JJ Heller Painted Red

My favorite song so far: Track 9 True Things

CVS and Stuff

I haven't done this in awhile. It makes me feel so accomplished in a completely obsessive way to shop this way. My first trip was CVS. I should have spent $127.40. I spent less than a dollar. Yes. It's totally true. I spent a whopping $.95!I have proof. Click on the receipts to see.


Next, Walgreens. I never do as well there. However, for $74.84 worth of stuff, I paid $28.71

From Walmart last week. Spent less than $2 here.
From Staples the other day. Paid $1.12.


So I paid a total of $32.78 for all that stuff. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Want to Order Dark Harvest Free?

Remember when I posted about Revolution Money Exchange here and here? Well, May 15th is the last day to get your $25.

That's how to get Dark Harvest free (plus a profit!) Sign up and get your $25, order Dark Harvest for $20 and you get a great anthology plus a $5 profit!

After you've signed up and ordered, come back here and comment and we'll have a Gift Card Giveaway--but you can only enter if you pre-order Dark Harvest!


Pre-order now! Click here. You'll be sent to Bob Freeman's Paypal account set up for Dark Harvest orders. Bob is president of the Indiana Horror Writers and is doing all the work. (Thank you Bob!)

DARK HARVEST WILL BE RELEASED JUNE 14TH
PRE-ORDERS WILL SHIP BEGINNING MONDAY JUNE 16TH

SHIPPING IS INCLUDED FOR U.S. ORDERS.

INTERNATIONAL ORDERS,
PLEASE EMAIL ihw@comteck.com
FOR SHIPPING DETAILS

Edit to add (for clarity)
This is how you'll use your free $25 to order Dark Harvest.

Revolution Money Exchange (RME) will deposit $25 into your RME account.
They'll send 2 small deposits to your bank account and you'll go back to the RME website to confirm those deposits. Once that's done, you can transfer your $25 into your bank account and thus, RME pays for Dark Harvest and gives you an extra $5 plus a chance to win a gift card from me.


Edit again to add another thought (thank you my cautious friend--you know who you are)
If you don't want to link your bank account then send the $25 to my RME account, I'll pre-order Dark Harvest for you and send you your $5 extra. :)

Photo Print Deal for You

400 free prints and & 1 free 8x8 custom cover photo books
(including 1st 20 pages, coming soon). Limited time only.




Click here!

Deals on Inkjet Printer Cartridges

I don't know about you, but this homeschooling family goes through a lot of ink cartridges. Oh hush now. I realize that printing out my short stories and manuscripts (okay, manuSCRIPT) takes up a lot of ink, too. But really, I think most of the ink goes by way of the three R's. And the StarWars.com coloring pages. And internet coupons. We just print a lot, okay. At least Zane has never stuck french toast in the printer like Ree's boys.

To the point: InkjetDeals can help. I gave up my Hewlett Packard Laser Jet Printer for a Brother. That should be tip eight on the Seven Tips for Saving Ink article. Buy a Brother because then you only change the ink color that has run out.

So there's some coupons too.
Carrot Ink Coupons
4inkjets Coupons (I used these guys last time. Great prices, great ship time!)
123Inkjets coupons (I've used these guys in the past, too)

I love saving money!

Update on Revolution Money Exchange

I have successfully transferred $55 so far into my bank account.

Sweet!

Just in time for the Calvin Festival of Faith & Writing.




Previous posts here and here.

Kudos to Revolution Money Exchange and Ted Leonsis

I just posted about Paypal's new competitor Revolution Money Exchange because I thought it was cool that Paypal finally has someone to go head-to-head with.

Little did I know I would be linked on the front page of Ted Leonsis' blog. He's the Chairman of Revolution Money. And you should read this guy's Bio. Wow.

I like his "Filmanthropy." Check it out.

So Kudos for Ted (if he's doing his own blog) and/or his team (if they're helping out.) Either way, it's nice to be linked to unexpectedly. This is a good lesson in customer service for the Big Guys. I didn't post because I expected to get anything from posting. I signed up, my mom signed up and I figured that was about the extent of things. Maybe it sounds stupid, but Revolution Money has just earned my business because of a web link.

When I did direct sales, I studied how to go the extra mile for my clients and gratitude was always at the top of list. If I made one extra phone call and said, "Thank you. That's it, I don't want anything more from you other than this time it took for me to say I appreciate your business." I found out that those clients were loyal and they spread the word and I had a lot more business than I could have spent advertising dollars to get.

