duminică, 22 februarie 2015

Online surveys

An increasingly popular way for students to make money is to fill out online surveys in their spare time. Research companies are always recruiting new members to answer surveys and test new products. For a few minutes of form filling, you can make a couple of quid which is paid as cash or in rewards. You can make up to £3 for some surveys!
A few good ones to try are: Toluna, Vivatic, The Opinion PanelMySurvey, YouGovSurveyBodsValued OpinionsiPollGlobal Test Market, HivingPanelBaseHarris PollOpinion Outpost, YourwordPineconeIPSOSNew Vista.
Also sign up for Swagbucks.com which rewards you for surveys as well as simply surfing the web, watching videos and playing games.

No-risk matched betting

Hands down the quickest way to make a lot of money (well, without breaking the law). Lots of students have genuinely made £100s from this technique. It’s completely legal, risk free, tax free, and anyone can do it.
It works by taking advantage of free bets regularly offered by betting sites (such as WilliamHill.com) through ‘matching’ them at a betting exchange. Matched betting eliminates the risk (you are betting both for and against a certain outcome).
This leaves you being able to squeeze out the free bet, which can be as much as £200! Multiply this by how many betting sites there are and you can quite easily come away with a profit of a few hundred pounds.
Owen walks you through how to make your first £15 profit (using a real life example) in this gem of a guide to matched betting. If you know of any better way to make £30/hr sitting at home, please let us know!

marți, 17 februarie 2015

10 Tips Everyone Should Know When Shopping On Amazon

These days, there are few among us who don’t indulge in spending sprees online. Without a doubt, one of the best online market places on Earth is Amazon, where you can get everything you could ever need for discount prices. But are there even more ways to save money when you shop on Amazon? There sure are!

10. Some Credit Cards Get You More Benefits Than Others.

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One of the first rules of shopping is that not all credit cards were created equal, and shopping online is no different! Some credit cards offer rewards for shopping on Amazon, whilst there are other cards created specifically for Amazon shoppers. For those interested in the entertainment sections of Amazon or Foodies the Citi Forward Visa is the best choice, whilst the Amazon Rewards Visa is perfect for every day shoppers.

9. Use Amazon Trade-In To Sell Your Old Stuff.

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Using Amazon Trade-In you can trade your old electronics, books and games for Amazon Credit! This may not seem as beneficial as using a site like Gazelle to trade for money, but you are likely to get a significantly larger amount of money in credit than cash. For example, if you trade an iPhone 5 for money you can get around $75, but if you trade for credit you can get $225.

8. If Your Package Doesn’t Ship On Time You Can Get A Refund.

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Before you simply accept that your package is late, make sure you check the delivery dates that you were promised when making your purchase. If you package is shipped or arrives late you may be eligible for a refund or an extended Amazon Prime membership. All you need to do is contact Amazon or the seller to receive the rewards for waiting.

7. Get Amazon Add-Ons When You Spend $25 Or Over, Or Skip The Minimum Entirely.

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Amazon’s add-on scheme is a particularly crafty piece of marketing as it promises discount prices but only when you spend $25, which may be more than you ever intended to spend in the first place. To get around this $25 minimum and get your add-ons without going overboard, all you need to do is add a pre-order to meet the price. Pre-ordering video games, movies or books is completely free of charge until they are ready to ship, so just make sure you cancel before they’re released.

6. Get A Refund If There’s A Price Drop.

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Melanie Pinola | lifehacker.com
If the price of an item you’ve bought drops within 7 days of it’s delivery then you may be eligible for a refund of the difference. Sure, sometimes this may only entitle you to pennies, but you never know and it’s always worth checking!

5. Get Price Drop Alerts Using CamelCamelCamel.

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An easy way to check for price drops is to use CamelCamelCamel, a price tracking site that will email you or send out a tweet when items you want or have recently purchased are reduced. You don’t necessarily have to sign-up to CamelCamelCamel, but doing so allows them access to your Wishlist and tailored emails.

4. Find Anyone’s Amazon Wishlist Using Just A Name Or Email Address.

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Speaking of Wishlists, when it comes to what someone really wants there are few better places to check than their Amazon Wishlist. All you need is their name or email address and you should be able to get them what they really want for their birthday, christmas or wedding.

