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Is Teespring Legit or a Scam?

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Is TeeSpring Legit
There are a lot of people who are looking to make money online, but there are so many money making scams out there. As a result, you may be pretty skeptical of any popular “side-hustle” ideas floating around the internet. This isn’t a bad thing, as being skeptical can save you from wasting time and money. This skepticism is especially strong when there is a claim of what initially appears to be too good to be true, such as no upfront costs needed to begin the business. Teespring is one of these companies that almost seems too good to be true.



Is Teespring Legit?

The first question is whether or not Teespring is legit. The company has been around for a few years now, and has even produced a number of millionaires according to Forbes. In order to ascertain if Teespring is legit, it’s important to understand how they make money.

How Teespring Works

Teespring seems rather ingenious by making it a win-win situation for all. Instead of creating a design, paying a T-Shirt company to create the T-Shirts and then hoping you can sell all of them to make a profit, Teespring has you create a T-Shirt and set a goal of how many T-Shirts you will sell. The more you think you will sell, the more money you’ll make if you reach the goal. If you don’t reach the stated goal, then the T-Shirts are never produced and no money ever changes hands.

This is how Teespring is able to not charge an upfront fee. If you don’t hit the stated sales goal, they don’t have to produce the shirts. If you do reach the stated sales goal, a profit for you and the company have already been factored in. So, they produce the shirts, and are guaranteed a profit.

Is Teespring Safe?

There is little initial financial risk to using Teespring, so the company is pretty safe. Since you don’t need to give any upfront money when using Teespring, you aren’t risking losing your hard-earned cash. The real investment is your time. If you create campaigns that don’t reach their sales goals, you don’t earn anything. With that said, there are some unique problems with Teespring that you may consider “unsafe”.

Quality Issues With Teespring

Many content creators, businesses, and independent users lean on Teespring to make shirts. While only having 3.5 stars on Trustpilot, most negative reviews seem to be website-quality-related, or complaints about the time it takes to receive materials. While these issues can be worrisome, it doesn’t exactly implicate Teespring as a “scam”. It does, however, suggest you may want to shop around and see if there are other companies that can meet your needs.

In addition to their mediocre Trustpilot score, Teespring currently isn’t accredited by the Better Business Bureau. In fact, the BBB reports similar findings to Trustpilot, in that Teespring receives a high volume of customer complaints. The BB notes two primary issues of note: Customers finding it difficult to remove personalized artwork from the site, and the same late delivery problems found on Trustpilot reviews.

Qualitative Risks of Using Teespring

As mentioned above, there are a couple of risks involved with using Teespring. They don’t make it a “scam”, but they are definitively noteworthy. The most widely reported risk is blown deadlines. It seems pretty well-covered that Teespring struggles to get materials out on time for a significant subset of their customers. So, if you need your materials to make it to you on-time, you will probably want to explore other options.

Another risk reported by the BBB is the possibility of not being able to remove your art from the website. If you are a design-based business, your intellectual property is invaluable. As a result, you may need to think twice about using a company that may not surrender it when you ask. AS the BBB states, it is vital to examine the Terms of Service before you make your purchase to ensure your IP is protected.

Monetary Risks of Using Teespring

Other notable risks are costs you may incur when creating and trying to sell the T-shirts. If you pay someone to design a logo or other image (you don’t have to, you can do this on your own), you may lose these costs if you don’t ultimately sell the T-shirts you have set as a goal. The same can be true if you spend money to try and promote the T-shirts. This money is gone and you don’t get anything for your investment in the advertising if you don’t reach the T-shirt sales goal.

You also have a slight risk with the number of T-shirts you think you can sell. The higher you set your goal, the more you will make for each shirt sold. The problem is, if you don’t reach the goal, you get nothing. For example, if you set a goal of 50 shirts and sell only 49, the shirts are never produced and you get nothing. If, however, your set the goal at 10 T-shirts and sell 49, you would get paid a commission for all the sales since you met the goal. Although, that commission would be less than if you had said you could sell 40 T-shirts. Attempting to accurately estimate how many T-shirts you can sell without overestimating is vital.

