Looking for creative ways to stretch your budget and earn a little extra? The National Consumer Panel (formerly known as Nielsen Home Scan) is accepting new applicants in many locations right now!
I loved this testimonial that reader Shannon sent in about her experience as a 3-year panelist:
“I have been an NCP panelist for 3 years. You are asked to scan anything you purchase, using their handheld scanner. For some smaller stores you need to enter the purchase price for each item and for other larger stores you do not need to enter prices. Once all items are entered you enter the total bill amount and payment that was used. It can be time consuming, depending on how much you buy. It typically takes me no more than 30 minutes a week to scan in all my purchases.
I am at a platinum level (3 years), which means I earn 245 points every week I scan. If you scan every week during a month, you earn 350 a month. On your anniversary date you earn 1,000 points. I also signed up to participate using my Amazon purchases, so once a month I download those and earn 1,000. I do not always do surveys but there are probably 8-10 surveys a month I could answer, with each one usually earning 150 points. Based on the above points, if I were to scan every week and do every survey offered (assuming 8 a month), in a year I would earn 12,740 points for weekly scans, 4,200 points for scanning each week, 12,000 points for submitting Amazon purchases, 1,000 on my anniversary date and doing 96 surveys would net me 14,400 points. This would be a grand total of 44,340 points for the year.
When you first sign up for NCP, you earn 150 points a week. I always purchase the Amazon gift cards with my points. A $25 gift card is 21,000 points and a $50 gift card is 41,000 points.
They also have contests throughout the year where you can earn extra points. NCP has great sweepstakes (although I have never won anything) and gives away weekly, monthly and quarterly cash prizes.”
You can go here to read another reader’s testimony about how she uses NCP to get AT&T discounts and earn Amazon gift cards!
