General Transcription: Am I cut out to do it?

So folks, I've gone ahead and taken the plunge into transcription. The only other experience I had was over 10 years ago when I transcribed a few audios of focus group dialogues for a test product. I quite enjoyed the challenge, and am a stickler for detail, so when I saw the ad seeking transcriptionists on Craiglist, I applied.

Transcription is most definitely not for everyone. At this point, after ploughing through over an hour of audio (which has taken me at least 7 hours since I'm so slow, being a perfectionist and all), I'm not sure if I'm cut out to be a transcriptionist either!

I love using my new Infinity Foot Pedal, that's for sure. And I also invested in the Express Scribe Pro, which doesn't work 100% correct on my Mac OS Mountain Lion. (It crashes when I try to type it in, but does fine if I type in another word processing program i.e. Textedit in Mac).

This first job paid 32-1/2 cents per audio minute (my boss keeps half of the 75 cents), so I've made a grand total of $40 for about 8 hours of work. That's a pitiful $5 an hour. Probably less. So once I realized that, I let go of my perfectionsitic tendencies a little bit, and just tried to get the transcriptions done.

Let's see how this goes the next couple weeks. It's nice to have some money coming in, even if it's below minimum wage, but I am pretty sure I could make more by blogging!  At least I've almost recovered the cost of that foot pedal :p

xo Gracie 

p.s. It would be AWESOME if you could click on any ad here - my sponsors give me a few cents per click. Thanks for supporting my blog!

Get Paid $2 for your opinions at Reviewstream.com

Summary of Post: This post is for anyone who would like to make money for each (accepted) review submitted to Reviewstream.com

I stumbled across this paid review site Reviewstream.com last week that offers $2 for every review published. I'm usually cautious about investing any time into sites like these, but I figured that since I give my opinions and product reviews to other sites (e.g. Epinions.com and Amazon.com) anyways, why not make a couple of bucks for my time?

So I penned a quick review of my experience with United Mileage Plus' Restaurant.com point redemption (you can read it here), and

Trying to make money

Being jobless since November 2008 (I quit my job at the Forest Research Institute Malaysia to join my husband in the US) has been hard on my self-esteem and general state of mind.

Since then I have used all sorts of methods to save or make money, and I'll get down to writing about some of the better ones in the next few posts. These include using coupons ('coupon gaming' or 'couponing'), subscribing to sites like GreatFun, Autovantage and other sites under the much-maligned Trilegiant Corp (I've received $80 worth in free gas and checks since 2007, for trying out their services at no cost to me), participating in surveys (NPDOR, Surveyspot, Pandaresearch, etc), and blogging (Google Adsense has brought in a couple of dollars through clickthroughs so far, but I haven't blogged enough to attract readers...yet!).

Today I stumbled across a review site called Reviewstream.com that is currently offering $2 for each short review anyone submits. Since I am such an opinionated person and I post my reviews on products, stuff, and Life any chance I get online, I thought 'Hey why not get paid for it?'. So I penned a quick review of how to make money selling Restaurant.com gift certificates on Ebay that have been redeemed from the United Mileage Plus site. So far I made $30 selling two $100 certificates, which is pretty good considering my UMP points are nowhere near enough to get a free flight anywhere. I had only 8000 points and got four $100 certificates for them. I've submitted my review to Reviewstream.comand if they like it, I get paid (via Paypal). Fingers crossed for two bucks!

By the way, I've also compiled in one handy location, links with discounts and coupons to all the places where I shop online. Check out Where Gracie Shops!


xo Gracie

P.S. It would be AWESOME if you could click on any ad here - my sponsors give me a few cents per click. Thanks for supporting my blog!