I know Halloween is not a holiday of the same caliber of Dia de Los Muertos (thank you to my 7-year old for pointing this out; I stand humbled and corrected). However, Halloween has taken on a special quality for me since moving to our "new" house 8 years ago just 6 weeks before that snarky 7-year old made his appearance.
I was pregnant enough by Halloween to make it a slow waddle to the front door for trick or treaters. We had been in our house about 2 weeks and I wasn't sure what to expect at our door. Our old house was barely a trickle of costumed, giggling kids all hoping for a good payout. I was surprised at the new house by the wave of kids AND their parents on Halloween.
After about an hour the traffic picked up substantially and I could have sworn some of the kids were crabby and I recognized a few of the parents as some who had come by before. Then somebody burst out of the crowd and said, "I'm Mick (name changed to protect the vaguely innocent) and I live behind you. Welcome to the neighborhood!" I was taken aback and then they all looked a little nervous and somebody blurted, "So, are you renting out the basement apartment?"
"Um, no. We're just going to live in that space as well." That's a weird question, I thought.
The group started laughing and after Halloween we began to get dinner invitations. It took a while to piece it all together but our house had once had a sterling reputation for badness. It had been the house police had to be called to; it had been the one people avoided and rolled their eyes at.
It now knows a certain other kind of badness but one where rooms go uncleaned because of parental stand offs with unwilling children and the lazy principals of the land sometimes take the weekend off and forgive the grass their growth.
That Halloween introduced us to a new sense of community. A sense that has been forged by joining the school and the PTO. No matter how much of a drudgery you might think a PTO is, ours is not.
THANK YOU to our PTO, all the parent volunteers and the teachers and staff for putting on a fantastic Trunk r' Treat. It's safe, it's free and our Trunk r' Treat rocks! (Ooh, maybe we should get some music next year to celebrate exactly how awesome our school is.)
From all of the decorated trunks to the bouncy houses to the photo booth with a painted backdrop JUST FOR US and all of the games, it was an outstanding evening. Our PTO President, Rebecca Howard, was a fabulous wizard of ceremonies and made it a magical evening.
We are fortunate to have TWO churches that continually support our school. That's a lot of donations from parishioners that most likely do not have kids of school age attending Whitney or have kids at other schools.
The teachers and staff always go the extra mile for our school. I don't know of any other profession where people work all day and then stay all evening to work and have such a GREAT time doing it!
Thank you again.
Thank you ALSO to the parents and families who brought their kids. This is what it means to show up for your kids and be a presence in their lives. That is the real present of parenthood.
Most of all, thank you to our tireless Principal, Jean Lovelace, for creating such a tremendous sense of Community and giving everybody a safe place to feel wanted and appreciated.
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Take Your Coupons to Amazon
It's Sunday. I love to pour over my multiple copies of the paper and organize my coupons. Did you know that most of the coupons you clip from the paper can also be found on the internet? Not just from our coupons.com link, but also at Amazon.com?
I just bought a bottle of Tide detergent. It was $5.99 and I used the $2.00 P&G coupon from the Amazon link to get it at $3.99, which is what I would normally pay at the store (I never pay more than $4.00 for detergent). Delivery was free because we're Amazon Prime members ($79 per year and for those of us who just refuse to go to the mall it saves a lot of money in shipping fees).
It's an interesting concept.
Amazon Coupons
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
I just bought a bottle of Tide detergent. It was $5.99 and I used the $2.00 P&G coupon from the Amazon link to get it at $3.99, which is what I would normally pay at the store (I never pay more than $4.00 for detergent). Delivery was free because we're Amazon Prime members ($79 per year and for those of us who just refuse to go to the mall it saves a lot of money in shipping fees).
It's an interesting concept.
Amazon Coupons
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
I love trash!
I talk about the Terracycle Program a lot but it's good to get some accountability going.
We get two checks per year, June and December.
Here are the current numbers. Overall we have earned 24,217 points or $242.17. We have redeemed (sent back to the school ($175.51) and we just accrued another $66.66.
We get two checks per year, June and December.
Here are the current numbers. Overall we have earned 24,217 points or $242.17. We have redeemed (sent back to the school ($175.51) and we just accrued another $66.66.
Points Earned: 24,217.0
Points Redeemed: 17,551.0
Current Points Balance: 6,666.0
We have already gotten off to a great start this year, which I expect will continue. Thank you for the support! Keep up your great energy! I am spending company shutdown this year doing a complete "Martha Stewart' makeover to my garage to give me the TerraCycling, Whitney School Project and Coupon overboard Pantry of my dreams.
