Work at Home Opportunities

The economy has affected a lot of consumers, businesses and employees. We’ve experienced a pay cut at my work. I have many co-workers who were barely making it paycheck to paycheck and now they even have to squeeze their budgets a little tighter.

I have a co-worker who showed me an ad for a WAH (Work-at-Home) Opportunity by assembling crafts.  It was a company looking for people to make Angel Pins.  She said she’s going to try it and maybe I should to. I told her I’d look into it.  

That’s exactly what I did. I searched for this website, www.angelpin.net. One of the red flag warnings of a scam is the presentation of the website. This one seems a little believable. The pictures seem like a crafter’s website. It’s not techy or fancy. It did bother me that some of the pages are undone. And there were some misspellings as well. I’m not too sold about the site. Ultimately, they charge $19.97 for the starter kit and $29.95 for the registration.

While searching for this website, I stumbled upon New England Crafters. Their website is Magical Gift Company. This website is also not professional by any means. But it looks believable as well. They offer more than one kind of craft. They sell their starter packs for $44.95 and offer a full refund after completing your first 250 pieces.

Since I was in the mood for researching some Work at Home opportunities, I decided to search an old company I saw a few years ago, the Disciples’ Cross. Their website is
Disciple’s Cross The starter kit is $69.95 and has enough materials to make 25 crosses. They do a buy back option or you can sell the crosses yourself. People have mixed comments bout this WAH opportunity. Some people are happy about it, while others are not.

To anyone considering any of the above (or other) opportunities trying to make some extra income… Be careful before your send your money to anyone. If it sounds too good to be true (even if it might be), just follow your instinct anyway. And don’t forget, it’s still WORK so don’t think it’ll be THAT easy!

First CRV redemption

We’ve never really recycled before and our empty containers are starting to take up a lot of room. We finally have about 1 big bag and a half of recyclables, both plastic juice bottles and cans. I asked my husband to find a redemption center close by to finally take them in, but to my surprise, many places that used to do recycling have already shut down. Very interesting.

Anyway, thank goodness that I was reading an article in a Parenting Magazine about Recycling. It mentioned a website called earth911.org. I remembered the article, went to the site and voila! I found a redemption site close to our place.

We only got $4.00, but that was $4.00 that could have been in the trash! Yay for recycling! This isn’t too bad, something I will definitely encourage my kids to do if they want extra money. =)

Recycling Cans and Bottles

As it turns out you can get 5¢ for containers less than 24 ounces and 10¢ for containers 24 ounces and larger

“As a matter of convenience and efficiency, most recycling centers pay by the pound if you bring in a large load, so be sure to have only CRV containers to get the highest possible refund. You also can request to be paid on a per-container basis if you bring in loads of fewer than 50 per material type you just have to ask the recycler to pay by count instead of by weight.” Source: BottlesandCans.com

The containers of the following have CRV

Carbonated Soft Drinks
Wine Coolers
Distilled Spirit Coolers
Beer
Carbonated and Mineral Water
Non-carbonated WaterSports Drinks
Coffee and Tea Drinks
Fruit Drinks
Fruit Juices packed in containers less than 46 oz.
Vegetable juice in containers 16 oz. or less

Click here for more

Recycling to Make Money

I was looking about recycling in the web when I stumbled upon this one calledRecycle Bank

You need to sign up, then they send you a bin to fill with your recyclables. When the recycling truck comes by, they weigh your container and take away the contents. You then get credit from certain stores for shopping.

Read through it though to check availability of the program and participating vendors. Either way, it’s a good incentive to help the environment and get a little something back for your effort =)

Make money on old Baby clothes

The other day, we had a false alarm in regards to the baby coming early. It made us realize how unready we are, and we need to get on it ASAP.

Then, we began with sorting our son’s clothes he already outgrew, since its the clothes that’s taking most of the space in his bedroom.

We had a few options,

1) We can donate the clothes at a local Goodwill
2) We can Ebay the clothes
3) We can bring them to Once upon a Child
4) We can give them to my sister in law just in case she ends up having a baby boy.

Unfortunately, Ebay and a yardsale are out of the question because we are pressed for time.

So, my husband drove off to Once Upon a Child in La Canada and brought some clothes to see if they were interested in them. They picked out a few pieces and we got $20 for it.

Then, we separated the clothes that are in still in excellent condition and decided to leave them as hand downs to my sister in law. (Those were dropped off at my in-laws)

Finally, whatever was left on the pile was bagged and donated to Goodwill. We got a receipt that we can use when we itemize out taxes next year. Woo-hoo!

Not only did we get rid off clothes to give us more space, we even got some cash and tax deduction that can be put into good use later =)

401k —free money at work

My job provides 401k for their employees.  They match 80% for every dollar for up to 6% of employee contributions.  I’ve heard of some companies do better, some less, I guess what I have is pretty decent.Not taking advantage of 401k plans is one of the biggest mistakes some employees make.  They are giving free money.  Imagine, for every dollar I put in, I end up with $1.80. And the money is mine.  Some people say that they have too many expenses and can’t afford to have a hundred dollars taken out from their checks each month. But it doesn’t have to be $100.  You can start with $50 or  $25.  Just get started.  Besides, it’s the pre-taxed dollars.  This means that the amount they compute for taxing you is less than the amount you put in your 401k.  Which in my experience, actually balances out.  Ok, ok, for those people out there that says, $25 dollars is still $25 dollars, just think of it this way, you’ll get used to it.  Some money saved now means a brighter future in retirement, right?