Jorge, you're right. I read Nickeled and Dimed awhile back, and believe me I'm grateful I'm not working at Wal-Mart and living in a motel!

I've been on a mission to scare up extra cash the past few days. I signed both DH and myself up for Sharebuilder accounts so we'd get two $50 bonuses. I also signed up for the Sony credit card that's offering a $100 gift card after your first purchase. Now I've gotten around to looking into the survey game. I'd be curious to know how other people have made out with it.

There's an article from back in July, in the Frugal Living area of About.com that lists 76 survey sites where you can supposedly make some extra money. This weekend I went back and started going through them one by one. I'm finished now, and wonder if it will pay off or not.

Out of the 76 places listed, I only signed up at 21. Quite a few of the 76 websites had already disappeared since the About.com article was put up. The rest of the sites either weren't taking panelists, or I wasn't sure they were worth bothering with. On a lot of them, the only "incentive" they offered was an entry in a contest. You could go years doing every survey they offered, and never get a thing out of it. Some of them did the contests plus occasional cash--hard to tell if they'd be worthwhile or not. Some award points that you can save up and exchange for cash or gifts, but they don't tell you how much a point is actually worth or how long they take to add up to something. Other ones ran really long online focus groups I wouldn't want to do, or they were looking for special kinds of panelists, like scientists. One place actually seemed proud of how for a 30-minute survey, they might give you a 30-minute phone card--geez, that's worth about 90 whole cents!

So far, I've only heard from one place, and they needed to run a survey very fast, involving a topic I know nothing about. Even if I could have gotten to it right away, it wouldn't have mattered.

I have to wonder how much demand there's going to be from these companies for the opinions of a middle-aged, middle-income lady with no kids in the house. When I finally saw an ad for the elusive Pinecone Research, I noticed they don't even want you to sign up if you're over 24 years old!

The funny thing is, I'm in the midst of a series of surveys right now that is paying $80 in total over about 6 months. I only heard about it by chance, from someone on an email list. It's about the knowledge and attitudes of caregivers--not that DMom needs physical care like a bed patient, but I do drive her around a fair amount, and she needs help with paperwork and so forth. I figured if they thought I qualified, I'd do it. I've probably spent less time in total on that than I did signing up at all these other places, and I've gotten $60 out of it already. (Plus, it's been a good way to vent my frustrations. ) There's got to be a place to find more studies like this, that are actually looking for someone like me. I just wonder where.