You may have noticed a few more ads, in the form of sponsored posts, have been appearing on BargainBabe.com. I know reader Brandon saw it because he left this comment.
Yep, I am officially done with your blog.
I guess I should call him an ex-reader.
I don’t see anything wrong with ads – as long as they are marked as paid content. I know many bloggers don’t mark paid content or paid product reviews, but I do. This kind of transparency is important to me as a journalist and blogger. The Ethics policy on my About page says
I do not accept money from any business or manufacturer to blog about their product on BargainBabe.com. If I write about a restaurant, retailer, Web site or product it is because I believe there is a good deal to be had. I sell sponsored posts and advertising on the site and participate in referral programs, however, because I gotta pay my bills. Paid content is always identified.
I haven’t done much with referral programs, but that is about to change. I’ve recently joined two referral programs. Basically, the way it works is that they send me special deals. I post the best ones and if you click through and buy something, you are supporting the blog. (I get a teeny tiny percentage of the sale, like a finder’s fee.)
Publishing ads and participating in referral programs enables me to continue sharing good deals with you, so I hope you’ll take a look at them and click on them if they appeal to you!
Commenter SpendLessTV left this great cooking tip last week on BargainBabe.com.
Another tip for preserving herbs: take an ice cube tray, chop basil and freeze in broth. When making your next sauce or soup drop in an “ice basil/broth cube”! Can do this with any herb!
I think I’m going to use this to harvest my recession garden!
Tammy’s simple and practical system for organizing and remembering her grocery coupons is this week’s reader comment of the week. I’m going to use her system, and if you have a hard time remembering to bring your coupons to the store, you should try it too!
I pulled out my calculator after reading comment left by a reader named Bobbi, who writes a frugal living blog called Bobbi’s Bargains.
She wrote this after I divulged I had broken my moratorium for a third time to pay an embarrassing $3.50 library fine with a credit card.
If you are going to break your moratorium, it might as well be for one of the best bargains in America – the public library system.
Recently, I did a little bit of math and realized that I had saved at least a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS by using the public library system. And that is a conservative number.
So, really, you will be saving way more money than you just spent if you take advantage of this wonderful resource that we have at our fingertips (literally)… http://www.lapl.org (website for Los Angeles Public Library)
I was skeptical so I asked Bobbi to show me her math and she followed up with:
I figured that I have taken out an average of 20 books a week at an average cost of $15 a book for 17 years. That comes out to $265,200.00.
It’s true! 20 (books a week) x 15 (ave. cost of book) x 52 (weeks in a year) x 17 (years)- 256,200. I asked Bobbi how she possibly read 20 books in a week. Turns out she home schools her kids. Some weeks she had more than 100 books at home.
Aha! Now this makes sense. I’m going to talk to Bobbi more about the finances behind home schooling so stay tuned.
Incidentally, Bobbi is running a free swap meet at the Frugal Fe$tival this Sunday, July 26 from 1-4 p.m at Woodley Park in Van Nuys. Interested in giving away stuff? Read the guidelines here.
Tammy reuses envelopes she gets in the mail (clever) and has a fool-proof way of remembering coupons. Thanks, Tammy!