Wise Bread - Surviving and Thriving

Wise Bread Tweetchat = $100 in Amazon cards.

June 28, 2017 by Donna Freedman

The smart-money website is also giving away two Kindle copies of “Your Playbook For Tough Times, Vol. 2: Needs And Wants Edition.” That’s because I’m the guest of honor, so to speak, at this week’s Tweetchat.

The theme: “Building The Life You Want With The Money You Have.” From the Wise Bread website:

Learn about what a frugalist is, having a winning attitude during financial turns, ways to cut costs on food, and more. Tell us if you have a “freedom fund” and let us know one thing you could do today to start living a more frugalist lifestyle.

Sound like anyone you know?

Come share your own wisdom, whether it’s instinctive or hard-won, and you may be rewarded: Wise Bread is giving away four prizes.

Link love, a virus and teaching money skills.

May 22, 2019December 2, 2016 by Donna Freedman

Sorry to have maintained radio silence lately. In the past week I’ve had one of those not-terribly-serious yet still life-sucking viruses.

The sinus-y kind that makes your head ache and your nose and eyes itch. The throat-y kind that makes it unpleasant even to sip water. The malaise-y kind that makes you want to lie down a lot, except that you can’t really get comfortable.

Blech.

Since during that time I’ve also been writing for pay and working on the sequel to “Your Playbook For Tough Times,” I haven’t had the brainwidth to come up with something thrilling for this blog.

However, I do have a few things to share. To wit:

‘Playbook’: A podcast and a Tweetchat.

September 14, 2016September 14, 2016 by Donna Freedman

I feel so loved: A chapter from “Your Playbook For Tough Times” is the featured topic on this week’s Wise Bread Tweetchat – which regular readers know always includes prizes.

And this week’s prizes are pretty rich – much richer than I had originally posted. (See below.)

“Doing a financial fire drill” is the subject of the one-hour event, which takes place at noon PDT on Thursday, Sept. 15. (As in “tomorrow.”) We’ll be talking about how to do an extreme budget makeover in advance of anything going wrong.

Think of it this way: Relatively few homes or schools burn down each year. Knowing what to do if that should happen is still a good idea.

And if you need another incentive to participate? Wise Bread has that covered, too.

Free health screenings. Also: Gift cards and an iPotty.

June 10, 2014 by Donna Freedman

When possible, I try to post free stuff and the chance to win gift cards because these are good ways to stretch the budget. Here are four such opps, all of which could turn out to be great frugal hacks – that is, if you live near a Sam’s Club and/or are lucky enough to win.

(About that “iPotty”: I am not making that up. I couldn’t make that up. More on it below.)

On Saturday, June 14 you can get free men’s health screenings at all Sam’s Club locations that have pharmacies. You don’t have to be a member to take advantage of:

PSA (prostate-specific antigen), for men 40 and older
Total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol
Glucose
Body mass index
Blood pressure
Vision
Risk ratio

The screenings are offered between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. In honor of Father’s Day, maybe the dad(s) in your life will give you a gift: the opportunity to be in your life longer by being proactive about health.

What I’ve been doing.

December 10, 2013December 9, 2013 by Donna Freedman

Made it back from the annual Talkeetna fling late Sunday afternoon, in one piece but very tired. Either I’m getting older or the late hours, odd eating habits and weirdly crappy weather (freezing rain despite ground temps in the 20s) took more out of me than I thought.

Before I recap that bacchanal, allow me to share a few recent happenings.

Despite my previously stated position on why you shouldn’t write for free, I recently did just that. But donating “Want to cut costs? Get yourself a frugal filter (or two)” to the Wise Bread blog was a professional courtesy, which is one of the few reasons to give it away. Will Chen and Greg Go have both been helpful and supportive to me and I wanted to return the favor.

6 things to do while you’re on hold next weekend.

November 13, 2012November 12, 2012 by Donna Freedman

Planning to shop online between Black Friday – which is increasingly more of a Post-Turkey Thursday – and Cyber Monday? A company called STELLAService has determined that the merchants with the shortest phone-support hold times are Nordstrom.com (18 seconds), Overstock.com (44 seconds), LLBean.com (46 seconds), Zappos.com (1 minute, 9 seconds) and Target.com (1 minute, 18 seconds).

That information is based on the 2011 shopping season. I bet it’ll be just as good this year, since retailers are scrambling to stand out among the din of the busiest shopping weekend of the year.

And if you’re buying from a place that leaves you languishing on hold for lonnnnng minutes? Here are six things to do while you wait:

The winners.

May 10, 2011 by Donna Freedman

I wish I had unlimited prizes so that everyone could be a winner. I don’t. Is it too corny to say I think you’re all winners?

(It is? Well, too late. I just said it.)

Here’s how the first-anniversary giveaway turned out:

Blog roundup: Stupid virus edition.

February 10, 2011 by Donna Freedman

That’s me who’s sick, not the computer. I’m pretty sure it’s viral: Sore throat, slight cough, aches and malaise but no fever. Blech. This is one of those times when it’s not good to be single. If someone else were here I could ask him to please go get me a box of Popsicles.

I wanted to write something staggeringly clever and original but after a day of research/interviews for my day job, I’m feeling somewhat battered. Also acutely aware that I leave in, um, 13 days and have to turn in a lot more work unless I want to be writing from the Piccadilly Backpackers Hostel. (Hint: I don’t.)

I’m going to bed early. The rest of you can read.

The price of everything at I Pick Up Pennies