I am a teacher, and my husband is getting his PhD (in voice education) at the moment. It might be an old cliché, but teachers just do not make a whole lot of money. Teaching is a good, steady job, and I do love it, but I definitely didn't get into it for the money ;)
We would really, really like to adopt again but have had some financial hardships the last few years. We are making enough to stay on our feet - but every time we save a little money, it seems like everything bad happens at once. The cars need to get repaired, or there's a major medical issue, etc. Our savings (at least it was there) has had to bail us out again and again.
I have decided to make an official savings account JUST used for adoption. I think this will help us save the money. I am not allowed to use that money for anything except adoption expenses. It might be just a little at a time, but every little bit helps.
I have been saving money in lots of different ways over the years. That's one thing that I am proud of - I can usually find good deals. I have a budget of $150/month that pays for our groceries - and we do eat well. I will most likely be blogging about a lot of this, but I'd like to share any of my money-saving experiences with any of you who may need to find money in an ever-increasingly expensive world.
First up - SWAGBUCKS.
I love swagbucks oh so much. I've been doing this for several years, and I have consistenly earned a few hundred dollars a year for spending just a few minutes a day online.
Pictures sometimes speak louder than words, so here are some pictures of things that I have not actually had to pay real money for in the last several months:
Bowling shoes. Retail price: $29.72. Actual price for me: FREE, since I used swagbucks to pay for them. I'll get into why in the world I got bowling shoes later.
Games. These are just a sampling. We love games very much, but they are expensive (the Pirate's Cove game is $50 by itself). With swagbucks, I'm not actually using any of my own money for this. It's very helpful around Christmas :)
Lots of great movies. I have actually not spent any of my own money on books or movies in years. It's very nice :)
So, you may ask - what in the world is swagbucks and how do I earn this suspiciously free money?
It is NOT a scam - it is a rewards-based website (rated high by the BBB) where you can earn rewards for several different activities.
I generally earn at least $25/month for doing this - usually a bit more. Think about this - even if I just hit my $25/month minimum, that's $300/year of free money that I wouldn't otherwise have. Swagbucks is the only reason we've had Christmas presents the last several years.
There are some people that can earn lots more than me - but they also spend a lot more time. Time with my family is very important, so I try not to do this during my family time.
I can usually get my minimum goal (usually around 100 swagbucks, or SB, per day) by doing a few simple things:
1. Mobile Swag TV - I have an app on my phone for playing videos. I just turn this on and let it run while I'm doing other things. I can get 36 SB per day doing this.
2. Regular Swag TV. On the website, there is a tab called "Watch." You can choose which videos to have playing. For every 10 videos you watch, you get 3 SB. I think the daily limit for this is 75 SB per day - but I never reach that with these videos. The hard thing with this is that you have to click on the next video each time. I just have these running on my desktop computer throughout the day, and as I'm cooking or cleaning or whatever, every time I pass the computer, I just click on to the next video.
3. Daily checklist - on the home page, there is a list of a few things to do daily. It's only for a total of 5 SB, but they take so little time that I just quickly click on them.
4. Surveys - there are several different ways to earn SB by taking surveys. I don't qualify for a lot of them, but even if I don't, swagbucks offers me 1 SB for even trying. When I do qualify, it's a great way of earning 50-200 SB each time I do.
That's all I generally do, but there are even more ways to earn, some of which I do occasionally.
5. Games. That's right - you can get paid for playing games online. You do have to play the swagbucks games, and I don't think it's that rewarding, but this might appeal to some.
6. Shop and Earn. If you shop through swagbucks at regular online websites, such as amazon.com, target.com, hotels.com, groupon.com, etc. you can earn a percentage of your spending in swagbucks. If you're going to shop online anyway, you might as well get a little back, right? I usually do this through hotels.com. Every time I need to spend the money for a hotel, I can earn back the equivalent of $5 to $10 back in swagbucks.
7. Coupons! You can print coupons from swagbucks (coupons I was going to print anyway from coupons.com) and get 10 SB for each one you redeem. It does take awhile for the process to go through - but it is such a nice little surprise each time one shows up in my account!
8. Referrals. Refer friends, and earn 10% on certain things they do (like surveys) for life!
9. More. There is more - something called tasks, and lots of different offers you can do. Basically, you just need to explore the website. So much is there for you to do!
REDEEM FOR REAL MONEY
Once you have enough SB in your account, you can redeem for gift cards - restaurant gift cards, Amazon gift cards, retail gift cards, or even PayPal. It turns into real money you can use to buy real things.
HOW TO GET STARTED
Click here: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/sistajayhk to get signed up through me. If you really don't want to let me have the credit, you can just go to the main page and sign up by yourself. And please, let me know if I can answer any questions! If you live around me, I'd be happy to sit down with you and walk you through some stuff.
Happy swagging!
