Can I start from $0 and make a $1 a day playing cards?

I'm under no illusion that I'm going to be netting the US$2.5K+ per day that some people are getting from the SPS airdrop ALONE... but you never know ;-)
... and as the old saying goes:

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!

So I've set myself a simple enough 1st target:

Target 1: A (passive) $1 a Day

Target 1b: A 1, 000 Power Account

Target 2: ???

... starting with a clean slate!

Starting with nothing but the Starter/Free cards, this is what my account looked like after day 1 of the SPS airdrop.

OK, disclaimer: I didn't start with an ENTIRELY NEW account... I used this as my alt back when I used to play, but moved everything out to my main account and have just been renting them out for the last ~2? years. Anyway... so after moving all my cards/dec etc. out, I still had a spellbook (I even had 5 unclaimed rewards... LOL... which I claimed and moved out as well so that the account is literally void of any cards/DEC/anything... except the spellbook).

... and that is what I look like after day 3 of the SPS airdrop.

I figure I need ~ 6, 000 airdrop points to get to "a dollar a day" (assuming SPS reaches/hangs around $1, which it briefly did the other day).

Side note: I can't imagine SPS climbing too much in the next few months, in fact I think we'll get back down to $0.20 pretty soon (we're already down to $0.50 as I write this... everyone is obviously dumping their free coins, and with more free coins being dropped every day, I can't see this changing short term)... but that's me... Once the dust has settled and all the SPS use-cases have been clearly defined, I think it will pick up again... i.e. I'm preparing for a LOOOONG HODL.

... but I digress..

So HOW exactly am I gonna get 6,000 airdrop points without spending a penny?

1) Daily Quest Rewards + Season Rewards

i.e. DEC & Collection Power

I got lucky and scored a card instead of some "useless" potion. *Useless to newbies like me, a GREAT way of boosting your luck once you're more established.

I'll be selling (for DEC) or (more likely) renting out these reward cards which scored me more DEC adding to my airdrops points.

2) Blogging + Stacking SPT

I doubt I'll be able to share my progress EVERY day... but I will get to it regularly and the SPT tokens earned from these posts count towards my airdrop points as well.

2b) MAYBE - Earned HBD from blog posts

I MIGHT spend the HBD earned from blogging on new packs
... but haven't decided if that's "cheating" yet ;-)

Once I reach my $1-a-day target, I'll definitely be spending my liquid rewards on booster packs though... I SERIOUSLY doubt there's any other way to reach the $100 a day target #2 without doing that.

or... plan B: Check out @spinvest & @brofund - both these programmes are heavily invested in Splinterlands, so I might spend my HBD there until my $1-A-Day target is reached.

FWIW: Since my curation efforts will be focused on SPT going forward, I'll be delegating my other Hive Engine tokens to @brofi (aka @brofund) which will eventually see some SPS drips coming through.

3) Entering Competitions on Hive

THIS one is gonna see me being a lot more active on HIVE. There are a ton of daily & weekly comps & bounties giving away cards & DEC... and any newbie getting into the game (and HIVE) should definitely be looking into these. They'll be a real game-changer for your deck.

Newbie (and returning) players should check out these comps. Off the top of my head there's @rentmoney , @digital-wisdom , @cryptofiloz , @road2horizon , @massimoc23 and of course @splinterlands themselves with their #battlechallenge... but there are literally dozens more every day.

hmmmmm, just had an idea about making a weekly post to collate all of them. So if you're reading this, and you run a daily/weekly competition, please drop me a comment below.

4) And of course, Stacking up the resulting SPS for staking rewards.

Starting in a few days all staked SPS will start earning additional SPS. The details on this aren't 100% clear (to me anyway) yet... but the concept of compound interest comes into play here... and that's something I'm always keen on ;-)

5) Other?

Yes, there are lots of other WAY MORE EFFICIENT way to earn SPS from the airdrop, but none of them really apply to new players (some, early packs/land plots etc., not even an option anymore)... so for now, I'll be focusing on these 3 easy targets (Staking SPS @ 4 doesn't require me to do anything) I mentioned above.

P.S.
Came across a VERY interesting post by @arrliinn:
@arrliinn/how-i-got-splinterlands-credits-for-free - 2 interesting ways of earning credits that can be spent in Splinterlands.

So in closing:

Is it worth it?

Yes, $1 a day might not be enough to retire on... but fortunately here in South Africa we have such a shit exchange rate with the US$ that in (South African) Rand terms it adds up nicely at the end of each month... and all for PLAYING GAMES!!!

I don't know anyone else earning a dollar a day playing Candy Crush ;-)

P.S. If you're reading this having come from twitter/facebook/whatever (or in the very unlikely scenario that you're a HIVE blogger that HASN'T joined Splinterlands yet, and wanna join me... please sign up using my @splinterlands referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=mrtoking