From time to time readers send me tips on how they save money.  I take the best of them and compile a few into one post.  Here is the latest group.

Use Oatmeal for Bug Bites

Kids and bugs don’t always mix well. When we get bug bites, I put cooked oatmeal right on the bite marks. If the marks are really bad then I will put clear plastic wrap on top of the oatmeal, try to keep it there for 5 to 10 minutes. Then just rinse off with water, no soap. Works on just a rash too. And if the kid or baby eats some, it won’t hurt.

–Melissa from Thunder Bay, Ont

Preventing Rust Rings

To stop rust rings from metal containers in bath or kitchen like hair spray, cleansers, etc., coat the bottom with old nail polish.

–Fred from Lincoln Park, MI

Clean Your Blow Dryer When It Stops Working

When your blow dryer suddenly stops working, clean the lint out of the vents on all sides with an old dry toothbrush. Lint that doesn’t come out can be picked out with tweezers. Vacuum the vents with the hose part of your vacuum cleaner. Your blow dryer should start right back up and will last for several more months. Care and cleaning of the vents will make your blow dryer last a lot longer and you won’t have to replace it as often saving you money and a trip to the store!

–Adrienne from Cleveland, OH

Reusing Blank CD Spools

Use the empty plastic spools from your blank recordable CD stacks to serve as an upright paper towel holder or a holder for extra toilet paper! Turn over the plastic top and use to to hold pens, markers, pencils and so on. There! You have recycled something totally.

–Pamphyila

Clean Your Area Rugs at The Car Wash

Take your area rugs to the car wash to get them super clean! I have done this numerous times with a helper and a truck, and know others who do the same. It’s amazing to see the dirt run out off the rug! Then roll them up and load them onto the back of a truck. At home lay the rugs out to dry on the grass or on a sturdy fence.

–melody_yesterday from Sedalia, MO

The Nielson Company is famous for doing ratings on just about everything you can think of.  Most people know about their ratings when it comes to television and radio, but they do so much more.

Right now Nielsen is taking applications for their Homescan program.  If you are selected as one of the people they are interested in receiving information from you will receive a home scanner.  What you are required to do is scan the items that you purchase with a scanner that they provide.  Once a week you hook the scanner to your computer and send them the information.  They use the information to see what brands people are buying, how well advertising and coupons are working, and to determine national trends in purchases.

In return for your help you earn gift points for free name brand merchandise and be entered into sweepstakes and prize drawings run by Nielsen.  It also means that your opinion helps shape what is made available to the public at large.  To sign up to be a part of the Nielsen Homescan program click here.  Just another way to get some free stuff!!

-This link went bad about four hours after I posted it.  Pinecone is very quick to pull the plug due to their wanting to keep the pool of people they survey very exclusive and specific.  I will post about them again as soon as I find another link-

Pinecone Research is one of the few get paid to take surveys sites that actually pays out on every survey you qualify for and complete.  I have been a part of their surveys for over four years now.  The hardest part is actually getting accepted into their program.  Every time you complete a survey you get $3.  Not a bad little return for a small survey.

Right now Pinecone is accepting new applicants with  an emphasis on people who are between the ages of 18-24.  In the past minorities have always had a high acceptance rate as well as people with small children in the home.

If you are interested in completing consumer surveys for money and receiving stuff in the mail to evaluate follow this link to apply.

One of the real downsides to programs that allow you to earn free stuff is that they tend to not be able to sustain their business model.  Swagbucks is proving to be an exception.  After using Swagbucks for ten months they have been very reliable in delivering free gift cards to me for using them as a search engine instead of Google.  What has also been a good sign is that they continue to improve their website and have new ways to earn.

Now you can earn extra Swagbucks by shopping through their portal (get a 2% return) or exchanging your cell phones and video game equipment.  Remember that a swagbuck is only worth about 10 cents so make sure you cannot get a better deal by selling it yourself.

