Disclosure: Witty edutainment is a side hustle.

I write to indulge in boba milk tea, feed a family, and the perspective of hustles told.

After you develop a “routine”, you’ll wonder about how to maximize free activities so you can reach your second goals.

What are Second Goals?

A quick disclaimer on how second goals work. You earn the higher bonus amount, not the sum of your two goals. A second goal isn’t necessary towards your streaks. Its purpose dictates how much you can earn potentially. A higher second goal means larger bonuses, but also means you’re investing more time on Swagbucks grinding free or completing paid offers. When you concentrate using free activities to get there, you’re exchanging a commodity of time in for money.

This post will focus on the free offers, check the upcoming post for tips for maximizing paid offers. The best part of these activities is small efforts necessary, though it will require some monitoring.

1. Jungroup’s Laptop Guy (aka “LTG”)

Laptop Guy is the affectionate nickname we’ve given to a male in a beige shirt on his laptop. He is sponsored by JunGroup and is usually short activities, videos or timers that’ll award 2sb per round. He is among the most efficient and runs independently. He is the favorite of many, as Jungroup has been good about advertisements that don’t require a whole lot things running in the background. I love that JunGroup doesn’t push hard to reel in those engagements, so it often earns more attention from me.

2. Desktop Girl (aka “DTG”)

Desktop Girl is the affectionate nickname we’ve given to a female in a white shirt on her big black desktop. She is sponsored by nGage and all ngages will only run one at a time, so you can run her and LTG at the same time! You wouldn’t be able to run “All You Can Swag” (runs automatically in the background), “Web Basics” or “Best of the World” while she is active. Same concept as LTG, usually a series of timers to make up one round. Her earnings will vary throughout the year, so depending on the season, she can likely outearn LTG in terms of efficiency.

3. Binoculars Girl (aka “BG”)

Binoculars Girl is the affectionate nickname we’ve given a female with binoculars in front of an aqua blue background. She is quite efficient on her own, usually requiring a little over two minutes per round. The downside to her is occasionally she’ll time out and display a red banner (“activity not available”) when she is prominently listed under sponsored videos. When she times out, be especially wary when she turns into an nGage window when you have another nGage running the background. It might cancel out the one that’s currently running (as the system thinks you’re intentionally running two nGages).

4. Tanktop Girl (aka “TTG”)

Tanktop Girl is the affectionate nickname we’ve given to a female with a black tank surrounded by a group of guys. Her activities are often the shortest but VERY targeted. As of the writing of this post, I have not seen her in over a year and I also don’t expect to ever see her again. It’s a bummer because of how efficient and short her activities can be (some even less than 15secs to earn 2sb!) and they often don’t require multiple timers to make up a round. When she used to be a fixture on my Home Page, I can often make goals easily with her within 2 hours.

5. RadiumOne 1sb – refresh screen to bring up more

RadiumOne has these medical videos that’ll usually be about 1sb that’ll award within a minute or two after it rolls out the main video (after the ad it often plays). First, default to lowest rewards, so it’ll show your list of 1sb activities. Check your ledger for “RadiumOne 1sb” before closing out of that window. Repeat with the videos available and refresh until they disappear.

You can also do the slideshows, but they will require more effort than they are worth at times. The pages with videos will award more frequently and with minimal effort!

6. TopCoupons – Once every 24hr. Might be a limit weekly and not guaranteed daily

These will redirect you to coupons.com to “print” out coupons, which will require you to install their program/extension. Whether you choose to print or not, you can do these activities once a day.

I don’t actually print the coupons, but rather save them as a pdf. To do this, prior to printing, make sure you default it on your print screen and save as a pdf. You can print, but be more selective of coupons and only print out the ones you use! You will be using a lot of ink otherwise. If you do plan on using the coupons, make sure to print them out as there can be limits per month. There have been some lucrative coupons that I take advantage of!

TC has a rolling 24hr clock (exactly), meaning you can’t just print at 9:00 am one day and expect it to work again until 9:00 am or 9:01 am at the soonest the following day. Also, it often redirects to another page during its cooling off period, which can be malware/spammy (annoying!) so I never try to game it. It is not guaranteed that it awards properly, so you may have to do it multiple times to ensure it credits. It is best to decide on a time of day you’re going do this one and stick to it to avoid confusion.

7. InsuranceBranch offers – enter a zip code, click on offer, wait

InsuranceBranch offers are fabulous because of the amount of work it requires, which is wait for it: entering a valid 5-digit zip code and maybe clicking on a portal/link and just waiting for credit (check your ledger). InsuranceBranch offers can be found in multiple Walls and your Inbox (starting at 3+sb).

8. Team Challenges

About once a month, there are team challenges where Swagbucks have you opt into a team that is randomized for you. To be part of this challenge, you need to opt in before the end of the challenge. The sooner to the Monday it starts, the better as you’ll only earn points towards your team after you opt in. Course if you don’t opt in, you won’t earn that swagup rebate in whichever place you finish in.

