Finally, all the time I spent collecting and entering coke rewards codes. Besides over 15000 in points collected and redeemed and entering countless free sweepstakes that take even more time, I have finally won something worth the gleam of others. I appreciate all the codes that my family and friends saved for me, but they also always mocked me when they saw me dumpster diving or rummaging through recycling bins for codes. Last July, I spent a lof of days entering sweepstakes on their site and had a very prosperous 2 days. First on Friday I won 4 free tickets to any Six Flags amusement park. Those were instant win and I took my family a month later. Then on Saturday morning, I was notified that I won the daily $1000 Best Buy Giftcard Sweepstakes. After filling out an affidavit confirming that I did not enter the contest by means of anything illegal activities, everyone thing was mailed off. Now I hold in my hand a Best Buy giftcard that I verified had a $1000 balance. I'll have to pay taxes on this sweepstakes winning.

People have always asked me when I was going to get a new TV. I have been using an 26 in CRT TV that is over 10 years old. The picture quality is fine, but the picture has expanded. I think for the last 2 years, it has expanded 2 inches on the top, bottom, left, and right, which is great because everything is bigger, without lost in picture quality. The only thing is that when you watch sports, news, or movies with subtitles, there is something lost because the edges are pushed off the viewable screen area. I never see sports and news tickers and never see the logo that stations put in the lower right hand corner. If I step away from the TV during a sporting event, I don't know the score until the announcer tells me. This tends to bug a lot of people that watch TV at my place, but I got used to it. The cost to repair the TV wouldn't be worth it. In the past year, I have had 3 TV's of comparable size given to me to replace my old TV, but I when I place them side by side, the picture quality of the old TV always beats out the free replacement given to me. Those TV always end up on craigslist free section so they will be gone quicker. Then the person who gave me the TV comes for a visits and sees I am still using my old TV and always comment that they just gave me a replacement, and I return well there was a reason you replaced your TV and that was the reason why it didnt' replace mine. TV studios don't put very much information on the edges of the viewing screen so I am not sacrificing a couple of inches for quality.

So guess what I am going to get with my gift card. Time to do some reseach and I am considering of being part of the Black Friday crowd.

1400 Points. I'm done. I'm redeeming my points for the amateur telescope. I set a goal when I started this program and I finally reached it. I'm not going to chance that they are going to extend the program past Dec 2008, so I'm going to stop accumulating. March and Febuary were big months which included a lot of dumpster diving and asking people are recycling centers for their codes. Though the telescope can be bought for $40 online, I'm going to cherish this thing like gold. 1400 points in one year but only about 50 of those were bought by me. Here's how my monthly totals came to be:
Apr 2007 30
May 2007 119
Jun 2007 158
Jul 2007 193
Aug 2007 199
Sep 2007 241
Oct 2007 260
Nov 2007 332
Dec 2007 374
Jan 2008 417
Feb 2008 695
Mar 2008 1400 (705 this month!!)

In a way scavenging lifestyle will not be missed as I migrate over to PepsiStuff program. I don't have a goal yet, but this program tends to be more popular than the coke program. I still have some unused coke cap codes left if anyone would like to trade.

Also a treat to SA bloggers who collect MCR points, provide me an email and I'll send you a 3 point cap code.

I bought the last 2 books for Forever stamps from the office administrator, since I found out the Post Office is rising rates on May 12. By buying today, I save 40 cents in 89 days. That is about a 10% annual return. Sweet.

I might have to take a trip to the Post Office when they print up more Forever stamps.

Since the beginning of 2007, I have not paid a direct penny to Hollywood. I know there's probably some money going there indirectly through advertising and such, and paying for cable. I have not paid for a movie ticket, movie rental, or DVD purchased since late 2006.

I can't remember how it all started, but I was getting fed up Hollywood and it's lack of creactivity. I'm guessing a lot of it has to do with the numerous remakes and movie adaptations of old tv shows over the last few years. I think it started with Disney's 'National Treasure.' After watching it, I realized that it was just an adult version of 'Goonies.' So Disney is recycling their plotlines.

If you watch an action/adventure movie, the movie is all graphics and horrible writing. If the movie is a comedy, all the good jokes were seen in the previews

I was fed up to the point where I was not giving Hollywood any more of my money. I stopped going to movies but others wanted to go and didn't want to go alone, so I said you can pay for me. So since then I have been treated 3 movies. I'm a cheap movie date anyways because I never grew up being accustomed to snacking while watching a movie.

I watch a alot of DVD's that I borrow from friends. With the speed that studios are putting out DVDs, you really only have to wait a few months to see a movie on DVD.

Well, today is the Lunar New Year. This time of year was already great when I was young because I got a lot of gifts of money from relatives. To me this was better than x-mas because it was always about currency--no gift cards, no clothes. Though I really don't understand the entire Lunar New Year, I try to pass down the gifts I have received in years before.

As I have aged, I had to start returning the favor and give to my young nieces, nephews, and cousins. I usually draw the cutoff if they have graduated from college or are married or have kids of their own.

We usually try to get crisp new bills from the bank. My mother has always been successful with this but my bank tends to hate me and usually doesn't carry new bills. Last year, I decided that I would be meager and save a couple of bucks and recycle the red envelopes, so I saved all I got last year. I'm am sure the idea of giving used money holder is a sign of bad luck. I hope the recipients enjoy the cash though.

