CaptainCode’s guide to making a living from home without any skills. Otherwise known as CaptainCrunch’s actual guide to paying rent without trying to sell you an e-Book or making you do something that requires initial capital and skill.
Big NOTE: This guide is U.S. only, probably won’t work for anyone else.Also, this is my first time writing something like this, any advice would be great. Send me a P.M. or leave a comment if something is unclear. I'm going to try to add more to this but right now my fingers hurt. I have been lurking this forum for months and months now following daily threads I thought it was about time I created an account and gave back. You guys have helped me more than you could know without me even being a member or talking to any of you. Thanks.
What this guide is: This is a guide for those of you who are struggling. Either you have lost a job, are tired of the rat-race or simply don’t have enough money for basics. This is a guide for those who want to work from home. This is a guide for those of you looking to make money on the side. I do this entire method daily. None of this requires start-up capital. All of these are trusted websites that are both touted on this forum as well as the internet as a whole.
What this guide isn’t: A get rich quick guide. You will not get rich doing this. I think that depending on how much you work, you may be able to make it to $3,000 a month. You probably won’t get more than that. You are not going to get $100,000 a year doing this. It isn’t possible. That $3,000 a month is full time at 8 hrs a day, every day (including weekends).
Introductions: I am writing this guide to give back to some of the websites that helped me when I was struggling 6 months ago. I got fired from my job, and had rent to pay, nowhere to go, and barely any food. I did have an internet connection, so I decided I was either going to have to go get the quickest job or try to make a living from home. I gave myself a week. Made like $100 in my first week, which doesn’t seem impressive, but at the time it got me food. MturkCrowd, /r/beermoney, /r/WorkOnline, and a couple other communities basically were entirely responsible for where I am now. I currently make around $2,800 a month by working online only, at websites that require no skills, and are easy. I sit in my computer chair, brew coffee, turn on cartoons, work for a few hours at a time, and then go do whatever I want. I’m not making tons of money, but it does give me the freedom that I feel I need at this point in my life.
What’s different about this guide: I’m going to spell out EXACTLY how my day of making money goes, what I use, how I use it, how I organize it, and how I save money totally. It’s a guide to show you exactly how I live just by making money online, how I save money on the side and more. I am not selling you anything on this. I will not be using websites just for the referral, I won’t be selling you an ebook. I will only be talking about websites I actually use, that I get payouts from, and exactly how to use them. Note: I won’t post proof of payments on here, mostly because it’s a pain in the ***. Especially from sites like Swagbucks and other sites that send you emails and I would have to go get pictures of all of them. That being said if you really need proof or you refuse to take my advice without it P.M. me and I’ll try to go through and find it for you.
But CaptainCode some of this will get outdated! - Probably not honestly. I’m not telling you the exact surveys to do or anything. Unless a website shuts down, this guide should last quite a while. As for new things popping up, expect me to jam it in here after I verify that it works.
NOTE: A lot of the information in this guide is probably spread all over the internet and different subreddits. I’m not claiming to know any key secrets. I just didn’t see a guide like this so I thought I would try to give back to the community. P.M. me if you have questions, upvote if you found it useful, send me angry P.M.s if you hated it.
Now that all of that is out of the way. It’s time to get started
But First! A CaptainCode Announcement on Phone Farms:
Do you have one? Great, feel free to use it. Do you not have one? Don’t make one. Between setup, startup costs, actual return, bandwidth, ect.. That extra $200 a month isn’t worth it. Just diversify in a different way. If you are new or don’t have this fully down yet, don’t set up a phone farm. Don’t even use any of the “Earn .000000000000002 cents to watch a 5 hour commercial” type deals. I’m not saying people don’t earn using watch features, I’m saying it’s at a point where the pay isn’t good enough to justify building a farm. I don’t have one, most people who work online for a living don’t, some do. Different strokes for different folks. If you are deadset on building one this guide will discuss absolutely nothing about them, so try to find some other resources on here to help you out.
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Part 1: Making Money Online
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This part will cover the majority of why you are here. How to make money online. It’s a lengthy process, but once you have it down, it runs smooth. I’m not going to tell you that making money online is fun, it’s not. It’s boring and repetitive, but if it’s something you need or want to do, then follow this guide and it should net you some decent money.
