Blog Money Whore

With tax season coming up, I received my W-2 from a part-time job and discovered that I made a total of $2400 as a part-time teacher. I won’t say what I taught or where, as I don’t want to reveal or malign my former employer, but I do want to question the value of a part-time job. Is it worth getting one?

Pros:

• Money: In most people’s lives, more money is better. Any job obviously earns you more money.
• Something to put on the résumé: If you’re self-employed like me, then you really worry about gaps in your résumé. There’s a strong possibility that I’ll want (or more likely, need) a more regular job one day. Plus, any sort of work bolsters your experience and gets your foot in the door.
• Alleviates boredom: This was a huge one for me. Sitting at home all day is a very lonely experience. It’s nice to have an excuse to go outside and deal with other people. Teaching was especially great, since I then had twenty new people to talk to every other day. It certainly beats wasting away in front of a TV.
• Benefits: Depending on where you work, you may be afforded benefits for a part-time job. Starbucks, for example, gives part-time employees health benefits. Elsewhere, you may be able to take advantage of employee discounts, which may be especially useful around the holidays.

Cons:

• Not much money: Most part-time jobs pay rather bad hourly wages. Also, if you already have a full-time job, you’re better off working overtime instead.
• Few advancement opportunities: It seems to me that nearly all part-time jobs are also dead-end jobs. Sure, you may be promoted a little, but you probably won’t be a big shot one day. It seems that full-time jobs are much better for careers.
• Time-inefficient: This is the big deal-breaker for me, which outweighs many of the pros. Part-time jobs are incredibly inefficient unless you schedule them much like full-time jobs. For every shift, you have to expend energy commuting, getting dressed, preparing (definitely the case with teaching), etc. If you’re only working for four hours, is it really worth it to spend one hour unpaid to do all these things? On the other hand, that one hour amortizes much better across a full workday.
• Lack of benefits: Hey, didn’t I just say “benefits” as a pro? Well, most part-time jobs don’t have benefits. You can forget contributing to a 401(k), getting health insurance, etc. at most places.

Of course, these pros and cons vary from job to job, but these pros and cons seem to be fairly consistent for all the part-time jobs I’ve worked over the years. It’s up to the individual to determine the applicability of these criteria for a given job, but I wanted to provide a framework for thinking about the merits of a part-time job.

In general, I try to find work that I can do from the comfort of my own home to avoid costs like commuting, which alleviates the time inefficiency. However, that’s not always feasible, and plenty of time is then wasted searching for work. That’s really fodder for a future blog entry, though.

Getting life insurance as well as car insurance is much more important than mundane insurance policies. Anyone who has a creditcard is well aware about these issues.

Most small-time online publishers out there (like me) use Google AdSense to generate revenue. It’s pretty effective and allows a steady stream of income to come in without much thought. However, it’s not the only advertising network out there. One that’s definitely making waves is AdBrite, and the best news out there is it’s compatible with Google AdSense. Here are the relevant AdSense program policies for reference. Make sure you check to see if they’ve changed:

Competitive Ads and Services

In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.

The coolest thing, however, is you can run both AdBrite and AdSense ads in the same exact space. In AdBrite, you can set the eCPM of your other ad network, e.g. AdSense, and AdBrite automatically shows the network that makes you more money. Pretty cool, huh? All you do is copy and paste the complementary ad network’s code into AdBrite, and they take care of the rest.

You can run ads from your current ad networks within your AdBrite code, and we’ll always show the ads that earn you the most money. In other words, when we can earn you the most, we’ll show our ads. When we can’t, we’ll rotate your other ads back in. You can’t lose.

I, for one, think this is just awesome and a boon to online publishers and recently signed up myself. I’ll switch this site over as soon as I have more data on eCPM for different ad slots.

Maxim recently had an interesting article called “Make More Money at Work!: How to work a second job from the comfort of your crappy office.” While I don’t officially condone double-dipping on your employer’s dime, many people definitely work second or third jobs in order to make ends meet or to earn a little extra money. These seem to be the best choices from the article. The others either require too much work, experience, or concentration and aren’t as immediately lucrative:

• eJury.com: Make money by evaluating cases before they go to trial. $5-10 per case.
• OnlineVerdict.com: $20-60 per case

A few more I’d like to suggest are:

• Amazon Mechanical Turk: There are lots and lots of “Human Intelligence Tasks”, which can be done mindlessly and often while doing something else. I actually did make a few hundred dollars here a couple years ago when it first came out.
• Rent a Coder: If you know any programming language and are willing to freelance a bit, there are tons of jobs here.
• Craigslist: Look particularly in the part-time, etc., and gig sections for tons and tons of random stuff. For example, I once made an easy $200 by writing a few short reviews for Yelp.

And then, there are the mindless survey/point sites:

• e-Rewards: By invite only (but invitations are seemingly never rejected). Answer surveys in exchange for e-cash, which can be redeemed for stuff. I’ve stayed at the Hilton family of hotels a couple times for free due to surveys done at e-Rewards. This is also a great way to watch free movies.
• e-Miles: Just click on buttons, look at ads, answer around 3-4 questions and earn frequent flier miles. This is totally mindless and only takes like five minutes a week. I mostly use this to keep my US Airways miles active, as I rarely fly with them.
• MyPoints: They send you email with ads, you click on a button and earn points. This, too, is totally mindless but more lucrative than e-Miles. Exchange your points for all sorts of gift cards and points. I like to get either Hilton Hhonors points or United miles. Please leave a comment if you would like to receive a referral.
• Pinecone Research: This survey site is generally described as the best one out there, and they pay decent cash for taking surveys. However, a) invitations to join are just about impossible to get and b) surveys may not necessarily come to you very often. I have yet to get a single survey despite being a member for a month.
• Opinion Place: Take a survey every few days or so to either earn some measly cash or some frequent flier miles. I use this to get a few extra AA miles.

Aside from the ones listed in Maxim, I use all of these sites to earn a little extra cash or points from time to time. Every little bit adds up! Just click away if you’re totally bored or doing something else that doesn’t require much attention, e.g., watching reruns on TV or spacing out at work.