Whether it’s hunting for the best deals around or growing your fruits and vegetables, living a frugal lifestyle is a challenge that can bring a great sense of accomplishment. Spending cents while others spend dollars, embracing this lifestyle has benefits beyond your checkbook.
We’re always on the lookout for a bargain but either we don’t have the time, don’t have the desire to hunt, or we don’t know where to look. For me, it’s often a combination of all of those. I love a good discount but I only take advantage of those that are easy to find. Here’s a list of a few others I found after a little bit of digging.
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One of the best birthday presents is getting free stuff. And there are a number of retailers and restaurants that are willing to give you stuff, or at least a discount, on your birthday. As long as you don’t mind a little loss of privacy as you sign up, you can get some great freebies around your birthday.
You can start by signing up at BirthdayFreebies.com. This site allows you to register and then find numerous birthday freebies. You can sign up with Facebook to make it easier. On top of offering information on national freebies, you can also get information on local freebies, allowing you to save at establishments in your area.
Here are some other places to start getting free stuff for your birthday, compiled with the help of Hey It’s Free and The Frugal Girls:
If you want free food on your birthday, you often just have to sign up when you go out to eat. Here are some of the places that provide some sort of birthday club or other signup for points or rewards that can result in free food:
While we often think of free food, that’s not your only option. Here are a few non-food freebies available on your birthday:
What are your favorite birthday freebies?
(Photo: avlxyz)
The most frugal way to go is to get something for free. Indeed, you might be surprised at the freebies available around the Internet, and around your town. It’s possible to find things for free just about anywhere you look — as long as you are looking hard enough.
If you are trying to find freebies so that you can save a little money, here are some places to look:
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Ever since I signed up Netflix, the number of movies I’ve rented has gone down significantly. When I do, it’s usually from a Redbox kiosk. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I rented a movie that wasn’t from a Redbox (it was probably in high school, when Blockbuster still existed and was charging $4.99 a night!). More recently, I’ve been looking into Redbox again since Netflix changed their pricing structure and we opted to get only the Instant offerings, which usually don’t include new release DVDs.
We used Redbox a lot because we knew it was easy to find Redbox promotion codes. Even if we didn’t have a promo code, movies are only a dollar a day and we have multiple kiosks in the area, some within walking distance. Even if they are just a dollar a day, there’s something fun about getting it for free. I’ll explain how you can still get movies for free off Redbox.
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As February 14 steals ever closer, many wonder what they can do to show how much they care — without breaking the bank. The good news is that the vastness of your love doesn’t have to be measured in dollars.
Indeed, if you can find a heartfelt, sincere way to express your love, you don’t need to spend a lot of money. A good relationship doesn’t have to be based on expensive things and grand gestures. Instead, here are 9 ideas that will cost you less, and help you show your love more:
(Photo: Sugar Daze)
Much like Bank of America’s Museums on Us promotion, Target Arts + Culture is a program put on by Target in which you can get discounted or complimentary passes to a variety of arts and cultural sites in your area. The program isn’t nearly as widespread as Bank of America’s program but in many cities you can get discounted or free tickets to local venues. The larger the city, the greater the number of options.
For example, Baltimore has just one discounted venue (Port Discovery) while New York City had eleven free venues. If nothing else, it’s worth checking out to see if there’s something fun you can do on the cheap!
(Photo: hellomokona)
Yes.
Rhett Allain of Wired did an extensive study of three battery brands (Energizer, Duracell, and a dollar store variety) and concluded that the brand named batteries are worth the added cost. Brand named contain more energy, disperse that energy better, and cost, on a joule per dollar basis, less than the dollar store variety. The differences between the brand name (Energizer vs. Duracell) were not significant. He did this by having the batteries power a light and took some measurements to arrive at his conclusions.
It was nice to see my own opinion confirmed (I use mostly rechargeable batteries but when in doubt I avoid dollar store varieties) but the big takeaway for me was the energy dispersed over time. As you can see, current (Amp) and potential (V) are highest at first and then drop significantly between 3 and 5 hours. At around 6-7 hours, it has minimal energy left but has that for quite some time. What I typically do with alkaline batteries, after they’ve exhausted most of their charge, is use them in remotes. Then, as new alkaline batteries come into the system, I cycle out the ones in remotes (for fear of leakage). I find that remotes use very little energy.
The difference between brand name and el cheapo batteries is significant and this little study, with its wealth of data, proves it.
(and please use rechargeable batteries… alkaline batteries are horrible, especially if you don’t recycle them!)
(Photo: grandhi)
As a new year begins, and you consider what you can do to make this coming year better than the last year, it’s a good idea to look at your habits. Many of our habits contribute to money leaks in our lives.
It might take some time to eradicate a habit in your life, but you can work on one at a time. Work on developing good habit from this list each month, and in 10 months you could have a new you that is also more financially sound:
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