Reading Time: 5 minutes How to Earn Gift Cards Online
This is a post by Mercedes about making money.
Everyone loves receiving gift cards for holidays, birthdays, or just because. Whether they be physical gift cards or digital gift cards, they can allow you to shop at stores or online without spending any of your own money. Many people especially like getting gift cards because it helps to save money when going shopping.
Most people think that the only way that you can get gift cards is to either pay for them yourself or to get them as a gift. Although you certainly can get gift cards with these two methods, you can also earn them online. Earning gift cards online allows you to practically get the gift cards for free, meaning you don’t have to spend your own money.
Of course, you have to know what to do to earn gift cards online. In this article, we will look at our favorite way to earn gift cards online and how to get started with this method. More so, we discuss the psychology of saving money with gift cards.
Saving Money with Gift Cards
Before we talk about the best way to earn gift cards online, we wanted to talk about how you can save money with gift cards. These cards can drastically improve your financial well being in many ways. Obviously, you save money whenever you earn the gift cards for free since you are not spending your own cash on the gift cards or products.
With that apparent money-saving benefit out of the way, shopping with gift cards comes with another major advantage. As you likely know, both digital and physical gift cards come with a certain amount of money. This makes gift cards different from credit cards or debit cards.
When many people go shopping with gift cards, they shop more wisely, knowing that they have only a limited amount of money to shop with. As a result, most shoppers tend to be more selective when buying since they don’t have an unlimited amount on their payment method.
This is just a fancy way of saying that you can save a lot of money with gift cards!
Cash Envelope System
In many ways, shopping with gift cards is very similar to the cash envelope system. The cash envelope system allows you to track precisely how much money you spend on particular items and areas in your life. With this system, you only pay the money that is in the envelope per week.
Spending with gift cards is very similar since you can only spend what is already on the gift card. As a result, you save more money because you are forced to avoid overspending and monitor the items you are purchasing more closely.
The Best Way to Earn Gift Cards Online: Take Surveys
Now that we’ve learned how and why you save money with gift cards, let’s get to the goods: what is the best way to earn gift cards online? Although there are many ways you can earn gift cards, our favorite is through online survey sites.
Online survey sites work as a middleman for companies in need of research. It begins with regular companies needing market research about real customers. They pay survey sites to find real customers to fill out these surveys. As a result, the survey takers get paid for their market intel.
To earn gift cards through taking surveys, you will need to find a survey site, sign up, and start taking surveys. The beauty of this method, and the reason why it is our favorite way to earn gift cards, is that it is super easy to perform.
Since you are simply giving your opinion about different products and items, it doesn’t take much time or energy. In fact, you can fill out these surveys while you are watching TV, riding the bus, or simply trying to kill time. This makes survey taking a great idea for busy professionals, stay-at-home parents, students, or anyone else over 18.
How to Get Started Today
If taking online surveys for gift cards sounds right up your alley, which it probably does, there are some things you should know to get started. Here are the four steps to earning gift cards with online surveys today:
Find a Survey Site
First, you will need to find a survey site. It’s essential to find a survey site that is safe, reliable, and offers a fair payout. Sites like Branded Surveys are the best. You will want to look at reviews and the payout options when deciding on a survey site.
Sign Up
Then, you need to sign up. During the signup process, you will have to fill out some personal information about yourself, such as your name and age.
One part of the signup process to be aware of is the personal questionnaire. This questionnaire will ask you a variety of personal information, such as your income, number of people in your household, education experience, and more. The point of this questionnaire is to match you with surveys relevant to your life.
It’s important to be as honest as possible when filling out this questionnaire. If you are dishonest, it can be hard to answer these suggested surveys honestly and efficiently.
Take Surveys
The survey site will then match you with surveys relevant to your lifestyle. Simply take these surveys. Answer truthfully and thoughtfully. If you take the survey too quickly, you might not get paid since it is clear that you didn’t take it seriously. Each survey you take will pay a certain amount of points.
Cash Out
Once you take enough surveys, you will have enough points to cash out. Cash out by selecting your favorite gift cards. The top survey sites offer gift cards to just about every story you can think of.
Final Thoughts
Gift cards can be a great way to save, especially if you don’t have to purchase the gift cards with your own money. You can earn gift cards by taking online surveys. These surveys are easy, reliable, and lucrative for earning gift cards. Just remember to be honest and consistent when filling out the surveys.
Rachel is an Austin blogger, educator, mom, wife, young breast cancer survivor writing about health, saving money, and living a happy life in Austin, Texas.
Rachel has written for HuffPost and Hometalk and has been featured on KXAN, Studio 512, Fox 7 Austin, and CBS Austin.