Wow, I've really been impressing myself this summer with the tricks I've picked up on to help me earn money via the internet despite being unemployed!  I've already mentioned Swagbucks once before in an earlier post, but yesterday I found yet another way of earning money that I am so thrilled with and I thought I would make this a collective post of all of the two ways I've managed to earn money this summer, all from my computer.... Woo hoo!

At the beginning of the summer, I was feeling discouraged that my old workplace hadn't gotten back with me about temporarily working for them again.  That was my only chance to try and earn a little more money back to help pay for things here and there throughout my last year at college.  I then got to thinking about websites like Cashcrate, where you earn money in exchange for taking surveys.  I tried a few of these kinds of sites once before, but found it incredibly difficult to even earn more than $5 and it was frustrating to go through all that time trying to qualify for surveys, never to be compensated in the end.  I was scrolling through other  Ways To Earn Money Online in a Google search when one website popped up that interested me: Swagbucks.com.  Although they pay you through e gift cards instead of through a check, all who had something to say about it raved that it was so much easier to earn points through this site and that it was the most legitimate rewards site they've found to date.  Intrigued, I decided to sign up to see for myself what it was all about.  I am SO glad I did because as I type this I think to myself that Swagbucks may very well have changed my life - or at the least, the way I earn money.  Now mind you, joining Swagbucks isn't going to earn you a salary or anything, but it makes that much of a difference knowing that you've found a way to earn   a bit of extra spending money on the side, on your own time.  For example, just in the two or so months I've been using Swagbucks I've earned about $57 worth of points.  I know that's not a lot, but again, when you take into consideration the fact that this money was all earned just through watching videos, playing a few games, searching the internet, visiting websites, and taking surveys, and that I was able to do it all on my own time, from the comfort of my own home... that's a pretty sweet deal!  Once you earn enough points, you can redeem them for e gift cards from a huge selection of distributors, at denominations ranging from $5 to $500!  They even have a Paypal option where you can redeem points for a Paypal Cash Card that will be added to your Paypal account balance, and from there deposit into your checking account.  That is some very real cash you're earning!

In the few months I've been on Swagbucks, I've picked up on the know-how of the best and quickest ways to earn points, while keeping myself scot free in the end.  So I'll take you through my basic routine of earning Swagbucks!:

1. Daily Poll: An easy 1 point, and the polls usually have pretty fun questions, like today's for example: What's your favorite genre of books?

2. Playing games: You can only earn 10 points through games each day, unless you enter a tournament, which I never do because they cost a couple of points to enter and I'd rather earn points than risk them.  Every other game you play, you earn two swagbucks regardless of the score you earned in the game.  So: "Sorry, no swagbucks," "Congratulations, you earned two swagbucks!" "Sorry, no swagbucks," until you earn 10 swagbucks in total.  The game I go to every time is Swagasaurus.  And because your score doesn't affect how many Swagbucks you earn in regular play, I always just start the game and wait for the dinosaur to fall off the cliff to end the game and earn my 2 swagbucks as quickly as possible.

3. Special Offers: At the top of the Swagbucks navigation bar, there's a tab labeled Answer.  Hovering over that will elicit a drop-down menu.  By clicking on the first link, Paid Surveys, it'll take you to the Surveys Home Page filled with several options for earning points by taking surveys and completing offers.

The first place I like to head to straight away is the Peanut Lab Surveys link, as this is where all of the RadiumOne special offers are, which are incredibly easy ways to rack up 1-pointers fast.  Again, keep an eye out for the offers that say 1 Swagbuck underneath, as these are the easiest ways to earn points and where, unlike the other offers on this page, you aren't required to pay for or register for anything.  You just click and view.  Some of these 1 Swagbuck offers are videos where, as easy as that, you click on them and let the video play in the background in another tab.  I like to multitask and click on multiple video offers at once while I continue looking through the other offers.  Besides videos, the other offers are either slideshows that you have to click through to earn the points or quizzes on Fibromyalgia.  Don't worry, you totally don't have to know anything about Fibromyalgia to earn the points ;) Just click True or False for each one until you're through with the quiz.  Altogether, completing all of these 1 point offers really adds up in the end!

And of course, you can also take surveys under the Answer It tab, either in your Survey Dashboard, the surveys on the Peanut Surveys page, or surveys on the Golden Surveys page, each survey qualifying you for a good chunk of points ranging from 30 to 100 or more!  I always try to do at the very least 1 survey a day, and fortunately I'm usually able to achieve that!  It may take a couple of tries to qualify for a survey, and even when you don't qualify you always get a 1 point consolation for participating anyway.  Surveys can be about anything from shopping to movies/TV/entertainment to specific products and more.  It's so satisfying when you finally complete a survey and get all those points, and it really helps tremendously in getting a lot of points fast, especially if you're working towards meeting your Daily Goal (which you get bonus points for reaching each day!).  The two major tips I have for qualifying for surveys:

• Stretch the truth a bit, if you must.  If you haven't, for example, gone to the movie theater in the past month or been looking into purchasing a car within the next year, tell the survey what it wants to hear to qualify yourself for the survey.  You won't be hooked up to a lie detector test and you won't get penalized for lying, so do whatever you can to stay in the qualifying pool and get those points!  Is it dishonest?  Well, yes, but as long as you put enough time and effort into the survey and get your points in the end, I don't see what the harm is.