Below I will list the websites I use as well as how and when to use them, but first we need to talk about organization.
Organization is key when trying to make money online. You need to be organized, not waste time, and get things done. Would you rather work 8 hrs and make $100 + or work 12 hours making the same. Organization is the difference between those two, well that and time management.
Everyone has their own mental process for organization. I will say that before you even attempt to make money from home go through and clean your entire house. You WILL need a comfortable atmosphere in order to do this properly. There are many studies that will show that a clean atmosphere leads to better and more efficient work, and that’s entirely true.
Post cleaning here is a guide to how I, personally, organize my day-to-day activities.
Step 1: Computer management. You need a way to group websites into categories that you visit. I use a chrome add-on called raindrop, and for the purpose of this guide, I will be using it. You can use any bookmark manager, this is just the one that I’m familiar with. It’s free on chrome, has tons of reviews, is one of the two most popular bookmark admins and just works well. Go to the chrome store and download it, or another bookmark manager, trust me, it will save you so much time.
So you have raindrop (or another bookmark manager) now what? As you go through this guide, sign-up for the websites mentioned and place them in categories on your bookmark manager. I will tell you exactly how I place them as I go through the guide. This will allow you to work in an efficient manner.
Step 2: Time management. This is understated in today’s society. You need a schedule. Now, by a schedule I don’t mean, Do X at 5pm. ect.. I mean you need a schedule so that you can know what days you need to do what on. Let’s say you signed up for a trial of Hulu (more on that in the Swagbucks section) and you need to wait 4 days to cancel it. Schedule it. I use an app on my phone personally, there are tons of those. Some people use pen and paper, others use chrome admins, whatever floats your boat. I’m not going to teach you how to schedule. Reddit.com/r/productivity has some good posts on it as well as numerous websites and books talk about it. You don’t have to be a guru, just write stuff down and do it.
Part 3: Waking up. Wake up early. That’s it. Just do it.
Ok, now that we have the basics of organization, which I can’t understate let’s move on to actually making some money.
Here is a guide on how I will set up this post. First I will state the website name, give a referral link (if website has it) and a non-referral link***, How much money I usually make a day (this is a rough estimate, I’m working with a friend of mine at the OU psychology statistics partner to get some more detailed and accurate stats, soon to come), A minimum payout, raindrop tab, then a detail of how to use the website.
***I DO NOT recommend using a non-referral link. It doesn’t have to be my referral link, but generally, referral links will give you some form of a bonus if you use them. But if you feel this guide helped you click one for me, so we can both get a little something. If not, try to use a friends referral link or someones, somewhere, as you usually get a bonus. Not all of the sites listed have a referral link, if not just use the main link, you probably won’t get a bonus, but if there isn’t a referral link there probably isn’t a referral program. I WILL NOT POST REFERRAL LINKS to websites that I am telling you about but have not personally tried.
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One last thing. Create a new email. Sign up to all of these under that email so that when you get notifications from Prolific, Swag, Mturk ect.. You can see it all in one email that you should be keeping open daily.
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*DAILY/WEEKLY WEBSITES*

$ per day: ~$80 per day (~$10 h/r) (~$1500 a month)
Minimum payout: No Minimum (Takes 2 days to transfer money, 1 day to get to the Amazon Payment center, and 1 day to get from the payment center to your bank account.
Non-referral link: https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
Raindrop Tab: I bookmark this under a tab called “Daily”
I’m hoping you have this as we are on an MTurk forum. If not use it. Learn from some of the crazy gurus on here. When I started I came to this forum and followed the daily threads every day. This should be your primary focus at the beginning of your joruney to make money online.

$ per day: ~$5.00 per day (~$10 h/r) (~$150 a month)
Minimum Payout: $5.00 straight to PayPal
Referral Link
Non-referral link: https://www.prolific.ac/
Raindrop tab: Daily
I love Prolific. Prolific is simple. You do academic surveys and Prolific pays you. There are never screening questions as it already has your profile and there is usually a few a day depending on what kind of people they need that day. All prices are in British pounds, but that doesn’t really affect anything just make sure to keep that in mind. The only small problem I have with prolific is that they take like 10 days to award you the money, the actual transfer, however, is fast. If you are doing it every day you should be able to transfer some money daily. Simple enough. Use Prolific. They will send you an email when there is a new study available so make sure to keep that email tab open or have a pop-up notifications on.

