Swag Bucks

Let’s get Swaggin’!

If you want to start anywhere, Swag Bucks is the place to go. You’re not going to get rich through their program, but given enough time and dedication one can definitely earn a good little chunk of pocket money.

THE GIST:

SB is similar to credit card point reward system. By using their search engine regularly, or watching short videos, taking consumer surveys, and even doing some keystroke work(if you’re extra invested) a user can accumulate “swag bucks” that they can then cash out in the Rewards section of the site on various products ranging from online gift cards to nipple protectors for nursing mothers. It’s really quite a colorful array of products, mostly aimed at stay at home mothers. Swag Bucks also releases codes every day periodically that one can type in for instantaneous point-age. These codes can be found on SB’s Facebook, Twitter, etc., but my personal favorite is SC-S.com, a blog that not only tells you what codes are available but will also send you text notifications(only if you want them, of course). This is handy considering the codes are only active from anywhere to 30 minutes to maybe 1-3 hours.

MY FAVORITE:

Each SB is worth 0.01 cent. Before getting disheartened though, know that most of the websites offers have a payout of anywhere from .03cent-4-5.00 dollars(not including the coupons/paid offers), so it’s not much but i pans out. Since starting with Swag Bucks 4 months ago, I’ve made about 90 dollars in amazon gift cards. Which brings me to my favorites: if you’re going to get the best payout at Swag Bucks, you have to A.)Multi-Task, B.)Become an expert Survey-“faker”, and C.)Know which rewards are worth it.

A.) Multi-Tasking

Some things are worth it, some things aren’t in the SB world. Everyone will inevitably do what they want, but here is my mojo recipe for getting the most out of Swag Bucks.

The easiest, best paying sections of SB are as follows: The Surveys, The Videos, The Phone Video App., The Discovery Opportunities, EnCrave Opportunities.

On their own, each will scrape you together maybe .50 cents, to a dollar if you’re lucky. But combined you can knock it out of the park!

This guy always looks so smug, dontchya think?

Trick: You don’t have to watch a full video to gain credit. After the Ad plays and the video starts, about 0:01-0:40 seconds into it the video meter should fill. (You need to watch 10 videos to get 3 SB, it use to be 7 SB, but sadly this changed over the last month or so.)

While this is going, start the SB video app on your phone(which runs a different system entirely: 7 videos for 3 SB, I believe. You have to sit through the full video, but it auto clicks to the next, which is more than I can say for the website video player.)

Then, pull up an EnCrave offer. These usually consist of clicking on 3-10 pages, that contain either text or video, and stay there for 30 seconds(by staying there, I mean just leave the tab up. You don’t necessarily need to be looking at the page itself.) These will put in about 2-4SB a pop.

Tip: You’ll have to be checking the website video page often, (every 30-50 seconds) so you can click to the next video (only do so, if the % meter has moved up 10% though). Also, the phone app has a problem of getting stuck on ads, so check that every few minutes, just to make sure it’s still playing, and you’re still collecting!

Then, finally, go to your survey dashboard. If you haven’t already filled out your Survey Profiles, do those now. They only pay out 2-7SB, but they are vital in making sure you get sent more surveys that you qualify for. If you have filled them out, find a survey with a juicy number on it (Say, one that’s over 100SB, aka $1.00?) and begin the survey.

B.) Become an Expert Survey-“Faker”

Surveys love to disqualify you, and sometimes it’s not entirely clear as to the reason why. Sometimes you’re 10 minutes into a survey before it times out and says you don’t qualify. At the very least Swag Bucks will give you 1SB for your time, but it can be bitter when losing out on a fish like 450SB. So! What do you do? You learn to fake it.

Surveys like to ask questions at the beginning such as, “Do you work for the following/Have you taken a survey like the options listed below in the last so-and-so months?, etc.” They are trying to weed out bias. Always say, you don’t work for any of those companies, and that you haven’t taken any surveys as of late.

