If you're one of the millions of Hiffers perpetually broke (I assume millions of you read HIF over each other's shoulder on a single, shared laptop), I know how you feel. However, it could be worse. Imagine if we were also sick on top of being strapped for cash! I know when I was going through chemo, the last thing I needed was another bill.
If you find yourself in a similar boat, one possible method of making a little side money is through paid, legitimate medical research studies. If you have a qualifying illness and live in a needed area, you can apply for a paid clinical trial earning hundreds of dollars!
These types of studies help doctors and research scientists better understand illnesses and diseases as well as find treatments and cures. Some of the studies are demographic while others involve study products or placebos. The trials are run by Acurian, a company who specializes in recruiting potential qualifying candidates for the trials.
When applying for these, I still recommend using your freebie email and freebie phone number. That way, if you change your mind on participating in a trial, you can easily stop any future calls or emails.
While researching Acurian and clinical trials, I came across ClinicalTrials.gov, a searchable database of licensed clinical trials run by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. While many of these do not pay for participation, I've included links to recruiting studies for many of the diagnoses below. When applicable, I also included links to unpaid NIH clinical trials.
As usual, I'm not a professional anything! If you get accepted to a paid study, please make sure to talk it over with your medical doctor first!
Ibotta is giving away up to seven free full-sized items after rebate along with another eight BOGO offers. All you have to do is snap a photo of your receipt and submit it in Ibotta's app. New members should use code zbqxa when joining.
Once you've created and logged into your account, you'll need to search for each of these offers individually within the app. Some of them are only appearing for certain demographic users, so I'm unable to confirm how many of these will be offered to each Hiffer. Still, even if you only get a few of these freebies, it'll be worth it and save you a little money!
While most of Ibotta's cashback coupon rebates are for specific items or brands, they also give free cash-back on generic “Any Brand” offers with no brand requirements whatsoever.
If you purchase any of the items listed below at a participating grocery, online, or drug store, then simply take a picture of your receipt and upload it into the app. Your account will then be credited for the cash back – all for free!
If some of the links below don't work for you, don't worry! Ibotta is a location-specific app. To find ALL the FREE no-brand coupons available to you just login, enter your zip, and search “any brand” on either their app of desktop site!
Ibotta Any Brand Offers
Unfortunately, as of 2019, Ibotta no longer uploads these deals to their website. You can see find them all in the app though!
Gas prices are through the roof these days! So you'll want to be sure to download the bp gas app. Then use the discount code below good to all new and existing BPme users who have not previously registered a promo code.
If you have a BP gas station nearby, be sure to download the free BP/Amoco app and save 5¢ per gallon on your next fill-up! All you have to do is create a free BPme Rewards account today. This will trigger an automatic savings of 5¢ per gallon going forward on every tank of gas you fill.
Veteran Hiffers may remember the Nielsen Home Scanner program from years past. They've since merged with another company and become the National Consumer Panel. New name, same money making opportunity!
As luck would have it, I'm a consumer who lives in a nation and loves being on panels, so I was happy to see the NCP is now accepting new applications where you can make money off your normal, everyday purchases!
Upon joining, you're sent a small, handheld scanner to scan the barcodes of all your purchases. Each item gives you points, which you redeem for prizes, gift cards, toys, and household items.
Cash Giveaways
Once you become a National Consumer Panel member, if you scan at least one item each week, you'll earn one entry into their Quarterly Sweepstakes where you can win a $500 Visa prepaid card. On top of that, for each week you send NCP purchase information, you earn one entry into NCP's Grand Prix Sweepstakes where you can win $20,000! Every quarter one lucky panel member wins!
In addition, every month, 20 members who sent in purchase information every week of the month will win a Visa prepaid card.
Hiffer tips, tricks, and loot scores
While scanning individual barcodes after a huge shopping trip might sound tedious, Hiffer Theresa sent in this ingenious tip – take the scanner to the store with you! Then all you have to do is scan items as you add them to your cart! Another idea is to scan items slowly instead of all at once. My friend scans a few items each night while watching TV and I've heard of others getting their kids to do all the scanning 🙂
If you're on the fence about joining, I looked through the comments of our previous NCP posts and found some cool stuff Hiffers reported getting!
The prizes you pick do not cost extra and they are nice. I have received dog beds, MP3 player speakers, really nice spoon measures, and similar stuff. – Doreen
I have done this for about 5 years now. I have gotten a couple of really good gifts. A stereo w cd player and a NICE crockpot. Right now I’m saving for a handheld GPS to go geocaching with. – Susan
I've gotten a toaster, phone and answering machine, hedge trimmer, some other stuff – Melissa
I've only redeemed points for a coffee maker so far, but they add up pretty quickly. – Amanda
I’ve gotten, over the years, mixing bowls, air popcorn popper, paper shredder, and even an upright KitchenAid appliance worth more than $200! – Bobbie
I have gotten 3 phone system, toys, deep fry, 2 dvr's, egg cooker and more. – Sherry
It's hard not to love this free stock program from Robinhood. Thankfully, this promotion is still kicking in the new year, so be sure to pick up your free stock using the guide below.
