Amazon Gift Card on the Cheap!

There is an awesome deal on Living Social today. You can get a $20 Amazon Gift Card for $10!!!

Wordless Wednesday - OOPS

Saving Money Creatively

As you might already know, I am a value whore! In my effort to become even more slutty than usual, I have decided to start saving for a goal.

I want to do something special for Big Chocolate. Something that I did on my own. Not something that I use the money HE earns to do for him. But something from ME. Not really sure what it will be yet, but I want to do SOMETHING Special for the guy that does EVERYTHING special for me.

It’s not really what I’m saving for that matters, it’s how I am doing it and the level of focus I am applying to it. You see, I teach one class and bring in a whopping $800 a month doing it. I help Big Chocolate at the office, which saves us the cost of an employee, but doesn’t really bring anything in. Really when it comes to me personally saving money for something that “I” paid for I am going to have to get very creative.

So here is my plan and don’t laugh at me!!! I am going to maximize all of my points/rebates/Swagbucks. I am going to do it with reckless abandon.

Here are some of the ways I have already saved this month:

Swagbucks - $25 in Amazon gift cards.

Chase Debit Card Rewards – I have already cashed out $65 cash in rewards this year. I had some points carry over from last year, but I have cashed out $125 in the first 3 months with Chase, so I am thinking that I should be able to hit $400 by the end of the year.

Ebates- Order all of my stuff online through Ebates. $5 from a $500 purchase for the office. I’ve got to be better with this one. I forgot to order my OFFICE Max stuff through them and really missed out!

Misc. Store Rewards Programs – Best Buy, Staples, Office Max etc.: $160

Mystery Shopping: $55 reimbursement for shopping a restaurant!

TOTAL: $310

The secret is combining the point earning opportunities:

Buying Groupons through SwagBucks nets you 280 points each time which is about $3. Paying for it with my Debit Card earns me points.

I made a $500 purchase for the office this weekend. I bought through Ebates ($5) I used my Best Buy Rewards ($10) and I used my Debit Card ($5).

When I am earning gift cards or store credits, I am going to use them to buy things I need for the office or home and will reimburse myself into the account I am tucking the money away into.

Not Me Monday - Running Water is Not that Important!

Life has NOT been insane around here! Despite the fact that I actually had money in the bank, I did NOT forget to pay the water bill. The nice people at the city did NOT call to remind me AFTER it was turned off.

I did Not promptly pay the bill and have them come out the same afternoon. My children were NOT home alone when they came by to turn the water back on. My oh so well behaved 13 year-old did NOT slow-mo flip the guy off with his ring fingers while acting like he was in the movie the Matrix because he thought it was funny. He did NOT learn that move from Big Chocolate.

The dial on the meter was NOT spinning because we had been responsible home owners and left the faucets dripping so the pipes didn't freeze. This (and the flipping off I'm sure) did NOT prevent the water dude from turning the water back on.

This did NOT provide Big Chocolate the opportunity to repair the faucets in the two upstairs showers that have NOT had only cold water for a year and a half because Big Chocolate was NOT unable to figure out how to turn off the water. I am NOT a genius!!

We did NOT have to wait until 4PM the next day for the water dude to come back a second time! Big Chocolate did NOT Bitch for 23 hours straight!

You Tube

Yeah - I'm way behind on the blogging again. I admit it, I suck. Here are some higlights from the last month of my life:

Thanksgiving Marshmallow Eating Contest:



Half Assed 12 Days of Christmas performace - I swear this is even funnier than the marshmallow eating contest. The video quality sucks. I appologize and suggest that you get drunk prior to watching it. I found that made me not mind the grainyness of the video and brought everything back into focus.

At about 1:58, the very loose wheels finally fly off.

My Mom and Facebook

So my mom signed up for facebook about a week ago and I have already received my first phone call asking me "What's Shiz?" and telling me it wasn't very nice to say that my son was given #2 on his basketball jersey because, "He's the shiz." Then I had to explain the being "the shit" was actually a good thing. LOL

Not Me Monday - It's NOT Tuesday

This past week has NOT yielded weeks worth of NOT Me Monday Material.

For Starters, I did NOT tell my son that he had to TRY to get a 70 in GT English. He did NOT respond by saying, "Mom, you have no idea how hard you have to work to double your grade in less than a week."

I do NOT give up.