Squirrel in a Tree

Great Day to Sign Up For SwagBucks!

2010-02-25T14:21:00.000-08:00

Today SwagBucks is having their 2nd birthday, and are offering up 60 swagbucks when you sign up using the code COMMONSWAG (case sensitive). Now, this would be a TON of points in the old system, but they've updated their system by multiplying each swagbuck by 10. So you can get 10, 20, or 50 swagbucks just for searching, but the Amazon giftcard now costs 450 swagbucks.

They're doing a bunch of special codes just for today, and I've earned 90 swagbucks just today!

You can sign up for SwagBucks here.

Thanks Krazy Coupon Lady!

Great Shopping.com Promotion!

2010-02-19T11:03:00.000-08:00

Shopping.com has a great promotion going on called "10 for $10", where you review products and are paid $10 PayPal for every 10 reviews you complete. This is good for up to 100 reviews! This means that you can make $100 just for reviewing products!

The only catch is that your reviews have to be rated as helpful, so you might want to buddy up with someone else, and rate each other's reviews. It doesn't limit how many people per household, so if I can talk my husband into it, we'll get as much as $200. :)

Rules can be found here.

Cheap Toothpaste at Walgreens

2010-02-17T14:29:00.001-08:00

I’m totally doing this deal next time I hit Walgreens!

Crest Cavity Protection 6.4 oz, $2.29
Use the $1.50 - Walgreens February coupon booklet (found in the front of the store)
Also use the $0.75 - 2/7 PG. There is also a coupon in the 1/17 PG that will work for this, too.
Final Price: $0.04!

The best part of this deal is that it goes all month, until the 27th! So it’s not like you have to rush out to the store, you can just go next time you’re there for a deal. :)

Thanks to Moms by Heart!

Writing Challenge Update - 2/17

2010-02-17T14:13:00.000-08:00

This week, I’ve written one article for Seed.com, two for eHow, and my review of the Wonder Wash. The article on Seed.com was not chosen to be used, so that was a bust. My eHow article on How to Deal With Financial Hardship and my article on How to Find Online Printable Grocery Coupons have both been published. I’m fairly hopeful for the latter article, as it seems there aren’t any articles on eHow that cover what I’m talking about.

Also, I’ve discovered a few general resources on writing, eHow and blogging:

Blogger Buster describes how to create a three column blog here on Blogger. I’m currently planning on implementing this in the future, but haven’t yet because I’m still working on the code. This can be kind of heavy work for the un-initiated to coding for the web, so if you’re interested in doing this, it might be easier to find a template at one of the many free blogger template websites. I used to do programming, so I’ve got to do it the hard way, LOL.
WordTracker is a keyword suggestion tool. This is brilliant because it can help give you ideas on what to write about, just put in one keyword and it will come up with a list of different words that frequently go along with that keyword. It can help you pick out key phrases to help bump your article, blog or website to the top of a search engine list.
How to Get eHow Earnings is an article on (funny enough) eHow. It goes through some basics about writing for eHow, but the most interesting thing to me is that it recommended signing up and using StumbleUpon because it “drives large amounts of traffic to your articles”. I’m putting this on my to-do list for the week.
Along the same lines, there’s the Residual Income Blog, which details this woman’s experience making a living using residual income from places like eHow, niche websites, adsense, affiliates, and her eBook sales. Her goal is to earn $50,000 a year just from income like this, and it sounds like she’s well on her way. The eHow article I mention above is written by her. She’s also got another blog, My Work at Home Mom Blog, that holds much the same kind of content. This woman is another user on Diaperswappers, and I’ve seen her post in the Thrifty forum (my favorite forum, of course).
Finally, Commission Junction. This place seems to be affiliate city. I haven’t signed up for it yet, but it seems to be a great place to find affiliates to link to and earn money from.

My research for this week is looking like this: I’m going to look up a website called TextBroker, and I plan on looking closer as Associated Content, which I’ve read good and bad things about. My other research will be StumbleUpon and I’ll be looking for some article databases to post to, which will help get my articles and name out there.

Free Static Window Cling for Your Car!

2010-02-16T18:30:00.000-08:00

Today in the mail I got my free static cling encouraging me to bring my own reusable bag for shopping. It's from a great place called Conserving Now. Run by a mother/daughter team, their main focus is on providing information to encourage eco-friendliness. Their two main methods of doing this seem to be through the free static clings and by providing classroom kits to schools.

If you're interested in a free static cling for yourself, they're still available over at Conserving Now's website, here.

Product Review: The Wonder Wash

2010-02-14T12:56:00.000-08:00

Now that we’re living in an apartment, we find that getting our laundry clean can be quite difficult to do. The on-site laundry facilities are unappetizing, and driving elsewhere is inconvenient at best. So, my husband and I decided to buy the Wonder Wash, a portable pressure clothes washer. This product is hand-cranked, but the claim is that it cleans so much more efficiently that you only need to spend 2 to 3 minutes washing a load.

