September 4, 2015

What I wish I’d known about Swagbucks

I’ve been using Swagbucks for a few years now but Rookie Me relied entirely on Search and Earn in the early years. Naturally, earning was hit or miss and the whole enterprise was unsatisfying.

This summer, I finally got my act together! When I’m paying attention, I can earn an average of 30-60 SBs per day with minimum effort. At the higher end, about 1800 SBs in 30 days is 80% of the way to the monthly discounted 2250 SBs/$25 gift card redemption. With a little more effort, say qualifying for a few surveys a month, we’re regularly getting one GC redemption a month. It’s mostly been Amazon cards since we use it regularly for diapers and wipes but if I ever get enough saved up, I can switch over to PayPal and that’d be all savings. This isn’t a steady income by any means but it saves a tidy sum over time.

I’m probably not the only one who floundered getting into Swagbucks so I’m sharing what I do or have done. There are lots of ways to earn, though, these aren’t the only ones.

Because some SBs can only be earned on one or the other, I’ll break it down by Desktop and Mobile.

Desktop

I spend a lot of time in front of the computer for one reason or another, so I either run this stuff in the background or on my (really old, first generation) iPad. It just depends on what makes life easier for me.

• First, the Daily Sidebar for regular points: hit the Daily Poll [1 SB], the Daily Offers [2 SB], and sometimes the Daily Crave works too. It doesn’t run smoothly on my computer but it’s worth doing if it does for you. Daily Crave cannot be run on mobile. [average: 3-8 SB].
• “Most Popular Ways to Earn” section: there are usually a few Watch & Earn activities (Watch & Earn, nGage, Take a Discovery Break) that are worth 2 or 3 SBs per activity. Some of them only require one or two clicks. Since I’m busy, those are the ones I go for. If I’m just puttering around online waiting for something more important to happen, then I do all of them. There have been times these made up a full day’s haul up to 80 SB from one activity alone! Take a Discovery Break works on the iPad but the others aren’t mobile-compatible. [average: 2-12 SB]
• Surveys: Qualifying for surveys can also be hit or miss but it’s worth giving it five good tries because even if you don’t qualify at all for any surveys, you’re still getting 1 SB per DQed survey up to 5. If you do qualify, you can earn anywhere between 50-200 SB per completed survey. It’s possible to do surveys on the iPad or even your phone but I’m not a fan of doing it on the phone. Too hard to see. [average: 5 SB-???]
• Play: If you pick your game right, every 2 games nets 2 SB. I like Swag Jump and Swagasaurus Run. I’m weird. Make it quick and don’t get sucked in!  🙂

Mobile

I finally downloaded the Swagbucks and Swagbucks TV apps on my phone – it’s well past time for this smartphone to earn its keep!

• SB Mobile TV: This has been my bread and butter.  It doesn’t always tell me what the earning limit is but it can be anywhere between 36 SB to 100 SB. I just set it and mostly forget it: 5 videos earns 2 SB. At some point, it’ll say you’ve earned everything you can, but once in a while, it says you qualify for a Bonus, so let it run even longer and rack up those ‘bucks! [average: 36 SB]
  • Hints: I keep the screen brightness down to save battery life and keep the phone plugged in when possible so that it can just keep going and going and going.
• SB app: You’ll get notifications of where to find Swag Codes. When they’re doing a promotion, this can be up to 30+ SB for just entering a code on your mobile app. On days when I’m running around like mad and don’t have time to look at Swagbucks, this can save me from a zero earnings day.

Other things

• Shop and Earn: I think you get better cashback, most of the time, from Mr. Rebates and Ebates, but from now until November, your first purchase each month through Swagbucks Shop and Earn will net you an extra 500 SBs, in addition to the per dollar SB payout. There is fine print which Abby summarized so clearly I’m quoting her:
  • Your order needs to actually generate Swagbucks
  • The bonuses won’t appear until December 1st and will expire on December 31st
  • You can’t redeem them for GCs less than $5: remember that your first $25 GC of the month is now discounted to 2,250 SB. Meaning that if you have all five months’ bonuses (2,500 SB) and you redeem them for a $25 GC first thing, you’ll end up with 250 SB that you can’t use.
• SwagButton: This is an extension you download and install onto your browser. I have problems with my computer so I avoid adding any extensions to it but some Swag Codes are only redeemable through the SwagButton.
• Setting your browser: They’ve done a few big pushes to get people to default their search engines to Swagbucks. I’d wait til they have another promotion for this, personally.
• Swaganigans: They run activities on the blog where you can compete for prizes. Usually it involves some kind of clever or witty thing, like this. I’m too lazy busy for this.

