We all know the famous Franklin quote “A penny saved is a penny earned”. While Franklin may have been just encouraging people to save, there is actually a way that you could make money by saving it.
Here are 2 websites that will literally pay you for every dollar you save…
1. Getting Paid to Save with Saveup.com
With
Saveup you need to feed information such as your bank account, retirement account and credit card. The site would in turn set up a personalized budget for you and you will get rewarded for exercise prudent financial decisions on your conduct.
Every time your debt is pared down or you manage to save some money, extra credits would be made available to you from the site. You use these credits to stake your chance to claim various prizes.
The more efficient you become to save money or bring down debt, the more credits will come your way and the more chances you get to win real prizes. It’s a good way to make yourself save money fast.
Being financially prudent is key to earn great credits. Every time there is a saving of one dollar, that translates into one credit awarded to you. Upon reaching 10 credits, you can enter into one of the draws, restricted to 3 draws a day.
Through referral programs, you can expand on your opportunities to win as you get more number of plays.
The draws at Saveup.com are broadly split into 3 different categories:
- Instant Wins
For instant wins, your credits are to be spent among various games like scratch-off tickets. If you happen to be the winner, you get instant prize. Instant win prizes can be scholarship, car or overseas/domestic trip. At the time of writing, New York City tour worth a mouth watering $5,000 is on offer. - Weekly Draws
As the name implies, weekly drawing is conducted every week. The prizes ranges from gift cards to consumer electronics. I once got a $200 gift card for a neighborhood DIY shop. - Monthly Draws
They have been able to keep the monthly draw going without disruption. The jackpot money is $2 million in cool cash, and a winner is announced at the very end of every month.
2. Making Money by Saving it Through SmartyPig
SmartyPig offers a placeholder for you to stash away your money saved for some intended plan like a summer holiday in the tropical countries or new upholstery for your car.
When the saving target is reached, the redemption can be made by
- transferring the balance to your checking account,
- loading money to a prepaid debit card,
- or receiving a gift card from certain retailers.
Granted, option #1 won’t make you any richer. But if you do decide to load your savings into a prepaid debit card, you’ll get 1% more and if you opt for gift cards, additional bonus can amount to 11%.
Can You Trust These Sites?
I would advise personal discretion. So far many trusted publications have featured them in their reporting and I personally am not aware of any misconduct of any of these two sites.
In addition, they also seem to take the privacy of their customers seriously as both reiterate the fact that customers’ financial information would never be compromised. According to their websites, this protection is done through encryption software purchased from Intuit.
In this age, technology has made it virtually impossible to create a safe heaven of data store as somebody is bound to hack into some sites some days, but you surely can’t fault them for their commitment to safeguard sensitive information.
Bottom line is this is a great way to make and save money all at the same time. And at the end of the day, you win either way. You either become the new owner of that $2 million jackpot or you get to save loads of money.