Reward Programs

How I’m Funding Christmas 2016 Through Rewards Programs and Side Hustles

I was clearing out my email inbox earlier this week, and I found one of those, “We’ve missed you!” emails from Swagbucks. There’s a name I haven’t heard for awhile. If you’ve never heard of Swagbucks, it’s a service you can register for and earn points (in this case, those points are called Swagbucks) by doing various activities. The Swagbucks can be redeemed for for different things, including PayPal or Amazon gift cards.

I had used the service several years ago, and had earned $40 in Amazon gift cards by the time I decided to cash out. I remember I had used the credit to buy a computer game for my son for Christmas that year. With the holidays fresh in my mind, it got me thinking that 2016 is the year that I finally decide to plan ahead for the holidays.

I’m going to pay for all of my 2016 Christmas gifts through rewards programs and side hustles.

Here’s how it breaks down:

SwagBucks

I’m going restart my Swagbucks activity. There are many ways in which you can earn points with Swagbucks, but I’m going to do those that take up the least amount of my time:

• Free Swagbucks : The service has a handful of things you can do each day that take literally seconds to earn a few Swagbucks.
• Swagbucks Browser : A Swagbucks plugin can be installed for my favorite internet browser. If I happen to search on a term that’s interesting to the service, I’ll earn Swagbucks.
• Social Media : I’m on social media pretty much all the time. Occasionally the Swagbucks social media accounts will post codes that can be entered into their site to earn Swagbucks.
• Surveys : Occasionally, I might go through a survey or two. These might not be the best use of my time, so I might limit this activity to when I’m watching TV and not really interested in what’s on.

As the holiday approaches, I will cash out my Swagbucks for gift cards to use towards purchasing gifts.

Employer Activity Rewards

I wear a Fitbit during my waking hours to track my activity. My Fitbit account is linked to an activity rewards site through my employer. I earn points through an employer sponsored program that I can redeem for amazon gift cards.

I had a goal to earn money to use towards gifts in 2015….but I never used them. I’ll continue to accumulate these points throughout the year and then cash them out for Amazon gift cards to use towards purchasing Christmas presents.

Mystery Shopping

I do a handful of mystery shopping jobs each month, earning between $50 and $100. I’m going to save the payment of one mystery shopping job each month and put it towards my Christmas gift fund.

By formulating a plan now, putting it into action and consistently working at it for the next 11 months that I can generate enough funds to completely fund my gift giving for Christmas 2016, or at least take a giant bite out of it.

Do you earn cash through side hustles or rewards programs? Are you already saving for the 2016 holidays?

Brought to you courtesy of Brock

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