Freebies & competitions: a waste of time?

Two or three times a week, I put aside 10 minutes to enter a few competitions and apply for newly available freebies. This process is quite simple: I've found a website which updates freebies daily, I decide which ones I'm interested in and fill in the form. I have set up a secondary email address in case those companies decide to spam me, and I just wait for my samples to show up in the mail.

Within the last month, my mailbox has been delivering like never before!
Among other things: 2 magazines, 2 x toddler's milk, a nappy, face cream & baby products (from at least 5 different companies), a recipe booklet, a weight loss diary, a weight loss shake...

Is it worth taking the time to receive those freebies?
Yes, definitely, if you:

- Only enter the ones you really are interested in (It is always nice to receive something for free, but not if it ends up in the bin)
- Bookmark a good website (such as Buckscoop) which does the work for you
- Do this as a hobby, when you have time to spare. You might never get your freebie. I for one often receive things I do not remember ordering :-)

My favorite finance website

I LOVE reading money advice from the Simple Dollar. I found out about this site while looking for a recipe for homemade laundry detergent. One year later, I still make my own detergent and read this blog daily.
Even though it is an American blog, there are a lot of ideas to be taken from it.
My favorite post is "100 Great Tips For Saving Money For Those Just Getting Started"
This list includes signing up for free customer rewards programs. When I was pregnant, I registered with Coles Baby Club. They send a quarterly magazine, and once a year, members can collect a sample bag filled with baby food, wipes, bottom cream & other very nice goodies. I collected mine today, and it sure feels good getting a little something for free!

Teaching colors

The daily visit to the roof of my building to hang the washing up is much more fun for Olive than for myself. She gets a bit of exercise by crawling up the stairs, which she's been really good at for a few weeks now.
I then sit her in the middle of the roof top with a container full of colored pegs, and she gets busy removing them, one by one, while talking to them in her funny kind of way.

The following conversation takes place

-Would you please hand me a peg?
- ....
- Oh, a RED peg, thank you! Can I get a second one please. A BLUE peg, thank you!

This conversation is repeated until we run out of clothes, or, well, pegs.

Optimising my time

How does a full-time mum with a part-time job manages to
- entertain her baby
- run the house
- have time to herself
?
By optimising and multi-tasking!

Feeding baby & cutting her toe-nails; supervising her bath while cleaning the sink; thinking of the next meal while scrubbing the sink...

On my first Mother's Day, my greatest gift would be time for myself, to be enjoyed without the slightest guilt, and without thinking of my daughter.
A very personal and selfish day, just for my peace of mind!

The magical draw

My days are spent thinking on how to gently remove my darling baby from my calves. Whenever she sees me, she crawls, stands up on my leg and moans.
I love playing with my daughter but I do have tons of things to do throughout the day (and she is on the heavy side) so I cannot carry her around as much as she'd want me to.

When this pattern started, I would pull out some toys and hope that she would play nicely by herself, which would happen, but for a few seconds only.

To keep her busy, I figured that she needed to look for objects, but not toys. Whenever I need to do something, I open the draw of our Ikea TV cabinet which is filled the CD & DVD cases, and Olive is fascinated by this content and can spend up to half an hour looking through it and removing the cases. Cardboard boxes and pot plants do work as well!

We've all seen the ad with the cute puppy, the cute baby and the toilet paper roll which is very very soft. Give a toilet paper roll to your toddler today and see what happens! a lot of fun, in my daughter's case.

Tools to learn a foreign language

Olive started learning Mandarin this week. I wanted to get her started on an Asian language and although I adore Japanese, as a first choice, Mandarin seems the most useful.
I went to a multicultural bookshop, and came back with a few products:

A book And CD Set: Mandy And Pandy Say Ni Hao
(you can see it at: http://www.chinabooks.com/cart/product.php?productid=20247)
It's OK, not great, and does not last long at all so she'll soon tire of it.

A DVD: Early start Bao Bei (number 2)
I'm quite disappointed with this method as it mixes English & Chinese, which I believe is not the 'right' way to learn a foreign language (You learn your first language by deduction and repetition, not by 'comparing' it). For 30 minutes, the DVD repeats a few individual words. I'd rather have my child know a few useful sentences than knowing the colours or the numbers in Chinese.
I will keep on showing it to her, but it is definitely not what I was after.

Thumbs up to Little Pim (see image)! (http://www.littlepim.com/)
No translation, a nice music, a soothing voice, and the key words are incorporated into sentences.
So many things are covered in such a short time. 35 minutes per DVD, and the three DVD pack sells for US$50.

Little steps to save and earn a little cash....

Little tips for Australian mums...

1) Become a mystery shopper. At the moment, if you do an assignment for Mc Donald's you will get the meal for free and an extra $5.

Worthwhile if you have the time to complete a quick training online, to print out and fill in the paperwork.
www.xec.gapbuster.com

2) Share your shopping details and receive gift vouchers.
Make sure to enter their competitions and do not forget to scan, otherwise the benefits are really minimal. It takes a little commitment to scan, but I'm getting quite good and scan quickly now...
http://homescan.acnielsen.com.au/


3) Browse www.freecycle.org regularily to see if people are giving away something you'd like to have in your area. Make sure you give too, instead of throwing away!

4) Never pay full price when you shop online. Check out for coupons & discounts at
http://www.buckscoop.com.au

5) Collect samples. You can either contact companies directly (see my previous post) or see what's on by browsing this page (the work is done for you!)
http://www.buckscoop.com.au/deals?merchant_filter=All&category_filter=All&type_filter=Freebie&availability_filter=All&status_filter=Active&order_by=Newest

6) Answer online surveys and click on ads to earn. I'm with Pureprofile and have earned $10 in about 6 months. Not great, as I did not qualify for many surveys.
To sign in:
http://account.pureprofile.com/Login/?referrer=3098134