How to Get Paid to Do Surveys

Yes, it is true that people are getting paid to do surveys every day. What has happened is that the market researchers who used to mail their survey out through the US Postal System are now using the Internet. The Net is both faster and cheaper.

To get enough volunteers the survey makers are offering to pay for surveys taken. So you or anyone who is a consumer can now get paid to do surveys. (The only people who don't qualify as consumers are either in prisons, asylums or cemeteries!)

So, how does it work? What do you need to do to get paid to do surveys?

Here is your checklist:

1. You will need a guide company to steer you to the good survey makers (out of some 700+ that are out there!) You could find them yourself but it would take a lot longer and you would have to spend time sorting them out. Some are good, some O.K., and some are bad ones you want to avoid. The guide companies (paid survey sites) have developed lists which they continually maintain. They know which ones are the good ones. You pay a small fee to become a member and they will guide you to the ones who will make you money and away from the time-wasters.

2. Pick out a good guide company. Look for one that is good-sized, has been around for awhile, is growing, has a good 60 to 90 day guarantee backed up by a financial company and has a low refund rate on its membership fees. The refund rate is important because it is the best indicator of client satisfaction. Happy clients don't demand refunds. Unhappy clients do. So look for a low refund rate -- 3-5% range is best. Avoid high refund rates - anything over 10% should be a red (stop!) flag.

3. When you first start up with your guide company they will give you their list of recommended survey makers. To get paid to do surveys you will need to register with all of these, or, failing that, with as many as you can. This is a critical step. Surveys are aimed at a particular subset of the population. If the questions are about facial makeup for ladies, they only want to send the questionnaires out to ladies who use makeup. Other surveys are aimed at men or young married couples, etc.

The survey makers need to know the demographic details of every applicant (address, age, sex, hobbies, etc.) so they can properly target their surveys. To get paid to do surveys, you must be on the survey makers' lists. To get on their lists they must have your application on file and your info in their data bases.

4. Set yourself up a free e-mail account for use exclusively with paid surveys. Use that address on all your applications. Then check your inbox daily, answer all correspondence and accept survey offers when they come in. Keep a physical file of copies of checks you receive and deposits to your PayPal account.

Get paid to do surveys and enjoy the money you make! You won't likely get rich from it but you can expect $200 to $600 a month in cash and merchandise. That makes a nice income supplement for very little work!

Emergency by Neil Strauss

Emergency is a surprisingly impressive book. Having read The Game, his book about becoming a pickup artist, I'd expected good writing, humor, sharp observations and a wry outlook on life. I wasn't expecting this book to be so profound.

First of all, I have to admire Strauss for being hardheaded, for following his impulses come what may and for having the guts to tell us all about the consequences, including the interesting but negative stuff.

I think his political views are off-base, but that's incidental.

This is the story of his journey to learn how to survive - just in case.

He starts out as a self-confessed wuss who wants to survive no matter what, but had precious little experience at it. He grew up in a forty-second apartment in Chicago. He's been a writer and a pickup artist.

So he attends a seminar of The Sovereign Society in Panama, where nobody trusts each other. He hangs out on survivalist boards.

But he doesn't just talk the talk, he walks the walks as far as it takes him, which is very far. He winds up with a second citizenship from the island of St Kitts, an island in the Caribbean, after paying a big chunk of money he says he couldn't afford.

(Perhaps the money he got for selling his seduction program, plus his bestsellers, helped.)

He finds and then takes all kinds of courses on how to survive in the woods, how to survive in the city, how to handle guns, how to drive motorcycles, how to identify edible plants, how to make and handle knives and use one to butcher a goat, and much more.

Each step of the way, he identifies a gap in his knowledge about what could happen, and takes another step toward self-reliance.

He entertains us along the way, and includes his observations on the age-old question of whether human beings are innately good or bad. In a disaster will they help each other or fight each other? Most survivalists are betting on the latter.

There were indeed points where I wanted to tell him that small rural communities would probably pull together and help each other, though they may also become hostile to outsiders, so it's not a simple either/or question.

His quest to learn all leads him to take classes and get certified as a Certified Emergency Response Technician (CERT), then as an EMT, and then becomes a member of the California Emergency Mobile Patrol. Soon after, he helps out victims of the worst rail disaster in California history.

He realizes he no longer wants to be the lone wolf survivor, but enjoys helping out his community. He keeps his second home in St Kitts, just in case, but wants to help them as well.

Where did the pickup artist and seduction guru go to?

When Does it Pay-Off to Obtain a Home Mortgage?

If you are in dire need of money and don't have the financial means for a large cash transaction to buy a house, then opting for a home mortgage is worth consideration.

Basically, a mortgage refers to a long-standing credit that a debtor obtains from a financial institution or from a property seller.

