How to get Swagbucks gold surveys to credit when they kick you out

I'm putting this in a separate post, because it's come up a lot.

So, if you do a gold survey that asks you more than basic demographic information and a couple screening questions and then boots you out, put in a help ticket and select "survey error," then summarize what happened and be sure to say they got a ton of useful data without paying you. Say something like, "Spent 8 minutes answering questions about my demographics, everywhere I've traveled by plane, and my opinion about different airlines, before it said I wasn't eligible for their survey. They got a lot of usable data without paying for it." Oh, and gold surveys open in a second tab. Leave the one underneath open so you can go back and see the survey number and number of Swagbucks promised so you have this for your help ticket.

When you get the e-mail, be sure to respond and say it's correct. It often eats the amount of Swagbucks, so fill it in if it's not there.

I've had 100% luck doing this over the past month when they haven't credited. I've done 1-2 per day most days. As always with this stuff, don't abuse it, because they'll ban you, and because they'll take away these type of good-faith measures if people are taking advantage of them. Only fill out a ticket if it does in fact collect a bunch of usable data before booting you

(If only they'd credit my goddamned Capital One card deal though.)

About the wine though; WTF FedEx

Can we discuss my free wine again though? So, the boxes are printed with a thingy indicating it's an alcohol shipment and requires the signature of someone 21+. The lovely FedEx driver left the box on my steps. Leaving aside the ongoing issue of every delivery driver thinking that items left on steps in a city are likely to still be there much later (a neighbor fortunately noticed the box and grabbed it for me), my nerdy ass is curious what would happen if FedEx left the wine and a minor were to get a hold of it. What if the minor consumed a ton of it and got alcohol poisoning? Or committed crimes while under the influence? I mean, U.S. alcohol laws are just kind of ridiculous anyway, but I'm curious whether I'd be liable, or FedEx would, or the underpaid migrant laborer who picks the grapes, or what?

Get six bottles of wine for free

The Bright Cellars offer on Swagbucks is legit. You sign up, they send you six bottles of wine for a total of $53.66 charged to your card (I think that includes state tax, so it may vary), six bottles of wine show up, and then you get 5000 Swagbucks, which you can redeem for about $50-$56 in Amazon or Visa gift cards (depending when you redeem them, what swag ups you have, and so forth).

Compared to the last free wine deal they had, this one gets you six bottles instead of four, but the labels aren't as interesting (hey, I choose my wine largely by if the label is cool) and you don't get to choose the individual wines, or at least I couldn't figure out how. They have you take quizzes and then match you with six bottles they think you'll like. The only customization options I could find were to select that you flat-out don't want chardonnay or pinot noir or whatever. Oh well, it's free wine. I highly recommend doing this. Even if you aren't really a wine person, you'll have bottles of wine to take when you go somewhere for dinner or whatever.

This is a subscription service like most of these, so be sure to put it on your calendar to cancel. The Swagbucks are pending for a month, so I went onto Bright Cellars and selected "skip my next shipment." and then I will cancel once I get the Swagbucks.

Here is the screenshot of the wines it gave me, and how the pricing is supposed to work out. If it's charging you much more, you did something wrong. Also, a photo of the wines. I haven't unpacked it yet, because we're doing some home repairs and our kitchen is taken apart right now. But I assume it's the same thing in the box that the order shows.

This thing about the corkscrew actually made me laugh out loud. What can I say? I'm kind of a 12-year-old boy.

Ridiculous employment categories on surveys

So, I do a lot of surveys, between Swagbucks and Mechanical Turk. As I complete them, my brain seems to have developed a hobby of assessing survey design. Most of the bad questions I come across tend to have the flaw of breaking down options so that most people would fall into the "other" category – and sometimes they don't even offer one, so respondents are required to pick a choice that is not remotely close to the truth.

A particularly laughable one I keep coming across is the ones that ask what category your role at work falls into, and then have options of:

CEO
President
Vice President
Senior Management
Junior Management
Supervisor
Person who sweeps the parking lot

Putting aside for a minute the idea of CEOs and such doing surveys on Swagbucks, are these people not aware that many (most?) skilled employees are not in any sort of management position? These aren't surveys that are only screening in management folks. They ask if you are employed, and then they ask which managerial rank you hold. They sometimes only have managerial ranks, or sometimes they have managerial ranks plus an option like "clerical." There's no option for most of the people who do most of the work most places.

