8 Tips to Make Mystery Shopping Easier

This is a guest post written by Tabitha, a member of the msfreedom.org forum. Also, please note that any tax information is not guaranteed to be accurate (You know I have to say that!)

I see a bunch of newbies asking for tips about MSIng so I decided to put all my tips in one place. Many relate to tax time and record keeping and some are year round goodies. 

1. Get a separate acct for your MS funds. It is much easier to track that way, plus you can consider it a business acct which also makes your MS look more legit as a business to IRS. And for some people, if you get gov’t benefits, such as food stamps, turns out that balances in a business acct do not count towards your assets. I found this out this year when I started receiving food stamps and Social Security does not count it as an asset either. I use a CU acct and opened a BB&T acct on a shop. When I am doing a “customer” shop for them, I use it to deposit funds into my personal acct. I was asked what I did when I opened the acct and I told them I am a merchandiser. Of course, they tried to get me to open a business account with them but I sure don’t want them to see deposits from the MSP that handles their shops so I declined. I will admit, the rep was persistent and asked if they could change my mind but I simply told them I prefer to have my business acct at a totally separate bank so that I when I need to make a purchase, I can tell at a glance which acct is business and which is personal.

2. Get a personal finance program. It can make life much easier by allowing you to schedule expenses. I started using MS Money before I even started MSing and it can be a big help in planning how to get bills paid on time. The advantage it offers for MSing is you can set categories specific to MSing and in Money can designate them a business category and assign it to a specific Schedule C deduction. I have multiple categories, including one for “Required Purchases”. If a shop requires me to spend $1 but I spend $3, then I assign $1 to my business “Required Purchases” category and the other $2 to a personal category, such as personal care/gas/groc/pets/etc. I also have an income category for “Business Income”. I don’t break it down any further because I lump it all together but you may want to separate MS income from merchandising income or survey income. You may be able to find an older version of MS Money or Quicken on Ebay or Amazon or check www.cnet.com/downloads for a free or low cost personal finance program.

3. If you plan to do long trips for shops, see about a GPS device. You can deduct it as a business expense, at least partially. The only long trips I make not MS is to family so I have no need for my program except MS, so I fully deducted my program last year. I found an excellent program on Ebay that you load onto a laptop and it connects to your laptop by USB. Here’s a search so you can see it doesn’t have to be expensive to work well. This program even features a “back on track” feature that guides you back to your route if you get lost of have to detour. And I discovered it can help another way to because it has POI (points of interest) preloaded, such as a particular gas chain that CoRI handles so that makes it easier for me to find a station when you don’t get an actual address, just a “route 5, anytown USA” type address. And you can set it for voice directions as well. For long trips or when I am visiting lots of places local, I turn my GPS on before I leave home and turn it off when I get back. It creates a GPS log for me that I transfer to another folder so I have documentation of my mileage if I get audited.

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=DeLorme&category0=

4. If you don’t already have a file cabinet, start hitting your local thrift stores. I got a nice sized cabinet for under $10 at one and it keeps everything neatly organized. Different companies require you to keep the records for different time periods but I just keep all of mine 1 yr since I have not seen any requiring over 1 yr. I actually have 13 folders but I do not label them by month. The front folder is always the current month (March) and the next folder is always that month the previous year (March 2007). When a month ends, I move the folder to the end and empty everything out of the next folder, that way I had the records over 1 yr for sure.

5. Get a shredder. Again, you may be able to deduct it fully as a business expense. I purchased a small shredder @ Staples on a shop. After trying it for a week, I discovered it took much less room for the same amount of old paperwork. Plus, my city offers free recycling bins and every other week they pick up paper products. I empty my shredder into the bin and I have no worries about the confidentiality of the material I shredded.

6. If you have an HP printer and use name brand cartridges, take them to Staples for recycling. I know they recycle other brands as well. You get $3 for each one and you can use up to 3 coupons at a time. The coupons expire in 3 months from date of issue but I use the coupons for fun stuff, like art supplies or computer games.And when I run low on paper, I start watching for Staples to run a sale on the case again and use 3 coupons.

7. Watch for items on sale that are very common to use. When school supplies went on sale, I bought a bunch of pens, mechanical pencils and small notebooks, often as little as $0.01 each. I have more than enough to last me through a year of MSing. And if you have school kids, stock up big time for them as well. Paying $0.54 for a pack of 6 single subject notebooks beats paying full price anyday. And if you time your recycled cartridges right, you get the stuff for free. I racked up big time last year on school supplies for free with the coupons and was able to give all my sibs stuff for their kids as well.