Andy Hough

Where To Find Free Stuff

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Being a frugal person I love free stuff. It is hard to get a better price than free. Here are some resources for finding free stuff.

freecycle.org– Just join the local group in your area then look at what is being offered. Be sure to put up some of your own unwanted items too.

craigslist.org– They have a section for free stuff. Check it often because you never know what might pop up.

fatwallet.com– They have a free stuff board. I’ve found a few different free items I wanted here.

slickdeals.net– They also have a freebies board.

These are just a few of the free stuff places on the internet. If you keep your eyes open for possible free stuff you will probably find many more places. This includes places in your local community not just on the internet.

More on Dumpster Diving

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There is a new post on dumpster diving at the Frugal Duchess. She included my post on dumpster diving as well as posts from All Financial Matters and Frugal for Life. She is going to provide her own tips in a later post. There is some good information on dumpster diving in these posts. As a postscript I’d like to add that I have made almost $60 this month selling coupons I retrieved from the trash.

Walk, Don’t Drive

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You can save money by walking instead of driving. The option of walking might be more feasible than you think. I used to think that it would take too long for me to walk to school.

My car needed repairs last week so I had to walk to school. I was pleasantly surprised that the walk only took about 20-25 minutes which is less than what I thought. I really should walk to school everyday. It would save gas and provide me with needed exercise.

Now that my car is fixed I should continue walking to school but it is too easy to drive. I didn’t walk today because it looked like it might rain. I can see myself making these types of excuses pretty often. What I discovered last week is that I don’t really need a car. When the option of driving is removed I find another way to get where I need to go. The only reason I can justify having a car now is that I might need it for my future job. When I get a job if the job doesn’t require me to have a car I might sell my car. This would save me money on gas,insurance, repairs, registration and whatnot. The drawback is my car isn’t worth much so the best way to get the full value out of my car is to drive it until it just won’t go any more. And the fact that I like the freedom of being able to hop in the car and drive somewhere whenever I feel like it. I just have to decide if the drawbacks are bigger than the money saving advantages.

Alternative Income: Mystery Shopping

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One of my alternative streams of income is mystery shopping. This is not a very lucrative job. Many of my mystery shops amount to little more than a free meal. I mainly do these mystery shops as a diversion not as a way to seriously make money.

As an example I did a mystery shop earlier this month that paid $11 but I had to pay about $7 for my meal out of the $11 leaving me with only about $4 actual profit. When you add in the time spent entering the report and faxing the receipt you’re really not making much money for the time invested. This is why I only do mystery shops at places that are close to me and where I would normally conduct business anyway. There are exceptions, I’ve been paid $100 for mystery shops but the high-paying shops are very rare.

If you are interested in doing mystery shops do not pay for information. The way I got started is by reading the mystery shop page at Volition.com. Look at their list of mystery shop companies and read their mystery shop forums and sign up with the companies that interest you. That is how I signed up with the 3 different mystery shopping companies that I do work for presently.

Alternative Streams of Income

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Over at Lazy Man and Money he has a category on alternative income. His goal is to have his alternative streams of income match his expenses. This has also been a goal of mine for a long time so I’m going to start tracking my alternative income as well.

Since I don’t have a job right now my only sources of income are alternative streams of income. My income last month was $205.00 and my expenses were $839.12. That leaves me with a gap of $634.12 to go. Or to express it another way I’m at about 25% of my goa. I will post monthly on my progress.

My income should go up for this month but unfortunately my expenses willl probably go up as well. I plan to have several posts detailing the different things I do for alternative income.