!!!-Update-!!! Blog first written around June 2016. Today is June 16, 2017.
1st Update: Swagbucks got wise to the ways people use their Swagbucks/MyGiftCardsPlus or Raise gift cards to get some double cash back (as I described in this post), and now when you shop via Swagbucks, I have been seeing lately that you cannot get SB’s using giftcards. And, they’ve added a ceiling to how many SB you can earn from using Raise.com. Such a bummer!! I’ve maxed out already.
2nd Update: I’ve earned $323.58 using Swagbucks this year. And once I had the baby, I wasn’t able to keep up as much.
Okay… Back to the original Blog post….
I’m going to sound like a commercial, but it’s just true. We love when there’s a sale for 5%, 10% or 15% off right? I’m virtually getting one of those discounts all the time now, in a combo of cashback and instant savings.
In less than 3 weeks since I started using these two things, I’ve saved/made cashback of a total of $97.60! In less than 3 weeks!
Do you occasionally let yourself shop at… Kohls, TJMaxx, Marshalls, Ross, Starbucks, Target, Old Navy, Groupon, Amazon, Ebay, Michaels, H&M, …etc?
Do you let yourself, once a week or once a month, go to… Applebees, the movies, Chipotle, Five Guys, Starbucks, any fast food place, Cold Stone, Pizza Hut, Dominoes …etc?
Do you buy hotels or plane tickets through… Hotels.com, Travelocity, Expedia, …etc?
Maybe not. But do you ever grocery shop at: WholeFoods, Walmart, Safeway, Meijer, Fred Meyer, Kroger (to only name a few)… Or need things at: Walgreens, CVS, Rite-Aid, …etc?
You can earn cashback at all these stores for making regular purchases (and even more for online purchases). It takes a little extra effort (just to remember, really) but we love when there’s 5%, 10% or 15% off, don’t we? So why not put in a little extra effort? I’m very willing (and I explain why below).
I’m gunna tell you how I’m doing it. I just ask the favor that if you end up wanting to make an account with Swagbucks or Raise, would you be willing to do it through my referral? If you want to make an account with Swagbucks before reading anything, would you do it here? It’s my referral link (I put it at the bottom, too). If you sign up from my link, I’ll get 1 SB (penny) for every 10 SB (pennies) you rack up. It’s not a lot, but hey, it’s free pennies. And if you want to make an account on Raise.com, would you do it here?
So, why am I willing to put in the extra effort/thought?
Hubs & I’ve been doing Dave Ramsey since we got married 14 months ago. Not perfectly, but consistently trying. And we’ve been doing pretty well: we paid off $15,000 of our debt and have saved up $13,000 for a car. But that was with me working, and even having 2 jobs for 6 of those months. I just finished my last week of work and Baby is going to be born in about 7 weeks.
And thus life begins for me as a stay at home mom. And life begins for my husband as a sole provider of a family.
GRATITUDE – that’s partly why
I am so deeply GRATEFUL at life and towards my amazing husband that this reality is what we are choosing and what I get to live. To be a wife & mother has always been the desire of my heart, the dream job I’ve been waiting for, and now … My Heart Is Full. In fact, I feel SO grateful to hubs for working for all of us, that I feel an extra sense of stewardship for the money he brings home and our goal of paying off our debts. That’s why I wanna try anything to help! Even if it’s silly, and pennies a day.
I still want to ferociously attack our debt and live simply and frugally. And while I’m not bringing in a paycheck, I know I can help through being intentional about budgeting. It’s a little easier for me to restrict and live frugally – for the most part – than it is for my husband. So I know I’m a big source of energy behind the debt attacking machine.
Every Penny Counts (especially if you’re trying to pay off loans by following Dave Ramsey)
Part of being intentional about budgeting is keeping strong in the “every penny counts” mentality. Not just in regards to what we can cut back on, but also, what tiny bit might I be able to bring in??? As happy as I am to be able to become a stay at home mom, I do cringe that I can’t financially contribute to us getting rid of our debts and that it can’t happen as quickly as it did with 2 incomes, even though mine was smaller. I’ve recently started looking more at budgeting and moneysaving blogs and websites. I stumbled across Swagbucks – a way to make a little bit of money – and decided to give it a try. To many who’ve only heard of it, or programs like it (“Earn money while taking surveys, playing games, watching videos and shopping from home!”) it might seem: 1) a scam, 2) too measly to bother with. (Pennies a day, literally.) And 3) a waste of time AND money. Spend money to save pennies? No thanks. I don’t do that much online shopping.
That’s what I thought…. Howeeeeveeeer! I was pleasantly surprised to find that…
I’ve been doing Swagbucks for about 3 weeks, and I’ve already earned $51.29 in cash
I’m kinda hooked (And I don’t take surveys). And I’m kind of excited to see how much I can rack up in a year to contribute towards loan payments, by doing nothing really. Admittedly, I did happen to do a lot of online shopping to prepare for Baby who’s coming in 7 weeks, so I know that I won’t always earn this much so quickly. But it was a really good time for me to start because it showed me, “Hey, there’s something to this. It’s not as measly as I first thought it might be.” While I might not earn $50 in 2 weeks all the time, I think I could make it a goal to earn that much every month. And thus I would contribute $600 a year to our loans! Just by doing the things I’d be doing anyway, which would make this stay at home mom feel resourceful and like I can at least contribute something financially too! And if you’re doing the Dave Ramsey thing, like me, you are most likely of the opinion that every little bit counts.
So, if you don’t mind putting in the extra thought to get 5-15% off, like me… If you’re a super duper penny pincher, like me… Or if you’re trying really hard to meet some financial goals that you’re in the “every penny counts” mindset, like me… Then Swagbucks and Raise.com might be for you. Read on friend.
