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Saturday, August 3

Scratching an Itch

Okay, so someone asked me how I ended up with a 157-stop mystery shopping route.  I have a confession.  One item on my bucket list has been to drive cross-country.  I want to mystery shop my way to the Nevada line.  One of the best parts of mystery shopping is mitigating the cost of travel.  For example, my annual mecca to the Berkshire Hathaway meeting in Omaha has lately been all-expenses paid (or close to it) when you factor in the work I did while there or en route.  Same with my trips to Birmingham.  Why not earn some cash in the process?

So, I started letting out feelers to my schedulers letting them know I was up for a trip.  Do you have any hard to assign locations you would like to get filled?  It took no time at all for one scheduler to let me know they had an offer.  The total value of the route is in the low five figures.  Seriously.

I also want this to be a quasi-sabbatical of sorts:  just me, driving solo, with plenty of windshield time to do some long-term planning and to clear away the cobwebs in my brain.  I leave August 6th.

4 comments:

  1. Wow that is crazy money and such a great idea!

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    1. Thanks. I will be posting updates along the way.

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  2. that's something I would love to do. I was wondering if you could travel full time and do mystery shopping as your income. I think it's possible from scouring the out of town opportunities from various mystery companies. I think you'll have a wonderful trip and if you make it to Arizona, let me know.

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    1. For much of the trip I am grinding it out, trying to do as many shops every day as possible. I don't have much interest in spending a ton of time in Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana or Texas (no offense to those living there, but it's too hot right now!). But in October I make it to the western-most states. I don't have any shops in Arizona (Gallup, NM is the closest I get), but if I am able to visit the state I will. I love Phoenix. It is the West that I hope to spend a little time exploring.

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