I Tested TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE Side Hustles

Video Summary

Overview

The video investigates the legitimacy of various popular online side hustles by testing them over a week. The goal is to earn enough money to fund a small party. The creator tests six different methods, including becoming a "Lucky Scoops" seller on TikTok Shop, using cash-reward apps like Free Cash and Swagbucks, and offering services on Fiverr. The results are overwhelmingly disappointing, with most apps requiring significant time for minimal or inaccessible earnings, and others being plagued by scams or technical issues. Ultimately, the experiment concludes that most advertised "easy money" side hustles are too good to be true.

Timeline Summary

🛍️ Testing TikTok Lucky Scoops

• The creator decides to test a "Lucky Scoops" side hustle, making handmade trinkets instead of sourcing cheap items from Temu or AliExpress to avoid scamming customers.
• She creates handmade items like friendship bracelets and resin trinkets from existing craft supplies to avoid spending money.
• Setting up a TikTok Shop proves difficult, so she creates a free Shopify store named "Scoops of Hope" and films aesthetic packing videos to market it.
• After a week, the videos only garnered two likes and zero orders, resulting in no income despite many hours of work.

🎮 Experimenting with Free Cash App

• The Free Cash app promises to pay users for playing games and taking surveys, but the sign-up bonus is only 40 cents instead of the advertised $5.
• Playing games like Disney Solitaire earns small amounts, but the app requires a $25 minimum to cash out, making the earnings practically inaccessible.
• After six hours of gameplay, the total earned is $12.10, which translates to an effective wage of about 33 cents per hour.
• The creator calculates it would take approximately 39 more hours to reach the cash-out threshold, deeming the app not worth the effort.

🚶‍♀️ Trying Cashwalk Fitness Tracker

• Cashwalk is a step-tracking app that rewards users with coins for walking, which can be redeemed for gift cards.
• The app accurately counts steps when walking but falls behind when jogging, and it stops awarding coins after 10,000 steps per day.
• After a day of walking over 10,000 steps, the creator earned only 220 coins, equivalent to about 2 cents.
• Earning enough for a $10 gift card would require approximately three months of daily walking, making it an ineffective income source.

📝 Taking Surveys on Swagbucks

• Swagbucks is a long-standing platform for earning money through surveys and offers, but many tasks require spending money upfront.
• The creator takes surveys, some of which require camera access, and finds she often gets kicked out if her answers don't match what the survey seeks.
• After over 2.5 hours, she completed 8 out of 26 survey attempts, earning 548 Swagbucks (about $5.48).
• However, she discovers a $5 Walmart gift card requires 1,500 Swagbucks, meaning she would need about 6 more hours of surveys to afford a party pizza.

👗 Becoming a Fiverr Personal Shopper

• The creator sets up a Fiverr profile as a personal shopper named "Kirsten Larson," offering styled lookbooks at different price tiers.
• The sign-up process is lengthy, requiring extensive personal information and tax documents.
• Shortly after creating the profile, her inbox is flooded with messages, nearly all of which are from scammers sending suspicious links.
• The experience is disheartening, yielding zero legitimate clients or income after several hours of account setup and message management.

🔄 Final Attempt with Pawns App

• The Pawns app pays for surveys, games, and sharing unused internet bandwidth, but requires constant location tracking to function.
• Concerned about cybersecurity risks from sharing bandwidth, the creator opts to only play games during a road trip.
• Playing a ball-sorting game involves a 50/50 split between gameplay and ads, many of which are for the Free Cash app.
• After playing to level 25, the reward is only 5 cents, and the app's cash-out requirements remain unmet after hours of use.

Key Points

• 🛡️ Handmade Over Mass-Produced:To avoid contributing to scammy practices, the creator made all Lucky Scoops items by hand from existing supplies instead of buying cheap trinkets in bulk.
• 💰 The Cash-Out Catch:A common theme across reward apps like Free Cash and Swagbucks is a high minimum cash-out threshold, making small earnings practically unusable without dozens more hours of work.
• 📈 Misleading Advertisements:Apps often advertise large bonuses (e.g., "$5 sign-up bonus" or "$3,000 for reaching level 10") that do not materialize as promised, leading to disappointment and wasted time.
• 🕵️‍♀️ Scam-Prone Platforms:Attempting to offer freelance services on Fiverr was immediately met with a flood of scam messages, making it a hostile environment for legitimate new sellers.
• ⏳ Extreme Time Investment:The cumulative time spent on these side hustles was nearly 40 hours, yet the technically earned cash total was $0 due to unmet cash-out requirements.
• 📊 Data Privacy Trade-Off:Many apps require extensive personal information, location tracking, and permissions, with Pawns app even requiring constant location access to function at all.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Did any of the side hustles actually make money?
   Technically, small amounts were earned in apps like Swagbucks and Free Cash, but none met the minimum required to cash out, so the final usable total was $0.

2. Was the Lucky Scoops business successful?
   No. Despite creating handmade items and multiple promotional videos, the TikTok Shop/Shopify store received only two likes and zero orders after a week.

3. Are fitness reward apps like Cashwalk worth it?
   Not for income. While accurate for step counting, the coin reward is so low (about 2 cents for 10,000 steps) that it would take months to earn a small gift card.

4. What was the biggest issue with Fiverr?
   The platform was saturated with scammers. The creator's new account received 18 scam messages and zero legitimate client inquiries, making it a poor choice for starting a small service business.

5. What are the risks of apps like Pawns?
   Beyond low payouts, Pawns' core business involves sharing your internet bandwidth, which poses a cybersecurity risk if someone uses your connection for illegal activities.

6. Was there a lot of spam from signing up for these apps?
   Surprisingly, no. The creator received only one spam email from Swagbucks and no spam calls or texts, using temporary contact information for the experiment.

Conclusion

The experiment demonstrates that most widely advertised "easy money" side hustles and reward apps are ineffective for generating meaningful income. They often require disproportionate time investments for minuscule, often inaccessible rewards, and some platforms are rife with scams. While legitimate side hustles exist, they typically demand significant skill, effort, and time to build, unlike the passive or quick-rich schemes promoted online. The creator's nearly 40 hours of work resulted in no usable earnings, proving the adage that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.Action Suggestion: Focus on developing a tangible skill or craft-based business rather than chasing quick-cash apps.