Works for Me Wednesday - Getting the Most from SwagBucks

This might be old news to some swagbuck pros, but I am relatively new to the swagbucks craze, so it was exciting for me to figure this out! In case you are also new to swagbucks, perhaps it will help you, as well :-)

First, what is swagbucks? Its a search engine that rewards you for using it. You earn points, called... "swagbucks" (not that complicated) that can be used in their "swag store" (there's a pattern here!). Personally, the only thing I really want swag bucks for is to buy amazon.com gift cards. Free books, people!! But they do have lots of other stuff, too. (And a *ahem* pretty cool referral program if you want to sign up using one of my links or the banner on my sidebar over there *ahem*)

I soon noticed that a $5 amazon gift card costs me 45 swag bucks, and a $25 amazon gift card costs me 315 swagbucks. Huh? I'm pretty good at math, but I think most of the general adult population can figure out that ordering 5 separate $5 gift cards at 45 swagbucks each (which would total $25) is actually LESS than 315. Almost 100 swag bucks less, in fact. Actually, for 315 swagbucks, one can actually get 7 individual $5 gift cards, which equals $35!

However, what I didn't know and had to figure out for myself is how to actually apply more than one gift card while checking out at amazon. I'd like to be able to apply more than $5 off each order, because then it's actually really like getting free books. So, here's the beautiful part!

Amazon has this wonderful thing you can do if you log into "Your Account" - I will include a picture for those of you who are visual like me and can't understand written instructions without pictures very well:

(click to enlarge if needed)

See the big blue arrows? The link they are pointing to says "Apply a Gift Card Balance to Your Account". If you click on it, you can enter in your gift card number, and it will apply that amount to your account (kind of like the link says). Here's the part I was excited about: you can do that with any quantity of gift cards! So if you gather up a bunch of $5 gift cards from swagbucks, you can enter each one in, and it will total them up for you. When you are ready to order from amazon, when you check out, it will ask you if you want to apply your gift card balance to your order. I love it!

Right now, I am about 4 swagbucks away from adding another $5 to my gift card balance, which will then bring it to $25... but I only spent 225 swagbucks instead of 315! The nerdy part inside of me that loves to get a good deal is thrilled about this - so I just had to share!

Join in for some more Works for Me Wednesday fun at We Are THAT Family!