Let’s face it. Doing surveys can be time consuming, as can dealing with gathering a few cents here and there on the numerous Pay to Click sites (such as Neobux, Clixsense, Twickr, and Nerdbux), survey sites, and Get Paid To sites (Quick Rewards, Cashback Research, Swagbucks) as well as applications like Qmee. It can vary based on activity, in how money is built up.
Some of these sites like Cashback have mixed feelings with the users, as do sites like Inbox Dollars. I belong to them all. I have my favorite, preferred sites. I use the ones that allow me to cashout often or on a scheduled date more than the ones with higher payout threshholds. I don’t bother with referrals, or complicated downlines.
I also do not bother with buying offers so much. I take my two cents and run.
Legitimate work at home opportunities are definitely not ways to get rich, or even make money quickly. I even write on this site, Yahoo Voices, to make a bit of extra money. I get a lot of hits on my writing, but so many people have to view the writing before any kind of payment ends up in my Pay Pal account. Ditto with all the reviews I have written over on Epinions. That is OK by me. It seriously is.
On average, I end up earning anywhere between $1 and $5 a week. Sometimes I’ll get lucky and some days manage to score an opportunity to actually complete a survey. The most I have ever been paid for one is $3.75 and the least I have been paid is 50 cents.
I obviously do not do any of this to get rich. But I did gain an idea about it. I deposited a nickel from Qmee, $4.25 from Quick Rewards, and $2.75 for a survey I did with Opinion Place last week, it really does seem like I am tossing a few cents here and there into a virtual change jar.
Like with a real change jar, where spare pocket change is tossed, online earnings can build up over time. On Quick Rewards alone this past month, I made $28 so far. That was just viewing a few videos and answering a daily trivia question worth a cent or two, and qualifying for surveys with a minimum value of 60 cents and a maximum value of $1.00. (And I can cash out right away even with a cent in there, which is usually deposited into my Pay Pal account at midnight eastern time every night.) If I were using the site to its full potential: and had the money to actually take advantage of the offers, as well as the printer to print coupons (and you get up to 5 cents per coupon redeemed once they clear) I am sure I could earn much more on this and other sites.
The beauty of some of this is, in theory I could earn enough to turn around and maybe take advantage of one of those low cost offers, and then turn around and earn some of that money back. I could just leave the money in my Pay Pal account to sit until I find an offer that I find highly appealing. For sites that don’t take Pay Pal, I can have a Mastercard debit card linked to the account, and spend it pretty much anywhere that takes a Mastercard.
I am going to try to leave any and all of my earnings in m Pay Pal account though, and use it for my holiday shopping, and/or a rainy day fund. No, it’s not the smartest option out there, but since I am unbanked, as well as on a fixed income where I have very little left after rent and utility bills are paid, this is something that personally works for me.
In order to knock down any kind of money, I would have to spend a lot of time online, but that is something I do anyway. If I can spend an hour or two doing surveys and tasks instead of being engaged in drama on Facebook, I can make about $30 a month one one site alone. Just doing that, if I can keep that pace consistent, that’s an extra $320 a year. Some other sites may take a while longer to achieve the cashout threshold of course, but the idea is to try to pile all these small earnings together and see what is left at the end of a year.
It may not seem like much, but to me, $30 is a few extra groceries for my teen son and I. It means actually getting to buy school pictures, or a small item on eBay or Etsy that catches my eye. And the beautiful thing about it all is that I am not going to be counting and rolling pennies! (Those add up too. One time my mom had saved about a half a grocery sack full of them and managed to roll about $300 worth out of it.) I still scour parking lots with a metal detector for change too, but this is much better.
Here are a few of my favorite sites for making pocket change.
Pinecone Research. Owned by Nielsen companies (same guys who own the TV ratings company). They now pay in points, where 100 points equal $1. They pay 300 points for every survey completed, and I am sent about $6 – $15 worth of surveys on average. You can accumulate points to trade for a huge selection of items ranging from books to lawn mowers and TVs…or you can simply take the money in one of three forms: Pay Pal, a paper check, or have it uploaded to an Everywhere Rewards Masterdard with the Pinecone Research logo. Occasionally they even send out product concepts to test, and they compensate you for that too.
Survey Savvy. They have a $1 cashout threshold and send a paper check at this point in time. I plan on making a bit more before I cash out and have a check sent since most places charge $3 to cash them, and I have no bank or savings account with which to deposit a check that small into. But they do send 3-4 surveys a month.
Opinion Place is another favorite. They have some pretty high payouts on surveys you qualify for, but the caveat here is that you only get to do one survey per week. If you don’t qualify they give you a chance to keep trying until you find one that you do qualify for, then they send to your Pay Pal in a few weeks. (This last time it was five days.)
