Side Hustles, Rebates and Coupons!

I have been without work for longer than I have been a mother but before I was attending school so I felt like I had a little bit of a purpose. After becoming a mom, I knew that I had to take care of our son because we couldn't afford child care for me to go back to work or that if I did that all of that money would go directly into child care which seems pointless when he could be spending his time with me and learning from me, but I still felt like I just wasn't contributing enough. In a small home it only takes just an hour or so to make sure everything's been cleaned up, laundry is done and toys are put away. I decided to try out a few places to make side income online and the ones I will list are the one's that I have done and actually benefited from. Some of these will offer cash rewards in the form of a check and others will only offer online gift cards of your choosing, but I have discovered that even a few dollars on my amazon account is amazing. Please note: **This post contains affiliate links and referral codes

1. Inboxdollars
   
   This one I have actually been a member of for years. My mother started doing this when I was a teenager and when I turned 18 and moved into my own place, I created my own account. inboxdollars.com is a site in which you can earn real cash that you can cash out as a check at $30. This site allows you to earn money in a variety of ways, you can do up to 15 searches a day with their search engine (I think it's about 2 searches per cent) for a total of 15 cents per day, plus a bonus at the end of the week for using it every day.
   
   Next, they offer about 2-3 paid emails a day which almost always are 2 cents a piece.
   
   After that, there are many, many surveys you can take on their site which I've seen offer anywhere from 10 cents to $2.50, plus you get to spin the wheel after you're done which can get you anything from a few cents as a bonus directly to your account, a 25 cent token which will be applied the next time you qualify for a survey and complete it, or sweepstakes entries that you can then choose which sweepstakes you want to enter. They also offer WinIt codes through different channels of social media (instagram, facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc.) that when entered into their WinIt code box will give you sweepstakes entries.
   
   There are also some videos you can watch to make a little bit of extra change.
   
   There are free and paid offers that you can complete. For example you can get $3 right now for using their site to sign up for another survey site for free, or you could get $10 for signing up for gamefly, or you could get a percentage of what you spend back by shopping website you were already planning on buying from by accessing the stores site via inboxdollars. If you download the mobile app you can also get a specified amount of earnings for downloading certain apps, which if you don't like the app, they can be deleted once you've been credited.
   
   This one is one I love because I can cash out a big check but because I'm not an exciting person and do not drink or go to the movie theater I do not qualify for a lot of surveys so it does take me some time to earn my money, but if you get out of the house more than I do, I'm sure that you could easily make some money this way! This one however, is only one account per household.  EDIT: You can now cash out for gift cards as well!
2. Swagbucks
   
   Swagbucks.com is one where you earn points toward gift cards of your choosing. There are many ways to earn swag bucks here just like inboxdollars. This one has a lot more options though and can cash out as early as 300 Swagbucks or for most gift cards, a $3 gift card. This one has by far been the easiest one for me to earn rewards through.

   

   My Swagbucks earnings from April 2015- December 2015

   
   
   
   A huge plus side to this one is they do allow more than one account per household so long as each account is accessed from different devices or computers. My husband also has an account here so together we have benefited greatly from it.
   
   Back to what you can do here though! You can watch a set amount of videos for a set amount of SB. I often go to the nCrave section and choose the highest paying video slots and let them run in the background while I do chores. I get 6 SB at a time doing that!
   
   They offer surveys and I've seen the reward be anywhere from 5 SB to 2,500 SB (which on it's own would get you a $25 gift card!!).
   
    You can play one of their 3 games for up to a total of 10 SB. You earn 2 SB every other game.
   
   Their search engine can get you swagbucks but it is not a very reliable way of earning them as they are given out at random. But sometimes it's worth a shot, you can get a decent amount every once in a while.
   
   
   As with inboxdollars, there are various offers you can complete for points as well as some places you can shop at for so many points per dollar spent.
   
   There are codes that get put out one to several times a day as well that also give you 1-5 swagbucks. You can find these just by browsing through the page or if you have the mobile app installed they will alert you every time there is a code posted and where to find it.
   
   Another handy thing about swagbucks is that there are plenty of places that you can shop at through them. For instance, I bought $133 worth of clothes at maurices.com by clicking their link via swagbucks and in a month I was credidted 400 SB.
   
   Unlike inboxdollars though, there are many other things to do here such as encrave, a daily poll, 1 point for surveys you do not qualify for, nGage, and much more. Feel free to go check it out! :D
3. Bing
   
   The Bing.com search engine is a quick way to earn a few points. You can only earn a maximum of 25 points per day, unless they offer other things to click on that day or they are offering the weekly trivia for 3 extra points (and of course referrals), but it literally takes all of 5 minutes to do your PC searches for 15 points (2 searches per point) and about the same amount of time for a mobile search.
   
   Before you reach a gold status it will take 525 to get a $5 gift card of your choosing, or you can enter your points for sweepstakes entries.
   
