I recently earned my first $116.33 sharing my opinion on FocusGroup.com. Since people are always asking me about easy side hustles, I put together this FocusGroup.com review to share how it all works!

In this post, I’ll share:

My experience with FocusGroup.com
How to maximize your FocusGroup.com earnings
Alternatives to consider

Ready? Let’s do it!

Is FocusGroup.com Legit?

FocusGroup.com is a legit provider of paid online surveys, focus groups, and market research studies.

The company is part of Sago, which has been in the market research business since 1966. Sago (formerly Schlesinger Group) operates 16 offices around the United States and 10 more in other parts of the world.

How Much Can You Make on FocusGroup.com?

On FocusGroup.com, you earn points for completing brief online surveys and longer market research discussions and studies. In exchange for sharing your opinion, you can earn $6-150 an hour. 

It’s quite a broad range, and I’ll share some of my strategies to maximize your earnings below.

How Much Are FocusGroup.com Points Worth?

FocusGroup points are worth $0.01 each.

Put another way, it takes:

100 points to earn $1
1,000 points to earn $10
10,000 points to earn $100

As a general rule, online survey companies use these points systems to obscure the true value of the surveys.

But all you have to do to outsmart them is some simple math. To calculate the effective hourly rate:

Take 60 and divide it by the estimated minutes the survey will take
Multiply the result by the number of points you’ll earn
Divide that result by 100 to see the “dollars per hour”

When you do this, you’ll start to see that many surveys on FocusGroup.com pay as little as the equivalent of $6 an hour — way below minimum wage!

Which brings me to the next point — deciding which surveys to focus on.

The 3 Types of Surveys on FocusGroup.com

The first step to get started on FocusGroup.com is to create your account. The site will walk you through a questionnaire of demographic and other questions to set up your personal profile.

Once complete, you’re ready to start earning.

When you log into your FocusGroup.com dashboard, you’ll see 3 tabs under the “Surveys” menu option:

Online Surveys
Interviews & Focus Groups
Other Study Offers

1. Online Surveys

On the Online Surveys tab, you’ll see a feed to different surveys you can take.

Some will ask a few pre-screening questions, and others will let you dive right in. Some — confusingly — will immediately bring up a screen saying you don’t qualify.

Then why’d you show it to me?!

Before you apply to any of these, I recommend doing “effective hourly rate” calculation I mentioned above, because the rates can vary wildly.

In fact, in my Online Survey feed, I had options paying $47-60/hr … right alongside the $6/hr options.

2. Interviews & Focus Groups

Your best-paying options on FocusGroup.com are under the Interviews & Focus Groups tab.

These are in-person and remote studies that typically pay $100-200/hr!

I received an email invitation for one of these, and earned $115 (worth of points) in about 45 minutes — for an online survey.

Both of the options shown in my account in the screenshot above are for in-person discussions 20-30 minutes away from my house. You can decide whether or not the travel-time makes that worthwhile for you.

3. Other Study Offers

The third tab is labeled Other Study Offers, and I’m not sure how these are different from the “Online Surveys” tab.

In my dashboard, these ranged from $8-26/hr in earning power.

I attempted the $26/hr one, and was immediately greeted with the “not qualified” screen. At least I didn’t have to answer a long screener survey before they let me know!

However, I was able to complete the $20/hr one, and saw those points deposited into my account right away — though it took a bit longer than 4 minutes.

Redeeming Your FocusGroup.com Points

To redeem your FocusGroup.com points, navigate to the FocusGroup Wallet section of the website.

Annoyingly, they make you re-enter your password every time you go to your Wallet … despite the fact you’re already logged in.

Weird.

Whatever.

Once you’re in, you’ll see your:

Current point balance
Redemption history (you can see my $115 Amazon gift card in the screenshot below)
A link to the Virtual Incentives gift card marketplace

FocusGroup.com allows you to redeem your points for gift cards to:

Amazon
Apple
Best Buy
Dunkin Donuts
eBay
Fandango
Google Play
Starbucks
Target
Uber
Walmart

I always choose the Amazon gift card option, because I can easily add it to my account and know I’ll spend it sooner rather than later.

But if those stores aren’t your jam, you can also redeem for a physical or virtual Visa debit card.

