Swagbucks- Earning Money from Your Phone

How to Earn Money With Your Phone and Swagbucks

Swagbucks is a website like many others where you can earn real money by doing certain tasks: surveys, watching videos, searching with their search bar, referring friends, taking polls, shopping online through their portal, buying gift cards from them.

  

This blog post will tell you how five Swagbucks experts have earned:

$50 a month consistently,

$185 in 3 weeks,

$225 in a month,

$250 in a month,

$375 in two months!

From Lauren Walker Travis ($185 in 3 weeks):

How I made $185 in 3 weeks using Swagbucks:

Swagbucks 101

Swagbucks is a site where you engage with content and are rewarded with “swagbucks.” Swagbucks (SBs) can be then redeemed for gift cards from places like Target, Walmart, Amazon and PayPal. Gift card values range from $5-$500.

You can sign up for SB here and start off with $5 in your account.

1 SB = $.01 so 500 SB = $5 Gift Card. Although, sometimes gift cards may be earned at with fewer SBs.

You can earn Swagbucks in 7 different ways. The first 6 are primarily, but not exclusively, done via their website while #7 covers their apps:

1. Shop –

Swagbucks will give you cash back just like Ebates, Topcashback, etc. Typically those other sites have a better percentage return so I have only used this sparingly.

2. Watch –

This is a big one that I use A LOT and where the majority of my SBs come from. On the “watch” page, you will want to look for “nCraves.” On the nCraves page you will see different tiles each linking to a different set of videos. The only ones you will really want to consider have a arrow going in a circle in the bottom left hand corner. Those videos will play through the playlist without you having to click that you “like’ them as long as you put them in “discover mode.” Great ones out right now are called “happy hour” and “Discover TV”.

All You Can Eat

The best out of all of them is called “All You Can Eat” (ACYE). ACYE will need to open in a new window so pop ups will need to be enabled. This playlist will play for HOURS as long as you don’t have a glitch. I find that all of the nCraves play better/longer if I am in Chrome Incognito. I am able to run Discover TV and AYCE on the same computer without a problem but I have heard that some people have had their accounts locked for that so be careful. You can run them on separate computers if you wish without problems.

3. Answer –

Swagbucks host surveys for different companies and you get rewarded for completing them. The length of the survey will influence how many SBs you get for each survey. The surveys hosted directly by SB are called “Gold Surveys” **There are other types of surveys on the the SB website. These are not “gold surveys” but still earn you SBs. They are found under #4 Discover.

4. Search –

Using the search feature on the website or by installing the Swagbucks search engine you can earn points just by searching the web. You will know you have won some SBs via your search when a banner will appear at the top of the page. Just click enter the code that they display to prove you aren’t a robot and boom…instant Swagbucks. When you search, you will be getting results from (I believe) Yahoo not Google. The results aren’t great so I haven’t done this much either.

5. Discover –

This is where if you have some time, you can make some quick swagbucks but this is also where it is important that you are using an email account where you don’t mind getting some spammy emails. Discover is broken up into different types of content that you can engage with. Some are videos to watch, others are offers you can buy, free trials to sign up for and through Swagbuck’s partners…more surveys you can take. The most consistent here are “Peanut Labs” (PL) and “Acorn”. I don’t watch videos on this part of the website because the return is better elsewhere.

6. Play –

You can earn SBs by playing games online. I have never done this part so maybe someone else can cover this.

7. Apps –

Swagbucks has different apps for iOs and android. The android apps seem to work much better. The one that I use the most is called Sportly and it is basically workout videos that will play on repeat with some ads in between. I haven’t had success skipping the ads but can fast forward through the videos wit out a problem. This is great for a tablet or an old phone that you can just set up to your wifi and let run.

A few notes:

On the homepage on the left hand side, there is a daily to-do list. This is SUPER easy to do. You only need to complete 6 or 7 of the items to get the bonus but you get more points the more you finish.

Swagbucks gives everyone a daily goal. You can find yours at the top of the page. If you hit your goal, you will earn extra SB. You will then get a second harder goal for the day. The reward for hitting that one will be larger too. These bonus SB are paid out on the 5th of the following month.

Once a month, you can turn in 2200SB for a $25 gift card instead of 2500SB.

If you don’t get your SBs for an item that you feel you completed, fill out a form by contacting customer service. Be as detailed as you can. Be sure you know the survey number, name of the discover company, date you completed it and then describe the heck out of your experience in the comments field. I have literally listed questions in the survey that I completed in order to get credit. I received my SBs every time.

