Here are some of the sweeps for the week. All of them can be entered daily so make sure to keep checking back for the chance to win more great prices.
Visit Olive Garden for a chance to win a $25 gift card and a trip to Italy.
Circuit City is giving away $1000 gift cards. Register once and each day after just reenter your email.
Old Navy is giving away a $1000. You can enter until July 31st.
Office Depot will allow you to watch the action from the infield at the Sharpie 500.
Make sure to stop over at Subway for your chance to win free movie tickets and other great prizes in their Get Smart promotion. This is the sweeps where I won a free movie ticket and $5 gift card to Subway. I posted about it Here.
Pilgrim’s Pride is giving away a trip to Vegas, $500 gift card, tote bags and other great stuff.
Build your Jelly Belly Dream Bean contest. I haven’t been playing this one daily, but I plan to start soon. I thought you had to design a bean every day but after entering your email address you can click right to the scratch and win game.
Go Green Sweeps presented by Ito En enter for a free bottle of tea, bike, or Prius.
Stop by John Frieda for a chance to win a trip to London.
Win a trip to anywhere in the continental United States with $2,000 spending money from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants You can also win movie tickets, sunglasses, and an Ipod Nano.
Plant your garden at Wish-Bone’s digital garden sweeps. Every day you check back in and water your garden you receive a chance to win a reusable produce bag.
The Stain-Free Home Sweepstakes by Resolve is giving away cleaning services, appliances, and $100 gift cards.
Disney Shopping is giving away more movie tickets, $10 off disneyshopping.com, and a grand prize; a trip for four to a Disney Resort. Stop by the Wall-e’s Wishbox to enter. Thanks to Freebies4mom for sharing the sweeps.
Petfinder.com is hosting the pamper your pet sweeps where you can win free oust or $1000 cash.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Cheap Movie Tickets
Yesterday I mentioned that Matt and I saw Get Smart for half off. How was I able to do this? By entering a sweep I found on Freebies4Mom. When you enter the Get Smart instant win game from Subway you receive the chance to win one of nine great prices. The prizes range from everything including a 1965 Sunbeam Tiger to Vespa Scooters. Some of the more frequent prizes are Frito Lay chips from Subway, one adult movie ticket, or a five dollar gift card to Subway. I’ve been playing for a few days and while we didn’t win a scooter I did end up winning one free adult movie ticket and a five dollar gift card. You can enter up to two codes a day per person and win an unlimited amount of chips but once you win a larger prize your out. As I am now.
When we won the free movie ticket (up to $12) we were able to print the coupon right at home allowing us to use it today. The ticket agent at the theater did look it over once but we had no problem redeeming it. To make it doubly sweet we frequent the cheap theater so we were able to see Get Smart (2 adults) for $4 out of pocket total. I like $4 movie tickets but I like $2 movie tickets even more. All the other theaters in the area are up to almost $9 a pop.
I also won a gift card with another free ticket from Fandango on an Indiana Jones sweeps from Dr.Pepper. Sadly, the promotion has ended. We plan to use it next weekend to see The Happening.
When we won the free movie ticket (up to $12) we were able to print the coupon right at home allowing us to use it today. The ticket agent at the theater did look it over once but we had no problem redeeming it. To make it doubly sweet we frequent the cheap theater so we were able to see Get Smart (2 adults) for $4 out of pocket total. I like $4 movie tickets but I like $2 movie tickets even more. All the other theaters in the area are up to almost $9 a pop.
I also won a gift card with another free ticket from Fandango on an Indiana Jones sweeps from Dr.Pepper. Sadly, the promotion has ended. We plan to use it next weekend to see The Happening.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Get Smart - Movie Review
Matt and I saw Get Smart today. I’m happy to report it looks like our run of bad movies has come to an end. This movie was great, far better than even I hoped. It’s no secret I’m not a huge Steve Carell fan, but he was perfect for this role and Anne Hathaway was just right as well. It’s not easy to match the chemistry between Don Adams and Barbara Feldon.
My one sentence summary: After Control is broken into, Agents 86 and 99 set off to stop the forces of Kaos to save LA, our president, and those politically minded actors.