At press time, cashing out to PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, or direct deposit to you bank are not available.

It looks like there’s a 100 point, or $1 minimum, required to cash out, and you must do so in whole dollar increments.

My $115 FocusGroup.com Online Survey

The online study I completed was specifically for Seattle-area residents. It was supposed to take 90 minutes in exchange for that $115, but I was able to work through the questions in about half that time.

And that was somewhat surprising — it was a self-paced online questionnaire, not an interview of focus group discussion.

In my case, it involved sharing my opinion about a well-known local company and giving feedback on a series of upcoming ads they planned to run.

It was super easy, interesting, and rewarding — especially for a $150 equivalent hourly rate.

The other weird thing was I got multiple phone calls prior to my study to confirm my participation and verify my answers to a few questions. It wasn’t a huge deal, but I didn’t answer because I didn’t recognize the number, and it was tricky to find a good time to call them back.

After completing the study, it took a few days for the 11,500 points to get added to my account, and then another couple days for my Amazon gift card to “process.”

I thought that was pretty lame because some other sites and apps process rewards immediately.

Still, in the end I got paid well for some pretty easy work.

FocusGroup.com Best Practices

As with any online survey company, it’s always best to answer honestly — not with what you think the researcher wants to hear.

In addition to my advice above about calculating the expected hourly rate for each survey, you’ll want to pay close attention to the emails you get from FocusGroup.com.

The first variety, I universally ignore. These come through with the subject line “You have a new survey opportunity (on Desktop, Mobile & iPad)”.

They advertise the kind of low-paying surveys often found in the first tab of the online dashboard.

The second type of email from FocusGroup.com is worth your attention.

Those often come from Sago (not Focus Group), and the subject line usually begins with “You’re Invited”.

Routing these emails to your inbox is crucial, since high-paying studies fill up fast. (And that way you don’t have to stay logged into FocusGroup.com in the hopes of a good one popping up.)

FocusGroup.com Alternatives

If you don’t care for FocusGroup or are having trouble being selected for projects, fear not!

The good news is there are other market research companies where you can make decent money as well.

User Interviews

User Interviews specializes in one-on-one market research interviews, mostly done over the phone or online.

The average rate of pay is in the ballpark of $100 an hour. I’ve earned $105 for about an hour and a half worth of “work” so far.

Check out my full User Interviews review for more.

Respondent

Respondent helps match you with one-on-one market research interviews, mostly done over the phone or online.

According to the site, the average payout is over $100 an hour. Check out our full Respondent review for more.

(I got paid $190 for a 2-hour in-person focus group … that involved playing with Legos!)

Rare Patient Voice

A leading source for medical research, Rare Patient Voice pays participants $100 an hour. Most of the studies are phone or webcam interviews, and you can browse a full list of available studies on their site.

If you suffer from any sort of medical condition (even if it’s not super rare), I think this one is worth a look.

Lightster

Lightster is a unique money making app, where you get matched with brands and researchers based on your profile.

After you complete your profile, you may see some questions pop up in the app. Answer those to qualify for paid research conversations that pay $1 per minute.

I got invited to my first half hour session within a couple weeks of downloading the app, and got paid (via Amazon gift card) right away.

Serious About Making Extra Money?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.

Getting out of the rat race is simple, but not necessarily easy.

To escape, all you need is monthly income — from non-job sources — that exceeds your monthly expenses.

For example, if you spend $3000 a month, you’ll need to bring in at least $3000 (after taxes) outside of your day job.

Simple, but not always easy.

In this post, I’ll break down:

the most common rat race “escape routes”
the pros and cons of each
how to choose the right path for you

Ready? Let’s do it!

The Rat Race, Defined

The term “rat race” means different things to different people, but let’s see if I can paint a picture.

You might feel like you’re stuck in the rat race if you’re:

commuting in traffic
to a job you don’t love
to barely get by

There’s a certain circular rhythm to your days, weeks, or even your years. You’re spinning your wheels but not getting anywhere. You perform tasks, go through the motions, and sometimes even get rewarded for your efforts … but you still feel trapped.

A friend put it this way: “We work jobs we don’t like, to buy stuff we don’t need, to impress people we don’t know.”

