Spin and earn free money with Qriket app

You know me, always a fan of the get-rich-quick schemes that don't cost me any money to start.. Here's another one!

I googled phone apps that make you real money. There are a bunch! Most of them require you to answer surveys and stuff, but I wanted one that took no brainpower. This one seems pretty simple, and everyone that has posted about it seems to like the real money you can steadily get. 

Let me prelude this with Ive had it for 2 days. But in 2 days I have $2.45 real dollars (that I can cash out into PayPal when it gets to $5 I think. Easy! 

The Game

Meet Qriket. Pick either blue or yellow and spin the wheel. If it lands on your colour, you get the 5, 10, 20 cents. I've heard-tell that it also jumps up and down to $1 and $2 in a spin. 

Get More Spins

There are a few ways to get spins. 

When you first get started, plug in my referral code at startup: Use the code D73E9F to get 25 free spins http://qriket.com/invite/D73E9F

You'll want those 25 spins, trust me!

Thereafter it looks like there are four ways to get more spins:

1. Spin locator

This thing shows you all the places that will give you 1 spin for every $1 spent at their place (mostly food). Most of them are in Toronto and none are near me unfortunately 

2. Buy Qriket gear. 

Buying a hat or shirt with the logo on it will come with a bonus spins code. 

3. Follow @jcomparel on Twitter or Instagram to get freebies he posts.

All of these codes go into the top little spin redeem button

4. Have your friends use your referral code when they download the game and you get $1 for every joinee. Don't forget to use mine! - D73E9F  http://qriket.com/invite/D73E9F

I hop on once a day, watch all the ads and spin 10 times. I go up at least .50 every day, so I will hang tight and see where I am in a couple weeks. Don't forget to use my referral code if you've found this info helpful!

Another it doesn't hurt to ask - missing parts

Some couples get a puppy or kitten, we go ahead and get another fish tank!  I already have a small 15 gallon fish tank, but I always kinda wanted a big one for the living room. Well, hubby and I went out "fishing" for some new additions to the 15 gallon, and ended up finding what we thought was a too-good-to-pass-up deal on basically the fish tank and stand I originally wanted and we both thought looked stunning. 

(Bowfront on stand with a closed cabinet underneath.)

It was on sale in the store for 20% off, which already made it a good deal. And then, it was marked down another 20% off that because it was missing the light accessory. We looked at the lights and the 20% off basically covered buying one of those lights. Done deal, we picked up all the stuff needed and brought it home. 

To prelude any more of this, let me explain that my 15 gallon tank was also a steal of a deal when I bought it a year ago. It's a National Geographic bowfront tank that when I bought it, had a defective light. The store tried to help me but they didn't have any more of that tank (hence why I got it for such a great deal). I called up National Geographic and after a little back and forth, they sent me a complete new lid and light set. 

So part 1. of "it doesn't hurt to ask", is I called up National Geographic again and asked how I could get lights for my new big tank. Without much hesitation, they are sending me the lights. When we get the lights, we can decide if we like them or not, and if we do, we can take back the light we bought at the store. If not, I can sell them to another aquatic fanatic and get another $25 or so off our bill. 

Part 2., there was a store coupon going around for $20 off your purchase of $75 for three days only. I took in my receipt and asked if they could refund me and "buy back" an item on my receipt. They said yes, and I saved another $20. 

Beautiful tank, we were happy with what we paid, and we saved here and there on something we wanted. Hooray!

Free is everywhere! - @ Toronto Airport

My hubby and I recently took a trip to Disney World. As with all flights, you try to get to the airport early, so we were there probably 3 hours early. Once there and through customs, our plane was delayed so we were going to be another hour or so just waiting around. 

Through customs and at the waiting gates, Toronto Pearson has little iPad stands. We took up shop there to charge our electronics and play on the iPads. One of the features of the iPad is the ability to win free stuff just for playing games and watching ads. I thought.. Why not!

