New openings may be available in your area to apply for Nielsen’s Homescan Consumer Panel. I’ve heard from my readers who are active in this program, and many find it a rewarding and easy way to earn free merchandise. Opportunities are limited based on where you live (they aren’t recruiting new households in my area) but I encourage you to apply to find out if there are openings in your area.
Here’s what one of my readers, Geraldine, said about it:
“We have been doing this for several years now & you can’t imagine how quickly the points add up. Last summer, we got a sand & water table for the grandkids, shipped to our door completely free! This is the large one that retails for $80-90 everywhere. The kids love it & the price was perfect! I have several thousand points now, just waiting patiently for a nice Christmas gift for the grandkids this year. If at all possible, you definitely should try this. It’s fun & you get incredible free stuff!“
Please be aware that this can be time-consuming as you have to scan all of your purchases, so it is certainly not something that everyone would be willing or able to do. But since I’ve gotten positive feedback from several readers I thought it would be worth sharing with you. Read what my readers are saying about it here and here and here in the comments from my previous posts.
I’m listing it my “Money 4 Mom” series because I consider it an opportunity to earn things of a higher value than you normally would in a word-of-mouth program. But it is also a way to share your opinion and be rewarded for providing data for consumer research.
Who is Nielsen? A well-known marketing company that produces the TV ratings, and they also are known for sending people cash in the mail in hopes they’ll complete a short survey about their TV viewing habits. Nielsen also named me as a 2009 Power Mom, a list of 50 influential mom bloggers. It’s quite an honor for me to have made that list!
You’ll find more useful resources in my Money 4 Mom series where I’ve shared how you can make money by blogging, working online, doing in-person market research, participating in University studies, selling on eBay, and even viewing YouData ads on my blog. I hope you find this series a useful resource if you are looking for sources of extra income.
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I just signed up. I'm hoping we get picked. I can see if being time consuming, but since my husband bought an iPhone, he has been creating our grocery list on it with one of their apps and he has been entering bar codes on EVERYTHING in the cart. I admit, it makes the shopping trip longer!
I'll be sending my scanner back. Too time consuming depending on your grocery store. If I go to Meijer I don't have to enter the prices just the bar code BUT if I go to a local store you have prices & bar code. That takes twice as long. Anyway, the scanner isn't charging correctly so I"m sending it back.
I did this years and years ago and got gift cards a lot throughout the years. Of course, that was when I had help (aka kids) that liked to do it every single time I came home with anything from any where. The worst was when things didn't have barcodes and you had to figure out where to put them in a category. Then the scannner needed a new battery and then I didn't do it for awhile because it wasn't working and they sent me this nasty gram saying that I better scan or send it back or they would charge me like 200 or 300 dollars for that little tiny thing that didn't work. It was crazy and so I just sent it back because I had been doing it for years and was tired of it.
I just got my scanner and sent it back. After reading the fine print it was NOT worth it for my family!
when you (first?) mentioned this earlier this year I signed up. I have been a homescanner since beginning of August.
I signed up a couple months ago and got my scanner about 3 weeks ago. I already have over 3,000 points. They do add up quickly! I am going to save for a big item…maybe I will have enough by next Christmas.
I just signed up to be a tester. I would love to do this. Hopefully, I get picked!!!Sandy
I have been on a waitlist for 3 years! I get emails every once in a while telling me that they are still waiting for a scanner to send me. I don't have a land line so I have to use a certain type of scanner. I guess it is just never going to happen for us. :-(