Good Stuff
Weekly Roundup – Random Happenings Edition
Before today’s roundup I’d like to take care of a few housecleaning items – a few personal, and a few blog related. Here’s a look at what’s happening in the life of one frugal dad:
- My full time job has been busier than ever in October. That’s good for job security, but bad for blogging. I’m behind on emails, writing, etc, but am keeping my head above water. If you try to contact me, it might take a few days to get back to you. Thanks for your patience.
- The Frugal Dad Fan Page on Facebook I introduced last Thursday is humming along with 200 fans following. If you missed the announcement, please consider joining us. I try to post something to the wall or discussion board every day, and we’ve already had a few interesting discussions (check out yesterday’s post about the morality of taking hotel toiletries – good stuff!).
- I’m kicking around the idea of a weekly newsletter to be delivered on Saturday mornings, in lieu of weekend posts here at the blog. The newsletter would contain some special features not seen on the blog, along with a unique article or two, a “week in review” section, special deals for newsletter readers, etc. Any interest?
- Long-time readers will remember one of my blogging goals was to reach 7,500 readers. I hit that earlier this year and extended that goal to a big stretch goal of 10,000 readers. As of this writing I’m only a couple hundred away. Could you help me by signing up to follow Frugal Dad if you aren’t already? Thanks to all who have already signed up!
Enough about me, let’s get on to some great articles from others!
The Frugal Roundup
Best Things to Buy in the Fall – Find the Biggest Discounts and Sales on These Items This Fall. Seasonal shoppers can get big discounts just by buying when retailers are looking to move that out of season inventory. (@Generation X Finance)
Dealing With Unemployment Like a Man. Unemployment is hard on anyone, but as this post points out, it’s traditionally been hardest on men. Read on for eleven tips to help you get through it like a man. (@Art of Manliness)
The Zero Hour Workweek. An inspiring ebook from someone who’s getting “paid to exist.” Hat tip to WC of The Writer’s Coin for leading me to this one. (@Illuminated Mind)
How to Have a Ghoulish Halloween for Less. From costumes to decorations (and yes, even frugal candy alternatives), this post covers it all. Frugal (Happy) Halloween! (@Coupon Sherpa)
Follow the Glow. Not sure what it is you should be doing with your life? Simply “follow the glow.” What an inspiring post! (@The Blog of Rick Smith)
10 Free Online Budgeting Applications. A nice run down of some of the more popular free online budgeting applications. I’ve given a number of these a try. (@Lazy Man and Money)
Best of the Rest
- Personal Budgeting Made Easy With the 60% Solution
- What Was the Best $100 You’ve Ever Spent?
- Everyone Is Special and Unique Just the Way They Are
- 10 Surprising Things You Can Turn Into Cash
- 2010 Quicken Deluxe Giveaway
- Why Don’t Most Financial Planners Plan Finances?
Post by Frugal Dad
Up to 70% off at Tilly’s.com- Men’s, Women’s, Girls and Boys
Check Tillys.com for some get deals on Men’s, Women’s, Girls and Boys clothes. There are some pretty good stuff in there for under $5 and the reaaly good part- Flat rate shipping for only $5.
Just hit the Sale button once you get to the site.
$5 Flat Shipping @ Tilly’s and 70% off - Shop Now!
Get freebies in your inbox- Sign up for the FFD newsletter.
Check out the Amazon Outlet
My Review of Swagbucks
As you, my frugal friends, know I have a link to Swagbucks on the side of FF and D. I have it up there because I like the idea of getting free stuff for doing the things I already do- doing searches on the Internet.
(Just to let those who don’t know- SwagBucks is a search engine powered by Google and Ask.com that awards you “SwagBucks” for some of your searches. You can use these to buy gift cards and merchandise- and this a good stuff like Target and Starbucks cards. Each “SwagBuck” you are awarded are valued around .10- but that varies.). On average I have earn around 3-4 Swagbucks per day. So far I have 43.
