Fabulous freebies for Friday. (Also, always achieve alliteration.)

To celebrate this site’s first week of existence, I’m staging a giveaway of logo items donated by the friendly folks at FatWallet.com. First prize consists of an “I am the revolution” T-shirt plus a FatWallet.com baseball cap, pen, water bottle (stainless steel, BPA-free, made by Klean Kanteen) and, believe it or not, FatWallet chocolates and … Read more

Happy graduation! Here’s a toilet brush.

thKnow a college senior who’s moving into his own place post-diploma? Want to give a gift even though you’re on a budget? Forget the $20 bill or the iTunes card. Instead, buy some dishtowels, a laundry basket or a johnny mop.

Your preparing-to-launch student may have saved up the first and last month’s security on an apartment. But does he have a can opener?

Read more

BOGO, meet GOGO.

Surviving and Thriving is not a “bargain of the day” site. Plenty of other blogs already do that, and do it much better than I ever could. However, at times I’ll be writing about deals that I think are too good to pass up.

The “GOGO” deal at CVS is a good example. The drugstore chain has introduced e-gift cards, and during the month of May you can get a free gift card every time you give one.

(“Give one, get one” as opposed to “buy one, get one.” Cute, huh?)

Read more

A little love is all I ask. (That, and a Swagbucks signup.)

First and foremost: Many thanks to all who have stopped by to read and/or leave comments. Writers are the most insecure people on Earth, always wondering, “Is anyone even reading this stuff?” Well, because of the comments and the magic of Google Analytics, I know that someone is reading it. And I’m grateful.

Now, on to the favors:

Please consider clicking on the Facebook and Twitter buttons under “Follow us.” I’d love to get suggestions for topics, interesting URLs, photos of your dog, whatever. Let me know what you’re doing and thinking.

Also: The Swagbucks widget is fixed! (They call it a “swidget.” Ain’t that adorable?) Off and on during the day click the “Swag Codes” button and then click “Check if there’s a Swag Code.” They become available randomly, and can mean a bunch of extra Swag Bucks for you.

Read more

I glean cracker wrappers.

Want to be considered weird, embarrassing or just plain cheap? Be frugal among people who aren’t. Even the folks who say they love you may criticize your 10-year-old car or your thrift store habit.

And if you want to send strangers over the edge, just flash a manufacturer’s coupon in the checkout line. It’s like waving a red cape in front of a rabid bull. Indeed, the noise that some shoppers make is positively bovine: Mooaawwwww…another one of those coupon queens! Groan, sigh, mumble, JEEEZZZZ….

(Wonder if any of them have ever held up a line an extra 30 seconds while searching pockets or purses for debit cards or exact change?)

 

Read more

Therapeutic massage: Rubbed the right way.

I had three massages in eight days. The circumstances were unusual and will likely never be repeated. But for a while I knew how the super-rich must feel: Really relaxed.

One of the three was my first-ever hot stone massage. I’d told my daughter that there should be Cold Stone massage, i.e., being rubbed with ice cream. She suggested that eating ice cream during a massage would combine the best of two very nice worlds.

The 60-minute sessions at Dynamic Chiropractic and The Vital Energy Center cost $35 apiece thanks to the magic of social buying. The other was slightly discounted ($97 for 90 minutes) because I bought a five-session package at New Seattle Massage.

Usually I try for an appointment every four weeks or so, but sometimes go for months without being rubbed the right way. However, the two social-buy deals were due to expire in early summer and I have to leave in a few weeks for a housesitting job in Alaska. And like my mom, I believe that waste is a sin.

 

Read more

Why I’m writing, and why you should read it.

In my late 40s, with about $130 to my name, I returned to college to get the degree that eluded me as a teenager. Frankly, that terrified me. But my life was already turned upside down: I’d left a long-term marriage and run through most of my savings to support myself and my disabled adult daughter. If I didn’t go then, I knew I’d never go.

That first year I survived on a crazy-quilt of gigs: babysitter, apartment house manager/handyma’am, work-study grunt, freelance writer, paid medical research volunteer, mystery shopper, oldest living cub reporter on the college paper. And I sank slowly into debt because divorce lawyers get paid by the minute.

An old acquaintance, now an editor with MSN Money, invited me to write an essay. “Surviving (and Thriving) on $12,000 a Year” appeared on Jan. 10, 2007. I figured it would be like any other article I’d ever written for newspapers or magazines: Some people would read it and agree, some would read it and get irritated, and the next day they’d all be thinking about something else.

Wrong. Thousands of readers e-mailed their reactions to the piece. Many others, especially personal-finance bloggers, discussed the article online. The folks at MSN Money realized this was a demographic that wasn’t getting heard: Folks living paycheck to paycheck, who couldn’t even think about retirement because day-to-day survival took all their financial and emotional resources.

 

Read more