$5,000 with Duck Tape

You can win $5,000 with the Duck Tape Duck Saves the Day Contest.

A wise man once said, "The one thing people love more than duct tape, is telling their duct tape story"

One grand prize winner will receive $5,000 and a years supply of duck tape. Ten random entries will win $500 and a years supply of duct tape.

You can enter your duck tape saved the day story (250 words) until December 31st. (the website says 2007 but I just received an advertisment on this which said 2008)
In 2007 they had 2,600 people share a story, so really you odds of winning with a creative entry are higher than most contest.

If you enter let me know and we'll highlight some of your great projects. I received none of my Mother's creative talent so I'll be sitting this one out.

Using a clothesline

I found a new blog to enjoy smallnotebook.org. It was like fate because the first day I read her blog it was about electrical use. It really got me thinking and I started to add up our usage for certain products. It’s amazing how things add up.

Visit her post HERE to see the equation. For example using small notebooks equation for our dryer I came up with this:

Our new but very wasteful dryer uses 24 amps
24 X 240 = 5760
/1000=5.76
x .75 = 4.32
x .08 = .345

We have very cheap electrical rates, one of the good things about living in this area. There’s aren’t many advantages so I’ll take what I can get, but even with our cheap rate it still cost us 34 cents each time we run our dryer. That’s $2.07 a week and $107.64 a year!

I figured if we cut out half our loads we’ll save around $54 for the year. It’s not astronomical but it helps.

In order to cut down some of these cost we decided to begin using a clothesline. Here are some of the benefits we’ve experienced (or will) since our experiment began.

• Saving money on electrical cost (of course)
• We’re using our central air less b/c our dryer isn’t raising our temp
• Spending time together while hanging clothes
• Reduces greenhouse gas emissions
• No lint on line dried clothes
• No more static cling
• Our clothes won’t shrink

The clothesline rope cost us $3.50. An investment I can live with.

Running these numbers really motivated me to cut our cost in other places around our house. Check back next week to see how we decided to save money on other items.

All You - August

If you haven’t picked up your August issue of All You at Wal-Mart, do so now… I mean seriously, like right now… run! There are over $40 in coupons and 8 FREE or B1G1 products. These are by far some of the best coupons I’ve seen in an All You, right now I’m holding out on purchasing another this month, but I have a feeling I won’t make it. There are just so many great coupons on products we buy all the time. The extra savings will definitely pay for the $1.97 it cost. Just the Kraft coupons alone really, I’ve got some big plans for those.


Here’s what you’ll find the August issue:

$1.50 on any 32 oz Greased Lightning Cleaning product
$.50 on BUNdinos
$2 on Whole Body Cleanse
$2 on any MiraLAX product
FREE Kraft Singles wyb any 3 Kraft, Nabisco, or Oscar Mayer product
FREE Crystal Light wyb any 3 Kraft, Nabisco, or Oscar Mayer product
FREE Oscar Mayer hot dogs wyb any 3 Kraft, Nabisco, or Oscar Mayer Product
FREE 16 0z Kraft Dressing wyb any 3 Kraft, Nabisco, or Oscar Mayer Product
FREE Nabisco wheat thins crackers wyb any 3 Kraft, Nabisco, or Oscar Mayer Product
$1 on any All Small & Mighty (3x)
$1 on 2 Tyson breaded frozen box or 1 breaded frozen bagged item
$.75 off any 1 Jif to Go
B1G1 Rimmel Colour Rush eye shadow
$1 any Kotex Product
$1 on any Ban (1.5 fl oz) – I love Ban
$.75 on 1 Trident Xtra Care
$2 on any 1 Abaya or Hydrolage hair care product
$3 wyb 2 Neutrogena cosmetics products
$1 Orville Redenbacher 100 calorie mini smart cakes
$3 on any Visine product (1/2 fl oz)
$1 off any Emerald Breakfast on the Go! 6 pouch carton
$1 off any Nature Made liquid soft gel
B1G1 Giant Chewy nerds (1.8oz)
$1 any size Peter Pan peanut Butter
$1 on any 2 Kid Cuisine
$1 on Splenda No cal sweetener mini
$.75 on any Dole Fruit Bowls
$.50 on any 6 count package White Castle Microwavable Hamburgers
$1 on Kelloggs Frosted Miniwheats Blueberry muffin
$1 off any one Far Rich product
$.55 off one Uncrustables
$.55 wyb 2 Sunny D chilled products
$1 on 2 TGI Friday’s frozen Snacks
$1 off 2 Del Monte Fruit Chillers
$1 off TGI Fridays Complete Skillet meals
$1 on 4 Boston Market Frozen Entrees
FREE Weight Watchers Smart One’s Desert wyb any 5 WWSO Products
$1 wyb 2 Ore-Ida frozen potatoes
$2.50 on any Biz Product
$1 on 1 Spot Shot instant carpet stain & odor eliminator
$1 on Glade Fabric & air odor eliminator
$1 on any 2000 flushes automatic toilet bowl cleaner

Wal- Mart 7/28

I have a TON of coupons expiring at the end of July (as I’m sure most of us do) so I headed over to Wal-mart to see what deals I could find. I was a little disappointed because I couldn’t find any of the free Gillette 2 in 1 body washes, but other than that I think we did quite well. I’m still no where near as good as some, but I’m learning.



