savings | Financial Crooks

Personally, I hate shopping in malls and big box stores especially when they are packed with Christmas-crazed customers. So whenever possible, I shop online for the things I don’t make, bake or ~~steal~~ borrow. Just before I clicked on my Cart at amazon.ca, I wondered whether I could get a discount or kickback on my purchase. An internet hunt reminded me about a website called swagbucks.com. It offers rewards for activities including buying stuff. So I looked into the benefits of joining Swagbucks and how to do so.

Is Swagbucks Available to Canadians?

I vaguely remembered looking into this outfit once before and at that time I could not confirm whether it was available to Canadians shopping at Canadian online stores. This time after some clicking and skimming I discovered that it is. You join the same swagbucks.com site (not swagbucks.ca) and yet when you start shopping, you’ll be connected to the Canadian websites of multi-nationals such as Amazon and Walmart.
Rewards to Canadians are generally paid out in Canadian dollar gift cards that can be used at Canadian online retailers.

What’s the Scheme Behind Swagbucks?

From what I can see Swagbucks is just a large affiliate link website. If you click on their link to a store like amazon.ca Swagbucks will get a commission on anything you purchase. In return, Swagbucks will reward you using a part of that commission.

Is It Worth Joining Swagbucks? What Rewards Can I Get?

Realistically, don’t expect to get much. The most commonly earned reward is a $5 gift card for amazon.ca which you can buy using 500 Swagbucks.

Since most Swagbucks are earned at a 1:1 ratio (you get 1 Swagbuck for paying 1 real dollar to an affiliated company) you can see this isn’t a huge profit maker.

On the other hand, during this Christmas-shopping-season, some retailers like Amazon.ca and Walmart.ca were offering 4 Swagbucks for every $1 spent online. Since I had a few things I wanted to pick up from both of these retailers, it made sense for me to join and test the whole system out. (Note: I had already decided what I was going to buy long before I heard about Swagbucks. I didn’t buy anything extra just because of their offers.)

These may have been “Cyber Monday” offers because these same stores are only offering 2 for 1 points this week.

So I Only Get Swagbucks for Buying Stuff?

No. There are other ways to earn Swagbucks. A common way is by completing a very detailed survey for a miniscule number of Swagbucks.

Other ~~dubious~~ ways to earn ~~small numbers of~~ bucks:

watching videos (I haven’t watched any, but I suspect ads are involved)
playing online games (as above)
using their search engine for your web searches (presumably they either display ads or are selling the resulting marketing information somewhere)

How Fast Do I Get My Reward Gift Cards from Swagbucks?

I hate to say that some people like to scam companies like Swagbucks, but some do. For example, some people would buy stuff online, rack up the Swagbucks, redeem them for gift cards, and then return the merchandise they never intended to keep. Swagbucks would then have to reimburse the merchants for the commission Swagbucks received on the sales, the same commission that was used to purchase the gift cards given to the fraudulent customer. Swagbucks would lose money.

To reduce their losses from this kind of behaviour, Swagbucks puts a hold on your points until they are pretty sure you’re going to pay for and keep your purchases.

I made purchases on November 24 and November 29 and they say the points I earned will be credited to my useable account on December 26 and December 31.

So it’s not fast. But hey it also doesn’t pay much so who cares?!

Does Swagbucks Work?

To be honest, I don’t know yet. I’ve earned some Swagbucks for joining and a few more for filling in my user profile. I made the purchases I wanted to make before I joined and now I have to wait. I’ll see if I can get my $5 gift card in January. I’ll need it more then anyway what with the Year of the Horse galloping into view.

I’ll let you know then.

Thanks to These Financial Writers for Sharing Their Opinions on Swagbucks

These are articles written by some other people who have tried Swagbucks that I read before giving it a buzz myself.

Krystal Yee at GiveMeBackMyFiveBucks described her experiences and the ton of free books she has received in her post “Swagbucks Earned”

Kali at Common Sense Millennial wrote an amusing (to me anyway) article about How I Got My Coworkers’ Christmas Gifts for Free which included using gift cards from Amazon that she earned through Swagbucks.

MochiMac at Save Spend Splurge keeps a running tally on her website and says she has redeemed $2000 using Swagbucks. That’s rather impressive and a tiny bit frightening.

Bridget at MoneyAfterGraduation gives a lot of details about her experiences.

Join Swagbucks: Make Me Richer (or Better Read) !

Ms. Yee admits she earned most of her Swagbucks through their referral program. Being a curious sort, I’ll add my Swagbucks referral to this post in case any of you want to help me earn free books, too. : )

To join Swagbucks, you need to give them an email address and a password. All the rest of the information seems to be optional from what I’ve seen so far. (Just click on the Skip button when filling in your profile if you don’t like the question.)

Click on my link to get to the Swagbucks website (so I get free bucks!)
If the link doesn’t work, please cut and paste this into your browser:
swagbucks.com/refer/BetCrooks
In the fine print below the Facebook stuff, click on the Join Today link.
A new window opens.
1. In the Email address field, type your email.
2. In the Password field, type a difficult to hack but easy to remember password.
3. In the Confirm Password field, type your password a second time.
4. Click on the Free! Get Started button.
Open the Inbox for your email address and find the welcome note from Swagbucks.
Click on the link in the email to complete your account setup.