Is Teespring Legit or a Scam?

Teespring is not a scam, it is a legit business. Although, this doesn’t mean it is the best business for you. There are some risks, so it’s important to understand how the company works so you know what you’re getting into, but it’s a legit opportunity to make money without having to pay any upfront costs. If you think you are creative enough to come up with some T-shirt designs which you could sell to others, you may want to check out Teespring as a possible way to make some extra money in your spare time. Just make sure to explore all available options before pulling the trigger.

For how to make a success of selling this business as well as other side businesses check out these articles.

Building Facebook Pages for T-Shirts Sales
How to Mix Investing and Small-Business Ownership
Side Jobs to Grow Your Bank Account

(Image courtesy of Teespring)

 

If you enjoy reading our blog posts and would like to try your hand at blogging, we have good news for you; you can do exactly that on Saving Advice. Just click here to get started. If you want to be able to customize your blog on your own domain and need hosting service, we recommend trying BlueHost. They offer powerful hosting services for $3.95/month!

Easy Food to Sell to Make Money

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easy food to sell

There are so many different ways to make a little bit of extra money. For example, you can sell food. Whether you sell it at farmers’ markets, from a food truck, going door to door, or through a small online business, selling food can be a great way to garner some new income. You want to find easy food to sell, especially as you start out. After all, you want to make money, not spend a lot out of pocket to get started.

How to Sell Food

Before you begin to sell food, you need to think about what kind of business do you want. Some examples of food-based small businesses include:

  • Package a favorite recipe, such as homemade jam. Sell it online, at farmer’s markets, or in partnership with a local restaurant.
  • Start a home-based food business. This might mean that you offer a small menu of items that you sell through. variety of channels. You may sell to small restaurants or do direct-to-consumer sales online.
  • Become a vendor at a concession stand, food truck park, or other area where individuals and/or small businesses are allowed to sell food.
  • Sell food “door to door” which might mean visiting construction sites to sell meals to the workers at lunch time or using word of mouth to let your children’s parents know that you have food for sale.

There are Legal Issues

Depending on where you live and how you want to sell your food, there are legal issues to think about. These include general issues about small businesses, such as setting yourself up with a business license. Additionally, there are specific rules about food-based businesses. For example, you may have to determine whether your local laws allow you to cook from your own kitchen or require you to rent space from a commercial kitchen.

You Need Easy Food to Sell

If you want to make a lot of money, then you need to look for easy food to sell. There are two different aspects to what “easy foods” means:

  1. Foods that are easy to prepare.
  2. Foods that easily sell because they are highly popular.

If you can prepare food quickly, inexpensively, and easily, then you’re getting off on the right food. If you’re choosing foods that sell well because of their popularity, then you’re going to sell out. That’s how you make money.

Finding Easy Food to Sell

When deciding what you want to sell, there are some important factors to take into consideration. Ask yourself the following questions:

  • What are the foods that I find easiest and most enjoyable to prepare?
  • When I go to the type of place where I’ll be selling my food, what foods do I want to purchase?
  • What are the most popular foods at these types of places? Is the market already too saturated for those foods?
  • What is the cost investment and the time investment of the food I’m interested in selling?

In other words, you want to think about your market, your experience, your passion for food, and the cost of both time and money that you’ll invest into this business. Ideally, you will come up with a food that’s inexpensive to prepare, easy and fun to make, and popular but also unique from what’s already available around you.

