Living Paycheck to Paycheck

I’m a member of a number of Rewards programs.  Here are a few of them:

Mypoints.com.  This one is great.  In total, I probably spend an hour a week clicking on e-mails or going to the website for more points opportunities.  I became a member in March 2004 and over the past four years I’ve gotten two gift cards for a total of $75.  I’m about to cash out for another $50 gift card in the next week or two, as well.  There have been periods off and on where I wasn’t dilligent about earning points, and so I probably could have earned more money over time.

Presently, I have 6,816 points, though only 6,301 are available right now…the other 515 points are pending and won’t take too much longer to go through.  Once I get to 6,350 I’ll cash out for a $50 Gap gift card.

If you want to join, comment so that I can send you an invite and get some points from the referral!

E-Rewards.  This one I’ve complained about before, but it’s still something for almost nothing.  The surveys take some time, but it’s not too bad.  I have my account linked to my Upromise account, so any reward money will go directly to paying down my student loans (more on this) rather than to gift cards or percentages off at their chosen retailers.

Cashing out at $25 e-dollars will put $5 in my Upromise account, $50 e-dollars will put in $20, and $100 e-dollars will put in $50.  Obviously I’ll wait until I have $100 to make it worth every penny.  Right now I have $21.50 and that’s just since July.

Upromise.  I’ve written about Upromise here before, too.  You earn money from linking your credit cards and grocery savings cards to their account and getting cents back on certain items (I get one cent off per gallon at Exxon…and they round up).  Once I have $50 in Upromise dollars, I can make a payment to my student loan servicer.  I could just save the money for my childrens’ college one day, but right now I have no kids and I DO have student loans.  Presently I have just $5.70 in the account, but every little bit will help one day.

EDIT TO ADD:  After I wrote this yesterday (and saved to post today), I discovered CashCrate.com.  I wasn’t going to post about it until I’d spent a little more time on it, which I did today.  Also, I read Gather Little By Little’s post today and he mentioned CashCrate as a way that he makes a little extra money, too.  You cash out at $10, and I already have close to that from completing offers on the main page.  I think that it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re unfamiliar with it.