land of the free

As much as I might complain about the corporate owning of America & the commercialism bred as a result, there is one distinct advantage to having all those companies trying to woo you with their products: freebies.

I started ordering freebies about a year ago when I found the Absurdly Cool site. I loved its simple layout & the fact that it was a 3rd party site not affiliated with any particular company. The comments section can be very handy too. Since I found the site, I've tried to check in at least once a week to request what I can use. I've ended up with countless bags of free dog & cat food, lots of feminine products, and quite a few samples of laundry detergent & food items, like power bars & cereal. It's great to run out of toilet paper only to suddenly remember that you got that sample roll of Scott Soft last week & you can put off a trip to the store.

About a month ago, I started visiting another site, Money Saving Methods that has taken the idea of freebies to a whole new (savings) level. This woman is local to Cincinnati and she is amazing! The vast amount of deals that she consistently collects & publishes cannot be taken for granted -- I've never found a more reliable source. The fact that she does these many hours of work for free is a blessing to the blogosphere.

Just this week, I've netted the following: $100 cash in a bank offer (no direct deposit required), a free personalized picture mouse pad with free shipping from Shutterfly, sandals for my sister-in-law's birthday present for $3.14 with free shipping, & a $50 gas card for Jeff from Tom Gill Chevrolet for test driving a car.

A couple of these offers came straight to our door instead of through her site; however, I've been reading her site long enough to know that gas-for-test-drive offers & cash-for-new-bank-account offers are legitimate & easy to do. She's done both types of offers & explains what to expect. If I hadn't been following her site regularly, I'd have just thrown those offers away. Instead, we have $150 extra in our pocket plus two gifts for $3.14.

Since our baby is due in early January, I know I'm not going to be in any kind of mood to be Christmas shopping in December. Using her site, I already have almost half of our Christmas shopping finished & most of it has been done for free or almost free.

There are a couple other sites that have been helpful in saving money lately. The first is the Deals I've Spotted forum on (save your gasps) cincyMOMS. It's here that I stumbled upon the Money Saving Methods site, and here that I've found ways to earn a few small gift cards or local gift certificates. I try to check in every couple days to see what's new.

Two newer additions are Ann Crabs and Money Saving Mom. Both list various coupons & deals of interest daily in a short, easy to scan format. I am pretty new to both sites, so I can't say quite yet which is better for which types of items.

And finally, there's Project Organic Eating, which offers a whole list of printable coupons for organic food & household products.

I hope to update my blog list on the right sidebar shortly to include these new sites. Right now, my computer time is up for the day.