Insane Random Ramblings

I think I’m really in denial about how many gifts I actually need this year. I generally just send my mom and my brother money and call it a day. This year both of my nieces have children that I have to buy for. I also need to get both of the nieces gifts as well. I really need a payday advance loan to be able to afford all of this stuff.

I’m getting the babies savings bonds and that’s that. They are too young to understand what’s going on anyway. All they’ll see is shiny paper and noise makers. I’m buying one of my nieces a phone but I don’t know what I’m buying her sister yet. I don’t want to give them money even though I know that’s what they both want. And you really can’t go wrong with giving teens money.

I have exactly one month to get this all together.

I had some points from a program that I participate in (MCR) that I turned in for a mini grill and cooler. 2 days later I saw gift cards to some awesome places on there. They had a bunch of stores that I normally shop at but they also had Paypal. That’s the best gift ever because it’s cash and you can use cash anywhere.

The cash would have been great because there are some things in my apartment that seriously need to be updated. Some of them are my responsibility and some are my management companies responsibility. I need to buy new kitchen blinds and blinds for my bedroom. I also need a new ceiling fan because the one I have now is on it’s last leg. My management company has to steam-clean my carpet and fix the ceiling in my bedroom. After all of that is done, I’ll feel like my apartment is home again.

The next time though, I’m holding out for the cash.

It’s only a $10 card though. And it’s from a store that I normally don’t shop at. It doesn’t make sense to try and sell it on eBay because I can only get about $7-8 for it. After eBay fees I would only clear about $5. That’s hardly worth the time I would spend posting the item and dealing with the auction aftermath.

I’m sure I can find something to buy from the store with the $10. I do know that I will have fun shopping with it. Nothing beats free.

I belong to several rewards programs and I’m at the point where I can cash out from a couple of them. I’ve been trying to decide what to get and I’m going for gift cards. I wanted the cash but the redemption value is so low that I would be better off with the gift cards.

I also had to take into consideration the fact that I can get buy.com gift cards and try to stack them. I need a new computer and I’ve been eyeing up a Sony VAIO that I saw. With gift cards, I can knock the part that I have to come up with down by almost half.

I just need to actually pull the trigger on the redemptions now before all of the good gift cards sell out.

I have several gift cards that I’m selling on eBay to get rid of. They’re for stores that I don’t shop at so I’m converting the cards to cash and adding the money to my savings account. I guess I could buy a stone sink with the money but since I live in a apartment I figure why bother. I’m not going to put the sink in and then not take it with me. That would just be more hassle than it’s worth.

I should have listed the cards last week so people could buy them for Easter presents. I didn’t even think of that until today. The upside is that people may want them now in order to get ready for summer. Either way I hope to have some extra cash by the middle of May.

No I don’t plan on providing a day-by-day account of the gift cards on sale. But since today is the first day of their blowout deal I figured I would post about it.

Today’s deal is a $10 Barnes & Noble gift card for 99 swagbucks instead of the normal 125. That’s a savings of 26 swagbucks to spend on something else. I’m not much of a book person but that’s a pretty good deal.

I plan on saving my points for a Southwest or Amazon giftcard. I guess I’ll be stalking the site for the next few weeks.

I love Swagbucks. They’re a search engine that makes searching the internet fun. They give away what they call “Swagbucks” on random searches. Then you save the bucks and turn them in for neat prizes. Starting Black Friday and lasting until January 1st, they’re going to blow out a different gift card every day.

You can even get the same gift card on different days for a different blow out price. So you may get Amazon one day for 25% off then the next week it may be 40% off of the regular price. Now when I say price, I mean swagbucks price because you don’t pay for them.

I really want the SouthWest gift card to go half off so I can get a discount on my next trip. But I surely won’t turn down a discounted Amazon gift card, I can get  a WII fit or a collectible gold coin. They’re both things that I want and have been saving for but to get them with a free gift card is even better.

I can’t wait to see what gift cards will be available.

I have a lot of gift cards. I got some for the holidays. I got some from my mom because she got them as gifts. I also have a few from my credit card rewards. I try to get cards that I think I would want to spend but I can’t always control what type of place’s I get cards for.

I have 1 for a restaurant that I don’t even eat at. Today I finally spent the last of my Macy’s gc. I started to get women’s lingerie but I quickly changed my mind. I would like to see that type of stuff in person. Instead I opted to get some lipgloss and a sweater. There was a sale on the sweater so I got it for $10. I didn’t have to take any cash out of my pocket because the card totally covered it.

I love shopping and not using “real” money. I just wish I could do it more often.

My computer desk is a mess. There is so much junk on that thing. I went to clean it mostly to get the dust off. So I start moving stuff around and I found stuff that I totally forgot that I had. I found a gift card, one of my gold chains, and $20 bucks.

The gift card is awesome because it’s for Target. I can go and buy a new pair of shoes. I looked at the heels of my everyday shoes and they are rubbing off because I’m so hard on them. I noticed that last week when I looked at the bottom of my shoes. I mean really, who looks at the bottoms of their own shoes? Well I did and I wasn’t happy with what I saw. This gift card will definitely come in handy.