July 2nd, 2009 | Posted in Online Survey Review
I have been doing online survey’s for almost 2 years now. I have always been a big fan of Pinecone and have rated them as my favorite online survey company. I really enjoyed Pinecone because they would pay me a lot and send me samples every now and then. I was being paid $5 a survey until they reduced that to $3 a survey. Recently I have received less and less invitations for paid surveys from them.
As a result of that, I’ve rethought my favorite online survey company. Another online survey company has taken the number one spot. That company is SurveySpot.com. If you are looking for an overall great online survey company, look no further than SurveySpot. They send between 10-20 invitations a day, but not all of them are paid. The paid ones though range from $1-$10 on average. My best tip for you is that SurveySpot will tell you in the subject field of the E-mail whether it is paid or not, and how much they are paying. You will have to qualify for the surveys, but I have found that I qualify for enough of them. They pay out after you earn $5 which is pretty small. I have cashed out 5 times and made over $50 with them and they pay pretty quickly. Their website says that next month they will be offering PayPal, which is even better!
You can sign up for SurveySpot here.
–Frugal Husband
June 25th, 2009 | Posted in Uncategorized
Every frugal person knows that grocery store can be a dangerous place. Inflation has increased the prices of even the most basic items (milk, bread, and cheese). You can use coupons, but even that has become harder since some stores such as Ralphs/Kroger and Vons/Safeway have changed their coupon policy. On top of that sales are much harder to come by, and the reality is that you have to eat. So what can you do?
What makes a frugal person from a really frugal person at the grocery store….not being brand loyal. I believe that you can save so much money if you are willing to be flexible with what you eat. My wife only buys those things that she has coupons for or items that are on sale. On top of that, we buy a lot of “store brand” products and have actually liked those better than the “name brand.” My thought is that the “name brand” companies spend so much money on the color packaging where the “store brands” focus on quality!
Some people will not give up their favorite “brands” but I found that exploring different brands not only saves money, but allows me to taste new items that I may never had tried before. And some of those new items become new favorites. Save money and enjoy my food, that’s the way to the frugal husbands heart!
–Frugal Husband
June 21st, 2009 | Posted in CVS Deals
Although this wasn’t the most exciting week for Extra Care Bucks at CVS, I did manage to get 21 Soyjoy bars for $0.00 out of pocket!!! I distributed most of them out to family members before I was able to snap a photo of them. I did it in 5 separate transactions buying 4 at a time and rolling the ECBs from one transaction into the other. I got one for free because I had 1 B1G1free coupon. I started the day with $4.00 ECBs, bought 21 Soyjoy bars for $0.00 and ended with $4.00 ECBs. Although the Frugal Husband and I are not big fans of the Soyjoy bars, we were able to roll our ECBs before they expire and give away tons of bars to those who might enjoy them.
-Frugal Wife
June 17th, 2009 | Posted in Free Samples
Here’s a new list of freebies:
Enjoy!
–Frugal Husband
June 14th, 2009 | Posted in General
I’m not sure where you live, but if you live in California, taxes have been increasing a lot lately. In April, the sales tax in Los Angeles went up 1%, from 8.25% to 9.25%. Another sales tax increase is coming July 1st for 0.5%, increasing the sales tax rate to a whopping 9.75%!
The sales tax was not the only tax that went up recently in California. Our car tax went up, so registering my car cost twice as much, more than when I originally bought the car 5 years ago! The personal income tax also went, cancelling out the stimulus from the federal taxes!
Staying frugal as taxes and other prices go up makes it more difficult, but not impossible. There are some things that you cannot get out of, income tax and car tax. You can avoid some sales tax though. I’m much more motivated to buy items online to avoid taxes altogether. Recently I have bought some items that I could easily have bought at the brick and mortar stores so that I could avoid taxes. There are many products that you can buy online, if you are willing to wait a little while. Recently we found out that we could buy my wife’s makeup on E-bay. Not only did it cost $5 less than the store, but it was also tax free.
Taxes may be unavoidable, but if you are frugal, you will be better able to weather the storm. With a little creativity, you can always find deals.
–Frugal Husband
June 9th, 2009 | Posted in General
I have been using Swagbucks for a while now and have really enjoyed it. If you have not heard of Swagbucks, it’s basically a search engine that will reward you with points for searching. You earn Swagbucks and can redeem them for prizes. For example, after you receive 45 Swagbucks, you can redeem them for a $5 Amazon Gift Card. I can say from my experience, this is a totally legitimate website and that they send you the prizes quickly!