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Hugh the PTO Has Made Money This Week
The PTO rolled into some scratch this week.
Albertsons participates with Box Tops for Education by giving you extra Box Tops for every 10 qualified items you buy in a transaction. If you buy, for example, 10 boxes of General Mills cereal the register will spit out an extra receipt called a Catalina with 10 extra Box Tops on it. You take those and register with www.growinglocallearning.com and submit the code. By picking Whitney as your school, it will send all of the Box Top Codes to our school.
This week at Albertsons was special. They have this Instant Savings Special every 6 weeks or so where you buy 10 qualified items and you save $5 total on those items and you ALSO get 25 Box Tops. Have 10 more items? You get ANOTHER $5 off AND ANOTHER 25 Box Tops. I recently discovered you DO NOT have to split the transactions to get more than 25 Box Tops per transaction. You still get your regular 10 Box Tops per 10 items as well. So, if you buy 20 qualifying items you save $10 and get (4) Catalinas from the register, (2) with 10 Box Tops and (2) with 25 Box Tops for a total of 60 Box Tops, which is $6 for the school.
For the Growing Local Learning Collection Period between March 1, 2011 and October 31, 2011 I have earned 690 Box Tops just by participating in Albertsons' program. That is $69 for the school, which Whitney will get in December. Plus, almost every item I bought with this program has at least 1 Box Top on it. And because my son eats instant mashed potatoes like they are water (I know, Idaho!) this will add up quickly.
Once you register at Growing Local Learning you can also engage in a little peer pressure and healthy competition. The site shows how much Whitney as a school has earned through the program for the same period, for the previous period and overall since the program began.
For the March 1-October 31, 2011 period Whitney has so far earned: 3184 Box Tops. That's $318.40.
Last period? (11/1/10-2/28/11)? Only 530 Box Tops
Overall? 5859.
If you have been saving your Box Tops from Albertsons and waiting to enter them, NOW is the time to enter them on Growing Local Leanring's site! They will expire at the end of the year so please please please get those entered! The money from the period ending October 31 will be mailed to the schools in the December checks.
"Hugh's" in for another big money maker story? PTO Prez, Treasurer, and Yours Truly brought home $168, with a little help from Hugh Jackman from the Scratch for Schools Idaho Lottery event October 13 at the Grove Hotel. The event required PTO President Rebecca Howard and Treasurer Teresa Abbott to scratch 300 lottery tickets like mad in an attempt to get into the final round while I screamed at them to scratch the tickets completely to reveal the bar code and all of the numbers on the ticket (there are rules to this). 82 other schools competed and while our team scratched admirably, we didn't quite make it to the finals. Okay, we didn't make it to the finals at all but we did scratch our remaining 300 tickets to reveal $168 in winnings.
Just in case you're curious, the average take for a sealed package of 300 tickets is $160. Thank you again to the Idaho Lottery who have given the Boise School District $22,361,371 since the lottery was brought back in 1989. Since 1990, the Idaho Lottery, funded through lottery sales in Idaho, has distributed $473.8 Million to Idaho, the bulk of which are public schools. In 2010, Boise School District schools received nearly $1.5 Million.
We were cheered on by our good friend Hugh Jackman. Not the man himself but his likeness on a placard. To see what I mean, you need to attend the next PTO meeting on November 13, 2011 in the Whitney Library at 3:45. The thing about the placard that I didn't think about before hand is that we walked from the parking garage in downtown Boise to the Grove Hotel with me giddily waving my sign (I don't do anything halfway). I couldn't understand why everybody was staring. At first I figured they were staring at Rebecca, our PTO Prez, she is very pretty but COME ON I'M NOT VELMA (it's a Scooby Doo reference). They were staring right above me. Then I realized it was my placard getting all of the attention. What? Hugh? I know it's Hugh Jackman but I was careful to keep it PG. It took me almost an entire week to figure it out. In Boise the "Occupy Wall Street" movement hasn't made the mainstream like other places. Agitators in Boise are met with nervous glances. I think they thought Hugh and I were taking on the 1% instead of just trying to help provide an education for the 99%.
In hindsight, given their total lack of information regarding my activities and the contents of the sign, it's no wonder they looked so nervous. You really have to see the sign to realize why it's just so strange to see a woman walkin' around downtown in a Whitney Elementary shirt waving a Hugh Jackman sign.
