More stockphotos accepted on Picture Nation

3 more of my digital photographs have been accepted by Picture Nation today. I get so excited when one of my photographs gets deemed good enough. My total stockphoto portfolio on Picture Nation now stands at 19. Not bad for someone who only takes digital photographs as a hobby and has no training.

I think I have a long way to go before I start seeing any money for them. From what I can gather from various forums and photographers blogs a portfolio which contain 500+ should be getting about £50 to £100 a month. However it would depend on the photographic subject. I really need to crack the likes of Fotolia, 123rf, alamy, etc.

Positivity - Peter Jones on Radio One

At last someone in 'media world' is trying to spread some positivity about the country's financial situation. My husband came home last night and recommended that I go to Radio one website and listen to Peter Jones on the Chris Moyles show. It was entertaining and not too deep (thank goodness) but the overall message was that things are really not that bad and we've got to stop talking about it as we are going to talk ourselves into an economic depression.

I am interested in setting up my own company (obviously can't say anything yet) and I have been feeling that although the idea is good the time of execution might be bad.

Making money at home January 2009 update

Its been a while. I would like to have some fabulous excuse or stories of how I have managed to earn large amounts of money in the time I've been away but I don't. Progress on making money at home is slow but I'm doing loads of research.

Here are the highlights:

• Earnt £280 doing a small freelance project for previous employer
• Set up and registered as self-employed
• 16 photographs accepted on Picture Nation but no sales as of yet
• £2.91 still on homepages friends - I've been rubbish at this
• Started clearing loft and selling unwanted presents, books and old mobile phones on e-bay. Currently up to £60 on sales.
• Signed up to google Ad-sense
• Toluna - 35,335 points so far. 24,665 points off earning a £10 gift voucher at Amazon

Strategy for next month:

• Get 10 more photos accepted on Picture Nation
• Hit £5 on homepages friends
• Sell as much unwanted/unused personal items on e-bay
• Do more research on Ad-sense and ways to make internet earn money
• Hit 60,000 points on Toluna
• Drum-up more data analysis/admin freelance work

Homepages Friends - Getting paid to search

So its been a week since I have been using Homepages Friends as my search engine and I can report that I have made a total of £1.74.

So how much money can I make from using Homepages Friends for searches? Well if I multiply £1.74 by 48 weeks (allowing for holidays, etc) I could expect to make £71.04. Obviously if anyone else uses the search engine via me then I can expect to earn a little extra from their searches too.

Date No. of Searches Amount earned
18 Nov 2008 16 £0.35
19 Nov 2008 13 £0.29
20 Nov 2008 6 £0.13
21 Nov 2008 9 £0.19
22 Nov 2008 21 £0.44
23 Nov 2008 11 £0.23
24 Nov 2008 5 £0.11
Total 81 £1.74


So the conclusion is that it wont make you rich but £71 in your pocket is better than nothing. So I'm going to continue and will report back sporadically on my progress using homepages friends. I cannot get paid until my account reaches £20.

Selling Photographs Online

I have taken the advice of moneymagpie and I have been looking into selling photographs online. I've always enjoyed taking photos and had already invested in a nice camera last year so have quite a few photos to try and see if they like them. So last Wednesday I registered with Picture Nation and submitted nine photographs. It was really easy to register and the uploading of the photographs was pretty straight forward too. I had read on Picture Nations website that approval of photographs could take 3 weeks however since then I have already heard that 5 of the photos were not up to standard due to technical reasons (out of focus, poor contrast, etc) but today I heard that the one seen opposite has been accepted. I'm really excited about it.

You should be able to have a look at the accepted photo by clicking on the photograph. The minimum I could expect to receive if someone downloads my photo is 40p max is £30 (yeah hmm don't think the £30 is likely).

Toluna Online Survey

Signed up to Toluna yesterday another online survey company. They have a points system which they award points for completing their polls, their registration form, etc and points can then be exchanged for various different things. For example:

1,500 points = 1 ticket into monthly prize draw of £5000.

60,000 points = £10 vouchers for places like amazon, Sainsburys, and HMV

So far I have accrued 7885 points by completing my registration poll and several sponsored polls. I'm interested to find out how long it takes to get to 60,000. I suspect a couple of months slog! I'm also curious to see if I receive any surveys as panelbase haven't sent me anything yet.

Current amount made: 94p (5 days of searching via homepages-friends).

Toluna Online Survery

Panelbase Online Survery

Logged on with Panelbase online survey company 2 days ago and completed all of my profile so they have lots of information to go on. It took a little while to complete but I did it infront of the telly so not really very hard to do. I haven't received any surveys yet which is a shame so I will have to see about registering with some more.

Looked at my online searches total and it is now 64p. Did about 15 searches yesterday so I would say that my searches aren't the sort that produce a lot of revenue but then I needed to do those searches so I still got paid for them.

Thinking about trying to upload some of my photos to one of the online photo selling companies. I love photography and I do get quite a few compliments about my photos. However my husband and I have reservations about submitting pictures of our daughter. So will need to think about that one. Will keep you posted.

Money Earnt From Homepages friends yesterday

Logged on this morning to Homepages friends to find out how much I earnt from yesterdays searches. It takes a day for them to calculate it. From 16 legitimate searches some of which were for competitors of yahoo so not going to get paid for them I made a total of £0.35. Well its not going to pay for any luxury holidays but I would have done those searches anyway yesterday so its 35p more than if I had done it via Google.

If I get a few friends to sign up or if anyone clicks on the links on this site I also receive some money so that is obviously another way of increasing the amount you can earn. So if you want to get paid to search I would be delighted if you clicked on this link.



Now before you start thinking I work for these guys and I am on some form of commission I had better start looking at some other internet sites where you can earn cash.

Earn Money Searching with Homepages Friends

I discovered Jasmine Birtles and her website http://www.moneymagpie.com/ yesterday after I had seen her on Channel 5 talking about extra ways to earn money. Her website could be a good resource for me.

One website of particular interest to me was:




This website states that: 'Homepages Friends is all about making money for searching the internet. All payments are subject to a minimum of £20 and are paid between 45 - 60 days after the month end.'

As I am often searching around the web for various things for the family I thought why shouldn't I get paid for something I am doing already? So I have decided to give it a go. All I had to do was fill in my e-mail, a password and then I set the website as my homepage and off I went. I have used it for most of my searches today instead of Google and it has been great. No problems. Now I am due to be 'paid' somewhere between the 16th - 31st December 2008. You can be paid via paypal or straight into your bank account. I've opted for paypal. So I will keep you posted on what, when and how much I get paid when I do. Watch this space! They estimate that you could earn £50 per year which is better than nothing which is what I was getting before. If you get friends to sign up and search via them too you can get a little extra from what their searching.



I wish I'd known about this when I was working as my job often involved a lot of internet research and this could have been a nice way to earn a little extra money.