Shopping Local- Part 2, The Pledge

Independently owned businesses offer some great features that you will cannot find in box stores or online. They offer a one-on-one shopping experience, high quality goods, American made, Hard to find items and more. Supporting your local businesses ensures that your money is going back into your local economy to better your city or town.

The city I live in started participating in The 3/50 project, which can also be found in many other cities. The basic idea is to spend $50 across 3 independently owned businesses each month. For every $100 spent in independently owned businesses, $68 returns to the local economy through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. If you spend that in a national chain, only $43 stays local and when you spend online nothing comes home.

I decided to take a break from looking over my coupons and sale fliers and took my daughter for a walk through our local downtown. My goal was to see what my downtown offered for goods and services and to see how I could save money by shopping local, here is what I found:

1. It was so nice to be able to walk from one store to another, get some fresh air, and have a lot of different items in each store that I know I wouldn't find at Walmart or the like.
2. I met the owners of each business. They were all very friendly and willing to help me in anyway they could. The customer service just goes above and beyond anything I have experienced in big box stores. Every employee had extensive knowledge on the products they sold.
3. The products were high quality, well made, and most were made in America.
4. EVERY store was having a sale! These businesses understand that the economy is not in the greatest place and they want to help their customers in anyway they can.
5. All of them offered mailing lists either snail mail or e-mail. Sign up for all of them, they will send you a notice when they are having sales.

With the holidays here most of these stores will be offering sales. For one example in my downtown area I visited a children's clothing store, Lakins, all of the clothing was American made, the fabrics were high quality, the detail work was just beautiful, and there were sections of 20%, 50%, and 75% off! You can get some of the most gorgeous dresses and suits for the holidays around $30, that is an awesome deal! If there is a store near you that has some items you want to purchase but are out of your price range ask an employee if there are any sales coming up and let them know that you are interested in buying items but they are out of your price range. They will usually be understanding and want to get your businesses so they can let you know when the sale is and you can go back!


I have decided to make a pledge to shop downtown first for the rest of my holiday shopping before heading to any big box stores. I would love to see you make this pledge too! If you are willing to shop independently owned businesses first before heading to a big box store please leave a comment below and let everyone know that you will do your part to save the independent businesses!

For more information on the 3/50 Project you can visit the links below:

http://www.the350project.net
https://www.facebook.com/The350Project

Gardner Square Two Inc. has a list of participating stores in the area for my local readers:
http://gardnersquaretwo.com/members/member-list/

I hope that we can all try and remember the local businesses. If we keep forgetting about them, they wont be there anymore.

Happy Couponing! : )

Free Oil, Gas, and Electricity?

With cold weather and Christmas on the horizon now is a great time to start shopping and earning yourself free Oil, Propane, or Electricity to keep you and your wallet happy. 


There is a website www.neighboroil.com which started a rewards program, similar to Stop & Shop gas reward points, that rewards you with free oil when you shop online. They have also recently expanded to include Gas and Electricity.

The basis of the program works a lot like Ebates where retailers partner up with the company and offer you a certain reward value. With Neighbor Oil each retailer offers points instead of cash back so, for example, PBS.org offers 1 Point for every $1.76 spent in their store. They have a lot of different retailers to choose from so take a look around to see who offers the best point to $ spent ratio. They are working on a program so that you can shop in store and earn points but it is not available just yet.

Are you not totally sold yet? Well there are other ways you can earn points. After you create your free account you will receive 10 points! Hey, that was easy! After that, you can download the  Neighbor Oil toolbar. This is basically the same thing as the Ebates toolbar, when you are on a site that is partnered with Neighbor Oil it will notify you there are points available to earn. For installing the toolbar you will get 10 points. Share the current oil price near you on your Facebook and you will earn 10 points! Right now they are holding a promotion; for every friend you invite and registers you will earn 10 points!

*WARNING* In case you had the same thought process I did I wanted to warn you that you cannot combine Ebates CB (cash back) with Neighbor Oil points. I tried to have both toolbars installed and went to the Wal-mart site (as it is partnered with both) to see what would happen. One toolbar cancels out the other, so you can only use either CB or points.

Neighbor Oil also lets you use your points towards propane purchases as well. I have oil, so I am not up on the propane end of the site. There is a sister site www.neighborpower.com that allows you to shop online AND in stores to save money on your electric bill. When you sign up you automatically get $3.00 in credit. You can register your store cards and add offers to your account that will earn you cash credits when you buy them and scan your registered store card!

Christmas, Birthday, or everyday shopping these sites can help you cut down your bills! I will leave you with a quote from Kathy Spencer, "More money isn't the answer. Saving money is."

Are you already using Neighbor Oil or Power? Let me know the best deal you have gotten on a fill up!

DEAL! Dyson DC17 Vacuum

You can snag a refurbished Dyson DC17 Vacuum off Woot.com for only $199.00! This is a great deal!

Click here to get this deal!

New Posts Coming Soon!

Hello to all my readers! I was planning on posting some new and exciting information today! Unfortunately my back is very much in pain so I cannot sit up to write.

Still, I decided to do a quick update from my phone while laying here, I wanted to let you know of some exciting topics coming up soon.

- How to get FREE HOME HEATING OIL AND ELECTRICITY!
- My grocery shopping how to!
- Thanksgiving, a time to give back!
- More great daily deals!
- My first giveaway!

In the mean time, I would love to hear from you! Please leave a comment with any good deals you have scored or how you are using your new found couponing knowledge.

Happy couponing! : )