Side Hustles Online: Surveys

So, I'm a bit on the povvo side right now. As a result, I've been looking at other ways to make money. After many Google searches, one recurring theme was do paid surveys. So I chose to sign up to four. After six weeks on each of them, these are my thoughts.

 

Live Tribe

There’s a limit on how many surveys can be done per day (usually one or two) so it’s likely to take a very long time for Live Tribe to pay off. Thankfully, not long after I signed up, Live Tribe restructured how they paid out their users. After six weeks I was able to redeem a $10 Gift Pay voucher which I could use on groceries. Nothing to scoff at really when you’re skint!
After the first survey I did, I thought my reward was entry into the quarterly cash prize and I was a bit peeved that my effort only got an entry to a competition. It turns out that you’ve got to scroll down past the bollocks to choose between claiming the point reward or donating the reward to a charity.
Live Tribe also has polls and blogs open for discussion and online games and footy tipping. There’s also other competitions that can be entered. And it’s a survey site with a conscience. It allows subscribers to support charities in various ways.

 

Opinion Bureau

A reward is given to signing up and about there is where it stops because the surveys available are few and far between making redeemable cash opportunities difficult to achieve, especially when there’s the chance that you still may not qualify for the surveys available anyway. You can participate in polls when there are no surveys, however, the polls don’t change very often so there’s a limit on participation and point collection opportunities there too.

 

Pure Profile

Like Live Tribe, Pure Profile also has a limit on surveys that can be completed per day (again it’s just one or two). If you don’t qualify to complete the survey you still get a small reward for wanting to participate… a whole ten cents. After a week, I had a whole 50c to my name because I was kicked out of five surveys for not qualifying. The reward for being qualified to complete a survey can be up to $3. There a few different ways Pure Profile pays out; however, the minimum payout amount is $20. At the rate I’m going, it’s going to take 200 days to be able to reach this point.

 

Survey Rewardz

Unlike Live Tribe and Pure Profile where there’s a limit on the surveys that can be completed every day, Survey Rewardz has none, you can complete as many surveys as you like. Be warned, they might be available, but that doesn’t mean that you will qualify for all of them. I still see better progress with Survey Rewardz than I have with all the others. After a week, I had accumulated $4.14. Rewards can be redeemed in a variety of different ways from gift cards to cheques to PayPal. There’s only a small minimum for redemption. PayPal’s minimum is $1, a Panera Gift card is a $2 minimum and everything else except Home Depot and Xbox is a minimum of $5.  

The Stinger: Honey

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I don't hate Capilano. This blog will explain in a roundabout way as to why. However, the number one reason is that I personally know quite a number of people (a significant portion of the people I work for) that supply Capilano with honey. And yet, there are more reasons. First, it's interesting to know what is honey. And you're likely to assume that it's made from bees. However, if you come from Asia the definition and how it's created is entirely different. Professor Noberto Garcia informed us at congress that, unlike honey in the western world, honey in Asia is processed by humans through a 'honey factory'. The bees do the initial work of collecting the pollen and storing it in the hive... in steel tubes within the hive to be precise. Once the bees turn the pollen into honey, but before it is mature, the tubes are removed from the hive and taken to a factory to be extracted and mixed in with rice syrup, corn syrup and/or pass. You see, the Asian definition of honey hardly mentions the word 'bees'. It attributes honey's beginning to bees but that's where it ends. It talks about honey as being a sweet syrup. The western definition is solely based around bees doing all the work to create the end product.
Asian honey is produced in such a way that it constitutes as honey fraud in the west. Honey fraud can also include using resin technology, the masking of the geographical and/or botanic origin or feeding hives during a nectar flow.
At the moment, Australian honey exports are in decline and what we're importing is in greater quantities but certainly not quality. 73% of the imported honey comes from China. Before you get upset, remember that half the crap in our houses started out in China.
Back to Capilano. Yes, they import. However, they're one of 34 (yes, thirty four) Australian companies that import honey. As I've mentioned over and over on Facebook, Capilano have various labels: the masthead label (Capilano) and other labels (like Allowrie). The Capilano label is all Australian, the Allowrie label contains imported honey.
As a consumer, you can get angry and slag off Capilano all you want, however, consider this: loud, angry and disgruntled people having a go at Capilano importing honey is having a knock-on effect on the WHOLE honey industry. You have the knowledge, read the labels, buy Australian, buy masthead products. This is how to make a statement.
This is working in America. David Hackenberg, who runs a huge honey and pollination business from Pennsylvania, is part of a co-operative with other producers. They have their own label, Sam's. People know that Sam's is American. People are checking the labels. Sam's sells for a higher price than imported brands yet people are still buying it over cheaper honey from other countries. They like food provenance, they like to support their own economy. Consumers are buying smarter.
There's no use in getting angry and ranting on Capilano's Facebook page about the fact they are importing honey when THEY ARE ONE OF MANY.
I repeat: read the labels, buy Australian, buy masthead labels, pay that little bit more. Buy from the farmers market, I don't care. Just know that the power to buy Australian lies with YOU and buying Australian produce is the biggest statement you can make.

