Halloween deals and fun this weekend at Old Navy stores

October 25th and October 26th, Old Navy is having “Freaky Fun Days.”

*The first 100 guests receive a chance to win their purchase.
*Treats every hour (discounts or something sweet)
*SATURDAY ONLY – free tees for kids when they dress up in costume for the costume party at 11 am
*$1 limited edition Old Navy logo tees
*$1 Halloween tees
*$5 Halloween costumes

Walgreen’s $5 off a $20 purchase coupon

Walgreen’s has a printable $5 off a $20 purchase coupon that is good this weekend (10/24 and 10/25) only:

http://www.walgreens.com/hotbuys/default.jsp?ec=hn613_getcoupon

Here’s what the fine print says: Excludes alcohol, postage stamps, tobacco, prescriptions, prescription copays, gift cards, pre-paid cards, transportation passes, charitable contributions, and items prohibited by law. Purchase amount of $20 or more must be befor taxes and after all manufacturer and Walgreens coupons and discounts.

If you haven’t taken advantage of the weekly deals yet, here’s the link:
http://melziemomsbargains.blogspot.com/2008/10/deals-week-of-1019-1025.html

http://melziemomsbargains.blogspot.com/2008/10/walgreens-scenarios-for-week-of-1019.html

This weekend is also the time when the October and November Easysaver catalogs will overlap, so you can “double dip” (your ability to do this may vary based on your location). The read more about this, click here:

http://www.hotcouponworld.com/forums/walgreens/169051-walgreens-double-dip-days-oct-24th-25th.html

Thrifty Thursday: How to Save for Christmas all Year

Some people put away a certain amount of money each month into “sinking accounts” for things like vacations and Christmas. If you’re doing this, I think that’s great! If you’re like me, though, you don’t have a lot of money (if any at all) left at the end of the month, so you might have the best of intentions, but when all is said and done, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Of course, waiting until December isn’t a great plan, either.

For the past two years, I have started saving money for Christmas in January and by October, I usually have a well funded Christmas account. I do this without taking any money from my monthly budget and I love it because as I find deals throughout the year, I can buy things and put them away without ruining my budget for the month. I am also usually able to finish the bulk of my Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving (I hate dealing with all of the crowds to go Christmas shopping)

I know it’s too late for this year, but here are some things I do to save money all year long. Hopefully you’ll get some ideas for next year! None of these activities take very much time. If you have questions, please feel free to post a comment!

*ING Direct – I have an ING Direct account where I keep our Christmas fund. It’s an online account, which means I don’t have quick, easy access, so I am not tempted to just take money out. The interest rate tends to be higher than it is for savings accounts at a regular bank, and I also got $50 for opening the account 🙂

*Surveys – I know that there are a lot of survey companies out there, and some are more reputable than others. You won’t make a ton of money doing this, but it is quick and easy and brings in a little bit of extra money. These are the three that I like the most and have been with for several years now:

MySurvey.comYou earn points for completing surveys and testing various products. The points can be exchanged for prizes or cash. I usually let my points accumulate throughout the year and then cash out around this time of year. If you aren’t a member yet and are interested in joining, you can click on the link at the bottom of the page.

Epoll.comThese are quick, easy surveys that are usually about TV shows. You earn points for completing the surveys which can be exchanged for gift cards. I usually let my points accumulate all year and then I cash them out at this time of the year to use for Christmas shopping.

Pinecone ResearchThey pay a flat rate of $3 per survey (it used to be $5) or product test. They are my favorite survey company, but unfortunately you can only get “in” with them if you can find a live referral banner or periodically throughout the year when they have openings and people who are already members can refer you.

MyPoints.com – This is not a “survey” site, but I thought I’d include it in this section anyway. They send you a few e-mails a week with various offers. You earn five points just for clicking on the e-mails. If you take advantage of the offer, you can earn additional points. You can also shop through the links on their site and earn additional points. BzzAgent.com recently partnered with them and so you earn points on the MyPoints.com site for completing reports or surveys on BzzAgent. You also earn points for printing coupons from coupons.com! 🙂

*Associated Content – Associated Content pays for articles that are at least 400 words in length. Sometimes they issue calls for specific content that you can respond to and you can also submit articles on topics that are interesting to you. They typically pay more if you respond to a call for content. I typically receive $5-9 per article. They also pay you a monthly bonus based on page views. Payment is through Paypal and it is usually sent within a day or two of you being published. Click on the link on the sidebar if you are interested in joining.

