Tips For Earning Christmas Money With Survey Sites Faster

Photo Credit: David DeHetre

In my last post I said that I wanted to earn $200 by December for Christmas with survey sites, and in this post I'm going to talk about my strategy so far for earning that Christmas money using those sites. It's a pretty simple one mostly, and combines some multi-tasking to maximize my time and earnings.

To recap I'm using swagbucks, ipsos i-say, cash crate, insta gift card, and while I started with Opinion Outpost I've not had a lot of luck actually qualifying for their surveys, so I've also been doing Inbox Dollars as well. Since I'm having such bad luck with Opinion Outpost, and so having a hard time earning points I've decided to merely shoot for their $5 Amazon Giftcards, which only need 50 points. To get a Paypal cash out of $10 I need a 100 points, and at this rate I doubt I'll get there. Besides, this is for Christmas, and who can't use Amazon Giftcards at Christmas time?

When you very first start out doing this the first thing you should do is take a little time to read any FAQ pages they have, guides, and any other information you can get on the site. This will tell you things like if they have a loyalty program, referral program, when you cash out, how much time it takes you to get your money, how you cash out, and more. This is information you need to know to decide if a site is a good match for you, and while I'll be doing reviews of each of the above sites if you want to start now take that extra time to read through all this. I would even suggest making a quick cheat sheet somewhere on these things, so you can reference it when you need to, instead of looking for all that information again.

I also suggest taking a few minutes to create an entirely new email that is ONLY for survey sites you sign up for. I also use it for any free trial offers I sign up for through these sites so that all this information is in one easy to find spot.

So here's a breakdown of my strategy so far:

1. I go to swagbucks.com and go to the watch section, I choose a category of videos to watch and start doing so. As I'm working on other sites and taking surveys I keep this window open and keep watching videos as I go along. You get 3 points for every 10 videos you watch, and it's super easy to quickly rack up 100 or more points in an hour or more without doing anything other than going back and clicking on the next video to watch.
2. Next I go through and do the Daily Crave, NOSO, and Poll on Swagbucks (make sure you open in another window so your videos are still playing). While this, and the daily point for using the toolbar only nets me 5 points, it literally takes me a few minutes and I'm done.
3. Next I open my survey email in a new window and check for special emails and surveys that have been sent to me. It seems that the surveys that are emailed to you are more likely for you to qualify for, so do these first.
4. Next I work my way through each site and look at free offers and see if there's any opportunity for me to earn extra points this way. A few of these sites also offer points and rewards for signing up for free trial offers, but for now I'm not focusing on these. Don't be afraid to check them out yourself though, just remember to set reminders for yourself of when you need to cancel your trial so you don't wind up paying.
5. Lastly I end with Instagc and go the Clicks section. Looking under each category I do as many of these as I can. There are a lot of offers where you get 1 point just for clicking on the link and going to the website. Some give you a point for clicking on the link and "interacting" with the website, which can mean just hanging out for a few minutes, or clicking around a little to show you looked. Others offer you 2 points for watching a quick video. It doesn't take long to get quite a few points simply doing these simple things.
6. I've also been exploring their Tasks page. While in the beginning the tasks pay a very minimal amount of points, if you can level up to level 2 and 3 you begin to get tasks that offer more rewards. I'm not sure yet if this is worth my time, but I want to give it a go and check it out.

There you go, not a whole lot to it, and it usually takes me around 2 hours to do all this. Meanwhile it easily racks you up a good amount of points on a few different sites. Feel free to tweak this to meet your own needs, and time available. You could break that up into 30 minute chunks, you could do it for more time when you have it. Whatever, it's your goal, just set the goal of what you want to make and work hard to reach that goal. I've done this for around 6 to 8 hours so far and with all the different sites combined probably earned around $5. 

Not a spectacular "wage", but I've spent time learning the sites and learning what I like to do for each one, so there is the learning curve to take into account. Once I get really settled into this I can see making more, and making it faster. Down the road I will start completing some of the free trial offers as those seem to really make the most on any site that offers them. With this strategy in place, and completing trial offers down the road I don't think I'll have much of a problem hitting my $200 target by December!

Can I Pay For Christmas With Survey Sites?