$ per day: That’s a little complicated (~$150 - ~$250 a month)(Whatever deals are up. If this is your first time on Swagbucks you can make like ~$180 in your first hour as long as you have a tiny bit of capital)
Minimum Payout: $5.00 PayPal or gift cards
Referral-Link
Non-referral Link: swagbucks.com
Raindrop tab: Weekly
Check out my Swagbucks Guide Here: https://www.mturkcrowd.com/threads/captain-codes-ultimate-swagbucks-guide.2962/
Swagbucks is something that most of you use or know about, and it struck me how many people use some if it’s functions that are not very good money-makers. In my opinion, there is only one thing to do on Swagbucks. Offers. You can use searches if you search a lot but expect like pennies a day. If you want you can participate in their games or get swag codes, but they are for pennies, which isn’t worth it to me. If you are a contest kind of person they have those too. Do me a favor though. DO NOT DO THEIR SURVEYS. Swagbucks surveys are a scam. I know this site is toted as the “holy grail” on the internet and it has some OK functions, but their surveys are scams. You can work on a survey for 20 minutes only to be screened out. That is not OK. Not at all. Please don’t endorse this type of behavior, there are plenty of websites out there that we will talk about that actually pay you, don’t screen you out, and have a fair pay. Swagbucks surveys promote lying in order to not get screened and don’t pay well either way. Don’t do them.
Offers, however, are amazing. Ok, so here is how the offers work on Swagbucks. In the “Discover” section Swagbucks has tons of deals that give you money to sign up or purchase products. The great thing is, is that often they pay more than the product. Everyone do me a favor. Right now there is a Hulu and Gamefly offer on Swagbucks. If you sign up for both (Hulu is $5.99 and Gamefly is $9.99) Swagbucks will give you 4,500 points which is $45. It credits within 24 hours and you just turned $15 into $45 fast. Not only that but you have Hulu and Gamefly now. This is that point when scheduling comes in as it’s important to make sure you cancel them on time. Don’t cancel immediately as they could revoke the Swagbucks, just cancel within a few days. There are tons of offers like that on Swagbucks. Wen hair products right now is 2,500 for a $20 product, so you get the product plus $5. I usually net around ~$150 a month doing this as well as get tons of cool stuff.
My advice with Swagbucks pay attention to emails about bonus swaybacks offers, this week Barkbox gave you 3,000 Swagbucks and cost $15 with a coupon. That stacked by the way. So free dog stuff and $15, sweet. These offers will change and I will try to update this with more relevant offers from time to time, but the offers themselves aren’t important. The concept of how to use them is great. Pay some get some money and free stuff. Also, Swagbucks is super-trusted and pays on-time and accurately. Never had an issue.
Also, do the daily goals, it’s usually worth the 45 seconds it takes.
NECESSARY PROTIP: Use Coinzy or Mycard2Go or any other virtual card website. No referral links as you should use the one that works best for you. This will make sure that you don’t accidentally pay for a trial and will also let you do trials for each website listed. So you can do Hulu for both Swagbucks and for Earnably if you use this method. I’m not sure where this falls in TOS, so I’m not saying you should do this, I’m just letting you know that you can do this. At least get one to avoid trial pays.
BIG NOTE: Pay attention to the details part of the offer to see how long it will take the Swagbucks to credit. Every offer is different. Some take 30 days so make sure you can lose that money for 30 days. Some, however, are instant.

Website #4: Earnably
$ per day: That’s complicated like Swagbucks (~$100 - $~200 a month)
Minimum Payout: For some reason, this website likes to change this every other month. Usually low ~$5.00
Non-Referral Link: earnably.com
Raindrop Tab: Weekly
Use Earnably the same way you use Swagbucks, get those offers. Get that stuff. Not much to go over just a paywall website that pays well. Do the free trials, use virtual cards, do offers, avoid all else. Earnably is an add wall meaning that well, it’s just trials and offers. These are good because they pay well, bad because there are hiccups sometimes. Just make sure to read the fine print.
