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With Andrew being back in school for his MBA, we are being forced to re-visit the poor college student phase of life... except with the added twist of also being parents (babies sure suck you dry of money). We've been trying hard to be more cautious of our spending and have been looking for ways to both save and earn some money. Today I'm sharing some of the things I've been doing to help with our financial situation - with five ways to save money and five ways to earn some extra cash.
First up, some ways to save money:
This does have a yearly charge, but the free shipping makes up for it in only a few orders. Not only can it save you money, but it's so darn convenient to get your items in two days. I remember surviving off my Prime purchases when Taylor was born and was so thankful I could get things in two days. Say I was in need of a pacifier or a different bottle nipple - the last thing I wanted was to run to the store with a newborn, so Amazon Prime always came to the rescue. If you're a parent, I believe you can get three months of
Amazon Prime for free and then you'll be charged $99 a year for the service. The best deal though is if you're currently a student, then you can get
Amazon Prime free for six months and after that deal is over, you get it for half off at only $49 a year. Sign up for
Amazon Parent here and
Amazon Student here. (If you use my link for Amazon Student, you'll get a $10 credit for Amazon!)
I think everyone should have this app. Andrew and I both have this on our phone and since using it for the past 3 months, we have about $40 in rebates between us. It's as easy as scanning products and your receipt to show that you purchased something from the store and you get money back on certain items. Who doesn't want rebates on groceries you're buying anyways?
Join Ibotta here and get $10 just for signing up!
3.
Join Ebates for cash back on online shopping.
I recently joined Ebates and added the extension to my web browser. Whenever you're on a site they partner with, a little notification pops up and will ask if you want to activate cash back on that site. When you complete a purchase, cash back is automatically added to your Ebates account. Anything passive to get some money back is awesome in my eyes.
Sign up for Ebates here.
This is probably my favorite find of all. Whenever I do any kind of online shopping, I always try to search to see if there's any promo codes floating around online. It can be time consuming, and usually the codes I find are expired or invalid. If you use Google Chrome though, the
Honey extension is something you just download into your browser that will search the web for you. You just click on the Honey button during checkout and Honey will automatically apply the best coupon code available to your shopping cart. I have saved so much money with the promotion codes Honey has found me.
Sign up here.
5. Join Rewards sites for diaper purchases.
Whether you use Pampers or Huggies, there are great benefits from joining their rewards programs. You're bound to buy a lot of diapers, so why not reap some benefits from it? You usually just enter the on-pack codes from the diapers and wipes you buy, and sometimes you can also earn points for reviewing products, reading articles, and watching promoted videos. Once you've accrued enough points, you can redeem them for amazing rewards.
And now a several ways to make some extra cash:
1. Take online surveys.
There are tons of sites out there where you can share your opinions via surveys and receive money in return. I recently cashed out with a $25 Amazon gift card on the survey site I use. Here's a list of some popular sites out there:
Survey Spot,
Pinecone,
iPoll,
Harris Poll,
Opinion Outpost, and so many more (just Google paid surveys and you'll find a plethora to choose from).
2.
Take advantage of Swagbucks.
Swagbucks is a rewards program that gives you gift cards and cash for the everyday things you already do online. Earn points when you shop at your favorite retailers, watch entertaining videos, search the web, answer surveys, and find great deals. Redeem points for gift cards to your favorite retailers like Amazon and Walmart or get cash put into your Paypal account.
Sign up here. (Update: I've been using Swagbucks passively for the past month and a half and have earned about $25 in Amazon giftcards.)
3.
Watch videos on InboxDollars.
InboxDollars will pay you to watch movie previews, celebrity videos, the latest news, along with dozens of other videos.You need to watch all the clips in a specific playlist to earn money, but if I don't have time, or maybe not a particular interest in what I'm watching, I just leave the videos running in the background while I do other things. InboxDollar will not earn you a lot of money quickly, but since it's something you can do passively, I think it's worth the effort.
Plus, they give you $5 just for signing up. (Update: I've been using InboxDollars quite rarely the past month and a half and have made about $14 cash.)
Can you paint, sew, knit, design, etc? I can promise you that there is someone out there that will buy your creations. I've had
my print design shop on Etsy since 2013. It started out slowly (mostly due to my neglect of the shop), but this year I've really put some time into it and it's starting to take off. It's been nice to have a little extra cash coming in from somewhere.
Open your own Etsy shop here (and make sure to leave your new link in the comments, I'd love to check it out!).
If you're looking for a way to make money with your blog, you can check out
my most popular post of all time here where I made an extensive list of all the different avenues to make some revenue from blogging. It can be close to the amount of work (and sometimes more time-consuming) of a full-time job, but if you love what you do when it comes to your blog, you might as well invest some time to make a profit from it.
How are some ways you save money?
Have you tried any of the ways to make money I've listed?
What are your favorite ways to supplement an income?