From Lisa Marie ($225 a month):

How I Earn $225 a Month with Swagbucks:

I’ve always been a member of Swagbucks (literally, within a month of the website starting). However, I wasn’t a regular user until May 2017. That’s when I started really using it regularly and trying to earn Disney money!

In 2 months, I’ve earned $450!

That’s not including the couple sweepstakes that I have won.
“How do I do it?”, you may ask… To start with, I make sure I’m completing my daily to-do list. When you complete that, you get a bonus. And everything on the list is easy peasy (poll, daily deal, etc). The hardest part of that list can be completing a gold survey. We ALL know the frustration of doing those surveys! But, patience and persistence is key.
Next, I always make sure I am completing my daily goal for the bonus. In June, I managed to hit my blue daily goal every day. I wound up with a bonus of 985 SBs; which is $9.85! If you hit the red goal too, the end of the month bonus will be even higher.

Then, I run videos on my phone when I can.

Those add up and you can earn 500 ($5) SBs every day for just videos.
Also, I do any offer I can that won’t cost me. IF, only if, there’s an offer that I would be doing anyways, I go through Swagbucks. For instance, I wanted to sign up for lifelock service, so I searched Swagbucks and found an offer for it. I was obtaining their service anyway, but got paid to do it! Free trials help a lot. I use a prepaid debit card with $5 on it, that way if I forget to cancel, the money isn’t coming out of my bank account.

Lastly, every single internet search I do is through Swagbucks. The random wins for searching is awesome!

Every month my first cash out is to Walmart for the 12% SB discount. After that, I cashout to PayPal and shop at BJ’s for the 5.1% discount, plus the 1% cash back from eBates. Stretching free money even further! (From LJ: This is described in detail in my book Disney World Within Reach).

From Alma Pack ($250 in one month):

I use SwagBucks everyday all day (lol) so far I have paid off $250 off my Disney thanks to Swagbucks!

Here’s what I do:

I run nCraves while I’m at home and at work.
Then, I take surveys everyday.
I signed up for Fingerhut credit card and got 2,500 Swagbucks.
Signed up for Uber got 3,000 Swagbucks.
A lot of the offers they have credit instantly and after the free trial you can cancel it.

So here’s my step by step daily task:

1. Check daily goal
2. Complete to do list
3. Try to take surveys
4. Look up offers
5. Check Swagbucks Facebook account for codes
6. Then run nCraves the rest of the time

From Becky Van Wyk ($375 in two months):

I decided to check out Swagbucks a couple of months ago thinking if I could earn $30-$40 a month that would really add up for our Disney trip in January. It took me a few days to get into it but then I was hooked! It was like a game to see how much “free money” I could get for Disney. I signed my husband up and between the 2 of us we have cashed out $375 in a little over two months!

Each day I take a few minutes to go through the daily checklist, I start nCrave videos, and I start videos on my tablet. When I have time I look through the discovery page to see if there are any offers for things we would be purchasing anyway. I check the surveys a few times a day, but only do them if they are worthwhile.
I love it when they do team challenges! Your teammates will help you by posting easy ways to earn SBs.
Bottom line…if you’re willing to dedicate a little time each day the payout will be worth it! It felt amazing turning the $375 into Disney Gift Cards!

From Jennifer Willis (earns $50 a month consistently):

The one thing I have found to be the most important step in earning Swagbucks is to make sure you meet your daily goal every day that you possibly can. This goal can be found at the top of your page.  You earn bonus points for meeting this goal and even more points for completing weekly goals and finally monthly master. Shortly after the beginning of the next month these points will be added to your total upon claiming them.

I earn most of my SBs from watching Ncraves, Watch videos and some surveys.  You do not have to do the paid activities to do well. I start my morning running a few videos while getting ready for work and then again in the evening while cooking dinner or cleaning. There are also several watch apps that you can run on your phone. Finally, if you refer a friend that does well with it you earn 10% of their earnings.  I referred my husband and now that we both do it we make even more Disney money!
It is well worth the time and effort.

~

This is LJ again. I want to thank Lauren, Lisa, Alma, Becky and Jennifer for breaking down their processes for us. They have been so helpful. Are YOU are a Swagbucks expert and want to add your experience to this article? Reach out to me at LJ@SmartMomsPlanDisney.com

If you need to sign up for Swagbucks here is our affiliate link (and thank you for helping us keep the lights on at Smart Moms Plan Disney!)

If you found this interesting, you’re probably a frugal person who is interested in saving money and living well without spending a lot. And if you’re also planning a Disney trip, you gotta check out my book. It’s right up your alley!