Frugal Friday With Marsha -- The Apps

Last Friday I wrote about the Friday Freebies from Dillon's (Kroger).  Today's Friday Freebie is FREE Chobani Greek Yogurt "Flip"® Product.  Those are good.  I like to have yogurt as my bedtime snack.

This week I was to talk about making use of the apps for savings.
Until my oldest finds a house of her own, she is responsible for most of the shopping in the house as her "pay" for living with us.  In other words, I rarely do buy things, but when I do, I want to take advantage of the apps if I can to help me earn cash back.

I like to watch and see what the healthy item of the week is on savingstar.  This last week it was bananas.  One for me and one for hubby was under 50 cents and I got a 25 cent rebate.

On checkout51 I chose cucumber from the list of 4 fresh items.  I paid 62 cents for one for us to share and got 25 cents back.

Ibotta was a little different for me this week as I chose to splurge at Dollar Tree for a package of cookies.  25 cent rebate means 75 cents to fulfill my sweet tooth.  2 cookies a day and I still have some left after a week.  

Ibotta and checkout51 both offered $1 rebate on buying a Kidfresh frozen entree.  I bought it for myself to have for my lunch on sewing day at church.  After rebates my lunch cost me just 72 cents.

Once it's up to me to buy groceries for the house again, I will always check ibotta before heading to the store.  Aside from lots of brand named products, there are always "any" offers.  Looking at the app on my phone I see 20 cents back on any cookies, 25 cents back on any popcorn, 20 cents back on brussels sprouts, 20 cents back on any carrots, 25 cents back on any brand milk and oatmeal, 25 cents back on any brand milk and peanut butter.  

You can see there is a pretty good mix of "any" items that you would probably have on your list anyway.  I see lots of name brand items today that I would buy as well.

There are usually more of the "any" items.  I've not used the app enough lately to know if it's how it used to be.  In the past, the more of the brand name items that you bought, the more of the "any" items would show up.

Generally there is any cheese, cereal, pasta sauce, chips, and other every day items.

Do you use the apps?

Frugal Friday With Marsha -- What's On This Week's Shopping List?

Last week I made my list and spending was $12.87.  Less than what I had to spend.  I received back a total of $3.15 between Ibotta and checkout51.
This week I have $10 in Walmart gift cards and $9.20 in Target gift cards.

I needed to find a name brand something to buy through ibotta to help with my bonuses.  I am choosing the Glad Press N' Seal because that is something that we need. (and I have a $1 coupon too) Also then bananas and milk, and Dr Pepper is on there again (thank goodness!).
Bananas are also my choice for checkout51 as well.

In addition I am picking up a box of Cheez-Its and a box of my Chewy Sweetarts.  These will be parts of my foods that I take with me when I start doing the wheat field inspections next week.   Bananas I will also take with me.
I'm also using a coupon for Yakisoba noodles $1/3.  They are .58 each at Walmart and they are always good to have around the house, especially for the kids that like them.

We are ok for this week as far as meats yet, so that is good.  Hubby did buy us each 2 more 2 ltrs of Dr. Pepper each this past week.  Maybe I can try to pick us up more is I have enough this week.
We are also still ok on eggs, cheese, bread and other what I call grocery essentials.

Next week will be more of a challenge when meats and those essentials will need to be replenished!

Until then, I look forward to any frugal posts that you choose to share with us this week.

An InLinkz Link-up

Frugal Friday with Marsha -- This Week's Shopping List

I did get everything on my grocery list in last week's post except I got home and realized I forgot the onion and bell pepper.
In rebates from ibotta, savingstar, and checkout51 I ended up getting $3.69 back. Also 20 swagbucks for 2 printed coupons used and 10 cents from inboxdollars for one coupon printed and used.

This week I only have $14.10 to spend in gift cards and my list includes:
4 2-ltrs of Dr. Pepper
Hamburger Helper
Bananas
Honeysuckle Turkey patties
French's mustard and ketchup
bell pepper and
vinegar

Everything on my list except the vinegar (that I need to make my pasta salad) has rebates on ibotta.  Also a rebate on bananas fro checkout51.
I wish I could print more of the Dr Pepper coupons, but I no longer see them even if I could get hubby's computer to pick up the wireless printer.

