Swagbucks Special Event

I know I have mentioned Swagbucks many times, but if you still haven't tried it, it's a great time to start!  They're having a Spring Into Action event, with lots of extra earnings opportunities through the end of April.  Right now, you will get 50 extra Swagbucks for signing up using the code SPRINGIN2SWAG.

Lately, I have been earning about $50 per month from Swagbucks, and I basically do all the earning in the first hour of the day while I drink my coffee and read around the web.  Since Swagbucks has added more ways to earn since my original Swagbucks post, here is my official list of ways to earn.

• Get 1 SB every day for answering the daily poll on the answer tab at the top.
• Get 1 SB every day for the NOSO stream on the discover tab at the top. (just click no thanks on 3-4 offers)
• Go to the front page, and there are always a lot of 1 and 2 buck videos.  Just click through and open all of them and let them run.
• Earn anywhere from 6 to 100 on a search win.  I usually get one every morning and just do a few searches till it happens.
• After that, I go through the special offers tabs under discover.  My favorite areas are RadiumOne (always lots of 1 and 2 buck videos) and Peanut Labs (tons of good surveys).  The PaymentWall page also has surveys.  I tend to avoid the other walls simply because they don't have the easy earnings I look for.
• Also under the answer tab are the Swagbucks surveys.  You can get 1 buck for disqualifying from the surveys, so some days that is what I am for.
• Print your coupons through Swagbucks (also under the Discover tab) and get 10 SB per coupon that you print and use.  I always make sure to leave the coupons I won't use at the grocery store.  Then I still get my 10 SB and someone else gets a savings on the items. 
• Watch videos for SB.  This is under the Watch tab, and you'll get 3 SB for every 10 you watch.  I rarely use this earnings opportunity.  I don't have the time in the day, and I don't think the time required makes it worth it.
• I prefer using my mobile phone to watch videos with SBTV Mobile.  The videos continue to play with very little effort on my part, and I get 2 SB for every 5 videos.  This is something else that I make part of my morning routine.
• My favorite new earning opportunity is the daily goal.  Every day there is a new goal, and you will get a 10% bonus for every day that you meet the goal.  If you hit the goal every day of the month, you get an additional 200 SB in addition to the daily bonus.  You can receive over 500 SB bonus just for reaching the goal every day.
• Use your earnings to buy rewards.  My rewards always start with $5 Amazon Gift Cards, because they are the best deal.  At 450 SB each, it makes each Swagbuck a little better than a penny.  You are able to buy 5 of each type of reward, so my next goal is a $25 Amazon Gift Card.  I generally get this much each month, so $50 total.  

It's as easy as that.  There are many other ways to earn--you can use the shop and earn area, though I prefer to do my shopping through Ebates.  You can earn Swagbucks playing games as well.  You can earn Swagbucks by referring your friends, so please use the link I posted if you like the information I provided.

These are my earnings for each day in April so far. The first number is the daily goal, the second is my actual earning for the day, and the third is the bonus I received for making the goal.

 4/11/2013

80

109

8

 

 4/10/2013

90

107

9

 

 4/9/2013

110

138

11

 

 4/8/2013

90

167

9

 

 4/7/2013

70

200

7

 

 4/6/2013

70

115

7

 

 4/5/2013

90

239

9

 

 4/4/2013

100

156

10

 

 4/3/2013

80

113

8

 

 4/2/2013

90

199

9

Happy Earning!

Awesome ebates Signup Offer

I have written about ebates plenty of times. They pay you cash back for shopping online. If you didn't sign up for the $5 bonus, maybe a $10 gift card will pique your interest. I got over $35 deposited direct to my paypal account from my Christmas shopping, which is awesome for just doing what I would have done anyway.

So, join today and choose a $10 gift card to Target or Barnes and Noble, among others. You can still choose the $5 cash signup bonus if you'd prefer.

Online Shopping Deals Made Better

If you're planning to do your Black Friday shopping online (many stores are offering the same prices online as they had in store), you should really make sure to use Ebates! They are offering double cash back to many stores. Just checking the example of one of my favorites, Kohls is normally 4% cash back, but is 10% today only!

Here's how it gets even better than Black Friday: Go through Ebates, then choose your items. Kohls is offering free shipping when you spend $50, $15 in Kohls cash for every $50 you spend, and then you can use coupon code CON20HH4 for 20% off your total! Get 10% cash back from Ebates in the form of a big fat check. Let's break it down:

• Total $250
• Becomes $200 with coupon
• Gets you $60 in Kohls cash
• And $20 from Ebates
• All of a sudden, those items you're buying at 50% off become 75% off.  That $250 ends up $120, just like that.

