About two years ago, I lose my high-paying office job, burned through my savings, and have been living a miserable life. I had to consciously think about how I would spend every penny. Every single damn penny was like a part of my lifeline. When you have so much at stake, every single damn penny is like a dollar. I kept reading the local paper everyday, searching around town and talking to people, and searching the web for anything that might help, but to no avail.

But then like many other people, I stumbled upon something that I thought would help me: Work-at-home jobs. Unfortunately, even though I thought I had enough common sense not to fall for these scams, I fell for them anyway. Their sales message looked so attractive and real which went something like, "for a low price of $39.99 you can get a complete up-to-date listing of all companies that are currently hiring online typists. This initial investment will pay for itself many times over!" As if I wasn't stupid enough, I fell for another scam! This one being "get a list of companies offering paid surveys for a low price of $29.99!" I should have know the moment I saw the cliched sales pitches.

I did find some online jobs that were real, but they had ludicrous requirements and there was a ridicuously long waiting line. I wasn't deterred and I continued searching for a long time until I stumbled upon a crap load of get-paid-to-programs. Most of them, like get-paid-to-read emails and get-paid-to click, aren't worth the time and they pay only pennies. That's even worse than panhandling. However I did managed to find some survey sites that paid decently but they were only one time deals because they rarely update their listings. I then tried blogging and writing articles/reviews for cash. Again a waste of time. I tried selling on ebay using the dropshipping method and again made the stupid mistake of having to pay for the list of dropshippers. I did manage to make some sales, but not until I lowered the price drastically. It was a ridiculous waste of time and effort because of the low profit margin and the difficulty in doing market research and competition against well-established sellers. Some might say that I haven't tried hard enough. Well, I would say to those people, if they have lots of time and money to risk, they can sure try. Maybe it'll work out for them after they've spend thousands of dollars and countless hours sitting in front of their computers.

I was about to give up and throw in the towel. There are no real online jobs and no way for the average joe to make money online. But then, almost by accident, I stumbled upon a website that offered high-paying surveys. I was about to close the website when I saw the usual sales pitch but I gave it one more chance and bought their service. It was the best choice I've ever made in a long time. I began making enough money to cover my expenses and actually set some of it aside for savings. If I had given up early, I would probably been in an even worse situation that before. I'm glad that I hadn't given up.