3. Shop On The Amazon Warehouse, Amazon Outlet Or MyHabit.


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If you’re looking for seriously discounted goods then you need to take a look at Amazon Warehouse, the home of returned items. You can also check out Amazon Outlet that stores all new items that are 30% or more off or MyHabit, where designer discounts rule.

2. Save By Subscribing.

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If you buy your toiletries, hair dyes, nappies or any other products regularly, why not use the Amazon subscribe feature? You choose how often the products are delivered and in the long run it will most probably save you a lot of money, time and energy. More so, if you order five or more subscriptions on the same delivery day you save 15% on your order!

1. Get A Replacement Item Or Refund If Your Package Is Lost Or Stolen.

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Without a doubt, the most frustrating risk of shopping online is that your package may never turn up. This has happened to me a couple of times, however Amazon is always there to help. A short chat with customer service will usually result in either a replacement order or full refund depending on which you’d prefer.

6 Ways to Save Money on Amazon that You Probably Never Knew

If you’re reading this, you probably love shopping on Amazon just like I do. And if you’re anything like me, you also want to buy as much as you can and save money in the process. Well, you could wait for the sales season to do all of your shopping. But if you want to save money on Amazon right now, there are ways to do it. And here are six ways you could do just that.

1. Amazon Warehouse Deals

Not many people know this even exists! But hey, you could save a lot of money by going to this page and browsing through the deals.
You probably haven’t seen this page before, and I won’t blame you. It’s carefully hidden in the Today’s Deals page. It’s the sixth link on the top link bar, right beside the Deals and Bargains link.
I found a great HDTV here at almost 30% off, which I now use for console gaming. Sure, there were some dents and scratches, but they were in places that were not visible anyway. I still enjoy playing my NBA2K15 with my friends in HD quality. And yes, they don’t notice the scratches at all!

2. Amazon Outlet

This is another one of those hidden links in the Today’s Deals section. Amazon places their products on markdowns, clearance items and overstocks in this Outlet section.
You can’t find every type of product you want here, but what’s really neat is you could browse item categories depending on how much savings you want. For example, you could go to the Television and Video section and choose products that would give you a 50% discount.

3. Add Items to Your Shopping Cart, but Don’t Check Out

A pretty unusual trick to save more money: put all the items you want to purchase in your shopping cart, and then don’t check out. After a few days, Amazon might just e-mail you an offer for a discount or with an offer of coupons for the stuff you just left in your cart.
Of course, this doesn’t always work. You kind of have to hope that Amazon’s computers identify you as one of the lucky buyers. It did work for me once, and I got a 10% discount for the items in my cart.
Word of advice: don’t use this trick when you’re in a hurry. Otherwise, though, if you can afford a few days of waiting, then trying this out won’t hurt you.

4. Savings.com’s PriceJump

One of those really neat tools you can use is Savings.com’s PriceJump. This online tool will tell you whether or not you are getting the best deal on Amazon, or if you can get better prices elsewhere.
It’s pretty straightforward to use. Once you find the item you want to buy in Amazon, copy its URL from the address bar. Then paste it to the space provided in the PriceJump tool. Results will vary, though. Just recently I was shopping for a new MacBook Pro. I checked the price with PriceJump and it told me that I could save at least $150 dollars if I were to buy it from another site.

5. Snag Discounted Amazon Gift Cards

Another source of savings I found while browsing online are discounted Amazon gift cards. You could search for people who are selling the discounted cards in Google to find a list of sites that offer this service.
Personally, I use the GiftCardGranny.com as my go-to site for finding discounted gift cards. The cards they sell here are from Ebay, so you would also need an Ebay account to make this work.

6. CamelCamelCamel

A weird name for a highly useful service, CamelCamelCamel allows you to track the price history of a particular item on Amazon. You even get to see all this data in a neat chart. You could use this tool by entering the URL of the Amazon product you want to buy in the space provided at the top of the site. It will then display the price history of all the purchase options (Amazon, 3rd Party New, or 3rd Party Used).
You save money by using this tool through its Price Tracking option. Set up an alert by indicating your desired price, then put in your e-mail or Twitter account to get a message once that price is reached. Then, you can keep on saving!

