Oh, What Fun!

 Monday. 6.15 a.m. A new week! But does the week start on Sunday or Monday?

It appears to be quite mild and pleasant. 

10.45 a.m. How wrong can you be! It's been several hours since I wrote the above. I've taken Alfie out. It wasn't pouring rain, but there was a light drizzle if I can use that word.

I have never mentioned here that I do online surveys and earn cash and vouchers. It's not likely that I will earn a great deal, but certainly, I can make perhaps a few hundred pounds a year as well as quite a good amount in vouchers for such companies as Argos, Amazon, Curry's and other businesses. I have been signed up to two of these survey companies, one called Valued Opinions and another called Lifepoints, for several years. You register to join and fill in your demographic details, such as age, employment status, area of the country you live in and various other details, which are then the basis for the type of surveys you are likely to qualify for. You are then emailed and there is a link in the email which you click on to start the survey. At the beginning, the survey will then be on basic details to find out if you are eligible to complete the survey. Quite a lot of the time you won't be eligible, but you need to be patient because eventually, you will be able to continue with the survey get to the end and then receive your reward. Don't expect to receive a great deal, probably in pence, or if you are lucky, a pound or two. There are survey sites which do reward with higher amounts, such as YLive, YouGov and Newvista (this one pays out with a variety of vouchers.) but you have to reach a payout point of around £50 before you get paid, either by cheque or directly into your bank account, although some sites pay using PayPal, so you will need to set up an account first before you receive cash into your account and then set things up so you can transfer cash into your bank account. I am also a member of something called Consumer Pulse, which I've been with for around 10 years. You have to be invited to join this. The idea is that you log in to the site and report items you have purchased, such as clothing, books, CDs, DVDs etc. Each item has a value in points and when you reach a certain amount of points, you can redeem them for vouchers, for companies such as Argos, Curry's and so on. 

There are other market research sites which pay in both cash and vouchers, but many rarely offer you surveys, so it will take you a long time to reach a payout, nonetheless, they are worth signing up to. A couple of the better ones are Opinium, which has a payout of £25 and another called SurveyBods, which has a payout at £15, paid in Amazon vouchers or cash.

I mention all this because I recently had two survey sites payouts, one being Lifepoints, where I received £85 and Valued Opinions, with Amazon vouchers to the value of £100. Mind you, I had to work hard to receive these payments. I think it took me probably six months to achieve these payments. Not without a certain amount of patience and endurance, with quite a few times being rejected, for whatever reason, probably age, gender etc etc.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I purchased a new electric toothbrush, from Argos, and paid with around £40 of vouchers from Consumer Pulse. The Amazon vouchers (not technically vouchers. You get a code which you put into your account on the Amazon website. The cash from the Lifepoints surveys has gone into my savings account. 

I have put the Amazon codes (I should say codes rather than vouchers, which are usually printed.) and then ordered some books which I had already seen on the Amazon website. I was excited to find one book which is about my ancestors, which I think I've mentioned elsewhere in blog posts here. It's called 'The Ascott Martyrs', and edited by Keith Laybourn, and the subtitle is 'Why did the rural establishment imprison sixteen women and two babies in 1873?' This historic event was discovered when doing research on my family history, and this was on my maternal side. Then, two books about William Shakespeare, both written by Shakespeare authorities, David and Ben Crystal, 'The Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary' and the other, 'Shakespeare's Words: A Glossary and Language Companion.' This one will be useful, as it details the words that are obscure and difficult to understand which are used in Shakespeare's work. This book in particular will be invaluable when I read or see performances of the plays and want to find out what certain words mean and where they originate.