Free Advanced Movie Screening: You Don’t Know Jack
I feel like it’s been a little while since I did one of these free screening posts. Here’s an interesting one.
This screening is for the new HBO movie You Don’t Know Jack: The Life and Deaths of Jack Kevorkian. This is a biopic about doctor-assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian. It will air on HBO on April 24th at 9PM, but you can see it early and for free at one of these screenings.
This is an Entertainment Weekly screening, so you must go to their site to sign up for their free ticket “giveaway” (I don’t think I’ve ever NOT gotten a ticket to one of their free screenings). If you’re chosen you’ll receive your ticket via email, which you’ll print out and bring with you.
The screenings are either on Thursday, April 15, 2010 or Monday, April 19, 2010 depending on the city.
Cities available:
- Atlanta
- Boston
- Chicago
- Dallas
- Los Angeles
- New York
- Philadelphia
- San Francisco
- Washington, DC
Now, this is an Entertainment Weekly screening, so it should be reasonably easy to get tickets for it, but these screenings are always WAY overbooked. You should probably plan on being there about 2 hours early.
If you’re new to advanced movie screenings, check out my tips.
Follow-up Review: Knowledge Panel is a Legit Survey Site
Last September, I posted about how I received $2 in the mail from Knowledge Networks and an invitation to join their panel. At the time I didn’t know anything about Knowledge Panel, but a quick Google search seemed to indicate they were pretty benign.
Since then, I’ve seen a few people coming to the site by searching for whether or not Knowledge Panel is a scam, so I figured I should to an update post about my experiences.
No, it’s not a scam. They are a legitimate survey site. Since September I’ve received 2 checks from them and overall have been very happy with my experience with them. Their surveys are a little different–instead of being about particular products or companies, they’re usually about things like political and personal views, or my habits and interests as a person.
Since their sign-ups aren’t open to all (your household must be selected and receive a letter from them), I won’t go into the sign up process. Their process is pretty typical for survey sites though.
If anyone has any specific questions, feel free to ask in the comments or by email, and I’m more than happy to answer them.
Knowledge Panel Stats
Info Required to Sign Up: They ask the usual questions survey sites need: Name, age, address, etc.
Member eligibility requirements: Your household must be selected
How money/points are earned: If you already have Internet in your home, you will receive points for each survey, which can be redeemed for cash or spent on sweepstakes entries. If you don’t have internet, they will provide you with internet service for as long as you remain active in the panel.
Value of survey: Each survey is usually worth 1000 points.
Earnings for disqualified survey: From my experience, you still get your points, unless the survey has closed.
Redemption options: Internet service, cash, or sweepstakes entries.
Fees or rules for redemption: No fees. Must have 25000 points to redeem for a check.
Time redemption takes: In my experience, it’s been a week or less.
Cash value of points: 1000 points = $1
Tricks to Pay Off Student Loans After College
If you went to college, it’s pretty likely you’re one of the 2/3rds of student who graduated with an average of $23,186 in student loan debt. I’m one of them, and my debt amount is way more than the average.
Now that I’m out in the real world, I have the challenge of repaying that debt in a tough economy. Since consolidation no longer seems to be an option, there are less tricks to reduce interest and payments. For those who have been unemployed or underemployed since their graduation, paying debts off can seem impossible.
I know I’m not the only one trying to manage student loan debt, so I thought I’d share a few tips on how I save money and try to tackle this huge debt. Most of these tips could easily be applied to other debt, so take what you can and use it to eliminate your debt.
Pay a Little Extra
If you’re currently just paying the minimum each month, think about bumping those payments up a bit. With most lenders, anything extra you pay each month will be applied to your principal (check with yours to be sure).
If paying extra seems like an impossible task, try rounding up your payment to the nearest dollar. Once that seems easy, try round it up to the nearest 10 dollars. Then try tacking on an extra $20 a month.
Push yourself to find extra money to devote to paying off your loans. Try money saving tips like bringing your lunch to work, getting rid of cable, eating out less, etc. Take the extra money you save and tack it on with your monthly payment.
Look for ways to earn extra money. Try legitimate online sites to earn a couple bucks, sell old textbooks or other books, or recycle electronics & other items for cash. You may even want to try UPromise to passively earn money back from shopping online, dining out, & grocery shopping.
The point is, whatever extra you can pay down on your principal reduces the amount of interest you’re charged each month. By reducing that interest, less of your payment each month goes to interest, so more of you principal balance is paid off. This has a snowball effect, reducing the amount you owe much more quickly than just making the minimum payment each month. (Read about how paying a couple bucks extra each month lowered my monthly payments)
Prioritize Your Spending
If you’re like me, you probably have a mixture of loans, private & federal, all with different interest rates and terms. Make sure you prioritize your spending. Put the extra cash towards privates loans with the highest interest rate first. Once you’ve conquered those, move down to the one with the next highest interest rate, and so on.
Federal loans usually have the best interest rates and the most flexible repayment plans, so leave those for last.
Look For Benefits From Your Lender
Many lenders have incentives for borrowers with a good track record. You’ll have to check with your lender for specifics, but I’ve seen lenders that will lower your interest rate by 0.25-0.5% just for making on time payments for a specific period of time. Some lenders will even lower your rate just for signing up to have your bill direct debited from your account each month.
A lower interest rate can equal big savings over the long run, so take advantage of these incentives when you can!