Photo Credit: David DeHetre

Christmas is right around the corner it seems, and like most people we're feeling the strain in the budget,so we've been looking for ways to make some extra cash for the holidays. As it seems to happen so often with me I was doing research on one thing, and stumbled across another. At this point I don't remember what I was actually researching, I think Amazon Affiliates program, and I found a blog, and through that blog I found another blog about taking surveys for money. I was intrigued, mostly because the article I read was an earnings post, and they had managed to make $400 in the last month with different survey companies!

If you want to see the website it's: www.surveychris.com

Now, I've tried these survey sites before, and I'm sure most of you have at some point as well. Most of them have ended with me becoming discouraged quickly and leaving, never getting to "cash out" as it were. However, through the surveychris website I realized that a more structured, and deliberate approach would be needed with these sites if I really did want to make money. Immediately I thought about this blog, and how it would be awesome to follow this little experiment on here and let others see how it can (or can't) be done. This is potentially a great way for someone to make a couple hundred dollars a month on the side. There are a few reasons this could be great for anyone:

• No skills needed - You don't have to prove you can type, or listen, or anything, just fill out surveys and offers truthfully.
• Small time dedication - Taking just a couple a hours a day should be enough to allow you to make a decent little chunk of change. 
• Lots of Choices - There are a bunch of websites dedicated to having people take surveys for different rewards. Most are legit, and some are very generous to their members.

There really isn't any reason that somebody couldn't be able to this themselves as long as they have access to the internet and laptop/computer to access the websites. Plus, if you have  a smartphone (I don't) some sites even offer you extra perks for using it for different tasks. Lucky ducks. Despite all these pros this is not a long term revenue stream for me, and there's a few reasons why.

It sounds very impressive when you see that someone made $400 in one month through different survey companies, but you really have to start breaking down the numbers. While he never specifically mentions how much time he spends a month on this, he's hinted that he spends around 2 hours a day. So let's do a little math.

2 times 30 (average days in a month) = 60 hours a month he spends on this.

He earned $400 divided by 60 hours = $6.66 hourly "wage"

Ouch, that's less than minimum wage. Of course the trade off is he says he likes to watch tv and do this, and I know I've been doing it in my "down" time as well. So there's the convenience factor that you don't get with a J-O-B. You can see why you wouldn't really want to do this as a long term thing though. There are a lot of other ways that you could invest that money that would net you a much higher return on your investment. Like building your own website, or selling on Amazon, or Ebay, or whatever you find you want to try. Short term however, it's a pretty sweet way to earn a little extra cash fairly quickly. 

The key to this is to be as consistent as my wonky schedule allows me. Making sure that I find that equivalent of 2 hours a day and dedicate that to different sites and surveys. Since it is towards the beginning of the month it'll be a good way to see how well I can manage to do with this. My hope is to at least have a $200 after 30 days and get it before Christmas for that little bit of extra money. As I'm going along with this I will write a few reviews of the different sites I'm using and let you know how they are, pros and cons of each. 

Another key strategy, along with consistency, is to have around 5 sites that I'm using. The reason is that each site is different, some offer faster payouts, some offer cash, some offer a check, some only give you gift cards, while others will make you wait 2 weeks, and still others will direct deposit your money immediately. By spreading around the survey love, so to speak, I'll be maximizing my earning potential. After messing around for a couple days, and based off of a couple of survey chris' suggestions, I've decided on the following sites:

