Have you heard about the new redbox promotion?

The only thing better than $1 a night movies – free movies!  Lucky for you, redbox, America’s destination for movie rentals, is giving everyone the chance to score free movie credits now through St. Patrick’s Day, during the Lucky to Have Friends Like You promotion. Rental credits are valid for ten (10) days after they’ve been deposited into your account.

This is just so easy!  Here are the steps to refer your way to some great free rentals!

• Sign-up for a redbox online account at www.redbox.com/luckymoms
  • Why? By signing up for an online account, you can see what movies are currently in redbox kiosks near you and reserve your picks to guarantee they’ll still be waiting for you when you get there (until 9 p.m. the next day).
• Redbox will email you a personal web address link
• Share the link with your friends
• Every time someone reserves a movie online through your personal web address, you’ll receive a credit in your online account for a free one-night DVD rental
• If it is your friend’s first time reserving online, they’ll also receive a credit for a free one night rental
• Spread the luck!  Email it, post it to Facebook, Tweet about it!  Do whatever you do to let people know about this amazing program

I have posted about this promotion so that I can enter a giveaway for free redbox movies and movie snack packs as a member of the Mom Bloggers Club.

Gas going up? Family travel budget going down....

In honor of the crazy increase in gasoline and the fact that spring break is coming up, I wanted to share some of my money saving strategies for vacation travel.  As I have done in the past, I think the best way to explain these tips are in a top ten list.  Just a little planning and you can literally save hundreds of dollars over the course of the trip.

1.  My first tip is to always pack a cooler.  I really have a weak bladder when I travel by car.  Why?  I have no idea but it forces me to stop at gas stations quite frequently.  My family is notoroius for gas station shopping.  Over prices soda, snacks and treats somehow find their way to the cashier.  So instead, I take about ten minutes before we leave and pack a cooler full of chips, granola, beverages and sometimes even sandwiches to avoid stopping for lunch.

2.  My next tip is to research where the cheapest gas is located from where you are.  On my Blackberry I have an app called Point that not only gives me directions but also tells me where the cheapest gas is located. 

3.  My next tip is one that you can use at home or were every you travel.  Check the "kids eat free" sites for dinner and lunch deals in the areas where you are traveling.  Free food for my children and I don't have to cook or clean up?  I am down!

4. My next tip is to jump on Priceline.com and see if you can book a room at your price.  I typically try to aim really low and surprisingly enough, I have booked some amazing deals.

5.  Now if you need to pick your place to be close to an attraction, or don't feel comfortable letting Priceline.com pick for you, I recommend you check Kayak.com which searches all of the search engines for you and saves a boatload of time and money.

6.  The next money saving tip that I have is to pick a hotel (like choicehotels.com) that offer free hot breakfast in the morning.  This saves my family of five an amazing amount of money each day.  The food is delicious, the selection is great and there are plenty of healthy options available.  Just make sure you call ahead and see if they offer breakfast all week or only on the weekends.

7.  The next money saving tips is to remember to sign up for any rewards programs that are offered.  Alot of the reward program benefits can be used right away.  For example, Wyndham provides their reward members with a welcome gift basket and free internet connections.  No points required, you just have to sign up and provide them your rewards number.   Also eventually if you do use the same chain, you will earn free nights.

8.  For my next tip, I recommend that you always see what kind of amenities are at the hotels you choose.  I always try to find one with an indoor pool because my children love to swim.  It gives them something to do while I take the baby to the room and put her down for a really needed nap.    Free entertainment is always good!

9.  This tip requires a little planning, but when you first find out that you will be traveling, I recommend reaching out to the local chamber of commerce.  They will provide you with all kinds of coupons and discounts that you can use to plan ahead.  Some coupons are for buy one get one attractions, or maybe a free souvenir.  That coupon can put some extra cash in your pocket.

10.  My final tip is to plan, plan, plan.  If you know exactly what to expect, you will be able to stick to your budget and not buy a whole bunch of items that you don't need.  If you take the sun block with you, you won't have to pay three times as much at the theme park to get some.


I hope this helps with your travels this spring!  It has really helped me. 

I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Alamo blogging program, for a gift card worth $25. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

Feeling Lucky?

Ever wonder why things seem to work in your favor one day and not the next?  Well yesterday was my lucky day.  I probably should have gone and gotten some lottery tickets with the amount of luck that I had yesterday.  I woke up next to my amazing husband on our three year anniversary.  I smiled thinking that as crazy and fast it had gone, we were really lucky to still be together and enjoying each others company.  Within the first year of our marriage we had gotten pregnant, had a baby, moved cross country and lost and gained jobs.  It was very stressful but we made it.  I have seen other couples crumble over less stressful situations than that. 

So back to yesterday.  I woke up feeling lucky that we were happy and healthy and that we had a wonderful family.  I look in my email and find that a twitter party was about to start that supported giving children in need breakfast.  So I couldn't help but contribute to it and hope that my tweets were helping children who were hungry.  Then I see my twitter name pop up and I won a full value coupon for Kelloggs cereal!  Awesome!  I am always looking for good coupons to shave my food costs each week.   Next I see on Facebook that People is giving away swag bags as an instant win type of game.  So I wait until 11am my time and give it a shot.  Next thing you know, I have a email in my box and it says I won a 400.00 valued swag bag.  I almost passed out.  Then about an hour later, I found out I also won a Fellows paper shredder.  I just couldn't lose yesturday!  Have you ever had a day that you just couldn't lose?