Examples of Foods That Sell Easily

Your market may vary widely in terms of which foods sell easily. For example, in some places, the easiest food to sell is French Fries. In contrast, other places have good niche markets for organic, artisanal, vegan food trends. You’ll have to research your market to figure out what’s going to sell easily in your area. With that in mind, though, here are some examples of easy food to sell:

  • Candy and packaged snacks that you simply buy in bulk and resell
  • Chili or baked beans
  • Concession stand foods such as fries, corndogs, nachos, and funnel cakes
  • Cookies, pastries, and other baked goods
  • Corn on the cob or elote off the cob
  • Drinks including lemonade, coffee, and mocktails
  • Fresh-baked bread
  • Hummus and/or other dips with bread and crudités
  • Jams, jellies, and other homemade canned items
  • Kebabs / skewers
  • Oatmeal
  • Pancakes
  • Pickles and other pickled vegetables
  • Pizza including deep fried pizza; consider offering both traditional toppings and more unique ones
  • Simple salads with just a few fresh ingredients and your own dressing
  • Simple sandwiches, such as grilled cheese, done really well
  • Tacos and quesadillas
  • Toasts, such as avocado toast and bruschetta
  • Trending foods, such as meat marinades, açaí bowls, or plant-based protein dishes

Additional Factors to Consider

You’ve already reviewed the legal issues for starting a food business. You’ve looked at some easy food to sell. Moreover, you’ve thought about how your food interests intersect with popular foods to come up with a good product to sell. Here are some additional factors to consider before you decide for sure what food to sell:

  • How will you source the food ingredients?
  • What will you need in order to store the ingredients? For example, will you need to buy a freezer?
  • What will you need in order to prepare the food? For example, will you need to buy a deep fryer or Mason jars for canning?
  • How long will the food prep take? How long after preparation will it be good to sell? Consider, for example, that initial food prep to can a lot of foods at home can take a long time but then the canned food is something you can save and sell over time. In contrast, as soon as you make French fries, you have to sell them; they don’t save well. That said, they’re quick to make in comparison with something like canning peaches.
  • What additional items will you need in order to serve this food? If you’re making a prepared food at home, such as cookies, then how will you package and ship them? If you’re handing out food at a stand, what plates or other supplies do you need to provide?

You can start a business selling food. It might turn out to be not just a passion project but one that you earns you a solid steady income. If you really love the work, it could even turn into a professional small business. That said, you want to make sure that you start slow, invest your time and money wisely, find easy food to sell, and then grow your market over time.

Read More:

If you enjoy reading our blog posts and would like to try your hand at blogging, we have good news for you; you can do exactly that on Saving Advice. Just click here to get started. If you want to be able to customize your blog on your own domain and need hosting service, we recommend trying BlueHost. They offer powerful hosting services for $3.95/month!

How to Get Paid by Giving Your Opinion

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Get Paid for Opinion

They say that everyone has opinions. It’s usually meant as a derogatory comment. However, in today’s social media / consumer age, your opinion matters a lot to businesses and brands. In fact, you can get paid for your opinion. There are many different surveys and tools that will pay you to share your thoughts and experiences.

Why Would You Get Paid for Opinion?

From the consumer’s side of things, it seems almost silly to get paid for opinion. After all, if you keep buying a product then you probably like it. Doesn’t that say it all? No. It doesn’t say nearly enough to the businesses that are creating the products and services you’re using (or opting not to use.)

Companies improve their products and services all of the time. They constantly tweak what they have to offer. The better they do, the more money they make. That’s why they conduct market research. And when you get paid for opinion surveys, that’s a form of a market research.

What Happens When You Give Your Opinion?

When you get paid for opinion surveys, that information goes into a databank. The responses that you give are combined with hundreds or even thousands of other responses from people just like you who got paid for opinion giving. The company then uses a variety of tools and algorithms to analyze those opinions.

In other words, it’s not as if the company looks at the data and says, “oh, Susan A. feels this way about the product.” It’s not a way to track you and your specific opinions. Instead, it’s a way to say, “overly, people are feeling this way about the product.” And also to say, “but then there are some people who would prefer this.”

Companies use that information to make changes to their products. They improve products. They change their marketing. Additionally, they may discontinue products or add new ones to suit the changing needs of their market base. They can’t know what people want unless they ask. Therefore, they will pay for your opinion.

Google Opinion Rewards

One of the quickest and easiest ways to get paid for your opinion is to start completing online surveys. Google Opinion Rewards is one of the best places that you can do that.

When you visit the link above, you’ll see that this is a an app for download. It’s available for Apple and Android users. You can download it to your phone or tablet.

