Christmas 2011: Brought to you by SWAGBUCKS

Okay, I know, I've mentioned Swagbucks before, and posted about how wonderful it is. But seriously, bare with me for a second. I have a plan, and I'm going to share it with you.

Swagbucks will be financing Christmas this year.

That's right. It may not pay for everything, but my plan (borrowed from another blogger, although I can't remember where I read it) will certainly allow for it to help out a lot.

For those that have been living under a rock and don't know what Swagbucks is, here are the basics. Swagbucks is a search engine, much like Google or Yahoo, that awards you points (called Swagbucks) for searching. You don't get them every time, and the amount of Swagbucks varies. I average 8-10 SBs when I do receive them, plus one every day just for having downloaded the SB tool bar. (Now, truth be told, SB isn't a great search engine. If I happen to be searching for something anyway, I run it through SB first, and then move on to Google if I don't find the answer I'm looking for.) SBs are also posted in the tool bar, on their blog, in their videos, etc. There are lots of ways to find them, and you could kill a lot of time looking for them. But I don't, and I'll tell you why...in a minute.

First my dastardly plan.

SBs may be cashed in in the SwagStore, for all kinds of trinkets - clothes, books, movies, music, etc. But my favorite category are the gift cards...particularly the $5 Amazon gift card for 450 SB (which works out mathematically to be the best bang for your (Swag)buck, even though there are Amazon cards available in higher denominations. These bad boys are going to pay Santa this year - after all, you can find most anything at Amazon!

So, here we are at January 21st already. I currently have 1,655 SBs in my account, nearly all of which were earned this month since I cashed them all out on gift cards just before Christmas.

1,655 SBs / 450 SBs = 3.677 $5 Amazon gift cards. Just 145 more points this month and I'll be able to claim four cards this month, which equals $20 in my Christmas budget. (You can only claim five prizes per month, so it's important to cash them in as you go!)

I would LOVE to find 2,250 SBs per month, but I just don't search that often. So let's say that four $5 Amazon cards per month is easily attainable for me. $20 (total) x 11 (months) = $220 for me to spend on Christmas.

So how do you find all of these codes without spending hours online?

First, go and join this Google group. You will receive an email each time that a new SwagCode is released. It doesn't tell you exactly WHERE to find the code, just a general idea (in the blog, in a video, etc.) But the important thing is, it lets you know that there's a code out there.

Now, go to Facebook. "Like" SwagCodez. Whenever you receive an email notification that there's a new SwagCode, go to Facebook and check the SwagCodez page. It will tell you exactly what the code is, and where to enter it to receive your SBs. Can't get much easier than that, can it?

I just logged 49 SBs using that method. So much easier than searching, searching, searching...

There, you know my secret and my plan. If you still haven't signed up for Swagbucks, what are you waiting for? Just click here to join and you'll be helping both of us...then invite your friends and loved ones to join, because you'll earn SBs every time they do.

And now you know. :)