Master List

*I compiled this for a seminary email list I am on. Some of the information will be unique to St. Louis, but not all.

Cov-Lov Master List of Deals, Coupons, Freebies, and ways to make extra cash

Collective Buying Websites:
How It Works

1. Each day they feature a substantial discount for something. For example - “$10 for $20 Worth of food at restaurant “X” - Sign up for daily emails to stay updated, or visit the site every day.
2. You only get it if enough people join that day.
3. Each day will feature a new and different deal.
1. *Note: sometimes they do have a limited number they are selling and will run out.

Groupon- easily the most reccomended, highly publicized, and successful of this category.
Living Social

**There are litereally hundreds more of these kinds of sites.

Cashback websites:
How it Works

1. If you ever plan to purchase something from an online retailer, check first to see if they are registered with any of these websites.
2. First visit the website, then click on the link to the retailer.
3. You will receive a percentage back in cash, check, paypal or giftcard.

*Note that some websites require a minimum $ amount or point number before you can cash out.


www.mypoints.com
www.ebates.com
www.mrrebates.com
www.shopathome.com
www.upromise.com

Also - here is a helpful Cashback rate comparison chart, to help you decide which site gives the best cashback on a particular retailer...
http://www.cashbackmonitor.com/


Surveys or emails for cash or giftcards:
How it Works

1. Some of these overlap with the rebate sites
2. The sites will send you:
1. Emails that you get points or cents from for viewing the email and clicking the link. This takes awhile to “read” enough emails to get enough for a payout or giftcard, but for the most part I am able to average 3-4 $25 giftcards a year from this method alone from MyPoints.
2. Emails that have links to surveys you can take to earn money (typically much more than those from category a.)

• *Note that not all websites do both kinds of emails.

www.mypoints.com
www.inboxdollars.com
www.pandaresearch.com
www.opinionoutpost.com
www.erewards.com

Coupon sites:

www.stlmommy.com - coupon match-ups for St. Louis area grocery stores, plus freebies, giveaways, etc.
www.wildforwags.com - extensive coupon match-ups for Walgreens shoppers
http://www.restaurant.com/ - discounts on gift certificates to restaurants. *Note the fine print on minimum purchase requirements.
www.myspringfieldmommy.com - coupon match-ups for Missouri area grocery stores, plus freebies, giveaways, etc.
www.retailmenot.com - compilation of coupon codes for use shopping online at TONS of sites

Sample Sales:
www.gilt.com
www.ruelala.com


Marketing Research companies in St. Louis that pay:
Delve - sign up for emails to alert you when they are looking for participants for research studies.
Submitted by: Brittany Smith - I have done an in-home product trial over 2 weeks for $85.
www.delve.com

Hatch - sign up for emails to alert you when they are looking for participants for research studies.
Submitted by: Brittany Smith - I have done a 2-hour focus group for them before for $65. (We had to eat powdered donuts and honeybuns and give our opinion).
http://www.hatchglobalresearch.com/

Peters Market Research - sign up for emails to alert you when they are looking for participants for research studies.
Submitted by: Brittany Smith - I have been contacted by them many times by phone to see if I qualify for studies, but haven’t gotten one yet. From their emails, they seem to do a lot of health or disease-related studies.
http://www.petersmktg.com/index.html


Other helpful sources for frugal living and money-conscious spending:

Swagbucks - Everyone must use this!! It’s free money in your pocket! Just switch to using Swagbucks search engine for all of your online searching (instead of google, bing, or yahoo) and you will win “swagbucks” which you can redeem for Amazon giftcards and other great prizes.
Submitted by: Brittany Smith - I have literally made over $100 in amazon gift cards this way. www.swagbucks.com

Slickdeals - user-based forums for discounts, freebies, coupons, and sales
Submitted by: Brittany Smith - I have found this to be the most in-depth source for all my frugalista ways.
www.slickdeals.net

Money Saving Mom - this is a blogger who writes on frugal living and domestic financial issues, as well as posting coupon match-ups and other normal coupon blog things.
Submitted by: Brittany Smith - I also enjoy that she seems to write from a Christian worldview about finances (although I am unsure of her exact religious affiliation).
www.moneysavingmom.com

BzzAgent - this is a viral marketing company of which you can sign up to be a member They are paid by clients (brands) to have marketing campaigns where they let us, the members, have free trials of products that are sent directly to us if we are accepted into the campaign. Your only obligation is to spread “Bzz” and talk about the products openly and honestly with your friends, family, coworkers, whoever. Then you submit “bzz reports” back.
Submitted by: Brittany Smith - I have had a great experience with this company. I have participated in campaigns for Aveeno hair products, Softsoap bodywash, and Scrubbing Bubbles automatic shower cleaner. In all campaigns, I received full-size products to use and keep for free, plus lots of great coupons and samples to give away to friends!
www.bzzagent.com

Free Amazon Prime for Students - Get Free 2-day shipping for 1 year Great deals! No cost to join.
www.amazon.com/student

All your base is mine

Me: i got a stool for my standing desk today
Jeff: a stool for your standing desk
Jeff: congratulations on undermining your own awesome

Backpacking

Here we are at the beginning of the trail. Ready to go! You see we have our rain gear out because when we got out of the car it started raining.



