You don’t need a lot of cash to lead a good life. I’m not talking about credit cards. If you are a resident of the US, you can live well without having a big salary or a lot of cash in the bank. Ok, you can live comfortably if you know how and have access to the Internet.
You can pay your heating bills, which will keep you warm. You can even have beautiful designer handbags. You can dine at fancy restaurants and get paid to live the good life.
How is that possible?
For mystery shopping. You’ll find where you can do exactly that in the resource box. Let’s start with the really cool part about eating at good restaurants and getting paid for it.
Basically, the company wants to control its sales or service people. Obviously, the staff would recognize the big boss or upper management if they came forward. Management wants to know if sales people or service people are doing their job correctly.
In the case of a restaurant, the management wants to know if the waiters please the customers, if the chef cooks well even if the management is not looking. So they have mystery shoppers do these random checks.
That means the fancy restaurant pays you to eat and drink there, just like a regular customer. The restaurant will pay for your food. Then, you provide feedback to management about your experience. Conceived. Getting paid to be treated like royalty. Now that’s living it.
In addition to restaurants, many service-oriented businesses hire mystery shoppers to keep their staff on their toes. Carpet cleaning companies may pay you to clean your carpets. Pizza delivery companies pay you and give you free pizza. You get to live it and get paid for it.
In addition to mystery shopping, you can pay many of your bills by completing surveys. These could be as simple as between 2 products, which one do you prefer? Or what you like or dislike about a product. It could be your demographic information. The company may be trying to get in touch with the likes and dislikes of your customers, or potential customers, and is willing to pay your bills or give you useful gifts in exchange for your participation in their surveys. The company might be trying to build a customer profile for its product, or just trying to better understand the market. At the end of the day, you benefit from free stuff and better service or products as the company makes adjustments based on survey results.
That means you can get what you want at kmart or walmart by joining their programs and getting their gift cards. You can get $250 gift cards that can be used toward your purchases or your Thanksgiving meal. If you have a sweet tooth, you can get $100 worth of free chocolate. The gas bills are too high, there is even a program that allows you to have free gas for a year. Fancy your own laptop? You can also get yours for free. Not from an unknown brand but from good laptop brands like IBM, Toshiba or Gateway. You can get a Tiffany bracelet, carry a Fendi bag, go on vacation without paying a dime. While you’re on vacation, you can take great photos with your new digital camera, listen to music on your new MP3 player, and call home on your cordless phone—all for free.
Want to lose weight, go to the gym, with a free 1-year gym membership. Even your pet can eat free with a year’s supply of pet food.
So you see, you don’t need a lot of cash to live it up. If you take the time to fill out a few forms, you could basically live a good life… for free.
Another way to stretch your dollar is to get what you need at discount prices. I like to go to clearances or warehouse sales to get name-brand products below retail prices. The big sales can be crowded, but if you can handle the crowds, it’s worth the trip. Some of the items might have been specially brought in for sale to draw crowds. These would probably be the first items to sell out. You may want to hit the sale as soon as possible to ensure you get the best deals before they run out.
You can also find a lot of great stuff at retail prices online. Because? For one, online stores don’t have the high rental overhead that an actual physical store would have to pay. The savings could then be passed on to the customer in the form of discounts. Some physical stores even have web-only discounts that are worth checking out. By paying less than retail prices for your purchases, you can live with even a small income.