::Purchased::

2 Bic Pens (.88 each) = $1.76
- $1 wyb any 2 Bic Stationary products
Febreze Room freshener = $3.97
Febreze Air Effects = $2.66
- $2.66 wyb 1 Room Freshner G1 Air Effects
V8 – V Fusion = $2.98
-$2 on any V8 – V Fusion
8 Iams canned Cat food (.33 each) = $2.64
- $1 wyb 4 Iams cans (2)
2 Gillette Shave gel (.97 each) = $1.94
-$1 off Gillette Shave gel (2)
Freshmatic Mini = $5
$4 off any Freshmatic mini
Kotex 14 count = $1
-$1 any Kotex product
4 Herbal Essences (trial size .97 each) = $3.88
-$3 wyb 2 (2)
Tampax Pearl 18 count = $3.96
-$1 off any Tampax
Neosporin = $4.67
- $1 off any Neosporin product

::Non Coupon purchases::
All You = $1.77
Pink Lemonade = $2.50
Conditioner = $1.46
Ibuprofen (2 bottle count) = $4

We spent a total of $21.53 (before tax) and received $44.19 in merchandise. That’s a 49% savings! I also received $2.18 in overage and some great coupons in the new All You.

Weekly Sweeps 7/28

Here are some of the sweeps for the week. Most of them can be entered daily so make sure to keep checking back for the chance to win more great prices.


Instant Wins
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. Play until August 31st.

National Treasure 2 Sweepstakes You can enter once a day until September 30th.

Go Green Sweeps presented by Ito En enter for a free bottle of tea, bike, or Prius. Enter until September 1st.

Johnson’s is giving away $5,000 for an adventure of your choice. Best of all the instant win game is a version on Plinko. Enter once a day until September 30th.

Clean up spills at the Scott Towels Leave Nothing Behind Sweepstakes and instant win. You can win a years supply of paper towels or gift cards for different amounts. Until September 30th

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. Ends August 10th.

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. Play every day until August 4th.

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.

Head on over to the SprayChel, campaign for president sweepstakes for your chance to win the presidents salary or $15 Target Gift card. (35 per day). Play five times per day until July 27th. You can also print 50 cent off coupons for I can’t Believe its not butter. I won a $15 Target gift card!

Lipton’s instant win is giving away gift cards. Best of all you can win up to TEN instant win prizes until August 24th.

Stop by the General Mills Batman sweeps for a chance to win a $5000 gift card, more common prizes are baseball hats, and backpacks. Enter once a day until August 31st for instant win games. You can also send in 10 UPC’s from participating General Mills products and get 2 free movie tickets to see Batman: “The Dark Knight”

Os-Cal’s giving away $58,000 to one grand prize winner and two $29 dollar gift cards to one winner every day. Play until September 29th.

Oreo Double Stuff is giving away 2,000 instant win prizes until December 1st.

Totino’s is giving away 2,100 movie tickets to The Dark Knight until December 31st.

Colgate is giving away vacations and instant wins until September 30th.

Red Robin is giving away a thousand $10 gift cards in their instant win game. You can enter every day until October 14th.


Just Plain Sweeps
Circuit City is giving away different prizes. Register once and each day after just reenter your email.

Old Navy is giving away a $1000. You can enter until July 31st.

Pilgrim’s Pride is giving away a trip to Vegas, $500 gift card, tote bags and other great stuff. Register until October.

The Stain-Free Home Sweepstakes by Resolve is giving away cleaning services, appliances, and $100 gift cards. Enter until October 1st.

Lots of sweeps are happening at Woman’s Day Magazine. Most of them you can enter once a day and end June 30th. Thanks to Recritique.com for leading me to this great find.

Hellmann’s is giving away $20.000 in the ultimate backyward BBW. They are also giving away weekly and daily prizes until September 2nd.


One time Entry
MGM is giving away five copies of War Games. You can only enter once.

MLB.com and One a Day Sweepstakes
Enter for a chance to win a trip for two to a game of the 2008 MLB World Series Championship or $5,000 cash. Sweepstakes ends 10/1/2008

Disapointing Weekly Sales

Sorry I haven't been around since Thursday, I've worked the last 7 days in a row and only have 11 more to go... yeah I'm pretty tired and cranky. My postings may be a little scarce during this time. I've got a pretty busy next few weeks, August 16th will be my next free day.

And is it just me or is this week a real let down in the shopping department?
I haven't been to CVS in what feels like forever, but I've got some ecb's that are going to expire so I'll have to whip something up.

Right now I'm planning to skip Kroger and Meijer this week. I do however, plan to make a run to Wal-mart to use up some of those coupons expiring at the end of the month. We'll see how it goes I've heard some horrible stories about them scanning coupons incorrectly. I'll update everyone with what I come out with.

So anyway, that's the skinny on my life right now. I'll try my best to get my July spending post out by the weekend as well... but don't hold me to it.

Saving Energy & Money

I love reading other blogs especially from those that can help me reach my goal of financial freedom. It really is amazing how many things you can do to save money. Most take little to no work at all. Pretty much everything we’ve done so far we don’t even notice.

I want to start using a part of this blog to share some of the things we’re trying to help us save money. It’s interesting how much I’ve come to enjoy things I used to fear with a passion. I actually like clipping coupons and I find every time I walk through the house I am coming up with new ideas of how to save money. It’s become a game to me; and my checkbook enjoys when I win.

I’ve only been doing this for about two months and we’re already eating better and getting free products. Thanks to some great sites (look to the right) I’ve gotten two free movie tickets, $5 Subway cards, $5 Kroger card, a $15 Target card and lots of free samples. That’s $25 in just gift cards not including the cost of the other free products or my savings from CVS. I feel more stable since we started saving, less stressed about money and best of all we’ll be debt free soon.

Anyway, I hope to post at least one item a week on what we’re doing to save money around the house. I would also like to start tracking our energy use from month to month, but I can’t promise anything yet.

Until then check out these other articles on how to save money around your own home

101 Easy Ways to save

How to Save Energy around the House