Snowflakes
Updated Jan 29, 2009
For those wondering what a “snowflake” is, Dave Ramsey came up with the “Debt Snowball” solution to paying off debt. The basic premise is that you keep putting all the extra money towards the smallest debt, and when it’s paid off, move to the next one. This creates a cascading effect that keeps you motivated and gets the debt off fast. Snowflaking is the art of adding small amounts of money to your debt snowball. There are a LOT of ways to make extra money, but this page will record the opportunities I find the most attractive based on level of effort and time spent.
InboxDollars is one of the many “paid for email” services, but in my opinion the best and most legitimate. You won’t make a lot of money unless you use them for shopping links or build up a major referral network, but it’s steady income. I get about 50-60 emails per week, a few surveys, a little bit of income from my 5 referrals, and shop with them occasionally. It adds up, and I get about $20 every two months or so, for just reading some emails! To get you started, they give you $5 to sign up! Hey, with snowflaking, every little bit counts, so why not give InboxDollars a try?
YouData is a relatively new service that is aiming to change the way advertising works. By filling out some basic information, you keep coming back to the site to view any new ads they have targeted exactly for you. Right now since it is new, there are not a ton of ads, but it takes a few seconds per week and I get about 10 cents per visit. It’s not a lot of money, but if the website takes off, it could be a great moneymaker for the level of effort involved! Plus, I have found a few good websites I now visit regularly thanks to the ads… Some of the ads really are targeted well! This is an added bonus for me, since it’s not just about the money.
Associated Content takes actual work to make serious money on, but if you enjoy writing, and can do a bit of research to make a good article, it can provide steadily growing income for you. Basically, you write an article about a topic of your choice. As people visit it (thereby earning AC ad revenue), you earn money from it. The earnings potential is infinite, but it requires a lot of work on your part. Format your articles so Google can pick up interesting keywords, submit your articles to any blogs you write, and use social networking to promote your articles. The more they get read, the more money you can earn. The brilliant thing is that you can write a few killer articles, and they can earn you money for years to come. Some other tips: be sure to include a picture (use stock photos if you must), properly reference any resources, and do not plagiarize!
UTest – I hesitate to mention this, because it does require a certain amount of technical prowess, you must be able to write well, and be willing to actually work for your money. UTest is a software testing site. Companies contract with UTest to have their users test software, websites, or web applications. For each bug or valid complaint you come up with (that the company verifies and approves), you earn cash. As a software developer, I think the site is brilliant; you pay people to find your bugs. Users earn money, businesses have better software, and UTest rakes a profit off the top; everyone wins here. If you have plenty of free time and don’t mind doing actual work, you can rake in some serious snowflakes here!
Text-Link-Ads is a nice little money maker if you are wanting to start your own blog. When I first started this blog and got steady traffic, I was making around $25 per month even with a bad Alexa ranking. Link space sells, because now only is it a hidden ad, but can improve search engine rankings, and you benefit by being a publisher. The hard part is keeping it up. As you can tell, my blogging is irregular and as a result they’ve removed my site until I get things back in order. But if you plan on blogging anyway, why not pay for a low-cost shared hosting plan, self-host your blog, put Text Link Ads on it, and make consistent money each month??
Amazon Mechanical Turk is a great way to make money if you have spare time. For the uninitiated, the Mechanical Turk is a way for people to post small tasks for large amounts of people to do, and they pay some small amount of money. It may be visiting a website, posting a review, taking a survey, watching a video, or anything you can imagine. Pay is anywhere from $.01 to $1.00 to $20 per task, depending on the level of effort and expertise required. I like to do a few every time I watch TV, and those cents start adding up. I typically can earn about a dollar per day, sometimes a bit less. And even better, I do it without feeling like I’ve spent a lot of time on it! Definitely a cool way to snowflake!