23 Things You Don't Need (All You)

I love All You magazine. It's the best coupon mag out there, and they always have great little articles (and e-articles) about saving time and money, along with recipes and cute ideas for home. (If you ever see a deal online for a year's subscription at a discount, grab it up; you'll thank me later.)

Today's e-mail feature article is "23 Household Products You Don't Need to Buy." It's a list of other uses for common household items that you can use instead of buying other one-purpose products. It's really interesting and worth the few minutes it takes to scroll through. Did you know you can rub out scuff marks with a banana peel?! Pretty cool. Check it out!

Awesome article - 26 ways to get stuff free!

My favorite coupon mag, All You, has an excellent article online about 26 ways to get things free and cut costs in your daily life. There are some great tips here--some new even to me! Check it out!

Free 1000 Minutes w/ AT&T

I saw this on Southern Savers and had to post it here; if this is good for all AT&T accounts, my summer camp budget will $100 better off. 


If you are an AT&T user, text "yes" to 11113020. You should receive a confirmation text that 1000 free rollover minutes will be added to your account within 4 weeks, after verifying account eligibility.


I use Verizon for my personal cell, but my summer camp line is an AT&T GoPhone. We refill our minutes every year (and thus renew our number) by purchasing 1000 minutes for $100. If this deal is good for GoPhones (which, according to some forums I read, it has been for some), the higher-ups that review my budget are going to be quite happy. :)

A free book for my teenybopper heart

Despite what started off as a rough week, I've begun today on a happy note. I got a free book!

There's a by-invitation survey group called E-Rewards (which I wrote about, along with many other survey sites, in this post) that I have mixed feelings about. I get at least one survey invite a day from E-Rewards, and most yield several dollars per survey. However, the rewards are kind of disappointing for me. Most of the rewards fall into one of two categories--coupons (e.g. $15 off a $30 purchase at eBags or Omaha Steaks, where you also have to pay an arm/leg for shipping) and frequent flyer miles (which I have virtually no use for since I rarely travel). And to top it off, you can only redeem one reward of its kind in a calendar year. So when I do find a good reward and snatch it up, I can't get it again until the following January.

This January, I redeemed $15 of my accumulated $40ish rewards for $15 in Borders Bucks. I think I've been in an actual Borders store maybe once in my life (there's not one near me), but the website occasionally offers good deals. And, really, $15 off books (no minimum purchase) is more valuable to me than $15 off $30 worth of mail-order steaks. I redeemed my $BB in January, and the amount was put into my account for redemption in February. I marked my calendar for the first of the month (today!) to remind myself to redeem the $BB as soon as I could. Then this morning, after I saw my reminder, I checked my email and found a coupon code for free shipping valid this week at Borders.com as well. Add that bit of happiness to Borders' 46% off price for a book I've been wanting, I got my book for zilch out of pocket and have about $5 left to spend on my next purchase. Happy February to me!

If you wondered what book I ordered... well, you probably didn't, but I'm going to share that part, too. ;)

The House of Night series by P.C. & Kristin Cast came into my life a couple of years ago on the coattails of the Twilight Saga. (Yes, I'm a Twi-hard. Don't hate.) While House of Night doesn't hold a candle to Twilight (and is truly nothing like it other than the inclusion of vampires), it's interesting, intriguing, and indulgent reading for fans of light vamp literature. I have to admit--I kind of hate myself for loving House of Night for its annoying teenybopper-ness...  yet, for some odd reason, I found myself oddly drawn into the series from book one. It's different from my normal reading material. Disclaimer: the series contains some material/language that is included for no other reason than to push it into the "older teen reader" category. If you can ignore that, it makes for interesting reading. The eighth book in the series, Awakened, was just released in January--that was my free book. (The ninth, Destined, is rumored to come out this November. Apparently there's also a movie project in the works.)

Get Paid to Click - CrownGPT

I participated in the CrownGPT program about a year ago, then it went into something of a hibernation period, so to speak; apparently members were not holding up their end of the bargain on the paid-to-click front. I'm happy to report that it's back up and running! Like other paid-to-click programs, this is a really easy way to make money. Sign up with CrownGPT, then verify your account and make sure you're signed up for Daily Emails. Each day, you'll receive an email. You'll need to do 4 things with each daily email:
1) Click the banner or "click here" link within the email.
2) Click one sponsored link on the website you're taken to by the first link. (Check out anything you're interested in on the next page--I normally click a link there for good measure.)
3) Go back to the email and click "Click here to receive credit."
4) You'll be taken to the CrownGPT homepage where you'll have to prove you're not a robot by reading the letters in one of those "captcha" things and choosing the correct letter sequence from a drop-down box.