In most cases, the house is the usual collateral for the mortgage, thus the term "home mortgage". In turn, the mortgage lender will be entitled to some legal rights upon the property as long as the mortgage is in full force or until the debtor pays back the loan.

A home mortgage serves as security for loans, thus giving the lender the power to acquire the property through foreclosure in the event that the borrower fails to pay the loan on time.

Generally, a home mortgage is comprised of a large loan. That's why in most cases a home mortgage can take 15 to 30 years before the borrower can pay back the due amount.

In a home mortgage, the due amount to be paid by the borrower stipulates the principal amount of the mortgage and the interest owed relative to the outstanding balance. The real estate taxes and property insurance are also factored into the total mortgage balance.

Some home owners who find it difficult to make their mortgage payments may opt for refinancing of their mortgage. But for those who wish to pay off a home mortgage quickly, there are things to be considered...

First, make sure you have a stable source of income. Organize your overall financial assets to ensure that paying off your mortgage will not over-extend your cash flow. There are many such considerations that should be carefully planned and organized before resorting to pay-off your home mortgage.

It's also important to your financial security to have a ready reserve of cash just in case of emergencies. This can be in the form of stocks and bonds, a bank savings account, or any other readily available form of cash.

Paying off your home mortgage can be a rewarding experience, but be sure to consider your overall financial status before making the decision to do so. The wrong decision can put you at great financial risk.

If you think that you are ready for the mortgage "experience" and that you have your finances securely organized, then by all means, go for it. After all, nothing beats a worry-free, mortgage-free financial status.

Quick Housecleaning Tips For Your Home

Ah Yes! The house is a mess...again! Why do I even bother attempting the impossible? I'll tell you why I do it. For one thing, I don't like living in a mess. Another reason is that People tend to show up unexpectedly.

That last reason alone is enough to get me to make sure that the path to the bathroom is cleared of rubble and that the bathroom itself is clean with smells of Pine.

If your house is a mess... again, here are ten (10) house cleaning tips to help you out.

1. Make a house cleaning schedule.

2. Survey each room in your home, look for the trouble spots and decide on how you're going to get them cleaned up. Here you can decide what tools you'll need, what can be thrown away or better yet, who you can assign the task to.

3. Get help. Rome was not built in a day and I'm certain it wasn't built by one Roman. If there are others living and breathing in the house with you, get them to help.

4. Gather your cleaning supplies. A big time waster and distraction when cleaning is running up and down getting a broom or cleaners or whatever you need to complete the task that you're doing. So before you get started make sure you have what you need.

5. Use natural cleaning products. House Cleaning is not just about cleanliness, it's also about safety in the home. Using natural cleaning products can protect you and your family from the harmful elements of synthetic cleaning products.

6. Get clutter free. Hey, I'm sure you've got those stacks of old magazines somewhere in the house. They're gathering dust because there is one article about child rearing that you need to read or a recipe that you have to clip. Or is your linen closet a mess because you refuse to throw out old sheets and cases.

7. When you are about to embark on a housecleaning task, do yourself a favor and turn down the ringer on your phones. Phone conversation can cause you to forget the task at hand.

8. Get housecleaning music. Don't choose those slow love songs. Get some lively music, stuff that gets you in the cleaning mood (if such a mood exists).

9. Make a housecleaning maintenance plan for each room of the house.

10. Hire a house cleaning service. At least once a year treat yourself. Hire professionals to do the house cleaning for you. What do you think about making an appointment for a day in December, somewhere in the teens of the month?

Well you now have ten (10) house cleaning tips to get you started. Happy Housecleaning!

--

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.

Grand Canyon Rafting - A Ride You Will Never Forget

The Grand Canyon is a very colorful, steep sided gorge, carved by the Colorado River, in northern Arizona, USA. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park which is one of the first national parks in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of the Grand Canyon area, visiting on numerous occasions to hunt mountain lions and enjoy the scenery.

The Colorado River basin of which the Grand Canyon is a part has developed in the past 40 million years and the Grand Canyon itself is probably less than five to six million years old with most of the down cutting occurring in the last two million years. The result of all this erosion is one of the most complete geologic columns on the planet. Wetter conditions during ice ages also increased the amount of water in the Colorado River drainage system. The ancestral Colorado River responded by cutting its channel faster and deeper. The base level and course of the Colorado River, or its ancestral equivalent, changed 5.3 million years ago when the Gulf of California opened and lowered the river's base level, which is its lowest point. This increased the rate of erosion and cut nearly all of the Grand Canyon's current depth by 1.2 million years ago. The terraced walls of the canyon were created by differential erosion.

