How to save on gasoline

Luckily the gas prices have been dropping some, but ever since the gas price peak people have been looking on ways to spend less on gas. Here are a few tips on how to save on gas.
• The faster you drive, the more fuel you use. Drive slower, but not too slow.
• Use cruise control. My maintaining the same speed you will get better gas mileage.
• Combine errands
• Remove excess weight from your car. Remove unneeded items. It’s a good excuse to clean out your car.
• Keep up with car maintenance. Keep tires inflated and aligned, get frequent oil changes, regularly replace air filters,
• Look for a credit card that either gives you rewards or cash back for gas purchases. We have a Discover Gas card and get 5% cash back on all gas purchases.
• Buy gas when the temperature is cooler (like the early morning or at night) to reduce gas evaporation. Also, during these times gasoline is densest and you’ll get the most for your money.
• On the highway keep your windows closed. Open windows can reduce your gas mileage by as much as 10%.
• On the other hand, in stop and go traffic you want to open your windows and turn off the air-conditioning.
• Think ahead when nearing hills. Accelerate before you reach the hill, not while you're on it.
• Look for the most direct routes. Curves, corners, and jumping lanes requires extra gas. Remember, the shortest distance between two points is always straight.
• Driving in reverse uses more gas. Try to park in ways so that you wont need to put the car in reverse when leaving.
• Car pool.
• Walk or bike whenever you can.
• See if your city has a lowest gas price listing or web site. For example at http://www.austingasprices.com/ people report on where they have found cheap gas in the city.

Restaurant.com (cheap restaurant gift certificates)

If you eat out frequently, check out Restaurant.com. They have gift certificates to lots of local restaurants for sometimes as much as 80% off. Most of their $25 gift certificates sell for $10, but they often have deals where you can get an additional 50-70% off that price. Morry and I have used them a few times, especially when we have a date night and want to go to a nicer restaurant. Keep in mind you have to keep track of the certificates you have used on your own. There’s a way to mark it as used on the website. Some of the certificates have restrictions such as Sun-Thurs. only or minimum purchase $35, so just make sure to read the fine print.

Right now they are having a 80% off deal. Click here and Enter discount code: SURPRISE to save an additional 80%! Offer valid until 11/24 at 11:59PM CST.

Ebates and Big Crumbs... cash back when shopping online

Any time you are going to make a purchase online, check first to see if the store is listed on Ebates or Big Crumbs. If it is, you can save anywhere from 2-25%. They have lots of stores such as GAP, Circuit City, Ebay, Walmart, Barnes and Noble, … All you have to do is go to their site first and click on the store web site from their page. I’m thinking the way this works is that they have signed up for a ton of affiliate programs and get paid from these companies to bring people to their sites. Then they give you a cut of the money. A lot of times if I need some type of electronics or computer supplies, I’ll go to Circuit City through Ebates or Big Crumbs, buy online, but have it sent to the store near me for pick up. It works out great.

Right now Ebates is having a deal where you get an automatic $5 in your account when you sign up. Here’s the link Get $5 automatically just for signing up for Ebates

And here’s the link for Big Crumbs.

Are you a Deal Shark?

Here’s a great article about Deal Sharks (the best online shoppers).

The key is to use malls and physical stores to look at a product and make sure it is what you want, but then buy the product online. Research is also important. Use comparison sites and find out how to layer (combine coupon codes, rebates, discounts). Here are few sites for info on layers Ben's Bargains, Deals of America, My Bargain Buddy and SlickDeals

Always be on the lookout for a good deal even if you don’t need the item right away. One shopping seizes the deals and then stores them for later use as gifts.

Even if you don’t do much online shopping there are some sites that will compare product prices at stores in your area. One example is http://www.shoplocal.com

Subscribe to mailing lists. Yes, you’ll get lots of junk, but you could also get some great coupons. That is how I got the 30% off coupon for Old Navy/Gap/Banana Republic.

If you just can’t seem to find a good deal, ask for help. There are lots of sites with forums where people post questions or requests for coupon codes. A couple include fatwallet.com and slickdeals.net

Saving for college

Msn put out a great article about saving for college. Saving for College

It says that by 2010 college will cost $225,000 (private) and $105,000 (public university). Wow!