Cataract Gulch is a four mile hike, very steep. Although it connects with at least one other trail that keeps going further, we were just going to do the Gulch up to Catarack Lake in-and-out. The original plan was to hike two miles in to camp for night one, two more miles to the lake for night two, spend one day at the lake playing, taking pictures, relaxing, etc, then four miles down on the last day.

We made it two miles up and were getting pretty tired. That may sound wimpy to some people, but this was my first time carrying 30 lbs up a steep hill and frankly I was very impressed at all times that my body kept going. It was getting later, it was still raining, and we found a workable place to make camp, although it was not as flat as we would have liked. Pretty though. We made Pad Thai for dinner this night.



The picture above was a shot the next morning. We put out our wet clothes to dry in the sun, and left a little later in the day. We did not know that this would be the last time we saw sun on trail!



Also at this point we realized that though we had lugged up my nice, HEAVY DSLR, extra telephoto lens, and tripod, somehow the battery for the camera was left in the car.



Right ahead and above our first campsite was this great series of waterfalls, which lulled us to sleep. Another bummer was we found an even better, flatter place to camp about 100 meters past where we camped, but such is life. We met a nice couple from Oklahoma who offered to take our picture with his camera and email it to us.



Continuing up, we had to cross lots of streams, which I did not expect. I was thankful for my $24 consignment leather, rainproof hiking boots for sure! Dan was really encouraging and let me lead all the way up so I could set the pace. I think he really enjoyed the hiking with me and I was proud of carrying all that weight.



We finally got above treeline the second day, and had some great views. The trail was really rocky and had some steep drops off the side occasionally. Lots of little critters lived in the rocky areas. We saw a lot of chipmunks and these critters that looked like a rat but with rounder ears, kind of like chinchillas. They made noises like "meep meep" and Dan would "meep" back and forth with them a lot.



We had to drink lots of iodine water, yummy! We definitely overpacked on the snacks, we had candy bars, hershey nuggets, gorp, dried mangos, and laughing cow cheeses.

About an hour after we got above treeline, it started to sprinkle, and then rain pretty quickly. We stopped to put on our rain gear and continued. The rain got harder and then very suddenly it was a hail storm with thunder and lightning and tiny little needles hitting my head and shoulders. Dan was not totally sure what to do at first, because he had never been in a hailstorm above treeline- there were no trees to get under! We ran down the hill on the side of the trail to maybe squat under some shrubbery, but saw that wasn't going to work because a stream was forming from all the runoff. We hiked a little further on until we found some higher shrubbery to squat under, and Dan got out the rain fly from our tent to put over us. The hail was really coming down, about pea-sized, and starting to cover the ground so much it looked like snow.

Dan was worried mostly about hypothermia and kept asking me how cold I was on a scale of one to ten. I kept saying 6 or 7 (it WAS cold) but I certainly had been MUCH MUCH colder before. We kind of hugged for body heat, not wanting to get out warmer clothes since we needed dry things for later to stay warm at night. We were both praying for God to protect us and make the rain stop soon! It was about 3:30pm and we really wanted to be getting into camp before evening. Finally the hail subsided to just a steady rain after about 30 minutes of huddling.

Dan decided he wanted us to get the packs back on and keep going to keep our body temperatures up from hiking. We put the packs back on and continued with him leading. We didn't really know how much farther to the lake and campsite; the map we had was small. I followed and we were able to go a little faster since the trail had leveled out some and wasn't so steep. We were mostly going over hills, up and down, crossing engorged streams in between them.

I remember at one point the trail itself was basically a stream, completely muddy and there was no way to not just splash and muck my way through. I was cold and soaking wet, tired from carrying a heavy backpack up a MOUNTAIN, and this was the one moment I could not help thinking to myself, "That's it! I just do not want to be here anymore!!" I think I only said out loud to Dan that I just didn't want to DO this, but before I finished saying it I was already splashing through. What other choice did I have? There was no where else to go but forward.

