Archive for the ‘Frugal Funds’ category

Frugal Funds Update: Got my UPromise earnings and more free money from Trilegiant!

February 8th, 2008

More money to add to my running “Frugal Funds” total. We got our UPromise earnings checks yesterday, which represent all of the earnings we have had in the program to date. I had $62.96 in earnings and my wife had $10.93. Less the two stamps to send in the withdrawal requests, we earned $73.07 for purchases we would have made anyway.

A common misconception about the program is that you have to put the money into a 529 plan, but that isn’t the case. See my previous post on how to withdraw your earnings in the form of a check. The program pays you for purchases of select products and from select retailers, which is tracked through either your credit card or store loyalty cards. The program is super easy and you can sign up by clicking the UPromise logo in the left sidebar.

I also had two more checks of free money from Trilegiant, one for $15 (Q4 grocery Billfighter rebate from Buyers Advantage) and one for $5 (Q1 gas rebate from Travelers Advantage). Less the two stamps to send in the rebates, that makes another $19.18 in free money.

Add the Upromise and Trilegiant funds to my prior total and adjust my prior total for the three stamps I forgot to account for and my YTD Frugal Funds total is up to $324.15. If you want to see all the things that have gone into this total, just click the Frugal Funds category link to the left.

More free money from Trilegiant!

February 3rd, 2008

A posted several months back about raping Trilegiant for free money and gift cards. Trilegiant is a marketing company that runs several paid membership programs under names like Autovantage, Buyers Advantage, and Great Fun. These programs are promoted with offers for free gift cards and other freebies for signing up for a trial membership. The general idea for the cheap bastard like me is to sign up for a trial, request the freebie (often as much as $50 in free gift cards), and cancel the membership. If you sign up for each of the different offers with freebies, you can net about $200 in freebies for less than an hour of work. Sweet…

But if you are willing to be patient, you can play them again before canceling. For most (but not all) of their services, they will offer you some type of incentive to stay with the program. Additionally, you can request an extension of your free trial so you don’t get charged while you are waiting for your other freebies.

I had some of these offers sent to my mom’s house in Louisiana, so I had a nice haul waiting in my mail when we visited yesterday. Here’s a summary:

  • $20 check from Buyers Advantage ($20 credit card billfighter rebate)
  • $10 check from AutoVantage ($10 gas rebate)
  • $10 check from Travelers Advantage ($10 gas rebate)
  • $40 Visa gift card from Complete Home

Add that $80 plus $0.13 in change I have found on the ground in the last week to my YTD Frugal Funds total, bring it to $233.13.

Another CVS make money deal on the Contour monitor! Week of 1/13/08 Only

January 13th, 2008

I posted last week about two money-making deals for purchasing blood glucose monitors at CVS. This week brings another deal. Purchase the Contour blood glucose monitor for $9.99 and earn $9.99 in ECBs, limit 1 per card. Those who follow these deals or read the post last week also know there is a CVS coupon for $50.00 off (found in the CVS Diabetes booklet), which will probably be adjusted to the $9.99 price, making the monitor free plus you get the ECBs, earning you a profit of $9.99!

If you can’t find the coupon from the CVS Diabetes book, there was also a manufacturers coupon for $30 off back in November. Either coupon will produce the same result.

Remember that the Breeze2 deal is still on until the end of the month. It uses the same coupon, has a price of $9.99, and produces $9.99 in ECBs. The limit on this deal is five per card. I finally found one of these on Saturday, and found a penny on the ground too. That brings me to $158.00 in “Frugal Funds” for 2008 so far.

Make money by buying glucose monitors at CVS!

January 10th, 2008

I love CVS deals, and here are two more where you can actually make money.  As always YMMV, but here are the details:

1. Purchase the Breeze2 blood glucose monitor, receive $9.99 in ECB (limit 5, good for all of Jan 2008). The monitor is on sale for $9.99 all month, and if you can find or still have the blue and white CVS diabetes booklet that was released in November there is a $50 off coupon for the Breeze2 inside. The fine folks over at SD have largely reported three possible outcomes to trying to use the coupon on this deal:

  • The coupon is processed for $9.99 off, making the monitor free and generating the $9.99 ECBs. The coupon will require a manual override.
  • The coupon is processed for $50 off, making the monitor free and giving you an overage of $40. This one is pretty rare that you’ll find someone with the authority to process the coupon and the attitude to allow you to take another $40 of stuff for nothing. Some people have been able to do it, but don’t count on it.
  • The coupon is refused, either by citing the statement on the back that says no other discounts apply, or by arguing that you can’t use the coupon on it since it is already on sale. Worst case scenario.

2. Purchase two of the Contour blood glucose monitors, get $10 in ECBs (limit 1, good for the week ending 1/12/2008 only). This is the same type of deal as the Breeze2, although not as well known. You can use the same coupon from the diabetes booklet to get the Contour for free. The advertised deal on this is to buy one of the monitors and a box of the testing strips, but the CVS computers can’t handle the require of one of each, so it is essentially any two. The price on the monitor is $14.99 each.
Did I also mention there is a rebate in the box for these monitors for the purchase price up to $40 and $50, respectively? Just be sure to black out the coupons and total so it isn’t obvious you paid nothing for it, and you should get the register price back. Don’t worry if the rebate form is expired, either. I called today and they said they will process the rebates even if the form is expired. And there is no limit to the number of rebates you can submit. That means that including the ECBs you’ll make $19.57 ($9.99 + 9.99 – 0.41) on each Breeze2 and $39.16 ($14.99 + 14.99 + 10.00 – 0.82) on each pair of Contour monitors.

Another hint is that if you can’t find the CVS diabetes books, there was also a manufacturer coupon in the newspaper a few months ago. Reportedly there are several for sale on eBay if you need them.

Unfortunately I still haven’t found the Breeze2, but I was able to find four of the Contours to complete the deal on both of our cards and now have $20 in ECB in my pocket. I also found six pennies at the CVS stores I stopped at. Add all of this to my “Frugal Funds” total and YTD I have $148.00 derived from my being a cheap bastard! Of course once the rebates come I can add another $59.96 to that total.

Happy hunting!

Started out 2008 with $127.94 in “Frugal Funds”!

January 2nd, 2008

Inspired by this site chronicling and totaling the amount of money found on the ground, I am starting a tally of my own. Starting at this point, I am keeping a running total of what I will call “Frugal Funds”. I include in FFs money that I get mainly because I am cheap. Included in this would be promotional bonuses for opening credit cards or bank accounts, money I find on the ground, and those special deals where you get paid to take something, just to name a few.

We will start off with a few rebate checks I had waiting for me in the mail from Christmas break. In November CVS had a couple of deals where they had the Contour and Breeze2 blood glucose monitors on sale at various price points $30 and below. They also put out a coupon for $50 off these monitors making them free in-store. And the icing on the cake was a manufacturers rebate on each for the price paid up to $40 or $50. There was no limit on the number of rebates you could claim. I sent in all of the rebates, blacking out the receipt totals and coupons redeemed, and I received back 5 of the rebates over the break for the pre-coupon amount. So after 4 checks for $30 and 1 check for $9.99, less a total of $2.05 for the stamps…

$127.94 – 2008 YTD Frugal Funds total

Not a bad way to start the year!