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It feels like I’m making small steps progressing towards financial freedom.

Day 1: The Beginnings

So when thinking about the simplest way to get committed to this challenge; I thought of Swagbucks! It’s an app which pays you (albeit very poorly) to take surveys, shop through their affiliate links and watch videos etc. It sounds simple, so I think i’ll start here. I’ll learn a little about making money online through this, teach you what I’ve learnt and move onto more profitable ventures.

So firstly I downloaded the app and had a quick browse. It seems, you get paid $1 (or £0.78) for every 100 swagbucks (SB’s) earned. So in order to make £1, I need to earn at least 128SB’s a day on here. 

Let’s have a go!!

* 30 minutes later*

My first impression is that I am already frustrated with this site. You can sign up to do a survey, answer a few personal questions to be declined for not being what they were looking for; rendering those 5 minutes worthless apart from a 1 SB constellation prize. I have also found the time recommendation for each questionnaire to be pure underestimates. A ‘4 minute survey’ took me 20 minutes to complete. Giving me 20 SB’s (the equivalent to 16p). This definitely isn’t going to be a fast way to earn some extra cash.

Anyway, so I stuck at it and after 1hr 36mins, I finally reached my target. In total I earned 161 SB’s, the equivalent to £1.31. This is a terrible payout I know. Swagbucks wont give me financial freedom but it is a start in the right direction. The direction of taking action in online business. I expect, as I get involved, more opportunities will become visible to me.

Day 2: Looking Up

Today I thought I’d give Swagbucks a chance. Instead of on my phone I opened it up on my laptop to get a full view of every opportunity Swagbucks has to offer. It seems there is a loyalty system in place for consistent work with them. There is a daily goal, where if you reach, you will be awarded a bonus Swagbucks at the end of each month (although this still is only a few cents).

I also found some slightly more profitable routes on the website. For example, you can earn cashback for making purchases with certain brands through their site. I made a purchase via Ebay and am supposedly receiving 2% cashback and 1500 SB’s for my first purchase via the Swagbucks store. I had been meaning to make this purchase anyway so it’d be nice to receive almost £11 back for this. 

Although this hasn’t been recorded through on my account yet, hopefully, this is just a delay!!

More successfully, I took an offer of 1000 Swagbucks (£7.80) to spend £1.99 on a lottery site. All I had to do was sign up and make the purchase to enter the lotto. I’m doubting I’ll win but I made £5.81 profit on this. So I think i’ll look around for more of these opportunities in future. The 1,000 SB’s has shown on my account on this occasion but is pending for 32 days which is frustrating.

So today’s pro online, assuming the Ebay transaction worked is £18.01, after spending around 2:30hrs on Swagbucks. However the 1500 SB shopping bonus is a first time offer I can’t expect to receive again.

Day 3: Lucky Day

For receiving 250 lifetime SB’s yesterday, I graduated to level 1 on their loyalty scheme. This awarded me with a 2x SB’s on the next survey I complete and a 50 SB rebate with my next Withdrawal.

The First thing I did today was capitalise on the 2x survey bonus by choosing the highest paid one i could see. This took around 25 minutes to complete earning 160 SB’s (£1.25), already taking my past my daily £1 earnings mark. 

I know this is a very low reward for 25 minutes of work, even with a bonus but it is a reach towards another day of continuing my target. And achieving this, regardless is giving me a great deal of satisfaction at the moment. It feels like I’m making small steps progressing towards financial freedom.

Today I also took advantage of 2 online casino deals. I was awarded 400 SB’s to spend 50p on some bingo slots, profiting me £3.12. Another offer awarded me 1000 SB’s to spend £10 on their bingo site. I later proceeded to make the most of this site’s welcome bonus and with a lot of luck, my bingo account progressed from £10 to £61.23. Obviously this was pure luck But I will include this into my earnings as I see this as a risk free gamble due to the 1000 SB’s covering my losses had I lost the £10 deposit. I intend to withdraw these winnings and gamble no more on this site once the 1000 SB’S have cleared on my account.

