Starting Off the New Year! Cheap Books & Free Gift Cards

With the New Year upon us, people are making New Year's Resolutions, including financial ones. Many are buckling down and trying to find ways to save money, or even make money. I'm reminded of a few of my old favorites, and a new one.

Oldies But Goodies:

Couponing! Review some of my posts on successful couponing.

Swagbucks: earn Swagbucks by searching the internet, and cash them in for gifts cards or merchandise! In the year since I joined, I've cashed in my Swagbucks and gotten close to $100 in gift cards (for Starbucks, iTunes, and Amazon.com) and a book on organizing :)

InboxDollars: read e-mails, click on the links, and earn cash.

$25 CVS Challenge: See how I've gotten 180 items, and still counting, spending only $25 at CVS!

Other ways to make money on the internet, including my posts on getting a $500 Sears card & a $500 IKEA card.

And a newbie:
Paperback Swap: It's a great way to get rid of books that you don't want & find books you're interested in. Basically, you "post" books by searching for books you have that you want to get rid of. If someone else then selects one of your posted books, you print out the label Paperback Swap creates for you, put the book in a mailing envelope or for smaller books & attch the label, or use Paperback Swap's mailing wrappers (printed on regular paper). You then attach postage & mail the book. When the book is received, you get 1 credit, and the person keeps the book. That credit can be used to pick a book you'd like to get shipped to you. You also keep the books that are shipped to you; you don't mail them back. If you post 10 books upon joining, you get 2 "start-up" credits, so you can start receiving books right away.

Getting Some Free Gift Cards

With the economy the way it is & the holidays coming quickly upon us, I've been hearing from people lately, "Who should I buy presents for & how do I afford them?"

My first suggestion is to join Swagbucks. I've got 280 something Swagbucks myself, after having recently cashed a bunch in for 2 Amazon.com gift cards, a Starbucks gift card and an iTunes gift card. If you haven't heard about Swagbucks, you need to! Basically, you log in and use their search engine (which uses Google & Ask.com) and you win Swagbucks which are redeemable for gift cards and other stuff. This is the coolest of my "free" recommendations because you are simply being rewarded for something you do anyway!

I also use Mypoints and InboxDollars. Both programs reward you for reading e-mails and then clicking on the links. The difference is that My Points pays in gift cards, whereas Inbox Dollars pays in cold, hard cash. Again, I can refer you to these programs if you'd like. You can simply click on this link for InboxDollars, but for My Points, I have to refer you via e-mail. Inbox Dollars will give you $5 just for signing up. Also, if you use credit cards, now is the time to cash in your rewards!

Also, here are some posts on how to make money on the internet, including my posts on getting a $500 Sears card & a $500 IKEA card. Believe it or not, I still have $75 on my Sears card & $375 on my IKEA card. Since I'm due to have a baby in the next few weeks, I'm not sure I'll be doing much Christmas shopping unless it's by e-card :)

Making Money on the Internet

I'm in central Vermont, on a family vacation, and not doing much frugal shopping. I am, however, contemplating how I will use my $500 IKEA card!

Speaking of gift cards, you don't have to sign up for offers and spend money to get gift cards. You can get them for free! Have you joined Swagbucks yet? I've got 200 something Swagbucks myself, after havig recently cashed a bunch in fr gift cards. If you haven't heard about Swagbucks, you need to! Basically, you log in and use their search engine (which uses Google & Ask.com) and you win Swagbucks which are redeemable for gift cards and other stuff. This is the coolest of my "free" recommendations because you are simply being rewarded for something you do anyway! If you want to be referred, simply click on this link and I think I get some referral credit :) I tried 2 other search engine reward programs that I didn't like at all. Swagbucks is definitely the way to go, especially since there is no special toolbar you need to download.

I also use Mypoints and InboxDollars. Both programs reward you for reading e-mails and then clicking on the links. The difference is that My Points pays in gift cards, whereas Inbox Dollars pays in cold, hard cash. Again, I can refer you to these programs if you'd like. You can simply click on this link for InboxDollars, but for My Points, I have to refer you via e-mail. Inbox Dollars will give you $5 just for signing up.