Just what kind of workplaces are these folks coming from and basing their model on? Where are these places where you have clerical people, then a bunch of managers? What exactly are the clerical people doing paperwork/communication for? What are the managers managing? How does any work get done in this place?

Swagbucks monthly bonus is pretty sweet

This was for reaching the first daily goal every day in February, and the second goal periodically. 

Swagbucks isn't crediting me for the Capital One card offer

Here is the original offer. "Earn 5000 SB when you are approved for your new card!" And the disclaimer, stating it will appear as pending and so forth, but nothing saying it must be automatic approval.

So, thing didn't approve, I unfortunately didn't screenshot the page saying they needed more information and I would hear from them or whatever, because I assumed I hadn't gotten approved.

A couple weeks later, this lovely letter showed up, stating I'd been approved. (We'll discuss at some future time Why Capital One Thinks Giving My Broke Ass a $10,000 Credit Limit Is Any Sort Of Good Idea.)

I opened a help ticket, with the photo of the letter. I received this response:

 

I sent them my reply, along with these two images:

Apparently the e-mail address documentation is sufficient (despite that screen not showing anything connecting it to the credit card in question), but they still need a date of approval. Which Capital One hasn't ever sent me. Also, this person keeps calling photos "screenshots" and asking for screenshots of paper mail. While I certainly have sympathy for people with shitty jobs, I don't think I'm dealing with someone who has a lot of critical thinking skills.

My reply:

Their reply, this time saying they won't approve it:

 

And me invoking contract language (which I'm actually not at all sure is applicable, but it can't hurt to try, right?):

And here's a chat with Capital One, verifying the date the card was approved, since Swagbucks claimed that was the holdup.

The Capital One person didn't have any way to verify I came there via Swagbucks and wasn't sure how to contact the advertising or referral program or whatever that would be, though she was very nice and helpful and tried to look up as many things as she could think of. Thanks Sandra at Capital One, you're awesome.

EDIT MARCH 1: I e-mailed a hotline Capital One has for complaining about unethical third party behavior. Maybe that will work?

Visa gift cards are a better deal than Amazon on Swagbucks right now

Right now, $10 Visa gift cards are 990SB, plus you can get 80SB back if you have 80SB rebates from the most recent Swago. So, 910SB each.

Note: The one $25 Amazon card per month is still the best deal. Do one of these per month, then do the rest in Visa cards.

Today I discovered if you use them to reload your balance on Amazon, you can get 20 cents extra added to your gift card balance. You do have to have a checking account saved as one of your Amazon payment methods, but once you do, it will give you a 2% bonus on anything it considers a debit card, which includes these Visa cards.

Another thing I learned: Don't consolidate your $10 Visa gift cards into one larger card, unless you are ordering a physical card for something and you really need to do this. The Visa card website gives you the option to save the card in the digital wallet for later, telling you you can consolidate it. I did this a few days ago when I had five $10 cards. Then when you actually go to consolidate it, it takes a 5% or something fee. At this point, you can't take your card back out of the wallet, so you have to pay the fee. I ended up with a $47.50 Visa gift card. Dammit. If you're just entering all the cards on Amazon, it doesn't bother anyone to have five $10 instead of one $50, so save your money by entering each one.

Thrift store haul, tried out Swagbucks local

I went to Savers in (Framingham? Natick?) to make a Swagbucks local purchase and finish my Swago board. FYI, the local thing seems to work really well; probably more smoothly than most of Swagbucks. It immediately sent me an email saying the purchase was pending and immediately lit up the Swago square. Good stuff. 

So, someone apparently dropped off an entire wardrobe of Justice stuff. I got all this amazing stuff for like $20. (The nondescript black blob is an Express cardigan; see second attempt to photograph all-black item without way overexposing photo. You may have to just imagine it.) There was a ton more Justice size 10/12/14 there too, if anyone needs such things. They’re usually low on girls’ L/women’s XS things, so this was nice to find. 

