Swagbucks: Is it worth your time?

You've probably heard about Swagbucks. I'm not one to tout 'Make Money Online' opportunities, but this one is an easy and painless way to earn a few dollars here and there. By doing many of the activities that you already do online like searching and answering polls and surveys, you can earn 'swagbucks' which can be redeemed for real cash, gift cards and other prizes. Note: This post does not contain any affiliate links. I'm simply sharing the way I use Swagbucks in order to save money on gifts. So, is Swagbucks worth the time? Yes and no.

When you sign up at Swagbucks, you'll find many different ways to earn points called swagbucks. These include daily polls, offers to complete, surveys, short tasks, watching advertisements, playing games, downloading coupons, entering swagbucks codes found online and searching, among others.  The number of points varies from one task or offer to another.

Simple activities like the daily poll or watching short advertisements are only worth 1 swagbuck. Others, like completing offers, are worth hundreds of swagbucks. By clicking "Rewards Store" you can see all the prizes that are available and how much each costs. The most popular prize is the $5 Amazon.com gift card. It only takes 450 swagbucks to earn these and it's easy to accumulate that much. Other prizes include Paypal deposits, gift cards to stores like Target, iTunes and the Disney Store, and other exclusive merchandise. Frankly, I don't think the surveys, offers, coupon downloads or most of the activities are worth doing.

Here's how I use Swagbucks: I use the search function for my everyday curiosity-type searches. It is not the best search engine for doing research, but it does the job for entertainment purposes. You don't earn swagbucks for every search, but randomly you'll see messages that you've won them. I won 18 Swagbucks a few minutes ago for one of my searches. If you follow their Facebook page, they often post codes that you can enter in on their site to redeem for points. Most are worth 3-8 swagbucks.

I answer the daily poll and may even watch a couple of advertisements. That's it. I don't complete offers, play games, download the toolbar or anything like that. Yet, I've redeemed many Amazon gift cards. I try to let my gift cards accumulate to use for gifts for birthdays, Christmas and other occasions. If you only participate in these activities, you'll earn many Amazon gift cards per year. It's easy to earn at least one per month, and that adds up to $60 a year in free money for hardly doing anything at all.

Do you use Swagbucks? What are your favorite rewards?

Photo courtesy asenat29, via Flickr.