This year
I have earned $400 since the year began mostly while sitting in my living room,
watching TV. How? I earned it all using Swagsbucks.com. Thanks to the wonderful
community over at /r/swagsbucks I learned how to maximize my earning on this
click-to-earn website and have enjoyed being able to spend “fun money” that isn’t
from my day-job.
We’ve used this money
to buy a waffle iron, part of the fence we installed this summer, and I got a
new purse and two weeks of groceries with it.
Swagsbucks pays out in a variety of gift cards, including amazon,
target, lowes and walmart, or directly to your paypal account (which helps pay
for my Netflix and Spotify accounts).
Whether you need a few extra dollars to help make ends meet in your
grocery bill, or just want to save up to get a few new toys that otherwise
wouldn’t be in the budget.
Swagbucks
are earned by doing a number of different activity, with 1 Swagbuck (SB) having
the rough value of $.01 (Depending on whether the gift cards you earn are on
sale)
So how do
you join and how do you make sure you earn as much as I do each month? Here are the tips and tricks I learned
through /r/swagsbucks and a few I’ve picked up on my own.
Signing up (Get your first 160 SB)
Go to Swagsbucks.com and sign up for an account.
MAKE SURE to use an email address you DON’T LOVE. If you don’t have dedicated spam account I recommend
going to gmail and getting a brand new email just to sign up for
Swagbucks. I also didn’t attach my Facebook
account, so that step isn’t necessary!
Additionally, if your browser has Adblock, you
will have to disable it to use Swagbucks – ads are how they make their money
and thus how they pay you. You can
either disable it when you choose to swag, or create a second profile without
the add-on loaded just for when you swag.
If you want to use your regular internet browsing account while swagging
is to download a different browser than you usually use (Chrome if you use
Firefox and vice versa). This has the added advantage of being able to mute
just that browser, so you can watch videos and play games without the ads cutting
in on your audio.
- When signing up be sure to click the “I have a sign up code” box under “confirm password” and use the code “RSWAGBUCKS” to get your first bonus of 70 SB.
- Make sure to verify the email you signed up with!
- Just signing up will earn you 4 SB, and you first get the opportunity to complete your profile and take a brief “tour” of the website to earn 32 SB. If you choose to skip the tour you won’t earn the 32 SB.
- On the left hand side of your home screen should be a spot where you can turn on your daily goals. Make sure to do this (more on daily goals below!)
- Set up your survey info – hover over the “Answers” pull down menu at the top of your screen. Click on “Surveys” and answer the questions that allow them to target surveys to you (so much better than filling out a survey and getting disqualified because they were looking for men and you’re female!) you will get 1 SB for entering your age & gender, and 1 SB for entering your birthday. On the right hand side of your screen you will see additional questions you can answer – you’ll earn 2 SB for every 10 questions you answer for your profile. These additional questions don’t go away, so if you want to come back to them later you can.
- Install (and then uninstall) the “SwagButton” (Link can be found under your now activated daily goals on the left hand side of your screen) You will get 50 SB for installing, and 1 SB for every day it is installed and you use your browser. The disadvantage to this add-on is that it will intermittently crash your browser due to a glitch in its programming that they refuse to fix. Thus, I recommend installing it for the bonus, but not keeping it around (earning an extra $3.65 a year isn’t worth my browser crashing)
My Daily Routine
I do 70%
of my Swaggin once I’ve gotten home, made dinner and settled down for the
evening to watch a few TV shows. The
other 30% is earned using the passive methods below.
Website Dailies
The
Dailies are:
- SwagButton (1 SB/day) – as discussed above, this can cause issues with your browser crashing, so I don’t recommend keeping it installed.
- Daily Poll (1 SB/day) – This is usually a quick and easy poll, I like doing it first thing each day as I like having at least 1 SB “In the Bank” daily to motivate me to hit my goals.
- NOSO (2 SB/day) – “No Obligation special Offer” – click “Start Earning Now”, and then ignore every page that comes up and click “More Deals” at the bottom of each page. Eventually (usually 5-6 offers) a captcha will load and you will get your 2 SB.
- Daily Crave (1 SB per offer, usually 2-10 SB per day) – This will open in a new tab and must remain the primary tab open in that window. It will run for 3-10 seconds and then the “Like it/Not for Me” buttons will “light up” – click one or the other (it doesn’t matter which) and it will load the next “slide”. After the slides are done you’ll get a window that says “you’ve earned 1 SB” and may have a “Keep Craving” button. If you don’t have the button, you’ve done all they have for the day and can move on to other earning methods!
