It's like a drug

Here’s my December Swagbucks report/analysis, just for fun.

I set out once again to hit a goal of 21 consecutive days, and I started that quest on Dec. 1 so that I’d be done amassing Swagbucks before Christmas and could therefore take it easy for the rest of the year.

I made 21 days in a row and was therefore eligible for approximately 340 bonus Swagbucks in January. But I decided I’d try to find the time to keep hitting the daily goal for the rest of the year. That meant capturing Swagbucks on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, but the daily goals were low those days, so it was relatively easy to hit them all without a significant disruption to my holiday celebrations.

Moral of this story: I hit the daily goal all 31 days, earning the December bonus of 300 Swagbucks and the daily goal bonuses for all 31 days. The total: 540 Swagbucks.

So here we are, a week into January, and I’ve hit all seven daily goals for the new year. Given the bucks I have earned daily, plus the 540 in bonus I was awarded a couple of days ago, puts me at nearly 1,250 in the first week, nearly half way to a $25 Paypal credit. Obviously I won’t earn 1,250 in the next week, but if I can keep the streak up for 21 days, as is my personal goal each month, I’m certain to earn more than 2,500 Swagbucks by Jan. 21, and will have more than 300 in earnings for February.

And once again I suspect I’ll shoot for another 31-day streak to maximize my bonus earnings. That’s because I’m taking some vacation in February and I have no interest in making Swagbucks part of my vacation. My vacation starts Feb. 18, so there’s no way I can hit 21 days in a row next month, the best I can do is 14 days. But even with a vacation week in February and a bonus of about 200 Swagbucks in March, I should still be able to earn enough points for a $25 Paypal credit both months, thanks in part to the fact I’m earning more than 2,500 Swagbucks a month in December and January.

I get obsessive about my daily points, but I have to remember that this is all bonus cash, and it does come at a price. Taking some time off from the site now and then helps recharge the batteries for a few months, and whether I’m ready to or not, I’m going to recharge those batteries for a week in February.  

January assessment

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I swear I’m going to stop doing this, but once again I’ll show how a little obsessiveness pays off.

After hitting the daily goal during every day in December I started January 2013 off the same way, hitting the daily goal. I told myself to hit 21 days in a row, and if it isn’t too much trouble, go for 31 in a row to maximize by bonus earnings.

So, how did I do during the first 21 days of January? I hit the daily goal every day. I also earned 540 Swagbucks for hitting all 31 December goals, 300 for the 31-day streak and 240 for the sum total of the 31 daily bonuses.

In 21 days I earned more than 2,700 Swagbucks, more than enough for a $25 Paypal credit. Take away the 540 bonus bucks in that total and I earned nearly 2,200 Swagbucks. That’s not enough for a Paypal credit, but it’s close, and it’s less than 100 away from five $5 Amazon gift cards at 450 each. Once again I have proved that hitting the daily goal 21 days in a row month after month is enough for $25 in Amazon credit, and nearly enough for $25 in Paypal credit.

It just so happens that Jan. 22 was one of those code bonanza days, where they dole out several codes during the day. Today they awarded 65 points via codes, and I scooped them all up, thanks to the folks at sbcodez.com. It was a relatively easy day as far as the goal: 120 Swagbucks. As if the day wasn’t easy enough, I hit a mega search win, netting more than 30 Swagbucks for one of my searches.

During the day I read on the sbcodez.com chat box that there was a “trusted survey” awarding 250 Swagbucks, and it took less than the 30 minutes it said it would. I went to take a look, found it and tried it. I qualified for it and estimate I put in about 20 minutes of effort on that survey while attending to other trivial tasks at my desk simultaneously. Upon completion it instantly awarded me 250 points. I had topped 400 Swagbucks before the seventh and final code had been revealed.

So after 22 days I have earned more than 3,100 Swagbucks, and I have at least 340 bonus bucks coming to me in February if I do nothing else the rest of the month.

A few observations:

• Hitting the daily goals has been a bit easier lately as I have been the beneficiary of a referral that is active most days. (Hi Leesa!) Some days her search win have helped me hit the daily goal faster, which has allowed me to take the evening off. Sometimes her search wins have saved me the time and trouble of racking up points in small doses through the games and SBTV. And sometimes I end up earning a ridiculous amount of points thanks to a survey, and therefore the matching points I get for her search wings are merely icing on the cake. Having an active referral makes the daily goal much easier to attain on a daily basis. Sadly she’s nearing the referral cap of 1,000 Swagbucks, so I won’t be able to count on her earnings much longer.

• Lately there have been fewer points available throughout the day via 1- and 2-point videos. This is frustrating, as they can make a 90- or 100-point goal much easier to obtain during the day. Not long ago there was a 6-point Best Buy offer that was super easy to complete, and it would allow me to do it up to four times some days. A quick 24-point score makes a 90-point day pretty easy when you get other bonus videos and referral bucks to pad your total.

• On days when I can’t spend all day picking up search points and other miscellaneous offers, I turn to the 60-point surveys. It can be frustrating trying to qualify for one, but I eventually do. Some days I can complete a survey without spending a lot of time, some days it takes to long to get to the end. But on days when you can’t be on the computer all day, if you want to hit the daily goal, it’s worth the extra time in the morning or afternoon to complete one. I have used the daily survey offer on the front page of the site to qualify for a 60-point survey a handful of times already this month, more than I typically do in a month, but it is nice to hit the daily goal on a Saturday morning after earning 60 points via a survey and not having to think about earning points the rest of the month.

• Although not all surveys are aimed at parents, enough of them seem to be. I now have a daughter or two when answering survey questions. I have two young nieces, and now they serve as my children for the sake of surveys.

• Keep checking the “special offers” for easy points from Peanut Labs, SponsorPay and the like. There was an easy one a few days ago SponsorPay that earned 70+ points for registering for some online game. You didn’t have to connect via Facebook, play the game or even confirm an email upon completion of a quick, simple registration. I just signed up using my junk email address and was done. Some folks at sbcodez.com reported it was taking up to five minutes for the points to credit to your account. I received mine in about 30 seconds. Once again I made next to no effort to hit the daily goal. There aren’t always a ton of easy-to-earn offers, but it’s worth taking a look, especially on days when the goal is higher. It’s tempting to leave easy offers for another day when you’ve already hit your goal, but the danger in doing so is that the offer may be gone by the next day. Some offers stick around for days, some are gone within hours. Typically the easier the offer, the faster it disappears.