My 6 Favorite ways to earn a little extra as a SAHM

Since becoming a stay at home mom I am constantly looking for ways to earn a little extra spending money. I've tried a couple of survey places before but never really found it worth while.  Here are a couple of my favorite ways to earn a little extra.

Shopkick-
This is an app that gives you points (kicks) for walking in certain stores, scanning items in stores, and/or making purchases in stores. 

How it Works-
Open the app when you're walking in certain stores, like Walmart, Macy's, American Eagle, JCPenney, Sportsman's Warehouse, Best Buy, TJMaxx, etc.  I was able to spend just a few minutes walking through a mall and neighboring stores and earned about 800 kicks one day.  That happened to be on a weekend when they were giving higher amounts of kicks for walk-ins.  When you earn a certain number of kicks you can redeem them for gift cards.

How much are you likely to get?
This depends entirely on how often you go shopping, as the kicks for going into stores reset every day.  The rewards aren't huge, but every little bit counts.  For 500 kicks you can get a $2 gift card.  1250 is $5, 2500 is $10 and so on.  Check it out!


Bing Rewards-
This is the site I use least often because it doesn't have the best payout.  But if you already use Bing as your search engine then why not earn a little with something you already do?

How it Works-
Bing will give you a point for every two searches you do up to 15 points a day.  You can also answer trivia questions that will give you a few points.  When you get between 500 and 525 points you can cash out for a $5 gift card.

How much are you likely to get?
If you capped out on your searches every day, you could get a $5 gift card in about a month.


Swagbucks-
Now this is a survey site, but it's the only one I use.  I've tried InboxDollars before, but I had trouble with a number of their surveys disqualifying me after I had already spent 20 minutes on them.  I've had that happen twice with Swagbucks and each time they've credited me with the full amount of points.  With InboxDollars you also have to wait until you have $30 before they'll let you access any of the money.  I like Swagbucks because they are fair and you don't have to earn a ton of points before you can cash out on something

How it works:  
You earn points (Swagbucks) for certain activities.  Each point it basically the equivalent of $.01.  It's not a lot, but it can add up.  I've seen surveys range from 40 Swagbucks to 2500 Swagbucks.  Most often it's between 50 and 100.  Again, it's not a lot, but it's something I can do any time of the day.

You can also earn a minimal number of points for playing games, watching videos and searching the internet.  I like that last one because I set them as my default search engine and then I get points for some of the searches I do.  It usually only comes out to around $.10 a day, but hey, it's $.10 for something that I already do.  It doesn't require any extra effort.

You can also earn by shopping online at stores you may already use.  For example, you can shop online at Walmart, Amazon or Target and earn anywhere between 1 and 4 Swagbucks per $1 spent.  They have a ton of retailers you can use.

They also have offers that come into your "inbox" that may give you a certain number of Swagbucks.  For example, I did needed to purchase ink for my printer recently and there was a deal that gave me 500 Swagbucks if I spent over $30.  The store I had to purchase from actually was a lot cheaper than Walmart (which is where I probably would have gotten it) and on top of it I got the 500 points.  That was basically the equivalent of a $5 gift card.

When you earn enough points you can cash it in for gift cards.  I personally usually get Amazon Gift cards, but they have a lot of retailers to choose from.  You can cash in for as few as 300 Swagbucks, which will get you a $3 gift card.

How much are you likely to get?
I've only been using this site for a month and I've earned about $60.  It will depend on how much time you spend and if you can find deals that will help you get points for merchandise you already planned on buying.

UserTesting
This company has you test websites for other companies to see how their websites function.

How it works-
If you sign up with them, you will have to first do a sample test.  This test won't pay anything, it just tests you to see if you're a good fit.  After that you'll have access to start testing websites.  They will post available tests on your dashboard and you'll answer a few questions to see if you'll be a good fit for that test.  When you do your first test you'll have to wait until the test is reviewed before you can do anymore.

From what I've seen since I started most tests pay about $10.   They take about 20-30 minutes each. They pay you via Paypal, so you must have a Paypal account that is in good standing.  You will get paid a week after you take the test.  You get rated on the tests you take and if your rating starts to drop you may not see as many tests show up on your dashboard.

How much are you likely to get?
You'll probably be looking to make around $40 a month or so. 


Ibotta
I actually just joined Ibotta, but I'm super excited about it!  I wish I had found it earlier.  You get money back from shopping!  What could be better than that?

How it Works-
I use it for grocery shopping.  It reminds me a little of couponing without the headache of couponing.  You can go shopping, buy all your normal stuff, and then come home and check your Ibotta app to see what rebates are available.  For example, I went shopping yesterday and came home and looked at the app.  There was $1 rebate for milk (any brand), $.30 for bread, $.30 for eggs, etc.  I spent about $70 on food and got $3.40 in rebates and you get paid within two days.  Not bad for not having to do any couponing and just shopping like I normally do.

How much are you likely to get?
Honestly, I haven't been doing it long enough to tell.  It would also depend on how much you buy and how often you shop.  I have a friend who's been doing it for about 3 months and she's gotten a little over $90 back.

