Dollar Deals at Culvers have begun!

Culvers is by far my favorite fast food restaurant.  If anything, I feel bad even including it in the fast food category, it's tastes too good for that label!

So, of course I just love it when they run sales there!  Every summer they have "Dollar Deals" where for a week at a time a different item on their menu will be only $1!  I just got an email that right now you can get a single scoop waffle cone for only $1. 

This is a nice treat, but the Dollar Deal that I look forward to is when their famous Butter Burgers go on sale for only $1.  I'll be keeping a lookout for that one!

- Mister Deals

PS Check out the full email below:

Swagbucks - Worth It!

There are a lot of "points" programs on the web that promise you prizes and benefits beyond your wildest dreams - and most of them never seem to pay off in reality.  Well, I can now officially say that swagbucks is actually worth the small amount of effort it takes to get setup and use it.

First, Sign Up (click this banner, note that I get bonus points for referring you):



Next, I highly recommend setting swagbucks as your homepage.  If you are a die-hard Google user like me, it might be very difficult for you to make something other than Google (or iGoogle) your home page, but I am telling you it's the best thing.  For one, their homepage has a search box at the top that you can use to do Google-ish searches.  Technically, it combines results from Google and some other search engines.  They present the results a little differently than Google, and in general I don't like the search engine as much as I like pure Google searches - but, it's worth it!  Even if you just do a few searches each time you open your browser, you will start winning a few Swagbucks here and there, and before you know it you will be able to cash them in!

The final thing you "need to do" (in my opinion), is add the swagbucks toolbar.  Now, I can tell you, I hate toolbars.  I generally use the Google Chrome Browser, and I love how simple the UI is.  I have sat down at other people's computers and literally cringed at the site of their Internet Explorer browser with 5+ toolbars that took up almost half of the screen! Aghhhh!  So, here is what I did: I installed the toolbar on Internet Explorer.   It's the only toolbar I have installed, and it's still not my primary browser, but just by having it, whenever I do happen to open IE, I usually get a few free swagbucks.  I'm not kidding, I just launch the program and there is a pop up telling me I got 3 Swagbucks.  And I'm like "Cool, thanks!"  Having the toolbar also gives you access to messages from "TSG" which are generally time-sensitive bonus codes that you input on swagbucks.com and receive more swagbucks.


How does it work?

Mainly, you just use their search engine and you will randomly win Swagbucks, which are points that you can accumulate and then cash in for real prizes.  My favorite thing to do is cash them in for Amazon.com gift cards.  A $5 gift card is 450 Swagbucks.  If you only use swagbucks rarely, like I do, it will take about 4-6 months to get to that level.  $5 in 4 months may not sound like much, but I try to look at it this way: how much time did I actually put in to this, 10 seconds here, 15 seconds there, if it's even 20 minutes total over the 4 months, I'd be shocked.  My point is, for almost no work at all, you are getting $5 free every few months.  And, if you really work at it: get referrals, take surveys, etc (there are a lot of ways to earn free points) then you can earn a lot more!

Watch for Codes!

One of the best ways to get extra swagbucks is to enter bonus codes on the swagbucks.com homepage.  The codes come from various sources: their twitter feed, facebook updates, blog posts, the toolbar, etc.  There are some other coupon bloggers who will also post when there is a new swagcode out and tell you where to find it, so the easiest way to get the codes is the just keep reading your usual blogs, assuming one of them is an active "swagernaut."  (Yes, the folks at swagbucks.com have about a million swag- terms, pretty silly, but it makes it a little fun :)


- Mister Deals

PS my swagbucks referral link: http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/misterdeals

Rollin' at Walgreens - a first timer

This past week was an exciting and new experience for me: I went "Rolling" at Walgreens for the first time. If you don't know what Rolling is, I recommend checking out www.moneysavingmom.com or any of the other great coupon blogs around the net. It's basically a way to buy a lot of items for almost no money by splitting your purchase into a bunch of small transactions, and "rolling" the rewards you get from one to pay for the next.


Here are the results from my week of rolling:

I alternated between these 2 transactions:
Transaction 1
2 Ecotrin Aspirin ($2)
1 Rembrandt Toothpaste or Mouthwash ($6)
2 Cheap Fillers (ie Ramen Noodles or random clearance items)

Out of Pocket cost = $1.51 per transaction

Transaction 2
1 Nivea Body Wash ($5)
1 Bayer QuickRealease ($2.50)
2 Fillers (Ramen Noodles or Wrapping Paper)

Out of Pocket cost = $0.47 - $0.71 per transaction

On top of the 2 basic transactions, I also got 2 Ink Cartridge Refills which each came with a $7.50 EasySaver Rebate, and a bunch of "filler" items not pictured.

Total Haul:

(2) Ink Refills ($10)
(13) Nivea Body Wash ($5) **regular price $6.49**
(1) Rembrandt Mouthwash ($6) **regular price $7.49**
(12) Rembrandt Toothpastes ($6)**regular price $7.49**
(13) Bayer Quick Release ($2.50)
(30) Ramen Noodles (Great for a quick guy lunch) (4/$1)
(2) Hallmark Gift Tissues (.39 cents) **regular price .99 cents**
(16) Low Dose Ecotrin (45 count) ($2) **regular price $3.49**
(4) Extra Strength Ecotrin (75 count) ($2.19)**regular price $8.49**
(17) Hallmark Gift Wraps (.39 cents) **regular price .99 cents**
(3) Breath Mint drops (.15 cents) **regular price .50 cents**
(1) Hannah Montana Bubble Gum Kit (.25 cents) **regular price $1.29**
(1) Yogurt Raisins ($1)
(1) Deodorant clearanced (25 cents!)
(2) Highlighters (.15 cents) **regular price .50 cents**

Total Cost before coupons and rebates: $253.42

Full Retail Price at Walgreens: $355.39

Actual Total Out Of Pocket = $43.40
Remaining Registry Rewards = $7.50
Rebates for 2 Ink Refills = $16.50 ($15 + 10% bonus on gift card)

Final Cost = $19.40

$19.40/$355.39

Total savings: 94.5%

I think I can be proud of this for a first week of rolling!

On a side note, I don't have plans to keep all of these goodies to myself. We will be passing on some of these items to my fiancées family and while I do plan on keeping a few of each (especially the ramen!) the rest will be passed on to a local food bank who are always in need of toiletries.

Also, it's worth mentioning that I visited 6 separate stores throughout the week to get all of these. At 5 out of the 6 stores, I had great experiences with helpful staff, a few even encouraged me to roll a few more times! The only bad experience was at the second store when an employee interrupted my cashier mid-transaction, and told me not to "try that again" at her store. Needless to say, I won't be returning to that location again.