Free Sample Review: Happy Water

So I am on a bunch of "advisor" websites that will reward your reviews with free samples and free product coupons. 

I'll do a different blog post on the panels I'm on, but this one was through "Social Nature". So they sent me an offer via email asking if I would be willing to try and review this product, and I clicked on the I Want It button. 

After saying yes, they sent me these items in the mail, including the free product coupon. 

Now, I don't like water. The only way I can drink it is if it's ice cold or has mixed powder/squirt flavouring in it. BUT, I like free, and my roommate drinks a lot of water, so I figured it would be used one way or another. 

On the back of the coupon it lists the stores that carry this product, in Ontario and BC only right now it looks like. The only one near me was Sobeys, so that's where we headed. 

So walking into a store and asking the team if they had heard of "Happy Water" gave a few chuckles and raised eyebrows, but it was there in the water bottle section, as expected. However, they were sold out of the 5L cases. Long story short, and after waiting a long time a customer service, they let me use the max value on the coupon towards the purchase of a 10L case.  

Basically it's a big bag of water in a box. The spout design pops out from it easily, and doesn't drip. It's like a mini water cooler in a box. The taste is very smooth and I was surprised that I actually liked it. I've tried mixing it with cordials and drink mixes and they all mix well, with a clean taste. My review I posted is below:

Anyways, sharing here because it was part coupon/great deal and part good product. 

Sharing Great Sales: Rosehill Liquidation

Okay, so you are in the market for anything from this list:

• furniture like sofas, chairs, ottomans to bedroom sets, dining room sets, display cabinets

• bedroom items like mattresses, headboards, box springs, bed frames

• rugs or artwork

• appliances like fridges, washers, dryers, microwaves, stoves

• small appliances like blenders, toasters, vaccuumes, air conditioner

• exercise equipment and entertainment equipment like fooseball tables  

And you..

• want to save money on the big purchase

• have done a little bit of homework so you know pricing for brand new

• don't mind buying something slightly imperfect

Then you need to take a quick walk around one of the Rosehill Liquidation locations.

http://rosehilloutlets.ca/brantford/index.html

Branford is my favorite location and where I have seen the best deals, and bought nearly everything when I bought my new house. They also have a "temporary" warehouse in Burlington and a large place down Fort Erie way. 

Clips of items from their newsletters for exampl of what they have at any given time:

Basically they buy truckloads of product from name brand places like Sears, which include scratch and dent items, returned special order items, or returned items. They don't know what they're going to get until they unload the truck, and they get one or two trucks a week full of new product. 

When buying the items for my house, I knew what kind of sofa I was looking for, so we went back every week to see what they had. Since it's a first-come first-served kind of place, we kept checking back until my perfect sofa with a matching ottoman showed up. We bought the leather sofa (who's defect was that one top cushion didn't zipper on all the way) for $475. 

The matching look ottoman was $125. 

Other items I've bought:

• washer and dryer combo (dents in both, washer at the front and dryer at the back) for $472

• pedestals with drawers for the units (colour doesn't match the washer and dryer) for $105 total

• my pillow top mattress. Don't know what was wrong with it, it was completely brand new. Right in the store I googled it and found it was priced everywhere at $2300, bought it for $560, and they threw in the boxspring. 

• both roommates bought their mattresses - one got a beautiful double for $400 and the other got a queen for $600 I think. Free boxsprings again

• headboard for the bed (chip in top corner)

• fridge. We originally bought a normal white fridge and within the month the freezer crapped out. We took it back to rosehill and they offered me my choice from the floor as a replacement. I chose an even nicer stainless steel double door fridge and paid an extra $200. Total I paid $800 for the fridge. 

• beautiful rug that matched my new leather couch and the walls of my new living room. Again I googled this in the store for what it's price was elsewhere, and ended up paying $135

• various blender, coffee maker, knife block set and such.. Basically each for $20

• a Christmas tree one year. Pre-lit very tall artificial tree that we ended up paying like $22 for it after their newsletter discount

• beautiful room dividing screens. Googled them in the store and bought three of them the next second because of how cheap they were. Two matched my new decor and one had birds and twigs on it, perfect for my mom (pictured)

• rod iron trees that my parents ended up using to create a beautiful deck

Important that you note their appliance and electronics warranties.. Are very short. They test them in the store, but for the most part they don't know what happened in the appliance's past life. 

