Make extra money taking surveys

I know we’ve all seen the advertisements, make thousands of extra dollars per week taking surveys from home. Truth is I don’t really think this can be true. Maybe it’s been done before but I’m going to guess it’s similar to multi-level marketing techniques where the people who make that kind of money are on top of a large pyramid. Most of us will never find ourselves on top, but you can make a few extra dollars taking surveys.

My first paid survey experience happened in college, before I knew anything about Internet marketing. A research company visited campus and offered $5 to a set number of students who took the time to fill out a survey. As you can imagine they had no problems meeting the quota, the line was backed up all through the cafeteria with eager students wanting to make $5 for just a few minutes of their time. I didn’t really understand why they would want to give us $5 to fill out a survey or how where the got all the money to give away to the survey participants.

Now, years later I understand that market research is a very big business. Large and small corporations both depend on feedback and consumer research to better their products or to find needs for new products. Consumer opinions are very valuable to these companies and they are willing to pay a lot of money to research firms to gather this information.

There are hundreds of research firms that are willing to pay you a portion of their earnings for your time and opinion. How much money? Many times surveys only pay about $1, but there are occasions that you can easily earn $5 for 20 – 30 minutes of your time. Not a great income but you probably waste that much time as some point during the day, why not earn a few extra bucks.

Before you start a google search on paid survey companies, do some research. There are hundreds of paying research firms, however, there are also just as many that promise to pay you and never do. I can tell you about two that I use that have been paying me for years.

Epoll.com has mostly entertainment based surveys. They have a lot of questions about movies, television and celebrities. I seem to get a couple of surveys from there each month and they pay various points. The points can be redeemed for gift certificates and gift cards. Sorry, they don’t offer true cash rewards.

Mysurvey.comdoes offer cash rewards for completing surveys. Again they reward you with points that can be redeemed for cash or prizes. The cash is obviously the best deal but they do have some fun merchandise as well. Both of the programs are legit and do pay their members. I’m sure there are many others, these are just the two I am most familiar with.

If you have a few minutes of free time in  your day you may want to consider signing up for at least these two programs. It’s nice to get a $10 check in the mail unexpectedly or a gift card to your favorite restaurant.