They really suggest you do your research and start saving as early as possible. Here is a tuition calculator to figure out how much you’ll need to save. Tuition Calculator

Here are some ways to add to the college fund once you set one up:
• Have a "send my baby to college" shower. Instead of guests bringing gifts, give them information about how to put money toward your future kid’s education.
• For elementary + age set up an account together with them so that they will have an interest in saving and going to college.
• Use credit cards that give rebates to your 529. A few are Upromise or BabyMint

Tips for getting and using grocery store coupons

Tips for using grocery store coupons

Every Sunday I go through the coupons and cut anything I think I may use. I have a little coupon organizer to file all the coupons. This organizer is small enough to fit in my purse, but large enough to hold many coupons. I think I got mine at Target. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

Before I go to the grocery store, I make a list of needed items and go through my coupons to see if I have any that could be applied. If I do I put those coupons at the front of the section for easy retrieval and reference when at the grocery store. Then I’ll quickly flip through all the coupons and see if there was anything I left of the use or something that will fulfill a need. Next, if I have time, I will go to an online printable web site and do a coupon search for anything on my list. I like A Full Cup best, but you have to register first (free) before you can really use the site. They have a searchable coupon database. I put in the product and click that I want only printable coupons to show up.

Oh, and even if the coupon isn’t for the exact product you are buying, try to use it anyway. For example, sometimes we get coupons for pampers pull up diapers, but I’m able to use them for the regular diapers as well.

Also, at HEB, when you first walk in they have a little board with a lot of the HEB coupon deals hanging off. I scan that first to see if there is anything good. I also save a lot on their meal deals. I'll only do that if I was really planning on getting at least one of the items anyway. The other day HEB had a coupon for buy a soup mix kit, get a free bagged salad and there was another HEB coupon for buy a salad get a free ready to cook potatoes. I thought I would try and see if I could use both and it worked. So all I did was buy a soup kit (I planned on buying some kind of soup that trip) and I got a free bag of salad (which I was going to buy anyway) and a free bag of ready to cook potatoes.

oh, one more thing... please feel free to leave comments. I'd love to know if people are really reading this and if you have any suggestions on what to include. thanks, Rachel

Online and Printable Coupons

Before I buy anything online I always do a Google search for “the store” coupons. Often you can find a coupon code you enter at check out that can save you anywhere from 5 – 30%. It’s worth the few extra seconds to do the search.

I also search for coupons for local stores and events as well. For example, we were going to the Austin Children’s museum a few weeks ago. I thought I would just check and see if there was coupon. Sure enough, there was a buy one get one free admission coupon. That saved us around $6.

Robo Form

Daily Tip:
If you like to enter contests and get free stuff it can be time consuming entering your contact info over and over again on all the different web sites. I have been using a great free program called Robo Form. You download the toolbar to your browser and once you put in your info it saves it. All you have to do is hit a button and will fill in all your info on whatever web site you are on. This is great if you buy a lot online too. If you want it will even save your credit card number, but I don’t do that. The basic Robo Form is free, but if you want extra features you’ll have to pay. http://www.roboform.com/download.html


So, I went back to Old Navy. It was totally worth it! Yesterday, I bought a bunch of stuff and then later that day I got an email for 30% off. I couldn’t believe, so I thought I’d try and see if they would honor it and let me return the stuff and buy it again with the 30% off. It was super easy, no arguing, no nothing. I got the 30% off and ended up saving another $37. If you want the email, let me know I can forward it to you. It expires tomorrow night.

We bought season tickets for the University of Texas football games. We thought we go to a few games and sell the rest. It’s very hard to get tickets to the football games so we thought this would be a great way to go to the games and maybe make a little bit of money. I think we paid $1500 for 4 seats for 7 home games. The face value of the tickets ranged from $60-$90 depending on the game. We went to a few games and the ones we couldn’t go to we sold the tickets to our friends at face value (which let’s us make a little money since they give a little discount when buying season tickets). There is one game left. It’s a big one against Texas A&M (major rival). We can’t go to that one because it is over Thanksgiving and figured we could make some good money selling the tickets. The face value is $90/ticket. I put them on Craigslist and got quite a few responses. I met a lady today who bought 2 tickets for $300. We made $60/ticket so far. I have someone else who is interested in the other 2 at the same price. Let’s hope it works out.

Wholesale Clubs

Daily tip:

Getting the most out of warehouse/wholesale clubs.

The best things to buy at warehouse clubs such as Sams, BJ’s, and Costco:

• Alchohol
• Milk, butter, eggs
• Electronics
• Meat
• Prescription medication

The worst things to buy:

• Designer clothes
• Frozen foods
• Paper goods
• Gas
• Items that won’t get fully used
• 
  
  

Here’s the link to the article http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/5-best-and-worst-costco-deals.aspx?page=2

Today I had a successful shopping trip. Old Navy is having a sale on winter coats. My son needed one and we got a nice one for 30% off.

