Life Hacks

Isn't the term "Life Hacks" great?  It's a newbie turn of phrase and implies that you can somehow hack through the conventional to find a solution to make your life work better. 

Thinking about it, I realize that my whole LIFE is a life hack!  That's really my modus vivendi (way of life) - and has been ever since I left college, nigh these many years ago....

It's actually FUN to find ways to optimize one's life and lifestyle - and I look for new tips all the time.  Here are a few that haven't fit in anywhere else:

• I found out that if you sign up for a Starbucks card (min. $5) you get a free drink - then then points or something.  So I think I will and get a fancy drink to make it even!
• Black Angus has a club, too & if you sign up at blackangus.com you will get a free steak for your birthday. Did that, too.
• Joined the Arby's club at arbys.com for deals/coupons
• We are into the savings card given by Lawry's for their local Tam O'Shanter restaurant, and plan to use our discount for my husband's birthday.
• We also get free meals on birthdays and anniversaries at the Whale's Tail in Channel Islands Harbor.  Great pub food upstairs.
• We use the Entertainment Today book for restaurant deals.
• My husband has gotten a gift card at cvs pharmacy, which he used to buy me perfume for Xmas (but he tried to get a new prescription deal recently & no soap) Thinking about trying out the CVS bucks program, as I have read good things about it.
• I picked up a free ELLE magazine on my window shopping trip yesterday.
• I am knitting a scarf on some fun fur I picked up for practically nothing at a thrift shop, knitted on chubby pencils with tape on the points.  Works.  Cute scarf.  Goes with my new $3 jacket.
• Thinking about selling old cell phones back online (or you can donate them at Whole Foods Market for local use in an emergency).
• Signed up for JoAnne's mailing list to hear of sales, get coupons.
• Sign up for everything actually, as I have gotten great stuff/info via "junk mail"
• Made enuf from mturk.com (Amazon's mechanical turk cyberpiece work) to buy my hubby a book for his birthday. The easiest thing to do there for me is to re-write, as I can do that really fast, and the pay is a bit better.
• Got enuf points on Mypoints.com (mainly transferred from bzzagent.com) to get a gift card of my hubby's choice for his birthday. (Working on the sample packages of nuts I got from Back to Nature through the bzzagent promo program.  Yummy. (But I fear pricey, tho).
• Still get little payments from the articles I wrote last year at associatedcontent.com - so I have $ in my Paypal account. Check them out at associatedcontent.com/pamelamunro
• (Actually put that all together & it adds up to almost $75! I have spent some - so I think I have had $100 in Paypal.  Not bad for fiddling around on the net.)
• Thinking about how I can make new handles for the straw bag I got for $.50 at the rummage sale last weekend. 
• Wearing my summer boat shoes with the new ivory acrylic paint surface.
• Thinking of using some makeup for shoe polish on another pair of boat shoe loafers, as I can't find the right color of polish for them.
• Got some shoes a green inserts & have to look around for green makeup that color to polish that part of them with.
• Still working on Energy Vitality samples that I got at the health food store. (Can't take too many - too speedy, so I can space them out when needed.)
• Waiting for vitamin samples from NatureMade.com - gotta put in the codes for my vitamins to get more coupons.
• Wondering where my husband put the other CD spindle, so I can put it in the bathroom for toilet paper.
• Looking at monthly calendars posted at my desk print free from the net. (The pretty green yearly one is from http://z.about.com/familycrafts/1/0/w/i/Imgreen2008.gif - or so it says.)
• Finally getting wear out of the set of Aerosole sandals I got in a Ventura thrift shop 2 years ago. (I got grey/white/tan!)
• Thinking about taking out my Mexican peasant dresses for the summer, and my new thrift shop Hawaiian sorta moomoo dress (it's really not that roomy!) I take them out every summer when it starts to heat up.
• Also looking for my stock of summer shorts.  Have oodles of t-shirts.
• Wearing a new/old thrift shop pair of stretch denim capris I got the other day.  Very comfy & practical.  They don't seem to make them any more (or if they do they cost the moon) - so I comb the thrift shops for them.
• Wearing a necklace of a charm I got from an online promo - what was it FOR?  The advertisers would have a fit that I don't recall - put on that hair cord I got at the 99 Cent Store.
• Wearing 99 Cent Store reading glass (I have them all over the place, and just lost another pair - so I have back ups galore.) 
• Ditto sunglasses.  The Salvation Army had some for $.79 and I bought a couple of pairs.  My hubby wonders WHY but I buy duplicates of sunglass deals and then just wear them and wear them...
• Put my dab of witch hazel under my eyes for puffiness under my 99 Cent store eyecream, and then put petroleum jelly on my upper eyelids, per usual.

Oh, dear, as with my last list, I could go ON.  But I need a break!

But just to show you how creativity goes into so many aspects of my life - to make it better, more stylish and to create more VALUE and FUN.

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Once Upon a Life Hack

Frugality can engage your creativity, too!

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