***I am now deleting the referral link on this because Earnably performed very poorly for me this month. I'll repost a referral link if I feel like it's reward goes up, but I don't want to be accountable for recommending something that didn't earn for me this month.

$ per day: Pennies (~$5 a month)(~$10 h/r if you only do the polls)
Referral-Link
Ref-Link: www.tellwut.com
Raindrop Tab: Daily
Tellwut is great. Answer a poll every day get a penny or two. Takes literally one second. And I do them because I think the concept is amazing as well as I can usually get a few bucks a month for not doing anything. I support them because they are such a unique thing and have a simple easy website. This won’t earn you a ton but they are reliable, not scammy, and quick. You will never make great money on this website. But as a person who works online for a living, I always support websites that offer quick money for the time. Always put in terms of $ per hours since there are so many sources. TellWut is good $ per hour and they pay so I support them.

$ per day: It’s complicated like Swagbucks and Early (~$75 - ~$150 per month)
Referral-Link
Non-Ref Link: www.instagc.com
Raindrop Tab: Weekly
This is another add wall website, use it the same way you use Earnably and Swagbucks, do offers, use a virtual card, check at least once a week for new offers.

$ per day: I don’t use this anymore, as the payouts aren’t as good as others, but they do pay. Some users make some good money on PrizeRebel, but it doesn’t fit into my schedule. It can make good money so I’m posting it here. Dedicated users can make a thousand or so a month, but not as fast as MTurk.
Referral-Link
Non-Ref Link: www.prizerebel.com
Raindrop Tab: Daily
This website is Surveys. It’s like Prolific, except that it has more surveys like Swagbucks. I don’t use it much. It’s pretty straightforward. Now, they also offer add walls so go crazy on there.
**This has gone from one of my least used to most used since I wrote this. It is really good right now. I expect good earnings this month, I'll keep you updated.
Note: One thing I love about this website is that they are active on Reddit and very honest and forthcoming. They will tell you that you aren’t going to make a ton of money doing it and they don’t try to tell you it’s better than a full-time job. The people seem trustworthy.
Website #8: SurveySavvy (Did Testing, Is Garbage)
I am deleting SurveySavvy from my guide. I tested it out and it is probably actually one of the worst beermoney websites at this point. I recommended it because lots of people swear by it, but, just like lots of beermoney websites, people were referring for the referral bonus. I did actual testing and it's pretty terrible pay.
Let’s move on to the apps. This section works differently. You need a phone.
But CaptainCode I don’t have a phone. Then skip it, spend more time on Swagbucks, Mturk, Earnably etc… If you do have a phone try these out they are great income when you take into account that you can use them while you use the computer, or while you are out and about.
App #1: Grabpoints
$ per day: ~$3 a day (~$40 a month)
Ref-Link: grabpoints.com referral: N60DSH
Non-Ref Link: grabpoints.com
This is an app called Grabpoints. It’s pretty straightforward you sign up and once you download it you have the option of either watching videos (waste of time in my opinion) or downloading apps. I typically download and use some apps while I’m out and bored or while I am working on some boring repetitive other work. Don’t expect to be a millionaire, but it equals out to about the price of my water and garbage bill. It will basically work as such download said app get to level 5 earn some money. Easy enough.
That’s actually the only app I use at this time, I use three other “Apps” in the sense that I use them for lock screens.
What is a lock screen App: It pays you for unlocking your phone, and puts an add on it. You can combine three of them together on most phones for maximum profit, but it may cause you to have to swipe a few times to get into your phone. I’m fine with that and these usually pay out every once in a while so I use them. I usually net around $30 a year from using them. So it’s very little money, and you could theoretically just work an extra few hours and not have to deal with the swiping, but in this business, everything adds up so I use them.
Lock screen App #1: Slidejoy
Lock screen App #2: Fronto
Lock screen App #3: Screen Pay
These don’t need very much explaining. Download them set them up and they will display adds on your lock screen.
Now here is a section about websites that are touted in the working online community, but are actually horrible.