Great job Ted and Revolution Money!

PayPal Has a Competitor

PayPal needs to step up and slash fees to compete with the new kid, RevolutionaryMoneyExchange.


Join and get $25 in your account. I did. It worked. I'm all for competition.

• USA Today article about their credit card.
• Entrepreneur.com article.
• Press release

WASHINGTON, September 24, 2007 – Revolution LLC, the investment company created by Steve Case, today launched a new subsidiary, Revolution Money, an innovative new payment platform created to transform the payment industry by drastically altering the economics through Internet-based technology, generating significant consumer and merchant benefits. Revolution Money offers consumers one of the most secure credit cards with significantly lower interchange fees for merchants and the first free online money transfer service, Revolution Money, formerly GratisCard Inc., has been formed by Case, Revolution Money Chairman Ted Leonsis, former United States Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, former Charles Schwab CEO David Pottruck, and former MasterCard International President and CEO Russell Hogg, among others, and is backed by Citi, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank.

Tackle It Tuesday--CVS

This week:

• Cleaned/organized my pantry
• Cleaned/organized my laundry room
• Did all but three loads of laundry (doing the rest today)
• Started (for the second time) Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University
• Started reading a FABULOUS new version of the Bible: The Books of the Bible
• Planned for my writer's retreat this weekend with the Indiana Horror Writers
• And yes. My Christmas tree is still up.
  

My tackle for this week has been learning how to shop CVS and use Extra Care Bucks to save big time on things I'd normally buy anyway. Here's where I first talked about it.

I don't have a before and after picture because a before picture would be my empty table. ;) So here's what I got this past week and then my running total on cash spent out of my pocket. It is really, really, really amazing!

My running total last time looked like this:

Spent cash: 82.35
- ECB's rec'd: 58.43
$23.92! That's 71% off of my total spending!


After adding these two trips:
Spent Cash: 110.13
-ECB's rec'd: 83.43
$26.70! That's 75% off my total spending!

The CVS ExtraCare thing

I saved 71% this week!

I'm going to give it a whirl.

Here's the progress of my first week.

If you want to know the how and why, check out Living Almost Large--I think she explains it way better than I could hope to at this point.

So last week we bought (Feb 3rd flyer):

• (1) 3 packBritta filters for my pitcher
  
• (4) Shower to Shower powder
  
• (1) fabric softener
• (3) dishwashing liquid
• (1) bag cough drops
  

I spent a total of $32.91 and got back $9.00 in the ExtraCare Bucks (ECB's).

Granted, it may take us 3 months to use the filters, powder, and dishwashing liquid, probably a month for the fabric softener, but it is stuff that I use constantly.

I didn't buy anything that we don't normally use and I only bought the amounts I did to get the ECB's.

When I go back to CVS, I will be able to use manufacturer's coupons and pay with the ECB's I received.

SO...

I went back and got (still Feb 3 flyer)

• (3) Speed Stick deodorants
• (1) Garnier conditioner
• (2) 75% off girlie lip glosses for part of a birthday present
• (1) V05 Shampoo
• (1) Gain laundry detergent
• (1) 75% off after shave for Phil
• (5) Boost Smoothies
• (2) Reese's Cups singles
• (1) Venus Razor w/5 blades
• (1) Eyeshadow
• (1) Valentine candy for Zane

After using ECB's, I paid $33.91 cash, got back $32 ECBs


The new CVS flyer started yesterday (Feb 10 flyer) so I looked it over and headed out to see what kind of damage I could do. I had $32 in ECB's from the last trip.

• (3) Charmin 9-packs
• (1) Bounty 8-pack
• (5) 81mg Asprin
• (1) Colgate White
  
• (1) Spongebob Colgate for kids
• (1) Excedrin Sinus/Headache
• (3) Battery operated toothbrushes
• (2) 8-packs of toothbrushes
• (2) 2 litres of Diet Pepsi Max
• (2) Milky Way fun size packs

My total was $51. I handed the cashier my manufacturer's coupons and my ECB's. My total was then $15.45 and I got $17.95 in ECB's back.



My running total looks like this:
Spent cash: 82.35
- ECB's rec'd: 58.43
$23.92! That's 71% off of my total spending!

I'd say this is well worth my time and effort.