• Swagbucks - I've actually used them for years, mostly to print coupons through, and I already know they are trustworthy, quick to deliver egiftcards, and easy to use. They've added  a lot of features over the years too that make it even easier now. If you want to join you can follow this link: www.swagbucks.com/ to sign up. It's free, and I do get a small referral bonus if you sign up, but if you like them you can refer your friends for that same bonus.
• Opinion Outpost - This one is mostly a straight survey website, meaning you only earn points through surveys. I know the other guy really likes them, and he seems to get into most of their surveys, so far I have had very, very little luck myself. I may wind up dropping this one and focusing on another. You may have better luck yourself, just go to, www.opinionoutpost.com.
• Cash Crate - This one is pretty highly recommended by the survey chris dude and so far I've found it easy to use. Not having as much luck with the surveys so far, but I've already gotten $1.50 just messing around. They have a ton of different things you can do to earn money other than surveys as well, including a referral program. If you would like to try them out you can sign up through my referral link (or not): www.cashcrate.com
• Ipsos Isay - This was another site that was recommended, and it's one that I've had quite a bit of luck with so far. Again, I've only had a very small time, but the surveys seem to have a good payout for a minimum amount of time. It looks like it's a straight survey site, but if you want to sign up you can go to i-say.com, no referral link.
• Insta GiftCard - This is one that I found through a Facebook group and I've really liked it so far. This is a site where you can earn rewards through a bunch of different ways, including surveys, signing up for offers, completing tasks and more. What really makes them great is they have a darn good support system, with multiple ways to get help from other users and the makers of the site. They have a referral program as well, and if you'd like to sign up and try them out here's my referral link: www.instagc.com

Over the next week or two I'll write up some more detailed reviews of each of these sites, after I've used them a bit more. There'll also be some tips and pointers for earning more points and get help if you need it. This should be a fun and interesting little experiment, and I really like that it's something that could have quick results and anyone can follow along with it. 

Phase II DONE! (Mostly)

Well I just kept plugging away at my editing and I finally finished Phase II of writing my Kindle Ebook with KDP. I also finished all my formatting; although I'm pretty sure there will be things I find when I convert the book with KDP that will need fixed. You'll notice though that I said "mostly" done with Phase II.

That's because I did not finish my initial emails for my email blogging campaign that will go with my Kindle books. Surprisingly, at least to myself, I've been struggling a little with one. I've only written 4 emails in around 3 hours. I did map out my initial 10 emails that I want to write, and which would have any form of monetization, and that helped me a lot. I wrote 3 emails in one night when I finished up my outline.

Lesson: a good outline can help save you a lot of heartache and floundering around, and they are NOT just for books.

I'm not completely worried about this though as I already realized that this would bleed into Phase III once I started to get into it. There is a lot that goes into an email campaign.

• How often will you send an email
• What service will you use, how will drive visitors to your list to sign up, will you have a blog, etc. etc.
• Will you monetize your email campaign, and how will you do it?
• How often will you send emails that are montized?

Those are just a few of the questions I found myself trying to answer and figure out when I started to plan my email blogging. I did read a great book by Steve Scott on my Kindle called : Email Marketing Blueprint - The Ultimate Guide to Building An Email List Asset. It was a great read and helped me map out the how, and when of my email campaign. It's a great read for anyone who would like to build an email list. So, while it's not done, I am gaining steam with this and I don't think it'll take me much longer to finish up the initial 10 to 15 emails I would like to have pre-written.

As I was editing I found a few more things that I need to add to my book as far as content goes. I have not added them yet, I just made a note to myself and moved forward with my editing. Mostly because I wanted to focus only on editing and I knew that I would be going through the book again for a final edit. In the end it took me around an hour to format the book. I've spent around 3 hours on writing my emails, and I've spent 11 hours editing. So what's next?

Phase III

1. Finish prewriting my initial emails
2. Create a squeezepage so that people can sign up for my email list
3. Add in the content that I feel is needed
4. Final edit
5. Convert book to KDP
6. Double check that all links in book are working correctly and that it looks good.
7. Create a cover
8. Launch

That's a very simplified list of what I have left to do, and I'm sure I'll find a million little things that need to be done in between those steps. Sadly I don't have much of a marketing strategy for launching my book, and I know that will hurt me. This is all so new to me, and I'm really testing the waters here, so hopefully by the time I get to book two and three I'll be able to focus more on that aspect. As I work through converting the book and creating the cover I'll put together some tutorials on how I did it for the blog with screenshots to help everyone help. I'll also do some more posts on creating my squeezepage and launching my email campaign. 

My goal is to finish all this and launch my book within the next two weeks. This should allow me to start collecting money for this project by the end of January. I was really hoping to finish in time that I would start collecting by the end of the year, but unfortunately it just didn't happen. Still, I've pushed hard, and I've made good progress. The next book should go faster now that I have a better idea of how much time this actually takes, and I can push myself even harder to get it done. My goal with my next book is to have it done by January.