We needed to buy some toys for birthday presents so we headed over to Kohls. Most of their toys are 30-40% off. In addition to that I had a coupon so we got an additional 15% off.

The only bad thing is just now I checked my email and I got a coupon for 30% off at Old Navy. I wonder if I can go in there and get them to give me the discount on the stuff I bought today. Is it worth the effort? I’ll think about it.

Ways to save/make money, free stuff, sweepstakes…

I have had requests from lots of you wanting to know all the ways I save money, win things, and make money. So, here it is.

Ways to save money:

I cut coupons from the Sunday paper. Also, http://afullcup.com is a great site to find deals, printable coupons, sales, etc. Before I go to the grocery store I check this site (coupon menu/coupon database search) to find any printable coupons for items I’m going to buy.

Before we buy anything online we do a google search for online coupon codes for that store.

Also, we go through the sites bigcrumbs and ebates . They have lots of stores listed like Target, Best Buy, Barnes and Noble, GAP …If you go through their site first and then click on the store website for them you can save anywhere from 2-25% they send you a check for money back. I think the way that works is many online stores have referral programs where they offer web site owners a percentage for each person that comes to their site through them and buys something. Big crumbs and Ebates just sign up for a ton of these referral programs and then give you a cut of the money they make.

www.restaurant.com sells gift certificates for usually half the price to certain restaurants in your area. They occasionally email codes to get and additional 50% off restaurant certificates.

How to make money:

I tutor students in the afternoons and evenings. I have both a teaching certificate and a Master’s degree, but you don’t necessarily need both of those. I have found that the greatest need is for Math tutors. If you are confident in math you should have no problem finding some tutoring jobs. The majority of the students I tutor need help with math, but I also help them with other subjects such as Spanish, Science, History, and English. I have gotten most of my students through referrals from the school where I used to teach. I have a few neighborhood kids that come to my house as well. I called or went in to the neighborhood schools and gave the counselors my contact information.

ChaCha is a mobile research service. People text or call in and get the answer text to their cell phone. Anyway, they need people to answer these texts. Usually it’s not too hard to find the answers using a Google search. You’ll get questions anywhere from weather forecasts to sports stats. They pay you 20 cents for each question you answer. You can average about $5 -$10/hr http://answers.chacha.com/?page_id=410

You can also answer surveys and join focus groups. Here are a few I do. www.tammadge.com http://www.pineconeresearch.com/index.htm http://www.your2cents.com/ http://www.acop.com https://www.surveysavvy.com?id=3033699&action=join&D=rfrl100208

I just joined a new one called Focus Forward. It's actually one of Morry's friends that started this company.

https://www. focusfwdonline. com/signup. aspx



I did a study last week (11/5/08) for Focus Forward. It was 2 hours and I got paid $200. It was a study for household cleaning products. Two people met me at HEB and we talked some about my cleaning habits and what products I use. Then we went in the cleaning aisle and picked a few things and went back to my house for me to show them how I would use the items. It was super easy.



I just thought I'd pass that along in case anyone is interested.

You can clean out your house and make some money. Depending on what you want to sell you can go through www.craigslist.org or www.ebay.com . Ebay will reach more people, but they charge you a fee to list and they get commission. Craigslist is free to list and they do not take a commission. Usually Craigslist is best for large items like furniture, while Ebay is better for collectables, antiques, and brand name items.

How to get free stuff:

Here is a site that lists websites giving away free stuff: http://www.vickysdeals.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=3

Also, if there are products you buy often you can go to the product’s website, fill out the comment form and let them know how much you like the products and that you would love to have some coupons.

If you join She Speaks, occasionally they will send you products to test out and keep. In return you give your opinion of that product. I got a free Sonicare electric toothbrush, shaving cream, potato masher. http://www.shespeaks.com

Freecycle is an online community to help reduce unnecessary waste and keep good stuff out of landfills. Think “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” People post things they are getting rid of or things they are looking for. There is no money involved and no trading. Everything is absolutely free. We have used this mostly to get rid of things, but occasionally you can find some great things people are giving away. Do a search for the Freecycle community in your city. http://www.freecycle.org Grandma Gertrude would be proud. :)

How to win stuff:

This site lists contests/giveaways in different categories ( by prizes, ending date, entry frequency, …) http://www.online-sweepstakes.com

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have questions about any of these.