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Giveaway: $50 gift card, sponsored by Swagbucks.

November 29, 2014November 21, 2014 by Donna Freedman

Fun fact: During the holiday season, the lowest price for toys is about 10 days before Christmas.

Funner fact: You can get a $50 head start on your toy-buying (or anything-else-buying) if you win this week’s giveaway.

The Swagbucks rewards site has offered to award one lucky reader his or her choice of a $50 e-gift card from the Rewards Store. It’s quite the lineup of cards for restaurants, electronics emporia, retaurants, entertainment and other categories (including my personal favorite, Amazon).

This giveaway is a little different: You must be a member of Swagbucks and earn at least 50 points between now and 7 p.m. PST Friday, Dec. 5. Instead of entering up to five different ways, leave one comment with your Swagbucks user name.

Friday: “Be My Valentine” Swagbucks extravaganza.

February 13, 2014 by Donna Freedman

Beginning at 6 a.m. PST on Valentine’s Day the Swagbucks rewards program plans a day of games and riddles totaling 25 easy points.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Free Comic Book Day.

May 4, 2013May 3, 2013 by Donna Freedman

Late yesterday afternoon the UPS left leaving an envelope whose contents — “Superman: Last Son of Krypton” and “Beware the Batman” — sent me rocketing back to my childhood.

They’re two of the books to be given away tomorrow for Free Comic Book Day 2013. Every first Saturday in May the comics industry gives away millions of titles for free at comic shops across the country.

Some 4.6 million comics will be handed across counters this year, which is a 30% increase over 2012.

Comics have moved beyond the POW! ZAP! these days. SpongeBob Squarepants has his own comic series. So does “Sesame Street.” The wildly popular series “The Walking Dead” began as a comic book, although purists would probably call it a graphic novel.

The free-comic lineup is quite the mixed bag: books based on the usual superheroes like Superman, Batman and The Hulk, plus titles whose heroes range from Judge Dredd to MegaMan to the children’s book character Pippi Longstocking. (Go here for a full list of offerings.)

Tax day antidote: A $20 Amazon gift card.

April 12, 2013 by Donna Freedman

I mailed my taxes on Tuesday. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, huh? Since some of you may be finishing up the paperwork, or may be glum about the paperwork you just mailed, I’m hoping this week’s giveaway will cheer you up.

And if not, maybe my upcoming Swagbucks announcement (more on that below) will do the trick.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day: Chocolate-scented toiletries.

January 27, 2013 by Donna Freedman

The every-Friday giveaway fell by the wayside for a few weeks. I missed it again last week because I was waiting for a couple of items to arrive from Good Earth Beauty.

They sat in the mailbox until my roommate got home late Friday evening and I must admit that the first glimpse caused me to make the girl-noise. Take a look at the accompanying photo and you’ll see why.

Couldn’t use them right away, because they were solidly frozen. But oh, how delicious they smelled on Saturday morning.

Like being at FinCon12 – or at the sponsor tables, anyway.

September 21, 2012 by Donna Freedman

Even though I had a bad cold I had a great time at the recent Financial Blogger Conference in Denver. If you want to know more about the event, check out my daughter’s posts over at I Pick Up Pennies:

And if you want to win some conference swag? Read on.

Win a T-shirt with attitude.

March 2, 2012 by Donna Freedman

This week’s giveaway is sponsored by Stacy Johnson of Money Talks News, a website that produces a personal finance television news series. You’ve probably seen these pieces on MSN Money (among other places). If you have, you’ve also seen Stacy, who stars in many of these programs. He also writes PF articles to go along with the film work.

Two other important facts about Stacy:

He syndicates my stuff over at Money Talks News. Bless his heart.

He designed a heck of a funny T-shirt — one which you get six chances to win this week, rather than five.

Valentine’s Day 2012: Let me do your shopping.

January 27, 2012 by Donna Freedman

Yep, it’s early. I’m putting the Valentine’s Day giveaway up to allow plenty of time for the winner to receive the package and re-gift it.

That is, if the winner really wants to – the items range from the sublime to the ridiculous. All might be hard to turn loose once you see them.

Let’s start with the sublime: three new kinds of chocolate.

Two winners instead of one.

January 24, 2012 by Donna Freedman

I decided to throw caution to the winds — or, rather, an extra subscription at the readers — with the current weekly giveaway.

Want to survive “Blue Monday”? Maybe a Chicken Chucker would help.

January 6, 2012 by Donna Freedman

Each year a mid-January day is designated “Blue Monday” — allegedly the most depressing day out of the 365 or 366, according to a formula concocted by a guy named Cliff Arnall.

A former tutor at the University of Cardiff, Arnall seems to have created Blue Monday as a publicity stunt for a travel agency. Still, the reasoning seems pretty sound to me: A combination of consumer debt from holiday spending, post-holiday letdown, crappy weather and failed New Year’s resolutions make us feel like hell.