Albertsons participates with Box Tops for Education by giving you extra Box Tops for every 10 qualified items you buy in a transaction. If you buy, for example, 10 boxes of General Mills cereal the register will spit out an extra receipt called a Catalina with 10 extra Box Tops on it. You take those and register with www.growinglocallearning.com and submit the code. By picking Whitney as your school, it will send all of the Box Top Codes to our school.
This week at Albertsons was special. They have this Instant Savings Special every 6 weeks or so where you buy 10 qualified items and you save $5 total on those items and you ALSO get 25 Box Tops. Have 10 more items? You get ANOTHER $5 off AND ANOTHER 25 Box Tops. I recently discovered you DO NOT have to split the transactions to get more than 25 Box Tops per transaction. You still get your regular 10 Box Tops per 10 items as well. So, if you buy 20 qualifying items you save $10 and get (4) Catalinas from the register, (2) with 10 Box Tops and (2) with 25 Box Tops for a total of 60 Box Tops, which is $6 for the school.
For the Growing Local Learning Collection Period between March 1, 2011 and October 31, 2011 I have earned 690 Box Tops just by participating in Albertsons' program. That is $69 for the school, which Whitney will get in December. Plus, almost every item I bought with this program has at least 1 Box Top on it. And because my son eats instant mashed potatoes like they are water (I know, Idaho!) this will add up quickly.
Once you register at Growing Local Learning you can also engage in a little peer pressure and healthy competition. The site shows how much Whitney as a school has earned through the program for the same period, for the previous period and overall since the program began.
For the March 1-October 31, 2011 period Whitney has so far earned: 3184 Box Tops. That's $318.40.
Last period? (11/1/10-2/28/11)? Only 530 Box Tops
Overall? 5859.
If you have been saving your Box Tops from Albertsons and waiting to enter them, NOW is the time to enter them on Growing Local Leanring's site! They will expire at the end of the year so please please please get those entered! The money from the period ending October 31 will be mailed to the schools in the December checks.
"Hugh's" in for another big money maker story? PTO Prez, Treasurer, and Yours Truly brought home $168, with a little help from Hugh Jackman from the Scratch for Schools Idaho Lottery event October 13 at the Grove Hotel. The event required PTO President Rebecca Howard and Treasurer Teresa Abbott to scratch 300 lottery tickets like mad in an attempt to get into the final round while I screamed at them to scratch the tickets completely to reveal the bar code and all of the numbers on the ticket (there are rules to this). 82 other schools competed and while our team scratched admirably, we didn't quite make it to the finals. Okay, we didn't make it to the finals at all but we did scratch our remaining 300 tickets to reveal $168 in winnings.
Just in case you're curious, the average take for a sealed package of 300 tickets is $160. Thank you again to the Idaho Lottery who have given the Boise School District $22,361,371 since the lottery was brought back in 1989. Since 1990, the Idaho Lottery, funded through lottery sales in Idaho, has distributed $473.8 Million to Idaho, the bulk of which are public schools. In 2010, Boise School District schools received nearly $1.5 Million.
We were cheered on by our good friend Hugh Jackman. Not the man himself but his likeness on a placard. To see what I mean, you need to attend the next PTO meeting on November 13, 2011 in the Whitney Library at 3:45. The thing about the placard that I didn't think about before hand is that we walked from the parking garage in downtown Boise to the Grove Hotel with me giddily waving my sign (I don't do anything halfway). I couldn't understand why everybody was staring. At first I figured they were staring at Rebecca, our PTO Prez, she is very pretty but COME ON I'M NOT VELMA (it's a Scooby Doo reference). They were staring right above me. Then I realized it was my placard getting all of the attention. What? Hugh? I know it's Hugh Jackman but I was careful to keep it PG. It took me almost an entire week to figure it out. In Boise the "Occupy Wall Street" movement hasn't made the mainstream like other places. Agitators in Boise are met with nervous glances. I think they thought Hugh and I were taking on the 1% instead of just trying to help provide an education for the 99%.
In hindsight, given their total lack of information regarding my activities and the contents of the sign, it's no wonder they looked so nervous. You really have to see the sign to realize why it's just so strange to see a woman walkin' around downtown in a Whitney Elementary shirt waving a Hugh Jackman sign.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Instant Savings Spotlight!
Through October 18th, buy any combination of 10 participating products advertised as such by Albertsons and when you use your Preferred Card you get $5.00 off your total order or $.50 off each item. These are all Box Tops items and as an added bonus when you buy 10 General Mills products in a single transaction you get 25 Bonus Box Tops that print at the register. (From there you register those at Growing Local Learning and Whitney gets the Box Tops). If that wasn't enough, when you buy 10 items Albertsons donates $1.00 to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation.
