You might think that the only people who mystery shop are those who need to make extra money. Believe it or not, it is not unheard of for people with significant income and assets to mystery shop, too. When you weigh the time and effort involved against the value of what you can receive on some mystery shops, it is definitely worthwhile to mystery shop. (Of course, this doesn’t apply to all shops. You have to decide how much your time is worth, what you are willing to do and for how much money.)
CNBC recently ran a story about a 27-year-old millionaire who saves 80% of his income. He refuses to spend money on dining out and entertainment when there are mystery shopper jobs to be had.
Todd Baldwin nets over $300,000 a year (after business expenses, pre-tax) and he and his wife have a net worth of more than $1 million. They consider themselves to be “super frugal,” and they won’t spend money on many of the things that you might expect millionaires to splurge on. For example, they drive a 2009 Ford Focus and Todd wears a $12 rubber wedding band.
He started mystery shopping in college, when he was first dating his wife. “I wanted to take her out, but I didn’t have any money,” he recalls. “So I started researching ways to get free food and free entertainment, and I found this thing called secret shopping.”
“To date, I’ve made just over $30,000 from secret shopping,” he says. “And the best part is, it’s all things that my wife and I would normally do anyway. We’re going to go out to dinner, we’re going to go out to the movies. Now, we’re just getting paid to do it.” That is what I have always said about mystery shopping: If I am going to do these things, I might as well let someone pay me to do them!
What do you think? Would you still mystery shop if you were a millionaire? What types of shops would you do? (For me, it is mostly restaurants.) Or if you are a millionaire mystery shopper, why do you do it? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think!
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