For mystery shopping, what are your takeaways from 2024? Are you planning to make any changes in 2025? Well, there have been similar threads lately that have already touched on this. I feel like I already know the overall mood. But here goes!

I always liked the categories that shopperbob has shared that he uses in whether a shop makes sense for him. For 2025, I'm going to use his categories of money, leisure, and defrayment of expenses. For myself though, leisure would be the overarching category.

I'm certain I'm that leisure shopper that everyone despises. But further, I also decided on three criteria that have been mentioned before on the forums, to determine whether to accept a shop.

1) Effort - Combination of time, energy, difficulty
2) Convenience - Is this shop out of the way? Is it on my way during a commute or running errands? Would it be something that I would be doing anyway?
3) Stress / mood level

My exception to the above would be trying new shops for the first time. I just can't help when there's so much discussion about certain shops. I want to try it for myself!

Looking back though, I found the hotel shops to be the most memorable. The sit-down dining shops were sometimes the highlight of a day. In the future, maybe I can take on more lucrative shops that involve additional planning and logistics. I enjoyed the gas stations, as well. Sometime, I'd also like to try a string of available gas stations on a road-trip. I enjoyed reading about other shoppers' experiences for hotels and gas stations for ideas.

From 2024, my biggest takeaway is to value time. I'm going to keep in mind the time that I spend outside of the actual shops, whether it be browsing a shopping platform, recordkeeping, the forums. I spend too much time on the forums! At least for me, I enjoyed and gravitated towards the topics that were story based, lessons learned, actionable, and exchange of best practices. I found it easy to read and helpful. This is sort of like a form of entertainment for me. As I stumbled upon and read old topics, I also got a better understanding of certain topics and myself. I'm so sensitive and close-minded! It helped broaden my view and approach. I appreciate the shoppers who contribute to the forums.

Going into 2025, for mystery shopping, I'm planning to turnaround reports quicker, but still maintain quality. For shops that I commit to, I would like to start and finish earlier. Overall, some behavioral changes that I'm looking to make is to not procrastinate and not be too cheap. I'm looking to better manage my time and energy. On the same note, I'm looking to avoid things that have a negative effect on my mood. All that to say, I'm striving to have a more balanced mindset and approach for 2025. Not really any money goals. For me, I found that happiness may be as simple as having little to no expectations.

Good for you, Okie. You do you and what works for you.

I'll continue to do mystery shopping where I can skim off the easy shops. Otherwise, I prefer to keep living off our investments mainly in the S&P500 from decades of labor and live below our means.

Same with me Maverick not going to run around driving myself crazy for pittance of money. As for me tax free bond income is the best with stocks for growth as in my 70s need a balance.

I always do a year in review and enjoy seeing how the year played out.

I'm pretty happy with changes that I have made. I made some adjustments from 2023 to 2024. I cut out almost all fast food. I feel like I moved more towards quality. I don't mind picking something up when it works with my schedule but I really didn't need to have more burgers or "Chinese" food.

In 2025, I would love to increase more of what works best for me but I'm not too sure that there are that many opportunities available. I hope that I'll be able to repeat much of what worked in 2024 but we all know how the landscape can change.

Happy new year to all!

I made the right choice at the end of last year to adjust my focus to online reselling. Q1 was a transition quarter for me. Since then, the only mystery shops I do are certain phone shops which pay well and hyper local in-person shops and audits that pay well. I don't mess with these $10-$25 shops. Other than gas audits, there is not a lot of stuff in town. My Sonic is no longer shopped. I do not mess with the USPS since it changed companies. Our new car wash is shopped and I've done it a couple of times. Once for $50 and the other for $75. My Pizza Hut was not shopped in Q4, but it did come out today but not worth the measly $10 when I do not eat mushrooms.

For 2025, I plan to continue to grow my online reselling operations and will likely continue to do limited mystery shopping, at least until Q4 this year.

@ServiceAward - Odd you do not eat mushrooms, but continue to smoke them. (Just kidding, no need to write a page here. Just kidding about that, too. LOL)

@purpleicee wrote:

@ServiceAward - Odd you do not eat mushrooms, but continue to smoke them. (Just kidding, no need to write a page here. Just kidding about that, too. LOL)

Who says I don't?

Lessons from 2024: 99% of shops are no longer worth it to me.

I keep very, very few shops nowadays that include some extremely low time needed, but pays out $100 each time once a month ($1,200 of income alone), and a couple food shops here and there.

Otherwise, I basically moved on from mystery shopping.

As for 2025? No changes from 2024, unless some shops that are worth grabbing to me catch my eye. One program I wished came back was the Titanium Elite shops for Bonvoy. That helped significantly get myself closer to Lifetime Platinum Elite.