I'm a little more hyper about this stuff than most and want to make sure I squeeze every last nickel of savings, promised Box Top or donated dollar out of each 10 items so if you get behind me in line, run to another checker! I will separate my transactions if I have more than 10 participating items to make ABSOLUTELY sure I get my promised Box Tops.
Crazy? Yes. But, my Growing Local Learning account shows that during this current collection period I have racked up 365 Box Tops (so far). That's $36.50 for diligently monitoring my transactions (acting like a crazy person) and yes I used a coupon for each of the items. And yes, I really do buy 20 boxes of cereal every few months but that's because my children and their friends are Hobbits who demand second breakfast and thirdsies!
This week I'm going in for another 100 Box Tops. We're low on cereal again.
Monday, October 10, 2011
You Get How Many Papers On Sunday?
My husband has a LOW tolerance level for people like me. In fact, he comes home from the store angry at ME specifically if he gets behind somebody in line using coupons. Okay, I admit I'm a little obsessed but with the amount of laundry we do it doesn't hurt to have 22 bottles of Tide that all came in at under $3.00 a box.
This week I was on the a crusade to get my (5) 2-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper Ten for free when I noticed an add for Starbucks coffee. There was no coupon so I was about to toss it aside when I looked at it again.
On specially marked packages of Starbucks Coffee, only the "Morning Joe" bags, there are "peelies" sponsored by Starbucks and MSNBC for a $5 code to DonorsChoose.org.
"That's great Nikki, what does that mean to me?"
DonorsChoose.org is this fantastic website for teachers and librarians. Our teachers register on DonorsChoose.org and then they can add items to their cart from the list of stores on the site. It is virtually anything the classroom may need from supplies to Legos to laptops and projectors. Then when they go to checkout, instead of paying, they list their project on the site and it then welcomes anybody and everybody to give money to their project. The Starbucks Morning Joe campaign is giving anybody who buys that coffee $5 to give to ANY project they want to.
PLEASE, please, please encourage your child's teacher to sign up at DonorsChoose.org and make a request no matter how big or small. You would be surprised at the generosity of people NATIONWIDE. Mrs. Smith's 1st grade class and I worked on a project last year and before I knew what had happened the entire project was fulfilled from people around Idaho and the nation from people neither one of us knew.
The lesson we took from this is that PEOPLE WANT TO HELP EDUCATION and that TEACHERS MATTER to a lot of folks out there. It is very hard for the average person to show their support for public education but by giving directly to projects on DonorsChoose.org we know we can make a difference in a classroom. We know we can open a window for education even if a door shuts somewhere else.
Please let your teachers know that this tool is out there and we want them to make requests.
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
This week I was on the a crusade to get my (5) 2-liter bottles of Dr. Pepper Ten for free when I noticed an add for Starbucks coffee. There was no coupon so I was about to toss it aside when I looked at it again.
On specially marked packages of Starbucks Coffee, only the "Morning Joe" bags, there are "peelies" sponsored by Starbucks and MSNBC for a $5 code to DonorsChoose.org.
"That's great Nikki, what does that mean to me?"
DonorsChoose.org is this fantastic website for teachers and librarians. Our teachers register on DonorsChoose.org and then they can add items to their cart from the list of stores on the site. It is virtually anything the classroom may need from supplies to Legos to laptops and projectors. Then when they go to checkout, instead of paying, they list their project on the site and it then welcomes anybody and everybody to give money to their project. The Starbucks Morning Joe campaign is giving anybody who buys that coffee $5 to give to ANY project they want to.
PLEASE, please, please encourage your child's teacher to sign up at DonorsChoose.org and make a request no matter how big or small. You would be surprised at the generosity of people NATIONWIDE. Mrs. Smith's 1st grade class and I worked on a project last year and before I knew what had happened the entire project was fulfilled from people around Idaho and the nation from people neither one of us knew.
The lesson we took from this is that PEOPLE WANT TO HELP EDUCATION and that TEACHERS MATTER to a lot of folks out there. It is very hard for the average person to show their support for public education but by giving directly to projects on DonorsChoose.org we know we can make a difference in a classroom. We know we can open a window for education even if a door shuts somewhere else.
Please let your teachers know that this tool is out there and we want them to make requests.
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
PTO Meeting
Don't miss our monthly PTO meeting this afternoon (Monday, October 10th) in the school library at 3:45pm.