Swagbucks: Fuck yeah

Finished the Swago board and got my 500SB, plus the spins, which got me a bunch of 80SB rebates on $10 Visa gift cards. 

I currently have six of them pending. Word. 



And $125 received since 02/01/19. So I’ve made $185 in three weeks doing pretty much nothing, just clicking on things while I do other stuff. 



Today was a good day. #didnotatanypointneedtouseAK

Swagbucks has really been hopping lately; I've been pulling in $25-$50 per week at least

Swagbucks has tightened things up and is actually useful again. They're doing some new things:

• SwagIQ, a live trivia game on Monday-Thursday evenings, in which you can win 3-4 cents just for playing, and up to $50 or so if you get all 10 questions right
• Swago, a bingo board that gets you a ton of bonuses and Swag-ups (power-ups that get you an added bonus on future tasks) for completing various patterns ranging from one line across to the whole board

They're also continually setting it up to be, well, a pyramid scheme inside a pyramid scheme, in that the more often you use Swagbucks and earn, the more you get bonuses and Swag-ups and other things that increase how much you earn when you do the tasks. It's definitely worth it if you are able to spend half an hour or so on it per day.

Here's my Swagbucks routine:

1. Do the daily to-do list, on the left sidebar of the main Swagbucks page. 
2. Go to the Reddit Swagbucks forum to see which "Discover" activities are legit and worth the time
3. Make sure to make my first daily goal each day. This gets me between about 5 and 15 bonus Swagbucks per day when the month is over, and also gets me 300 bonus for completing it every day of the month.
4. Set the SBTV app on my phone to passively earn 10 or so SB. (Do this by adding at least one video to "favorites," set it to play via the favorites bookmark in the sidebar, and then it will play through the playlist passively. It may periodically pull up an add that requires you to manually X out of it to continue.)
5. If you still need Swagbucks after doing Discover, do gold surveys. Also the EntertaiNow and Sport.ly apps are hit or miss, but try them periodically. SB Bowling is not worth it unless you're really good at bowling on your phone. It's something like 1-2 Swagbucks per game unless you can bowl 300, and then you get 25. 

Other things that are good to know:

1. They've been good lately at crediting for deals that don't work properly. If something doesn't show up as pending or doesn't credit you properly, go here and fill out a help ticket. For Discover and shop deals, always take a screenshot of the offer before you try it, and screenshots of everything else relevant. When they e-mail you saying they're just making sure they have the information correct, respond to them. It can sometimes take a few weeks, but in the past couple of months, I have always had them eventually credit me even if the offer didn't track correctly. Also, make sure you aren't using adblockers when doing Swagbucks deals, because it gets in the way of their cookies. Consider using one browser for your Swagbucks and other such things, with all extensions turned off, and a second browser for your normal usage where you can turn on adblockers and all that.
2. If you do a gold survey that asks you more than basic demographic information and then boots you out, put in a help ticket and select "survey error," then summarize what happened and be sure to say they got a ton of useful data without paying you. Say something like, "Spent 8 minutes answering questions about my demographics, everywhere I've traveled by plane, and my opinion about different airlines, before it said I wasn't eligible for their survey. They got a lot of usable data without paying for it." Oh, and gold surveys open in a second tab. Leave the one underneath open so you can go back and see the survey number and number of Swagbucks promised so you have this for your help ticket. Again, when you get the e-mail, respond and say it's correct. They usually credit for surveys within the day.

If you haven't signed up for Swagbucks, please sign up using my referral link. Even if you aren't sure you'll use it, if my posts have helped you scrape by in Boston or elsewhere, please sign up this week so I can get a referral for my Swago board. Thanks!

Please comment with any questions about getting Swagbucks to work better, and I'm happy to answer them.

Hello Fresh allows stacking Swagbucks discount and regular discount to get three meals for $10

Swagbucks has a Discover offer right now that gets you 1000 Swagbucks (about $10, or more if you redeem for cards that are on sale) for signing up for Hello Fresh (which, if you pay attention here at all, you know that you cancel it after the first week once it's no longer steeply discounted). The normal charge for a week of meals is $60, you'll get $10 back from Swagbucks, and if you use the code I have, you'll get $40 off. Most of these deals don't let you enter a promo code if you've gotten there through a referral code, but it works for Hello Fresh. I got my 1000 Swagbucks, plus it applied the $40 discount code I got from a friend.

