Weekend Doodles: A Simple Christmas

A little drawing of all Christmas ever really needs to be: simple, charmingly full of heart and twinkling brightly with God's love.

Shopkicking My Face Off

As the people around me can attest, I am an avid lover of apps that pay me. I will be documenting my favorites over the next few weeks with my experiences and reviews as there are many that can waste your time. More importantly, there is a delightful handful that can give you more than pocket change (cough- Ibotta, Receiptpal, Checkout51, Checkpoints, Savingstar, and more!).

One of the most gratifying of those apps? Shopkick.

I tried this puppy about two years ago and gave up before the magic could be made. Now, I've made almost 100 buckaroos in the past couple of months, mostly by merely walking into stores and walking right out. Plus, the little musical celebration and confetti graphics that ignite when I've scored kicks make me smile. Call it psychological coaxing. I don't care. I'm kicking to the high heavens and making money doing it.

There are a lot of very detailed reviews out there, but I'm here to give you the general sum and substance. The basic-est of basics.

How To Earn Kicks:
(The Three Main Ways)
1. Walk-ins: Shopkick gives you a list of participating stores based on your location and lets you know which ones give you walk-in kicks. You walk into the store and can call it a day from there.

2. Scans: Scan the barcodes of items on Shopkick's scan list once you've entered the store and earn more kicks.

3. Kickbates: Like Ibotta and the other rebate apps, you can also get kicks on certain items for scanning in receipts.

Other Ways:
- Linked Cards: Some stores qualify for kicks if you link your card. Be sure to remember that if you use a debit card to run it as credit to get your kicks.
- Check the header image at the top of the Shopkick homepage on the app each day. Sometime there are special kicks for visiting their Facebook, watching videos and more.

My Sneaky Tips: 
These tips are case by case. You will start to understand the behavior of Shopkick in your area the more you use it.
- "Drive-by" Kicks: More often than not, you do have to physically walk into the store for your kicks to register. However, if you develop a morning Shopkick routine (like me), you can often find stores in shopping centers and malls that you can merely walk past. Just make sure you have the app open and ready.

- Same Item Scans: Typically, there will be several different flavors/ varieties of the same item you can scan. Sometimes, you can simply scan one item multiple times and it will work for each variety. For instance, this month at Walgreens, Shopkick said I could scan any Hallmark ornament. I couldn't find any ornaments but scanned a Hallmark greeting card instead and still got my kicks. This also works for the Checkpoints app (another scanning app that takes much longer to earn points with).

- Weekends and Holidays Are Magical! I have found that my largest kick days are on weekends and holidays. This year for Black Friday, Shopkick featured "200 Kick Walk-ins" at a multitude of stars and I scored big!

- Set A Goal For Yourself and Be Patient: I knew from the beginning that I wanted to at least hit the $50 Gift Card mark. Generally, if you can just get about 100-200 kicks a day, you can easily score 1,000 a week. That's not too bad for climbing your way to certain tiers of kicks. Once I hit $50, I got greedy and decided on $100 instead. I'm almost there!

Now, you try! Sign up for Shopkick today! Happy Kicking! :)

Note: I am in no way affiliated with Shopkick nor have I been asked or paid to share this review. Share your Shopkicking questions, suggestions and experiences with me right here! :)

Be sure to check out my other favorite money-saving and money-earning apps!
Checkpoints- Get free points with my bonus code: cannedace
Ibotta- Earn up to $10 with my referral code: yscwmq

Let Go Of The Banana

Photo Credit: MarcAndAngel.com

I heard a Hindu tale yesterday morning. Unfamiliar with the Hindu religion, this was a new story to me. The tale goes something like this:

A monkey finds a banana in a bottle. He grabs hold of it. But, when it comes time to take the banana, his hand and the banana will not fit through the hole. He stays there. Clinging to the banana. Refusing to part with his treasure. Finally, humans arrive. The monkey still clings to the banana even in the face of danger. He is trapped and caught, thus meeting his demise.

Now, I do not retell this little anecdote to put you in a sour mood about dead monkeys and banana theft.

