E-Rewards Market Research is a great paid survey site–if you sign up through a good referral or sponsor link. Sponsors include Macy’s, Priority Club, Blockbuster, Borders and UPromise. You can seek these referral links through these sponsors.

Pros: The frequency of surveys is great, which means you’ll have lots of opportunities to earn rewards.

• Every survey is worth points, even if you disqualify. And the points–in this case, dollars, are generous amounts.
• Redeeming rewards is fast and easy. Whenever I redeem $40 E-Rewards dollars for a $25 Macy’s gift certificate, the transaction is fast and accurate.
• Good site for those who have frequent flyer or frequent hotel stay memberships. These rewards include Priority Club points, NorthWest Airlines miles, Airtran, Continental Airlines, Delta, Hilton Honors and Frontier Early Returns. 

Cons: E-Rewards places restrictions on how often you may redeem certain rewards within 90 days.

• I’ve read some complaints that the survey questions lately have become very personal–asking about health conditions and how much you have invested in various mutual funds, retirement and CDs.
• Your reward dollars can expire after one year but E-Rewards has introduced a new VIP (not sure the name) status that exempts members from their dollars expiring.

So embarrassed. Weeks and weeks ago, I fantastic package arrived at my door. A Wanchai Ferry Orange Chicken dinner kit, courtesy of MyBlogSpark. They’d asked me to try it with my family, offer my opinion and then host a giveaway for a fab Chinese dinner prize pack with authentic bowls, bamboo placemats, chopsticks and a coupon for a FREE Wanchai Ferry dinner kit of your choice. (click here to win the FatHeadDog giveaway)

Days and weeks went by.. never a good night to cook a home-cooked, albeit quick and tasty, meal for my family. Finally the night came–tonight–and my husband cooked it! Oh, the motherly shame. But as the designated eater, I say Wanchai Ferry Orange Chicken was mighty tasty. Fresh crunchy vegetables and perfect orange-glazed chicken over quick steam rice. Really fast and really good. I will say this, if the Wanchai Ferry gods are listening, the directions were a little complicated for someone who just got off work. And the steamed rice portion was a little small for the meal. But that’s all, so Mr. W. Ferry, don’t hold it against me.

Just like my mother used to follow me out the door with a hairbrush to fluff my big Texas hair, my mother now thrusts prepared cubed meat into my hands whenever FatHeadDog leaves her house. The reason? “It’s something easy you can fix for yourselves when y’all get home from work and are having dinner with the baby,” she says with best intentions. You mean Eggos aren’t well-balanced?

She was talking about these new brands of prepared turkey, ham or chicken breast strips in the lunchmeat aisle. One such brand is Buddig Fix Quix, who coincidentally asked me to write about their product. Good thing FatHead Mother had already sent me home with these Fix Quix and a few other prepared refrigerated meat entrees. Now, I didn’t sprinkle the grilled chicken breast over salad as suggested. Um, FatHead Family ate them straight from the package like meat candy… is that wrong?

All in all, not bad. Baby got his protein. If you want to try them (and you’re in one of only like three areas they’re sold: Texas, Arizona and St. Louis), here’s a $1off coupon.

Help me out here. Help me decide if Swagbucks, an online incentive program to earn gift cards and prizes is worth it. Swagbucks.com is a sponsored search site that offers digital dollars called “Swagbucks” for select searches. The search site is similar to Google or Yahoo for its functionality, although not as thorough as Google in its searches. So for “real” searches, it doesn’t offer the results I’m looking for. Tally one for the con column.

However, every day for the past 2 weeks, I’ve earned a Swagbuck here and there for random searches. They’ve accumulated to 35 Swagbucks. You can redeem 45 Swagbucks for a $5 Amazon gift card. Tally one for the pro column.

Other ways to earn: You can refer friends to Swagbucks through a personalized link (for example: www.swagbucks.com/refer/fatheaddog is my specific link), and for every Swagbuck they earn, you earn as well. That element is VERY multi-level marketing-like, but I suppose its harmless if there’s no cost involved.

This is what’s called a Widget Box, which members can add to their blogs and other sites. For every “winning” search, the member receives a Swagbuck as well as the new user. So, I’m still playing with it and looking forward to my first $5 Amazon gift card. I’d love to hear other’s experiences with this. Do tell!