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Years ago I had a friend who introduced me to sweepstakes. Once I started entering and winning I was hooked. I won items as small as music cds to as large as a satellite dish with a year of service. Then I started thinking "what else could I get for free". With a lot of research and a little effort I discovered companies willing to give. I would read and inquire about new vehicles and receive incentives for test driving them. Some car manufacturers wanted my input on the test drive while others just wanted me to see what their car offered. For my time they gave me gifts ranging from prepaid credit cards to restaurant and store gift certificates. One manufacturer gave me a palm pilot: all this for a few minutes of my time. What else could I get for free? I was always upfront about my intensions not to purchase anything and many times the salesperson would sign my test drive certificate and I was off dealership property in 30 seconds. I was determined to find what else I could get for free. I was spending a lot of time shopping in stores and always disappointed not finding what I wanted. Buying online was great except I had to pay the same price as the local store and pay for shipping. This was not the solution. I started thinking "if stores are offering printed coupons maybe they offer online coupons too". When I found a store I wanted to buy from I would search for coupons. Some online coupons gave a percentage off the order while others gave free shipping. In the beginning my main goal was to get the item for the same price as the store. I used coupons to get free shipping. If I could not find a free shipping coupon I searched for coupons to save the equivalent of what shipping would cost. One day I decided to try and see if I could get the same item cheaper than the local store. I searched for the same item from multiple places and compared prices. Once I found the store I was going to purchase from I looked for coupons. I bought the same item the local store sold for significantly less. I saved time and money by not driving around. I no longer had to put miles on my Subaru looking trying to find that perfect sale and I had more time to spend doing the things I liked and needed. There were crowds to fight online and no people to catch germs from. When I shopped locally for something I always came out with other items I could not resist. Where were the savings! After adding all the changes I made together I determined I was saving a minimum of 50% off the cheapest local store. This led me to dig deeper, what else could I get for free. Is there a way I can make money back from buying necessities and wanted items? The more I can save the more I have to spend on other items. I signed up for reward sites. I did the same as before, researching the best price and finding coupons to go along with it, but I now visited the reward sites to make my purchases. I earned the best price from comparison shopping, coupons to save more, and money back for the purchase. Here is an example: My daughter, Mira, lost one of her new shoes for school. They were a gift that cost $40. She can't go to school barefoot, even though I would like to send her that way since she lost the shoe, so I went online in search of another pair just like them. I visited a few sites but kept seeing the same price, $39.95. I moved on to determine which company offered me the best reward percentage. I found a reward of 4%. I then looked for coupons for the store I selected. In just a few minutes I found a 20% saving coupon with free shipping and free returns. The $39.95 pair of shoes now cost 7.99 less, for a total of $31.96. This price includes free shipping, free returns and no tax. Oh, and I also made $1.28 (remember the 4% reward). I also earn rewards for shopping locally (for those times I can't wait to receive the merchandise) and for groceries. And my mind wonders, what else can I get for free?..........Signup. for Free! Unlimited Access
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