abandon a few hits on MTurk because of a sick baby, boo-boos, or phone calls.

To sign up for CloudCrowd, follow this link and sign up in my crowd. I'm looking forward to hearing any and all success stories or complaints about CC, so feel free to let me know what you think so far! 

New way to make money at home!

I've been reading about a new site similar to MTurk, so I thought I'd check it out myself. CloudCrowd operates on Facebook, so I was a little hesitant to sign up for this at first. I have read in the eHow forums several people who worked as recently as last week, and almost all were paid the NEXT DAY, straight into their PayPal accounts! Woot!

Being a new and rapidly expanding website, CloudCrowd is going through some growing pains. This week work will be very limited, as they implement measures to weed out scammers. I have followed a few forum threads on both eHow and TurkerNation, the latter of which had two employees of CloudCrowd answering question and addressing problems. 

It seems the issues are being worked out, there were several forum posters who had claimed their work was rejected unfairly, and the company looked into it and not only approved their work, but promptly paid. Hence the need to tweak the app, too many were getting good work rejected by scammers.

This seems a lot like the work I do on MTurk, a lot of editing or reviewing work. It seems the work they had posted last week was focusing on Chinese websites which were originally poorly translated to English. Some work was finding such sites, some work was editing the translation, other work was grading work that was done.

The rates of pay seem to fluctuate a tad here and there, but overall, many people report making anywhere from $6 per hour to over $12. Several worked just a few hours and were paid above $30 per day. Some were reporting around $80 per day! Not bad for an aspiring stay at home mom!

So, I can't give an honest conclusion about CloudCrowd just yet, but I do know people who have been paid. There is a referral system, so I would be thrilled if you used this link to sign up. I will update throughout the week letting you know how this is working for me. So far, it looks good. Especially if they get the bugs worked out of the system and start posting work this week!

One last, and very important thing. I was hesitant to grant access to CloudCrowd on my Facebook. I took the leap of faith, and nothing showed up on my wall, or was sent to my friends. There is an option to send an invite to your friends, but it is definitely not necessary. I was afraid of appearing spammy to my friends, or bugging them with info they were not interested in. I'm happy to say, it's been kept private on my profile. 

MTurk General Transcription

I've been looking for ways to increase work at home opportunities with MTurk and stumbled upon their transcription work. It's general transcription, which is great for a newbie like myself. I did take some Medical Transcription classes a few years back, but never stuck with the program. I actually have the hardware and software necessary, but it's packed away somewhere at the moment. So, needing work in the general area of this field is important.

Castingwords has loads of general transcription work on MTurk at any given time. They have a nice style guide available, which can train anybody on how to do this work. Some of the jobs are longer, some shorter, and they offer nice bonuses for excellent work. I've read through many WAHM forums that give rave reviews of the company, they're legit, give bonus pay fairly, and pay quickly.

It seems this would be a great company to learn the ropes with. They do have a qualification testing process, which would make me feel more at ease, or at least more confident in getting started. I plan to download the Express Scribe software this afternoon, which is the easiest way to do transcription from what I've read. Once qualified, they also offer jobs grading transcription work that has already been turned in with them.

I always keep my eyes open for companies on MTurk I would like to do work often with. The ones who pay well and quickly, and post content often, are at the top of the list. I think Castingwords is looking like a great bet for working on becoming a stay at home mom. It seems steady enough to rely on, unlike some of my other favorites that post jobs sporadically. One that I work for often pays well, but it seems like it takes 2 weeks to get jobs approved and paid. I guess that's okay if there's nothing else available, but I like having that money in my account rather quickly in case I need it.

I'm really excited about this opportunity. This feels right, like it will help make the transition to stay at home mom quicker. Getting into a routine before quitting my job will be an important first step. I'm not positive I have enough self control to be a full on work at home mom, but by golly I'll give it my best shot! 

MTurk, making money in my spare time

I'm buckling down more and more with MTurk. This can really be a profitable website for a stay at home moms. The biggest problem with me, is finding the time and sticking with it. There are too many distractions on the world wide web sometimes to keep focused. Finding work with MTurk that is enjoyable helps overcome some of those issues. Staying on task and devoting time and energy to it really brings in a decent little income. Of course, the longer you devote to it, the more money you make!

I'm setting aside at least three hours per day to work on MTurk, at least an hour and a half both morning and evening. This will leave the rest of the day to take care of the house and kids, make dinner, and focus on other online earning oportunities. Plus, setting a realistic schedule can help reduce burnout so you can work harder and more efficently. Every little bit helps when trying to work from home!

