Trying out this Kidazzler thing

I learned about Kidazzler from this Reddit thread. It's a Yelp-type startup for resources geared toward youth. Right now, they're in an initial phase where they're looking for people to add businesses, which get "locked" to the user's account, then once the site is up and running, users get a cut of advertising money if the businesses place an ad.

A few things: The site does send out e-mails to the business, from the first and last name you put in your profile, saying something like "I added your business on Kidazzler and wanted to reach out and confirm the details." It isn't upfront that it will do this, so be aware and use a nickname if you don't want yourself associated with a business that, while legit, is somewhat spammy just like most startups that rely on advertising.

It is unlimited at this point in terms of categories and types of businesses, so while your local zoo and child care center and so forth are surely already going to be taken, you can get creative and think outside the box and it will accept it. If the site ends up taking off and they end up advertising, you'll get a cut. Think of types of businesses that maybe aren't first and foremost "kid" businesses, but which offer programming or goods for all ages.

And of course, like all of these things, it's a pyramid scheme of sorts. You need a referral code to get right in without being put on a long waitlist, so here's mine.

Playing around with one of these free bitcoin things

This site seems to be the most popular free bitcoin site among the people on forums who know about such things. It doesn't yield a whole lot, because it's not using your computer's CPU power to mine bitcoin; you have to click on it to get a small amount of bitcoin and can click up to one time per hour. I'm just more interested in playing around with bitcoin and seeing if it skyrockets again, but I'm not a gambling type and don't want to risk my actual money in a risky venture. This doesn't cost anything to start though. It's like any of the low-payout clicky sites, and will probably net you a few bucks a week. Good way to get started with bitcoin though if you're interested.

The Food Project Build-a-Garden Program will, well, build you a garden

I just found out about this program from a leaflet in the library. I don't know anything about it other than what's on the flier/website and knowing that the organization as a whole has a good reputation.

So, it looks like for a contribution of at least $25 they will build you a raised bed garden and provide soil and seedlings. This program states it is for low-income and moderate-income households in Roxbury/Dorchester/Mattapan with a preference for families with children. It does not appear to have a hard income limit or require that you have SNAP like many programs.

Wheeee more free Amazon money, from different places this time

OK, this is pretty great when things like this just show up in my inbox.

The $100 one, I'm not even sure what it's from. The company name was a pretty generic research project name. I've frequently gotten offers on Swagbucks and MTurk and other places to provide them with additional feedback either to enter to win an Amazon gift card or to get an Amazon gift card. I generally figure, why not, I have a lot of time and not a lot of money, so I might as well help out and see what happens. The thank-you message suggested it was from a survey and was their thanks for my helping them out, not from winning a drawing. Note: I don't do this when it's something that sounds scammy, and I typically don't volunteer my time for market research around consumer products. I will if it's nonprofit-type research.


The $75 one was also a surprise; a friend who works in healthcare patient-experience research posted on social media looking for people who could comment about practices and policies in our various states of residence, and I responded with some personal experiences and a lot of links to pages on state/hospital/university websites that I found on the google. The friend's project director e-mailed and thanked me for the information and asked me what my pay rate was for this type of work. Damn, apparently 1) I've apparently been working in the wrong fields, since I assumed she was looking for volunteer assistance and 2) I apparently need to set pay rates for things! I just responded to him that it took about 30 minutes of work, and I hadn't expected anything for it. He responded with the $75 Amazon card and said he hoped it was enough. Um, OK!

I guess the moral of this story is, be nice. Do things without expecting anything in return, and you may just get something tangible in return. And if you don't, then you still come out ahead. Also, apparently we all need to look into which fields have a ton of money lying around and very different standards in terms of what people are worth. And be sure to set your pay rate.

Oh, and people who are new to having a large portion of your family income be in Amazon gift cards; spend some time checking out what all Amazon sells. They sell damn near everything, and their prices are often the best ones for new items, except for some IKEA and Dollar Tree items. I've bought nonperishable groceries items, hygiene items, office supplies, books obviously, snow boots, other clothing items, electronics, bike parts, cat food, cat litter, etc. I think I'm going to use my current bounty for an actual new printer, or perhaps an actual new vacuum. I am pretty damn handy at fixing printers and vacuums that people have thrown out, but sometimes it's nice to have reliable things for once.