If you visit online message boards for Filipinos, you’ve probably seen at least two threads about paid-to-click sites. They have titles like “Make money online just by clicking!” or “Get paid to click on ads!”.

Sounds enticing, right? Especially since clicking is so easy. But there are more to paid-to-click (PTC) sites than meets the eye.

What are PTC sites?

Basically, paid-to-click (or PTC) sites are membership sites. You sign up with them and you will get paid to click on ads. Usually, members are paid for each ad they click.

What PTC users do to earn more money is join several paid-to-click services at the same time, as well as recruit others to the service. See, when PTC users refer new members, they get a percentage of what their referrals earn.

Do the math. Usually you get paid $0.01 per ad you click, and you have to stay on the web site you land on for 10 to 30 seconds, depending on what the program requires. There’s also a limit on the number of ads you can click each day. Let’s say the limit is 10 ads (but I’ve seen some sites that only have 4!). This means that you’ll earn $0.10 per day(Php 4.70) or $0.70 per week (Php 32.00), if you do it everyday. That’s around $2.8 per month (Php 131.60) for one program.

BUT – remember that you’ll have to accept your payment via PayPal or a similar service. After that, you have to send this money to your bank account. There are fees associated with these transactions, which you’ll have to deduct from your earnings. You may not notice it, but you’ll have to deduct the electricity and internet bills associated with your participation with PTC sites as well.

Are they scams?

Well, I’d guess around 95% of paid-to-click companies are scams. If they are not scams, many of them are ticking time bombs that are ready to explode or cease operations any minute – leaving your hard-earned dollars unclaimed.

There are many ways that PTC sites earn money. They could be using just one method below, just two, or a combination of all three.

• Actual profit. This means that the company gets paid more per click, and you just get a small fee. For example, they could be paid $0.02, while you are paid $0.01. This means that they too earn $0.01 each time you click. Actual profit only goes so far because the PTC sites have to pay referral fees and larger rates to premium members.
• Premium memberships and referral packages. Many PTC sites sell premium accounts where you can get paid more per click. They also sell referral packages, which allow you to purchase unreferred accounts and receive a percentage of the profits made by the referrals you bought.
• Deserters. Not everyone who joins a PTC site stays active. Many of them, after getting frustrated with the low pay, will quit before cashing out. Their unclaimed cash stays with the PTC company.
• The Ponzi Effect. Some people who join PTC sites are encouraged by the payment proofs from premium members. But down the road, they wonder why two or three months have passed and they still haven’t gotten their payout. In these cases, they aren’t scamming you – they just can’t afford to pay you.

The risk.

Remember when I said ticking time bombs? That’s because PTC sites are a goldmine for hackers and attackers. It’s fairly easy to do this, even YouTube tutorial videos on how to do it. Trying to improve and maintain their security and keep up with the attacks can be costly for PTC sites, forcing many of them to close.

Also, there are very few reliable advertisers who buy ads from PTC sites. This is because they know that the people clicking on their ads are getting paid to do so – they’re not really interested in the product or the ad they are looking at.

What are you doing with your time?

Think about this for a few minutes: are paid-to-click services really the best use of both your time and your skills? While many people say that PTC sites only take a few minutes of your time, that’s still time you can never get back. If, say, you spend 5 minutes a day on PTC sites (more diligent clickers will spend more time because they join many sites), you’ll be spending 2.5 hours each month on them, earning less than a $3 total for those hours. That is, if you even get paid at all.

It’s okay to try PTC sites if you’re curious, but don’t depend on them for your income. There are more profitable and more rewarding ways out there to earn money online. Even if you’re a freelance writer who charges $5.00 per hour (lower than industry standards), or a beginning designer who can churn out a $100 logo (lower than industry standards) in three hours, you’ll still come out ahead. Plus, you’ve created something meaningful, something you can be proud of.

Sources:

PTC Sites, The Dreaded “Ponzi Effect”

The Sad Truth About PTC Sites

Paid to Click (Wikipedia Entry)

Image by hberends from sxc.hu

Why don’t you just enjoy your money?