Quick Rewards is a “get paid to” site where you do surveys, tasks, print coupons, play games, take advantage of offers, and more. They send out a LOT of emails every day but if you qualify for surveys, they pay you after a period of time then you can cash out no matter how little is there if you take the cash! If you do 75 surveys per quarter and you have so much in earnings, your account is upgraded and your “tokens” that have no cash value are doubled but they can be redeemed for magazine subscriptions and other items after you get so many.
Clixsense is my favorite Paid to Click site. It mainly works by having you view a few ads every day from a fifth of a cent to a whole cent for the free account. (Double for a paid premium account.) For basic accounts, the threshold is $8 to Paypal. At that rate it may take a while to accumulate $8 unless you win on the Clixgrid game on the site. You are given 30 chances to try. I recently won more chances, ten cents on one occasion, and a dollar on another and cashed out after about a month. Sometimes around the holidays they will give out double the chances on the game to win up to $10. Never hurts to try. I also like Nerdbux, which is similar to Clixsense: you view ads, do tasks, and play the grid game. Minimum PayPal payout for them is $2 and you can win up to $2 on the game.
Epinions is a consumer review writing site. If you have ever written reviews on Amazon, it is the same concept. Pay is based on quality of work. So many people have to review before any kind of money is shown in the account. The more you write and build up a reputation the more money you make. They send money to Pay Pal unless you choose differently once a certain amount is reached.
Mechanical Turk is owned by Amazon, and it’s full of tasks to do that range from a few cents to several dollars at a time. It is varied on what the task is. It can be surveys, transcribing, anything! When pay is approved, you can cash out to your bank account which has a higher threshold than the Amazon e-gift card. I usually take the Amazon gift card, which has a minimum cashout of $1. I then shop for books and movies on Amazon. A bit of work is involved for some of them, but it’s free money to do a few mundane tasks to spend online. It’s win win.
Yahoo Voices, the very site this article is being written, is another favorite of mine. People with good writing skills will get the most use out of this site. The key to making money is promotion, promotion, promotion. You get paid a little for so many people viewing your writing. I have made a little over a dollar in three years. It could probably be more if I worked at it. They give the option for upfront payments on certain types of writing. Occasionally writing is rejected or sent back for clarification and editing. I don’t mind the small payouts though.
Qmee, is a relatively new application that lurks behind the scenes in the search engines attached to Amazon, eBay, Google, and Bing. On occasion if you make a normal search, a relevant search will show up to the side with a price ranging from a few cents up to a dollar. If it interests you, it deposits the money in your piggy bank. It’s a pretty clever little application. It’s a pittance where payouts go, but the bright side is you start getting more random relevant searches if you just search like normal. I made 78 cents in less than a week. There is no minimum payout and these pennies can either be sent to Pay Pal, or simply donated to one of any number of charities. Using this is like finding a nickel or dime on the ground.
My final favorite is Schwan’s Customer Connections. It’s a social network for Schwan’s home food delivery customers. They don’t really “pay” you anything to use the site, but they do random drawings for Schwan’s gift cards, and random customers are sent surveys about product concepts, and products to try. The more you interact on the site, the better the chances of being chosen to win. Doing surveys and product trials also enter you in the drawings. I like it because of the inside scoop on discount codes and the like. While this site doesn’t exactly belong here, a penny saved is a penny earned.
There are thousands of legitimate money making sites out there. It is not possible to list them all. I did not include Inbox Dollars and its sister sites, or Cashback Research because their minimum payouts are $30. They may or may not work for everyone. Inbox Dollars sends a check once $30 is reached. Cashback will send to Pay Pal. It takes forever to get that far on those, then it takes them a while to send the money out or make the deposit, but you can build up 2 cents here and there to look at emails and get there eventually, and you have to stay active in order to keep earning. Some people get there faster than others, depending on what kinds of offers they complete and which surveys they qualify for.
The key to success on any of them for beginners is to remember this is not a get rich opportunity. But it is best to choose several panels and companies that have low payout thresholds to start with and then devote a couple hours every day to working at this. If you achieve the payouts they will add up and give you a small bit of extra money. After a period of time, once you get skilled at earning, you can try the sites with higher payouts. You could even save up your earnings made from the lower payout ones and use them to complete offers on the higher payout ones. Just be wary of ones with free trials that charge you after a time. They could end up costing you in the long run!!! Always read the fine print and take the time to read the end user license agreements on all of the sites you sign up for.
The more you do it, the more these few pennies here and there will add up, just like if you’re adding pennies to a change jar. There’s just no metallic smell on your hands or lugging heavy buckets to a Coinstar machine involved.