I heard this week that there will be some improvements to Swagbucks. So if you have not joined yet, there is no better time. If you join today, you can get 6 Swagbucks to start. Use the following link and enter this code to get the deal, ROGERSCODE (case sensitive).
Happy searching and winning!
–Frugal Husband
June 8th, 2009 | Posted in CVS Deals
I’m BAAAAACK!!
Extra Care Bucks are back in California! I was starting to display some withdrawal symptoms but feel that my transaction today made up for my 5 weeks off. I did two separate transactions totaling $2.99 out of pocket. I had no ECBs to use since I used them up before their expiration date in May. Here is what I got for $2.99:
My First Transaction:
1 Contour Blood Glucose Monitor - $14.99
2 Tide - $4.99 Each
2 Kleenex - $2.39 (B1G1Free)
1 Caramel Candy - $0.88
1 Starburst Gummies - $1.99
Coupons Used:
1 - $30.00 off Contour Blood Glucose Monitor
TOTAL OUT OF POCKET: $2.76
TOTAL SAVED THIS TRANSACTION: $108.01 (Contour Monitor was originally priced at $79.99
EXTRA BUCKS EARNED: $5.00
This transaction was actually a surprise for me. I thought that my $30.00 coupon would be adjusted down to $14.99 since the purchase price of the Contour monitor was $14.99. The cashier actually told me that I had to spend another $15.01 to use the coupon! We walked around the store for 15 minutes trying to figure out what we wanted to spend our free $15.01 on. We can always use the laundry detergent and the Kleenex. The candies were just added free bonuses.
My Second Transaction:
1 – Gillette Fusion Gamer - $7.99
1 – Orbit Gum - $0.32
1 – Trident Gum - $0.64
Coupons Used:
1 - $4.00 off Gillette Fusion Gamer
$5.00 in Extra Care Bucks from my first transaction
TOTAL OUT OF POCKET: $0.23
TOTAL SAVED THIS TRANSACTION: $14.91
EXTRA BUCKS EARNED: $4.00
I’m so excited to be back in the game! I forgot how great the rush of leaving the store with great deals feels. I was also excited to find out that my mother-in-law actually wanted to purchase a new blood glucose monitor and now we were able to give her a free one!
If any of you have questions about CVSing, please post a comment and I’ll do my best to answer.
- Frugal Wife
June 7th, 2009 | Posted in Frugal Ideas, General
We did it! We’re officially debt free as of this morning. My wife and I dropped the last check in the post office box for my student loan. We have kicked Sallie Mae out of our apartment and told her to never return! Our frugality has paid off in a big way, here’s our story.
My wife and I have been married for a little over two years. When we got married, I was finishing up seminary . I was the one who came into the marriage with debt, mainly student loan and a car debt. For over ten years I have lived with debt and never thought about it. Then, after one year of struggling with $23,000 in debt, we decided we wanted to make a change. My wife said that she would look for a full time job and apply what she made to our debt. After one year of really watching our spending and working really hard, we paid off the entire $23K ($23,106.05 to be exact). At the same time we were able to put away $6,100 in an emergency fund.
How did we do it?
To start off, we prayed about being debt free every single month. My wife trusted me with the finances and we had a monthly financial meeting to asses where we were. With God’s grace, He allowed us to work hard (two job and overtime) to earn enough each month to pay off this debt. This was not easy, as Murphy showed up many times. We had a $2,000 medical bill and I lost my job for a period of two months. The loss of a job also became a blessing as I left with severance and vacation pay which I saved, while living on unemployment.
Now what?
We will continue to live frugally and save like crazy. We hope to be able to buy a home someday and continue to find ways to expand our money. It sure is a good feeling to have a paid off car and to have finally paid for those degrees.
My advice if you are trying to get out of debt is to never give up. Be persistence because the storms are going to come, but with Gods’ grace and some sacrifice, you can become debt free. And if you need a little kick in the rear to get started, listen to Dave!
–Frugal Husband
June 5th, 2009 | Posted in Hot Deals
Happy Doughnut Day to you! I love this country, only in America do we come up with a “National Doughnut Day.” This day has actually been around for a long time (since 1938) and has an interesting history. You can read about it here. In honor of this day, Krispy Kreme is giving away FREE Doughnuts. You can find participating locations here. And remember to be frugal, get the free doughnut, skip the coffee, and ask for a cup of free water!
