We use Blingo when doing searches on the Internet. They use Google to do their searches, so we get the same results as if we had gone to Google ourselves. What’s the benefit to using Blingo then? You can win prizes when you use Blingo. For the first 10 searches that you do each day, you’re eligible to win a prize! There are free movie tickets, amazon gift certificates, visa gift cards, and more.

While we only won a $5.00 gift card this time, in the past we have won a $25.00 Visa gift card, a $50.00 Amazon gift card, and more.

If you’re going to do a search on Google, you might as well go through Blingo and take the chance of getting something for free out of it!

If you’re looking to make a few extra dollars but don’t want to get a second job, you might consider making money online. There are many ways you can earn a few extra bucks that don’t take a lot of time. Just make sure that the offer is realistic, and never, ever pay for the opportunity to make money! If they ask for any money – it’s most likely a scam and you should stay away.

As far as making money online, there are a lot of different ways to do so, and you will get paid in different ways. You can get cash, gift cards to your favorite stores or restaurants, airline miles, magazine subscriptions, and a whole lot more!

Just read through what it takes to get paid, and you’ll find that many times just a few minutes of work every now and then can really add up! If you want to see some real money making opportunites, check out our list here. All of them are legitimate, and we have used most of them before!

I’m sure you’ve seen the pop-ups promising you a free XBOX 360, and all you have to do is enter your email address, or a free $200 gift card to your favorite retail store if you just answer a quick survey on what your favorite restaurant is. Most likely you have, since they are everywhere, and if you are like me, you probably thought it was a scam. I mean, how on earth could you get something worth $50 – $1,000 for free? It just doesn’t make sense.

Well, I can tell you now from personal experience that it does work. The reason I can say this is that I decided on May 2nd 2007 that I was going to do one of these offers, and then October 9th 2007, I was finally able to hold the gift card in my hand. How did I do this? Let me explain…

First off, I would have never done it if I hadn’t seen someone else start the process and be confident about it. A blogger that I enjoy reading (Money Dummy) decided to do it, and since I completely trust her judgment, a month later I decided to try as well. I knew going into it that I would have to complete 4 different offers, and that it would cost me money, but I knew how to go about doing it so that I would eventually get the gift card…and here is what you need to know if you’re thinking about trying it.

1. Pick a legitimate company/brand. If you like an offer, make sure that they have given out gift cards in the past. I used YourTopBrands, and was very happy with them. They also work under the name Brandarama, as well as a few others.

2. Make sure you do all of the offers you are supposed to. For example, in mine I had to do 4 offers – 1 from each page. If I had done 2 from one of the pages, and 2 from another, I wouldn’t have completed the offer, and wouldn’t have gotten the gift card. Make sure you follow the directions exactly.

3. Look at the offer choices, and see what makes sense for you. Personally, I liked an offer that was a $0.99 30-day trial to a music site. It was very little money, and I could easily cancel out of it. I also tried to find offers that I would actually use (although that didn’t happen in every case), but I wanted to make sure I was spending as little out of pocket as possible, while doing an offer that would be done quickly and easily.

4. Make sure you cancel out of whatever you have to! Many of the offers you will be able to choose from will be some sort of monthly program, or trial, where after 30 days you will get billed again. Make sure you write down the date you did the offer, and when you must cancel by, and make sure you do cancel by that date.

5. Every time you do an offer, take a screen shot showing that you completed it. For example if you had to sign up to a website, take a screen shot of the page that says welcome with your name on it. This will help if your offer doesn’t show up as completed within the given timeframe. If you can send them the screen shot, you can help prove that you did complete the offer.

6. Save any emails that you get from the offers you complete. Again, this will help you prove that you did join or purchase what you needed to in order to complete the offer. So if the company you did the offer for doesn’t get back to the gift card company, you can email them with your email and screen shot, and prove that it should be listed as complete.

7. Once all of your offers are complete, you will have to send them a form saying that you want the gift card and that you completed all the offers. It’s a really simple form; you just print it out and write your name and address on it. Make sure you not only send them this form, but also go to the post office and send it certified mail (and if you’d like, also get a return receipt). This will make sure that you know they received it, and can prove that it was sent as well. This will also (in my opinion) make them take you seriously so that they can’t just easily “lose” your form and forget about you.

