A Week in the Life of a Mystery Shopper

April 18th - April 24th...

Last week was a decent one. I earned $833 and drove 1,584 miles. I also received reimbursements totaling $169.

Sunday
I've started to notice that Sunday tends to be the slowest day each week. I only did 4 gas stations today. But who says there's no such thing as a free lunch: I went through the drive-thru of a Dairy Queen for lunch. When I presented my DQ gift card as payment, the cashier, who happened to be the owner, apologized and said he had just bought the store and was in the process of setting up an account to accept gift cards. He said he would give me my meal for free and I could pay him next time I visit his store. Since the store was about 100 miles from home, I imagine it will be a while before I make it back!

Monday
A 17 hour day. Fortunately much of that time was at home entering shops, but still... it was a long day! I began my monthly merchandising shops for the DVD project, but also shopped 3 restaurants, 3 gas stations, 3 bookstores and 2 banks.

Tuesday
This was even longer than Monday. I left my house at 6 AM and didn't enter the last report until 1 in the morning. That's 19 hours straight. I did two restaurants, 5 merchandising jobs, 2 bookstores, 3 banks, 1 business verification and 4 gas stations.

Wednesday
This was a much shorter day in terms of hours, but I still earned $168, my third best day of the week. I completed 6 merchandising jobs, 4 restaurants, 2 gas stations and 1 bank.

Thursday
A slower day but I still earned $81. I only shopped 2 restaurants, a pet store and a bank.

Friday
The easiest day of the week. I did a reimbursement-only lunch at an upscale Mexican restaurant, 4 fast food shops and one merchandising job.

Saturday
An average day: 3 restaurants, 2 mailing centers and 2 grocery stores.

In all I was really satisfied with the week. After Tuesday I worked more normal hours. Monday and Tuesday alone I worked 36 hours - not something I can handle on an ongoing basis!