So including the risk-free gambling profits, and 2 extra surveys, I’ve made £41.23 in cash and 1,829 SB’s (£14.26) assuming the 2 swagbucks awards come through. So if all works out, today I made £55.49 after around 4hrs spent online.

Day 4: Getting Frustrated

Today I decided to get up early to get the £1 a day challenge out the way with. This consisted of taking 3 terribly overlong surveys. Each survey took almost double its suggested length.

Alongside this, I played videos on from Swagbucks on my phone in the background earning 2 SB’s per 6 videos watched. With the sound off I barely realised it was playing.

Today’s work earned me 137 SB’s (£1.06) for around 2hrs of work. To be honest i’m starting to get a little fed up with the lack of pay for each task. And for some of the paid tasks, I’m still yet to receive notification on my account. I’m hoping this goes through within the next few days.

On a more positive note, I have once again completed my challenge of Making at least £1 a day for 4 days straight now.

Day 5: More Frustration!!

Today, my motivation was low for Swagbucks due to the woeful returns for the amount of work you put in. SO I decided to do the bare minimum amount of surveys to get it over with.

After being declined by 5 surveys in a row (another annoying thing about Swagbucks) I managed to find 1 ‘short’ survey. It paid 13 SB’s saying it’ll take 4 minutes of work, so i thought it’ll get me off the mark. The survey actually took me 26 minutes!!

Being fed up with this, I had a look on the discover page. Due to not being rewarded back for some purchases yet, I decided to just go for the offers which won’t require a purchase. Luckily I found a link to sign up to get a free credit score, to receive 150 SB’s (£1.17). 

Today I also found out about the Swagbucks search engine. If you search through their browse, it seems you can earn a reward once every few hours just for searching. So I downloaded the browser and after a few random searches, I was awarded 7 more SB’s. Making today’s total earnings 170 SB’s (£1.35).

Day 6: That’s More Like It

Today’s Swagbucks activity went much more smoothly than previous days. After being declined for 2 for not being in the right demographic, I started off by completing a survey.this one was relatively straight forward, lasting 15 minutes for 55SB’s (or 43p).

I soon after noticed a special deal paying 4,100 SB’s (£31.98)to bet £10 on a bingo site.Naturally, I lost the £10 bet but the 4,100 SB’s went straight into my account, without pending. Minus the £10 i spent, this transaction earned £21.98 for around 30 minutes of work.

Later on in the evening, I partook in a Swagbucks live event. This is a massive multiplayer quiz which runs from Monday to Thursday once a night. There were 10 questions. Completing all of these correctly would earn you a share of the grand prize. Today this was $500. However, before you get too excited, by the sheer number of participants this share is more like 15SB’s each by the end. I didn’t win the ‘Grand Prize’ but I did get the bonus questions right, earning my 8 SB’s for the 15 minute event. To be honest it was quite fun to be part of.

So after a total of just over 1hrs work today, I profited £22.62. This is a little more motivating than previous days. 

This increase in energy for working online, fills me with buzzing ideas in my head, where I can go next to start earning a proper income online. I can’t wait to share these with you once they begin to materialise!! 

Day 7: Week 1 Complete

After work today, I went straight onto Swagbucks to get the £1 goal complete so I can get onto some stock market analysis as prices become cheap. 

After leveling up again yesterday, I was awarded 2x bonuses for the next 2 surveys I completed. I took advantage of this while playing Swagbucks videos in the background. After around an hour, I made 193 SB’s (£1.50).

This marks my first week of earning £1 or more online a day. Hooray!!! Now time to analyse some stocks to buy during this market dip.

Thank you for reading my first week’s progress of the £1 a day challenge. All in all, it hasn’t been too bad. Although, it sure is frustrating the low pay you receive from Swagbucks. I hope to move on from these online sites in search of more profitable opportunities soon. However, first I must get this message out to the world and start building the website.

Let me know in the comments section below if you are keen to try out the challenge yourself.

Thanks, talk soon.