*Garage sales/Ebay – Our neighborhood has a community garage sale about every six months (once in the spring and once in the fall). We take our profits from this and put half toward our Christmas fund and half toward our emergency fund. I also go through and sell things on Ebay throughout the year. In January and in June, we do a big clean out and list a bunch of things that we want to get rid of. It’s nice to get rid of junk that’s just been laying around our house and it’s even better when we get paid to do it!

*Rebates – In the past, I thought mail in rebates were mainly for big ticket items that you buy at electronics stores, but actually there are rebates for many household products, and if you have perfected CVSing, you get these items for free and then get a rebate on top of it. I have gotten more than $500 already in the past year just from doing rebates.

Instant Win Wednesday

Here are a few instant win games for the week. Good luck!

Red Baron pizza instant win game: register to win a Wii, Nintendo DS and other great prizes:
http://www.redbaronpromotions.com/

From Oreo: register to win a trip to the Bahamas and a chance to meet Peyton & Eli Manning or register to win a DSLR training kit
http://www.nabiscoworld.com/oreo/dsrl/promotions.aspx

From Nabisco/Teddy Grahams: register to win a Build a Bear party for your child:
http://tms.promotions.com/bearsweeps/page.do?page=splash.html

Cheap steaks!

Update on the Omaha Steak fiasco…. many people never received their rewards codes, or when they did, it ended up being for $25 off a $100 purchase. Others who took advantage of the “free” offers received e-mails from Omaha Steak after their orders had been confirmed and payments had been processed stating that they would not be receiving the free items.

I found this link which provided some explanation (I’m including the explanation from this blog below, too): http://beyondthegarden.org/2008/10/22/everybody-likes-free-cheap/#comments

For those of you who promptly responded to the offer that I was able to get in on with Omaha Steaks, but you were not – this is what happened.

I recieved an email that informed me anyone I had referred to the promo could no longer get “in on the action”. Evidently, Geico made a mistake of great magnitude. First of all – they were not to offer the $25 in the form of a ‘gift card’ (which indicates cash value), but rather a “rewards card”. Geico also did not follow instructions per Omaha Steaks that a person needed to purchase $100 worth of product before being able to use the “rewards”. Nor was anything said, because a gift card DOES indicate cash value, that the free burgers and ‘rewards card’ cannot be used together. So, after receiving an email, myself, today – I called customer service at Omaha Steaks.

Omaha Steaks bit the bullet and honored the promo for those of us who made the order before 10:00am this (Wednesday) morning, which was when Geico changed their links and exemptions to the program. Evidently this little mishap cost them a whole lot of money. I post this as a form of explanation as to why those of you who tried, did NOT get back a ‘gift card’ code via email.

This link also discusses the customer service issue: http://www.startupstoryradio.com/omaha-steaks-social-media-marketing-turned-internet-reputation-debacle/#comment-12893

This is an AWESOME deal! I got 18 Omaha steak burger patties, a cutlery set, and a cutting board shipped for only $3.98!

To access this deal, here’s what you need to do:
1. First, click on the link below and register for Geico Privileges. You don’t have to be a Geico customer. Within an hour or so they will send you an email with a gift card code for $25 off any Omaha purchase.

http://www.geicoprivileges.com/members/home.php?sid=26XXdKrlo2601

When you click on the link for the gift card code from your e-mail, it will take you to the Geico Privileges site. If you are not logged in, it will say that there is a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase. Log in, click on the link in your e-mail again, and you will be able to access your $25 code.

2. If you are an ebates member, click here:
http://www.ebates.com/search/all.htm?store_name=omaha+steaks

Then, click on the link that says: “Save up to 65% PLUS 3 FREE Gifts from Omaha Steaks.

If you haven’t joined Ebates.com yet, now is the perfect time to join! If you join through this link, you will get a $10 bonus added to your account and you will also get 6% back on your Omaha Steaks purchase!
http://www.ebates.com/refer-a-friend/0809promo.htm?referrerid=%2BKE12Ia0hiKNhNAjtiRDTQ%3D%3D

3. At Omaha steaks put anything into your cart that equals at least $14.99. You can get 12 four ounce Omaha steak burgers for $14.99. You also get a bonus 6 free burgers, a 6 piece cutlery set, and a cutting board if you order through the ebates link above.

4. Go to checkout. You will see a charge of $13.99 for shipping, but your $25 gift card code will cover most of that!

Apply your gift card code. My remaining balance was $3.98. You can make the remainder of your payment using a major credit card or a Paypal account.

My burgers should be here within a week. I’m so excited!

TIP: If you did this last night, and you don’t get your code until this morning, make sure you open up a NEW tracking ticket through Ebates (using the 65% off link above) or you may not get credit