This Post is For You...Dad

As some of you may know, I come from a family of accountants. My dad is an account, his brother is an accountant, and my grandfather is an accountant. Now just imagine being a 16 year old with a $100 budget for clothes...impossible I know. To say my dad likes to save his money is an understatement...and quite honestly we would sometimes laugh and roll our eyes at his logic. So now I find it hysterical when Brandon calls me John Hord. I have to admit I laugh at myself when I do things like buy a dryer motor off eBay for $30 and hope pray that someone who knows how to install it will offer to help Brandon (thanks Scott). Hey, I can get on board with spending $30 and not having to buy a new dryer. I also heard his voice in the back of my head saying "it's a luxury, not a necessity" when we disconnected out Internet...don't be fooled we pick up free wi-fi...SHHH. The point is, while I thought my dad was being cheap, it really has taught me some valuable lessons and in today's economy every little bit helps.

I know there are lots of blogs out there that specifically focus on how to live frugally, but after reading some they made my head spin. Math skills were not genetically passed down to me so trying to figure out how to get free stuff from CVS is pushing it a little too far. Instead, I thought I would share a few websites that make it pretty easy to save a little here and there with minimal effort.

My favorite so far has been Big Crumbs. Basically, you sign up and do your online shopping through their site and earn money back on all your purchases. I signed up as a CrumbSaver that gives you the maximum percentage return. You can also be a CrumbEarner and earn commission off your referrals' purchases. You must click through from their website to whatever website you want to shop to get credit. Also, when you click through they will have any promotional deals listed for that retailer to make sure you get the optimum money back. The other day the website I purchased from had 25% off your order. I clicked through that link on Big Crumbs, got 25% off AND money put back in my pay pal account. On three small purchases I have gotten almost $14 back. For something I was going to buy anyway I think that is a pretty good return. It at least helps cover shipping. I told a lady in my office building about this and on her two larger purchases she got around $45 back. Not too bad.

This leads me to RedPlum. RedPlum is a great website for coupons and online deals. It also has some great articles in general about finances and saving money. I got a great deal from restaurant.com .through RedPlum. I bought a $25 gift certificate for $3 when they were having a sale (redplum sent me an e-mail). I've used it and it was legit just make sure to read the restrictions before you purchase. Most of the $25 certificates require that you spend $35 on your bill and it doesn't include alcohol. Still, you are only out of pocket $13 for $35 in food.

Coupons.com is one of the best coupon websites I have found. Most of the coupons available are going to be the same as what you would find on the other sites so you don't have to do a lot of searching. The best part is that most of them are for at least $1 off...and that adds up quickly. You can also get free samples of things from Wal-Mart and they usually come with some kind of coupon. I got a sample of the new Crest white strips and it came with a $10 coupon.

I'll close with Shop it to me. The same lady in my office building I told about Big Crumbs told me about Shop it to me. You can log onto their website enter all the brands you like (think: Seven Jeans, Prada, BCBG) and it will send you an e-mail with the best prices on those brands. I haven't used this one for long, but I am going to try it out for a little while to see if I can find anything worthwhile.

Ok, I think I will stop now before I out myself as a TOTAL nerd, but I may have a part 2 if I think of anything else. Hope you guys had a great weekend, we were completely lazy so you get this post instead of a new and exciting project post.