Redbox

What's better than a free movie? How about a free movie EVERY Monday? Beat the Monday blahs with a free rental from Redbox. Click here to sign up to receive a text message every Monday with a code for a free one-night rental.

Also, if you sign up for their email list, you can get a free rental immediately (code sent via email).

Redbox is popping up everywhere. If you've never seen one, it is a red DVD-dispensing kiosk (hence the name "red box") placed in all sorts of locations: inside grocery stores, outside grocery stores, outside Wal-Marts. I've even seen one in a McDonald's. You can search for the nearest Redbox location on their website.

As for their movie selection, they carry mostly new releases and popular titles. Their variety may not be extensive, but hey! it's only $1/night.

Free chicken

I love kids' night at Chick-Fil-A. Raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, well, then, let me educate you. Every Tuesday or Thursday night, from 5-8, CFA has kids' night. You get a free kids' meal for every adult combo meal purchased, and, as if you needed any more reason to come, there is usually a guy dressed up in a gigantic cow suit.

Lately I've been taking the kids almost Thursday night, since 1) Jeff is working, and 2) it's almost the end of the week so I'm usually all out of dinner ingredients at home. Tonight we bundled up and headed out the door by 4:35 in order to make it to our neighborhood CFA before the craziness commenced.

Let me tell you about the craziness. Apparently, there are lots of other people who like getting free chicken. By 5:15, the lines at the registers are 10 people deep, all the tables are taken, the play area is packed with screeching kids, and drinks are being spilled all over the restaurant with almost-predictable regularity. Fathers ignore, mothers scold, children run amok. It's quite a scene.

Did I mention the FREE kids' meals?

Thankfully, we made it in time tonight to order our food and procure a table before it got nuts. We had a nice, leisurely dinner, including ice cream cones with sprinkles (free if you trade in your kids' meal toys), and then coloring at the craft table set up for the occasion. Oh, and yes, the giant cow was there, so our evening was complete.

I applaud you, Jason Chaffetz

Since I'm all about saving money, this story I saw on the news the other night warmed my heart. Jason Chaffetz is a newly elected congressman from Utah. His home is, obviously, in Utah, with his wife and kids, but his job is in Washington, D.C. Most congressmen in the same situation get commuter apartments, but not Jason Chaffetz. He is going to live in his office so that he can save his family at least $1500 a month in extra rent. You'll see in the video what his living quarters will be like - his congressional office is huge, but it's by no means an apartment, or even a hotel room. His bed is a cot, his closet is a rod, and his kitchen is a mini-fridge. Apparently, Jason Chaffetz is accustomed to working from home, or homing from work, as the case may be, as he ran his election campaign out of his house in Utah, refusing to go into debt. He ended up beating a six-term incumbent, who outspent him by $600,000. Now he is taking his frugal ways to Washington, where hopefully he will rub off on a few people.

Click here for the video clip from ABC News.

Ask Liz

This is the first of many "Ask Liz" posts. Send your questions to eliz.calhoun@gmail.com. Next to finding a great bargain, I sure do love giving advice. The following question is from a delightful friend of mine (*you know who you are*). Even though the answers are specific to our geographic location, they can easily be adapted for just about anywhere with a Mexican restaurant and an AMC movie theater.

Q:
My boyfriend's birthday is coming up this month, and I want to do something nice for him, like take him out somewhere—do you have any ideas?

A:
Hm, birthdays are tough. There are two elements to consider:
1) The gift (or gifts)
2) The celebration

The gift is the easy part. We need to stay cheap, right? Stay away from gift cards, because they have a dollar amount printed right on them. They say, hello, I’m poor and I’m passing my poverty on to you. Something homemade is always welcome, but I’m not talking about a scarf or tea cozy. You could make him the ever-popular Mix Tape/CD of your songs. A framed picture is also a nice semi-homemade gift. Digital prints (5x7) are only 99 cents at Ritz camera, and they’re ready in one hour. You can even upload your pic at http://www.ritzcamera.com/ and then pick up at the store (no shipping!). Also, you can find super cheap picture frames at The Dollar Tree, Wal-mart, Target, etc. Also, your boyfriend's into movies, right? MovieStop and Blockbuster are good places to find relatively new, gently used movies for anywhere from $2.99 to $7.99. And of course it’s easy to find NEW books on http://www.amazon.com/ for a couple dollars (even with shipping, you can easily stay under $10).

