how to get freebies fast

" The recession won't be over till we raise a generation that knows how to live on what they got"

I got this quote off of one of the blogs I follow money saving mom. Think it's perfect except we spent more than we got with buying our house. Some people call that "good debt" but all debt gets me pretty down in the dumps.

Anyways freebie today was 2 free size four diapers from Costco... oh I was going to tell you guys if you start signing up for freebies make sure you have an auto fill saved on your computer. That way usually you just start typing your name and it comes up you hit the tab button and MOST or all of the form is filled out. I can fill most out in less than 5-10 seconds.

oops there was good stuff

this happens often I get things in the mail and don't consider them good stuff! lol today Kjell got his SKI magazine that we get free for the rest of this year. Not sure what company provided us that. And I got $10 off any $25 purchase at JCPenny. I just got their Credit Card when we moved into our house and this is the third $10 they sent. I have only used it to buy curtains. I just treat it as a payment so I make sure to PAY OFF IN FULL at the end of each month. :)

Another money saving tip

Ok I just titled this something that is impossible because it is my first money saving tip but we will just look past that and move on. My readership is up my a whopping 0% so that's good. :) Oh well maybe readership will pick up or maybe I'm destined to talk to myself only out on the world wide web.

Anyone who knows me knows I try to make my dollar stretch. I love numbers always have and my goal each month is to make sure we spend less than we earn (what a concept huh government??) NEWAYS! When we lived in Spring Hill Kjell got a speeding ticket so he got a job at Sonic to pay it off. He started coming home with lots of cash from tips and thus was born the envelop system (not to confused with the other envelop system that also requires... envelops.) These envelops all have a category Car insurance, car tags, Christmas, one for each kid for college, house insurance, house taxes, home repairs, new car fund (wish this one grew faster) oh and FUN which the purpose of this money changes every time we hit 100 bucks. With all my survey money they go in the envelops in 10 dollar pay outs, when we have more money at the end of the month after all the bills are paid, our tithe has been taken out also the monthly amount that is taken out for house taxes, car and house ins (more on that another day) if there is money left over we divide that by three 1/3 goes to paying off the house 1/3 goes towards a new car and 1/3 goes towards the envelops. They used to get money put into them faster but this is just an example, you could have any different category you want just make sure you have a bit of record keeping on this because obviously you don't want to keep all that money in the house and end up taking it to the bank at times I just put it into savings and then just have track of how much is in each "envelop" on the envelop. This is perfect for when say our car tags are due and we owe 260 bucks but with the envelop system I've saved 220 for it this year which means the only added expense this month is 40 dollars.

If you have any questions just let me know. It made sense to me but I've done it for 7 years.

wwooo hoooo!

My mail wasn't all up when we left town today but did have a nice coupon from Victoria's secret. Not sure how I got on their mailing list. It is for a free pair of panties! I got one last month too. These are the best if you don't want to shop you just go in get them and hand the coupon to the cashier and you are done. Can't beat free!

trying something new

Ok well I'm not going to promise anything but I would like to help some of my friends figure out ways to earn some extra cash and maybe even have some fun freebies show up in the mail. Instead of me researching what is out there and telling you when they are available I'm going to try to let you know about all the goodies I get in my mailbox each day and tell you where you may be able to get some fun stuff too.

Yesterday's mail included two $25.00 Spa Finder gift certificates I received these as a prize from a survey company my history with this company is-this company deals in points I have had a lifelong point total of almost 35,000 points with those points I have bought 2 phones with an answering machine attached, and an advanced weather system clock. Right now I have about 10,000 of those 35,000 points left to spend on something their prize catalog is HUGE everyone should be able to find something. I have been with this company since 2005. So obviously the money is not made quickly. I would say I get about 2 or 3 survey opportunities each week, if you don't win they give you a token for the game they have and you always win, usually 25 points. If you want more information on this company let me know and I will get you referred for opportunity number 1. I have deleted a lot of the survey companies I have had in the past because I didn't think I made money fast enough the only reason here is that they don't give you millions of opportunities (2 to 3 surveys a week is not much) but that means they aren't pesky and filling your in box all the time.

Today I got a check for $20 from another company. I can't tell how long I have been with them it looks like since 2008 since that time I have made $132.00 this company sends a lot more surveys but it's all cash which I think are the best kind. My last check came Aug 1st so sometimes you can make money pretty fast if you qualify. If you do not qualify for a survey you can try to "win" points I've won once since 2008 or they will donate to the Red Cross I think it's 5 or 10 cents. Ask about this one it is opportunity number 2 if I refer you (or you later refer others) you get $1. Kind of nice

Also in my mail today was a bag clip and a coupon for a free bag of Fresh Express Bagged Salad plus 3 $1.00 coupons for my friends (friends I need to remember to pass these out when I have them!!!) This is from a very fun company called Vocal Point. (go to vocalpoint.com) It is more of a "mom site" but they always have new products that companies want to get out there and talked about. They are always free but you have to make sure you are quick to sign up when they have giveaways because they are very popular. Probably in the last 30 days I've gotten a glad trash bag and a Mott's juice box for the kids. I don't always get this many but it's fun to have the cool packages come in the mail. The trash bag came in a cardboard trash can!

My last fun freebie today was from Target 2 size 4 huggies diapers plus $1.50 off coupon. I find out about these freebies on sites such as www.freebies4mom.com. I have my google reader programed for these sites and I try to get on once or twice a day to pick up on some freebies.

Now I do dedicate about an hour a day to this. Somedays I don't do anything but other days I do. I love football season because I can go all week without doing my emails and do them all while watching football. If you want to start dappling though this is a good start!

