About Me

Hey there, thanks for cyber stalking me! Take a minute here and learn a wee bit more about me.

Just Another White Dude on The Internet

Basically, I’m just another one of those white dudes that you find on the internet who is telling about all the awesome ways that they make money online. I used to be a slave to the man – punching that time clock to cubicle hell every freaking day. That really sucked. If you have a cubicle monkey job right now, let me tell ya – I know all about your misery my friend.

How do I know? Cause I am such a sucker for punishment that I went to grad school for my MBA cause I was a real moron back then. I thought that I needed it to work my way up to an office where I didn’t have to actually work. Yeah, that was a terrible dream that turned out to be a nightmare.

Basically, I worked in accounting, IT, and finance departments for bunch of mega companies.

Coincidentally, I got fired from my fair share of jobs.  It didn’t take long for me to discover that I had a problem with authority, specifically douche bag managers who saw fit to make my life hell. So, I knew that I need to get out of the workforce and make my cash empire on my own terms.

I Put In My Time

Okay, okay…I’m actually not THAT old. But in internet years, I have been doing this blogging thing for a while now. I started back in 2008, which makes me ancient in internet years. At the time, I was making bank on AdSense sites and a few years later I got into sponsored posts cause I had high page rank on my blog.

I know that I live the good life. I consider it a blessing but I also know that I work really hard for it. And I was lucky to have enough built up in savings to try this whole cubicle freedom thing where that isn’t possible for many people.

So I know that in many ways, I am blessed.

For a while, I was worried that this whole earning money from the internet thing would disappear overnight. It can. But, it hasn’t for me (yet).

What To Expect Here

While I have a few of other blogs and sites, including some to support my Kindle books, this site is my only personal blog. You’ll kind of get a hodgepodge of information here that’s really just my random thoughts. I’ll talk about the things that I am doing to make money and live a life of cubicle freedom. You’ll probably also see me mention some of my products when they launch and maybe some of the other businesses and sites I’m involved in. Hopefully, you’ll get some value here.

18 thoughts on “About Me”

  1. Hey Henley,
    I bought and read your Google Rater book yesterday and I take my online exam tomorrow. Thank you for sharing this info and your experience with us.
    Live long and prosper,

    Duane

    Reply

  2. Hi Henley,
    I passed my exam and have done a few tasks. Easy work, I love it! I hope I get more hours soon.

    I do have a couple questions maybe you can answer for me–
    1) Should I submit my invoices every day or once a month?
    2) How much should I set aside for taxes? 10%? 15%? 20%?

    Thanks,
    Duane

    Reply

    • Great news, Duane!

      Invoices can only be submitted once a month – and not until the month is over.

      The amount you need for taxes depends on your personal situation. I’m not a tax pro, but…do you have another full or part-time job that takes out taxes? If so, you won’t have to save as much. Do you have a spouse who has a job where taxes are withheld? If so, you won’t have to save as much. Also, things that lower your tax liability (kids, student loan interest) reduce the amount that you need. And remember, this gig technically makes you self-employed which means that you can claim expenses related for this gig (say you bought a virus scan or malware program just for this, a laptop just for this, etc.) – those things also reduce your tax liability.

      Self-employment tax is somewhere around 14% the last time I checked. So add that with whatever tax bracket you expect to be in to come up with a high percentage of what you’ll need to save. You likely won’t need quite that much, so you will probably be safe with a little less. But like I said, I’m no tax pro 🙂 I think either the IRS website or the TurboTax website has a tax calculator for self-employed people.

      Hope that helps! Let me know if you need anything else.
      -HG

      Reply

  3. Hi Henley,
    Thank you for your reply. I don’t have any other income and neither does my wife. I’m hoping this turns into a full-time gig. I didn’t even think about self employed job related expenses. Thank you for that! 🙂

    I will look for those tax calculators. That is a great idea!

    Thanks again,
    Duane

    Reply

  4. Hi Henley,
    I have another question, I hope you don’t mind. 🙂

    This is from your book-
    Each task that a rater is given comes with a predetermined amount of time for it. While the rater can take less or more than that allotted time, they cannot bill for a period greater than the allotted time.

    I’m confused because on the Leapforce invoice, they ask for the ACTUAL TIME I spent on each task. I haven’t seen an “Allotted Time” on any of the tasks, only an “Average Time”.

    I’m also not sure if I’m supposed to be billing for the time it takes me to read the instructions for each task. That alone, takes up most of the Average Time listed.

    I want to have a long-standing, honest relationship with these guys so I don’t want them to think I’m padding my time card with unnecessary time.

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks again,
    Duane

    Reply

  5. You can only bill for actual time, which can include reading the directions on the task page. But that actual time cannot exceed the AET listed for the task. The allotted time referred to in the book is AET or Average Estimated Time for Leapforce.

