Mystery shopping

The Mystery Shopping Providers Association pairs local merchants looking to improve their customer service and with people willing to report on locations anonymously. The jobs are taken on one at a time and are extremely easy to find. Simply go to their website www.mysteryshop.org, click the “shoppers” link and fill in the Ann Arbor area code. There are hundreds of solicitations ranging from photographing ads at certain gas stations, to ordering a specific coffee beverage at a local Ann Arbor coffee shop. Most job payments range from $8-$15, but there is the occasional gem, like receiving $70 for having a new tax filing company file your taxes. The only downside is that you have to apply for each job separately, which may not be worth the opportunity cost.

Selling plasma

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration dictates that a person can donate plasma up to twice a day and no more often than twice a week, and with the current rate for donating plasma is between $25- $35 per visit, this is an easy way to make up to $280 a month. The nearest BioLife Plasma Services center, which pays for plasma unlike organizations like American Red Cross, is located in Grand Rapids. The drive might be too far from Ann Arbor to make it worth the effort, but anyone with ties in Grand Rapids may see this as a great option for easy cash during the summer and over weekends.

Surfing the web

“We pay you for your brainpower,” says the website for the company ChaCha (“cha” means search in Chinese), which allows you to text or call in a question and receive the answer within minutes. ChaCha guides range from those who have a deep personal knowledge of a certain field to others who are simply savvy at surfing the Internet. The hours are flexible (literally anytime you have Internet connection you can work) and the pay, which ranges from $3-$9 per hour, is based on quality, accuracy and frequency of work. The application process is fairly easy, simply register on the website, watch a video, fill out a tax form and take a timed assessment of your search capabilities. If you’re already spending aimless hours looking up random knowledge on the web, why not get paid to do it?

Sex Phone Operator

Railee, a junior at Eastern Michigan University, was in tight spot for money a few years ago and so answered an ad from phoneactress.com for a phone sex operator. “It was a phone number to call, and when they picked up it was an answering machine asking you to leave a brief message,” Railee said. “They called me back in about 10 minutes and faxed me the paperwork. I was working inside a week.” At around $18 per hour, the pay for a sex phone operator is good, especially given the fact that you work from home. Railee simply had to call an 800 number to log into her account and wait for a beep and a “whisper tag” that would let you know the type of call it was (“girl next door,” “foot fetish,” “Barely legal,” etc.). If you have a seductive voice, it may be worth your while to give phoneactress.com a call.