My IKEA Card Arrived!!!

My IKEA card is here! That was SO fast! 5 weeks and 1 day from the day I started the deal, and only 2 weeks since they received my paperwork and I was approved! And yes - I called to verify the balance :)

Want to do your own gift card deal? Read my journey from end to beginning here.

My $500 IKEA Gift Card Was Approved!

I'm 6-8 weeks from a $500 IKEA gift card! I checked my status this afternoon and found this message:

You have been approved by the sponsor(s). Your redemption certificate was processed on Jun 9 2009 12:04PM. Your free gift will be mailed out within 6 to 8 weeks of the processing date.

-- Thank you.

Woo-hoo! That was fast :) To read my 1st update, click here. Also, if you want to do your own gift card deal, I suggest surfing over to MoneySavingMethods.com to read more about it.

$500 IKEA Gift Card Challenge, Update 2

Here's another update on my $500 gift card challenge.

Since May 24th, I've been waiting...and waiting.....and waiting for my Platinum offers to approve (to read my 1st update, click here). I was starting to get pretty discouraged! Carrie over at MoneySavingMethods.com said generally, the offers approve in 10 day cycles, so by the 11th day, the offers that are going to be approved should have been approved. Well, yesterday was the 11th day, and nothing else approved. 2 of the offers that had not yet approved were ones I had to cancel early, and I wondered if that affected the status. So I surfed through some of the other offers to see if I could do a couple more, but none of them looked appealing and all of them required mailing something back after the trial period (and I would have had to pay for the initial shipping & handling). Whatever is sent back should be sent with delivery confirmation (thus needing to be sent priority mail), and since the postal rates went up again recently, I decided to wait a few more days, lest I spend extra money that I didn't need to spend.

I woke up this morning, checked my status, and all 4 of my outstanding offers approved!! Woo-hoo!

I printed out the necessary forms and mailed them off this morning. So far, I have spent $58.60. I will have to mail one other thing back, and possibly more if I didn't read the fine print correctly. Now, I wait and see how long it takes to get the gift card :)

$500 IKEA Gift Card Challenge, Update 1

I said in my last entry that I'd be updating you as I work on earning a $500 IKEA gift card. I'll be documenting my time spent on the deal, as well as money spent on the deal.

I began the deal at 9:15 PM on May 19th. It took me about 40 minutes to pick 8 offers (2 "Silver" offers , 2 "Gold" offers , and 4 "Platinum" offers) that I wanted to try (for a fuller explanation, see this entry). I was careful to read the fine print (how long is this "free" trial? what is the true cost? do I have to send the product back if I cancel my membership?), so that I could try and spend the least amount of money, and not have to send a lot of stuff back. I e-mailed myself the terms to each of the offers, clumping them together by offer type (Silver, Gold, and Platinum), so it was only 3 e-mails and not 8. Then I e-mailed myself the terms of the overall gift card deal, as well as the link to check to see if my offers were approved.

Then I spent about 15 minutes, reading through the deals again and getting myself organized. I set up a daily reminder in my Gmail calendar, reminding me every morning to check the status of the various offers. Thankfully, I-deal, the company who organizes these deals, makes it easy to check; simply go to the web page, enter your e-mail address, and they show you a list, saying whether the offer is approved or pending. I also included in my calendar reminder the date I need to cancel each of the offers, in chronological order. Some of them are "free" for 7-10 days; others are "free" up to a month. I wanted to be really organized so I wasn't having to search through all of my e-mails every day to remind myself which ones to cancel.

By the next morning (May 20th), both silver offers were approved. On May 23rd, both gold offers were approved. As of now, none of the platinum offers have approved.

Today, May 24th, I called to cancel 2 offers that only had a 7 day trial. One of these offers has not yet been approved; this will be a test to see whether or not it still goes through, or if I have to do another offer. This particular one was $1 for 7 days, but then it costs $24.95. It's not worth the additional cost.

So far, I have spent $36.17. I will have at least 1 more charge, plus return postage, as 2 of the products need to be mailed back. This isn't too bad, as last time I spent over $70, just for the initial costs.

For more information on how I started doing these deals and what I've learned so far, go to this entry about my $500 Sears gift card.

