Ugh you guys! We’re in a holding pattern as far as choosing our actual destination for vacation! It’s driving me crazy, but we’ve had to flop our dates around a bit. I’m so thankful for Erin, our TA. She’s helped me price a few things and hasn’t batted an eye when I’ve had to change my mind- for instance, we highly considered a Disney Cruise…or maybe a Royal Caribbean Cruise. Or a Carnival Cruise! After picking her brain about the best option for our needs and then pricing out the updated dates (the price jump up significantly), we decided we’d better put that off a year to save more- plus I’d like to add a few days onto Disney at the beginning (or end?). Is it bad I’m Couponing to 2021 Vacation already, but still not sure where we are going in 2020? I feel nuts, y’all.
I did a bit of an out of the box savings scenario (or two) this week! We plan on seeing Spiderman: Far From Home. There is a promotion out for a free ticket from Fandango when you buy 3 Dr. Pepper products. Our local grocery store had Coke/Dr. Pepper products on sale. So I did two transactions, stocked my house up on Diet Dr. Pepper, which we love, and we’ll get our tickets for free! I did a similar deal with Ziploc Bags and Toy Story 4. Now we are stocked up on ziploc bags for a good while! Couponing and saving doesn’t mean you have to stop doing fun things, like going to see a movie- you just have to get a little creative sometimes. For the same money, we get to stock up on soft drinks AND go see two movies we’d already planned on seeing! I’m adjusting our entertainment budget to reflect the savings.
Secret Shopping continues to be a good earner for me! My earnings below reflect what I’ve made, but don’t include any reimbursements. For instance, this past week one of my shops was for a 16oz pack of a delicious deli ham. The shop paid me back for the ham, plus put a few dollars in my piggy bank. That’s going to help stretch the grocery budget even farther! Double win.
It’s so important to remember pennies make dollars. That’s literally what these posts are about- how a secret shop here can not only pay out a few bucks, but ease the grocery budget. How a few minutes a day spent on an app like Dabbl can yield real money. I am guilty of playing games on my phone and there is nothing wrong with that! I just replace a little bit of my down-time game time with Dabbl or a survey on a site like Swagbucks.
2020 Mystery Trip Goal: $4000
June 16th – June 22nd earnings:
$32.50- Secret Shopping
$22.75- TopCashBack
$25- Swagbucks to paypal
$2.45- Misc. Surveys and Tasks
$5 Dabbl– Amazon GC*
*Amazon gift cards get squirreled away to pay for gifts, although you can also buy gift cards on Amazon!
Total earned this week: $87.70
Fund Total from last post: $587.14
Current Fund Total: $674.84
Only $3325.16 to go! If only we can figure out for sure where we’re going!