Be sure not to miss out on this! 3,400+ Hiffers have now joined and gotten free stock worth over $5,000$12,500(!)$16,500(!!) $20,000(!!!) since I first published this. Nine Hiffers received shares of Apple, worth $175, and eight more Hiffers received shares of Facebook, worth $328!
I'm not a huge stock trader. I'm more of a sock trader, in that I'm always unwittingly trading left socks with the gremlin in my washing machine.
When I first started investing, I found tradition brokerage fees of $7 per trade to be way too expensive. That's why I joined Robinhood many years ago and never looked back. It's an online brokerage with commission-free trading and no monthly fees designed for beginners. It's available from both a desktop computer or mobile app on your smartphone.
What sets Robinhood apart are their no-fee trades, which means you never pay a commission or transaction fees when you buy and sell stocks or cryptos. The concept of free stock trading was so popular, that now other trading apps have copied Robinhood!
As luck would have it, Robinhood is running a promo giving away free share of stock to anybody who joins! For no money whatsoever, you can get a free share of a surprise stock. While it's completely random what you get and the value of your stocks, but you have a 1-in-100 chance to get a value of at least $20 and 1-in-1000 get at least $50 in reward stock.
The minimum lowest stock you can get is a fractional share priced at $5, so you're guaranteed at least something! You can also convert your free stock into any other stock or into crypto like bitcoin or ethereum.
As of 2023, you have a chance at getting stock in the following portfolio of S&P 500 companies:
Hiffer Jenn recently got a free share of Johnson & Johnson worth over $138!
To get your free share of stock, simply join and wait for your account to be approved. This typically takes less than one business day. Remember, you must be a new Robinhood account holder who hasn't previously registered an account!
You must be referred by somebody in order to get your free share, so it's important you go through a link here on HIF. You can only have 1 account per person, so they confirm your identity with your social security number (similar to how tobacco freebies work!) using bank-level SSL and 128-bit encryption.
After your account is approved, open the app and click on the “Free Stock” link in the menu. You should then have a share of stock to claim! You then have to wait 2 business days before you can sell the stock and then wait another 30 days before you can transfer & withdraw the money out of the app and into your bank account.
At this point, you can also earn additional free stock shares by sending your referral link to friends and family. As you invite friends to open free accounts, you'll get up to $500 more in free stock per calendar year.
As the numbers show at the top of this post, HIF has a lot of readers who've taken advantage of this great off. A ton of them earned shares of those mega expensive stocks! In fact, I'd love for Hiffers to share what they got in the comments just so we could see how much free money was given out.
Robinhood has complete full terms and overview of this promo on their site, which are very easy to read. They also contain some frequently asked questions about the rules, regulations, and referral program.
So there you have it! So if you've ever wondered if the free stock from Robinhood offer was legit, now you see it clearly is! Fingers crossed you're one of the lucky Hiffers to hit it big with a share of Facebook or Apple. Good luck!
The Dosh app (or Do$h, based on their logo, but I refuse to call them that) is one of the new cash back apps that automatically gives cash back based 100% on your everyday purchases. It's like an automatic, mini-Ebates for your everyday food, gas, and clothing purchases.
After creating a free account and linking your credit card, Dosh monitors your purchases and automatically gives you cash back if you buy anything at a participating retailer. You don't have to remember to apply for the credit or click a link before you make a purchase. It's completely automated by robots waiting to replace us and designed to run in the background of your hectic, daily life.
I've been using it and a few other similar apps this year and they're great. While you won't make a killing, it's nice logging into my accounts every month and seeing I earned a few bucks simply for buying gas at Exxon or dinner at the local Chinese restaurant.
Since their founding in 2016, Dosh has already paid back $25 million to their users. Like I said earlier, you won't make a killing, but 2% here and 3% there start to add up over time.
For instance, there was recently an offer where you could buy Cinnamon Toast Crunch at 25 participating retailers and receive a 300 SB rebate. Since Swagbucks offers $3 gift cards for only 300 SB, that means you could have cashed out immediately after redeeming this single offer. It's nice when a site doesn't have arbitrarily high cash-out hurdles!
They also have a ton of “any brand” offers, so you can get paid for food purchases regardless of the brand. They're effectively offering $1 rebates on any milk, eggs, and bread purchases for me right now.
