Check out mod*mom's fabulous giveaways!

Mod*mom always has amazing giveaways, and her current giveaways include a $100 Whole Foods gift card, Whole World books, Green Cleaning Gift Baskets, and a Vibe Stroller. The best part is that entering her giveaways is always easy. So head over there right now!

Free e-book: Money for All Ages

Some of my favorite personal finance bloggers have teamed up to produce an e-book called Money for All Ages. You can download the book here.

Win a Nintendo DS Lite

Because Marc grew up playing Nintendo games, we are a Nintendo kind of family. We haven't gotten a Wii (who has time to play video games?!) but we were at Target on the day the GameCube was released back in 2001. We also have every Gameboy ever made, as well as a DS. The one hand-held console that we don't have is the DS Lite.

I'm hoping to win one from GoodyBlog, but I'm so loyal to my readers (that's YOU!) that I'm telling you about the giveaway so that you have a chance to win too. Enter here by Feb. 29.

Get family fitness tips and a chance to win a $50 Hanes Kids gift certificate

Cindy at one of my regular reads, Go Workout Mom, is having a fun giveaway for a $50 gift certificate to Hanes Kids. Check it out, along with some family fitness tips from celebrity trainer Kathy Kaehler. (Irrelevant side note: the woman who used to do my nails - back when I had the time for such pampering - also did Kathy Kaehler's nails and said she was just the sweetest woman.)

Target printable coupon: $5 off $25 toy purchase, through 10/1/08

I've seen this printable coupon link in a few places now, including Freebies 4 Mom, who found it at another of my favorite blogs, Baby Cheapskate.

The coupon is for $5 off any toy purchase of $25 or more at Target. You can find it here.

Since the coupon is valid until October 1, I'm going to post a permanent link over in the left sidebar so you can find it easily whenever you know you are or might be making a $25+ toy purchase at Target.

Making hundreds of thousands online: do you believe these numbers?

I don't doubt that some people have made astronomical amounts of money from online ventures, and I'm not talking about Bazos (Amazon's founder) or Case (AOL) or any of the other major companies. I'm talking about individuals like Darren Rowse (ProBlogger), Jeremy Schoemaker (Shoemoney), and John Chow (JohnChow.com). Rowse says he makes six figures per year. Schoemaker is famous in the blogging-for-money world for his $132,994.97 Google Adsense check. And Chow blogs about his monthly earnings, currently over the $30,000 (per month!) mark.

Another blog that I subscribe to is ZacJohnson.com, which discusses affiliate marketing. He was actually the inspiration for this post with his recent post showing him holding a $306,373.24 check from Yahoo!. The post title is "How I Made $860,538.38 PROFIT in 4 Months!" and offers some tips.

I also recently read a Shoemoney post about unnamed individuals making millions each month from affiliate marketing. I was flabbergasted and skeptical, but Marc (usually the skeptical one) said that he'd heard the same and believed it was possible, at least for a few.

I have to say, I don't think I'm one of those few. Mostly because I hate selling stuff. If I could find a product I really believed in, then I'd be happy to market the heck out of it. But that's yet to happen, which is why I simply point out some select bargains to you - things that I think will give you value for your money.

That said, I'd like to run my first poll (if you're reading this via RSS, please click through to the post and share your opinion). The question is simple:

Do you think it's possible for you (or anyone else) to make millions online?
	Yes, including me
	Yes, but not me
	No, these claims are ludicrous
	I hate polls
pollcode.com free polls

Great deal on a sterling silver flower necklace at Amazon today only

I keep an eye on Amazon's jewelry deals because they sometimes have huge markdowns that allow me to buy gifts at great prices. I usually don't buy these with a specific person in mind, but they are great to have on hand in my gift box. I just bought one of the necklaces you see below for just $10.99 (regularly $29.99, list price $45):

The necklace is eligible for free shipping, so I also bought something that I've had my eye on for a while, a Pyrex microwave steamer.

Get online access to select HarperCollins books in their entirety

I'm not quite sure how they think this is going to generate more revenue for them, but publisher HarperCollins has made available on their web site complete books, including one that I plan to check out, chef Robert Irvine's Mission: Cook!

Go to this page and you should see a list of available books on the left side underneath the large banner.

Hat tip: Slashfood.

Get Suze Orman's Women & Money for free

You can download the book as a pdf from The Oprah Winfrey Show web site 8:00 p.m. EST tomorrow.

mod*mom's Valentine's Giveaway has 75 prizes!

From bedding to books to cleaning supplies, mod*mom is giving away 75 fabulous prizes. Click here to enter them all!

1GB Sandisk Sansa for only $10

If you're in the market for an inexpensive mp3 player, check out Woot's deal today.

Get triple Extra Care Bucks at CVS through March 15

Use this printable coupon (you only need to have it scanned once).

Hat tip: Baby Cheapskate.

Win an iPod Nano

Being interested in money and blogging, I find blogs that were created specifically to make money to be an interesting breed. In fact, when I created CFO Reviews a few months ago, I thought I might eventually try to do something in that vein.

