Girl Meets Coupons - Love at First Deal

I've been doing a small amount of research on mystery shopping in the past week. At first, it seemed a bit overwhelming to sort through what was real and what was not. I have found a blog called The Mystery Shopper's Manual that has some very informative information regarding what it takes to be a mystery shopper. You'll also find links to 200 or so legitimate companies that accept mystery shoppers.

Have you done any mystery shopping? My interest in it is as a small supplement to my income. I shop a lot, love it, and I enjoy the type of paperwork that is involved in doing a shop. I'd love to hear some thoughts an opinions from my readers. What is your experience?

Sign up for CVS photo center and get 50 free prints. You get 20 for registering for an account and you get another 30 when you add your Extra Care card to your account. The best part is you can have these free prints sent to your local CVS store so you don't even have to pay shipping!

Just register your account, add your Extra Care card, upload your photos, and then select to have to picked up in store to get free shipping! Registration also includes free photo storage and sharing!

Here's a few great deals I've found today. If you have some others, please be sure to post them in the comments section for all of us.

Swaggrabber shows us where to get $10 in Downy coupons by email or mail - There's quite a few nice coupons in this group.

At Deal Seeking Mom, you can find a link to print a coupon for $1/1 GE CFL lightbulb - There's a special at CVS on these!

You can find CVS Bonus Offers at Common Sense with Money.

Money Saving Mom has found a free downloadable Excel savings tracker - This is awesome! I've already started using it and since it's the beginning of the year, you'll have a great start.

Find out how to get ALL 2X Ultra for $4.04 after coupons at Totally Target.

At the beginning of December, I joined Opinion Outpost which is a survey panel. Since I have joined, I have redeemed $37.40 in Amazon Gift Cards. This has been my favorite survey panel where I am a member.

Every 10 points earned is worth $1. You can cash out to get Amazon gift cards or choose to receive a check in the mail. We like to do the gift cards since there are a few things on Amazon that we are saving for. Plus, you get instant gratification. It takes only a few seconds to get your gift card code.

Check it out! Personally, I think it's a great program. The surveys are realistic and while one doesn't always qualify, there are still plenty to make it worth your while.

After some research, we found that eBay now allows sellers to list 5 auctions every 30 days for free. After that, regular listing fees apply. The final value fees are 8.75% for the first $25.00 and then 3.5% after that. We looked into some other auction sites and have found eBid where there is no listing fee and the final value fee is 3%. Has anyone had any experience with this site? There are a lot of auctions listed, but I wonder what the traffic is like.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

My husband and I have been brainstorming not only on ways to save money, but ways to increase our income. Swagbucks, MyPoints, surveys, etc. are different things we are doing now. While it's not much, it does add up. Some people don't realize how those little things add up to something larger over time and this is what I am "banking" on.

Early this morning (or was it late last night?) my husband came to me and started talking about eBaying our old video games that we don't play anymore. They are all in mint condition so we decided to research it today. Some of the games we have are selling for $50-$100 each and we have quite a few! I'm really excited about seeing what we can bring in with the items we're not using anymore!

Do you have something that you're not using anymore? Something that could bring in a little bit of extra cash on eBay or Craigslist?