It takes less than a minute to do this, and it earns 20 cents. The minimum cashout is $5 and can be done through PayPal, check, or AlertPay. Take that one minute a day and in less than a month, you'll be $5 richer than you were before! Increase your earnings by referring friends; you get 15% of your referrals' earnings (and 5% of their referrals' earnings). CrownGPT also has other paid offers, normally surveys that redirect to other survey sites you're probably already affiliated with if you do surveys, or those "complete 5 offers and win an iPad!" kinds of things where you end up paying out of pocket; I leave those alone and stick to the emails. Give it a shot for some spare cash. You'll be surprised how quickly you can cashout!

Bright Ideas --> Looxsy

I've posted a few times about my favorite online community, Bright Ideas. I've enjoyed being a member of the community (and my husband has enjoyed the monthly $10 Amazon gift cards I've gotten in exchange for my participation!) for about a year now.


Yesterday I received the following email:

Dear Bright Ideas Community Member,

Thank you so much for your participation and involvement in the Bright Ideas Community.  In keeping with our standard practice, we routinely refresh our community members and recruit new individuals to participate.  This process also requires that we remove some of our current members to make room for a new database of participants.  Your account is one that has been selected to be removed as part of this process.  We sincerely appreciate your time and effort in making this online community a success.  The feedback and insights you provide are invaluable.

At this time, we would like to invite you to join another community.

Thank you for your interest in Looxsy Community – a place where women of all ages come to share their thoughts about:

• Current beauty and fashion trends
• Products and services you currently use
• Ideas and concepts for the future!

Leading corporations come here to listen to what you have to say about products/services available today and to find out what you think about ideas they have for the future. 

Registered members of Looxsy will receive a range of different incentives for participating in this online community. Some examples of our incentives are free samples, coupons, or even gift cards.

If this sounds like something you would be interested in, please click on the link to begin the survey.

Thank you!

So... I'm considerably disappointed that I've been booted from Bright Ideas; however, I'm excited about Looxsy. After looking at their respective websites, I realized that both communities are actually run by the same market research group, LiveBranch. The biggest difference so far seems to be that Bright Ideas was home-oriented while Looxsy is fashion-oriented. I'm okay with that. I hope I'll still get Amazon cards, though! ;) I found a "join now" link on the Looxsy site if anyone else is interested in checking it out.

Try it.

DQ's treasure--I mean Blizzard--of the month...

Go get one. Srsly. And also, join the Blizzard fan club for a bimonthly-or-so BOGO coupon.

Bright Ideas Online Community - Join Now!

I can't believe I have neglected this blog the entire summer! I direct a summer camp, so that's why--it takes over my life from June until August, and then school starts back, and I teach... so September is when life calms down. I essentially took the summer off from crazy-saving, limiting my cooking to easy things I had already stocked up on (like pasta) and my purchasing to, well, Costco and fast food. I experienced what they call "coupon burnout" after several months of trying to grab every deal every week. With camp over and school finally getting settled in (on a different schedule than last year--I'm traveling between two schools each day now, yikes), I'm back into the swing of regular shopping trips, but I have seen the stress "too much saving" can cause, so I'm moderating. Just a couple stores a week, and I'm set with the things I need.

Now, the reason I chose to post today... I'm excited to share this!

Way back when, I wrote a post about the Bright Ideas Community. This is my favorite community by far. It's forum-based, and I find the topics quite interesting. It asks members for input on anything around the home--products, concepts, stores, recipes, projects, pets, deals, you name it. I have even received coupons for free products through Bright Ideas--and don't we all love free stuff? But here's the cool part--members who post at least once a month get paid $10 (either an Amazon gift code, or a Paypal payment). You can answer one simple question during the month and get your $10 at the beginning of the next month. I love this--my husband is obsessed with books, so I just send him all my Amazon codes.

I don't even remember how I got hooked up with Bright Ideas, but I wanted to tell everyone about it as soon as I joined. However, they weren't accepting new members... until now! New members have to be referred, but there is no referral link. So if you are reading this and you'd like to give just a little home-related input for $10/month, send me an email (to jnoshields@gmail.com) with your name and age (over 18 only), and I can send it along to Rikki, my moderator, who will then contact you about joining the community. Feel free to pass this on to anyone you think would enjoy the community as well!

Free Chick-Fil-A Spicy Chicken Sandwich

It has been far too long since my last post. Chalk that up to my job as a teacher and the fact that it is May. The entire month is utter insanity.


I've not been doing a lot of crazy-saving lately, though I can certainly say there are many things I haven't had to shop for in quite a while, thanks to stocking up when things were on sale. It pays off.


I wanted to pass this along while it's still good. Chick-Fil-A (one of my favorite fast-food restaurants) is coming out with a new spicy chicken sandwich, and you can reserve one free to try during its first week. 





Each restaurant is allotted a certain number of sandwiches to be reserved. Choose your local restaurant and fill in your contact info, and a link to a coupon will be emailed to you. You also have to choose the day and time frame you would like to redeem your coupon. I'm looking forward to trying this--and it's free, so it makes it that much better!