You’re ready to fill out your profile for a few Swagbucks. (Remember you can skip any question by clicking on the Skip link.)

You can also go shopping by clicking on the Shop tab at the top of the screen. Select a store from the list and click on it. You will earn Swagbucks on any applicable purchases.

Not all goods earn Swagbucks. For example, buying books from amazon.ca would not earn me any points when I tested it a few weeks ago.

You’re done. Revel in your opportunity to earn $5 back on $500 (or hopefully less) in purchases.

Good luck and thank you for giving me some Swagbucks.

(If I understand this correctly, get 1 Swagbuck for each Swagbuck you earn, up to a maximum for me of about 100 Swagbucks. Or maybe it’s only for bucks you earn doing some specific kind of task. Or maybe it’s 1000 Swagbucks. I could spend a great deal of time trying to find the current details but frankly it’s not worth it to me. Tell you what: Join. Earn lots in different ways. I’ll tell you what I get!)

Remember: only spend money you were spending before you ever heard of Swagbucks. Never spend time or money on something just to get points!

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Have you ever heard of Swagbucks? Do you use it? Does it seem really bizarre to you? Please air your views with a comment.

My children have some Canada Premium Savings Bonds that were given to them when they were very young. Some of the bonds matured last month, so it’s past time to get the money out. Which left me with the question: how can my kids cash out their Canada Savings Bonds?

Who Pays Tax on the Interest Earned by CSBs, the Giver Or the Child?

I’d better clarify the income tax issues caused by the gift of bonds.

First of all, income tax has to be paid on the interest the bonds earn each year even if the income is not received until the bonds mature.

Second, if your children are given bonds by their

parents
grandparents
aunts
uncles
or other non-arms length relative

even if they do *not* live in the same household
then the person who gave the children the bonds has to pay the income tax each year on the interest earned the previous year.

What If the Child Didn’t Get a T5 for the Interest?

T5’s are issued only when the interest earned is more than $50 for a year.
That does *not* mean no tax is owed if there is no T5!

You can phone the Canada Savings Bond office at any time and ask what the interest earned the previous year was. You will need to know the name of the bond holder and their SIN, or they can help you with the calculation if you know the series number of the bonds and the face values. The CSB office can be reached at 1 800 575 5151.

Who Pays the Tax After the Bonds Have Matured?

If your child is 18 or older, they can start to declare the annual interest on their own income tax form in April. They will have to pay tax on the interest if they have a high income. Most teens don’t and will not have to pay any tax.

After the Bond Matures and Is Cashed Out Who Pays the Tax on Re-investing the Money?

It’s trickier if your child is still under 18 at the time the bond matures.

Any new interest earned by the principal (the face value of the bond) when it is re-invested must be declared on an income tax return by the person who gave the bond to the child.

But interest (or other income) can also be earned on the interest already paid on the bond. Any interest earned on the original interest is, in theory, taxed in the hands of the child. The minor would have to file an income tax report in April and report the interest (or other income). Because the minor likely has no or little other income, the child would not usually have to actually pay tax on that interest (or other income.)

How does one know which interest is which? Well, you’d better keep very careful, very accurate records, because the government can demand to see them. Like all tax records, you’d have to keep the information for about 7 years.

For simplicity, often the original giver or the parent just keeps reporting all of the income until the child turns 18.

I would like to get some clearer information on how this income attribution works before I change how we file our taxes.

How Can My Children Cash Their Canada Savings Bonds? Can The Bank Place a Hold on the Money?

In the meantime, we need to get the matured Premium bonds cashed as they are not earning anything anymore.

Before heading to the bank, I called the Canada Savings Bond office to clarify the rules.

I already knew from their website that if the child is too young to cash the bonds by signing, the parent, with proof of guardianship, can cash them on the child’s behalf. You’d need proof that the child is the person named on the bond and proof of your relationship to the child.

(This is one example of where a “bricks and mortar” bank can be handy: at our bank, they’ve seen our children banking with me for a very long time. The kids even get special treats on some holidays from the tellers. There’s much less suspicion when we try to prove our relationship after they’ve watched the same child for years interrupting and pulling on your sleeve saying “Mummy, mummy, mummy!”)

I phoned, though, to clarify whether the bank is allowed to put a hold on the money after the bond is cashed.

Somewhat to my surprise, yes, they are. Apparently there have been instances where people have reported a bond certificate as lost and cashed it, then found the bond certificate and tried to cash it again. So the bank is within its rights to require you to deposit the money from the matured bond and to place a hold on that money until the bond clears.

A Reminder to Parents to Teach Their Children Cursive

As we head off to the bank, I’d just like to remind parents that despite the new curriculum in many jurisdictions, it’s worth your child learning some cursive. Banks still expect a signature on monetary documents. The sooner your children can learn to make the same scrawl the same way for their name, the easier they will find banking.

At least until they start scanning our retinas.