Cha-Ching on a Shoestring™

Living Large on a Limited Budget

We have our winner!

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This post may contain affiliate links, which means I will make a small commission if you click and make a purchase.

And the winner of our Handmade Envelope System Wallet Giveaway is:

Melissa (camelfam@xxxx)!!

Congratulations, Melissa!  I have e-mailed you with all of the details.  Enjoy! 


Thanks so much to all who entered. Stay tuned for more giveaways to come!

Mars Chocolate Giveaway

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It’s 9 AM–have you gotten your free chocolate yet?

Every Friday through September, Mars will be giving away 250,000 coupons to be redeemed for your favorite Mars product.  Simply head to www.realchocolate.com starting at 9 a.m. ET to enter the giveaway.  You can also enter your e-mail address to be sent a reminder.

You’ll receive your coupon by mail within six weeks. Limit four coupons per household during the offer period.

The (New and Improved) Cha-Ching Challenge

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Cha-Ching challenge

Welcome to the weekly Cha-Ching Challenge!

Did you find a HOT deal this week that you just want to share?  You’ve come to the right place!  Every week I post the Cha-Ching Challenge, sharing my savings for the week.    Add a link to your post detailing your savings for the week OR your favorite deal of the week. I’ll choose one participating blog to highlight next week right here on Cha-Ching on a Shoestring.

Savings from coupons and store sales: $46.24

  • Wemans: Saved $5.58
  • Walgreens: Saved $15.66
  • Aldi: Saved $20.00
  • Lysol rebate receive: $5.00

Savings from ‘Free Money’: $26.50

  • I won a $25 Visa Gift Card from the Huggies Reward program!  (You can read more about it here.)

Savings from shopping the deals: $1.50

  • Wes needed to buy some books from Half.com.  He shopped through Cashbaq and received 5% back.

Savings by Surprise!: $1.50

  • While we were picking up our Sunday papers from the gas station, the wind started to blow and papers started flying everywhere.  Wes got out of the car to help the girl who was trying to collect them.  She told him that she was going to have to throw the paper away that he helped gather.  So we got a whole set of coupon inserts for free!  It saved us $1.50 on Sunday, but who knows how much those coupons will save us in the future?!

TOTAL SAVINGS: $75.74

TOTAL SAVINGS FOR THE YEAR: $1535.77

Click below to check out my favorite find of the week:

HOW DID YOU DO? Did you find any great deals? Leave a linky and let us know!  Be sure to link directly to your weekly savings post.  You will have until 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, May 24 to leave your link.

Feel free to copy and paste the button above into your post and link back here so that others can join in the fun!

Youdata.com: Free money

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This post may contain affiliate links, which means I will make a small commission if you click and make a purchase.

Kaley and I are big fans of free money, so when I learned about YouData.com, I couldn’t pass it up.  And all I have to say is:

“Dang, FREE MONEY doesn’t get any easier than this, folks!”

YouData.com is  a company that actually pays you to look at advertisements with no strings attached. I made $2.38 for about 1 minute of time and already have money in my PayPal account.  Here is how it works.

The initial time investment is about 20 minutes.

1. Sign up for a Pay-Pal account at http://www.paypal.com/ if you haven’t yet.

2. Go here to sign up for YouData.

  • Once you register you will receive 1 text with a 4 digit confirmation number that you’ll need to confirm your account. YouData does not solicit or “spam” you with text messages; you’ll only receive ONE text. If you don’t have a cell phone you can always use a friend’s phone (assuming they don’t want free money too!)
  • You will immediately receive an e-mail confirmation word that you need for registering.
  • You plug in your text # and e-mail confirmation in and that is basically it for signing up!

The other details are as follows:

  1. You can check your account by logging into it or use their handy desk option once a day or once a week to access your ads.
  2. You will need to take a little time filling out your profile (15 minutes). 
  3. The next step is to spend about a minute “collecting your free money” by clicking on an ad and immediately closing it (unless of course you are bored and really want to read about the new AXE shampoo ads.)
  4. Every Friday the money you earned during the week will automatically be tossed right into your PayPal account.

Estimated daily time investment: Less than a minute
Estimated earnings in  a year with no referrals: $25-$50
Referrals incentive: Up to $1 for each referral ($.01 each time your referral is paid)

The Art of the Staycation

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I’m pleased to share that I am a guest poster today over at Deal Seeking Mom.  Come on over if you’d like to check it out and learn all about ‘The Art of the Staycation’.

I’d love to hear your tips or questions too!

staycation21

One of my favorite staycation pics of my family enjoying the dress up clothes
at the Art Museum (and yes, I am 9 months pregnant in a dress fit for an 8 year old!)