One thing I do a lot of is searching, whether I am searching for themes, inspiration, a map, whatever, it is just part of being online. About a year ago I found out about Swagbucks, I don’t remember how I found out about it, but I was amazed- “you mean I can WIN by searching?” Something I do daily! So of course I used it, for about 3 months I was hooked, ended up getting about 12 amazon gift cards for free! Then our computer crashed and in the process of reformatting and re-installing everything I completely forgot about swagbucks!

Fast forward to Friday when I was surfing around online and saw a widget like the one below- and my first thought was “Well, crap- I have missed out on a ton of Amazon cards!” Can you imagine how many I would have by now if I had just remembered to reinstall the little search icon in my firefox search box?!?! I feel a little bad about my second thought, “Wow- they are still going?!?” But I am so used to seeing things like this (make/win/earn money for free) drop off the face of the planet after a good run (and or just reduce in pay until it is no longer worth it!) So I started using it again, and right away I earned 50 points by searching for the number to pizza hut! I already have enough to get a $5 amazon gift card, but I think I am going to hold off and see what I can get in a week!

They have an amazing referral program- every person that signs up under you and wins, you win the same amount, so if you (hint hint) were to sign up with one of the links on this post then every time you win a ‘swagbuck’ I get that amount too (as do you for your referrals!) Works for me!

I know this post has nothing to do with designing, but in a way it has everything to do with it- if you are a blogger, online business person, or just online a lot, then there is no reason not to sign up and make points, I didn’t do the toolbar- I personally hate toolbars- I just added the swagbucks search to my options in firefox, so instead of searching google when I type in a search- it uses swagbucks. Mostly the same results- not AS good as google, but it works, and you can win bucks up to three times a day- so after you win x3 just click the icon to swap back to using google for the day if it annoys you too much!

So go sign up for Swagbucks and lets win some stuff together- what’s it going to hurt? Leave a comment below with your thoughts and tips on winning more swag!