So, go here and sign up for Swagbucks using my referral code if you don't already have an account, then search for Hello Fresh, find the one with 1000 Swagbucks back for joining (remember to always screenshot the deal in case it doesn't credit correctly), go join and put in your information, then come back here and click through using my code. Or you may have to type it in, I'm not sure. It worked for one person via clicking the link and another person had to manually input it.

As always, comment with any Swagbucks questions and I'll answer them.

Free February break workshops and full-day field trips at 826 Boston for 6-12 year olds

I apologize for not sharing this earlier. Some of the workshops still have space available.

826 Boston, located in Egleston Square, does free workshops for ages 6-12 during school vacation weeks. The workshops my kids have attended have varied somewhat in quality, as they are typically run by an author, activist, professor, etc. who is not affiliated with the organization. Some of the facilitators have been very strong in terms of working with a diverse group of youths, and others have seemed less so. Regardless, they've all been decent, and we've never had a bad experience there. Parents are welcome to drop off their youth or stay in the back of the (gorgeous!) space, where there are couches and a library set up. The space is a large open converted-industrial-type space, which means the acoustics and the visual distractions of people walking around are not ideal for students with sensory or attention issues, but the open space is great in terms of parents being able to hang out in back and be available to their student without being particularly present unless needed.

Free $3 to spend on Amazon

Swagbucks is giving away 300 Swagbucks for signing up right now. Use my code here, then install this button to get more free Swagbucks.

There are some good deals on there too. Several moneymakers (deals that give you more Swagbucks than the promotional deal costs) too. The Reddit Swagbucks forum seems to be the best place where people are discussing which deals are worth it.

(If you don't know about Swagbucks, click through to the label below this post and browse through the past posts where I've talked about how I use it.)

Proctor & Gamble misled me

And it came just in time to make my bank account balance positive.

Free Gobble meal kits

I'm trying Gobble via Swagbucks. If the deal credits, it's a moneymaker ($36 upfront to get 5000 Swagbucks), but I'm hearing mixed reports as to whether it credits the Swagbucks.

If you'd rather just get the free Gobble meals, use my link, and we both get free stuff.

As with most of these, it's a subscription service, so you need to remember to cancel after you get the free stuff. Also, it makes you sign up before it shows you what options they have and how to choose what you want, but once you're in, it does let you choose the specific meal kits you are ordering.

Free Mrs. Meyer's cleaning products with $20 purchase

Hey look, I found a pyramid scheme for cleaning/household/bath products. There really is one for everything. Grove Collaborative looks to be similar to Thrive Market and Brandless, but without the food.

They're running a thing right now where you can get a five-piece Mrs. Meyer's set (you don't get to pick the items, but you get to pick the scents) if you spend $20 on anything. They sell Mrs. Meyer's, Method, Yes to whatever, Burt's Bees and other similar moderate range household and body products. They accept PayPal or credit/debit.

If you refer others, you can get more free stuff. Go here and I get free stuff and you get free Mrs. Meyer's with purchase.

Heads up: It looks like there's a VIP free shipping membership of some sort that you have to cancel within 60 days or you'll get charged for it.

Buy all the stuff you want this week/weekend

I didn’t write a whole post about it this year, but once again, I’m going to say that it’s fine if you observe Friday or Monday or the whole weekend or whatever as Buy Nothing Day. Being mindful of consumption and capitalism is certainly a good thing.

But please don’t post about how you’re more moral than others for not shopping. The only thing you are is more wealthy. Many people really only can afford things when they’re considerably marked down, and they’re mostly buying needed clothes and housewares and things for holiday presents (or for immediate use), not fancy electronics. And so what if they do buy a video game system for their family or something similar? Should poorer families not be allowed any fun?

So shop all you want, or don’t, but if you’re choosing not to, don’t be sanctimonious about it. 

Easy class action suit for anyone who has bought a computer or optical drive

This class action suit pays $10 per computer with optical drive, internal drive, or external drive purchased between 2003 and 2008. No proof of purchase is necessary.

