A Week in the Life of a Mystery Shopper

I made $685 last week in mystery shopping fees and earned $141 in reimbursed purchases:

Sunday
Bought groceries at two supermarkets, bought gas at two stations, ate lunch and dinner out, and shopped two home improvement stores.

Monday
I was exhausted and needed to get caught up on home chores. I did one discount retailer just a few minutes from home.

Tuesday
I only did four shops today, and they were all in a town 60 miles from home. One was a very lucrative evaluation of an apartment community. I made nearly $100 just on that evaluation.

Wednesday
Five gas stations, a bookstore and six banks. Three of the banks were phone shops so I didn't actually have to visit the branches. I left the house at 7 AM and was back home by 4 PM, but didn't finish entering reports until almost 7 PM.

Thursday
Busy day, 15 shops total. I traveled to a community about 50 miles from my house to pick up 11 gas stations. The other four shops included two restaurants, a mall store and a home improvement retailer. I came home with more gas in the car than I started (all free), but it was a LONG day. What made the day seem so long was all the data entry involved.

Friday
I was out way too late Thursday night celebrating my partner's birthday, so I only did 4 gas stations.

Saturday
Mystery shopping marathon. I drove nearly 700 miles in my quest to earn $250 in one day, and I did it. The nice thing was that I only shopped ten places and they were all gas stations in rural communities. I used my partner's Corolla to cut down on operating costs (the Bimmer drinks a lot more gas than the Toyota). Because all I did were gas stations, data entry was significantly less (versus restaurants which tend to take forever to fill out the report), so the time it took start to finish was only 13 hours. Plus, much of my gas for the trip was free.

Total Income for the Week: $685.23
Total Value of Reimbursements: $141.08

I grossly underestimated my income potential when I set my goal in October to earn $500, as I did far more than that in one week.