Furniture is a pretty safe bet if you check it over thoroughly and test the frames and such. 

It's not everyone's cup of tea, and I totally get that. My Grandma pointed out that although she is totally willing to save money, she also can't handle removing a mattress and bringing a new one in on her own, so she would pay extra in Sears for example to have them come do that. 

If you're not fussy though, I would take a drive and see what they have to offer. I've never gone there and not walked out with something. 

Oh, and don't forget to sign up for their newsletter so you can get a further discount on your purchase (basically 10% off everything and they change the secondary discount each month)!

Renovations are expensive..

I bought a house in January after looking at 48+ other houses. As luck would have it, I bought a dud. The previous owners had hid all of the problems with a little paint and plywood. In Feb my basement was basically underwater from foundation cracks and I knew we had to do "some" fixing.

Over the course of a year I spent $20,000 on upgrades and fixes to my house that I had not planned on spending. I don't make a lot of money, but I refused to be in debt. I thought I might spell out below how I saved money on some major items for my Reno and maybe there are components I did that you hadn't thought of to save money. 

-a new roof. A leak in my kitchen led to discovering my roof was basically three layers of old shingles. I shopped around and was quoted over $8000 for my whole roof as the cheapest option. I offered to pay in cash and they reduced it. Then offered to leave their street sign branding out for as long as they wanted and they "threw in" my garage roof for free. I whined about other problems and they also threw in roof vents for free as well. I paid $6800 for the entire roof in the end. 

-new furnace and air conditioner. While the home inspector was an idiot and said everything was hunky-dory, my furnace was this beast of a creature that was no longer working. The air conditioner was also 30 years old. For discounts, it's all about who you know and not being afraid to ask and use friend-of-a-friend for discounts if you have them. My best friends dad is in this line of work and hooked me up with a great itty bitty furnace that now fits in a closet, a new air conditioner, and all new venting for a great deal. He also knew of a furnace rebate promo and sent off for it for me, so I got $250 back there. 

-flooring. I shopped around and was essentially looking for the cheapest I could get. Eventually Rona had a good sale on a particular light wood laminate style, but I wanted to use the Lowes "take 6 months to pay" option. I priced matched with Lowes for a similar style, price matched underpadding with somewhere else and walked out with some great savings. 

-Up flush toilet. These are the fancy basement toilets that don't require piping into the floor and cost over $1000 usually. I got mine for somewhere around $750 while it was on a short promo sale, plus I sent a note to the vendor asking if they had any rebates available if I were to purchase the unit. Saniflow let me send in for a $50 rebate that they didn't advertise, just because I asked. 

-new walls and sub floor. DriCore has a great subfloor material and at the time was just coming out with a new wall material called SmartWall. For their subfloor, my dad made friends with the dricore rep who let dad buy "seconds" from their factory store. Instead of paying $6.50 a tile, we paid something like $5 (not a big deal but that was $155 that stayed in my pocket). Then for the walls, I contacted the company asking how I could use their wall and save money since each panel was $50+. They advised to find some hockey magazine that had a coupon for $10 back a panel, plus if I did a testimonial for them they'd give another $100. We bought the panels on a storewide discount sale of 20% off, then we sent in for the rebate with receipt and got $430 back, plus another $100 when I did the testimonial (read it here: http://www.dricore.com/en/test_sam.aspx). In the end we had too many panels so I took the extras back and got a gift card for something like $250. I also sent in a question to dricore when I had a couple flaws in the wall and they offered another $100 gift card to come out and look themselves. 

-Ontario power authority rebate. This was advertised a bunch, basically make at least two improvements to your home to save energy and get rewarded. I contacted a company which had to basically do a "before" test and an "after" test. Things that qualified were like, changing out windows for reward of $-- a piece, change out doors, reduce "air leakage" in your house by sealing stuff up  around windows and doors and walls, new furnace installed, etc. Unfortunately for me, I only found out about this program AFTER the furnace and 3/4 windows had already been changed out. I missed out on some rebates there which was disappointing, but got $1750 (in two installments) back for what I did complete. 