• This goes for general privacy precautions in general on Swagbucks: I wouldn't recommend submitting telephone numbers, emails, or home addresses.  You don't know where that information is going or how they're going to use that information in the future.  For all you know, you could be opening yourself up to hoards of spam, junk mail, and unwanted phone calls.  Along with that, I always give false information when taking surveys that ask for birthdays and zip code, just to be extra safe.  Maybe that's just the paranoia in me, but there are plenty of ways to earn Swagbucks without giving out personal of information!

4. Swagbucks Search Engine: Strictly using the Swagbucks search engine for internet browsing can pay off, too, by being randomly rewarded 6 up to even 20 points!  But don't just sit there typing in random searches hoping to get points.  That won't get you very far.  Use it as you would when doing your regular internet searching and the points will come soon enough.  I'm not sure how many times a day maximum you can get rewarded, but I've logged off the computer after getting browsing points, come back later in the day and searched some more and got rewarded with more points soon after.  It helps when you do a little searching at different points in the day rather than trying to use the search bar nonstop to stock up on points.

5. And when all else fails, watch SwagTV:  If you've done all of your major Swagbucks earning for the day and feel like taking it down a notch, go to the Watch tab on the Swagbucks navigation bar and keep videos playing in the background while you do your other internet things.  Watching 10 videos will earn you 3 Swagbucks, so if you play videos all day you could earn a decent amount of Swagbucks.


Mini tricks: 
 Swag codes!: 
Swag Codes are keywords that are randomly revealed throughout the day via one of Swagbucks' social media sites or their blog directly on Swagbucks.com.  If you're lucky to catch one of these codes, copying and pasting it into the Swag Code area at the top of the Swagbucks home page will earning you a small amount of Swagbucks (usually between 2 and 5).  Since we can't all afford to keep jumping from one social media page to the next all day, a much easier method is keeping your eyes on this website, which posts update on any newly released Swag Codes.

Swagbucks Toolbar: 
I recently downloaded this and I don't use it that often, but I probably should because it's pretty handy.  Just logging into Swagbucks through the Swagbucks Toolbar earns you 1 swagbuck, but it also notifies you when a new Swag Code is available, saving you the trouble of checking and rechecking the above website, and you can also more easily keep videos playing in the background through the toolbar as you do other things.  You can download the Swagbucks Toolbar for Firefox and Google Chrome, but unfortunately not for Opera, which is the browser I prefer to use for Swagbucks.

Aaand that's about the end of my Ultra Guide to Swagbucks!  This is just my own routine for the ways I earn Swagbucks, but feel free to explore Swagbucks for yourself and any other features I haven't gone into!

Okay, now finally to my latest discovery!  Last week I was looking through my wallet, cleaning it out of things I didn't need anymore, when I came across a few gift cards that I hadn't used in a long time, and one that I had never used at all.  I knew I wasn't planning on using any of these gift cards again in the future and I hated having all of that unspent money sitting there in my wallet, so I decided to look online to see if I could find out whether I could exchange these gift cards for cash.  It didn't take much looking before I found Cardcash.com.  It couldn't be more straightforward: Enter the gift card distributor and the card balance, receive an offer, select your method of payout, send the gift cards via snailmail, and await payment!  The three possible methods of payout are through check, Paypal, or Amazon e gift card.  I personally choose the Amazon e gift card option since I don't have Paypal and you get slightly higher payout for choosing the Amazon option.  I haven't used the check option yet, only because you don't immediately get an offer estimate, so there's no way to know how much you would be receiving on this check.  I believe you just mail in your cards and await for a check to come back and hope that it's a decent amount?  Maybe one of these days I'll mail in a small-amount gift card and see what happens!

But how cool is this?!  I wish I had known about this site earlier!  The first gift card I tried this on was an old Burger King gift card my brother had given me a couple years ago that had an unused $10 on it.  After about a week of waiting, I finally got a message in my email with my $8 Amazon e-gift card.  So, not a bad payout, considering!  Now that I know this website is legitimate, I've already sent off my last few unused gift cards:

If all goes well, within the next week I'll be expecting another $15 Amazon e-gift card my way!  Pretty close to the total amount on these gift cards.  Although how close the payout is to the actual total on the gift card varies.  Sometimes it's very close, and other times not as much.  I told Mom about this website and she was thrilled to exchange her gift card at White House Black Market that she's held in her wallet for years since she has no use for it.  The gift card had quite a lot on it: $93.  Her payout amount came out to only $69, though.  Better than keeping her gift card in her wallet never to be used, but still a decent 24 dollar cut.  So keep in mind, it just varies by case how much you'll get in return.  But still, you can't deny how convenient this website is for providing a good exchange for all of our unwanted gift cards!

Whew, a good hearty Life Hack post provided by yours truly!
This may be my last non-personal blog for awhile, though.  This blog provided a good practice for blog writing or even more technical writing, if I so choose to go down this route, but I go back to college in less than a month, so I'll have a lot less time to do these kinds of posts.  Look forward to more journal entry style posts in the future :)

Until next time!
x Danielle