This was originally shared on colexions.com

This is not a scam, I have used this for years and have saved hundreds of dollars. It took me a year to figure this entire chain out.

If you would like to continue, follow these steps.

1. Sign up for paypal if you haven't already and link a credit card that gives you points or cash back. This will come in handy later.

2. Sign up for swagbucks here.
Swagbucks is awesome. For using their search engine, answering surveys, shopping online using their referral link, and much much more, you can make money doing what you already do online for free. For these activities, you get "swagbucks" which are roughly 1 cent and are used to buy gift cards in the reward store, with "paypal gift cards delivered right to your paypal account" as an option. It's nothing to quit your job over, but I've made a little over $600 in the 8 years I've been using them. It's completely free, no credit card, no bank account, just an email address. It's legit; it's how I get my more pricy collectables like my first edition pokemon manga sets. Again, sign up here

3. Set-up online accounts with retailers like best buy, target, and walmart if you haven't done so already. You will be purchasing your items online to maximize your savings. This only works with things you can buy through their websites. If gamestop goes through with the retro thing, you can buy retro stuff through their site, but at the moment it's kind of limited to what you can buy in stores today.
Alright, with the preliminary stuff out of the way, now to start with the actual buying.

4. Find the item you want to buy from an online retailer. In this instance, let's say a brand new Wii U bundle from best buy. Make note of where you want to buy it from.

5. Go to swagbucks.com and go to "SHOP" tab in the navigation bar. From there, locate eBay and click the link, this will take you to the ebay home page, but now you will receive 1 swagbuck for every dollar you spend.

6. Find gift cards for sale for the online store you are buying your stuff from. For my example, best buy. Gift cards on ebay go for under face value, typically 1 to 5% less. Buy gift cards with the intention of using them as cash, but for less than what you pay for.
CAUTION: never let the price go for over face value. You are guaranteed to get another chance at them. DON'T OVER PAY.
TIP: e-giftcards that can only be redeemed online tend to go for half of their face value. Do not be afraid of them since you will be buying things online.

7. Once you win the auction, pay with paypal, that is linked to your credit card with points or cash back. You will now receive whatever your credit card promotion is. Be sure you also access ebay using the swagbucks approach (step 5) so you can get the 1 SB for every dollar spent.
NOTE: Sometimes swagbucks is a little weird when it comes to getting swagbucks for gift cards. Sometimes I get credited for my purchase, sometimes not. This however works perfectly when buying other things through ebay, so be sure to use the swagbucks link whenever you complete your purchase through ebay.

8. Once your gift card(s) arrive, once again go to swagbucks.com and go to the "SHOP" tab on the navigation bar, but this time find the online store that your gift card(s) are for. Click the link and go to the home page for that store, but receive whatever the promotion is for that store (at the time of writing, best buy was 1%, walmart was 3%, and target was 2%).

9. Complete the transaction by paying with the gift card(s) you bought through eBay, and receive your swagbucks. Shipped to your house or store pick-up, as long as you used the swagbucks link in the shop section, you will receive your swagbucks for your purchase.

This is how I buy all my modern stuff. Unless it's a clearance item at a store that is not available online, I do all my modern shopping with this method. This is how I bought my Wii U, all of my Wii U games (minus pikmin 3), all my amiibo (minus gold mario), and many of my DVDs. The great thing about this is that gift cards generally don't expire. I typically end up with $100 or so dollars in gift cards that I wait to until something comes out. Don't worry about "buying and not using." If you will buy something in the future, you have no worries since gift cards are a liquid asset.

Now with swagbucks as mentioned earlier you can use it to get a $25 paypal gift card ($25 in cash) for 2500 swagbucks. You can also get $5 and $10 gift cards to the stores that you buy from and use them as "over the hurdle" money. One thing I like to get is 1-month of hulu plus. Swagbucks is how I have never payed for hulu plus in my life, and I use hulu plus all the time.
And it's not just shopping. I never type things into the address bar. I always put it into swagbucks search engine and get points that way as well; gmail, google plus, facebook, colexions, all swagbucks searches.

Thank-you for reading. Once again, this string of steps took me time and experimenting to find. Please sign up using my referral link to help compensate for my valuable information. www.swagbucks.com/refer/pokematic

Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.