Earn On The SideCash In Your Spare Time

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!

I’m a big fan of the Entertainment book, and have been buying them every year for probably the last 10 years now.   If you’ve never purchased an Entertainment book, they are basically a coupon book with hundreds of coupons for everything from restaurants to amusement parks.

Books cost between $25 and $50 initially, but tend to go down in price as the year progresses (although you miss out on getting to use some of the coupons if you wait).  I know this seem like a lot of money for a coupon book, but there are usually some great coupons inside and I can usually earn the money back within about a month.

The book is also a great way to find new restaurants that you probably wouldn’t think about going to.  There are dozens of great restaurants, some common and some not, that offer two for one specials or discounts with the coupons in the book.

There are a lot of schools and organizations that sell these for fundraisers, so feel free to pick one up from them or use the link below!

I just took the Quicken Spare Change Challenge and it didn’t turn out too well! I know I waste money on a lot of things each month (Starbucks almost every day), but $400 was more than I was expecting.

Nothing too scientific here, but this little quiz will definitely show you a few areas that you could save a few more bucks.

Check it out and see how much money tou are wasting!

How Much Do I Waste?