The reason that it’s suppose to clean so much more efficiently, is because you use hot water, then seal it in the drum, the hot water then heats up the air within the vessel, causing air pressure. This pressure forces the water and laundry detergent through the fibers of your clothes, getting your clothing clean in much less time, using less water and less detergent.

Or at least that’s what the pitch is, anyway. This is an “As Seen on TV” item, and you know how those can be. Some work, some don’t.

Here’s how it works: You fill the metal container with warm to hot water, add clothes detergent, put your dirty clothes in, then screw on and tighten the specially made lid. The next step is to crank the portable washer for a few minutes, rinse, and, voila, your clothes are clean. The actual instructions are more detailed, and you have to be careful not to put too much water in it. If you’re interested in more detailed how-to instructions, check out my article on How to Use a Wonder Wash.

When the Wonder Wash came, my husband put it together without much trouble. The assembly instructions were pretty lackluster, but the pieces went together intuitively. By the time he was finished putting it together, I had a load of clothes all ready, and was eager to try it out. Yeah, I was eager to wash clothes. The life of a mommy, eh?

The wash drum seemed quite sturdy, and I had no problem putting in water and screwing down the lid. On the other hand, the stand for the drum is a somewhat rickety and seems less sturdy than it ought to be. I have read reviews of people who’ve used the Wonder Wash for long periods of time, and haven’t had any trouble with the stand breaking, so perhaps it’s stronger than it looks.

For my first load, I used the recommended amount of detergent, which I found to be a little much, and reduced the amount on subsequent loads. Cranking the drum was a little difficult at first, but you get into a rhythm and the 2 minutes go by fast. The Wonder Wash has a special “bayonet” (their word, not mine), that you attach to a valve on the bottom, which opens and the water drains out. This means that you do not have to lift the drum and dump the water out yourself, but let it drain out through the bottom into your bathtub or kitchen sink (or where ever you keep it) with little to no work. This is much better and easier than other, similar products that you have to lift the whole wash drum and drain the water out through the top. This part I really, really like, and think is really great about the design.

I thought that the Wonder Wash got our clothes quite clean, and I had picked out some that were especially dirty (easy to do with 2 little kids). For the first load, I did rinse an extra time to get more laundry detergent out, but fixed that problem by using less detergent in my future loads.

Overall, I felt that the Wonder Wash was well designed and easy to use. For the convenience of getting clean clothes without leaving home, I feel like the amount of work is worth it.

If you're interested in buying a Wonder Wash, you can order them for $50 off of Amazon.com.

Writing Challenge Update: I made money!

2010-02-13T15:14:00.000-08:00

I finally made some money on eHow! Granted, it's only $0.48, but it's a start. I still really don't understand how that was calculated, since it's showing I made money on my How to Read a Coupon Blog article, which only has 8 views, as opposed to some of my others that have a lot more views.

Whatever. I'm still happy. All the work seems to be getting somewhere, at least. :)

Free Photo Collage at Walgreens!

2010-02-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

Today, 2/12 only!

Head over to Walgreens.com photo center and create a 8 x 10 photo collage print. At checkout, type in the code "VDAY", and it will be free! Pick it up at a local store, and you won't even pay shipping!

I did a deal like this a while ago, and it came out really nice. I didn't have any problems getting it free from the store or anything.

Greeting Card Writer Link

2010-02-12T10:51:00.000-08:00

Little Prints is looking for greeting card designs, and offer $15 for each approved design. More information can be found here.

This sounds pretty easy, and it would cost very little to do, so if you have some ideas, submit them!

Writing Update

2010-02-11T16:18:00.000-08:00

So this week I only wrote two articles, both of them on eHow. Not meeting my challenge goal, but at least I managed two. I’m feeling a little disillusioned with life presently, and have basically just spent a lot of time sitting around because of it. D’oh.

Anyway, the articles I wrote on eHow is one on How to Find Cheap Décor for Your Home, and the other, How to Clean Out Your E-mail Inbox. Surprisingly, the article I have that has had the most hits is my article on How to Find the Average, which I wrote out of desperation for lack of anything else to write.

While not writing this week, I’ve been looking into different places to write for money, and have come across http://www.seed.com, run by AOL (yes, I know, the devil LOL), which has specific topics that they’re looking for people to write about. I’m not sure of the pay system, as I haven’t looked at the website in too much detail yet, but I am interested in looking further.