As a tip, do the minimum to earn the swagup rebate (ie. earn 400 “points” for your team) and leave it at that. No need to try to put yourself on the Leaderboard, Swagbucks no longer offers prizes for those top performers. And remember, the rebates are small, like 10-50sb on average, so no need to force yourself to jump hoops to get your team into first place. Just go at it like you would any other day and by the end of the week, usually early Friday when it ends, then you should meet the minimum to qualify to earn the swagup rebate. Out of sheer curiosity to determine how crazy some people are, one of the challenges I cranked and kept the second place for 4 days and only to drop off the leaderboard on the last day.

9. Surveys – Gold, Peanut Lab, Answers App, Swagbucks app

Surveys are amongst the “easiest” way to earn large amounts in a short span of time. On the daily checklist, you’ll need to complete one of these to have that completed list (8 in the United States).

You’ll quickly notice that survey opportunities are most abundant during the workweek, whereas it’s more sparse on the weekend. There are surveys of all length, anywhere ranging from an estimate 1min to hours. First, figure out how much time you are willing to spend on surveys as you’re not going want too many windows open.

For me, I have this narrowed down to less than 10 minutes and beyond that would require a higher payout of at least 50sb. I will try most surveys that fit this range as there’s a possibility that I won’t qualify for whatever reason (often filled a quota or don’t meet requirements). There are certain companies I will look out for as there is higher trust that it’ll pay out at the end. This is only by trial and error, so you’ll have to familiarize yourself with their surveys.

Which brings me to another point, there WILL be times where it’s going be frustrating and most of it is because the surveys won’t credit properly. For this reason, I don’t do long surveys unless they are worth their weight in compensation because there’s always that possibility they either don’t credit or disqualify you short of completion when you’re about 60%+ done with the survey (as I’ll need to file a request ticket). It is wise to take screenshots throughout the process so if you need to submit a ticket, then picture evidence is required.

Jot down the survey number, estimated time in your ticket, screenshots and brief information about the survey in those tickets. Having this information is far more likely to go through Swagbucks support more smoothly. They have to manually adjust those amounts, so they actually pay out of pocket for these instances, so it’s wise to only submit when it makes sense. I also only submit these request knowing that I should be fairly compensated for it, like when classification questions are asked at the end of the survey. If classification questions are asked at the start, it’s fair game, but at the end, it’s a game of cherry picking acceptable responses. they see frequent tickets as potential abuse even though it’s clearly platform issues. Of course, they wouldn’t lose that payout if the survey credited properly in the first place. But I digress 😉

Another positive of surveys is qualifying for future focus groups, studies, home-product testing which will pay out considerably MORE than the survey amount. The only way you would qualify for these if you’re willing to answer honestly in your respective demographics. Mothers may find products for babies, and I’ve tested Oreos or Cherry soda last year! The amounts are nice surprises to the days you are grinding. Depending on the payouts as this can vary from 100sb ($1), some may even go up to hundreds of dollars! I have from time to time qualified for $30-50+.

In Gold Studies, you’ll also want to focus on the starred surveys, those come with a higher chance of “unlocking” better surveys. Almost every survey will at least give you a disqualification consolation (1sb), Gold Studies cap this at 5/day, whereas Peanut Lab is unlimited.

The last thing about surveys, don’t speed through them. There are points where surveys insert questions to check if you’re paying attention or they punish you by going too fast. A long time ago, I was “banned” from Peanut Lab for going too fast (though in real life, I really do read at that speed) and had to get that repealed. So go at a reasonable pace, give consistent information (don’t change up your info to game what you think the survey wants to hear) and give good answers.

What I will note about surveys is some will take an absurd amount of time and Swagbucks takes a large cut (that we don’t see) for administering these surveys on their platforms for these companies that outsource to them. Their direct sites (you’ll note this by looking at the survey platforms) will often earn you more if you sign up as a participant through their sites directly. However, they make “goals” that much easier!

10. nCraves

nCraves are activities are listed on a page with varying amounts of payout. They are usually guaranteed provided you don’t run more than one at a time (this means only ONE active across all your devices). Lately, Swagbucks have shifted to requiring a mouse be ON a specific location of the window at all times for the timer to advance, so this will be annoying. I try to locate manual ones before I resort to the mouse-specific ones. By themselves, you’ll have to play around and figure which ones will pay out more quickly over time and stick to those. Payouts will change up throughout the day, year, etc.

Once I figure out which ones are better earners, I do those first and I have no problem waiting out the cool-off period (like exiting out of an ncrave I’m working on) when the better earners return. It is a better investment of my time than waiting on a slow earning one to finish. This is essential when you are SO close to a goal and you just want to meet it before midnight.