Once you’ve downloaded the tool, you’ll set up your profile. Then you’re ready to start giving your opinion. There are a variety of different surveys available through this tool. When a new one becomes available, the app notifies you (presuming that you’ve set your notification alerts accordingly). Then you fill it out. And that is all: you get paid for your opinion.

You can get paid in one of two ways:

  • Google Play Credit
  • PayPal

How Much You’ll Get Paid for Opinion Surveys

Google Opinion Rewards pays up to $1 per survey. It takes less than one minute to complete each survey. In fact, many are just a few questions long and take less than twenty seconds to complete. If there are a lot of surveys available, then you can add a nice little bonus income to your life just by taking the surveys.

You won’t get rich off of giving your opinion. There are only so many surveys available. Moreover, the companies are always trying to hear from specific demographics, so you might not always qualify to get paid for your opinion.

That said, you can easily boost your income this way. After all, you can complete these surveys on your phone when you would otherwise be playing a game or posting on social media. Use your time to earn a little bit of money instead. You can take that money and set it aside in a special savings or investment account and grow it there.

Other Ways to Get Paid for Your Opinion

Google Opinion Rewards its one of the top apps out there to get paid for opinion surveys. It has more than 98, 000 reviews and has 4.7 stars out of 5 in the App Store. However, it’s not the only way to get paid for your opinion. Here are some other options:

American Consumer Opinion

Most survey apps, including Google Opinion Rewards, are filled with short surveys. American Consumer Opinion is different in that the surveys can take up to half an hour to complete. The nice thing about this is that you really get to give a more in-depth opinion. If you like to get paid for opinion surveys not just for the money but also because you’re shaping products then this is a good option to check out.

Survey Junkie

The Survey Junkie app is another app where you get paid for your opinion. On this one, you earn points. In addition to earning points per survey, you earn points for other actions on the app – such as setting up your profile. Points can be redeemed for gift cards.

Surveys on the Go

Each of these survey apps has similarities and differences. Reviewers say that Surveys on the Go tends to pay more per survey than many of the other options do. You can earn between $1 and $10 per survey. Once you reach $10 in your account, you can cash out. You can cash out with Amazon or Starbucks credit. Alternatively, you can get paid through PayPal or a Visa gift card.

Swagbucks

Swagbucks consistently makes top lists for money-earning apps. You can get paid in points, redeemable for gift cards, or via PayPal payment. People like this one because not only do you get paid for opinion surveys but you can also make money watching videos and performing other online tasks.

Read More:

If you enjoy reading our blog posts and would like to try your hand at blogging, we have good news for you; you can do exactly that on Saving Advice. Just click here to get started. If you want to be able to customize your blog on your own domain and need hosting service, we recommend trying BlueHost. They offer powerful hosting services for $3.95/month!

Should You Get Naked for Quick Cash?

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Has debt made you so desperate you’re considering nude modeling for quick cash? Don’t let desperation drive you to make a career limiting move.

Save your concerns about freedom of expression for another time because the following warning concerns your potential for future earnings — or lack thereof.

The risk that the wrong people will discover your naked photos or videos is skyrocketing due to a confluence of trends.

Should you model naked for quick cash?

Background Checks

Among them is the rise of companies that perform background checks for employers to use in evaluating whether to hire job candidates.

It’s almost become a standard practice of human resources departments and recruiters to outsource background checks to companies that do them full time.

While these outfits generally focus on fact-checking the claims people make on their resumes — along with reference checks, and digging up any criminal records — the depth and magnitude of the background checks vary depending on a host of factors.

Although it’s not likely these firms look into whether candidates have sold naked photos online, one might assume that higher-paying jobs might involve more elaborate background checks.

Image Search

The other key phenomenon that would make internet nudity a career limiting move is the increased sophistication of image-based search technology.

Visual search capabilities can match images to their source and vice versa; this functionality is an option in most search engines, along with numerous photo sharing websites and tools.