Bonus ways to earn

• Team Challenges: These come along every few weeks or so. Keep an eye on the upper left hand corner of the home page – they will promote the link to the sign up for Team Challenges there. Sign up for a team first thing and then go on your merry ‘bucks earning way. SBs you earn during the Team Challenges counts toward the team total and you get the teams that earn the most together gets bonuses.
• Daily Goal Bonus: When you hit the daily goal of earning per day, it kicks in another set of SBs depending on what the daily goal was. It looks like the minimum goal is 30 SB which earns 3 SB, 40 SB earns 4 SB and so on.
• Referrals: You earn 10% of whatever your referred person earns, not counting bonus SBs. This is pretty awesome, even if I only have a couple active referrals. Since my own earnings have been robust of late, the person who referred me ages ago is getting a nice 10% bonus. I can’t remember if I signed up through Donna or Abby, but I’m hoping it’s one of them. At least I know they’ll put the earnings to good use!

Go forth, friends, and rack up the Swagbucks!  And if you haven’t got an account and would like to, I’d surely appreciate it if you were to use my referral code to sign up.

August 28, 2015

Another attempt at refinancing falls flat

Our interest rate on the mortgage sucks at 4.8%. Because our HOA is engaged in some legal shenanigans and no lender will refinance a property with the exact scenario we’ve got, we weren’t able to refinance when rates bottomed out. My penny-pinching heart bleeds. Yet another reason to thank the HOA. I gave it another go when I found SoFi, a new lender that started out in student loans and recently branched out into mortgages.

I’d forgotten what our break-even number was, so I went searching for a new calculation at the same time. I’ve banked with Citibank for ages so had a look at their rates while I cleared out a checking account. They offered an overly simplistic way of calculating break-even: The typical formula for calculating your break-even point is to divide your refinance closing costs by the amount you’ll save each month with your lower mortgage payment.

For example, if your refinance costs total $5,000 and refinancing will save you $200 a month, it will take you 25 months to break even. If you don’t plan on staying in your house for that long, refinancing might not make most sense in the long run.

That’s shortsighted. Looking at the monthly “savings” misses the point which isn’t just to save a bit per month, it’s to save vast amounts over the life of the loan. And it ignores the fact that in some cases, you can choose to change the life span of the new loan to a shorter one (and probably should) which may cost as much or even more than you’re paying monthly.

That’s the case for us: I’m not going to refinance a 30-year mortgage for a new 30-year mortgage – that’s just going to add to the total interest we’d pay over the life of the loan. I’m looking for a 15 or 20 year fixed rate.

My application was quickly pre-approved but we only got as far as a rate estimate and then stalled. It was looking really good: 2.8% fixed for 15 years.

The break-even calculator cautioned me:

Change in monthly mortgage payment: Additional $29 per month

Um, really? We would happily pay an extra $29 per month to save THIS MUCH over the life of the loan. HAPPILY.

The estimated closing costs, right before I provided documentation, stopped me short though: $10,000. Excuse me?? I shot off an email to them. After several go-arounds, that was revised downward drastically to “only” $3500 give or take, but underwriting said they wouldn’t (sigh) touch our loan for the same reason all the traditional banks wouldn’t.

Drat and blast.

I hadn’t quite started up mentally investing that extra $10,000 a year for the next 15 years that wouldn’t ultimately end up in the bank’s coffers by way of interest but I’d already gotten attached. Can you blame me?

August 10, 2015

My first real job and paycheck

I remember talking my parents into letting me get a summer job. They didn’t want particularly want me to work during high school, they made enough at the time to cover my basic needs, so it seemed fair to say that school was my first job and that I should focus on that.