Free sample of new Pantene solution of your choice (VocalPoint)

VocalPoint is a site I blog about often. It's just awesome, and you should sign up if you haven't already. And that's not me fishing for referral points, because there's no referral program--you just need to sign up and start getting lots of fun freebies.


VocalPoint freebie of the moment:

Choose a "Mr. Right" for your hair--fine, curly, color, or medium-thick--and receive a sample. VocalPoint samples are normally full-size, so I'll be interested to see if this one is as well (or just a sample size). Either way, it's free, and it's a great way to try a new product! Remember, you have to be a VocalPoint member to get it, so join now!

Freebie: CVS Body Wash or Cookie Dough Bites

Print this coupon and take it to CVS this Saturday or Sunday for a free Moisturizing Body Wash or theater-box of Cookie Dough Bites (either fudge brownie or chocolate chip flavor). I know where I'm stopping on my way out this morning!!! (I'm in a wedding today, and I think cookie dough bites would be a logical addition to my Bridal Emergency Kit.)

Free Cone at Ben & Jerry's on Tuesday, 3/23

Check the link for a participating store near you. (There's even a handy checkbox for showing only stores that participate in Free Cone Day!)

Free Rita's Italian Ice Sat. 3/20

Happy Spring Equinox from Rita's!

Drop by any Rita's Italian Ice this Saturday and receive a free regular size Italian ice. Find a location near you. I also noticed they will have a new flavor starting on the 20th...

If I had a Rita's near me, I think it would be dangerous for my health! I will, however, be traveling to Charlotte with a friend on the giveaway day, and there are two locations in Charlotte... : )

Free Pastry with Starbucks Coffee Purchase Monday 3/23

Print the coupon above and take it to your local Starbucks between opening and 10:30am on Monday, March 23, for a free pastry item with the purchase of a beverage.

Can't see the coupon? Go here.

Free Dunkin Coffee on Mondays in March

 
Head to your local Dunkin Donuts for a free medium hot or iced coffee each of the remaining Mondays in March! Make sure yours is a participating location before getting your hopes set on this one. I'm going by the Spartanburg location after work to grab one. It's a nice pick-me-up for Mondays!

Free Medium Tots at Sonic

Head to Sonic for free medium tots with the purchase of any "Supersonic" cheeseburger (that's a double cheeseburger for those who, like me, had no idea what that meant). Looks like this is just for the month of March.

I can't help but have a Napoleon Dynamite moment here... "Napoleon, gimme some of your tots!" "No! Go find your own!" : )

Free Fekkai Glossing Cream

When I worked at Bath & Body Works last year and the year before, I heard so many great things about Frederic Fekkai hair care, particularly the glossing cream. I never bought any because it is so stinking expensive! However, I just received a sample in the mail today thanks to Walmart.com--a favorite of mine for freebies.

Click for a packet of this popular glossing cream. Having just received mine, I can say with confidence that it's legit!

Free Book for Bronte Fans

Jenny at Southern Savers posted this, and I have to pass it along. Click here and enter your info asap for a free copy of Romancing Miss Bronte from Random House. As a die-hard Jane Eyre fan, I'm uber-interested in all things Bronte-related, so I'm looking forward to receiving my copy. There is a limited quantity, so enter soon if you're interested!

Free Emergen-C Recipe Kit (and samples)

I'm a first-year teacher, so I get sick a lot. When I discovered free sampling, I hoarded all the immunity-boosting products I could, including some Emergen-C. Now I'm out, and I grabbed a good deal on Ester-C tablets last week (when Walgreens did B1G1 and I had two coupons), but I do still like the happy effervescence of Emergen-C. So when I visited MySavings this morning and found a new Emergen-C offer, I was quite content.

Yes, I said from the get-go that I wasn't planning to regurgitate all MySavings' offers here, but the ones I find exceptionally attractive, I want to pass on. This one is cute; there are 4 drink concoctions made from various flavors of Emergen-C, and you choose one to receive sample packets so you can make it at home. The options are BLUE-tini (berry blue and mixed berry), Pucker Up Parfait (raspberry and lemon-lime packets, mixed with what looks like yogurt), Pretty in Pink Hot Tea (a raspberry packet and one of the new pink grapefruit "for the cure"), and Maui Wowee (super orange and tropical). I'm looking forward to my Maui Wowee! The signup form is funny, too; someone had fun adding in little comments to keep it from being boring like every other sample signup. (One per household and per email address; since I received samples from Emergen-C before, I had to use my work email and address.)

Free Movie Rentals with Redbox and Blockbuster Express

I don't rent movies anymore, but I keep seeing this information around, and it looks like a great deal for those that do rent. I tend to see free rental codes posted in different places (and they usually pop up on MySavings eventually), so I decided to do my own bit of research and find some good blog links that will include every new code in one place. Here they are. Click your preferred rental kiosk and find a quality blog to bookmark for free codes (and new release info) whenever they're available.