“These Websites are Not Worth It”
PerkTV - Phone farm, skip. They are not worth the time or investment. Learn to code, play guitar, play Overwatch, anything but work your butt off for pennies with a huge upfront investment. This is especially less viable if you have an ISP that caps bandwidth (Cox etc..)
EarnHoney: Not a fan, takes a while to accumulate on offers, once again any of the T.V. services are not worth it in my opinion. If you know a way to use this that results in at least $8.00 h/r with minimal effort P.M. me or leave it in the comments.
Bing: Not worth it, you have to use Bing, easy enough. (Sorry Bing fans) seriously though, basically no money.
SliceThePie: Unless you LOVE LOVE LOVE listening to music. This website is basically $.05 an h/r with it’s pay structure. Pass.
EngageMe: People are probably promoting for referrals unless they still have a phone farm, which again is a waste if you ask me.
In general be cautious, both because many people will refer you because they get paid a good amount of referrals and because people think that $5 h/r is fair pay. It’s not.
Now to address this statement.
But CaptainCode, what about building a lions bridge or mystery shopping or tutoring Chinese children or selling your soul to Cathulu or blah blah. - Those are jobs. They are not included in this. Some of them require skill, a specific location within the U.S. etc. This is for things everyone can do.
Also,
But CaptainCode, most of your money is coming from MTurk, doesn’t that mean this should be an MTurk guide? No, we are all using MTurk on here, this is spelling out everything I use.
And finally,
But CaptainCode, you only use like 10 things, randomuser9 uses 500 websites and 325 apps to make money. I can only post ones that I personally use and know about. I have tested out tons of different websites and apps over the course of my journey, these are the safest best earners out there. Also, watch out whenever a new one is released. Take a step back. Over half of them end up being scams.
Now, you may be thinking this guide is over, but it’s just getting started. First, let’s take a look at what I do during a typical day.
How I Run My Day:
Step 1: Wake up at 7:00 a.m. (WAKE UP EARLY PEOPLE)
Step 2: Brew coffee
Step 3: Turn on Adventure Time
Step 4: Start up Mturk Scripts and do my Tellwut poll of the day
Step 5: Check Swagbucks, Earnably, InstaGC ect.. offers. Do the Daily.
Step 6: Open Email, Check Prolific.
Step 7: Start MTurking.
Step 8: Go grab my freebies from the mail because I’m cheap.
Step 9: Eat lunch, usually from Groupon or app deals.
Step 10: Go back and Mturk. Maybe check Textbroker if I’m bored.
Step 11: Die because I’m so bored.
Step 12: Play games on Swag, check offers again.
Step 13: Go grocery shopping because for some reason I like doing this
Step 14: Cook Meal
Step 15: Do whatever.
Step 16: Cash out what I have.
Step 17: Try to optimize my routine.
Now on to the post how I make money and onto the how I save money section
So, at this point, you have a general idea of how I run my day to day work, or at least what I use to do my work. Now it’s time to talk about another issue entirely. Frugality. If you are living on your own out there, paying rent, and trying to avoid the rat race of life, frugality is an important thing to fully grasp. Instead of giving you a lecture about exactly how to be frugal, I’m going to point you to specific ways in which to save money on all the things you need, and love.
Here are some must-have websites that are general.
Retailmenot - Get discounts on everything ever submitted by users all over the web. Honestly, just go check it out
Slickdeals - Same as retainmenot users are posting great deals here
Now for the rest of the frugality section. Let’s break it down by life’s basic needs.
Food:
This is, obviously, a basic necessity.
So, let’s talk about saving money on food. https://www.freefoodguy.com/ this man is a genius.
Grocery:
We all know about coupons and there are plenty of places to print them online if you are the type of person who likes to bring coupons to the store
Coupons.com (Big Note: Swagbucks now offers coupons (the same as coupons.com) but you get Swagbucks to print them, so I would highly recommend that if you print from home.
I tend to take a different approach. Let’s take a look at the two apps I use.
Ibotta: Ibotta is a simple app, basically you download the app (use my referral link for an extra $10 when you sign up) then you will find the offers you want. Offers are basically coupons, 50c off of hamburger helper for instance. Then when you buy hamburger helper at any of the Ibotta participating stores (All the major stores, Walmart, Whole Foods, Aldi, etc.) you scan your coupon and the app gives you the 50 cents. You can cash out at $20.00.
