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Fitzgerald
Joined: 10 Aug 2010
Posts: 224
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 Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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| NorthofAmerica wrote: |
Can't believe I waited so long before coming back to this forum! So much good stuff in here!!
I arrived in Playa a few months ago with my fiancee, who's local, and originally started using elance.com to do some editing, proofreading, and ghostwriting. I thought it would be simple enough to earn 5k in pesos and draw from savings from when I was in China. We already have a house and if you are not traveling but just exercising, gaming, and hitting the beach life is cheap 
Still, I am now in my second week with ZERO earnings. Often I find jobs just to have people disappear or become all sketchy. That was this week, started with a bunch of articles to write and then the guy just disappears without funding the account. I was hired to translate some Chinese articles but after doing 1 I have been playing tag on skype to line up more work for over a week. And I spend a lot of time writing and browsing work that ultimately is unpaid labour in and of itself.
Suffice to say, it hasn't been enough to make it worth it and I am looking at teaching online but since day one I've worried about the internet connection here. We are on a wifi network in the suburbs, I thought I might just hit a cafe with a solid connection if I can line up 2-3+ hours of paid teaching at a time.
Saw an ad at Berlitz yesterday so gonna pop my head in there. I have 8+ years experience, a TEFL, and was a school manager in China so I hope to have some luck with a local school.
Will check out these links listed, thanks for all the great info and good luck to everyone!
Living in a tropical paradise and working online is a 21st century luxury that I never fail to appreciate |
I looked at Elance, but ultimately deciding against putting any time into it. So I was very interested to read about your experience. The vibe I got from my research was that you could waste a whole lot of time bidding on projects that you wouldn't get, or that would lead nowhere.
I did post a couple of gigs on Fiverr and have made $25.00 gross so far.
I am signed up with UserTesting, but haven't yet been offered a test that I'm qualified for.
I put in 1 3/4 hours at Mechanical Turk, choosing only HITs that offered 20 cents or more, and although all my HITs were approved, I made a measly $3.35. That's not much for almost 2 hours.
I looked at iWriter, and the rates seemed outrageously low. $2.43 net for writing a 500-word article?
I passed the editing / proofreading test at Scribendi, and am told that I passed and am "on the list," but I haven't been offered any assignments yet.
I have monetized my review blog through the Amazon Associates program, and I hope that will bring in some dinero.
I have looked into many other possibilities too numerous to mention, but none of those has panned out.
I was looking heavily into online teaching for a couple of months, but always had scheduling and time zone difference problems with it, and now that I am teaching full-time locally and am "on call" for sub assignments in addition to my regular schedule of classes, online teaching just isn't going to work at all for the time being.
The bottom line? Financially, $28.35 for three and a half months effort. Practically, I have come to believe that making money online / remotely is MUCH more difficult than many would have you believe, and often pays quite poorly even when you can line something up.
I'm not going to stop trying because I badly need some supplemental income, especially if I can make it in USD. $200 to 300 USD per month would meet my needs nicely. I am pulling down 12,000 pesos net from my full-time teaching job here in Queretaro, and another 1,500 pesos per month from my one private student. My rent is only 3,600 pesos per month, thank heaven. |
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NorthofAmerica
Joined: 17 Jul 2006
Posts: 187
Location: Recovering Expat
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| Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:11 pm Post subject: |
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Just to clarify, though this is my second week without earning anything I had been earning money before, very hit and miss though. Over 2 months I've earned about $500 dollars.
Since I had nothing else on the go there was little opportunity cost but as I said before you can spend a lot of time browsing and applying for jobs and come away with nothing.
Just called the Berlitz because they have an advertisement looking for teachers. No idea what to expect from local schools here but the receptionist was.... shall we say, a little unprofessional. 
The list of online teaching sites seems really useful. I will go through it tonight. Subtracting the cost and time for traveling locally, online teaching could be well worth it in a place where the cost of living is so much lower. I may well turn down local jobs if I can get the online work going! |
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BadBeagleBad
Joined: 23 Aug 2010
Posts: 1186
Location: 24.18105,-103.25185
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| Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| There is also a Facebook group for online teaching, I think it is called Online English Teachers. There is a long list of possibilities for teaching. I have also looked into other things, and aside from User Testing where I usually earn $20 to $50 dollars a month, I haven´t found anything that pays anything even near worthwhile. The worst one was listening to recordings of customer service calls and critiqueing them. I thought I would get faster after a whole, but I didn´t and was only earning about $4US an hour. I do have a full time job as well as a local part time job, but need to get a couple of things paid for and then I can quit working all together, or just work 10 hours a week to break up the day. |
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AGoodStory
Joined: 26 Feb 2010
Posts: 738
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| Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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I made a measly $3.35. That's not much for almost 2 hours.
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Yikes! Now that's scary!
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Fitzgerald
Joined: 10 Aug 2010
Posts: 224
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| Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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| NorthofAmerica wrote: |
Just to clarify, though this is my second week without earning anything I had been earning money before, very hit and miss though. Over 2 months I've earned about $500 dollars.
Since I had nothing else on the go there was little opportunity cost but as I said before you can spend a lot of time browsing and applying for jobs and come away with nothing.
Just called the Berlitz because they have an advertisement looking for teachers. No idea what to expect from local schools here but the receptionist was.... shall we say, a little unprofessional.
The list of online teaching sites seems really useful. I will go through it tonight. Subtracting the cost and time for traveling locally, online teaching could be well worth it in a place where the cost of living is so much lower. I may well turn down local jobs if I can get the online work going! |
$500 for two months is not too bad, but I think I'm allergic to the bid sites in general, because of the high level of effort involved simply in playing that field. Fiverr is a touch more appealing because once your Gigs are posted, there they are. I guess I'd rather advertise than bid. |
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Fitzgerald
Joined: 10 Aug 2010
Posts: 224
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| Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2015 7:59 pm Post subject: |
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| BadBeagleBad wrote: |
| There is also a Facebook group for online teaching, I think it is called Online English Teachers. There is a long list of possibilities for teaching. I have also looked into other things, and aside from User Testing where I usually earn $20 to $50 dollars a month, I haven´t found anything that pays anything even near worthwhile. The worst one was listening to recordings of customer service calls and critiqueing them. I thought I would get faster after a whole, but I didn´t and was only earning about $4US an hour. I do have a full time job as well as a local part time job, but need to get a couple of things paid for and then I can quit working all together, or just work 10 hours a week to break up the day. |
I continue to be hopeful about UserTesting, so I am glad to hear that you make some money off it.
As you say, there are just so many sketchy sites that offer bottom-of-the-barrel compensation. It is discouraging.
This list on "Online English Teaching Companies" is also a helpful one:
http://www.goodairlanguage.com/teaching-english-online-2/ |
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Fitzgerald
Joined: 10 Aug 2010
Posts: 224
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