Wigs Are No Disguise

The facial recognition capabilities in this technology have gotten so sophisticated that wigs and aliases are no longer able to help models and performers evade detection

And unfortunately for these models and performers, image search tools aren’t the only thing that’s making it easier to discover them.

Illegal file sharing of this type of content continues to proliferate in spite of copyrights, watermarks, and even paywalls.

But What Are the Odds?

To be fair, it’s possible that the large volume of content on the internet might slow down or reduce the odds that someone might discover an adult entertainment-type of photo or video from a person’s past.

However, computing power continues to improve so it’s very possible that something that takes too long to find today might be much easier to find in the near future.

The potential lost opportunities resulting from such a discovery far exceeds the amount of debt relief you might achieve today by selling some illicit photos or videos online.

Pure Pressure from Debt

Of course, it’s easy to lose sight of that kind of long-term picture when you’re feeling pressure today from debt that’s gotten out of control.

Household debt has returned to peak levels, only this time around, student loan balances account for a much larger share than they did a decade ago.

This might explain why we’re seeing renewed interest in a blog post we published nine years ago describing anecdotally how someone made $6,000 selling nude photos online.

Since then, the potential for career limitation has gotten much greater for anyone who might contemplate taking that kind of gamble today.

Quick Cash

Before you make a mistake you might live to regret, please check out the wealth of articles we’ve published on all the other ways to make fast cash:

Readers, how desperately have you wanted to solve your own financial problems?

Writing For Money: How to Find Writing Jobs

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writing for money
I decided to be a writer when I was in seventh grade. From that moment to this very day, every time I tell someone I write, I steel myself for criticism. I have to because, to the world at large, forging a career in writing is like signing up to never, ever make money. It’s like joining the Starving Artists Club, like choosing the opposite of success. It’s Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge finding out that Ewan McGregor is not a duke after all.

But I am here to tell you a secret: writing is practical. Writing can make you a living. Choosing to write does not mean sacrificing a successful life. If anything, pursuing your love of writing can secure your success and happiness. It’s just a matter of getting started, of finding the way in that is best for you, and building your network from there. That said, here are a few ways you can write for money.

Captioning and Transcription

If you are the type of person who is a spelling and grammar superstar with lighting-fast typing skills, captioning is a great way to put those skills to use. Captioning – and transcribing – through companies such as Rev, Inc. is easy and straightforward. Pay rates tend to go per video minute rather than the hours of work you actually put in, so the faster you are, the more you will get paid. While captioning may not be a creative writing job, it does expose you to media you would not have experienced otherwise, allowing you the opportunity to learn about and experience new things from stand up paddleboarding to the Frank Sinatra Timex show.

Blogging

If you’re the type with ideas to share with the world, blogging is for you. Make sure you settle on your unique perspective before you begin, and also pick up some marketing skills if you can. To make money from your own blog, you will need a high amount of traffic (people clicking through to your site) and possibly some advertisements from other companies on your page. There is no guarantee that starting a blog will immediately begin earning you money, but if you have the right content and the right marketing tactics for your intended audience, you have a fighting chance.

To get started, WordPress has a free platform that you can use to display your writing and express yourself. It’s a strong option for beginners since your only investment is your time and energy. If you want to be able to customize your blog on your own domain and need hosting service, we recommend trying BlueHost. They offer powerful hosting services for $3.95/month!

If creating your own blog is not your style, yet you love the real-world, non-fiction stories and advice in blogs, you can always try writing for another site. This type of freelancing will generally pay per article, but if you are talented and fit well with the site, freelancing could become a steady job. For more on where to go for these freelance blogging opportunities, try articles like this one or even freelance sites like Fiverr.

Copywriting and Advertising

Jobs such as copywriting and ad writing, unlike blogging or captioning, have a higher chance of being office-based as opposed to online. These jobs will employ both refined grammatical skills and higher-level creativity, perfect for the well-rounded writer. While these jobs may be more competitive, their pay and hours will be more consistent than the others, and can lead to even better opportunities within the company.