We reached the campsite about an hour after the hailstorm. I remember coming over yet another hill and Dan saying, "Here it is, this has to be the lake." And I was just so happy! "We made it!" I yelled. The rain was now just a sprinkle. Dan told me what he wanted us to do was immediately pitch the tent, take off our wet clothes and get in thermals in our sleeping bags to warm up. So we quickly unloaded the stuff, trying not to stay still for too long to avoid getting the shivers. At this point I remember thinking, "Thank you mom for buying me cuddle duds four years ago. Thank you Dan for buying me a fleece for Christmas. Thank you REI for having fleece pants in my size the night before we left for the trip. Thank you MyPoints for paying for this sleeping bag." We fell asleep for about an hour, then decided we should try to cook dinner before dark. We made guaco tacos, which were delish.

The next day we woke up to lots of fog and mist. Since it had been cold, rainy, foggy and misty the whole first two days, and the third day looked like it would be the same, we decided to cut the trip short and go home that day instead of spend a day being cold in the tent. We did hike up a little hill near our campsite at the lake to take pictures with Dan's point and shoot camera.





This shows the end of the trail. If you look at the tiny white dot in both pictures, that is our tent. To the right is Cataract Lake. Other than the critters, this morning was the first and only time we saw an animal on trail. A deer of some kind was hollering at us from across the lake. I don't know really how to describe the sound, I didn't know deer made sounds. It was kind of like a hooting or a honking, but more guttural.

We packed up and started back down the trail. Right as we were leaving the lake, we met another day hiker who had just made it up the trail with her dog Astro. She made me wish Lucy had come with us, although I don't know how she would have done being so wet the whole time. Astro was a poodle but you could hardly tell because of all the mud and muck covering him!

It took us more than four hours to make it down the four miles of trail. All the way down the trail I was thinking, "Thank you Ed and Kathy Sunder for lending me a hiking stick." Because my knees started hurting from the impact about a mile down and hurt the whole rest of the way. My left knee is still hurting when I walk today. I'm icing it.

This is what it looked like the whole rest of the way down, if you add rain:



But we made it down! Hooray!



And now it's time for Brittany to get some TLC. "Thank you mom and Japan, for my car."

Photos from our parents visiting!

 

Covenant Church Memorial Day Picnic

 

 

Wade Jewett Look Away

My friend Corinne encouraged me to post my deals from tonight's insane "wagging" (That is what they call coupon-shopping at Walgreens).

So here it goes:

Transaction 1

Stayfree Maxipads (1) @ 2.99ea
3M Scotch Packaging tape (4) @ 3.49ea
Dried Apricots (1) @ 1.00ea
Skintimate Shave Cream (1) @ 2.99ea
Clio Hair Trimmer (1) @ 4.99 ea
Nail clippers (1) @0.69ea

used
$2/1 Stayfree coupon (1)
$1/1 Scotch coupon (4)
$2.50/1 Walgreens in-ad coupon for Scotch (3)

Total: 10.62
Paid with
$5 Register Reward (2)
$0.62 OUT OF POCKET
Received
$3 Register Reward from Skintimate
$3 Register Reward from Stayfree
$5 Register Reward from Clio


Transaction 2

Stayfree Maxipads (1) @ 2.99ea
Stride Gum (3) @ 1.00ea
Plackers Mint Flossers (1) @ 2.00ea
Skintimate Shave Cream (1) @ 2.99ea
Benedryl Allergy (1) @ 4.99 ea
Tylenol Sinus (1) @4.99ea

Used
$5/2 Allergy Medicine coupon
$1/1 Stayfree coupon
.50/1 Plackers coupon
B2G1 Stride gum coupon (took off $1.29, price before sale)
$1/2 Walgreens Stride coupon (took off $1.50/3)

Total:
$11.76
Paid with
$5 Register Reward (2)
$1.76 OUT OF POCKET
Received:
$2 Plackers Register Reward
$3 Skintimate Register Reward
$3 Stayfree Register Reward
$5 Allergy Register Reward

Transaction 3
*This transaction did not go so good. The cashier did not scan TWO of my coupons for the scotch tape, and I also gave one less $5 RR to pay with than I meant to so it ended up being high $$ out of pocket

3M Scotch Packaging tape (3) @ 3.49ea
Photo Albums (2) @ 0.85ea --> Going to use these to help organize my coupons
Skintimate Shave Cream (1) @ 2.99ea
Plackers flossing pirate swords (1) @ 2.00 ea
Tylenol Cold (2) @4.99ea
Schick Quatro Disposable Razors (1) @ 5.99ea
Hallmark Cards (8) @ 0.49ea

