If you haven’t signed up for Swagbucks yet, I don’t know what you are waiting for!
In case you don’t know, Swagbucks is a search engine that rewards you for searching the internet.
Using Swagbucks is easy, you simply sign up, and the next time you need to search for something on the web, instead of going to Google, you go to Swagbucks and use their search engine. About once or twice a day you will randomly win between 1-100 Swagbucks. Accumulate enough Swagbucks, and you can trade them in for great prizes or gift certificates. My favorite is Amazon Gift Certificates, which only cost 45 Swagbucks for a 5 Dollar gift card.
Swagbucks has a great referral program that can really quickly increase your winnings. In the last year I have won hundreds of dollars worth of Prizes and Gift Cards from Swagbucks.
Normally when you sign up for Swagbucks you automatically get 3 Swagbucks to start off. However, this Friday I will post a special code that will give you an additional 2 swagbucks just for signing up! The code is only good for 24 hours, so make sure you stop by on Friday, sign up for Swagbucks and get your extra Swagbucks!
For more info on swagbucks, click here
For tips on how to win more swagbucks, click here
If you can’t wait and want to sign up today, click the banner below!
Plaza Research is a company that conducts research studies for various companies in the United States. I have been doing focus groups for Plaza Research for several years now, and in fact they were the first research company I ever did anything for.
If you live in Metro New York, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Metro Philadelpia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Ft. Lauderdale, Phoenix, Tampa, San Diego or Las Vegas you can sign up for the Plaza Research mailing list which will keep you informed all upcoming opportunities.
Emails come about once or twice a month and list all open focus groups as well as the types of people they are looking for and how much it pays. Research studies typically pay $50-$200 for a two hour session and you can do one every 6 months.
Signing up is easy, simply head over to http://www.iopinion.com/ to subscribe to the mailing list.
*The one tip I would give to increase your chances of getting picked for a study is to call and not email when you find a study you want to be in. The times I have called I have almost always been selected, whereas when I just send the email with my information it has been only about 10%.
I started doing paid surveys about 6 months ago when I needed to earn a few extra bucks to help pay the bills. I’ve learned a lot in that time and thought I would give a quick update on what I’ve learned and how much I’ve earned from the various companies.
What I’ve learned
- NEVER EVER PAY TO JOIN A SURVEY COMPANY – I can not stress this enough. Legitimate survey companies will never charge you to join. If a company wants to charge you, they are likely only going to sell you a list of paid survey companies (which you can find here for free), or they are just trying to scam you.
- Not all survey companies are created equal – Some will send more surveys, some will pay more, some aren’t worth your time. To help guide you to which ones are better than others, here is what I have earned from each company during the last 6 months, this is only survey money and not referral money.
Opinion Outpost – $124.50 (By far the best survey company)
Greenfield Online – $66.50
Survey Spot – $66.00
Global Test Markets – $58.25
MySurvey - $33.75
Your2Cents – $27
LightSpeed Panels – $25 (15 Amazon GC, $10 Paypal)
ClearVoice – $20 Amazon GC
Ipsos – $20 ($10 Amazon GC, $10 Paypal)
Valued Opinions - $20 Amazon GC
American Consumer Opinion – $18
Survey Savvy - $15.50
HarrisPoll - $15
Buzzback – $13
Viewpoint – $10 (no signup link, email me if you want a referral)
Global Opinion Panels – $8.50
ePolls – $5 Amazon GC
Surveys.com – $5
and just for fun… my favorite paid search site -
Swagbucks – $70 personally and $210 through referrals – $280 total
- Don’t try to do every survey you get – You will get burned out. Surveys are tedious and time consuming and some are quite honestly not worth your time. I will always do a $5/10 minute survey but I will usually pass up the $1/45 minute survey.
- Don’t try to make this a second income – It is tempting to try to make a lot of money doing surveys, but unless you have an inhuman amount of patience you will get bored. Do 1-2 surveys a day. I shoot for around $5 a day unless I see a really good paying survey come in. $5 a day times 30 days is an extra $150 bucks a month!
Thanks for reading and I hope you can all earn a few extra bucks this month!
