Enter your frugal tip to try to win $100 each. Some of the tips may even save you $100 or more. Last month's winning tip: "Always check for a coupon before checking out (online)."

I usually employ this tip by checking out store coupons at DealCoupon.com. I recently saved about $15 with online coupon on some office supplies. I also saved time. The store offered same-day, in-store pickup. All I had to do was come by and get my order. No wandering the aisles looking for the right product, no impulse purchases, no searching for an employee for help. The store even allowed me to pay cash at pickup time, instead of using a credit card.

Labels: contest, coupon, frugal, purchase, save, tip

If you have an account at SurveySavvy, remember to cash in regularly. I went to check my stats and realized my account balance was down $15. Before crying "identity theft," I dug around the site and discovered that payouts must be taken within a year. I decided to cash out the remaining balance before losing any more.

Another Downside
Savvy hasn't been my favorite paid survey site. Seems like I don't qualify for a number of their surveys or they meet their quota before I can read the invitation and login.

2-Tier Upside
However, the cool thing about them is they pay you for you referrals' participation. And your referrals' referrals. Usually $2 per survey completed by a referral, and $1 per completed survey by a referral's referral. Nearly half of my earnings came from just the referrals.

I'm currently working on an on-going survey with MySurvey that requires me to keep a daily journal. Many days there are no entries. It's for tracking use of drugs in my family (legal drugs). I really thought we'd have something to report everyday, but we had only a couple of days last week that anybody took anything. Headaches, allergies, and acid reflux are usually pretty common you know. This will be a four-week study, but I might want to keep tracking this for a few months. Anyway, it's an extra buck a week in addition to their regular one-time surveys.

My other trusted survey site, American Consumer Opinion, sent me a survey about television shows. I could rail against reruns all night. Which I did in this particular survey. It's hard to want to watch more Desparate Housewives when they keep repeating the same episode all the time. You know the one when Gabrielle and Carlos are fighting all the time. Maybe that's just in every episode. Either way I lost interest last year.

Plus I'm bit nervous that the shows I do watch are looking toward survey participants to decide how to write next season. The thing about good shows, is that they move in a direction counter to viewer expectations. Thus keeping the viewers on their toes. Though I'm getting a little tired of the reality shows trying to trick up their formula every season. I mean who cares about Bruce getting sent to Exile Island? Anywho, it was a quick $4 survey. Usually I don't get past their screener and just get thrown into the drawing (which I've won twice for a total of $10, thank you very much).

Take Surveys with NFO MySurvey & Go for $10,000

Forbes ranks the world's billionaires. These are the richest people on earth. Some inherited. Others took advantage of the opportunities in their lives. Many in the Top 10 are self-made.

Bill Gates tops the list at 50 billion. His MicroSoft co-hort, Bill Allen stands at no. 6 on the list. Even though Bill is a little down when compared to previous years, software has been good.

Oprah's packing 1.4 billion. I couldn't find Phil Donohue though. He should have done a book club.

The US tops the list with the 371 billionaires out of 793. There were only 476 bilionaires just three years ago.

» Check out the list

Does your company offer a Flexible Spending Account?

I signed up last year to stash $500 of my money, pre-tax, for medical expeditures. Over the year, less than $10 per week of my paycheck has been deducted. And today, I got it all back tax-free. [Which is great, since I only make $1,000 a year.]

Plus this money can be used for claims on over-the-counter medications, which cannot be used as a deduction on federal taxes. Most common claims may be the co-pays for doctor's visits.

The cons to this are a result of not planning. Some people are paper-phobic and won't submit their claims before the end of the plan year. A few may have too much money deducted and not have enough medical expenses to get all their money back at the end of a year. It's a use-it-or-lose-it deal. If you have the money deducted from your paycheck, but fail to make a claim, then the money is gone after a year.

If you know you're going to need new glasses or your kid needs braces in the coming year, then you can prepare to deduct enough to cover those expenses.

» More Details.

Because licensing can be so darn confusing; MicroSoft will send you their flash drive with FAQs, Windows Licensing Guide, License Brief, Product Info, Transfer of Volume Licensing Info and additional resources.

Dial up on your Firefox browser:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mysterysolved/corp/default.mspx

Click on the ad box with the flash drive pic. The bottom says "Get Yours.""

Sign-in or register (if you have a Hotmail account, you're a registered user already).

Fill out the Mystery Solved Form. Use a valid email and shipping address. Answers to the quiz portion are on the initial page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mysterysolved/corp/default.mspx

This tip discovered at: http://www.passwird.com/

My Threadless t-shirt design was taken down after the first day. I got over 800 votes, but with a low score and not many "I'd Buy It" clicks. Good comments though. Just like at work.

I'll just have to try again.

Recently, MySurvey kept sending me email reminders to fill out a survey for a free product sample they sent. The only problem is, I never got the product sample. Not wanting to miss out on free samples and lose points for not completing a survey, I emailed them to find out what to do. I didn't a response. Not until today, when this package arrived.

Now I've logged in and discovered the survey is no longer posted. [Surveys are subject to expire if not completed in a timely manner.] While I do like free stuff, it's just sweeter to earn some pocket change for testing it. Maybe they'll repost the survey? I'll keep the package sealed for now and send another email.

Okay here's the pitch where I try to earn some refferal points:
Join MySurvey today and maybe you'll get a mystery product sample package too!