The 5 Best Websites To Make Money Online

The internet is a beautifully simple marketplace for people to make money, and get paid for their services. We’ve compiled the five best places for you to make money online, whether you want to start your own business – or just make a little extra on the side.

Site 1: Elance

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Elance is the Internet’s biggest marketplace for legitimate freelance work. And, it’s my personal favourite of all the websites in this list.
It provides a simple interface that allows you to search for jobs in any kind of niche. From Writing and Translation, to Web Design and Programming.
Basically, people post jobs they want doing on the website, and you submit a proposal for it. It’s that simple. 
Regardless of how much money you want to make, the possibilities are endless: there are freelancers on subscribed making $1,000 to $100,000 a year.
Pros: Free service. Simple to use. Easy to manage Tax Documents. Verified, trustworthy jobs.
Cons: Can be slow to become established. Bad Freelancers willing to work for $1-$2 an hour.

Site 2: Fiverr

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Fiverr is a long established freelance site where everything costs a $5 minimum. It’s a simple and easy to use website, where you post the services you can provide: and if someone needs them, they’ll pay you to work.
It takes the traditional Freelance way of working and turns it on it’s head. It also ensures you get paid before you complete any work so that you never find yourself ripped off.
There is also scope to earn more than your $5 per job, with different levels for different services, such as: early delivery dates, extra work or ‘bolt-on’s for your services.
Pros: Protected payment before work. No marketing required. Work is on your terms. Quick and Easy to set up.
Cons: Lots of competition for work. Hard to establish a business. Have to do your own accountancy books. Not much scope to build a solid income.

Site 3: oDesk

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oDesk is somewhat of a sister company to eLance, that helps freelancers find work in a wide range of areas. Out of the two sites, it’s down to your personal preference: but the oDesk’s design and Payment tracker app set it apart from the competition.
This is a great website to get started on as a beginner as the average prices for jobs is lower, and it’s much easier to establish yourself as an up and coming freelancer.
Pros: Good design. Simple set up. Great for beginners. Easy to use interface.
Cons: Prices can be too low if you’re looking to build a big business.

Site 4: Craigslist

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Craigslist isn’t a site you’d think synonymous with Freelance Work – but it’s actually a hub of jobs and work to apply for.
It’s a simple and easy to way to start to build a portfolio and make some money in the process. The normal client can vary between local businesses, college students and someone looking to get work done as quickly as possible.
Air on the side of caution though, as sometimes you can find yourself chasing money for work you’ve done.
Pros: Easy to get started. Low pressure environment. Constant stream of new jobs. Easy money.
Cons: Not always reputable clients.

Site 5: Freelancer

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Freelancer is a ‘gameified’ version of the sites eLance and oDesk mentioned earlier. You have the ability to ‘level up’ by earning experience points from the projects you complete and the milestones you hit. There are no shortage of jobs on these sites and everything is channelled depending on your skills and abilities.
Freelancer doesn’t have a free option that is as flexible as it’s competitors, and you find yourself paying to take tests and complete certain tasks.
This plays into the hands of people posting projects, as it shows you’re committed and established, but it doesn’t really help you if you’re just getting started.
Pros: Fun and easy to use interface. Interactive spin on normal freelancing. More reliable jobs than any other source.
Cons: Paying for tests and membership makes it hard to access for low-budget new starters.

5 Ways to Become a Millionaire In One Year

Some spend their entire lives struggling to earn a decent living, while actually managing a business meant to thrive. If you are tired of watching your competitors bypass you or tired of doubting your business idea, check out these simple, yet powerful tips to boost your profits today and join the list of millionaires next year!

1. Discover a growing market

One of the most obvious, yet forgotten, ways to create a business worth millions is to find a booming new trend and ride to the top of it. Analyze what’s hot right now. Spend time researching the niche and evaluate what competitors offer and what they don’t, and what you can! Take for instance, Nick D’Aloisio, a 17-year-old kid from London who coded a handy Iphone app Summly – a wise news aggregator collecting short news summaries from all major outlets. The app was bought by Yahoo within a few months for a whooping sum of £19 million. Whereas there already existed a huge amount of news apps on the market, none of them offered to pull out a summarized and concise list of all major events, based on your interests, location and preferences.
No wonder the app was hot to get acquired by Yahoo, as the possible revenue estimates were expected to double within a few years as more and more mobile users were getting tired of slow loading pages and clusters, opting for clean and neat products to let them solve their problems on the go.