In reading about

Koppur's 4 cents entry, I remembered an how I made money from returning a xmas gift I had bought.

I needed a calendar as a gift and purchased one for $14.00 at B&N. A week later, there were some extra calendars around the office, so I decided to take one of those and return the calendar that I had purchased. I returned it at a different store but got back $14.08. I told the cashier that the original receipt states $14.00, but her registered calculated that I was to be refunded $14.08. I just took it and pondered on the drive home. A few days later I realized that why I go more on the return. I had made the purchase in OC County which has a lower sales tax than LA County which was where I returned it. All I know know that B&N now has a loss on return due to sales tax for $0.08 while I pocketed the change.

So yesterday I found myself rummaging through the company recycling bin looking for caps from coke products for mycokereward points. The company just recently switch vendors for the vending machines who use bottles rather than cans. I just find the caps, write the codes down and return the bottle. I have to be careful because I don't want someone thinking I am stealing from the company recycling bin that is cashed in for employee functions. I could send out a mass email asking people for their coke caps, but I know once I do that, that one person in the office that has to be better at something than everyone else will have to start collecting and that person is just a lot better at begging than me.

A few weeks ago I started to peek into trash cans in my neighborhood looking for bottles or box tab from a case of coke products. I should wear my yardwork clothes when I do this so I look like any of the others that rummage for recyclables on trash day. I am sure there is something illegal about this because they are taking away from the city recycling program. I know some jurisdictions make dumpster diving illegal because it can lead to identity them. I offen notice businesses with stacks of cases of soda that they stock up for their customers. I know they don't do anything with those tabs, but I have yet to check their bins in the back. I have learned a lot from my father, but he never did teach me the efficient and safe methods of trash digging from his homeless days. I may have to start saving up for fines and/or bail.

I don't know why I am so obsessed with collecting these mycokereward points. I hardly drink soda at all. I don't see anything too interesting to redeem them for but they are always changing the redemption products. I think part of it was how I was amazed of stories people told me of all the fun stuff they got with their Marboro collection program. Also because none of my friends or family do it so I get all their stuff, but being in health conscience CA, it's all about ice-tea and bottled water. Anyone want to send me their codes?

Ideas about living a life of frugality are abundant and out there in cyberspace. I was browsing through CL to find someone willing to trade some unwanted xmas gift cards. I came upon the frugal living forum and found most of the ideas to be extreme but also very entertaining in uniqueness.

There were some suggestions about hanging clothes out to dry rather using a dryer. There was a discussion on how to collect rain water, but more importantly how to keep rain water clean. There seem to be a a lot of bragging about how short of shower one person can take to save on water. This is where things got a little extreme. One poster said he take his towels and soap to public restrooms in fast food restaurants and wash down with a wet cloth.

One wife talked how she would use the air from deflating an exercise ball to blow dry her hair. Someone asked what happens when the ball is flat? She remarked that she has her husband blow up the exercise ball up manually. I don't know if that meant with a pump or his mouth.

There was a topic on tearing up old tshirts as reuseable tampons. Ewwww...then it moved onto reuseable toilet wipes--I stopped reading.

So yesterday, my coworker and I took a short break to head to Taco Bell for our free taco as promised in their World Series promotion. Taco Bell promoted that they would give every in America a free taco in their was a stole base in the World Series, as there was in game 2 by Jacoby Ellsbury. Yesterday was the free taco day from 2pm-5pm. Too late for lunch and too early for dinner but makes sense they didn't want to go broke. We drove to the Taco Bell near the office at 4pm because we knew it wouldn't be crowded because they were doing some remodeling so it looks like a building in construction. Well, this week the dining room was being worked on so we had to go through the drive-thru. Fine, no problem. We also ordered some additional food items. When we get to the window, we were told 1 free taco per car. That sucks. I argued that if their dining room was opened, we could have walked in and each could have received a free taco. No budging on their part, so we just took our food and left.

Back at work, I decided to write a strongly worded complaint email to Taco Bell. I haven't done that since Delta Airlines robbed me of $10 because I couldn't book my Denver flight on their website because my name was too close to an abbreviation for a title. I had to book my flights on Expedia and pay the processing fee. They said sorry and that was it. I wonder what I will hear from Taco Bell.

When I called AT&T to cancel my land line, they offered me $6 credit each month for a year if I would keep my service. I countered with "I'm willing to pay $1 a month for phone service." CSR declined my counter-offer and my service was cancelled. So if you want $6 off each month for a year, call AT&T and treaten to cancel your phone service.

I'm glad I cancelled since they are discontinuing the Time of Day service. I'm gonna miss that lady. Who to call now when I need someone to tell me the time every 10 seconds?

My friends think I am weird and cheap because I am planning to block all text messages from my cell account. Just because everyone is doing it, I should be on board too. I don't get enough text messages in a month to justify the unlimited plan but I do get enough at 15 cents per message to see a difference in my bill. Yeah, I am cheap about this but I don't understand why someone can't just call me for free and ask me "what's the plan tonight?"

A week ago, I lied to everyone and told them that I blocked text messages with my cell phone company and the number of messages have dropped drastically, and I don't acknowledge the ones I get.

I really think the text messaging craze is as backwards as women lying about their ages. Why are people spending more money to by fancy phones with mini-keyboards and paying extra in monthly fees to talk less and type more.