I got a $500 Visa Gift Card for only $42!

Have you seen those email ads where you are offered a Visa Card just for answering a question. Then they say "participation required". You may have thought these were always scams. I did 6 weeks of research and discovered that they are sometimes legit BUT you have to follow the requirements exactly!

On March 20, I spent 3 hours and $42. Then I waited and watched for 8 weeks. FedEx came to my house on Friday and delivered me a t-shirt and a $500 Visa Gift card! I was so excited.

These are called online offers and they can be kind of stressful and take some work but it can be very rewarding.

If you are interested in doing the research, here's a link to the website that seems to have almost all the answers. Carrie at Money Saving Methods has done many online offers and has made a lot of money this way. I read her blog daily and really feel confident sending you to her blog.

With my $42 investment here's what else I was able to get:

• 1 month of Gamefly
• 4 big bags of decaf coffee (which we would have bought anyway)
• 250 business cards
• 2 pair of hose for next winter (which I would have bought anyway)
• our credit score
• a pink ring (that I plan to use for a christmas present for my niece who loves jewelry - if you know her....shhhhh - don't tell!)

Just a quick note - These offers should never be considered a way to make free easy money and they should not be done if you can not afford to lose your entry money. I waited till I had earned some extra money from a side job then we decided it was worth a try and it paid off great for us! I plan to do my next offer this next month.