This is something people ask me when they hear about my frugality. Whenever I hear this, it seems like people have the following misconceptions:

• that I deprive myself from enjoying life,
• that I always choose the cheapest products,
• and that I can’t pay for the things I want.

The thing is, I do enjoy my money. I get to spend my money on hobbies like carpentry, gardening, model airplanes, and art. I also have the money to travel for more than a week at a time, and to splurge on ingredients for culinary experiments here at home.

Still, I consider myself frugal because I try to get a bargain whenever I can, and I shop wisely. I also know that if I had zero income (and had no emergency fund), I can support myself and the 4 people living in my house for under P10,000/month. But obviously this doesn’t mean I’m not having fun.

Frugality is about achieving balance between your enjoyment of the present and the security of your future. It’s about ensuring that you can afford financial emergencies, retirement, and big purchases such as a house or a car. In other words, you have to prioritize.

What I’m actually doing is saving on the things that are less important to me and channeling them to my hobbies, travel expenses, emergency fund, and retirement fund. Here are some ways that I practice my frugality:

• I buy only food items which I know I’m going to use.
• I only dine out when necessary.
• I don’t buy signature clothing.
• I don’t call or text more than I have to. (Also, I don’t buy expensive cellphones.)

In other words, spend less whenever you can and don’t spend on something that isn’t important to you, or something you don’t need. If you’re not a photography buff, why spend P20,000 buying a new camera? If you only have two children and don’t plan on having more, why buy a 5-bedroom house?
Another way to be frugal without destroying your “fun” is to trim extra expenses rather than eliminate them completely.

If you find that your coffee habit is costing you over P1,000 pesos a month, you don’t have to quit cold turkey. You can cut back on one cup a week, then two, until you find the number of cups you can drink which allows you to get a caffeine without overdoing it. In fact, you might want to try brewing your own coffee at home, if you have the time. These things may seem like a sacrifice, but it’s nothing compared to quitting your fun habits completely.

You don’t have to give up the things that you enjoy or that make you happy. After all, your hobbies, favorite food, activities, and trips should be a source of enjoyment and not a source of financial stress.

Of course, I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just demonstrating that yes, it is possible to enjoy your hard-earned money without sacrificing your financial independence and security. It’s up to you to find your own way of doing that.

How do you balance frugality with enjoyment? 

Image by Richard Sweet from sxc.hu

When I was in grade school, my Home Economics teacher told us that buying in bulk is cheaper.  I used to believe her until my own experience proved otherwise.  When I started being savvy in the grocery, I noticed that items packaged in bulk aren’t always cheaper than buying them in smaller, regular sizes.  Plus, it’s not always the wisest decision to buy products in bulk.

Still, products sold in bulk are usually cheaper.  If you do it right, bulk buying can give you more opportunities to save.  Here are some basic tips:

Always do the math.  If you carry a cellphone with you at all times (you’re Pinoy, so you probably do), you have a calculator.  Use it.  Find out how much the product costs per unit (gram, mL, piece) for the regular packaging, and how much it costs per unit for the bulk packaging.

Here’s an example.  A 100 gram bar of soap costs P17.00.  When the same soap is sold in packs of 3, each pack costs P45.00.  Which is cheaper, the 90 gram bar or the 3-pack for P45.00?

If you multiply how much a single bar costs (P17.00) by the number of bars in a pack (3), you’ll find that buying 3 individual bars costs P51.00.  Since the 3-pack is only P45.00, buying it would be cheaper.

Be careful, though.  Some manufacturers decrease the per-item weight of products in bulk to make buyers think that they are getting things cheaper. In the soap example given above, make sure that each bar in the pack is also labeled 100 grams.  Sneaky manufacturers might use 90 gram bars in the bulk packages.

Don’t worry about the math-induced headaches you might get.  It’s likely that you only have to do it once for each product you want to buy in bulk.

Buy non-perishables. Items such as toilet paper, plastic bags, dishwashing liquid, and other non-perishables are okay to buy in bulk.  They won’t spoil easily and won’t be a hassle to store.

