Cats and Coupons

With the holidays approaching people are shopping for friends and loved ones. I work outside of the home as well as inside the home. At the end of the day the last thing I want to do is pack everyone into the car and go to a store to fight crowds and wait on lines. So for the past seven or eight years I have done the majority of my shopping online. One of my favorite stores is Amazon. I can shop for anywhere from two to eight people all on one site. I always check out Amazon books, toys and housewares before shopping anywhere else. They’ve also got a great bargain and clearance section. I compare prices using their site and they offer free shipping on lots of items.

How can you not love online shopping? I click, I pay, I open the door and take them from the delivery guy. It’s definitely my favorite way to shop! What do you think of online shopping?

 Inkubook is an online photo book creation service. You can create your own photo book or you can collaborate on one with friends. The Inkubook service is an Author Solutions brand and it became available for the public to use in July. In order to let everyone know about their service Inkubook is offering a free photo book to people that sign up for a free account by November 3. After signing up you’ll be able to create your own photo book and all you will be asked to pay is a small shipping charge. Nice deal! To get in on this run, don’t walk, to inkubook.com and register for a free account. Remember, you must do this by November 3. Be sure to use the code TVL655 so that you get your free photo book.  Be sure to let your friends in on this offer so they can get a free photo book too by using the “invite friends” feature within your account.

I’m not making any money by writing about this, I’m just passing on what I think is a terrific offer. I’ve signed myself up for Inkubook just like I described above. I’m pretty excited and I’m already playing with a few ideas on what to put in my book. What are you going to put in your book?

Everyone knows how expensive Microsoft software is. In recent years we’ve watched as online office software grew to be a real option whose user base is rising rapidly. Currently the players in this “market” space are Google, Zoho.com and OpenOffice.org, all of whose products output Microsoft compatible documents. The only one I’ve tried is Google Docs, which has free online file storage. I believe I recall reading that Zoho will be offering free online file storage in the near future. Free is always nice, and it means you don’t have to carry a flash drive with you all of the time too.

If you’re always on the go and never seem to have enough time in the day, Menus4Moms is a site you’ll want to check out. Menus4Moms is free to join and offers many time and money saving resources. Some of the features on the site include free weekly dinner menus, recipes and cookbooks, menus, meal planning, FDA recalls, calendars, organizers, planners, tips  and shopping list software. Many of the features on the site are free to use. I receive their weekly menu plan email and although I don’t follow it precisley I have gotten many great ideas from it. The well stocked lists for pantry, refrigerator and freezer are wonderful too. Anyone who cooks on a regular basis should take a look at the Secrets Of A Busy Cook section, you’ll be glad you did.

Over the past several years digital cameras have become less expensive and more accessible to consumers, even ones with a tight budget. When I first learned of Picasa and tried it years ago I wasn’t terribly impressed. At that time it didn’t do much more than find pictures on a user’s computer and allow them to be organized. Now, Picasa allows users to organize photos on their computer as well as edit them, print them and create movies, collages, slideshows and screensavers. Picasa has improved over the years and now that they’ve added Picasa Web Albums I think we’ll all be seeing a lot more of Picasa. Picasa Web Albums allows users to create online photo albums such as Flickr and is free to use. Currently users have a minimum of 1gb of storage available. Users can upload images to their own albums, download friend’s albums, caption and comment photos and share them with others. (I wonder how many people are sharing before and after acne cream photos and stuff like that.)

If you like music you might be familiar with Pandora free internet radio. Or, if you’re like me you might not be. Pandora creates a music channel (or multiple channels) based on the analyzing of songs by the Music Genome Project. I’ll spare the in depth details but what it means is that you enter a song you like and Pandora will find similar other songs. Pandora is free to use. Users can create as many stations as they want. If a song plays on your station that you don’t like you can vote it down and it will stop playing and leave your station immediately. I was impressed with Pandora.

Unless you’ve got a calling plan at home that includes directory assistance, you probably don’t call 411 much. And I don’t know anyone who calls 411 from their cell phone unless it’s an absolute last resort.  That’s why I was very interested to learn about a free directory assistance service called Free 411.

Free 411 is an automated voice directory information system that can be used from a land line or a mobile phone. There is no registration required and no fees to join. to use it just dial 1-800-373-3411. The system is paid for by advertising. Before receiving the information you’re requesting all you need to do is listen to a 10 second ad.  And if you stay on the line after getting the phone number you can also get directions to that location. This sounds very cool! Have any of you tried it? I’d love to hear how you liked it.

