The Road to Paying off My Debt, and Decluttering my Life

So, we’re only a little over a month till Christmas! I know I haven’t been updating here as much as I could be, but I blame it on school! I also quit my job because of school (grades are more important than money sometimes!) but that doesn’t mean I’m skimping out on my Christmas shopping! I’ve just had to get..creative And I’m going to tell you all about one of the ways I’ve been creative…

I’ve mentioned Swagbucks before, but with Christmas coming up I feel it’s worth mentioning again! Back in the summer I posted about the Wii Fit I snagged with these, and I’ve been at it again! First, in September I was able to order one of my textbooks for a fraction of the cost of the school bookstore (after, of course checking that it was the right edition and all that jazz), and most recently I have used Amazon gift cards redeemed through Swagbucks to offset the cost of my Christmas shopping! And Amazon isn’t the only store that has gift cards avaliable on Swagbucks, it’s just *my* personal favourite!

What else is there? Well, take a look at this excerpt from the Official Swagbucks blog:

As you know, Swagbucks has plenty of Gift Cards that you can get for free with the web’s premier digital dollar. What could be better than getting to save money without even spending money?! Especially during the holiday season. We’ve got a wide variety of Gift Cards in our Swag Store; from Amazon to Barnes & Noble to Starbucks to Sephora to CrazyDogTShirts to iTunes to PayPal to Target and more. We have these available in the Swag Store all the time and they’re always free to you by using your Swag Bucks.

Every day of the week we will pick one Gift Card in our Swag Store and “blow it out”! Starting on Black Friday (November 27th) we’ll drastically cut the price to much less than we normally have these cards at and you can scoop up as many as 2 for far less than their full price. We won’t announce which gift cards are the blowout card of the day but if and when you find it, go to town. Some gift cards may be the blow out gift card of the day more than once and at different blowout prices. That means you should probably explore the Swag Store every day just in case we’re blowing out one of your favorite online store’s gift card. We will do this all the way up until January 1st, 2010.

So if you were thinking about signing up, now is the time to do it – you’ve still got a few weeks to build up some points before the gift-card blowout begins! All I ask, is to please use my referral link!

-Catherine

Enter to win an Essential Oils Prize Pack from Fabulous Canadian Freebies, and while you’re there check out the Coupon Train toO!

That’s right, I ordered a Brand Spakin’ New Wii Fit from Amazon Canada, and only paid $2.99 from my own pocket! And you can do the same too, dear reader.

A few months ago, I found a cool site called SwagBucks. The premise is simple – it’s a search engine (powered by Google and Ask.com) which randomly gives out “Swag Bucks” when you use it to search – usually it’s 1 or 2 “bucks” though I’ve won up to 10 at once before. Now, searches aren’t the only way that “bucks” can be won – keeping an eye on their Twitter feed, Facebook page and the SwagBlog can prove to lucrative endeavors as well. Also, members get a bonus for referring new members…

The Swag Bucks can be then traded in for prizes…which include everything from t-shirts, and video games to sports cards and Star Wars Collectibles. Personally, I like to redeem for Amazon.ca gift card codes – 45 Swag Bucks gets me an Amazon code worth $5 and they’re are cumulative too, so I can pile them on top of each other!
Over the course of a few months, I managed to redeem over $100 worth of Amazon.ca gift cards (they also have $5 Amazon.com cards, also for 45 “bucks” each), which allowed me to place an order for a Wii Fit…$110 of the cost was covered by my gift cards, and my out-of-pocket cost? $2.99! :

(click to enlarge!)

Thinking of getting started yourself? Why wouldn’t you? All I ask, is that in exchange for me telling you about this great site, you use my referral code when you sign up:

http://swagbucks.com/refer/Caliza

Anyone who reads this post, and signs up under my referral link will be entered into a draw for…you got it, one of two $5 Amazon.ca gift card code! Once you’ve signed up, just leave a comment with your first name and last initial, and an email address you can be reached at! Contest will run until August 15th!

Check out BargainMoose for a chance to win a $25 Lush gift card! Lush is a great store for soaps, shampoos and bath bombs!

SO the other night I attended a clothing swap. This is a great way to declutter a little, get some great new-to-me clothing AND save money at the same time.

The concept is simple, a group of people (There were 8 of for this one) get together, and bring clothing (and CDs, books and anything else they don’t want or need anymore) to share and swap. Not only does it help clear out the closet a little, but you can pick up some “new to you” items at zero cost.

The swap I attended went something like this: as people arrived we sorted our items into piles based on categories like “shirts”, “pants”, “accessories” and “books” (of course by the end of the evening, all these piles had merged into 1 giant mess!)

Once this is done, everyone’s names are put into a hat and 2 or 3 people at a time are drawn and able to go and pick something from the assortment of goodies, rotating through for as long as people want (at the end, we had a free-for-all where people got to pick through things one last time). I eventually came out with a few cute tops, a skirt, some workout pants and a couple shirts for Dave as well!

Of course, you might be wondering how this can help declutter, if I’m getting stuff back from it, rather than just giving away my old stuff. However I went in with 2 large reusable-grocery-bags full of items, and came out with only one. This was a conscious decision on my part, to only leave with half the amount I came in with.

Overall, the clothing swap was a very positive experience, a chance to meet like-minded people in my neighborhood and I can’t wait to go to another one!

Interested in trying this out? Start a group with your friends, or search for an existing one in your area on MeetUp or Facebook.

Found a great contest, over at Marta’s Meandering’s to win two sets of books – one is a set Women’s History books, and the other is a set focusing on spring cleaning and strategies for keeping organized! Definately worth a look

-Catherine

So, fair readers…It’s been less than a week since I posted my no-nonsense “No Buy List and already I am faced with a temptation that gets to me even more than all the massive clothing sales I see every single day when I go to work and walk through the mall.

LUSH. Yup, those who know me know I am somewhat addicted to Lush cosmetics. And this is a problem, given that there is a Lush less than 10 minutes from where I live (walking, nonetheless!). I’d been doing my best to avoid the store, but today I received the following message VIA Facebook (because, of course, I am a member of the “Lush Cosmetics Ottawa” group:

Night in for 2! March 6th-15th

Come by Lush Byward for a FREE skin care consultation and we will help you find the best products to suit your needs!

This is, nothing short of a fabulous deal. A Fresh face mask in and of itself normally costs $10-$12. Not only that, but they re-use the cute little black pots they come in, and if you bring in 5 empties you get a new one for free – and I already have 2 right now. Toner tabs are $1.50 each, so right there thats $13-$16 worth of product, plus the other products and sample sizes included.

Not to mention the discount later on by returning the sample sized moisturizers.

So, do I take advantage of this fabulous offer? In what other area do I cut spending if I do – I’m thinking not allowing myself any food court lunches for a couple of weeks.

What would YOU do?