Saving, winning and losing

I started reading blogs and started my own for the fertility struggle reason. I'm happy that many of my online friends have won (the battle if not the war) on fertility. I wish everyone had. Now, I'm loving reading about the kids growing up and families and their dynamics. But more than that, I discovered that there money to be made and/or saved. Yipee!

I will never make enough to be a stay at home parent, but everything helps. I'll use this post to summarize some of what I'm doing and will go into details about some of them in future posts.

I collect points from any and every points club (that I can without spending extra). I love Airmiles. So far, I got both highchairs and a video camera with my miles. I also collect pampers gift to grow points. I havent used them yet, but I have enough for almost any reward they offer (the joy of twins).

I use coupons. The ones I get in the paper are great, but I've found some amazing ones online too. I'll go into more detail another post, but coupons in Canada are not as lucrative as in the US. Still, I've saved tons of money on things I need (like pampers, for which I get points too).

Swagbucks This is something I'll be dedicating a post to in the future. If you can't wait, click on the link to the left. Its well worth it.

Surveys. Some of these give you entries in draws, some pay minimal cash (pennies per, which add up) and a couple will actually give you $5 cash per survey. These ones are harder to qualify for, they have surveys less often, but getting money each time is nice.

Blog giveaways. I'm an addict. I didn't know these existed but stumbled onto one a couple of months ago. I've since won two of them and am entered in many more. I'll be blogging about these and some of my favorites sometime in the future. There are tons out there. Again, not as many for Canada, but enough to keep me hoping.

General draws are something I also go in for if its a worthwhile prize. For these and manufacturers websites, I keep a special email address that I dont get 'real' email on.

As for losing. Well, I joined Weight Watchers a couple of weeks ago. I did quite well with the program pre-infertility treatments (dropped 23lbs). I "know" how the program works, but for some reason the accountability helps. I joined with 2 other moms I met in the NICU. I just finished my second week and I'm down 6.8 lbs so far. I dont follow it religiously and dont even track on the weekends. But it helps. I dont have my final goal yet. I would really love to get below 135, but I'm not sure thats reasonable. I dont have any spare time for extra exercise (beyond what I get with the boys). So its mostly eating. I am doing toning exercising at night when the boys are asleep. We'll see how it goes.

Free potty This was a different type of a giveaway. They are petitioning for a public washroom in a local park. The first 'action' was a Potty Day where they gave away potties to the first 8 willing toddlers. We have two of them at home now.