Today, I present to you one of the best deals I’ve seen in years. It’s just as the title says, free money and free Fitbits for everyone. It’s not one of those giveaways that 2 people win (and it is never you). Everyone that participates should get free money and that’s where the free Fitbit comes in.
Let me explain how it works.
1. Buy a Fitbit
There are a few types of Fitbits available at different price points. Personally, I’d buy a Fitbit Ultra on Ebay. (That link should take you directly to a Buy It Now option above $30, so you don’t have to bid multiple times or wade through pages of accessories.) You can sometimes find them for between $30 and $40, but I think they are a great deal at $60. The Ultra is an older model that won my award for Product of the Year in 2012.
Fitbit phased out the Ultra, but I really like the design. Today there is a Fitbit Zip that looks a little large for my tastes, but syncs with smartphones and tablets with bluetooth. At $50, it is a solid frugal choice, but it won’t track sleep or count floors (a key feature) like the Ultra.
For all the Ultra’s features (floor climbing and sleep tracking), plus the bluetooth connection (not a big deal to me), you’d have to get the Fitbit One at around $99. Meh, get the Ultra on Ebay.
Fitbit also makes some wrist-tracking devices, but those are also $99 and $129, which defeat the purpose of this deal, unless you really love that design and think it is worth the extra money.
3. Sign up for AchieveMint
I learned about AchieveMint a couple of months ago. The website rewards you for doing healthy things, such as checking into a gym with FourSquare. There are tons of ways to earn points, including using most of the popular social media sites, but right now I’m just using the Fitbit.
What do AchieveMint points get you? Money. For every 25,000 point you get, they’ll send you a Visa gift card for $25.
The next natural question is how easy is it to get to 25,000 points. Everyone is going to be different, but I’ve been a member for a couple of months now and I’m averaging 143 points a day. That’s 52,195 points a year, or $50 a year. That stated, I also have the Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Scale that gives me 30 points for weighing myself and doing a body fat measurement. Most of my points are still from walking with the Fitbit.
Also, I have a dog and give him a few walks a day, but other than that I’m fairly sedentary at a computer. I don’t think it would be too unusual for most people to get $40 a year with AchieveMint (especially if you use the ways to earn points).
3. Profit
If it wasn’t obvious by now, the “free” Fitbit comes in the form of payments from AchieveMint – almost like reimbursements or a rebate. However, I think it is a little better in that the money keeps on coming… as long as AchieveMint is in business and making payments. That might be a big assumption, but you can keep your risk very low ($30-$50 for the Fitbit tracker) and always resell it later on if it isn’t your thing. I figure that in worst case scenario AchieveMint goes bankrupt the day after you buy your tracker, you decide that you hate the idea of measuring your health, and sell it for a net loss of $10… not exactly the end of the world.
I should mention that AchieveMint gathers statistics that are aggregated and anonymized. Your information is being put to use, but they “never reveal personal information or individual level data.” I consider that a non-event when it comes to privacy.
Let me know what you think about this deal in the comments. I understand it is not going to fund your beach house payments any time soon, but I hope to get points for getting you a piece of cool technology and show you how it can actually make you money, without doing anything extra.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve had a fitbit since about the beginning of the year. It went back and appears to have given me credit for the entire time I had the device. I don’t know how far back it looks, but at least a month or two.
It looked back a month for me I think. There are more ways to earn points too. I’ve been thinking about getting RunKeeper which seems to be a supported app. I haven’t gotten around to it though.
Step 2a: wear the fit bit all day, every day for an average of 14 cents a day.
Many, many people (maybe millions?) have paid money to wear it all day, every day and earn zero cents a day. The Fitbit Force (a more expensive version of what I suggested) is #4 of the CNET 100 hottest technology products: http://www.cnet.com/cnet100/.
I read this blog and signed up right away. I don’t need a fitbit, but I run everyday with “MapMyWalk” which is a supported app, so maybe that will help me rack up point. Upon sign up, it’s really not very clear what you should do to earn points. Hopefully I will understand it more as I go. As far as mapmywalk goes, I really like it, it’s a great app. I’d recommend it over run keeper, which I’ve also tried. Happy fitness!
If you sign up for Achievemint you should know they have a habit of not paying or being really slow at paying the rewards. There are lots of negative reviews about them on Facebook. I did finally get my reward after three months, but I had to email them, Facebook them, and tweet them a few times.
I requested my $50 (I doubled up) a couple of weeks ago. Ugh, didn’t think it was going to be a fight.
Maybe I missed it, but I still do not see where in your information at all its says I can obtai a free Fitbit, from acievement.
You pay for the Fitbit. You use it to build points with AcheiveMint. You cash those points for money reimbursing your Fitbit and paying you on top of it. The result is a free Fitbit and free money.
Achivemint is a pretty cool site. It does take a while to get the points and then a while to get the money but it is legit. I myself have yet to get the points for it but I know two people personally who got the $50.
There are other ways as well to get free stuff with a fitbit. I’ll name a few
Fitstudio- It’s connected with Sears so if you shop at sears it’s pretty cool. If I remember correctly it’s 1,000 points is $1 and when I signed up with Facebook I got a free 5,000 points or $5
So how it works it the more active you are (the more steps you get) the more points you get, there is a limit which I’m not sure what it is anymore but unless you’re super active you won’t have to worry about it. I myself have redeemed about 120,000 points so about $120 and I’d say that was over about 3 quarters of a year. You can use the points for anything on the Sears site that is sold by Sears, Landsend and some more.
Issues I’ve had with it was back when it was new it was almost unusable but it’s come a long way. Also a lot of things on Sears site are not sold by Sears so look out for that because if it’s not sold by Sears or any of the other Valid stores you won’t be able to use points on the item. I mostly bought Anime from sears I was buying Volumes that would normally cost $20 for less than $5 I would just save up for 2 weeks which ranged from 10,000-20,000 I even got a $20 volume for free once.
https://www.fitstudio.com/
Earndit- Now with Higi. before higi it was the same as the rest of the sites walk-earn points
On this site you can donate to charities or get discounts on other sites. I didn’t use it a lot when I had it because I wasn’t personally interested in the sites the discounts where for but I’m sure many people would be. Haven’t checked it out since it joined with higi so it might be better now. Cool way to donate though since you don’t have to do anything other than walk
Everymove- I haven’t used this site yet but check it out I’ve heard it’s pretty good and hey just one more way to make money from walking
So those are other was to Negate the price of a fitbit. My fav fitbit is the One and I would highly recommend it I’ve more than made up for it, Not to mention the real reason to get one losing weight and that’s priceless.
I already have a Fitbit, but will for sure be joining the achievement site! Thanks for tip! FYI, I just upgraded to the Charge HR so I can monitor my heartbeat. (Looking to push myself a little more).