Trade your idle time for $5 Amazon Gift Cards!

$5 Amazon gift cards are manna from heaven for a graduate student like me looking for textbook money. Granted, these gift cards do not come free since you have to spend a certain amount of time doing searches on sites. The good news is that how much time you spend is completely under your control.

(Note: Unfortunately, Bing Rewards and Swagbucks Search aren't for Philippine residents. You could still play Swagbucks games though! But keep this in mind if you're gonna study in the US.)

With all the mini-breaks that I take from work and studying, I go to Bing and Swagbucks for a few minutes each day to search and play games. I just "discovered" Bing Rewards and Swagbucks a few weeks back, and I've earned $15 so far! (Which, granted, isn't a lot at the moment, but think of how much I can earn in a year!)

I really like Bing Rewards because it's simple to earn points, and there's a set limit each day -- meaning that I don't have to spend as much time as necessary to earn the limit. I can earn the max allowed points in less than 5 minutes, since I can type literally anything into Bing's search bar and have it count towards the limit. Bing has fewer partner merchants, but... one of them is Swagbucks!

Once you get into Bing Rewards' Gold Status level (which is really easy to get into), you get the rewards at a discount. You can choose between getting an Amazon Gift Card at once for 475 points, or go through the Swagbucks route for the same 475 points. The latter means that you get 500 Swagbucks, which you can use at Swagbucks to get an Amazon Gift Card for 450 points, with 50 points left over.

I haven't tried the Swagbucks route yet, since I was happy with how fast Bing gave me the Amazon codes, and was unsure with how fast I could get the Swagbucks one. I'll be doing it next time though, since the turnaround of Swagbucks was bearable (i.e. not even a week).

There are so many ways you could earn Swagbucks that the danger is spending too much time on that site. But, if you find yourself going to do mindless surfing over the next couple of hours, then it might still be worth a try.

With Amazon's Buy-Back program (where I can sell my old textbooks), and these gift card programs, I can earn enough to fund the next set of books. Or a book or two, anyhow. Hey, every little bit helps.

Former child actress in Hult

Just found it interesting.

Meet former child wonder Serena Dalrymple

Hult's Master of International Business can be an alternative for those coming out of undergrad, with no or little previous work experience.