The movie is obviously based on the television series Get Smart from 1965. The new Get Smart did a good job of maintaining distinctiveness all while making sure to pay just enough homage to the original. They brought back just enough of the memorable characters, phrases, and plot lines. Enough to make you remember why you’re there but not enough to make you regret the ticket purchase.
I loved watching reruns of Get Smart on Nick at Nite as a kid and was able to relive some of that nostalgia in the theater. Makes me want to run out and get all the original seasons on DVD, but I’ll just have to wait till Christmas. Another thing I loved was the lack of sexual scenes, adult comedy, blood, swearing. There are some semi adult comedy scenes but for the most part they are very tactful and most children wouldn’t get them. Unlike some “children” films out there today. Just one of my pet peeves with movies today. Seems like some film makers think they have to throw in as much adult content whenever possible. Hollywood has forgotten that you can make a good film without all of that.
Anyway, if you can head out to see Get Smart while its still in theaters. It will be money well spent, especially if you see it for half off, like we did. I’ll share how tomorrow.
My one sentence summary: After Control is broken into, Agents 86 and 99 set off to stop the forces of Kaos to save LA, our president, and those politically minded actors.
The movie is obviously based on the television series Get Smart from 1965. The new Get Smart did a good job of maintaining distinctiveness all while making sure to pay just enough homage to the original. They brought back just enough of the memorable characters, phrases, and plot lines. Enough to make you remember why you’re there but not enough to make you regret the ticket purchase.
I loved watching reruns of Get Smart on Nick at Nite as a kid and was able to relive some of that nostalgia in the theater. Makes me want to run out and get all the original seasons on DVD, but I’ll just have to wait till Christmas. Another thing I loved was the lack of sexual scenes, adult comedy, blood, swearing. There are some semi adult comedy scenes but for the most part they are very tactful and most children wouldn’t get them. Unlike some “children” films out there today. Just one of my pet peeves with movies today. Seems like some film makers think they have to throw in as much adult content whenever possible. Hollywood has forgotten that you can make a good film without all of that.
Anyway, if you can head out to see Get Smart while its still in theaters. It will be money well spent, especially if you see it for half off, like we did. I’ll share how tomorrow.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The Beach House - James Patterson
See I told you I’d keep posting these as well.
The Beach House by James Patterson and Peter De Jonge is all wet. I’ve never read a Patterson book before but everyone talks him up so when I saw The Beach House at our libraries book sale on three dollar bag day, I decided to give it a try. I tried to post it on paperbackswap.com but there are a few hundred others posted so I decided to read it. Boy do I regret that. It’s not that The Beach House was horrible, it just wasn’t good.
For a crime drama; something I love, I found this book very boring. The only thing that kept me turning pages was the fact the chapters are so short. Most are less than two pages.
I hope his other books are better otherwise I don’t know where his reputation came from. I’m starting to suspect he’s the Steven King of his genre. You know the authors who get so famous people will love anything with their name on it no matter how craptastic it may be. King proved this true when he was published under another name and flopped.
I was also distraught to learn that the books are largely not works from Patterson. Now I have no supporting evidence but my Mother, has informed me that the second person listed on the cover is the real author. She has heard that authors send in their manuscripts to Patterson who edits them and publishes them with his name if they’re worthy. Again, I have no real evidence of this except the fact it sounds believable. This is how rumors get started so remember I warned you this is not researched fact.
I thought De Jonge was listed on the cover because maybe he helped with research or something. It appears all Patterson’s books have secondary authors which makes the claim even more believable. If my Mothers scenario is true then I’ve lost even more respect for Patterson. And either way I won’t be reading another one of his books for some time.
The Beach House by James Patterson and Peter De Jonge is all wet. I’ve never read a Patterson book before but everyone talks him up so when I saw The Beach House at our libraries book sale on three dollar bag day, I decided to give it a try. I tried to post it on paperbackswap.com but there are a few hundred others posted so I decided to read it. Boy do I regret that. It’s not that The Beach House was horrible, it just wasn’t good.
For a crime drama; something I love, I found this book very boring. The only thing that kept me turning pages was the fact the chapters are so short. Most are less than two pages.
I hope his other books are better otherwise I don’t know where his reputation came from. I’m starting to suspect he’s the Steven King of his genre. You know the authors who get so famous people will love anything with their name on it no matter how craptastic it may be. King proved this true when he was published under another name and flopped.
