This is Why You Should Delete Your Swagbucks Account

Upon joining the personal finance scene it certainly wasn’t long before I blindly bumped into the blogger’s best friend – Swagbucks. He honed innocent glasses and boasted an honest smile that said:

“I’m going to make you rich whilst you play games all day.”

Being an equally young, handsome and motivated young fellow I decided to periodically follow this digital messiah to see what rewards were in store for me. After all, how could the thousands of Swagbucks fans out there be wrong? Surely there’s some money to be made here…

Unfortunately, anyone with sense will have found Swagbucks to be a barren wasteland, I could genuinely make more money and provide more value to the world by sitting on my doorstep and begging for change. Disagree? Here’s why you should delete your Swagbucks account:

You’re Worth More Than 30 pence per Hour

In their daily login the average swashbuckling swagbucker does the following each day:

• Get’s Distracted by their toolbar – 1 Swagbuck
• Complete’s an absurd Daily Poll – 1 Swagbuck
• Watches the Daily Video – 1 Swagbuck
• Skips through four ‘No Obligation Special Offers’ – 2 Swagbucks

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are some laser focussed swagbuckers out there that could smash this process out in 5 minutes – that’s 5 Swagbucks in 5minutes. I grant these efficient consumers a grand wage of 60 Swagbucks per hour – pretty neat right?

Let’s assume you swap your Swagbucks for Paypal money so that you can invest it in a tech startup and get rich. After all you wouldn’t think of spending your hard earned swag on a mediocre gift from Amazon would you?

So in Paypal money, 1 Swagbuck equates to 0.5 pence. Based on the above process you can output an a average of 60 Swagbucks an hour. This would give you a grand total of 30pence per hour (that’s 50 cents for our US counterparts). Sound a little low? Well let me sweeten the deal, let’s say you save each and every penny that you earn from Swagbucks in your piggy bank, by the time your 380 years old you’ll be a millionaire!

Leisure Time Should Be Exactly That

On a serious note, I’ve talked about the value of your time in the past and feel strongly that you should be aware of which activities are profitable and which are leisurable. Just like separating work from play, some online activities can appear productive but are in fact just distractions. In this case Swagbucks would be nothing more than a leisure activity and I’m not sure about you but there’s a whole host of leisure activities I’d rather be doing instead of completing surveys!

But What Should I Replace My Swagbucks Time With?

Oftentimes we look for ways to make money when in fact it could be more beneficial and much easier for us to find ways to avoid spending it. As much as we like the idea that we have full control over our expenses, each and every day presents us with opportunities to spend our hard earned cash. So, to replace all of the benefits from your Swagbucks addiction: next time you take on your weekly shop, try and cut just £5 off your usual spend. Just doing this will have saved you months and months of Swagbucks tasks – remember, work smarter not harder! This technique is coined ‘addition by subtraction‘ and despite being a simple concept it is a valuable tool in your personal finance toolkit whereby you can cut out the time you spend working by reducing the amount you are spending.

For the Critics…

In addition to the above methods, yes, there are number of ways to make Swagbucks. However, in these instances Swagbucks is simply rewarding you for habits that you should be avoiding at all costs in your hunt for financial diversification:

• Linking your Swagbucks to your online shopping – Do you really need an incentive to spend money online?
• Signing up for surveys – So that you can spend more time unsubscribing from marketing emails?
• Playing videos in the background whilst you work – Multi-tasking will ruin your productivity and the quality of your work
• Finding and Entering ‘Swag Codes’ – What’s more important: 5 pence or the project you have just been distracted from?

Please note: The point of this article is not to discredit the platform or it’s users but simply to illustrate how some distractions online can masquerade as productive activities. Be sure to know your worth and do more of the activities that will create massive change for you and less of the micro tasks that have little value in the short and the long-term.

Any thoughts? What has your experience with Swagbucks been like?