   This one's a bit slow, it takes about a month or so, but since it's quick to do, it's worth it for an extra $5 a month.
   
   Also, with Bing, you can again have more than one account per household, but once again, must be accessed on separate devices.
4. Opinion Outpost
   
   Opinionoutpost.com is strictly surveys the surveys offer a decent amount of points and it doesn't take much to cash out on them, it's just difficult sometimes to qualify, but I have cashed out with them a few times.
5. Get Crafty
   
   I've seen this one a lot on other blogs but it's true, if you have a knack for sewing, crocheting, knitting or any other type of creative thing you could always post your items on etsy, or even on a local buy and sell group on facebook. People love buying local! I've done this a few times, I've sold a few necklaces that I've made on etsy and a few scarves that I've made through local buy and sell groups.
6. Sell your items
   
   Go through your closet and dig out those clothes that don't fit anymore or that you just won't ever wear again and post them on those buy and sell groups or places like ebay or amazon. If you have textbooks laying around those sell very well on amazon if the time is right. I've sold several of my textbooks through amazon and made much more than I would have by selling them back to the bookstores that I bought them from.
7. Use rebate apps
   
   There are several rebate apps out there but the only one I've found that I like is ibotta (referral code: djhqw). Most rebate apps require you to buy certain brands of certain items, and ibotta does as well but ibotta also allows you to redeem rebates for things like any brand of bread, milk, eggs, bacon, orange juice, etc. I have not cashed out on this one yet but it doesn't take a long time to start earning rewards. I'm about $5 away from being able to cash out and I'll update on how that goes once I have done it! The nice thing about this app too though is that your friends can help you as well, you can join a team with your friends and when you both earn rewards you wind up earning bonuses.
   
   There is also another one I've started using called Ebates. I just started using this one last month so I've not cashed out with it yet, but this seems to be the best place overall for doing online shopping to receive rebates.
8. Crowd Tap
   
   This one is a bit different. Crowd Tap gives users the opportunities to try products and review them as well as take polls for different well known brands for entries to win gift cards. I've won a few through here before but I haven't won any recently. You have to do quite a bit of work here to make sure you have plenty of entries for your chance to win.
   This one turned out to not be so great.
9. Mint Vine
   
   This one has actually been really great for me. It takes 1,000 points to cash out for a $10 amazon gift card. You can cash out through paypal as well. This site has plenty of surveys to qualify for that, from what I've seen so far, are worth anywhere from 25 to 450 points. Typically you will get anywhere from 5-30 points if you don't qualify for a survey.
   
    You also get 5 points a day for answering the daily poll and if you do that for 10 days in a row you get an extra 25 points.
   
   Mint Vine also has free and paid offers, and surveys through Peanut Labs and Personally that credit you with Mint Vine points.
   
   If I sit down and actually focus, I can cash out about once a week here. The only cons are most surveys will have a pending period in which you have to wait for that survey to officially be credited to your account and when you cash out there is a short waiting period before you get your reward.
10. SnagShout
    
    This one won't make you money but it can help save you money! The products are constantly rotating here but the way it works is that sellers will list their products with discount codes given to SnagShout, you will click on it through SnagShout which will then send you to amazon with a special code for you to receive the product at the listed discount, but the requirement for this is that you leave an honest review of the product you bought stating that you received the product at a discount in exchange for an honest review.
    
    I've shopped here several times. I have gotten great phone cases for just a few dollars, shirts, usb cables, and even a car phone mount. It's worth shopping at for small things and once in awhile there will be a few really neat deals. For instance, I found this really adorable gold plated cat ear ring that I bought for $2.99. Some other things I have bought through SnagShout include: a digital kitchen food scale for $2.30, silicone muffin pan for $5, and a really nice shower head for $7.50!
    
    I've seen all sorts of items on there too such as: kids toys, jewelry holders and boxes, vitamins, phone and tablet cases, comforters, towels, hair accessories, watches and jewelry, home security systems and cameras, virtual reality headsets, HD projectors, clothing, baby monitors, bicycle helmets, headphones, skateboards and even tea! If you check back often you will find so many things, it's amazing! 
11. Groupon
    
    Groupon is a site that has special offers every day for various places in your local areas such as restaurants, spas, hotels, etc. The way this works is that you will see these offers from Groupon and you pay Groupon the low price that they are showing you directly and they then provide you with a coupon that you may print or possibly bring up on your phone to use at the chosen location.
    
    I've seen so many different things on their site and I've seen them anywhere from 10% off to 95% off! It's super popular and a simple and easy way to help you save money!

This is all that I currently have at this time but if I find more in the future I will be sure to add them and tell you all about it! If you've had some success stories with any of these feel free to let me know! I hope this can help you out, even if only a little bit!

**This post contains affiliate links and referral codes