While the ideal career of New York Times Bestselling Author may be difficult to achieve, that is not the only way to make money writing. If a published novel is your ultimate goal, don’t worry: use your free time to write your own creative work and send it to agents, all the while building your experience, network, and skills with a paid writing position. Writing skills are essential to the function of our society and should never be underestimated. So if you are looking to write, go for it. You can make money writing.

You may also enjoy reading: 

Photo: Writer Sanctuary

How to Make Money While You Sleep

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how to make money while you sleep
We know we have to work hard for the money, but what if we could roll in the dough while we caught some Z’s? It should come as no surprise that in today’s digital world, a passive income is more than possible; it’s do-able. And in today’s article, we are going to discuss how to make money while you sleep.

Most things that sound too good to be true are; however, a passive income is not as long as you know what to expect. You just need to realize before starting that you might be working longer and harder in the beginning before the “passive” part kicks off. This is an initial investment of your time in order to reap the rewards over and over again later.

So, with that in mind, here’s how to make money while you sleep:

Get into the drop shipping industry

Perhaps you’ve tried selling items on eBay before, but it’s not bringing in the income you’d hope to see. Or maybe you’re out of merchandise to sell. Drop shipping is another way to sell physical goods without actually keeping anything in stock. Instead, you purchase items from a warehouse or third party who then directly ship the products to the customer. In this retail model, items are only purchased as needed instead of maintaining an inventory. You can learn more about the process from the eCommerce platform Shopify, which can be used to start your own drop shipping business.

Blogging and Affiliate Marketing

Starting a blog is fairly cheap to get started. You just need to pay for web hosting and your domain name, then you are ready to go. Plus, blogging is one of the best ways to make a passive income online. This is not a “set it up and the money will come” thing though. You do need to spend weekly attention to it for a while before it can really start making you money. The good news is that there are multiple ways to make money through a blog once you have built a following. Here are just a few:

  • Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is where you promote other people’s products on your site and receive commission if people click the link. You’ll want to choose products or services relevant to your site for best results. See if the company who created a certain product or service you already use for your blog or business has an affiliate program in place. Sites like ClickBank will also provide you with a link to use on your site from a variety of industries. A general rule of thumb is to pick categories you are most familiar with to make the process genuine and simpler for you.
  • Advertising: When your blog does have enough traffic, you can start selling ad space to potential advertisers that want to reach your audience. Again, using advertisers relevant to your blog’s niche to improve the quality of your site. Advertising revenue will start off small, but it will eventually grow in numbers in time as your visitors grow and clicks to the ads do as well.
  • Find a Site Sponsor: Another option would be to have someone pay you a set amount to have an embedded banner, sponsored content or their logo permanantly placed somewhere on your site. You’ll have more leverage to do this once you have the following, so focus on growing your blog first.

Put together a membership site

Creating a membership community is a great way to make a little extra cash by providing exclusive information to members. For example, let’s say your blog is up and running. You can develop a membership portion of your site where individuals pay to receive high-quality free materials or information not provided to your general audience.

Have a middle-man or arbitrage services

Basically, this is where you do all the negotiating but hire out the labor to execute. Choose markets or services that people or businesses are willing to pay a lot of money and connect them to the person that performs the work. So, to sum it up, you are paid to be the middle man. You outsource and market the services, making a profit from doing so.

Peer-to-peer lending

Peer-to-peer lending basically makes you a human form of a bank. Certain sites will match you with someone who was have a difficult time receiving a loan. Because this is giving strangers money over the internet, this is much riskier. Despite the fact that you can have high interest rates on the loans you provide, this will be one passive income resource that you will want to do your homework on before signing up.

Before you get started…

Now that you have a few ideas of your options, you need to develop a plan of action. Before you officially start, determine the following:

  • What skills or services can I offer?
  • What is my niche?
  • Who is my audience?
  • What is my competition?

Make sure to then research the passive income route you plan to take prior to diving in. If none of the above sound like they fit you, you can also invest in the stock market and become a stakeholder.

If you’ve been wondering how to make money while you sleep, hopefully we’ve answered that for you here today. Do you plan on trying any of the above or have you seen success already? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.