I also joined a little over a month ago and will be cashing out for my first time on the site at the end of this month which I am pretty excited about. I was able to double the minimum amount by waiting until the end of this month to cash out instead of the beginning. I agree it was confusing at first but I have a daily routine that I do now and it makes it so much easier since I don't have any referrals and doubt that I will be able to get any. This is what I do each day.
1. Click on my daily paid e-mail to start me off
2. Complete the paid to click offer under the daily offers tab
3. That brings me to the FC Daily surveys page and I complete any of those that are available
4. Complete the cheapflights offer under the daily offers tab
5. Post at least one post in the forum, read the new replies to my old posts, and see if anyone's posted about a good offer to do for the day.
This is what I do as minimum each day, then if I have more time I move on to doing the following things:
6.Watch any paid video's that are available
7. Complete some daily tasks ( I have the most luck with getting credited and completing easily the "flag inappropriate images" task)
8. Complete a few other daily surveys
9. Complete Free/No CC REQ'D offers
10. Do any contests/promotions that are available under the forum. I always do the Saturday one, sometimes I try the tuesday one even though I'm not big on sports and I always look to see if there's anything new.
I have found doing these steps to be the recipe for my success. I'm still learning every day but my method seems to be working so far considering I joined in the middle of august and I'm already up to $45.
Hope this helps! =)