Money, Love, and Change

OK, I’m the first to admit that I haven’t done too much active advertising on this blog.  However, I do think that many things in moderation can be beneficial.

I was reading fellow Entrecarder BloggerNoob’s blog (who can resist that baby?)  and became intrigued by his post about making $50 with RevResponse.  I’m a little late on this train, since the promotion ends tonight, but I had to check it out.

RevResponse is interesting because they pay their affiliates for giving away free content to qualified members of a site’s audience in the form of magazines and downloads.  Their offer catalog is pretty broad, and offers a number of different categories including education, finance, and sales.  They also have an affiliate program (as indicated by the banner below!).

It might be too late to sign up for RevResponse to take advantage of this particular $50 offer, but if you are already a member, please visit the July contest rules for complete (and easy) instructions.  There’s still time to get $50 in your wallet!

If you haven’t signed up yet with RevResponse, now is just a good as time as ever!  I am going to keep an eye on them to see what other promotions they run.  BloggerNoob has had past experience with them and gives them the thumbs up.  I’ll also give them the thumbs up when I get paid in August!

One luxury that we continue to splurge on is Direct TV.  Both my husband and I are huge sports fans – unfortunately for us, our favorite teams aren’t local ones.  Every year, we save up and budget for both NFL Sunday ticket and NBA League Pass.

We really like NBA League Pass – there is always a game on that we’re interested in watching every night (after the kid is in bed).  NFL Sunday ticket is a little bit of a different story.  Basically, we can only watch 2 games each weekend, but that’s a pretty big investment of time, especially since the kid is up when the games are on.

The Cleveland Browns are actually a decent team this year, so we will be able to see more games on local tv.  We sat down with their schedule last weekend, and figured out that we might miss five games total if we don’t purchase Sunday ticket.  It’s possible that we may only miss three games.  There’s just no way we’re paying $50+ to watch a game on television.  So we canceled.

I’m really happy with the decision, and I was a little surprised that my husband was too.  He’s getting annoyed with the fact that sports fans have to shell out so much money these days – we can’t even tune into Cleveland’s radio station (WMMS) anymore to listen to the games online without paying a fee.

I would like to get rid of television altogether, but we have over a year left on our Direct TV contract.  I don’t really enjoy watching tv a lot (except sports), and my husband doesn’t watch a lot of tv either.  I keep waiting for the SlingCatcher to come out!

If you’re a big sports fan, what do you do?

I was on Slickdeals.net this weekend, and came across this offer.  Basically, through 7/28, if you have never signed up for Amazon Prime before, you can use this link to get $10 off your next Amazon order when you sign up for a free one month trial of Amazon Prime.  Amazon Prime allows for unlimited two-day free shipping and no minimum order size.

This is a good deal because you can use your $10 credit and still get free shipping (usually you need $25 to qualify for free super-saver shipping).  Cancelling Amazon Prime before the free month is up is very easy as well – you can do it through your account settings online without any hassle.

The original post from Slickdeals is here if you want to check it out.  I got my son a book and Hot Wheels toy car holder for $4 out of pocket.  We’ll be saving both of these for Christmas.  If you take advantage of this, what are you going to get?

Yuck.  I tried upgrading WordPress earlier this week using the Automatic WordPress Upgrade plugin (which has worked fine in the past) to no avail.  It kept getting stuck on making a backup copy of my database.  I had not done the upgrade before the most recent one, so perhaps that had something to do with it.  I’ve been putting off doing it manually due to lack of time, but finally got around to it this evening.

It really wasn’t all that bad due to the fact that I had time and no distractions.  The extended instructions on the WordPress site were pretty straightforward, and it took me one hour from start to finish (including backing up the database and previous version of WordPress).

I’m getting used to the new dashboard, and am glad that it’s done!  Have you had any issues upgrading?  Are you putting it off?

These days, I know that many people are trying to do everything that they can to save money (myself included).  Clipping coupons from the Sunday paper is one popular method of pinching pennies, but I am beginning to wonder if it is the best for me.