Is this what adulting is supposed to be like?

There’s got to be more to life, right?

The 3 Most Common Paths to Getting Out of the Rat Race

Remember our escape math from earlier:

Non-job income that exceeds your monthly expenses.

The 3 most common ways to generate that income are:

Traditional investments
Real estate
Entrepreneurship

These are in contrast to–and far more realistic than–other paths some people bank on, like:

An unexpected inheritance
A lonely Nigerian prince
Winning the lottery

Figure Out Your Spending

Living frugally — or at least spending with intention — is an important part of your rat race escape plan. The less you spend, the less income you’ll need to break free.

If you’ve never calculated how much you actually spend on a monthly basis, it’s worth taking a minute to figure it out.

Do you spend $3000 a month? Do you spend $10,000 a month?

How much does your lifestyle cost?

This is the income you need to generate — this is your Rat Race Freedom Number.

So how do real people achieve it?

1. Save Your Way Out with Traditional Investments

The most commonly-prescribed path to escape the rat race is through traditional investments, like:

Stocks
Bonds
Mutual funds / ETFs

How Traditional Investing Works to Escape the Rat Race

This is how “retirement” has worked for generations — amass a big enough nest egg during your working years and then slowly draw down on those savings after you stop working.

At that point, you’re literally getting paid to do nothing … but the problem is you probably don’t want to wait decades until you’ve saved enough!

The FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early) movement has an alternative for you, and argues that retirement isn’t an age, but rather a number. According to the oft-cited Trinity study, once you accumulate 25x your annual expenses, you’re free.

Spend $40,000 a year? You could theoretically leave the rat race behind with $1 million in traditional investments, and live off dividends and share price appreciation for decades.

Spend $100,000 a year? You’d need $2.5 million.

Advantages of Traditional Investing

These so-called “paper assets” are accessible to just about everyone — you can even invest right from your phone with services like Robinhood. (They’ll even give you a free share of stock to get you started.)

Stocks, bonds, and mutual funds and ETFs are also highly liquid, meaning you can buy and sell them quickly.

And over the long run, they’ve historically performed very well. Projecting 7-9% annualized returns would be realistic.

Disadvantages of Traditional Investing

The big drawback is trying to get out of the rat race with traditional investing either takes a lot of time or a lot of money.

Despite enthusiasm from the FIRE community, the truth is unless you have a wide margin in your personal finances — the gap between what you earn and what you spend — there’s no real way to shortcut building up that nest egg.

Plus, should unexpected expenses pop up during retirement, your withdrawal rates and assumptions can go out the window.

Who is Traditional Investing Best For?

This path may be the best way to escape the rat race for high earners who live a relatively inexpensive lifestyle. 

If you (or you and your significant other) bring in $300k a year, but only spend $50k, this is a great option. Ignoring taxes for a second, you can see how it would only take 5 years of “profiting” $250k a year as a household to accumulate the $1.25 million you’d need to support your lifestyle in retirement.

If your work is tolerable, 5 years will fly by — and that assumes you’re starting at $0 savings today.

On the other hand, if you make $50k a year, and spend $49k, traditional investing is never going to get you out of the rat race. There’s simply not enough margin there.

Which brings us to option #2…

2. Beat the Rat Race with Real Estate

The next common rat race escape path is real estate, and for the sake of this post, I’ll focus on rental property investing.

(Real estate comes in many different flavors and strategies, many of which have been covered on Side Hustle Nation.)

How Real Estate Works to Escape the Rat Race

Real estate is appealing for its easy-to-understand business model:

Buy a house, rent it out, and pocket the difference between that rent and your monthly expenses.

Lather, rinse, and repeat until you’ve got enough monthly cash flow to quit your job.

For folks like Dustin Heiner, that was around 26 properties and $15k a month in reliable cash flow. He “retired” at 37 and supports his family off the income from this rental property empire.

Invest with that monthly cash flow in mind, and use it to slowly start chipping away at your own living expenses.

Advantages of Real Estate

Rental property investing can accelerate your climb to financial independence in several important ways.

First, you can take advantage of leverage — borrowing money. In contrast to traditional stock market investing described above, where $20,000 buys you $20,000 worth of stocks, that same $20,000 could be used as a down payment to buy $100,000 or more worth of real estate.