CVS & Another $500 Gift Card

Hello, friends! I've been busy. I have 1 CVS transaction that I still need to post toward my CVS challenge. I went again earlier this week, but they didn't have anything I wanted. Bummer!

The big news is that I started another deal for a $500 gift card last night. This one is for a gift card to IKEA! Sometimes the company opts to send you a check or a general Visa card, but since I used the same company that sent me the $500 Sears card, I imagine I will get the IKEA card.

I'll be documenting this journey as well for those of you who are considering doing one of these deals. Stay tuned!

Getting Free Gift Cards

I used my $500 Sears card today to buy a 7 quart crockpot for $24.99! I'm so excited! It's at the store, waiting for me to get it. If you factor in how much I had to spend in order to get that $500 Sears card, I really only paid like $5!

Speaking of free gift cards, have you joined Swagbucks yet? I've got 271 Swagbucks myself, just waiting to be cashed in. That could get me a $20 gift card to Barnes & Noble, Starbucks, or Target. If you haven't heard about Swagbucks, you need to! Basically, you log in and use their search engine (which uses Google & Ask.com) and you win Swagbucks which are redeemable for gift cards and other stuff. This is the coolest of my "free" recommendations because you are simply being rewarded for something you do anyway! If you want to be referred, simply click on this link and I think I get some referral credit :) I tried 2 other search engine reward programs that I didn't like at all. Swagbucks is definitely the way to go, especially since there is no special toolbar you need to download.

I also use Mypoints and InboxDollars. I've got over 3000 MyPoints (also worth various $20 gift cards!). Both programs reward you for reading e-mails and then clicking on the links. The difference is that My Points pays in gift cards, whereas Inbox Dollars pays in cold, hard cash. Again, I can refer you to these programs if you'd like. You can simply click on this link for InboxDollars, but for My Points, I have to refer you via e-mail. Inbox Dollars will give you $5 just for signing up.

Hotcouponworld Recommends 19 Survey Sites that Pay

Hotcouponworld has compiled a list of 19 survey sites that are legit, really pay people, and have minimal spam.

This is great news!

I've seen on the other blogs I read that completing surveys is a good way to earn extra money, so a month or two back, I set up a special e-mail address just for doing surveys. I did this because I was worried about my inbox being filled with spam. The problem? I never remember to check it!

I'm already a member of MyPoints & Inbox Dollars (see my side bar for the link to Inbox dollars), but I should check out some of the others. I may still try to use that special e-mail address, but I'd rather have it all come to one inbox. So, thanks Hotcouponworld for doing this research so I don't have to!

The Cost for my $500 Gift Card

Someone asked how much money I had to spend in order to get my $500 gift card to Sears. Good question! So today I set out to figure that out.

I have spent $70.71 so far (I still have to buy 2 DVD's from Columbia house, but I'll be getting 6 DVD's for about $40-$50 out of that), a good portion of which would have been avoidable if I had known some of the tips I laid out in my post. I had said I think I could have done it for under $50, and I was right!

I'm going to try another deal in the near future, and I'll let you guys know what I spend on that one.

My Super Crazy Surprise - I Got a $500 Gift Card

You know those on-line offers, those crazy pop-up ads, that ask you silly questions like "Do you like Best Buy or Circuit City?" and then offer you gift cards or cash for completing offers?

I did one. And it worked.

Yes, I'm serious. I got a $500 gift card to Sears, and it's real. I checked the balance on-line.

So how did I do it & why was I crazy enough to try it?

A few months back, I discovered Carrie over at Money Saving Methods, another popular blogger in the frugality blogging world. She completes on-line offers and claims to have a lot of success doing it. Her site is very detailed & has a lot of information on how to succeed in completing your offer.

What's the gist of an on-line offer, or a "deal", as I call it? With the deal I did, you need to complete 8 different, individual offers. The offers are for all sorts of things: credit reports, free trials on teeth whiteners, Blockbuster on-line or makeup, quotes on auto insurance, etc. Some of them will require a small fee out of pocket; others are true "free trials". Most require you give a credit card number. Yes, I know that's scary. I'm say more about that later.

