Frugal Living Tip #49 - Restaurant.com Certificates

Restaurant.com Gift Certificates

If you haven't checked out restaurant.com yet, you need to. They offer gift certificates to local restaurants at discounted prices. The inventory changes periodically, and so do the prices. Several times a year they will offer $25 vouchers for only $2! I have snagged a few of those over the years. Make sure you subscribe to their site to find out when they are going to have those deals.

As with any type of deal make sure you check the fine print on your voucher, how your savings will be deducted. Please don't forget to tip your server based on the original amount before the gift certificate was applied.

 

Frugal Living Tip #41 - Warehouse Membership

Warehouse Membership

I know that there is a big divide among people who feel that warehouse memberships are or aren't worth the cost of the membership.

I feel that they can be, but like I have mentioned other times, it is important to know the prices for the items that you buy. I have found that I can find items like ground beef and chicken breast on sale at the grocery store for less than the everyday warehouse price. But, if I need a large quantity for a special event and there isn't a sale it is less expensive to buy it at the warehouse. I have found that I can get the best prices on organic milk and Greek yogurt at Costco. I get baking supplies from there along with items like nuts and dried fruit.

There are lots of items available at warehouse stores outside of huge packages of food and gallons of laundry detergent. I personally have found great deals on clothes for my family at Costco. They also have great deals on small appliances. I got a new crockpot for Christmas from there that was comparable to the ones I was looking at in other stores, and less expensive. My siblings and I went in on a Keurig for my dad for Christmas. We shopped around and found the features that my dad wanted along with the best price to be the one sold in Costco.

One of my favorite things to pickup in warehouse stores are gift cards. We have found gift cards worth $100 for only $80 to restaurants such as Ruth's Chris Steak House or Old Original Bookbinders. I have snagged those when I knew we would be having a big date and started our big night out with a 20% savings. They also have iTunes gift cards, movie tickets, and amusement parks.

Do you have a warehouse membership? Do you use it to buy groceries and household items, or do you buy other items?

Frugal Living Tip #29 - Swagbucks

Swagbucks

When you go on-line do you normally know the URL you are trying to get to, or do you go to a search engine such as google or yahoo in order to find the web address? If you are using a search engine for a lot of the time that you are on-line you may want to look into Swagbucks.

You can earn Swagbucks just from performing on-line searches. You can also earn them from watching videos, taking surveys, and playing games just to name a few. The easist way to earn Swagbucks is to get friends to sign-up under your referral link. That way you both can earn Swagbucks! (By the way - my referral link is throughout this post, so if you click on it and sign-up -Thanks!)

You can then redeem your Swagbucks towards all kinds of prizes. My favorite are the gift cards - they have Paypal and Amazon ones in addition to lots of other retail stores and restaurants. I have read of people who have saved up all of their Swagbucks towards gift cards that they used to purchase Christmas presents.

Have you ever used Swagbucks? If you have, what are your favorite rewards?