–Frugal Husband
June 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Hot Deals
What do hot dogs and chocolate have in common? Nothing really, but this week my wife and I received in the mail our coupon for a free package of hot dogs and two coupons for free chocolate. The Oscar Mayer free hot dogs promotion is over, but the free chocolate from Mars is ongoing. Every Friday through September, you can go here and sign up for a coupon for free chocolate. My wife and I both signed up and received our coupons on the same day. They are giving away 250,000 coupons every Friday.
–Frugal Husband
May 31st, 2009 | Posted in Frugal Humor
If you follow our blog, you would know that we post CVS deals at least once a week. For the entire month of May, we did not have one transaction. CVS decided to put a hold on ExtraCare Bucks for the entire month of May due to their merging with Longs Drugs in California. It has been a very hard month. I enjoy the trips to CVS with my frugal wife where she has two bags of items for 0.60 cents! After a month of not going to CVS, I’m feeling an extreme amount of withdrawals. Our stockpile is greatly shrinking and now if there is a major emergency, i may not have enough toothpaste for the entire neighborhood.! I also miss the thrill of leaving a store with bags of stuff for under a $1 (legally stealing). What are frugal people to do without great deals every week!
Although I’m only being half serious, we do miss CVS and we are looking forward to June. CVS, here we come…
–Frugal Husband
May 27th, 2009 | Posted in Hot Deals
Most cell phone carriers offer pretty big discounts if you are an employee of certain companies. My last job allowed me a 16% discount with Verizon Wireless. Since I lost that job, I began working a new job and I checked with them and my discount increased to a whopping 20%! This saves me $16 a month, $192 a year. It is very easy to sign up for these discounts, you submit your work E-mail address to your carrier and they will let you know if you qualify. Just click on the links below for your carrier and see if you qualify:
–Frugal Husband
May 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Free Samples
It’s that time for a new freebies list.
Enjoy!
–Frugal Husband
May 20th, 2009 | Posted in Hot Deals
Oscar Mayer is trying to help us all during these tough economic times! They are giving away a FREE coupon for a package of Oscar Mayer Jumbo Beef Franks. All you have to do is to enter your E-mail address along with your name and address, and they will send you a coupon in 4-6 weeks. The deal is only good today through 11:59 EDT. You can sign up here.
–Frugal Husband
May 16th, 2009 | Posted in Frugal Ideas
Shopping online is one of the best ways to save money. If you are willing to spend some extra time before purchasing an item online, you can save a lot. Comparison shopping online is common sense. You can search for an item on froogle for example and see where you can find the best deal. I do that but beyond that, these are my five steps for making any purchase even more frugal:
- I search for a coupon code and if possible, multiple coupon codes (aka stacking). Stacking is rare but is possible at some online stores. One of my favorite sties for coupon codes is RetailMeNot.
- I then check out Evreward and see what websites will give me the most cash back (example: Cashbaq, Ebates, or Bigcrumbs)
- After Evreward, I use the site that gives me the most cash back (from #2 above), and then I make my purchase.
- I then enter my coupon code to save money instantly. This is in addition to the cash back #2 above.
- Lastly I use a rewards credit card to get extra money back (at least 1% back, sometimes more).
Let me give you an example of my last transaction. I found an item on Overstock.com that I wanted to buy. After using Evreward, I found that I could get 4.5% cash back from BigCrumbs. I also found a 10% off coupon code. So from my transaction I received 10% off instantly form the coupon code, 4.5% cash back from BigCrumbs and also 1% cash back from my credit card. That brings my savings total to 15.5%. Not bad for only about 15 minutes of my time!
–Frugal Husband
May 11th, 2009 | Posted in Free Samples
It’s that time again for some new freebies.
–Frugal Husband
May 8th, 2009 | Posted in Giveaways
Congratulations to Beverly who won the contest for the FREE $5 Amazon gift card. Thank you all for entering the giveaway and for the great comments. I’m looking forward to another frugal year with you all.
–Frugal Husband
May 5th, 2009 | Posted in Hot Deals
There is a great coupon for a FREE 2 pc meal at KFC. You have to act quick, this deal does not last long.
Coupon available for printing from 9am CDT 5/5/09 to 9:59pm CDT 5/6/09. Coupon is redeemable at participating KFC® locations in the U.S. from 5/5/09 to 5/19/09, excluding 5/10/09.