Ibotta Ref-Link: https://ibotta.com/r/mujjeva ($10 bonus)
Ibotta Non-Ref Link: www.ibotta.com
Checkout 51: This doesn’t need much explaining, it is basically the same thing as Ibotta. The great thing is that you can combine Ibotta and Checkout 51. Major discounts.
Checkout 51 Non-Ref Link: www.checkout51.com
SavingStar: Courtesy of Cara https://savingstar.com
This is in similar style to Checkout 51 and Ibotta the differnce is that you earn chashback once you hit spending goals. So say you spend $20 on Kellogs, once you accumulate the total $20 (It keeps track of every transaction if you upload the receipt) it can be cashed out. Low cashout as well. Cara posted proof in comments. Thanks for the tip, I will start using this.
Now let’s take a look at exactly how I do my grocery shopping. I look for coupons on Swagbucks, look for them on Ibotta and Checkout 51 then visit manufacturer websites and look for them (Example: Join mailing list). I look to try to combine them all. So let’s say Ibotta has 50 cents off of a Red Baron Pizza, and Coupons.com has another 50 cents off of a Red Baron Pizza, and Checkout 51 has the same thing. That Red Baron Pizza now costs all of 65 cents from Walmart. Not Bad.
Groupon
Groupon is another fantastic way to save on food and basically anything else. Groupon is a website that offers usually around 40 - 50 percent discounts on any product on their website. All coupons are “deal-of-the-day” type of coupons so they go away after 24 hours typically. Groupon can be a great way to save if you are looking to eat out and not cook. I have an entire tab in “Raindrop” for coupons and this is one of my most used ones.
Ref-Link: https://www.groupon.com/visitor_referral/h/2f43dfb3-a36e-48bb-beac-02d4db2806ef
Non-Ref Link: www.groupon.com
I typically cook at home so I use Ibotta, Checkout 51, and Swagbucks coupons which usually get’s me really cheap food. If eating out is your thing, definitely check out free food guy's website and posts over on reddit.com/r/freebies.
Clothing
Ok, so clothing is another necessity in my book, and finding deals on it is something I’m always looking for. Once again, I’m not an expert at this. For male clothing, I would jump on over the FAQs and read some of the posts on reddit.com/r/frugalmalefashion. They are always looking for deals and some of the best ones are on there. I’m an app person, so I’ll throw some names out of apps that I use. I’m sure there are more, but these are ones I can testify to, so they are the ones I’m going to be telling you about.
Wish - The wish app is simple, they have crazy low prices. Now, they are usually clothes made overseas and the sizings are weird and the quality can be hit-or-miss so read the reviews. You can find decent jackets and some rip-off streetwear for like $5 on this website. Note: Be careful of sizings because they are typically too small, read the reviews, someone will tell you what accurate sizing is in the reviews typically
ID.me - So back in the day, when I was in college, I shopped at a website called Perk.la which gave you access to all stores with student discounts. They were acquired by ID.me which is an even better version of that product. It takes your military ID, student ID, etc… and allows you to shop and find discounts using that information. It does a lot more, but I don’t use it anymore because I’m no longer a student.
I know nothing about female clothing. Sorry.
Fun
This is the last of what I would call necessities. Once again I’m just going to show you some ways I save money on things I like, you may like other things, but I’m not going to recommend apps or products that I haven’t used, so this section is very opinion based. Thanks for understanding.
Video Games:
If you play PC games, well, I’m not going to go into how to save money here, because I’m guessing you already know.
If you play console games always be on the lookout for Redbox codes. There are always Redbox codes around and you can usually get rentals for like .50 cents a night using them (for games) https://www.retailmenot.com/view/redbox.com retailmenot them.
FREEBIES!
Everyone loves some freebies. Hunt4Freebies.com is a good source. These are for samples. There are some insane posts for free stuff on /r/freebies if you look around. Nothing is better than not having to pay anything at all.
More to come soon, including investing when you aren’t making much money. Expanded freebies section. Plasma and actual jobs from home. Taxes, ect… I’ll go over all of that later. My fingers are basically dead right now.
Also check out my new free food guide.
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