Why I HATE Survey sites - Kids, Cash and Chaos (2024)

September 22, 2016 By Emma 17 Comments

Time for the Truth

Have you ever done it? Signed up for yet another survey site, hoping this time you can actually make some money? Hoping that this time it won’t take hours to earn a $5 gift card?

I’ve been there! Trying to answer surveys every evening to make some money. But you want to know the truth? It’s not worth your time.

You could be doing something so much more productive. Creating a business, crafting a product, selling your extra stuff online, heck, even babysitting!

As Moms it is hard to fit it all in, hard to spend the day watching kids and then have the energy to devote to a side hustle at night or on the weekends. But I am so sick of bloggers pitching the survey site as a way to make real money.

Sure, I earned a few Amazon gift cards, maybe $10 dollars in my Paypal account, but not enough to really make a dent in my budget. Plus, it takes so much time! I could spend an hour just trying to qualify for a survey, then another hour answering questions, all for $2.

Momma, your time is worth more.

What Can I Do Instead?

There are so many other ways to earn money. Legit ways, that pay an actual hourly rate worth your time. I wrote20+ Business Ideas for SAHM’sfull of actual ideas for creating your own business.

And you know what? If you can stay home with your kids and survive, you can run your own business.

There is no reason to be intimidated by starting a business. It is not just for old men in suit jackets!

You can totally do it!

You don’t have to start a serious, adult business to make money. There are people doing all sorts of crazy wild things out there to make an extra buck.

Lena Gott wrote about 3 Things you can get for FREE and sell on Etsy. Its genius! I won’t give away the things, but I totally said “Duh!” when I read it.

How about eBay? You can sell toilet paper tubes or rocks. From Aldi to Harrods does a monthly round up of weird things that sell on eBay.

You could even stay in your pjs while selling online 🙂

How about growing flowers and setting up a little stand at the end of your driveway? Not gonna make you rich, but if you like to garden you could make your seed money that way.

One of my Farmer’s Market friends grew plants and flowers with her husband and then sold them at market. You inventory will carry over week to week with only a little water and if you grow them all yourself it is a business with low overhead.

Are you crafty? Here are 75 Crafts to Make and Sell. Figure out how you can put your own twist on a project and start selling. You don’t have to set up a website, or even an Etsy site, you can sell on many different Facebook groups, or Craigslist for free.

There are a ton of things that people will pay big bucks for that you might be able to find for cheap.

Ever heard of Babywearing? There are tons of Facebook groups dedicated to the art of babywearing and some of them are for buying and selling. If you can find good deals you can flip a wrap or carrier and end up with a good chunk of change.

Do you like to cook? Ask around for people who are too busy to cook and do a freezer cooking session for them. One afternoon of your time and theyhave easy, healthy food to pull out of the freezer. A win/win!

So now you know why I hate survey sites. There are many, many ways to make money when you stay home with the kids, but don’t get sucked in to poor replacements for creating your own business.

Have you done surveys? What has your experience been?