Used
$2/1 Schick razor coupon
$1/1 Scotch tape coupon (1) --> I gave him 3! But he only scanned one :(
$2.50/1 Walgreens scotch in-ad coupon (3)
$0.50/1 Plackers (1)
$5/2 Allergy coupon (2)

Total: $20.61
Paid with
$5 Register Reward (2) --> I was so flustered b/c he was having trouble scanning all the items that I didn't give him the 3rd $5 RR I had!
$2.50 Register Reward (1)
$8.11 OUT OF POCKET --> so frustrating, this should have been $1.11
Received:
$5 Hallmark Register Reward
$5 Allergy Register Reward
$3 Skintimate Register Reward
$2 Plackers Register Reward
$1 Schick Register Reward
$3 Phantom Register Reward triggered by Schick

Transaction 4
On this transaction, I was back on my game. No more messups. And this was an awesome store-- everything in stock except the stride gum.

Stayfree maxipads (1) @ 2.99ea
3M Scotch Packaging tape (5) @ 3.49ea
Weird candy (2) @ 0.12ea --> needed to round total up to over $20
Skintimate Shave Cream (1) @ 2.99ea
Plackers flossing pirate swords (1) @ 2.00 ea
Tylenol Cold (2) @4.99ea
Schick Quatro Disposable Razors (1) @ 5.99ea
Hallmark Cards (8) @ 0.49ea

Used
$2/1 Schick razor coupon
$1/1 Stayfree coupon
$1/1 Scotch tape coupon (5)
$2.50/1 Walgreens scotch in-ad coupon (5)
$5/2 Allergy coupon (2)

Total: $20.06
Paid with
$5 Register Reward (4)
$0.06 OUT OF POCKET
Received
$5 Hallmark Register Reward
$5 Allergy Register Reward
$3 Skintimate Register Reward
$3 Stayfree Register Reward
$2 Plackers Register Reward
$1 Schick Register Reward
$3 Phantom Register Reward triggered by Schick


Transaction 5

Stayfree Maxipads (1) @ 2.99ea
Stride gum (3) @ 1.00ea
Dried Mango (1) @ 3.00ea --> not pictured

Used
$1/1 Stayfree coupon
B2G1 Stride gum coupon
$0.50/1 Walgreens Stride coupon (3)

Total: $5.49
Paid with
$2 Register Reward from Plackers
$2.50 Register Reward
$0.99 OUT OF POCKET
Received
$3 Stayfree Register Reward

So I started with $47 in RR and ended with $58 (a difference of $11)

Total Paid OOP $11.54

The total shelf, retail price of all the products at Walgreens would have been $175.88, but you also have to take that with a grain of salt because Walgreens does have a very high mark-up (so I have been told, and it seems true to me). The prices I listed in the transactions were after sales or in-store mark-downs.

This is pretty good, because if I had not messed up a bunch with that one transcation, I would have come out ahead. Essentially, the money I paid out I earned back in rewards for next time, though.

It's exhasting to type all this up, but I wanted to give some of you a good idea of what I'm learning to do with couponing.

Three times while I was checking out, random strangers (all men) made comments to me about how much my husband must love me and be proud of me for how much I am saving. I appreciated the compliments very much but also thought it was kind of strange that they were thinking about it only from my husbands point of view rather than my own. :)

A few girlfriends have told me that they want to start couponing with me this summer, so I'm excited to see how that will go. I think Corinne and I are going to start a club. Corinne, if you are reading this, I also wanted to tell you that I think someone from the seminary probably does coupons at Walgreens a lot too, because that 2nd transation I did at the Wags at Olive and Mason and they were cleaned out of all the Free-After-Register-Rewards items (that is the closest one to the seminary).

Goodnight everyone!

Genesis 3: The curse

When God curses in Genesis 3, is he pronouncing something that is a natural result of sin and disobedience because it could be no other way according to the way God has ordained the universe to operate? Or does God pronounce judgment and impose a sentence that would not necessarily have been in place had he not deemed it so right then? Does this question even make sense? Or is it significant? I am leaning toward it being a tension – the nature of justice is really known only perfectly through God, who is perfectly just. So only God would be able to pronounce a just sentence that also happened to be set up to be a natural and just consequence of sin in his created world. I think I am thinking too much in terms of a human perspective (which is the only one I have!) In a court of law, when a judge or jury give a sentence or a judgment, we ask the question of our own consciences – is this a just sentence? Well, in some sense it is justice, according to the system of justice our government has implemented. But God’s perfect justice is our standard, it is possible for us to say – no this such-and-such sentence is not just as God would see it (if our consciences lead us rightly). But if God is doing the sentencing, there is no higher standard of justice to apply to. God is his own standard. This is blowing my mind.