The Stinger: What My Job Is

Over the course of the next week or so I will be doing a series on the Australian Honey Bee Industry. If you have any questions, keep them in mind, they may actually be answered in the blog series. At the end of the series, if they're not answered, the final blog post will be created to answer them.

Most people don't really understand what my job is. My role is Bee Biosecurity Officer for PIRSA (Primary Industries and Regions South Australia) and I have equivalents in NSW, Vic, Tas, WA and there will soon be a Bee Biosecurity Officer in Queensland.

I am not a beekeeper. I don't have to be a beekeeper. I don't particularly want to be a beekeeper while I'm employed in this role.

My role is to educate and encourage compliance in beekeepers in South Australia. I have two compliance angles: the Honey Bee Industry Code of Practice; and the South Australian Livestock Act. Another education aspect of my role is to help beekeepers be able to identify various bee pests and diseases and what to do if they find them.

My role is not to save the bees. It is to save the beekeepers from themselves or each other depending on the situation. "Saving" the bees is a topic I will cover later.

The position is industry funded. In a convoluted way, I work for Plant Health Australia and PIRSA. This is all complicated so I will not elaborate further.

One of the worst bee diseases in Australia is called American Foulbrood. Undetected, it can kill a hive. It's highly infectious and therefore, easily spread. This is the main bee disease I focus on though there are others. American Foulbrood is not uncommon and is a notifiable disease in every state and territory. Most beekeepers are pretty good at dealing with it themselves, some require help which I am willing to provide and some are just plain rogue and their path usually comes with a fair bit of anger, frustration and disappointment as a result.

I do not deal with federal issues. I have no control over honey imports from other countries  (covered in a later blog) or the use of chemicals  (covered in a later blog). I don't hate Capilano  (covered in a later blog). I just do my job as best I can for the industry that pays me in a fashion that is clearly set out by my two employers.

Stay tuned for way more interesting stuff.

Bright Lights Big City

Adaptation to SA life is proving to be difficult for me at times. Remember that blog I wrote two and a half years ago called "Failing in the Big Smoke"? Well, that crud is still happening. 
I caught a bus to Nairne the other day. Not even slightly intentional. My destination was supposed to be Mt Barker. After calling the landlord for help it was all chaos and downhill from there. His gearbox played up, I ended up catching a taxi and I had Oporto's despite the budget not allowing it. At least the pups peed in my car and not all over his leather seats. Somehow, the old EJ clunked back into gear and made it home without the RAA.
That same week I went to the city for some training. I thought I needed to go to level six to be at the right place so I took the elevator that did floors one through twelve. When I realised my mistake, I took the elevator to level twelve and thought that I'll take the stairs the rest of the way up. The toilets just happened to be in the stairwell in this building and thank goodness some bloke needed to pee because without a pass I never would have got out of that stairwell.
I've been relying heavily on Google Maps to get me around Adelaide. The meltdown was real when it took me to Britannia roundabout. Nobody likes Britannia roundabout. 
And today I let a perfectly good bus drive past me because I had completely forgotten which buses were available to me to get back to Mt Barker. 
This is on top of almost falling asleep coming into Glen Osmond because the dogs... actually, no, just one female, adult dog, spent the night barking because she was pissed off that she was expected to sleep outside after I'd cleaned the cottage for an inspection and also that rodent that kept me awake due to its desire to gnaw on the bookcase even though I kicked and slapped the bejeezus out of that bookcase in an effort to strike fear into its heart and make it go away. Thankfully, there's a café near my bus stop so I got a cup of burnt dirt with added chocolate and a cookie which got me twitching throughout the day, but not mentally alert.
One day I may get this city/suburban thing down pat?

Cold

I was asked before I left Katherine if I would continue writing my blog. I figured I would write if I felt like I would have something to write home about. So far, I have only been out a few times because generally after knocking off for the week I'm too knackered to go out. This has resulted in me being more of a  hermit than I was in Katherine. 

There's a bit of a bucket list of things I want to see and do during my time down here. However, the realisation that the weather will only be so nice for so long has just dawned on me.

I sat in the car this morning, not in any hurry to get out of it and stand at the bus stop. When I got in the car the thermometer said 11 degrees. I had seen it at that temperature before so I tried not to let it bother me but the moment I started winding my way down to Mt Barker that temperature dropped to 9 degrees and I screamed. Even though the refrigerant had hissed its way ot of the car's air conditioning system back in June last year, the heat still works fine... thankfully. 

Having come from South Australia you think I would quickly adapt back to this frozen state, but no, it's a bit difficult to wrap my head around the idea of such low temperatures when it's only frigging February. Winter comes and you'll find me dealing with the nights using three dogs, not two.