Lucky Duck Saves A Buck

After much debate, I have decided to start a blog on my thrifty finds, deals and helpful hints. Being thrifty comes from a great line of frugality in my family. My grandpa is a wheel and dealer type of man, as was my dad and now it has come about that I, do not enjoy paying full price for anything. My mantra is simple; I will not pay retail price for anything. Learning to put that mantra into practice has not been easy, but it has also become a necessity. I have been in college for the last 9 years, slowly working my way to a BSN. Being poor, erm, on an extended college student budget has taught me savvy ways to make even the tightest of budgets stretch. I now have an infant son, so that budget must stretch farther. I love the thrill of a good hunt and find great satisfaction in scoring a great deal.

Recently a friend said to me, "So I have to thank you for my getting three albums from shutterfly for ridiculously cheap. As I was about to pay for them I thought "Didn't Natalie have success using multiple coupons with shutterfly and ended up getting a steal?" So after 10 minutes of googling, I got $65 off! So thank you for posting about coupons that I would never think to check for". Something as simple as that really made me happy. Today's lesson is all about patience when scheming on that next great deal. Signing up for email offers is a great way to get things for far less. In the example below I will show how combining email offers with advertised sales helps to save a lot of bucks! Saving money is a great thing, so here's to this blog, may this lucky duck help save you a buck!

Your first lucky duck saves a buck deal(with instructions)
Shutterfly 7x9 PhotoBook and 10 Christmas Cards for $15.65

• I uploaded pictures to Shutterfly which automatically it made a book for me. I went to edit the book, putting 3-4 pictures on a page to get it from 46 to 32 pages.
• In my email, I had a coupon for 20 free pages
• Additionally in my email, I had a coupon for 10 free Christmas Cards
• Shutterfly had a sale of 15% off photobooks advertised on their website plus an additional 14% off from an email offer.
• The discounts added up to $43.03, bringing my total purchase to $15.65
• I paid for it with my amazon.com credit card(which I pay off in full each month). For each dollar I spend, I get 1 point. 100 points=1 off at amazon.com. Amazon.com deals to come in another post!
• I also use ebates.com to save an additional 8 percent on my purchase.  Please visit 

http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=FdR0cKftHYHD3ixhQsjLDg%3D%3D 
to get started with ebates. It pays you money in the form of a rebate check for things you are going to buy anyways! It's so simple!

Total value of today's deal: $56.68. I paid $15.65, approximately 72% off retail. :) More freebies, tips, deals, etc as I find them. Let me know if you are looking for a particular deal, and I will do my best to find you a way to save a lucky buck!