Then you can pay down that loan balance from the rental income you receive over the next 30 years.

The next big advantage of real estate is appreciation. As you know, houses tend to cost more today than they did a generation ago.

By owning those properties, you can capture this appreciation when you sell — or borrow against the equity in your houses to fund future acquisitions.

Third, being a landlord comes with several tax benefits, including the ability to write off your mortgage interest and even take depreciation on the buildings you own.

And finally, real estate can be a very passive income stream once you have your tenants and other relevant team members in place. There’s an upfront time investment, but no trading hours for dollars down the road.

Disadvantages of Real Estate

Home prices don’t fluctuate as wildly as the stock market, but investing in physical assets takes more legwork and also means your cash isn’t as liquid.

(You can’t exactly just press a button on your phone and sell a house when you need cash.)

And although there are some creative ways to buy houses for no money down, real estate is usually a “takes money to make money” option.

As a landlord, you’ll also face:

Vacancies – If the house sits empty, that erases any positive cash flow you were banking on.
Repairs and maintenance – Roofs, windows, toilets, water heaters … nothing lasts forever and it all costs money.
Unexpected expenses – Our friends had to re-do their foundation to the tune of $90,000!
Tenant issues – Why some humans think it’s acceptable behavior to trash other humans’ houses is beyond me, but it happens.

On top of that, your local real estate market might not be a great place to invest so you’ll be dealing with all this remotely or through a third-party property management service.

Who is Real Estate Investing Best For?

The people I see having the best success with real estate are those who take a long-term view and are committed to operating multiple properties.

Especially if you can buy multiple properties in one location, there are some economies of scale that make life easier than having only one house or having houses in different cities across the country.

As your empire grows, you’re better able to absorb a vacancy or unexpected expense for one or two of your properties in a given month.

You Might Like: House Hacking 101: Live Free and Turn Your Biggest Expense into a Profit Center

Alternative: With Fundrise, you can begin adding real estate to your portfolio with as little as $10. This appeals to me as a way to benefit from real estate in a way that’s diversified and totally hands-off.

Disclosure: I’m a Fundrise investor. If you join through my referral link, I earn a commission. Opinions are my own.

But just like traditional investing, real estate can and does work to escape the rat race — if you have the capital, patience, and fortitude to stay the course.

Still, there’s another rat race escape path you need to know about…

3. Escape the Rat Race with Entrepreneurship

The third way to get out of the rat race is to build your own business.

If you look at the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America, one thing should stand out: most built their wealth through entrepreneurship.

And even if you have no aspirations to build the next Amazon or Facebook (I certainly don’t!), building a business is a realistic way to break out of the 9-5 grind.

It’s how I was able to walk away from corporate America, years before starting Side Hustle Nation. Entrepreneurship has helped 100s (maybe even thousands now!) of friends, Side Hustle Nation readers, and Side Hustle Show listeners do the same!

How Entrepreneurship Works to Escape the Rat Race

We tend to overcomplicate entrepreneurship, but I’ll try and break it down here.

A business is simply a system that solves a problem in exchange for money. It’s a problem solving machine.

That means to come up with a business idea, you really need to come up with a problem. Think of:

what frustrates you
the headaches or challenges you’ve overcome
what other people complain about

On the other side of those problems, there might be a business idea.

The solution usually takes one of 3 forms:

A service that makes that problem go away. Dirty house? You can hire a cleaning service.
A product that makes that problem go away. Dirty house? You can buy cleaning products.
“Content” that makes that problem go away. Dirty house? You can watch YouTube videos about how to organize and optimize your space.

And when the money from your solution starts to exceed your living expenses, it’s au revoir rat race 🙂

I break down these 3 business models in detail, with lots of examples, in my book, The Side Hustle: How to Turn Your Spare Time into $1000 a Month or More. It’s free on Kindle!

You’ll also find tons of side hustle ideas throughout this site and in The Side Hustle Show podcast archives.

Advantages of Entrepreneurship

Building a business is unique in that your primary investment is “sweat equity.” These days, you can get an enterprise off the ground for a very low startup cost.

