Brainless and Painless ways I earn extra money online

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the vast majority of money I earn this summer for my Break even challenge is going to be from doing actual work, whether it’s tutoring, grading essays or writing. Still, it’s good to have a few ways that I can earn some extra money without having to put in any brainpower. When I was teaching all day, these extra money makers were about all I could handle, and now these are what I like to do at night while watching TV, or in the morning while I’m eating breakfast. They won’t bring in a fortune, but they bring in a little extra money. While the time input can be significant, the mental input is minimal, which makes it sound like a pretty good deal to me.

Disclaimer: Many of the links below are referral links, which means I make money if you sign up through them. Feel free to delete the referral stuff from the end of the URL and refresh before signing up if you would prefer not to use my info.

Paid to complete offers

This is probably the most lucrative of the brainless money makers bunch, for me at least. You sign up for offers, usually either free sites or trial offers of sites, and money credits to your account. The free offers are no brainers, and the trial offers can net you even more money, as long as you keep careful records and remember to cancel. To be honest, once I went a day over with a trial offer, and though I was initially charged for a month’s service it was credited back to my card within a week. That may not, however, be the norm, so try not to make that kind of mistake. The monthly fees can quickly outweigh whatever you may earn.

I started out using Instant Profitz, who at the time (and may still) had the highest payouts for individual offers. I got frustrated, though, with many offers not crediting. Now I primarily use Deal Barbie Pays. Deal Barbie is much more reliable, and when something doesn’t credit, you can always get in touch with someone personally to find out why. From Deal Barbie, I make about $1 for most free signups, and as much as $20 for most standard trials. Higher risk, or higher initial investment, yields higher returns, but I don’t usually go that far.

I’ve recently also signed up with Cash Crate, and will let you know how that goes.

Surveys

Surveys are pretty average online money makers. They can range from less than $1 to about $20 per survey - with the higher end being extremely rare. It's important to evaluate a survey's compensation policy before you spend a lot of time taking surveys. Some companies don't pay you money at all but simply give you entries into sweepstakes.

My survey is the company I’ve been with the longest. They give a reasonable number of surveys and have, on occasion sent products. The best thing about them is that they pay for screeners even if you don’t qualify for the full survey. I get the $10 payout a couple of times a year.

MyView sends me the most surveys per month, and pays out pretty regularly, but I can’t find on their website how to sign up. You can go to their site and see if you can figure it out.

I’ve also been paid by Your2Cents, Viewpoint forum, and by Lightspeed Panel.

Paid to click

These are at the bottom of the totem pole as far as money making is concerned, but I still enjoy them because they are JUST SO EASY. Many of these require you to view an ad for at least 15 seconds before they give you credit. My trick is that I use tabbed browsing to do other things while clicking. That way I can get paid to click while reading blogs, taking surveys, or writing.

Awesome Emails 4 U has been around long enough to be trustworthy, and it has a really great webmistress who likes to give early payouts and bonuses.

Classical Mail has a much lower payout which is easy to reach (only 50 cents), but recently they’ve had some trouble and significantly decreased the number of ads they offer. I still make about 2 cents a day for 3 ads, so I reach the payout amount every month with little effort.

Inbox Dollars, Send Earnings, and Snap Dollars are a little different in that they don’t require you to stay on a site for any amount of time. They pay just for a click through from your email, and also pay for offers you complete or actions that you take.