Okay, now on to the celebration. After his gifts, he won’t care where you take him out! No really, what do you guys like to do together? Dinner and a movie is a classic date night, but can get pretty pricey. Here’s an idea: take him out on a weeknight. It has to be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday for this to work. First, take him to dinner at Plaza Azteca in Hampton (free appetizers – chips & salsa!) and everything else on the menu is pretty cheap. Then take him to see a movie at AMC 24, right across the parking lot. It’s only $5 per ticket all day (even at night) on weekdays. Can’t beat that!! Also, get this – you can get UNLIMITED popcorn and soda for $5. But also only on weekdays. And that may or may not require a Moviewatcher card, which you need to have anyway because it earns you free movie tickets and other stuff. Get one free at http://www.moviewatcher.com/.

Okay, so after the awesome, thoughtful gifts, and the mouth-watering dinner, and the romantic (or whatever) movie, your boyfriend is going to totally want to marry you (more).

Hope that’s helpful. If you had something else in mind entirely, well, then . . . you're on your own!

Hello, My Name Is...

Cheap. I'm not exactly what you would call a frugal person, but living on a tight budget for most of my adult life has made a bargain shopper out of me. I love thrift stores, coupons, sales on things I was planning to buy anyway, free gift cards for transferring a prescription to Target pharmacy, you name it. I am not ashamed to get something for nothing.

I mentioned I've been on a tight budget as an adult, but actually, I've never really had that much money. A little background: I was born and raised in smalltown Arkansas with my two brothers by the most incredible parents you could ever imagine. The first 10 years of my life were when we probably had the most money. My dad worked for Frito-Lay and my mom was a stay-at-home-mom, and we lived in a house designed and built by my parents, their dream house. I clearly remember one day when I was about six or seven, walking into my kitchen to get an after-school snack, feeling very secure and saying to my dad, "Dad, are we rich?" I think I recognized the concept of contentment, because our house wasn't huge and we didn't have ALL the toys we wanted, but the love and security I felt on top of what we DID have, gave me such a sense of well-being and feeling of richness. When I was 10, we moved to Virginia for my dad to attend Regent University to get his master's. And obviously, a lot changed. Our family of five, used to running wild in the country, had to squeeze into a town house in the suburbs of Virginia Beach, my dad became a full-time student, and us kids started at a new school. My mom went to work for the first time ever to help pay our school tuition. Well, instead of boring you with all the details, all these factors - grad school for my dad, three private school tuitions all the way through high school for me and my brothers, and the various things that life throws at you - ensured we were always on a tight budget. When I was 13, I started babysitting to earn money to buy my own clothes. After babysitting it was a newspaper route, and then McDonald's. Big money. Then I went to college, and no one is poorer than a college student, right? And then I got married at age 20. My husband and I were not the kind of people to wait and establish our careers and save money. No, we got married as soon as humanly possible, even though we had to eat Velveeta Shells & Cheese for dinner and do our laundry at my parents' house. So now, nine years and two kids later, we are quite a bit better off. We live in a house instead of an apartment, we have two cars instead of trying to share one, we eat relatively balanced meals, etc. But we are still working on getting our paychecks to last a wee bit longer...

The wonderful thing is, though, even though I've never had a lot of money, I've never been poor. I've never not had the basic necessities of life: food, shelter, clothing, transportation. I've never been jobless, homeless, or starving. And better yet, all my life I've been surrounded by love, within and without. My faith, my family, and my friends: these make me a rich woman indeed.

So...the purpose of this blog is to share my excitement for all things cheap or free. It’s going to be all about my hunt for the best bargain, where to shop, how to get free stuff online, the best cheap dates (hello Barnes & Noble!), the best places to take your kids for free, etc. But most of all, I hope to get across how being "rich" is a state of mind (and heart).