- Not in the side bar but still fun: If you click the “Play” button at the top of your screen you can play games and earn 2 SB per game played. I usually do “Swag Jump” which is very fast to launch, start and then intentionally die for a quick set of plays. You can earn a maximum of 10 SB a day using this additional “hidden” daily.
Mobile Dailies
There are
6 mobile apps that allow you to earn swagbucks just for leaving them
running. They’ll play a short ad and a
video, and after a pre-determined number of videos you’ll earn 2 SB (the number
of videos depends on the app). Some of
the apps aren’t available on IOS. I use
an old tablet to run the apps, and most people use an old android smartphone or
a cheap android smartphone purchased just to run the apps (as you earn about 130 SB a day from apps the investment quickly pays itself back).
I also
recommend that you root whichever device you plan on running the apps
from. There is an independent app called
“Beermoney Assist” that will clear your cache without logging you out (keeps
the apps running smoothly) and will automatically load the shortest videos into
your app favorites.
The Apps
are (I run them in this order because of the speed of the shortest videos, and
the earning potential of each app as a result):
- SBTV
- Lifestylz.tv
- Entertainow
- Moviecli.ps
- Indymusic.tv
- Sportly.tv
I usually
start running the apps as soon as I get home and just let them go until I get
the “you’re out of wins” message. I’ll
then switch to the next app, wash and repeat.
This is hands down the easiest way to make SB and involves the
occasional day of babysitting (sometimes they have ads that require you to “x-out”
of the ad), but are generally very pain-free. You could earn $40 a month
just running the apps and maxing them out every day without ever doing any of
the rest of the activities I do.
nGage and Jun Group AKA “Desktop Girl” and “Laptop Guy”
These are
the bulk of how I earn my SB while watching TV/working on the computer (I’ve
been earning SB on the side while writing this article!). On the home screen there are a number of
tiles, scroll down until you find one of these two tiles:
Click on
the tile and it will open a separate window.
I usually prefer “Desktop Girl” or nGage, because the interface is a
little easier to work with. Once the new
window opens you’ll want to arrange your desktop like this:
So you’ll
have your main browser/whatever you’re working on as the main portion of your
screen, with a small 1/2 – 1 inch gap at the side through which you can see the
green button with which you’ll interface with the window. When you click the green button it will open
a new window with the content you are supposed to be viewing. Drag this window down to the bottom of your
screen until the header bar is just above the bottom of your screen. Now you can go ahead and do whatever it is
you want to do online. Browse Reddit,
hang out on facebook, buy things on Amazon, or do other swagbucks activities. If you don’t feel like doing much online,
just put the green button in the middle of your screen while you watch TV,
organize your room or walk on the treadmill.
Every time the button goes from grey to green just quickly click on it
and head back to your main browser.
There is
occasionally an upper limit of how many of each of these activities you can do
a day. In January/February earning
potential was low, and nGage/Jun each offered only 4-10 sets of activities a
day. If that happens the green button
will quit showing up and the tile will disappear from your homepage. Take that as a sign to try other ways to earn
I’ve
earned upwards of $2 an hour doing this in good times (low timer counts and
high SB per completed set of activities), but I will almost always earn at
least 50 SB a day this way without ever really interrupting my usual TV
watching or internet browsing routine. This
is a guaranteed way to always hit your daily goal, even if the mobile apps are
acting up.
Why does making your daily goal matter so much?
When you
signed up I had you activate your daily goal.
This is hands down the easiest way to make an extra $6-10 a month.
There are
two goals each day – the first, lower goal is the one you want to make sure you
hit every day! The second, higher goal is a “stretch” goal and will get you
extra bonus SB but isn’t necessary to hit for the added bonus listed below.
When you
reach a goal you will “bank” the amount listed as the “bonus” for reaching that
goal. The first and second goal bonuses
don’t combine or stack with one another.
If you make your second goal you will “bank” the amount listed as “total
bonus”. These “banked” bonus points will
then go into your account on the 5th of the following month. I make sure to make my first goal every day
so I can earn the bonus below, and I usually bank between 500-900 SB a month in
the “bonus” rewards for making these goals.
