gift cards

Gift card giveaway (quick one).

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It’s a gloomy, overcast day here. Maybe it is where you are, too. So I just decided to do a quick-turnaround $20 Valentine’s Day gift card giveaway, to brighten everyone’s mood.

My mood, because I like to give things away.

Your mood, because you might win. (It could happen!)

Maybe you’d use the prize to brighten your day: getting that book you wanted, or picking up some really good lip balm and lotion to deal with winter dryness. Or to brighten someone else’s day – either a “just because” gift or a Valentine’s Day (or Galentine’s Day) present.

Instead of making an executive decision about this gift card giveaway, I’m going to give the winner a handful of options and let them decide. The card will come in part from the Shopkick app, so I’ll be pulling those options from the app’s rewards center.

A quick word about Shopkick: It’s one of my favorites now that I’ve finally gotten a smartphone. Pretty simple to use: You get points for scanning UPCs from certain products in drugstores, department stores, supermarkets, pet emporia and other retailers, and then trade them in for Fabulous Prizes. (Specifically: gift cards, PayPal, or contributions to Feeding America or the American Red Cross.)

If you actually buy any of those products, you get a bunch more points. You can also get points for watching very short videos in the app. (Think: 10 to 30 seconds.) Although I don’t buy all that much, I am having a lot of fun with this app. (If you’d like to join, go to https://www.shopkick.com/ and fill in the referral code WIN358965.)

Now: On to your choices. Although 47 options exist, I’m gonna limit them to the following:

 

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Monday miscellany: Debt hangover edition.

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About one-third of U.S. residents took on debt for the 2020 holidays, according to a study from the Magnify Money personal finance site. Breaking it down further, there’s good, bad and worse news about these findings. The good news: Fewer people (31 percent) borrowed this year than last year (44 percent). The bad news: Those … Read more

Monday miscellany: Sleazy scammer edition.

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Lost your job due to the pandemic or looking for a side hustle through a work-at-home job? Be careful where you click. The increase in work-at-home jobs is a perfect fit for an Internet scammer, reports Kathy Kristof on the SideHusl blog.

“Crooks hide in the crowd, making their offers appear so similar to real ones that it’s hard to tell the difference,” says Kristof.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, job scams have cost U.S. residents at least $150 million in the first nine months of 2020. I say “at least” because who knows how many people who were victimized bothered to file an FTC complaint, or who didn’t know they could?

Here’s what the thieves want:

  • Personal information, such as a Social Security number
  • Passwords to accounts
  • Access to your computer (for example, the crook might send you a link to fill out an application – but it’s a spoofed site that will infect your computer with malware)
  • For you to cash a personal check or write them a personal check

To be clear: There are loads of legitimate work-at-home jobs out there. But you need to be cautious about any offer, even if you think it’s legit. Kristof’s article can help.

In addition, the Internal Revenue Service reports a new text scam: Messages saying, “You have received a direct deposit of $1,200 from COVID-19 TREAS FUND. Further action is required to accept this payment into your account. Continue here to accept this payment …” 

 

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Giveaway: Gift card – your pick.

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I mailed some important paperwork to my brother on Dec. 4. It was so important that I used priority mail, both for the three-day delivery function and the fact that it’s easy to track.

Guess what? He still doesn’t have it. 

Typical online holiday orders + the additional online shopping thanks to the pandemic = one heck of a mess. In fact, FedEx and UPS have nixed new deliveries for some retailers, which means that packages ordered after that are being sent via the U.S. Postal Service. The Washington Post reports that this has led to “widespread delays and pushed the nation’s mail agency to the brink.”

“Postal employees are reporting mail and package backlogs across the country, and working vast amounts of overtime hours that have depleted morale during another surge of coronavirus infections nationwide,” according to the Post.

Which is why I hope that the winner of this giveaway opts for an e-gift card. That person still won’t get the card in time to do any holiday shopping, but they can:

  • Print out the gift card and give it as a present, or
  • Shop the hell outta the post-holiday clearance.

 

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Giveaway: More stocking stuffers.

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I’m really enjoying these giveaways. That’s because I love giving things away almost as much as I love winning things myself. Okay, not 100 percent accurate right now: I’m hoping against hope to win a PlayStation 5 in time for Christmas. My great-nephew, like many other gamers, is obsessed over this new system. Some people … Read more

Giveaway: Yet another gift card.

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First it was the technical difficulties. Then I was mostly buried under deadlines. Then some other stuff* happened.

As a result, it’s been more than three weeks since I last posted a giveaway, despite my pledge to do that every week.