I found some really good tricks to earn these Swagbucks (Like Raise.com)
They’re tricks I could use in a lot of my monthly shopping that’s already budgeted for – meaning, I don’t have to spend anything extra. (And btw, on Raise.com I’ve already saved $46.31 – and that’s a totally separate thing than my Swagbucks earnings. Which means I’ve saved/made cashback of a total of $97.60! In less than 3 weeks!)
So now, to explain. First of all, one way a person earns Swagbucks (SB – and 1 SB is a penny, 100 SB is a dollar, and so on) through their account, is by going to an online retailer through a link on the Swagbucks site (or the “Swagbutton”), and making a purchase. It varies from 1 SB per dollar spent (getting 1% cash back) to 8, 10 or 15 SB per dollar (or 8%, 10%, 15% cashback).
Raise.com is a site in which you receive 2 SB per $1 spent there (or, 2% cashback). Now, Raise.com is awesome anyways! And I only heard of it through Swagbucks. Basically, you buy gift cards that are discounted. The discount can range from 0% (lame, thanks a lot those people) to 10% off for stores you might need to go to occasionally or ones you go to every month anyway. If someone’s selling their gift card for 10% off, you buy a gift card worth $100 for just $90. Great, you just saved 10%! Plus, you get 2% cash back from Swagbucks – lucky you! And if the purchase you intend to use it for is online at another retailer where you get SB, you’re even luckier. Like, Walmart right now is 7 SB per $1 (that’s 7% cashback).
So, for example! Let’s say you need to buy something at Walmart’s website. You purchase a $125 Walmart gift card through Raise.com at 5% off. Yay! You spent $118.75 but can spend the full $125 at Walmart (so you just saved $6.25). You also get 2 SB per $1 you spent at Raise.com, so you made 236 SB (which is $2.36), just by buying that gift card. Then you go to Walmart’s website and buy what you need to buy – say that total is $130 b/c of tax. You use the gift card and $5 of your own money. You get 7 SB per $1 spent at Walmart. That’s ($130 x 7=) 910 SB, or $9.10. So, with a purchase you already intended to make, you saved $6.25 at Raise.com and earned 1146 SB, which is $11.46. Total savings of $17.71 – for nothing!
That’s what I’ve been doing with my Baby Registry purchases. But Raise has gift cards for almost everything, and at the very least you can get 2 SB for every dollar you spend there plus the savings on the gift card you bought. Besides Baby Registry, I’ve also gone through this process to make other purchases I already intended to make. Hubby and I have had to get a few hotel rooms over the past 14 months, so I use Hotels.com – they have good rates and for every 10 nights you get 1 night free. Raise has Hotels.com gift cards AND you get 8 SB per $1 spent at Hotels.com from Swagbucks. We had to book a hotel just today. We had to do it anyway, but I saved $6.90 at Raise, and with my purchases at Raise (2 SB/$1) and Hotels.com (8SB/$1), I made 930 SB, or $9.30. I just made $10 using Swagbucks on a purchases that a) I saved money on at Raise and b) I had to make anyway. And I plan on buying Safeway and Walgreens giftcards at Raise.com – saving money in the purchasing, and making SB on the purchase. Get gift cards for people’s birthdays/weddings… Your own shopping… Online & In-Store… It’s just doing a little something extra which is going to save AND make me money. And I’m really happy with it!!
And it’s so easy!
You can do it on the fly right before you wanna make the purchase online, because the gift card info is sent instantly to your email. Say you wanna buy something online, even ordering pizza!
- From the Swagbucks homepage (so you get your SB for your purchase) go to the Raise.com site. Purchase gift card/voucher for the amount you need. (Save money at Raise AND get SB: win-win)
- Raise.com sends the online gift card information instantly which you’ll need to check out at the site you want to redeem it at.
- From the Swagbucks homepage (so you get your SB) go to the site you want to redeem your gift card at as long as it’s offered (Target, Walmart, Amazon, Old Navy, etc). Make your purchase using the gift card information that was just sent to you. (And now you’ve earned more SB for this purchase – win).
Say you wanna buy something in-store:
- From the Swagbucks homepage (so you get your SB for your purchase) go to the Raise.com site. Purchase the amount you need. (Save money at Raise AND get SB.)
- Most stores will let you bring a print out of the voucher to use in store. Or, you can also buy physical gift cards from Raise.com and they ship them for free. You just have to wait for them.
- (In this scenario, there’s no SB for in-store purchases. But you bought a $100 gift card for $90 and made 200 SB/$2.00 cash back. It’s a just win-win here instead of a win-win-win as it is with online purchases.)
There’s also ways to earn a significant amount of money per month apart from spending money.
A girl has a blog that shows you things you can do just from your phone/computer to earn $30 month. My blog is long enough (for which I’m sorry!) so check hers out for that info. I do that stuff too, and it’s easy & not too time consuming – I just don’t do the stuff that takes an App/smartphone. (Though I’ll be able to soon because I just invested in an iPhone SE!! Just for the camera! Because I know I’ll want to take pictures and videos of my baby. No more flip phone for me. And I’m excited to start trying some other money saving Apps.)
Again, I just ask you, if I’ve done a good job explaining it and made you wanna try it, would you please sign up from here if you want to set up an account? =) It’s my referral link. If you sign up from my referral link, I’ll get 1 penny for every 10 pennies you rack up. It’s not a lot, but hey, it’s free pennies – And all I wanna do is contribute a loan payment as my husband works his butt off to provide food, shelter and everything else we have!
And if you want to make an account on Raise.com, would you please do it from here?
Eager For The Infinite 