gas budget, what gas budget?

The month isn't over yet. I upped my gas budget for the month due to the rising fuel costs. Apparently I did not raise it enough. The gas budget is totally busted. I had to get gas today, that was what did it. If I could have gone without gas until the end of the month I would have been cool. Drats.

Win $50 with My Dollar Plan

There is a contest going on over at My Dollar Plan where you can win a $50 Amazon giftcard! Hooray for that! For the contest you have to list your advice to new graduates. Here is what I listed:

My advice: Remember that those classes you will want to skip actually do cost money and they are not cheap. If you skip the classes or end up having to drop a class and re-take it later on you WILL regret it when you are paying off your student loans on down the line.

Be sure to enter my midnight tonight, central time! And good luck!

Money hacks love

Many thanks to Can I Get Rich On A Salary for including my post on The Big List of Free Money and Other Freebies as part of the Money Hacks Carnival #12. If you are visiting from the carnival - thanks for stopping by!

There are loads of good posts in the carnival. So do be sure to check it out. Also be sure to have a look at my article as I have updated it a little bit since it was posted. If you do not see your fave place for free money or other freebies on there be sure to let me know!

Staying on track is hard work

I have been paying down debt for some time now. And apparently the summer weather is getting to me. I just want to go out and do stuff that costs money! But I need to be paying things down instead. Argh. So frustrating. I try to tell myself that I can have the fun once the debt is paid off. But the debt is so much. It could be so long. Just frustrated.

What are you saving for?

I like to think about what I will save for when I get out of debt. Sometimes I think that it will be for a nice trip. You know a whirlwind tour of the world. Or at least hte countries that I am interesting in. But you know what. Sometimes I think that I won't want to part with money like that once I am debt free. Kind of strange, huh?

best day of couponing ever

Today I went to the grocery store and had like the best amount of saving ever. I got around $90 worth of stuff for a measly $48!

I did my shopping at a local Meijer. I love Meijer stores. They always seem to have great prices. And lucky me, they just opened a new one near me. If you have any opening near you I suggest you go to it the first few weeks they are open. Why?

Well, the first week of them being open they were giving away freebies each day. I got a free pack of Turkey Franks as part of that promo! I also got a thing in the mail for $10 off a $50 purchase each week for four weeks! And at the register a "save $5 off your next purchase of $25" came out of the register when I paid.

Saving money is awesome. Especially on necessities like food and TP.

The Big List of Free Money and Other Worthwhile Freebies

As someone with a lot of debt and focused on paying down that debt I am always on the lookout for some freebies. And I really love finding out about free money. Of course, it can be hard to find out about free money sometimes, so here is a list of free money and other worthwhile freebies on the web.

Free Money - the best kind of free


Prosper.com offers $25 to new lenders. Why not sign up as a lender and get your free $25? Lend it out, maybe make a little and then withdraw it!

Revolution Money Exchange - a PayPal alternative that offers $25 just for signing up. I did this and I got my $25 with no problems at all! You can't be this kind of free! Plus anything that takes on PayPal makes me a fan.

ING Direct Savings and Electric Orange Checking - you can get $25 when opening an account, but the catch is that you need $250 to deposit and you need to have a referral link. I use both the savings and the checking and I love it.

Links:

• Open account here


• Open account here


• I have more of these - just ask if you need one!

If you click on a link and it says, We’re sorry, but the referral link within the email you received has expired and is no longer valid. We recommend that you contact the sender and ask them to re-send the referral email. Or click ‘Continue’ to proceed with the application process without the account opening bonus.” the link has been used. To receive the $25 bonus by using a link, you must be a new ING customer and you must open the account with at least $250.


Other worthwhile freebies on the web


Blockbuster Total Access - Free for one month! If you watch a lot of movies, then this a month of free entertainment. And if you are on a tight budget then this is pretty awesome.

Netflix - They offer up a free 2 week trial for their services. So, I think Blockbuster is a better option, but you could always go for both and get a month and a half of free movies!

Gamefly - Get a 10 day free trial! If you play a lot of video games, then this is for you. It is a great way to try out a game before dropping $50 on it. They also have memberships starting at $8.95 per month.

Real Player's SuperPass - Get exclusive entertainment and 10 free song downloads each month with SuperPass. Get a 14-day Free Trial to SuperPass AND keep the 10 songs that you download even if you cancel!

Rhapsody Music - Get a 14-Day Free Trial to Rhapsody.

Napster To Go - You can get a 7 day free trial of Napster To Go. The service is similar to that offered by Rhapsody Music, but I found more songs were available on Rhapsody.

MyFico - Stay on top of your credit score with this 30 day free trial. You also get 2 credit reports for free during this trial.

CoolSavings - I use a lot of online coupons and there coupons and other freebies at CoolSavings. Boost your grocery savings at CoolSavings.com!

MyPoints - my FAVE place for freebies. Just click on links in your email and you get points that you can redeem for gift cards for everywhere from Amazon.com to Red Lobster. Get Free Gift Cards, Airline Miles, Vacations & more at MyPoints.

Coupons.com - I always find coupons on Coupons.com that I can use. Sign up with MyPoints first though cause you get points for every coupon from Coupons.com that you redeem!

Vocal Point - This is a free site to join that sends out the occassional freebie and product sample. They are geared towards women though. My best freebie from them was a Kashi chocolate chip cookie, yum! Join here.

Eat Better America - Not only do they offer tips and articles on getting healthy, they also offer some great recipes and coupons. Best of all, you can print the coupons 10 times!

