I decided to look into these freebie-type sites to see what they’re all about.  Turns out, it’s a whole world, with thousands of people participating, trading, and selling “offers”.

Here’s the basics of it:

• You sign up for a site that is going to give away a product or money that you want to “earn”.
• You complete “offers” from site sponsors, usually a trial that costs $1 to $3- you gain access to a site, get information in the mail, etc.  Completing the offer gives you “credit” on the site you just signed up for.
• Once you’ve completed enough offers to earn the number of credits you need (often you just need 1 credit), you can refer other people to your site (like an affiliate site).
• As people you refer complete the site “offers”, you earn referral credits.
• Many sites give you a prize, reward, cheap promotional items, or a payment after just 1 referral; the more referrals you send to the site the more you can earn or the prize will have a higher value.

 So what’s the catch?  The offers that you complete are not exactly “free”, so you do end up paying something to get the “free” item advertised.  Usually it’s a couple dollars though, in exchange for a more expensive item (like an ipod, laptop computer, xbox 360, cash sent to your paypal account).  Still a good deal when you consider the amount you pay for the trials of the programs and the price of the item or cash that you can earn.

However, the biggest part of these programs is you have to remember to CANCEL the trial memberships, or you will end up getting a monthly bill.  Basically, you are completing offers for membership type programs, so you have to keep very careful records of how many days you get it for the trial price, and how to cancel before you get charged.

I experimented with these programs for about two weeks.  I joined a forum where people post “Trades” (you do offers on one of their sites and they’ll complete offers on one of your sites); or “Payments”.  Some people will pay you money or give you promotional items to complete offers on their site.  So I tried both!  I completed 1 credit of offers on a website for one woman, who then paid me $24.  It cost me $3.95 to complete the trial offers through the site, so I ended up profiting $20.05.  It took me about 20 minutes to do the offers, and another 10 minutes or so to email or call to cancel the offers a couple days later to be sure I didn’t get charged.

When I traded, I completed a few offers on someone elses site, which cost me $4.95 and 30 minutes of my time.  He then completed an offer on a site that earned me $60 for one referral.  After my expenses, I earned $55.05 for about 40 minutes time (counting the time spent to cancel the programs I joined to get the credits).

There is money to be made here, but it’s a little confusing, and you can lose money if you’re not able to keep close track of what offers you need to cancel and by what date. Also, pop up blockers and not accepting cookies when you are using the internet can effect the crediting of the offers- so I actually had to delete cookies before I started, and turn off my pop up blocker when completing offers.  Not a big deal, but just another detail that can turn people off of these programs.  I only suggest it for people who are detail oriented and are willing to experiment to get money or imprinted promotional items.

Are “Freebie” Sites Really Free? was created by and is property of American Consumer News.

Whenever people tell me they’re thinking about getting a second job, or that they are having trouble making ends meet with their existing job- I tell them they just need to turn their computer into a way to earn money. Honestly, if you are using your computer to send and receive emails and play games, read profiles on myspace or watch videos on you tube- you have enough knowledge to make money with your computer.

Often the money you earn from working on your home computer (or from your work computer on your lunch hour?) is more than what you would earn if you got a part time job serving coffee or waiting tables after work. You don’t have as many (if any) expenses, no travel requirements, and you can almost always make more per hour than you would at a second job.

Here are 5 ways you can use your computer to make money:

1) Do “odd jobs” on freelance auction sites including:

• rentacoder.com
• getafreelancer.com
• getacoder.com

Despite their names- these sites have opportunities for people to complete all types of work for hire- not just programming or web design related work. So if you don’t have programming knowledge, you could look under categories for data entry, article writing, and other miscellaneous job postings to find projects you could complete in your spare time. You get to name your price, and if you win the job, you’ll be paid from the buyer. You might want to stick to the freelance sites that offer escrow services (they hold the money from the buyer and release it when the work is complete) so that you know you will get paid for your work. Otherwise- a good rule is to require 50% of the fee up front and the remainder upon successful completion of the work.

2) Check bloggerjobs.biz for paid blogging opportunities. If you can write about a page on a specific topic, you can get paid to write articles by blog owners looking for help maintaining the content on their blogs. Pay may range from $5 an article to $25 or more per article.

3) Craigslist.org is the ultimate resource for all job listings of all types! You can select a city and browse the job listings that most interest you. Once you’ve selected the job category, you can narrow down the search results to only jobs that are “telecommute”; which means you can do them from home. These are not home based business opportunities, but rather, jobs and employment opportunities from businesses needing additional help from freelancers and people like you.

4) Promote other people’s stuff. You can become an affiliate of just about any product and service these days, and it doesn’t cost anything to sign up for 99% of the affiliate opportunities. As an affiliate, you can promote another company’s products and services and in exchange, earn a commission on any sales your efforts have generated. This is a good opportunity for people who have some internet marketing experience or who are looking to experiment and learn. Try www.linkshare.com or www.clickbank.com for opportunities to become affiliates of products.

5) Provide virtual assistance to small business owners and internet marketers. There are thousands of small business owners out there who are pressed for time. They’re spending time doing routine and mundane tasks when they should be concentrating on working their business. If you can type, make or take phone calls, set up travel arrangements, format or edit documents, keep track of finances, or any number of secretarial or administration work- you might be a good candidate to become a work-at-home personal assistant or administrative assistant. You can bill per hour based on the skill level required for the task.

5 Ways to Make Money Online was created by and is property of American Consumer News.

That being said, there are numerous ways to earn a few dollars with your computer.  In fact, I like to think of my computer as my personal, mini-ATM.  While I can’t swipe a card on the side and withdraw cash- I earn my living entirely on my computer and over the internet.  If you’re looking to supplement your income with your computer, here are some ideas of what you can do to get started:

Blog: starting a blog isn’t very difficult.  There are hundreds of programs that let you create a blog in just a few seconds, and you don’t need to have html knowledge for the majority of them.  You can monetize the blog using something like adsense, or you could write product reviews and have affiliate links to the products that earn you a commission whenever anyone shops from your links.

Freelance Auction Sites: if you have time and are willing to “bid” for work, you could use one of the many freelance auction sites like getafreelancer.com, rentacoder.com, or guru.com.  On these sites, people list work they have available, and then anyone who is interested in doing the work can place their “bid” (how much they would expect to be paid to complete the work).  The buyers select someone to complete the work from all of the bids they receive.

Become a Writer: online, words rule!  Just about all websites require text of some kind.  While it is very difficult to break into the world of book publishing and become an author- it is not all that difficult to become an online writer.  Visit craigslist.com and search listings for writers- you’ll be amazed at how many websites are in need of writers to create their website content, newsletters,  and articles. 

Join Affiliate Programs: many companies- both large and small- offer affiliate programs.  When you become an affiliate of someone else’s products or services, you refer people to the sites and if the people you refer purchase something, you get a commission. 

These are just a few ways you can turn your computer into a Mini-ATM- do some research and you will uncover many other ways that you can do part time work for some extra cash. 

Turn Your Computer into a Mini-ATM was created by and is property of American Consumer News.