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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Fatcow Review: Top notch web hosting service for the money

Summary of Post
Fatcow may not be the cheapest web hosting service provider out there but their customer service is excellent, and their 'punny' take on bovines is 'udderly' hilarious. I 'joined the herd' in March 2010 and set up my own website Fun with Bugs! in less than a day. The Fatcow help person (a real person!) helped me with questions that I had and was very patient and courteous to a novice like myself. Free domain name, a 30 day free trial (money back guarantee), and a user-friendly Site Builder were what I liked best about Fatcow for my small business.

My experience with Fatcow
I was intimidated by the prospect of setting up my own website and had put it off for way too long. I needed a simple website that would showcase my small business: bugs and the fun bug educational programs that I offered. I didn't have much to spend since

Friday, March 26, 2010

Review of E-Rewards Opinion Panel & Delta Skymiles Prizes

Summary of Post
E-Rewards is a legit survey site, but their E-Rewards Dollars are not the equivalent of real world dollars, because rewards offered are inflated in value. However, E-Rewards pays about $2.30/hr, which puts it on par with some of my favorite survey sites, but not as high as Toluna ($7/hr, read my review here). Customer service is excellent and reward redemption is hassle-free.

The above is the e-Rewards logo
About E-Rewards Opinion Panel
E-Rewards is a survey site that awards $$ for completed surveys, that can be redeemed for Delta Skymiles, Hilton Hhonors points, magazine subscriptions and discounts off purchases from a variety of retailers. Between $0.50 to $10 is awarded for a completed survey (longer surveys earn more), that's if you 'qualify' for the survey, which is determined in a short screening survey. Non-qualifiers are awarded $0.25, which is nice. The $ accumulated in your account during your membership year expires a month after your membership anniversary. Redemption is a painless process, and e-mail enquiries are answered courteously and promptly.

My Experience with E-Rewards
I signed up in March 2009 and was happy with my year-long experience. I received 105 survey offers, and qualified for 21 of them. About 12 surveys paid $4 or more each. So as of yesterday I had a gloat-worthy $100 sitting in my account. Oh yeah... Unfortunately, as I relate below, my $100 was not really worth $100...

A Closer Look at E-Rewards 'Rewards'
The rewards selection looks pretty good until you really scrutinize it. Many of the discount coupons require

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Winnie Winster's Slot Social Review: An Update!

Summary of post
A follow up update of my previous review of Slot Social. After more than a year of membership in this unbelievably addictive website, does Winnie Winster still hold me under her spell?? Did I ever get enough points to redeem any prizes? Yes and Yes!

Slot Social Anonymous?
I am now the President of SSA, myself a recovering addict ;). Actually I'm the only member of SSA. ;) I don't know if all my Slot Social buddies are in denial, offering up excuses like "it's so much fun, and it's free!" and "I won a $10 Walmart gift certificate!". Am I trying to convince myself that Slot Social is a bad thing?... Well, I'm not succeeding, and life is too short to agonize over whether addiction to this wonderful social game is bad or not. So I quit! (I mean I quit as president of SSA :)).

Hey, wanna join Slot Social? (If you can't beat them, join them!). Click here to join, and soon you'll be among the millions of folks worldwide who've had their day brightened by this impossibly irresistable 'friends help friends' game.

My Prize
I had racked up the 1,000,000 points needed to redeem my $5 Amazon gift certificate, within the first two months of playing an hour a day. But I decided to hold out for the $20 Amazon gift certificate (a whopping 3,800,000 points). I'm now so close to my prize I can almost taste it. I have 3,363,975 points and they don't expire. So I'll bide my time and accumulate points while indulging my 'addiction'...

Ah Slot Social, what's not to love about it? :)

By the way, I've also compiled in one handy location, links with discounts and coupons to all the places where I shop online. Check out Where Gracie Shops!


xo Gracie

P.S. It would be AWESOME if you could click on any ad here - my sponsors give me a few cents per click. Thanks for supporting my blog!

Is Delta Skymiles Worth It For Me? More mileage out of my skymiles

I've been a Delta Skymiles member for over a year now, and also signed up for their E-Rewards program that's similar to some of the cashback sites like Cashbaq and Ebates, and I currently have 18,000 miles sitting my account waiting to be redeemed for something. How much does 18,000 miles translate to in dollars and cents? Can I get a plane ticket with it?

Delta's perspective
Well if I could sell my miles back to Delta, at the $0.028/mile rate they charge me for buying miles, my 18,000 miles would be worth a handsome sum of $504. Delta is having a "Buy Miles 50% Bonus" right now that makes it $0.019/mile, not that that affects anything since it's not possible to sell miles to Delta :)

Plane ticket worthiness?
According to the Delta Award Mileage Chart my 18,000 miles could get me a round trip flight to anywhere in the US. I might even make it to the Caribbean! Or so I thought. Their

Review of Lightspeed, Ipsos I-Say, NPDOR, Nielsen Homescan, Opinion Central, Toluna, etc

Summary of Post
A review of my year-long experience with these survey sites. I really liked some of them but there were some that I never got anything back for my time. Taking surveys isn't going to pay enough to feed the family - I ended up with less than $50 for my foray into the world of surveys. Survey-taking isn't for everyone, but many people enjoy it (myself included sometimes!). Read on then decide for yourself if you would like it...

What I did
I signed up for a bunch of the more popular survey sites around April last year and was an active participant for a year. Here's a signup call/blurb example: "Your opinion matters! Tell us what you think about the products and services we use every day, and have an impact on the future. Plus, we'll reward you with cash, gift certificates, and other great prizes for completing surveys! Click Here". I responded to all the survey invites that poured into my inbox. As I suggested in a previous post reviewing Mypoints, Inboxdollars etc, it's best to have an email account dedicated solely to survey emails. Expect between 1 to 10 emails a day from each survey site... Now although I responded to all the survey invites, I didn't 'qualify' for all of them. It was a drag sometimes having to fill in the preliminary screening info (e.g. ethnicity, income range) then being informed 'Sorry you did not qualify for this survey'...

What's reviewed
Programs offering cash or points that can be redeemed for gift cards, cash, stuff: Lightspeed PanelIpsos (Ipsos I-Say), NPDOR Sweepland, National Consumer Panel (formerly Nielsen Homescan Panel), Opinion Central, Opinion OutpostSurveyspot, Toluna (formerly Your2Cents) and Zoompanel. For my calculations on 'worthwhiledness', I assumed 10 minutes per survey.

Thumbs up (listed from biggest pay/hr)

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Review of Mypoints, Inboxdollars, Sendearnings, Pandaresearch and Memomail

Hey folks,
As promised here is the long-awaited, highly-anticipated review of my year-long experience with a whole bunch of cashback / points back programs. My other blogpost: "Review of Cashbaq, Fatwallet, Shopathome, Bigcrumbs and Ebates cashback rewards" received great feedback, with requests for more. So here's one more - my honest-to-goodness opinion on which programs I liked (the ones the paid!) and the ones I didn't.

Summary of Review
The programs were legit, and I actually got back slightly under $200 in cash (mostly), gift cards, and stuff. Pros: Got to try new products and services (and got $ for that), got some $$$ kickback for buying stuff online that I was planning to buy anyway. Cons: Was time-consuming, needed to read lots of Terms & Conditions fineprint and keep track of trial offer end dates. Some programs were more worthwhile than others, having a bigger payback for surveys or offers completed. For some, I haven't yet gotten anything back for my time spent - read on for the lowdown...