Money, Money, Money!

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I'm addicted to saving money.

As one of my multiple ways of making small bits of pocket change while using the internet at home, I routinely take on-line surveys. One frequently asked question: "Is finding a good bargain a game to you?" Yes, yes it is . . . now give me my free money.

I love it!

And because I love it so much, I'm going to share, once again, my favorite ways to save money and/or get free money from people just giving it away on-line (yes, people do that and more people than I can count decide it's not worth their effort - I call these people silly - I love them, but they're silly, because, seriously, who really doesn't want free money?!).

1) Swagbucks.
I've told people about this - people have signed up, and then they don't use it! And it baffles me. Honestly baffles me. In the six months, or maybe a little more, since I've joined I have earned $45 in gift cards to amazon.com. I'm not sure if you're aware (but I'm sure you are), but amazon sells just about everything under the sun. So, $45 I didn't have before to spend on whatever I want? Sign me up, please. This year I even used some of that money for Christmas gifts. Nice. Now, this is really easy money to get because all I have to do is use their google-powered search engine whenever I search for anything on-line. And I search a LOT. To make it easier, you can change the search bar at the top of your browser to use swagbucks automatically - and it's not a download, so you don't have to worry about that if that kind of thing bothers you. Just search. That's all. And every time you search you get the chance to earn swagbucks. You then trade your SB for real B in the form of gift cards - as mentioned I opt for amazon because it's the best deal. I search a lot and, on average, I earn about 1sb/day for searching. They also have codes to earn you bucks, which is a big portion of my swagbucks, but let's start off easy - search, earn money. Sign up here.

2) Mypoints.com
Now, mypoints has taken me a little longer to earn money, but I have earned over $85 in gift cards to the Motherhood store, Old Navy and JCPenney - a nice excuse to pamper myself if there ever was any. Most of the ways to earn points through this website is to shop on-line through their site. I'm going to be honest, I always forget to go through their site, so I almost never earn points this way. Were I to actually remember, I would probably be earning a lot quicker. They also have "offers" to take advantage of. The majority of these are money-spending, shopping offers or signing up for credit cards or services you don't want. I don't do those. But, they do send e-mails, a lot of e-mails. All you have to do is open the e-mail, click on the offer, close the page that opens, delete the e-mail and you earn 5 points. If you get 5 of these e-mails in a day, that's 25 points/day. Not bad. If you check your e-mail often. If you don't, they'll stack up quickly and intimidate you. If you delete them w/o reading them, you don't get any points. So, if you can stay on top of your e-mail and you have a couple of seconds to click, close, delete, it's not a bad way to earn money slowly. E-mail me if you want an invite. Or you can join on your own, but then I don't get any points, and I'll be sad. :( See?

3)On-line Survey Sites.
Websites like surveyspot.com and toluna.com offer money in exchange for sharing your opinion - or, rather, your time. They routinely send e-mails inviting you to partake in a survey. Now, here's where I'm the greedy, selfish survey site member. Some surveys offer plain cash, others offer "an entry" into their sweepstakes. If I'm not getting a set amount of money, I don't bother with the survey. But some surveys do offer $3, $5 or even up to $25 for participation. Those I jump right on, if I have the time. Sometimes I just don't have 20-30 min to take a survey, so I just delete the e-mails. I choose when I take a survey and which surveys I want. It's pretty simple. Through surveyspot I've earned a $20 check about every other month or so. It's not a lot, but it's a date night!

4)Read blogs.
This doesn't really earn me money, but it does help me save money and get lots of free things I wouldn't have known about otherwise. There are women out there who devote their time and energy to keeping others on top of amazing sales or freebies. I appreciate them. My favorites are: http://dealwisemommy.blogspot.com/, http://www.forthemommas.com/, and http://freebies4mom.blogspot.com/. They have hooked me up a number of times.

5)Woot.com/kids.woot.com
If you haven't heard of these before, be warned, they're addictive. The woot family actually has a network of four sites, but these are the two I frequent most. The concept behind them is one deal, one day. Every day they have a different "deal" on a random item (usually VERY random). If you want one, you can buy up to three at the price given with a $5 flat shipping fee. If you don't like it, you wait for tomorrow (or if you're real hard-core, you stay up until midnight) to see what the next day's deal will be. The original, woot.com, typically offers electronics of some sort or other household items. kids.woot.com offers, what else?, kids items. Sometimes toys, sometimes other useful things, like carseats. The prices on these are phenomenol and we have purchased more than one Christmas gift via woot. And then there are woot-offs . . . but that's another story.

Ok, I think I'll stop there. I save money in real life, too, via searching sales ads and using coupons, but these are my favorite ways to save/earn money on-line. And as a stay-at-home mom, it's much easier for me to do a couple of things on the internet in the morning to save me money then hike out and hunt for deals on the shelf. I'm sure you understand!

So, those are my insider tips (ok, not so insider, they're hardly exclusive. In fact, I'm sure you've heard of one or more of these things long before today, but I continue to hope this blog was, in fact, insightful for you). Have a nice day ;)