Christmas in July

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I remember growing up as a kid, and when I would see commercials advertising Christmas in July it was so weird to me.  But as an adult, when you think about it…Once you’ve past July 4th….it’s all downhill from there.  Next thing you know it’s back to school, Halloween, my birthday, Thanksgiving and then Christmas.

So at the beginning of the year the plan was to do a Christmas Fund thru my bank.  Well that never happened because as usual, life happens.  So I’ve started thinking of ways to save for the holidays.  Me just saving money doesn’t work, it always gets spent because frankly it’s 2013 and most of us are in the same boat or similar boats financially.  So how do I save money when I don’t have money to save?  Good question.  I have an answer.

In my previous post I talked about a couple of apps I’ve started to use that are freaking amazing.  With these apps and another app/program I plan to save some money that will really help with holiday shopping.  Here’s the brief overview of the apps:

Saving Star:  this works with your loyalty cards at the grocery store.  When you load the coupon to your card and you purchase the item, the dollar amount for the coupon goes into your Savings Star account.  When you have more than $5 you can move the funds to your paypal account.  As of today, I have $6.90 in my account.  Wanna find out more?  Click here.

Ibotta:  this works with coupons inside the app for items that you purchase at participating stores.  When you purchase the item, you scan the receipt and the barcode of the item into the app.  In less than 24 hours (per the app, but in reality it’s like 5 minutes) the dollar amount goes into your account.  When you have more than $5 you can move the funds to your paypal account.  As of today, I have $15.00 in my account.  Yeah great right?  Even greater is that I’ve had this app for less than two weeks.  Wanna find out more?  Click here.

Shopkick:  this works with retail stores.  You get points for going into stores, for purchasing items and for scanning items.  It’s fun and easy.  The key difference between this app and the others, is that it’s for giftcards, not a paypal transfer.  So there’s tons of stores to choose from, but for the holidays probably Target would be my gift card of choice.  As of today, I have 872 kicks(points) and will be over a thousand really quickly.  Wanna find out more?  Click here.

So in the next 4-5 months I plan to save over $50 in SavingStar and Ibotta and I can use that for online shopping or I can transfer it to my bank account thru paypal.  And in the Shopkick app I hope to be able to get a $50 giftcard with Target.  Now as an extra tidbit…I’ve noticed lately SavingStar has been having a lot of good offers for multiple purchases, like buy 3 people magazines (can do in more than one trip btw) and earn $5.  Well if you already buy the magazine this is a no brainer.  Or right now there’s one for buy $15 in AXE products and earn $5.  That’s great for us because DH uses AXE products so why not earn money buying what I would already buy?

The biggest issue is DO NOT TOUCH THE MONEY!!!!  No excuses!!!!  I figured this is doable…don’t you agree?  If you have ways you save for the holidays please leave a comment below 🙂