Save your Christmas budget with these tips for finding cheap or free gift cards (plus how you can use them to save more money!).
Last time in the 7 Ways to Pile Up Christmas Money series, we talked about making a list (and checking it twice!).
So now you have a good plan started for saving lots of money this Christmas season.
Now, if you tally up your total budget for Christmas presents and your eyes pop out of your head like an old Bugs Bunny cartoon…
Well, that’s ok!
Now you see why we are planning ahead!
Because you were so smart with that planning, we have time to get a little creative with that budget. Here’s how…
7 Ways to Pile Up Christmas Money: Gift Cards
Gift cards can be a good gift idea for some people, but that’s not what I mean in this case. I’m talking about getting gift cards that you can use to purchase gifts for others. Here are some ways to do that.
Swagbucks
Swagbucks has been around for a looong time (in internet history anyway). You might even have an old account there that you had forgotten about.
(If that’s the case, you should dust that puppy off and get back to earning free bucks!)
In case you haven’t heard about it, Swagbucks is a website that asks you to do various things to earn points which are called “swagbucks”.
The tasks are simple things like answering a fun one question poll, watching videos, taking surveys, etc.
You can play videos while you do household chores like laundry or dishes, so it doesn’t require dedicated time. You can also print coupons and play games to earn “bucks”.
Each “buck” works out to be roughly worth a penny, because once you earn 100 Swagbucks, you can redeem it for a $1 Amazon gift card. They have a variety of increments of Amazon gift cards, but they pretty much work out to a 100 Swagbuck to $1 Amazon money ratio. (500 Swagbucks for a $5 Amazon card, etc.)
I find it doable to earn $10 or more in Amazon money through Swagbucks each month. It’s not a lot. But if you had started in January, you could easily have $120 to spend at Amazon for Christmas this year.
Loyalty Cards
The loyalty card I use at our local gas station not only earns me a free soda every time I purchase 7 (although I’ve cut way back on stopping in for a drink!).
I can also get free gift cards once I have accumulated enough points. I always hand them my card when I make a purchase, so I have a lot of points just sitting there on my card waiting to be cashed in.
Teenagers would love a gas gift card as a gift! But if you don’t have anyone like that on your list, you can take the cash you would have spent on gas and add it to your Christmas present money envelope.
Check out any loyalty cards you use for regular purchases and see what surprises they might have for you! You might find coupons or gift cards just waiting for you.
Rakuten
Online shoppers, get signed up for Rakuten, stat!
The next time you’re ready to shop, start at the Rakuten website. They have rebates for tons of stores you already shop.
Plus…you know how you always look for coupon codes at the checkout? Well, Rakuten always has a list of coupon codes right on their site! So it saves you extra time (and extra money…who doesn’t love that??).
They send you a big fat payment when you reach $20 each quarter.
Whenever you get that payment, save it for next year’s gifts!
Buy Gift Cards
Sometimes, buying gift cards yourself will still save you money.
My favorite place to get them is at Sam’s Club. They have discounts on almost every kind of gift card!
If you aren’t a member there, no worries. You can basically get a membership for free with this special deal.
Grocery stores like Kroger will give you extra gas discounts when you buy gift cards from them. When I’m on my way to the mall to shop, I’ll stop for a Kohl’s gift card at Kroger first just for that discount.
Sites like Card Cash link people buying gift cards with people getting rid of them.
Bonus…use Card Cash to buy gift cards at a discount.
Or use it to sell that gift card you’ve had for-e-ver and you know you’re never gonna use it.
You could also buy one gift card each month, or every time you grocery shop. That wraps your savings into your grocery bill, and makes it a little more automatic.
Then save the cards until you are ready to do your Christmas shopping!
There are so many ways you can use gift cards to help you find Christmas money!
With these tips, you’ll be able to keep your eyes inside their sockets the next time you tally up your Christmas budget.
Super savers will definitely want to get signed up for the Christmas money saving mini challenge! Check it out…
Do you have a tip about using gift cards for purchasing Christmas presents that I missed? Be sure you share it with us in the comments!
I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. 
Wow what a great idea, I should have started saving for Christmas in January, but hey better late than never. Maybe I can get a jump start on Christmas 2016 🙂 I have never heard of swagbucks, I’m going to check them out!!! Thanks for the Tips!
I always get to this point and wonder why I didn’t make more effort to save earlier in the year. That’s why I’ve tried to get a little more creative! Thanks so much for reading!
What a great collection of money saving tips! I’ve never heard of swagbucks and I’m totally going to check it out!
I’m so glad I could help!
I’m glad that the family of my boyfriend isn’t of spenders either, like mine.
Even though I am all for the Christmas spirit, all the money spending around it is so silly.
Thanks for sharing your money savings tips on #tiptuesday .
Isn’t it great when everyone is on the same page?
Great tips thanks for linking with #ShowcaseTuesday
These are some really great ideas! I never knew about swagbucks or giftcardgranny. Thank you so much for sharing! I have bookmarked this post for near future reference 🙂
Great! Thanks so much for visiting.
I use my Amazon Affiliates earnings for Christmas. It forces me to blog regularly, since earnings set my budget.
That’s a great tip for bloggers! Certainly something I could do better with here.
These are all great ideas! I’ve recently started couponing for things like groceries and use things like Ibotta and coupons.com to find discounts. These are all great ideas on other places to save money.
Another thing I would suggest as well is to do some fall cleaning, find things you don’t want and either have a garage sale, sell online (Ebay, etc) or find a flea market to offload some stuff you no longer need. I always end up making a few hundred dollars of junk I no longer use and apply that towards gifts, vacations, etc.
Thanks for sharing at the #FFBH! 🙂
I have never heard of giftcardgranny. Thanks
Great ideas! Thanks for sharing on the Homestead Blog Hop!
Thank you for sharing all these wonderful ideas to make Christmas present buying easier on the budget with us at Hearth and Soul, Jamie! You’ve shared some excellent ideas here!
Hey Jamie — great ideas – I haven’t heard of some of these ideas – they are way cool. I have done a few things were you can earn gift cards and have used them for gifts. We save all year for Christmas – have the money automatically moved each paycheck so when its time to shop, we have money. Yay – for a husband that likes to make budgets…. but shhh don’t tell him I said that 🙂
That’s a great way to save for Christmas if you can swing it in your regular budget! I won’t tell. 😉
Giftcard Rescue, Giftcard Granny and Raise are awesome and Christmas is the perfect time to use them. If you know you’ll be purchasing a bunch of stuff from one retailer, there’s no reason to not pick up a discounted gift card and start out the shopping trip a little ahead.
We were able to pay for all but a couple of our Christmas presents last year by saving up Swagbucks gift cards! It’s so much more fun to give presents when the stress of how to pay for them is taken away! Thanks for joining us again at #FridayFrivolity, Jamie!