free money — Beating Broke

Earn Rewards with Swagbucks

June 9, 2015 By Shane Ede 3 Comments

It’s been a while since I last wrote about Swagbucks. A little over a year to be exact. And almost 3 years before that. I’ve been using Swagbucks for a long time, I guess. What is Swagbucks?

Swagbucks is a rewards program. You earn rewards called Swagbucks for doing a variety of activities. What sort of activities? Glad you asked.

Swagbucks Search

This is probably the easiest way to earn Swagbucks. You can install the Swagbucks add on for your browser and set the Swagbucks search as your default search so that when you search in the location bar it directs you through their search engine. When you use their search, you can randomly win Swagbucks. It’s not every search, but depending on your search volume, you might win about once a day. Your winnings will vary, but they can range from lower amounts like 5 Swagbucks all the way up to 20-50. The search feature is powered by Yahoo search.

Swagbucks Polls and Surveys

This is probably the second easiest way to earn Swagbucks through the program. You log into the site and take a poll. The payout is usually something like 2 Swagbucks for each poll you take and the polls are usually pretty short. You can also take surveys which tend to be a little longer, but the payout, which varies, is usually a bit better as well.

Swagbucks Coupons

Swagbucks has a relationship with Coupons.com that allows for you to sign into their site and print off coupons. Because of that relationship, there’s always a pretty good selection of coupons on stuff you’ll use all the time. For each coupon that you redeem, you earn 10 points.

Swagbucks Shopping

Like most rewards programs, Swagbucks has agreements with all kinds of online retailers where you can click through a link on the Swagbucks site and then earn points based on the money you spend at the retailer. For example, their homepage is showing 4 Swagbucks for every dollar spend at Walmart.com right now.

Swagbucks Daily Crave

This is a newer way (to me at least) to earn Swagbucks. There’s a link on the sidebar of the Swagbucks site that leads you to a new page that shows you some videos. You earn a Swagbuck for watching a few of them. Pretty easy to use and easy to earn a few Swagbucks each day.

Swagbucks Play

With the play feature, you can play online games for Swagbucks. The amount you can win varies depending on the game, but certainly a great way to have a little fun and earn some Swagbucks easily.

It’s pretty easy to earn Swagbucks and work towards rewards. Do a few of these tasks each day and the Swagbucks will add up pretty quickly. And trading the Swagbucks in for your rewards is pretty easily too.

There’s two ways to redeem your Swagbucks.

Rewards

This is my favorite way to redeem Swagbucks. For me, the thing I redeem them for the most is the $5 Amazon gift card. It’s only 500 Swagbucks. There’s a whole bunch of different places that you can get gift cards from, and you’re sure to find at least one or two that you’ll want to have.

Swagstakes

While it’s never a sure thing, Swagstakes can be a fun way to redeem your Swagbucks. Obviously, Swagstakes is a play on Sweepstakes. You redeem your Swagbucks for entries into a Swagstakes with the hope that you’ll win something worth way more than your Swagbucks are worth. The entry “cost” varies by the Swagstakes, but most are less than 20 Swagbucks per entry. I don’t use this option very often as I tend to prefer the sure thing of a gift card, but I have entered a few of them. Never won yet though. 🙁

Swagbucks is a pretty cool rewards site that I’ve been using for years and I’ve never had a bad experience with them. Over the years, I’ve redeemed my Swagbucks for a whole bunch of Amazon cards. Depending on how much I use the site, I’ve sometimes earned a new card every month. On average, it’s more like every 3-6 months though. Still, for a few minutes a day, it’s an easy way to save a bit of money on my Amazon purchases.

Giveaways: Budget Stretcher or Waste of Time?

April 20, 2015 By MelissaB 3 Comments

Giveaways are nothing new. Just read a handful of blogs and you’ll likely find plenty of giveaways. But are they worth the time and effort? Can you ever win something good?

I’ll be honest, my husband and I are digging out of a hole of debt. The good news is that we’ve paid off over half of our debt. Yeah!

However, we’ve reached a point where we firmly refuse to acquire any new debt. Meanwhile, our car is 10 years old and has 150,000 miles on it, our 10 year old needs braces, and we’ve just had nearly $2,000 in medical and dental work. . .

Our money is stretched to the max.

So, I decided to try my hand at giveaways.

Right now, we just don’t have a lot of extra money to pay for presents and fun items for the kids, so I thought giveaways could be a good way to get some of the luxuries we can’t afford.

