Luxury Living for Less

Free Pastry at Starbucks March 23 2010

2010-03-22T13:22:00.000-07:00

Come to participating Starbucks on Free Pastry Day, March 23 before 10:30am. Choose a delicious pastry to pair with your beverage and that tasty item is free.
Coupon for a free Pastry at Starbucks here

Enjoy!

Free Google Advertising

2010-03-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for targeted traffic for your blog or business, sign up for $75 worth of free Google Adwords Credit here Just make sure to cancel your account when your $75 is used up and you won’t be charged a dime.

Thanks to Money Saving Mom

Office Max Free Office Supplies

2010-03-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

Go to www.officemax.com

Sign up for a MaxPerks card if you don't have one.

Look what you can get for free here

You will have to pay for your purchase but then in a month or so you will get you money back.

If your order more then $50 you get free shipping too!

Victoria's Secret

2010-03-12T13:26:00.001-08:00

Purchase any in stock item now through March 31, 2010 and
get a free $10 (or $50, $100, or even $500) gift card with every order of an in-stock item now through March 31 at www.VictoriasSecret.com (also available in-store). And today is free shipping with the code SHIPFREE.
Thanks to Freebies4mom

Fast and Easy Apple Pie

2008-11-22T12:09:00.000-08:00

Charlotte - Fast Apple Pie
3 eggs
1 cup of sugar (you can substitute with honey for healthier option)
1 cup of flour
1/2 tea spoon of baking soda
5 apples

beat sugar and eggs
mix flour and baking soda
add everything together
cut apples and put on greased baking sheet
cover apples with mix

Bake until light brown 350F

"Will Work From Home" by Tory Johnson

2008-11-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

I just came across the book "Will Work from Home. Earn Cash Without the Commute" by Tory Johnson and Robyn Freedman Spitzman.

This is an amazing book for women, written by women.

Tory Johnson is the founder and CEO of Women for Hire. Robyn Freedman Spizman is a well known consumer advocate.

You will find how to
- take your current job into home, if it's possible or find a company, which let you work from home
- earn an extra money from home
- start your own business

The book gives you so many ideas that you can do from home and how to do it better. It's full of helpful advises and resourses for Home workers.

ING direct earn $20.00 in November just by using your debit card!

2008-11-16T11:39:00.000-08:00

If you already have an ING orange account and debit card you can receive $20 if you make at least 5 purchases with your debit card of $10 or more between 11/1-11/30. The link for this promotion is here

Plus read here how to earn additional $50.00 from ING direct.

share the wealth... :)

2008-11-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

I am kind of new to all couponing and CVS, Walgreen game but I really like it.
Next week we will have a chance "to share a wealth" - my son's school will have "Fall Food drive" and every day we will have to donate a different item. So we will share our free toothpastes, toothbrushes, shampoos, soaps, etc. I used to go and buy all these stuff to donate, but this year I already have all items at my house. Most of them free... :) thanks to all my favorite bloggers!

rebates

2008-11-02T16:16:00.000-08:00

yesterday I saw the blog with the list with all available rebates and it was a long list! But then I realized that some rebates are not for me... I will use rebates when they offer to try their products for free... But I don't want to use rebates where you get your money back because "you don't like the product" while actually you like the product. I think this is misleading and not honest... But it's just my opinion...

Credit Card Arbitrage

2008-11-02T08:37:00.000-08:00

I found an interesting article about Credit Card Arbitrage, which I always wanted to know. http://www.mydollarplan.com/what-is-credit-card-arbitrage/
I want to try to do it. since I usually pay everything with credit cards and then pay the balance in full here is my plan for now
step 1 pay everything with one exisiting credit card for the month
step 2 apply for another credit card, which offer no annual fee, 0% transfer balance
step 3 transfer money, which I spent on step 1 to a new card in step 2
step 4 set up automatic payments for card from step 2
step 5 put the money, which I was going to pay off my credit card bill from step 1 into saving account
step 6 pay off the balance on a new card from step 2 before the offer end

This way I will double my little earnings.
Card from step 1 will earn % from purchases.
My money I saved by transfer to step 2, will earn % on my saving account for a year.

I wonder how many months I can repeat this scenario.

I will keep reseaching more on this subject...