    For instance, if you log in and click on “Side by Side” and get a 9 minute task, your 9 minutes starts as soon as you are logged in and click on that button. If it takes you 30 seconds to skim the directions and realize that you’ve already read how to do this task type, then you are down to 8min 30 sec for the task.

    It’s natural to think that you should submit the task as soon as you are done, even if you still have 3 min left – but I advise against it. I think I mentioned it in the book, but they will seriously limit your task availability if you go too fast – no matter how good your quality is. And if you ever mention wanting to submit a task early in the rater chatroom, then you everyone in chat will jump on you because when people submit early it results in the AET being lowered for everyone. That being said, you’ll often see seasoned raters talk about submitting a minute or 30 seconds early and that doesn’t seem to harm your task availability or the AET for the task.

    Hope that makes sense.
    -HG

    Reply

    • Hey Duane!

      Task flow seems to ebb and flow. Last week I had worked 40 hours by Thursday, but the week before I sat at the damn computer every day and ended up with only 34 hrs. Luckily, I do other things for $$, but I know that everyone doesn’t have that luxury 🙂

      This week it seems that a lot of the tasks are for people who are image and local certified. Since you’re new, you don’t have those yet. However, they will (at some point) appear and you should definitely take the certification tasks (they will be labeled as such once you click through). This opens up more task types.

      If you have a smart phone and can download one of those free QR barcode reader apps, then you can get more tasks too. When you’re logged in and have raterhub open, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner. Opt in to the task types on that page that you can do (bar code, porn, etc) and you will start to get more tasks. (a lot of the tasks yesterday for were for ppl who opted in for porn tasks)

      The general rule of thumb is that there are tons of tasks early in the morning EST time (like 5am-ish is when many start working). And normally there is another big task drop around 1pm EST. And if you’re up at 3am EST/12 PST, there is usually a task drop. Although I’ve noticed on some nights that a drop happens around 10:30/11 pm EST.

      Also, get the check4change firefox add-on so that when there are no tasks, you can be alerted when some appear. Set it for 5 or 10 second intervals. Don’t be surprised though if it alerts you to a task and it’s gone by the time you click on it as that happens sometimes when another rater beats you to it.

      That should help you get a few more tasks in times of low task availability. Let me know if any of that doesn’t makes sense.

      -HG

      Reply

  8. Hi Henley,
    Wow, that’s interesting about the task drops. I didn’t understand how that worked. I also wondered if the tasks are shared and therefore other raters could beat me to it. Thanks for clearing that up. I appreciate all your help.

    Have a great day!
    -Duane

    Reply

  9. Yeah, it’s kinda weird. There will be lots of tasks for months. And then sometimes there will be a few weeks where the availability is a little dry. Also, the Google tasks that you see are shared among all the places that hire Google raters, so you are not just up against people at Leapforce.

    And, the Leapforce chat is a good place to find out how many other people are NRT and when the last time was that anyone saw tasks. Lurk there a few days and you’ll start to see the task drop patterns.

    –HG

    Reply

  10. Hi Henley,
    I’m settling in with Leapforce. I work almost every day & I like it. I plan on posting a very positive review of your book on my blog, if you don’t mind. My question is, have you considered updating your book to include the changes at Leapforce? For example, tasks are no longer a free-for-all. Now I am assigned 2 hours per day. It doesn’t matter when I log in, I have 2 hours of work to do and it re-sets at midnight. When my time is up, it says check back after 12am. I assume my limit will be raised eventually, which is fine. Also, your book says Leapforce requires Firefox, which it did, but now it requires you to use Google Chrome. There may be other changes, but those are the two that spring to mind.

    Thanks again for all your help.
    Have a great day!
    -Duane

    Reply

    • Hi Duane,
      That’s great news! And thanks for letting me know of your upcoming review. It’s much appreciated. I did update a few months ago about the 40-hr week change, but thanks for the tip on the browser. Looks like you got a cap of 2 hrs – supposedly doing sims and asking quality for reviews helps out on those.
      Best of luck!
      -HG

      Reply

    • Hey Duane!

      Thanks for the write up, much appreciated! Hope things are going well for you. Looks like NRT is going around for raters at all the companies this week.

      Take care,
      -HG

      Reply

  12. Hi Henley,

    I came across your book on Amazon about Google Raters, and before I buy it, I would like to ask if international residents can do this? (I live in Ghana) Or is it limited to US residents only? Thanks

    Reply

    • Hi Nana, Glad you found the book a good resource. As for your location question, the answer is a bit complicated. Technically, US raters cannot work outside the US borders, however location is determined by IP address. I have talked with raters who successfully used a VPN to effectively spoof a US location thanks to selecting a US-based IP address via the VPN. Hope that helps!

      Reply

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