Cash back for shopping online

photo © 2006 Rob Lee | more info (via: Wylio)
Ok, so I wouldn't buy a shirt that looks like a dollar bill, but I'm certainly up for having my online clothing purchases (and all other online purchases for that matter) turning into free money.  I've found a super-simple and very legitimate way to earn a couple extra bucks. 

If you do any online shopping, one of the easiest ways to basically get paid for the purchases that you'd make anyway is to use a cash back website.  They're super-easy to use.  All you do is go to the cash-back site, then

1. Sign up.
2. Choose a store that you want to shop at (most sites have hundreds to thousands of choices)
3. Shop as you normally would, and get cash back on your purchase. 

Just got the latest notification of a rebate check on its way to me.  Yippee!  This year I earned over $18 cash back on my regular Christmas shopping, and I now make sure that any purchase I make, whenever possible, goes through a cash-back/rebate site so that I don't have to pay full-price.

My personal favorite cash-back site is Ebates.  It's the granddaddy of all rebate sites, and is ridiculously easy to use.  When you search for the store you want, it tells you how much cash back they offer, and there are often double cash-back deals around major holidays like Christmas, Valentine's Day, etc.  They have thousands of stores to choose from, including names like Land's End, Gap, Babies R Us, Target, Shoes.com, Bath and Body Works, Sephora and the Apple Store. 

I can always find a use for a little extra cash.  Plus, It's not much effort for a busy mom to use something like Ebates.  Just a few seconds of effort... so easy even a (fill in the blank) can do it.  

Free Chick-fil-A and Learning on the Go

It definitely pays to join Chick-fil-A Insiders.  If  you or someone you love (read:  your kids) enjoy Chick-fil-A, you'll get emails notifying you of when they have exclusive free previews of new products.  Earlier in the year I got a free Spicy Chicken Sandwich, and this month was the Spicy Chicken Biscuit.

Free food was a great excuse for a morning excursion to our favorite fast food place.  Li'l Girlie is beyond enamored with Chick-fil-A...the nuggets, the cows, the play area, not to mention getting to drink milk out of a cute container with a straw.  All happy stuff in her book.

On this trip, we discovered the cow clock table-toppers, which immediately drew Li'l Girlie's interest.  We had fun moving the cow's arms and practicing counting with the numbers on the clock.  We practiced our moos and talked about what cows like to eat and what they do.  Between that and the play area, we ended up spending almost all morning at Chick-fil-A.

And why do I share this?

Well, the first paragraph is all about the free food, of course.  The rest of it is what Miriam Huffman Rockness, in her book A Time for Play - On Childhood and Creativity describes as fanning the flames of a child's interest.  As parents we can push our children to have interest in certain activities, and sometimes our child will glom onto them and have a ball, but what really sparks a child's creativity and desire to learn is parents latching onto something their son or daughter is already excited about and helping them explore that interest.

A boy who loves dinosaurs but doesn't care to read much will readily devour books his parents supply to him about T-Rex, Apatosaurus and Triceratops and learn huge vocabulary words to describe the objects of his obsession.  While that interest may not lead him into being a palientologist, it just might.  Or, at least along the way, it's teaching him both that his parents care about his passions and that there are fascinating worlds of knowledge to explore. 

Right now my daughter loves chicken nuggets and cows.  Who says we have to eat and run when there's an opportunity for learning through something she already thinks is fun.