MIT seeking 7th and 8th graders for paid focus group

Get the info here: https://www.facebook.com/171385716782382/posts/308292353091717/

This messenger bag that I upcycled, as the kids are calling it

How the bag started out

I recently finally managed to acquire a laptop that isn't 12 years old, for which I'm extremely grateful. This means that I can now carry it places without needing an old-school stiff-sided bag meant to protect a six-pound computer with moving parts. Except that the only bag I had that was big enough for the new laptop was one of these bags, which would be overkill, and which would still mean I had to do the old-school thing of having a laptop bag plus another bag for my water and keys and whatever, which part of the whole point of getting a computer that isn't huge and steam-powered was for avoiding that and just being able to stick it in my regular messenger bag.

All of the messenger bags on Amazon and other places I could find were super boring, usually just solid colored, ugly fabric, ugly hardware. I liked the look of my old bag (which I unfortunately didn't take a picture of, but luckily found its twin on eBay), aside from it being unnecessarily stiff and bulky for a newer computer. So I started searching for the brand on eBay (it's a Dickies/Yak-Pak) and found a number of modern floppy laptop bags of a similar aesthetic, including one that was the same fabric. And then I thought, wait a minute, maybe I could salvage the outer fabric and hardware from my bag to make a new bag. And then I realized, oh wait, it's going to be even easier than that.

All I had to do was slit the liner at the seams with a razor blade and I was able to pull out the heavy-duty foam that was making the bag rigid:

[Hey, anyone know why my pictures won't line up correctly on this here thing, and why I have stray table formatting that won't leave?]


Now I just need to figure out something to do with the liner. The bag is usable as is, since the liner isn't at all structural. I don't think I want to try sewing it, because my machine doesn't do great with heavy-duty materials. I'm thinking I'll either get some sort of tape and put strips of it over the slits, or get the self-adhesive fabric for repairing tents and re-line the flap with some of that.

Pictures are still lining up weird

See? The bag now isn't stuck being a rectangular prism and can be used for items in addition to or instead of the laptop. It's now floppy enough to be an everyday messenger bag on days I don't need the computer, rather than being all rigid and huge and computer-shaped when all it has in it is a water bottle. So far it's cost nothing. I will likely try some tape I have here to see what I can do, or might see if I have appropriate adhesive for gluing a fabric or waterproof liner to it, and if nothing works, I'll buy something to line it with. It shouldn't cost much, and definitely will be less than getting a different bag, even if I were to get it from eBay. Sweet.

Seriously, open your mail, even stuff that looks like junk mail

This one showed up, looking just like those presorted notices from one's health insurance, stating that the privacy policy has changed or whatever. But nope, it's money. The accompanying letter says it's a State and Federal Medical Loss Ratio Rebate. I googled that and don't understand entirely what it is, but it seems to be a rebate they'll send everyone because they charged too much based on what they paid out, or something.

This one also totally looked like junk mail. But was a check for a class action suit I had opted into. Apparently I got $127.14 for Uber sending me an unsolicited text message (probably when I signed up for something to get some Swagbucks). Sure, send me all the text messages you want, at those rates.

I also got a few others recently, from credit cards I had accounts with in years past, that also looked like those unsolicited offers of 30.00% APR loans or whatever, that I happened to open.

So, yeah, open your mail, even if it looks just like junk mail you receive from these companies all the time. I hope I haven't recycled any envelopes that contained checks.

POTATO, POTATO, POTATO

Have I mentioned I have a bunch of potatoes? Potato, potato, potaaaatoooo. I made potato salad with the tiny potatoes, the red potatoes, and the purple potatoes. It tasted like potato salad, except it looked red and purple. There was probably something more interesting I could have made that specifically used tiny potatoes and/or purple potatoes, but I made this, and it was good.

I also made potato tacos. I'm not sure if potato tacos are a thing, but I imagine they probably are, because root vegetables are a staple of traditional diets in the Americas. I chopped the potatoes up with onions and made basically homefries, but with more seasoning (I used jalapeño sauce, smoked red chili, and lots of cumin). I had small corn tortillas leftover from something, so I served the potatoes on those with tomato salsa, corn salsa from Trader Joe's (this stuff is seriously good; I highly recommend it), and some leftover goat cheese salad crumbles a neighbor gae me, which were the closest thing I had to cotija or similar. They turned out great, and were very popular among my family. 