Another time zapper for me is continually checking the dashboard to see how much money I've made. This is a bad habit! Just keep plugging along is the best way to really add up some income. Plus, it makes the time go by so much faster. 

MTurk is one of my important tools in becoming a stay at home mom. I can make quick and easy money there, while waiting for my residual income from places like eHow. The combination of both types of income are handy, you know you can count on the residuals, but when something comes up you have the opportunity to make it up quickly. 

Life's been crazy!

It's been a little hectic around home the past couple of weeks, so I haven't had much time to focus on becoming a stay at home mom. Things have settled down, so I'm stepping up my efforts. Tackling the budget a couple things at a time is my goal for this month. Getting rid of the cigs and laying off soda are my first two big ones, they're huge drains on my grocery budget!

Up until now, my efforts to become a stay at home mom have been centered around eHow and MTurk. I would like to get some more articles up on eHow to build that residual income up a little higher. Heading into the holidays leaves a lot of room for seasonal articles, and I just want to expand the numbers a little, too. I keep a little log of article ideas handy, I'll often be in the middle of doing something and think "This would be a great idea for an article!" but when I sit at the computer later on I have no idea what to write. Keeping a list handy makes it much easier. I have a list of about a hundred articles I need to get back to work on.

MTurk is doing well, but I am still open to new opportunities. I just don't seem to have enough time on my hands! Even an hour a day, or a half hour twice a day, seems to add up with MTurk. It's actually been a stretch to find even that much time lately! I'm stepping up the efforts, I want to be a stay at home mom and it's up to me to make it happen. 



There's other writing sites I am looking forward to checking out. Helium and Examiner are two I've heard a lot of good things about. I'm not too sure about Bukisa, I've heard good and bad, and I'm just not sure I want to devote the time to it just yet. They have an affiliate program, so it seems a little spammy to me. 


Oh yeah, affiliate programs! I hear this is a fantastic work at home opportunity. I gave it a shot with some of my eHow articles, and haven't seen much success with it just yet. It is probably next on my list to try out, though. It's worth a shot, it doens't cost anything but time to try it out. Maybe it will work, maybe not. Only time will tell!

MTurk really pays!

So MTurk is really paying off! It's been a few months, and I took the better part of a month off in between, but so far I've made $355.10, and have been paid out by them three times! I've found that I can average about $7 - $10 per hour or so, sometimes more, not bad for a stay at home mom wanna-be! I'm really excited to use this in my journey to be a stay at home mom. The hours and jobs are flexible and quick. I can time it during nap times, etc. I love MTurk!

One thing I've found with MTurk is that if you do well with your work, sometimes someone you've done work for will contact you to qualify for higher paying HITS doing the same thing you have been doing. I got a two and a half times raise by one company, and they post work frequently. It's turned into a nice little bonus, and that one company probably accounts for 80% of what I have made with MTurk. 

One last thing I suggest, is to take as many qualification tests as you can. If you think you are remotely interested, take the test! It could lead to a lot more work in the future. And I think we can all agree there is no such thing as a stay at home mom with too many qualifications. As you search through hits, don't check the box that only shows results you are qualified for. You may find some work you can do but just need to take a little test, and that can lead to a lot more work in the long run.

I will keep updating on the progress with this over time. I am very happy to have found this opportunity, it has really paid off!

Extra Money With MTurk

So I've given Amazon Mechanical Turk a shot at making extra money on nights I'm not working, and it's not doing bad. In just a few hours I've made $34.79, and I've read in several forums for work at home moms that they really do pay out.

In a nutshell, the Amazon Mechanical Turk (or MTurk) service is a series of short jobs, or HITS (Human Intelligence Tasks) that just cannot be done by a computer, but need a human touch. They don't pay a lot per HIT, but, most are so easy and short it adds up quick, perfect for a stay at home mom.

I try to find jobs on the MTurk site that pay pretty low, but are fast, and have several HITS in the group. Then, I click "accept next hit automatically" and just go to town with it. I've made about 90% of my money that way so far. The thing I like the best is that you can choose to accept the job, or not, it's up to you. It's generally very enjoyable work, and you can stop and start as you wish. No boss, no schedule! Always a plus for a stay at home mom!

I think the MTurk job is going to add up to a nice little amount of extra money each month. I don't think I'll be able to become a stay at home mom just yet, but the extra money will come in handy!