Lee's Ferry is considered the official beginning of Grand Canyon National Park on the Colorado River and is used as a fishing area and river rafting launch site. The site features several buildings built at the site since 1874 and a steamboat abandoned in 1913 by a mining company's operation in the canyon walls nearby. The area is managed by the National Park Service within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area as a historical site. Lee's Ferry is the principle starting point for rafting trips through the Grand Canyon, attractive since it offers a geological travel backwards through time as the river cuts through progressively older strata. The majority of trips are by dedicated commercial rafting enterprises that use substantial motorized inflatable rafts to carry large parties of tourists on the river taking up to two dozen passengers per raft, with most trips lasting a week to ten days but with some trips of several weeks that travel all the way to Lake Mead, some 277 river miles downstream.

Is My Truth Better Than Your Truth?

Many things should never be compromised; things such as honesty, truthfulness, and compassion. These are basic virtues, and when they are absent, disagreements result. When virtue is absent, a solution will be difficult to find. For example; if one or more parties are greedy, hateful, or can't see the situation clearly, polarization will be the outcome.

Seeing clearly is a rarity. Our vision is usually skewed by an agenda of some kind, which involves something we either want badly, or already have and want to hold onto. If it weren't for desire, conflict would be the rarity, instead of seeing clearly being the rarity.

Current divisive issues are good examples of strong wanting - wanting things to go our way. Typically, we see only one side of a disagreement simply because of the strength of our convictions. The question is; are our convictions truths, or merely opinions? If we see them as truths, how can compromise be possible?

Therefore, in order to compromise, we must sort out what is opinion and what is truth, and whether or not truth is something that we can define. Is truth static, that is; is our truth something we can count on regardless of circumstances? If it is, then how can there be disagreements, unless, of course, someone else's truth is different from ours! Then, we must question truth itself.

Are there different truths? Perhaps we are deceiving ourselves if we think that truth is a commodity we can capture for ourselves, something not always moving. The truth is; truth is slippery! Perhaps the truth doesn't exist as a concept, and only exists in the circumstances of each moment.

A blanket disavowal or acceptance of something as a truth cannot react to an immediate situation. What is happening at this very moment will always beg for clear action outside the parameters of concepts and conclusions. If we are shackled by our truths and convictions, by our past conditionings that are no more than our thoughts and opinions, we will never be able to react appropriately. Seeing clearly in each moment, moment to moment, might just be the ultimate truth, but that's why it's so elusive; it's ever changing. You cannot lay a hand on it.

Right action results from seeing each moment clearly, and each moment is different from the last. Therefore, each moment requires its own type of action. Living in the past or considering the future takes us out of the moment and catapults us back or forward into ideas, and ideas are much too slow to react in the immediacy of the moment. Then we find ourselves paralyzed, confused by concepts because thought is always after the fact; only truth is immediately in sync with the fact.

When we are unable to live each moment, laws and rules become necessary. Natural virtue; compassion, honesty, and truthfulness arise in each moment, but when we are not in that moment with them, when we are caught in our mind games of thought and concept, virtue becomes lost. Then we need decrees and commandments, because we are too confused and paralyzed to react from our hearts. Unlawful acts never come from the heart, always from confused minds; minds that are neurotic and obsessed because the criminal mind believes in thought, and believes that thought is the truth, that thought is actually himself or herself, and their actions always follow the dictates of these thoughts.

All thought is dead. Thought happens after the immediacy of each moment and is merely a record - not the creativity of aware beings. Creativity is too alive, too engaged to stop long enough to dwell in the past in thought, which is much too slow. Thought is not only slow, but thought is the past, and the past projected into the future. Therefore, thought is never real, thought is unreal, it distances you from the reality of the moment, even though this is where most of us spend our entire existence; lost in thought.

This explains why compromise and finding the middle ground is so difficult; we are caught in concrete cement jackets of concept and thought without any possibility of a live interchange of immediate experience. We talk at each other instead of with each other, and instead of finding new creative solutions; we fight over things that have happened years ago, never seeing that this is all in the past and that things have changed. We do this because we believe in our thoughts, no different from the criminal, and because of this, we are capable of neurotic activity. It only depends upon how far we are pushed or how much we want things to go our way.

Look at the world; Christians fighting Muslims, Hindus fighting Buddhists, and all because of concrete opinions about who's ideas are truth, or who will dominate a piece of geography. God forbid that someone who believes other than us would move in next door!

Would the world be a better place without strong religious beliefs that only seem to separate us? I don't know. Is religion what keeps people in line, or do people keep in line because of a basic human element, a natural virtue that separates us from the animals? Does religion therefore only divide us and cause bloodshed? These are questions that any free thinker should ask, because when we are in the moment, without the burden of the past or fear of the future, none of these concepts exist. In the moment, religion doesn't exist. Religion is only an afterthought, after the ineffable is touched for a moment.

Touching that which is called God, or Reality, or Universal Truth, or whatever we wish to call it can never be done outside of this precious moment. If we are caught up in our concepts and thoughts, we will never experience the only thing that truly changes lives.

The possibility of this experience belongs to all of us, and if we ever are able to understand this universality, the world will become a more peaceful place. It all begins with each of us finding the middle ground.