Anyway, after perusing Carrie's site, I figured I'd try to do a "deal". I followed Carrie's directions carefully and chose offers that I, for the most part, was interested in, like Netflix & eMusic. I also had to pick a few that I wasn't interested in in order to fulfill the requirements. I had to wait about 10 days for all my offers to finalize and be approved. Then, I sent in the paperwork, was officially approved by the company after about 2 weeks, and received my gift card 5 weeks later. The whole process took a little over 2 months.

Here are some things I learned in the process of doing my "offer".

If you take advantage of free trial offers, the longer the trial, the better. I did a deal with I-deal, and I could check their website whenever I wanted to see if my "offers" had been approved. I picked a few offers where the "free" part was not very long, and ended up having to pay for the 1st month of whatever the service was.

Pick free trials where you don't have to send the product back. Read the fine print. Many offers will start your trial by sending you a small sample of their product. If you choose not to continue past the free trial, some require that you return the product; otherwise, you have to pay for the product, the cost of which is often hefty.

Pick offers that are low cost, in case you don't get approved quickly. If the product or offer costs $5/month, it's not as important that you are approved in a timely manner because you're not out a ton of money.

Pick offers that genuinely interest you. We joined Netflix, which after the free trial costs us less than $9/month. I joined Columbia House, picking the lowest purchase requirement, and got several DVD's at a low cost. I got 25 free downloads from eMusic.

Pick reputable companies whose names you recognize, and use a credit card you can check on-line. Since you need to give a credit card number, try & pick companies like Blockbuster & Columbia House. Also, use a credit card that has a good monitoring system and a proven track record of safety.

Check your offer status frequently. The majority of my offers were approved in the first 3-5 days. One offer was a straggler and was approved at 8 days. The last offer was still not approved at 10 days, so I completed a different offer (eMusic) to fill in the gap. eMusic approved immediately, and I met my quota.

If you want to try one of these offers, I'm definitely not an expert on them; I'd head over to Carrie's blog, which is quite detailed, and start reading. She's happy to answer any questions about the process.

The big question: what will I buy with my gift card? We're going to get an additional freezer for about $200 and think about what to do with the rest :)

Swagbuck Bonus Today

Go to the Swagbucks site, and click on the box that says how many Swagbucks you have.

There's a box that says "Have a SwagCode?". Enter GreenThursday to get a free Swagbuck! It's case-sensitive.

Have You Been Surfing Through Swagbucks Lately?

I have to say I'm really enjoying Swagbucks. I explained more about Swagbuucks in a previous post, but basically, you use the Swagbucks search engine (which uses Google & Ask.com) and you win Swagbucks. I already have enough Swagbucks for a free gift card, but I'm saving them up.

I wanted to applaud a friend of mine, who I'll call E, because she has been faithfully using Swagbucks and has earned 33 Swagbucks for herself & for me! So if you join (through me, please!), invite your friends to join. You win up to 100 matching Swagbucks for each friend you invite!

Have You Joined Swagbucks Yet?

Nancy over at Raging Bear Ranch recommended Swagbucks to me a few weeks ago. Basically, you log in and use their search engine (which uses Google & Ask.com) and you win Swagbucks which are redeemable for gift cards. This is the coolest of my "free" recommendations because you are simply being rewarded for something you do anyway! If you want to be referred, simply click on this link and I think I get some credit or something :)

And we should join now because this month, Swagbucks is giving away MEGA SWAG BUCKS! You can now WIN 10, 20, 50 & 100 SWAG BUCK BILLS as you search the web. And they've started doing 1,000 Swag Buck Fridays.

You can cash in your Swagbucks for gift cards, which I think is pretty cool. I tried 2 other search engine reward programs that I didn't like at all. Swagbucks is definitely the way to go.

I also use Mypoints and InboxDollars. Both programs reward you for reading e-mails and then clicking on the links. The difference is that My Points pays in gift cards, whereas Inbox Dollars pays in cold, hard cash. Again, I can refer you to these programs if you'd like. You can simply click on this link for InboxDollars, but for My Points, I have to refer you via e-mail. Inbox Dollars will give you $5 just for signing up.