Money Matters

Don't miss your chance to get a FREE Olay Quench Body Lotion! Print your rebate form from here. You have to purchase the lotion by April 16th and mail in the rebate form by April 30th.

Frugal giving--sound like an oxymoron to you? This is one of my favorite advantages from our Budget! We have a category for "Benevolence Giving" that allows us to give above and beyond our tithe as we see fit. We've been able to give to people going on mission trips,  to traveling missionaries, and to many other people/projects without feeling financially strained to do so. Of course, if we want, we can give even more than we have budgeted in this category. Add this section to your budget and enjoy the blessing of care-free giving!

Completely Free Food!!

Take a minute to go to bargainbanana or beauty4moms and browse the list of restaurants that give you free food for your birthday. The ladies on these sites give you direct links to each restaurant or store and tell you what you will receive. I have received so many free things for my birthday that I couldn't even use them all!

After visiting these sites, let us know if they missed any other great birthday treats!

You are invited to The WILDS for our upcoming Ladies' Retreats on March 12-13 and April 16-17, 2010. I will be speaking on Managing Your Money in the Saturday afternoon workshop in the Fremont Chapel from 2:15-3:15 p.m. You can download a copy of the outline here or request the CD/mp3 from the workshop here. Hope to see you there!

Help us build a list of great money saving sites that highlight stores in your area. Be sure to give the name of your favorite website and the city/state in which you live. Here are two to get us started.

• Tracy; Armada, MI; http://www.macombmoneysavers.com/
• Holly; Schaumburg, IL; http://www.coupongeek.net/
• Christy; Deering, NH; http://www.wickedcooldeals.com/
• http://www.frugallivingandhavingfun.com/

Photos

• Consider using Shutterfly or Snapfish. Both have great quality prints. If you are a Costco member, you can get great quality prints as well. You can e-mail your pictures to Costco and pick them up in an hour. They are cheaper than Walmart and are a better product.
• Watch for specials from Walgreens as they offer occasional collage prints or 4x6 prints for free! Places like Southernsavers and MoneySavingMom will alert you to specials from all of these photo websites and more.

Scrapbooking

• Visit Photoshop and search “products.” If you look at “elements” you can download a free version and get ideas on how to create digital scrapbooks.
• Places like Costco, Sams, and Walmart will print a 12x12 page picture for $1.25 each. Depending on how much you typically spend on paper and embellishments, this could be a significant savings.
• There are a lot of free sites where you can find papers and digital creations. Try Digifree!

I created this Excel document after we were first married so I could easily track grocery prices until I had determined what the best average price was for each item we frequently bought. You can personalize the document by entering in the names of the groceries you buy most frequently and then printing it out for easy record keeping. I simply recorded the best price on each item every week from the various store circulars in our area.

I created a seperate list for other items that we frequently bought at Walmart. It helped me to determine whether or not another store was having a better sale or if I was really getting it cheaper at the drugstore with my coupons.

Once you've determined a good price for each of these items, whether grocery or toiletry, you should record them on this list created by Jenny at southernsavers. You can then carry this list with you as you shop thus being confident that you are getting a good deal. Follow this link to view Jenny's personal list of best prices.

Here are a few suggestions for online shopping.

• Search on e-bay, Craigslist, Freecycle, and Amazon to compare prices before making a purchase.
• Always try to use a cash-back site like shopathome.
• Use sites like retailmenot to find coupons or free shipping codes.
• Google things like, “Oil of Olay rebate” or “free shipping code for Toys R Us” and see what sites come up.
• Start using swagbucks by following the link on this blog. (It’s a search engine like Google.) *See note below about Bing.
• Use alice for a cheap way to have items delivered to your door.
• Try looking for your makeup online. I get my favorite Clinique lipstick for at least half the price from e-bay.
• If you are considering purchasing something from an unfamiliar site or company try Googling that product name with the word "scam." Don't ever purchase anything from Celebrity Smile!!! (Can you tell I learned a hard lesson?).
• Find out if your credit card or debit card provider offers a one-time-use number for online purchases.

For a more thorough list of ideas and suggestions, follow this link to MoneySavingMom. 


A friend of mine also wanted to share what she has learned about the Microsoft Search Engine--Bing. She said the following:

• An AMAZING thing we’ve discovered is that the Microsoft Search Engine is trying to get more people to use it over Google, so they’re basically paying people simply to search for products through them. So, if you do your e-bay search through the Microsoft Search Engine, they will subtract a certain percentage off of your final order. We got $160 off of our upcoming Disney vacation, just b/c we searched for it through the Microsoft browser!! The percentages change everyday, so watch it and try to buy your item when it gets high. We’ve seen it get as high as 14% off your entire purchase, but some days the discount will not be there at all. (It varies depending on how many people are using it). The average percentage off between 8-10%--but that can help tremendously!! I'm not sure how long it will last, but it can save you a lot of money!