Since July I have personally earned 317 swagbucks.  That equates to seven $5 Amazon.com gift cards.  I have to admit I was not as deliberate at the beginning  as I am now at using this program but I am now seeing about one gift card every five weeks just for doing searches I am going to do anyway.   This is why Swagbucks has continued to be a part of my favorite programs.  You can sign up for Swagbucks here

Chase has decided to abandon the Chase Freedom credit card as we currenlty know it.  No long will they be allowing 3% back on your top three most used categories and 1% back on everything else.  They are also ditching the extra $50 dollars for waiting to cash out until you get to $200.  The changes go down on June 30.`

This is a major blow to my strategy for making the most out of my rewards credit card.  This is also going to upset my wife because she will have to change the card information on all of our automatic pay accounts (mostly utilities).  Is anybody else paying off their card every month in order to reap the rewards?  I will be scouring the web but hope that some of my readers will have clued into another good deal on rewards.

From time to time I like to give an earnings update for how I am doing with my various programs that earns cash or gift cards (which spend just like money).   Here is the latest:

Cash Duck – This one had fallen out of favor because there were not enough programs to keep earning, but the owner has turned things around and there are now a bunch of get paid to signup offers that are free.

SwagBucks – This one is still my favorite.  I earn  enough off of my personal searches to earn atleast a $5 gift card every month and I am getting paid for something I do anyway (plus when you refer someone you get matching points for their first 100).  For a complete explanation of this program click here.

MyPoints – I just got a $10 gift card to CVS in the mail on Saturday (which is what prompted this post).  Taking that gift card and purchasing items that allow me to earn extra bucks allows that $10 to purchase maybe ten times that amount.  To learn more about mypoints click here.  To learn how to use CVS to stock your bathroom for almost free click here.

Chase Freedom – We use our credit card for all of our gasoline, utilities, and any other regular purchases where we cannot overspend (we pay this balance off every month).  This allows us to rack up a ton of money in rewards.  We are now at $140 in reward but will not be cashing out until that total hits $200.  With this card if you wait until the $200 mark they give you an extra $50.

What ways are you making money online?  Send me a good one and I will post it with your referal link.

Some techno waste is worthless.  A good example would be the CRT monitors that people used to use and have given up for the smaller flatter LCD monitors.  These old monitors are hard to get rid of and I have heard of people spending as much as $20 to have someone dispose of them safely.  For that kind of techno waste the goal is to spend as little as possible.  For techno waste that is just outdated but still usable there are alternatives where you can make some extra cash for recycling those gadgets.

The first place I always tell people to sell things is on Ebay.  The main reason is you get cash.  No messing around with gift cards and special offers.  Just cold hard cash.  That being said Ebay is more difficult to deal with than many of the recycling programs with posting the item and shipping it to the winner.  For this reason there are three viable ways to get rid of many of your unused gadgets with another on the way.

Greenwise — This company does the recycling but it partners with retailers to do the pickup.  This is a great program because they have partnered with Staples and Costco to receive the items to be recycled.  They also have the largest variety of items accepted, but their payout is a little lower than the other two.  You receive your payout with gift cards to the retailer where you drop off the item.

BuyMyTronics –  CurrentlyBuyMytronics only gives money for MP3 players, cell phones, PDAs, and game consoles.  They are looking to expand what devices they will take so this may change in the future.  The payouts are even or better with the other two.  Of the three options BuyMyTronics is the only one that will pay out to PayPal of by check.

TechForward — Tech forward pays pretty well but there is a limited number of manufacturers it accepts products from.  The site is well planned out and easy to use, but if you are using generic equipment (like a home made computer) they will not accept it.  Their payout method is similar to Greenwise but is dependant on where you drop off/send the item.  As far as I can tell you can get a check if you send it directly to TechForward.

EcoNEW — EcoNEW is not currently recycling items but their business model looks to be similar to that of Greenwise.  For this reason, I expect them to try and partner with some major retailers pretty soon.  This would make them a fourth viable option.

So before you throw away that old computer why not recycle it, make life a little greener, and bring some green back to your wallet.

