One harsh reality of college life is the ever-present problem of procrastination. Whether or not it is intentional, sometimes it just happens. We are constantly tempted to watch the cute kitten video circulating youtube or chat it up with some of our long lost buddies on Facebook. In other words, we will do pretty much anything to avoid drudging through our English midterm paper.
But did you know: instead of wasting away your brain power on Candy Crush, you could be making some serious extra cash and receiving free products? As college students, we can certainly appreciate a little more cash in hand to spend on the weekends with our friends or on that super cute pair of shoes you’ve been scoping on Amazon for the last 2 months.
There are many websites that offer free products, gift cards, and even cash as a thank-you for your time. The best part? It is EASY money. You don’t have to sell anything. There is no pressure involved. Making money and getting free items is a snap. Here are the eight best websites to get you started:
1. Bing Rewards. Web searches are a daily, if not hourly, activity– so why not get paid and earn prizes along the way? Link your Facebook account or hotmail to Bing and sign up for Bing rewards! You can earn up to 30 points a day by using the Bing search engine. Get paid for the research you need for your sociology project. You can earn a vareity of gift cards and prizes for your work. A $5 Amazon Gift card costs about 500 points.
Weekly Earning Potential: $5/ Week.
Time: 5 Minutes/Week.
Interface: Website.
Redemption: Various gift cards and prizes.
2. Jingit. Jingit is one of the top growing money-making applications/websites. Sign up for an account and you have multiple options on how to make some extra cash. One option is to watch 10-30 second ads on the website or application. You can earn between 0.10-0.75 cents per ad.
Weekly Earning Potential: $10-15/ Week.
Time: 20 Minutes/Week.
Interface: Website/Phone application.
Redemption: Itunes Gift Card or Prepaid US Bank Card.
3. Opinion Outpost. Opinion Outpost utilizes surveys from market researchers to provide a money-making opportunity to users. Surveys can be anywhere from five minutes to 1 hour in duration. The more time a survey is, the more earning potential. Survey qualification is based on a presurvey. Thorough Opinion Outpost, you can also be connected with market researchers in the area. Last month I made 100 dollars from ONE survey that connected me with a company in the area. I went in to HP, took a two-hour survey, and walked out with $100. You can also be given product samples to try and review via Opinion Outpost. Opinion Outpost is a favorite pick for easy earning!
Time: 5 Minutes- 20 Hours/ Week.
Interface: Website.
Redemption: Itunes Gift Card, Amazon Gift Card, Paypal Gift Card, Restaraunt.com Gift Card, charity option.
4. Valued Opinions.Valued Opinions is another great survey site offering cash for survey completion. The website will tell you after a presurvey quiz whether or not you qualify for a survey. Surveys can be anywhere from ten minutes to 1 hour in duration.
Weekly Earning Potential: $10-50/ Week.
Time: 10 Minutes- 6 hours/Week.
Interface: Website.
Redemption: Check sent directly in mail.
5. BzzAgent. BzzAgent is the best website for receiving FREE full-sized products, sent directly to you. This website has “Bzz Campaigns” for free products based upon your user profile. It is common to get between 1-4 campaigns offerings per month. Using BzzAgent, you read the product description and decide if you want to receive the item and complete the assigned tasks, or pass. The tasks are as simple as putting up a Facebook status or sending out a Tweet!
Weekly Earning Potential: None.
Time: <5 Minutes/Week.
Interface: Website.
Redemption: Free and/or extremely reduced price items.
6. Toluna. Toluna offers a broad spectrum of “freebie finds”. Not only can you score items to test and give feedback, but you have the ability to take surveys too! The same principle of presurvey qualification applies to Toluna. Toluna has both a survey center and a product test center. Toluna is great for the quick survey junkie!
Weekly Earning Potential: $10-30/ Week.
Time: 2 Minutes- 3 hours /Week.
Interface: Website.
Redemption: Gift cards, free products.
7. CouponClipinista. CouponClipinista is the ultimate coupon junkie’s Facebook dream! Coupon Clipinista posts Instant Win games, coupons, full-size and trial-sized freebies, and LOTS more. Like “CouponClipinista” on Facebook to get started! All instructions are given on the links provided in the posts. This makes freebie hunting and couponing easy as cake! For hardcore couponers: feel free to subscribe to notifications and make sure you never miss out on any deals.
Weekly Earning Potential: $10-15/ Week.
Time: Unlimited Minutes/Week.
Interface: Facebook page.
Redemption: Free samples, full sized products, coupons and more!
8. PINCHme. Every two weeks to a month, PINCHme releases a sampling box. You can pick up to three items to be in your box once the samples are announced. Sometimes the items are full-sized, and other times the samples are trial-sized. This website takes literally no time out of your day and will allow you to test out some pretty sweet items for free.
Weekly Earning Potential: None.
Time: 0-1 Minutes/ 2 Weeks.
Interface: Website.
Redemption: Free Items!
Are you new to these types of websites? One of our top suggestions for managing your activity on these sites is to have a designated email account. This guarantees you won’t miss out on any survey oportunities, item giveaways, or campaign offers, while also avoiding spam in your school email. Remember, with these websites as with anything, practice makes perfect! Take your time familiarizing yourself with each website and its perks… and then enjoy your extra revenue!