Hi.
I am new to MS and this forum. I had one shop that I needed help with so I "Googled" it and ended up here. I have read quite a bit and have found bits of information I have found helpful.
Although I'm new to this, I have been doing other types of money making side "jobs" for years. One thing I can help others with, is free gas or at least extremely discounted gas depending on your location. I know this makes many of the jobs much more profitable because gas is a expense that can add up in this gig.
The basic premise is using a grocery chain that offers fuel perks or something similar. My location has Winn Dixie, that offers Fuel Perks on purchases at their store. Although it only works with certain cards, currently I buy "Celebrate Variable Mastercard Gift Cards" at the rate of $500/ea. Right now, you get $1.00/gallon per the $500 card in Fuel Perks. I actually buy 4 cards at $2000 and that yields me $4.00/gallon in Fuel Perks. This is roughly TWO 20 gallon fill-ups if gas was $2.00/gallon. This does not work on all gift cards, nor does it work all the time. But you can also get the FRN Network Mastercard and use that to buy the cards, and it offers .25/gallon per $100 at Winn Dixie, so I can do it that way as well. I do this daily in some cases and currently I give gas to friends and family.
You would need to do some research to find a grocery store that offers points, or participates with FRN to help make this work. I would recommend you start small to get the feel, and then as you understand, you can ramp it up.
There are fees that are associated with buying the gift cards of $5.95/ea so I use a Capital One 2% cash back card to offset the fees, and I even make roughly $20 cashback in addition on each purchase.. Sometimes I use a 5% cashback card by Amex and make $80 in cash after fees plus the gas. If you did this with a 2% cashback card, you could easily make $100 a month in cashback just by doing it 5 times a month PLUS FREE GAS.
Now, you might be wondering what I do with the gift cards, because I have $2000 in gift cards. Well, these are Debit Gift Cards and I buy Money Orders at another grocery chain or even WalMart for $499.11 ea. They charge a fee of .89 for the money order. Then I just deposit these money orders in my bank account and pay off the original charge on the initial credit card. You are left with just the fees, that hopefully you offset with a cashback credit card.
I also do this with airline points, hotel points and many other cards. But that doesn't apply or help with the Mystery Shopping gig so i wont get into that.
I feel the best way to get help is to offer help in an area that I know or have knowledge of and can trade tips.. If this would help you, Id be happy to walk you through the process more specifically.
I know on the surface this sounds scary and complicated, but it really is not. Its super simple.
Just like Mystery Shopping, what works for my area, may not work for yours, so there is some tweaking and research that is needed, but you should be able to make it work.