Now...hubby shopped when he wasn't supposed to this last week.  He asked to buy Dr. Pepper.  I agreed after he paid bills that he could go buy us each a couple bottles. He came home with a huge bag of shredded cheese, 2 packages of bacon, and a loaf of bread too and had spent $25!
Ggrrr...not that I'm not thankful, but he need to pay bills over buying groceries.
I was able to use his receipt for rebates back on the cheese, break and bacon from ibotta.

We have grandkids for the weekend so my daughter so graciously brought 2 gallons of milk, 2 boxes of cereal,  ramen noodles, 3 bags of chips, granola bars, pop-tarts, and fruit snacks when she dropped off the kids.

Then, I did make the bi-monthly trip to the food bank.  No, I am not ashamed to tell you that we have started going every other month as we can.  That's what is there for, to help....plus, over time I have donated, and will continue to donate, when I can get excess for little with my coupons.

Until next Friday, here's to a frugal week for all!

An InLinkz Link-up

Frugal Friday with Marsha--Shopping with Apps

Due to our financial situation, that I won't go in to, I am now responsible for earning all money to buy groceries and such.

I started out this week by using some of my amazon gift card credits to buy the cat food and cat litter.

This morning I have gone through my apps to make my shopping list.

Ibotta is full of any brand items that are on my list: bacon, pasta sauce, onion, bell pepper, cheese, eggs, milk, bananas.

The cheese, milk, eggs, and bacon are also on the Target cartwheel for 5% off.

The bananas are also on savingstar this week for the healthy choice offer as well as on checkout51.


Other items on my list are Reeses Puffs cereal with rebate from savingstar (which I have printed a coupon through swagbucks to earn back 10 swabucks for using it) and HoneySuckle White turkeypatties from ibotta.

Dr. Pepper is our vice and I can get it 10% off at Target through cartwheel (also printed coupons from swagbucks and inboxdollars for credit!). Also Cheez-Its are our favorite snack cracker and they are currently 20% off through cartwheel.


I have $20 in Target gift cards to spend as well as a $5 Walmart gift card and $2.88 on my Bluebird card from the Walmart Savings Catcher.

Can I buy everything on my list for the $27.88 that I have to spend? I will give an update next Friday as well as give you my new list.

p.s. Most of my gift cards I have earned from swagbucks, and also some from PerkTV.


In the meantime I look forward to the frugal type posts that you choose to share too.

An InLinkz Link-up

All Business Monday--January Online Earning Stats

(Photo: Golden Dollar Symbol by Vectorfresh.com
License: Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution)


 Back in September of 2014 I set myself a goal to cash out each day of the month--the equivalent of.  I made that goal each month until January.  I was only able to redeem 24 out of 31 times for the month.

I am reporting what was rec'd in January:

PerkTV --$45 in gift cards (use code 860efbf6 for 50 bonus points)
Swagbucks -- $40 in gift cards (I alternate with both PerkTV and Swagbucks between Walmart, Target and Amazon cards) (I believe if you use HIP70 as the code on sign up you will get 70 swagbucks)
Pinecone Research -- $3 paypal
apptrailers --$4.68 paypal  (use code predictableuranus2  for bonus points)
checkout51 -- $20.50 check
clixsense --$7.86 paypal
bubblews -- $51.77 paypal
hausernet -- $8 paypal
shopkick -- $5 Target gift card

Total rec'd:  $185.81

I've linked some of the sites and apps.
Hausernet is a mail decoy program.  You earn .25 for each piece of mail that comes in and you input the code online.  Honestly they are paying monthly now with no minimum pretty regularly, but they do still owe me for all of the year 2012!

Pinecone Research is an invite only survey website....and one that I need to keep up with better.

Bubblews, as we all know is very low now on the earning scale, but I am still trying to write at least 2 posts a day there.  I do enjoy keeping up with my regular connections.

PerkTV is linked above, but they allow you to run it on up to 5 devices---and you can have 2 accounts per household, so up to 10 devices.  It's generally running on 4 devices here, which it is right now. (No plan devices that I am running through out wi-fi here at home)

Swagbucks, which is also linked above, has 6 apps.  They do not allow you to run them at the same time or your account will be deleted, but I generally get through 4 of the apps on a good day.

I am working on things here on my blog.  I hope that my earnings each month online and with the apps will continue to increase as each month goes by.


