Money Moose

In Short: CashCrate is a nice get-paid-to site with a clean design and good reputation.
What It Is: A website that pays you to complete free and paid offers like filling out a form, signing up for a program, or buying a trial product.
$$$: Hundreds of offers ranging from $0.50 to $10.00. Over $1,000 in offers - more than enough to get the minimum check amount even if you only complete a few offers.
Payment Options: Check once you get $10
Pros: Awesome design, good reputation, lots of offers, and two-tier referral program
Cons: Some free offers don’t pay much money.
Sign Up: CashCrate

An extra-fun guest comic!

There are plenty of loan companies out there, and many are shady dealerships - much like the man in the trenchcoat that stands in the back alley around the corner offering to sell me candy.

ThinkCash promises to be a company that pays you cash loans quickly, easily, and for 25-75% less than payday loans. They offer payment options that are convenient and work for you. Instead of having loan sharks on your back, you get a nice short term loan that will not, contrary to popular belief, be equivalent to selling your soul. ThinkCash is different than a payday loan or cash advance company for many reasons - flexibility and pricing being the main ones.

Using the magical series of tubes called the Internet, ThinkCash can transfer $250-2,500 to you when you really need it. This can be handled online without the hassle of paperwork (which always tends to find its way into my fireplace mysteriously) and the money is normally wired within one business day.

The ThinkCash website is great and offers a step-by-step process to sign up and get a loan. The interface is very user-friendly and Web 2.0 - always a good thing.

JUST HOW FLEXIBLE IS THINKCASH?
ThinkCash, unlike many payday cash loans, offers you the option to either pay off your loan in one bulk payment or over a period of time with multiple installments with no penalties for picking the way you want. You can either choose to get your payment automatically deducted from your bank account or you can manually mail in your payment - whatever floats your money boat. If you pay off some or all of your loan early, you just pay for the time you kept the loan. 24/7 instant account access combined with all of this makes ThinkCash a very attractive proposition.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
ThinkCash is an appealing installment loans program that beats out typical payday and cash advance loans with a variety of features and options that other companies just don’t offer. If you experience a crisis or emergency in which you need cash, or if you just need the money, then consider ThinkCash. Signing up is simple, quick, and even those with bad credit can be approved. You can get money wired to you without calls, paperwork, or faxing - only an online application is necessary to get up to $2,500 directly into your bank account.

So come on, don’t be shy, and give ThinkCash a spin.

Fortune has compiled quite an amusing list of the idiocy fun things that have happened in the business world. The top one is, of course, the various mishaps of China.

1. During 2007, the Year of the Pig, Mattel is forced to recall almost 20 million items made in China because of lead paint on toy cars and tiny magnets that could be deadly if swallowed. Pet food makers recall more than 60 million cans of food laced with tainted melamine in wheat gluten from China. A huge underground distribution network for steroids, human growth hormones, and other bodybuilding drugs is traced to 37 companies in China.”

Check out the rest of the list for some truly funny stories.

It’s worked for MoneyMoose - it’ll work for you.

As we all know, China is the land of lead contaminated toys - just imagine what could be happening to the fish they send to the West. Unlike Aquadots, you’re actually supposed to eat the denizens of the sea and, well, bad things could happen if the utmost care is not taken with them.

To relieve any tension you might have, here’s an investigative looking into the workings of your average Fuqing Province fishing plant:

“Fuqing is one of the centers of a booming industry that over two decades has transformed [China] into the biggest producer and exporter of seafood in the world, and the fastest-growing supplier to the United States.

But that growth is threatened by the two most glaring environmental weaknesses in China: acute water shortages and water supplies contaminated by sewage, industrial waste and agricultural runoff that includes pesticides. The fish farms, in turn, are discharging wastewater that further pollutes the water supply.

“Our waters here are filthy,” said Ye Chao, an eel and shrimp farmer who has 20 giant ponds in western Fuqing. “There are simply too many aquaculture farms in this area. They’re all discharging water here, fouling up other farms.”

Salmon? More like salmonella!

…didn’t like that joke? Well, then, back to the serious sides of the issue. Lets take a look at what these fishers are doing to try to keep their waters clean and their fish alive.

“Farmers have coped with the toxic waters by mixing illegal veterinary drugs and pesticides into fish feed, which helps keep their stocks alive yet leaves poisonous and carcinogenic residues in seafood, posing health threats to consumers.”

The food we give to Fido works for fish too, apparently. Doesn’t that just sound delicious?

“China produces about 70 percent of the farmed fish in the world, harvested at thousands of giant factory-style farms that extend along the entire eastern seaboard of the country. Farmers mass-produce seafood just offshore, but mostly on land, and in lakes, ponds, rivers and reservoirs, or in huge rectangular fish ponds dug into the earth.”

So next time you dig into some juicy jumbo shrimp, just think of all of that fun stuff that happened to it on the way to your mouth. Yum!

Humorous Work Stories

Here at MoneyMoose we understand that there are some (albeit few) funny things about work. A site called The Customer Is Not Always Right has a very amusing list of real work experiences that showcase the idiocy peculiarity of shoppers everywhere. Although MoneyMoose does not often write about humor, we too can appreciate the hilarity of these articles. Take this one, for example:

(A customer wanders down the paint aisle I’m working on and asks for advice on which paint to use. I tell him, and he asks for the differences between brands)

Employee: “Brand A is just a bit thicker than Brand B. But other than that, they’re pretty much the same.”

Customer: “What do you mean ‘thicker’?”

Employee: “The paint has a thicker consistency.”

Customer: “I don’t understand.”

Employee: “Do you know what cake batter looks like? And water?”

Customer: “Yes.”

Employee: “Cake batter is thicker than water, like Brand A is thicker than Brand B.”

Customer: “Brand A is cake batter?”

(It goes on like this for awhile. I ended up leaving him there to contemplate)

As a service to you, the customer, I have developed a small card that the paint company may pass out to prevent further confusion.

The Moose has finally found a use for those unbearably humid summer days!

As an added bonus you’ll attract all of the following friendly* insects!

• Mosquitoes
• Flies
• Fleas
• Bees
• Wasps
• Tics
• Tarantulas
• Moths
• Carnivorous beetles

Fun, no?

*friendliness may result in death

Now with 100% added checkmark/X goodness.

AND 100% popularity. Thanks, Stumblers! And yes, I mean you. Yeah. The one behind the computer reading this. I’m thanking you. A moose is thanking you. Expressing his gratitude.