In
addition to the “banked” bonus points you will earn an additional set of bonus
points for having a streak of days where you meet the goal every day. The more days in a row you can reach your first goal, the more SB you’ll earn at
the end of the month. Here are the
points you can earn:
- Meet Daily Goal 7 days in a row.............. 25 SB Bonus
- Meet Daily Goal 14 days in a row............ 100 SB Bonus
- Meet Daily Goal 21 days in a row............ 200 SB Bonus
- Meet Daily Goal every day in the month... 300 SB Bonus
So at the
end of each month, just for reaching your goal every day (easy to do even with
just the mobile apps), you’ll earn a bonus $3 worth of SB. Add that to your “banked” bonus points above
and you’ll earn between $8-12 a month just with this added bonus for making
your goal.
The daily
goals are set based on your average earnings.
They will only go up if you regularly (3-4 days in a row) beat your 2nd
daily goal. After your first month you
should notice that your first goal will stabilize around 100-130 points per
day. Between the apps and nGage you
should easily hit this goal every day (usually within the first hour of sitting
down to swag).
Other random stuff you can use to earn SB
1. Swag Codes- usually around 2-4 SB which
are posted on their social media sites. You can have texts or emails sent toyou with the swagcodes when they become available by using this IFTTT recipe.
2. Check your inbox (top right corner of
any screen, by your total SB earned) for “Earn 2 Swag Bucks” offers. These are usually short videos or website
links. Open, click and close for a quick
2 SB. I usually empty my inbox daily so
I can keep track of when new offers roll in.
3. Hourly Random Winner- 1,000 SB winners
announced on the Swagbucks Blog. You canset up this IFTTT recipe to be notified if you happen to be the lucky winner so you can claim your SB (I’ve never won, odds are you won’t either, but hey, free
$10)
4 . Encrave: Very similar to the “Daily
Crave” methods found above. Found under the Discover tab at the bottom of the
menu. I usually will do this alongside
nGage/Jun Group if I am quite bored and have no other internetting to do.
5. Look at your front page. Every offer for 1-3 SB is usually one you can
just click on, collect a few SB and close the window.
6. Surveys – Found under the “Answer” tab –
This is why you completed your profile! Surveys can be worth 50-200 SB each,
are usually time consuming, and half the time will kick you out after 2-3
minutes of your time. The first 5 times
you are disqualified you will earn 1 SB.
If you qualify and finish your SB should be awarded immediately. Take note of the # of each survey before you
start it, and a screenshot of the last page of a survey if you qualify and
complete it – if they don’t credit you for a completed survey send SB support a
note (bottom right of your screen), along with a screenshot of your final page
of the survey showing you completed it. They
will usually credit you within 24 hours.
7. Shop n Earn – before you do ANY
shopping online check to see if there is a link to the site through Shop n
Earn. You can earn anywhere from 1 SB-15
SB per dollar spent! I use this any time
the office is ordering from Vistaprint or Staples, and whenever I’m about to
order something online. I usually get my
cart all ready and just before I check out will check Shop to see if my website
is listed. I’ll follow the link from
Swagbucks and head straight into the checkout.
Make sure you look at your “Shop n Earn” ledger (from the account pull
down on the top right of the screen) and take a note of your “visit ID” once
you’ve completed an order. If after 7
business days the transaction isn’t showing as pending under the “Purchases”
tab you’ll need this ID number and the details of your transaction to send a
ticket into customer support. When
pended it usually takes about 30 days to get your points. If you need to send in a ticket they’ll
usually credit you within the 24 hours.
They will ONLY credit you if you can provide a valid visit ID and a
screenshot from the webpage showing you completed the transaction.
A note on redeeming for Gift Cards:
Every month the
first $25 gift certificate you order (with the exception of PayPal and prepaid
Visa gift cards) will only cost you 2200 SB instead of 2500 SB. This will “save” you $3 worth of SB to use
toward your next card. I like to make
sure I have enough SB to claim the discounted card first thing in the month,
and then keep earning more through the month.
I’ll cash out for a second $25 gift card whenever I hit 4700 SB.
Also, don’t use your
hard earned SB to enter Swagstakes! You
will not win!
And that’s
it! That’s how I have earned $400 so far
this year, and will probably earn $400-600 more by the end of the year. Let me know your favorite methods of earning
and I’ll try them out myself and add them to the tutorial if I like them! Good
luck earning, and may all of your Christmas presents be paid for with Amazon
gift cards you earned with Swagbucks!
