My Favorite Sites

A while back someone asked me to post a list of my favorite sites. Some of these include links that give me stuff if you sign up, other’s don’t offer that option, but either way, I hope you find something that you like! And sign up with my links just in case 🙂

Site with Points for Searching and Shopping:

1. Bing – You earn points for searching. It’s 1 point per 3 searches and a maximum of 30 points per day – or 40 points if you want to install and use the mobile app as well. I like to redeem my points for groupon gift cards and then get some free food with my groupon bucks. Actually, these days, I get free lunches for my husband with my groupon bucks, but either way, it saves us some money and he gets tasty lunches during the week.

2. Swagbucks – Points for searching and a few other things, the search points are random so you may get 20 points or no points, you never know. There’s also surveys, daily polls, and you can click through when you’re shopping online. So, there’s multiple ways to earn points here. I like to redeem my points for Amazon gift cards.

3. My Points – This is another site where you click through when you’re shopping and you get points you can redeem for gift cards. They have a great selection of gift cards on here. Also, Bzz Agent (discussed below) gives you My Points when you interact with brands, so you can earn two ways.

4. Coke Rewards – Collect bottle caps, enter the codes for points you can redeem for merchandise or free cokes. If you’re drinking it anyway you may as well get a few free ones!

5. Kelloggs – If you eat cereal, crackers, or plow through the eggos like my kids do, this is a great way to get some free cereal bowls or other merchandise. Just enter the codes from the inside of the boxes.

Product Review Sites:

1. Pinch Me – They offer a small box of free samples every other week. You have to be on there right when the samples become available to order yours or you won’t get any. These are all sample size and a bit of a hassle to get but if you want to try out interesting products, you can give it a try.

2. Smiley360 – Free products to try and review. They recently updated their website and it’s so much easier to use and they have so many more products available. I’m currently trying out a new Nescafe instant coffee, and I’m waiting on some scented markers to arrive for the kids to test. They seem to have a lot of home stuff like soap and toilet bowl cleaner and other fun things like markers and coffee.

3. Bzz Agent – Free products to try and review. I get lots of food products from here. I just tried a new Sara Lee Pound Cake (the blog review for this is coming soon), and several Kroger $5 off coupons to promo their digital coupons and their community rewards. Plus they do toys – which the kids love, and other products like deodorant, roomba, etc. Usually the products are totally free. (I got a huge discount on my roomba but I did still have to pay something – if you don’t want to pay you just say so and don’t accept the campaign). They offer you a product and you say that yes you’d like to receive it and review it. I’ve been using this site for years and love all the fun products I get to try!

Survey Sites:

1. YouGov – Mostly government related surveys. Usually about 1 survey a week, they have a few decent redemption options.

2. My View – I’ve been using this survey site for a long time. They have a great selection of rewards.

3. Toluna – Surveys mostly, there’s also a few other activities you can do on the site for points to redeem for gift cards.

4. Schlinger & Associates – A few surveys for points. Mostly, these are research studies and they’ll tell you up front what they’re offering you to participate. Sometimes it’s a check and other times it’s a gift card.

5. Pure Profile – Surveys, you redeem for PayPal in $25 increments.

Free Date Night

If you don’t know about it already Bing rewards you for searching using their site. (sign up using my link and I get 500 points) You can earn up to 30 points a day for online searching and 10 points a day for mobile searching for a total of 40 a day, plus they have bonus points and double point days and such, so points add up pretty quickly. Every 450 points I redeem a $5 Groupon credit. There’s other things on there, like Xbox credits and Amazon gift cards, but groupon is my favorite.

So, last month, I had $20 in Groupon credit sitting in my account. I like to spend it on restaurant discounts and then me and my husband go out to dinner or lunch for “free”. WooHoo. So, Groupon e-mails me a discount, if I spend $30 and purchase a groupon through their mobile app (which is already on my phone) I get $10 off. The math is pretty easy, $10 off a $30 groupon = $20, which is the amount of my current Groupon Credits.

I go search Groupon for anything $30 to $40 and see if there’s anything interesting. For $30 I can get a groupon for $60 at the Tennessee Riverboat Company. Not bad, Dinner cruises are $25 to $30 a person so I go ahead and get it. Now, I have a free $60 to spend at the Tennessee Riverboat Company. Of course, we pick the Mystery Cruise because it sounds like fun.

So, the mystery was pretty much what I expected, not that entertaining but still fun, and I think they just threw all the names in a hat and pulled out out and that was our murderer for the night.

Plus you get a 2 hr cruise down the river on a little riverboat. – to put little in context, I’ve been aboard some of the larger old Ohio riverboats like the Delta Queen when it was still operating as a riverboat. I think one paddle-wheel is bigger than the boat we were on for our cruise. Anyways, little riverboat, it was a very nice 2hr ride. It rained the first 20 minutes, but we were inside eating – and the food was DELICIOUS! – so it didn’t matter. After dinner we went up on the deck and the weather was perfect. Saw some really pretty houses – we’re house hunting currently so it was fun to see some of the large houses on the river.

It was fun to do something different for a change (we left the kids with my MIL) and get some time to ourselves. Not sure I would actually pay $60 for the dinner cruise but if you like being out on the water, it’s lots of fun and the food is good.