They also have promotionals where you can also earn more money if you're part of a "team."
If you'd like to join, click on the link and sign up :)
https://ibotta.com/r/gravpxm


Selling Plasma-
This is by far my favorite, most monetarily rewarding way to earn money as a SAHM.  In Utah you can earn money by donating plasma.  I go to Biomat USA (Griffols).  The first five times you donate you end up getting paid about $275.  You can donate twice a week.  After the first five times, you start getting $65 a week.  It takes, on average, about 2 hours per donation. 
I, personally, hate needles.  But I do love being able to earn money while watching TV.  Granted, it's not for everyone, but for me, it's worth doing it to be able to be a SAHM!!

How I cut my monthly grocery bill by $150 without price-matching!

I've known for a while that we have a problem.  A big, fat, ugly problem.  We spend way too much on groceries.  For a mama that's trying to stick to a budget it's an issue that has literally kept me up at night.  Now, what I consider to be a lot of money on groceries might not be a lot for you and your family.  I've talked to a number of different friends in different financial situations, and the numbers have ranged from about $200 for a family of 3 to about $600 for a family of 6.  We were right in the middle with a family of 4.  I couldn't figure out how in the world we could cut back.  I felt like I tried to be frugal with our groceries, but I always ended up spending tons of money and then came home feeling like we still had nothing to make for dinner.

Right about this same time another thing started to happen that would affect my grocery shopping.  Walmart's price-matching policy changed.  I used to use that a lot and saved quite a bit on fruits/veggies.  Now they won't match Rancho Markets, a local Hispanic grocery store that has amazing deals on produce.  I'm talking 6 lbs for a dollar watermelons. Walmart figured out they were losing money on deals like that so they stopped price-matching Rancho Market ads.  That made shopping a little more inconvenient but I could understand why they did it.  Then I found out they stopped price-matching anything that wasn't exactly their brand.  I tried to get some great value cheese, but the ad said Western Family brand.  Well, Walmart, you don't carry Western Value.  That was the last straw for grocery shopping at Walmart.

The thing I found to be the biggest problem with staying in the budget was that we ended up at the grocery store two to three times a week.  I'd find that I didn't have one or two items for dinner.  Quick run to the store and another $50 because I found more things that sounded good at the moment.

It was time to come up with a plan.  And that's exactly what happened.  My friend, Rebekah,  introduced me to the two week meal plan.  I had thought a lot about starting a meal plan, but didn't really know where to begin.  She explained what she did and I thought it could work for me.  It takes very little preparation and I was amazed at how much it's saved us.

So here it is:

Get a piece of paper out and number lines 1-14.  Decide what you want to have for the next two weeks.  Now, this is the hardest part for me.  I hate coming up with something to eat, hence the reason a lot of nights end up being pizza nights.  For the most part that has changed.  To make things a little easier on me I have a set of dinners that are on my list every week.  Two of my days are spaghetti, two are tacos, at least one is stir-fry.  In the summers one is hotdogs and one is hamburgers.  That takes care of at least 7 days.  Half way there.  Then I start to go through Pinterest and a few of my favorite cookbooks. I go through each of the recipes I choose for the ingredients.  My staple meals are easy, because I typically have everything I need for them on hand, or intent to get the ingredients every time (such as tomatoes, lettuce, and onions for the tacos and hamburgers).  I make a list of the things I need and estimate how much I expect them to cost to make sure I fall within my budget.  It sounds like a lot of time but it really only takes an hour or so (or three if I'm watching "Friends").  Two hours of planning for the month to save me $150 is soooooo worth it!

Some weeks, like this week for example, I have most of the stuff I need for the next two weeks so I will look for other deals on snacks.  I normally don't get a lot of junk food because it's so expensive and I'm super cheap.  This week, however, I was able to splurge on squeeze fruit for the kids, Capri Suns, Oatmeal Cream Pies, etc.  I also purchased a few gallons of water to add to our emergency supply and a package of diapers for the little one.  I spent a total of $103 for the two weeks.  I have to mention that I also did Bountiful Baskets this week, that I'll pick up on Saturday.  That's another $17  This is my first week doing it while on the two-week meal plan.  I think it will work out well because our current produce normally lasts us about a week, so it will come just in time to replenish for the next week.  If we don't have to go to the store for more produce it means I'm less likely to spend more money on other things while I'm at the store.

Here's an example of my dinners for the next two weeks:
1. Mini Tostada Salads
2. Stir Fry with Soma Salad
3. Spaghetti and homemade bread
4. Chili Dogs
5. Tacos
6. Philly Cheesesteak Quesadillas
7. Zesty Chili-lime Chicken Taquitos
8. Pizza
9. Crispy Tortilla Roll-ups
10. Spaghetti and homemade bread
11. Hamburgers
12. Southwest Pasta Salad
13. Tacos
14. Breakfast for Dinner

The actual cost of the ingredients for those meals this week was under $50 because I had most of the stuff already.  The rest was made up of 4 gallons of milk, about $10 worth of yogurt, water, snacks, diapers, fruits/veggies, etc.  Your "other" section may look a lot different than mine.

Here are a few tips:

• You'll notice a lot of our meals are of the "Hispanic" variety.  That means a lot of my ingredients can be used for more than one meal.  Instead of using a little cilantro and letting the rest go bad, I can use it all and save a bit too :)
• To help save a little money and save on time before dinner I purchased a five pound package of ground beef and cooked it all up at once with some onions.  I separated into containers before putting it in the freezer.  Now all I have to do is take out a container and heat it up with any seasonings I'd need for that meal.