I will admit, although I signed up for Swagbucks a long time ago I did not take full advantage of it until just a few weeks ago. I just love my Google search- and I am a creature of habit. But I had seen some good things on other frugal websites, like Money Saving Mom about getting enough giftcards to buy some kitchen products. And I thought- I should access my account again and check out SwagBucks a little more.
So I logged in and read again how to use it. I decided to go ahead and download the tool bar and set my home page to Swagbucks so I could get in the habit of using it for my search engine. I have been doing quite a few searches per day and for simple searches I have been quite pleased with the results.
But for searches that I really need a lot of good information the SwagBucks searches are a bit lacking. This is because of how they display results with a lot of of sponsored results mixed in with the organic ones. I think this tends to water down the results. I’m sure they do this because they get paid when we click these results- which is understandable- since they are paying us to use Swagbucks.
The “image” search is nowhere near as good as regular Google- instead of hundreds of results you only get a few that are not usually that relevant.
So- what’s the verdict, Jen?? Well, for what it is ( a search engine that pays you to use it) I would give it a thumbs up. Sure the search results are not quite as good but to combat that I simply have both the Swagbucks and Google toolbars. This way if I do the search in Swagbucks and don’t get the result I want I just do a Google search right after- and to be honest I probably only need to do this 1 in 10 searches.
Another benefit for you- if you refer any friends to SwagBucks you earn a commission on their winnings indefinitely.
So what am I going to do with my Swagbucks- This year I am thinking of using my giftcards from places like SwagBucks to buy gifts- either birthday or Christmas. I think it is a great way to fund your gift giving with out it coming out of your bank account.
Anyway- I recommend you try SwagBucks out and get free stuff for something you already do.
-jen
Weekly Roundup: Links I Liked & Frugal Blog Network
Here are a few posts that caught my eye this week.
From The Money Muse: The Big Picture: What is My Purpose in Life?
From Sick of Being Poor: Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst
From The Digerati Life: Money Matters Site: Financial Resource For Credit Card Management and More
From The Simple Dollar: Synergy in Life and Money
From the FrugalBlogNetwork:
Frugal Zeitgeist: Horrible financial dream
Last night I woke up at 4:00 am, thanks to a nightmare. I dreamed that my role at work had been phased out (which is nice-speak for firing someone and dressing it up like a layoff) and that I had no severance and no savings.
Almost Frugal: Back to the Frugal Basics: Building a Budget
So you have a dream, and you have a goal. But just having goals doesn’t get you any closer to meeting them. The first step towards becoming more frugal, meeting your goals, achieving financial responsibility (and all sorts of other good stuff) is building a budget.
Not Made of Money: Paying Off Credit Card Debt
Paying off credit card debt has been in the news a lot with the current economy. Credit card debt is a plague that has stricken countless families in the United States.
Frugal Babe: When A $45 Hair Cut Is A Bargain
I got my hair cut yesterday. This would not normally be a newsworthy event, but in my case it had been 14 months since I had a hair cut.
@ Target.com
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Get 2 extra SwagBucks for Reading FF and D
So I have recently talked about how much I like SwagBucks. And now I think they are even better because for the next 24 hours they have offered my readers who sign up for SwagBucks and extra 2 (on top of the bonus 3) just for signing up.
All you need to do is go to SwagBucks, make an account and then enter the code FRUGALFREEBIES (case sensitive) in the swagcode box on your account page.
What is SwagBucks, again?
SwagBucks is a search engine powered by Google and Ask.com that awards you “SwagBucks” for some of your searches. You can use these to buy gift cards and merchandise- and this a good stuff like Target and Starbucks cards. Each “SwagBuck” you are awarded are valued around .10- but that varies.)
It is super easy to accumulate your points and at minimum you should be able to earn a free latte from StarBucks per month. To maximize your winnings I would recommend downloading the toolbar and/or setting your homepage to Swagbucks. This will make remembering to use Swagbucks much easier.
It’s great to get freebies for the things you already do- like searching the web.
Happy Swagbuckking,
jen
