Swagbucks: How does it work?

I have mentioned several times about something called "Swagbucks". I was introduced to it through a friend on Facebook, and decided to give it a whirl. If you haven't heard of it before, or you've seen it mentioned on different sites, you might be confused about what it is. It's a free program you sign up for, and then earn "swagbucks" in various ways. The most common way is when you use their free search engine and are randomly awarded "swagbucks". You then redeem your swagbucks at "The Swag Store", my favorite items being the $5 Amazon gift cards, which are only 450 swagbucks each. Since I started using Swagbucks at the beginning of July, I have earned enough swagbucks to redeem for almost $50 worth of Amazon cards.


So how do you earn points? First, you have to sign-up. Then....

• Make the Swagbucks free search engine your homepage, and use it for all your daily searches. I win swagbucks for things as basic as "facebook", "gmail", "Money Saving Mom", and "Frugal Girls", which are all sites that I go to on a daily basis anyway. You don't win on every search, but I easily win 20-30 swagbucks a day this way.
• Refer swagbucks to your friends, family, and co-workers, and when they sign up, you earn extra points. (For example, if you click on any of the links in this blog to sign-up, I will earn some extra swagbucks. Then you get your friends to sign up under you, and you get extra swagbucks...)
• Catch "freebies", which are Swagbucks codes posted on their blog, Facebook, or tool bar.
• Participate in the daily poll or a survey, and you win extra points.

Those are the basic ways to earn swagbucks. Once you're ready to redeem your points, you can visit what they call "The Swag Store" to see all available prizes. Gift cards are actually "e-cards", so they will be posted to your account, not physically mailed to you. I have already typed in my e-cards to my amazon account, so I now have a positive balance in my account that will be good towards my next purchase! This will be great with Christmas right around the corner, as well as a growing baby boy who keeps me on my toes finding new ideas for foods, toys, clothes, and books! (and if you haven't signed up for "Amazon Mom" yet, you need to! You get 3 free months of Amazon Prime, which means free shipping on all Amazon orders!)

If you have any more questions, let me know!