My Favorite Sites To Earn Money

I often come across sites that will pay you for taking surveys, looking through e-mails, etc and of course, there are the regular old standby's like Ebay and Etsy (if you're crafty).

Some of my favorites:

• www.surveyspot.com - I generally only take the surveys that offer money incentives, otherwise all are you can do is try to win one of the grand prizes they offer (generally money) but I've never been lucky with sweepstakes sort of things, so I generally pass on surveys that only let you enter the sweepstakes. This gets sent in check form or you can donate to a charity.
  
• www.youdata.com - I actually just signed up for this one after reading about it over at Tiara Saves and I've already made $3.41 - though it won't be deposited into my paypal account for a week or a few days, I believe. Not sure how it works exactly, but I'm willing to give it a chance.
• Ebates. Now you do have to buy stuff to get the percent back (and they only pay once a quarter, but so far it's been worth it. No fees and free cash back on things that I was going to buy anyway. The options for payment includes paypal or a check.
• Blingo is another search engine that randomly gives out prizes. I only use Blingo and even the money/gifts are randomly selected, I've won 8 times in the past few years.
• Swag Bucks. This is similar to Blingo but has other options to earn enough points for the prizes and you are almost guarenteed something unlike Blingo where you have to get lucky. I usually alternate.
  

Frugality Budgets & Money

Most people on the web that blog about money will list their super secret skills and how to be frugal. Most of their ideas focus on taking things out from your life that give you a little pleasure. Why spend money on the movies when you can invest it in a mutual fund (well, now that is questionable), but why go to the movies when you can netflix? Why netflix when you can rent DVDs from the library? Why buy the expensive brand of [insert item here] when you can get the store brand for 50 cents less?

Well, why live life without living life now?

Sure, do spend within your means, but somehow I manage to buy my favorite brand of nearly everything (this is especially true at the grocery/drugstore) and still keep my costs down. It is true I am only budgeting for 2 people, but I don't foresee my habits changing that much in the future.

I think if you get happiness from a certain brand of paper towels (like my boyfriend does, and I have to admit, I've grown fond of them myself), buy them. Buy them on sale with coupons, but you can still buy them. You don't need to sacrifice everything if you are still budgeting well.

Just my 2 cents.