If you don't know about Ebates, it's totally free to sign up.  You need to make sure to click through them to get your cash back, but you'll also get $5 free just for registering with them.  Sign up HERE.

MegaSwagbucks Friday -- Signup DEAL

It's hard to believe there are many people left who haven't already tried Swagbucks.  If you haven't, today might be the day to start.  Why?  Because it's mega swag Friday.  Every Friday they have bigger search wins and more often, so start doing what you can to earn.  I save Amazon gift cards for Christmas shopping, and also use it to supplement my grocery shopping.  $25 a month is an easy goal.  My total in just over a year and a half is now $650, all gotten in Paypal or Amazon dollars. 

ANOTHER reason today would be a good day to join is that Swagbucks has a new member promotion called 5 for 5, that will get a new member 70 bonus bucks just for signing up.  It is usually 30, so this will start you right out with 100 bucks. Use code 5For5 when you register (new members only, but they are now allowing more accounts per household.)

• Explanation of Swagbucks is here.
• How to earn with Swagbucks is here.

I recently wrote up something for a friend on my earning goals, and how I do it in just a few minutes in the morning.  If your goal is 5 of the $5 Amazon gift cards each month, it's easily attainable with just 75 Swagbucks per day.  My goal is to try to get 100 per day so that I can get another $25 AGC every other month and boost my earning.  Here's a quick morning:

• 75 SBTV (that's the max of 25 wins)
• 20 search wins (I can always win twice a day, sometimes three times)
• 2 daily bucks for checking out NOSO
• 1 bucks for answering the daily poll
• 5 survey disqualification (if you try to do a sruvey but aren't qualified, you get 1 buck for trying)
• 2-5 Ad Rewards videos (this is one of the offer walls, you watch videos and get 1-2 bucks)
• 2-4 Gambit videos (another offer wall)

I don't do a lot of the big special offers, but just looking around every morning on the offer walls will find a few good easy point offers, like signing up for a newsletter or liking some business Facebook page.  I can do this while I have my coffee in the morning.

If you have any additional questions, let me know.

Swagbucks Signup Deal!

If you haven't read about Swagbucks, you can click the link there to read about it. I have a special offer for today only (through 4 pm PDT) where if you click "get code" on the swidget on my sidebar, you'll get a code for 20 Swagbucks to sign up. It's only for new referrals, though. The code is good until midnight PDT and it looks like it's JOINTHEFUN.  (Looky there, I didn't even make you have to click to get the code.)   You'll also get 30 Swagbucks just for registering, which will put you pretty far towards your first reward.

You can click through my link to join, though, and we'll both get more bucks.

Swagbucks Triple Play this Weekend

I thought this was worth sharing.  If you're using Swagbucks, you can score a triple play this weekend that will get you a 33 buck bonus.  Here are the details:  if you earn 30 bucks through searching, 30 bucks through surveys, and 30 bucks with special offers today through Sunday, you'll earn a 33 buck bonus for the triple play.  I've already done it this morning!



If you haven't checked out all of the special offers, there are a lot of "free" insurance offers that only ask you to put in your state or zip code--and they credit instantly.  Most of these will be around 20-30 bucks each, so you can get that 30 bucks for special offers pretty fast.  Be aware, the higher-paying insurance offers often want your email address and phone number.  If you don't mind them calling, you can try those as well.  If you just want to earn without phone calls, look for the lower-paying ones.

Don't forget it's MegaBucks Friday, so the searches are worth a lot more today.  I've had a 36 buck win already today among some lower ones.  They are giving away up to 1000 on searches today, so get searching!

One more buck-earning opportunity is through Kohls Cares.  Read about it here, because it contains several links and requires a few steps for your chance to win 1000 SB.

Updates on Favorite GPTs

Don't exactly know what a GPT is? Here's a refresher post that will help explain.

How can you make money online, legitimately?  There are tons of ads and spam emails that claim they will pay you hundreds or thousands per month.  It's right to be leery of these, because they are almost all scams.  I've found a lot, through a lot of research, and I've reviewed many sites on here.  I'll highlight some different types of pay sites and explain some of the pros and cons.

To start with, what does GPT mean?  It means Get Paid To...

You can get paid to read and click emails.  These are my favorite because of how easy they are.  As I go through all my emails every day, I click them all open, then close all the tabs.  The drawback?  Because they are so easy to do, the amount they pay is fairly low.  The three main sites I use for this are MyPoints, Inbox Dollars, and Free Ride.  You can read my reviews on each by clicking the links, and I will do the review on Free Ride later this week.

