Spend Your Spare Time Well
By: Rebecca Ruth Gould
Tags: Basic Income, Money, Make Money From Home, Make Money, Make Money Online

Spend Your Spare Time Well

In this post, I focus on one of the most hassle-free and enjoyable ways of making a bit of money online: filling out paid surveys. Before I proceed with the details, a few caveats:

No one is going to get rich from paid surveys. You will probably not even make enough money to live. What may well happen is that you make a bit of money they otherwise would not have had. I don’t recommend spending a significant time doing paid surveys. The idea here is that you might spend a few minutes (up to 1–2 hours) every day on these, time that you otherwise would have wasted on a less lucrative or pleasurable activity (for example doom scrolling on social media!). When viewed not as a key source of income, but as a leisure activity you engage in from time to time, like any hobby, this seems like a good way to pass the time and sometimes learn new things in the process. These sites work best for those based either in an English-speaking country, such as the US or UK. For surveys elsewhere in the world (see further reading below), you may need to look further to find a site that can make payments to your local bank account. Make sure to sort this out before you register!

Bearing the above disclaimers in mind, here are some tips about how to get started on Branded Surveys. I have found this site to be the most ad-free, least gimmicky, and user-friendly paid survey site, which is why I recommend it. Another reason for using Branded Surveys is that they offer quick payout via PayPal and also pay via bank transfer. Plus they often have great surveys, that can teach you things about products you may have been interested in, or about professions you wanted to learn more about! A lot of the points made here should however apply to other sites that I have not used to the same extent (some of the best-known ones are YouGov and Prolific Academic).

So how to sign up? First, register on their website.

Photo by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS from Pexels

Be careful about the information you provide, as it will need to be consistent in order for you to be eligible for the best surveys and to receive credit for them.

Once you are signed up, start by answering some of the basic questions under My Profile (you can find this under Preferences on the left side of the screen):

Screenshot of the My Profile Page of Branded Surveys (by Rebecca Ruth Gould)

Just by answering the above questions, you will earn around 60 points, which is the equivalent of 60 cents. Not much but it adds up! I earned $10 in the first few days with minimum effort. Most importantly, answering these questions will increase your chances of getting appropriate, interesting, and better paying surveys.

After your profile is completely filled out, make sure to answer the Daily Poll every day. Just by clicking a button, you earn 5 points (5 cents). These points accumulate, and they require almost no effort. Here is an example:

Screenshot of the Daily Poll on Branded Surveys

Finally, remember that the more surveys you fill out, the more you build your profile. The more detailed your profile is, the better surveys you will get. That’s why it may be some time before you start getting good surveys (these can be as high as 250 points, which is $2.50, and in some cases they only take a few minutes to fill out).

I recommend only filling out surveys that compensate you with twice as many points as it will take to complete them. So a survey that is estimated to take 10 minutes and which will give 20 points or more may be worthwhile, whereas a survey that is estimated to take 15 minutes but only gives you 25 points may not be worthwhile. It’s up to you to decide what is worthwhile for you, but that has been the guideline I have used for myself.

Another benefit of filling out surveys several times is that your browser (if you use Chrome) uses the autocomplete function to remember your previous answers. So you can answer the same questions more quickly if you have filled out similar surveys before.

As soon as you get 1000 points (in my experience this usually happens every three days, assuming you are spending 1–2 hours per day filling out surveys), you should immediately get your points redeemed. I have chosen to do this via Paypal (it usually takes 3 days) but bank transfer might also be a good option. I don’t see why anyone would choose the gift card options.

With the above information, you should be ready to go! However, if you want to explore further, here are two more tips that I wish I had known about from the beginning.

Reporting error & unclaimed points

If you don’t get credited for a survey, if a technical error happens, or if you are disqualified too late in the process (generally after answering 10 questions) make sure you claim your missing points! You can do so by navigating to “Report an Issue” after clicking the Points tab on the left side of the screen:

Screenshot of Report an Issue on Branded Surveys

Note that you must claim any missing points and report any problems within 24 hours, or you forfeit your right to complain. Although they say that they get back to you within 3 business days, in my experience it can take longer, up to a week.

Bonuses

Clicking the Branded Elite tab on the left-hand side will tell you more about how many surveys you have completed and points earned. If you scroll to Elite Badge Bonus towards the bottom of that page, even more info is given about how many surveys you have filled out and how many surveys you need to fill out for a bonus. I definitely recommend aiming for those bonuses, which are easy to attain. Here is a breakdown of how much bonus points you earn for certain amounts of surveys:

Screenshot of Bonus Points on Branded Surveys

Note that the bonuses are calculated based on your activity from Monday onwards in any given week. So surveys you fill out on this Saturday and Saturday are calculated separately from surveys filled out on next Monday. I highly recommend that you do complete 30 surveys if you can next week, beginning Monday, in order to get the bonuses, just be aware that surveys filled out on Saturday and Sunday won’t count towards that required 30. Once you have the bonus (having filled out 30 surveys in a week) you get extra points for that month and the next month. So the best way to maximize your time is to complete at least 30 surveys in a given week, but you would only need to do that in one week for every two months.

May you not only make (a bit of money) but also enjoy using Branded Surveys!

FURTHER READING

Here are a few pages that provide useful overviews of other survey websites (mostly-UK based but there are links to survey sites elsewhere in the world):