This is a guest post from Karen who lives in Rhode Island with her husband and two daughters. Besides being a frugal stay at home mom ,she blogs at frugalrimama.com about weekly deals/sales/freebies and more. In her spare time she enjoys taking surveys and doing some mystery shopping. You can see a list of Karen's survey earnings on her blog.
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Everyone seems to be looking for ways to make extra cash and the one place they seem to be looking to is the Internet. There are a lot of scams but there are also legitimate ways to earn some extra money. You won't get rich but who couldn't use gas money each month, or extra money to pick up those lattes that you love so much, but can't quite fit into your budget. One way I've found to earn a little extra cash is by taking online surveys.
I started doing online surveys a few years back but it's taken me a while to find companies that really do pay. There are so many out there they say they pay but they really don't. They just want your email address so they can Spam you. If a company really wants your opinion then they are not going to Spam you.
I've had success with a few survey sites and I've made well over a $100 with some of them and I don't even take every survey that is sent to me, I just don't have that much extra time most days. But when I do it's nice to earn a little extra cash and know that I'm helping companies make better products or services.
When you sign up for just about any survey company, they do want a lot of information, but this is how they will match you up with surveys. They will most likely want to know about every member in your household. Some companies will send you surveys for your family to take, even your children. I've done a few with my 4 year old. I just basically walk her through it asking her the questions.
They may ask for your social security number when you sign up. The reason why is if you make more than $600 in a year, they have to report it to the IRS. You may not have to give it to them when you first sign up, but you will need it to receive your first payment. This is very normal.
You will probably get a few screener surveys a week from most companies but that really depends on your demographics. If you don't receive many emails from them, it just means they don't anything that will fit you at that time. When you get the screener emails, it will tell you what your compensation will be for taking that survey and how long it should take if you qualify for it.
Each company has a different way of compensating you. Some of them do pay cash either by check or paypal. Other's will let you choose gift cards or prizes. Some of them will enter you into monthly drawings. But before you begin any survey they will always tell you so then you can make the decision of taking that survey or not. It's OK if you pass up on some of them but after a while you may become inactive so be careful about that.
Here are a few companies I have been working with for a while now and they do pay and they are REAL:
Before you sign up with any survey companies I suggest you get a separate email address just to use for your surveys so your inbox won't be flooded with emails and your personal stuff gets buried. Some days you may get more emails than others. If you take a few surveys a week you could probably fill up your gas tank for the month. With the price of gas going up again, that would be nice.
I have tried a couple of these myself.They do work, but there are a lot of scams out there too.
Thanks,for sharing- we are on the same path!