Any feedback would be great!

So much running through my head

So when I got married and someone would ask me "how many children do you want?" the answer was always 3. Three is plenty, I would have even told you that after we had number 2. I wanted three children. Then we were surprised to find ourselves pregnant with number 3 oh about nine months before we planned to start trying. And then the number four popped into my mind. I think four is the perfect number of children for our family. Lately though I have been reading a lot on a "Biblical approach to family" and my mind is going crazy. I got this information from some very conservative Christian groups, not saying that that is bad or good I'm just telling you were the information comes from. These people believe in moms place is at home with her kids, homeschooling, and wives submitting to their husbands. And no birth control, your number of children is totally up to how God sees fit. Wow totally opposite the world right now! Here's where I stand on those- I LOVE being at home with my kids, I know some moms work and that is the fit for them so I don't want anyone to feel I'm judging their way of life on this, this is all just me trying to figure out where I see myself in my life with my family :) Everything is crazy combobulated in my mind so I doubt there is any room in my head to judge! I could never homeschool my kids- I don't have the patience, I am working on my patience but I don't have enough of it yet or do I see that happening in the near future and I think we live in a great small community with great teachers and I don't feel right now that I have a need for this. 3) I know submitting to my husband is the correct way to do things it is just way hard... so yeah working o that one too. That leaves us with #4 - Kjell and I were talking this over today if we started giving everything over to God as far as our next child..... we could possibly have TEN more kids. Here I am thinking I'm almost done and I could have 13 children. I just about passed out just thinking about it. I don't know what kind of jobs most of these women's husbands have but I can NOT get maternity insurance for less than 650 a month and am not on Kjell's plan since he is a teacher. I would never want money to stand in the way of having more children but it is just a thought I have had. My #2 concern is most drs try to limit your c-sections guessing my dr wouldn't appreciate me trying to have 10 more c-sections since no one within a 3 hour radius would be willing to preform a VBAC. #3 I don't want to drive an industrial sized van, could we ever go anywhere??

All of these minus the true health concern seem pretty petty but the main concern I have and where I wish God would just "write it on the wall" is I want to be a foster parent. I haven't convinced Kjell this is the way to go and I'm in no hurry. The advice I once got in one of my college classes ( I was a criminal justice major ) was to make sure as a foster parent your own kids are older than the foster ones so that your kids can help them do better things rather than the foster kids teaching your kids to do bad things. I want babies, I want toddlers I want young kids, so my question is where does God want me? I was seriously considering after my next pregnancy (which we have set for next summer lol we will see how God sees fit on that one) of having my tubes tied. I just don't know anymore. The "next duggers??" So just rambling and trying to sort things out.

Ask and you Shall recieve

Well I've been trying to get my office/scrapbooking room organized. It has kind of been the go to room for things that we don't know where they fit or belong in this house to end up in and yesterday I found all the stuff from my first job after college. Right out of college I worked with inner city young life in Kansas City, I was in intern so I had to write a ton of papers on what I did and who I interacted with. Then I found a letter that I have kept for the last almost ten years now. It was a letter written from a kid who I had worked with in California when I worked at a camp called MayMac the summer before my senior year of college. This kid was rough, YOUNG but rough, most would see him as a thug, gang banger, but he grabbed my heart from day one. Long story short we talked for several months and I encouraged him to find the right friends, and to ask himself (this was the time frame where the WWJD bracelets were really popular) What would Reesey Do? (that was what they called me, and honestly the kids wouldn't have known what Jesus would do because they didn't know Him) One day his e-mail no longer worked and I lost contact with him two years later I got an e-mail from him out of the blue telling me how he had changed his life, he had joined the football team, he had a B average and he said thanks for believing in him, besides my love letters from Kjell this was the best letter I have ever received in my life

The letter made me cry because lately I have felt really useless. I LOVE being able to stay at home home with the kids, but some days I feel like a big failure when Justus and Kiah fight for the 100th time in the day and I just LOSE it. I just don't always feel like I'm making an impact, at least not as large as the one I used to make when I was working with Young Life. So this morning during my devotions I asked God to use me today. We decided to go see my grandma this morning and I don't usually take my cell phone with me because I want to just spend time with her, and an hour later when I get to the car I have a message from one of the ladies I work with, they had been trying to get ahold of me, they had called every phone I had, come by the house and didn't know where I was ( I felt really loved ) for those of you who don't know I am the breast-feeding peer counselor for Meade, Gray, and Clark County. They had a new mom who needed someone to come out and help her she was at her wits end and in a lot of pain. My coworkers wanted to know if I could go. I said I'd see I rounded up a babysitter, it went something like this "can you babysit today" "yes when" "does now work?" and I hit the road and was flying out to see this new mom and that is when it hit me. I'd asked to used by God today and He was going to use me. I knew this probably wasn't exactly the way I had though of when I asked him to use me, because I had been thinking more in a "spiritual" sense but I knew God could use me in every situation He gave me. I knew my goal was to be an encouragement. When I got to this new mom's house I got to just get to know her and how she was doing and then I got to help her for the first time in SIX days experience breast feeding with no pain. When she was done she just sighed and I could just see relief wash through her. Then I got to hold the tiniest (ok all my kids where over 8 lbs so a 6 pound baby to me is something TINY) baby for awhile and just let this mom know she was doing a GREAT job. See this baby had the same problem that I had had when Kiah was born, something easy to fix but hard for a first time mom to get figured out on their own. I love being able to make an impact in someone's life. See a nurse 5 years ago gave me the gift by helping me out, and now I was able to help someone else out. Thank you God for letting me be used today, it was SOOOOO fun