Spending my Prizes

Last year at this time I was telling you about the lovely basket of gifts I won from the merchants of Almonte. The contest was to promote the town, and it worked as I had not been there for many years and was surprised at the amazing changes in the place. It's not just a pretty village anymore. It's well worth the visit now, to shop and eat and spend the day.  We've been back several times since then and I've told lots of people about it.

So, while I had won some amazing prizes by this time last year, worth hundreds of dollars, this year I'm winning on a much smaller scale.  Yesterday I got to go and collect a couple of my freebies.  First, I had a certificate that I got from Kelloggs that I could spend on a $10 toy. I didn't figure I'd get much for that but when I walked into Toys R Us, one of the first things I saw was a game that the grandsons had been asking for just a couple of weeks ago. How could I pass that up? It's not the big board version but a compact one that folds into its own case and is easy to store. Just the thing for Nana's house! And hey, it was $9.99 so I got to spend the whole coupon, which is great as they don't give you change. I expect I'm going to have a break from our ongoing Mille Bornes challenge while I figure out who done it while playing Clue.

After that, I went for lunch and used a gift certificate I won from New York Fries for a free regular poutine. I asked if I could upgrade that to one with the works and was told that the regular, in this case, referred to the size, and I could have anything I wanted on it.

So while I had a calorie-laden lunch for free, my hubby ate more sensibly but it cost him over $10 for his salad.

I still have a $10 Walmart gift card to spend too, but I haven't decided what I want to shop for yet. I won it on Facebook from a page that promotes freebies called Mae-Mae's Freebies. A lot of the offers there are just for people in the United States, but I won it so soon after I joined the page I didn't realize that yet. Occasionally there is something for Canada or other places too though, and the odds are good for the contests as competition isn't all that big yet. But it is growing.

Anyway, I am still having some luck, though nothing like last year. That's fair. It's not good to be greedy. After so many years of never winning anything at all, I'm still quite amazed when I win something and actually thrilled with even these little prizes.

People are still asking me how I win. The only advice I can give is, you can't win if you don't enter.

That goes for life in general. You can't succeed at anything unless you are willing to go do it.

Advertising Teasers

Sometimes you are offered a product or service at a price you can't resist.  Then you might even go out of your way to get it.  That's happened to me twice last week.  I went out of my way, but I didn't get it.

The first time it was because of an ad in the Walmart flyer. They were offering fresh cooked rotisserie chickens for only $8.47.  It would normally cost me more than that for a small chicken even in an uncooked state, so I thought that would be a great buy and planned to get one for supper. We discovered, when we went to the Walmart in the town the flyer came from, that they don't have a hot food section in that store.  Admittedly, I don't shop Walmart often, so I didn't realize that until we arrived. It turns out the flyer did say "at participating locations" but I told the clerk it wasn't fair of them to tease me like that.
The second incident involved a coupon that was only good for one day.  I put off my shopping trip until that day just so I could use the coupon.  General Mills was introducing a new product, Honey Nut Cheerios Healthy Oat Crunch. The coupon was for a free 430g box. There was an alternate from the Fibre 1 line, but it contained almonds, and I have an allergy to them.  I shop at a major line of grocer stores, and they did not carry the new product. I was very disappointed because, as you all know, I love free stuff.

This week, I had another one of these free product coupons that was also good for just one day.  Once again it was meant to introduce a new line of products. Like last week,  I put off my shopping trip until the appropriate day.  This time the coupon offered four choices instead of just two.  The store did not carry either of my first two choices, Nature Valley Protein (I was hoping there was one without almonds), or Fibre 1 with 7g of Protein, but I was at least able to bring something home this time.  I got a free box of Golden Graham Treats.  Not quite what I had in mind, but I'm sure my grandsons will enjoy them.... if they last that long.