Well in honor of those days,  Redbox is doing a promotion! 

The only thing better than $1 a night movies – free movies!  Lucky you, redbox is giving everyone the chance to score free movie credits now through St. Patrick’s Day during the redbox Lucky to Have Friends Like You promotion. Each fan receives a unique web address. Every time someone rents from your address through March 17, you get a free movie credit. Rental credits are valid for ten (10) days after they’ve been deposited into your account. Spread the word, and lucky you could be rolling in free movies this March.

 

Here is the website where you can check it out!  http://www.redbox.com/luckysocial (or you can click one of the links above as well.)

 

I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and redbox blogging program, for a $25 Walmart gift card from redbox. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

Special day today

Today is my husband and I's three year anniversary.  I feel blessed every day he puts up with me.  The time has just flown by.  I imagine that 20 years from now I will be saying how fast that went too.  Life is a blessing!  Enjoy every minute of it. 

Back to Basics

So my husband and I were at Walmart this weekend and we were trying to purchase one of those bike trailers for Samantha to ride in so that we all could go bike riding as a family.  Unfortunately they didn't have one there but right next to the bikes are toys.  Well we couldn't get out of there without letting Samantha look at them all for a while and I stumbled on some kites.  I couldn't believe that they had a really nice selection of kites there and I thought how much fun it would be to teach Samantha how to fly a kite.  So I bought a nice material one hoping that it might last a bit longer than the plastic ones of my childhood.  I can't wait to take her out on the next breezy day.   This quick little trip to Walmart was a good reminder of the fun and frugal things that we can do with our kids.  Sometimes it is nice to get back to basics.  Take your kids to the park, library and all of those fun things that you enjoyed doing when you were a kid.   Have a great day and enjoy the beautiful weather!

Shopping for five and keeping it low at Kroger

Frugal living is really becoming a bigger and bigger part of my life these days.  I have family of five people and five pets.  Everyone combined could almost eat you out of house and or home if you aren't careful.  I wanted to take a minute to share thoughts on I save money at one of my favorite grocery stores.  Kroger has an amazing coupon policy here in Texas.  My Kroger will triple any coupon up to .35 and will automatically double any coupon up to .50.  When you are able to combine these deals with the specials that they have going on, you can literally cut your grocery bill in half.

Right now, Kroger is doing a "Cartbuster" Savings Event.  It is like music to my ears!  The biggest complaint I hear is that "my brands are never on sale."  Well unless you are living in a hole somewhere, your brands are on sale.  Proctor and Gamble, Nestle and more!  You just have to check it out.  The other complaint I hear often about coupons is that clipping them is such a pain.  Well Kroger has definitely made it easy.  You can sign into their website and actually click the coupons and add them directly on to you Kroger Plus Card.  This makes using coupons so easy.  I keep my Kroger card on my keys so I always have it with me.  If I decide to stop at the store on my way home, well I already have my coupons with me.

The Cartbuster Savings Event started on February 25th and runs until March 12th so take five minutes and combine those coupons with the products on sale.  Oh and here is an added bonus!  Our Kroger allows you to earn points for your purchases.  Once you have accumulated 100 points, you get 10 cents off of fuel up to 25 gallons of gas.  If you use coupons, you still earn points on the balance before the coupons have been activated.  For example, I had spent 100 worth of groceries, but only paid 65 after coupons.  I looked at my receipt and received all 100 points for my fuel rewards and rolled out to get some cheaper gas.  Every dime helps in a bigger family so I feel blessed to have Kroger available to me.  Kroger helps me stay on and usually below budget.  Check out the Kroger in your area and see how much you can save!

I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms Kroger CartBuster blogging program, for a gift card worth $50. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

If aliens came and took me...what would my children miss?

Have you all seen new previews of Disney's newest animated feature?  I have been watching the television lately and every time I see the commercial, I just laugh so I figured I would write about it.  In honor of the new movie "Mars needs Moms", I thought that it would be fun to do a top list of what would be the top ten things that my children would miss about me if I were abducted.  Given that I have three children I feel that each one would probably have different things about me that they would miss.   In true "Letterman" fashion, I will start at 10 and work my way down to one.

10.  My children would miss my shopping for all of their clothes for them.  They would have to purchase it themselves.

9.  My children would miss my reminding them to bring their clothes down to be washed.  Otherwise they would continuously wear filthy clothes.

8.  My children would miss my daily reminder to take a shower.  They would end up smelling like a foot on a daily basis.

7.  My children would miss my reminding them to brush their teeth.  If they didn't brush them, well they would all rot, fall out and they would look really goofy.

6.  My children would miss my contant seaching for deals which enables them to try out new venues that we normally would not be able to try.

5.  My children would miss the fact that I take care of the animals and would be forced to get out of bed to let the dog out at 4:00AM.

4.  My children would miss my giveaway entering for which they benefit from quite often with all kinds of goodies we wouldn't normally by.

3.  My children would miss my vacation planning and would be forced to be really bored and never get out of town every once in a while.

2.  My children would miss my grocery shopping because well they are all big eaters

And the number 1 thing that my children would miss is my cooking as for without it they would all starve.


Now, of course in there should be that they will miss my hugs and kisses and snuggles, but well actually that is probably the part that I would miss the most.  So what do you think that your children would miss about you?  Leave a comment and let me know!


“I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms blogging program, for a gift card worth $25. For more information on how you can participate, click here.