These sites also have other faster ways to earn within their sites, like signing up for email newsletters, printing coupons, clicking around on the site.  Inbox Dollars has recently added coupons to their site, and they are paying 10 cents per coupon you print and use.  This can really add up, or at least pay for the ink and paper you use.

You can get paid to answer surveys.  These pay much more, but obviously require more time than the email ones.  I also love that the different survey sites send us products to test.  I did go into the survey sites in depth on another post, and you can read it HERE.

You can get paid to search online--you know, like googling?  Swagbucks is my favorite of these types, and some people also like Blingo.  I never had any luck with Blingo, and if I don't make any money right away, I usually lose interest.  You can read my review of Swagbucks HERE.  A recent development with Swagbucks is that they've added a survey section.  You can now earn 150 or 200 SB for a 15 minute survey, along with the other ways I outlined in my earlier review.

I have had a lot of people sign up for Swagbucks through my link, and I'm surprised at the people who haven't really earned anything yet.  It is so easy.  I search for stores, coupons, and other things that interest me at least 10 times per day, so the earnings can really add up fast.  I started at the beginning of January, and I have already cashed in for $260 in Amazon and Paypal money.

You can get paid to shop online.  I love this one.  If you are going to shop online, find a way to make it pay.  There are several sites that have online shopping portals.  You click through them, they earn affiliate money from the store, and they give you a portion of their earnings.  Swagbucks, MyPoints, FreeRide, Inbox Dollars, and Ebates all have different amounts and different ways that they pay out.

Can you get rich?  Probably not, but the money you make can be used to save for Christmas presents, buy your groceries, or just supplement your fun money.

Do you have a favorite site that I haven't mentioned here?  I'd love to learn about it.  Do you have a site you're interested in but don't know enough about it?  Ask, and I (or one of the other readers) can help you out with some first hand knowledge. 

Ebates 11% Cash Back!

That's like getting an automatic 11% discount on your online orders PLUS you can still use any coupon codes you might have.  I've written about Ebates before, so you can read a full description on that post, but Ebates is a shopping portal that gives you cash back for online purchases.  If you're going to shop online, definitely use one of the shopping portals (MyPoints, Swagbucks) to earn for your activity.

Normally I shop around the three sites to see which will give me the best deal, but I guarantee 11% $CASH$ back is going to be the best deal for these stores involved in the promo:

• Macy's
• Ebags
• Gap
• Old Navy
• Sephora
• Shutterfly
• Barnes and Noble
• Shoe Buy

For the full list, go to Ebates and see for yourself.   They usually also round up coupons for you to use while shopping, so it saves having to search for those as well.  Did I mention that they're also giving people $5 to join?  This is also part of their birthday celebration.

Great Swagbucks Earnings This Week!

If you've been thinking about getting into Swagbucks anyway, this week might be the week to do it.  They normally give 30 bucks for registering, but they are upping it to 50!  Use code SWAGNATION5 when you start up.  If you're already doing Swagbucks, they are allowing a lot more earning opportunities this week.  I've won twice this morning already for pretty substantial amounts.

You can sign up in my swidget on the side or click right here:



Also, if you've signed up and haven't been using it, you can look at how to earn in the blog post I did a while back. Find that HERE.  It really is easy to earn.  I don't sign up for a lot of the special offers, but have already earned almost $200 since the beginning of January.

As always, I'll answer any questions anyone has.  You can email me if you know that, or leave comments below and I will respond.  I have it enabled for you to leave comments anonymously if you'd like, so don't be afraid to ask.

Now will be a good reminder as well, if you are interested in more sites like Swagbucks, I review all the ones that I trust (meaning that they've paid me and they aren't a scam).  On the right side bar of my blog, there is a tag cloud (all the little words I put at the bottom of each post) and you can click on GPT, Cash, or earning in order to find all the posts about the sites.  I have also looked at a lot of different earning sites and done the research, so I'll answer questions about particular sites if I haven't mentioned them in my blog yet.

How to Earn with Swagbucks

I have many friends doing Swagbucks now, and I've had to repeat how to earn a few times, so I thought it would be a good time to make a list on my blog.  I started Swagbucks at the beginning of January, and have earned $65 in Amazon gift cards so far.  I'm about halfway to the next $5 gift card already, so it is adding up faster than many of my favorite GPT (get paid to...) sites.  If you aren't doing it yet, go ahead and click on the picture below to get started.  It's no obligation, and you just use it like you would google.



