I recently attended a wedding, and on every single table, there were chocolate kisses and miniature candy bars. Each of the candies were wrapped with personalized messages with the bride and groom’s names and the wedding date.  Such a simple idea, with such huge possibilities. I came home and did some quick research and found out that the candy wrapper business is booming, because not many people are in the business, and so many people find the products irresistible. But the candy wrapper business isn’t limited to just weddings. I’ve seen them used on full-size candy bars announcing the birth of a new child, for children’s birthday parties, graduation parties, and as business promotions. The possibilities are endless.

Here is an ebook about starting your own candy wrapper business that not only gives you tips and suggestions for starting your own candy wrapper business… it gives you one-of-a-kind, privately-created software with templates for various sized candies and candy bars. Also includes many, many images and fonts that will help you create exactly what your clients are looking for.

In order to start this business, you’ll need basic business supplies. Other possibilities for your candy wrapper business:

• Graduation parties (with images of the school mascot and grad year)
• Children’s parties
• Gifts for children to pass out to friends at Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, & Easter
• Make slightly larger labels and affix them to boxes of crayons, for party favors and school gifts
• Business promotions for businesses to give to customers or employees

If you are ready to move beyond your neighborhood and town, and want to take the online plunge and create a website in order to sell your baskets online, read about the candy wrapper business for information about how to get started.

Opinion Outpost–one of the sites that I have included on my online surveys and focus groups page–just informed me that they are looking for new members. Registration is free and open to anyone. I have personally used Opinion Outpost (I ALWAYS test a site before I post it here for my readers), and it’s a very easy site to use and maneuver. They pay you with points, which you then redeem for money. They send you a check when you cash in your points. My friend takes surveys for them regularly, and uses the money that she earns there to pay for baby diapers and formula every month.

Note: They are accepting all applications right now for a limited time, but are particularly looking for male and Hispanic members. If you are male, register by clicking here. If you are Hispanic, register by clicking here. All other groups, click here to register.

I’ve found a company that is currently hiring people to work from home. This company has over 75,000 employees, serving 70+ counties. The schedule is flexible, training is paid, and employees do receive benefits.

From their website:
Join a winning team.

As an employee of Convergys, you’ll join one of the world’s largest leaders in relationship management, where we enable our clients to derive more value from their customer relationships. You’ll be part of a worldwide team of nearly 75,000 employees who serve clients in over 70 countries, speaking more than 35 languages, from locations around the globe.

You’ll have the opportunity to design a benefits package that matches your lifestyle.

Convergys Home Agents can select from applicable benefits that include paid time off, paid training, company holidays, 401(k) plan, employee stock purchase plan, life insurance, medical coverage, dental coverage, vision coverage, and more.

You’ll work for a company that believes in the power of people.

Convergys believes the key to delivering world-class customer service rests with our employees, who are empowered through knowledge.
Train from the comfort of your own home, and receive the support you need to prepare for a successful future.

You’ll be paid for your time in training, which you can take from the comfort of your home office. You and your Team Leader will partner to ensure you have the knowledge you need to be successful.

If you’re interested, go to http://www.convergysworkathome.com/apply_now.php

One of my subscribers sent me this information, and after taking a look at it, I decided to pass it on:

There’s a new program that will allow you to “work for just $3.” Upon registration, you get an affiliate link that you can start promoting. It’s a forced 3×15 matrix, which (if everything works out perfectly), can net you $2,582,805.72 just by refering 3 people. (You earn commissions on the people you refer, PLUS you earn commission on the people that the people below you refer.) There’s no monthly fees. The only fee you ever pay is the $3 registration fee. (Referring just 2 people will recoup your $3.00 registration fee.)

Want to get in on it? Follow these two steps:

1) They only offer payment one way: via Alert-Pay. Click here to register with Alert-Pay (it’s a free service, just like PayPal). (And here’s a nice little bonus: when you refer people to Alert-Pay, you’ll earn $5 for your first 10 referrals, and $10 for each referral thereafter.)

2) Once you’ve registered your payment account, click here to register to “work for just $3.”

I usually do not advocate having to pay for jobs, but technically speaking this isn’t a traditional job. And since it’s a one-time fee that’s less than the price of a cup of coffee or combo meal, I felt it was something you might be interested in. I HAVE seen proof of this being successful (my friend showed me the email that detailed her earnings), and I’m confident that you can be successful at it, too.

During a recession, there are certain jobs that are considered recession-proof.   This means that no matter how bad the economy gets, people in these fields will still manage to hold onto their jobs.  Some of these require a lot of education (physicians, for instance), while others don’t require as much education or training.

One of these recession-proof jobs is also a work at home job:  resume writer. With the economy in a slump, thousands of people are losing their once-secure jobs, and finding themselves needing to search for new jobs.   A great many of these people either don’t know how to construct a powerful and effective resume, or they don’t have confidence in their abilities.  This is great news (and great business) for people who work as resume writers.

As a resume writer, you can control the amount of work you take on, and set your own hours.  AWAI’s Pro Resume Writing Program can teach you –in under seven hours– what you need to do to become a successful resume writer.  Search the any copywriters forum on the internet, and you’ll hear nothing  but good reviews about AWAI’s training programs.

I’m impressed with their resume writing program, and highly suggest that  you register for it if you have the means to do so.  For Just 48 hours (beginning right now, and ending at 11:59pm, on Wednesday, February 12, 2009), AWAI has agreed to give my readers a 50% off discount for their renowned work at home resume writing program.   The program is usually $99, but if you purchase within the 48 hour window they are giving my readers, you can purchase it for just $48.

