Many would say that in order to earn a decent amount of money taking paid online surveys that you have to ‘treat it like a real job’. I would agree, except that I treat it like a real job that can potentially earn you only about $200 per month; therefore, I am only willing to spend a few hours per day taking surveys and I rarely take any surveys on the weekends. I will describe a few of the techniques that I use to earn a steady income of $200 per month while maintaining the possibility of winning great prizes, such as a free Apple Macbook, Apple iPod Touch and a $50 contest win, all of which have happened for me over the past year or so.

I have an established routine for taking online surveys for money, which I prefer to begin as soon as I have read the local newspaper and drank my first cup of coffee. I carefully look through my Gmail Inbox and eliminate superfluous emails, like Facebook comments and spam that has escaped the filter. If you have set up a separate email account just for surveys, then this task will be quicker and easier.

Secondly, I go through all surveys and look for the highest paying dollar amounts ($2 to $20) and make certain that I click on these first and attempt to qualify. The higher the dollar amount in the header of the email, the more quickly the survey will fill up. After the higher paying surveys have been completed, I take the rest, including surveys for sweepstakes depending on how much time the first task took. If I have spent more than a couple hours on higher paying surveys, I will delete surveys for sweepstakes entries and any emails from paid-to-click sites, which pay $0.02 each and offer occasional $0.50 surveys. I usually take a lunch break in the middle of the afternoon before I go back and finish up with the daily surveys, which only pay $0.50 to $1.05 and many of which will have been completed for higher amounts earlier in the day.

The next thing that I will discuss is whether or not to take surveys for just a sweepstakes entry. The short answer is: ‘Yes’. When you are first beginning to take paid online surveys with established companies such as Global Test Market, SurveySpot or Greenfield Online, it is essential that you take every single survey in order to let them know that you are serious, consistent and dedicated to giving your honest opinion. For the first six months, I worked six to eight hours a day taking surveys until I realized that most surveys for sweepstakes are a waste of time; however, you must develop a feel for surveys that may later turn out to be Invoke Interactives ($25 to $200), panel forums ($10-20 per month in cash or Amazon gift certificates) and product tests, because many of these will not offer a cash incentive upfront. The best way to qualify for these lucrative incentives is to take some surveys for sweepstake entries with the companies that are best known for offering them. Look for surveys that are either very short (three to 10 minutes) or very long (60 to 90 minutes) as a sign that something better may be in store.

The final thing that I will note is that many people will not earn $200 per month and most will earn less depending on their particular demographics; therefore you need to keep in mind that your sanity is worth more than the $200 per month. Plus, it’s possible that you will win a sweepstakes, but it’s not likely. I was thrilled and pleasantly surprised to win an Apple Macbook and Apple iPod Touch from a Capitol One forum that also paid me $20 a month in Amazon gift certificates for eight months, but these opportunities are few and far between and you will only receive them if you look daily, consistently and for many months. I have been taking paid online surveys for over 22 months and my earnings in cash, Amazon gift certificates, free products and contest wins are way over $5000 and that isn’t chump change!