Here is a list of the best ways to earn:

• Search using swagbucks.  I know I use google a lot when I want to find certain pages, or if I see something I want to learn more about.  I think it works best if you don't sit and search over and over.  They want you to use natural searching, so that's what I try to do.  It seems random how they hand out the bucks, so doing it repeatedly might do no good.
• They have a special offers page where you can earn more.  I am not one to do those kinds of things, but you can join Netflix or Blockbuster and earn a lot, among a lot of other things.  There are free trials and no obligation offers that won't cost you any money.  
• Even if you don't do the special offers, if you go to the "No Obligation" section every day and skip each one to the end, you'll get 2 SB a day.
• The different special offers pages will have videos you can watch for 1-3 SB each, and sometimes you can find another one on the front page.
• The swidget on my right sidebar will often list a code or give a clue as to where to find the code.  These are limited time bucks, and usually happen once or twice a day.  Some days there will be many more.  Just click where it says check for code, and it will say if there is one available.
• You can also earn 3 SB for every 10 videos you watch on Swagbucks TV.  I've found this one to be good if you switch back and forth between screens. 
• Answer surveys in the Trusted Surveys section.  These will usually earn you 50-200 Swagbucks, but even if you don't qualify, you can get 1 buck for trying.  They'll give you up to 5 SB per day for disqualifying.
• Referrals are one of the best ways to earn.  You will receive every search buck your friends do until they hit 1000 bucks earned.  If you have 10 referrals, that can mean 10,000 bucks that you didn't have to work for.  NICE.
• Link your Swagbucks account to your Facebook account, and it will post on your page every time you search and win or find a code.  This helps with two things: you may get more referrals, and when your friends get a search win, the chances are good that if you go and do a search, you will too.  Just today I logged into Facebook and saw that two of my friends got a code, so I hit the swidget and found it, too. 

I hope you'll find the tips helpful in doing your earning.  I've found that this is a little more time intensive than some of the other GPTs that I do, but the earning potential is a little higher as well.

Freebies and Good Mail and Polls, oh my!

I know, it's a totally cheesy title.  I thought I would just make this post a little mish mash of several items.  There are a few good freebies out, and I've had a lot of good mail I want to post about, and I also just put up a poll in my side bar to find out what my readers would like me to post more about.  Go over there >>> on the side and make your choices, then please leave a comment in this post to tell me about any specific things you want to know more about.

As for my mail, it's been a great week. 

• $25 Target gift card from a new GPT company that I have yet to review.  As readers should know, I don't put up any review until I have received my payment in my hot little hand, because I'd prefer not to waste my time and I don't want my readers to waste their time on something that doesn't work.  Look for the review for this one in the upcoming week.
• $15 Amazon card from a survey company I've been helping.  This was a bonus one that just showed up in my mail as a thank you, so I loved that.
• 2 $5 gift cards from Amazon came this week from Swagbucks.  I took down the swidget from the sidebar because it was too big, but you can still click the link to find out more about it.
• A bag of coffee to test from one of the survey companies.  I can't tell what kind or what survey company, because of their privacy rules, but I'm enjoying some $$ coffee.
• Swash sample from Vocalpoint, along with a ton of good coupons.  I've used the Swash once on a pair of pants from the bottom of my dresser drawer, and it did a pretty good job of pulling out the wrinkles.  Remember to sign up with Vocalpoint if you want to be among the first to test their new products.

On to the freebies!

• Free Gold Bond sample
• Free Bounce sample for Sam's Club members
  
• Purex 3 in 1 sample
  
• Free eye cream sample
• Free cat food coupon 
• Free Christian book and probably a lot of emails and pamphlets later.
  
• Classico Sauce coupon 
• Become a fan, then take their quiz, then you can have free tea
• This is a multi-layered freebie.  The Federal Citizen Information Center has a lot of publications, some of which have a nominal fee, but many are totally free.  There are a lot of really good ones that are specific to different situations: military families, people with disabilities, how to make the most of prescription drug coverage, among others.  I'm going to post one link, and you can see which ones interest you.
  

Swagbucks

I guess I never explained that Swagbucks widget over there, and I see a few readers have signed up.  This one is a similar GPT site to some of the others I've detailed.  You can earn "bucks" in several ways, but the main way is through searching through their site.  If anyone has used Blingo, it's very similar--but it is better in that the search engine is through google and you can actually find what you're searching for.  I just use it like I would use google and every once in a while, I win a buck.



You can also earn swagbucks by doing offers (I generally avoid the offers because a lot require you to pay or remember to cancel some trial offer.)  They have a shopping portal you can use as well, giving bucks for each real dollar you spend when clicking through them to shop.


