A Week in the Life of a Mystery Shopper

Even throwing in a quickie vacation, I managed to earn almost $400 last week in mystery shopping fees and about $75 in reimbursed purchases. However, it was a slower week all in all:

Sunday
I signed up with a company that primarily does merchandising and completed my first two jobs today. It was easy work: I had to make sure DVDs were arranged according to a certain order, which in the industry is referred to a planogram.

Monday
This was a pretty busy day as I had a hodgepodge of shops to do. Note to self: it's easier to go with a "theme" for the day (for example, all gas stations, or restaurants, or retailers) if I want to be as efficient as possible. I did everything from fast food to merchandising to gas stations to mall stores to discount and home improvement retailers today.

Tuesday
I only did four shops today, but the pay was almost as much as what I earned Monday running around like a glutton. I visited two banks, did one merchandising job and went to a movie theatre to ensure a movie poster had been installed.

Wednesday
A quiet day. I ate a free breakfast, that was all. My Florida trip would start later in the day so I spent most of my day mapping it out, creating my data entry worksheet and hunting for more jobs.

Thursday
Busy day on the road, 15 shops total. We'd spent the night in a Best Western in small town in southern Alabama. Left the hotel around 8 AM and arrived at our hotel in Panama City beach about 4:30 PM. All I did was gas stations today. As I mentioned, I've found that having a theme for the day makes things much easier. We broke up the monotony through the day by making random stops at nurseries to look at banana trees and other native plants. All in all I enjoyed the day. This was the week's best day and I earned $200 in fees and $30 in reimbursements.

Friday
Today was a fairly easy day as I wanted to enjoy our time in paradise. I added four gas stations to my itinerary that were all within a couple miles of the hotel, then returned to the hotel to enter them before heading back to the beach to enjoy some sun and sand. After lunch we headed home. I completed two gas station shops on the way home.

Saturday
Nothing. I could have completed four shops that I'd signed up for, but all week I was battling a cold and I really didn't want to go anywhere, so I didn't. This is what's nice about mystery shopping: you have flexibility. Instead of shopping, I cleaned house, caught up on email and watched a couple of movies on the ROKU. I really enjoy cleaning house, it's good therapy, so I had fun not doing anything in particular on Saturday.

Total Income for the Week: $382.15
Total Value of Reimbursements: $67.75

Closed on the Rental Property

I closed on the house yesterday! This was one of the most difficult tasks I've had in some time.

For the immediate future I will be focused on renting the townhouse my tenants moved from. Before I can show it, I've got to do some major cleaning. They lived there over three years and IT'S A MESS. I may post before and after shots to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. My plan is to rent it for $625/month. It is a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath corner unit so it has a decent yard.

I'm Now a Merchandiser

In my quest to make ends meet, I've supplemented my mystery shopping work with merchandising. What is merchandising, you ask? Well, some companies will use contractors to maintain the shelves at retailers that stock their products. I used to think retailers were the ones that managed their inventory and organized their merchandise. While that is true for many things, it's not for others. Think DVDs, pre-pay phone services, and greeting cards, and these items are probably handled by a merchandiser who comes into the stores on a regular basis to straighten the shelves (according to "planogram"), report outages to the supplier, and maintain the face-to-face relationship with the store managers.

I just started doing this last week, but I was able to sign up for permanent assignments with a few stores, which means I will always be assigned the work for that store and won't have to compete with others to receive it.

How much does it pay? Not much... the ones I've signed up for so far range from $6 to $12 per visit. Fortunately, most assignments pay a set fee regardless of the time it takes. Unless the visit involves installing new displays, it's generally a quick in and out. I did my first two assignments last week, and even though I was new to it, I was in and out of the store in 20 minutes.

Closing on the House Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning I will FINALLY close on Rental Property #7. I say finally because I began the hunt for this property nearly a year ago, and it was originally slated to close in September. With my job loss, I ran into some hurdles with financing the property.

A huge burden will be lifted when I hand over the keys to my tenants. I started looking for this house nearly a year ago, and it was originally scheduled to close in September. My job loss messed up the financing. However, I made a commitment, and I keep my commitments, job loss be damned. These tenants happen to be my best friends, and they've been renting a townhouse from me for over three years.

Most likely this will be the last rental property I purchase for some time. Without a more predictable, employer-originated income, banks balk at lending money these days! I do look forward to having a clearer picture of my finances.

So, beginning with November I can take a real assessment of my debt level and create an attack plan to pay it down.