SwagBucks

There are a number of reward programs and survey programs on the Internet that allow you to earn gift cards to your favorite retailers. Depending on the site, some allow you to earn them quickly, others take more time and effort, but the end result is "free" money. Last year at Christmas, between different reward sites, we bought our daughter's big gift (a dollhouse) from Amazon with free gift cards. That is such a great feeling to be able to get something that your children really want (or you do) without having to spend money out of pocket.

There are primarily two reward programs that I participate in - MyPoints and SwagBucks.

MyPoints I joined when BzzAgent converted from BzzPoints to MyPoints. With MyPoints you can earn points by participating in offers, taking surveys, printing and using coupons, through BzzCampaigns and more. Some of the surveys (those with higher points) take as long as 45 minutes if you qualify. I don't always have the time for that.

SwagBucks is a search engine powered by Google and Ask.com. When you search using SwagBucks search and win, you can earn SwagBucks that can be redeemed either for prizes or gift cards. When I first signed up, I was a little bit skeptical, but earning SwagBucks is easy. The nice thing about it is that you can earn SwagBucks just for searching the web. You don't have to change anything you do, just use SwagBucks as your search engine. This is a great way to earn a little extra by doing virtually nothing. The awarding of SwagBucks is random and intermittent, but you do "win" them. Some days, when I search, I win nothing, other times I will earn them on consecutive searches.

In addition to SwagBucks that you can earn by searching, either through their site or by downloading their search bar, there are frequently promotions as well where they will put out a SwagCode (or a clue of what it might be) worth a set value that you can enter on their homepage to receive some additional SwagBucks. These codes and clues are shared through Facebook, Twitter and the SwagBlog.

Then, to sweeten the deal, on Fridays they have MegaSwag Bucks Days. When you use SwagBucks to search on Fridays, you can earn even more SwagBucks (not sure of the values in their new environment yet).

Thursday was their birthday and they rolled out a new interface and revalued their SwagBucks. What was once 1 SwagBuck is now 10 SwagBucks. On their birthday alone, you could earn hundreds of SwagBucks just entering the special birthday codes on their home page.

You can sign up here and start to earn gift cards and awards, just for searching the Internet.

It's this easy:

SEARCH the web using www.swagbucks.com and receive results from Google & Ask.com.
EARN SwagBucks are periodically awarded as you search the web.
REDEEM your SwagBucks for exclusive swagbucks.com products and more in the Swag Store. (my personal favorite are the giftcards)

Click here to sign up and start earning your SwagBucks now.

This post shared on Frugal Friday .