Swagbucks for Printing Coupons? My Head May Explode!!!

If you haven't already joined Swagbucks, do it! Free money!

One of their latest things has made me crazed with excitement!

1. Print coupons on items you typically purchase.
2. Use the coupons.
3. Every coupons awards you with 10 swag bucks!!
4. 450 Swag bucks = $5 free at Amazon.

Upromise also has coupons, if you are using that site to boost college savings. You don't have to print them,  you choose the ones you want, then activate them. Once you purchase the items at participating stores (most are participating--Weis, Giant, etc), you get the coupon money in your acct. For example, this week I bought three 8 oz Cabot cheese bricks from Weis for $5. The online coupon was for $1.25, so I really spent $3.75 for the cheese and saved $1.25 for college.

Most coupon sites refresh monthly.

Tax Assessment

We just received our assessment notice on our house. Previously,  our home value was over assessed and I fought it and was able to get our tax assessment reduced by $17,000. This year, our assessment went way down and for that, I'm thankful. Our taxes will go down, which means more of our budget that we have allocated towards our home payments will go towards principle vs. taxes.  If you own a home, your assessment should be arriving shortly. If you feel your home is overvalued on the tax assessment, it is worth your time to fight it. If your home has increased in value since your last assessement:

1. Go to Zillow and see what your home is valued at (ballpark estimate here). This will also give you an idea of recently sold home or homes NOT selling in your neighborhood. Take notes.
2. If the assessment seems way too much, fight it. I did a written appeal, but you will see other options on your assessment notice. Tips on Fighting Your Tax Assessment
3. If your assessment has increased, accurately, by quite a bit, you may qualify for the Homestead Tax Credit

Good luck!

Water Savings...Saving You Big Money

Even if you have your own well and water is cheap, most likely, it is not cheap to heat.  Here are some ways to help you save:

• Buy 1 liter of something. Drink it. Fill with rocks or simply water. Put it in your toilet tank. Save money every time you flush. Cost: Free to less than $1. Payback: nearly instant.
• Buy a low flow shower head. They have improved drastically over the years. When we swapped our 2.5 gallon per minute (gpm) shower head to a 1.5 gpm shower head, we noticed no difference in shower time or pressure... but WOW did we notice a difference in our water, sewer and bge bills. Look for reviewed ones. A common one that seems well reviewed is the Waterpik Eco Flow. Cost: $5-45 Payback less than 6 mos. I've been tempted to try the .5 pgm aqua helix, but not sure how the family would react! Imagine the savings!!
• Buy aerators for every sink in your home. Your sinks already have them, but most likely, they are rated at 2.2 gpm. This is overkill for handwashing. We have found the .5 gpm have a squeal to them, so have changed our bathroom sinks to 1 gpm and our kitchen sink to 1.5 gpm  Huge savings, cheap thing to do. Unscrew them, label where they go with masking tape and go into Lowe's or any hardware store and ask for help finding low flow aerators (male/female screws, you just need to make sure you get the correct ones). 1 gpm and 1.5 gpm have been easy to find in my experience. If you have a blending sink (not 2 knobs, but one), you are waking up your hot water heater every time you turn on your water! And very often, if you shut the water off while you wash your hands, it won't even get hot but you have just cost yourself money. This is why on our blended sinks, I turn off our hot knob during the summer. Note that my husband thinks this mad, but he isn't complaining about our bills!!! Cost: Less than $10; Less than 6 mos payback.
• Consider upgrading your washer. Don't fall for a matched washer/drier set. Driers have not had improved efficiency since the 1970s. And with the dry winter air, spend $20 on an extendable drying rack from Target and humidify for free! Our HE washer, which was the most efficient at the time (there are now more efficient models), paid for itself in 1.5 years (using 1 load/day as our #). Do the calculations for your family by finding your current washer model online and looking at water and KWH usage. The old washers truly guzzle in every way. Cost: Over $500. Payback 1-3 years. Always look at efficiency and calculate long term usage before decided which is truly the "cheapest" model: Water, Sewer, KWH used, Water heating (this is ballpark).
• Consider upgrading your dishwasher. Handwashing is difficult to do efficiently. Our dishwasher holds almost every dish we own and uses 1.8 gallons of water. Without rinsing! It only uses 1 kwh per load. Cost: Over $500. Payback: variable, based on usage. Always look at efficiency and calculate long term usage before decided which is truly the "cheapest" model: Water, Sewer, KWH used, Water heating (this is ballpark). 