Instead, I bring up the idea of "letting go." The monkey wanted the banana so badly that he held onto it until it literally killed him. This has been me many times in life. I wrapped myself up in the past and practically plastered it to every fiber of my being until it began to suffocate me. As I have begun to free myself from this miserable, itchy, uncomfortable veil of pain and suffering, people challenge me.

"But, it's your truth. How can you let that go? You're in denial. It's still there. You're living in a dream world."

The past is gone, though. It has taught me and I've learned from it. It's over. And all we have is this moment. Sounds a bit over-the-top ethereal and hippy-dippy-idealistic, but it's actually, literally true. If we all continue to hold onto things that are mere shadows, we'll be stuck in the dark. So, I have decided to free myself from the banana. I don't need it. It doesn't help me. It's a danger zone. It weighs me down and traps me in one place, vulnerable to death and depression.

Let go, my friends. There's a whole world beyond that one banana.

And yes. That's what she said.

Tasty Tuesday: Farmer's Markets & a Mistobox

Tasty Tuesdays are for recipe-sharing, pretty pictures of food, restaurant shout-outs and general tongue-tantalizing-tales... oh Boy. Yep. Taking that one back. I'll try again. Titillating- no. Tingling- no. Fine. It's food porn. Ok?! Holy macaroni.

This week in the land of culinary goodness came a foray into cooler weather (finally) and a jaunt to the Winter Park Farmer's Market. Jam-packed-with cranberry apple jam and speckled in some of the most gorgeous produce I've seen in a while, this was most certainly a Saturday morning success. And while my wallet lost weight, I most certainly did not after some Heartsong Cookies (yas) and a big, buttery croissant (oui oui).

And in the vein of trying to look like super, gourmet, lofty, hoity toity foodies (who also enjoy Taco Bell), I've begun some subscription box trials. The ever-so-loved first box often comes with a discount so do your research and find some deals. I will be sharing my newfound subscription boxes with you right here, right now.

Mistobox!
The Deal: 12oz bags of whole bean coffee shipped to your door. Cancel anytime.
My Thoughts: This coffee is absolutely delicious! I enjoy my light roasts and this bright blend of Eithiopia Sidama Ardi did not disappoint.

Very important to me is the cost. There are three tiers of plans that are fully flexible to your time, taste preferences, and budget. Plus, the $15.99-$18.99 price range far surpasses the usual starting rate of $25-30 for many coffee subscription surfaces. You get a lovely little backstory behind your coffee from your personal curator in each box too which adds a very personal touch to the entire experience.

Give it a try by clicking right here and enjoy your java! :)

Operation Cardboard Christmas

Well, holy macaroni! It's only been almost TWO years. But, I'm back. With a vengeance. Ready to reunite myself and all of you fine people with the wonderful world of DIY and organization and deliciousness and frugality! :)

A mindless flick of the finger through the Pinterest abyss can land you in a pretty creative mindset. Mine? The Cardboard Fireplace. 

Afforable? The cheapest.

Tacky? Certainly.

Childish? Maybe. 

Cute? SOOO cute.

As we have just celebrated a few monumental birthdays and anniversaries and general healing over the past couple of months, not to mention our discovery of Amazon Prime Now (Dear Lord, help us all. We'll never leave the house again), we have acquired quite a mountain of cardboard boxes and scraps. Typically, this will go right to the recycling bin. But, as I began to envision the possibilities for a cozy Christmas in a Florida apartment, I thought to myself, "Maybeeeee. Just maybe...."

And voila. The improvised construction began. I bought a few "My 1st Project Boards" from Wal-Mart at ninety-nine cents a pop, because I'm apparently twelve. The rest of the building was definitely trial and error, a veritable melange of paint-mixing and hot glue frenzies. I even made a few little cardboard trees to go on the "mantle" or "Fantle," as it were. I will be adding some more inexpensive garb to the fireplace as the weeks go by, so stay tuned!

If you're interested in trying out your own fireplace masterpiece (I imagine your kids will love you for it!), there are a lot of great tutorials on Youtube. I found this one especially helpful.

Happy Fireplace-ing! 

Linking up to "A Round Tuit" and Totally Terrific Tuesday for the first time!