When Jessica Maloys son turned 16, they started talking about college.
And she started thinking really thinking hard about how much money it was going to cost.
Its overwhelming to me, she says.
Maloy checks her Swagbucks account. Mark Pynes for The Penny Hoarder
I decided I was going to do as much as I could to earn extra money.
In February 2018, she started using cash-back apps includingIbottaandEbates.
Those have been slowly and steadily pulling in easy money.
But her biggest moneymaker has beenSwagbucks, the popular survey and rewards site.
Over seven months, from February through September 2018, she earned $600 on Swagbucks.
I hop on and off all day, says Maloy, a 42-year-old secretary in Palmyra, Pennsylvania.
If Im at home, Ill do it on my laptop.
You have to have the time to do it.
But if you have nothing else to do, why not do it?
It really doesnt take much to earn money that you normally wouldnt have.
No Interest Til Almost 2027?
You have to work consistently to make any kind of money, Cadle says.
What Is Swagbucks?
(100 SB = $1.)
She usually completes one or two.
She tries to earn 200 SBs a day.
When she started going on Swagbucks every day, she joined a large Facebook group called the Swagbucks Swaggernauts.
There, she picks up tips on good ways to earn SBs.
She cant sign up for everything she doesnt want to be a rideshare driver, for instance.
Instead, she signs up for offers where shes not committing to anything more than receiving emails.
(Swaggernauts recommend creating a burner email address just for that purpose.)
She currently cares for three small children all day.
Ive got two 3-year-olds, a 1-year-old and a dog, she says.
I sign in at 6 a.m., and Im done by the time the kids get here.
Hendrickson does surveys only the ones she likes.
I dont do banking or financial institutions, she says.
I dont do cars.
I dont do what I dont know anything about.
The marriage didnt work out, so she moved back to the U.S.
But I found Swagbucks, and I just started using it and saving up my gift cards.
I would take a lot of surveys.
She also takes part in Swagbucks daily poll.
Overall, shes earned roughly 73,000 Swagbucks, or $730.
Thats meant a lot for her and her son, whos about to turn 12.
We save up our gift cards and get things off Amazon or eBay.
It buys Christmas gifts and birthday gifts for my son.
Mike Brassfield ([email protected]) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder.