To print the coupon, you can click the link here. This deal is really sweet since they allow you to print the coupon up to four times! You may have to be patient though since the site is pretty popular.
–Frugal Husband
May 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Giveaways
The Frugal Husband and Frugal Wife will be celebrating the 1 year anniversary of this blog on May 8th! We have really enjoyed blogging this past year and hope to continue with another “frugal year.” To celebrate this occasion and to thank all of our readers, we are giving away one $5.00 Amazon gift card. Here are the rules for entering the giveaway:
1) For one entry, leave any comment.
2) For two entries, leave a comment with one way you are frugal.
I will accept entries up until 9 p.m. on Thursday, May 7th. The winner will be announced on Friday, May 8th. Please do not forget to leave your valid E-mail address so I can contact you if you win.
–Frugal Husband and Frugal Wife
April 30th, 2009 | Posted in Frugal Ideas
I love reading articles in the newspaper and magazines concerning finances. These days “frugality” has become the new “in thing.” I did not care much for living frugally until I got married a couple years ago. I realized that I had to stretch my money as far as possible, and that meant getting all my finances in order. I was telling my wife that I remembered when I was 16 years old and I got my first credit card. I got a shiny Capital One credit card with a limit of $500. I remember going to make my first purchase, a $200 Playstation. I was waiting in line to pay for it and I remember thinking in my head, “I cannot afford this and could not pay this back, but I can make payments”. That foolish thinking was the start of a life of debt that lasted for the next ten years. In 2006, I financially decided that I was going to pay off all my credit card debt, and with the Lord’s help, I have been debt free from credit cards ever since. My wife and I are on the road to being fully debt free, just a few more student loan payments and we will be there.
If anyone asked me what I thought the most important frugal principle was, I would say living below your means. The funny thing is that this is not a difficult concept, just a hard one to practice. There are a few things that must be in order to live below your means:
1. Have a working budget – if you do not know where your money goes, you will never know if you live below your means.
2. Sacrifice – everyone can give up one thing that could save hundreds a year. My wife and I gave up sodas at restaurants and that cuts our bill considerably. If we go out once a week for a year and save about $2.50-$5.00 on soda, that’s a savings of $130-$260 a year!
3. Flexible – the more flexible you are, the more you can stretch your money. For example, are you brand loyal at the grocery store? Can you only eat at certain restaurants? Can you have fun without spending money?
My wife and I live in one of the most expensive places in the country, Los Angeles. It’s not a matter of how expensive it is to live or how much you make, it’s what you do with what you have. Anyone can live below their means. It’s a choice we all make. If you do though, you will slowly realize that’s it’s not as hard as it sounds and it can be exhilarating to live in peace, knowing you do not owe anyone any money!
So what frugal principles are important to you?
–Frugal Husband
April 28th, 2009 | Posted in Hot Deals
It looks like El Pollo Loco is following KFC’s lead and is offering FREE Chicken today, Tuesday April 28th until 8 p.m. This deal is better than KFC. El Pollo Loco is offering for free a 2 pc (Leg and Thigh) with 2 tortillas and fresh salsa. There is no coupon necessary, just show up and ask for the deal. You cannot go through the drive through, it is dine in or carryout only.
Enjoy!
–Frugal Husband
April 27th, 2009 | Posted in Hot Deals
KFC is running a promotion for a FREE piece of their new Grilled Chicken. There is no coupon needed. All you have to do is show up to KFC today Monday April 27th, and you will receive one free piece of chicken. You can read about the promotion here.
–Frugal Husband
April 26th, 2009 | Posted in Free Samples
As promised, here’s a list of some free samples.
–Frugal Husband
April 25th, 2009 | Posted in Uncategorized
Gillette is giving away FREE Fusion razors to the first 500 people everyday until May 16th. To see if you can get one, click here.
I have links to more free stuff this weekend, stay tuned!
–Frugal Husband
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If you love getting freebies like Gillette razors, you probably also love getting great banking deals. You can make several hundred dollars a year by signing up for bank deals for your smaller accounts. For your large savings accounts it would pay to find the best CD rates and lock in your interest rate for your unused funds.
April 21st, 2009 | Posted in Hot Deals
Ben & Jerry’s is celebrating their 31st anniversary by giving away a free ice cream cone today, April 21st. To find a participating location, click here.
–Frugal Husband