We played some scratch card game that gives you points for opening chests with keys and matching three of the same icon (because it took no brain power or skill, and each "game" went quickest). When you run out of scratches, you watch a 30 second ad and you get 5 more scratches. My honey and I did this for the entire wait time (well, I did, he was totally bored after the first hour haha). 

Your points can then be redeemed right on the iPad for free drinks and snacks. If you play long enough they also had prizes like a TV, but you would have to win the jackpot spin to get that sucker!

So in 3ish hours, I won us 2 pops and 2 chips and he worked hard for some expensive chocolate bar thing that they were out of, and substituted for some awful peanut butter version (see his sad face :( ). 

You had to answer a skill testing math question correctly, and they would deliver your chosen prize right to the iPad you're sitting at. They had other games on there including card games and slots that you can accumulate prize points in. 

From these iPads you could also order and pay for food, which we tried, and I would suggest the flatbread as it was large enough to share, and a good airport-deal at $9. 

Freebies are everywhere, this was just another one I found and wanted to share. 

SPC - Student Price Card... Get one!

If you are in school or are a parent/grandparent/friend to someone who is, this has been probably one of the best "investments" I've ever made. Everyone who can, get one! 

The SPC card is a student price (discount) card that is accepted in more and more places, from food to shopping to entertainment to banking to travel. They have a great list on the back of the card that shows all the places it is accepted and there is even an app that you can quickly use on your phone in your area on the go. 

The card costs $10. Yep that's it. When I got my card years ago, I was making a purchase of something like $120. I bought the card first and used it on that purchase, and it paid for itself immediately, and every discount since has been free effortless money! This is a complete no brainer! Every time we go out to eat, I save something like $3-$5. A couple meals and the card is paid for again. 

I always ask at retailers if they have a SPC discount and more and more places are saying yes. Banking and travel too, every little 10% adds up! 

To qualify, you need to be in school with a student ID card to show when you make the purchase. As long as you are a student you can buy the card every year and it is good for a year. 

Then there is this awesome second part, called the BMO SPC MasterCard. This I got quickly after getting my original card (can apply through their website) and it is a SPC discount card combined with a no yearly fee, chargeable, credit-building MasterCard. This was great for me to start building credit as it was my first credit card, and one less discount card I had to carry around. PLUS you can hook up the card to air miles and get air miles with each $20 charged to the card. This card is like a triple dream! Annnnnd.. Every year they automatically renewed my SPC credit card, so in the entire life of my SPC affair I've spent only $10. 

Since I got the MasterCard, I no longer had to show my student ID either because retailers assume that BMO has already screened me. One less card I needed to carry around again.  

There are other student discount programs as well. On campus, grab one of those free planners they give out and inside should be the various places that will give student discounts for your school. I went to York University, and they had their own separate student discount card plan that was good off campus too. While I was in school I would also ask stores if they had a student discount, and a bunch did though they didn't promote it anywhere. 

It pays for itself almost immediately so in my opinion there is no reason not to get this card (or MasterCard) and use it! 

Save some money on dog grooming

Maybe it's a cost you have in your budget that could be a lot less... Monthly dog grooming costs? Below is how I save money by not going to the groomers for my big hairy furball. 

This is all dependent on the size of your dog (dachshund or Bernese mountain dog?), habits of your dog (are they a digger? Outside only dog? Love rolling in dead animals dog?) and type of coat they have (curly and non-shedding? Smooth and long with undercoat? No coat?), so this is just my own personal opinion and preference for my dog(s). Consult other blogs and breeder tips for your own specific breed. 

So I have a golden retriever. Until recently I also had a whippet (my whippy passed away). These are two very different coat types, and bathing them both took different tips at certain points. I'll write this with both in mind. My golden retriever has long hair and an undercoat, she has very sensitive skin and allergies, and she's a big goof (her nickname is Dizzy). The whippet was a white short haired dog who did not like to get wet or have her toes trimmed (her nickname was Diva). 