As with other free grocery rebate programs, all you have to do is add the offers to your list, then snap a photo of your receipt within 14 days of purchase. Your SB will then be credited to your account and you'll then be able to redeem them for thousands of different gift cards, VISA cards, and other prizes.
At the very least, Swagbucks now gives us a fourth cash-back option on our daily food consumption. We can take a single grocery purchase and earn from four different websites – not too shabby!
These coupons don't expire until December 31, 2022, so you have a full year to redeem as many coupons as possible. It only took my sister a few weeks to make her money back with last year's coupon book.
One of the perks of these books is that all books come with a digital subscription! That means in addition to your hard copy with physical coupons, you also get access to over 75,000 digital coupons. They're accessed via Entertainment.com's website or mobile app and are perfect for traveling away from home, where space might be limited.
I first posted about the Entertainment Coupon Books back in 2009, but it's been a while since I've refreshed folks on their savings. Each year, they offer location-specific coupon books that come packed with coupons for local restaurants, entertainment spots, and retailers.
Remember, this great offer expires on 6/14/21. If you're a Hiffers who already bought the 2022 coupon book, what do you think of it so far? Any coupons you've especially loved this time around?
With everything happening out there *waves hand towards window,* I know some people are having trouble making ends meet. You should see my bank account right now! 🙃 While making money via quick surveys is available to most of us, I recently stumbled across an even better survey site exclusively for military families.
If you're an enlisted military member, veteran, military spouse, or military parent then you qualify for Military+Families. This includes Coast Guard, National Guard and Reserves, which means roughly 10-15% of Hiffers should be able to join!
The payout for their surveys are a bit higher than what civilians are offered via other sites. This is a great way to earn a little extra cash during lockdown without having to put on pants! Simply answer a few basic questions to see which surveys you qualify for, then earn points and cash out for giftcards to Amazon, Walmart, Target, and iTunes!
If you're looking to make a little extra cash from the comfort of your couch this winter, consider applying to VIPKID to teach English online to kids in China for as much as $22 per hour! You don't need to know any foreign language and all teaching materials are provided by VIPKID.
Instead, you only need to meet these qualifications.
Bachelor's degree in any field
Eligibility to work in the US or Canada with native accent (sadly, you cannot live in CA or NY)
Meet eligible tech requirements
Device – Any Desktop, Laptop, MAC, Surface
Headset – Use a headset with a microphone, stable output and input
Camera – HD External camera or HD integrated camera (Most laptops have it)
VIPKID currently employs over 60,000 teachers, but are hiring thousands more right now. Heck, at $22 an hour, I'm thinking of applying! They teach over 500,000 students in China ages 4-12 with a curriculum based on the U.S. Common Core State Standards. In 2018, they even won #1 on Forbes magazines “Best work from home companies” list!
Teachers are recommended to be available for at least 7.5 hours per week, though it's not required. If that sounds like an easy time commitment, then I'd definitely consider applying!
Classes are guaranteed 25 minutes of active teaching time, with an additional 5 minutes assigned for teachers to make a few comments. Peak teaching hours are during Beijing time, Monday-Friday 6-10pm and Saturday-Sunday 9am–10pm. Here's a handy converter for US time zones. While not required to teach in these time zones, availability during them will help your application chances.
A few Hiffers have sent this site to me, so I know a few of y'all are making some money with VIPKID. If you're one of them, what are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them in the comments!
For the first time in 37 years, Budweiser will not air a Super Bowl commercial this year. So what are they doing with the extra cash they'll save? Apparently they're giving it away to us!
For the first time in 37 years, Budweiser will not be airing an ad during the Super Bowl Sunday broadcast. Our digital ad “Bigger Picture” narrated by Rashida Jones, celebrates the individual acts of resilience that sparked hope during a trying year and announces our support for vaccine awareness and education throughout 2021. Instead, we are redirecting those advertising dollars to support COVID-19 vaccine awareness and education. Even though you won’t see us on TV, we still want to be with you on Game Day, so here’s a Bud on us. And now that you’re a Budweiser MyCooler member you can start earning points to redeem exclusive prizes.
Here's how to snag your free money on a virtual debit card.
Register for a free account here.
Confirm your email address.
Go here and click “Claim Your Bud.”
Select the “Beer on Bud Virtual Debit Card” for 0 points.
Fill out your shipping info!
They don't say how much money will be loaded onto these cards, so this might just be a weird promo where we get a dead card. But, going off my pure gut instinct, I'm guessing these will have around $5 or $10 on them, enough to buy a free 6 or 12 pack.
You must be at least 21 years old to get this freebie and offer ends 2/7/21.
It also appears this offer is not valid in CA or TX.
I was able to register very quickly just now on my computer. I still haven't gotten the confirmation email, but I figured I'd post this now in case it's time sensitive. Good luck!
