Good Deal: How to Earn Gift Cards

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- With the economy being in a recession, everyone is looking for ways to stretch every dollar. People are also looking for ways to make their money work harder for them.

And, local working mom Tracee Samuel has found a way to do just that. Instead of just buying things straight from a store on-line, she goes through the website MyPoints.com.

She can actually get points on the website, points that will add up to a free gift card at various stores and even restaurants.

"We keep them for date nights. You can use them for Barnes and Noble, and other sponsor sites. We choose to go out to dinner, that's our treat" says Samuel. About once a month, she'll use the gift cards to take her and her fiancée and their four children to dinner.

Here's how it works. "You log onto their site and you can earn points different ways. You can just open junk e-mail that are trying to get you buy things. So, you just open it and it takes you to the sponsor website and you get five points just for doing that. And, if you purchase what they are selling you get more points" explains Samuel.

Samuel also gets points by going to MyPoints before buying anything on-line. The MyPoints website links you to the major retailers, and when you buy through Mypoints you earn points toward a gift card.

Samuel also gets some of her grocery coupons through MyPoints. "I would get 10 points at MyPoints, plus 25 points for the month, because I used these coupons for the month," says Samuel.

Now, Samuel says she's never had any trouble using MyPoints, but if you search on-line there are complaints out there. They are mainly about all the junk e-mails your computer will receive. So, you might want to check out those complaints before you sign up for the program.

Click here to get to MyPoints.

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