If you take your dog to the groomer there are probably a few things they do there, charging per item, like:

- nail clipping, either clip or grinding

- bathing

- drying

- teeth scaling (might be moving to a vet-only thing now?) and/or brushing 

- ear cleaning

- general trim and cut, plus full brush out

- de-matting and detangling 

- anal gland popping (..ew..)

Personally, I do all of these things myself, minus the last one. For the most part, if your dog has never had their anal glands popped, they will probably never need to have them done. If they have once, they will always need to have them popped. It's one of those things I've been told is a "groomers gold", as they can do it once and have a client for life. My dog(s) have never had theirs done (thankfully, as it's annoying and kinda painful for a dog when they get "full", and is usually characterized by the boot-scooting on the carpet). 

At-home grooming for most breeds I would say is easy and a must. And.. It doesn't have to be expensive. 

I went to Petsmart and asked what a simple nail cut cost would be, $11 plus tax essentially (or $14+ for nail grinding). Years ago I invested in a dremel to do my own at home nail grinding. It goes super quick, makes it easy for me to get the nails short, plus I don't risk cutting my girls' toes off and making them bleed like with a traditional nail trimmer. It will depend on the dog if they will let you grind their nails, but if you start with them young, they learn. Then buy a nice pair of very sharp and rounded tip scissors in order to cut away toe fur (so your dog doesn't look like and act like they're wearing slippers). Your thick kitchen scissors are probably not pointy enough to get between the toes and flat to the pad of the paw, so you should probably have a separate pair. 

I do all my ear cleaning and teeth scaling at home too. I buy a big bottle of dog ear cleaner at the pet store (watch for sales) and some of those dollar store circle pad packages (meant for nail polish/makeup removal). Douse a circle pad in the ear cleaner and scrub in your pets ear with the swab. Do it a few times with new pads until the pad comes away clean. For teeth, you can buy pet scalers which look like the pokey dentist tool you get on your yearly visit. The scaler is meant to chip away at any built up plaque. You can also buy doggie toothbrushes and toothpaste, as well as stuff for their water to help reduce plaque buildup. Or, antlers and hard bones work great too (plus that's more fun!)

Invest in a couple brushes too. I have a couple types as my girl gets the clumps of fur dropping twice-three times a year, so I have a long comb, a big flat brush and a "slicker", or wire brush. I also bought the dyson vaccum which has this awesome pin brush attachment that sucks up the fur as I brush her (and she loves it because it pulls cold air through her coat!). Depending on your dog, you might want a shaver too. A pet Wahl clipper is a simple way to clean up your dog's belly in the middle of summer when they are hot. I shave my girl's belly in order to let her cool off faster on my kitchen floor!

DO NOT completely shave a dog with an undercoat though. All these shaved goldens break my heart as it totally screws up their fur growth and removes their protective undercoat. 

Shampoos and conditioners are really up to your personal preference for the most part. Different scents and stuff are readily available. But there are also colour-specific ones, like the "whitener" one I would buy for my white whippet, or a red enhancer one you could buy for a golden. There are also formula-specific ones like the sensitive skin hypoallergenic ones I go for for my allergy-prone girl, or tea tree oil ones for bad skin. It'll depend on your dogs coat, and it'll usually take some trial and error. I don't use a conditioner on my golden (extra time bathing I don't feel is needed on her) but I would on the whippet to make her feel extra super soft. A tip for shampoo buying if you can afford the space in a cupboard is to buy it by the gallon (once you find one you like). You pay more, but you get a ton more product that is usually concentrated (so you mix it in another smaller bottle anyways). Buy one gallon, buy a pump top and you have up to 30 bottles (some I think are maybe 60, can't remember) for maybe the cost of 4 bottles. Ren's Pets Depot is good for gallon buying (and monthly grooming sales too!)

Then, for the actual bathing part, this is up to you! Personally, I like using other people's water and electricity, plus clogging their drains with my dog hair instead of my own bathtub. How you ask? With some brilliant self-serve dog wash stations at a couple stores near me! I used to go to Rens Pets Depot in Guelph, and they have a wealth of shampoo options, toe and hair tools, towels and more to give your dog a good thorough clean.

