Focus Groups Help Some Families Earn Extra Cash

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Most families are always looking for a way to make some extra cash and one mom in Los Angeles has tapped into an easy way to do it.

Moonie Fishburn gets paid for her opinion and it doesn't take a lot of her effort or time.

"It's two hours out of your day at the most and you're getting a couple hundred dollars. I mean they give you cash and it's great," Fishburn told CBS2/KCAL9 Paul Magers.

Fishburn has been participating in market research groups for more than ten years. She shows up and gives her opinion and they pay her in cash.

"I think the least I've ever made is $75 to $100 and the most was probably $450," Fishburn said.

The mom is often times asked to give her opinion on house hold products that she uses every day.

"I just recently did a candy one which was really nostalgic because it was about our memories of candy as children and how we relate to them as adult," she said.

Fishburn and her family have reviewed products like cereal, toys, family cars and jewelry. She even gave her input on a magazine before it launched.

"That was kind of exciting to know that I was a little part of that magazine," she said.

Adler Weiner Research is a company with offices in both Westwood and Irvine that calls on people in their database when they're looking to fill a focus group.

Fishburn says it's really easy to register. "They have a form. You give them your general information and then when a focus group comes up that looks like it might fit your demographic they'll call you and they'll ask you a series of questions."

"What I find interesting is how many people don't even know what a focus group is and that they have the opportunity to give their opinion and make a difference," Michael Willens of Adler Wiener Research group said.

When you agree to participate in the focus group and analyze a product, everything you say or do remains confidential. Participants can expect to see a two-way mirror where respondents are on one side and the company monitoring the focus group is on the other side. The setting of the focus group might be a conference room or a living room. Sometimes the research company may even come to your home.

"They wanted to see our family having dinner then asked all of us different questions and then the kids left and then they focused on my husband and myself and then my husband left and they focused on me," Fishburn said.

Fishburn says there are no right or wrong answers—just an easy way to make extra cash.

"It's a nice escape. It really is. People are talking to you and asking questions of you and you get to use your intelligence and I think for moms we don't always get that opportunity.

Most focus groups are scheduled throughout the day to work around any schedule and there are limits to how many times you can participate per year.

For more information on how to start earning extra cash through focus groups, visit Cash For Your Opinion and Marketing Research to get started.