Rubber bands and a laundered phone, plus some URLs.

You have until 9 p.m. PDT on Monday to sign up for the second Surviving and Thriving giveaway. The swag this week is a copy of “The Coupon Mom’s Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half” and three tins of Godiva Chocolate Pearls.

And speaking of swag (nice segue!): If you haven’t gotten a Swagbucks account yet, scroll down to the Swagbucks widget* here on the site and sign up. Points are randomly awarded when you use the SB search engine. You can trade the points for gift cards or durable goods.

Me, I’m trading in points for Amazon.com gift cards and stockpiling them for Cyber Monday. However, I recently used a few GCs to get a jar of Horlicks** Original Malted Drink mailed to a good friend. It’s a British product that’s hard to find over here in the colonies, so she was delighted to get it. Swagbucks made it a very frugal (i.e., free) way to surprise a friend.

*They call it a “swidget.” Ain’t that adorable?

**Hee, hee — I said “Horlicks.”

A little light reading

Here’s what I’ve been reading lately. Check it out. There will be a quiz.

Gleeful about “Glee” (although not for the same reasons everyone else is), at I Pick Up Pennies

How to avoid giving gifts at work, at brip blap

10 cheap ways to simplify food shopping, at Cheap Healthy Good

I only shop on sale, at Budgets Are Sexy (I think I love you, J. Money)

52 uses for rubber bands, at Wise Bread (they left out Chinese jump ropes – can you believe it?)

No more stupid bag fees, at Ask Liz Weston

How I learned to save 3 hours a day, at Moolanomy (get ready for some tough love, especially as regards compulsive checking of e-mail)

Buy this phone, at Own The Sidewalk (a funny story about a portable phone that got washed – and dried! – but is still working)

Tagged as: blogosphere, chocolate, freebie, giveaway