I, for one, plan to leave the kids with my unsuspecting husband who is off from work celebrating either Columbus day or Canadian Thanksgiving, not sure which. Did you know that Canada's first Thanksgiving was celebrated nearly 50 years (43 if we're going to get picky) before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock? It was celebrated by an Englishman named Martin Frobisher.
Which leads me to my segway. My kids and I have chosen one evening per week with some close friends to choose books and even videos from the library. One of the reasons we started going every week was to change out our Daniel Pinkwater books about the bad polar bears Irving and Muktuk. The Frobishers own the fancy hotel with the pool where Larry the other polar bear is a life guard. (See the transition?)
Our weekly library trips are part of our routine and exposes the kids (and their parents!) to a lot of books we otherwise would have not known about like the other books written by the Knufflebunny author, which are really funny to my kids. Surprisingly, joke books are really great for early readers. They require reading comprehension to tell and understand the joke.
Make a date with your kids, it's more fun than you would have imagined.
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
I, for one, plan to leave the kids with my unsuspecting husband who is off from work celebrating either Columbus day or Canadian Thanksgiving, not sure which. Did you know that Canada's first Thanksgiving was celebrated nearly 50 years (43 if we're going to get picky) before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock? It was celebrated by an Englishman named Martin Frobisher.
Which leads me to my segway. My kids and I have chosen one evening per week with some close friends to choose books and even videos from the library. One of the reasons we started going every week was to change out our Daniel Pinkwater books about the bad polar bears Irving and Muktuk. The Frobishers own the fancy hotel with the pool where Larry the other polar bear is a life guard. (See the transition?)
Our weekly library trips are part of our routine and exposes the kids (and their parents!) to a lot of books we otherwise would have not known about like the other books written by the Knufflebunny author, which are really funny to my kids. Surprisingly, joke books are really great for early readers. They require reading comprehension to tell and understand the joke.
Make a date with your kids, it's more fun than you would have imagined.
Nikki Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Terracycle This Week
For October, our focus item will be candy wrappers! YEP! EVEN THE LITTLE ONES FROM HALLOWEEN! We did well last year just from a few kids' Halloween pails. As always, we continue to collect all of our other Terracycle items but a focus item really brings attention to what we're doing. Last month we did great with tooth brushes! Two of the white packages (jammed full by the way) are filled with toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes!
The bin is empty right now with a large shipment heading out to UPS this evening. When I say large, well, hmmm...so, I bought a new toilet over the weekend and that's what I ended up using to box up the Capri Sun pouches. Once we accumulate at least 500 pouches we are eligible to send them to Terracycle. I stopped counting after 500. My best guess is at least 750 Capri Sun pouches; I'll make Terracycle count. There were so many I had to wait to send them in until I acquired a box large enough to accommodate the shipment. Soooo, ours will be arriving in a toilet box. I'm sure the irony won't be lost on them.
Nikki "I love trash!" Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
Monday, October 3, 2011
Money for Nothing
...and your "checks" for free! http://www.vistaprint.com/gallery/IP0AAAABAAAAAAA=/free-checks.aspx?xnav=LeftItem&xnid=LeftNav241_233_232
Don't you love getting money for doing practically nothing? When you shop online you can go to Box Tops for Education and earn Box Tops for Whitney. Right now there is a special on the site offering double Box Tops for online purchases:
http://www.boxtops4education.com/earn/marketplace/Default.aspx?WT.ac=Feature_DoubleeBTCollection
If you go through the link at the top you can even get checks for free!
If you have started thinking (worrying and grinding your teeth at night is more like it) about the cost of your children's college education (or even if YOU want to go back to school!), you can add money to an Idaho Saves 529 account through Upromise.com simply by shopping. Register your debit/credit and grocery cards on Upromise to get started. When you shop online using the Upromise portals you will earn a percentage back. This money goes into a holding place where it rolls into your your designated 529 account on a quarterly basis. You can even establish a percentage for how much each recipient ought to receive.
Even if you do not participate in regular contributions or have established a 529 account, Upromise can get still begin collecting funds while you shop. They will simply hold onto those until you set up that 529 account.
Example:
Still not finding what you're looking for between the Box Tops for Education and Upromise stores? Try the Amazon.com link to the right of this Blog post. Whitney Elementary school gets a percentage of purchases through the Amazon link on this site.
