shopping

Got a credit card? Get another one.

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th-1In the past month or so I’ve had four credit cards compromised. Notice of the latest breach came via e-mail this morning: Some thieving bastard(s) purchased hundreds of dollars’ worth of stuff from Walmart.com and then tried to spend hundreds more at a different online company.

The other three credit cards weren’t part of the latest Target breach, in which as many as 40 million people had their data stolen. But that theft should help convince people to come around to my way of thinking: that you need at least two credit cards. Suppose you were on vacation or traveling on business and found your plastic didn’t work?

Which is exactly what happened to me: I’m currently in Phoenix, about to celebrate Christmas with my daughter and son-in-law. The card that got hacked is now kaput. What if I wanted to go shopping, or needed to pay for a van ride back to the airport?

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Interested in a free gift card?

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thLooking to save money during your holiday shopping? Gift Card Granny can help. The aggregator site finds the best deals among the many discounted gift card resellers.

Shopping with a discounted gift card is like having a coupon without an expiration date. You can save anywhere from 2% to 20%, and sometimes more, depending on the retailer.

Gift cards are available for special purchases but also for everyday wants and needs such as groceries, gasoline, toiletries, vitamins, fast food, pet supplies and movie tickets. (My midnight movie jaunts — and their attendant buckets of kettle corn — are a bit more affordable this way.)

I shop with discounted gift cards all year round. Just about any time you check my wallet you’ll find at least one card; right now I have three (Walgreens, McDonald’s and Cinemark). However, these cards are particularly useful during the holidays — and Gift Card Granny is sponsoring a giveaway of a $25 gift card, to help defray your shopping costs.

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The loneliest drugstore in the world.

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thAnother Thanksgiving and I’ve fulfilled my stated intention: to eat until I can’t walk. Four guests for dinner (including my niece and her boys) and I still had all I wanted of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, coleslaw, peas, rolls – all of it homemade and all of it irresistible.

Dessert was a tough choice between the pumpkin pie that I made and the pumpkin cheesecake my niece made. Since my doctor told me to reduce stress, I decided to have some of each. After all, they both have beta carotene.

The meal started at 1 p.m. My friend Linda B. left for work at 4:15 p.m., and my niece and the kids were gone an hour later. Now I’m sitting in front of a wonderful fire and unlikely to move far from it, especially since the temperature is dropping: It’s 11 and breezy now, predicted to drop to 2 degrees overnight; tomorrow’s high is predicted to be 8 degrees and the low will be minus 8. At least it isn’t Fairbanks.

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Want a $50 gift card? Swagbucks is giving one away.

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th-1I’m doing almost all of my holiday shopping with free gift cards from MyPoints, Swagbucks and a couple of rewards credit cards.

That’s not due to my recent personal economic downturn, however: I always shop this way. If I can get promissory scrip by using a particular site, search engine or credit card, why wouldn’t I?

If you’re starting to wonder how much you can afford to spend for the holidays, this might interest you: My favorite rewards program, Swagbucks, has offered me a special signup code for new referrals (more on that in a minute), and a chance for both new and old referralss to win a $50 gift card.

Interested? I thought so.

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Swagcode alert! The end of “Five for Five.”

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card129It’s the final day of the “Five for Five” Swagbucks promotion. You’ve got until 2 p.m. Pacific to head over to Swagbucks and enter the code PunnyAnimal.

The case-sensitive code is available in all countries where Swagbucks is played.

Not sure exactly what I’m talking about? All will be revealed if you read “Swagcode alert! (And four more to come.)” Feel free to click on the link in that article to join the program.

(Note: If you do, I will receive a referral bonus. If you don’t want to do it that way, then just go to www.swagbucks.com and sign up for a new account.)

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Swagcode alert! (Three-fifths of the way done.)

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Good morning, everyone. (It’s way too early to be a great morning, i.e., it’s still 5 a.m. in Alaska.) You’ve got just under an hour to snare five Swagbucks. From now until 7 a.m. Pacific, go to the Swagbucks site and enter the code Shop4School. This case-sensitive code is good in all Swagbucks-playin’ countries except … Read more

Swagcode alert! (The second of five.)

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card129You’ve got about two hours to earn five easy Swagbucks points. From now until 2 p.m. Pacific, go to the Swagbucks site and enter the code SchoolStarts.

This case-sensitive code is good in all countries where Swagbucks is offered.

Not sure what I’m talking about? You can get the basics by reading “Swagcode alert! (And four more to come.).” Feel free to click on the link in that article to join the program. (Note: If you do, I will receive a referral bonus. If you don’t want to do that, then just go to www.swagbucks.com and sign up that way.)

Short form: Swagbucks is a simple-to-use rewards site that lets you cash in for products, gift cards or even PayPal payments.

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Adventures in frugal hacking.

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Recently I declared that I hate shopping. Today’s kind of shopping was both fun and profitable.

This morning I noticed that the Shop and Earn feature on the Swagbucks rewards points site is offering double the points through Memorial Day weekend.

Although not much of an online shopper I took a quick look anyway – and found yet another Swagbucks hack, which morphed into several other money-savers.

 

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Tax day antidote: A $20 Amazon gift card.

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thI 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.

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