Do you collect points or codes from soda products? How many soda manufacturers have these programs? I know Coke has offered My Rewards for quite a while now. I have a My Rewards account, but half the time if I have a code I can’t enter it because the printing isn’t clear enough to read. Today, I went on a quest looking for contests for an xbox 360. My son’s been really wanting one for a long time. Anyway. While searching I found out that Mountain Dew also has a program to collect codes from their products. Not being a soda drinker I don’t know if they do theirs the same as Coke. Are their codes legible? Just wondering. Sometimes I think that the codes are purposely made hard to read so less people win.

I wanted to share a site I found called The Giveaway Of The Day. Each day they give away one item for free. The giveaways are pieces of software, and according to the site they are full, legal versions that may be registered. As far as I can tell there’s no catch. On the weekends they also offer a Game Giveaway Of The Day. I haven’t downloaded anything yet, but I’m checking the site daily in case something I want or need is offered. Let me know if you’ve tried this site and how you like it.

On the way home from the track meet today we stopped at McDonalds because TJ was thirsty and a little hungry and it was almost 6pm. Today McDonalds was giving away a free Southern Chicken sandwich with the purchase of any medium or large drink. They’ve been promoting this special for a week. So, we pulled up and ordered. TJ wanted a chocolate shake and a double cheeseburger. I went to the window to pay. I asked her why the total was so high and she told me it was because you had to buy a drink to get the chicken sandwich for free. I told her I had bought a drink, the chocolate shake. She told me the chocolate shake wasn’t a drink. I pointed out thatn is was listed with the other drinks on the menu, came in different sizes and required a straw. She actually had to call another cashier to the window to get permission to give us the chicken sandwich for free. Am I crazy or something? Isn’t a chocolate shake a drink?

Many people don’t know that the Walmart website offers samples of certain products. I did not know it myself until about two months ago. At any given time they have a variety of different products on the site that you can request a sample for. They’ve offered all sorts of baby samples including diapers, boxers and wipes, over the counter medication samples, health and beauty samples like shampoos and even food samples. next time you’re on their website, be sure to check out their free samples page. From the walmart.com home page just click on In Stores Now and then Free Samples. Be sure to let me know what you samples you try and what you think.

My sons and I tried something new this week, Yoplait Kids Yogurt. This yogurt was designed especially for young children as a healthy snack. Kids enjoy the taste of Yoplait Kids while adults enjoy that it has 25% less sugar than the leading brand of kids yogurt and contains vitamins, protein and Omega 3 DHA which helps promote brain development. It is available as a yogurt drink or in a cup. If you live anywhere in the United States except for CA, ID, LA, NV, NJ, ND and TN you can request a free sample of Yoplait Kids yogurt just by filling out and submitting the request at www.yoplaitkids.com. I will be posting a review of Yoplait Kids yogurt on Val’s Views shortly.

One of our local banks, Commerce, always has branded pens all over the place. They always have one in the tube at the drive up and there’s always some on the counters inside the bank. My Mom and I went inside together once, and I watched her take one right off of the rep’s desk. I said something about it to her and she told me they were there to be taken. I looked at the rep and she nodded, telling me that most people took them. When we got outside, my Mom asked me why I’d asked her about them. I told her that if the bank was buying thousands of those pens then they cost money, which in the long run would cost my Mom money. She didn’t get it. So tell me. When you see a free promo item, do you take it? Do you take more than one?

Vistaprint has added some products recently. Me and my Dad have gotten business cards from them for a while and have always been pleased with the product and the value. It’s been a couple of months since I ordered last. I needed a notepad, and as always when I went to the Vistaprint site I couldn’t help myself and got more than what I’d gone there for. I went there to get one of the free personalized note pads. By the time I was finished shopping I also had one of the free rubber stamps and a free customized pen. I saw some other free things (notecards, a tshirt, a hat and a car door magnet) I wouldn’t mind trying as well but I have to go back when I have a little more time to decide how I’d customize them. I even saw some free things I don’t need right now like invitations and post cards. Wow, have they come a long way since they started out with the business cards! If you’re looking for a good deal, check out their FREE deals of the week.