Moar potatoes

I continue to make things with potatoes, because I continue to have entirely too many potatoes. Here are some homefries. I made them sliced, because they cook faster and more evenly. Nothing special, just potatoes, a little oil, Adobo, dill, smoked red chili powder or paprika. They're good alone, with breakfast foods, in breakfast burritos, or as a quick lunch with whatever vegetables you have around stir-fried and dumped on top of them.














Also I made au gratin potatoes. I used a recipe I found on Pinterest that I can't seem to find again. They were just OK. You can't really go wrong with potatoes and cheese, though I've had better.

I don't think I ever posted a photo of this whole Fair Foods haul. Wow. This one was pretty amazing. And, uh, contained a lot of potatoes.

Oh my god I have all these potatoes

I seem to have a ton of potatoes. Big, small, red, white, yellow, oh, and a bag of small blue ones and a bag of tiny weird-shaped ones. These were all acquired either through Fair Foods or through a similar food surplus program run though a religious organization. Both programs are amazing and have been so helpful to our family. And both programs give you a pre-packaged load of food without much opportunity to turn parts of it down. So there are all these potatoes.

I'm going to have to figure out different things to make with potatoes. Fortunately they keep quite a while, I mean, compared to things like bananas or leafy vegetables. But as tends to be the case with rescued produce, they're already getting up there in age. So far I've made a quasi-Indian curry. I sauteed onions and garlic, then threw it in the slow cooker with potatoes, frozen peas, and canned tomatoes that were either free in one of these food packages or a few cents via couponing. I dumped in a bunch of every spice I had that works in curries (see here for where to get inexpensive spices). Then once it was sufficiently cooked, I blended it a little to make it thicker, and served it over rice. This meal was close to free to make, and it served our family for dinner plus enough for everyone to take for lunch the next day.

Stay tuned for more potatoey goodness.

Well this was a nice surprise

This showed up in my e-mail today. I didn't recognize the name and had to google what the suit was about; Apparently XPO Logistics, which does deliveries from IKEA, had a robocall survey calling people a few days after receiving a delivery from IKEA, and there was something illegal about how it was set up. The class included anyone who had received an IKEA delivery, and I believe I only had to provide my phone number as proof of being in the class.

These class action things are often around $10-$20, or sometimes silly amounts under a dollar where sending the check cost more than the amount, but sometimes they're serious amounts of money. This is definitely something to get into if you don't already. Click the "class action suits" label on my post to find my other posts where I've explained how to find these suits and sign up. It's definitely worth it when payments like this show up.

Watermellooonnn

So I got this free watermelon. Obviously watermelon is good just to eat, but I was looking for something interesting to do with it, and wanted to incorporate it into a meal. First,
I scooped out balls of watermelon. I combined this with some quinoa (I used some one-minute quinoa that I got couponing), plus chopped cucumber a neighbor gave me, a purple onion from Fair Foods, and canned black beans from couponing. I drizzled some balsamic salad dressing over it. It was quite a hit.

I don't have a melon baller, but at some point we seemed to have acquired these kid spoons that are scooplike rather than spoon-shaped, which suck as spoons, but work great for making melon balls. Yes, my grown ass made melon balls with an alien spoon. Don't judge.

The melon balls weren't super spherical, but the watermelon was overripe, so they wouldn't have been even if I had a melon baller. +1 for the weird alien spoon.

Next, since the watermelon was super overripe, there was a lot of juice and shredded melon left in the shell. I didn't want to waste it, so I combined it with some kosher/vegan agar-based jello-type stuff I had on hand. I made the whole thing in the watermelon shell, because this looked fun.

I poured as much of the liquid/liquifying watermelon pulp into the measuring cup so I wouldn't end up with too much liquid, then made sure the water was fully boiling, and poured it into the cup. I needed two cups for the amount I made, and I made it a little under to make sure it would set up with the fruit pieces added. It turned out great, and was a big hit with both kids and adults. Someone suggested the watermelon juice would also be good for margaritas or jello shots, which seems like it would also be pretty great.