Friday, May 18, 2012

Getting there in my kinda style

Bought myself something today. I'm still not working, but, needed a way to get around. I didn't want a payment. More important I wanted something at a comfortable level of technology. I hate paying other people to work on my cars. I found this 1966 Chevy 3/4 ton with a factory stake body at a price I could afford. It needs some sheet metal work, some adjusting to the brakes, and seals in the rear end on the drivers side. Just under 64,000 original miles. I bought it from it's second owner. The first owner was a welding shop in Rochester, NY.






I'm gonna fix her and put us both to work

Woods

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Making an extra buck or two part 1

Ok, let me make this clear. This isn't a get rich scheme. You might get a bag of groceries a month. Or maybe a little play money for your hobby. If you're really good you could get a weekend of camping out of it now and then. Both my wife and I do this. Her pride is in the fact that we haven't purchased paper goods from the store in over a year. For me it's about making a potentially expensive hobby doable in spite being unemployed.

Several months ago I told you about swag bucks . I'll give a quick recap. I stop in at the swag bucks website once or twice a day. On the first visit I make sure I do the daily poll and the NOSO. It only takes a couple minutes and it's good for three swagbucks. If I have time I'll try and knock out a survey or watch a few videos for points. The surveys are where the bucks are for me. My wife makes hers on the videos. I also make sure to do all my websearches from the swagbucks search engine. They randomly give you points for your searches. Some searches will pay, most won't. No big deal it is Google powered and gives almost the same search results as Google. Swagbucks are redeemed for gift cards in our case. 450 swagbucks buys a $5.00 Amazon gift card and 600 swagbucks gets you a $5.00 gift card for your paypal account. I can make anywhere from $20-$40 a month without trying real hard. Pelenaka makes alot more, but works alot harder at it. Almost all of the ugly gun project was paid for using swagbucks .

For the past two months I've been playing with a few other sites that pay. I don't make as much on them, but, I don't spend as much time on them. These all pay in cash and you have to have a Paypal account to collect. Also I can confirm that these three site will not spam you, or sell your info to anybody that will.

First I'll tell you about Beezag  because it's different than the other two. The world has changed. Companies want to tell us about thier products through advertising. Thanks to remote control, we just change the channel. So now the companies have gotten smart. They will pay you to watch thier advertisements. That's where beezag comes in. You go to beezags website and watch advertisements. While they play two numbers will scroll accross the screen. At the end of the ad, punch the numbers into the box and get points. 20-60 points per ad. When you get to 8000 points you cash them in for $8.00.  It's not a fast way to make money. But, it doesn't take much of my time and every little bit adds up.  Yes they do pay, I have collected a payment from them.

Next in line is the one that I have not collected from yet. They will pay, I was reffered to them by a guy that I believe. Paid viewpoint is a survey site. At paid viewpoint you will make money by answering questions. A survey takes only a few minutes. The least I've been paid was a dime for a five or six question survey. I had one that paid me 6 cents per question. The reason I haven't cashed out with them yet is you have to get to $15.00 before they pay you out. I will be there within the next few days. Now thier surveys do expire and they are only on the site for an hour or so. I'm lucky if I catch one or two a day. If I was more attentive, I could make alot more money on this site. I probably miss as many surveys as I take.

Last, but certainly not least is ICS or instant cash sweepstakes. Again this is a survey site. The surveys are a little longer. They pay anywhere from 1 cent to 10 cents. 3 cents has been the most common payout for me. BUT! There is more than one way you make money on ICS. There is that "sweepstakes" in thier name. You answer your polls and one of them pays cash. Every one of them pays  out in tickets and coins. The tickets are for a daily $50 drawing. The coins you have two options with. Each coin will buy 5 tickets towards the daily drawing, or you can "bet" them in a drawing that happens every couple hours. The little drawing is for a $2 prize. Payout with ICS is the fastest of the bunch. I've taken two $2 payouts. I could take a payout now, but, I'm trying to wait till the end of the month. My account has over $6 in it right now.

ICS and Paidviewpoint are sister sites. That is part of the reason I'm so confident paidviewpoint will pay me. ICS has been very reliable with thier payouts. There is one very important thing to remember with both these sites. The size of the payouts builds over time. And the reason for that is what's they call "trait score". Trait score is a rating you earn through repeatability. That means honesty pays. They are going to ask you  some questions many times. The payouts come from answering those questions the same way each time. That raises your "trait score" and the higher your trait score, the more you get paid.

Give it a try. Every little bit adds up. One of these days I'll blog about the  $119 Woolrich shirt jacket I just bought. By the time I took off Amazon gift cards and paypal money earned with these sites, it cost me $32 shipped to my door.

Like I said up front. You won't get rich. But, you might just bring some things within reach. Things that make you feel richer, like my new Woolrich shirt.

Woods

Friday, May 4, 2012

Some things just make you feel old

Was doing a little cleaning and organizing on the reloading bench a couple days ago. Trying to get an inventory of whats on hand. I found these and the price tags made me feel old.


Yes my friends that is .79 and .80 cents. And magnums at that. These probably date back to my high school days. Back then I was loading for an 1889 Marlin in 38/40 caliber. Loading on a tong tool with home cast bullets using FFG black powder or P Pyrodex. Lots of fun and lots of good memories. The CCI's have a Hamlin Gun Shop price tag on them. He set me up with the old tong tool and bullet mold when I couldn't afford or sometimes even find 38/40 ammo. This would have been about 1980, so cowboy action shooting was at best in it's infancy.

To put the price tags in perspective. I have 200 empty 9mm cases to load up sitting on the bench. I'm trying to get my inventory back up. My dealer hasn't had any CCI small pistol primers in weeks. Figuring I was going to use 200 of my old stock, I purchased 400 new ones. I bought Winchesters at $3.20 a hundred. Federals were $3.65 .

I feel old. Jim Rabjohn closed Hamlin Gun Shop in the spring of 2001 and retired. I had kept a gun on layaway in that shop almost every day for 20 years. As soon as one was paid off, I'd buy another. He had nice terms $5.00 down, payment every two weeks, paid in full in six months. The old Marlin has been gone for years. If I could afford to buy it now, I'd be afraid to shoot it like I did back then.

Memories are fun, even if they make you feel old.

Woods