My diary - over 50k of debt to clear!!

[Deleted User]

Hi Nolo,

Thanks for popping in on my diary.

You're doing really well and I've subscribed so I can follow your progress.

LordNolo

Deleted_User wrote: »

Hi Nolo,

Thanks for popping in on my diary.

You're doing really well and I've subscribed so I can follow your progress.

No problem - thank you - I enjoyed reading your diary :-)

LordNolo

19/05/2017

Hi all - got a bit drunk with the tenant on Friday night so a bit of a delay in posting my daily update but here it is!

Managed to get all my mystery shops approved after a bit of back and forth with the agency - got some really positive feedback as well which was great.

The most exciting news though is that I now have a functioning Iphone!! And I love it. Already started earning money with it as well. Not huge amounts so far but this is because I'm giving myself a bit of time to learn about it and what it can do for me before I get stuck in.

I'm enjoying the mystery shopping but scheduling it all around work is proving a challenge. I think this is something I will get better at and I think the iphone will help as well once I've found a decent calendar app.

I've realised that some of the survey sites I've signed up to give amazon vouchers so I've started to work towards earning some of these so that I can buy the printer I want without having to pay for it! I've seen a decent printer on amazon that has a scanner, email facility etc built in that's available for £60 with £10 cashback that I can claim afterwards - so with a bit of effort on my part I'll hopefully be able to get a printer for free and £10 for my troubles!

No mystery shops scheduled for the weekend as I need to give myself a bit of a break. Working a full time job and then doing mystery shopping and surveys on top of it is hard going but seeing my bank balance in the positive is certainly help keeping me motivated.

Hope you're all keeping well

Hiddenidenity

All good progress

Hope you had a good day

LordNolo

20/05/2017 - 25/05/2017

Ok so thought I'd cover a few days int this update.

My main focus this week has been on completing surveys - so far I've got up £24.22 on prolific academic so am just in the process of setting up a circle account so I can withdraw it all!. I'm up to £37 on populus live as well so not long before I get a £50 cheque :-)

I've also earned just short of £30 in amazon vouchers so I''m almost halfway towards my new printer target!

I've been able to do a couple more mystery shops this week and have also joined citizen me which is bringing in a few pennies here and there. Qmee is also proving useful at generating the pennies when I'm doing my web searches as well (although I'm careful not to abuse this one!). A large amount of tobacco checks have come up on task 360 so I plan on spending Friday walking around the town doing these and anything else I can pick up. Given the weather I think I'll be treating myself to an ice cream as well!

I've been down in London for a couple of days this week working in Westminster. Given the current circumstances I decided it wasn't a good idea to walk around taking photos on my smartphone in this area so decided not to do any app based tasks during this time. I was shocked and saddened by events in Manchester and my heart goes out to the victims and there families. It was both reassuring and slightly scary to see soldiers patrolling the streets of Westminster yesterday. I also had to escort a colleague on the tube as she was nervous about travelling on it on her own. For me I think these events have just reiterated how important it is for us to carry on living our lives and seeking fulfilment in them wherever I can. With that in mind I'm off to a fitness class now!

I hope you all have a good evening - I shall be returning to more frequent and probably more long winded updates soon but being on my travels does tire me out!

LordNolo

26/05/2017

Today I went out to do a few apps on task 360. Unfortunately though as I walked down the street they all disapeared! It seems someone else had the same idea :-( Next time I will be quicker off the mark as it was a good £24 work of opportunities! I did however manage to do a task on roamler and a mystery shop so not all bad.

I've also been accepted to take part in an online focus group! Which is great news as the payment is an amazon voucher which will help me get towards my printer target.

I'm now ready to count how far I am towards the America Target (2000) and so far I am 10 per cent of the way there with £200. I have some more payments due to come in over the next few days so I'm quite pleased with what I've achieved so far.

Tonight I had a few friends round to mine, they bought food and drink so I had a good no spend day and got drunk in the process! I appear to have still retained the ability to type though :-) I shall be doing a few more surveys before going to bed and perhaps a couple of searches on qmee - it all adds up after all :-)

Tomorrow I have arranged to visit a nearby town and do a few mystery shops there. I'm hoping while I'm there that there might be some app based tasks in the area as well but we shall see. If all goes well I will pay a visit to the cinema on the way home and watch wonder woman. I have a membership at the local cinema so it won't cost me anything to watch it :-)

I will then have a nice easy Sunday and Monday focused on doing some surveys as I work towards my £60 amazon voucher target. Currently I'm at £34.85 so it's building up quickly.

Last night I joined circle so I could do a withdrawal from prolific so that's £24.12 on its way to me. My pending balance at prolific is already over £9 so it looks like I'm on course for some good earnings.

At utest I'm doing some sandbox testing - however, I'm not finding it as easy as I thought it would be to be honest. Might have to look into this one a bit further.

Finally I also heard from lionbridge after contacting them and my exam has been pushed back to mid June. Not ideal as I was hoping to pass this and be in a position to get paid before I head off to America. That being said though the mystery shopping is proving to be a good earner and certainly keeping me entertained! Although filling out the reports afterwards can be a bit monotonous!

I hope you all have a good weekend and thanks for reading :-)

LordNolo

27/05/17 and 28/05/17

So a eventful couple of days. I spent the 27th doing some mystery shops in a nearby town (and incidentally picked up the best mcdonalds fries I've ever had as part of this!) - the mystery shopping is definitely proving to be a good thing although I do wonder what effect it will have on my waste line!

Whilst performing mystery shops I was also able to pick up my first task on task 360! Just waiting for the feedback on it to see if it's been accepted. I had a task rejected on street spotr again though - I don't think this app is for me! I find taking pictures of menu boards in fast food chains to be particularly challenging - never seem to be able to get close enough to take a picture that makes the prices appear clear and in focus.