GoToMyPC - traveling and need to access your home computer? Then sign up for the free trial of GoToMyPC before you leave and then cancel when you get back! Access your PC from anywhere -try GoToMyPC® free now


BzzAgent - Like freebies and product samples? With BzzAgent you sign up to be an Agent and you can take campaigns for various items to sample. And you get to keep the items. I usually get coupons as well. Just recently I got a pack of Claritin RediTabs for free and a voucher for a free bottle of Canadian Club whiskey. I even got a free subscription to TV Guide a while back. It is free to sign up to be a BzzAgent and they do not spam your email inbox.

Mvelopes - it's an online budgeting system that is basically just an online version of the envelope system. You can try it for free for one month.

emusic - they offer 25 free mp3 downloads and work with all mp3 players. And best of all - No DRM! Yes, that is right, DRM-free music with emusic.

HotMat - Need a free mousepad? Click here for a FREE HotMat mouse pad with FREE international delivery!

Wal-Mart Free Samples - Be sure to check out the Wal-Mart Free Samples page often as the items change out. There are usually some pretty decent options on here.

Quality Health - get free samples with this company.

$5 Starbuck GC for BlackBerry Owners: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/ownerslounge/login.jsp?redirect=%2Feng%2Fownerslounge%2Fstarbuc kscard.jsp

Others

Ebates - sign up with them and get a $10 gift card if you are a new member! You do have to make a qualifying purchase though.

Upromise - It is free to sign up! All you do is link your credit/debit cards and grocery cards and you earn cash back for purchases. You can apply the money to student loans or cash it out!

Blingo - Use Blingo as your search engine. But first sign up for an account as you can win things just for doing searches! I know Trisha at Blogging Away Debt has blogged about winning things from Blingo. Refer your friends and if they win you also win!

DealTaker - This site is recommended by a reader. It looks like it is similar to SlickDeals and features info on deals and coupons.

Survey Sites
Here are some survey sites where you can get cash and prizes. You may want to not use your mail email address for these as you can sometimes get loads of emails.

• CVS Advisor Panel - Take surveys and earn free ExtraBucks!
• Join SurveyPrincess.com for FREE and make money doing online consumer surveys. It's so easy!
• A $1500 gift card from Target could be yours! Enter today
• Get Paid! with SearchCactus
  
• Get a free night at the movies with ECN Research
  
• The Net Panel is looking for qualified people to join their online panel. Enter now for a chance to win cash or prizes.
  
• Win a $1,500 Gas Card Enter Today with Survey Networks
  
• Win Cash and Prizes at OpinionSquare!
  
• Get a SONY VAIO Laptop! through Rewards Gateway (If I'm not mistaken another PF blogger out there did this promo and blogged about it)
  
• Get Paid To Take Free Online Surveys. with Survey4Profit
  
• PineCone Research - hard to get into this one so you have to watch for openings. They pay regularly and on time!
• E-Rewards - you have to be a member of one of their affilitiates (like HiltonHonors or AAdvantage) - if you are you can request an invitation.

In the past I have gotten sign up bonuses from E*Trade Complete Savings Account ($25) as well as Capital One's High Yield Money Market Account ($25). They are not currently offering any promotions, but you should keep a look out for those.


If you know of any other great free money offers or other freebie sites, drop me a comment and I will add them to the list!

Disclosure: some of the links above are affiliate links and I will get a modest referral bonus that will be applied to debt.

Debt roundup #15

Well, not a lot of progress was made last month. Partly that was due to opening up an IRA before the April 15th deadline. And partly that was due to job/income loss. But all is well, and progress is still progress - even if it is not by leaps and bounds but by small steps.

As of 4/30/08, here was where I was at:

• Car loan = $11,502.83 (last month was $11,756.68 )
• Credit cards = $18,816.96 (last month was $18,998.90)
• School loans = $161,243.99 (last month was $155,444.93)

Clearly the big thing here is that the student loan balance went up a lot. Well, that is because I had been missing a couple in my calculations all this time! D'oh! See what happens when things are in deferral and not in the front of your mind. I also had a bit of accrued interest hit those as well.

I have already paid $500 towards credit cards this month and will likely pay another $500 towards them before the end of the month depending on how the income prospects for next month look.

I have some jobs on the horizon that pay nicely if I land them. And that would be really great for the debt paydown. If I could get one of those I think we could have the car paid off by mid July and that would be awesome.

I also have some stuff I need to get up on eBay. That way if people want to stimulate the economy with eBay purchases I can benefit!

I stimulated the economy

I got my stimulus check in my account on Friday. And yes, I stimulated the economy.

I spent about $7 on totally unnecessary food items to make homemade cream cheese danishes.

And then, I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought a $15 blanket.

I also spent $26 on coffee from Joffrey's, which I posted about a couple of days ago.

Then I sent the rest to Toyota for my car loan :)

I can't help it. The 'need to pay off debt' part of me just could not part with any more of that money!

Woo, woot! I won a $50 Amazon gift card from Moolanomy

I am so stoked. When I got up this morning I had an email from Pinyo of Moolanomy telling me that I had won the $50 Amazon gift card from his April giveaway. And being the totally awesome guy that he is, he even offered me PayPal as an option if I preferred.

Now, the smart pay-down-debt part of me should have jumped at that.

But the, I have not been spending and have all sorts of things on my Amazon wishlist side of me was filled with glee.

So, I took the Amazon gift certificate. And a bit later it as in my email inbox!

So, thanks Pinyo! You totally rock!