Tag Archives: ELBC

Introducing My Other Half

Over the next few months, my wife, Sarah, is going to write some entries about saving money. She does a great job shopping sales and using coupons while not being fanatical about it. This is stuff that would work for a single person or someone planning for an entire household. She will be happy to answer any questions that you may have about stores, shopping, coupon policies, internet coupons, etc. This is just another way to save a little here and there, adding up to a lot over time.

Several months ago, Walmart was running a set of commercials encouraging the viewer to compare his normal grocery bill with a similar shopping trip to Walmart. Sarah was pretty sure that her method of shopping was superior, so she took the challenge. After confirming that her savvy skills were saving us tons of money she wrote her story and sent it in to Harris Teeter. They decided it was interesting enough and made a commercial out of it.

Oh yeah, and Harris Teeter rewarded Sarah's money-saving skills and store loyalty with free groceries. It got us an extra 8 weeks of savings!

iRazoo

iRazoo is a lot like the Swagbucks program. You get points for completing Offers, using Coupons, playing Games, watching Videos, and so on. You even get points just for going to the Offers and Video pages.

The fastest way to get points is to watch videos. Each video is worth one point, with no daily limit, and you can rewatch the same video. Here's a short one to get you started.

All the gift cards are (600p/$1), generally in increments of $5.

Through 2012-12-31

1 $25 Amazon Gift Card
Total: $25

2012 Cumulative
$96.13

Overall Cumulative:
$96.13

Swagbucks

Along the same lines as using Bing Rewards, you can add SwagBucks to your repertoire. Though not as automatic as Bing at awarding credits it's still fairly simple. Occasionally a search will net a few 'swagbucks'. They also provide daily bonus ways to get bucks, from watching a videos to looking for secret codes on the Facebook page or playing games. If you keep an eye on your Inbox you'll find a couple 2SB videos to watch each day. Watching Videos is the most predictable way to get points. You get 3SB for each 10 videos you watch, or at least the first ~45 seconds worth. There is a limit of 150SB a day for videos.

There is a much wider variety of stuff to redeem the bucks for. There are lots of gift cards for all the places you would expect and sweepstakes to enter, as well as more physical things like stickers, bottle openers, DVDs to electronics and jewelry if you're willing to save that long.

I haven't been very consistent in using SwagBucks. Even still, I've earned 5 $5 Amazon gift cards this year. If you want money to spend like I do, I recommend getting the $5 Amazon gift cards. At 450SB / $5 (90SB/$1) it's the best deal. Normal gift cards are 500SB / $5 (100SB/$1). You are limited to 5 of each particular reward per month. That's OK for me since I don't rack them up any faster than that.

2012-12-22
5 $5 Amazon Gift Card
Total: $25.00

2012 Cumulative
$71.11

Overall Cumulative:
$71.11

ELBC, Part 6

I was beginning to think I would get out of South Korea without finding and loose change. I think there is generally someone cleaning and that's why I wasn't able to find any.

2012-12-15
1 cents
1 Korean ₩100 ≈ $0.10
Total: $0.11

2012 Cumulative
$45.99

Overall Cumulative:
$0.89 Loose Change
1 Korean ₩100 ≈ $0.10

Grand Total
$45.99