While I do think coupons are a great way to get people to try a new product, perhaps manufacturers who wish to get us hooked on their new merchandise should wait a little longer to offer these incentives to us. That might give us a better chance of actually finding the products in the stores.  I'm more likely to buy something I'm not sure about if I can get it at a bargain price the first time.  An offer of a free product will attract me every time, and several of the things I now buy on a regular basis, were originally introduced to me in sample form. It is certainly in both the manufacturer's and the consumer's best interest if the new product is available at the time that it is being offered.

I thought maybe I just lived too far out in the boonies, and that the products were likely more easily found in the big city stores.  I did see several other people complaining that they couldn't find the products in their stores though, when I looked online at their Facebook page. One person, who I know lives in a city, went to more than one supermarket before he found one of these products though.

 I have now also found an offer there that might work for me yet. In the meantime, I picked up a box of regular Honey Nut Cheerios, and it has a PIN code in it that will allow me to get one of these free products yet.  Maybe in a couple of weeks, they will arrive at my stores and I'll finally get to taste something new.  Wish me luck.

 

Catching up on the Freebies

Did you miss me last week? Friday got away on me somehow, but I did get something in the mail. I'll just include it in this batch as I tell you what has arrived since the last time I reported in.

I received an envelope from Marc Angelo, with a coupon for a dollar off any of their products. I had just finished eating a lovely barbequed bacon wrapped turkey breast. It was so good, I'm likely to use this coupon on another one of those.  As there is no expiry date on the coupon, I'll just hang on until they go on sale again.

I also received a coupon for $3.49 off an Lindt Swiss Classic 100g chocolate bar.  That likely makes it free. I won that during a contest they had online. This is just in time as I had just one bite of the last one I won left when the coupon arrived, and it's totally gone now.  Yes, I like chocolate, but one bite is usually enough to satisfy my craving, so a chocolate bar this size can last me a few months.

The Nivea people sent me a couple of samples, along with some coupons too.  The samples are from their Aqua Effect line. They sent Mattifying Day Care, which moisturizes and controls shine, and a Purifying Cleansing Gel, which deeply cleans pores.  That appears to be a new product.  There is apparently also a Purifying Toner available, to use between these two, and one of the coupons offers $5 off if I purchase all three products.   Otherwise, the other coupon is just $1 off if I I buy only one product.  At the moment, I'm too well stocked on facial products to even consider using these coupons.

There was also a big envelope in my mail this week, and when I got home I was surprised to find a complimentary copy of Chatelaine in it, along with a bookmark.  It seems they are trying to coax me back.  I do hope some of the other magazines try this tactic.  Actually free magazines often work well with me, as you may have noticed in a previous post.

Freebie Friday - April 5

Someone on Facebook said to me, "Nothing is ever free."  I started this Freebie Friday report to show that some of us do indeed get free things.  Even I am surprised that I have had something to report each and every week since the beginning of the year, and now it's April already!  Okay so some of the stuff isn't worth much, but some of it is, and all of it is certainly worth having....especially when it's totally free!

This week I just got a couple of little treats. This seems to be a good time to point out that while some companies send the product in the mail, others send you a coupon for the free product, and you have to go pick it up yourself. I don't mind that. It saves them postage, so they can likely give away more. And I get to choose from among their product line to pick the one I think I'd like the most. 

This is a full pack of Dentyne.  I guess they have a new look they want to introduce to us. The Doritos were won on a game on their Facebook page.  The coupon is for a 65g - 91g bag, depending on the product I choose.

Freebie Friday - March 22

Did you know that you can get a coupon for $5 off Chapman's Ice Cream products once a year, just by asking for it?  I read that somewhere and decided to try it.  Sure enough, a coupon has arrived, and now I just have to decide what treat I want to spend it on.

The other thing I got this week was an envelope full of skin care products from Mario Badescu.  You may have never heard of this company before. I certainly haven't, but after doing their free skin care analysis, they list the products that would work best for your skin type, and then offer you a sample.  I did this on the 2nd of March, and the envelope arrive just 2 weeks later with not one, but 8 samples inside.  EIGHT!