Magic? No, it's just monetizing a website. Products and consumer websites pay smaller websites to advertise for them. Coupons.com will not work if the product user does not know about them. So, coupons.com pays Blogs and websites like ours for every coupon printed from the site. All we do on our end is contact companies like Amazon or Coupons.com and request membership in their affiliate program. We then insert the html code they give us on our Blog and people are given the option to click through to the site or ignore it.
If it's not free to the affiliate (that's us) then it's usually a scam and we run the other way. Upromise membership is completely free. Buying through the stores on Box Tops for Education is also free/there is no charge to use their site to connect to the stores they have listed. Again, if you find a program like this that charges you money to buy things through a website it is probably a scam you should avoid.
While all this may not amount to quick sums of big money, it is money for doing things we do every day or simply, money for nothing.
And yes, until I was in my 30's I thought the song went "Money for nothing and your checks for free." My husband also thought it was hysterical that I thought Bruce Springsteen sang "Bridge in Disguise" rather than Brilliant Disguise. To my credit, even though I KNOW what the lyrics are it still SOUNDS like that's what they're singing.
Nikki "she who loves Mark Knopfler even though she can't understand him" Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
Don't you love getting money for doing practically nothing? When you shop online you can go to Box Tops for Education and earn Box Tops for Whitney. Right now there is a special on the site offering double Box Tops for online purchases:
http://www.boxtops4education.com/earn/marketplace/Default.aspx?WT.ac=Feature_DoubleeBTCollection
If you go through the link at the top you can even get checks for free!
- Go to www.boxtops4education.com
- Choose "Earn" from the menu at the top
- You will then see a drop down menu and will want to choose "Shop Marketplace"
- From there, select "See All Stores" and you can find the"Vistaprint" shop in the list (it's alphabetical)
If you have started thinking (worrying and grinding your teeth at night is more like it) about the cost of your children's college education (or even if YOU want to go back to school!), you can add money to an Idaho Saves 529 account through Upromise.com simply by shopping. Register your debit/credit and grocery cards on Upromise to get started. When you shop online using the Upromise portals you will earn a percentage back. This money goes into a holding place where it rolls into your your designated 529 account on a quarterly basis. You can even establish a percentage for how much each recipient ought to receive.
Even if you do not participate in regular contributions or have established a 529 account, Upromise can get still begin collecting funds while you shop. They will simply hold onto those until you set up that 529 account.
Example:
- Is there a Groupon you want to buy? Fantastic! Upromise can give your blossoming 529 account 4-6% of your Groupon purchase.
- The Upromise Old Navy link will give you Free Shipping and 5% back.
- I recently bought shoes from Kohls.com and got $4.32 back from that purchase. The money is then divided into my two 529 accounts and $2.16 will go to each account. I paid the same amount that anybody else on the internet would have paid (okay, I grabbed a coupon from RetailMeNot first) but instead of just getting shoes, I got a little extra to go towards college for the kids. That $2.16 will eventually wind up in their 529 accounts this year and begin earning interest. Thus, money for nothing.
- Christmas is just around the corner, and Target, Barnes and Noble and Toys r' Us all give you between 1-3%. Check back with Upromise OFTEN because the site frequently offers better savings, deals, coupons and extras for shopping through them.
Still not finding what you're looking for between the Box Tops for Education and Upromise stores? Try the Amazon.com link to the right of this Blog post. Whitney Elementary school gets a percentage of purchases through the Amazon link on this site.
Magic? No, it's just monetizing a website. Products and consumer websites pay smaller websites to advertise for them. Coupons.com will not work if the product user does not know about them. So, coupons.com pays Blogs and websites like ours for every coupon printed from the site. All we do on our end is contact companies like Amazon or Coupons.com and request membership in their affiliate program. We then insert the html code they give us on our Blog and people are given the option to click through to the site or ignore it.
If it's not free to the affiliate (that's us) then it's usually a scam and we run the other way. Upromise membership is completely free. Buying through the stores on Box Tops for Education is also free/there is no charge to use their site to connect to the stores they have listed. Again, if you find a program like this that charges you money to buy things through a website it is probably a scam you should avoid.
While all this may not amount to quick sums of big money, it is money for doing things we do every day or simply, money for nothing.
And yes, until I was in my 30's I thought the song went "Money for nothing and your checks for free." My husband also thought it was hysterical that I thought Bruce Springsteen sang "Bridge in Disguise" rather than Brilliant Disguise. To my credit, even though I KNOW what the lyrics are it still SOUNDS like that's what they're singing.
Nikki "she who loves Mark Knopfler even though she can't understand him" Rutledge
-Whitney Parent
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