They also like to ask “do you own the following items?” “do you plan on buying any of the following items?” “which of these brands do you prefer?” These are a bit more tricky, but the survey is trying to find out if you’re someone with a relevant opinion to the subject in question. If you say no, you don’t own, or plan on buying these things, or dont prefer any brands, you’ll probably be disqualified. For the brands, usually the brands listed first are the ones in the survey, but real people create these things, and know about survey “fakers”, so this isn’t always the case.

If the survey asks how old you are, and then asks right after if there is someone under 18 who can take a survey, say yes, and pretend to be younger. If the survey wants males, be male. If it wants a person into curtains or welding materials, that’s what you’re into now. The gist is simple. After a while, and seeing what you get disqualified for, you’ll learn to get the hang of it.

Swag Bucks also offers things such as “Discovery” opportunities, that usually go along the lines of “Download this for 25SB!” “Sign up for this Page for 30SB”, etc.etc. Most of this is spam. Some if it, albeit though, is interesting. I once downloaded an iPhone game that was super addictive and fun that I loved for months, and I got paid about .25 cents to download it. For the spam though, make a temporary or spam email address, and find a fake address, make a fake name, and fill those things out like hot cakes! Discovery is a great way to rack in 3-6 dollars every week or so.

FINAL VERDICT:  

There is a lot of different things you can do on Swag Bucks that makes the website not as tedious as some other point reward system sites. You won’t get rich off of this, and don’t quit your day job, but for a few extra dollars at the end of the week, it’s a pretty sweet set up. Customer service is rather on point as well, so long as you Print Screen your survey ending pages, or take a mini desktop video recording(such as EZVID or CamStudio Portable) to make sure you have documented proof in your case/complaint. I should also note, that payout on gift cards does take a few days to possibly a few weeks to send. You’ll find them as codes under “Your Gift Cards” tab. I can’t say how long it takes for packaged goods, as I’ve honestly never bothered ordering something like that from them. If you know though, please feel free to comment and let us know, as any new information is always valuable!

I’d give Swag Bucks, over all, a 6.5/10. It’s not bad, it’s not good, but it’s a little better than average, and worth starting out with if you’re just trying to make a lil’ extra and not a ‘lotta extra.

Do You Use Swag Bucks?
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The Beginning

Life is not the fairy-tale dream your parents and teachers told you it’d be. There is more to the magic then simply being a diligent, hard worker. It takes more than a skill or passion to rise to the top. It takes all of those things described above, and more; it takes luck. The luck of being acknowledged when all of us are shouting over one another to be heard. How is one voice, one person, picked from the crowd of millions? Luck.

The rest of us still screaming will do so until our voices are long since inaudible, until we forget why we even started screaming in the first place. I look around myself, seeing the exasperated middle and lower class, all of us chained to this non-existent fate marketed as “The American Dream”.

I live in a Hovel Home. ‘What’s that?’, you might be asking, and rightly so! A Hovel Home(HH) is exactly what is sounds like- four walls of “Hovel” that you describe as your “Home”. Maybe those said walls are falling apart, or the amount of trash and stench you’ve created is an ever lingering presence, but regardless of your personal poor-man quirk, it is indeed a hovel, and indeed your home.

You may be upset by this fact, possibly even enraged. Your whole life you imagined what it would be like to become an adult, to be free of your parents/guardians iron fist,  only to find out it was that very same fist that was holding you from the clutches of poverty and well, reality.

Today I bring you this blog, HHAWA, or Hovel Home Adventures (With Alice), in order to share my tips, tricks, and stories, on how to survive “The Struggle”(as we like to call it here). These tips and tricks will consist of WAH(Work at Home) Jobs currently available/How to make a subsidiary income, Websites/Local places that offer free food, items, services, etc., Horror stories/Success Stories within the Hovel community, and much much more.

So if this sounds like the place for you, please Follow us in order to stay up to date with our daily submissions.

(interested in writing for us? If so, please e-mail us at Aliceworksathome@yahoo.com with a sample of your writing, and why you want to partner up with HHAWA.)