How I Paid for Our Christmas with My Online Earnings

This year, I became a stay-at-home Mom. I’ve always done my best to supplement our budget with my online earnings. From the beginning of the year, we needed every penny in our budget so I was extra-motivated to find “free” money to help fund our Christmas purchases. For that reason, I decided to set aside my online earnings to help pay for our Christmas.

This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. You can read more in my disclosure policy.

We do have a fairly large family for which my husband and I need (and want) to shop – 4 parents, 6 siblings, 3 siblings- in-law,  5 nieces & nephews, and 4 godchildren. Andy and I shop simply for each other, as well as for Nathan. Since Nathan was only 9 months this year, he only received a couple gifts from his Dad and Mom. Even at $25 a person, that adds up quickly! I shop year around for deals to find special gifts at good prices for everyone. Yes, that means starting right after Christmas to shop for the next one. Here’s exactly how I helped fund all my Christmas shopping.

Bing – $60 (Amazon)

Bing is my search engine of choice. Why? Because I earn an Amazon gift card each and every month just for spending 2 minutes quickly searching on Bing in the morning. When I first check my email, I also open up Bing and search for my 15 daily points plus any additional ones that are available. Just by doing this daily, I earn enough for a $5 Amazon gift every month.

Swagbucks – $30 (Amazon)

Swagbucks is another search engine that works similar to Bing, however, it takes a bit more patience since points are awarded randomly. Once or twice a week, I log on to Swagbucks and answer the daily polls, the NOSO offers and do a couple searches to be awarded points. By doing this throughout the year, I added more Amazon money to my Christmas account.

Ipsos I-say Surveys – $25 (Amazon)

I-say is my current favorite survey company because all of the surveys will result in points. Even if you don’t qualify for a survey, I-say gives you 5 points for your time. Like other things, all these points add up. I wait until I receive a couple surveys and sit down to answer them in one sitting as I watch TV.

Opinion Outpost Surveys – $15 (Amazon)

Opinion Outpost is another reliable survey company to use. I like using Opinion Outpost because you can cash your rewards at only $10 Paypal or $5 Amazon, both of which are handy for online Christmas shopping. As with all surveys, I go through spurts in answering them or not but it is nice to be able to cash out for something I do at night while I’m watching TV.

Recyclebank – $5 (Amazon)

Recyclebank added Amazon gift cards as one of their rewards this year which was very exciting for me! I hadn’t cashed out many of my points in the years past and I added the free points every time I shared them with you. One month, I discovered an Amazon gift card and quickly redeemed some of my points for one. Unfortunately, the Amazon deal did not return for the rest of the year, but I kept checking! As soon as I received the electronic gift card, I added it to my Amazon account where it waited for me to go Christmas shopping.

Mars Movie Sweepstakes – $30 (Amazon)

This was a surprise source of earnings! It was a great sweepstakes that could be entered daily. Do some of you remember this one? My husband and I entered daily and won 5 times. Each time we won a $6 Visa card, I immediately used them to buy Amazon cards and applied them to my account. This was a great reminder to always be on the look out for ways to add to your online earnings.

Topcashback Referrals – $69.24 (Amazon)

I wasn’t expecting this source of earnings either but at the beginning of the year, shared a great flash deal that Topcashback offered for a free DVD of Frozen. Quite a few of us snapped the deal up and I earned $60 in referral credits. The rest of the money was bonus money from free Topcashback deals that I completed myself – because you earned 2.5% more when you redeem your money as Amazon gift cards. That was perfect since I do a lot of Amazon shopping anyway.

Jingit – $30.90 (Amazon)

Jingit used to be a program that paid you for watching ads. Unfortunately, they revamped their program mid-year so I cashed out all my earnings and yes, once again, bought another Amazon gift card.

Saving Star – $6.90 (Paypal) 

I double dipped some of my coupon deals and earned this extra bit of money through Saving Star. It wasn’t much but as I hope you are seeing, every little bit counts!

As a matter of fact, all these little bits added up to an impressive $272.04! In minutes a day, throughout the year, my time was amply rewarded! This was more than I expected but covered most of my Christmas shopping. What I still needed, I paid for with one final source of “free” money.

Discover Cash Back Awards – $100+

We pay for many things every month with our credit card, but then we pay it off each month too. For us, the convenience aspect of a credit card is nice plus it allows us to build up cash back awards. This is our main reason for using Discover. You can get your awards back in the form of a check, apply them to your balance or redeem them for certain gift cards (which is my favorite). Plus, when you redeem cash back awards for gift cards , you pay only $20 for a $25 gift card – which is an even better way to stretch your free money! If I’m going to use a credit card, I appreciate Discover for this reason.

There you have it! Those are the ways I earned over $400 throughout the year – and completely paid for our Christmas. My mission was a success! Now, I’ve already started to earn money for next Christmas! In fact, I just cashed out my first two Amazon gift cards from Bing. Would you like to join me? Start today and you’ll be amazed how quickly you can earn money to pay for your Christmas!

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2 Comments

  1. Great job! I have never tried earning money online, but it looks like you definitely got some great rewards. Thanks for sharing the links. I’m going to check some of them out.

    1. It really is easy, Emily! It takes a little bit of time, but time I have. Plus, it’s nice to see a clear source of savings for my family, now that I’m not earning my full-time teacher salary anymore. I like knowing I can do something else to help our budget. I hope you can make a little something extra, too!

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