The products came along with a catalogue, of course, so I can see that there are many more products available.  It also came with a list of my samples, and when and how to use them. That is really helpful when  you are suddenly faced with a lot of new things and not sure what order they should be used in.

The first, both morning and night, is the Orange Cleansing Soap.  It has a delightfully delicate orange scent, and though it doesn't foam on your face, it does leave you feeling soft and clean.  Next is an Aloe Lotion, which you apply with a cotton ball, to remove any residual dirt. I didn't find any, but it's good to know.  I wish this product had a bit of colour to it though as I found it hard to know how much I had on the cotton ball and probably used too much.  You follow this with the Glycolic Eye Cream and the Moisture Magnet (SPF 15) during the day or the Bee Pollen Night Cream at bedtime.

Other products that I found in the envelope were a Kiwi Face Scrub, to be used 2 or 3 times a week, and a Strawberry Tonic Mask which seems to be clay based, and is also to be used 2 or 3 times a week.  Finally, there is a product called Drying Cream, to use on trouble spots such as the tiny clusters of bumps that appear under the skin.  As I have rosacea I definitely have problems like that and really hope it helps.

While my skin does not normally like it when I change products, it has not complained at all this week. I especially like the Bee Pollen Night Cream and will likely be ordering some of that in the near future.  It makes my skin feel wonderful, even when I wake up in the morning.

One of Those Days!

Did you ever have one of those days when nothing went right?
I had one today.

First we thought we would make reservations to go on the Lost River Cruise, out of Morrisburg, as they are having Old Home Week there this week. Last year this was a very popular cruise and was sold out. Today we found out it had been cancelled "due to lack of interest."  Well, I doubt it was really lack of interest, but rather the poor way in which it was advertised. I had a hard time locating any information about it and I'm actually better at searching out such things than most people I know.  Anyway, we couldn't book the cruise.

Next we decided we would go to the IMAX today, and eat in Ottawa before the show.  I had two coupon deals. One was for a place we have been to many times, and the other was for a place we had never been to.  We thought we'd try that one.  We managed to get confused about just where it was, and ended up at the one we knew after all.  The portions have shrunk, and they no longer included the salad, but we got enough to eat, and enjoyed the meal. The waitress forgot about the coupon at first, but then remembered after she brought the bill. She fixed that and off we went.

There was a little discussion about which side of the river the IMAX was on, but I won that one, thank goodness.  My memory isn't the best these days, but I was sure I knew where that was.

So, we got there in plenty of time, drove around and around until we finally found a place to park and then proceeded to stand in line for our tickets.  The show was sold out.  We had driven all this way and paid for parking for a show we could not even see. 

We decided to head for Michaels on Bank Street, as I have a gift card to spend, and we had run out of ideas for the day.  As everyone knows, Ottawa has two seasons:  Winter and Construction.  It was definitely construction season as we saw lots of scaffolding where buildings were being renovated or repointed; great holes in the ground at various places, where new buildings would soon be built; and cranes lifting things high over other construction sights, and sometimes over the roadway, which is a little scary.  We also came across at least five areas where road construction was underway.  One of those was Bank Street.  That required a rather long detour.

I found some of the items I wanted at Michaels, but there were still three I couldn't find. Perhaps I'll have better luck at Deserres, where I usually shop, next time I get a chance to look. 

We stopped to pick something up at a store closer to home.  I thought I was lucky to find a cashier with only the person she was dealing with and one other person in line.  But then another cashier beckoned me over to her cash.  There was a man there, ready to pay by debit card, and I would be next.  She actually had the "Cash Closed" sign up, but since I only had a couple of items in my hand, she was being nice to me.  But as luck would have it, as least for today, the man's debit card wasn't working for him.  He had to try several times before he was able to pay for his purchases. I would definitely have been better off to have stayed where I was. 

Yep, it was just one of those days!