When I go to the grocery store, I usually pick up veggies and fruits, grains (rice, pasta, bread) and dairy.  I allocate $5 for junk food (cookies, chips, ice cream), and $25 for stocking up on items that are on sale (oatmeal, canned goods, etc).  I’ve stocked up on a lot of the bathroom essentials via CVS with little or no out-of-pocket cost.

After looking over the grocery totals for the past couple of months, I’ve found that I actually spend more when I clip coupons.  We tend to have more processed food in the house when coupons are clipped, and not as many fresh fruits and vegetables.  The items I buy when coupons aren’t clipped tend to be items that almost never have coupons (ie. organic foods).

Honestly, when flipping through last week’s Sunday circular, I had trouble finding coupons of anything I would normally buy.  Is anyone else in a similar situation?  What do you do?

Sometimes, I’m the last one to figure things out.  But just in case I’m not…

Frequently, when dropping Entrecards, I will open 10+ blogs at a single time.  In some instances, the blog will load, but not the Entrecard “Drop” zone.  I just noticed that you can right click on the frame for the Entrecard widget, and just reload the frame (as opposed to the entire blog).  The Drop zone will appear, giving more time to read the blog entry instead of waiting for the entire page to reload.  Good stuff!

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is currently asking for signatures on a pledge to help Iraqis who are fleeing from the violence of the war.  The cool thing about this petition is that every signature will result in $1 of additional support given to their cause.

In case you are wondering, here is some general information about the IRC taken directly from their website:

Founded in 1933, the IRC is a global leader in emergency relief, rehabilitation, protection of human rights, post-conflict development, resettlement services and advocacy for those uprooted or affected by conflict and oppression.

Of every $1 the IRC spends, 90¢ goes to programs and services that directly benefit refugees and war-affected populations.

I put a badge on my sidebar if you feel like signing the pledge directly, or you can follow this link.

Happy Monday everyone!

After traveling last weekend, everyone was ready to take it easy.  We wanted to get out and enjoy nature this weekend, and were thinking about taking a short trip (less than 2 hours) to a state park.  However, on Friday evening, we pulled out our atlas, and found a nature center that was only 15 miles away!

We decided to head over there on Saturday morning, and had a lot of fun.  If it hadn’t been for the humidity, we would have stayed longer (our bassett hound is a trooper, but she doesn’t do well in high heat combined with humidity).  We plan on going back soon, since there is another trail that we can take the kid on.

While we were at the nature center, I picked up a brochure for a local self-sustaining farm.  We’re big on local and organic foods – come to find out, we’ve been living about 12 miles away from this farm, complete with a store, that sells in bulk!  I checked out this place over the weekend, and was really impressed.  The prices for the bulk food are really affordable, and some items that have been treats for our family, such as quinoa, are now going to become more of a staple.  I also like the idea of supporting a local establishment.

We also met up with some friends this weekend, and our kids had the chance to play together.  They get along really well, and it was nice catching up.  On Sunday, my husband met up with a friend to play disc golf.  He took the kid, so I got to sleep in.  It was awesome!

Other than groceries, we didn’t spend any money this weekend. We had a great time, though!  What about you?

If you’re like me, you buy the Sunday paper to clip some coupons and hopefully get a couple of good deals (or at least make up the cost of buying the Sunday paper).  I am always trying to make sure that I got all of the coupon inserts for the Sunday paper; in our area, the RedPlum insert is only in the larger (and more expensive) paper.

I just found this link from Slickdeals.net, and thought that I would share it.  It’s the 2008 coupon insert schedule, and it just made my life easier.  Hope that this can help someone else out!

If you are a US citizen, now is as good as time as any to register to vote.  Not letting your voice be heard is a tragedy!

In case you are wondering, HeadCount is an organization dedicated to registering voters at music events throughout the country.  I’ve seen them at Phish shows and Bonnaroo, and they are good people.  When you click on the button and register, I get a chance to win a Jam Cruise.  Please feel free to get a button for your site as well.

Have a good day!