The other thing I’ve found is a company that’s looking for greeting card writers. The way this works is that you mail in your idea on a flashcard (in a specific format), and if they decide to use it, they pay you $15. I’ve been brainstorming some ideas for this, and am thinking about sending some in. I figure, all it’ll cost me is postage, and if I luck out and even just one is good enough, it’ll be a little cash anyways. I will post a link to this website when I get back on my main computer so you can check it out too.

This coming week, I’ll be checking into Seed.com more, and hopefully get back to some productive writing.

Great Deal at Target!

2010-02-10T15:22:00.000-08:00

Buy any 5 Quaker items, get a $5 gift card.

The Quaker Oats Express cups, Maple and Brown Sugar ONLY, are $1.07 each, and are included!

So the deal works like this:

Buy 5 at $1.07 each
Total: $5.35, and get a $5 gift card!

You can make this deal better by using a $1 off any one coupon, found here (you have to create your day, then send it to a friend, THEN print). I printed 2, so I paid $3.35 and got a $5 gift card!

I think that these will be great for my two-year-old on days that we need to get up and leave fast.

Swagbucks

2010-02-05T15:52:00.001-08:00

This is a program where you earn points for doing online searches, and can turn those points in for different gift cards and items. Swagbucks is so easy to get gift cards on, as it only takes 45 points to get a $5 Amazon.com gift card. If you figure that, with a few searches, you can get 2-4 points per day, or more if you do their special offers and download the toolbar, it doesn’t take long at all to get enough points.

The best part about getting the Amazon gift cards, is that you can stack them! This means that, once you go to buy something on Amazon, you can stack multiple $5 gift cards, so it’s possible to get things free or very cheap!

Check out Swagbucks here!

Earn Money with Survey Websites

2010-02-05T15:46:00.001-08:00

One of my main places for play money is through paid survey websites. I’m a member of a few, and plan on posting about them as time goes on. It does take a while to get a decent amount of money from each of the websites, but when I do cash out it’s usually a fair chunk of change.

Yesterday, I just cashed out $40 on MySurvey, bringing my total with them up to $140. MySurvey has been really great and one of the easiest places to make money on. They are very clear about the number of points you get for each survey, as well as how long the survey is expected to take you to complete. In addition to getting paid for these surveys, I’ve gotten free samples from them to try, and get to see up and coming products.

Like most survey places, MySurvey has a limit of one account per household, and you do need 1000 points ($10) before you can cash out.

Check it out here!

eHow

2010-02-05T15:42:00.000-08:00

One of the things that got me started writing recently is eHow, which is a how-to website that pays people for writing how-to articles. I have a bunch of articles up presently, but have so far had mixed results. The amount you are paid is never spelled out clearly in the terms of service, and even though I’ve gotten some page views and such, I haven’t made anything off my articles. One of the things I’ve read in guides for eHow is that you have to get your articles to be popular before you start making money, which makes me a little apprehensive, because I didn’t sign up for a popularity contest, you know?

Since I just started on eHow, though, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt and will continue to post how-to articles on there, especially since I retain the rights to anything I post. Most of the people who are on there making money have a large number of articles to draw on, so it might be that I just need to expand my offerings.

If you’re interested in checking out my articles, you can look at my profile on eHow, or you can check out the links on the right side of the page.

My Writing Challenge

2010-02-03T22:30:00.000-08:00

One of the main themes of this blog will be my writing challenge, which is my way of making myself get into writing more and be more creative. It is my goal to write 4 articles of some shape or form each week, not counting blog posts. I plan on posting helpful resources on my journey through writing, things like where to get ideas from, informational resources, and places to make money with these articles.

Since I took English literature at Evergreen Valley Community College, I’ve wanted to get more into writing, but am unwilling to try being an English major. I haven’t really had time or inclination because of all the time I spend writing for my classes, so I’ve never pursued this interest before. Finding myself unexpectedly not taking classes this semester made me really step back and think “what will I do with all this time?” I could spend it surfing the internet, but why not do something different?

My main inspiration for this challenge comes from Jonathan Coulton's >"Thing a Week", where he wrote a song every week in order to make himself a more creative and productive artist. Some of his “Thing a Week” songs were brilliant, some mediocre, and some just okay, but it’s the effort in writing these songs that is important. I expect some of the things I write will be derivative, mundane, maybe downright awful, but maybe something will be good. It is with that possibility in mind that I pursue this challenge.

Here we go!

Why, hello there!

2010-02-03T21:57:00.000-08:00

Hi there, welcome to my blog!

Before we cut to the chase, a little about me:
I am a stay at home mom and college student, and I’m interested in expanding my writing, which is the main reason behind this blog. My interests and hobbies include, when I have time (HA!), playing Dungeons and Dragons, crochet, a little sewing, and general craftiness. I also like to clip coupons, and am okay at finding a deal. My plan for this blog is to include a writing section, information on places to make money, and coupon deals. Also, anything else really cool. ;D