November and December are going to be very expensive months for us. We have Izzy's birthday coming up, we need to have our carpets cleaned, Porgie's dance recital costume payment is due, everyone needs a haircut, we need to have the dog vaccinated, my car battery needs to be replaced (don't even get me started on the collision stuff), we still have Christmas presents to buy, and finally, we need to have professional family photos taken. I know that we don't technically NEED to do even half of the stuff on my list, but these are things I WANT to do before the holidays. Christmas has a way of sucking my bank account dry every damn year.
The good news is that I do not plan on buying my children or husband any presents. They are going to get so much stuff from my family (my mother always gives too much), that anymore would just be overkill. Also, I still have a little over $200 in my Amazon account from Swagbucks! So, that is definitely going to help too.
I haven't talked about Swagbucks for a while, but I am still enjoying the program. Basically, you get points for using their search engine. You can cash in your points for prizes (I always buy $5 Amazon gift cards). I have to admit, when Swagbucks changed over to their new point system, I was disappointed. It suddenly seemed a lot harder to earn as many prizes. But they have added lots of new features (like swagbucksTV, daily polls, surveys, and videos), so it probably all evens out. But it feels like a lot more work, so I have definitely lost some of my enthusiasm. However, free money is hard to refuse, so I have continued to use the program. I average about 2 $5 gift cards per month, which equals $120 per year. Not too bad.
I am not exactly sure how much money I have earned through Swagbucks, but I have bought quite a few things on Amazon during the past year and I haven't paid a penny for any of them. Additionally, I still have $200 in my account, so I can't complain. It is definitely worth the small amount of effort I put into earning my points.
I got really big into survey sites for a while too, but it just seemed like I never qualified for any freaking surveys, so I kind of gave that up. A few people sent me links to other search and earn sites, but I just can't convince myself to sign up. Maybe I'll feel up to it this winter when I am trapped inside my house for months and months.
I don't really know where I am going with this post. I guess I just wanted you to know that Christmas is expensive, but the internet makes it easy to earn free gift cards. The end.
4 comments:
we set our holiday budget a couple of weeks ago and seeing it makes me cringe just a bit. sometimes it feels so good to spend and other times it makes me want to curl up in a ball!
I love the way you write, even when you don't know where you are going with it.
All of the same things are on my mind too. I just haven't figured out what I want to say on the subjects for my blog either.
Ha, thanks for the info. :)
Yeah I'm starting to save mine for Christmas stuff too. We will buy our kids gifts, but honestly I doubt they'll get many from family. Kalila's first Christmas was overkill... but since then its dropped (thankfully) and most of the family is just ignoring that Zavier exists so we've gotta do something.
SB is still goign strong here too. I'm trying to do ZB too but haven't gotten to a card yet. Points actually work better, but I haven't had time lol. I did the same w/ the surveys stopping for that reason... and when I picked it up again I got lucky and have gotten about 60 or so from them. I'm in a dont want to survey mood lately though so they've gone to the side for now. I'll pick it up again when I feel like it. :-D
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