-windows, sump pump bucket and perforated hose piping. Not sure if I should promote these ones, but when it comes to unnecessarily expensive items, watch for how they're priced in store. The windows for my basement were $250 each, so when dad was at a store and found one priced in the wrong spot at $75 he didn't ask questions! He got three windows for $75 each. Same deal with the sump pump hose, which was in really the wrong spot and I paid something like $20 for the $100 hose. The sump pump bucket (which looks like a garbage can with a weird lid) was scanned at the cash register as only $25 because she only scanned the lid. The bucket portion was another ridiculous amount so we just paid and didn't ask questions. 

-drop ceiling and tiles. Kijiji! I am a shameless Kijiji buyer and seller. We found used tiles from an office and paid $150 for 85 tiles (that's 1.75 each compared to brand new 6.50 each) and another guy took $150 for three boxes of metal bars. After installing the ceiling for my whole basement, including closets, I still had a box and half leftover. I took these back to a store for a store credit and got a whopping $170 back. I still have 20 tiles leftover as well, which are sitting on Kijiji right now (so far sold 5 for $10 haha)

-vanity, sink, medicine cabinet and shelf. Outlets or warehouse or "re-store" places. Vanities are expensive, so we were happy to find an outlet-style store nearby. I picked out a vanity with matching cabinet and shelf and paid $250 for it all, which for the same version at Lowes started at $1000. 

-paint and supplies. Ask your family and try the cheap stuff. Chances are someone in your family and friends network has paint supplies in a bucket in a closet somewhere. Mine did, everywhere. I didn't have to buy a roller, brush or tape - just paint. For paint I wanted a basic grey, but since it's just a basement I didn't want anything fancy. Walmart had a sale on "Loop" paint, plus when I talked to customer service they said we could try a bucket and if it sucked we could bring it back (if we only used a bit). I took a chance and bought buckets for $15 a piece on sale and was actually very happy with the result. Two coats and it had good coverage and dried quick. Bonus!

-ceiling fans, faucets, and more. Auctions! There is a great "home renovation auction" place called Bryan's that is a great place to start shopping. They specialize in complete kitchen cabinet packages, but also sell everything else for renovations. At any one auction they'll have sinks, toilets, hot tubs, exercise equipment, flooring, seasonal stuff, doors and windows, faucets, drills, dehumidifiers and more. It is an auction setting so you should know your budget before walking in. We were able to get two really really ugly ceiling fans for $20 each that painted beautifully. We also got a couple faucets there for cheap and I think every time we went we came home with something else. When I get around to fixing my kitchen, I'll be starting there for my cabinets. 

Okay that was a lot and doesn't cover everything either, but it gives a good breadth of ways to save on your next big project. I might write a part 2 of this, considering I saved on every single item in my renovation :)

Print at Home Coupon Sites

Everyone's favorite question to me: where do you get all your coupons?!

A previous blog post of mine mentioned all the places you can find coupons, including on product tear-offs, newspaper inserts, from the vendor, on free samples etc. All of these methods are just watching the shelves and papers and come hit-or-miss. 

Print at home coupons are usually updated weekly/monthly on these sites, so they are a little more predictable. You at least know there will be coupons to print when you look there, right?

I've said it before too, make sure to join a good Facebook/email site that will notify you of great offers that appear. Usually these are BOGO and completely free product coupons. The best ones go extremely quickly and having a service that does the monitoring and watching for you will make sure you get a piece of the action. I have two email subscriptions and a couple Facebook groups I'm part of if you wanted a starting point: 

Something to note for most of these sites is that you need a special printing add-on. Basically a driver that automatically pops up when you click print and it wants you to install the special print software. You will need to say yes to this, otherwise the coupons won't print. Only a few sites need this driver, but just a heads up. Also to note, almost all of these sites will only let you print the coupons once (pushing the print button once), though there are a couple that will let you reprint once. 

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SmartSource - usually impressed with this site. Lots of offers, lots of different products. This is another one of the companies that send out newspaper mailers. This is also the site usually that I've seen rebate offers posted to, that let you print the rebate request page to make a product completely free. If you want somewhere to start, try here. 

P&G Everyday - usually has a lot of coupons and wide variety. Products from this company for example include Crest, Tampax, Swiffer, Pantene, Bounty, Tide, Old Spice, Mr Clean, Pampers, Dawn and lots more. This company also puts out newspaper mailers, so you can sometimes double up on the offers if you also print the coupon at home. 

