mystery shopping

A call from DSG associates puts me on a new path. They are a mystery shop company. I am a newbie to mystery shops and will post my experiences as they come. I have always heard of mystery shopping and often wondered how to get hired to do that. With the hundreds of advertisers of mystery shopping ( most of them bogus) I was cautious about applying. I got the name of DSG from a wonderful blog I subscribe to : moneysavingmethods.com. Between that and Free Stuff Times, I have learned so many valuable tips for getting free stuff! 

Monetizing my blog

I've been playing around recently with monetizing my blog. I can add ads that pay per page, etc.... I started blogging for fun, but if I can profit from it as well ...... It is just an idea in the making. I'm still awaiting free stuff to distribute. There are lots of earth day freebies to be had today. Check Free Stuff Times for a listing. That's where I get a majority of my freebies. And also where I found places to sign up for product testing. A truly great site indeed!

Stockpiling

I've been a little lax the last year about stockpiling. Stockpiling is when you find a rockbottom price (sometimes free) on a product and you buy enough to last a 6mo-1yr. My stockpiles a slowly dwindling away to nothing. Soon I will be scouring sites like Hot Coupon World and Southern Savers to find the absolute best prices and build my piles again. I will post my very best deals as soon as I find them

Today is about the greatness of focus groups. Focus groups are like survey companies that send you products to review and give feedback on or have you participate in online discussions. Or maybe even both. They are about specific subjects or products and usually compensate well. Two that come to mind are Focus Forward and 20/20. Both are legit companies that compensate well for your opinions. We all have opinions and we should get paid to give them to companies!

"Kelly's cake off for a cause"

Let me tell you about a good way to contribute to a great cause ,without spending a dime! Kelly Ripa's new "cake off" for ovarian cancer research is a great way to do just that. Kelly and Buddy Valastro from "Cake Boss" on TLC are baking extravagant cakes in support of OCRF and have invited five teams to participate in a "cake off". The teams are using what they have learned from Kelly and Buddy to make their own cake creations. You can vote on their delightful cakes at http://www.kelly-confidential.com/ . For every vote, Electrolux donates $1 to OCRF. So, login today and vote!

finding gold in my mailbox

More goodys for me this week in my mailbox. More poptarts from Pop tarts sprinklings. A 2 pack of my childs fav pop tarts because it's his 1/2 birthday. That means its 6 months till his birthday :) a great idea for celebrating. Got a great TIGI girls just want it lip palate (very nice), trash bag sample from sams. Stim u dent toothpick samples free oreo coupon was nice too! Yay to the Mannings for winning the Oreo challange- both were from Facebook samples/giveaways. On a sad note, I had to ship my New Balance shoes back this week, but I did apply for 3 Houseparty.com houseparties. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

tigi's lip palate and a map of texas

Todays mail was a TIGI lip palate (VERY NICE FREEBIE), and a Texas tourism book (think phone book thick). Came with a map of Texas (my kids love maps what can I say).
Also, a 2010 calendar from somewhere in Europe - totally didn't expect that one to come but it did :) I am saddened to say that my New Balance shoes have to go back this week :( I love getting them and testing them, but hate to see them go. Oh well, hopefully I'll get a new pair in the next few months and am looking on the bright side. I had a new smile.ly mission today but instead of a product to try, it gave a coupon. Not sure I like that, but since they did give me a full size Vitacraves, I think I'll give em another chance. I think the snow must be slowing down the mail cause I haven't been loaded with freebies like usual.