I was also distraught to learn that the books are largely not works from Patterson. Now I have no supporting evidence but my Mother, has informed me that the second person listed on the cover is the real author. She has heard that authors send in their manuscripts to Patterson who edits them and publishes them with his name if they’re worthy. Again, I have no real evidence of this except the fact it sounds believable. This is how rumors get started so remember I warned you this is not researched fact.
I thought De Jonge was listed on the cover because maybe he helped with research or something. It appears all Patterson’s books have secondary authors which makes the claim even more believable. If my Mothers scenario is true then I’ve lost even more respect for Patterson. And either way I won’t be reading another one of his books for some time.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Credit Card update
As of this writing 6/20/08 my credit card has a balance of $2,467.51. It finally went under $3,000, seems like it took forever. Unless something major happens we won’t make my early goal for a June payoff but honestly I’m ok with that. I think seven months to pay off more than $12,000 in debt is still pretty amazing. June has been an expensive month for us, but I’ll have more about that later. Even with the added expenses it looks like we may be able to have the card 100% paid off by the end of July. My calculations show we’ll be about $600 short, but I think we should be able to make it happen, as long as we use some creative thinking.
Then the fun starts.
I’ve spent some time thinking about what we’ll do with all that extra money each month. And I won’t lie there have been moments when big splurges come into mind. I would really like to upgrade our T.V. get some new furniture or even buy that new car everyone is telling me I need. Ultimately, I don’t think a lot will change for us financially. We do plan to increase some of our spending funds like the entertainment and gift money. Mainly I hope things stay the same. Using every penny to pay off our cards has taught us a lot about what we really need and how we spend our money. Even though we’ll have more available money we plan to use it to start an emergency fund, a retirement account and a few other things so I don’t think too much will change for us. In fact I hope we’ll be able to save even more money by some of the things we’ve learned during this process. One thing I’ve learned is that living financially smart is pretty easy. We actually eat better since clipping coupons.
All I know for sure is that I never, ever want to pay off $12,000 in debt again. Especially, when we can’t even remember what that money was spent on.
Then the fun starts.
I’ve spent some time thinking about what we’ll do with all that extra money each month. And I won’t lie there have been moments when big splurges come into mind. I would really like to upgrade our T.V. get some new furniture or even buy that new car everyone is telling me I need. Ultimately, I don’t think a lot will change for us financially. We do plan to increase some of our spending funds like the entertainment and gift money. Mainly I hope things stay the same. Using every penny to pay off our cards has taught us a lot about what we really need and how we spend our money. Even though we’ll have more available money we plan to use it to start an emergency fund, a retirement account and a few other things so I don’t think too much will change for us. In fact I hope we’ll be able to save even more money by some of the things we’ve learned during this process. One thing I’ve learned is that living financially smart is pretty easy. We actually eat better since clipping coupons.
All I know for sure is that I never, ever want to pay off $12,000 in debt again. Especially, when we can’t even remember what that money was spent on.
Monday, June 16, 2008
$$ CVS Money Makers $$
Ok, my third trip to CVS went well… for a newbie. I walked out very happy. I’m no where near as good as the ladies linked to the right, but I’m learning. I think I did quite well. Today at lunch I bought:
1 Colgate toothpaste: $.99
1 CVS Plastic bandages: $1.99
1 CVS Cotton Swabs (500 count): $3.19
2 Sally Hansen Nail pens: $15.98 (7.99 each)
Total before coupons and ecbs: $22.15
::I used::
1 - $4/20 CVS coupon
1 - .99 Colgate
1 - $2 off CVS Beauty product found Here
1 - $3/2 Sally Hansen product found Here
Total: $12.16
ECB’s Used: $10.98 (3.98, 2, 5)
Total after ECB’s: $1.49 (1.18 + .31 cents tax)
ECB’s Earned: $13.99
$10 for Sally Hansen products
$1.99 For bandages
$2.00 for Cotton Swabs
Basically I received $23 in product for $1.49. If you look at it as ECB’s and oop spent compared to ECB’s earned I actually got paid $1.52 to shop at CVS this week. I spent $12.47 in ECB’s and cash but earned $13.99 back in ECB’s.
