I hope everyone had a good Labor Day weekend. I was doing some major dog sitting. I probably should have realized that everyone was going to be on vacation and want to leave their dogs with me, but for some reason it didn’t click. We had a full house going. It was crazy, but also nice to make $350 in a weekend.
While on the topic of making money, I couldn’t help but notice that many of my blogging friends have been recommending SwagBucks. You sign up for Swagbucks and do various tasks to make money. Typically it involves using their search, watching a video, or buying a product through their promotional link.
I should clarify that you don’t really make money, but earn Swagbucks which can be exchanged for money or gift cards. So it’s really the same thing.
If you sign up through this link, they’ll even give you $5 worth of Swagbucks to start, if you meet some kind of activity criteria.
I want to be clear, you aren’t going to get rich with SwagBucks… though they claim to have given out nearly a $100 million in gift cards. Typically, you’ll get a few cents here and there. It does add up and I’ve seen some bloggers average more than $20 a month.
Of course, $20 a month may not seem like much. However, it’s like getting Netflix and Amazon Prime for free. Who wouldn’t take that?
True story, yesterday I signed my sons up for ABC Mouse which is $60 for the year… or $5 a month. I hemmed and hawed about the expense for a good half hour. It was completely silly to pause for even 30 seconds on spending $2.50 a month each on their education. So when I look at Swagbucks, I think, “By doing this, I don’t have to think about the other small stuff.”
So what do you think? Worth it or no? Let me know in the comments.
No, not worth it.
“A few cents here and there?” “Some bloggers average over $20/month”? Work a minimum wage job and you’ll make more than this with less time and effort, and without selling your personal details.
Aren’t you the same guy who rips pyramid schemes, and yet you pimp this crap just so you can get some piddly kickback? (Without even mentioning what your kickback is…)?
You’re a successful IT guy. Your wife is a successful something or other. You’d do the personal finance blog world a big favor by exposing these ridiculous schemes for what they are, rather than taking part in them just to make a quick buck off of your readers.
Thanks for calling me out.
I’m a very rusty IT guy. It’s hard to keep up with my skills and fight pyramid schemes. And let’s just say that fighting pyramid schemes doesn’t make much money. If I wasn’t very lucky, I would have paid more in lawyer fees in the last year than I’ve made in several years of running this website.
I don’t feel bad for getting a “kickback” (i.e. referral fee) when I see an example of someone who made $300 in the last year. I’m not sure that’s a ridiculous scheme. The fact that they’ve paid out nearly $100 million dollars isn’t chump change either. I think there are probably more productive things one can do than watch videos for a few cents, but if other things don’t take any of your time, might as well cash in on some free money.
Thanks for the link, Brian.
Doesn’t a pyramid scheme require you to recruit in order to earn? I’m no expert but it seems like an MLM or pyramid scheme relies on you putting your money in AND recruiting “downlines”.
We don’t put money into Swagbucks, ever, or I’d never have used them. Referrals don’t have to be the main point of earning as you can see here. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be ANY point of earning, it’s just nice to have that passive bit of earning if you can.
I used them for years without having referrals and still cashed out a bit of spare change here and there. I’m also still not spending great amounts of time so my current rate of $300/year is nothing compared to people who have more time to spend on it.
Pyramid schemes don’t necessarily “require” you to recruit in order to earn. It’s possible to sell product and make money that way. The problem is that there are three reasons why no one would buy an MLM Product.