Hi denim6000,
Those "get paid for survey" sites have always seemed scammy to me. I don't know anyone who has ever gotten much money and the ones that promise a money back guarantee usually make it so difficult to qualify for the refund that most people give up. My mom tried one of those once and to get your money back you had to do something ridiculous like sign up for 100+ services first. They are slick. First of all you have to fill out hundreds of surveys just to earn "credits". Then it takes like 10,000 credits just to equal one dollar. Don't waste your time.
The best way is to do what many of us are doing here is building a site on a subject that interests us and then find affiliate programs that match your theme.
If you like dogs, you could build a site on how to house train a dog and other dog information. Then you could affiliate yourself with companies that sell dog supplies and earn commissions when your audience buys products you recommend on your site. That's just an example.
www.associateprograms.com is a fabulous source for learning about becoming and affiliate. There's a great section on the site for beginners or people just getting started. Allan Gardyne is one of my mentors. I started reading his newsletters back in 1998 and got some great ideas and writing tips from his site.