On top of that, starting a business is a way to work on something you care about. Bringing an idea into the world is exciting and rewarding in a way that collecting stock dividend payments just isn’t.

And in contrast to the stock market or real estate market, you have considerably more control over the success and failure of a business you own. (And the speed at which that can happen.)

Plus, if you intentionally build something with scale, you’ll find entrepreneurship to be time-leveraged. By that I mean your earning power — or effective hourly rate — improves as your business grows.

Disadvantages of Entrepreneurship

With job security in question and the shift toward a freelance workforce, it’s hard for me to see the downsides in learning an entrepreneurial skillset.

Still, the fact remains that 50% of small businesses fail in their first 5 years. For that reason, it’s important to start small, minimize your expenses, and grow at a pace you’re comfortable with.

Building a business can be labor intensive, and many entrepreneurs find themselves in a trap of working in the business rather than on it. They feel like they’ve built themselves a job … only one with a really demanding boss that’s even harder to walk away from.

Who is Entrepreneurship Best For?

I believe entrepreneurship is the most realistic rat race escape path for most people, but especially those who:

Don’t have the “golden handcuffs” of a great-paying job
Aren’t afraid of failure
Are a little impatient

Entrepreneurship appealed to me because I couldn’t fathom the reality of working a corporate job for the next 30 years. There had to be a better way!

And there was.

Why Do You Want to Escape the Rat Race?

What’s beyond the walls of the rat maze for you?

While “escape” can be a powerful motivator, I think it’s helpful to know what you’re escaping to. If you weren’t tied to your job for income, what would you do instead?

For Side Hustle Nation readers, motivations include:

A location-independent lifestyle — not being restricted to one part of the world
Early retirement
Less stress
Working from home
Leaving the big city for a slower pace of life

For me, my driving force was to gain freedom over how I spent my days … hence pictures like this:

When I worked a corporate job, it just rubbed me the wrong way that I had to ask someone else (my boss) if I could take vacation on certain days.

I also wanted to see the direct impact of my work on my bottom line — something I didn’t get at the day job. If I did great or did poorly, my paycheck remained the same.

Not super motivating.

With my side hustle, on the other hand, the harder I worked, the more I made.

For me, getting out of the rat race wasn’t about never working again. I just wanted more flexibility, control, and earning power from my work.

Alternative: Find a Job you Love

For many people, escaping the rat race could be as simple as getting out of a toxic commute and work environment.

If you found a job you loved, and maybe offered you some time and location flexibility, do you think you’d feel a little less like a rat?

Here are some top choices for legit work from home jobs.

1. FlexJobs

With over 50 career categories, FlexJobs has jobs ranging from entry-level to executive and freelance to full-time.

The leading work from home jobs site charges a nominal monthly fee (save 30% w/ promo code FLEXLIFE) to access their listings, but you’ll easily earn that back and then some with one job.

2. SolidGigs

One of my favorite platforms to help connect your skills to paying freelance clients and projects is SolidGigs. Every day, they curate the best freelance jobs in:

marketing
writing
design
development

Plus, they’ve got an awesome library of resources to help you learn how to best pitch and price your services.

SolidGigs is free to try.

3. Hired

Hired.com helps designers, engineers, data scientists, and managers by connecting them with prospective employers.

The site is free to join, and one thing that’s cool about Hired is they also help you get the best offer by letting companies compete for your services — instead of you getting into a bidding war with other workers.

The company caters to people looking for full-time, part-time, and freelance gigs.

Click here to learn more and create your free Hired profile.

Your Move, Rat Race Escape Artist

Which is the best path for you? Of course, it depends on your interests and starting points.

If you’d like to learn more about starting a side hustle, I think you’ll get a ton of value from my Start My Side Hustle Workbook.

It’s normally $49 but I thought I’d test offering it for just $19 for a limited time.

Serious About Making Extra Money?

Start Your Free $500 Challenge. My free 5-day email course shows you how to add $500 to your bottom line.
Join the free Side Hustle Nation Community. The free Facebook group is the best place to connect with other side hustlers and get your questions answered.
Download The Side Hustle Show. My free podcast shares how to make extra money with actionable weekly episodes.

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Photos courtesy of Depositphotos.