Could I Survive Unemployment?

I had the last week off work and with all the talk of unemployment queues in Australia growing over the next year or so, I wanted to do a little experiment to find out whether I could make a liveable amount of money in a week for doing surveys, focus groups and mystery shopping.

The cheques from Global Test Market and Rewards Central would certainly have helped, but realistically mystery shopping and focus groups would have to be the avenues for making a wage for the week....

So how did I go?

Here is a summary:

Monday - Mystery Shopping Assignments with GapBuster $47 (3 hours)
Tuesday - Mystery Shopping Assignment with HOED $68 (3 hours)
Wednesday - Mystery Shopping Assignments with RMSA $75 + ($100 Products) + Mystery Shopping Assignment with Service Integrity $15 (6 hours)
Thursday - Mystery Shopping Assignments with GapBuster $75 (4 hours)
Friday - Mystery Shopping Assignments with RMSA $30 (2 hours)

Total for the Week: $310 + $100 in products for about 18 hours work.

During the week I also did approx $40 (in cash and gift vouchers) worth of surveys and put together the bones of a new web site for a friend of mine. (www.freeexport.info)

Is it a weekly wage? the minimum working wage is $560 odd dollars a week, and the unemployment benefit is about $240 a week, so I guess you could survive on doing mystery shops, surveys and focus groups.......