Long time readers will know I’m a big fan of Swagbucks. It’s an easy way to cover our entertainment budget, save big on shopping sprees, and is even how we’ve paid for Christmas (not mention that it’s helped us kill off the debt monster!). The downside of Swagbucks is that the site gives you so many different ways to earn that it can be complicated and hard to keep track of all it’s earning features.
Well, Swagbucks runs this promotion once a month called SWAGO. It’s like BINGO, except each square takes you to a different part of their site where you can earn points, called SB, doing something easy online. You get paid for filling out your board – the more spaces you fill out, the bigger your bonus!
This month, the bonus for filling out your whole board is 300 SB (this changes every month so be sure to check the current promotions), which you can redeem for a $3 gift card right away. But, that’s just the start of your earnings with SWAGO. Because the game takes you to every nook and cranny of their site, you end up earning a ton of points along the way.
How much? Well it varies a bit, but I just completed every square this afternoon and ended up with 3,492 SB, just 9 SB shy of $35 worth of PayPal Cash or any Gift Card. The full breakdown is below but the shorter version is I made $35 online this afternoon “playing” online instead of just mindlessly scrolling through Facebook.
Here’s how I racked up the SB on SWAGO:
– Completed my Survey Profile: 4 SB
– Set my Swag Name: 4 SB
– Completed a Gold Survey on Desktop: 100 SB
– Signed up for a $3 trial of Dollar Shave Club on the Swagbucks App: 1,000 SB
– Signed up for a $10 trial of BirchBox (to gift to a friend): 1,500 SB
– Watched Jimmy Fallon Clips on my SwagButton: 3 SB
– Watched News Headlines on the Swagbucks TV App: 3 SB
– Disqualified from a Gold Survey on the Swagbucks App: 1 SB
– Referred my Mom and convinced her to try a $50 Groupon, earning her 350 SB. Because of the Three For All referral program, she earned 650 SB total, and I get 335 SB for Referring her: 335 SB
– Purchased a $25 Dominos Pizza Gift Card on MyGiftCardsPlus for Friday’s pizza night: 135 SB
– Searched “Best Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Recipe” on Swagbucks Search and earned SB: 9 SB
– Watched a few cooking show clips on Swagbucks Watch on my desktop: 4 SB
– Completed a Gold Survey on my desktop: 75 SB
– Redeemed a free Swag Code on the SwagButton: 4 SB
– Read a short entertainment news article on nCrave: 2 SB
– Redeemed a free Swag Code on my Swagbucks App: 3 SB
– Completed the Additional Survey Profiler: 5 SB
– Attempted Survey that was at Max Capacity: 1 SB
Subtotal: 3,192 SB
– Redeemed my SB for a $25 PayPal Gift Card to complete my last SWAGO square…
Getting me a 300 SB Bonus for Completing SWAGO! Total Earned 3,492 SB
Now, I know that seems like a lot but really it doesn’t take too much time and I don’t spend this much time every day on Swagbucks. Usually, I just spend about 15 minutes a day playing around on Swagbucks so my earnings are slightly less on a daily basis. And you can only complete SWAGO once a month so you really won’t need to be on Swagbucks that often for the rest of the time.
But regardless, this is how we’ve been able to afford debt-free Christmases while we were pulling ourselves out of the clutches of debt and it’s even how we were able to help pay off $5,000 of debt in one month.
So if you’ve been wondering how to make sure you still have some “fun” money in your budget when things are tight, this is a great way to make that happen. And in case you’re curious, I’m currently working my way up enough SBs to be able to purchase my kiddos one of those super fancy (i.e. stupidly expensive and I could never justify spending our cash for) swing sets for Christmas this year.
Hopefully this will help answer your questions on how I earn so much with Swagbucks each year but if not, please feel free to ask below!
Do you use Swagbucks? How do you maximize your earnings?
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I used to use SB years ago, but have fallen away from it. How long did it take for you on this afternoon to rack up this many points?
Not including the interruptions from my kiddos :), it only took me about an hour and a half.
Hi. What about the app requiring use of your camera, photos, microphone,etc? I was about to download the app but felt uncomfortable with that.
Most of the apps on my phone require the same thing (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all do) so for me it wasn’t too uncomfortable but there’s still a ton of other ways to earn even without downloading the app.
Hi Jessi,
I have a Swagbuck question for you : Do you know how people “earn up to 500SB per day “using the watch section with all the different categories of videos? I am relatively new to Swagbucks and each day if I do one or two of those that message comes up highlighted in yellow at the top of the screen, and I have no idea how people even come close to that. I was thinking that if there is a limit, that some do come close and I was wondering if you could offer any tips or strategies for maximizing my time spent on that part of the website. I really enjoyed your Swago post and up until now I had no idea at all what that was or what it entailed. I need all the Swagbuck tips that I can get as i am saving up my Amazon gift cards for Christmas.
Hi darlin’! I’ve never personalized reached that limit only because I truly think you have to spend a LOT of time on Swagbucks to reach it and I’m sure some folks do have the time to spend. With that said, for me I maximize my time by watching the videos while I’m doing other tasks – like cleaning, cooking dinner, and I even have them running in the background while I’m doing other computer work like blogging. That’s how I personally maximize my time with SB but I’m not really sure how others manage theirs…because that would be awesome to reach that many SBs in one day! 🙂
I like how you’ve glossed over that it cost $88 dollars to “earn” 35. That’s the downfall of SB. And a number of people have a hard time canceling those trial subscriptions like Birchbox or shave club, ending up in spending even more than intended.
There are definitely ones where it does cost money to earn SB’s. For the most part, I don’t participate in those, unless I truly want the product.
I love Swagbucks! I use it everyday to consistently make extra money and I blogged about how to earn $25 each month! I’m super impressed you were able to earn almost $35 in an hour and a half.
I am just starting Swagbucks after reading your blog. I hope to earn the extra cash without spending too much time on it.