Posted on: July 13, 2009 by Matt
Over the past year or so I have been finding new and different ways to get free stuff. Some items I earn through various programs online and others are just through enrolling in certain services. Today I figured I would take a few minutes and share some of the ways that I get the occasional little item or gift card for free or with very little effort anyway:
- Swagbucks: All you do is search and earn points over time. They use a Google based engine so the results are pretty good. Over time the Swagbucks add up and you can redeem them for prizes and gift cards. So far I have managed to get $15 in iTunes for free (my girlfriend was happy about that) and now there is even a $5 PayPal option. There are also relatively inexpensive $5 gift cards for Amazon and plenty of raffle like contests going on. A pretty good deal considering I have not changed my routine all that much.
- CashCrate: When I have a bit more time to kill I sometimes complete random offers over at CashCrate. I have received payment from them in the past and know that they do pay out. The trick is that you have to get to the minimum payout ($20), know what to do with the offers and be willing to put up with some tedium.
- Live It With Charter: I just found out about this service but if you are a Charter customer then you can get signed up to earn free reward points based on how much your bill comes to. Then they hold redemption days where you can cash in your points for merchandise. A pretty cool deal for not having to do anything.
- UPromise: I have a UPromise account that I let collect money that I will hopefully apply to my Sallie Mae student loan. I have gained some cash from just going about my normal life as well as a bit from shopping online through my Upromise account.
- Credit Card Rewards: My credit card has a rewards system and I generally let the balance build up until we can get something fun. Right now I am about at the point that I could cash in and get a $50 gift certificate. When the time comes to actually cash in my points I will go through it with my girlfriend and see what she wants.
Posted on: April 22, 2009 by Matt
I am a fan of recycling and have tried in the past to do my best to try to reduce my waste. While living in Denver I was able to get a bin from the city to put all my recyclable materials in that they would pick up for free. I filled it pretty much every pickup cycle.
The service was great. The city would drop off a giant trash can for your address and then pick it up once every two weeks all free of charge. I would have preferred to find a way to turn a profit for recycling but a free and easy service is the next best thing.
However living in the North East Kingdom of Vermont has proven a bit challenging on the recycling front. Redemption centers exist for returning cans and bottles (that all have a $0.05 deposit) but from what I have seen you will need to pay in order to recycle all other materials.
From what I have seen there are a plethora of people recycling cans and even scouring the roads for all the nickels they can find but very few households seem to keep recycling bins. I may be missing something along the way but it seems that nobody I know recycles aside from businesses.
The limited availability of recycling has got me wondering what it would take to open up a free recycling service in a rural area. Again – I am not sure what the local transfer station here offers but think I may cruise over and get their rates at lunch time. Even a small step in the right direction would be good for the planet and benefit the community. Also – once again if I could turn a small profit at gathering materials and dropping them off for recycling I will probably have a new hobby.
Anyway – I will post an update with the information I gather from the transfer station today but wanted to ask and see if anyone has experience with starting a recycling center. If you do I would love to hear a bit about how it works. Until then I will continue to work on getting our household items together and dropped off at my office for recycling (the company pays the bill at least).
Posted on: April 13, 2009 by Matt
After I received my tax return from the state of Colorado I reapplied it to the taxes due to the state of Vermont. For the most part – I had anticipated the two states to mostly wash each other out; that my Colorado refund would be pretty much what I needed to cover Vermont.
So I mailed out my check to the state of Vermont a couple of weeks ago and was happy to be done with my taxes for the year. However over the weekend I received a pleasant surprise in the mail that made me even happier - a refund check from the state of Vermont. Somewhere along the way the state figured that I had overpaid my income tax and sent me back the difference. It was not a whole lot if you compare it to how much they did keep but any extra cash at this point is greatly appreciated.
So I am off to the bank this morning to make an unexpected deposit – a good way to lift my mood on a Monday! Let’s hope the rest of the week goes this well…
Posted on: April 7, 2009 by Matt
I was reading a post by Frugal Dad this morning that asks what your biggest financial mistake was. I started to think about it and my list is fairly long as I have made a lot of mistakes. A quick search through the old memory banks and I can easily think of a few highlights:
- Squandering my inheritance from my mother’s estate. I was in college and what is a poor college kid to do with $11,000 but buy beer and other stuff they do not need? I excused the spending by saying the money reminded me of my lost mother and that I needed to spend it before financial aid for next year. In retrospect – I was 18 years old and probably should not have been given the money. I had no clue on how to even manage small amounts of money – bad choices were made.
