One way that I try to earn some extra money is by using Swagbucks. It's basically a search engine (powered by Google and Ask.com) where you can search for anything on the web, but you earn Swagbucks while you're searching. Once you get 45 Swagbucks, you can earn a $5 Amazon gift certificate. There are other rewards that you can earn, such as a Starbucks gift card, Target.com gift card, etc. Since it takes 45 Swagbucks to earn $5, each Swagbuck is worth about $0.11. If you need to search for something anyway, you might as well use Swagbucks and earn something :-).
Here are some things that I've learned from searching.
- You can earn between 1 and 5 Swagbucks when you do a search. I don't believe that I've ever earned 4 or 5, but I have gotten 2 or 3 a couple of times before. 1 Swagbuck is the norm.
- You can earn Swagbucks multiple times per day. I think I've won twice per day at the most (but I've read of others winning up to 4-5 times per day). I usually can win once in the morning and once in the afternoon/evening. So, once you've won once in the morning, and you have another search engine that you can also use to earn money, you might want to switch to that and then come back to Swagbucks in the afternoon.
- You are also limited to up to 20 searches per day that are eligible for Swagbucks. So, once you've searched 20 times, you can switch to another search engine where you can earn some more prizes.
- Just a note...most of the gift cards are delivered electronically via e-mail...which is great for a company like Amazon. You can just load the gift amount as a balance in your account. But...you want to be aware of it for a company like Target, where you might not necessarily be shopping online.
- You can also earn Swagbucks by shopping through the site, but I have never done that. I would prefer to get money in my UPromise account or cash through Ebates instead.
Julie
I love using Swag Bucks. I can never justify buying Starbucks but through this site, I can get Starbucks gift cards. It is my little mommy treat every now and then.
Anonymous
yes, Swagbucks.com is the best search and win site out there. i noticed today that they updated the look of it.. i like it better
Rick Vaughn
I have heard mixed reviews on Swagbucks but if you are getting free stuff, party on!
JJJ
I have 43 points now and wanna redeem for a starbucks gc, but when I check back the Swagsbuck site, it's gone. I don't know why they remove starbucks GC. I'm wondering if I choose to get $5 Amazon GC & save it until I have enough gcs to buy a flash drive, can amazon let me use more than 1 GC?
Corrie at "Cents"able Momma
Hi JJJ,
Swagbucks just changed how they're doing gift cards the other day. They no longer mail the GC's (so that's why Starbucks is gone).
Yes, you can combine Amazon gift cards to place your order. When you receive an Amazon GC, you just need to load the balance in your Amazon account. There's no limit to the number of GC's you can load.
I hope that helps!