Also had a dispute with roamlr over a submission but in the end they accepted that I was correct!

Another annoying thing that's happened is that the charging port on my new laptop has broken - so it's having to be returned to Amazon for a refund. This leaves me laptop less so I'm hoping the refund comes through quickly as not having my own laptop will harm my earning ability. Fortunately I can still submit my mystery shopping reports via my work laptop otherwise I'd be more sunk than the Titanic!

Spent most of Sunday doing surveys as I work towards my target of getting £60 in amazon vouchers. I think the bank holiday will be much of the same as well. I also signed up for a few more sites after spending some time reading through posts on the money shed and some more of Katy Kicker's excellent blog. I am though losing track of everything I've signed up to so I think I'm going to have to start maintaining a list. This might also be useful to keep a record of what earnings I'm getting from each site/app vs the amount of time invested so that I can get rid of the lower paying opportunities.

Next week involves a trip to Chester to pick up some more mystery shops. While I'm there I hope to pick up a few more app based tasks as well so hopefully my visit will turn into a nice little earner. It won't be happening until Wednesday though so I'm hoping a few more tasks will pop up in the local area on Tuesday. If not it'll be another day filling out surveys (which can get a bit monotonous but I'm determined to get to my target of amazon vouchers!).

Also signed up to a video survey app called vox pop me which looks fun. You get paid to film short 60 second videos about your opinions. Seems to pay about 0.25 pence per video. After a few minutes I'd earned my first £1. I suspect it'll level out at one or maybe two videos a day but it's a much quicker way to earn than through survey sites! I would advise doing the video uploads via wifi though as they are data hungry. Anyway if you'd be interested in signing up then send me a PM and I will give you a referral link(It earns me a £1 for each referral so I can't publish it here due to MSE policy)

Thanks for reading folks and I hope you're having a good bank holiday

LordNolo

29/05/2017 and 30/05/2017

Ok so I've no idea where May has gone! Disappeared in a blur of money earning I think (or at least the last two weeks has!).

I didn't do any what I term 'formal' mystery shops during these two days. However, the tasks that had disappeared from task 360 last week came back on again so I was able to pick these up and complete them. No idea why they disappeared and then came back again but I was happy to hoover them up!

I've also been smashing the surveys and so am close to another withdrawal from Prolific Academic already (having only done one a couple of days ago). A couple of the surveys I've done have asked me to do some key presses based on pictures that have come up. Because I'm using an ancient laptop due to my new one having broken (sad times) my laptop is struggling to do these which has hampered me from reaching the £20 withdrawal threshold.

In more positive notice though I had some payments clear into my bank account. So the day prior to payday I've managed to hit £500 for the America fund! One quarter of the way to my target. Not bad for less than 3 weeks work most of which was spent figuring things out and constantly asking questions on the money shed forum. I can't believe that I'm already a quarter of the way to my target. My hope is that with even more focus and dedication during June I can expand the America fund to £1150. That will then give me July and the first week or so in August to drive towards the magic £2000 total.

Of course whether I achieve this or not is entirely dependent upon work being available in my area but the good thing is that there doesn't seem to be much competition here. I'm also lucky in that I do travel a lot with work which means I can pick up jobs on the go.

The survey hammering (as I'm calling it) has also helped me move closer to my £60 amazon voucher target. Currently sitting pretty at over £40 which isn't bad considering that I've really only been doing this for a week. Has meant a little bit less sleep though for me as I keep thinking just one more survey so I was a little tired and grumpy yesterday!

I've been researching new apps to download onto my smartphone as well so that it becomes a money making machine for me. The latest discovery is called VYPR - am halfway towards a £5 paypal payment with this one after a couple of days usage so fingers crossed.

I've also downloaded IPSOS media cell in the hope of earning more Amazon vouchers - anyone used this?

Finally I started using Job spotter - I posted something on this and have already earned 75 points so it's looking like it may be promising.

Anyway in the words of Looney Tunes 'that's all folks' Speak soon

Hiddenidenity

You do amazing at earning extra money!

LordNolo

June so far.

Long time no post - I've been all over the country the last couple of weeks with work. Visiting such glamorous locations as Stoke! However, I've got a bit of free time this Sunday evening to do a quick update.

So what have I been up to?

Well so far more mystery shopping which is still proving a good earner. Also picked up lots of task on task 360 which has helped the bank balance a bit! Managed to get some shops in at LIDL as well thanks to streetspotr.

I'm still working hard to get my amazon voucher target. Am £20 short now but am tantalisingly close to a £25 cashout at global test market so should be able to hit it this week hopefully. I'll then switch back to cashing out to paypal unless there's something else in my household that breaks in the near future!

Speaking of which my laptop has gone back to Amazon so I am laptop less again. I'm also due to do an exam with lionsbridge next week so hoping my 7 year old laptop that I dragged out of the loft will cope with it. If not I will have to take the plunge and buy another one but I'd rather wait until July to do this when I have a bit more money so we'll see.

Citizenme is proving a useful distraction - I'm getting a couple of quid a week from it but given it only takes seconds to go through I'm quite happy with the return on invesement. Next week I'm travelling to Stoke, Leeds and London so no mystery shopping for me. I'm hoping I'll be able to pick up some app based tasks while I'm there and suspect that I'll be sat in my hotel room doing surveys as well. Every minute is an opportunity to earn money!

On a positive note I've reduced my debts by over £650 this month. Just got to keep up that rate (or better) for the next few years and I'll be debt free! I still want to hit debt repayments of over £1000 a month but with the amount of travel I'm doing for work at the minute I'll be burning out if I push myself much further!

Hope all are well. I promise to post sooner next time!