So maybe I’ll up the frequency of these things, to get back on track for holiday shopping. I already have two more  giveaways of Alaska items planned, but posting them would have meant a lot of moving and re-sizing of photographs.

Due to the aforementioned issues, I haven’t had the brainwidth to do it. This way, I can re-use an illustration I already had on hand.

Besides, you guys love gift cards. So a gift card it will be! This time, anyway.

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Monday miscellany: Money mediocrity edition.

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Note: Surviving and Thriving is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

This is the sixth year for Amazon Prime Day, but the first time that it happened so close to Christmas. Usually it takes place in mid-July; this year it starts at 3 a.m. Eastern Oct. 13 and winds up in 48 hours.

During that time you’ll see a lot of deals, some of which might be exactly what you want. Although I am an Amazon Prime member I have yet to take part in Prime Day. A single-mom relative of mine has used it to stretch her holiday budget, however.

It’s being said that Amazon is basically encouraging everyone to do their holiday shopping now. Apparently other retailers have the same idea, both in-store and online. Black Friday “previews” and “sneak peeks” are already showing up and may come out in force during the month of November.

According to Consumer Reports, the idea is to keep crowds down and thus reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19. Until I read that, I figured it was just another prime (as it were) example of “Christmas creep.” But the coronavirus angle makes sense, too.

To take advantage of Prime Day deals you must be a Prime member. You can do an end run around this by signing up for a 30-day free trial and canceling once Prime Day is over.

Consumer Reports has these tips for getting the most out of Prime Day:

 

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Giveaway: Another $25 gift card.

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The results are in: You guys really like gift cards. The previous gift card giveaway had 185 entries.

No surprises here. Gift cards can be used either for something you need or for something you want but couldn’t quite justify buying for yourself.

Here’s a good example: One commenter who’d previously won a gift card on my site said she used it to buy a signed copy of a book, thereby supporting a writer while indulging in something she would not otherwise have gotten. #winwin

Frankly, I wish the amount on the card were more generous. But I decided that I would rather give away a bunch of relatively small prizes than one or two big ones.

Besides, during the difficult days of the pandemic even $25 can make a difference in your life. That could mean getting a signed book, or it could mean being able to buy a few groceries or put gas in your car until the next cash – be it paycheck or unemployment benefit – comes in.

As a broke single mom, at times I had to take coins from the baby’s piggy bank to buy milk before payday. Always paid it back, but it caused me tremendous anxiety to have to open up that bank (even though the milk was for her).

 

That $25 gift card might also let you do a little holiday shopping, which was definitely something I thought about when planning this series of giveaways. While I’d never advise buying gifts that you can’t pay for in cash (or pay for in full when the credit card bill comes due), I also think it’s important to give.

 

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Monday miscellany: Mental ledger edition.

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Note: Surviving and Thriving is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Maybe you’ve heard yourself using this phrase lately: “I deserve it.” After all, the pandemic has caused so much stress and fear – and, often, financial loss – that many folks are in a constant state of anxiety. Thus we deserve that frou-frou coffee, some new nail polish, a great-looking book or two scoops of our favorite ice cream.

Personal finance writer Emily Guy Birken broke down that phrase in an intriguing way recently. In a post called “How to avoid a pandemic spending frenzy,” she said that the word “deserve” is a big mistake.

“If you deserve something, that means you could be un-deserving of it,” Birken writes.

Additionally, saying you deserve something “means you are placing yourself in a position where what you already have is not enough. This is no recipe for happiness, because there will always be another thing you feel you deserve at some point…Defining purchases and treats as something you deserve is a way to feel resentful, rather than satisfied.”

 

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Giveaway: A box of (mostly) Alaskan stocking stuffers.

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Very glad I started this giveaway series in time for the holidays. Judging from the response I got to the previous one, so are a whole lot of readers.

While gift cards are easier to send (especially if they’re e-gift cards), my original intent was also to give away some Alaska items in order to support the local economy this holiday season. Hence the current giveaway: the small flat-rate box of (mostly) Alaskan stocking stuffers.

Don’t celebrate Christmas? Give them as “just thinking about you” presents. Donate them to a shelter. Or keep them all to yourself. Who’s gonna know?

A bunch of these items are courtesy of my BFF, Linda B., who is conducting a fairly ruthless purge of Stuff. Like many of us, she has come by sooooo much Stuff. Even if you have a biggish house (which she does), there’s only so much Stuff you can display/use.

Linda has been finding good homes for a lot of the Stuff through our local Buy Nothing Facebook page. Art, outerwear, jewelry, tchotchkes…It’s been fun to watch. And, occasionally, to participate in, as I was able to snare some things for the mostly Alaska stocking stuffers.

That box includes but is not limited to:

 

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