So far, in three months (December through February), I’ve won 5 prizes:

A $50 Visa gift card
A board game for my 10 year old ($29.95 RV)
A $10 bookstore gift card
A movie
A book

During these past three months, I entered 47 giveaways, meaning I won 10% of the giveaways I entered. Not bad.

How Much Time Do I Spend Entering Giveaways

I know there are some people that spend A LOT of time entering giveaways, but I don’t have time for that. Instead, I enter giveaways once or twice a week for 30 to 60 minutes at a time. I often enter the giveaways when my kids are watching television in the afternoon (they get an hour a day of tv time), or in the evening when I’m too tired to do anymore work. (Unlike just vegging and watching Netflix, entering giveaways has the prospect of giving me something back.)

I don’t enter giveaways just to enter giveaways. Instead, I focus on ones that offer cash or gift cards (though these are the most competitive and difficult to win), ones that have products my kids would like or that would make nice gifts, and ones that offer homeschool curriculum.

If you want to start entering giveaways, deciding what you would like to focus on winning is a good way to limit the amount of time you spend entering giveaways.

Where I Find Giveaways to Enter

To maximize my time entering giveaways, I try to enter ones that have low entries.

I have found some Facebook groups to join where people advertise their giveaways.

Another site I love is Tightwad in Utah. She lists low entry giveaways that are ending in the next week.

If you’d like to enter giveaways and don’t really care if they’re low entry or not, you can use this link or this link to find linkies for giveaways from a wide array of bloggers.

Finally, if there is a blogger who routinely offers the types of giveaways you’d like to win, make sure to come back and visit the site regularly. Chances are that entry requirements for the giveaway are to like the site’s Facebook or Twitter pages. Just do this once, and for every subsequent giveaway on that blog, you’ve already met those requirements.

I don’t expect to get rich from entering giveaways or even to be able to supply all of my kids’ presents. However, it is nice to get free stuff in the mail, especially if some of it can be used to offset the expense of Christmas and birthday presents.

Do you enter giveaways? Why or why not? If you do, how much success have you had? How much time do you spend entering giveaways?

Looking for More Ways to Save? Try Asking for Discounts

April 15, 2013 By MelissaB 13 Comments

There are plenty of ways to save on a daily basis–clipping coupons, resisting the urge to buy something, packing your lunch instead of eating out, etc. There are many ways to live a more frugal life, and chances are, you incorporate the ways that are easy. You know, the ones that don’t cause you to change your lifestyle much. Things like giving up cable and getting streaming through your Xbox instead. That’s fairly easy and doesn’t change your lifestyle.

Another easy way to save that doesn’t change your lifestyle is to ask for discounts. Have you tried it?

Asking is surprisingly easy, and even more surprising is how often you actually get the discount. You just have to get up the nerve to ask the first time; once someone says yes, you’ll gain confidence, and it’ll be easier to ask next time.

Want proof that asking is as easy as I say?

Credit Card Fees

A few years ago, I made an online payment to my credit card on the day it was due, which was a Saturday. The web stated that any payment made on the weekend wouldn’t post until the next business day. Yep, my on time payment was counted late, and I was charged a $25 late fee.

I called the company and asked them to remove the late charge. They did immediately. Why? Two reasons. First, I asked. Second, I never make late payments, so they rewarded my good payment history by removing the late payment. I’ve had this happen to me 3 times in about 10 years of credit card usage. Each time I called and they removed the charge.

Credit Card Interest

We’re paying down debt, and one thing that slowed our progress was our credit card APR of 13.99%. I called to ask to have the rate reduced. I had to talk to a supervisor, but she lowered our rate to 9.99%, and she gave me enough reward points to cover the cost of our annual fee. I saved a few hundred dollars right there in about 10 minutes, just by asking. (But when I got an offer to move my balance to a 0% APR card a few months later, you better believe I did it.)

Grocery Store Purchases

Asking for discounts isn’t limited to credit cards. If I see something at the grocery store that is at the sell by date, I’ll ask someone in that department to discount it. I’m only successful here about 50% of the time, but still, that’s half the time that I save more than I would if I hadn’t asked!

Garage Sales & Craigslist

I love shopping garage sales in the summertime. If things are already priced dirt cheap, I don’t haggle, but if the price is too expensive, I have no problem asking for a lower price. Most of the time people will say yes because they just want to get rid of their stuff.

Likewise, people on Craigslist expect you to ask for a lower price than they have listed. Just don’t get ridiculous with the amount you ask. That can be insulting for the seller and usually won’t lead to a deal.

These are just a few examples of how I’ve saved by asking for a discount. However, any time I think asking might lead to a discount, I ask.

What was your most successful discount you got just by asking?