ChaiGuy’s Neighborhood

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A Bucket A Day Saves $36

I'm a big believer in rain water harvesting. But admittedly, we are not quite there yet. So I kept thinking of ways to conserve water and save on the bill.

Before we shower, we take a bucket, turn on the water, and fill the bucket as we wait for hot water. We then use this water for washing dishes and filling the humidifier. This saves us about $3 a month!

Money 4 Everyone

Money_bag

Swagbucks - use it to search the internet, and you'll be rewarded (they have cash prizes in the form of $5 Paypal plus tons of gift cards)
YouData - it's so easy to get paid for glancing at ads and I love to get paid every Friday whether I had one ad to view or several
Mechanical Turk – the website, run by Amazon.com, pays a few cents to a few dollars for small tasks that fulfill a larger job.
My downloadable seminars – learn to thrive in this jobless economy and re-inflate your investment portfolio
Twitter – wouldn’t it be nice if you could follow all the freebies, high valued coupons and deep discounts in one place? Now you can!
ZECCO – trade stocks for free with a $25,000 balance or only $4.50 without that balance.
Inbox Dollars – make money reading emails, answering surveys and playing games. $5 sign-up bonus!

3 More Freebies

Your Tips Could Earn You $100!

Motherearthnews

Got any sustainable living tips?
How about a debt free story?
Or a do it yourself photo?

Mother Earth will send you $25 to $100 for each tip they publish, plus $25 for each photo published. Send your tip and photos to letters@MotherEarthNews.com

Pressing Economic Issues Have Solutions

In Debt We Trust

Straight Talk Cellular Service Review

Cell_phone

I recently switched from Net 10 to Straight Talk. Net 10 offered 10 cents per minute w/o a contract, while Straight Talk offers $1 a day service (1000 minutes, 1000 text messages, and 30MB Internet for $30) w/o a contract. Straight Talk also has an unlimited plan for $45.

Straight Talk uses Verizon towers so service coverage is excellent. The Motorola Razor phone I ordered has a built in browser - so getting my sports scores, stock quotes, and weather info is a snap.

There is one big caveat - do not try to port your old phone number. Straight Talk (owned by TracFone) has a problem setting up "web sessions" for numbers they port. So if you try to port your old number, expect several calls to corporate headquarters - 800-876-5753 - before you obtain web access (see here and here). Frustrating for sure, but eventually it does get resolved.

Cheapo Chicken Coop

Here's one way to keep your chickens dry. Pete Betchik of Madison on the Lake, Ohio built a chicken shelter using found materials. "The frame is made from wooden pallets, the roof also is pallet wood. The sides are old steel shelves. The inside is lined with old pizza boxes, the nest box was once used to ship fresh fish to market, and the front door was an industrial clothes dryer front."