Searching and Staying

It’s beginning. The season of holidays, family get togethers, gift buying and giving and much more. Today we were planning our next few holidays with the family. We were planning a big Thanksgiving get together with everyone, but it’s been put on hold and my husband’s sister is coming in at Halloween to see us instead.

With all of this coming up, there’s two things of which we’ll be doing a lot—searching and staying. We can do them both and help raise money for needy charities at the same time.

Googling has become part of our vernacular. A couple of weeks ago I told a friend to google how to do something because we couldn’t get together for me to show her how to do it. She said, “Oh yeah, I could do that.” My husband tells me to google and he doesn’t even like that particular search engine.

We do searches every day but few people realize you can earn money for charities simply by using certain search engines.

Lately, I have been using SearchKindly.org. I like it because you can use the Google, Yahoo, or Bing search engines or search Wikipedia. You choose the search engine. Unfortunately, you cannot sign up to support specific charities when you use SearchKindly. In fact, the site doesn’t list the charities it supports at all, which makes me wonder if it’s legitimate.

I am also signed up for GoodSearch.com because I can earn money for my son’s school through it. It actually shows how much has been earned for the school by me and also in total from everyone using the site.

GoodSearch.com has added a bunch more ways to earn money for charities, including playing games, doing surveys, watching TV ads, eating out, shopping online, and trying new offers. It’s become a little charity fund generating center of its own.

Bing Rewards is another search engine that allows you to earn money for charities. I haven’t tried it, but you can earn credits towards rewards by searching with Bing and taking advantage of daily offers. Like GoodSearch, you can choose the charity to which you donate.  

We’ll also be looking for hotels and I’ve found a way to make that pay for charities, too. It’s called Hotels for Hope and it’s given over $200,000 to charities to date. I’ve been a part of that by booking hotels through them.

They weren’t more expensive than when I booked them through any other online booking service either, but $2 a night went to one of six charities, like Livestrong, Boys and Girls clubs, Special Olympics Texas and others.

So, this season, if you’re searching online, choose your search engine wisely. And, if you’re going to visit relatives and need a place to stay, try Hotels for Hope.

God Bless!