I use all the GPT sites as something that gives me a little bit of unexpected income, but I don't expect any to really give me some huge amount of money.  For that reason, I don't give them a lot of time.  Like MyPoints and InboxDollars, I click their emails and shop through MyPoints and just let the points build over time.  The extra time in emails is negligible, since all I do is click and delete.

The "swidget" on the right will sometimes contain a code that will get you from 1-5 bucks, so I just click on the check for codes button a few times a day to see what happens. 

Ebates

Ebates is another great shopping portal, dedicated mostly to online shopping. When you go to Ebates, you will be able to look for online coupons to use in your shopping, and they also pay you cash back to shop through them. That's right! They send you a big fat check every three months.

As an example, for Victoria's Secret, they have a coupon for $15 off $100 that you can use. In addition to saving $15, Ebates pays you 4% cashback to shop through their site. If you bought $100 worth of items from Victoria's Secret, they would cost you $85 instead, and Ebates would add $3.40 to your big fat check. It's not a lot, but every little bit of savings helps.

Some people think that this is a pain, to remember to look at the different shopping portals, but for me the money I get in return makes it worth clicking one of the links I have bookmarked. I usually go to both Mypoints and Ebates to see which one will offer me the sweeter deal.

Again, I would love to answer any questions through the comments section, or comment me your email address if you'd like me to refer you to the site.

Mypoints

By far my favorite GPT (get paid to...) site, and probably the one to which I've earned the most is Mypoints. Mypoints gives you points for doing things you do every day--5 points per email, 50-200 points per survey, anywhere from 2-10 points per dollar spent through their online shopping portal. My favorite, though, is the coupons. They have links to coupons you can use online to save 10% or more, get free shipping, or other online shopping codes.

They also have my most used and most beneficial option: printing out grocery coupons to use at the store. The best part--the coupons through their site are often higher value than the Sunday paper coupons, and Mypoints pays you to use them! I get 25 points every month if I print and use 10 coupons from two different sites. I also get 10 points for every coupon I use in the store. These points add up fast.

Mypoints pays out their rewards in the form of gift cards from places I shop. Some are cheaper to get than others--the best value are from Borders, 1400 points for a $10 gift card. There are also cards for Starbucks, Burger King, Target, Kmart, and Amazon. I use my points to get Target cards because I can maximize the dollar value with my coupons and bargain shopping there. In just the past month, I've redeemed for $75 in Target gift cards.

I'd be glad to answer any questions about any site, just leave them in the comments. Mypoints also offers rewards for referrals, so please click through my link if you're interested in joining.

InboxDollars

This is the first of many posts explaining different sites that pay you in money, gift cards, or free products. I want to explain up front that many of these places pay their members to refer people. I will use referral links if possible, but I do want people to know that I am profiting from the link you click. I will not ever post any place unless I have personally received payment to know that it is legitimate.

Inbox Dollars gives you $5 just to sign up (click that box above!) They send offers and surveys through emails. If you click on the link in the email, you will get a few cents. They offer differing dollar amounts depending on the offer, if you take it. Many people will do offers where you get a free trial, or you sign up for something and cancel before they start charging. I don't have the discipline to remember to cancel, so I avoid almost all of those. Surveys will give you from 50 cents to $1 for a few minutes of your time. I just submitted for a check for $35.70, which should arrive in time to help with Christmas shopping.

Good Mail

I know many people dread getting the mail, because it is full of bills and junk mail. I love it! I plan to add the contents of my mailbox often as an example of how I earn and save money for our household. Generally, I will just add my mail to new posts, but I am going to dedicate this whole post to the last few days of mail.

Thursday:

• Free sample Oregon Chai PLUS $1.00 coupon.
  
• $10 check from Synovate for doing surveys through email.

Friday:

• Free sample Pampers Extra Protection PLUS $1.50 coupon. (Click the link, this sample is still available!
• Free sample Taster's Choice coffee--This was 6 separate samples of their new flavors. Still available!
• $10 check from HCG Research for doing surveys through email.

Saturday:

• $25 Target Gift Card from My Points. Click link for my full explanation of this site and its benefits.
  

Monday:

• $7 Pantene coupons from Vocalpoint.
• Free Red button from Inspi(red).
• 3 Sesame Street Board books from redeeming my Pampers points from diapers and wipes. These will be great stocking stuffers.

====================================
It's mail like this that helps towards our bills, either by lowering the grocery bills or simply giving a check or gift card for a small amount of work. As the days go by, I will put a new post to explain each site and how you can make it work for you.