So it’s approximately 4am as I’m writing this and I’m suffering from excruciating insomnia. I was laying in bed thinking about Swagbucks and I got to thinking that they only allow you to redeem your points for 5 of the same prize each month and I expect I’ll be getting 5 $5 Amazon.com giftcards this month (which are the best value giftcards available) so what will I get next?
Swagbucks is a search engine. As you search you earn points. Points can be redeemed for prizes starting at 450 points for a $5 Amazon.com giftcard (which took me about 1 month to accumulate when I first started in May and I’ve gotten more points progressively faster each month since).
And thus was born my new “Bang for Swagbucks” chart. I took a look at all the giftcards I was interested in and made a little Excel spreadsheet to calculate how much dollar value you got per Swagbucks points and then sorted it by best value. And now I’m sharing it with you.
| Prize |
Dollar Value |
Swagbucks Cost |
Bang for Swagbucks |
| Amazon.com |
$5 |
450 |
9 |
| Target |
$20 |
2350 |
11.75 |
| Amazon.com |
$50 |
5900 |
11.8 |
| iTunes |
$15 |
1850 |
12.33 |
| Apple |
$300 |
37000 |
12.33 |
| Amazon.com |
$25 |
3150 |
12.6 |
| Macy’s |
$25 |
3200 |
12.8 |
| Starbucks |
$10 |
1300 |
13 |
| Paypal |
$5 |
700 |
14 |
| Sephora |
$50 |
9750 |
19.5 |
So this chart gives you a handy dandy list that you can just work down as you redeem your Swagbucks. I know some other people who are fans of the Starbucks and Paypal prizes (probably because if we sorted by how many points they cost they’d come in next) but they’re really not such a good value compared to a Target or iTunes giftcard and while I love Sephora, it’s just not worth redeeming Swagbucks for Sephora giftcards.
If you are not already a member of Swagbucks, I highly recommend you sign up now, I’m earning more than $25 in free giftcards each month. If you are already a member, what do you like to get with your Swagbucks?
Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links and I will receive a small compensation if you make a purchase or sign up for service after clicking through them. They’re an easy way for you to support Carrie Actually at no additional cost to you.
What is StumbleUpon?
StumbleUpon is a way to mindlessly surf the internet guided by your friends and the topics you are interested in. StumbleUpon is a great way to find new content and kill time when you’re bored.
How to get started on StumbleUpon
- Head over to http://www.stumbleupon.com/ and create an account.
- Once you’re logged in, start by telling StumbleUpon what topics you’re interested in.
- Add some friends. You can find them by having StumbleUpon search your email address book or you can ask your friends what their usernames are or check their profiles on other sites for links to their StumbleUpon profiles. (You can find me here.)
- If you’re using Firefox as your browser (which I highly recommend), download the StumbleUpon toolbar. (If you don’t like your toolbar area being too cluttered up, it’s easy to turn turn toolbars on and off as you want to use them by right clicking in the toolbar area.)
- Start stumbling. Press the “Stumble” button at the left end of the toolbar to get to a new site. Use the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons to tell StumbleUpon whether you want to see more sites like that in the future or not.
How to get the most out of StumbleUpon
- I do most of my stumbling via Channels. My favorite channels: People I’ve Subscribed To (icon has two people, one in an orange shirt and one in a yellow shirt) which gives you sites based on your interests that your friends have already thumbed up and Search (magnifying glass icon) which gives you sites that other StumbleUpon users like you have thumbed up and match a search term you’re interested in, if you want to see what people are saying about a certain topic I find this more useful than a Google search.
- StumbleUpon learns what you like from what you thumb up. If a friend asks you to give a thumbs up to a site and you don’t want to see more pages like that, don’t give it a thumbs up.
- The more you put into the system in terms of telling it what you like and adding new sites that you like, the more you will get out of the system. The recommendation engine gets smarter as you participate more. If you’re a website developer, it will do you no good to only submit your own sites because StumbleUpon won’t have any info on what other sites you like so it won’t be able to find other users like you who might also like your site.