- My first car: It worked for me and the price was right but the car was in pretty poor shape. It was the last purchase I made with the money from my mother’s estate. I do still think fondly of that old heap though.
- My most recent car: I am still paying for a SUV that I financed through a now ex-girlfriend. She is nice enough to allow me to continue paying her and not find other financing so I can not complain too much but I do look forward to August when I will send in the last that I owe her.
The list goes on and on. However – I think my biggest mistake so far has to be allowing my student loans to default. Not just one or two of them but ALL OF THEM. There really was no need to get into a situation where my loans were defaulted. I could have called and arranged deferments when I was having trouble getting up and running while first out of college but I did not.
The primary reason I did not call my creditors and make arrangements: I was afraid. My grace period had just ended and I managed to miss my first payments to all my creditors. I then stopped getting the mail, opening the mail and even looking at my billing statements. I was afraid that since I could not pay I was going to be in some sort of big trouble and that people were going to yell at me or something. I really had no idea. In hindsight I know it seems silly and that I have certainly taken the more painful of the possible routes.
Making the mistake of ignoring student loans has lead me to my current situation with a large amount of student loans in collections (roughly $20,000 for one creditor) so I am still paying for my mistake. In addition I had 3 other sets of loans go into default as well. However – these other 3 sets of loans were federally backed (not private like the ones in collections) and had rehabilitation programs available. So currently the other student loans that I have are now in good standing or paid off – amazing what happens when you do not ignore your problems.
Naturally – if I could go back in time and start over again I would have called all of my creditors and been up front and honest with them. Things probably would have worked out much better. I was young and immature and made poor choices that I now get to clean up the mess from. However – if you are out there and just starting out or are now finding yourself in a similar situation due to the rough economy: Please learn your lesson from my mistakes – call your creditors and make arrangements. It may save you a lot of headaches in the long run.
Tags: Budget, Collections, Crazy, Debt, Debt Reduction, Extra Income, Family, Personal Finance, Savings, Student Loans Filed Under: Debt, Debt Reduction, Planning, Student Loans
Posted on: April 6, 2009 by Matt
I normally keep my own guilty pleasures fairly quiet but for a long time I enjoyed playing World Of Warcraft to pass the time. I played the game for about two and a half years and finally started to drift from enjoying the game and found that I had largely lost interest. A few months ago I closed my account and waved goodbye to the MMO scene. I had not been playing much in the past 8 months or so as I had just been too busy with my girlfriend and the kids and I had no intention of continuing to pay for a service I was not using.
Instead of opting to leave my old characters sitting out there for eternity I opted to look into selling off my account which is when I stumbled onto BuyMMOAccounts.com. The site allows people to buy and / or sell World Of Warcraft accounts as well as purchase World Of Warcraft game cards. The only service that I used was the selling of my account as I was no longer looking to play the game.
The process was pretty straight forward. I submitted my character information and registered for an account. Within the next day I received a quote for purchase of my account for $80 (it would have been about $30 higher but my account was inactive). I then agreed to the sale, sent in the contract and confirmed that I was indeed who I said I was via a verification phone call. The process took me the better part of a week but this is unusually long for their service.
My problem was that I had attempted to fax the contract back in but the fax machine on their end was not picking up. After a couple of failed attempts I called in to customer service – which was very helpful – and was informed that both lines are tied to fax and phone. Since I was having trouble with the listed fax number then I could try the main support phone number – this worked perfectly.
Upon receiving my contract the company then placed a verification phone call to the number I provided. I missed the first call but they also emailed and said that they would like to try to call again and allowed me to set a time. I spoke with support again the following day and within 15 minutes of wrapping up the phone call I had the $80 deposited to my PayPal account. It all worked very smoothly!
All said and done – I was fairly impressed by how well the service worked for me and would definitely use BuyMMOAccounts.com again if I had another account to sell.
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