As far as my Gifts Galore and More (Jerky Direct, Etsy, Zibbet, Shophandmade, Half.com, etc)  I had a loss of $36.86 for the month.   I realized that I hadn't been putting down the classes and workshops that I take as expenses, so have $44 expense in January for the rug making class and supplies.
Otherwise I would have made $8 profit from an order for dish scrubbies and one book sold through half.com.

(I did also earn $224.36 between my 2 merchandising jobs and cleaning our church)

Be sure to share any business related blog posts you've written lately.

An InLinkz Link-up

Frugal Friday with Marsha 8/15/14

Happy Friday!
The kids started back to school here on Wednesday. We took them on Monday to the agency called First Call For Help for free backpacks and supplies.
On the way out the door they told us to take a bag of food, 1 per family. Then she told us since we had a big family to take 2 bags.
That was sure a blessing as those bags contained cookies, chips, crackers, candy, protein bars, and 3 packages of summer sausage. That helped us with 2 lunches!

Hubby was patient with me as we coupon shopped together. It was wonderful to do that again. We saved $33.33 with coupons. So many of the things that were on our list already were on sale and with matching coupons.
Besides saving the $33.33 with coupons I will get back .50 from checkout51, get $3.06 back from savingstar, earn 30 swagbucks for coupons I printed and used, and scanned the receipt into receipthog for points for the receipt as well as bonus points for scanning over half of what we bought.
I love it!!

So far I've been at least able to cut and put a few more of my coupons into my binder each day. As long as I can keep it up then I will be in good shape.
The Smart Source coupon insert is back in our newspaper. Woo Hoo! That's been a long time coming. This means that if there are several good coupons, I can go to the news office on Monday morning and buy 5 Sunday papers for just $6 to get extras of what we can use.

How has your week been?

An InLinkz Link-up

Frugal Friday With Marsha 7/11/14

How has your week been? How was your 4th?

I had saved back $20 to spend on fireworks and spent $16.10 of it. My husband did buy a few with his money too.
When you put us with 3 of my children and their families who also bought, we have more than enough to keep us entertained and having lots of fun.
There was also a nice show just down the block from my daughters as well.

I can't say I've had the most frugal of weeks, but I did make sure to look at the ibotta and checkout51 apps before shopping as well as get things put on in the savingstar website. I never buy much of the stuff on those other than the basics. I did buy the milk, strawberries, bananas, and bell pepper.
The bananas were a double as they were 20% cash back on savingstar plus the .25 or .50 on checkout51.
On ibotta I got the canned tomatoes as well as the Libby's pumpkin.

I bought a cell phone through Boost Mobile and ebates this past week. The phone was $17.49 with a $17.50 rebate from ebates. I paid $18.96 with sales tax and the shipping was free. I'm using it on wifi only for apps....mostly PerkTV.
Then I found out about Extrabucks.com. I ordered another of the phones there for the same $18.96 but their rebate is $28! Plus $5 for signing up.

While I'm talking about those, if you aren't members of those, you may want to sign up.



ExtraBucks!

I'm not sure about ebates, but extrabucks gives you a $5 sign up bonus as well as I receive a $5 bonus as your referrer.

I don't do a lot of shopping online, or at least I haven't. I have a feeling that is going to change. I mean, if I am going to buy something anyway, why not check online through the rebate sites before going to the store?
I added the extension for extrabucks, which will pop down if I am on a site and let me know it's part of their site for rebate. I need to get the extension put on for ebates as well. I hope they will work together.

While I'm here again, I want to tell you that I'm learning a lot of things over in chatabout.
Chatabout is a topic forum and you earn points for "chatting about". It's so much fun and there are so many topics! You earn 1 point for every topic you post in to as well as 1 point for replying to what others have written.
There are also other easy points as the daily poll, a giveaway to enter, videos to watch, offers, radio to listen to etc.
500 pts = $5 and the points roll right in.
If you aren't a memvber, you can check it out HERE

I think that's about all of the 'damage' that I can do this week.
Speaking of damage, I'm sure that you noticed that I have done something to mess up the html here on my blog. I'm trying to find help on how to fix it. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
I messed with html when I shouldn't have. I just have to figure out how to get that left side bar back over here where it belongs.

I hope you share some good stuff with us this week.

An InLinkz Link-up