Another Free Shopping Spree at Michaels

It's that time again...the time when I post about what I did with that Michaels store giftcard I got for filling out Yougov surveys.

If you too would like to receive occasional giftcards, YougovUS is easily the best survey site you could join. They don't waste your phone time, don't send you masses of spam, and almost never even send you one of those smarmy, phishy "surveys" that ask a lot of questions about you and then lock you out of finishing the survey. Most surveys are short and simple; a few might even give you ideas for blog posts. (If you blog about shopping and want to mention SEO-friendly topics for Google, Amazon, or Yahoo sponsors, Yougov is a steady stream of ideas.) Young people who buy a lot of stuff get a lot of shopping surveys and may earn giftcards on a monthly basis. Older, more frugal people earn a few giftcards each year. You can sign up all by yourself, but both you and I get bonus points if you use this link to sign up:

https://today.yougov.com/refer/brglBv6yISldXGeAQbYXBg/

I've been doing one or two surveys a week for about as long as this web site has existed, and as a knitter I've used Yougov to cover all my yarn buying needs. That's a rule I've set for myself. I filled a room with wonderful yarn bargains, years ago, and have knitted only just over halfway through it, but like most knitters I still enjoy looking at the new stuff and usually see something I want to take home, so I allow myself that pleasure whenever Yougov sends me a giftcard from Michaels.

If you're not a crafter, you're not limited to Michaels. You can choose giftcards from several participating businesses, including food stores, restaurants, sporting goods stores, clothing and shoe stores, theaters, hotels, hardware stores, Amazon, and now you can even ask for cash to be transferred to a bank if you have an account you're willing to connect to the Internet (which I don't recommend).

Anyway, I lucked out on the trip I made this weekend. All yarn was on sale. I had planned to buy this yarn, in three shades of blue, for the anti-bullying blue hat campaign:



The regular price is about ten dollars a pound, so for three pounds I'd expected to use the $25 giftcard and pay about $5 in cash. But, during the sale, I was able to throw in another pound of yarn and pay only about $1 in cash. What fun. Thank you, Yougov. Thank you, Michaels.