2. Think over your monetization strategy from day one

A lot of tech startups fail with this one and merely focus on growing a huge user base, instead of thinking about decent ways to monetize. Twitter and Instagram are just two examples of such a phenomenon, but there are numerous companies who eventually failed due to their inability of creating revenue. If you are focused on becoming a millionaire in the first year, you have to work over your monetization strategy from day one!
Most profitable businesses operate with one of these models – they sell a lot of cheap products and services to a lot of people or they sell premium, big-ticket items to a limited list of buyers. Brian Clark of Copyblogger managed to turn a simple blog into a $7 million company by selling premium marketing courses and software for internet entrepreneurs and content marketers. Whereas, online marketplaces like Etsy dominate the search engine rankings with a huge variety of products worth from a penny to a few hundred dollars.
Now each model may have its draws and advantages, but more importantly than choosing which one you are to implement, you first have to create a defined plan for monetization. Understanding how you will make money from the start will save you from wasting time on the idea that something profitable will come up for you.

3. Be Number One

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Now, Pepsi may earn a few billion dollars each year being number two product on the market, but chances are, you can repeat the same success are rather low. There is a bunch of mediocre products out there these days, but those companies are nowhere close to making a million in their first years. The truth is – you have to offer something so freaking great to wow your customers and create the necessary industry buzz if you want to succeed. For instance, John Morrow claims to offer best guest posting course that will connect you with top influencers in your niche, generate long-term traffic steam and actual sales. The spots get filled up within a few days after opening as the product seems to be one and only non-bullshit course these days that will teach you to grow your business with smart content marketing and guest blogging techniques.
If you are struggling to identify what exactly is going to make your product better, just ask around to your existing customers!  A short survey with simple questions like “What else we can do for you?” and “What other features would you like our products to have?” will give you the lacking insights. And after implementing those recommendations, you will earn a bunch of loyal clients who will go on to refer more sales to you in the future.

4. Hire Rock stars

You should not expect to handle a multi-million dollar business on your own, right? Delegating and hiring top-notch stuff is one the crucial points to make or break your company. Hiring underperformers is cheaper and easier, yet this team will achieve none of the goals a few high-end professionals could complete within the same time-frame. For instance, Google invested in hiring best coders since early days and keeps the same policy until now. It’s needless to say how powerful this strategy turned out to be.
When looking for the initial team for your business venue, the first thing to do is ask around your professional network for referrals and recommendations. Pay special attentions to the sales executives you are hiring, as they will stand the biggest difference in your business’s bottom line. Keep them motivated and inspired to close the deals with whatever it takes!

5. Focus on data


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The last, but not least, major point is to consume and analyze all data you can possibly get and act on it. Take advantage of Google Analytics by identifying and setting up your company’s key KPIs. Run split tests and implement new marketing strategies based on the data, in order to push the indicators even higher. Gain valuable statistics by analyzing your social media performance with KissMetricts or focus on improving your website usability with a series of tests by Crazy Egg. With numerous data analysis solutions out there, squeezing out the tiniest details about your possible consumers and audience has never been easier.
If you feel like you are lacking the skills, consider investing in a rock star analyst who will chew down all the numbers for you into actionable tips. If your goal is to manage a million dollar business, you need to take advantage of the markets data

Kickstarter

If you have a passion project, Kickstarter may be exactly what you need to get it off the ground. Celebs like Zach Braff and Melissa Joan Hart have used this site in attempts to fund their movie projects. Some crack dealers in Canada inspired a “crackstarter” campaign from Gawker for pictures of the Toronto mayor smoking crack with them. All you need is a dream, a goal, a budget, and a great pitch to convince people to come to the site and donate to your Kickstarter campaign. Panhandling isn’t dead – it’s gone digital…