After seeing that I am almost able to cash out again with Cash Duck I decided it was time to do an update on the programs where I earn extra cash and gift certificates. After each program I will provide a link to a blog entry where I describe how the program works.

Cash Duck — Cash Duck is one of my favorites and I have been using them for over a year. I can usually cash out a $25 gift card every month and am on track to do that this month. Cash Duck info

Blingo — Blingo recently switched its search algorithm from Google to a combination of Ask.com, Yahoo, and MSN search.  The result are pretty good but if you are used to google the results are not exactly the same.  I earned another prize this month (a $5 gift certificate to Amazon.com).  Blingo Info
Ebates –  I just started using Ebates in February and it has quickly become one of my two favorite cash rebate websites.  I used the link from this site to purchase a dining room suite and got 1% back.  That with some small purchases has put me up at $36.  1% is pretty low compared to most of the rebates through this site. For example you get 4% back at JC Penney.

My Points — My points takes more time to build up to a $25 gift card. I get one from this site about once every 4 months. Right now I have 1600 points which is about half way to being able to redeem.

You can see my explanations of Mypoints and Ebates here

These are the main three that need updating.   I have a few new programs that I have started recently and will be giving some reviews in the coming weeks (once I receive a payment and can verify validity).  This has been a part of my frugal pursuits that I haven’t mentioned lately and was reminded by a few readers this past week.  I will try to give more frequent updates in the future.

A good friend complained that I have shown him all sorts of ways to spend less money on things he buys regularly but have not shown any ways to make a little extra cash on the side. In response to his whining request I introduce Cash Duck. I had considered writing about this web site earlier but some major changes took place about a month ago and I wanted to make sure that everything was running properly before I recommended it to anyone. Basically the way Cash Duck works is you go through and perfomr different task (take surveys, sign up for free offers, etc.) and you earn a certan number of feathers (just like points but since the theme of the site is ducks, well you get it). You can cash those feathers in for gift cards or prizes. The prizes change from month to month but the gift cards work like this:

400 feathers = $25 gift card
775 feathers = $50 gift card
1150 feathers = $75 gift card

As you can see the more feathers you cash in at one time the better the deal on the gift card. I counted aproximately 75 different stores from which you could request a gift card. My favorite is Wal-Mart so that I can get gasoline, food, or other needs. This allows me to do a few extra things here and there with my budget. The feathers add up pretty quickly since all the free offers are 10 to 15 feathers and there are always a good number of offers on the site. There are also offers where you can receive hundreds of feathers but they are usualy for limited time trials. Make sure you cancel before the end of the trial period or you will be charged. Also, always use a credit card (NOT A DEBIT CARD) so you can dispute the charges if you cancel in time and the company still charges you. So far this year I have earned a little over $700 from Cash Duck and I have found it pretty easy to get atleast 600 feathers per month without doing the limited time trial offers. You can check out the site and sign up here.

I used to live just south of Charlotte, NC (SC has lower taxes).  I would commute to the north side of Charlotte for work driving about 30 miles one way.  It was at this point in time that I became fascinated with autowrapping.  You have probably seen cars that have advertising that completely covers the car.  Many of these vehicles are owned by the company that is being advertised, but some of them are just private citizens that are being paid to advertise with their vehicle.  My problem was that my cars have always been so old that no one wanted to advertise on them.  Now that I have a new enough car I don’t drive far enough to entice an advertiser (plus I live in the country so not enough possible customers either). 

Now I am sure some are curious as to why I would want to do this.  The reason is they pay you somewhere between $200-$400 per month.  That could pay off your car!!  It could cover the rising cost of gasoline.  I mean that is a significant chunk of change for letting someone advertise on your vehicle.  The contracts vary in length but I found two companies that still do this type of advertising.  They are AutoWrapped and Ad-Wraps.  There are some others but they want you to pay a membership fee so that seems like a scam.  If you live in a heavily populated are this might be a nice source of income for you.