Free Tote Bag from Real Simple

Tomorrow, May 13, is the last day to order the free Disney Vacation DVD and get a free Real Simple Tote Bag. Visit DisneyVacations.com/Tote and order a free vacation planning DVD. Mail a printout of the final "Thank you" page with your name and address to:

Real Simple/Alamo "Tote Bag" Offer

c/o USSC

625 Panorama Trail (Bldg. 2 Suite 100)

Rochester,  NY 14625-2437

Click here for more information.

Free CFL Bulbs

Energy Efficient Now is offering 2 free CFL light bulbs. All you have to do is go here and request them. This is apparently a "no strings attached" offer -- but when you are done requesting the bulbs an offer for a free water pitcher pops up. This is a one of those sneaky "participation required" offers, so be careful!

Yet More Free Tote Bags...

Red Gold Tomatoes, Nursery Water, and Earthbound Farms are all offering free reusable grocery bags!

To receive a FREE Red Gold Tote Bag click here and register for the Red Gold online e-newsletter, Tomato Country. After registering, enter the 12 digit UPC barcode on the back of the label and the 14 digit product code found on the top or bottom of a can of Red Gold tomatoes. OFFER VALID: April 19, 2010 to May 7, 2010 or while supplies last.

To receive a FREE Nursery Water Tote Bag, click here, scroll down to the green button and request your bag. This offer resets every day at 12 noon EST (11 am Central, 10 am Mountain, 9 am Pacific), so if you miss out just come back the next day.

To receive a FREE Earthbound Farms Tote Bag, click here, then click on the "Next Chance to Win a Shopping Bag" icon. This will take you to a quiz, answer the questions and win a free bag. BUT, only click on the shopping bag icon when it says "Right Now," otherwise all you will win is a coupon.

Free Reusable Tote from Target

Tomorrow, April 18, the first day of "Earth Week," Target is giving away free reusable shopping totes. It is one to a customer, and they will probably go fast, so get there early!

Free Makeup Tools

For their "Look Gorgeous, Love Green Campaign," EcoTools is collecting used cosmetic brushes and bath + body care products and swapping them for an EcoTools alternative.

For each item turned in, participants will receive a coupon for a free EcoTools alternative! [Up to $7.99 value, limit 2 coupons per person]. To continue to show respect to the earth, items collected will be recycled. Click here for more information.

Free Seafood

You can get a coupon for a free frozen seafood entree from Sea Cuisine. The offer officially begins at 3 p.m. Eastern and is good only for today, January 10. The entrees are tilapia, cod, salmon and shrimp with various seasonings.

While you are there, enter their Dinner's on Us sweepstakes to win free seafood coupons and a grocery store gift card.

Yearly wrap up

I've tried to keep track of what I've earned and saved through rebates, frugality, etc. After all, you can't improve things if you don't measure them!

I've been very good about keeping track of earnings but much less diligent about keeping track of savings through sales prices and coupons. Anyhow, here are the totals for 2009:

Earnings (from rebates, surveys, focus groups, sales on Amazon and Craig's List): $2,004.54

Savings (sale prices and coupons): $143.58

Earnings (non-cash GCs, free products): $164.68

DHs net Amazon sales: $3,079.53 (His Amazon store is here.)

Getting paid to eat!

This is kinda funny -- I had a coupon for a free DiGiorno flatbread melt and thought I should redeem it before it expired on 7/18/09. On the freezer case there was a blinkie -- containing refund forms for the full purchase price of -- you guessed it -- DiGiorno flatbread melts. To make things more interesting, the deal expired today!

So I bought the flatbread melt using my coupon and dashed home and sent for the rebate. Later on I ate it -- and was very disappointed in both the quality and quantity. This was surprising, since their pizzas are very good. Can't complain too much, after all, they were paying me to take it!

Free e-books

OK, books are not one of the necessities of life, like food and and shelter -- but they are nice to have. Harlequin Books is celebrating its 60th anniversary and Barnes and Noble is offering a FREE download of 16 of Harlequin's novels. Click here to download them.

I'm not a huge romance novel fan but I downloaded a romantic suspense novel, Stranded, and I love it.

FREE Coffee!

A freebie for all caffeine addicts:

Seattle's Best coffee is offering a full purchase price refund on a 12-ounce bag of coffee. Click Seattle's Best refund to go to their website and download the form.