Big Fat Copycat, Give a Dog a Bone

So I read the MoneySavingMom blog, like a ton of other people and I recently saw a post recommending the use of swagbucks as a search engine. Apparently, you earn points for regular searches that you'd normally make on google or yahoo or whatever. Since swagbucks searches use Google (which I use pretty much exclusively) and Ask.com to find stuff, it seems to be essentially the same as using google. You can redeem the "bucks" you earn for using swagbucks as your search engine to get $5 gift certificates to Starbucks or Amazon. There are more places, too, but they require more swagbucks. I'm cheap, so I'd go for the Starbucks or Amazon.

Now, I do not want to be one of those people who puts up posts about "amazing deals" simply for their own benefit, so I'll be honest, if you click this link to swagbucks, I apparently get bucks for you signing up, in addition to you getting your own bucks. Huh. I signed up through MoneySavingMom's blog, so it seems she gets bucks for me signing up. So let's do a little experiment, shall we? Feel no pressure to participate. I only mention it, because I, myself, am experimenting to see if it works. If you are interested, sign up here and start using swagbucks.com as your search engine. You'll get points for your everyday searches like, "How to get cheap plane tickets when the Navy doesn't approve your leave until 10 days before you want to fly". You also get three free bucks just for signing up. Then, let's wait a few weeks or a month of diligent searching and see if our points rack up. If so, we all win.

Oh, also, you get more points if you refer people. I think that's what I'm doing already. You can do it on your own blog, too, once you sign up. Or in emails or whatever. They give you a link to post.

Here's to free Starbucks and books?

Also in recent news, if you didn't get my bitter example of a search topic above: the Navy JUST NOW approved our leave for Thanksgiving (the leave that we turned in about six weeks ago!) , so the plane tickets we can now buy are RIDICULOUSLY expensive and perhaps not worth it. Sometimes the free meds aren't a large enough compensation for dealing with the military.