8. Keep reminding them you are waiting. Once your status is confirmed, they usually say the wait is 4-6 weeks. After about 4 weeks or so, start either emailing or calling them every 2-3 weeks, just asking the status of the card. It does seem that they are always backlogged as far as shipping the gift cards, but it does remind them that you are still there, and are still waiting.

9. Be prepared to wait. I started the process on May 2nd and all of my offers were completed and confirmed within a week. I mailed the form on May 21st (within a few days after being able to print the form out and mail), and the website changed my status to “Status is Confirmed; to be Shipped” on June 18th. I did not receive the gift card until October 9th.

Here are a few more helpful tips when trying to decide on an offer. The bigger the gift card, the more offers you will have to complete to get them. For example, you might only need one or two small offers for a $100 gift card, but you’ll have to do bigger offers (and more of them) for a $500 or $1,000 gift card. As long as you keep on top of everything, you shouldn’t have a problem, and things should go smoothly. Every time I emailed customer support, I got a response within 24 hours.

Yes, I had to wait 5 full months from the time I started the offer until I had the gift card in my hands, but was it worth it? Of course! Overall, I ended up spending less than $50.00, and less than an hour of my time, and got $1,000 in return for it. Would I do it again? You bet. I plan on finding another offer to start next!

Since I have used this company before and know that they are trustworthy, I thought I’d share a few of their current offers. I will be doing one of them, just don’t know which yet.

$400 in American Express Gift Card

$500 Gift Certificate to Borders or Barnes & Nobles – Your choice

$500 American Express Gift Card for Baby Shopping Spree

$100 Godiva Gift Card

$1,000 Visa Gift Card

$500 Lowes Gift Card

$1,000 Circuit City Gift Card

$1,000 Lowes Gift Card

I just got a $1,000 gift card in the mail! It cost me less than $50, and took about 5 months, but it’s here! I’ll post all about how I got it in a few days. I just wanted to share how excited I am!!

If you’ve ever had a horrible experience at a store, or a wonderful experience at a restaurant, you may have wished you could have told the owner of the store to let them know exactly what was going on.

The good news is – there are people who do exactly that! This is called Mystery Shopping.

Mystery Shopping is where you get hired to go into a store/restaurant/etc. and complete a shopping experience, and then tell the mystery shopping company about your experience. It’s called Mystery Shopping because you don’t tell the store or restaurants who you are, or what you are doing. It’s completely undercover. The company will tell you where to go, what to do, and what to watch out for.

What are some things you could be doing? Well, at a restaurant shop, you would probably note how long it takes from the time you ordered to get your meals. Did you get everything you asked for? Did they server check back with you? You would have to report things like that. When you get back from a shop, you will usually fill out a survey (which you can see before you go so you know what to look out for), and then usually give them your receipt as proof you were there.

With Mystery Shopping you usually get a free meal (if a restaurant shop) or product (at a retail location). Sometimes you also get paid on top of it, depending on how complicated the shop is.

It’s a lot of fun, and you can make sure that retail stores and restaurants are treating their customers like they should be.

Here is a list of mystery shopping companies you can join, all for free.

Remember…you should NEVER pay for a list of mystery shopping sites. These companies are paying you!

I know I have mentioned in the past that I take surveys, but I haven’t really shared what kinds I take, or where I find out about them.

There are all types of surveys, for all types of reasons. Sometimes a company will want to see what people think about a possible new product idea, and see if people are interested. Other times companies want to know what you think about their current products. Sometimes a company will want to know if something they have designed is liked, and will want people to test it. For all of these reasons and more, there are many companies willing to pay people to find out their opinions.

I enjoy taking surveys, because I love to give my opinion on different products. Sometimes a company will even send me a product to try out! That’s the most fun. You can either get entries into a contest, points, or cash for doing surveys…and most are really short.

In the past, I have gotten cash, points, gift cards, and a bunch of different products to test. Those were the most fun!

Will you be able to quit your job and just take surveys all day? No… sorry! But it is a great way to earn a few extra dollars every now and then.

Here is where on our site we have a list of survey companies you can join, so you too can start taking surveys.

Remember, you should never pay for a list of survey companies! The whole point is that you can make extra money from these companies!

