Everyday you here and see all these ads about stay at home moms making thousands a month working from home filling out surveys. Is this real or fantasy? Well, theoretically if you spent all day, every day filling out these surveys you could make some money. The problem is that these surveys target a specific demographic or segment of our society. Not all surveys are created equal. In other words if you do not eat out you will not be eligible for any surveys from fast food restaurants. If you don't have toddlers or pre-school children then your eligibility for a good number of surveys will be extremely limited.

The survey game is a numbers game really. You can earn money but each survey will pay $5 - $50 (if you are really lucky) and will take some time to conduct and you have to be willing to join their email list which means even more junk email to sort through. So, if you qualified and spent 30 minutes for each survey and the survey pays $10 each, you could make $160 in a given 8 hour day. Not much really but you see the problem. Of course, your probably not going to be able to sit for 8 hours straight with no interruptions (pre-school children tend to be unruly when they are ignored) so you may complete 12 of the potential 16 surveys so your down to $120 for the day. All in all it can be rewarding though because these surveys are used to determine what products or features of products make it to the store shelves so you are shaping the future of the country. Much like voting but with much more effect. Most surveys will take very little time but usually require signing up for the service you are surveying such as free credit reports.

Of course, this approach to making money depends on receiving enough surveys to fill your time. Unfortunately, in my experience this is just not the case. You might get 20 or 30 survey invites in a week. Not exactly enough to pay the rent and utilities.

All surveys do not pay out money. Some will offer you points or a chance to purchase reviewed items at a discount. This is a case where reading the small print is critical. They will also offer you money to read email but they will also expect you to participate in the offer in the email. Yes, once you complete all of their requirements you will be eligible to receive money which involves signing up and then opting in to a number of "offers". These can get frustrating just to earn $5 or $10 but you can earn the money.

As stated before, it all hinges on being eligible for a lot of surveys and to be honest most people won't qualify so making that $160 a day consistently may not be possible but if you use online surveys with other sources (blogs, article marketing, affiliate marketing, paper route, telemarketing, etc.) you could make a decent living after all.

Don't get me wrong there is a legitimate need to get peoples opinions and these surveys do serve a purpose but the claims of fortunes made may not be as realistic as some would have you believe.