Since I've become a mother and accrued the extra expenses that come along with parenting, I've had a need for making extra money. My husband and I both work full time, but even on a somewhat comfortable income, there is a definite need to look into making extra money. There are many ways to earn more of an income, as I quickly learned. The question became whether or not any of them would work for me.

Many of the ideas and concepts that came hand in hand with making extra money had disbelief all over them. I thought that the idea of reading email and taking online surveys was a bit strange, but I did research it just in case it wasn't. The online surveys usually only paid a few dollars at a time and you were not guaranteed to even be qualified to take most of the surveys that arrived in your mailbox. That concept didn't work for me at all. Neither did reading emails. I spend too much time in front of a computer during the working hours.

A friend of mine confessed that she'd gotten into mystery shopping as a way for her to be making extra money for her family. I registered for entirely too many sites that claimed to be in need of mystery shoppers. After a few months, I was completely irritated with that idea. I had never thought that I lived in the middle of nowhere, but apparently there weren't too many offers in my area.

All the promises of getting to shop at some really great stores and getting items for free did not hold true for me. I'm quite sure that people in less rural areas have a better chance of making extra money by mystery shopping. I however, gave up that idea.

I also discovered that people have been making extra money by allowing companies to place advertisements on your vehicle. If you allow them to decorate your car and you don't mind driving around like that, you can find ways to get your car payments paid for you each month. I love my car very much and just can't imagine having advertising all over my precious vehicle. The thought of having someone paying my car payments did appeal to me but I banned that idea.

I was slowly running out of ways to making extra money. We tossed around the idea of one of us getting a part time job but that meant that we would see one another less than we already do. Making extra money wasn't as easy as what I thought it would be. However, my husband began to do some selling on eBay to make some ends meet and that turned out to be more worthwhile than what I would have thought. With a little bit of extra time and energy, making extra money can be found in many different ways. You just need to find the one that suits your needs.