Recently though, I've moved over to Pet Valu's dog wash station as it is closer to me and cheaper too! For the $11 Petsmart would charge me just to clip toenails, I get a half hour of water, drains and dryer, towels and some shampoo/conditioner. I love that I leave the mess there (I do clean up a little though!) and end with a lovely smelling and dry dog! 

The dryer is the best part! Long hair dogs can easily get "hot spots" if a patch of hair and skin is left wet for too long. These are painful, so it's important to get your dog as dry as possible quickly. In the middle of winter, this can be tough since you can't let them outside to "bake" in the sun like you can in summer. Buying a good $99 dryer/blower fixes this, and eliminates the "wet dog smell" from the house a little faster too haha!

If you decide to do at-home bathing, I would suggest a grooming table as it makes the blow drying part so much easier as you're not crouched on the ground. It allows you to clip whiskers, even out the hair lines and pretty up the toes without bent-over stress on your back. If you have a "busy" dog in the bath, buying a suction cup with collar combo is a great doo-dad to help too. 

Lots of other ideas, but every couple months I spend $11 for a Pet Valu self-serve bath, and once a year I buy some shampoo and ear cleaner. After my initial investment, and a learning curve, I now save myself the cost of a groomers trip :)

The cheap CAN come out expensive

I love watching Judge Milan, and she always says "the cheap comes out expensive"... And every "coupon queen" has had experience buying some great deal that turned out to be not so great. It's a lesson in research before buying that astounding deal.. Because if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. 

- I bought an awful-horrible-no-good vaccum from XS Cargo, which was like a liquidation store. It was on for a great slashed price deal from like $120 to $40 so I thought I was so smart. I read the box, read all the marketing jargon they had printed, and talked it out with my roommate while walking the store.. It came home. This so-called pet vaccuum, wouldn't pick up anything, including stuff from the tile floor. It was a pain to disassemble to empty and all around a bad decision. When I tried to take it back to XS they just pointed to the signs that say no refunds after opening (EVEN if it's defective, which I then started saying that I would take an exchange for the same model to see if it was just the one I got). I didn't buy anything from them after that, and my calls and emails to the company who made the vaccuum went unanswered. A year and a half later after being shelved in my garage I saw that some mice decided to start eating through the hose, so the whole vaccum ended up on the curb (and some poor soul took it a couple hours later). 

- around Christmas a few years ago, my dad got off work and was tired. He went to pick up some groceries and on his way back to the car ran into some guy selling genuine leather coats. He gave a sob story about wanting to get enough money to buy his daughter something, and was saying that he was on his way back from a trade show and had a whole bunch of leather coat samples he could sell. He asked dad if he had $500 to buy some nice coats. My dad made the mistake of saying "I only have $200 sorry" and the crook quickly said he could have these 5 leather coats for that. My tired dad got swindled. While pretty and brand new coats with tags, they were not leather and not worth $40 each. 

- never skimp on the cost of a Home Inspector. I did. I didn't the first time, on the first house I made an offer on. The first (expensive) guys provided me a huge detailed binder with a million pictures. They documented everything, they walked my dad and I through the house and talked to us like we were kids explaining what this and that meant (a little condescending for us but would be good for those who have no knowledge at all about house terms and such). They were super thorough and it was probably because of this inspection why I didn't buy that house. When I finally found the house I did want to buy, we wanted to go a little cheaper because we thought we knew everything. We went with a friend of my grandmas who was about to retire. Long story short, he caught nothing. He saw nothing wrong with the house and said it would be a good investment (it needed little things he said, nothing too major). He walked around the house first and then sat down at our table to write out everything (not as he went). We got one piece of paper from this guy (versus the entire binder and books and photos from the last guys). You get what you pay for as I ended up with the "house from hell" with every item needing replacement. Plus, since I got a home inspection, it waived me from going after the previous home owners for lack of full disclosure, and since he was a "family friend" it wasn't appropriate to sue him for not catching everything. 

