Income-Earning Ideas

Would you like to earn a little side money taking surveys? Pinecone Research is once again open here for new registrations! But hurry, it will close up fast. (Thanks, Free Stuff Times!)

Pinecone Research is one of my favorite survey companies. They pay $3 for every survey completed and the checks come within days of completing a survey.

I also highly recommend MySurvey. I signed up with them a few months ago and have already been paid by them. Unlike many survey companies, you earn points for every survey and screener you take and these points can add up quickly! Go here to sign up with MySurvey.

See more survey companies you can sign up for here.

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Wow! This is one really sweet deal!

Open an Electric Orange Checking Account through ING Direct today (Saturday, November 28, 2009–this offer was only good for Black Friday but has now been extended according to the details here.) and you can have $121 added to your account within 50 days. Here's how:

Remember that this offer is limited and probably won't last longer than this weekend, so be sure to jump on it if you are interested!

Thanks, Deal Seeking Mom!

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I've been posting about various survey companies recently and in doing so, I kept hearing about MySurvey.com and how great of a survey company it is.

I finally decided to go and investigate myself and was so impressed with what I discovered. After signing up, I was almost immediately given a really simple survey to fill out which earned me 25 points and have since had two more very easy survey opportunities, both which earned me 10 more points each.

From what I've heard, this company is just as good or even better than Pinecone Research. And the best thing of all? You earn points for every single survey you take–even those which are just qualifiers! So you will never waste time and effort on a survey only to discover you don't qualify. You can redeem your points earned for cash or prizes and every 1000 points equals $10.

Go here to sign up.

As always, you won't get rich filling out surveys, but it's a fun way to add a little extra cashflow to your budget. If you want to sign up with other legitimate survey companies you can go here for my recommended list of survey companies.

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Last time in our Becoming a Work-at-Home Mom series I shared how I had to stop working as a mother's helper due to my pregnancy and while that was a huge cut in our income, it also was what lit a fire in my belly to learn everything I possibly could as fast as I could about earning money from home.

I began with small things, like taking surveys, mystery shopping, getting paid to read emails. Once I became proficient in those, I started scratching my brain for more ideas. 

One idea I had was to teach creative writing classes out of our home. I'd always loved writing and thought that probably homeschool moms would jump at the opportunity to enroll their children in creative writing classes–especially if they were very inexpensively priced.

I spent hours writing up advertisements to place in homeschool newsletters and had visions of at least 40 children signing up. I excitedly strategized how I could break the classes up and handle a large number of children and I eagerly calculated numbers and was expecting a good earning potential from these classes. All in all, I was stoked.

Problem was, instead of 40 children signing up as I'd hoped, only 4 signed up. So much for my big plans!

Needless to say, the turn out was very disappointing to me. I thought God had clearly directed me to do these classes and I was confident He was going to bring dozens and dozens of children to them. I worried about how on earth we were going to pay our bills since my big idea had pretty much totally flopped. I wanted to quit and throw my hands up in despair. But I couldn't because I'd already made a commitment to teach these children–all 4 of them–and I had to see it through.

When I look back at those classes and the measly four sign-ups, I realize that not only did that experience prepare me for some greater failures I'd have on down the road, it also taught me that it's okay if things don't turn out like we are expecting. We can still carry on and do our best whether we have four students or forty students or 400 students. Whatever the outcome of our efforts, what matters most is that we give it our best.

I've slowly learned over the past few years that failure of some
kind is inevitable when you have your business or are trying to start
working from home. Everything just isn't going to turn out exactly like
you expected. In fact, much of the time, things will be a lot harder
and a lot less successful than you planned or hoped or dreamed.

Contrary to what I thought in the beginning, I've come to realize that failure is my friend. I've learned much more through failure than I have through success.

The creative writing classes were only the start of my flopped endeavors and learning through failure. Next time, I'll tell you about a much bigger work-at-home failure and how it turned out to be one of the best things which ever happened to me.

To be continued…

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If you live in Delaware, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Montana, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, or Virginia and are looking for a work-from-home position, be sure to check out the details here of the Customer Service positions currently available at 1-800-FLOWERS.

Thanks, Heather!

Speaking of working from home, my next installment in the Becoming a Work-At-Home Mom is coming in the next few days… now that I'm finally almost recovered from my wisdom teeth removal and can think more clearly again!

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If you frequent Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, or GMail on a daily or more-than-daily basis, you'll want to sign up for a new site called BeRuby.com. I just found out about this site from Carrie at Money Saving Methods and was so excited because you can get paid every time you visit one of those sites or dozens of other sites!