Websaver - usually higher value coupons, but hit and miss on what they offer. They are great if you like to try new products. They also offer a Mailed Coupon Envelope, which comes with popular and new coupons - sometimes for things like vegetables. You have to sign up for the service and then be one of the first to click on the "I want my envelope" button basically. 

Walmart.ca/coupons. - usually high value, and with a lot of grocery brand coupons for stuff you may actually buy. Their coupons usually can be used anywhere. So far the best BOGO or completely free coupons I've seen have come from this portal, but this is where the group notification service on Facebook is good as when the coupons have been claimed, they disappear from the site. 

Save.ca - similar offerings as Walmart, which might allow you to double up your deals if you print both. 

Kraft - hit and miss on whether they are offering your favorite popular Kraft products that month, or not as popular themed coupons (like right now it is almost all coffee offers). Interesting to note that not all Kraft product coupons will be here, as they will also have offers on the other websites mentioned here (usually for more generic stuff like $1.00 off any Kraft product). 

GoCoupons - usually high value, but small offering. One of the few that will still send out paper coupons, depending on the offer. 

Right at Home - from SC Johnson company. This includes brands like Pledge, OFF, Glade and Ziploc. Small assortment but I've been happy with the high value offers that show up here. 

HealthyEssentials- from the Johnson and Johnson company. Usually high value, and decent offering. Brands in this company include Aveeno, Band-Aid, Listerine, Tylenol, and baby products. This site also gives you points for printing coupons and interacting with the site, which you can redeem for either free product coupons or gift cards.  

Hidden Portals:

Websaver,  Save.ca and P&G Brandsaver all have hidden portals for various companies. This list is huge, and awesome. Check out extremecouponingmom.ca/hidden-coupon-portals/ for an extensive list (kudos to her for this research!). 

Work Perks

I joke all the time that you should never pay full price for anything, but it's true!  Work discounts can usually offer great deals on random things that you might not instantly think to get discounts on. Travel components, shopping items, phone plans and more.. It never hurts to ask what your company can do for you!

Using work perks, not just for discounts on what your company actually sells, all adds up. Even if you are in some select stores, sometimes just asking "is there a corporate discount?" or "do you do any deals for people working for this or that company?" will work and get you a free cookie, 10% off, or more. My favorite way of wording a discount question is using "family and friends of.."

**It is very important to note that for anything below, always ask and do it properly through/with work, not just taking something or charging back to the company. This is a no-brainer, but just in case... thought to mention it. 

Personally, I've used the "proximity" question at stores (I work across the street, any discount for me if I buy food here from you?) a few times, as well as a few offers from company offered programs. I've also looked into travel help at my work (do we have a corporate discount for flights or car rentals?), which our receptionist was happy to give me.

Some thoughts:

Company-offered/paid into programs, like Perkopolis or WorkPerks/Venngo. I've used Perkopolis to look up goods coupons for online shopping, theme park tickets, hotels, car rentals and more. They also have other deals like house cleaning and services, flower delivery, etc. 

Cell phone plans. Sometimes work will have connections and can get you a good plan rate to reference. 

Flights, hotels and car rentals. My company has a discount on a couple select airlines and as an employee, I can just call, reference our corporate referral code and get a discounts on my personal travel. I know a couple people in our company has also utilized codes like this for personal vacation trips. Your company might have the same, so it can't hurt to ask. 

Supplies, like for office and home. A lot of the time companies will have order lines or discount cards that can be used at stores like Staples or for shipping items. We have discount cards for employees to use at Staples, shipping companies (like UPS), as well as at a couple technology sites through our IT department. 

Whatever your company sells or supplies (dog food from a pet store, shoes from a footwear brand, groceries from a supermarket, etc). This can also extend into the vendors your company may use, which I've done before too, by just asking if they would extend a deal to you because you work for one of their "partners". 

Food. My company once got a message from Swiss chalet that someone responded to, and now we get continuous coupon emails from them, customized "just for us". This is also the best category I've had luck on asking the "proximity" question on. 

Shameless Job-title use if you can. If you are police, fire, government or more, you could always ask if there is a discount for you and your line of work. Be proud of what you do :) 

Finally... Just Ask!

Free is not always free..

You've seen the ads.. "Get your first purchase free!"  "Get this incredible discount on ___ and pay just the shipping!"

Read the fine print. Really. And thoroughly. 