I can’t fully express what a great deal this is, and what a wonderful, succeessful home-based career this can get you.   Borrow the money from a family member, or move some money around (don’t eat out for the next few weeks), in order to be able to purchase this program at the deeply discounted price.

This $48 can be the difference between you struggling to find a job and establishing a strong and sucessful career for yourself.

To start your work as a resume writer, order AWAI’s Pro Resume Writer for only $48 now.

Or learn more about becoming a work at home freelance resume writer.

A little over a year ago, someone on Cafe Mom told me a site she was using to earn money each month.   A little over $100 her first month, and over $800 her second month.   I wrote down the name of the site, adding it to my (very long) list of sites to research and review.

The Basics

Cash Crate is technically a GPT (“get paid to”) site.   The site’s owners pay members to “complete offers” that are listed on the site’s “Offers” page.   Basically, members visit other sites, register for newsletters, registration, or trial offers, and Cash Crate pays the members to do so.    Registration at Cash Crate is free.

Never Pay a Cent

While the offers that require a credit card (such as trial memberships) do have higher payouts, it’s not necessary to use your credit card at all.   In fact, the mom that I mentioned above made her huge $800+ checks without ever paying a cent to anyone.

Get Paid for Referrals

Cash Crate pays its members a generous $1.00 to refer others to the site.  To earn the $1.00 referral fee, just use your unique referral URL (provided to you by Cash Crate after you register).   There’s a $5 ebook that lists 20 ways you can find more referrals (which means more money) when you register with Cash Crate.  If you’re interested in learning 20 new ways to find more referrals, get your ebook to learn how.

How Cash Crate Pays

Cash Crate sends out checks every month.  There is a $20 minimum payout, which means that if you earn at least $20 in earnings in any given month, you will receive a paycheck the following month.    If your earnings fall short of the $20 mark, Cash Crate will hold those earnings, and roll them over to the next month until your earnings add up to at least $20.

Earning Potential

Cash Crate is not a job or a business.   There’s no guaranteed pay.  What you earn depends on the amount of time and dedication you put into it.    An easily-discouraged person will take a month or more to meet the minimum pay out, and will give up after a couple of weeks or month.   A determined go-getter will easily meet the payout minimum in an hour or two.    If you find clever ways to refer others to the site, you could find yourself earning hundreds or thousands of dollars per month.    Ultimately, the earnings are up to you: If you need $50 per month to treat your family to a dinner out, Cash Crate can provide that.   If you need to earn over $1,000 per month for utility bills or car payments, you can earn that with Cash Crate, too.

Final Word: Is Cash Crate a Scam?

In my opinion, in order to be classified as a scam, a company needs to have taken money from you without giving you anything of comparable or higher value in return.  Cash Crate is the exact opposite:  Registration is free, and they pay you to complete free offers and refer others.

If you’re interested in earning easy money with Cash Crate, register for your free account today.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.  Send your Cash Crate success stories to me!

Gas prices are keeping a lot of families close to home this summer. Enjoy some of your local restaurants, theaters, and attractions at a fraction of the cost by purchasing the 2008 Entertainment book. Regular prices of the book were $25-$45, but right now ALL of the coupon books are just $9.99. Each book is packed with thousands of dollars in local savings. Books vary by locale, but my local book includes coupons for free burgers at McDonald’s, free admissions to the skate park and museums.

If you’re lucky enough to be traveling this summer, plan ahead and order an Entertainment book for the city you’ll be visiting to help your vacation dollar stretch further. (Example: The Los Angeles book has coupons for free admissions to several museums, free entrees at restaurants, and discounted admissions to many amusement parks.)

With so much of your disposable income now going in your gas tank, you just can’t pass up this offer! Click here to order your local Entertainment book of savings.

I’ve said time and again that if you’re hurting for cash, one of the first places to look is around your own home.  There are probably countless items that you don’t use that you could sell for some fast and easy money.   Just this week, I made over $500 by listing a few of our unwanted items on craigslist.

Beginning June 16, eBay is doing its part to help out those who are hurting because of the economy.   Members can now list five items for sale every thirty days with absolutely no insertion fees applied to those listings.  I just tried it myself, and was tickled to see the message saying, “Your balance after this listing is $0.00.”

To learn more about this exciting new offer from eBay, you can read about it here.

If you don’t have an eBay sellers account yet, click here to open your free account today.

If you’re an eBay seller with a great success story, momportunity.com wants to hear from you!  Are you a Power Seller?  Tell us about it!    Did you buy something at a garage sale and found out it was worth big bucks on eBay?  Let us know!  Send your eBay success stories to me here, and use the subject “eBay success story.”

Amazon has an opportunity for you to work from home, fulfilling what they call HITs.   A HIT is a Human Intelligence Task, which are small jobs that can only be done by humans.   Tasks are requested by people and companies online, and Amazon’s turks complete these taks for pay.  Pay varies by the task and the person who requested the task.  At the time this entry is being written, the turk marketplace boasts nearly 36,000 available HITs for pay.  The longer you work, and the more HITs you complete, the higher your subsequent HITs will pay.

Amazon turk tasks range from the quick and easy  (find out college entrance deadlines, and supply URLs where the info was found) to the more involved (transcribe a 75 minute MP3 audio lesson).   Pay ranges from (at the time of this review being written) $0.05 for the very simple tasks, to $12 (at present, although there have been higher-paying HITs on the site).

In order to begin working as an Amazon Mechanical Turk, go to Amazon’s Turk registration page.  Once your registration is completed, you can start searching for HITs that you qualify for.  You can arrange the HITs in several different orders, including according to date, according to time allotted for the project, and according to the amount of pay (lowest to highest, or highest to lowest).