With my coupon I received the Colgate toothpaste totally free. The bandages were free after I earned the $1.99 ecb I spent back in more ecb’s. The Cotton Swabs were $3.19, I used the $2 coupon and earned $2 in ecb’s so CVS paid me .81 cents to take them off their hands. Not bad for my third trip if I do say so myself. I could get used to all this free stuff.
I couldn’t have done any of it without the following sites. Without these blogs and helpful ladies I would still be paying full price for things. Crazy I know.
Leaving Excess
Mommy Making Money
Money Saving Mom
The “Cent”sible Sawyer
1 Colgate toothpaste: $.99
1 CVS Plastic bandages: $1.99
1 CVS Cotton Swabs (500 count): $3.19
2 Sally Hansen Nail pens: $15.98 (7.99 each)
Total before coupons and ecbs: $22.15
::I used::
1 - $4/20 CVS coupon
1 - .99 Colgate
1 - $2 off CVS Beauty product found Here
1 - $3/2 Sally Hansen product found Here
Total: $12.16
ECB’s Used: $10.98 (3.98, 2, 5)
Total after ECB’s: $1.49 (1.18 + .31 cents tax)
ECB’s Earned: $13.99
$10 for Sally Hansen products
$1.99 For bandages
$2.00 for Cotton Swabs
Basically I received $23 in product for $1.49. If you look at it as ECB’s and oop spent compared to ECB’s earned I actually got paid $1.52 to shop at CVS this week. I spent $12.47 in ECB’s and cash but earned $13.99 back in ECB’s.
With my coupon I received the Colgate toothpaste totally free. The bandages were free after I earned the $1.99 ecb I spent back in more ecb’s. The Cotton Swabs were $3.19, I used the $2 coupon and earned $2 in ecb’s so CVS paid me .81 cents to take them off their hands. Not bad for my third trip if I do say so myself. I could get used to all this free stuff.
I couldn’t have done any of it without the following sites. Without these blogs and helpful ladies I would still be paying full price for things. Crazy I know.
Leaving Excess
Mommy Making Money
Money Saving Mom
The “Cent”sible Sawyer
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Second CVS Trip
My second CVS trip also went so so. Remember though, I’m still learning.
::Today I bought::
1 Tylenol Rapid Release: 4.49
1 Colgate Toothpaste: .99
2 Listerine Smart Rinse: 3.49
2 CVS Sheer bandages: 1.99
1 CVS Cotton Swabs – 625 count: 3.99 (The 500 count boxes were only 3.19 but they were sold out).
Total before coupons: $20.43
::I used::
1 - $2 off CVS beauty product
2 - $1 off Smart Rinse
1 - $1 off any Tylenol
1 - $1.50 off Colgate (reduced to .99)
1 - $4/20 CVS coupon
Total Coupons Used: $9.99
I paid with a $3.00 ECB earned from the Brut last week.
Total After Tax and ECB’s: $8.37 oop
ECB’s Earned: $14.96
Overall I’m ok with how we did. For some reason I wasn’t able to use all my ECB’s from last week so I had a higher oop than I wanted as I was planning on only $3.37 oop. I’m planning on doing maybe one more transaction later in the week.
::Today I bought::
1 Tylenol Rapid Release: 4.49
1 Colgate Toothpaste: .99
2 Listerine Smart Rinse: 3.49
2 CVS Sheer bandages: 1.99
1 CVS Cotton Swabs – 625 count: 3.99 (The 500 count boxes were only 3.19 but they were sold out).
Total before coupons: $20.43
::I used::
1 - $2 off CVS beauty product
2 - $1 off Smart Rinse
1 - $1 off any Tylenol
1 - $1.50 off Colgate (reduced to .99)
1 - $4/20 CVS coupon
Total Coupons Used: $9.99
I paid with a $3.00 ECB earned from the Brut last week.
Total After Tax and ECB’s: $8.37 oop
ECB’s Earned: $14.96
Overall I’m ok with how we did. For some reason I wasn’t able to use all my ECB’s from last week so I had a higher oop than I wanted as I was planning on only $3.37 oop. I’m planning on doing maybe one more transaction later in the week.
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