Just sign up for an account with BeRuby.com here and then login to their site and click-through to Facebook, Twitter, GMail, etc. and you'll earn a little bit each time you click through to a website. Plus, you'll earn $0.10 each day that you just log in to the site.

Yes, it's only a few pennies here and there but if you're going to be accessing these sites anyway, you might as well make a few nickles, pennies, and dimes for doing so, right?

To make it quicker to find your favorite sites, you can set up a favorites list on your account and then just log in and click on the favorites button to click-through to your favorite websites.

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Do
you have more than $40 in cash lying around your home? If so, take it into a nearby CoinStar machine (find one here) and you can turn it into a gift card for Lowe's, iTunes,
Amazon.com, or many others. There is no fee for the exchange or the
card. More details here.

This offer is good through December 6, 2009 and would be a great way to get a little more mileage out of your Christmas budget!

Thanks, Pocket Your Dollars!

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After I posted a few legitimate survey companies to sign up with last week, my friend, Andrea, who blogs at MommySnacks told me I had failed to share with you about one of her favorite survey companies–Toluna.

I had never even heard about this survey company so I did some investigation and, sure enough, it looks like another great legitimate survey company to sign up for. Andrea said she has always been promptly paid and she's earned money fairly quickly through surveys there.

Go here to sign up with Tulona.

Here are the other survey companies I recommend signing up with:

Pinecone Research (currently not accepting new
sign-ups)–my personal favorite survey site. They pay $3 promptly for every survey completed. I try to post here every time they are accepting new sign-ups so stay tuned for that.

Inbox Dollars–I used Inbox Dollars primarily for the money you could earn for reading emails. It isn't a huge payout, by any means, but it also doesn't require much more than clicking on a few emails everyday and earning a few cents. Go here to sign up.

MyPoints–this
is a site which rewards you points for online activity such as reading
emails, taking surveys, signing up for offers, and so forth. I mostly
just read the emails and clicked on the links and slowly accumulated
points. You won't get rich quickly doing this, but you can earn enough
points by reading emails to get free gift cards each year. We paid for
our few and far between law school date nights mostly with gift cards I
earned through MyPoints. Go here to sign up.

Opinion Outpost–Pays
in point rewards for every completed survey. You can cash these in for
instant win opportunities, sweepstakes, or cash. There are also
opportunities to do free product testing. Go here to sign up.

SurveySpot–This
company pays up to $5 per survey and you can request
payout when you have earned $5. So therefore, it's not hard at all to
earn enough to get a check. In fact, while I don't have a lot of extra
time these days, I'm seriously considering signing up just to see what
it's like! Go here to sign up.

LightSpeed Research–This
survey site pays in points and they are fairly generous in their points
given. Once you've accumulated enough points, you can cash them in for
cash, online gift certificates, music downloads, and hundreds of
other prizes. Or, build up your points for bigger prizes in your
Lightspeed Points Account. Go here to sign up.

CashCrate–Once
you sign up, you can go to their "Daily Survey" tab and earn around
$0.50 per survey you take. They usually offer 1-2 daily surveys. Go here to sign up.

There are many scam survey companies out there so beware and be careful. I do quite a bit of research before posting anything here, but always use your best judgment.

As always, remember that you will not get rich taking surveys. However, you can create a nice little sidestream of income through just taking 15-30 minutes per day to answer questions and share opinions.

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I shared about a few of my favorite survey companies last Friday and
talked about how this was a little way I brought in some extra money
during our lean law school days. Since I posted that, I've done some
more research on survey companies and wanted to share some more links
to reputable companies which my friends have recommended.

SurveySpot–This is one of the companies I've heard the most rave reviews about in the last year or so. They pay up to $5 per survey and you can request payout when you have earned $5. So therefore, it's not hard at all to earn enough to get a check. In fact, while I don't have a lot of extra time these days, I'm seriously considering signing up just to see what it's like! Go here to sign up.

LightSpeed Research–This survey site pays in points and they are fairly generous in their points given. Once you've accumulated enough points, you can cash them in for cash, online gift certificates, music downloads, and hundreds of
other prizes. Or, build up your points for bigger prizes in your
Lightspeed Points Account. Go here to sign up.

Opinion Outpost–Pays in point rewards for every completed survey. You can cash these in for instant win opportunities, sweepstakes, or cash. There are also opportunities to do free product testing. Go here to sign up.

If you have any experience with these companies–either good or bad–please tell us about it in the comments section. As always, remember that you won't get rich taking surveys and it takes work and effort to earn money from surveys, but if you stick with it, you can create a small and steady sidestream of income through surveys.

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