Yes, I've been sucked in a few times, and even though I read a bunch before doing so, I must have missed some key lines each time. My latest oops was for great jogging clothes for cheap that were hidden under a monthly subscription blanket...

But the best example though was this thing called Julep. My blog won't be about product reviews and such, but I'll this company/product to just explain why you should read the fine print. 

Saw an ad about getting free nail polish, easy, no hassle, blah blah. What's the catch. I read and read and basically you sign up for their monthly glamour box and you get your first month free. Interesting. You also get referral points if other people sign up using your code, which is worthwhile if it's a good product. This was a month before Christmas so I thought it could be neat to sign up myself and grandma and mom to get three free glamour boxes and use referral points to then get another free product. If the product was bad I would cancel all three. 

I read the fine print, you can cancel your subscription anytime, or you can choose to "skip my box" if you don't like the selection of items that month. I must have stopped reading there. 

I did it, signed up and my nail polish was in the mail. Then used my referral link to sign up two more people and their nail polishes were in the mail too. Then with all my referral points, I ordered what I could that would be free from the site and got a box of lip glosses and three mini lipsticks. I thought I was pretty clever. 

Then the next month came and there was new fine print. You cant skip your first paid months box. What?! $24.99 a month, and you have to pay this first month after your free month.

We received the products and the colors for nail polish that month were awful. Silver, dark purple and a pink that was pretty much silver too. Colours that didn't impress my grandma or mom. I recently tried the silver as people raved about the quality and within a day it was cracked. The texture was kinda like painting my toes with white out. Yuck. Then, tried the lipsticks and the priming pen made my lips feel like they were going to fall off which didn't feel normal..

Okay, so now to do the "cancel anytime" thing. Julep does not really have any monitored emails or live chat options, so you must call. 5 phone calls over two days later I finally got through to someone who seemed to hate their job. Told them the products sucked and I needed to cancel for myself and two others. He begrudgingly said he would cancel them and I got the cancellation emails. Done, right?

I had read before I bought into the program that others have had problems after cancelling; sometimes they got charged anyways, sometimes it didn't actually cancel etc. I watched my emails.  Sure enough a week later, one of the sign ups did in fact tell me my product had shipped and thanks for my business.. What?!?  I called again and again and finally just emailed their generic email address from Julep. I sent them my cancellation email and told them to not ship and do not charge. They reversed the charges but told us to keep the already shipped product for free as a "sorry". (It never did show up in the mail.)

Morals of this long story?   

1. Read all of the fine print you can find.

2. Google reviews about the company, about the offer, basically what everyone else is saying.

3. Call the company first to understand the offer before you pay/give a credit card. 

4. After your jump in, keep doing the research on the full site. Usually there IS a way to cancel, but a lot of the time it is time sensitive. 

5. If it seems too good to be true, it usually is. 

It never hurts to ask..

I joke about this all the time, but it can never hurt to ask. Ask for a free refill, ask to take the beer glass home for free, ask for a free sample before purchase, etc. 

One case in point, last Friday.

I had an iPhone 5s with Telus that was just limping along and not going to make it. Talked to the Telus store people and they advised to call "Loyalty" and see what they could do. 

I did and spelled out exactly what I was hoping for, citing that I've been a customer for a long time. To my surprise they responded back with basically 3 yes's to my three requests. Bonus!

So then I watched my emails and online and saw that my local Telus store has a sale on right now for the phone I wanted. So last Friday I went in and got one of those fancy new iPhone 6s for $280 (not $900)

Not only that but I asked if they would price match a case that I saw a couple doors down and she pulled some strings to do that. I also got a free spray and wipe, all while still keeping my old and great phone plan. Whoopee!

I probably come across some great deal or freebie daily, simply by asking. I'll ask if there are any current promos, secret unpublished coupons, all while simply being nice. I'll send messages to brands of products I like and tell them I like their product and do they have any coupons so I can keep buying their product. It's about being 50/50 whether I get a yes or no, but I'll take 50% more yes's versus not asking. 

Another case, I had an issue with a contact solution that I've used since I started wearing contacts in grade 11. Rather than just abandoning this solution, I sent an email to customer service explaining what had happened and basically did they have a bad batch in this bottle. After some back and forth (and some great information), they sent me a care package full of 3 full size product replacements (these bottles are $28 each and they sent me 3). Well impressed!

Ask. Simple!