- From a very expensive mistake to a cheap mistake... We have a liquidation store near my home which has hit-and-miss good deals. On one visit they had a ton of shoes on for like $2 each. Yay! I found some sparkly black and grey zebra slip ons and thought I was in heaven. I tried one on and it fit, picked up the pair and bought them. Went to wear them the next day and discovered one foot was 2 sizes bigger than the other. Whomp whomp. I tried stuffing it with Kleenex but it was just too lopsided to work. Out they went. 

The moral of the story.. 

1. Do your research. Get details on the item (cell phones and Google now do everything) and read about warranty and store policies. 

2. Try it on, open it up, try it out, BEFORE you buy it. 

3. Ask questions. The shady coat guy might have got nervous and abandoned swindling my dad if he had started asking too many questions. 

4. Ask for a second opinion. "Would you buy this?", or getting two home inspections. 

5. Don't impulse buy. Sure, walk around the store with the item in your cart, but make sure you dig a little bit into the product and ask yourself why something is so cheap

"Investing" in Your Retirement

I am not the be-all-end-all expert in investments. Not even remotely close. All I can do is advise that YOU should do your own research to what kind of investments to have, but that you SHOULD have some sort of interest-gathering account for your future.  

This is personal experience only. Every person's situation is different of course... BUT, start some kind of interest-gathering investment as early as you can in life, and seriously, DON'T touch it. Even just a little amount put away for retirement while you are young adds up to a lot over the years, and it's so much better than trying to scramble the last few years before retirement to build up your after-work income!

Personally, I have 3 different "investments"/savings:

-I have a tax free high interest savings account. I took advantage of a promotion at a brand new bank that opened near me, who have a 90-day GIC (guaranteed interest credit I think it stands for) at 3% interest (which is triple what anyone else seems to have) to kick start this account, but afterwards it's a locked away account that just gains as much interest as possible at 1.5%. I had this money in TD first but it was like 0.25% and equalled out to $2 a month interest. It's absolutely better than just sitting in your checking account or in a book under your mattress though, so this is probably the first place I would say to start with your little nest egg. It's also reliable (as reliable as it can be in a bank), and the money won't go down in value like it can in an "investments" setting

- I have a Mutual Fund RSP. I started it with a $400 check I got from a stock at Disney my mom bought when I was born for a penny (haha, 23 years later..), and I started this fund about 3 years ago. Fast forward to now, the fund is at $1445, with only a $25 investment every month and with $2-$5 a month on top of that reinvested (kinda like interest).

I'm not concerned about growing this overnight, and even if I just keep trucking on the way it's going (it's just in the safe investments bracket, not the crazy risk ones that can yield much higher returns), that's $300 a year more to get interest on that I don't notice. By retirement that's $12,000 minimum + any of the reinvested distribution. I'm sure when it gets close to $5000 though I'll throw it into that tax-free high interest account instead. 

- I have a work-organized retirement savings account. This one was a no brainer as my work will match whatever money (to a max) that I put into it. It's free money, so why wouldn't I! It'll just grow that much faster. I've put the max in that my work will match (and I just started this, so I'm excited to see how quickly it grows). 

On the reports it has this little thing about if I continue on at the same contribution rate I'm doing, what that would mean I would have at retirement. Kinda fun to see it. 

Something else I learned which I have to do some digging on is "Tax Free" accounts. At the new bank they put me under a protective tax-free umbrella, and then put both my GIC and my savings accounts under the umbrella. This means that any interest gained will not be taxable by the government as "income". This was news to me, as the bank lady explained that if I didn't put my GIC under the tax free umbrella I was going to have to pay $30 to the government for the 3% interest gained. Again, better in my pocket than theirs (seems to be a motto I use). 

Look into your options and ask around. If you're trying to save up a nest egg and a retirement fund, the above are all great starts to also make that money grow without any added effort on your part :)