Avoid Loan Deferments & Forbearance
Unless absolutely necessary, do not put your loans in any type of forbearance where you aren’t required to make payments but interest still accrues. This is how many graduates’ somewhat manageable student loan debt balloons into a seemingly unclimbable mountain.
Unfortunately I’ve had to put my loans in forbearance a few times, and I’ve seen first hand the problems it causes. Basically, what happens is your account keeps accruing interest and then at the end of the forbearance period, that unpaid interest becomes capitalized interest, which means your lender can now charge you interest on that capitalized interest. You’re basically increasing the amount of principal balance you owe. After a few months or a few years of forbearance, your debt can snowball in the wrong direction.
If you cannot make payments on your loan and there is no other lower payment plan or option that works for you and you must do the forbearance, then make whatever payments you can (if there’s no penalty). Even if it’s only $10, make that $10 payment, because that’s $10 that won’t be added to your capitalized interest.
These are just a few of the ways to tackle student loan debt. Now, my dear readers, how are you dealing with your debt, or how did you pay off your loans? Let us know.
What’s New With Swagbucks?
If you use Swagbucks, you’re probably already aware of some of the changes to the site which they introduced last week.
Since these changes are pretty significant in terms of earning and redeeming, I figured I better do an update post for those of you who are interested in joining Swagbucks.
Basically the change is that what used to be 1 Swagbucks now is 10 Swagbucks. The cost for all the prizes has been multiplied by 10 as well.
They’ve also added a few ways to get additional Swagbucks each day. You can view special offers for 2-3 Swagbucks each day, and the toolbar also features Swagbucks each day.
I’m not very excited about these changes, but I can’t complain much considering how many Amazon gift cards I’ve gotten from them for free. It just seems a little bit more difficult to earn the same value of Swagbucks now.
Here’s the updated Stats:
Swagbucks Stats
Info Required to Sign Up: Full Name, Email, Country, State, Zip, Year of Birth.
Sign up bonuses: 30 Swagbucks
How money/points are earned: Searching the Web, Completing Special Offers, Shopping, Trading In Cell Phones, Ipods, & Video Games, Referrals
Value of action: Varies. Swagbucks are awarded at random for searches, usually at values between 10-50. For shopping, 2 Swagbuck for every $1 spent at select merchants.
Redemption options: A variety of prizes. Gift cards (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc). Paypal.
Fees or rules for redemption: None–just have the amount the item costs.
Time redemption takes: Shipping estimate is given for all physical prizes ordered. E-gift cards arrived within 15 business days. Amazon gift cards post on the 16th & 20th of each month.
Cash value of points: Depends on Redemption method. Examples: Paypal: 10SB = $0.01. Amazon.com: 10SB = $0.01. Zendoo.com: 10SB = $1
Read my original Swagbucks post.
Jewel Shoppers: Earn Catalinas with Your Bucks
Mashup Mom turned me on to this originally, and I was able to finally try it out this past weekend, and I’m now a huge fan.
If you shop at Jewel, you have to sign up for this. YourBucks is a free pilot program where you register your Preferred Card and you earn back Catalinas to spend like cash on anything in the store.
All you have to do is sign up with your Preferred Card number and either your cell phone number or email address. That’s it! Then whenever you buy an item in the current offers, it automatically prints the Catalinas at the check out. New offers are loaded every two weeks.
This is a great way to save money without the hassle of clipping coupons and matching up deals. It’s pretty passive actually. All you have to do is know what offers are available and buy the items. Then you get the Catalinas, which save you money on your next trip. The trickiest part is just remembering to use the Catalinas, if you’re not used to couponing. But they work similar to cash, so it’s easy.
The way I’ve used Your Bucks so far, is when I’m making up my grocery list for the week, I look over the offers for items we need to buy anyway, then I look for items that match up with a coupon or sale for even more savings. I don’t do match-up posts like that here, but I highly recommended Mashup Mom for that. I read her blog every day to get the best deals.
Another great thing about these deals is sometimes you’ll get items for free, or even make money with them. For example, when we went grocery shopping this past weekend, we picked up a jar of Ragu for $1.99 and got back a $2 Catalina. We also bought a bottle of Suave shampoo for 89 cents and got back $2, so we made money on that!
Even if you don’t want to take the time to look for deals, I highly recommend you sign-up anyway. Once you’re signed up, you’ll get the Catalinas without any work from you. It’s passive savings, and it’s great.
Midweek Freebies, Samples, & Coupons 3/3/10
Sorry things have been a bit slow around here lately, there’s a ton of things I’ve had going on besides Thrifty 20 Something (including a new project which may be of interest to the readers here, so stay tuned…).
I will be posting more frequently over the upcoming weeks. For now, let’s check out some freebies to celebrate the middle of the week.
Freebies & Samples
- Crest 3D White Whitestrips
- Olay Total Effects Body wash
- Emergen-C Recipe Kit & Samples (Thanks Freebies 4 Mom)
- Emergen-C Sample (Thanks Freebies 4 Mom)
- Bounce 4 in 1 Dryer Sheets (Thanks Money Saving Mom!)
- Free MP3 Download of Alice’s Theme by Danny Elfman
- Download Angels & Airwaves’ new album LOVE for free
Passes for free screenings of Hot Tub Time Machine are still available, so catch it before it’s gone.
Coupons
It’s the beginning of the month, so there are new printable coupons and reset coupons available at Coupons.com, Redplum.com, and Smartsource.com.
Also, if you use UPromise, their eCoupons have reset as well, so make sure to activate those for passive savings.