Money Blogger is a relative newcomer to the blogging-for-money game, having started in October. The author is holding a contest to spread the word about his blog, and all you have to do to enter is write a post about Money Blogger and the contest. The deadline is tomorrow. Money Blogger isn't making much money yet, but the author is sharing stats and ideas along the way, which makes for some interesting reading. I look forward to seeing if he can achieve his goal of making "real money" by the blog's one-year anniversary.

Note: If you're interested in blogs made to make money, some of the heavy hitters to check out are JohnChow.com, ProBlogger, and ShoeMoney.

Win an Oreck XL Ultra

5 Minutes for Mom has had some great contests lately, and now they're giving away an Oreck XL Ultra vacuum. Even if you do most of your vacuuming with a Roomba, like me, you know you still need a regular vacuum (just less often). So head over to 5 Minutes for Mom and enter the contest by blogging about it and leaving a comment (non-bloggers can enter too).

Win $10,000 from TurboTax

TurboTax is holding a "Tax Laugh" contest. They're looking for some tax comedy videos - they can be sketch, alternative or musical comedy, as long as they're about taxes and are less than three minutes long. The person who submits the funniest video will get $10,000. The deadline is March 24, 2008. Head over to TaxLaugh.com for more info and the actual contest rules. You can also submit videos at YouTube.

ShipGooder: A shipping rate calculator

I could have used this back in the day when I was selling lots of stuff on eBay. ShipGooder lets you input the to and from zip codes and the weight of the parcel and tells you how much UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL and other carriers will charge.

I remember that when I was selling on eBay, I just assumed USPS (the U.S. Postal Service) was always cheapest. I'm sure I overcharged and overpaid on shipping in some cases. Now I'll always be able to check to see what service will be cheapest.

Via The Consumerist.

$5 Target gift card for buying Pampers boxes this week

I got an email from Pampers about getting a $5 Target gift card this week when you buy two boxes of Pampers during Target's Baby Sale between February 3rd and 9th. Unfortunately, the email doesn't say what size boxes are eligible or what the sale price(s) are. To make sure you're getting a good deal, just head over to Baby Cheapskate's price-to-beat list. And don't forget to use coupons if you have any!

Web Hosting Choice helps you select a web host

Note: This is a sponsored post.


If I hadn't been set on using free blogger hosting with my custom domain name over on Chief Family Officer, I could have used a service like Web Hosting Choice. Their tag line is, "Your guide to web hosting," and that pretty much sums up what they do. You enter in some parameters and search for a compatible host. They also have a handy FAQ for those like me who don't know much about web hosting choices. If you're interested in hosting a site, this would certainly be one place to start searching - especially because it's free.

Review: Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates

As you may already know, I've pledged to buy only certified fair-trade chocolate because the conventional chocolate industry utilizes child slavery. Unlike Baby Toolkit's Adrienne and her husband, I can't give up chocolate completely. But the biggest problem I've run into is that it's hard to find fair-trade chocolate that's not a simple bar. For instance, I've already mentioned how happy I was to discover Lake Champlain Organic Fair Trade Unsweetened Cocoa.

I make a lot of chocolate chip cookies, and I've gotten tired of chopping up chocolate bars to make the cookies. So I started hunting online for fair-trade chocolate chips. The only ones that I could find were at Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates. I placed an order on Tuesday, and it arrived yesterday. I bought several pounds of bulk milk chocolate chips, as well as a small package of dark chocolate chips and a small package of peanut butter cups. I've tasted the milk chocolate chips and the peanut butter cups and both are delicious.

In order to minimize shipping costs, I followed their recommendation to call them and discuss the order with Joanne. She was helpful and assured me that my purchase would fit in a USPS priority mail box for $13. That seems like a steep amount of "handling" (it costs $8.95 to ship a flat rate priority mail box), but the chocolate came well-padded with bubble wrap and kraft paper.

If I can find another supplier of fair trade chocolate chips, I would probably buy some just to taste them the next time that I need chocolate chips. But if there isn't another supplier, I'll be happy to buy from Sweet Earth again.

SavingsAccounts.com.au: A good resource for basic info on savings accounts

Note: This is a sponsored post.

Although this is a sponsored post, I genuinely like the Savings Accounts site. It seems to have very good basic advice about savings accounts. And I'm talking very basic advice: the home page explains what a savings account is and why you should have one (or two or three). There are pages that explain what interest rates are, what a high interest account is, and the various pages have tips for choosing a savings account. All of this basic info is useful for anyone just beginning to learn about personal finance, no matter where they live.

There were a couple of things that bothered me about SavingsAccounts.com.au: (1) the implied promotion of savings accounts as the only legitimate means of savings because it's nearly risk-free; and (2) the disclaimer at the bottom states that the site is not associated with any financial institution and yet there is an apply online page that features one institution - without further explanation, the site's integrity seems compromised.

However, overall, I would recommend checking out the site if you're interested in some basic information about savings accounts.