This whole stay-at-home mom thing is both really awesome* and really hard. The hard part is mostly being a one income family. We had a plan but Scarlette's early arrival blew that plan all to pieces.
So this year one of my thrifty goals is to slash our holiday budget by 75%. Lofty, I know. I'm starting my projects/super-frugal shopping now and I thought I'd post my progress.
Every year I save up my points from taking online suveys and use them towards Christmas gifts and it's a huge help to our budget. I'm sharing some tips because if you start now you can have a good amount built up by the holidays!
E-Rewards – This is my favorite but it's currently by invitation only. Invitations are given through stores you shop with, so if you see an invite in your email, don't dismiss it as spam. I've been using them for about 2 years and have gotten several magazine subscriptions and American Eagle gift cards (among other things) that I give as gifts.
My View – I love the way this site is set up. It matches surveys to your interests and is easy to navigate. You earn points for surveys which you can trade in for gift cards for brands such as iTunes and Kohls. It takes a little longer to build up points on this site though.
My Surveys – Another site where you earn points for surveys and cash them in for rewards. They have Amazon gift cards, which is always a big plus for me. I love to give those as gifts to the people in my life who have Kindles.
Synovate – Synovate is one of the most highly recommended survey sites. You get 500 points for registering, lots of survey opportunities and their points are paid out in cash payments rather than gift cards, which is nice.
Toluna – This works like a social networking site. You get points for taking surveys but also for being active in the community. It's my least favorite in terms of site organization but the points do convert to a cash reward rather than gift cards.
Swagbucks -I'm not a huge fan of their survey section like I am of their search feature. I don't do a lot of these, but there are some good ones and the swagbucks payout is larger for them.
I mostly take surveys when I'm feeding the baby in the middle of the night. I spend maybe an hour doing them, so it's not completely time consuming. How much you earn really depends on how much time you have to devote to it. Here is a great post from A Proverbs wife detailing the breakdown of how much she made in an hour and a half ($22!)
There are a lot more survey sites out there but I'm only comfortable referring the ones I've personally used (I totally appreciate you using my referral link, but you can go directly to the site to sign up if you'd rather). I set up a seperate email just for this and only use survey companies with a good reputation. You won't be raking it in doing surveys but it can definitely cushion your budget.
*Awesome: Scarlette rolled over today for the first time! Proud mommy moment!
