Failed Gigs, or How My Attempts to Make Quick Cash Backfired
When offers of quick cash become failed gigs…
You’ve probably seen a lot of ads, articles, and random recommendations about different gigs you can do online to make some quick cash. “Make money while watching TV” or “learn new stuff, make cash” — you know the type. Well, I’m proud and/or sorry to say that I’ve tried a lot of them over the years: here are all the failed gigs that didn’t quite make me a millionaire. (There were some that actually made me money, but that’ll be a different blog post.)
Filling out surveys. This is the online gig that most people have probably heard of, and quite a few have tried. Good news: you can, indeed, make money doing this. Bad news: unless you’re infinitely patient and have more free time that most people, this is a really bad way to make money. There are lots of sites out there, and they pay anywhere from 10 cents to $5 per survey, with the pricier surveys taking up more of your time.
Aside from focus groups (which I haven’t tried, so I won’t comment on), product surveys will generally get you about $1 an hour. Perhaps $2–3 if you’re lucky. One other major caveat is that this doesn’t scale: there are only so many surveys out there, and even if you have the patience of a saint, you won’t be able to find enough to turn that…
