Lunch Money

Prize Live

Prize Live just paid me $11.  Not bad since I was away on a trip and did not have time to log on last month. 

I joined PrizeLive on Christmas Day of 2009 and have not really had much of a chance top play with it, but did get my first payout today:

Why Did I Call this Blog Lunch Money?

Well, it is truth in advertising. After I pay for the natural and normal expense of maintaining my cool blogs, if there is anything left over I intend to spend it at some fun restaurants and also to tell you about them right here.

My other blogs are about these things:

1) Useful stuff, gadgets, what I am up to and stuff I like (The Empty Cabinets of My Mind)

2) Plants that I love to grow, especially if they are edible (Ann's Air Gardens)

3) Art (drAnn)

This one really is about Lunch Money and things I've done that worked and things that did not work about trying to earn online. But I need to emphasize that it is even more about having fun. My firm belief is that work should be fun, and if it is not fun, we need to find better work. So to be honest I am a bit more interested in trying a lot of new things and learning than in buckling down to do what makes more money. There are also some things I will not do for money, whether it is online or off.

Moola

Need a Moola invitation?  Here it is:

http://www.moola.com:80/moopubs/b2b/exc/join.jsp?sid=4d544d744e7a6b304d7a673d-2

Moola is a game site with a unique twist.  You watch a short video and they give you one penny to use to play a game.  If you win the game, you keep the first penny and get another one.  If you lose, they give you another  one so you can try again.  If you win several games in a row, you accumulate enough money to make larger wagers and if you accumulate a lot of pennies they give you the money you earned. 

I have actually gotten money from Moola, but most of it came from their unique Spin-to-Win rewards that resulted from my having downloaded and used their toolbar.  I play a few games from time to time, though, and overall have won a few more than I have lost.

My favorite Moola game is called Hi Lo and although it is a game of chance, it is not gambling, because Moola provided the kitty.

To make sure you watch the ad, though, there is often a quiz.

Another way to earn money from Moola is from advertising your referral link and getting active people in your down line.  Here is my referral link if you would like to give it a try:

http://www.moola.com:80/moopubs/b2b/exc/join.jsp?sid=4d544d744e7a6b304d7a673d-2

Another One Bit the Dust

So far, of the ten or so "bux" sites I have tested, only a few are still alive and functioning properly. Those would be the grand-daddy of them all, Neobux and a similar one called Upbux.   Most of them sprang up like mushrooms and then went buggy or missing within the space of a just a few months.

Upbux has what they call "games" associated with it for those who wish to play.  I don't think the games are legal everywhere, as they are most certainly games of chance.   But they are also optional, so I don't think the Paid To section of the site is taboo.  

Not surprisingly, the Paid To programs I like best are PTW (Paid to Write) as most of these programs, especially Associated Content and Triond, are above board and honest.   Some of the PTR (Paid to Read) and PTC (Paid to Click) sites are honest too.  But shelf life for the  PTR and PTC programs is said to average around two years, so with some of them on the books as long as seven years, there are naturally a whole lot of them that go south in a short time. 

Neobux

UPDATE on neobux.  Shortly after I upgraded I had to go on a trip and found that I could not log in from computers on the opposite shore, so when I got back, they had locked me out presumably for not showing activity.  That sucks. 

Here is what I had written before this happened:

This program has such a "newspeak" name that it was a long time before I was willing to try it.  But the concept is certainly interesting and of all the Get Paid sites I have ever experienced this one seems to have the cleanest architecture and be the most trouble free in operation. \

As with all PTC programs make sure your anti-spam, anti-fishing, firewall stuff is up to date and operating, then expect to earn a penny a click.  To get people interested, they start out with a very low minimum payout and one of the things this program is known for is INSTANT payments to your PayPal account. 

Here is a screen grab from my PTC Accounting Ledger showing my Neobux earnings:

                         ---    ---

You Know Where You Live

But Does He?

- I don't play well with others - Sign by Danasoft

Probably, but not because of any code I put on my blog. You can see your information as shown by the little fellow above, but I cannot. I just keep him around because he is so cute. PS: Each time you refresh the screen you get a different witty (or sarcastic) comment.

Bux Sites: Friends or Foes?

I have investigated a number of ways to earn Lunch Money online, including something called Paid To. 

You choose a username and password and sign up and they give you something like one penny every time you  read a short advertisement.  After you accumulate enough pennies to reach what they call a minimum payout, you press a button and the money goes directly into your PayPal account.  If you like,  you can pay to upgrade your membership and get pennies faster.  Then other people find out you have gotten some money and they join and become your referrals, which give you a percentage of what they earn, too.

What makes Bux sites a little different from most PTR (Paid to Read) or PTC (Paid to Click) sites is that they have referrals for rent. 

However, what also makes Bux sites different is that so many of them disappear without a trace.  Not that other Paid To sites don't go under.  They do.  The average life span in Paid To is something like two years.  But Bux sites are notorious not only going under fast, but also for changing the terms midstream.  This can make shortchanged members quite angry. 

Also, if I tell you about a site and you decide to join and then it goes under, you might be angry at me for telling you about a bad program.  But the way it usually works is they start out being really good programs, or so it seems, and then after a lot of people say how much money they earned there, and a lot more people sign up on those recommendations, THEN they disappear.  Sometimes this is done on purpose, sometimes it is simply bad management, and sometimes life just gets in the way for the owners of these programs.  Their partners get sick or die, their domains expire, they have to get real jobs, whatever. 

Typepad Micro: It's Free

I have a blog I call The Empty Cabinets of My Mind.  I initially set it up just to test a few things, but eventually it took on a mind of its own.  I monetized it just enough to pay for the best blogging platform I could find, and that happened to be TypePad, at least in my opinion.  But I don't like a lot of ads on that blog.  I don't mind making a bit of money online, but maybe not there. 

So maybe I will put some ads on here now that TypePad is free.  My online business is called Lunch Money.  That is because when I first started making a game out of earning online, lunch was about all I could buy with my earnings.  But that is OK, as I can be quite flexible about lunch. 

To me, lunch can be a burger off the dollar menu at McDonald's or a sunset dinner at the Crowne Plaza in Ventura.  Anything fancier than that and I'd have to "dress" and doesn't that sort of defeat the whole purpose of an online business?