Free Russian Lessons online

2008-11-02T08:31:00.000-08:00

Just found this great site where you can listen and learn Russian for free...
listen2russian

Cooking - Soups

2008-11-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

I grew up in Russia, there people eat soups every day.
If you ask my kids what they ate, most often the answer will be... soup... :)
I believe it's healthy and unexpensive... and the truth... I just love soups and actually it's easy to cook...

I usually start with chicken broth, which I made on my own - just boil chicken breast or drumsticks or whichever I have.

Then if you add cabbage, potato, onion, carrots, some herbs, tomato - you will have vegetable soup.

or you can add frozen veggies and mix with fresh one...

with beet root, you can cook borsh... :)

If you add noodles, onion, carrot, potatos and celery - you will have chicken noodle soup... or sometime I add rice instead of noodles...

I usually use chicken parts for potato salad, which my daughter likes to take for lunch at school.

HALLOWEEN CANDY RECALLED

2008-10-30T06:45:00.000-07:00

Just got an e-mail from friend:
Please note this is the chocolate candy coins NOT the bubble gum ones! You can verify this on snores:
There is a new warning put out by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Sherwood brand Pirate's Gold Milk Chocolate coins are being recalled due to the fact that they contain Melamine, the ingredient in milk product that has caused many infant deaths in china. These candies are sold at Costco, as well as many bulk and dollar stores. please make sure to check your children's Halloween candy and DO NOT LET THEM EAT THE PIRATE COINS (you know the ones wrapped in the shiny gold foil) and please let other parents know about this!

Why do I use credit cards?

2008-10-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

I was reading Money Saving Mom post about Credit card crisis and there she said that she never uses credit cards.
Well, it makes me so disagree.

I believe that if you play credit cards game wisely, you will earn a little while shopping... :)

I personally use two credit cards for all my expenses, which I can pay with credit cards... I would say everything except my morgage... But I pay my credit card in
full... every month...

why am I doing it?

Discover card offers Cash back program, which give you up to 4% for certain purchases. Plus if you choose to get a gift card instead of cash as reward, it's even a better deal.

Continental Master card offers me a miles for each spended dollar. I already have enough miles to have 2 free tickets.

I don't pay any fees on my credit cards. I just let myself live in credit for a month... and then at the end of each month I pay off 100%. But by doing this I earn extras for spending.

So why not, if they offer you a rewards for doing this? You are in a good shape as long as you pay off your full balance every month.

Survey site for kids - Kidseyes

2008-07-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

If you have kids 7 and up, you can sign them up for this survey site.
I signed up my daughter about 2 years ago and she really like it.
They usually send surveys about products (lunchables, snacks) for her and sometime for me too. Last year she earned 55 dollars, just answering these surveys. This year she already accumulates about 70 dollars. Besides surveys, they send her superpolls and other fun stuff, where she can participate in sweepstakes and share her opinion every month. I think they sent us some products to test too.
They don't have refferal program, but I just want to share this site with other moms.
KidsEyes

Learn new language - another fun and free activity with kids

2008-07-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

I was browsing in our library through the language section and it's amazing how many different guides for different languages they have.
We tried Spanish, Italian and French, of course Russian, since this is my native language, we probably will try Japanese and Chinese. Way to learn a little more about other countries' culture and pick up a few new words...
I keep teaching my son reading in Russian this summer. We spend about 5 minutes a day doing it. Sound like a very small amount of time... But slowly he starts reading! I am so proud of him! This is just an example how just 5 minutes a day can make a difference! Same about any new language. Pick a word and learn it together with your child, find the country where they speak this language on the map. You give your child a free lesson and train your own brain...

Remember Upromise!

2008-07-05T17:19:00.000-07:00

https://lty.s.upromise.com

Last week I saw upromise advertising and decided to check my old account.
I was surprised to see that while I completely forg0t about it, I still was getting some money back for my purchases at CVS.

I got 0.07 cents for each Listerin Smart Rinse, 0.18 cents for Bic Comfort Razors.
It look like a little amounts but they add up quickly. Especially now when I learned about "CVS game"... :)

My fist blog :)

2008-07-05T17:17:00.001-07:00

ok, finally I decided to create my own blog to share my stories about wise spending and saving... :)