Lately, they have embedded nGages within nCraves. My recommendation is only to tackle one or the other if you decide to go nCrave nGages. They require you to turn on autoplay and you can play it in the background, much better than leaving your mouse stationary in one spot! I don’t recommend doubling up on a regularly sponsored nGage because it’s just not worth either one of them cancel out the other. They are too long to run and complete one round. Your computer will love you for not making it work as hard for you.

I also don’t run the longer/ highest paid ncrave as they can be very time intensive and it sucks to have one of them break or cancel on you. For the All You Can Eat (AYCE) nCrave, attack it if you’re reasonably close to your computer to monitor it every so often. It might help to set up a second machine and engage every so often. Theoretically, you can also run it to the ground and it’s generally fairly passive, such as when you’re asleep but I don’t abuse it mainly because I like my Macbook and my Chromebooks. My computers sleep when I sleep.

11. nGage

nGages are a bunch of different activities (Desktop Girl, “All You Can Swag”, “Web Basics” and “Best of the World”) that will only award one at a time. Refer to the full list above. Only run one at a time and these are way too long to have a second one active to cancel out the efforts you spent. These are extremely finicking and even penalize you for going “too fast” and will require you to restart.

Also be aware when you’re leaving them alone for too long, LTG won’t time out, but ngages will and many times I’ve had nGages time out at 11/13, so that sucks when you’re almost done with a round but either their activity just times out from you being inactive and your computer reprioritizing the cached memory for them.

12. Download apps

You’ll get opportunities to download apps at varying payouts. This is a quick way for developers to get people to download their apps (to drive up numbers). Note here that some or most will be trash and you can uninstall them afterward. Other times you’ll discover some gems. Weigh your time and effort required to install apps on your phone. This is a very good use of your burner phones! Proceed only if you trust these companies to have access to your phone properties and settings, it isn’t worthwhile to give permission to a service that has access to your phone (like installing a VPN to monitor your background activities). Decide on your comfort level before voluntarily downloading apps.

13. Complete offer walls – source the best offers as they are offered on multiple walls

Swagbucks Discover is made of many Walls, like TrialPay, Peanut Labs, RadiumOne, etc and often these Walls will have the same sponsors with different payouts. Be aware of promotions, during Q4 of 2016, there were 2x promos on multiple walls towards the end of October, November, and December. This made a huge difference on offers with higher payouts. So the best way to go at this is to determine what their usual amounts are and compare walls. If there’s a promotion going on, stack that promotion!

Offers tend to be once per user, so depending on your level of delayed gratification.. it would either make sense to grab it now and pad your goals or wait potentially for higher payouts in Q3 and Q4. This was where a majority of my Swagbucks came from last year!

14. Swagbutton surveys

The Swagbutton will periodically have surveys that are targeted to you but are usually more time-sensitive. I will click on all of these, but sometimes some of these surveys will have met their quotas already. These will be the easiest surveys you’ll do and payout generally guaranteed. The most popular ones are 10 minutes for 50sb.

15. Inbox Offers

The inbox is filled with paid and free offers, usually, highlights the ones you’ll see through the Swagbucks Home Page or respective offer walls. For free ones, I rearrange order based on time-sensitive (defaults to show those that’ll expire within 7days) and also by lowest-highest payouts. There are usually simple 1 or 2sbers that’s easy to do and just requires one click.

If you check the email address registered to Swagbucks, you’ll also note they’ll send you similar offers too. Some will highlight their paid offers and others just require you to click through a page for 2sb. This is also where they’ll send some surveys too.

16. Referrals

Last are referrals, which, as of right now you would earn 10% of your referrals’ lifetime earnings. I’ll plug in my link here and earnings from your support would help keep these Swagbucks pages updated. I’ll go in periodically and note where changes to the site have been made and to provide that power boost for you guys in your swagging.

There are usual incentives for you to sign up through a referral as we’ll both benefit as you’ll earn a bit of sign up bonus as opposed to signing up through Swagbucks directly. I won’t lie, but a majority of people you’ll refer will stop using the site. I would love nothing more to help you out and even if you choose not to partake in using my referral, I understand why we all choose to swag. For the longest time, I swagged because it helped me pay bills when I couldn’t work and these days I heavily concentrate most of my earnings towards bills and student loans.

You won’t earn a ton from referrals unless you have referrals actively swagging. It’s pretty easy to slap a link on Twitter and rack up referrals that way. Problem lies in turnover when people will try Swagbucks (“A” for effort!) and then they’ll drop off because they don’t understand it.

Swagbucks isn’t going solve all your money troubles, but for a beer money site, it is reputable when integrated into your everyday life. I also implement other aspects of the site so it works in my favor. I looked into other beer money sites and then come back to Swagbucks because of its ubiquity, simplicity and active platform. I’m at a good point where I’m not going sit at a computer and grind pennies. I have figured out how to do it semi-passively on the days I have more patience and those are the tips I’m sharing. So here are 16 ways (and more) to get started. Please feel free to share additional tips so we can help each other! Stay tuned for tips to maximize paid offers!

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