Side Hustle Experiment – Swagbucks Review and Earnings
Anyone who follows this site will know that my opinion of survey sites, cashback sites etc isn’t really that high. The main issue is that the actual return on investment for your time is relatively low. However, in the spirit of absolute fairness I thought I’d better actually give it a more in-depth go. So on this sunny August Saturday, where I’m knackered from being up on the scaffolding around my house all week, I’m sat inside trying to earn some swagbucks….here goes.
Sign Up
Signing up to SwagBucks is pretty straightforward and you don’t need to give too much information.
As soon as you sign up you get 5 SB’s for verifying your email address – so far I’m about 1 minute 30 seconds in. If you want to sign up to here’s my referral link (we both get bonuses) You can install the swagbucks toolbar extension for a quick 50 SB’s…this extension then notifies you of any swagbucks offers on sites you are already visiting – which means you may stumble across swagbucks offers on new sites. I actually think this is a pretty good way to earn from anything you’re already shopping for so here’s the link to install it.
You’re then prompted to complete a quick introductory survey and a few other bits and pieces, I got to my amazing 68 swagbucks in about 30 seconds.
So how much is a swagbuck worth?
Assuming you want a big payout – who doesn’t?
This means 145 swagbucks = £1.
Right so how quickly can I earn 145 swagbucks….that’s the million dollar question (ok that’s the £50 question.
What Earns Me Swagbucks
SB has been set up very cleverly using gamification so there are lots of bonuses you can earn and daily targets – so earning 30 gets you an extra 3…..its almost as good as interest…oh wait no it’s not that’s like 2p. But anyway I digress…….let’s earn some megabucks.
So 6 categories here let’s work through them all
- Shop
Ok im hoping this will be the big area but let’s see if we can shop without losing money;
Ok so initially this just looks like I can get a really bad cashback rate in the form of swagbuks….unfortunately when it comes to a lot of these stores there are sites that offer just actual cashback which I’m not going to lie I definitely prefer. But I’ll keep digging.
I looked into this in more detail and there are some shops that give you a reasonable rate of return – for example Ann Summers had a 5% SB rate – up to 6 bucks/pounds which if you wanted to shop here isn’t unreasonable. Ebay also gave the equivalent of 1% which is ok I guess.
The reality is that if you are a shopper the actual cashback offers are reasonable. Unfortunately as a devout FIRE enthusiast I’m not really into shopping so for me this isn’t going to earn me many swagbucks….if you’ve got a lot of shopping or maybe your Christmas shopping to do I could see this being ok.
- Watch
In this section you can watch videos (not all adverts) that you then give a thumbs up or thumbs down. 5 minutes here earned me around 5 bucks……yay.
- Answer
This is the survey section of the website – so let’s give some opinions
I want to maximise my time for bucks so the 14 min for 75, 15 min for 73 and 20min for 120 seem fine. Clocks going now….
Survey 1 – 2 minutes
I wasn’t qualified for this survey as apparently I don’t have enough medical conditions…..bummer.
Survey 2 – 2 minutes
Survey 3 – 3 minutes
Survey 4 – 1 minute
Attempted to do a shorter survey thinking it might have easier access so a 5 min survey for…..
Survey 5 – 10 seconds
Survey 6
Survey 7
Survey 8
Survey 9
Survey 10
Oh my god, success. Total time 25 minutes and I’ve earned a whopping 75 bucks…hurrah. That makes my earnings 50p for the last half an hour. Hmmm.
- Discover
Discover is a massive selection of offers including signing up for betting websites and downloading games. I didn’t have the enthusiasm to actually put my credit card details into anything here or play a dungeouns and dragons game for 3 hours to earn 50p. I got really excited when I saw there was a grocery coupon section then disappointed when all the coupons were for high priced goods and in USD. Fail here for me….or was it.
Ok so I found an offer that looks promising
This offer will give me 1000sb for spending £2.50. Which means I’ll profit by £2.50 by paying £2.50. Sounds too good to be true so I’ll read the fine print. I get some scratchcards and a couple of lottoe tickets to potentially win lots, but I have to sign up and give my credit card information.
They also had a free game
Ok so lottoland netted me a £5 payout and the SB should get me a £5 payout to amazon so this was actually reasonably profitable (although half that ROI is luck). In total I’ve now spent about 2 hours on the site and have got £7.50 (as I had to pay 2.50 for the lotto offer.
- Play
Play games and earn bucks – hmm sounds good
So swag memory
Swag Jump – bound to get me some bucks
Ok lets run the swagasaurus
Oh my god I won some points! Hurrah yay whoops. And I was terrible at the game….so I’ll try it again
Ok so a much better score but no bucks.
So twenty minutes wasted on games for a whopping 2swagbucks which equals about 1p – yay hurrah.
Ok finally I found some daily activites I could earn from:
The daily poll is one question that gets you 1SB. The daily search just opens a search bar which also gets you 1SB. Deal of the day gets you to buy something. Daily discover does the same. Daily watch just takes you to the video watching page. The survey links take me to some surveys, and there are actually some today that you can’t be disqualified from so I did a 15 minute survey for 60sbs. I somehow managed to get disqualified from this survey lol.
Overall Impressions
For FIRE this really isn’t going to cut the mustard. Given the choice between this and other side hustles I think other side hustles are always going to earn you more money. A part time job will at least pay you minimum wage for your time which I don’t think this will.
It’s not for me but don’t completely discount it. If you do shop a reasonable amount the cashback could add up and if you keep your eye out for instant payback offers you can probably make a small amount back over time. I’m going to put this to one side personally but if you are happy to sit and do some surveys in front of the TV every night you can probably get to a £5-10 payout each month. I don’t think I have the patience for regular swagbuckling but I’ll probably dip in and out to see if I can get some free sign up bonuses etc which actually worked well for me.
Side Hustle Rating: 3/10
Income Potential: Pretty Low I think maybe £20/month
Advantages: You can do most of it in front of the TV, lots of different activities, wide range of offers.
Disadvantages: You could definitely earn more with another side hustle. You are going to earn below minimum wage.
If you want to sign up I have an affiliate link here which means we both get some bonus swagbucks if you earn 300SB in your first month…which could be worse I guess. If you’re trying to FIRE really hard though I seriously suggest you spend your time working on some other side hustles and earning some serious side money.