When looking on the energy star labels, note that this is calculated with 11 cents per kWh. This does not account for utility taxes, etc. It is simply the national average. In Maryland, depending on whom you have have chosen for power (I hope you've done this!), you are paying 17-19 cents/kWh! Calculate accordingly. The good thing with living in an expensive state for energy is excellent incentive for efficiency and the payback times are much shorter! :) 

I just figured out how to save $104 on my Utility Bill!!!

We have natural gas for our water heater (about to go) and for our stove and have been saving to replace both with electric alternatives (induction/convection for stove and tankless electric water heater, power provided by our solar panels). I called our utility today to find out once we replace both, could we have the gas turned off for 8 mos of the year where we don't use heat? ($13/mos just to be hooked up to natural gas, regardless of usage). YES! We just need to call and cancel and then call to restart service! $104 to spend less than 10 min on the phone per year. What a great hourly rate of pay!!! ;)

If you are in a similar situation and use natural gas for heating and have only 1 or 2 appliances run by natural gas, you may want to consider something similar (especially if you only use it for heating!). $104 is only a start to pay for a water heater, however, since ours is already 9 years old and inconsistently heating (with very hard water), we know its days are numbered. Figure out roughly what a new water heater will cost you (tankless saves family using less than 40 gallons of heating water/ day roughly 35-45% of heating water costs, 40-80 gallons a day save 15-25%) and look at your payback.

You can easily nudge your gallon number lower by washing clothes only in cold water, using a shower head with .5-1.5 gpm flow rate vs. the standard 2.5 gpm, and running your dishwasher only when it is full.

Turn $40 to $50

I meant to post this sooner. Turn $40 into $50! Get your change (or go to your bank and get some) and your money will grow by $10. This can be changed into gift cards only with no fee. But an extra $10 is welcome for stores like Lowe's, where it always seems like I am replacing something for the house. The Amazon portion of this deal expires today, but the rest of the deal goes on until Dec 31. Check out the link, as not all machines do all gift cards.

Free $10 for FUN activities!!

Eversave is just like Groupon, but you get free credit just for joining. Join through the above link and your account will open with a $5 credit. Buy something today and use the code "FIRSTBUY" and you will get $5 more off. Today only! I used my $10 to buy 2 passes to glow golf in Westminster, which was $8...but really free, plus I still have a $2 credit in my account. Check it out! Many locations, not just Baltimore :)

Free Cross Country Skiing and Snowshoeing Lessons

Locations nationwide, this sounds like a lot of fun. Being offered at more than 70 state parks and ski resorts around the country. One day event.

$5 Free MP3s from Rhapsody

Follow the above link and get $5 of free music via facebook.

Free Gift Cards for Searching the Internet

I know I have mentioned Swagbucks before, but I need to truly rave about it at this point. I love it because most "deals" have you spending less money, not truly saving money. You can truly save money by earning free gift cards on this site. All you have to do is search the internet. In less than 3 weeks, I have acquired enough points to buy three $5 Amazon gift cards. This was largely just doing regular searches. Now you know all my savings declarations need a true goal, so my new goal is to buy everything from Amazon with free money from Swagbucks (minus Subscribe and Save subscriptions).  There are other gift cards, too. They will also give you "swag" money for old books,  cell phones, etc. Check it out! I can't recommend it highly enough!!!
Swagbucks

And once you join via the above link, let's do this to the maximum efficiency...maximize your "swag" earnings by reading this and taking the advice:
Maximize Your Swag Earnings!

Have fun! :)

Stretching Your Donation Dollars

Here are some great Groupon deals for giving!

I am loving these donation Groupons...
$10 buys $25 of classroom materials; $40 brings that up to $100!
Check out this Groupon:
Donor's Choose Groupon

Then check out this site and choose whichever classroom teacher you'd like to help:
Donors Choose

The Kiva Groupon is back as well!
$15 buys $25 towards a Kiva microloan for the entrepreneur of your choosing.
Kiva Groupon

Either of these meaningful gifts would be appreciated by someone you are buying for.