The specifics of that persuasion are lost to the mists of foggy memory but ultimately they led to an exception to the rule: work summers. It’s not that I was too smart or too good to work, hah not even close, they just worked hard to provide for us and it meant a lot to them to be able to spare us from working during our teen years.

As an Honors student, I always had summer assignments but it still left me plenty of time to work a part time gig, whether it was paid or volunteer, so off I went to the Want ads.

Yeah, how old am I that I went to find my first jobs in the newspaper? And you remember the PennySaver? That thing is still around. I spent a lot of time sprawled on the floor, fingers all over in newsprint, circling and marking up the papers.

Those part time gigs barely count for professional experience but I earned about $500 summer of sophomore year and $800 summer of junior year. Every penny was (piggy)banked after taking out cash to pay for First Dog’s vaccines and vet visits. Seriously, folks, tell your kids they’re responsible for any pets in the house? Mean it. My parents did. Once I was old enough to earn income, the vet bills came out of my pocket. That, more than anything, taught me that pets are a responsibility, not just convenient mobile toy friends. A shame that I knew absolutely nothing about investing back then.

If I’m recalling correctly, that cash then paid for all my senior year expenses like a yearbook, tickets and a discount dress for prom. Again, not withdrawing from the Bank of Parents for my “fun” things meant that no money was wasted on foolish things like a class ring. Just the few things I thought were worth it.

Looking back now, even the yearbook was a waste of money. Who looks at those things after you graduate, anyway? Who remembers those random thirty people that signed it? And did anyone really keep in touch because of those three little letters “KIT”?

My first real paycheck, at a real not-just-for-the-summer job, was exciting stuff. Real money for real work – real satisfaction!

I wasn’t even 18 though, so after opening the envelope and petting the check, all I could do was stuff it in my piggy bank until I could open my own bank account. I wasn’t about to pay to get that baby cashed, and symbolically it was important that it go into my own account now that I was a real adult, so it was deposited about 7 weeks later into my very own, brand-spankin-new Washington Mutual, no fees ever, checking account. (Ah, the good ole days, before bank bailouts and subprime mortgage folly!) The first things that check paid for were a fundraiser roll of gift wrap which I still have, and a credit card bill for my college tuition.

The world still seemed bright back then, with 5% interest rates on savings accounts and great credit card bonuses though I hadn’t yet discovered churning.

Do you remember your first job(s) and paycheck(s)?

Note: There was something magical about the first month of this job – nothing had gone terribly wrong at home yet. These first checks were really for me and my expenses.

July 13, 2015

Money Goals: I have a problem

I keep moving the finish line. I’ve admitted I have a problem before but now I’ve caught myself in the act.

Adding up our net worth, I realized we were 85% of the way to a major milestone. It happened a lot faster than I was expecting to be. We’re not right on the edge of there yet and I don’t know off the top of my head how long it will tale naturally but it’s in sight.

My breath stopped for a full 30 seconds as my brain went into overdrive: what could I do to force that number to hit the 100% mark? And considering the generally slow creep of increases each month, how much time could I shave off the previous ETA?

Explaining my bouncing tapping fingers to PiC, in the same breath as declaring us close to Milestone 1, “but then I need to figure out how to deci-uple that!”

Look at that! From meeting Milestone 1 straight on to Milestone 10, without a pause for breath, celebration, or even Milestones 2-9.

I have a problem. That’s the first step right? I’m addicted to hitting goals. I’m addicted to saving money. I’m addicted to self validating by meeting expectations.

I can never exceed expectations because the second I’m in shouting distance of a goal, it becomes the first of ten other goals. If I don’t have ten other goals? No problem, my next goal is to come up with ten good ones.

This is pretty much exactly the same impulse as my shopping problem. Got a cookie? Great! What’s next?

I need to learn to stop and savor the moment. Wait, I need to actually reach the moment first and then savor it. And not immediately be staring at the horizon scanning for the next flag to capture.

See? I told you PiC was good for me. If it weren’t for him insisting on celebrating, ever, I’d never even recognize my problem.