I know a lot of people use Google when they search on the internet, but you might want to try Blingo when you get the chance. It uses Google, so you should get the same search results, but here you have a chance to win prizes.

This will only happen within the first 10 searches you do on Blingo a day, but if you’re going to be doing searches on Google, you might as well win something! By signing up, you can also win something if one of your friends does, so you have even more chances to win.

One way to save is to make sure that you know where all of your money is. Many times we lose track of some money we are owed and completely forget about it. A lost bank account, a forgotten deposit on an apartment or an unclaimed tax refund may be out there somewhere. The good news is that many times it is as easy as typing your name in to see if you are owed any money.

If you go to the website unclaimed.org, you can choose your state, and then search your states treasury to see if you are owed any money. Maybe you moved and someone was unable to get in touch with you. You never know! If you do find your name, you just fill out a form, and they will let you know how to get the money (and how much it is). Since you will be dealing directly with your states treasury department, you don’t have to worry about being scammed, and you will have to pay absolutely nothing in order to claim your money.

ChaCha.com is a new search engine, where instead of typing in your search and getting thousands and thousands of results to sift through, you get a real person guiding your search. They will help you find exactly what you are looking for! For some, it is much easier then going through result after result, trying to find what you want. The best part is, you can talk to your guide while they are searching for you, to help make sure you get exactly what you are searching for.

Besides being a cool new website, why on earth am I talking about it on a money saving/making blog? Simple. Guess where the guides come from? While they currently are not accepting any new guides since they are now in beta, they used to accept guides (and I’m sure they will again!) who will guide these searches and get paid to do so.

It’s a really great way to earn a little extra income. You train in certain searches, so you choose what you know a lot about, and what you like. Then, you train to become better at finding these results. Once you are trained, you get paid to help people search for what they are looking for! The best part is, as a guide, you can go and work whenever you have the time. No having to devote a certain amount of time a day, no telling anyone what your hours are. It’s a great way to pick up a few dollars whenever you need to. Currently you can get a debit card to get the money whenever you want, but it looks like as of the end of the month, you can get the money put right into your own bank account.

While they are not accepting new guides right now, if you are interested in becoming a guide, either email me or leave a comment here. I will send you an invitation to become a guide once it is available again.

In my last post I mentioned that there is another way besides taking surveys that I was able to get some free products to try. I am a part of Bzzagent, which is for people who enjoy creating word of mouth advertising. You can sign up for different campaigns, based on your demographics, and they will send you a product to try. They usually also send you coupons to give to others as well! They know that most people love to talk about the products they enjoy, and the ones they don’t. So they send you the products, you try them, and then tell everyone you know about them! There is nothing sneaky about it, you’re more then welcome to tell people you are a part of Bzzagent, and that you are creating a buzz for the product. Just be honest whether you like it or not. You can then report into them how the buzzing went, and in some cases you get points. You can then use those points to get different rewards…so it really is a great program! The way I see it, I normally tell my friends and family about all the products that I try that I like (and dislike), so it’s a lot of fun to get to try new stuff for free while I’m doing it!

Right now I’m currently Bzzing:

Pledge Duster Plus (really enjoying that one!), Egg Creations (I’m still trying to find out what grocery store has it so I can try it, but I have plenty of coupons to share with others who are interested!), Full Sail (a really cool college where you can learn things like animation, music, film, and much more), “The Power of Nice” (A book that shows it does pay to be nice in the business world in order to get ahead), Zinio (a program that lets you read your magazines online), and am currently waiting to receive my Sonicare Toothbrush (which I am REALLY excited about, as I have heard that it is amazing and cleans your teeth a lot better then a manual or battery powered toothbrush.)

Usually I only have 1-2 campaigns going on at a time, but I guess they are very busy right now! I am enjoying telling others about the products though, so it is fun for me!

I have reported most of my buzz, but not all of it yet, as it’s easier to talk to friends about it then to write it up. I will report the rest of it though. On top of all of that (which really is enough!) I recently used some of my points to order the Aquis Adventure Microfiber Towel, which helps dry things faster. I think this will be great to bring on vacations. But that was just a bonus on top of the rest of the program. If anyone enjoys telling others about products, and sharing your opinions, I really do recommend this.