You can only safely buy perishables in bulk if you know how to preserve them, will consume them soon in large quantities (ex. if you’re having a party), or if you have assurance of the product’s quality.  I found this helpful guide on how to freeze different food items.  Worth looking into if you want to consider buying food in bulk.

Consider other factors that are important to you.  We’ve already mentioned quality.  If quality is important to you (and it should be), you need to take that into account before buying a product in bulk.  After all, it isn’t a frugal choice to buy toilet paper in bulk if it breaks away easily and doesn’t absorb too well.

Another factor you may want to consider is how environmentally friendly your bulk purchase is.  Sometimes, products that are packaged in bulk are prone to excessive packaging – there’s one big plastic bag wrapping the bulk of the product, individual plastic bags wrapping each item, etc.  If you think a certain bulk purchase is less environment-friendly than its regular equivalent, then don’t buy it in bulk.

Know where to buy.  Makro is a good place to start buying in bulk.  Their bulk products are usually cheaper, especially the generic ones such as Savepak and Aro.  I’ve already talked about the good quality of the Savepak dishwashing liquid, so it isn’t necessarily true that branded products are better.

You can also go straight to the manufacturer if you want to buy a product in large quantities.  In fact, you might get it cheaper there.

The next time you think you’re getting a great deal from a bulk purchase, stop for a minute, do the math, and consider if you really are getting a great deal.  My Home Economics teacher was mostly right.  Buying in bulk can be a great money saver, but only if you do it well.

Photo Credit: Image from Luis Rock  from stock.xchng

It’s  going to be my 25th birthday soon, and I want to celebrate the occasion with some wine.  But buying wine can be intimidating especially if it’s your first time.  Many people say that the more expensive a wine is, the better it tastes, but this isn’t necessarily true.  Here are some ways to make informed wine purchases:

Know that it’s all in the mind.  I came across a study that showed how pricing controls people’s enjoyment of wine.  Here’s a basic description of the study:

Dr Rangel gave his volunteers sips of what he said were five different wines made from cabernet sauvignon grapes, priced at between $5 and $90 a bottle. He told each of them the price of the wine in question as he did so. Except, of course, that he was fibbing. He actually used only three wines. He served up two of them twice at different prices.
Source: The Economist

The results? People said they enjoyed the “more expensive” wines, even if they were exactly the same as the less expensive wines.  A blind tasting version of the same experiment where no prices were indicated showed that the volunteers could tell that the same wine was served twice.

In other words, people enjoy more expensive wines because their brain is playing tricks on them.

Decant it.  In the old days, decanting was done to remove the sediment from the wine.  However, the wine making process has improved since then, and nowadays decanting is done to mix the wine with air and open up the flavors.  Doing so makes the wine less acidic, compared to serving it just after uncorking.  This is especially important for young wines, and it can make inexpensive wines taste much better.

Note that you don’t need a fancy wine decanter to do this.  In most cases, a glass pitcher will do.

In this video from WineLibraryTV, Gary Vaynerchuck talks about the benefits of wine decanting and how to do it.

Go with your own taste.  Only your tastebuds can measure how sulit your wine purchase is, so go with what you like.  If you really don’t like that P200 wine, don’t buy it.  It’s just like throwing P200 down the drain.  Conversely, if you don’t like an expensive wine, don’t buy it either.

Learn about wine.  The more you know about wine, the less intimidating it will be to shop for the best deal.  You won’t be subconsciously forced by salespeople to buy the most expensive thing around.  Here are some great resources to learn more about wine:

• Cork’d – a site with user-submitted reviews on different wines
• Wine Library TV -videos about wine, presented by the entertaining  GaryVaynerchuck
• Wine for Newbies – a blog about wine for those who are new to it

The next time there’s a special occasion that calls for wine, it’s important to make an informed choice.  Doing so can not only stretch your peso, but expand your enjoyment as well.
What wines have you tried? Which did you like best, and how much were they?