Christmas Cash: earn extra spending money for Christmas by Mystery Shopping

Christmas is only a few weeks away.
If you are like most people, you are faced with spending hundreds of dollars in the next few weeks and are wondering where you are going to come up with the extra cash.

If you need to earn some extra money to buy all those Christmas gifts, try mystery shopping.

Mystery shoppers serve as the eyes and ears for some of the world's most well-known brands who want to enhance the quality of the customer's experience. They go to specified retail stores, restaurants, banks and petrol stations and pose as customers while making observations. Common details they look for include; how long it takes to be greeted, whether or not the greeting is friendly, types of product shown, cleanliness of the store and the speed of service.

The observations, submitted online to the Mystery Shopping company, are then collated and used by these brands to find out what customers really think of their business, to identify strengths and weaknesses and to motivate staff to deliver outstanding service through improved training.

And it may sound too good to be true, but mystery shoppers really do get paid to shop! Depending on the assignment, the shopper might receive free meals and petrol, discounts and savings on merchandise, or other such benefits.

The fees a mystery shopper may earn from a specific assignment vary according to the assignment, but often a shopper can expect between $12 and $20 for a typical shopping scenario.

There are hundreds of companies that hire mystery shoppers as independent contractors to shop and eat on their dollars. And most have been around for many years.

And if you don't earn enough spending money, or at least not enough by Christmas, there is always January. That's when you'll need extra spending money to pay off all the holiday bills you incurred.